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Text File | 1989-10-18 | 19KB | 449 lines

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC SSSSSSSSSSSSSS TTT CCC SSS TTT CCC SSS TTT CCC SSSSSSSSSSSSSS TTT CCC SSS TTT CCC SSS TTT CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC SSSSSSSSSSSSSS <<<< A TACTICAL COMBAT SIMULATOR >>>> <<<<********ADVANCE RULES********>>>> >>>>Copyright 1989<<<< By: Michael J. Feldhake ************************************************************ ******** A Shareware program for wargamers ******** ******** ******** ******** If you like this program. Send $15.00 to: ******** ******** ******** ******** Michael J. Feldhake ******** ******** P.O. Box 47054 ******** ******** Indianapolis, IN 46247-0054 ******** ************************************************************ These advance rules were written so that you may get the most out of TCS. There are several topics discussed here. Some are tricks on using TCS and some are ideas. The ideas are only one of many ways to handle things. With a little time, you will soon begin to come up with your own. TOPICS COVERED: 1>>...............Maps 2>>...............Hexagonal Maps 3>>...............Unit Numbering 4>>...............Safe Zone 5>>...............Deployment And Rally Points 6>>...............Airborne Ops. 7>>...............Artillery 8>>...............Transports 9>>...............Spotting Locations 10>>...............Zones 11>>...............Scouts 12>>...............Combat 13>>...............Scale And Century 1>> MAPS: There are two types of maps that can be used in TCS. The first one is a Square Grid map. Or you can use a Hexagonal Grid map. Both of these could be premade or created by yourselves. The square grid map is the one I have been using to describe TCS's functions. I will also tell you how I made one of these below. To find out how to correctly work with a hexagonal map. See the section after this one titled Hexagonal Maps. Since a premade map does not come with TCS. You will have to make your own. The way I have handled this was to draw a fictitious map. I included all terrain, towns, rivers and bridges on the map. I then overlaid some adhesive plastic so I could write on it with china markers. I made two sets of these. One for my opponent and one for me. Since you may have up to 4.3 billion ( 65535 X 65535 ) square grids. I also broke my map into four pieces. Each map one corner of the large map. I started numbering each map on the bottom left corner to correspond to the location it would represent. For example. My large map went to 0 to 56 North and 0 to 76 West. My top right small map started at 29 North and 39 West (on the bottom left.) You can have any kind of terrain you want. You could have from deserts to oceans. This way, you can design the map to meat you scenario. With a little honesty -meaning you have the ability to tell an armored unit to move out somewhere in a lake- you can use this and have as many maps as you want. 2>> HEXAGONAL MAPS: You might want to use TCS to play a game like Panzer Leader, that already has a map. Panzer Leader like many others, uses a Hexagonal map. You can, following these directions, use TCS to keep track of all your units on your game's hexagonal map. TCS was geared to play on a square grid map. And, if you decide to design your own map. I suggest using that method. The only difference using a hexagonal grid map is the way you number the map. If you noticed my examples of the zones discussed in the basic manual. You will find that the North coordinates are along the Y axis and the West coordinates are along the X axis. This no longer applies to a hexagonal map. Please study the display below before continuing on. Nc/ 19/ \'Wc 18/ u1 \'20 17/ / \ \'19 16/ / \ \'18 15/ / \ \'17 14/ / / / / / / / \ / / / / / \'16 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 \'15 \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ '14 '1 '2 '3 '4 '5 '6 '7 '8 '9 '10 '11 '12 '13 Their are two sets of numbers here. The first set is 1-19 and the second set is '1-'20 (NOTE THE "'"!) The two sets of numbers represent a coordinate. The 1-19 set MUST be the North coordinate and the '1-'20 set MUST be the West coordinate. For each number, you see a "\" or a "/" on top of it. These are the directions in which the coordinate is going. These IMAGINARY lines form the hexagonal grid system of you map. Notice how the sets of numbers bends when they get to the edge of the map. This is very important. The display is also trying to show you a unit and its location. Although this is very vague, it will have to do. The unit (u1) has a location of 8 North 9 West (NOTE the slashes representing the imaginary grid lines.) The only real problem using hexagonal grids is that the unit's control zones that are discussed later are somewhat smushed at the top and bottom. But besides that, TCS will handle this grid system just like the other. 3>> UNIT NUMBERING: The way you number your units could make the game a little more interesting. Say you had one armored brigade. This brigade has one infantry battalion and two armored battalions. It also has three support companies. If you follow the numbering scam below. Your opponent could tell through intelligence, how you are organized. Now, as grazy as that sounds, most of the time, real intelligence could tell what company belongs to what battalion of what brigade anyway. 