KING GEORGES ARMY WARFARE MANUAL

For newly commissioned Officers

Version 2,412c

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 4 1.1 1.2 Orientation - Controlling the map .................................................................. 6 Weaponry .......................................................................................................... 6

Defensive Battles .................................................................................................... 6 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Placing defence units ....................................................................................... 7 Supplies ...........................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. Unit Stocks ....................................................................................................... 8 Fields of View................................................................................................... 8 The Timer......................................................................................................... 8 Issuing fire orders Over riding officers on the ground .................................. 9 Demolition ........................................................................................................ 9 1

2.8 3

Dog Tags ........................................................................................................... 9

Attacking Battles ................................................................................................... 10 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Victory points .................................................................................................. 10 Paths................................................................................................................ 10 Score ................................................................................................................ 11 Supply drops .................................................................................................... 11 Movement orders ............................................................................................ 11

Battle controls ....................................................................................................... 11 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Minimap .......................................................................................................... 11 Time................................................................................................................. 12 Unit Inspector .................................................................................................. 12 Nightvision....................................................................................................... 12 Screenshots ...................................................................................................... 12 Shortcut Keys .................................................................................................. 13

Aftermath .............................................................................................................. 13 5.1 5.2 5.3 Total per type .................................................................................................. 13 Average per unit ............................................................................................. 13 Total / Supply cost.......................................................................................... 14

Designing Units ...................................................................................................... 14 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 Loading and saving units ................................................................................ 14 Unit stats ......................................................................................................... 14 Components ..................................................................................................... 15 Augmentations ................................................................................................ 15 Customizing designs........................................................................................ 16 Variants ........................................................................................................... 16 Layer Colors .................................................................................................... 16

Editing Maps .......................................................................................................... 17 2

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 8

Normal Edit Mode .......................................................................................... 18 Prop Mode ....................................................................................................... 19 Moving props: .................................................................................................. 19 Deleting props: ................................................................................................ 19 Scaling props: .................................................................................................. 20 Rotating props: ................................................................................................ 20 Placing new props: .......................................................................................... 20 Terrain Edit Mode .......................................................................................... 20 Automatic path generation ............................................................................ 20 Bumpy shadow maps...................................................................................... 20 Saving as a new map ...................................................................................... 20

Recordings .............................................................................................................. 21 8.1 8.2 Saving a recording of an attack ..................................................................... 21 Fighting against recordings ............................................................................ 21

Challenges .............................................................................................................. 21 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 The online browser ......................................................................................... 21 Challenge Details ............................................................................................ 21 Posting challenges........................................................................................... 21 Rating challenges ............................................................................................ 22 Online .................................................................................................................. 22 Your profile ..................................................................................................... 22 Badge editing and custom badges .................................................................. 22 Friends............................................................................................................. 23 Messaging ........................................................................................................ 23 Medals, Unlocks and Achievements ................................................................. 16 Earning medals ............................................................................................... 16 Unlocks ............................................................................................................ 17 3

10 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 11 11.1 11.2

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Good Luck Soldier .............................................................................................. 23

1 Introduction
Welcome Officer and congratulations on successfully completing the rigorous abridged commissioning course! This is a glorious day, your aim as you join King Georges army to help us finally bring this horrible war to an end by Christmas 1984. With you commanding our troops in the trenches, we know we will be chomping on bratwurst at the Kaisers expense by Christmas morning! Pay careful attention to all of the information in the Kings Warfare Manual. It may save your life, and more importantly bring victory to your King and Country. The King! The Kaisers, past and present, have consistently displayed an unlikely sense of humour in thinking that one day they will rule our green and pleasant land. So far, by some fluke, our brave troops have prevented this and have fought gallantly on foreign soil to defend our shores from invasion. However, Teutonic humour is no laughing matter and this on-going threat to our homeland is real, really real. It is vital that the military chain of command is maintained. Your General will provide you with carefully considered battle orders along with a personalised message to motivate and inspire the troops. Such optimism and belief in a swift conclusion to this stalemate war must be disseminated down to the troops, irrespective of your own views. Furthermore, all rumour of psychosis and breakdown in the upper ranks must be absolutely quashed. However, in the unlikely event that you should encounter the odd mad dog General, do remember that these are trying times and therefore try to be tolerant. Failing that (i.e. if the General fits into the rabid mad dog category), confiscate all bootleg gin and little blue tonic pills at once. HQ need not be informed; we are busy enough trying to win a war. As you know, this war commenced nearly 200 years ago as Britain stood up for our closest European neighbours. We were not simply reacting to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife and the shedding of some green feathered plumes. After all, if an Archduke who was nearly fatally shot in the morning chooses to travel in an open top limousine in the afternoon, that is his own silly business. Nor did we enter the war over a mere scrap of paper. In fact, although the lack of soft toilet tissue may have suggested otherwise, we had plenty of paper at that time and we werent even recycling back then. We went to war on a matter of principle and to ensure that there would be a buffer zone between our own shores and the German front line, thereby safeguarding our own countryside from getting all churned up, muddy and generally flattened. And in that, let us not forget, we have been successful. No Hun troops have set foot on our soil, well except for the Schne Inseln im Kanal formally known as The Channel Islands, but they were only truly British when it suited them anyway. Oh, and that mad Rudi Hess who so desperately wanted to try and negotiate

