Getting Started Manual

Transcription

Getting Started
Manual
written by
Steve “Golf 33” Long
and
Dave “Arjuna” O’Connor
© 2006 Panther Games and Matrix Games. All rights reserved. Matrix Games and the Matrix Games logo are trademarks of
Matrix Games. Airborne Assault is a trademark of Panther Games. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of
their respective owners and Panther Games and Matrix Games makes no claim thereto.
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GETTING STARTED MANUAL
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Contents
Using the Manuals
Getting Started
Advanced Tutorial
Reference Manual
ScenMaker Manual
MapMaker Manual
Symbols used in the manuals
Installing the Game
User Support – Getting Help
Game Support – Forums
Tech Support
Scenario Design and Modding Support
TrueUpdate™
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Introduction for New Players
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Pausable Continuous Time
Continuous Space
Command Structure and AI
Decision-Making Cycle
Orders Delays
Morale and Fatigue
The AI Opponent
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What’s New
Gameplay
Resupply
Movement
Objectives and Orders
Improved AI
New Units and Equipment
New Terrain Types and Altitudes
New German Parachute Arrival Type
New Weather Data
Interface Improvements
Display Toolbar
Order of Battle Display
Tools Tab
Supply Tab
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Message Log
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Unit Log
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Improved Force Data Displays
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Enhanced Terrain Popup
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Different Map Graphics for Different Zoom Levels 18
Modding Support
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New Import/Export Force List
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Introductory Tutorial ( Tut #1 ) – Bridges to Lamia 19
Before You Begin
Starting the Game
The Game Screen
Overview
Getting around the Battlemap
Planning for Battle
Objectives and Briefings
You and the Enemy
Terrain
The Plan
First Moves
Reconnaissance
Security
Indirect Fire Support
Headquarters
Final Review before Running
Running the Game
First Contact
Second Contact
Waiting for Fire Support
Take Komma Bridge
Setting up to Take Yef Alamanas Bridge
Keeping up With the Battle
Assessing the Situation
Further Moves
Victory at Last!
If Both Bridges are Blown
End the Tutorial
Next Steps
Introductory Scenarios
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Getting Started
Welcome to Airborne Assault™ Conquest of the Aegean (COTA). We hope you will enjoy this product
as much as we did developing it. We believe that the AA game engine leads the charge in operational
warfare simulation. The system is different from other wargames and it can take a little time to master
it. We have endeavoured to make the interface as intuitive as possible and we recommend that you take
the time to go through this manaul and complete the Introductory Tutorial.
This should take around two to three hours. But it’s time well spent. The introductory tutorial covers
the basics of the game. After completing it you should then play the list of scenarios provided at the
end of this manual. After that you should do the Advanced Tutorial, which takes you through the more
complex features and introduces you to the fundamental principles of operational warfare.
For more in-depth information please consult the Reference Manual, which is in PDF format, and
installed with the game. PDF is Adobe’s® standard for digital books (eBooks) and printing. You need
a PDF reader to view or print it out. Adobe’s Acrobat Reader™ comes for free with this game. This can
be accessed from the Windows Start Menu. You can then switch to and from it while playing the game
using the Alt-Tab keys.
In general we have made the assumption that players will have a basic familiarity with military
organisation and capabilities; for players new to these subjects, the Airborne Assault: Highway to the
Reich Strategy Guide, which is available in PDF format online from Matrix Games, is a worthwhile
investment that covers some of the more basic topics as well as more advanced gameplay and planning
than is available in this manual.
You can order a printed and bound version of the PDF Reference Manual here:
http://www.matrixgames.com/services/DocCenter.asp
Two different version of the pdf files are supplied. The “print” version contains hi-res 300dpi images
and should be used if you intend printing the manual yourself. Otherwise use the “screen” version for
viewing on your computer screen. This contains 96dpi images suitable for screen display.
Also installed as PDF files with the game are the ScenMaker Manual, which contains detailed
instructions for making your own custom scenarios; and the MapMaker Manual, which will walk you
through the process of developing new game maps.
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Using the Manuals
Here’s a list of what you’ll find in the various manuals that come with COTA.
Getting Started
The Getting Started Manual contains a few items to help you get started, to familiarise new players
with the most important features of the Airborne Assault game system, and to help people familiar with
the earlier title “Highway to the Reich” ( HTTR ) to quickly get a handle on the differences.
±
Symbols Used in the Manuals
Throughout the manuals we’ve used a few symbols to make it easy for you to find important points or
instructions. This list explains what each symbol means.
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Installing the Game
This contains step-by-step instructions on how to install the game.
±
This provides a list of the places you can go to get help with the game, including technical support and
gameplay hints.
The What’s New section contains information about the differences between COTA and our previous
game, HTTR, to make it easy for HTTR players to make a quick transition to COTA.
±
This covers some of the basic aspects of the game that make it different from other wargames: pausable
continuous time execution, command structure and orders delay. The section also includes a brief
discussion of the decision-making process.
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What’s New
For returning fans of HTTR, this section introduces our new features: units and equipment, objectives
and orders, terrain types and altitude layers, mixed mode movement, supply, improved player interface,
and better support for Modding.
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Introductory Tutorial ( Tut #1 ) – Bridges to Lamia
This contains a walk-through of a single scenario which is used to illustrate basic game concepts like
reading the screen, understanding the map and units, developing a plan, issuing orders, and running
the game.
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List of Introductory Scenarios
It is recommended users complete these before going onto the Advanced Tutorial.
Advanced Tutorial
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Advanced Tutorial ( Tut #2 ) – Setback and Rebound
This is another single-scenario walk-through that goes into more detail on developing plans, scheduling
tasks and introduces the concept of Orders Delays. The scenario is longer and has more units in it,
including reinforcements. This manual introduces the fundamental principles of operational warfare.
Reference Manual
The Reference Manual has the following sections:
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Game Basics
This includes instructions on starting the game, loading scenarios and saved games, and connecting for
a head-to-head game online ( internet ) or over a LAN.
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Using the Interface – How do I Play?
This provides step-by-step instructions on how to do things, organised into five categories: using the
Battlemap, dealing with units, playing the game, briefings and objectives, and orders.
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Understanding Game Elements – What is this?
This provides an in depth explanation of the map, units, objectives, orders, and tasks.
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Understanding Game Processes – What’s going on?
This provides an explanation of what happens when forces move, fight, plan and react. It also covers
such issues as formations, routes, combat power, intelligence, supply, and victory.
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Interface – Screen by Screen!
This details the options you can choose on each of the interface screens.
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Annexes
The Annexes at the back of the Reference Manual are useful quick-reference sheets for checking things
like the effect of terrain, rout and deployment status of units, formation effects, route settings, and a
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guide to the various symbols used in the game. The annexes also include a list of scenarios ranked by
complexity and all the tables form the Reference Manual grouped in one place.The Glossary annex not
only lists the abbreviations used in the game but also translates some of the German and Italian terms,
and gives the meaning of most of the common terms in the game.
Make sure to look at the first annex – MarkShot’s Top Tips. This contains over fifty tips to get you from
civilian to victorious general in record time.
ScenMaker Manual
If you want to do more than just play the game, then this is a must-read. It contains instructions on how
to edit existing scenarios and create your own from scratch.
MapMaker Manual
Like the ScenMaker Manual, this one is for people who are interested in extending the game
experience for themselves and others. Learn how to create new maps, including instructions on how to
use scanned historical maps to start from.
Symbols used in the manuals
There are a few symbols to recognize in these manuals. They are:
±
F
Indicates an item of useful information
Indicates a step you have to carry out, or a number of different ways to achieve the same thing
Indicates keyboard key shortcuts
+
Indicates a keyboard combination: hold down the first key, then press the second,
then release both keys
Used to indicate selecting an item from a Windows menu (such as File > Open… or Start >
Programs > Airborne Assault > COTA Quick Start)
>
The keyboard shortcuts used in this manual are for a US-layout, standard Windows keyboard. If you
are using a different keyboard, the keys may vary slightly.
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Installing the Game
To install COTA:
F
Close all running programs
F
Insert the COTA CD into your CD-Rom drive
The installation menu should automatically appear.
F
Select the Install button
If the installation menu does not automatically appear (AutoPlay may not work for some Windows
users):
F
Insert the COTA CD into your CD-Rom drive
F
Double-click My Computer on your desktop
F
Double-click the CD-Rom icon
F
Double-click the Setup icon to launch the installer menu
F
Select the Install button .
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Matrix Games offers many levels of service for our customers with technical and game play issues.
Game Support – Forums
Our forums are one of the best features of Matrix Games. Every game has its own forum with our
designers, developers and gamers playing the game. If you are having a problem, got a question or an
idea on how to make the game better, post a message there.
COTA Forum
Before you can post in this forum you will need to register as a Matrix forum member.
Register for Matrix Forums.
You can then participate in the wide range of other Matrix forums.
Matrix Forums.
Tech Support
Sometimes we all need some help. Our Tech Support Forum is a place to give and receive help for your
OS or PC issues. This is NOT an official game support conference but a place for general tech support.
All questions are welcomed – basic or advanced, software or hardware. There is also a Tech Support
forum specifically for issues with COTA.
COTA Support Forum
Scenario Design and Modding Support
If you are designing your own maps, scenarios or moddifying the game sounds and map patterns and
need some help or want to announce a new available mod then contact us at:
COTA Scenario Design and Modding Forum
TrueUpdate™
True Update will check your current installation of COTA and check if updates are available for
download. An active internet connection is needed. You can access True Update via the True Update
shortcut in your Windows Start folder. You can also download updates from our website.
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Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Aegean is different from other wargames. Some innovative features
produce a unique simulation of the challenges of high-level military command. These features are
briefly described below; if you’re already familiar with HTTR, then you can skip this section and read
What’s New instead.
Pausable Continuous Time
Traditional wargames have always been turn-based. Because battles are a constantly-evolving event,
breaking them into arbitrary intervals of time simply isn’t realistic. A commander doesn’t have to wait
until the next turn to influence the battle; he can pick up the radio or field telephone and issue orders
at any time.
For this reason, COTA is a real time game, with events unfolding continuously until the game ends.
However, unlike typical real time strategy (RTS) games there is no ‘clickfest’; instead, you can pick
from a range of game speeds at any time, and you can also pause the game to assess and issue orders,
so you are the one who ultimately determines what pace you want to play at. You can also use the
RunUntil feature to specify a time the Game can run to and then Pause waiting for your next input.
Most importantly, our ground-breaking Artificial Intelligence (AI) system means that you can delegate
the execution of your plan to computer subordinates, allowing you to control the battle rather than
controlling every unit. Your success will be not be determined by how fast you can click on units but
on how well you can analyse the battle, develop plans and react to unexpected events as the battle
unfolds.
Continuous Space
There are no hexes in COTA. Instead, you get an accurate representation of the battlefield terrain, over
which your units can move freely. This provides a very accurate simulation of the effect of terrain,
especially when it comes to line-of-sight (LOS) checks and cover. Where hex-based systems are pretty
crude, applying a single LOS and / or cover effect to every unit within a particular hex, COTA takes
into account the exact shape of terrain features and the position of units in and around those features
when calculating which units can see each other and what happens when the shooting starts.
Command Structure and AI
Most wargames force the player to issue orders to every single unit in the battle. In reality, however,
a commanding general has more important things to do than instruct every soldier where to be and
what to do! Instead, armies are organised with a hierarchy of commanders and their staffs (called
Headquarters or HQs) who at each level develop plans and issue orders to the HQs below them. In turn
those subordinate HQs develop their own plans and issue their own orders to their subordinate HQs
or units.
Airborne Assault faithfully recreates this chain of command: you issue orders to the HQs under
your command, and they will develop plans and issue orders to the HQs and / or units under their
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command. This frees you, the most
senior commander, to focus on the
bigger picture of the battle while your
AI subordinates carry out the routine
details like working out which road to
take. With each order you can specify
how much freedom your subordinates
have to decide things like routes and
formations for themselves. Some of
your subordinate commanders will be
very capable; others, as in real life,
may be inexperienced or lacking in
judgement or aggression and may need
to be watched more closely.
Because there will be times that you
will want or need your units to carry out
quite specific tasks, you can also issue
orders directly to any unit at any time, effectively bypassing the chain of command for that unit. You
can also reorganise your units by assigning them to different HQs, creating purpose-built task forces
or battle groups to carry out your plan.
Your strategic plan for the battle will translate quite naturally into the orders you issue to the HQs
under your command. Because of this, you will find that soon you are equally at home commanding a
few companies in a battalion knife-fight as you are wielding command over a cast of hundreds of units
in a divisional or even corps battle.
Decision-Making Cycle
In combat, commanders follow a simple
procedure for making decisions. The procedure
known as the OODA Loop or Boyd Cycle is
shown in this diagram:
The side that can cycle through this process faster
is usually the side that will win. By ‘getting
inside’ your opponent’s decision-making cycle,
you can keep him constantly on the back foot,
forcing him to do what you want instead of the
other way around.
Once assigned an order, your AI subordinates
will attempt to carry out that order until you give
them a new job to do. In the process they will conduct their own decision-making cycle. They will also
regularly assess the situation and may change their plans to suit, depending on how much freedom you
grant them when issuing the order. Like real-life subordinates, if they take heavy casualties, they will
report back to you so you can decide whether or not to change their task.
