Am I doing something wrong, setup incorrectly?

[lamadalton]

I am a new player, not experienced in other games of this type either, but after playing through the first 2 scenario's I'm concerned I may not be setup properly since it has been too easy to achieve 'Decisive Victory'. I have played Advance on Loenen, and Air Landing Assault, only once each and have had no real problems. I did have an entire unit routed on the Air Landing Assault, but fell asleep during the last 10 hours of the game time, and woke up to Decisive Victory. I have order delay set to 'realistic' and do not have any preferences set to favor my side. I have played both scenarios as Allies. Are these scenarios relatively easy, have I been lucky? I read here how difficult some of these scenarios are, and look forward to that, so I do not want to have the game set too easy. I'd rather lose. Any Advice?

[JeF]

Too easy ?
Advance on Loenen is usually refered to as "the little nut difficult to crack".
Air Landing Assault is average difficulty I think.
Allies is the recommended side for each.

It shows that you understand the game. Now the historical campaigns should, hopefully, offer a better challenge. And there is always the reinforcement setting if you still find it too easy.

JeF.

[wodin]

What settings do you use? Try painfully realistic!

[lamadalton]

Is there a particular order that the scenarios should be played in?

Is it possible that I have the game setup too easy?

I just want to be sure I'm not cheating somehow. Thanks for the input. I'm guessing I was just lucky.

[akileez]

In the area where you read the scenario as you start up your game, to its right you'll see optional in-game settings. You might want to try orders delay at realistic at least, and favour the enemy with more supplies and reinforcements and set your your own supplies to fewer. You'll find the battles get progressively more challenging with the larger maps too. But your best bet is keeping the orders delay set up to realistic or harder at the very least.
As for the order of scenarios, don't worry about that unless you are a fussy history Market Garden buff and play each scenario in the actual historical order [for me I did Joe's Bridge 1st, then 101st drop[Hell's Highway?], followed by 30 Corps attack[Eindhoven?], next Nijmegen, and lastly Arnhem. The order is up to you, but it seems if you want a challenge that has you hustling about non-stop, try the Nijmegen historical campaign, and/or the Hell's highway [I forgot the exact name - it's the 101st Airborne historical scenario] for a very good challenge with the game options I outlined.Play as Allies in each scenario, and keep your reinforcements as normal though.

I'd be very curious to hear how you do at the Nijmegen map first time around... post a coupla screenshots of the battle too possibly in this thread?[;)]

[lamadalton]

Thanks for the reply 'akileez'. Appreciated. I just started one of the 9 day historical campaigns, can't remember which a the moment. I do play with order delay set to 'realistic' and have always played as allies, and not favored either side. I'm thinking the reason for my sucess on the smaller campaigns is avoiding orders delay. I usually plan pretty well and give detailed orders, move here, secure crossing, move to objective defend, etc... So pretty much major force movements are pre-planned, and I will order artillery and airstrikes to support the current engagements. So far the longer campaign is going fine, but day 1 of 9, who knows...
What is the best way to post a screenshot? The only way I know is to use 'wordpad' but those files are usually pretty huge. How should I do this?

[JeF]

ORIGINAL: lamadalton
What is the best way to post a screenshot? The only way I know is to use 'wordpad' but those files are usually pretty huge. How should I do this?

Prees PrtScrn then paste into Paint. Crude, but works. Any other image manipulation program will do. Save as JPEG in medium quality.
Check the File section in the form for posting messages. It is limited to 200KB upload though. You'll need to lower quality or crop the picture (still in Paint).

I hope this helps,

JeF.

[akileez]

Sorry lamadalton, lol, I realised you knew about orders delay after I posted my reply, but opted not to eidt my reply regarding that in case others who are new to the game were looking in and might by chance discover something helpful with that. [8|]
Especially with orders delay you'll be biting your nails in the Briish Drop at Arnhem historical campaign as you are anxious for your just dropped Airborne units to assemble fast and set off for the bridge objectives.[:D]

Also, look out in the scenario briefing where there is a recommendation to play a particular side. In a few scenarios, if you pick the side 'advised' against choosing you'll find you'll have a cakewalk of a victory against a very seemingly lethargic AI opponent
[>:]

Along with what Jef says, I use a srceenshot tool called Gadwin Screenshot, its free [:D] it does a nice job.
And I use another free 'mini-tool' called Irfanview. It does a fast job changing bmp files to jpegs, batch files for names/numbers too [like titling all pics in a folder MyFirstArnhemDisater001.jpg..002/003 etc,]
....all in one go with all your pic files being in a folder.

