One thing you may notice, is the game feels alive, the soldiers move as if they had just been attacked, and are looking for some ammo, or running for cover, or seeking a better position. This has the result that you can’t predict the enemy’s actions.
You can do two things with each unit per turn: move or attack. The number of times you can move or attack is determined by many factors. You need ORDERS to do anything in the game, you get orders by being close to a LEADER at the end of a turn or you can have a large pool of orders at the start of the scenario.
VERY IMPORTANT: Select by left-clicking a unit, MOVE or ATTACK by right-clicking, but to move or attack you must first have selected a unit. You can only move one hex at a time.
When you move, the cost of movement is the reduction of Movement Points and Orders, the map can have A Movement Cost for your unit to enter, the costs can be seen by activating the Move Cost indicator (one of the red/green buttons on the right-hand side of the screen). You can keep moving so long as you have the points and orders.
IMPORTANT: You can only move one hex at a time. Every time you move you may be targeted for OPFIRE by the computer’s units that are within range. You select the unit you wish to command by left-clicking it, then right-click a hex next to it, if you right-click an enemy unit you will attack it if within range. Range is not limited to only one hex, it can be a lot further (look at the Range indicator button on the right hand side).
When you have moved and attacked all you wish press TURN and the computer will do its turn. The computer will stop on its first attack for you to select if you wish to see the attacks as they happen, or fast skip all attacks.
Attacks can reduce strength, armor, and morale. If your morale goes too low you won’t be able to attack but can move away and get some morale back if not by an enemy nearby at the end of turn.
If you attack an armor unit then the attack will include: defenders armor minus your anti-armor. If armor is reduced to zero then the strength is reduced. If you attack an armor unit but you have low or no anti-armor rating, the armored unit will be less effected by an attack.
Each attack has a 1 in 3 chance of failing.
The bottom of the screen shows the selected unit on the left, and selected target on the right. All the values for each unit are shown. Max Move Points and Max attacks, are what is given to the unit at the start of each turn, you can also see what points are remaining this turn.
Bottom left of the screen is the terrain display, it will show any hex tile or terrain tile of the selected hex, it also will show a TEM (terrain effects modifier) value, and also a LineOfSight obstacle if present.
The buttons on the right-hand side are info display buttons, they will show indicators on the units for the selected button, the buttons have a text below them that tells you what each button is but only when one button is on.
The BATTLE REPORT can be seen by moving the mouse to the top of the screen. You will also see it at the end of a turn. Make sure you remember to move mouse to the top of the screen to close REPORT.
Moving a unit over a victory flag will capture it, but leaders cannot capture a flag. Leaders are small units not suitable to fight, but I’ve left the option in to give leaders attack values.
ONE THING YOU MUST REMEMBER, THE COMPUTER STOPS AT ITS FIRST ATTACK AND GIVES YOU THE OPTION TO STEP THROUGH EACH ATTACK OR SKIP ALL FOR A FAST SKIP OVER. When the computer stops in its turn for you to select, to step through one attack at a time or skip fast through them, you can restop the action with space