SPWAW FAQ v2

[Supervisor]

This FAQ is to be used as a quick reference. For more detail, look at the manual page in parentheses in most of the answers.

Q. How do I get my units to move? They show ready but will not go anywhere.
A. Check the Command & Control and Unit communications settings. If the unit is out of range and has no radio, It will only move to the unit objective (Pg 28 & 35)
1. Check preferences menu. Is command control on or off? If on, turn it off. Read the manual about how this feature works.
2. Is your unit set to advance or defend? Right click on the non-moving unit. If it says defend in the black screen, click on the word, Defend, and it will change to advance. Now it should move.
3. Is your unit suppressed? Does it have move factors left? Right click on the unit. Does it have move factors remaining? What is its suppression level? Anything above 5 suppression might pin or suppress the unit so that it won't move.
4. Can it move? Some units have no move factors. Check and see

Q. The all formation button is gone. Do I have to move my units one at a time?
A. Use the A key to use the All-Formation command. It will only work with C & C off( Pg 30)

Q. How do I deploy parachutists and gliders?
A. To use Gliders and Paratroopers. load the troops and assign each a hex, during deployment. In the pre-game bombardment phase, after the artillery attacks, the gliders and transport aircraft should come in, under AI control.

Make sure you assign entry and exit directions for all gliders, strike aircraft and transport aircraft, especially when making a scenario. Do not depend on the default.(Pg 24)

Q. How are HQ’s and Ammo dumps and Ammo vehicles used?
A. For resuppling your units, move your unit into the same or the adjacent hex. (Pg 40) HQ’s give additional morale benefit to units within 5 hexes and reduce suppression


Q. Minel;aying has changed. What is the new procedure?
A. To lay mines, use the toggle in the unit data screen. In the old code, you
could toggle "remove mines" with "do not remove mines". There is now a
third toggle, "place mines".

Q. How are Special Forces and Guerilla’s employed?
A. During deployment, feel around with the mouse hint box, until you find the infiltration button and click it. You should see what looks like the artillery screen that is missing some buttons. The special troops you purchased should be listed here. Select a hex on the map and click it. Then click the little lit up circle next to one of the special units. This should depress the little circle icon, as it would if you were targeting artillery. One you have assigned hexes to all the special units you want to infiltrate, you may close the screen. You will note that machine guns, mortars and the like cannot be sent on infiltration missions. These are for troops traveling light.
3) Play the game. After several turns, you should get a pop-out box saying that one or more units have infiltrated to the assigned target.
Note that the exact turn they will arrive is unknown to you and you will not be in contact with them, until they arrive. This may place certain units of the formation who were not able to infiltrate, out of C&C, unless you keep them near a company HQ or the Bn HQ. Play testing may show a need for shuffling of the special formations.
I would not recommend that you choose objective hexes for the target hexes. Your troops will arrive piecemeal and get beat up. I would recommend a nice, out of the way clump of woods not to far from an objective as a rally point. Once the whole platoon arrives, you can then attack.


Q. What is the AI advantage button used for?
A. This number gives the experience/morale rating of the troops as compared to their intended morale. IIRC Germany had a 75 point (average to vet) average on experience in '42, so at 133 percent they should have about 100 points (elite) if only experience raises at this rate. If they increase experience and morale, maybe you nedd 166 percent for elite.

Q. Why is there a Limited Ammo Button and a Full Ammo Button?
A. Limited ammo reduces the ammo a unit gets from the maximum in the OOB to as much as 50% of the listed load
Turning Ammo off means you never run out of ammunition.(Pg 18)

Q. The gray text box messages are too slow or too fast. How do I adjust the speed?
A. Go into the Preferences screen and adjust the message delay up or down. The higher the number the longer the delay(Pg 18)

Q. How do tank or other crews bail out voluntarily?
A. Use the 9 key and a pop up box will ask if you are sure.(Pg 20)

Q.Smoke doesn’t seem to work as well. Has something changed?
A. Smoke reduces the chances you see things, it no longer totally blocks line
of sight, (at least you have to lay a LOT in that mode) .If you know where something is, you have to lay a lot of smoke to "break lock" - it is no longer a "deflector shield" you raise AFTER someone has spotted you! If you pop it and run away, then the enemy will have a more difficult time spotting you through the smoke in the new hex through the
smoke. But if you just pop it and sit there, after the enemy has targeted
you, it doesn't do much. This is smoke's realistic role as an obscurant, not
impenetrable armor.