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Orders Delays
Nothing involving large military forces happens instantly. Once the commanding general makes
a decision, his staff must develop detailed plans, orders have to be written up and sent by radio,
telephone or runner; when they arrive, the subordinate HQs and units must develop their own plans
and forward their own orders to the units at the sharp end. To simulate this process, Airborne Assault
imposes orders delays – a time delay between you issuing the order and your units acting on it. Because
this is so different from most wargames, where your units will carry out orders as instantly as if you
were commanding by telepathy, we don’t force you to use this. Instead, it is available as an option, with
four levels from no delay to fully realistic delays where orders involving large forces may take several
hours of game time to be planned and executed.
Playing with orders delay lets you experiment with what is called manoeuvre warfare, where the aim is
to defeat the enemy by outthinking him. Because there is a delay between issuing an order and having
it carried out, if you can fool the enemy into sending his forces against a diversion, while you send your
main force elsewhere, by the time he realises his mistake it will be too late: even if he issues orders
right away, it will take some hours for his forces to receive the word and redeploy, during which time
you can be arranging further disagreeable surprises for him!
As in real life, orders delay is affected by many factors including the skill of commanders and HQ
staffs, the distance between units and their HQs, combat events, and the workload of HQ units.
Morale and Fatigue
Airborne Assault accurately models the influence of unit quality and condition on combat, and the
effect of combat on the morale and effectiveness of units. Your troops will get pinned down and may
decide to retreat if under heavy fire. If they are under too much pressure they may even crack and rout.
Combat is exhausting, too, and the game tracks the fitness and fatigue levels of your units. You will
need to monitor these and consider resting your units to maintain effectiveness.
The AI Opponent
The computer-controlled enemy in COTA uses advanced algorithms to decide where and when to
allocate its forces at the strategic level. At the tactical level it uses the same chain of command AI
and spotting, movement and combat rules that you do. There is no ‘cheating’ by the AI: it cannot see
anything that you can’t, nor does it get additional forces than a human player would. Because even
the best AI cannot be as good as a skilled human opponent, the best experience will always be playing
head-to-head against another person. See the Reference Manual for details on finding opponents. As
you get better at the game you may find it useful to give the AI some advantages, and most scenarios
allow you to do this by increasing or decreasing the forces available to either side. You can also select
supply and weather options that favour the AI side. Note that in doing so you are not altering any of
the underlying game mechanics.
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What’s New
COTA represents a major step forward from HTTR. Not only are we taking you to a new theatre and
back in time to the early years of World War II, we have made some major changes to the game engine
to make it an even more detailed and realistic recreation of WWII combat. For players familiar with
our last game, here is a list of the major changes:
Gameplay
Resupply
Rather than the abstracted supply delivery system in HTTR, COTA presents an all-new detailed
supply request and delivery system. Units running low will automatically request replenishment and
bases will calculate capacity and tonnage and dispatch the required supplies. Keeping a corridor open
between your bases and your front-line troops is now very important as supplies will not be able to
reach surrounded units. Interdicting the enemy’s supply lines will bring major benefits as failed supply
runs will result in losses to the enemy’s truck fleet, reducing his ability to transport ammunition, fuel
and rations. Besides units being out of supply, the new system results in a smoother a more continuous
delivery of ammo to fighting units. This is particularly noticeable with arty. In conjunction with mixedmode movement, supply increases the importance of the road network.
The whole process is highly automated so you as the player do not need to micromanage anything;
instead, focus on keeping your lines intact and overrunning the enemy’s, while your AI staff officers
worry about counting the beans and bullets.
You can, however, monitor what’s happening by referring to the Depot Tab when you select a Base
unit. This will specify a host of information about the status of requests and deliveries. The Unit Info
Box F7 key can be used to cycle through the various supply states of all the units, including displaying
the current Supply Line Status. The actual supply line links can be displayed for each selected unit
using the Display Tool Bar.
Movement
The new Mixed-Mode Movement system is a revolutionary change in the way AA works. Ground
slope is calculated and compared with the mobility of units, so motorised (wheeled or tracked) forces
are limited to high-mobility corridors while infantry can swarm over the steeper slopes. Slope not only
impacts who can travel where, it also dictates the speed at which units move and the level of fatigue
they experience while doing so. The movement values for all types of terrain have been adjusted and
vehicles will have a much tougher time getting through streams and will be restricted to roads through
woods and marshes. This makes gaining control over the road network much more important.
One important thing to note is that when you select a force and give an order to it if the specified
location is impassable to that force, the AI will automatically select the closest passable location, beep
and display a message that it has moved the location for you. If you still want to occupy the original
objective, you can use the new Pathing tools on the Tools Tab of the Side Bar to determine if the
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location is reachable for Foot or Motorised or the selected unit.. If it is passable say to Foot units you
then have the option of deselecting those motorised units and reissuing the order.
Objectives and Orders
A major change in gameplay comes with the new Exit Objective. Instead of being confined within the
map borders, players can now fight to exit their troops off the map.
There is now an Exit Order for you to use. A force ordered to Exit where the exit objective is friendly
controlled but where its own location is threatened by enemy forces, will Withdraw to the exit
objective. In all other cases it will simply Move to the exit objective.
In some scenarios certain objectives are linked. This is indicated by a linking chain on the Objective
Tab of the Side Bar. This means that you have to fulfil just one of the linked Objectives to achieve the
assigned Victory Points.
In some scenarios objectives are marked with an “AE” which stands for Auto End. Completing these
objectives automatically ends the scenario.
There have also been improvements made to the AI that handles some of the orders you give to your
troops, too. The Delay Order, in particular, has benefited from a complete rework. Where a delay force
has two or more line units, it will now skilfully leapfrog back under pressure, inflicting maximum
damage and delay on the enemy while preserving as much of their strength as possible. Similarly
the Withdraw order now divides the force into a main body which will move to the objective and a
rearguard that delays back to it.
One important thing to note for both Delays and Withdraws relates to the setting of waypoints. Where
you only set one waypoint, this will be the objective and the first blocking location will be the location
of the senior unit ( Subject ) of the assigned force ( forceGroup ). This is known as the subjectLoc.
Where two waypoints have been specified, the second will be the objective and the first will be the
first blocking location. Subsequent blocking locations will be determined by the AI along the route it
determines between the first and second waypoints. If you specify three or more waypoints then the
last waypoint will be the objective, the first waypoint will be the initial blocking location and the force
will establish subsequent blocking locations at each of the subsequent waypoints.
Improved AI
Under the hood, COTA now employs new Force Allocation routines that significantly enhance the
AI’s ability to allocate the right forces to each objective, including the cross-attachment of force types
such as armour and infantry. The Reaction code has been overhauled to deliver an even more realistic
simulation of unit reactions to enemy contact, including retreats. Additional Reassessment code
allows for an even greater range of options when the AI controlled forces reassesses their plans. The
Formation code has also been revised. The handling of artillery and support units has been improved,
especially their deployment. The suppression effect of bombardments have increased. Armour is now
more likely to halt and engage once it comes within effective range of its main armament.
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New Units and Equipment
You’ll find many new units in COTA. The game ships with a completely new database, covering
equipment and military organisations from Italy, Germany, Greece, UK, Australia, New Zealand and
the Free French. There are dozens of new weapons and vehicles to wield in battle, from the tiny Italian
and British light tanks through to monster captured Russian KV-II used by the Germans. New smallarms, anti-aircraft, anti-tank and artillery guns, and mortars have been recreated in full detail, as have
new trucks, armoured personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and tanks to carry them.
New Terrain Types and Altitudes
To recreate the coastal battlefields of Crete a new beach terrain layer has been added to the game. The
five new altitude layers also allow us to create maps covering the rugged and imposing Greek and
Cretan mountain ranges.
New German Parachute Arrival Type
To accurate simulate the unique nature of German parachute operations, a new reinforcement arrival
type has been added. This accurately reflects the disadvantages suffered by the Fallschirmjaeger due to
their substandard parachute design and inability to jump together with their heavy weapons.
New Weather Data
A new weather pattern has been added to simulate snow. Additional data is now stored for Sunrise and
Sunset and for min and max temperatures for each day of the scenario.
Interface Improvements
Display Toolbar
The new Display Toolbar, located under the Battlemap, gives you quick access to some of the most
important display and game functions. Now you can filter the map display using the Unit Info, Unit
Type, Intel and Message filter buttons; display Command or Supply lines, Range Rings, Map Grid,
active and eliminated unit icons, objective and task icons; offer and accept surrenders; and load, save,
and leave games faster than ever. There are additional Info Box and Unit filters. Some of the keyboard
shortcuts for these filters have changed - see Annex A of the Reference Manual
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Order of Battle Display
Sorting out the command structure of your forces is easier than ever with the new Order of Battle
Display Tab (OB). Quickly display the organic command structure of your units, and locate and select
your units straight from the Sidebar. Expand and contract the OB force tree by selecting the +/- boxes.
Select a unit in the tree to select the unit on the map. Double-click the unit in the tree to select the unit
and display its data in the Sidebar. Double-click a unit on the map to have it shown selected in the OB
Display.
Tools Tab
The new Tools Tab on the Side Bar contains an array of useful tools. In addition to the existing Threat
and Line of Sight (LOS) tools, there is now a LOS-Area tool, which displays all those locations that
are visible within 10km of the selected location. There is also an array of Pathing tools to calculate and
display the different types of routes between two selected locations. Select the tool, click on the start
and end locations and if reachable a route is displayed. The fine red dots indicate the area searched in
determining the route. You can also select a unit and then select one of the Unit pathing tools and click
the end location to determine the route for that unit. If unreachable a beep will sound and a message
displayed to that effect.
Supply Tab
The Side Data displays now include a Supply Tab that displays a graph of the daily supply allocation to
each of the Supply Entry Points ( SEPs ) ( whose icons appears on the map. ) The graph comes in three
types – lines, columns and stacked columns. Select the buttons below the graph to specify which type.
The % value refers to the percentage of the Sides’ daily requirements that will arrive at the SEPs each
day. The requirements are determined using the at-start forces plus those reinforcements scheduled to
arrive by the given day. They ignore any losses.
Message Log
All on-screen messages are now also displayed in the Message Tab ( Msg ). Selecting a message from
the list will centre the map on the Sender. You can filter the messages by type by selecting the Flash,
Urgent and Routine filter buttons at the bottom of the list. The messages are stored for the duration of
the current session. They are not saved in the Saved Game file. The messages within the Message Log
can be filtered differently to those displayed at the top of the Battlemap.
Unit Log
The Force Data displays now have a Unit Log tab that lists each significant action or event that the
unit experiences, such as Under Fire, Taking Casualties, Retreating etc. Use this to review what has
happened to the unit.
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Improved Force Data Displays
The Force Data displays have been reorganised and enhanced with additional data. In addition to the
previous data, the General tab ( Gen ) now displays Experience, Training, Fitness, Aggression and
Stubborness, the number of bridges and non-armoured fighting vehicles ( non-AFVs ), Infantry and
Engineer values, the current move effect and type along with the force’s formation role and the number
of units. If the selected unit has subordinates then the values for its entire force are displayed in a
seperate column beside the unit data. There is a new Unit Log tab and a new Depot tab ( Dep ).
For most units the Depot tab displays the Depot ( Base unit ) that the unit draws from. Select this to
go to the Depot. For Base units the Depot Tab displays details on current and required supply stocks,
current and required transport capacity, the number of requests by type, the number of transport
columns and the vehicles and personnel allocated to them and the number of units and subBases
drawing from the Depot.
Enhanced Terrain Popup
Right clicking on the map now brings up an enhanced popup that details the dominant terrain types,
the X,Y and Z location parameters, move effects for foot and motorized, hit effects for direct and area
fire and the current slope in degrees.
Different Map Graphics for Different Zoom Levels
Each zoom level now has its own set of map graphics. So the appearance of the map can change as you
zoom in and out. Of course these too can be modified.
Modding Support
COTA features enhanced support for Modding. The MapMaker and ScenMaker have been extended
to support the new game engine features. A set of free tools for Microsoft® Excel® is also included
with the game, to help you quickly and easily modify the characteristics of the units in your scenarios.
You can now provide your own customised briefing and victory messages, including the commanders’
signatures. The terrain key for the map is now moddable.
New Import/Export Force List
A new Import/Export Force List feature has been added to the Side menu in the ScenMaker. Select a
force from the Units tab. Right click and select Export. Select Yes or No from the subsequent dialog to
also export subunits. Provide a name for the new force list and hit the Save button. To import the saved
force list simply select a unit in the Units Tab, right click and select Import, select the desired force list
and the forces now appear subordinated to the selected unit. This makes it easy to create generic force
lists and build scenarios quickly.
18
Introductory Tutorial
( Tut #1 ) – Bridges to Lamia
Before You Begin
If you are a new player, before starting this tutorial please read the Introduction for New Players.
Returning players of HTTR will already be familiar with these concepts and may want to get stuck
straight in! However, it’s a good idea for experienced HTTR players to check the What’s New section
in order to get a handle on the new features of the game.
By its nature few games will replay exactly the same, including the tutorials. To assist you keeping
track with the manual, whenever you see the text “Saved Game Point...”, you can load the indicated
saved game from the COTA\Saved Games\Tutorials\Intro Tutorial directory. This way you will be
starting the next section from the same position as the manual.
You are encouraged to use the tutorials as your digital sandbox to experiment with the mechanics of
the game.
