Serbia '14

[Mr Grumpy]

Ah, thanks!

It's not mentioned in the Full Hex Ferry part of the manual. It can be a bit of a puzzle to find the information you need in the manuals.

I remembered the part about pontoon bridges, but not ferries.

No problem, you helped me out by pointing out the fact that the FWWC manual explicitly states that night assault will always result in the attacker being disrupted, despite helping to edit and rewrite the FWWC manual I seemed to have forgotten that sentence existed. 

[Volcano Man]

Did the Serbian Army destroy bridges as it retreated during the Fourth Invasion? Bridges in scenarios with a later start date are largely intact.

Not that I am aware of. It could be that they did, but I didn't want to guess. I only try to destroy bridges that I 100% know were destroyed in reality. But if you are referring to a specific later start scenario then I can take a look. There is always a concern though that if bridge destruction is assumed, then units may not be able to make historical movements.

Is it working as intended when naval units block ferry hexes? It seems the game somehow sees the naval unit as a unit using the ferry hex, so a ground unit can't move into the hex. When a ground unit is in the hex using the ferry, naval units can move in and out of the hex freely.

Right, as Darran covered (thanks), that is correct behavior. Its a technical limitation, mainly because we don't want to get into a whole mixed naval and ground unit stacking limit. So its best to treat the monitor (or monitors) in a hex like another ferried "group" of ground units, that is, once a group of ferried ground units are in a hex, you cannot have another unit, or group of units, move into the hex and also be ferried.

What kind of clever editor trick did you use for the invisible rail bridge across the Crna Reka north of Palikura?

Yep that is a bit of chrome there. 

Edit: in the Fourth Invasion campaign scenario, hexes 151,85 and 152,85 are shown as Field hexes on the map and have Field fire modifiers (-10%), but they contain RUBBLE.

Good find. As often happens, the map will be made and a scenario created, then some time later the map will be corrected. In this case it seems that the villages were thinned out to be more accurate, but it was after they were set to rubble in the scenario. I fixed this for the first update.

[ComradeP]

Not that I am aware of. It could be that they did, but I didn't want to guess. I only try to destroy bridges that I 100% know were destroyed in reality. But if you are referring to a specific later start scenario then I can take a look. There is always a concern though that if bridge destruction is assumed, then units may not be able to make historical movements.

Good to know. I asked because I'll model my retreat on historical behaviour regarding infrastructure. If the Serbian Army didn't tear it up, I won't either.

[Mowgli]

Good find. As often happens, the map will be made and a scenario created, then some time later the map will be corrected. In this case it seems that the villages were thinned out to be more accurate, but it was after they were set to rubble in the scenario. I fixed this for the first update.

Same thing in #1915_1207_01_Kosturino in Hex 7,7.

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I've noticed that units SOMETIMES lose 50% of their movement allowance when they disrupt due to oportunity fire. This is not listed anywhere in the manual. Is this related to unit quality?

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Two quick and dirty mods i've made:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1xwrjviiew0db...3MJOa?dl=0 (adds beards to the unit graphics of the K.K. troops and the Serbian troops (more coming later) and also darkens their skin a bit; It eludes me why my soldiers have no moustaches in the vanilla game? And they do not look as if they have been marching under the summer sun for weeks)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q83ej0n6gfik9...hq2Ua?dl=0 (rifle fire sounds)

[ComradeP]

I've noticed that units SOMETIMES lose 50% of their movement allowance when they disrupt due to oportunity fire. This is not listed anywhere in the manual. Is this related to unit quality?

I thought units losing 50% MP's was normal, but it seems MP's are indeed not always lost. Didn't really notice it before, but with Disruption being more common now due to using lower quality troops, it's clear that there is indeed a difference between Disruption results regardless of quality.

Currently, it works a bit like Interdiction, which can remove up to half the movement allowance. I'm not really sure what could be the cause of that, it might be intended.

[Mowgli]

The following rule on p. 41 in the manual seems to be incorrect:

"The assault costs a unit the maximum of the following two values:
• 2/3 of its movement allowance.
• The movement cost to move into the defending hex."

It seems as if an assault always only costs 2/3. One of my units just attacked into rough terrain (cost 18) whén it had only 15 movement points left. You can check yourself: Just load up the Kosturino scenario, move the unit in (12,7) to (11,8) and let it attack into (10,8) from there (if it is not disrupted yet). If you try to move from (11,8) to (10,8) without assaulting, movement allowance is exceeded.

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EDIT: Okay, so it seems to work differently: The assault itself always only costs 2/3, but if you attack into very difficult terrain, your MPs are reduced AFTER the assault (successful or not?) accordingly. In other words: you can always assault into difficult terrain with 2/3, but are not allowed to move on that far after the assault.

[ComradeP]

Yes, with units that can fire 3 times you can also always fire once and assault, provided opportunity fire doesn't Disrupt the unit, regardless of whether your unit could enter the hex its assaulting with its remaining MP's.

[Volcano Man]

Good find. As often happens, the map will be made and a scenario created, then some time later the map will be corrected. In this case it seems that the villages were thinned out to be more accurate, but it was after they were set to rubble in the scenario. I fixed this for the first update.

Same thing in #1915_1207_01_Kosturino in Hex 7,7.

Thanks, I fixed that too.

[Mowgli]

I noticed that the movement costs for bridges in parameter data is 1. This is weird because it slightly slows down units that cross streams in deployed mode at hexes that have bridges. In deployed mode (or in travel mode, if you're not allowed to cross that type of bridge -> cavalry at light bridges), you're faster in non-bridge-hexes.

[ComradeP]

That's the case in other FWWC/PzC titles as well.

There doesn't seem to be a check to determine if the unit is actually using the bridge in T-mode, where the additional MP might represent creating a narrower column.