COTA Patch 3

[Arjuna]

Staff Efficiency is affected by other "effectiveness" values such as fatigue, cohesion and morale. Tired staff don't plan well.

[06 Maestro]

I just finished my first real game since the patch (Bir el Gubi). That is a great, little scenario.

At one point in the game I had one Italian AT unit cut off at Strong Point 2. It held out for about 12 hours, taking heavy losses, but holding its ground. There was no "dance of death"; it fought in its positions until it surrendered. This is more realistic-excellent job.

BTW, the Areti performed its mission in an outstanding manner.

[Mehring]

I don't mind saying I was the loser in the above. Without wishing to detract too much from Maestro's victory and the great game he played, this is why these N Africa scenarios need changing, why I'm waiting for the new file for Clash of Armour.

2 guns held out for hours, both dug in and not and without even infantry support, against bombardment from 40 odd 25 pounders, surrounded by at least an equal number of tanks, also infantry, and as I saw it, one gun finally routed away to safety through a ring of steel. It's not realistic, is it?

Looking forward to the next game, Maestro

What I'm finding generally is that bombardment does very little damage to armour but disrupts its movements effectively. Infantry and Guns are highly resistant to everything and generally fight to the last man in any case. Consequently attacks move at a snails pace.

CoA replicates wiell the mixed up nature of the fighting at Sidi Rezegh but reduces the fluidity of desert warfare to a WW1 trench war.

[Arjuna]

The new Clash of Armour scenario and the other modified scenarios are up on the Downloiads p[age of the COTA website: http://cota.matrixgames.com/downloads/
 
Look for the COTA Noprth Africa Update Pack.

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

CoA replicates wiell the mixed up nature of the fighting at Sidi Rezegh but reduces the fluidity of desert warfare to a WW1 trench war.

Well. it was a strong point[;)]. That gun unit was supported by everthing I could spare; I really did not want to lose that position. My 2 units that surendered or disbanded during the game were caught up in that fracus.

As it is, both sides want that position, so bypassed or not, it will still have to be assaulted at some point. On the other hand, victory can be had without taking that one position. How to solve this challenge will take further attention-(one more go, after Crete)

It was a tough fight-re-inforcements arrived just in time.

[Mehring]

Nah, that was too easy for you. I tried to replicate my success in a previous battle long after it was clear that you were fighting a different and much better defence than my previous opponent. Likewise, I kept attacking according to what results I believed I ought to get- a double envelopment plus infantry coming up the middle seemed a fair bet- and failed to adapt to the results the game was giving me. Natural selection, you won big time. Not that I'm sure, even now, how to do better next time.

That said, I was referring above to the other desert scenario, Sidi Rezegh , although it is to a large extent true of both. In the real desert, soldiers feared being caught outside cover, their trenches, foxholes, and more usually, the barely adequate heaps of loose stones they collected where the ground was too hard to dig. Often their best cover was sun blindness- although that could just as easily affect them, heat haze, which made distant objects hard to target, and various forms of dust cloud. Its my understsnding that infantry generally tried to make the war static, as fixed positions offered them a chance of survival that open desert did not. Armour attempted, often successfully, to dig the infantry out, bypass it, over-run it, whatever, to make the war mobile. I feel that mobility is missing here, or at least, is greatly curtailed.

In African CotA, to date, these theatre specific protections are possibly not factored in, I don't know. But infantry and support weapons need not fear the open, they are unnaturally resistant to bombardment in all terrain, and dig in where their real life counterparts usually could not- not without dynamite or more time, peace and quiet than these scenarios give them (same is true of Crete where ground was very hard). Neither, it seems to me, need they fear over-run as I just can't get my units to close under 1k during daytime, whatever aggression level an attack is set to. This means that a company or two in the middle of the desert, even if routing around, can often hold up a regiment or brigade for hours, especially with even a little arty support. 

Clearly, with their AP firing 2 pounders, most Commonwealth tanks are less effective infantry killers than their Axis counterparts, but AP should take out guns at close range and there are the CS tanks, too.

As a long time ASL player, it's an old time gripe the way routing CotA units for the most part hook up their guns, load up any ammo and then start flying around like the mob they were supposed to be when they broke. When they recover and appear to be just as resistant to attack as in the weapons pits they'd just left, I get a bit sore. I'm not sure if it would be possible to replicate here, but the way ASL units rout away from their heavy support weapons but can possibly recover them should they rally, seems more realistic to me.

These advantages to a defence, the Commonwealth command overload (in Sidi Rezegh) together with what seems to me armoured formations more interrested in stopping for a cuppa than fighting (perhaps realistic), detract in my view from what is a tantilising taste of African CotA.

I'm not at all familiar with how the game works so while I'd like to do more than point out imperfections, it's difficult for me to suggest possible solutions. One that occurs to me, and which would, I hope, increase surrendering, is to have some kind of higher formation morale level, so that sub units, even if fresh themselves, could suffer morale drop if their side was doing badly, or some other reason. Thus large scale surrenders could be triggered, something that certainly occured. Maybe also, a better way to remove the "dance of death" and those 12 man units that often survive multiple routs, would be to have a unit surrender outright when it can't realistically rout without suffering great loss. The chances of this might be greater if it is close to an enemy unit.

