What's this?

[Phoenix100]

I think I have gone right through the manual and failed to find the answer - sorry for so dumb a question - but what do the little circles attached, sometimes, to the side of unit counters (or are they on the ground beneath the counter?) mean? They seem to vary in colour. I'm guessing something to do with movement markers for timestamp purposes or some such....?

Thanks.

[cantona2]

Troop density in the selected hex. Cycles through green-orange-red. You will suffer higher casualties the higher the troop density (red being the highest) when bombarded for example. The movement point cost is also higher when traversing a densely populated hex.

[Phoenix100]

Ah. Thanks, Cantona2.

So what's the battlefield timestamp symbol - the one that lets you quickly discover which unit is sucking up your rounds in a planned battle?

And, I wonder - since I'm asking - what does it mean when support units have a red cross through them in the battle planner - because it still seems possible to allocate them to an attack?

[Tamas]

ORIGINAL: Phoenix100

Ah. Thanks, Cantona2.

So what's the battlefield timestamp symbol - the one that lets you quickly discover which unit is sucking up your rounds in a planned battle?

And, I wonder - since I'm asking - what does it mean when support units have a red cross through them in the battle planner - because it still seems possible to allocate them to an attack?

Battlefield Timestamp symbol: those need to be turned on by one of the buttons - I am sorry I don't have the game at hand so can't tell you exactly which one, but they are not shown by default. Plus, they display on hexes that have a BTS, not units.

red cross over support units: that means that those units are NOT able to support the battle automatically with 50% of their attack power, despite being shown in that window, BUT they are shown there because they are in range to be selected to participate in the battle directly, adding 100% of their power.

Basically that's the choice you have with the normal, non-red-crossed support units in the battle planner: you can still click on them to assign them to the battle. That way they'll give you 100% but they won't be available for any other battle, or you can leave them as is, and they'll provide 50%, and will do so to all other battles in their range.

[goodwoodrw]

Isn't the button in the top left corner cycle through them

[Phoenix100]

Many thanks! I have to say - I'm really enjoying this game. It plays like a kind of wego game, to me (which is good!) with a very smooth turn action, lovely maps, and it seems very intuitive, in that it's actually easy to get into it slowly, without worrying about complicated things like BTS and supply (until you're ready) and with a really competent AI opponent, it seems (so far). And I feel I've learned what the BTS idea is about by just hacking away and seeing what happens, combined with the help available in here, which is first rate. Excellent support in here and a very friendly, helpful community. For those who are struggling with the BTS idea - which I think is an excellent way to almost entirely get rid of the worst aspects of IGOYOUGO play - then I would say read everything here, but for me reading Warspite1's ongoing AAR and reading the comments in that and the links there about BTS more or less explained it for me. That said, I can see why all the official and not so official videos and articles about it have failed to nail it, because I would struggle to do so now. I think it's easier to get intuitively than explicitly.

And so many different scenarios to dip into. Great game. Well done.