Starting the Game
F
Select the Conquest of the Aegean program from the Start > Programs > Airborne Assault
program group menu to launch the game.
F
On
the
Command
Set, select
New Game
19
F
From the Select to Play window, select “-Tutorial I
– : Bridges to Lamia” and click OK
F
From the Game Options window, select
Allies by clicking once on the Play As
button
F
Set Orders Delay to None by clicking
once at the left of the Orders Delay slider
bar
F
Set Axis Reinforcement Schedule to “No
Reinforcements” by clicking the Axis
Reinforcement Schedule button
F
Check that the other settings match
this screenshot (if this is the first game
you’ve played, they should all match)
and click Begin Scenario.
A progress window will appear as the scenario is loaded. You will find yourself looking at the game
screen.
20
The Game Screen
Overview
The Battlemap is a 2D vector map, in this case covering the area around Thermopylae. The area is a
little over 22km east to west and a little less than 25km north to south. Historically, the Allies fought a
determined defensive battle here as the Germans advanced with overwhelming superiority in numbers
and equipment. However, we’re going to take a few liberties with the history and launch an Allied
counterattack!
The Sidebar appears on the left of the screen, consisting of a strategic map view (Stratmap); Zoomer
Control; time, weather and victory displays; the Play buttons - Pause, Slow, Normal, Fast and Run
Until; the Orders, Tools and Options Tabs; below which is the Data Display.
At the bottom of the screen is the Display Toolbar, which has a number of buttons – Unit Info Filter,
Unit Type Filter, Intel Filter, Message Filter, Display Lines, Range Rings, Map Grid, Show Units,
Show Eliminated Units, Show Objectives, Show Tasks, Menu, Surrender and Minimise.
21
Getting around the Battlemap
The area of the Battlemap currently displayed is indicated by a white Viewable Area rectangle in the
Stratmap. The Battlemap has six different scales or zoom levels. The red handle on the Zoomer Control
indicates the current zoom level. To change levels, simply click on one of the other notches.
F
Click on the Zoomer Control, fourth notch from the left, to zoom the map in two levels
You can also zoom in and out by selecting the + and - buttons at either end of the Zoomer Control,
and directly on the Battlemap by holding the Alt key
down and pressing either the left or right
mouse buttons. If you have a MS Explorer mouse, you can also use the side buttons to zoom in and out.
If you have a mouse with a middle wheel, scrolling the wheel will zoom in and out. The direction can
be changed by checking the Revers Mouse Zoom option from the Options Tab.
Now that you have zoomed in, you will see that the Viewable Area in the Stratmap is smaller. You can
use the Stratmap to pan around the map:
F
Drag the Viewable Area around and see the Battlemap display a new area
22
F
Click on the Stratmap outside of the Viewable Area rectangle to jump to that spot
You can also navigate directly around the Battlemap: either by dragging with
the right mouse button held down, or by using the autoscroll feature. To
autoscroll, move the mouse to the top, bottom, left or right edges of the screen
and the map will move up, down, left or right. You can turn autoscroll off in the
Options Tab on the Sidebar.
To get an idea of the scale of the map turn on the 1km map grid. To do this:
F
Click on the 1km Grid button on the Display Tool Bar ( or hit the G key )
Planning for Battle
Objectives and Briefings
First of all, check out the briefing – there is often good information in it about
the battle and your objectives (sometimes even about the enemy, though you
should always take that with a grain of salt since it can be wrong!).
F
Click on the Side Data Briefing Tab ( Brf ) on the Sidebar
The first briefing is the Side Briefing. In a multi-player game, this is not visible
to the enemy and can contain useful tips about which objectives are more
important. The second briefing is the Scenario Briefing – this is visible to both
sides in a multi-player game. The important thing to note from our briefing is the
useful intelligence on the enemy defences, and that while two of our objectives
are bridges that might be destroyed, only one of those is worth rebuilding.
Next we need to work out in more detail what we have to do to achieve victory
and win the game. In COTA, victory is achieved by gaining more Victory Points
(VPs) than the enemy. You get VPs by achieving Objectives, which are listed
under the Side Data Objectives Tab ( Obj ) on the Sidebar, and appear as square
icons on the Battlemap. Clicking on an objective in the list highlights its icon
on the Battlemap. The objectives are listed in descending order based on how
many VPs each is worth.
23
F
Zoom the Battlemap out one level by clicking on the third notch on the Zoomer Control, or by
holding the Alt key
and right–clicking on the Battlemap
F
Click on the Obj Tab on the Sidebar
F
Click on the first objective in the list – Yef Alamanas Bridge .
You should see a yellow
ring appear around one
of the objectives on the
Battlemap. If you don’t,
then the objective is
probably off the screen.
If off screen:
F
Double–click
the objective in
the Obj Tab
This will then centre the
screen on the objective,
but only if it’s offscreen.
Earning VPs
This objective alone is worth 50 VPs. The maximum you can earn for a scenario is 100 VPs. At the end
of the game, the enemy’s VP total is subtracted from your VP total and if the difference is 50 VPs or
more you get a decisive victory. If it is greater than 25 VPs you get a marginal victory, between 25 and
–25 the game is a draw, between –25 and –50 it’s a marginal loss and less than –50 a decisive defeat.
At any time during the game you can see
an estimate of how you are doing on the
Victory Meter on the Sidebar. This is only
an estimated of what the victory level would
be if the game ended now.
The yellow ring around the Objective Icon
on the Battlemap is the objective perimeter. To secure the objective you must ensure that friendly
forces within the perimeter outnumber any enemy forces inside the perimeter by at least 10 to 1. Better
yet, make sure there are no enemy units within the perimeter! As this is a Secure Crossing objective
(indicated by the special bridge icon), you will also need to keep the bridge intact – or rebuild it if it
gets destroyed. The pink colour of the crossing icon means that it is primed for demolition, so we will
have to capture it before the enemy can detonate his charges and send the bridge into the river.
24
You know when you have secured an objective because the Objective Icon on the map will have a
bright green box drawn around it and the objective name will be displayed with bright green text in the
objectives list. You have already secured the Start Line objective.
F
Click on the Start Line objective to highlight its icon on the Battlemap
If the objective icon is not visible within the map area currently in view then:
F
Double–click the Start Line objective in the list to centre the map on its icon
Do it Now or do it Later?
There’s some additional, useful detail on the Obj Tab.
F
Click on the Yef Alamanas Bridge objective again
Below the Objective List you will see the breakdown of VPs available for the selected objective. In this
case, it has 25 points for Occupation and 25 points for Completion. You will also see a From time,
and a To time. What does this mean for you?
±
If you gain the objective by the From time, and you hold it until the To time, you’ll get all 25
Occupation VPs and all 25 Completion VPs
±
If you don’t gain the objective by the From time, the amount of VPs available for Occupation will
start to decrease, and will reach zero at the To time
±
If you achieve the objective between the From and To times, you’ll start to get some of the
Occupation VPs; if you hold it until the To time, you’ll get however many Occupation VPs were
left when you first took the objective
±
If you are still holding the objective at the To time, you will get the full 25 Completion points; if not,
you’ll get none of them
Phew! Because this objective has a pretty early From time, and the Occupation points for it are such a
big part of our victory requirements, we will need to secure the objective as early as possible.
F
Now click on the Sperkhios Ferry objective in the Obj Tab
This objective isn’t worth as many VPs. It has no Occupation points at all. It’s still worth getting, but
we only need to get it by the end of the scenario (since that’s its To time), so we can afford to throw a
bit more at the Yef Alamanas Bridge now, and once we’ve got that and any other valuable objectives
tied up, we can divert some troops to the Sperkhios Bridge – ie. we will take it in sequence.
25
F
Take some time to look at the other objectives, working out when you need to take them, how
much they are worth, and where they are located on the Battlemap
We’ll get back to objectives when we come up with a plan – after we’ve had a look at the enemy, our
own troops, and the terrain.
You and the Enemy
You will see a number of square coloured counters on the Battlemap. These represent Units - a unit is
a group of personnel, their equipment and supplies, organised into a single cohesive entity. A unit is the
smallest entity in the game that you can manipulate. A Force is a collection of units. In this scenario,
your force is composed of the dark green units with yellow or white writing (which are Australian or
New Zealand respectively), and the white units with dark blue writing (which are Greek). Your enemy,
the Germans, are represented by grey and black unit icons with black or white text. These units also
appear on the Stratmap, as brightly coloured dots – green for friendly and red for enemy.
Both your and the enemy’s units are grouped into command structures. These are briefly explained
in the section on Command Structure and AI. If you want a more detailed look at how command
structure works, check out the section in the Reference Manual on Military Structure. For this
tutorial, the bare minimum you need to know is that some units are Headquarters (HQs), and that they
have other units under their command. These can include other HQs - ie there can be multiple levels
of command. You can give orders to the HQs, and they in turn pass on more detailed orders to their
subordinates. You can also give orders straight to the subordinate units, taking them under your own
direct command. You’ll get to see this in action later in the tutorial; for now, let’s take a closer look at
the units themselves.
Friendly Units
The first thing to do is to select a unit. The easiest and quickest way is usually using the mouse:
F
Pan and zoom the map as necessary so that you can see all your Allied units (near the bottom
of the map)
F
Click on the icon that looks like the one in the picture below: .
26
The icon for this unit tells us quite a bit about it. The Unit Type Symbol at the top left shows that it is
an infantry unit. Note that we are using Military Sybols for this. You can change these to display the
alternate Picture Symbols using the Options Tab if you wish.
Across the bottom of the unit, the tan Command Bar tells us that the unit is currently under command
of another unit (in other words, we haven’t given it any orders yet). The Force Size Symbol in the
centre of the Command Bar shows us that it is a Battalion-level unit and the HQ Flag on the left end
of the command bar indicates that it is a HQ unit. The Designation is an abbreviation of the name of
the unit – in this case, the 2/8th Inf Bn HQ. The Unit Info Box is used to display status information
like current task, deployment, morale, supply etc. The type of detail displayed in the unit Info Box is
set for all units using the Unit Info Filter button on the Display Toolbar. The Unit Info Box can provide
a snapshot of the status of all units.
Remember about the command structure? Well, now we get to see it. First, ensure that the Command
Lines are being displayed by referring to the Display Lines button on the Display Toolbar. If the
button does not read “Cmd” then:
F
Click the Display Lines button until it shows “Cmd”.
27
You’ll see a blue line drawn from our selected unit to its superior or boss, the 19th Inf Bde HQ. This
shows that currently, 2/8th Inf Bn HQ is getting its instructions from that HQ. You’ll also see a number
of green lines drawn from 2/8th Inf Bn HQ to other units; these indicate units that are getting their
orders from 2/8th Inf Bn HQ, its subordinates. Those subordinates are also conveniently highlighted
as well, so they stand out. These lines are called Command Lines and they also come in grey –we’ll
see this when we start to issue orders.
You
can
see
another
representation of the command
structure by looking at the OB
(Order of Battle) Tab:
F
Double–click the 2/8th
Inf Bn HQ icon
The Data Summary now
shows the OB Display. 2/8th
Inf Bn HQ is highlighted and
you can see where it and its
subordinates fit into the overall
organization.
The OB Tab displays the
organic structure; as you
play the game, you will often
reorganise your units to
form a current or dynamic
structure, which we’ll look at
a bit later.
Getting Around Your Units ( Navigating the Chain of Command )
You can navigate or cycle through your units using the cursor arrow keys. With the 2/8th Inf Bn HQ
selected:
F
Press the Down Arrow key
F
Press the Right Arrow key
to select the next unit at this level (B Coy 2/8 Inf Bn) and press
it repeatedly to select C Coy, then D Coy, and then the Mortar Platoon (Mor Pl 2/8 Inf Bn)
F
Press the Left Arrow key
Inf Bn
F
Press Up Arrow key
to reselect the 2/8th Inf Bn HQ, and again to select the next HQ up
– in this case, 19th Inf Bde HQ
28
to select the first subordinate (A Coy 2/8 Inf Bn)
to select the previous unit at this level – in this case, D Coy 2/8
F
Continue to use the cursor arrow keys to navigate around your forces .
One thing that you will notice is that once you have selected 19th Inf Bde HQ, pressing the Down Arrow
key will select the 2/4th Inf Bn HQ. This is because 2/8th Inf Bn HQ was not the first subordinate of
the brigade HQ. The order of subordinates is shown on the OB Tab.
You can also quickly find the most senior unit on the map (also called the On-Map Boss) using the
arrow keys:
F
Click on an empty map location to deselect any units, then press the Up Arrow key
select the On-Map Boss
to
The command structure used is the one you, the player, have set up. By default this will be the organic
structure, modified by any attachments or detachments caused by orders you have given. This may
differ from the actual structure being used by the units because of two reasons - orders delay and force
allocation. Firstly, when playing with orders delay it will take some time before units receive your new
orders. During that time they will continue to use their existing structure and this may be at variance
with what your orders say. Secondly, once your units receive their orders they will develop their own
plan to implement them. This will involve allocating forces to the various tasks that make up their plan.
This may involve attaching units such that the structure being used varies from that you ordered.
