Yeah, I’m actually still a bit confused about how the AI managed to get its mechanised force to chase me along that hill. The slope is pretty extreme in places and I didn’t think it was doable, but it kept up a fair clip for a while.
I thought 5 of your northern units in post #29 were at the foot of the eastern hill, and the just crossed Germans could pin you against it. The picture made it look like this was awfully close to happening already.
It could have happened, but that whole area is slope pretty much down to the river. The foot soldiers could have crossed that hill, no doubt, on the tracks, but I did think the mechanised lot would have a harder time following. I was very much hoping that would be the case.
Day 2, 2030 Hours
THE GREAT REPLAN has begun!
Step one - Grab the “lose” btns. and move them down towards Larissa. This includes the coy. left hanging around on the left flank. It spotted a couple of German coys, but not much happened. I want to get it racing south as fast as possible.
Step two - get my arty to unload heavily on any Kraut that moves for the next hour or so, so as to keep their heads down as my guys get ready to move out. Once they’re underway, I’ll bug my arty out (it will respond much quicker to my direct orders than to coy’s whose orders need to go through the btn. staff, etc.
Step three - try and extract my central backup btn. that has been on delay orders since day 1.
Step four - cover their final retreat with the cavalry and arty (which I hope to get to Larissa quick enough.
Day 3, 0300 Hours
All my forces were disengaged by nightfall (2200) and are mostly half way between their old positions and Larissa. Most of the arty has set up half way between with an AT coy. for company. Being motorized, they’ll catch up and push ahead of the main body as soon as it’s time.
My blocking force is… blocking!
Between heavy arty barrages and my units being in prepared positions I’ve repulsed the German’s early attacks. I’ll need to get these guys moving pretty promptly, but for now they’re doing a good job.
On the left my coy. met a MG coy. on the road to Larissa and had a shoot out. They ran away. Some quick arty work prevented any enemy chase, but I’ll probably end up with some Germans in Larissa with me by mid-morning by the looks of it!
Day 3, 0500 Hours
Dawn breaks to views of more Germans crowding down onto my positions. Fortunately, a number of units there, combined with artillery, seem to be surprising the Krauts and holding them off or forcing them back.
The exclamation mark shows my supply depot which I forgot about. OOPS! I order it to hurry back.
On the hill my Cav provide a bit of fire support. At 0530 my withdraw orders finally reach the front line units and they begin to pull back. Hopefully I can keep the Germans off their heels with more liberal applications of artillery.
Unfortunately, my artillery units are very tired. This will make moving them and using them further pretty difficult. If they break for a rest before making it to Larissa we’re in trouble.
Day 3, 0800 Hours
FOUR HOURS TO GET TO THE EXIT.
Now we’re about in full-on RUN AWAY mode. If I issue anything other than ‘exit’ orders at ‘quickest’ and ‘fastest speed’ I might not get enough units off the map. My arty should get to Larissa quick enough (motorised) and this will be all that can hold off the probing Krauts.
Bit annoyed I missed the obvious road over the hill and now a German is there taking pot shots at my lads. Still, I just need to get off the map now, nothing fancy really. RUN AWAY, RUNN AWAYYYY.
Sadly, Nor-Force took a break half way down - too tired from all their forced marches. Issued new exit orders. Hope they will get the feck on with it and get off the map!
Day 3, 1000 Hours
In the north, It’s going badly for the blocking force. Their CO made a clean get away. The coys… however… didn’t quite. They are having a fairly bad time of it, but do seem to be somewhat distracting the enemy. Not sure I could have arranged much better, considering how many Germans there are and how tired my boys are feeling.
My Cav, along with arty, has seemingly distracted the flanking force - but has also be en ordered to exit ASAP. At least it kept the two enemy coy’s there away from my lads, letting them hit the road and get on their way.
Looks like one of my arty units and an AT unit has already driven of the map. Almost all of my units will be on their way shortly… well… I hope so. 3km per hour on the road? Eeep… it’s possible the majority of my infantry won’t make it!
Oh, units are set to ‘small’ icons for this picture.
Day 3, 1100 Hours
ARRGG GET OFF THE FRICK’N MAP!
Looks like our delaying force, aka “Please make yourself obvious and distract the enemy with your screams” has done its job.
In the South a few units have exited, but no where near enough. I’m sort of worried that I’ve not issued the orders correctly and we’re going to have a bunch of units hanging around come 1200 going “LOL WUT?”
GAH! COME ON!
