Some questions about COTA

[Wiggum]

Hi,
i know that there is a COTA forum, but i hope you understand that i post this questions here.

• Is there any way in COTA do display the estimated time for a move, attack ect. ?
  Anf if not, what do you do to estimate the time it takes for a unit to move rom A to B ?
• I attached a artillery unit to a InfBn for a attack. The artillery unit was in range of the attack ObjLoc but the HQ of the InfBn ordered them to move closer to the current position of the HQ...
  This was kind of stupid because now the artillery needed to deploy again.
  I just wanted the artillery unit to support the attack of the InfBn, i have marked "Artillery Direct Support Only" because the unit should only fire in support of the InfBn...from its current position.
  Is there a way to prevent such behaviour ?

• In the AAR there is only a number of "killed" enemys. Now, if the enemy surrenders (you win the scenario instantly) what will be with all those men who surrendered ?
  Will they counted as "killed" too in the AAR or what happens to them ?
  ...Because that would explain the over 700 "Killed" i got during my last scenario.

• Is there any way to set up something like a ambush in COTA ?
  I know there is a special command in BFTB but maybe there is a method that works in COTA too...

[MarkShot]

Wiggum,

I received your PM. I've been kind of busy and haven't been playing for a long time, but I'll try to give you some brief answers:

RE: Estimated Time

Typically, you will assemble forces or use organic forces during a scenario. These forces tend to be fairly stable over time. Once you have had one successful propagation of orders through the force, the "force delay" for the senior HQ will accurately reflect the delay from the time you order it until it begins to be carried out. Of course, you still need to factor in things like travel time or FUPing. (Usually, order delays are the largest chunk of delay when it comes to many orders.)

RE: Artillery

Create fire bases with artillery and use the game options to have them go online or stand down as needed. (So, separate arty from the line units and manage them separately.)

RE: KIAs vis-a-vis captured

Good question. I never contemplated that before. It should be fairly easy to test by just running a scenario and surrendering to the AI to check the numbers.

RE: Ambush

No. However, the reality is if your infantry units are well dug-in in close terrain and the enemy is on the move, then they will initially have a bit of trouble spotting and accurately IDing you. (differential sighting is implemented) You would be amazed at what havoc one well dug-in unit in an elevated tree line with long LOS can do with arty support. I recall one enemy company totally decimated one of my attacks that way and I never knew they were there. (Only saw them post-game.)

You'll find all of the above and much more covered in my HTTR/COTA Mini-Guides (which actually entails about 300 pages of material if they were printed; that estimate includes screenshots).

Enjoy!

[Wiggum]

Many thanks for the answers !

About the Estimated Time:
I think you misunderstood what i mean (i know my english is not the best).
I mean lest say a single InfBn should move from point A to B, how can i find out how long it will take for them to move from A to B.
In BFTB the path tool has this nice option displaying the estimated Time for the move, but with COTA i there also should be some way i hope...
Can you help me here ?

And about the "Killed"...
I just tested it, it looks like if a hole force surrenders that this soldiers will not be counted as killed.
But i think if a single unit is destroyed or surrenders (cross symbol on map) then all of those soldiers in this unit will be counted ass killed.
So if a unit with 100 guy left surrenders, you get 100 killed in the AAR screen.
Maybe someone knows more about that ?

[MarkShot]

RE: Move

The movement of a single unit is perhaps easier to estimate by hand, since if the unit is not fired upon, then its movement is mainly affected by distance, rate of travel, fatigue (which for wheeled units tend to neglible) and time of day (day/night). In any case, when I played, I mainly worked out timings by my experience and guesstimation. Also, I never depended on very precise time tables, but rather divide the day into morning, afternoon, and evening. The most critical timings I usually dealt with revolved around daybreak and nightfall as the transition could be very useful in planning.

RE: Surrender

Yes, I was just considering the side surrender issue. As for in game surrenders, you have two cases. The white rout status indicator which means some members of the unit are giving up intermittently, and the entire unit surrenders en masse. Again, I never really thought about it much, but I suppose you could contrive some tests using the scenario editor. Myself, I mainly would look at the end game AAR to get a sense of the kill ratio. For me, beyond the scenario result, that was also a rough indicator of how well I performed.

[Wiggum]

About moving speed:

I did a test using a Inf Coy and a motorised Coy.
For a Inf Coy (foot) it tooks them ~30min to move 1km through different terrain (open &road).
For a motorised Coy it takes them ~10min to move 1km on a road.

...but that is really basic and just a rough esteem.

The manual says:

But remember motorised units have a higher base or
nominal speed. Eg Foot units with a base speed of 6kph
will move across clear terrain at 4kph ( 6 x 67% ) while a
mot unit with a base speed of 24kph will move at 8kph ( 24 x 33% ).

That makes it pretty clear, you just have to know the base speed (which is always the same for foot/motorised i think) !