Operational level war gaming.
 

Not sure if anyone else will be keen, but in the interests of sharing the good stuff ;)

I've been having a blast with Conquest of the Aegean, set in 1941 during the German and Italian advances through Greece, the capture of Crete and some early Desert War action, with some hypotheticals such as the invasion of Malta.
The AI is relatively strong, both when assisting the player (orders are given to formation HQs - ranging from the single company or platoon through Battalion HQs with their companies and support elements, all the way up to Corps comprised of several Divisions, plus support regiments or brigades - the orders take some time to be developed, and propagated to the subordinate units - but the need to micromanage each element in order to just make an administrative advance is purely optional), or when attempting to make life hard for the player as his opponent.
Combat and movement are free, not depending on hex grids or fixed turns but influenced by the terrain in which they are deployed. Units tend to slow and become less effective if they are over-used and suffer fatigue or run low on basic supplies, but casualties are generally low if units aren't overrun or surrounded when they can be forced to surrender by superior forces.
This is the only wargame system I've played where I've not felt that I was fighting against the artificial game system, rather than against an opponent using reasonably sensible manouvers and tactics.

...im interested, what game are you talking aboot?

Maybe this? :D
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/....of.the.Aegean


I myself wait for World in Flames, which is making slow but constant progress. The Operational Art of War III failed me due to the interface that always gave me a hard time to read it.

Yes, I should have made it more clear I guess :)

This is one of a series of titles based on a slowly evolving engine. The whole series is:

• Airbourne Assault: Red Devils Over Arnhem - this one is a bit old, and has some limitations to logic and behaviour. There is a demo still online, but it only gives a flavour of the later titles, and is more limiting.
• Airbourne Assault: Highway To The Reich - RDOA re-written and re-released by Matrixgames. Fixes some of the issues of the previous game, but lacks some later refinements.
• Airbourne Assault: Conquest Of The Aegean. Incorporates mixed mode movement, where some terrain is off limits to motorised troops, but can be moved through by infantry (at a higher cost in fatigue etc). Adds supply sources, depots and convoys. Includes Exit requirements as a victory location type.
• Command Ops: Battles For The Bulge. In development, lots of changes due soonish, maybe.

COTA has been supplied to the Australian MOD as part of their officer training software, in a similar way that SB Pro is used.

Training software? Hm, I maybe should put that title on my list, even more so after reading at Matrix Games that the game can be paused by still commnds could get entered. I never was a big fan of the Action RTS click-mouse-button hectically-festivals, and have a weak spot for old-fashioned IGYG-hex-games, but I get the impression that COTA might be interesting for me.

Is the engine used in any modern-era title?

How is stability, support and patch status?

There are a variety of datagroups working, including for the Eastern Front and for Modern Era version to be developed in the future.

Stability is good, some intial problems with Vista, current status unknown.
Support is generally good, but mostly historical as most limitations/problems have been identified and where possible patched.
There are four patches that fix most problems and add some of the most important missing features for the theatre. The intitial release was stable and ran reasonably well out of the box, although routeing near crossings could become confused under some circumstances.

I picked up COTA when it first came out and can thoroughly recommend it.
Haven't played it in a while but can still vividly remember trying with great difficulty to maintain an effective fighting withdrawal in some of the Greek battles and the desperate seesawing fights for control of the heights overlooking Maleme airfield.
If you are into wargaming COTA along with HTTR are must haves in my opinion.

Is there enough community activity, modding, scenario and download activity to justify a stickied resource thread like the existing ones? Anyone having sufficient links to contribute? If enough comes together (I don't know, I still consider to eventually buy COTA), all titles of the series could be covered in just one resource.

Take this as an invitation to suggest resource stickies on other wargames, strategy games featuring ground war, and comparable games as well. For example Armed Assault would be acceptable for tanksim.com. EA Sports or Unreal Tournament would be not.

But be aware that if you launch one new yourself, you will be responsible for upating it constantly when new links and information gets posted. That is so that the information is structured and in one place and in one post, not scattered around on 20+ thread pages. Searching for a single info in a 20 pages-thread IS NO FUN. Although that needs constant awareness from your side, I would encourage you to do it yourself, because currently i myself already maintain 5 such threads.

I am also (and still) considering to buy COTA, and am close to it, but strolling around at the Matrix site I learned that there is another game as well that might interest me, Commander - Europe at War. Does anybody know it and can give some feedback? I'm currently stuck in decision-making and can't decide which one of the two it should be. :oops: Just that it is time for some good wargaming title again, that'S for sure. Both seem to be very strong contenders.

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/....Europe.at.War

I am also considering Close combat modern Tactics.

Strange that most of such games focus on history, but only few focus on the modern era - this would interest me most. A WWII-title always is a compromise for me.

COTA may be the better choice for training you to make timely decisions then ;)

Hehe, point taken. :lol:

Anyway, I found the demo of Commander, and found it to be a massively beefed up Panzer General. I LOVED Panzer General! that was one of those game where you think "just one more move, and than I have a break/have a meal/go to bed", and two hours later you find yourself still glued to the screen and thinking that same thought to excuse your moves. It is not the ultimate in realism, of course, but it plays breathtakingly fluid(?fluent?), and really can turn you into a junkey.

There also is a Napoleonic version of it, which is newer, but maybe not as thoroughly patched, then.

I think I'll buy both COTA and Commander.

Only question is in what order I will start to play them. Any bright answer to that question now...? :D

I've gotten COTA and have started to drill my teeth deep into it. :) So far i like what I am seeing.

Commander EaW I found to be a bit too dull over time, after playing around with the demo for some time, and too few units. They also copied over too many setbacks and weaknesses of the original Panzer General, instead of correcting them and making it better.