peace so the Scots would start selling the Hun decent Whiskey again, that he made an illjudged solo cross-channel shopping trip. Each Great War is fought through a series of battles. We must defend the ground that we have gained and offensively (you have free reign to be as offensive as you like to Fritz and his like) push the Hun back into his fatherland. If the Kaiser and his Fatherland troops should ever reach our beloved Motherland who knows what dysfunctional offspring would be generated? Once and for all we must end this war by unconditional surrender of the Kaisers Men and total victory for us. We must dispel the public perception first crystallized by Churchills 20th century statement: Never in the field of human conflict has so little been gained, by so many generations, at the expense of so many. Let us be the generation that ends this war to end all wars.

2 Campaign
The current campaign in the Great War is made up of a series of battles as shown in the campaign map. You must win a battle before moving onto the next and all battles can be played at 3 levels of difficulty. Most battles can be played either as the defending force or as the attacking/offensive force, the choice is yours. There are two phases to each battle irrespective of whether you are the attacking or defending army. The deployment phase where you strategically place your forces on the battlefield is the proverbial calm before the storm is swiftly followed by the mayhem of battle.

2.1 Battle victory

Each battle is won or lost depending on whether the attacking army is successful in getting a critical mass of units and supplies, past the defending forces, across the map and exiting the battlefield as denoted by victory points gained. If you are playing as the defending army you must prevent the enemy units and in particular their supplies breaking through your defences in significant numbers and exiting the map. For each map there is a critical number of victory points required by the attacking army in order for the attacking force (allied or enemy) to win. Once you have selected your battle, this figure is found at the top of the screen just right of center (e.g. 0/200 = number of victory points gained by attacking army/number of victory points needed by attacking army to win the battle). If the attacking army fails to reach this number, it has lost the battle and the defending army (allied or enemy) wins. I hope thats as clear as trench water.

2.2 Battle supplies

See that number at the top of the screen, just to the left of center? That shows you the supplies you have available right now. We will be doing our best to re-stock throughout the duration of the battle, so you will see that number creeping upwards. Obviously every time you requisition some troops or structures from the Quartermasters office, this number goes down. Not every unit you deploy costs the same, so keep an eye on what you 5

are placing. You will also find that there is an upper limit on the available supply level. If it reaches that limit, you will be warned, and you need to start placing units right away, otherwise you are effectively wasting potential supplies, have wandered off for a cup of tea or frankly are just not up to the job and are probably not giving Tommy the best chance to thoroughly humiliate the Hun.

2.3 Orientation - Controlling the battle map

As Commanding Officer, you wont actually be getting your boots muddy personally. Lord no! You will be back at local HQ with a glass of fine French wine and a nice leather chair to sit in and go through the battle reports. I know, youd much rather muck-in with the lads in the trenches, but regrettably we need you to take a hands-off controlling view of the battle. One of our airships is always in position over the battle, so you get a magnificent air-ships eye real-time view of the battle! Of course you wont be much use as Commander unless you know what you are looking at. In battle, you will have complete control to move the camera all over the place. Maybe you want to zoom out and take in the entire battle, or maybe you want to zoom in and see our brave boys giving the enemy a damn well-deserved thrashing? You can zoom in using the wheel on your mouse. If your mouse has been commandeered for some lucky Tommys bubble and squeak lunch, you can use shift+add or subtract to do the same thing! As well as zooming here and there, you can move the camera view around in various ways. Hovering the mouse by the edges of the screen will do the trick, as will the WSAD keys or the arrow keys on your keyboard. If you want to be really efficient, you can graband-drag any blank area of the map with the mouse to move around. If you want to show off even more, you can click and drag your mouse around on that handy mini-map at the bottom left of the screen.

