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Steel Panthers III had several items added to it in an effort to inprove the
playability
and realism of the game. To add to realism, SSI added Command and Control, to
mimic the effects
of the "fog of war" - the confusion and uncertainty that troops experience in
combat;
"Is it a friendly" - "Am I going in the right direction?" - "My corns hurt, I
ain't doing
that",
etc.
Also, It tries to duplicate the fact that before any situation in combat, the
Colonel would
tell his Majors what he wanted to do - " We are to take Dog -Leg Hill", "Division
wants a
spoiling
attack tommorrow night." "Have a company advance to contact", etc.
And , like the old phrase about passing the buck, it would filter down till the
Sgts in charge of their squad had the right general idea of what was needed to be
done to accomplish their mission.
Details on this are on page 23 of SPIII user manual, and it is fairly
complex. Basically, you need to have orders to move to areas that are not the formations/units current objective.
At the start of ea turn , leaders recieve new orders, at least one up to ten. The
number of orders allotted is based on the leader's command rating and the nationality's command rating based on this formula:
command rating + (a random number from 0-9) -40 + nationality command rating) divided by 10 (SHEESH! shut off country training- makes this easier and less time consuming to do it unless you live for complexity)
The nationality command rating is Appendix A- Nationality command ratings on
pg 80 of manual
Leaders may retain unused orders from the previous turn and add them to the newly recieved
orders The max amount that can be retained is determined by rank of the leader
pvt, cpl = 0
sgt, 2nd lt, 1st lt =1
capt, maj , lt col. =2
col, gen =3
The total number of orders a leader has available at start of the turn is =
to his retained orders + his newly recieved orders
Adverse morale affects the orders as well.
buttoned = orders halved
pinned = orders halved
retreating and routed = orders reduced to 0
With control on unit stance must be changed manually either to advance or defend.
Units in advance with good morale may be moved or fired by the owning player.
Units assigned to defend may fire but cannot move, and will dig in
(all units except for gun units) and they haven't shot at anything in their turn
If a defending unit is forced to retreat, then stance automatically goes to advance
The number of turns to dig in depends on troop quality and its level of suppresion,
and your sappers in adjacent hexes will help speed up the process, it usually takes a couple of turns to dig in.
Formation Movement Objectives- the key to winning using control
Formations may be assigned objectives to reach. Whenever a new one is selected
for a formation, units then in contact (physically or by radio) with the formation HQunit are given the new objective. Units not in contact will not recieve the new
objectives until the turn they re-establish contact with their HQ. Objectives
can only be given to the entire formation. but units in a formation can have
different objectives depending the state of contact with their HQ, as new objectives are selected.
Units in advance may move towards a their objective without using any of the
leader's orders, hexes that the unit can reach without expending orders are
highlighted. You can use available orders to move units to non highlighted
areas, as long as you are not in the move all formation mode.
A unit that wants to move in a direction that is not towards their formation
objective requires a leader in the chain of command(COC) to spend one or more
orders. If you ain't got enough orders, you can only move in the highlighted
hexs. Units set to defend can be given objectives, but must be in advance mode to move towards them.
When a unit is active, it determines which HQ it thinks it should obtain
orders from at that moment, and that HQ's letter designation and the number of orders the HQ unit has available are displayed in parenthesis at the bottom of the screen.
If a unit has multiple HQ's it can draw orders from, the selected HQ can change
during the turn as orders are expended.
Scout and recon units do not need objective or orders to move!
Unit actions that require a leader to spend orders
Certain actions require a leader in the chain of command to spend orders-
He must be in physical or radio contact with the units in question
top number for units in
physical contact,
bottom number for radio contact
single unit movement not toward objective
1
2
request indirect fire(per arty unit)
1
1
change formation objective
3
3
change mission, single unit
1
2
change mission- all units in formation
3
3
When you are planning a indirect fire mission, spotters must have availible
orders to spend to
plot
a fire misson or strike. certain units like U.S. Fists don't need orders to set
fire missions. There are some others, I ain't tellin' heheh.
CHQ link command control represents the unit's ability to follow orders, and is
dependent on the contact it has with the formation's lead unit. units are either in or out of
contact. A unit loses contact with the formation unit HQ if it is not adjacent to it
unless it is equipped with a radio, in which case it attempts to retain radio contact.
Example: you have a company of 5 tank platoons (bo to b4) without radios and the
current active unit b3 is 2 hexes away from bo(formation leader, or HQ unit) tThis means
b3 is out of command control, which affects the units ability to move.
Well, I hope this makes sense. I think it adds another dimension to the game, and
keeps
it from getting stale, and adds realism.
Regarding Autofire-
It seems that we are evenly divided over the auto fire issue. Everyone has strong opinions as to its use, and I wanted to explain my take on it. We do use the hidden fire, the ammo option, country training, Morale, etc. However, no game can approach the things found in real life combat.