COTA seems to be very impressive indeed, even better that it comes with both a scenario and a map editor.

Question: After having installed the patch also, I saw that it has several alternative map colour schemes set up in one of it's folders, also the one that I had picked as a separate download and wanted to use. But I found no clue so far how to activate any of these...!?

Not sure, sorry... I tend to run vanilla, and seldom use graphical mods et al.

Without looking up what you *should* do, you *could try* replacing the files in /matrixgames/conquest of the aegean/graphics/map/default with the 'new' default MapPat.bmp and MapPatA.bmp

Whether or how to specify particular graphics for a particular map, I'm not sure...

As always, ensure you have your re-installation information secure, and back-up files before changing them.

Ah, that was exactly the piece of info I was asking for: where to put the two files, and it works. If you have not tried it yourself, try the hi-vis replacement, imo it gives a better visualisation of the contours of the 3-dimensional terrain: it is easier to form a mental impression of where ridges exactly are, for example.

http://cota.matrixgames.com/images/hi_vis.jpg

An alternative is this:

http://cota.matrixgames.com/images/capt_big.jpg

Possible that I show up with more questions in the coming days, maybe.

Lieste,

I really owe you one. Thank you so much for pointing us/me at COTA! I am still busy with the first tutorial, and I love the system and design, this is easily the best CoSim system that I ever became aware of. I am currently struggling with the handling of the many display options of the interface, it is all not difficult, nothing there is difficult- it just is so much, it is complex in the ammount of details. However, gameplay itself is so very elegant, easy to handle - and still very realistic in possibilities, in ways-to-do, in unfolding action-and-reaction.

AI I always take under separate, critical review, and in COTA it seems to be awfully good. this is one of the very best AIs I have ever seen in action in any game. Especially the tactical AI is so good that I cannot identify it to be a machine so far. Whether or not the strategic, longtermed AI in huge scenarios is en par, I cannot judge at the moment, I am not far enough into the game. But even if it looses a bit, it still would be very, very good then. I assume it also depends on the clever (or not so clever) scenario design.

It first also reminded me of some kind of "land-version" of a bug-free, stable Harpoon. I meanwhile understood that it is far better, in all aspects.

Some times ago I dreamed a daydream of using the SBP map tool for a strategy module in the SBP universe, and I dreamed of something like this. It became true, in a way!

Very great thing this sim is, guys. If you are into this kind of sims, this is the ultimate must-have in the genre.

Lieste is hereby awarded the Tip-Of-The-Month Award in Gold with Bar!



For those interested, be informed that the sim trains you via two printed tutorials (90 and 70 pages of full-of information pages, plus prepared savegames that could be called up chapterwise), and then has a third manual for reference: 200 pages, 55 pages of map maker manual, and 80 pages of scenario maker manual. there also is a 20 pages document on strategy, more community stuff is available online.

What is the scale of the possible battles ? Can I conquer the whole world ?

As long as you do not try to leave the Aegean, yes. :D

http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec...DE=&CACHE_ID=0

Establishments are fixed, and cannot be ammended by the end user. This means that the 100% strength platoon/company/batallion sizes and equipment lists for each nation and type/subtype of unit are not modifiable. Strength can be set to greater or lesser than the default, but any excess equipment will be discarded if the unit routs.

They are generally complete for use within the original theatre, and similarity of equipment allows some flexibility of theatre and date, but this is fairly limited. (patches tend to address the more important defecits)
Most equipment is therefore early war German/Italian/Commonwealth stuff, but for the planned operation Herkales there are some KV1/KV2 companies - which make very little difference as they are so rare that you just delay them while cutting them off from their support/supply units, then let them wither...

The Orbat is completely flexible though, and it is possible to combine the sub-unit building blocks into any force structure you need. I know of at least one operation set around Narvik, and one depicting Op Sealion for the COTA engine.

Scenarios are usually larger than the tutorials (Regimental/Brigade, and short 36hrs-72hrs), many are delay/pursuit rather than fight to the last man affairs, but they can be Corps sized, and last for over a week.

In the longer battles a major factor is deciding whether to keep bulling through with both sides in disorder and increasing exhaustion, or to regroup and rest, allowing more strength to be thrown into the fight, but at the expense of allowing enemy units to extricate themselves from out of supply pockets, to re-arm and re-supply and to dig in covering the next delay line.

My pleasure :)

I love the short first tutorial - I'll often play it as a 'pick-up' game if I've got an hour or two. It is quite easy to accomplish what is asked of you, as you have lots of support and 3:1 in strength, which you can apply to roughly 1/3 of his force in the first attack at 9:1. Your troops cannot attack continously from Yef Alamanas to Lamia though, their attack will peter out and they will need to stop before the end of the 36 hours. Sometimes it is better to rest, before marching your troops to a new forming-up-point and assaulting the next objective with fresh troops if the first attack hasn't pocketed units... you will want to destroy these whenever practical.



It is strongly recommended to play with delays set to the highest two settings - I prefer "painfully realistic" (sic), but some others report a preferrence for a little bit more responsiveness. A lot of the fun of the system comes from looking at the current situation and deciding what you will want to be doing in a hour, and passing the necessary orders to get this to happen, and then watching the plan go wrong... even better is when you watch your opponents plan fall apart though, especially when you plough his HQ under while his units are milling around in confusion... that sort of thing can take some time to sort out :)

Battles For The Bulge (Demo)
 

There is a new AAR of the proposed demo posted by Arjuna over at the matrix site: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2269933

This suggests that the title is nearing release date, although it could still be several months away. It does however confirm that there will finally be a demo of the refined modern AA/CO series to supersede the RDOA one.
Demo will be a four day battle with reinforcements from both sides, raising force strength from Regt/Bde to ~Division. Can be played from either side, or HtH.