Eg. You order the 19th Inf Bde HQ to Move. The Force Group used for your order is the organic
structure which includes one AT Bty directly subordinated to the Bde HQ. However, in developing the
plan the Bde HQ assigns the AT Bty to the Advance Guard where it is subordinated to the 2/8th Bn
HQ. Now when you navigate down through the Bde’s structure you will still see the AT Bty directly
subordinate to the Bde HQ ( because it is using the Order structure not the Plan structure ). Similarly
if you select 2/8th Bn HQ and navigate down you will not see the AT Bty.
29
How Good are They?
When you select a unit, the icon will be highlighted yellow and a white box will be drawn around it to
indicate the approximate area occupied by that unit. The box has an open side – this indicates the rear
of the unit. If you selected the unit directly from the Battlemap, you’ll also see the Sidebar change to
display a new set of information in the Data Summary. This is called the Force Data Display.
Above the tabs is the unit name, which describes
the unit and often also its formal superior. Under
that is some information about what the unit is
doing; we’ll look at that in more detail later.
The new tabs tell you about the selected unit or
units.
Now we’ll look at some of the other tabs, and we
may as well get acquainted with our other units
in the process. You can also get to the Force Data
Display from the OB Display:
F
Click on an empty area of the map – if the
OB Tab isn’t shown in the Sidebar, click
on it to bring it to the front
F
Scroll to the bottom of the OB Display
and double–click the unit named C Sqn
2 NZ Div Cav Regt .
The Sidebar will change again to display the Force Data Display in the Data Summary. At this point
the Gen Tab, which displays the current condition of the unit, should be showing. If it isn’t:
F
Click on the Gen Tab on the Sidebar
It has a number of progress bars showing the unit condition; basically, for the blue bars, high is good,
and for the red ones, high is bad. A bar halfway indicates an average value. A bright blue bar indicates
the current value. A darker blue bar is the “at-start” value. Note that Experience, Training, Fitness,
Aggression and Stubbornness only have an “at-start” value as these do not change in the course of a
scenario.
It also has some numbers that describe the size and firepower of your units. For this unit, things to note
are the good levels of Morale, Personnel, and Equipment; this should make it fairly robust in combat,
at least initially. While its training is good, it’s not that experienced and this shows in its less than
average aggression and stubbornness.
Other things to note are the wheel symbol next to the Movement box. This indicated that this unit is
motorised and as such will be restricted in the terrain it can traverse, but it will move fast along roads.
It also has an armour value reflecting the fact that it has armoured fighting vehicles ( AFVs ). These
will give it a considerable advantage in combat.
30
F
Click on the Equip Tab
This tab shows a list of equipment and weapons held by the unit, along with
its ammunition, fuel and basic supply levels. The main items of equipment in
this unit are the eight Vickers Mk VI light tanks, and the 14 Daimler Dingo
Scout Cars (a light armoured car armed with a machine gun). Once an item
of equipment is reduced to 0 (for example, all the 50 calibre machinegun
ammunition has been expended, or all the tanks destroyed), that item will be
greyed-out in the list.
F
Select the 19th Inf Bde HQ unit
F
Select the Gen Tab.
Note that it displays two columns of values. The one
on the left are the HQs own values, while the one
on the right are the total values for the force – ie the
HQ plus all it’s subordinates. Note also the different
movement types – foot for the HQ but motorised for
the force, indicating that at least one subordinate is
motorised. The total number of units in the force is displayed at the bottom
right.
Also note that equipment is never scavanged or captured during the game.
However, However, basics, fuel, and ammunition will periodically increase
under normal resupply conditions.
F
Select the Cmd Tab to display values
about the unit’s commander, his
biographical summary and the command
capacity, command load and orders
delay for the unit.
Because we are playing without orders delay,
the Unit and Force Delay values are both zero.
In real life, of course, it took time to transmit
orders and develop plans and in the Advanced
Tutorial we’ll look at dealing with this. The Staff
31
Load value is also zero at game start but once orders are issued will display a
value reflecting the number and command difficulty of its subordinates. If Staff
Load exceeds Staff Capacity then extra delay will be incurred when processing
orders.
F
Select the Hist Tab to display the historical notes on the unit.
We will look at the remaining Depot ( Dep ) and Log ( Log ) tabs later. The Log
Tab records important events or changes in status that affect the unit. These are
recorded as they occur or every 15 minutes of game time for the more common
events. As we have not commenced play the unit logs will be empty. Please
check back here after the game has been in progress for a few hours.
F
Experiment with different methods of selection to look at each unit in
turn, looking at the different Tabs to identify the unit strength, equipment,
and quality
Once you have a fair idea of the forces available to you:
F
Zoom the map out so you can see all friendly units ( use mouse wheel
or Zoomer Control on the Sidebar ).
F
Click and drag on the Battlemap to place a selection marquee over all friendly units
F
Click on the
Gen Tab on the
Sidebar.
In total, we have
available 4212 soldiers,
102 armoured fighting
vehicles (mostly light
tanks and scout cars
in the 2nd NZ Div Cav
Regt), and 42 mortars
and guns. These are
split between 2/3rd Fd
Regt (which has 24 25
pdr field guns), 3rd AT
Bty 1 AT Regt (which
has nine towed 2 pdr
anti-tank guns), and the
support platoons of the
infantry battalions (which have two 3” mortars – or two 65mm mountain guns for the Greeks – each).
32
We have a fairly high level of morale amongst our troops, which will come in handy when the shooting
starts. In general our units are well-trained, with the exception of the Greek infantry battalion, which
is comprised of men only recently called up. The Cav Regt is well-trained but not terribly aggressive
nor stubborn, which suits its reconnaissance role. We can use it to gain better information about the
enemy strength and location, and with its large number of machineguns, to provide supporting fire for
an infantry attack. Because of the very light armour of its vehicles, however, the Cav is vulnerable to
fire from anti-tank guns and rifles and needs to be kept out of close contact if possible.
Our main striking power is in the two Australian infantry battalions, which are made up of welltrained, aggressive and stubborn troops (although they are somewhat lacking in firepower, especially
over a long range). The Greek infantry lack firepower and training, but they are stubborn troops; they
will be good for holding captured ground against enemy counterattacks, but will suffer heavily if used
to assault an enemy position.
Reinforcements
In some scenarios, you will receive reinforcements – additional units that arrive during the game. To
check for reinforcements:
F
Click in an empty space of the map to deselect and display the Side Data in the Sidebar
F
Select the Reinf Tab on the Sidebar.
The list is blank, so for this first encounter, the forces we start with are all we have. In Tutorial II we’ll
take a look at reinforcements and how to use them.
Enemy Forces
We know from the briefing that
the enemy forces deployed in
this area are likely to consist
of a single foot infantry
battalion, supported by antitank, flak and engineer units.
German units are coloured
according to their Service
– light blue for Luftwaffe (Air
Force) ground units, grey for
Wehrmacht (Army) units, and
black for the SS units.
F
Navigate to the area
of the Yef Alamanas
Bridge
F
Click on the infantry
company located on the north side of the bridge.
33
The first thing to be aware of is that the enemy unit icons represent intelligence reports or sightings of
actual enemy units. For this reason, in addition to the usual information they also have Sighting Age
and Reliability fields. As a report ages, its icon will become darker. After a period it will disappear
altogether – deemed to be of no value. The reliability is important and indicates just how much faith
you should put in the accuracy of the report. A Poor reliability report is likely to be inaccurate in terms
of the unit type, strength and firepower – so be wary. It’s also worth remembering that soldiers in
contact are very prone to exaggerating the size and strength of the enemy they face!
F
Select all four enemy units at Yef
Alamanas by dragging a marquee over
them, or by holding the Ctrl key
down and clicking each in turn
These units will have to be destroyed or driven
off in order to achieve the Yef Alamanas Bridge
objective. The two most important details to note
here are the number of personnel ( 550 ) and the
anti-personnel firepower ( 121 ). Please note
that these values may vary from game to game
according to the quality of intel reports.
For an attack, conventional wisdom says you
want to have combat odds of 3 to 1 or better.
What constitutes this combat ratio can be quite
complex. It’s certainly not just a case of personnel
numbers. Firepower is a better indicator, but this
has to be modified by unit effectiveness (morale,
cohesion, fatigue, training and experience etc), visibility, armour/anti-Armour ratio and terrain effects
– not to mention indirect fire support. All of these contribute. Since Yef Alamanas will be a tricky
position to assault – because of the restricted, marshy terrain on this side of the river – we will have
to compromise on firepower a bit, simply because we won’t be able to fit many men into the space
available for an attack.
F
Click on the 2/4th Inf Bn HQ
Its force has 659 personnel and 81 anti-personnel firepower. By itself it will probably not be sufficient
to secure the bridge, especially if the enemy reinforces his defences. However, we can beef the attack
up by adding more units:
F
Press the Shift + Down Arrow keys
Bn
F
Now hold Ctrl key
34
+
to select all the units in 2/4th Inf
and click on the 2.8 Fd Coy and the C MG Coy:
F
If you accidentally select a
wrong unit, just Ctrl–click
on it again to
deselect it
You’ll see the total anti-personnel
firepower of our group has gone up
to 125; still not enough but a good
start. The engineer unit will be useful
in unpriming the crossing, while the
machinegun unit will provide some
useful direct fire support. We can
always add in any units that are spare
to provide extra fire support.
F
Click on 2/3rd Fd Regt
This is our longest-ranged weapon;
the 24 field guns in this unit can
suppress an enemy defensive position or smash a counterattack. Note the Bombardment firepower
value; those 171 points will make up for the lack
of anti-personnel firepower in our assaulting
infantry.
The other objective of immediate concern is the
Komma Bridge.
F
Select the enemy intel report near the
Komma Bridge.
This bridge appears to be defended by a single
infantry company, with 191 personnel and 27
anti-personnel firepower. We should be able to
take that on pretty easily – 2/8th Inf Bn ought to
be enough.
35
Terrain
The terrain is always a major influence on military operations. COTA accurately models the effects
of terrain on spotting, fire, and movement, so we need to take these factors into consideration when
developing our plan of attack. Over time you’ll develop your own feel for terrain, so we’ll only take
a brief look here.
F
First, centre the map on the Yef Alamanas Bridge objective by whatever method you prefer
We can get a good idea of the terrain simply by looking at the Battlemap. Ground elevation is shown
by a series of coloured contours, where the darker colours indicate higher ground. When the map is
zoomed-in, each contour indicates a 100m change in altitude; when it is zoomed-out to the lowest
two levels, each contour indicates a 200m change. The ground elevation changes smoothly between
contours. You can get a good idea of the slope by looking at how far apart the contours are. We can get
an even better idea of the slope using the LOS (Line of Sight) Tool.
F
Click on the LOS Button on the Tools Tab of the Sidebar
36
F
Click on the Yef Alamanas Bridge objective and hold the mouse button down and drag the
mouse to the Start Line objective.
You will see two things: a blue line that changes intensity and appears and disappears between your
observer point and the current mouse location, and a series of black lines of different lengths that
extend out from the blue line. The blue line indicates those areas that can be seen from your observer
point; the brighter the blue, the less obstructions there are to visibility so the better the view. Where
the blue line disappears, that point cannot be seen from your observer point. The black lines indicate
the elevation of the ground at each point along the line, giving you a good graphical representation of
the slope.
Slope is important. Slopes reduce movement rates and increase fatigue. Motorised units – like 2/8th
Fd Coy, RAE – cannot move over ground that slopes more than 30° unless traversed by a road. Nonmotorised forces can move over ground that slopes up to 60°. This is mitigated by the effect of roads
– as long as there is a road, motorised units will always be able to move, and as long as there are tracks,
non-motorised units will be able to move.
Other terrain features, like woods or towns, are also shown on the map by representative graphics. You
can check exactly what the terrain is at any particular point using the Terrain Popup:
F
Right–click on the map near the village of Koutseki, just south of the bridge
This will be important because it offers some cover and a
position from which we can fire on the bridge defences.
Equally important but not as useful will be the band of marsh
and the streams; motorised units can’t cross the marsh at
all, except on the road, and even non-motorised units will
be badly slowed down by the marsh and streams. There is
a narrow band of clear ground between the marsh and the
stream but it’s not really even wide enough for a single
company, so we’ll be forced either to attack along the road
or to accept the slow movement and disruption of the swamp
and stream.
On the plus side, south of the Marsh the ground is out of view
from the German defences, so as long as the enemy doesn’t
try to push onto our side of the bridge, we should be able to
advance unseen as far as the marsh.
F
Check out the terrain and visibility around the Komma Bridge and consider the importance of this
for your plan
37
The Plan
Given the enemy position and our objectives, the basic plan will be conducted in five phases:
1. Push forward our reconnaissance squadrons to identify any enemy units and start engaging them
from a safe distance, while securing the Start Line objective
2 Launch a minor attack on the Komma Bridge objective based on 2/8th Inf Bn, taking the
Moskhokhorion Flank objective in the process
3 Launch a major attack against the Yef Alamanas Bridge objective using the 2/4th Inf Bn,
reinforced by machinegun and engineer units and supported by fire from 2/3rd Fd Regt
4
Consolidate our gains by bringing forward the Greek II Inf Bn 82 Inf Regt to defend our gains
5
Push out forces to secure the Anthili and Sperkhios Bridge objectives.
We’ll take this a bit at a time!
38
First Moves
Before we start issuing orders take note that unlike
other games, when you issue orders to your units
the objective of your order is a map location not
an enemy unit. Your intent may be to bombard an
enemy unit, but you order your artillery unit to
bomard the location ( where the enemy unit is ).
