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I am just curious what type of commanders are out there ... when it comes to bridges and objectives do you try to follow your orders to the letter or do you play for the scenario victory?

(1) Would you prime and blow a bridge which you were ordered to secure?

(2) Would you intentionally fail to prime and blow a bridge that you were ordered to deny?

(3) Would you intentionally bypass certain scenario objectives if you could garner a decisive victory without them?

Confession time. So far, I am guilty of all three.

Only last week, I intentionally blew a bridge I was ordered to secure in order to protect a very vulnerable flank. I did try to rebuild it later, but it was an hour or two short of completion when the scenario ended.

I've also intentionally left a bridge standing and gave the enemy a bridge head precisely for the purpose of creating a kill sac where I could concentrate all my indirect fire power on their assembled and stalled force.

I usually like to prioritze my objectives and not weaken my efforts by diluting my strength trying to take everything.

What about you?

I think you would be court-martialed!!!
[:D]

Seriously, I try to play the scenario as realistically as possible.
Obviously, having never been a combat commander, I can't speak for the ramifications of what you described.

I think the point of the game would be allocate the resources provide and obtain as many objectives as possible. All would agree that we may want to keep our "eye on the ball", but we all have bosses with their own agenda and requirements.

Anyway...my point is, I try to obtain the objectives requested and will assign forces I believe are necessary to do the job.

ORIGINAL: MarkShot
(1) Would you prime and blow a bridge which you were ordered to secure?

Did it once with the Arnhem Rail bridge, to deny the points. With terrible results : AI then had no choice to direct all its reinforcement on Road Bridge... I think I lost this one. [8|]

(2) Would you intentionally fail to prime and blow a bridge that you were ordered to deny?

Don't think so. Never faced the situation.

(3) Would you intentionally bypass certain scenario objectives if you could garner a decisive victory without them?

Sure. Be carefull that you cannot gather more than 100 points and what you don't secure can fall on your opponents' hand.
BTW, this is the only way to win some well-known scenario.

Cheers,

JeF.

1) Would you prime and blow a bridge you were ordered to secure?

Yes. If I thought I were stretched too thin, I'd be quite happy to blow minor bridges in order to restrict my opponent's options and to withdraw to concentrate my defences.

2) Would you intentionally fail to prime and blow a bridge that you were ordered to deny?

Very, very unlikely. Normally I'd be blowing bridges when I'm on the defensive, which will also mean I'll be outnumbered and/or have weaker troops. That means my offensive options must be limited, and my chances of recovering the objective low. Rare exceptions would be include the bridge diverting lots of enemy troops I was happier weren't somewhere else (particularly if I can create a killing ground should they try to take it), or that I'd be trapping a valuable body of my troops I thought I could evacuate over it.

3) Would you intentionally bypass certain scenario objectives if you could garner a decisive victory without them?

Yes, and I frequently do.

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

I am just curious what type of commanders are out there ... when it comes to bridges and objectives do you try to follow your orders to the letter or do you play for the scenario victory?

(...)

What about you?

Erm, what about me?
I don't have the game!

But I think I'd use the Out of Sync bug to outflank the enemy, hehe

ORIGINAL: AlexB
Erm, what about me?
I don't have the game!

But I think I'd use the Out of Sync bug to outflank the enemy, hehe

<G> that's cruel.[:(]

Well for your information we've fixed a number of potential causes for the out of sync bug, namely cases where AI data was being updated from the UI. But we still have it going out of sync. We're about halfway through verifying all AI classes. I hope to finish these tomorrow. Fingers crossed and I'm praying for some divine intervention here. Sometimes you have to surrender to grace and then hey presto the bug is found.[:)]

Sometimes you have to surrender to grace and then hey presto the bug is found.

Count me in! I want COTA to come out soon! So I'll be praying for you guys too! [:)]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

I am just curious what type of commanders are out there ... when it comes to bridges and objectives do you try to follow your orders to the letter or do you play for the scenario victory?

(1) Would you prime and blow a bridge which you were ordered to secure?

Yes - I believe there is only one thing more worse than a bridge you can't use - that's a bridge the enemy can use.

ORIGINAL: MarkShot
(2) Would you intentionally fail to prime and blow a bridge that you were ordered to deny?

Nope - maybe a good boost for my ego, but if things go wrong... see Question 1

ORIGINAL: MarkShot
(3) Would you intentionally bypass certain scenario objectives if you could garner a decisive victory without them?

Yes.

1) Never
2) Never. However, I never seem to have much control over the blowing-up part. I always thought it was basically luck . Obviously not so, and that has gotten me into troubles many a times.
3) Always. In fact, in some scenarios I am just aiming at marginal victories.


JT

Your chances of a successful blow job (well, you know what I mean) is increased by:

(1) Dug-in engineers at the bridge.

(2) Having the attack come at night when the enemy doesn't really know what lies ahead.

(3) Having the enemy think that their securing the bridge will be unopposed ... meaning not seeing a large force there in a prepared defense.

(4) Having close mortar support so that the enemy gets supressed while you engineers get the job done instead of the way around.

(5) Being dug-in into closed terrain.

(6) Being in a reverse slope position vis-a-vis the enemy ... once again limiting their advance knowledge of what lies ahead or being able to concentrate their fire power on your position.

Boom!