Matrix Games Forums

Well I’ve taken the plunge and finally picked up CotA. First impressions are basically good, however I have some observations that may help improve the apparent poor interest the game drew.

As a gamer I prefer the much larger and longer scenarios over the smaller ones. I feel the game needs a dramatic increase in the scope and scale of its campaigns. While some of the multi-divisional scenarios for the game are fun, I can’t help wishing I had a much larger area to play in so things like supply lines and strategic reserves played an actual role in the scenarios.

Sure supply is handled in these scenarios but there isn’t any real supply lines that need to be considered since the maps are so confined. The frontages in the chosen scenarios are basically frontal assaults from a strategic point of view, so players can feel comfortable running all their forces to the front line as there are no real concerns when it comes to being strategically outflanked.

Also I feel a definite lack of immersion in the game due to a lack of sufficient Intel being given to the player. I find myself pausing the action each time I hear shooting so I can scan around and try and determine where the action is.

Then once I find out where the firing is, I can’t tell if the incoming or outgoing fire is effective or not. I’d like to see messages generated for a unit the first time it receives fire. Something like “Unit X reports it is receiving enemy harassing fire from it’s from its front”, or “Unit X reports it is receiving heavy fire from its right front”.

Then you could reset the initial fire message toggle for a unit if the unit goes a full half hour without receiving fire or something, so any new hostile contacts would be reported over the longer scenarios drawing a player’s attention to a new hotspot.

Basically the messages would allow players like me who prefer to play on the fully zoomed in map to jump to new points of contact without having to scroll all the way out and wait for a fire line tracer to materialize before I can figure out where things are heating up.

I could instead double click the initial contact message and jump right to the action without the tedious scroll out, wait for fire, then zoom into the action phase, I find myself repeating endlessly now.

Also with no new messages popping up, I would know any firing I hear is something I’ve already looked at before and I won’t spend tons of wasted time trying to determine if something new has happened on maximum zoom level as I have to do now.

As to determining the effectiveness of incoming or outgoing fire, I’d love to see a new tab for a unit that allows you to see how effective the firing is. I’d also like to see exactly what kind of fire the unit is receiving. Something that listed incoming fire as light, medium or heavy and what kind if any suppression effects are being applied to the unit would be great. So Unit X’s tab would list incoming fire as either indirect or direct with Light medium or heavy volume and the effects would be light suppression, medium suppression, or heavy suppression.

You could then list casualties taken over the past 15 minutes as well so a player has an idea if a withdraw should be ordered ASAP. Right now unless you memorize each unit’s manpower levels, you have no idea if it’s taking casualties or not without watching each unit carefully, which prevents you from keeping an eye on other areas of the map.

You’d then list outgoing fire but your Intel on that would far less accurate due to FOW. It should of course not give anywhere near the detail listed above, but a vague report on suppression and casualties would help a player determine if he needs to close on his enemy or not.

Some of the TO&E’s for units include both direct and indirect equipment, it would be nice to know if the incoming fire is simply 50mm mortar fire that is lightly suppressing the unit, or if it’s HMG fire that is actually killing my men in droves.

Right now a player is left to guess what is going on, and unless he has a strong working knowledge of what all the equipment items are, he basically is at a loss to tell how to most effectively use a unit. I personally know what most equipment items are, but I can’t tell how effective the equipment is in cases where a units TO&E is mixed.

For instance some of the German Para units in the Malta scenario (I think it was Malta, I’m not 100% sure) have 1 - 80mm mortar assigned to each infantry company. I can’t tell if those mortars are effective or not, so I find myself advancing to close contact, all the time wondering if I should instead leave the units further back as the mortars possibly give the unit a long range firepower advantage over the allied troops. But without any info generated at all by the game as to how effective my fire is I have no idea if I’m making an ill-advised move.

The real strength of the game is its ability to handle so much of what happens on the battlefield automatically for the player. But because the game handles so much automatically it needs to keep the player informed to keep him interested in what’s going on.

