Brigade Tactical Ex Comments

[iberian]

Hello, since I'm a new player of COTA, I wanted to give you some feedback and make some questions.

Though I bought HTTR more than a year ago, including the Strategy Guide, I never got into the game. I played the tutorials but I was never impressed by the game mechanincs. Somehow, seeing my companies moving by themselves, routing, or retreating and regrouping constantly, in some kind of back-and-forth dance, discouraged me. But I always knew it was me, since the game engine was top notch. Maybe I'm permanently brain-damaged by the 1980's boardgames. Sometimes I feel that I enjoy more reading the rules and manuals than playing the game.

Still, I recently bought COTA. I played the first tutorial, which was fine, and I proceeded to one of the other introductory scenarios: Tactical Exercice Brigade Attack at Sarantaporon.

Here are the questions:

a) You have to capture the roadblock hill. Fast access to the hill is limited to the highway, since there are woods and streams bordering it. Since the new COTA engine makes terrain impassable by mechanized forces, what is use in such scenario for the cavalry regiment and the tank battalion? I positioned the cavalry to the west of the hill, controlling the bridge and cutting that escape route to the enemy. I also positioned the tank battalion to the south of the hill, hoping for some kind of support from them. None of them were able to do much. They fired a couple of times, but it was a worthless effort.

b) The Ranger Battalion is too little to assault the hill, even with the support of the two art batteries. I ended up making a brutal frontal assault, were my companies were constantly routing and regrouping. Yes, I was suppressing the heck out of the enemy units, expending all my artillery ammo on them. Still, the ratio of forces was too little to make an assault.

c) Before I made the assault, I had to chase away a couple of enemy units with my engineers. I also employed a tank company against an enemy infantry company that was in the highway (IN the highway, not in the woods). I was astonished to see my tanks charge against the enemy unit, overrun it, exposing the rear flank to them and becoming routed!! Seriously, I don't believe that a company of tanks should run away in such a manner. I find it strange.

Regards!

[MarkShot]

ORIGINAL: iberian
Somehow, seeing my companies moving by themselves, routing, or retreating and regrouping constantly, in some kind of back-and-forth dance, discouraged me. But I always knew it was me, since the game engine was top notch. Maybe I'm permanently brain-damaged by the 1980's boardgames. Sometimes I feel that I enjoy more reading the rules and manuals than playing the game.

Some very interesting comments there. Your characterization of battles with this engine are pretty accurate. At the point of contact, things are rarely ever clear cut or decisive. There is always that ebb and flow. Successful attacks will often have one or more of your own units retreating and may require HQ reorg the whole thing and push again.

*** See note below ...

However, for me that is one of the things which I love about this engine is the messy nature of things in both time and space. Of course, reading the manuals/guides/AARs it all appears so much cleaner and precise. But that is simply the nature of hindset and a captured moment in time. So, I can clearly see how there could be a fundamental disconnect between reading about it and playing it. But I think the fun in the actual playing is to try to put the sense and structure into the actual events unfolding before you like you see it described in print elsewhere. The sense and structure is there, but it only reveals itself to one who has mastered knowing what to look at and how to correctly read the ebb and flow. So, I would say you need to spend less time reading and more time getting in there and mixing it up.

---

Regarding the scenario ... well, when I tested this, I found its title to be somewhat of a misnomer. It sounds like it is some type of easier tutorial. However, I think the title derives from its narrow scope and not that it was intended as something tutorial. In fact, with max order delays and given terrain and force constraints it is a tough little nut. But it is short, small, and simple clear objective ... and thus named.

---

*** Regarding even successful attacks often being initially repeled ... I think you will find this is quite common especially as distance between FUP and attack task marker increases and support weapons are left under AI control. Why? Well, initially the support weapons (mortars and direct fire heavy weapons) will advance to contact. Only when contact is made will they start to deploy. So, the first thrust of such an attack will often not initially see much supporting fire. It is only with the second push that support weapons are deployed and providing fire that you will see the attack really cut into the enemy. There is little that can be done to avoid this unless you want to take direct command of support weapons and pre-deploy them. That is quite easy to do, but becomes something of a problem if you have a long attack axis or are not very clear where the enemy has actually deployed in defense.

---

Bottom line: Don't give up. Much of the reward of the game is mastering the ability to know what lurks in the fog and fight the beast (confusion and indecision) despite its ever elusive attempts to keep you in the dark.