[Arjuna]

Good points.
 
The issue of being able to dig in an interesting one. Perhaps what we need is to add a field to the map layer data that affects the ability of units to dig-in there. The trouble is where full up at the moment having maxed our map data structures. This will have to wait till we do a re-write of them.
 
We did increase the probability of losing heavy weapons when units rout. I take it you feel this is still not severe enough. The trouble is accounts from the desert battle are replete with cases where British gunners in particular were able to extract their guns while under fire. This boils down to a judgement call. I'd be interested to hear what others think on this issue.
 
Re the so called "dance of death" you refer to. I agree this code could be improved further. I did increase the probability of units retreating in place where to run would be fatal. I suspect this was what was happening in your game. I'll review the code again for BFTB.
 
TT3493 - AI - Routing - Reduce the Dance of Death
 
Your suggestion about large scale surrendering is another interesting idea worth considering.
 
TT3494 - AI - Surrender - Consider Large Scale Surrenders

[Johnus]

Dave:

How does one apply the North Africa update pack ?? Thanks.

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Johnnie

Dave:

How does one apply the North Africa update pack ?? Thanks.

Just unzip it into your Matrix Games/Conquest of the Aegean/Scenarios folder, let it overwrite the old NA scenarios.

If you want to use the expanded Sidi-Rezegh-max.aam map, you should then move it from the Scenarios folder to the Maps folder.

Re: the Map: This is not a replacement Map for the Clash of Armour scenario. You can use the whole map or crop it for your own scenario. either way you will need to build the visibility tables in MM.

[Johnus]

simovitch:
 
Thanks.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Good points.

The issue of being able to dig in an interesting one. Perhaps what we need is to add a field to the map layer data that affects the ability of units to dig-in there. The trouble is where full up at the moment having maxed our map data structures. This will have to wait till we do a re-write of them.

Worth waiting for. It occured to me that if this is realised in the Bulge game, the "ground hardness" map layer should ideally be responsive to weather. Apart from the thaw (17-20 Dec ?) which made the ground very soft in places, digging was an issue during the battle. Would be great if the map layer represented such changes.

ORIGINAL: Arjuna We did increase the probability of losing heavy weapons when units rout. I take it you feel this is still not severe enough. The trouble is accounts from the desert battle are replete with cases where British gunners in particular were able to extract their guns while under fire. This boils down to a judgement call. I'd be interested to hear what others think on this issue.

Isn't an orderly retreat under fire covered by the "yellow" mode? I thought this was clearly differentiated from the "red" mob formation?

ORIGINAL: Arjuna Your suggestion about large scale surrendering is another interesting idea worth considering.

TT3494 - AI - Surrender - Consider Large Scale Surrenders

How would it be to have a seperate morale level from the existing one (if it has other functions), which is only related to surrender? This might be affected by scenerio designer designated events such as loss of supply or specific terrain features, failure to achieve objectives etc as well as damage to parent formation, protective terrain, proximity to and aggression of enemy etc. Since surrender can be an order as well as a mass overthrow of military discipline, there could be a contradiction modelled between command and ranks.

One thing this might enable is more close combat but with the risk that an exposed attacking formation in close proximity to a resolute defender might decline orders and just throw in the towel instead of retreating. A commander would have to be even more sensitive to the troops under command and conditions in which they fight.

I've started my 1st online attempt at the Maleme Historical scenario, vs Maestro, and it underlines the lack of of a game mechanism to inflict rapid, severe casualties/surrenders. I've never seen the paras suffer as they did historically, and though the boot is this time on my foot, I can't help feeling that my success so far is more due to the above than my skill.

It seems that the engine determines combat and its results as most combat was, in that relatively few casualties could provoke a retreat or disrupt movement. That's completely in line with by ASL conditioning which is that physically destroying an enemy is really a by product of the main tactical objective- to exert control over your enemy and prevent the opposite. That said, there were situations in which combat formations could be, and were, destroyed in short order. Opposed paradrops were among them, and it would be good to see the engine make provision for this.

[Grell]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

I was wondering about command structure here. Unfortunately, the patch hasn't resolved the issues around large scale attacks at all. If anything, and maybe I just didn't notice before, they're worse in that forces deploy and manoeuvre way outside their order boundaries, sometimes in quite bizarre ways. These boundaries are often rendered quite meaningless.

This being the case, as before, you have to coordinate attacks through low level HQs which ultimately loads on the divisional HQ. But the 7th Armoured HQ only has a command capacity of 14. In the game I just played, and with command loads pared to a minimum, the 7th was loaded to between 24-28. That left the Allies quite unable to respond in a "timely fashion" to events in the battle. Is that intentional?

Edit: As below, I've confused command load with capacity, changes in underlined italics

I've had the exact same thing happen, it is being overloaded.

Regards,

Grell