Right now it feels like a movie with little or no dialog for the player. So it’s a foreign movie and it needs major subtitles. Give the game a lot more text messages to keep a player filled in on all the small details of what’s going on and it’ll pull players into the game a lot more. And for those wondering, yes I have max messages turned on.

One last thought. It would be nice to be able to give units hold fire orders so they don’t open fire at extreme ranges. I’m not saying they shouldn't fire at all, but an order not to fire unless a certain effective percentage was achieved would be great. So for example I could order Unit X not to fire unless it will be at least 25%, 50% or 75% effective.

If that’s not possible perhaps simply a range would work. So hold fire until an enemy unit is within 1500, 1000 or 500 meters or something. Of course you couldn’t hold fire all together, but some kind of fire discipline would be great.

Jim

So to be brief:

A)-larger scale, campaign style
B)-a reporting system, (linked to the OOB)
C)-a SOP system
D)-more unit information ingame (unit database)

Even if they are modern and of smaller scale (grand tactical) than Airborne assault, I like to compare CotA to TacOps and Flashpoint Germany.
A reporting system is used in both, a SOP system is used in both, both of them have extensive unit database. I'm sure ideas could be taken from their implementation in those two games.

D)-I think a unit database IS doable. The info is already collected in large part. It's a question of adding things and parameters.

B)-As CotA is of larger scale than both these games, there's a big chance the player will get flooded with information if a reporting system is implemented. It's implementation is problematical. Maybe it could be limited by the units the commander directly controls. That would means that you wouldn't recieve any reports from a company that still fights under a battalion HQ that you control, or of a battalion still under regimental control.

C)-An SOP system is IMHO one thing that could improve gameplay without giving too much additional headaches to the player.

A)-Well, this one is a question of design. This game is operational with companies (usually) as the smallest units. I'm sure it could be upped to battalion as the smallest with some tweaking, but then, I think the game would play completely differently. One thing I'd definitely like is something like TOAW: different scale for different scenarios. Parameters wouldn't need to be that open: one unit scale = one map scale.

while we're at it... random interface improving ideas:
double clicking could be used to access additional unit info, the left tab could be left for summarizing the units strenght, a picture, etc.
right clicking with defiling orders list

[font="times new roman"]Hi Jim[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I would imagine that most everyone had at least a few similar thoughts about this game-when they were just starting to play it.  Actually, just about everything you want is there; you just need to check the right area.  For instance; if you want to know whether a unit is firing or taking fire, check the log.  If you want to know if it has taken loses look at he top blue bar under the “general” tab. The whole bar is 100% strength, dense blue is what you start with, and light blue is what you have left. [/font]
[font="times new roman"]As a divisional or corps commander, you know that if your troops are not advancing as ordered, they are taking heavy losses-or they are just exhausted.  You don’t really need to know how severe losses are everywhere-only in areas where your troops look like they are in trouble-you may want to remove units before they are completely wiped out (or change the plan)[/font]
[font="times new roman"]As far as the sound goes, it is useful for me in that it lets me know when contact has been made (and it almost blocks the kids’ racket).  As the fighting and battle sound increases, it’s time to watch the front.  If you are playing a large scenario, the mini map is very useful for quickly scanning the areas.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]It is not possible to keep track of everything happening on your battlefield.  Most everything is logged, but it is not possible to read every report and to command your units to victory.   I'm starting to think that all the available info is simply a bi product of creating a fairly accurate combat/maneuver model.  I don’t even use the on screen messages anymore, but I do try to leave the sidebar on messages whenever I’m not using it for something else.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Although I’ve had this game for several months, I only recently had time to get some serious playtime in.  Three weeks ago I would have told you “I know how this game works”, but I would have been wrong.  NOW I know how this game works (although I could skim through the manual one more time.)[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I am in agreement with you on the preferable scale of operations, but you could not possibly have the same level of detail as this game offers.  There have been a few statements that perhaps sometime in the future something could be done in this area, but there are many factors-not the least of which is more powerful CPU’s.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I think this is a fantastic game-not perfect but still fantastic.  There are things that happen, or don’t happen, as ordered/anticipated.  The only way to get around these situations is by experience with the game ( some practical land navigation experience would be helpful).  I know you are a long time Wargamer (I recognize you from another place) and have some ideas as to how a serious war game should play.  COTA is drastically different than anything out there and thus will take a little extra time to become familiar with it.   Every day, I notice something new about this game. Give it some time-I think you’ll be impressed.[/font]

