In this third tutorial you will be shown the value of using artillery and air units to soften up defensive positions and to damage production centers. Also the use of fighters and flak guns to counter enemy air power will be demonstrated. This lesson assumes you are familiar with the previous two tutorials.

After chosing to run tutorial 3, the screen should appear as below.

ORANGE TURN 1

Orange has surrounded an Olive town and will try to hold Olive off at the stream to the north while attempting to capture the town. Select the town for an attack and add each of the surrounding Orange units to the attack. Even though there is a 250% attack bonus for this type of attack, it is still unsuccessful. Urban centers offer significant bonuses to the defender and penalties to the attacker.

Since that didn't work, move the artillery unit in the south, up the road to share the hex with the HQ. There are a few action points left, so select the town, and chose the artillery barrage button (artillery icon on the button).

Now select the artillery unit, click the check button to confirm that the unit will participate in the barrage and choose the attack button. The artillery unit will only be able to lob in a couple of rounds as most of its action points were spent moving. It is useful to make your artillery as mobile as possible as they are both powerful and expensive.

Select the town again and click the “LOC” button for this hex. You will see that the structural points for the town have dropped. The more damage the town takes, the less it can make as a production center. Since Olive has a HQ on this hex, it can continue to receive supply and reinforcements from the town even though it is isolated from the main Olive HQ.

Most production centers do a certain amount of auto repair each turn. For a town this is 50 structural points. The HQ here is trying to make engineers and supply. Engineers can also have a repair function. With enough engineers and supply, Olive could hold out here indefinitely. As Orange we would rather see it leveled and in our possession. Select the town and choose the bombing raid button (level bomber icon).

Now select the unit of level bombers to the southwest, confirm your selection with the check button and commence the attack. A bombing raid is directed against production facilities more than units in the target hex.

Select the town again and choose the “LOC” button. The town should have taken considerable damage and the enemy HQ will receive little.

Before Orange ends this turn. Reinforce the two units that are between you HQ and the enemy town. Put 15 rifle, 3 machine guns and two horses in each. Now end the turn.

OLIVE TURN 1

Olive wants to move south of the stream. Perform an attack at the bridge on the western part of the map. Attack hex 6,11 with the three Olive infantry units. That was very costly and probably not successful. Now perform an artillery barrage against hex 16,12 (the bridge in the east), before attacking it with the three Olive infantry units adjacent to it. It is clear that artillery will be an important tool in this game.

Before ending Olive turn 1, move the unit of engineers down the road to the southwest as far as it will go. End the turn.

ORANGE TURN 2

Perform three attacks on the town this turn. First, perform an artillery barrage. Second, perform an airstrike (button next to bombing raid button)with the bomber unit. This attack is directed against the units in the hex rather than against the production (although production suffers some damage). Finally, use all the surrounding infantry units to attack the town together. This time you should be successful.

Move the Orange HQ into the town and end the turn.

OLIVE TURN 2

We need to move the Olive artillery unit to the western bridge. Move it up the road and start down the other side as far as it will reach. Olive needs protection against the Orange bombers and artillery are a favorite target. Reinforce the artillery unit with the three flak guns and one truck from the Olive HQ. Select the engineer unit and click on the build location/repair button (button with a crane icon). You will see a list of what our engineer unit could build. Select airfield. You will see that we have enough engineering points (EP), political points (PP) and supply (SUP) to build this location. Press the “BUILD” button. Engineers accumulate engineering points each turn. They can be used to build roads, bridges, airfields, makeshift ports, fortifications, etc. They are also very useful in repairing production centers, bridges and other locations.

Air units can only be based in urban centers and airfields. Olive wants to create a fighter unit close enough to the front to intercept those bombers. Create a formation at the airfield, assign it to the HQ and transfer the fighter to it. The fighter can intercept and try to destroy the bombers when they attack, but the intercept field (INTC) must be changed from “DON'T” to a minimum AP value. Since there are no enemy fighters to go against, set the INTC field to 25.

That is all for Olive. End the turn.

ORANGE TURN 3

Move the artillery unit to within two hexes of the bridge (hex 6,12) and perform an artillery barrage against hex 6,10. Now use the bombers to do an airstrike against the same hex. The olive fighter unit should have intercepted the attack to help defend the hex. If no orange bombers were destroyed, the bombing attack was at least cut short. Orange will have to make fighters also to accompany the bombers if they are going to remain effective. End Orange turn.

OLIVE TURN 3

Move the artillery unit down to hex 7,9. The flak guns will help protect the hexes one hex away also from air attacks. Select the fighter unit. Notice the air recon button in the row of buttons is highlighted. Click this button to see the range of hexes the fighter could travel to improve reconnaisance. In many games with fog of war or shrouded maps, you will want to use this function frequently to avoid nasty surprises or find that unclaimed city before your neighbor.

End Olive turn.

ORANGE TURN 4

Orange wants to destroy the olive artillery, but it is our of range for an airstrike. Choose the bombers and move them to the damaged town. This will cause the bombers to have decreased AP next turn, but it is necessary to accomplish our mission. Now they can conduct an airstrike against the guns in hex 7,9. Conduct the attack and notice that the hex is now defended by both flak guns and the fighter. This is the end of the tutorial.

Don't forget to explore the many uses of air transports (paratroop drops, unit transfer, supply drops to isolated troops).