2.4 Weaponry
The weaponry at your disposal (although this does not mean that the weapons are disposable) are: laser-gun emplacements, missile launchers flamethrowers, machine guns cannon/ballistics

3 Defensive Battles
Its probably best to start off by looking at your role from a defensive point of view as your first battle will be defending our position and making sure the advancing enemy 6

does break through our line and hence move one goose-step closer to our shores. It is solely your responsibility to select the infantry and turrets and strategically place them so they can best defend our position until the death if necessary. Retreat is considered an activity for the sensitive scholar or deluded infirm not the hardened soldier.

3.1 Placing defence units

So far all you have learned is how to look at stuff. Good fun, but we need to get stuck-in and make use of this fine, inspiring army we have given to you. As defender, weaponry is either mounted on turrets or carried by infantry you will therefore be placing a combination of turrets, infantry and support units before and during battle. Each has their place, and they all have very different capabilities. You probably need to mix and match a bit of everything to ensure the enemy is taught a lesson. Placing units is easy. The bottom of the screen shows all the different types of unit you have in the barracks. You can place them by simply clicking on one of them and dropping them onto the map. When you click one of them, you will notice the map changes to different colors to show you where you can, and cannot place each unit. Now you know why the Army is concerned about your color vision. However, if you pretended not to be colour blind or the recruiting officer forgot to ask you (they do seem to be getting slack these days), dont worry Im sure youll pick it up. The three different defense unit types are turrets, infantry and support units.

3.1.1 Turrets

Turrets house weaponry like laser-gun emplacements, missile launchers, flamethrowers, machine guns and cannon/ballistics. These all come in three different sizes, and normally they take time to construct and supply, but at the start of the battle in order to give Tommy a sporting chance, they can be placed instantly. Turrets tend to be good against enemy tanks and Mechs, although flamethrower and machine gun turrets are pretty good against infantry too. Turrets must be placed on good strong foundations, so they cant be positioned just anywhere on the map.

3.1.2 Infantry
Infantry belong in trenches and bunkers, so this is the only location you can place them. Infantry get a defensive bonus from hunkering down in these, so they can last a good time against dastardly enemy guns. Infantry can be good against other infantry, and the good news is they are always deployed instantly. A trifling communication problem (or between us Officers, a potential desertion problem) means we cant get troops out of the 7

trenches once they are in there. The number of infantry that actually gets dropped therefore depends on how much room there is within each emplacement.

3.1.3 Support Structures

Support structures are very special. Our top boffins have designed some extra-clever buildings such as field-hospitals, command bunkers and repair-facilities. Each of them can only be placed in a few very specific locations (not all battles have room for them at all!), and they affect all friendly units in the surrounding area. Clicking an existing support structure shows the radius of effect, but every unit it affects will display a little icon in any case, so you can tell which units are being supported. Once you have strategically placed units on the map, they will carry out their duties without you as their training kicks in and they open fire on enemy units. Your main job is selecting who, what and where, rather than micromanaging each unit. Thats what the junior officers do! Always respect the chain of command, do you hear? Gentlemen, The King!

3.2 Unit Stocks

Supplies are one limit on what you can deploy, but there is also a limited stock of any particular unit size. For example, there are only 4 large turrets available at any one point in time. This applies across all large turrets regardless of their design. The moment you actually deploy a unit, your underlings at the Quartermasters office will requisition fresh units, but they take a while to arrive. If the number of units available is below 4, an indicator and a re-stock timer will show up on that specific units icon. You will probably find it more prudent to substitute different units rather than just wait for re-stocks, especially if you are approaching the upper-limit on supplies.

