How to construct and order Highway…

This range is one of the latest to be added to the DiD portfolio and we count it as still in development, mainly because we are still ensuring that it is fit for purpose and can fully cope with the wargamer’s needs.

We would always suggest that gamers consider planning their areas when using DiD, but that is certainly doubly needed when using our highway. It is the most complex range that we offer in terms of fit and integration, but our early use in practice runs has shown us that it can produce a fantastic urban area and larger choice of carriageways.

It should be noted that we call it highway as it is just that, a larger road, but it is also what we have designed to serve as your urban area vehicle surfaces, serving up a variety of choices, some of which we will illustrate in this ‘How to’.

Highway is designed to be as versatile as possible, but with that versatility comes complication.

This ‘How to’ will guide you through some of the basics, and the individual hexes are numbered to help. Pro Tip… pay attention to ordering the right stream or river pieces as deep and shallow look very similar in the portfolio. Apologies for some of the graphics. Done in a simple Paint programme but they are good enough to show you what is what.

Basic highway is set up as follows.

Fig#1 Straight highway set up.

Making junctions for road or track is simply a question of purchasing the right piece. These are the four road junction options. Note that throughout this guide we have added extra labels to assist you in planning.

Fig#2 Adding lesser junctions.

If you want to create a highway-to-highway junction, you will need this style of setup.

Fig#3 Highway to highway junction construction.

Adding bends to your highway is simply a matter of using the right pieces as shown in this illustration.

Fig#4 Highway bends.

Please note that we supply two versions of roadway style highway in some cases, namely with or without paving. We felt that highway out in the countryside would probably not have paving, so there are pieces that allow for that.

Fig#5 Highway without paving and some of the ways of converting one style to the other.

We quickly discovered that a couple of simple additions could turn highway into something like autobahn. [Apologies for the #43 graphic.]

Fig#6 Autobahn or dual carriageway.

Obviously, using the central reservation piece [11] and blank [71] it is possible to build wider roadways and, leaving out the reservation and using HWY-002 without the paving, even runways if needed.

Fig#7 Example of a wider road surface.

The gamer might wish to make a larger highway peter out into a road, or vice versa. This is more difficult but we designed the following to allow for it.

Fig#8 Highway to road and vice versa.

To create a lay-by is simple. The second item in Fig#9 shows two opposite each other but if you continue to extend using HWY-053 on both sides then you can simply have a wider road for your chosen distance.

Fig#9 A simple lay-by or a wider road

This graphic shows the start of a small urban layout. We have tried to create as many options as possible for gamers. The tiles can run in all six directions that hexes allow and the limit is your imagination.

Fig#10 Small urban layout.

We have created the highway to permit integration of streams into the built-up area, as well as road and track junctions, and even small bocage.

Fig#11 Integrating streams

Creating junctions is simple and you can move beyond the constraints of the six-sided hexes [where features generally run north to south, northwest to southeast, and northeast to southwest] by using the correct pieces.

Fig#12 Curved junctions

More examples of creating urban areas, in this instance a small grassy park area. As with all of these examples, the more pieces you have, the larger and more complex the setup can be.

Fig#13 – A grassy park area.

There are also a new set of additions that permit a limited alley style carriageway to close your buildings up even more.

Fig#14 Creating squares and open areas in town, and the narrow alleyways available.

If you have got this far, your brain has probably turned to mush 🙂 Like I said, it’s not the easiest of stuff to understand and to decide which items you need for a set-up is a decision that needs some pre-planning. We will continue to play and test it, possibly adding some more pieces if there are any holes. There will be some delay before we bring this range before you to sell from the shop, but as with all our stuff, we are always open to enquiries and suggestions.

We would not wish you to buy anything unnecessarily so feel free to seek our advice if you are stuck on anything highway, or anything else for that matter.

We will add some finished highway and in-battle pictures in the near future so you can see the end product’s look.