TOAW III for the inexperienced

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

Is there any way to search for number of units and/or map size? I have seen some 'short' scenarios that still have a fairly high unit density. Arracourt has quite a low unit density and that is closer to what I'm looking for (moreso than simply not many turns).

The Rugged Defence scenario archive allows you to search for scenarios by "complexity". This is the ticket.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..the Art of War by that chinese guy

Not Sun Tzu again. An expert in sounding intelligent whilst not actually saying anything at all.

[Terl]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

ORIGINAL: froggie

Slowly learning the ropes of TOAW III and HTTR (bought both).  I'm a novice when it comes to military operations and tactics and would enjoy reading good "war college" type books that explain the basics.  Any ideas?

..the Art of War by that chinese guy

Try this: On War by General Carl von Clausewitz Click the title to see the whole book [:)]

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..the Art of War by that chinese guy

Not Sun Tzu again. An expert in sounding intelligent whilst not actually saying anything at all.

..oh Grasshopper, shame on you

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
The Rugged Defence scenario archive allows you to search for scenarios by "complexity". This is the ticket.

The complexity calculations performed by RD should be treated with a bit of skepticism. For example, I have several scenarios posted by RD and in most of them only 20% to 25% of the OOB appears in any one battle. Yet, RD uses the total OOB unit count in their complexity calculation, thereby, greatly over stating the complexity. I suspect that this might be true with other authors and scenarios.

Regards, RhinoBones

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: Terl

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

ORIGINAL: froggie

Slowly learning the ropes of TOAW III and HTTR (bought both).  I'm a novice when it comes to military operations and tactics and would enjoy reading good "war college" type books that explain the basics.  Any ideas?

..the Art of War by that chinese guy

Try this: On War by General Carl von Clausewitz Click the title to see the whole book [:)]

..later, i did and my download stopped..nnooooooooooooooooo

[Catch21]

Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz have their uses (I find the latter more useful), but they're a hard read and maybe a little dated for 20th Century combat.

Try http://www.lonesentry.com/ or I have a Word doc on "WWII OPERATIONAL DOCTRINES- GERMANY" from the "HANDBOOK ON GERMAN MILITARY FORCES" (MARCH 1945) SOURCE: U.S. WAR DEPARTMENT (sorry for the caps but it was a cut and paste op) for those interested in WWII. PM me if you'd like a copy. I found it quite useful at start. Or type in these terms in a search engine and you can maybe locate it.

Or you can always post specific Qs here and there and someone will invariably answer.

Hope this helps.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

The complexity calculations performed by RD should be treated with a bit of skepticism. For example, I have several scenarios posted by RD and in most of them only 20% to 25% of the OOB appears in any one battle. Yet, RD uses the total OOB unit count in their complexity calculation, thereby, greatly over stating the complexity. I suspect that this might be true with other authors and scenarios.

Yeah. Still, it's a decent approximation. Most scenarios have the majority of units in play from the outset.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: General Staff

Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz have their uses (I find the latter more useful), but they're a hard read and maybe a little dated for 20th Century combat.

Clausewitz is I think applicable for the 20th century- but not so much for the operational level, so much as general principles and for understanding the nature of war. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone hoping to become a better TOAW player. I think reading Manstein made me play better, though.

The best advice I can give for TOAW is to always look before you leap.

[iaidoka2]

OK - im going to get it in the next couple of days (when I get time to turn the computer on and not p***off the other half) and take the plunge.  The AARs are too inviting not to.

[CommC]

ORIGINAL: CommC

I created some small scenarios in ACOW to test the limit of the TOAW engine in handling small unit operations. These were something like "tactical vignettes" with small maps and small numbers of units. Units were something like 2-tank sections, or individual vehicles on the 2.5 km/hex map.

Specifically, I wanted to test if the TOAW engine could validate the concept of US, "Air- Land" doctrine. To make a long story short, the TOAW engine worked well for this and I was able to demonstrate that a mobile defense in depth with counter attacks was much more effective than a conventional "static" defense. This was with mid 80's armored equipment in the central Germany, Warsaw Pact vs Nato type of conflict.