It is most effective if you use artillery to lay it IN ADVANCE so you are
moving up behind and through it where it lowers the enemy chances of
spotting you in the first place. Smoke will also drift around ad lasts for a
more variable time period.

Q. How do campaigns work?
A. SP: WAW allows two types of campaigns. There are campaigns generated by the computer and there are also what are called "User Edited Campaigns." That means that these campaigns were designed by individuals much like the scenarios that are included with the game. These are not computer-generated and may prove quite different from the campaigns the computer creates on request. User-Defined Campaigns are often more historical in nature and are built around a particular unit or a particular theater of battle during the World War II period.
Managing Campaigns
User-defined campaigns require a little different care than the scenarios in the game. A separate subdirectory or folder should be created to hold these campaigns. Inside each campaign is a zipped (or compressed) package. To use the files needed for a campaign, you'll have to "open" or unzip these files into the \scen subdirectory of the game.
Do not delete the zip file. If you remove the campaign files, the zip file will remain intact. If you keep it, you'll always have these files for future play.
The Problem to Avoid
There is a definite reason for doing it the above way. When you load a campaign into SPWAW (an edited one, like ours), it occupies a certain space. When you load another of the same type, it overwrites the old one. In other words, you cannot have two of this type of campaign open in SP: WAW at the same time.
There is one master file that controls all the scenarios in one campaign. It is called usercamp.dat. Each campaign has the same master file name. It is the only one the game will recognize. The game was originally designed by SSI so that the owner of the game could design campaigns on his computer and they would all be saved into this one file.
Because, however, we are doing campaigns on separate computers, we cannot access the same usercamp.dat file. Each campaign we create has its own usercamp.dat file. Again, if you load an edited campaign into the game and one is already there, it will load right over the top of it and sometimes mix the scenarios of the two campaigns.
Resolving the Matter
To avoid this problem, here is what we will do.
1. There should be a separate folder in the game called "Campaigns." If not, you'll need to make one.
2. In this new folder, keep zip files of all your campaigns. For example, in mine I currently have two zip files:
· tunisiacampSPWAW.zip
· eaglesSPWAW.zip
3. When I am ready to play a campaign, I first make sure that there are no campaign scenarios in the \scen subdirectory. You will recognize these because they all begin with UC. I remove them and also remove the usercamp.dat file.
3. Now I open the zip file from the SPWAW\Campaigns directory. For example, eaglesSPWAW.zip has seven files: six scenario files and one master file.
4. I load these into the SPWAW\scen subdirectory. I keep the zip file intact, right where it was. That way when I need to remove the Eagle campaign, I can simply delete it. I have another copy still in my SPWAW\Campaigns folder in that same zip file from which I extracted the files earlier.
5. So I delete the campaign files from SPWAW\Scen (remember, they begin with uc) and the usercamp.dat from the \Scen subdirectory, but NOT the \Campaigns subdirectory.
6. Now I can go to the SPWAW\Campaigns subdirectory and open tunisiacampSPWAW.zip and put those files into the game. Until there is a better way, this is how we will have to do it. After you have finished playing you can remove those files from your \Scen subdirectory. Remember, you still have the campaign tucked away in the \Campaigns subdirectory in the tunisiacampSPWAW.zip file.
By using this method you'll be able to receive and store new campaigns as they are produced for the game with no danger of them being mixed or corrupted. Just keep a zip file of each campaign in your Campaigns File folder and open them whenever you are ready to play.

Send any additions or changes to;
Brent Richards
brentr@schobers.com


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Grenadier
SPWAW Beta Team