3.3 Fields of View

Despite the best efforts of our dear lady Doctors in the genetics labs, our brave boys still do not have eyes in the back of their heads. As a result, you have to remember that all units have a specific field of view. You can see it as the brighter colored area when you select the unit and show their range overlay. Infantry that are moving have quite a limited eyes forward field of view. Stationary troops will happily turn to face any available target, as will infantry in trenches. Mechs have a restricted field of view, basically 180 degrees facing forwards, whereas tanks can swivel 360 degrees. Units will not open fire on enemies that are outside their current field of view.

3.4 The Timer

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Right slap-bang in the middle of the top of the screen is the battle timer. At the start of the battle, its paused and there is a start battle button instead. This initial phase of the battle is called deployment and you get to place units without waiting for them to build. You can also reposition placed units. When you are ready to let battle commence, hit start battle and the timer will start counting down. When the timer runs out and the air-raid siren is heard, that indicates the end of the supplies for the attacker but any existing units or supplies they have will continue to be used. The battle is only really over when the enemy is destroyed. For you defeat is not an option. Think of your sweetheart back home. Remember your promise to King and Country.

3.5 Issuing fire orders

Although you can ignore your units during-battle, sometimes you may notice a particularly annoying enemy unit you wish to eliminate and the ground troops frustratingly seem to be occupied elsewhere. To issue a specific fire order, first select your units you wish to carry out the order, either by holding down shift and drawing a box around them with the mouse, or double clicking one to select all identical units (or just single-click one). You will see them turn yellow. Next, right-click on the offending enemy target. You will see fire-lines drawn in yellow indicating each units preferred target is now set. Note that the troops will (on pain of docked pay) ignore the preferred target until they are within range.

3.6 Demolition
Every now and then you will make a tactical mistake. Yes, I know youre feeling invincible right now but keeping a cool head (or indeed any head) in the heat of real battle is somewhat different to simulated training. Sending that camel regiment to fight in Norway was definitely a good example. Will the IXth Indian lancers ever let us forget that one? Anyway, if you find that the location of a turret is not optimal, you can demolish the turret and get some of its supply value back. You can then use those supplies to build elsewhere. To do this, just right click a turret and select the demolish button that appears to the right. You will see a red countdown timer appear, as our brave Royal Engineers do their deconstruction work.

3.7 Dog Tags

If you are especially vigilant during the enemy attacks, you will sometimes notice that the last enemy soldier in each squadron to fall to their death drops their dog tags. They dont last long, they normally sink into the mud or get crushed by the tracks of some infernal enemy tank, but if you spot them and collect them (just click them) you will get a nice reward from the Quartermaster. The Quartermaster collects enemy dog tags you see, so remember a dog tag in the hand is worth two in the mush.

4 Attacking Battles
Defending a fixed position against dastardly enemy attacks is all well and good, but there comes a time when you have to put Fritz on the defensive and push forward in the name of King and Country. Almost any battle in Gratuitous Tank Battles can be played as the attacker, or as the defender. Attacking is very similar, with a few key changes. The main one is obviously that your objective is different. As attacker your troops and units will be on the move. Weaponry is conveyed by the twin peak pinnacles of ordnance, our gloriously innovative Tanks and Mechs. Indeed, if the enemy had not stolen our revolutionary Mech blueprints, we would have already crushed them underfoot like the insignificant cockroach that they are. All pernicious propaganda that suggests we in fact stole a German designed protomech from Munich University robotics Department, is a complete fabrication. Furthermore, under no circumstances should our by Royal appointment-with-death Mechs be referred to as Volksmechs. This was originally banded about in an ironic manner and must be stopped; specifically lederhosen must not be spray-painted onto these awesome fighting machines. The fact that our purely British mechs are left-hand drive is a co-incidence and that they are surprisingly efficient is solely down to our technical expertise and superiority. Remember, your attacking aim is to use our Mechs and tanks to their best advantage and keep pushing forward and get as many troops and units as possible past the enemy defences and off the map. You will be awarded victory points for your efforts.

4.1 Victory points

Victory points are awarded for every unit that makes it through enemy lines and off the map in one piece. Not every unit has the same value though. Infantry and support units (especially supply trucks) are worth disproportionately more victory points than Mechs and tanks. The main aim of the game is thus to get infantry and supply trucks to the end of the path(s). The Mechs and tanks are primarily used to soak up damage and clear the way for these more vital units to push by. If you hover the mouse over a design icon, or click an existing unit, you will see how many victory points each is worth. Dont forget Winston Churchills wise and surprisingly sober words Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

4.2 Paths
As attacking forces, your troops are constantly on the move but you have to keep them under control, they cannot just wander anywhere. If you hit the R key you will be able to toggle on and off the display of routes your troops will follow from their deployment positions, which are marked in green. You will also see one or more exit points marked on the map at the end of each route. Troops that reach this point are safe, and even if they claim to be shocked by the odd shell, will be able to fight again another day and count towards your score.