[captskillet]

the uncertainess and chaos of battle are depicted by this engie better than ANYTHING on the market now.....the days of hex driven nice neat battles are over!

[jhdeerslayer]

I agree. I had the same feelings of being uncomfortable with this genre. But after awhile, it kind of grows on a guy...[:)]

[wodin]

No looking back after playing this series. Other games start to pale in comparison. I wonder if anyone will make a squad level game using this kind of engine?

[Bil H]

Wodin, how about Platoon level?  The Pacific game is slated to go to Platoons instead of Companies.
 
Squad level would require a completely new engine IMO.
 
Bil

[jungelsj_slith]

ORIGINAL: Bil H

Wodin, how about Platoon level?  The Pacific game is slated to go to Platoons instead of Companies.

Squad level would require a completely new engine IMO.

Bil

I agree. At that point, you would need to start to model things like inidvidual cover (trees, trenches), entering and leaving houses, multiple stories, etc.

I think platoon level in the pacific is definately doable, though.

[wodin]

Fine by me;)

[Crimguy]

I really think the engine will come into its own when done on the eastern front or even the bulge (to a lesser extent), where mobility was truly what made the engagements.

If I was looking at applying the engine elsewhere, I would love to see it used for modern battles, e.g. Fulda.  Even better would be the 67 and 73 wars in Israel.  The size of the Sinai engagements would be perfect.

[Vance]

Hi iberian,

I agree with MarkShot that despite its name 'Brigade Tactical Exercise' is not an easy scenario to play. As you mentioned the terrain is difficult for the tanks. There is an AAR about this scenarion by Grotius in the 'After Action Report' section of this forum:

tm.asp?m=1171855

Somewhere in there I describe what I did to complete the scenario successfully.

When I started with HttR I had the same feeling seeing my troops retreat and root regularly. In my inexperience I gave them non realistic orders. Now I know much better how to keep the enemy off balance.  I am a lot quicker now. If you have given the enemy time to prepare its positions then the rangers will have had a hard time assaulting the hill.

Try to play another small scenario a couple of times and see what works.

Good luck.

[Vance]

ORIGINAL: Bil H
Squad level would require a completely new engine IMO.

I would love to see a marriage between the AA engine and the Close Combat scale and graphics. But I think that will only happen in my dreams.

[Greup]

ORIGINAL: captskillet
this engie better than ANYTHING on the market now.....the days of hex driven nice neat battles are over!

Couldn't agree more. If people are playing (and even more so DEVELOPING) hex (computer) games after this series emerged it must either be because they

1. Don't like the actual battles or organizational level portrayed

or

2. They are brain-washed by the legacy of half a century of hex board games.


So to mitigate point 1: just bring out more of the good stuff to us, Panthers!
For point 2... well.. those people will die off in time.

Personally I can't bring myself to seriously consider buying hex games anymore. Unfortunately for us wargamers many developers are still flogging dead horses and are pushing computer simulations of hex board games instead of computer simulations of real world battles but in all the future looks bright.

[iberian]

Hi Markshot, Vance and all, thanks for your answers.

I believe that my main problem with the engine is that I'm not used to its real time aspects yet. That is, sometimes, I find confusing to see my companies routing, retreating, advancing, and routing again in a small amount of time (let's say, half an hour of game time). Maybe, if I mentally abstracted a bit, and saw things in a two or three hours time-frame, I would see that the unit is basically advancing, or holding ground (in spite of the multitude of small retreats, regroups and advances).

Still, I find there's something "quirky" in there. When I ordered the Ranger Battalion to assault the hill, I saw the companies doing this dance constantly. I find hard to envision a company of 150 guys jumping back 300 meters, stopping, advancing 200 meters, running back 1500 meters, advancing again 200 m... I mean, I imagine them getting pinned and stopped in its tracks, but I cannot imagine these guys running around in real life as much they do in the game.

What I like of this wargame forces you to think in operational terms, and its probably the first one that does it for real, thanks to it command delay feature. Unfortunately, here comes another of my little grips with the system: at times, I find you have to deal with too much tactical details. If I am a divisional commander, I shouldn't care about the frontage and depth of my companies. I shouldn't care if my 2pdr should be facing east near a bridge, 500 meters aways because that's its effective range. I should care about objectives, timeframes, force allocations, logistics, etc., but thinking if one unit should travel in echelon formation is too much if I have to deal with two division or an entire corp.