Day 3, 1200 Hours - GAME END
WOO! Marginal Victory!
A lot of units exited in the last 15 minutes, but I was extremely disappointed to see the Auckland Btn. camping on the plains in front of Larissa. Seems they got too tired, then started resting. And continued to rest well into the “we’re feeling fine now, mate!” stage. Thus, when I re-issued the orders to leave the map it was far too late. Nuts! A marginal, and a moral victory? Well, even though not all got off the map, checking the objectives I did get full points for the “exit at Larissa” objective, so the only way to have done better would have been to kill more Krauts or to hold the objectives longer. That’s tough!
Here’s the final map.
One thing I noticed was that in the North some of my back-stop units seem to have got extremely confused about their orders. They my have abandoned them altogether actually. I noticed on AT unit move, and then deploy overlooking the road, whereupon it held up the enemy column for a while. Unfortunately in COTA you have no idea at the end of the game what unit achieved what (eg, people/units shot up) but I would like to think this brave unit (ok, so it’s currently routing, but you get the idea) helped save the day for the team slogging off the map. The other northern force units are a mix of panicked and terrified coys, mostly at around half strength. Poor buggers.
Post thingy run down thing
Ok, well I think my original plan mostly worked out as planned. My big mistakes were waiting too long to issue retreat orders, which resulted in move orders that dragged on too long (in a bid to make up time) and tired out troops. Perhaps I should have started ordering the withdraw as soon as it was clear the enemy were going to get across the river. I might thus have been able to set up a second blocking position with a Btn. sized unit and then leap-frogged them back to Larissa. As it was the tidy move became a bit of a panic.
Also, I could have got more points by “killing the enemy”, which comprised about 30 of my potential 100 points (the other points being 30 in exiting the map, followed by a smattering of “hold this place until xyz hour”, for which I got more of the available points the longer I held the position. In any case, I think I’m pretty happy with a “marginal victory”.
I wish I was better at killing the enemy. It’s pretty hard in COTA! I think I got about 3.5 of the available 30 points!
Never mind, it was a good, fun game and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed playing. I might start another AAR next week I reckon. Maybe something where I’m on the attack.
Nice job. Killing units (or getting them to surrender) in COTA is hard - usually you have to hammer and anvil them (either between units, or using terrain), or surround them and pound them with arty.
The mistake you made I always make too - forgetting about the order delay, so giving withdrawal orders too late, resulting in routing and out of control units. I found you have to be very disciplined in setting up leapfrogging positions - the temptation is always to try and hold on to a good defensive position for a bit too long!
Thanks for a good read, Calistas! I appreciate your efforts.
Thanks!
Yes, another mistake I made was not measuring the distance to Larissa and going “hmm, it will take xyz hours to get there”. And yeah, holding on… not a good idea!
Glad you guys enjoyed that. Might do another when I’m back in NZ :)
You managed to kill more than you lost while being outnumbered, and held the advance off for the required time. Can’t ask for much more than that! I suspect you must have been just at the upper cusp of “marginal” victory.
Nice write up Calistas! I’ll have to pick this game up, once my current backlog winds down a bit.
Great read, made me pull out the game again.
another mistake I made was not measuring the distance to Larissa and going “hmm, it will take xyz hours to get there”
It took me a loooong time before I realized how invaluable all of the tools they give you are…distances, LOS, and especially the route finder, which will basically tell you, for a given unit type and the order you give them, what path the AI will calculate. Absolutely perfect for planning your movements, especially trying to get a big force to the same place at the same time. Every wargame made needs this (cough COMBAT MISSION cough).
No worries! Was fun to do the write-up. Will have to do another in a week or two, perhaps do a multiplayer writeup at some point.
After reading the AAR I’m tempted to pick this up. Anyone know the improvements in CotA compared to Highway to the Reich? HttR seems to be 1/4 the price.
I’d check the features list on the site. I believe there’s some info on the differences. More realistic supply rules for starters.
Ouch, the price in the Matrix store didn’t even include VAT yet. With that, the price goes up to $75 in EU. I wish there was a demo at least. That’s way too much money to go in blind.
More realistic supplies, more fine-tuned pathing tools, exit objectives, more order possibilities (delay/withdraw, which would be FANTASTIC in Holland :)…if you’re interested in strategy at all, you owe it to yourself to pick up at least HTTR. But chances are you’ll end up with both soon enough.
Are they doing these in a discount pack yet? Matrix is usually good with giving you older versions when you buy the new ones.