Furthermore with Irfanview you can enhance colours/brighten up images/sharpen/crop sizes too- and very quickly [in advance mode you can do a whole bunch of pics for these choices too].
I found these 2 tools great for the monster campaigns numbering, cropping, and enhancing speedily a whole bunch of screen pics of various stages of the battles. Just google them, you'll find them easy... and let me know if you need help on their use.[;)]

[lamadalton]

Ok, so it's not that I am good. Some of these scenarios are just plain easy for the AI if given correct orders. The pasted AAR for a small Nijmegen scenario 'meetingengagement'. I gave orders to take primed bridge, secure an objective and move the final biggest point objective in Nijmegen. I also ordered the unit that was to secure the bridge to occupy and defend St. Anna. After issuing the orders, I left the house, and returned to a 'Decisive Victory' So the longer scenario's should be totally different, with occupation of objectives required, so I will have to secure and defend for several days, slpit up the forces to hold all of the objectives etc... I will replay this scenario from both sides with the advantage to the other side etc...

How do you guys play?

[akileez]

It sounds like you want to lose....[:D]. I suggest trying Arnhem historical campaign with worst setting for orders delay and worst weather - played as Allies. But the Nijmegen campaign should set you straight regarding getting a challenge -again play as Allies[;)]
Glad you got the screenies posted ok.... If you can, get a screeny posted of a mid battle shot in the campaign you are doing now, I'd be interested in seeing your strategy and tactics in action.

[Arjuna]

Meeting Engagement was really designed for head to head to play. One of the the things we learned from HTTR was that where this is the case you need to include that in the scenario description. I think we've done better for COTA.

[lamadalton]

Thanks 'Arjuna'...good to know. I love the game. Is there any record of win/loss ratio's for the scenarios included in the game? I have seen this for Memoir '44, were users report which side won each scenario. This would be interesting. I understand you guys try to balance the play, any results from beta testing etc..? Thanks again for a great game.

[lamadalton]

Ok, played the Historical Campaign with Eindhoven, the 9+ day scenario. Held every objective except one, lost a bridge early on, did not realize I could build one, but tried to build it too late and failed, got most of the 'destroy the ememy points' and it was a DRAW. I'm guessing the best you can do with this is marginal victory, which is cool, and it took careful planning to make sure adequate forces were in place at critical times. Anyone ever get anything better than a 'marginal victory' on this one?

[akileez]

EDIT... wrong scenario, lol- sorry... I've added posts for the 2 day scenario here- anyway enjoy... I did the 101st campaign.. I'll add it 2 posts down! sorry for the confusion][:D]

Finally got a good challenge I see lamadalton. Here's my own rundown. I loved doing this scenario since it reminded me of the dramatic battle scene in A Bridge Too Far as 30 Corps gets their offensive started [ Michael Caine as Irish Guards commander yelling, "Start the purple!!!Start the purple!"] My whole strategy here was to bulldoze straight up the middle hard and fast with artillery focussing solely on the road blocking units... not only to the immediate front, but behind those units too. The abundant airstrikes I used similarly also. I fanned out a few battalions to the flanks very agressively and engaged enemy artillery units thus denying them flanking fire opportunities on the main column. Historically 30 Corps had to push on like mad - but that being said I was puzzled why knowing they had to advance remorsely, the 30 Corps Generals bedded their advance down for the night after only getting as far as Valkenswaard instead of their intended target for the night of Eindhoven. Anyway I'm adding my AAR and a few screenshots of the scenario.

[akileez]

First screenshot is a few hours after the start... the artillery I held back as a huge battery, slaughtering the tough German roadblocks in the woods. Note the strong column to the right of the main column- units from which I'd use to encircle road blocks facing the main column.

[akileez]

Note here I'm moving up most of my artillery to keep up with the slowly plodding column. I'm recklessly leaving the flanks weak in order to focus on surging up the road. Only in emergencies do I divert small units [usually motorised infantry] to fend off flank attacks. I think I'm home free to Eindhoven as I get to Vaalkenswaard but a very stubborn SS unit blocks the advance, and soon a heavy counter attack hits the head of the column... in a bit of trouble as most of my artillery are just moving up to support.

[akileez]

OK lamadalton, here's the 9 day historical campaign.... but it lasted 7 days! The enemy surrendered lol![&o]

[akileez]

Here's where I think I won the campaign right near the beginning. Look at the left side. I detached a Brit AA unit to scout the road alone and a Para coy, in the upper north west too. As soon as they hit resistance, I set about to entrench them rather than pull them back and slowly feed any spare units to support them. It turned out these positions created disastrous choke points for German reinforcements trying to infiltrate into the center of the map. Fortune smiled on me since this was the first time playing the map I had no idea how critical these spots would later be....

[akileez]

moving along, tense moments in the rear and center of Allied positions, but the critical actions occur where I have the choke points under control. I feed as many Brit armour units possible to start building up the blocking positions now under heavy enemy assaults.

[akileez]

Anyway, long story short, the Allies held on the left and with steady build up of reinforcements and artillery pushed north from Boxtel to advance to St.Hertonbosch in very heavy fighting. My only wish on this scenario is that somehow there was a way to require to exit a minimum number of their armour forces from the map's north edge to depict their historical requirement to push ahead on the highway.