ORIGINAL: Trigger Happy


while we're at it... random interface improving ideas:
double clicking could be used to access additional unit info, the left tab could be left for summarizing the units strenght, a picture, etc.
right clicking with defiling orders list

Yea, that would be a nice improvement. This would also address one of Jim's observations (more info on a units weapons capabilities). There was something similar to this in the wish list-possibly to be incorporated into the next game.

ORIGINAL: Trigger Happy
B)-As CotA is of larger scale than both these games, there's a big chance the player will get flooded with information if a reporting system is implemented. It's implementation is problematical. Maybe it could be limited by the units the commander directly controls.

Or just expand on the current messages buttons by adding buttons that allow the player to set command limits for units he wants to receive messages from. Company, battalion, regiment or division level. That way in small scenarios you can turn on company level and in larger scenarios perhaps just regimental level is enough to alert you to new firefights.

ORIGINAL: Trigger Happy
A)-Well, this one is a question of design. This game is operational with companies (usually) as the smallest units. I'm sure it could be upped to battalion as the smallest with some tweaking, but then, I think the game would play completely differently. One thing I'd definitely like is something like TOAW: different scale for different scenarios. Parameters wouldn't need to be that open: one unit scale = one map scale.

I'm not sure this is really needed with this game. The fact a player can choose to play at different command levels means you don't really need different unit scales. If you're playing a huge campaign (say the first month of Overlord or the entire Bulge battle), you can simply issue orders to the division or regimental/combat command HQ's and the computer handles the lower echelon units.

Sure scaling companies up to battalions might remove unit clutter, but if it will affect the AI's ability in any way, I say leave it as is. The beauty of this system over TOAW is scaling isn't really needed since increased campaign sizes simply means players move up the chain of command when it comes to which units they give orders to.

Jim

Great discussion guys. I've just got back from some "quality" time with my wife shopping for Xmas presents. So I'm exhausted. I'll get back to some serious replies tomorrow.[:)]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
[font="times new roman"]I would imagine that most everyone had at least a few similar thoughts about this game-when they were just starting to play it.  Actually, just about everything you want is there; you just need to check the right area.  For instance; if you want to know whether a unit is firing or taking fire, check the log.  If you want to know if it has taken loses look at he top blue bar under the “genera” tab. The whole bar is 100% strength, dense blue is what you start with, and light blue is what you have left. [/font]

I don't want to just know, I want to be able to jump to the action without zooming out, and double clicking a message would be a simple way of doing that. I also want to know if the fire is effective or not. Basically all I can do now is watch a movie and judge what is happening over time by focusing on a unit. I want to be able to come upon a hotspot and instantly judge what is happening. That way I can make a decision and move on to perhaps another area I am more concerned with.

Additionally if its day three of a scenario and a unit begins taking fire, it does me no good looking at the strength bar as those losses could have occurred on day 1. I want a way to tell if the current firefight is causing losses. That way if I consider them to be too high I can issue an order immediately without having to watch a single unit for several minutes as I have to do now.

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
[font="times new roman"]As a divisional or corps commander, you know that if your troops are not advancing as ordered, they are taking heavy losses-or they are just exhausted.  You don’t really need to know how severe losses are everywhere-only in areas where your troops look like they are in trouble-you may want to remove units before they are completely wiped out (or change the plan)[/font]

The reason I want to know everywhere is so that in a case where I need to know, it's available without having to dedicate a lot of time simply watching a single unit to try and figure out what's happening with it, when I have several divisions’ worth of units to look after. It's simply a convenience and helps with the immersion factor since I can know what's going on right away simply by opening that units detail tab. Right now I just get exasperated because I have to sit and focus all my attention on one company, out of possibly hundreds I need to check on, for far too much time just to find out something a company commander could tell me via radio in a single sentence.