23 Armored Brigade <HQ> 231 Infantry Bat. 2311 Inf Co. 2312 Inf Co. 2313 Inf Co. 2314 Inf Co. 2310 Transport Co. 232 Armored Bat. 2321 Mobile Inf Co. 2322 Arm Co. 2323 Arm Co. 2320 Mobile Fuel Co. 233 Armored Bat. 2331 Mobile Inf Co. 2332 Mobile Inf Co. 2333 Arm Co. 2334 Arm Co. 2330 Mobile Fuel Co. 2301 Communications Co. 2302 Light Artillery Co. 2303 Light Transport Co. Notice the numbering scam. The companies are sequencialy numbered to have the first two digits of the brigade, the third digit is the battalion, and the last is the company number. Also, note that the brigade also has a brigade HQ. Since it is common practice to have your battalion HQ with your first company (meaning company one or company 'A' is usually named HQ & ALPHA Co.) You will not need a HQ for the battalions. You can use a numbering system to your advantage. If you and your partner agree. You can add in special units to your primary units in advance. For example. Say you had a Ranger Co. attached to a regular airborne brigade. You could give this Ranger Co. the number of 2391 and make unit type INFANTRY. The first two digits is again the brigade. The '9' is a 'special' number (meaning the unit is a special unit) and the '1' is the unit number. When and if your opponent comes in contact with this unit. He will know that it is a special unit. 4>> SAFE ZONE: The safe zone in the game is the coordinate 0 North 0 West. This means that the program does nothing to those units that are in that zone. It happens to be only one grid. But you may have as many units as you want in there. You will find a good use for this zone. Since both players have access to it. And after some experience with TCS. You will find it a very useful spot. Remember though, as long as a of yours unit is in that zone. It cannot see or come in contact with any other unit on the board or in the zone itself. 5>> DEPLOYMENTS AND RALLY POINTS: The deployment of a unit is also a very useful tool. If one of your units have to control more than one grid. You can deploy the unit into a line or a semi circle. You will have to program in all the points directly. From then on, until you assemble the unit, the unit can not move. When you deploy the unit. You will notice that a RALLY => marker will be displayed beside the unit's LOCATION North and West coordinate. The rally point is where the unit will assemble when you tell it to. During a deployment of a unit. You can move the rally point where you wish. This will give you control of where you want the unit to assemble if and when there is trouble. In actuality. You could move the rally point anywhere on the map you wish. It will assemble there so that same move, you could move the unit to another place. This seems easy to take advantage of. It is, but if your opponent found out. I am sure he'd get steamed and call your number. 6>> AIRBORNE OPS: Airborne ops can be handle in this way. Start your airborne units in 0 North 0 West. When you decide you need them. Use your air transports to transfer them from the safe zone to the LZ (Landing Zone.) You can only transport one unit at a time with transports. So have enough to complement your AB units. A smart tactic is this. Since your opponent can see all of your air activity. Send in your AB Scouts first to recon the LZ. Have them set up AREA type zones around the LZ. Then bring in the troops. You could also determine units of crack troops (like Rangers and Green Berets) at the beginning of the game and bring them in and have them deploy around the LZ for security. 7>> ARTILLERY: Artillery units are good for support. Like real war. Some artillery units could be well off the theater of war. TCS can handle that too. If you place all your artillery units that are supposed to be off the map into the safe zone. You can call in artillery strikes from there. When and if you assign the artillery unit a fire-mission. The display will highlight the unit type and diplay a '!' beside it. It will also show the target info (i.e. 12N-5W) in the column next to the unit type. If your scenario calls for naval artillery. Assign a unit number to it and place it in the safe zone. Make the unit type HEAVY ARTILLERY. One note to artillery. There are two types of artillery fire in this game. The first was discussed above. It is 'preplanned fire missions.' The other type of mission is 'on call.' If you do not wish to pre-plan a strike. Then you can give the program a target at 0N 0W to delete any strike. This will give you the ability to call that unit's strength -in fire power- when and where you want it during your combat phase. Although it is possible to call in fire from an artillery unit almost immediately. This could not be said about large caliber weapons like naval guns. Usually these have to be preplaned. Also, the light artillery and mortar units can not move without the help of transports. The heavy artillery units may move by themselfs. 