Roads and Orders

[Rasputitsa]

One item that is not clear from the game manual is that this later version of CotD is played out on the road-net and objectives can only be set on road and town hexes.

When you go to 'Select Objective' in a corps, or unit, info panel and click on the desired objective on the map, then 'Objective Set' appears in the top screen bar only when a road, or town hex, has been selected and then route symbols show on the map, indicating the route the unit will use.

If the route is not appropriate, then you could 'Select Objective' again and choose an intermediate point that gets the unit going on the right road (send that order) and then again 'Select Objective' in a later turn to get the unit further on to the final objective. You can change your orders (or any part of the order) at any time, until you select the 'Send Orders' button and then conform 'Send Orders' again in the confirmation panel.

Once that is done a messenger is on the way, you can still change your mind and send a different order, which sends a second messenger to over-ride your first order, but there is a chance that one, or other messenger, will not get through and the change might not take place.

Any order cancels out previous orders and when a unit is in battle previous orders are cancelled and the unit may be responding to its own initiative, especially if 'shattered' and will retreating to the retreat point (if you have given one), or it will choose its own objective, usually the LOC, or the last LOC it knew about, if it has been out of contact.

You can use the 'Additional Orders' option in the order confirmation panel, as where selecting 'Send Orders' cancels previous orders, 'Addition Orders' leaves previous orders in play with the additional order being enacted only after previous orders have been carried out. You could use this to set up a way point, 'Send Orders' to select the start of the required route, then an 'Additional Order' to complete the route, changing the urgency and stance if required.

It may seem limiting to only use the road-net, but historically campaigns were mostly based on the available roads. The Waterloo campaign was based on NAPOLEON forcing the Brussels road and the crossroads at Quatre Bras, with the Prussians linked to the road back to NAMUR. Borodino was based on the Somolesk/Moscow highway, etc..

Terrain comes into play when there is a battle and Waterloo was within an area covered by one CoTD hex.

Some features, like receiving replacements, sound of guns effects, unit spotting, seem to work on hex range rather than just road distance.

[JeffWesevich]

Effectively playing out the game on a road net and restricting orders to towns and road junctions seems quite reasonable, given my research.

Finding this game (a couple of hours ago) has been quite the surprise. Back in the mid-'90s, when I was working on World at War and Close Combat, my pet project was an operational Napoleonic campaign (I was going to do 1813) game that worked very much as COTD does, with realistic intelligence, orders, reports, etc. I never carried it forward b/c I was concerned with how much gameplay there would be--I knew grognards would like it, but how compelling would the experience be?

After picking up Leggiere's books on 1813 last year, I finally started exploring the "pet project" again, and I've been working out the basic game mechanics and how to approach the AI over the past couple weeks. I was going to start laying things out in UML this weekend, when I stumbled on this. Oh well...

jeff

[Rasputitsa]

Frank Hunter has created some great games and this is one of the best, however it is a revision of an older game, intended to operate on newer computers and has some unresolved issues.

Nothing really serious, except that the manual is for the older game and has not been updated. The other issues are part of this forum discussion.

The experience with CotD has caused me to re-visit Frank's ACW 'From Sumter to Appomattox' game, from way back, which has some similarities to CotD, but on a much bigger scale.

After playing CotD I think I understand ACW better, and if you like the CotD game system, ACW covers a continental war, including creating units and production, with a naval and political component. [:)]