COTA (mini-guide): Tutorial, AAR, and tips!

[MarkShot]

Tips correction here.

This is an excerpt from the COTA Reference manual review. I have widely emphasized this point previously, but it is, in fact, wrong. Although, I think it is probably correct for HTTR (and was for COTA in the early days). Personally, I think this is a nice and logical improvement.

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

ORIGINAL: MarkShot
Note: ROF has no effect on AI bombard mission which is always low. Call in your own fire to bombard at ROF other than low.

Actually this is not so any more. The AI will select a ROF based on its assessment of priority. Targets beyond 3000m from the spotting unit get low ROF, those within 3000 get normal unless they are assaulting in which case they get rapid.

[MarkShot]

On page 101 of the COTA Reference Manual, it asserts what the supply stock levels are that various organizational units go into battle with. In particular, the chart indicates that battalions typically go into action with sufficient supplies for about 48hrs of operations.

I would like to point out that this does seem to be in general true for various small arms and support weapons. However, it is my perception that if you are engaged and your battalion supply lines are cut that you will run out of mortar ammo much sooner than 48 hours. Just a little something to keep in mind while you are patiently waiting for the enemy to be swept from the roads so that trucks can start making their runs again.

[MarkShot]

Alright in honor of this glorious golden day, let me toss out another little tip which I just learned recently.

When engaged in very close quarters combat at night in terrain that even further reduces LOS, you can call in fire missions (manual bombard orders) closer than "on-call" arty managed by the AI will do on your behalf. Why? In order to reduce the CPU performance overhead imposed to avoid friendly fire incidents, the AI uses a courser test for friendly proximity than the test used when a fire mission is directly ordered by the player.

Normally, you won't see any difference between what you can do with manual fire missions and "on-call" arty. In fact, I only noticed this in the last few weeks. Only in the specific case of night action with further LOS limiting terrain will the circumstances be right to see and benefit from this slight distinction; effectively you and the enemy are practically tripping over each other. During the day, "on-call" arty would be hitting the target much further away from your units and the combination of arty and direct fire would preclude them ever getting so close to your units that such a distinction would manifest itself.

Read the 530 pages of COTA documentation, you can; but you won't find the above mentioned.

PS: For those of you who have too much integrity to do anything that sounds like it might be an exploit when playing SP, you can save this little tip for when you are playing MP with your friends.

[MarkShot]

It has gotten awefully quiet in here. I guess everyone is holding their breath until they can download COTA. Well, at least, you were all smart enough not to hold your breath until it went gold!

Let's have another tip, shall we?

Is it ever worthwhile to ATTACK or PROBE with a force that is hopelessly too weak to be successful? The question would almost seem to be a "no brainer". However, in fact, the commander may reap some big dividends even when the attack has little chance of success. Here are some circumstances when it may be beneficial:

(1) If the coordinates for the ATTACK happen to coincide with a major objective for which the OPFOR is likely to accrue a major portion of its points due to occupation as opposed to completion. Of course, there is no way to be 100% sure, since there is no guarantee that scoring is symmetric. However, more often than not, scoring does tend to be symmetric. In particular, transport related objectives like bridges, tunnels, airfields, ports, and key road junctures most likely will have their objective points heavily weighted towards occupation. (Also, it is my gut feel that occupation points are more frequently employed in COTA scenarios than they were HTTR scenarios.)

So, if your weak forces can simply encroach on the objective, then you can deny the enemy the accumulation of occupation points that would accrue. (Translating into real world denying the use of the transport locus.)

(2) You have significant arty or air support resources at your disposal. A weak attack can be quite useful for developing target lists for your guns and CAS missions. Thus, although the attack itself doesn't hurt the enemy too much, you can wear him down for the main attack later by heavy bombardment.

(3) The OPFOR has not really had time to prepare its defense of the target area. Meaning that most of the OPFOR units have just arrived or are arriving. Thus, their deployment status is moving or deployed, but not dug-in or entrenched. You may be planning an attack in the next 6-18 hours with the use of overwhelming force. So, why bother with a futile attempt right now? Well, your futile attempt may keep the enemy occupied and prevent his units from being able to dig-in. Your later attack will perform much better if when they arrive the enemy is not dug-in; and even better if heavy weapons are on the move and have not had a chance to deploy.

(4) The OPFOR might be prevented from restructuring its units, forces, and orders in order to achieve a better defensive posture. I don't know if this point is true of the OPFOR AI, but it is most likely true for human opponents. Due to order delays and inherent coordination problems, I will most often leave it to my AI commanders to coordinate an attack or a hasty defense. In such cases, micro-managing will usually be counter productive. However, usually after my AI commanders have successfully achieved their assigned tasks and the situation is quiet, I may restructure things by micro-management to optimize my defensive posture. In most cases, if my units are currently engaged with the enemy, I will be more hesitant about issuing new orders for fear of causing unstructured chaos. Thus, a weak attack may prevent the OPFOR (especially human) from having adequate breathing room to optimize his defensive posture for the coming main attack. Trying to optimize a defensive posture while engaged can often result in individual units becoming critically exposed and dug-in units relinquishing their prepare positions as they displace. So, once again an initial weak attack may do much to aid the chances of a follow on main attack.

---

That's it for today. The clock ticks and COTA is one hour closer.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

It has gotten awefully quiet in here. I guess everyone is holding their breath until they can download COTA. Well, at least, you were all smart enough not to hold your breath until it went gold! ...

That's exactly what it is for me...I've been waiting on this baby for sooooo long.

I still want Dave to sort out a manual option, though!

[MarkShot]

How to make the COTA shortcut launch quickly (meaning directly into the game):

(1) Go to the COTA root directory.