[iberian]

Hello Greup, in part I agree, I'm probably brain damaged and impaired by the Avalon Hill and SPI boardgames, and real time, no hexes is the way of the future. Anyway, I'm not discussing this, since I also agree.

Still, I believe, that for operational level, sometimes too much detail is too much detail. That is, a corp commander wouldn't and shouldn't know if two specific companies routed, regrouped, halted and advanced 20 times in the last two hours to capture a hill. Operational level, turn based games, with hexes, manage to abstract this, and allow you to concentrate on other, more important, things.

You can do the same with AA engine, but it demands you not to pay attention to small things, and demands you to enforce yourself a level of abstraction. The problem is that in real life, a WW2 corp commander wouldn't need to this self imposed abstraction: he would never know if the 23 year old captain in charge of company 30 Km aways, is facing north, close to a small wood, 300 meters away from a highway, because that the is the effective range of its weapons. The captain knows its job. If the corp commander has to care about those things, armies will be at most groups of 300 persons.

[Arjuna]

iberian,

Welcome and thanks for your comments.

ORIGINAL: iberian
Still, I find there's something "quirky" in there. When I ordered the Ranger Battalion to assault the hill, I saw the companies doing this dance constantly. I find hard to envision a company of 150 guys jumping back 300 meters, stopping, advancing 200 meters, running back 1500 meters, advancing again 200 m... I mean, I imagine them getting pinned and stopped in its tracks, but I cannot imagine these guys running around in real life as much they do in the game.

First off routing units do not recover in under half an hour - typically it takes one to two hours, poor quality troops even longer. One area I am still not happy with is the fact that routing units may be bounced too often - ie forced to retreat further. I'll look at this and see if we can tone it down a tad.

TT2993 - AI - Routing - Tone down frequency of rouitng units being bounced

What I like of this wargame forces you to think in operational terms, and its probably the first one that does it for real, thanks to it command delay feature. Unfortunately, here comes another of my little grips with the system: at times, I find you have to deal with too much tactical details. If I am a divisional commander, I shouldn't care about the frontage and depth of my companies. I shouldn't care if my 2pdr should be facing east near a bridge, 500 meters aways because that's its effective range. I should care about objectives, timeframes, force allocations, logistics, etc., but thinking if one unit should travel in echelon formation is too much if I have to deal with two division or an entire corp.

Well you don't have to deal with those tactical details at all - just leave it to your AI subordinates. Doing so is one of the hardest adjustments to make for traditional turn based wargamers, used to micromanaging every detail. Good RL commanders learn to live with the fact that subordinates won't necessarily do things to the same optimum level as they would. Sometimes they do better other times worse. This is the frustration of command.

Only choose to intervene - ie mircromanage where it is absolutely critical. This is exactly what a RL commander does. I am currently reading Dupey's classic "Hitler's Last Gamble" again and it is replete with case after case where a commander was frustrated by the actions of one or more of their subordinates. That's life and it's certainly part of operational warfare.

So my advice to you and other new players is to exercise a little discipline over the way you give orders. Avoid giving them to forces below a Bn HQ. Only do so where it is absolutely critical.

[wodin]

The best way to see how the engine works is choose a scenario with few untis and really watch how the attacks play out. ALso watch the defence aswell.

You will find the combat ebbs and flows for abit your attackers may look like they are falling back BUT keep on watching and dont panic. If you planed it well then in the end your forces will push the defence right back.

The combat goes back and forth for a bit untill one side really gets a foothold and then they go for the kill.

[HansBolter]

I too suffer from 30+ years of hex boardgame indoctrination.

However, I have found the choas of "what the hell are my units doing now" to be invigorating.

As a training process I find myself redoing the same actions over and over with small tweaks to the commands I give in order to test the results and get a feel for what I can expect subordinate units to do as a result of the command I give to thier superiors.

I do find a few anomalies. I am not sure if they are a result of the limitations of the engine or merely my poor choice in command or timing. Take the example of a batallion ordered to probe 2 kilometers forward into a copse of light woods.
As the batallion advances, a substantial enemy presence is uncovered. I then choose to order the batallion to go to a full assault, knowing that it will halt, take some time to reorganize and then move forward again with a more determined assault. A quick check a few minutes later finds the lead company that is only a few hundreds meters from the lead enemy company has turned it's back on the enemy and is moving backwards towards the batallion headquarters to reorganize for the coming assault action.