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
[font="times new roman"]Although I’ve had this game for several months, I only recently had time to get some serious playtime in.  Three weeks ago I would have told you “I know how this game works”, but I would have been wrong.  NOW I know how this game works (although I could skim through the manual one more time.)[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]

Yes I am new to the game, so I'm sure I'm not 100% proficient with it. I did play HTTR when it came out way back when, but I'd forgotten most of what I had learned. But I do find the issues I mentioned detract from allowing me to become immersed in the game. The info should be at my fingertips if needed so I don't waste so much time simply trying to figure out what's going on with engaged units, especially since so much of what is going on is handled by the AI.

If a unit is taking fire and becoming suppressed, but losses have been relatively light, then I instantly know I don't need to worry too much about withdrawing that unit. But to figure that out now I have to watch that unit for several minutes to see if losses begin to mount. And if I get pulled away and come back later, I have to remember what the manpower levels were if I hope to figure out if it’s taken any recent losses.

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
[font="times new roman"]I think this is a fantastic game-not perfect but still fantastic. 

I couldn't agree more, I just wish I had the info I need more readily available to me.

Jim

Hi Jim,

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Or just expand on the current messages buttons by adding buttons that allow the player to set command limits for units he wants to receive messages from. Company, battalion, regiment or division level. That way in small scenarios you can turn on company level and in larger scenarios perhaps just regimental level is enough to alert you to new firefights.

Excellent idea!

There could be a limit in terms of the overall number of unit reports he recieves... as is implemented in Flashpoint Germany. So the player would be obliged to choose which units he wants more frequent reports (active units - recon units) or less frequently (arty units).
Also, in Flashpoint Germany, the player can set an overall set of SOPs (including reports frequency). It can either be changeable during gameplay or be made non changeable (elevated to the rank of doctrine). In a larger scale game like CotA, it could be changeable maybe something like once or twice a day. More for the Germans and the Allies and less (even no possibility) for the soviets. (I'm talking of future games of course...)

I'm not sure this is really needed with this game. The fact a player can choose to play at different command levels means you don't really need different unit scales. If you're playing a huge campaign (say the first month of Overlord or the entire Bulge battle), you can simply issue orders to the division or regimental/combat command HQ's and the computer handles the lower echelon units.

Sure scaling companies up to battalions might remove unit clutter, but if it will affect the AI's ability in any way, I say leave it as is. The beauty of this system over TOAW is scaling isn't really needed since increased campaign sizes simply means players move up the chain of command when it comes to which units they give orders to.

Jim

See, the thing about upping the scale of the battles while keeping companies is a question of CPU power. That's why it's either one or the other. The big campaigns are already playing slow enough.

I agree however with the critique that 2 divisions engagements on each side restricts a lot the scenarios. The game is like in no man's land between division size battles and Corps size ones which would need three divisions at least. I think the engine was made for AIRBORNE operations in mind as we can see from the title... and it shows in some of the fundamental design decisions. (I might be wrong... this is indeed somekind of conjectures I ventured into there)

Some questions arises from such reflexions. How much would it be worth it to increase max units number to 3 divisions on each side? 4? 5? Is it possible by simply streamlining the code, or even by revising the code? complete overhaul? ...

[/edit]Oh and when would it be possible without slowing the game to a ridiculous crawl. Or said differently, how much CPU power would a 3/4/5 divisions scenario need to run decently?

I strongly urge you to consider that you are hurting yourself by never zooming out beyond the highest zoom level.

I almost never go to the highest zoom level except to precisely place airstrikes and artillery missions.

The highest zoom level is great for guaging the action of individual companies and sometimes even full batallions, but it keeps one almost completely in the dark regarding the greater context within which these small actions are ocurring. If one is attempting to direct and observe the actions of a several batallions, or a full regiment, or more, the highest zoom level is almost completely useless.

I don't agree that the game should facilitate a commanders desire to fit himself with blinders.

Im someone who finds lack of immersion a problem when playing games at scales larger than squad\platoon. However CoTA isnt ome of them. I find reading about company level actions in WW2 really helps me with the immersion when I come to play the game.

