[Lieste]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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.

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