I would really rather not have the lead company, in contact with the enemy, turning it's flank to the enemy as part of a batallion wide reorganization for the coming assault. I have to ask myself, is this a limitation of the negine, where a company in contact with the enemy will disregard that conatct because it receives an order for a higher echelon to do something else, or is this a function of my inexperience with the engine. If I had chosen a formation of "in situ" for the batallion assault order, rather than leaving the choice of formation to the batallion headquarters, would this have prevented the lead comapany form turning it's flank to the enemy?

It seems that sometimes the seemingly bizarre behavior of an individual company being controlled by the AI may be a result of insufficiently succint orders form above.

[Crimguy]

ORIGINAL: iberian

Hi Markshot, Vance and all, thanks for your answers.

I believe that my main problem with the engine is that I'm not used to its real time aspects yet. That is, sometimes, I find confusing to see my companies routing, retreating, advancing, and routing again in a small amount of time (let's say, half an hour of game time). Maybe, if I mentally abstracted a bit, and saw things in a two or three hours time-frame, I would see that the unit is basically advancing, or holding ground (in spite of the multitude of small retreats, regroups and advances).

Still, I find there's something "quirky" in there. When I ordered the Ranger Battalion to assault the hill, I saw the companies doing this dance constantly. I find hard to envision a company of 150 guys jumping back 300 meters, stopping, advancing 200 meters, running back 1500 meters, advancing again 200 m... I mean, I imagine them getting pinned and stopped in its tracks, but I cannot imagine these guys running around in real life as much they do in the game.

What I like of this wargame forces you to think in operational terms, and its probably the first one that does it for real, thanks to it command delay feature. Unfortunately, here comes another of my little grips with the system: at times, I find you have to deal with too much tactical details. If I am a divisional commander, I shouldn't care about the frontage and depth of my companies. I shouldn't care if my 2pdr should be facing east near a bridge, 500 meters aways because that's its effective range. I should care about objectives, timeframes, force allocations, logistics, etc., but thinking if one unit should travel in echelon formation is too much if I have to deal with two division or an entire corp.

Those are some very good observations. I must admit I have the same image of 150 men bouncing around when I see them advance and retreat. I had always thought that, when units lock into combat, they should be more or less glued together until one is destroyed or routed. I find the practicaly effect to be much better than the way it looks on the map.[:D]

[MarkShot]

I don't have any problem envisioning units pulling back if there is some cover, they were not ambushed, and contact happened at the outer boundary of weapon ranges. Currently, the engine does not allow allow for ambushes and orders to remain undetected and hold fire.

I think the only thing which I have commented on is that the speed at which your own units move sometimes when routing seems in excess of the accepted norms (and remember there is no friendly FOW). I have always thought that a bit odd. I know that in some games, routing panicked units are given a speed to boost as a means to allow them to clear the danger and prevent a player exploit of running them down and destroying them (also on the assumption that troops move faster in panic than a well coordinated advance). However, I don't believe this is the case with this engine.

In terms of other aspects of routing units, I believe some work was done in COTA:

* Avoid cases where units seems to rout in the wrong direction (meaning towards the enemy and away from their own lines). I think some significant improvements were made there, but it is not perfect.

* Work was done to model some degree of equipment loss when units rout.

I played some RDOA a few weeks ago and I couldn't help but noticing how much cleaner and crisper attacks looked in COTA than RDOA. A lot of work has gone in the behavior/mechanics modeling, but there are still odds cases. In fact, in real life, there also seems to be odd cases like friendly fire or hostile units apparently passing each other but failing to correctly ID the other as hostile. On the whole, the battlefield seems very sensible especially when you get comfortable the counters, unit info box display options, filters, and FOW behavior.

[Bil H]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Currently, the engine does not allow allow for ambushes and orders to remain undetected and hold fire.

Of course in reality it is very tough to hide a Company or larger sized unit from detection, contacts can come from many sources, intelligence (Signals or air recon), or even long range patrols sent out from friendly units (Battle Reconnaissance), even from friendly locals (HUMINT). At least this is how I like to think about it working with this engine, of course this is all abstracted in the game. I actually think the Intel engine needs some work but overall the sighting of units "feels" right to me... and this is coming from someone who has sat in Brigade Tactical Operation Centers (TOC) where I have seen contacts appear.

The hold fire issue is important, but as soon as SOPs get into the game this should be taken care of. Don't hold your breath though they aren't coming anytime soon [;)]

Bil