You could then list casualties taken over the past 15 minutes as well so a player has an idea if a withdraw should be ordered ASAP.

You have to look at this game with a new mentality, you can't play it asif it was a hex wargame where you micromanage everything, which I think is part of your complaint. Being an old wargamer may be difficult to get rid of old habits and ways of playing wargames. Give the AI a chance, trust it, specify the level of aggro and let the AI to decide whether a unit should be withdrawn or not.
I think you are not alone in this, this resistance to let go may explain why this system is proving so difficult to be accepted by the wargame community, let alone the cp game community. Difficult but not impossible.
I'd say don't play this game like TOAW or TacOps, COTA requires a different mental paradigm. TOAW and TacOps (and mostly every other cp wargame) are the past, COTA is the future.
Relax and enjoy

I agree with Intoxicated Man. To me, the great thing about playing COTA is that it models being a divisional/ corps commander. This means you don't need to know the exact strength levels or losses of all individual units. When I play, I keep track of the general state of my battalions/ regiments. I never know, nor am I interested in, the exact strength of every indivual company. Keeping track of losses works the same for me: I have a general idea about the losses suffered by the battalions, just by looking at the strength of one or two companies once in a while, and by keeping track of (mostly by memory, but if necessary with the log) the intensity of the fighting of a certain unit. Casualty lists over 15 minutes wouldn't interest me at all, because when playing "(painfully) realistic" it will take a long time for a unit to react to a change of orders. This means I'll only abandon an attack after a unit has run into major resistance and has suffered casualties for hours, not minutes.
I don't think this game is fun to play if you want to know exactly what every unit is doing and what state it is in throughout a scenario. Instead, you'll have to focus on the big picture, plan ahead, and have a general idea of the state you're units are in. To me, this is what makes the game so great. Once I started playing RDOA, I couldn't go back to hex based games- they were (and are) much too gamey and unrealistic.
Having said all that, I do agree that the level of immersion could be improved. To me personally, more messages wouldn't improve immersion very much. The ability to use the map to plan attacks, draw phase lines etc. would, as would be the ability to have acces to equipment descriptions and pictures straight from the game, instead of only from the Scenario Maker- both improvements that Dave is considering already.
One last thing: it would indeed be great if something like the entire Battle of the Bulge could be covered on one map in one scenario. The reason that this isn't possible right now is simple: the CPUs currently on the market aren't powerful enough to make the necessary calculations quickly enough. Such a monster scenario could probably run in theory, but it would run so slowly as to become unplayable (correct me if I'm wrong here, Dave)

Pieter

Pieter,

Re Entire Bulge. Yes your correct.

The Bulge area of operations ( AO ) was approx 120 x 100 km or 12000 sq kms. At the moment we cater for 50 x 40 or 2000 sq kms. So that's a six fold increase in area. Not every route is affected by the larger area, just mainly the longer routes and those that have to find a path through lots of impassable terrain. Alas there is a lot of the latter in the Ardenne. I would estimate that we would need a four fold increase in speed to accomodate the increase in area.

Further, there was approx 30 divisions involved. We currently cater for around 4. That's a huge 700% increase in the number of resulting route calcs, not to mention increases in other AI functions, like line of sight checks.

So we're looking at probably requiring a 2800% increase in processing power overall to accomodate the entire Bulge operation ( 4 times for the area x 7 times for the units ). Tests we have recently run indicate that COTA runs almost twice as fast on the new 64 multiple cpu systems. And that is without any mods on our part. The game engine is already multi-threaded and so takes advantage of the two cpu's.

One area we would like to explore is using the graphics card for route calculations. This in theory has the potential to reduce cpu load and thus speed up the game, which in turn would allow us to broaden the spatial scope and/or increase the number of units involved. Until we try it I am not sure of how much an improvement this will provide. I would not expect an increase of more than 100%. However, any increase would be welcomed.

If anyone out there knows of a reference to a detailed explanation of how to do this, please email me a link. I would be most grateful. Thanks.