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4.3 Score
Your score is shown at the top right. It also displays the score required to beat this particular mission. The more you exceed that score the better, because this counts towards your high score for this battle, on this difficulty level. This might just seem like a number, but it dictates the all-important decision as to whose turn it is to buy drinks in the Officers mess each evening. Bottoms up! The King!

4.4 Supply drops

Occasionally, our slap-dash boys in blue bungle things and drop some vital supplies ahead of our forces rather than safely behind. When that happens, they get very excited if our troops spot the fallen supplies and return them to the depot. If any of your units make it far enough to grab some supplies, we are given a special reward by the Quartermaster in the form of a supply truck. Supply trucks cannot be deployed in any other way. The only purpose these trucks have is to earn victory points, but they are worth a LOT of them. Make sure you protect them if possible, and victory will be ours. Also be aware that Air Marshall Tedder is a sneaky old chap. He will not release a second supply drop until he has noticed you bothering to pick up the first one, so dont dilly dally!

4.5 Movement orders

Normally there is little option on where our troops go, as the roads are pretty narrow, but occasionally, those poor chaps are left to make actual tactical decisions. To help them out, you can select some of your troops, then right click on the path to give them a preferred route, which is shown in red. Doing this is just a suggestion. If they get caught in some mid-battle traffic jam, they may take an alternative route.

5 Battle controls
Controlling the battle isnt just a matter of saying tally ho! and clinking champagne glasses. There are all sorts of things to keep an eye on once battle is engaged.

5.1 Minimap
At the bottom left of the screen is the mini-map. Think of this as a view of the entire battle, allowing you to quickly glance at the strategic situation. Your troops, and the dastardly enemy troops are shown in different colors, and newly constructing units show as green, deconstructing ones in red. Light blue icons represent supply drops. You can click on the minimap to move the camera to a specific position.

(guide to minimap Icons)

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Yellow: Inferior Enemy units White: Superior Friendly units Green: Units under construction Red: Units under demolition Light blue: Supply drop White X: Path exitLight Grey: path

5.2 Time
It can sometimes be a tad frantic in the middle of battle, with guns and lasers and godknows-what going bang and fizz and zap and arggh all at the same time. If it gets a bit too hectic, breathe deeply, focus and channel calm thoughts. If that still doesnt work for you, you can slow down time using the speed buttons above the minimap. But frankly hasnt this war gone on long enough. You can also freeze time entirely using the pause button, and all this can be done using the + or - keys with P to pause. Under no circumstances is this option to be used for listening to the football results. You can even advance the battle when paused by a single frame using the top-secret f key. In particular, do not to let that information fall into the wrong hands (i.e the lower ranks who complain that battles seem to go on for hours and leave passes in a flash).

5.3 Unit Inspector

Clicking on a friendly unit will activate a handy little pop-up window at the bottom right of the screen showing the status details of that unit. A series of progress bars show their shields (blue) armor (brown) and health (green), plus information on their victory point worth. This screen also shows the individual components in this unit and how badly damaged they are (red!). Units take damage unevenly, so its possible to lose your weapons but be able to continue moving, for example.

5.4 Nightvision
After extensive research in the 20th century it was found that eating lots of carrots did not in fact improve vision but just turned you slightly orange. Sometimes it can be a right pain seeing where the enemy are during those sneaky night-time battles the Hun are so fond of. As a result, the boffins in our labs have developed night vision mode for these battles. There is a button to toggle it on and off underneath the minimap, or you can use the N key.

