Modifiying Orders + Order Delay

[parmenio]

A question of two parts...

I've not had the opportunity for much game time to-date and in the week I was going through the tutorial scenario for the first time. It took until 1pm for Steinebrück Bridge to be taken as the assault stalled on the approaches to the bridge. In hindsight I should have handled (and targeted) my artillery better (and my second run through is so far in marked contrast).

However, my first question is could I have given my subordinates the proverbial kick up the backside by modifying the some of the Attack Order parameters e.g. Aggro, Losses, Ammo?

Secondly, if I've understood it correctly from the manual, such changes don't have an Order Delay implication. Is that correct?

TIA.

[johndoesecond]

Quickly ...

ORIGINAL: parmenio


However, my first question is could I have given my subordinates the proverbial kick up the backside by modifying the some of the Attack Order parameters e.g. Aggro, Losses, Ammo?

Yes of course: with Aggro high you can order them to be more aggressive (i.e. firing earlier and on more distant targets), with high Losses, you can order them to be more perseverant and tenacious in whatever they're doing minding less if they take losses.
Now, one important thing: it is with ROF that you set the rate of fire, so with that set to "high" you can have them be less parsimonious when firing (i.e. firing at higher rate, which of course depletes faster the ammo available).

The Ammo settings are actually about supplies management, and lets you to set how high the suppy requests by this unit/battlegroup should be satisfied in comparison to all the other requests.

Secondly, if I've understood it correctly from the manual, such changes don't have an Order Delay implication. Is that correct?

That's correct.

[parmenio]

Thanks for that....

My biggest problem is I'm used to micro-managing everything and I think first time round, I went a little too "hands-off" [:)]

[johndoesecond]

Ah, I was somewhat imprecise and forgot to mention one important thing about the Aggro levels.

When attacking, this setting among other things also influence the decision on which and how many subordinate companies to commit to attack and how many to keep in reserve.

You really should experiment a bit: give the same order several times with some variants in settings, to develop some intuition about how it works.

Also, because of internal randomness and degrees of freedom, the same order with same settings won't always result in the same identical plan and won't play out in the same way. So when I say several times, I mean several times.

Enjoy.

[parmenio]

I did another run through and used the default settings for the assault and once both formations approached the bridge, I modified Aggro, Losses and ROF to Max on the two attacks.

What I wasn't expecting was for both 51 Armored Info and 318 Inf to return to the FUP and begin the assault again... is that expected behaviour?

On my current run, I set those properties to Max at the start and the bridge was taken early. I'm now playing this run through to completion.

[MarkShot]

As far as I know ...

LOSSES only changes the behavior of PROBEs (in regards to when they bunker down). As for other orders, it produces an informational message to the player when the threshold is crossed. It's up to you to halt an ATTACK or provide it additional support.

With regards to the others, I don't think it is surprising that they should return to the FUP. You are seeing the AI do a replan. The AI regularly does them at various intervals automatically (the higher up you go, the bigger the interval). However, I think you are triggering a replan by changing the underlying assumptions.

In general, I don't mess with an ATTACK once they have begun the assault phase. There is great potential for disaster when a well structured attack begins to come apart. You'll observe that in many cases, not everyone gets the recall orders at the same time. This can hang some units out to dry. Not a pretty sight.

Lastly, I've always said that a good plan which lacks finesse is far superior to a poor plan with lots of finesse. When and where you ATTACK or DEFEND is the plan, the parameters you set are finesse.

[parmenio]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

With regards to the others, I don't think it is surprising that they should return to the FUP. You are seeing the AI do a replan.

On re-reading what johndoesecond wrote above (and what you've contributed as well), I can see that it's, in fact, highly likely that the assault would be re-planned and therefore restarted.

I got a marginal victory this time round (St Vith remained contested) by only giving orders at the Btn level for CCA and at the higher org level for CCB and CCR, left all artillery under AI control and ran mostly at max speed. Very enjoyable - I'll have another run on this one tomorrow.

[Bison36]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

As far as I know ...

LOSSES only changes the behavior of PROBEs (in regards to when they bunker down). As for other orders, it produces an informational message to the player when the threshold is crossed. It's up to you to halt an ATTACK or provide it additional support.

With regards to the others, I don't think it is surprising that they should return to the FUP. You are seeing the AI do a replan. The AI regularly does them at various intervals automatically (the higher up you go, the bigger the interval). However, I think you are triggering a replan by changing the underlying assumptions.

In general, I don't mess with an ATTACK once they have begun the assault phase. There is great potential for disaster when a well structured attack begins to come apart. You'll observe that in many cases, not everyone gets the recall orders at the same time. This can hang some units out to dry. Not a pretty sight.

Lastly, I've always said that a good plan which lacks finesse is far superior to a poor plan with lots of finesse. When and where you ATTACK or DEFEND is the plan, the parameters you set are finesse.

I always thought that the acceptable loss order had a similar effect on all orders. A unit with an assault command and low loss would break off the attack sooner than one with a higher acceptable loss order. Interesting. I need to experiment with this. Thanks Mark.

It does seem to be the case that the lower units on the OOB will always reorganize if you shift a plan. The question I usually have is when, where and for how long, as these can be a dangerous variables.

I agree that letting an assualt plan play out to fruition is the best COA. I find that once I start to tweek the orders mid-execution my units become very disorganized on the battlefield. It can take some time to reorganize and plan if you lower level units are in different states of reorganization, movement or attack order.