How much of a scenario do you ought to know (when you start playing it)?

[FLG]

Great question.
I was wondering that as well and thinking about creating a thread for it - I'm really looking forward to the responses.

Until now I always played blind but as soon as I played a scenario a second time I had some knowledge about initial positions, especially with mirror games.

By now I think having a look at the starting situation of the opponent is the way to go to "even the playing field".

This really depends on the scenario and historical situation. As the germans drove towards Smolensk the Germans had no idea what was ahead of them and the soviets no idea what was comng, hence should be played blind by both players. The battle of Stalingrad and operation Uranus the soviets had a good idea what was in front of them as did the Germns so some knowledge would be reasonable. With Minsk 44, the lines had been stable for a long time and the Russians would have had a very good idea of enemy deployement but as the Soviets had operational surprise the Germans should be played blind.