The enemy unit may subsequently move but your
artillery unit will continue to bombard the location
until it’s mission expires.
Reconnaissance
We’ll set up our reconnaissance first:
F
Select C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt
F
Click the Move order on the Orders Tab in
the Sidebar
F
Click on the Battlemap to place the Move
waypoint here:
In this case there is only one waypoint. The final
waypoint is known as the objective location or
ObjLoc. From this location, our light tanks will be
able to engage the bridge defences with machinegun
fire but will be far enough away that the enemy
should find it hard to return fire effectively.
Note that once you give the order, the Command Bar on C
Sqn’s icon goes white; this shows that C Sqn is now taking
orders directly from you instead of from its organic superior
- 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ. To reflect this the command line
drawn between C Sqn and the Cav Regt HQ is now coloured
grey and a blue command line is drawn from C Sqn to the
on-map boss - ie 19th Inf Bde. This represents you on the
map.
F
Select 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ
F
Press the M key
(this is the same as clicking Move on the Orders Tab)
39
F
Hold down the Shift key
and click
on the crossroads north
of
Elevtherokhorion
and then on the village
of Koutseki to place two
waypoints
F
Release the Shift key
and click
on the eastern village of
Koutseki, south of the
Yef Alamanas Bridge, to
place the final waypoint
or ObjLoc.
When you click, waypoints will appear on the Battlemap. The last waypoint will always be the order
icon, which in this case is a Move; the others will turn into Waypoint icons. If you forgot to release the
Shift key
, don’t worry; you can press the Esc key
or click the Cancel button on the
Orders Tab to get back to the normal mouse pointer. When your units follow the Move order, they will
go through each waypoint in turn. They might take a different route between waypoints – depending on
the situation – but they will have to move through every waypoint in the order you placed them.
Because the enemy at the bridge is stronger, we’ll use the rest of our armour here. This will also be
handy in case the enemy wants to take advantage of the difficult terrain to push a unit forward and
delay our advance; we want to attack the bridge as soon as possible so we want to lead with a strong
force to dislodge any enemy this side of the river.
When you issue the order to 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ, you will notice that although its command bar
goes white, the command bars of the other highlighted units stay their original colour. This is because
while the Regt HQ is now taking orders directly from you, the other two units are still taking their
orders from it; you’ll see how this works more clearly once we start running the game.
Security
We need to hold the Start Line objective, so we’ll just get the Greek infantry to stay where they are:
F
Select II Inf Bn HQ 82 Inf Regt
F
Select the Defend order on the Orders Tab on the Sidebar ( or press the D key )
F
Click on the Battlemap, near the unit, to place the ObjLoc
40
The Sidebar will change once you
issue the order to show the current
settings for the order. You can
change those settings to get different
behaviour from your units:
F
On the Order Data display in
the Sidebar, click on the InSitu Formation button.
Setting In-Situ as the formation means
the units of the battalion will not
move unless the enemy forces them to
retreat. Like the 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt,
you’ll notice that the HQ you gave
the orders to is now under your direct
command, while its subordinates are
still taking their orders from the HQ.
As well as securing our initial objectives and conducting reconnaissance, we
want to position our striking power where we can quickly swing it into action
– but where the enemy will not be able to observe and target it.
F
Select the 2/8th Inf Bn HQ
F
Click the Move button on the Orders Tab ( of press the M key )
F
Click on the Battlemap in the middle of the town of Iraklia
In this position the battalion will be able to move on the Komma Bridge objective
as soon as we have identified the strength of the defences.
Similarly, we want to bring 2/4th Inf Bn forward to a reasonably safe location;
one where they can assist the Cav to clear the route to the Yef Alamanas Bridge
objective if necessary and if not, where they are out of enemy observation.
F
Since we’ll be using this for the most important action of the battle, we should
beef it up a bit with additional units.
F
Hold down the Ctrl key
and click on the C MG Coy and 2/8th Fd Eng Coy
41
Now, when you issue an order to the battalion HQ, it will take command of those two units as well and
will include them in its plans. This is called attaching the units to the battalion. Because these units
will no longer respond to orders from 19th Inf Bde HQ, we say that they are detached from that HQ.
The new group – 2/4th battalion and the two extra units – is called a Battlegroup, and 2/4th Inf Bn HQ
is the Battlegroup Commander.
This time we’ll use a keyboard shortcut to issue the order. There’s a handy reminder feature if you
forget the keyboard equivalent of one of the orders:
F
Hold your mouse over the Move button on the Orders Tab for a few seconds
A Tooltip or Rollover will pop up showing the name of the order and the keyboard shortcut.
F
Press the M key
F
Click on the map in
the middle of Koutseki
village (western one)
To make sure the battalion
takes the good road (instead of
the tough mountain track that
is the shortest route), we need
to specify a route type:
F
Select
Quickest
from the Order Data
display in the Sidebar
42
to turn the mouse cursor into the Move cursor
Indirect Fire Support
Because of the relatively poor firepower of our infantry companies, we already know we’ll be needing
our 25 pdr guns to plaster the enemy while our footsloggers and engineers seize the bridges. First step
is to check the range of the guns from their current location:
F
Zoom the map out
F
Select 2/3rd Fd Regt
F
Select Bombard from the Range Rings button on the Display Toolbar
You will see a black ring appear around the unit. This indicates the minimum bombardment range of
the guns; below this distance, they have to engage targets with direct fire which is not usually desirable.
The blue ring shows the maximum range of the guns: they can bombard any target between the black
and blue rings! We can already hit the Yef Alamanas Bridge objective, but we can’t reach the Komma
43
Bridge or any of our further
objectives. Because it takes
the guns time to get set up to
fire, it’s best to move them
forward now – that way we
won’t have to move them
at a later time when we
might need them to be firing
instead!
F
Order 2/3rd Fd Regt
to Defend about
1200m north-west
of Elevtherokhorion
F
Set the Speed to
Fastest and Route
to Quickest; we
want the guns in position to provide fire support as soon as possible.
Headquarters
Because Orders Delay is turned off, the location of HQs in this game will not
be terribly important. However, positioning your senior HQs is so important
when Orders Delay is turned on that it’s a good habit to get into from the
start.
F
Order 19th Inf Bde HQ to Move to the open ridge about 500m
southeast of the Start Line objective.
Final Review before Running
We’ll do a last check to make sure we haven’t missed anyone out. The friendly
unit filter is handy for this:
F
Press the - key
or select Units with No Orders from the Unit
Filter button of the Display Toolbar
This filters out all friendly units that have been given orders, either directly by us or by a superior unit.
If you’ve followed the instructions above carefully, there shouldn’t be any friendly units still displayed.
If there is still a friendly unit, go back through the preceding steps and find the one you missed. Once
you’re happy that all units have been given orders:
44
F
Press the = key
or select Units with Orders from the Unit Filter
button of the Display Toolbar
F
Press the Up Arrow key
senior unit on the map.
F
Hold down the Shift key
to select the On-Map Boss - ie your most
and press the Right Arrow key
repeatedly until all the units we issued orders to have been
selected
As we saw earlier in the tutorial, holding down the Shift key
while
pressing the Cursor keys adds units to the selection. We use the Right Arrow
key
because once we’ve given orders to a unit, its position in the current
command structure is level with the on-map boss. As you select each unit,
you’ll see its subordinates highlight and the order you’ve issued to it appear
on the screen.
F
Press the F1 key
to show Task Info in the Info Box of our unit icons
This will be blank for all units – none of our units have had a chance to receive our orders yet.
However, those we have given orders to will have a pink background, indicating orders are on the way.
Now let’s look at what happens when we set the game running:
F
Click on an empty part of the map to deselect the units.
You’ll notice that on the Display Toolbar, there is a Unit Filter button that shows the currently active
filter. Play around with different filters for a bit, noting which units are shown under which filter:
F
Press any of the number keys
various friendly unit filters
F
To show all friendly units, press the 1 key
–
and
,
, and
to enable the
, or press the current filter key again
Now we’re ready to get cracking with the battle!
45
Running the Game
Saved Game Point #1 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.01 Running the Game.aag.
As stated in the section on Pausable Continuous Time, COTA runs in accelerated real time. To get
the game going, we’ll set a run speed (slow, normal, or fast) and the battle will then steadily unfold
until either we change the run speed, pause the game, or the game finishes. For this tutorial, we’ll keep
things simple and always pause the game before giving orders; in the Advanced Tutorial (Tut #2), we’ll
up the ante and start giving orders while the game is running.
There are five run buttons for Pause, slow, normal, fast and run until speeds. The actual
speed of the game will vary from one machine to the next depending on hardware and
in particular on processor speed and load. From time to time the game may appear to
stop briefly. This is normal and occurs when the AI is under a heavy load ( eg. calculating complex
routes ).
Note that even though you are not running with orders delay, the AI still executes certain complex
orders like Attack in a number of phases. Hence for an attack you will see the units move to their
forming up place, reorganise and then assault. For Defend you will often see the force move first to
a location near the objective and then they will shake out into their defensive formation and actually
defend. So during this move phase the order icons of the sub-units will not necessarily be the locations
they will finally defend.
Note also that the AI manages the low level reaction of units. Units that come into contact with the
enemy will automatically take cover, deploy and open fire. When appropriate the AI will also ensure
your units start moving again. In some cases they may automatically rest or reoganise. So you do not
need to order your units to fire ( though you can if you wish ) - just place them in harms way.
Artillery units that are not moving are automatically placed in “on-call-support” and may bombard
in response to requests from other units all managed by the AI. You can override this behaviour by
enforcing that your artillery units “rest” instead of providing on-call-support.
Base units and long range artillery may be redeployed by the AI to suitable depot locations and firebase
locations. Again you can override this by issuing these units direct orders.
We’ll address that shortly. For now:
F
Click the
button on the Sidebar to run the game at Slow speed
The game clock will start to advance (this can take a few seconds). Once it reaches D1, 06:01:
F
Click the
button to Pause the game, or press the Spacebar
The Info Box on our unit icons will now display symbols depicting the
orders
that
have been issued to each unit. You will also see that the straight lines running from our units to their
ObjLocs have all been replaced by route lines following the most appropriate path. Let’s have a look
at the impact of telling a unit to use a different route:
46
F
F
Select its Move order by clicking on the
order icon
F
Select Safest Route on the Sidebar
F
Click the
button to run the game at
Slow speed again
After a couple of minutes you will see the route of
that battalion change to one that takes advantage of
the woods on top of the main ridge. Although this
route is less likely to be observed by the enemy,
it will be slower and more tiring for our infantry
(and we need them for an attack later, so let’s keep
them fresh).
F
Pause the game and select Quickest
from the Sidebar
F
Press the > key
speed to Slow
F
It will take a while for us to reach the next
stop, so if you want, you can press the >
to increase the
key
again to increase the speed to
Normal or even Fast.
You will see your units start to move along their
assigned routes. In accordance with the In-Situ
formation, the Greek battalion is staying put; where
we have issued an order to a HQ unit, not only is
the HQ moving, but so are its subordinates.
47
At D1, 06:27 (give or take a few minutes – every
game will be slightly different) you should
receive a message about the Moskhokhorion
Flank objective. This is because C Sqn 2 NZ
Div Cav Regt has reached the perimeter of that
objective. Since the enemy doesn’t have anyone
there, we get control of the objective.
A few minutes later, as the squadron leaves the
perimeter, you’ll get another message. Nothing
to worry about though, we’ll take care of the
objective in due course.
Right now, there’s something else to look at:
F
Set the game speed to Slow
F
Select 2/3rd Fd Regt
This unit has nearly reached its destination. Let’s look at
what happens when it gets there:
F
Press the F5 key
to display Deployment in the Info Box on our unit icons .
While the unit is moving, it displays the Undeployed symbol ( ). In this mode the unit will be highly
visible, more vulnerable to enemy fire, and will not be able to fire any of its heavy weapons – in this
case, the 25 pdr guns.
The white unit footprint outline will also show that the unit is still in Road Column formation (unless
you set a specific formation, units on the move will usually use this formation unless the enemy is
nearby). As the unit closes up to its final location, the white perimeter outline will change to show that
the unit is shaking out into its defensive formation. When it reaches the ObjLoc, the info box will show
it’s Taking Cover ( ). It’s a bit less visible and vulnerable, but the 25 pdr guns are still not available
– they are being set up.
48
First Contact
At about this point, you will hear shots ring out!
F
Press the Space bar
to Pause the game
We need to quickly find where the firing is coming from. COTA contains features to help with this:
right now, we’ll use the Intel Report Filter.
F
Click the All Intel button on the Display Toolbar at the bottom of the screen, or press the I key
This sets the Intel Report Filter to Current, so the Battlemap and Stratmap will only show enemy
units that have been spotted within the last 15 minutes. Older sightings will be replaced by a thin black
outline. Look on the Stratmap to see which of the red enemy dots is still there – in this case it will be
the garrison at the Komma Bridge, which has now been detected and engaged by C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav
Regt.
F
Pan and zoom the Battlemap so you can see C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt and the German units at
the Komma Bridge
On the bottom right of C Sqn’s icon, you’ll see a new item: a
blue, yellow or red box. A red box indicates that our unit is taking
casualties (men and equipment); a yellow box indicates that it is
taking fire but not casualties; and a blue box indicates that it is
firing at the enemy but not taking any return fire. A white box
means some of the unit’s personnel are surrendering.