Another option is to reduce the fidelity of the system. If we changed the move grid from 100m to 200m for instance we would reduce the number of grids to be searched by a factor of 4. That would have a big impact. However, it would require a fair effort to adjust the AI to accomodate for it.

We could also change the time interval from one to two minutes. This would reduce ( but not halve ) the number of route calcs. However, we would now see motorised units moving 500+m per time interval - sufficient to overrun an enemy position without them getting an opportunity to fire on them at close range. And remember that for inf types the only effective AT wpns they have have a range of only 100m. So we would need further mods to the reaction system to prevent that. Moreover, we would need to modify all the task events, in particular the fire and bombard events. A big but do-able job.

Such a loss of fidelity would have minor impact on the differentation in orders delays and on the overall command system.

So if we all had new 64 bit dual processor machines and we used the graphics card for route finding ( and not for any new fancy graphics like command overlays ) and we increased the move grid and the time interval then we may, just may come close to increasing the speed sufficient to accomodate the entire Bulge operation. My estimate for the work involved would probably be one man year of effort. Let's say around the royalty equivalent of 5,000 units. Are we likely to sell an extra 5,000 units to recoup our costs? I don't think so, especially as we will be requiring all of them to get new machines. So while it's do-able it's just not worth it. On the other hand if any one would really like to see this done and has a spare $100,000 they want to invest, then get in touch.[:)]

Intoxicated Man and Tukker,

You guys are both missing my point entirely. I don’t want to micromanage each and every unit, in fact I want to spend less time looking after my units than I do now. But because the game fails to provide me with basic facts any field commander would know in an instant via radio, I am currently forced to spend far too much time simply observing a unit to try and figure out what’s going on with it.

All I want is the info readily available so I can scan a unit that looks like it might be getting into trouble and know right away how things are going with it. Picture it like this if it helps, the division commander calls 1st battalion and asks how things are going. The battalion commander states his battalion is under heavy fire and casualties are heavy and getting worse. The division commander then orders an orderly withdrawal and gets on the radio to look after his other 8 battalions and supporting units knowing full well the battalion commander will look after the details of the withdrawal order.

Currently I have to wait until my units actually retreat or route before I know for certain I should have ordered a withdrawal (unless I spend undue amounts of time watching one little company to see how it’s doing under fire). But if the game filled me in on the details I asked for I could have ordered an orderly withdrawal and preserved the fighting ability of my troops long before they routed.

Sure I can just sit back and watch things unfold over several hours by themselves as the game is now, but where’s the fun in that? Why not simply make a movie clip of the historical battle and watch that instead, why call it a game at all? Wargames are about interaction by the player and you can’t interact very well if the game fails to fill you in on what’s going on with your troops and their equipment.

Right now I spend all my time reacting to small disasters that pop-up because I didn’t have the info I needed to perhaps prevent said disaster beforehand. This leads to a lack of immersion in the game for me. I want to feel like I’m in charge of the unfolding events with the power to affect them. Right now I feel more like a fire brigade dispatched to put out fires that can’t be prevented from flaring up in the first place.

What I don’t understand is why asking for more info is such a bad thing. We’ve all heard how sales numbers weren’t as good as was hoped for, so why so much resistance to my impressions. I don’t hate this game at all, in fact I thoroughly enjoy it. But there is definitely a lack of immersion due to too little info being provided to the player. It leaves one with a sense of no control over events.

Give the player more info and his brain will have a lot more to do instead of simply sitting on idle, watching things unfold like a movie.

Jim

Jim,
 
I think your suggestion for more info to be provided is a good one, especially if it can be a user option. I'm sure there will be players who would prefer not to be bombarded with a whole swag of messages. So again your suggestion for filtering these is a good one too. What in fact you are asking for is a "trigger" that fires off a mesage to you when it occurs. These are used by real modern military commanders to manage a battle. They come in two basic types - those that are standard operating procedures like tell me when you start taking heavy fire and those that are case specific like tell me when an enemy force enters this area.
 
