How to prevent a unit from assaulting?

[Anton]

Imp, how many MPs exactly must a unit have in order to assault?

[sigeena]

More often than not, you'll want to assault for better payoff in destroying the tank. So I don't really find a special key just to fire off all your weapons as very useful.

I think at least 3 points remaining to assault? With higher probability of success depending on higher movement points available.

[Anton]

Originally Posted by sigeena

More often than not, you'll want to assault for better payoff in destroying the tank. So I don't really find a special key just to fire off all your weapons as very useful.

I think it would be useful in situations where an assault is too risky, such as low experience or spent MPs.

Originally Posted by sigeena

I think at least 3 points remaining to assault? With higher probability of success depending on higher movement points available.

Hmmm. I didn't find it in the documentation (Game Guide). Did you establish this from experience?

[Mobhack]

We put out the changes on each release in the "Release History" section of the Game Guide.

This section really should be perused for any changes to the game mechanism, new rules etc.

Under:
WinSPWW2 version 6.0 Upgrade patch

go down the bullet points till you get to:

Infantry assaults now require 2 free MP. If there is insufficient MP the unit fires at the tank instead of close assaulting. As well, a failed infantry assault on armour can now result in casualties to the assaulting infantry element.

The relevant part of the quote is highlighted in red.

[Anton]

So the conclusion of the majority of posters in the thread is that a separate command for assault is largely useless because assault is presumably (almost) always preferable.

Thank you for the reference, Mobhack. The need to read the change log to learn about the current rules of the game is, however, rather inconvenient. Would you consider describing assaults in a more appropriate section of the manual, where you could provide all the relevant information in a single place:

1. that a squad of infantry can effect a close assault against an AFV located in the same or adjacent hex,
2. that the assaulter must have at least two spare movement points and be unsuppressed (with a ready status?).
3. that an assault is automatically performed instead of a normal fire attack whenever the conditions above are satisfied (if I did not miss anything).
4. that an assault is more efficient than a normal attack but also more risky, for in case of failure the assaulting unit may suffer serious casualties and suppression.
5. that, as with normal fire, the success of an assault is decreased in proportion to the squad's current speed.
6. that if an assault is undesired, the player is advised to fire a selected weapon—AT if available—using the W command, until enough movement points are spent to make an assault impossible.

[Mobhack]

The change log is the only sensible way to document changes.

[Anton]

Whereas the change log is helpful for a user that has just upgraded and wonders what has changed, it is colossally inconvenient for a new user interested in learning the current version of the program rather than the history of its evolution from version 1.0. For an example, when learning Photoshop 7.0, I am not forced to read the change logs of 1.0 to 2.0, 2.0 to 3.0 &c up to 7.0 in order cumulatively to understand the functionality of 7.0. When learning LaTeX, I am not required to read the change logs starting from the original 1983 release.

The change log cannot replace good documentation describing the current state of the program.

[DRG]

Let me put it this way......if I had to integrate every change made from every patch into the main body of the Game guide as well as the patch change log ( for TWO GAMES )two things would have happened about a decade ago........ we would have made far fewer changes and more likely stopped upgrading the game yearly ( or more likely stopped altogether )so if you think it's "colossally inconvenient" to read the release notes for every release to keep up-to date with the changes that pales in comparison to having to essentially re-write the game guide every release all the while knowing most people don't even bother to read the damn thing anyway let alone the release notes but show up here and expect to be spoon fed the answers.......

.......and if that sound "harsh"....so be it. The game guide gives a good general overview and the release notes fill in the details and all we ask is people put in the effort to read it.

[sigeena]

The way the game documentation goes right now. It's pretty difficult for a new player to learn the game. He probably has to be quite experienced in Ctrl-F keywords to find the relevant sections.

However, I do think that for the existing player base, it's actually quite easy, as we just need to read up the changelog for any major points of interests.

At some point, it's good to better integrate the documentation, but that remains a time and space consideration.

[zovs66]

I have found the GG quite useful and it’s really not a stretch to ctlr F and the double check the release notes for all four guides.

The in game help for the editor is also valuable but the most useful learning comes from playing, experimenting and playing a lot.

One of the easiest games to learn but one that takes time to master. The beauty is in replay ability!