You might also see yellow and/or red lines moving between C Sqn and the enemy; yellow lines are
anti-personnel fire, and red are anti-armour. C Sqn’s info box will show Taking Cover and pretty soon
after will change to Deployed (
)
– in this state, the unit will be a lot less
vulnerable and its fire will be more
effective.
At this range, C Sqn should be pretty
safe from enemy fire, so we’ll leave
them to shoot up the enemy garrison
and gather further intel while we turn
our attention elsewhere.
F
Set the game speed to Slow .
49
Second Contact
Saved Game Point #2 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.02 Second Contact.aag.
At about D1, 06:50, you might see another red dot appear on the Stratmap in the vicinity of Koutseki,
just ahead of the rest of 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt. There will also be more firing! If this happens, it means
the enemy has pushed a unit over the river in the hope of disrupting our advance before we can attack
the bridges. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen; in COTA, it’s very unusual for a game to play out the
same way twice.
F
If you make contact in or near Koutseki, press the Space bar
game
F
If not, continue running the game and skip to Waiting for Fire Support
to Pause the
As your units close in on the enemy, you will get better intelligence about the unit, its equipment, and
its condition. Which exact unit you run into may vary from game to game. It is possible to take fire and
yet not identify the enemy firing. Because this battle is at much shorter range than the exchange of fire
involving C Sqn, it’s quite likely that you will lose some men and vehicles in the village. Despite this,
if there’s only one enemy unit, your recce lads will probably be able to push on through.
F
Set the speed to Slow or Normal again
F
Click on the enemy unit icon to select it
F
Make sure the Gen Tab is displayed in the Sidebar
You’ll see the Reliability and Sighting Age fields change as your units get a better view of the enemy,
or the enemy pulls further away.
F
Press the F2 key
to display Rout Status in the unit icon info boxes
You’ll see the info box change to display the Rout Status of your
(and the enemy’s) units. A green arrow pointing up is the best; a
green square means the unit has temporarily halted under fire. A
yellow arrow pointing down means the unit has been forced to
retreat, while a yellow square means it is taking cover where it
is or it is trying to recover from a retreat. Similarly, a red arrow
means it’s been broken and is routing off, while a red square
shows that either the unit is in panic where it is or that it is trying to pull itself together after routing.
Rout status is discussed in more detail in the Reference Manual section on Rout Status.
F
Watch the enemy unit fade in and out of contact as your units press forward .
If your recon squadrons identify more than one enemy unit, or if they are not making any progress, you
will have to wait for artillery fire support and possibly infantry to clear them from your path.
50
Waiting for Fire Support
Keep an eye on the progress of your artillery at the same time as you watch the battle in Koutseki:
F
Deselect all units by clicking on an empty map location
F
Click on the FireSpt Tab in the Sidebar .
This tab shows all units that are capable of bombardment (also called indirect fire) that we have given
direct orders to. In this case, it’s just 2/3rd Fd Regt – although the Australian infantry battalions both
have mortar platoons
that are capable of
indirect fire, we’ve
left those platoons
under the command of
the battalion HQs, so
they don’t show in the
FireSpt Tab.
The status of each
fire support asset is
displayed next to their
icon. Once the unit
reaches its ObjLoc and
deploys it will then be
able to fire its guns and
will go On Call. This
means that it is ready
to fire in support of any
unit under the command
of its superior, which in
this case is you.
If the enemy pushed forward to Koutseki
or is spotted by your advancing units,
then within a few minutes you should
see shells start to burst on his positions.
If this doesn’t cause the enemy to
withdraw:
F
Issue 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ
a Defend order located on the
western edge of Koutseki
We’ll leave the Div Cav there until the
infantry have moved up and can support
them to clear the road to the bridge.
51
Take Komma Bridge
Saved Game Point #3 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.03 Take Komma Bridge.aag.
Now that the artillery is in place, it’s time to think about taking the Komma Bridge objective. 2/8th Inf
Bn should have just about reached the Start Line objective; let’s get them moving on an attack to seize
the bridge. We could cancel their current order by selecting it and pressing the Delete key and then
issuing a brand new Attack order. Instead we’ll change the order type and add some extra waypoints. If
the game is running, pause it using the speed buttons on the Sidebar or with the keyboard.
F
Select the 2/8th Inf Bn HQ unit
F
Select the battalion’s Move order by clicking on it on the Battlemap
F
Click on the
Attack button
on the Orders
Tab or press
the A key
Y o u
w i l l
see the mouse cursor
turn into the Attack
order cursor.
52
F
Shift-click
F
Release the Shift key
to place the ObjLoc
on the crossroads near the Moskhokhorion Flank objective, then on
the road about 200m east of C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt
and click on the open ground just north of the Komma Bridge
This process adds new waypoints after the one you selected. By selecting an intermediate waypoint
you can also use this method to place extra waypoints in the middle of a unit’s order.
F
If you forget to release the Shift key
key
before placing the last waypoint, press the Esc
or click Cancel on the Orders Tab to get the normal mouse pointer back
53
On the Order Data display in the Sidebar:
F
Set Formation to Line
F
Set Aggro to Max
F
Set ROF to Rapid
F
Set Losses to High
F
Check the Secure Crossing checkbox .
What does all this mean? Line formation means the companies in 2/8th will
attack in line abreast; we’ll see that in action shortly. Setting Aggro to Max tells the battalion HQ
that it’s to be an all-out assault; it will commit as much of its force as possible to the assault. Setting
ROF (Rate of Fire) to Rapid means our units will fire their weapons at the fastest rate, burning up
ammunition quickly but putting a heavy weight of firepower onto the enemy.
During the attack if your losses exceed the acceptable loss threshold you will rceive a warning
message. It will then be up to you to call off the attack or continue on. Setting Losses to High will
mean you won’t receive the warning message until you have lost a great deal of your force. If you were
conducting a Probe the AI may automatically bunker down when the threshhold has been exceeded.
Checking the Secure Crossing checkbox means our lead units will attempt to unprime the bridge
(disable the demolition charges) as soon as they are close enough.
You should notice something different about the waypoints for the Attack order: the second-last
waypoint is shown using a different icon than the usual one. This icon indicates that this waypoint
(always the second-last waypoint for an Attack order) is the Forming-Up Point or FUP. When
conducting an attack, a force will Move to the FUP, deploy into attack formation, reorganise or Reorg
to gain cohesion, and then Assault the attack objective. There is a lot more detail about attacks in the
Reference Manual, in the Seize an Objective section.
While we’re setting up the attack, we can change
C Sqn’s orders to make sure they provide some
fire for the attack as well:
F
Select C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt
F
Issue a Defend order located just forward
of its current position
F
Set Formation to Line, Aggro to Max, and
ROF to Rapid
54
F
Click and drag the Facing dial until the needle points due North .
Line formation generates the most firepower to the unit’s front. The order we’ve just issued will cause
C Sqn to aggressively engage any enemy unit in front of it, which will be good cover fire for 2/8th Inf
Bn’s attack. Note that because this is for a single unit there is no point in setting the formation frontage
or depth. This only applies to forces of more than one unit.
F
Set the game speed to Normal
If the enemy fires back aggressively, C Sqn may retreat. This isn’t critical. It is pretty much out of
effective range of the enemy’s anti-tank weapons and will resume its positions after a short while.
Following the Attack
Saved Game Point #4 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.04 Following the Attack.aag.
Once the lead unit of 2/8th Inf Bn has passed through Iraklia:
F
Pause the Game
F
Select all the units of the 2/8th
Inf Bn ( select the HQ, hold the Shift key
down and select the Down Arrow key
Observe that as well as the white waypoint and order
issued, there are also
very similar symbols
displayed for each unit
at the first waypoint but
in a grey colour.
)
icons and routes that you have
These are Unit Tasks
– instructions that the
Bn HQ has generated
for the units under its
command in order to
carry out the Attack
order that you issued
it. You can see details
about the tasks:
F
Click on one of
the grey Unit
Task Icons
55
You will see the Task Data, containing information about the task settings, appear in the Sidebar. It’s
very similar to the Order Data but you can’t change any of the settings; if you don’t like them, you’ll
need to change the order you gave to the Bn HQ instead or micro-manage - ie give orders directly to
each unit.
Airstrike!
Saved Game Point #5 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.05 Airstrike Targeted.aag.
At some point during the game you may get a message advising you that an airstrike is available. This
means you have fighter-bombers on station overhead. You’ll also notice the Airstrike order button
changes to show a number; you can queue up a number of airstrikes, but beware, each strike only stays
available for 30 minutes. Use it or lose it!
If you get an airstrike:
F
Pause the game
F
Press the F4 key
to show Combat Power in the unit icon info boxes
This displays Combat
Power in the info boxes of unit icons. This is a kind of summary
value of the relative effectiveness of each unit, taking into account firepower, training, morale, rout
status and so on. The colour of the info box indicates the units’ rout status, making this a multipurpose tool! Most units will show a green background; this means the unit is either OK or halted,
while a yellow background means they are retreating or retreat recovering, and a red background
means they are routing or rout recovering. A unit with a combat power of two is twice as strong as
a unit with a combat power of one; a unit with a combat power of three is twice as powerful as a unit
with a combat power of two, and so on. This is handy for airstrikes since it helps you target the most
dangerous enemy units.
F
Check that the Intel Report Filter button in the Display Toolbar reads I-CurIntel
F
If it doesn’t, click the button or press the I key
56
until it does
Airstrikes happen within about five minutes of your ordering the target, so you want to be sure you’re
looking at the current enemy sightings.
F
Click the Airstrike button on the Orders Tab or press the S key
F
Identify the enemy unit near Komma Bridge with the highest Combat Power
F
Click on the location of the enemy unit.
F
Start the game running again .
Note you are targeting the location not the enemy unit. If the enemy is moving click just ahead of its
current location.
Within the next five minutes of game time you should see a
set of large explosions appear on the enemy unit and hear the
sounds of an airstrike going in.
Airstrikes may not do much actual damage, but they are
very effective at breaking the morale of enemy forces – this
makes them more likely to retreat. Also, if used against enemy
artillery, it can force them to move and they will need to spend
time deploying before they can shell your troops again.
57
Back to the Bridge
Saved Game Point #6 - optional - load saved game now - Tut
1.06 Following the Attack2.aag.
At around D1, 10:15, 2/8th battalion should reach their FUP
(remember, the second-last waypoint of their Attack order).
F
Select all units in 2/8th Inf Bn
As they get close to the FUP, you’ll see the grey task icons
spread out into attack formation and change into Reorg
tasks. This tells you that your units are commencing their
last preparations for the attack. You may also see one or two
Defend task icons – these shows the location of the battalion
reserve (a unit or group of units that are held out of an attack).
Most likely, for this attack, Mor Pl 2/8 Inf Bn will be a
reserve unit, since it can fire its mortars against the defending
Germans from the reserve position.
After a short pause to reorganise, the battalion will commence
its assault. The task icons of the assault group will change
to Assault and will move to be positioned on or just past the
attack objective, and the units themselves will start to move
towards the enemy. You can see how they are following the
Line formation you ordered, and how the terrain (in this case the river and bridge) has forced some
changes to it; units in the assault will always follow the shortest path to their destination, deviating
only for impassable terrain – hence
the channelling across the bridge.
By about D1, 11:15 your attacking
units should be close to the bridge.
You may see one or two of them
take casualties, halt, or even retreat,
but overall they should make steady
progress. You should also see the 2/
8 Mortar Pl providing fire support
onto observed enemy. The mortars
are “on call” meaning that they
will respond to requests from those
units taking part in the attack.
At this point, we’ll shift our focus
to the next (and more important)
objective: the Yef Alamanas
Bridge.
F
Pause the game
58
Setting up to Take Yef Alamanas Bridge
Saved Game Point #7 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.07 Setting up to Take Yef Alamanas
Bridge.aag.
Fire Support
First, we need to position our fire support. We have a unit that will be perfect for this, and it’s already
located forward with the infantry battalion; to use it to full advantage, we’ll give it a separate order
now.
F
Select C MG Coy
This is a machinegun unit equipped with a number of tripod-mounted Vickers medium machineguns
(MMGs). Like an artillery unit, it needs to be Deployed to use the MMGs; unlike an artillery unit, it
only takes a few minutes to do this. We want to place it somewhere it can engage the enemy bridge
garrison while being fairly safe from direct attack. Let’s quickly check the range of its weapons to see
how close we need to get it:
F
Click the Range Rings button on the Display Toolbar until APer is selected.
You’ll see a large green
circle appear around
the unit. This indicates
the maximum ranges
of the unit’s AntiPersonnel weapons.
You can use this
method to see the
maximum range of
any of your units.
59
Next, we’ll check for a location that can see the enemy at the bridge. The easiest way to do this is in
reverse; find out what areas can be seen from the bridge.
F
Click on the LOS Area button in the Tools Tab of the Sidebar.
F
Click on the map at various locations to identify those that can see the bridge and surrounding
areas, especially on the far bank.
A good location is about 1700m West-North-West of the bridge.
F
Issue a Defend order with the ObjLoc positioned as shown in the screenshot:
If there are still enemy units hanging around on this side of the river, then use enough waypoints to
give them a wide berth!
F
Set Formation to Line, Aggro to Max and ROF to Rapid, and Facing to point due East
60
F
To make sure it gets
there in plenty of time,
set Speed to Fastest
and Route to Quickest
This will maximise the unit’s
firepower to the East, effectively
engaging the enemy at the
bridge and making it hard for
other enemy units to reinforce.