(2) Rename the three *.AVI files found there to something like filename.kill.

(3) Add your custom resolution to your COTA shortcut target like:

f:\games\cota\cota.exe /resolution 1024x768

NOTE: You should really view the Matrix, Panther, and COTA lead ins that come with the game. But since you will be playing COTA every day, you may ultimately want the game to launch quicker.

[Banquet]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the resolution tip.. this was very useful for HttR on a widescreen display - cheers Markshot!

[JeF]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot
(2) Rename the three *.AVI files found there to something like filename.kill.

Or easier : just move them to another location. This way you still can view them later. Or simply remove them.
It worked for HTTR just fine, it should work the same for COTA.

Cheers,

JeF.

[Arjuna]

Yep just create another subdirectory called Movies and move them in there. If the game doesn't find them in the root directory it won't play them.

[MarkShot]

Tonight a little essay on why a commander sometimes has to push his/her troops beyond the limits of human endurance.

In general, your in AI commanders will rest the troops when they reach the point of becoming too fatigued to be effective.

However, the point at which the AI will do this occurs while the troops still have something left to give. Of course, this requires you, the senior commander, to get out there among them and either promise them a week's leave in Paris or a court martial for cowardice; whatever your command style might be.

Now, the best way to do this in COTA terms is to take the currently assigned final task marker and give it a nudge. This will then be treated as a replan and if they have anything left, they will get moving again.

Of course, nothing comes without cost and your troops will become even more fatigued and less effective. But sometimes, all that matters is the clock.

I just lost a battle today by being too soft hearted and letting my AI subordinate let the troops sack out.

[MarkShot]

Here you see the 4th. NZ Bde who must exit by Day 4, 22:00. You can see that they have failed to do so.

[MarkShot]

My failure to keep them moving really cost me.

[MarkShot]

Now, here I backtracked (reloaded a save game when they all went to sleep) and pushed them twice to keep moving.

[MarkShot]

Marginal victory. Enough said.

[Real and Simulated Wars]

Markshot,
The exit objective looks like far away from any beach. Why the objective is named "exit to evacuation beach"? Do you mind sharing more details on this scenario objective?

[MarkShot]

I don't know why the exit objective was so named. I am not sure who was the designer of this scenario. The likely suspects would be either Steve Long or Dave O'Connor.

For me, it was just another dusty road to march.

I have played this one from both sides. A good game either way, but quite challenging from the Allied side. Here is the general briefing:

A German parachute regiment must take and hold the Corinth Canal bridge until reinforcements arrive, while an Allied brigade must retake it and exit to the South. What-if scenario.

The Corinth Canal Bridge is the lifeline for 4th NZ Inf Bde, which is currently in a rearguard position at Erithrai, astride the German axis of advance from Thermopylae. This makes it an attractive target for the Germans, and although their ground forces are still far off, they have a parachute regiment in reserve. Corinth is an ideal objective for such a force. Historically, the German parachute landings on 26 April 1941 overwhelmed the small force of defenders immediately after landing. They took the bridge intact and removed the demolitions, but a fluke shot from an unknown Allied soldier detonated the piled explosives and destroyed the bridge. No attempt was made by the Allies to retake the bridge as it was destroyed. 4th NZ Inf Bde was eventually evacuated from beaches near Athens, in a much riskier operation than the original plan, and resulting in the loss of some of the troop-carrying ships.

In this scenario however, 4th NZ Inf Bde is ordered to retake the bridge and make their way south to Tripolis and safety. The Germans must secure the bridge as it will be required by ground forces (spearheaded by the Leibstandarte) already moving to try and cut the Allies off.

[Arjuna]

Steve Long did the original design and I revised the objectives. The Exit task is so named because the road led to the evacuation beaches further south.

[Real and Simulated Wars]

Thank you folks.

[MarkShot]

ORIGINAL: Tactics
Then the supply went on. Not sure why it took so long, but half my force went out of supply.  With nothing left but bad attitudes, my men were forced to run.

Regular supply requests and resupply happen around 06:00 and 18:00. Factoring in urgent requests, you can get resupplied at most four times per day. From my observations, no supply activitivity is generated for units during their initial window (06:00-18:00, 18:00-06:00) on the map. I raised that during testing, but I am still unsure if that is "as designed", but in any case "it is".

[MarkShot]

A little advanced discussion of command line graphics and the game engine prompted by another thread:

In terms of command lines, it is a little confusing. The game displays two sets of command lines (refered to below as ORGANIC and ACTUAL) which differ from what the players usually think of .

ORGANIC: Based on the estab at the start of the scenario. This never changes. This may be portrayed by blue/green and grey lines.

INTENDED: This is the forces that the player has created by directly giving orders and possibly grouping units. This may be portrayed by blue/green lines. This is often refered to in the docs and by players as the DYNAMIC chain of command.

ACTUAL: This is the current chain of command that is in fact in use at the given instant by the game engine. Due to the way order delays impact the relationship between units, it is possible at a given instant that what the player sees is the ACTUAL chain of command which is, in fact, neither the ORGANIC or the INTENDED. However, it often is the case, that the ACTUAL does correspond to the ORGANIC or INTENDED.

So, confusion arises, since you think are seeing the DYNAMIC (INTENDED) chain of command when it is the ACTUAL chain of command.

And if you are still following me, there is also the case where the AI may form chain of commands itself between what appear to be peer units in the Estab for its own purposes.

And if you are still following me, there is also a matter where the command up links and down links may not seem to correspond, since their graphic portrayals may not be in sync.

We have discussed all this during development and this is something on the wishlist for improved graphical treatment in the future.