I will convert these scenarios to TOAW3, where they should work even better, and post them at some point.

Well, I converted one of these scenarios to TOAW3 and play tested it. And, well, the test didn't go so well. I'm going to have to do some significant revisions.

More specifically, with the old armor/gunnery model, I had to use M1A2s vs the T72/T80 warsaw Pact equipment to get a balanced result. With the new TOAW3 model, the M1A2s cleaned up on the WP equipment. I will try switching to M1A1s and M1A1HAs.

Also, Elmer didn't fare so well. He attacked aggresively, but piecemeal, and got chewed up pretty bad. I may have to use one or two large formations for red, instead of many small ones. That might help Elmer better coordinate and concentrate his forces.

[ralphtricky]

CommC,
Let me know how it goes. I'd think that more units in the formations may help Elmer to coordinate.

[CommC]

Elmer works a lot better when the units are collected into one large formation rather than several smaller ones. In fact, now, with the same material as in ACOW, I can't defeat the PO no matter which strategy I try. Elmer does a much better job of concentrating his forces to resist a counter attack than the ACOW PO did.

We may want to start a thread in the Scenario design or support section to further discuss the ramifications of the improved PO on scenario design. Many of my previous ACOW scenarios are going to have to be significantly modified to bring them into balance for TOAW3.

Congrats on a greatly improved PO! [&o]

[ralphtricky]

Thanks!

It was a big gamble, I'm glad it came off the way I'd hoped.

Ralph

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: CommC

In fact, now, with the same material as in ACOW, I can't defeat the PO no matter which strategy I try.

In general, if you want to beat the PO, concentrate all your offensive punch in one place- not just everything you have locally, but everything you can muster from the map. The PO won't be able to compensate. Work on destroying whole formations to create gaps in the net of objectives. Depending on how careful the designer is this will have a greater or lesser impact.

Of course, this is exploiting the design just a wee bit. Ralph might not approve.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: CommC
In fact, now, with the same material as in ACOW, I can't defeat the PO no matter which strategy I try.

In general, if you want to beat the PO, concentrate all your offensive punch in one place- not just everything you have locally, but everything you can muster from the map. The PO won't be able to compensate. Work on destroying whole formations to create gaps in the net of objectives. Depending on how careful the designer is this will have a greater or lesser impact.

Of course, this is exploiting the design just a wee bit. Ralph might not approve.

That's the same reason he went with larger formations, so that Elmer would be able to handle them better, and it would be harder to take Elmer apart piecemeal.

You're absolutely right about one way to beat Elmer. It works against people too, but probably better against Elmer[:D]. In some scenarios, you may have to put limits on what you do to avoid winning too easily. It will be interesting to see if the scenario authors can program Elmer to be able to respond to that strategy.

The good thing is that you have to do something to beat Elmer now, you can't expect him to line up in neat stacks to be beaten up. You're going to have to think strategically and have a plan, just like against a human.

The current goal of Elmer is not to be unbeatable, I don't have quite enough Hubris to aspire to that. The goal of Elmer is to be fun to play against!

[CommC]

Yeah, this is only a small test scenario, with only one formation on each side, and very few objectives. To beat Elmer with the defense in depth doctrine, I'm going to have to catch the PO forces "on the move", with hit and run tactics before they can concentrate. And I'm afraid that may be beyond the TOAW engine.

Oh, and the PO's side outnumbers the human side (Nato) about 5:1 in material in this scenario.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: CommC

Yeah, this is only a small test scenario, with only one formation on each side, and very few objectives. To beat Elmer with the defense in depth doctrine, I'm going to have to catch the PO forces "on the move", with hit and run tactics before they can concentrate. And I'm afraid that may be beyond the TOAW engine.

Oh, and the PO's side outnumbers the human side (Nato) about 5:1 in material in this scenario.

Let me know what limitations you run into.