You will notice that when you
issue the order, C MG Coy’s
command bar goes white
– it is now taking orders directly
from us. It’s no longer attached to 2/4th Inf Bn, so it won’t respond to any orders we give to that
battlegroup.
We’ve got more fire-support resources in the area: the heavy machineguns mounted on the tanks and
scout cars of the 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt.
F
Order the 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ to Defend the high ground just south of the eastern village
of Koutseki
F
Select the same order settings as for C MG Coy, except for Facing, which you should set to due
North
61
Taking the Bridge
Now we’ll issue orders for the main event:
F
Select 2/4th Inf Bn HQ ( it should be in or near the western village of Koutseki )
F
Click on the Attack button on the Orders Tab or press the A key
The mouse pointer will change to the Attack order cursor.
F
Place a waypoint for the Forming Up Place ( FUP ) 300m NE of Koutseki, as indicated below
F
Place the ObjLoc NE of the village of Yef Alamanas on the far side of the bridge
F
Set the Formation to Successive Lines – this will give us plenty of depth on a narrow frontage
F
Set the Speed to Fastest, Aggro to Max, ROF to Rapid, and Losses to High
F
Check the Secure Crossing box
F
Set the Facing to NE .
Because we have fire support from 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt and C MG Coy, we can afford to have our main
force concentrate on a narrow frontage with the Successive Lines formation. This provided good depth
with reasonable firepower towards the front. Setting Losses to High ensures that we’ll only receive
a warning message if our attack starts to run into real trouble – we need to keep our nerve on this
one! Checking the
Secure Crossing
box will instruct
the
attached
engineer unit to
start stripping off
the
demolition
charges as soon as
it is close enough.
Engineers are good
at
constructing,
demolishing,
priming
and
unpriming bridges.
62
Keeping up With the Battle
Saved Game Point #8 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.08 Keeping up with the Battle.aag.
From here on in things are going to get a bit complicated. Feel free to set the speed to Slow instead
of Normal, and to Pause as often as you like and look around the battlefield so you are up-to-date on
events. You might also want to zoom and pan the Battlemap so you can see both bridges and the attacks
in progress.
F
Start the game running again
Start Line
As we already know, the Start Line objective ends at D1, 12:00. As long as we hold the objective at this
time, we’ll get the full five victory points for it. After that, we can leave it unattended without suffering
any penalty. It might in fact be a good idea to bring the Greek infantry battalion forward a bit, so it’s
placed to quickly reinforce our move on Yef Alamanas Bridge if that becomes necessary:
F
At D1, 11:59, Pause the game. If you like you can use the Run
Until feature by clicking the
button in the Sidebar, click the
plus/minus buttons till the correct time is displayed and hit OK.
Note that the Game runs very fast with the Run Until feature. Not all
animations are played, but all key game events are processed. The Game
will automatically Pause at the allotted time.
F
Show the Obj Tab in the
Sidebar
F
Double-click the Start Line
objective
This will centre the objective in the
map if it not already in view. The
Start Line objective is bright green
(because we have achieved it).
F
Run the game at the Slow
speed until D1, 12:01
63
The Start Line objective will now be greyed out (since it has expired). More importantly, the small
vertical progress bar on the right end of the objective line is full, indicating that we have the points for
this objective in our pocket and no longer need to hold it. You can confirm this by checking the points
total for that objective; you should see that the Completion points have now been awarded.
F
Select the Start Line objective and check the Completion points
fields .
Since we don’t have to worry about this objective any more, we now have a
spare infantry battalion that might be more useful elsewhere:
F
Issue II Inf Bn HQ 82 Inf Regt an order to Move to the western village
of Koutseki
F
Start the game running again .
64
Komma Bridge
Saved Game Point #9 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.09 Komma Bridge.aag.
F
Click on the Crossing Point icon for Komma Bridge
The Sidebar will change
to show the Crossing
Status display. As your
units get close to the
bridge, you’ll see the
blue progress bar start
to drop; this means
your men are removing
the demolition charges.
Once the progress bar
is less than half-way, the
enemy will no longer be
able to blow the bridge
and the crossing point
icon will change from
pink to white.
If the enemy tries to blow the bridge and fails, you’ll see the progress bar instantly drop to zero and the
icon will turn white. If, on the other hand, the enemy succeeds in blowing the bridge, you’ll see and
hear a massive explosion and a message telling you what has happened. There will be a pause in play
while the movement tables are recalculated.
If the bridge is blown ( it’s unlikely, but possible and sometimes from an enemy you cannot see ):
F
Order C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt to Defend in
one of the villages inside the Moskhokhorion
Flank objective
F
Order 2/8th Inf Bn to Defend in the same area
you are already sending C MG Coy towards .
It’s more likely that, either the enemy will try but fail to
blow the bridge, or will get driven away by your attack
before they even get the chance. Without a unit within
500m, the enemy will be unable to blow the bridge.
When you have units within the objective perimeter
(default is 500m) and they outnumber any enemy
within the perimeter by 10 to 1 or more then they will
have achieved the objective and you will get a message
to that effect.
65
As they cross the bridge, you’ll see
the grey task icons move and change
again, this time back to Reorg icons.
This is called Reorganising on the
Objective and is part of the attack
process. It’s a good thing. Your
attack is succeeding and your units
are recovering cohesion lost during
the assault. The downside is that
they will be quite vulnerable until
they have finished reorganising.
Hopefully the enemy in the area will
all be disorganised and retreating or
routing, so the threat level will be
pretty low.
Once 2/8th’s assault units finish
reorganising, you’ll get a message
telling you that the battalion is
securing the objective. At this point
the units in reserve will move up and
the whole battalion will arrange itself in defensive
positions, ready to repel any counterattack. In the
process you’ll see the various task icons move
around and change from Reorg to Move and then
Defend.
We can just
about leave 2/8th
to sort itself out;
to give them a
little bit extra,
we will move C
Sqn 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt a bit closer to give the position some
depth.
F
Select C Sqn 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt
F
Click on the Defend order icon to select it
F
Drag the order icon about 800m closer to the bridge
This method allows us to reposition an order without having to go
through all the settings again.
Now we should be free to focus on the big show about to start at the
Yef Alamanas Bridge.
66
Yef Alamanas Bridge
Saved Game Point #10 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.10 Storming
the Yef Alamanas Bridge.aag.
To give our operations against this bridge some extra punch, we can take direct
control over the targeting of our artillery regiment.
F
Bring up the Fire Support ( FS ) Tab in the Sidebar (see Waiting for
Fire Support)
F
Click on the icon for 2/3rd Fd Regt in the FireSpt Tab
Under the tab you’ll see a blue progress bar indicating the amount of artillery
ammo the unit has left. At this stage of the battle it’s probably above half-full.
There’s also some information about the minimum and maximum ranges (also
shown by the Range Rings), the number of guns, and the Bombard firepower
value of the unit. While the artillery will respond to calls for fire from your
units, this response is always conducted using the Slow ROF; we want to be
able to really plaster enemy units near the bridge to cover the advance of our
boys.
F
Make sure the Intel Report Filter is set to show Current sightings only
F
Make sure the Info Box is showing Combat Power ( F4 )
This will help us to identify targets in a timely manner and to prioritise our fire by the most dangerous
threat.
F
Start the game running again
At any stage you can click on an enemy unit to see the current estimate of its strength, equipment,
and condition. You’ll know that a particular enemy unit is holding up your advance by looking for the
following clues:
±
Lots of yellow or red fire lines coming out of an enemy sighting
±
Your units displaying yellow or red engagement status indicators
±
Your units showing a yellow or red background to their Combat Power info box
67
If this starts to happen:
F
Select 2/3rd Fd Regt on the Battlemap or in the FireSpt Tab
F
Click on the Bombard button on the Orders Tab, or press the B key
F
Click on the enemy unit on the Battlemap
This will place a Bombard order icon on that location.
±
Bombard and Fire orders do not target a unit – they target the map location and they will not
follow an enemy sighting around
The yellow outline around the order indicates the approximate area that will be affected; if friendly
units get too close to this the bombardment will cease. The Sidebar will show the Order Data display
for a Bombard or Fire order; this is a bit different from the display shown for other orders.
If you have a lot of enemy sightings around the bridge, you will be best off using the Normal ROF and
just setting up a long, continuous bombardment that you then drag around to blast whichever enemy
unit is the most important at the time. To set up a long bombardment:
F
Select the Bombard order icon
F
On the Order Data display, click the Minutes field until it shows 30 minutes .
If you go too far:
F
Right–click the Minutes field until it is back to 30
68
You can increase or decrease the hours field the same way. You can change the Duration of the
bombardment like this at any time up until the order finishes. If the enemy is all retreating and your
units have secured the bridge, you can bring the bombardment to a close:
F
Right–click on the Hours field until it reads zero, then right–click on the Minutes field until the
bombardment ends
If you only have a few enemy sightings around the bridge, just issue default Bombard orders as
required. An alternative strategy is to target particularly important enemy location for a short period,
say 5 minutes at Max rate of Fire. This burns up the ammo but can turn the tide and force the enemy to
retreat or rout.
The 2/4th Bn will shake out into their successive lines formation at the FUP. Note each echelon deploys
into its own line, with the echelons one behind each other.
69
At the FUP the units reorg and
then when all is set the assault
begins.
As the Assault progresses, the fire support from left and right
flanks pours a deluge of fire on enemy units across the river. The
blue light at bottom right of their icons indicates they are firing and
you can use the Threats tool to help identify their targets.
70
As the Assault approaches
the river each assault
company has to channel
its route across the
bridge. In the meantime
the battalion mortars have
deployed and provide on
call fire support.
Depending
on
how
strongly the enemy is
holding the bridge, there
may be a fair bit of backand-forth but eventually
your units should press
forward enough to start
unpriming the crossing
- ie. disarming the
demolition charges.
At this point, one of three
things will happen:
±
The enemy will
continue to withdraw, leaving your units to unprime the bridge; or
±
The enemy will try and blow the bridge and fail, instantly unpriming it; or
±
The enemy will successfully blow the bridge
The middle one is the best for us; the first one isn’t bad either! The third is a real problem, since that
bridge constitutes most of our available victory points. If either of the first two happens, you’ll get a
message telling you the objective has been achieved once your troops gain a 10:1 superiority over the
enemy within the objective perimeter.
71
If You Take the Bridge Intact
Saved Game Point #11A - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.11A The Bridge is Captured
Intact.aag. Note this is an alternative to #11B.
Once the bridge is firmly in the
hands of 2/4th Inf Bn, it’s time to
consolidate our gains:
F
If the bridge is still
primed, order 2/8th Fd
Coy (our engineer unit)
to Secure Crossing
within 500m of the
Crossing Point icon
F
Order
II Inf Bn HQ
82 Inf Regt to
Defend about
500m north of
Yef Alamanas
Bridge
F
Order
2nd NZ Div Cav
Regt HQ to Secure
Crossing next to the
Sperkhios Bridge
72
F
Order 19th Inf Bde HQ to
Defend in the villages around
the Moskhokhorion Flank
objective .
In these positions you can
hold off any counterattack
while our lead troops rest,
while at the same time you
are positioning for further
offensive moves.
Check the fatigue levels of our units:
F
Press the F6 key
three times
to display Fatigue in the unit info
boxes
Note that the F6 key is a toggle key used
to display Morale, Cohesion and Fatigue.
Hitting it repeatedly cycles the Info Box to
display each in turn.
F
Select one of the infantry
companies in 2/4th Inf Bn
F
Show the Gen Tab if not already
visible
The level of fatigue will be shown in red. The darker the red colour in the info box, the more fatigued
the unit is. Even if fatigued units don’t drop off to sleep in the middle of an activity, they are still slower
and less effective in combat.
73
Units that are more than 75% fatigued may stop and rest at any time; if a force (like your 2/4th battalion
battlegroup) contains a unit that does this, the whole force will have to stop and wait for them to
recover and get going again.
Since we’ll be conducting more moves
and attacks in the morning, we should
rest 2/4th battalion now.
F
Select 2/4th Inf Bn HQ
F
Click the Rest button on the
Orders Tab or press the Z key
F
Click on the Battlemap near Yef
Alamanas village .
By default, the formation for a Rest order – like that for a Reorg order – is In-Situ. This means your
units won’t move unless the enemy forces them to retreat. In this instance that’s not so bad, since we
have II Inf Bn 82 Inf Regt out in front to do the defending. In other cases you will want your units to
move to a particular location before resting. To accomplish this, you’d just put the Rest order where
you wanted them to end up and specify one of the other formations.
Even though the bridge is still intact, there’s some useful information in the next section, so read it
anyway – sooner or later you will need to know how to rebuild bridges.
74
If Yef Alamanas Bridge is Destroyed
Saved Game Point #11B - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.11B Rebuilding Blown Yef
Alamanas Bridge.aag. Note this is an alternative to #11A.
This is bad news. You’ll see a big explosion on the bridge, the Crossing Point icon will go blank, and
you’ll get a message that the bridge has been blown. There will be a pause while the movement tables
are recalculated. If you had already achieved the objective, you’ll also get a message telling you that it
has been lost – you need to have the bridge intact to win this one. Any friendly units that were actually
on the bridge when it blew will probably take very heavy casualties and may end up trapped on the
wrong side of the river.