8>> TRANSPORTS: Transports are important in this game. Since your infantry units can move only one grid at a time. And your light artillery and mortar units can not move at all by themselfs. You will have to supply enough transports to help your organization. The ENTER UNITS screen again, will display all your units. It will also display your transport units and status. If they are presently transporting a unit. The unit type will be display with a '^' beside it. It will also display the unit ID# of the unit it is transporting in '<<xxx>>' in the next column. Also, the unit that is being transported, will be displayed with a '^' beside it. Each transport has its limits. Light transports would not be able to carry tanks. So the list below gives what each transport type can carry. Light Transports; Infantry Airborne Light Artillery Mortar Heavy Transport; Infantry Airborne Mobile Infantry Airborne Light Artillery Mortar Air Transports; **ALL UNITS** The thing to remember about transport units is, that to pick up a unit, the transport must occupy the same grid as the unit you wish to transport. When you drop off the unit, the transport will set the unit to the present location of the transport unit. You may now give commands to the transported unit. 9>> SPOTTING LOCATIONS: During the move phase of your game, TCS will move all your units and alert the proper player when an if there is contact made. Each unit has its own zone of control. That is, if any opponent comes within the control zone, TCS will alert the player that contact has been made. TCS has two different control zones. The first one is for all units except the SCOUT and the SPOTTER PLANE. This control zone is defined as the unit's present location and all surrounding grids. See zone for 'u1' at the display below. The second zone is and extension of the first one. It is again the present location of the unit and the next TWO grids outward of that location, except at the corners. See zone for u2 below. WEST 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 13 N 12 * * * * * * O 11 * u1 * * * * * * R 10 * * * * * u2 * * T 9 * * * * * H 8 * * * 7 This is a graphical representation of the two control zones of TCS. u1 is all the units except the SCOUT and the SPOTTER PLANE. Note all of the surrounding '*'. These represent the grids that u1 can see. u2 is for the SCOUT and the SPOTTER PLANE. Note that for u2, it can not see the four far corners of its zone. 10>> ZONES: Zones can make or break you in this game. If you can keep up with you zones and stay current (meaning to keep creating zones when you push forward or get pushed back.) You can make life a whole lot better for you and your troops. If you are still not comprehending the concept of zones, then try this. A zone is defined as: Predetermined points on a map, in which you have determined by defining the zone, that you can see all of the opponents units that come on those points. There is no limit on overlaping these zones. It might be beneficial to you to place overlaping zones someplaces on the map. Say you wanted to create two zones that are based differently but overlap. This way if one base is overrun. You could still see what is in that zone. Zones can not be based at points that you do not occupy at the time you create them. So when you see a "ILLEGAL ZONE BASE!" message blink at you. Then you know you can not set that zone at that location. The program can not tell if you have created a zone to look into trees. Use good sound morals when using them. I have a policy for my own use about tree lines. You can see the first grid into trees. That way, you can see the edges of little or big forests. 11>> SCOUTS: Scouts can be very helpful in your game. They can serve you in many ways. The most prominent way is in the reporting of units and their locations. Another use for these is to scout out zone bases. If a scout finds an opponents zone base. The program will tell you that a scout reports a 'SPOTTER' at a location given. You may now move in units to occupy that grid so the program will delete that zone clearing that section of the map for your use. NOTE: A zone base refers to the base of a zone (Area or Line type) of your opponents. 12>> COMBAT: A combat result section was not provided with TCS because of the unlikely event that all situations could not be provided for. Since TCS is very versatile, the magnitude of a result section would be ridiculous. However, there are many ways you can resolve your combat. The best way is to use miniatures. That would make the war even more realistic. You can use your own method too. When one of your units gets crushed. Just use TCS to delete the unit. You can do this by entering the ENTER UNITS section, picking the unit and press <e> to delete. This will mark the unit with a '999' for its unit ID#. 13>> SCALE AND CENTURY: Another use of TCS is using TCS for any scale of battle and time. Now, be careful, I do not recommend using TCS with unit sizes over brigades. Because when you get to that level. Intelligence starts to play a larger role. TCS was geared for company size units. But that is not a rule. Time wise, you can always use TCS for any time in history. With a little imagination. You can fight the war between Constantine and Maxentius (312 AD.) To the battle of Khe Sanh (Vietnam war 21 January 1968.) Use TCS as you like. It is a very useful tool. If I get enough feedback on this utility. I might come up with an updated version. **************************THE END******************************