Newbie Questions

[Mowgli]

I think that what you say about the soft factors not being applied to the shown cv (despite being listed in brackets) is true for assaults. By contrast, what I've seen so far suggests that the soft factors (quality certainly is; fatigue affects quality, it's not a separate factor) are included in the shown cv in fire combat. Your tip (looking at non-randomized casualties) should give us an definite answer (do the casualties fit to the cv value in the report or not?).

Quality is not affected by Fatigue, or anything else. It is constant. Morale can be changed by Fatigue, among other things. The CV shows in brackets a combined % for the the Quality and the Fatigue. If you are confusing Quality and Morale, it may go some way towards explaining the odd results you are getting.

I always thought that morale = quality? And I was pretty certain about that one.

There is no "quality" value for units. There is only morale. Higher "quality" units get a higher base morale (e.g. A instead of C), so they are less affected by negative situations (fatigue, low ammo, etc) and less likely to disrupt/rout when they fail a morale check. As their morale is higher, they are also more likely to recover from disruption.

But of course I might be wrong.

I'm still exploring the game and finding out things the manual does not explain. Some findings:

• Commando/Ranger units can't be "isolated". (But they can still run low on ammo)
  
• Only impassable rivers seem to block supply (the smaller rivers don't).
  
• If a single unit exceeds the Road Stacking Limit all on its own, it can still use roads (if no other units are present in the target hex of the movement).
  
• The movement cost increase for elevations only applies if going uphill and applies proportionally (e.g. if the parameter data mentions 14 MP for 100m, then if your unit moves 20m uphill, the cost of the move is increased by 14*0.2) This also means that you really need to pay attention as the contur-lines/elevation steps in the game are not always at regular height-intervalls. One step on the map could be 10m, another could be 50m!
  
• The manual doesn't say a word about how spotting works in the game. [too long to explain here]...
  

But I also want to point out that the Panzer Campaign system is really excellent. In particular, I like the pace and scale. I've been playing very small scenarios so far and these are - despite the small number of units - incredibly deep with lots of options. You will not do a lot of clicking/micro management, but every click matters a lot. The learning curve is immense, especially since the documentation is mediocre, and the ingame feedback is virtually inexistent. You have to learn all the rules to understand what's going on in the game. The game doesn't tell you "this happened because of this". The game doesn't tell you a unit's chances to recover. Apart from its "improvable" user- and newbie-friendliness, there are only a few points for improvement I can think of so far:

• A "D" marker on counters of disrupted units. It works for routed/broken too, so why not for disrupted units?
  
• Overlay to see where supply can pass through/gets blocked.
  
• From a gameplay perspective, I wondered whether tank units should perhaps be allowed to pass from enemy ZoC to another enemy ZoC? (with an increased chance for eligible units to opportunity-fire on them). It's still risky as you're likely to cut your own supply. But in some cases, I felt that I should just be able to penetrate.
  
• It should be noted somewhere that most "alternative" scenarios are heavily unbalanced and not suited for PBEM games. It's a frustrating experience if you're not just playing for the narrative/realistic experience but also to win.
  
• I also wondered whether arty should cause more fatigue damage (rather than the bonus it gets for disrupting hard targets?)
  
• Should tank units during night spot enemies as "?" only, even if they're in an adjacent hex? Tank units seem to have no real advantage or vulnerability at night, which is a bit weird.
  
• Finally, it seems to me that visibility is unrealistically short in many cases? 5 km is true and realistic if you're on a (supposedly) "level" plain. Due to the curvature of the earth, you can only see so far even in excellent weather. However, if you're on an elevation, you can see much farther (down on the "curved" earth below you). It just seems strange when my troops can't even see the ocean when they're on a huge mountain 3 kms from the coastline... So, perhaps it would be a good idea to increase max. visibility by 1 for each "step" of height/elevation? When standing on a hill, you shouldn't be just allowed to see OVER obstacles, smaller hills and LOS-blocking terrain; you should also be allowed to see FARTHER! I think that 5 km maxmimum visibility is an unrealistic restriction. E.g. the german artillery observers could view the whole plain of Catania from their observation posts at the slope of mount Etna. Of course it would give artillery a boost, but in my opinion this would be a good thing and also give more importance to features that offer good observation and give operations at night more importance. Units at very long distances could be spotted as "?".