To get the points for the objective, we’ll need to work really fast.
F
Pause the game
F
Order II/82nd Inf Bn to Defend just West of the bridge
75
F
Set Aggro to Max
F
Set Formation to Line
F
Set Facing to the North East
F
Select the 2/4 Inf Bn and hit the Delete key to kill it’s current orders
F
Issue new orders to the 2/4 Inf Bn to Defend just South West of the bridge
76
F
Set their Aggro to Max
F
Set Formation to line
F
Set Facing to NNE
F
Set Frontage to 1000m ( right click on Frontage button to decrease one increment )
F
Set Depth to 600m ( right click twice to decrease two increments )
You’ll need these guys to provide cover for your bridging activities.
You now need to find a bridging unit – ie a unit with an available pontoon bridge that can be used to
reconstruct the blown bridge. The quickest way to locate one of these is use the unit filter button on
the Display Toolbar.
±
Press the 0 key
without assistance
(Bridge Units) - shows only those units that can actually build a bridge
Another way is to just look at the unit icons:
±
Units with available bridging equipment will have a Bridge icon on the left end of their command
bar
The number of available bridges is also listed in the Gen Tab of the Force Data display in the
Sidebar.
Your bridging platoon is a special
unit whose role is to construct and
improve bridges. Because bridgebuilding requires special training
and equipment, only Engineer and
Bridging units can do it. Although
you can order a battlegroup
containing such units to construct a
crossing, the engineers are the only
ones who will actually do the work.
The remaining units will defend
while the engineers construct.
It’s also a good idea to assign
other engineer units to assist in the
construction ( they don’t need to
have an available bridge themselves
). The more you have the quicker it
will take. To find engineer units:
77
F
Press the 9 key
(Engineer Units) - shows only those units that can perform or assist
bridge-building (including those that would need another unit to provide the equipment)
This will show both the 2/8 Bridging Pl and the 2/8 Fld Eng Coy.
F
Select the 2/8 Bridging Pl ( next to 19th Bde HQ )
F
Ctrl-click
F
Click on the Construct Bridge button on the Orders Tab, or press the V key
F
Click on the Battlemap near the South end of the bridge and within 500m of the Crossing Point
icon
F
Set Losses to High ( to reduce probability of abandonment under enemy pressure )
F
Run the game again
78
on 2/8th Fd Coy, RAE to add it to the selection
Your two engineer units will move to the bridge and deploy; once they have done so:
F
Click on the Crossing Point icon for Yef Alamanas Bridge .
You’ll see a new progress bar
on the Crossing Point Data
display, called Constructing
Light Bridge. Once this
progress bar is full, the blown
bridge will have been replaced
by an improvised engineer
structure and your units will
be able to get across again.
More importantly, if you
make it in time (before the
end of the scenario), you’ll
get the completion points for
the objective – although the
delay will probably cost you
most if not all the occupation
points. To make up some of
the shortfall, you can reinforce success at the Komma Bridge (assuming that you secured it intact):
F
Select 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ, C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt, and one infantry company from 2/8th
Inf Bn
F
Order them to Attack Anthili village .
If you want to control the location of the FUP, set at least two waypoints and the second-last one will
become the FUP. Otherwise, just leave the order as is and the Cav Regt HQ will pick its own FUP.
79
Assessing the Situation
State of Your Units
Now that things are more or less quiet, it’s
a good chance to assess the current state of
affairs. Use the different info box displays
to get a quick overview of things like
Fatigue, Morale, Cohesion, and Strength.
Also select individual units and look
at their Gen Tab displays. In particular,
the Personnel, Strength, and Equipment
progress bars may show two colours: a
light blue bar, and a longer dark blue bar.
This shows that the unit or units have taken
casualties; the dark blue bar shows their
starting state, and the light blue one shows
what they have left.
Take a look at fatigue across your units,
too. You’ll notice that motorised units in
general didn’t get as tired as non-motorised
ones, and units that were involved in
combat or took heavy fire are the most
tired of all.
Night and Visibility
As time goes by the Battlemap will get progressively darker. This is a clue that night is falling! This
has a few important effects:
±
Visibility will be reduced, so units will need to be closer to see each other
±
Units will move slower
±
Units on the move will fatigue much faster
±
Airstrikes may be aborted
80
You can check the current visibility in two ways:
F
Hold your cursor over the Weather display at the top right corner of the Sidebar until the Weather
Tooltip comes up
F
Use the LOS Tool to check the visibility between points on the map
Daytime
81
Dusk
Nighttime.
82
Victory Level
You can tell roughly how well
you are doing by looking at
the Victory Meter, under the
Weather display on the Sidebar.
The further the needle points
to the right, the better your
situation is – but be wary it’s
only an estimate.
If you took both bridges intact,
and the 2 NZ Div Cav Regt is
making a good job of securing
the Sperkhios Bridge objective,
then it’s quite likely that your
opponent will offer a surrender
at some time during the night
or early in the morning. You’ll
get a message telling you about
the offer, and the Surrender
button on the Display Toolbar
will change to read Accept
Surrender. At this point you
could accept the surrender and
achieve a complete victory. For
now, however, just ignore any
offers of surrender.
Resupply
At 0600 and 1800 hours each day resupply is determined for all units. ( In some other scenarios there
may only be one resupply determination at 1800 ). At this time supplies scheduled to arrive from off
map are allocated to the Supply Entry Points ( SEPs ) and from there to the on-map Depot or Base
units. Simultaneously the Base units receive requests from those units that draw supplies from it. Over
the ensuing period the requests are prioritised and fulfilled subject to available supplies and transport.
We will go into this, and emergency resupply, in more detail in the advanced tutorial. For now all you
need be aware of is that you will start to receive “supplies have arrived” messages (which is good). In
some cases you may also receive a message saying that the supply run has suffered casualties ( which
is not so good ).
With the arrival of supplies your units should now have a full load of ammo. This is of prime concern to
your artillery and mortar units who tend to burn through their ammo at alarming speed when firing.
83
When the resupply messages appear:
F
Select the FS Tab in the Sidebar
F
Select the 2/3 Field Regt
Note that it now has a full load of ammo as indicated by the Arty Ammo bar. So now we’re ready for
some exploitation.
84
Further Moves
Saved Game Point #12 - optional - load saved game now - Tut 1.12 Double Envelopement
Order.aag.
If the enemy managed to blow both main bridges, you’ll need to skip ahead to the If Both Bridges
Got Blown section. Otherwise, to increase the pressure on the enemy, we can exploit our success
at the bridges and capture the village of Anthili. How you go about doing this depends on the battle
situation. You will need to balance defending your gains against providing the attack on Anthili with
enough clout to succeed, and you should also consider where the enemy is deployed in strength and
try to avoid that area.
If you hold the Komma Bridge intact, then you have a choice of approaches to Anthili; otherwise,
you’ll have to bust through any defences between the village and Yef Alamanas.
You can also go about destroying more enemy personnel and equipment:
F
Show the Obj Tab in the Sidebar
F
Select the Destroy the Enemy objective from the list .
Under the objective list will be shown the number of victory points you’ve been
awarded for destroying the enemy. In some scenarios this amount will be zero
– that is, in those scenarios there’s no reward of points for damaging the enemy.
In this scenario, you could gain up to 30 victory points here; this is based on
the proportion of the total enemy force that you’ve destroyed. The proportion
required is listed in the “% of Kills” field.
Destroying the enemy can be tricky since retreating and routing units move
faster. It’s also not possible to directly target an enemy unit; all orders in COTA
revolve around map locations. You’ll need to think ahead and position your
forces between the enemy and his objectives.
One of the best ways of destroying an enemy is to envelop his position. In other
words to attack from different approaches with a view to unhinge his defences
and inflict heavy casualties. A single envelopment usually involves a pinning or fixing force probing
or firing on the enemy from one direction ( often the frontal approach ) while attacking in force from
either the left or right flank. A double envelopment usually sees two simultaneous attacks launched
from opposite directions, with the aim of surrounding and destroying the enemy.
With the capture of both the Komma and Yef Alamanas bridges you have the opportunity to launch
a double envelopment of the Anthili objective. You will need to first ensure your newly acquired
objectives are secure. Then commit enough forces to the attacks.
85
Here’s one option:
F
Leave the Gk 11/82nd Bn defending the Yef Alamanas bridge
F
Order C MG Coy and A Coy 2/8 to defend the Komma Bridge
F
Select the 2/4 Inf Bn and the 2/3 Field Regt and order them to attack Anthili forming up south of
the town. This will be your right pincer. Note the waypoints to avoid any enemy to the east. Note
the 2/3 Field Regt will be in direct support of this assault.
F
Select the 2/8 Inf Bn and C Sqn 2 Cav and order them to attack the town from the north west.
This will form your left pincer.
86
If all goes well you should achieve the Anthili objective near sunrise. This of course will depend on
enemy reactions.
If you perform well during this closing stage of the battle, the enemy will probably offer to surrender.
If this happens:
F
Click the Accept Surrender button on the Display Toolbar
A dialog will appear asking you to confirm.
F
Click Accept Surrender to confirm .
87
Victory at Last!
If the enemy surrenders, your VP will
automatically be set to 100 and the
enemy’s to zero, even if you don’t hold
all the objectives and regardless of
any VP the enemy has already gained
through damaging your units or holding
objectives. If you fought to the end of the
scenario at D2, 18:00, any VP achieved
by the enemy during the scenario will
be subtracted from your final score to
determine how well you did.
You’ll be shown a screen informing you
what level of victory you’ve reached (if
you got here by accepting a surrender, it’ll
be a Decisive Victory) and summarising
the damage both you and the enemy
inflicted on each other. The numbers for
each side show kills rather than casualties
– that is, if you see 150 under Personnel
for Allies, it means your units killed 150
Axis personnel.
You can now review the actual dispositions of both sides:
F
Click Review Final Situation
The AAR screen will disappear and you’ll be looking at the Battlemap – but
with perfect intelligence of the enemy’s positions and current condition. The
Surrender / Accept Surrender button on the Display Toolbar will now read
AAR; if you want to look at the AAR screen again:
F
Click on the Obj Tab
F
Click on the Yef Alamanas Bridge and review the results.
You should see two different values in the Occupation box. The one on the left is
what you actually received and the one on the right is the potential amount.
F
Click the AAR button on the Display Toolbar
Note you can still save the game during this review phase.
88
If Both Bridges are Blown
If you were really unlucky and both the Komma Bridge and the Yef Alamanas Bridge got blown, don’t
panic. You can restore the situation as follows:
F
Rebuild the Yef Alamanas Bridge as detailed in If Yef Alamanas Bridge is Destroyed
F
Order 2/8th Inf Bn HQ to Secure the Sperkhios Bridge
F
Select 2nd NZ Div Cav Regt HQ, C Sqn 2 NZ Div Cav Regt, and two companies of 2/8th Inf
Bn, and order them to Attack Anthili .
The rebuilding of Yef Alamanas Bridge, plus the extra points for taking Anthili and the Sperkhios
Bridge, should be enough to salvage at least a draw. Alternatively, try the scenario again and this time
use the mountain gun section and the machinegun company of the Greek infantry battalion to provide
fire support to one of the bridge attacks in the same manner we used the MG Coy this time. You can
also beef up the assaulting forces by including one or two companies of the Greek infantry battalion;
just add them to the selection before you issue your orders.
End the Tutorial
With the AAR screen displayed:
F
Click on the End Game button to return to the Command Screen
Or from the Battlemap:
F
Click on the Menu button of the Display Toolbar.
F
Select Leave Game to return to the Command Screen or
F
Select Quit Airborne Assault to exit the Game.
89
Next Steps
Congratulations. You have finished your the Introductory Tutorial. In this tutorial you’ve learnt to:
±
±
±
±
±
±
±
±
±
Start a scenario
Assess your objectives in terms of what they are worth and when to take them
Understand the strengths and weaknesses of your force
Understand some of the impact of terrain on movement and visibility
Select your units
Issue orders, change orders, and form battlegroups
Use the on-screen controls and the keyboard shortcuts
Launch specific activities like Move, Attack, and Secure Crossing
Keep track of the progress of a battle and the condition of your units
In the Advanced Tutorial ( Tut #2 ), we’ll step things up a bit by commanding larger forces – and by
turning on orders delay. This adds a whole new level to the game! We’ll also go into more detail about
operational strategies, scheduling and complex attacks.
Introductory Scenarios
Before undertaking the Advanced Tutorial we recommend you get some experience playing the smaller,
less complex scenarios without orders delay. Annex F - Scenario Complexity Table of the Reference
Manual lists all the scenarios and rates them in ascending complexity. Complete the first six of these
and remember that you can vary each of these by changing the different reinforcement, weather and
supply options. Choosing Favour Axis for the Axis Reinforcement Schedule of the Introductory
Tutorial for instance will provide a significant challenge to the game you have just played.
±
±
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Sarantaporon: Tac Ex - Bde Day Attack
Sarantaporon: Tac Ex - Bde Night Attack
Tutorial I: Bridges to Lamia - this time set Axis Reinforcement Schedule to Favour Axis
Platamon: Tanks at Platamon
Maleme: The Kiwis Fight Back
Maleme: Stemming the Tide
During this process please consult the Reference Manual for any specific questions you have.
Once you’ve completed these you will have mastered the interface and be ready for the next
challenge.
90

Getting Started Manual

Transcription

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