Airborne Assault

[Janus]

Other companies moved into the attack a few minutes after I had taken this screenshot.
In fact I had the formation, frontage, route and most of the other parameters set to "unspecified" or "auto" because I wanted to see what the AI commander comes up with.

I wonder what the aggressiveness parameter does, I suppose it tells the units how much they are allowed to engage targets of opportunity that block the way during the way to the FUP.
Yesterday I saw 2 bataillons moving into their FUP and when the scout element made contact, it remainded stationary while the other forces avoided the enemy and continued moving on a covered route into the FUP.
Nevertheless the single enemy company managed to slow down the attack significantly which in the end meant a total defeat for me in this short 12h scenario.

Does the formation parameter for orders specify the formation of the wole unit (for example a regiment) or for every singel unit seperately? Same about the frontage and depth.

In the meantime I found an AAR for Highway to the Reich which is written in a Tutorial style manner. Unfortunately HTTR is almost impossible to get in Germany from Matrix Games themselves it costs about 40€ + shipping costs

[larrysellars]

The aggressivness parameter tells the unit(s) how active they can be when engaging an enemy. A low aggression unit will be more likely to bypass or run away when engaged in combat, while a high aggression unit will be more likely to fight and fight hard. Another key feature of the Aggro scale is that when set to max, the commander will push all his units into the battle and leave little or no reinforcements. For example, a normal attack with a battalion of 3 companies will have 2 companies making the attack while the 3rd is used as a reserve unit. Setting the aggro to max will have all 3 companies in the attack with no reserve.

The formation settings apply to all units as a whole. If you have 1 battalion and order it a formation with a width of 600 meters, the commander will spread all his forces units to cover the 600 meters.

Matrix games are definitely overpriced for too long. It's been 4 years since Highway came out and it still sells at full price from their website. I picked up my copy from gogamer.com for $20, although I don't think they ship to Europe.

Check out EBay, most people there ship worldwide, and it'll be a lot cheaper than 40 euros.

[Janus]

Thanks for the answers larrysellars.
I've restarted the scenario from which the above screenshot was taken. This time I ordered 1 bataillon to defend the western exit of Arnhem to prevent any enemy reinforcements coming in from Arnhem to support the forces at the railway bridge which was to be attacked by almost the whole rest of the regiment.
All in all it went quite well this time although my time schedule was not met and the scenario ended anyway after 24hrs because its only a demo.

It's hard to tell how long a unit of a certain size takes to travel a certain distance (of course there are external factors like amount of enemy resistance).
Does the command delay kick in every full hour (for example 1400, 1500, 1600,...) or is it dependant from the start time of the scenario (if the scenario starts at 1307 for example, are orders executed at 1407, 1507 and so on)?

There a quite a bunch of decently priced copies of Red Devils over Arnhem available in Germany at amazon or ebay but as Highway to the Reich covers the whole operation and hase improved functions I prefer having it over "Red Devils" of course.

[larrysellars]

Glad to help.

Figuring out speeds and ETA's are tough, and usually come through playing the game for a while. I still can't guess properly and most of my ETA's are "soon" or "not for a while".

I'm not sure how Red Devils handles orders delay, but Highway handles it based on a multitude of factors, most importantly size. Issuing a command to a division takes a lot longer for them to get sorted and organized as the division hq has to issue orders to the regiment hq, which in turn orders the battalion hq, which tells the companies what to do. In Highway, there's actually a stat that shows how long a unit will be delayed from the moment it receives its orders to when it starts moving to carry them out.

From the manual:

If you gave an order for the 82nd Abn Div HQ to move, then the period required before the force as a whole starts moving will be

Total Orders Delay = Div HQ delay (50mins) + Regiment HQ delay (45) + Bn HQ delay (42) + Coy delay (33) = 170 Minutes.

That means that from the time you order the 82nd Div to move somewhere, it will take them 3 hours before you see them start to move. Completely bypassing the chain of command and ordering a battalion to move would mean less delay (only 75 minutes), but those forces can't coordinate with the rest of the division unless you micromanage like crazy. There's also one other caveat for the allies: there are (usually) no order delays for the first hour of a scenario. This represents the idea that units would have a set of standing orders when they landed.

Good luck on trying to find a cheap copy of Highway to the Reich. It's a good game and you won't regret picking it up.

[Egan]

Yeah, 'Highway' is the one to start out with, You get all the scenarios from RDOA and the benefit of the enhanced game mechanics and slightly improved graphics.

I've got my copy sitting right here beside me. I might just have to reinstall it and give the original Arnhem scenario yet another spin...

[Blacklight]

It just doesn't get better than Highway the the Reich and Conquest of the Agean for WWII ground combat sims. Best battlefield sim I've ever played. Don't let the "Realtime" scare you off. This is no Warcraft or Command and Conquer. These games are like you sitting in the command center... knowing only what your units know... the units on the map represent the relative position of the units but not exactly where they are. Orders to move are carried out in real time exatly as they would when you give the order for a unit to do something.. not to mention, there is a command structure linking whole sections of units together so you can give your objectives to the highest ranking units and they'll pass down their orders to best carry out the operations to their underlings etc..etc... or you can just contact individual groups and order them directly. The Airborne Assault games are not your typical real time strategy game at all. There's no comparison.
There's even a mod for Conquest of the Agean (I don't know if one exists for Highway to the Reich) to replace the sounds of battle with quieter and more realistic battlefield sounds like what you would hear if you were a commander sitting in a bunker while the fighting is going on around you.

As I've said numerous times before.. Highway to the Reich, Conquest of the Agean, Operational Art of War III, Harpoon III Advanced Naval Warfare, Orbiter, and of course Dangerous Waters, and Silent Hunter III, are the games that will probably never leave my hard drive or not anytime soon.