Tinkthank, believe it or not
you're doing great!! I'm not just being nice. I
thought I knew about militaria when I started playing SP:WAW about 6 years ago. I was utterly baffled!! But you learn. Let's see if I can help you here:
o
Suppression: If you've ever played the Cyberpunk RPG, this is like the Cool rating inverted. Basically, it's the mental and physical effects of being fired upon. Mentally, it's emotionally exhausting to have people screaming and other people trying to kill you! (I just got through USAF basic training... I had about a 10 suppression the whole time.
) You also have to think about the situation at hand, worry about your family, etc. Physically, in order to stay alive there are places you can't go, positions you can't be in, or else you're dead. This limits your ability to move, react, fire, etc.* You could also say suppression includes minor wounds such as grazes, small shrapnel, concussion, stone fragments, etc. Its effects in-game include a reduction in move points, reduction in speed (good! higher speed in infantry will increase the odds of a casualty being caused when fired upon, because the troops are sprinting more, hunkering behind cover less), change of status--Ready to Pinned to Routed to Retreating. The latter two do not allow your units to fire--they're routed or running away, after all.
* = If you've ever seen a movie, like Full Metal Jacket, and they seem to just be shooting at an area, that's suppressive fire. Use the Z-key in game to fire at just an area. Just like in real life, you can make a position untenable (un-holdable) with sufficient suppressing fire. You can also use it to cover the advance of other units. Z-fire/suppressive fire implies that the unit is not aiming as such, and makes a (slightly) more difficult target... thus, no (or little) opfire.
o
Rally: No, this isn't cross-country racing.
Rallying, like everything else, is an aggregate/amalgamation of many things. It is basically the commander and unit's ability to calm themselves down and react to a bad situation. For a basic rule of thumb, Rally - Suppression = % chance of cutting suppression in half. Rally is then temporarily reduced by about 0-3 points until the next turn. (The commander is busy getting his men to act like men!
) If the rally attempt is failed, Rally is set to 0 until the next turn. (The commander is trying to rally his men the whole turn.)
o
Command & Control/Out of Contact: I don't play with C&C turned on. It just complicates things so much! I understand it, and I
have played with it on, but--and this is
just my opinion--I think it's a bit half-cocked. Units can't do this or that when out of contact, but still communicate the location of all spotted enemy units to all allied units. I know it's a limitation of the simulation/game engine, but it just bugs me too much. I want to enjoy my game! Maybe when I'm "good" I'll turn it on again. For learning, though, play with it off.
I'll continue in the next post--I've forgotten what else there was.
