Before you start
The FOW effects are controlled by extra preferences which appear at the end of the "General" preferences and are marked as OCS. These preferences are only read when starting a new game using a defined scenario. At other times the preferences in use are saved from when the game started and you can't change your mind about them.
The default state of the preferences is to implement the 4.9 FOW rules. When viewing an opponent's stack only the topmost Combat mode attack capable land unit is shown in full. All other units and transports are shown as a standard mask. Any active aircraft are also shown in full as are all airbases and hedgehogs. Everything else is totally invisible except if there is supply in the hex one counter is shown as the standard supply dump mask and the rest are hidden so any amount of supply in any mix of denominations always just show as a anonymous supply dump. Finally any mode markers (DG, Strat Move, Exploit) and any Out of Supply marker which applies to the visible land unit are also visible.
Division markers are normally invisible to the opponent. If the 13.7 option is enabled then the marker will be shown as a standard mask if it has any divisional units below it (or visible if a unit below it would have been visible) and all divisional units below it become completely invisible as though they were off the map.
Boxes which hold the contents of a hex are treated specially with all the pieces in the box and the pieces in the hex itself being treated as a single stack in the hex. The pieces in the hex top the stack followed by the pieces in the box from top to bottom and left to right within a line.
The preferences are:
Disable all Fog Of War - ticking this turns off the FOW effects and everything is visible and accessible to everyone.
Display of pieces in off-map boxes - this determines how pieces in an off map box or the setup and reinforcement are seen by an opponent or an observer. The choice is visible, masked or invisible
Enable range based extra Fog Of War - ticking this enables the range preferences which appear below it. The ranges are in hexes ( but are computed as perfect circles not large hexagons which leads to counting hexes not giving the same result unless along a hex row) If one effect is applied then the effects below it are also applied (ie if air units are invisible then land/sea units will be regardless of the range preference). Starting from the bottom.
Range at which stacks are shown as single counters - This is the range at which counters which are masked in the normal FOW effects become totally invisible (ie you will only see the top combat unit plus any DG etc for it and active aircraft, hedgehogs and airbases with no indication how big the stack is)
Range at which units become masked -This is the range at which the stack display is replaced by single masked piece other than active aircraft
Range at which land/sea units become invisible - This is the range at which all land/sea units become invisible so only active aircraft and airbase are visible.
Range at which air units become invisible - This is the range at which everything becomes invisible.
Enable Formation Markers as in 13.7 - This enables the special treatment of formation markers
Range Options use hexes rather than radii - This causes all the ranges above to be done by counting hexes rather than drawing a circle of the correct radius. this means that the range effects are done in large hexes rather than circles.
Use nearest AEP (rather than minimal distance) Normally the system chooses the AEP which gives the smallest result when displaying aircraft range. When this option is set the nearest AEP to the aircraft is chosen for the range calculation instead. Normally this will make very little difference except in Korea where the entry points on the west coast give much larger values than those on the east coast. Using this option will give the ranges as though the aircraft had flown around Korea. Leaving it off will reflect the v4.0 rules better. This option can be changed on the fly.
Getting Started in a Scenario
After you have loaded the scenario you want to play, you will need to "take command" of a side before you will be able to manipulate any pieces. To do this you bring up the
You can read any special instructions or designer notes about the chosen scenario by pressing the button "Scenario Notes". These have been copied verbatim from the rule book.
The initial map view shown is a zoomed out display of the area that the scenario is played in. There are other views available which can be selected from the
You can create your own views by holding down the shift key and clicking on the map. This will flip you a new view centred on hex clicked at a low zoom (normally 1.0 unless the scenario designer has decided otherwise). The view is labeled with the map id of the hex clicked and can in future be selected from the menu. Any views you create will be saved with the game and available to you again when you reload. You can choose to close any of the views which you have created if they are no longer useful. These views which you create are private to you and will not appear on any other player's view menu.
Dragging pieces between views
You can also drag pieces between views. Just drag a piece to the "Views..." button and a list of all the available views appears. As you drag over this list the visible view in the window will change allowing the pieces to be dragged onto the new view.
As an aid to play, when you drag one or more aircraft from a location on the map, the range in hexes from their base will be displayed underneath the image of the aircraft being dragged. This will work even if the aircraft are dragged between different views, from a box which represents a single hex or an off map box with an airbase in it. This saves trying to count hexes whilst scrolling the map which I find troublesome. For Korea there is a special calculation for aircraft dragged from a box representing a carrier force where the distance from the carrier piece is displayed.
Now you are ready to start playing. The first thing to do is to complete the setup for the side you have chosen. If you press the button "Setup/Reinforcement" you will get a menu of four items each of which brings up a window. These are the setup and reinforcement windows for each side. The setup window contains the pieces and instructions needed to complete the setup. The reinforcement window contains all the instructions and pieces needed for all the reinforcement phases of this scenario.
The reinforcement windows are divided up into views where each view normally holds the reinforcements for a single month.
Resolving Combat
Since you can't affect your opponent's piece resolving combat would be difficult but there is a mechanism to do so. At the end of the misc counters there is an "Attack Marker" which looks like a red KTX. Placing this on a stack makes the stack totally visible to you and makes all the pieces therein accessible to you. Therefore to resolve a barrage or combat the attacker can drop this marker on the hex and do what is necessary. Of course if you are playing on line you can do things just like face to face.
The Command Menu
This has other options besides choosing your side. If you are a commander of a side then you will be given the option of resigning from that side. If a side has one or more commanders there will be a menu item which will display all the commanders of a side.
If another player commands a side, there will be an option to join that side. If you do so a request will be saved for you to do so. It will have to be approved by some one who already plays that side before it will take place.
If you command a side and one or more players have requested to join it then you will able to choose to approve or reject each requesting player individually.
A player may join both sides. This allows a third party to act as an umpire if required.
The other four options display/hide the ZOCs or PZs for each side. Currently this does not work completely for DAK as airstrips are not recognised.
There is also an option to highlight the headquarters in each side that you command so you can see your logistics net.