Both of these have been on our wish list for some time. It's probably easier to implement the first SOP type. So this will probably be the first we do. The latter type really requires a set of drawing tools within the game that the user can use to specify areas. This is a bigger job and will get done later.
 
In the meantime I would recommend you view the map a little more zoomed out and only zoom right in when you need precision for placing an individual air strike or order location. And use the Unit Info Box to quickly scan a large number of units. Probably the one Inf Box setting I use the most is the rout status. I look for those units that are halted and halting in place, especially where there are plenty of fire lines to indicate where the major engagements are taking place.
 
I then usually click on the unit in question to display its General tab view in the Sidebar. What I look for is the difference in the personnel and equipment strength bars - ie the gap between the dark and light blue bars for each. The bigger these gaps the more fragile these units are becoming. A low morale bar is another warning side and you can use the Inf Box setting for Morale to quickly scan your units. If I am concerned, then I go to the unit's Log tab and look for any entries indicating recent casualties.
 
I agree that a trigger system that alerted you to this would be a good thing.

Jim,

you may find what you are looking for in the task settings - if you set the loss threshhold to minimum, you'll find the formation will report when they have taken casualties.

On the other hand immersion is a very subjective thing - different for everyone - this might not be sufficient for what you have in mind. I know that for myself, the pop-up messages are rather intrusive and I find they break immersion rather than enhance it, so I wouldn't want to receive any more of them (in fact I usually switch them off or allow only the most urgent through). What might be useful would be to add the casualty numbers to the unit log entries - e.g. "10:53 Taking casualties (15)", "10:55 Taking casualties (3)", "10:59 Taking casualties (10)".

In terms of information being instantly available to a real commander - this is 1940-41, and the sort of real-time tactical intelligence available to today's commanders was still far in the future. Communications in these battles was largely by line, and if that wasn't available (which it frequently wasn't) then communication would be by car and runner. In that respect the friendly-force information available through the COTA interface is actually far more complete and accurate than the information available to the historical commanders even under the best possible circumstances. The official histories of the ANZAC forces in Greece are full of occasions where higher HQs had no idea what was happening at lower levels - for example in the Veve Pass battle, it took some hours for Brigade HQ to realise that 1/Rangers had withdrawn from its key position in the centre of the line. This was despite the efforts of the other units in the area, for whom the withdrawal was potentially disastrous as it left them without cover in the centre.

Even in 1944-45 it would be quitepossible for a brigade headquarters to have little to no idea what was happening to the lead battalions, much less a divisional HQ. This would be especially the case then things were going badly, when a company or battalion might leave the start line and not be heard from again until the remnants started filtering back through the reserve areas.

Regards
Steve

[font="times new roman"]Arjuna[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]The planed future releases with incremental improvements are far preferable to reducing realism in the name of broader scale.  Please don’t consider backtracking-this engine should be the future of operational simulations.   I too would like the larger operations, but am willing to wait until it can be done right, which means I must be willing to wait for Intel and AMD to catch up to Panther Games.[:)][/font]
[font="times new roman"]Corps on Korps battles will actually be a good scale for the next 2 theaters of operations (the Battle of the Bulge[/font][font="times new roman"] & North Africa)-I can handle the wait for a new scale quite easily.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]

Jim, I'm sorry if I missed your point. I was under the impression that you want to know exactly what's going on with every unit at any given point in time- clearly this is not the case.
To me, personally, there's plenty of information available in the game. However, not everything is available at a glance, which could be a problem. Like Steve, a flood of messages appearing on the screen tends to distract me, but there's nothing wrong with an option to increase the number of messages available (as long as I can switch them off [;)])

Pieter

It might be an idea to show engagements on the minimap say as circles emanating from engaged units like ripples on a pond. Have seen something similar done before in some RTS game. Ripple speed and colour might give an indication of combat intensity. Currently though the minimap is too small on high res (1280x1024) to see even the units clearly on my monitor - but theres a nice large empty space at the bottom of the toolbar...

M

mordrynge,
 
Welcome. Nice idea.
 
Re larger Stratmap or using up extra room. We have to cater for a min screen size of 1024 x 768. We do expand the battlemap however.