5.5 Screenshots
You can take a screen-grab at any point by hitting the button to the right of the minimap, or by simply pressing the PrintScreen key on your keyboard. You should try using P to pause and F to frame-advance to get really nice souvenir shots! The screenshots all get saved in \my documents\my games\gratuitous tank battles\screenshots. 12

5.6 Shortcut Keys

Sometimes you need a fast way to activate certain features, and there are even some handy little features that are hidden from the common soldier, only usable by shortcutkeys or hotkeys. Here they are all: R N M H U Q P F +/- : Toggles display of attacking routes. : Toggles Nightvision. : Toggles the minimap. : Toggles display of health indicators for all your units. : Toggles the entire user interface on and off. : Starts the battle, the same as clicking the button at the top. : Toggles the pause mode on and off. : Advances a frame, if paused. : Increases or decreases the speed. : Saves a screenshot.

PrtScrn

6 Aftermath
At the end of the battle, its no good crying into your beer or spending the whole evening singing bawdy songs in the officers club! You should be scanning the post-battle statistics to see how things went! The stats screen at the end of battle has 3 modes, and make sure you use them wisely. Know your enemy.

6.1 Total per type

This mode shows you which design of unit dealt the most damage to the enemy. The unit doing the most damage is highlighted in green. This is a good way to get an overall feel for what stopped an attacking enemy, or which of your invading units did most damage. The final column also shows you how many victory points those units earned for escaping, if you were the attacker.

6.2 Average per unit

This view is better if you want to look at the individual type effectiveness. You may not have been deploying enough of your star unit type, and this is a good way to check.

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6.3 Total / Supply cost.

This is like a value for money chart that shows you what was achieved, divided by the cost of that unit in supply terms. Dont forget that as attacker, damaging the enemy is a secondary goal, you really just want to get victory-points for advancing across the finish line. Some units cost a lot more than others, so this is a good way to work out where you are getting value for money, and where you are wasting it all.

7 Designing Units
Your army is started off with a few decent designs that the boffins at the Ministry of Creative Destruction devised, but there is plenty of scope for you to customise these units and come up with your own. There is no limit on the number of different unit designs you have, so feel free to experiment. Designing units is carried out outside of the battles, on the unit design screen, accessed from the main menu.

7.1 Loading and saving units

The center top of the screen has controls for loading and saving units, and for selecting a different hull to start from. Note that there are two things here, the hull is a fixed framework for a unit, such as a specific model heavy tank. Hulls do not have any weapons or other components, you put the components into a hull and then save it out as your own personal design. You can have dozens of different designs, all based around the same hull. You can even have units that share the exact same design, but different outward appearances, if you like that sort of thing. The buttons in the center allow you to load and save designs, as well as delete existing ones, and you can also choose a different hull from here too. You also have the name and the description for the current design, both of which can be edited by clicking on them. Its worth having a helpful description for your designs, as they appear in popup tips during battle, when you are trying to pick the right design.

7.2 Unit stats

At the bottom of the screen, in the middle are stats about the current design. These are as follows:

7.2.1 Cost:
This is the cost, in supplies, for a single unit of this type. Obviously better units cost more, so you might need to trade-off numbers against quality. Part of the cost comes from the basic hull, the rest from the selection of components added to that hull.

7.2.2 Speed:
This is how rapidly the unit will move, or zero for fixed emplacements. When defending, this is moot, but when you are attacking, you want your forces to be able to move at a decent speed. Apart from anything, you dont want our brave healthy fit young men queuing up behind a slow moving tank like a gaggle of nervous schoolboys! Faster moving units are harder to hit, and also get to their destination (and safety) better. Speed is a function of the engines / footwear, offset against total weight. 14

7.2.3 Armor:
Armor is the physical strength of all that metal strapped to the tank / individual. Armor is good against ballistic weapons like cannons and so on. Its not so good against energy beams, which tend to melt it, but our boffins are working on that.

7.2.4 Shields:
Shields are those prototype glowy energy-sphere thingies that some whizzkid at Cambridge no doubt invented one lunchtime. Damned fine invention! Great for reflecting enemy laser beams, which mostly bounce off them, but pretty useless for some reason against actual shells and bullets. They really must fix that one day.

7.2.5 Weight:
Weight is always a problem. Its no good having a tank thats totally indestructible if it takes forty minutes to get from one end of a cricket pitch to the other. You will need to trade-off defensive capability against weight to get the best compromise.

7.3 Components
The left hand window on the design screen shows the different components you can use to put together designs. You do this by dragging the ones you want onto the slots on the blueprint in the middle of the screen. They come in all different types, and can only go in the right slot, which you will see are visible when you try to drop them. Dropping a component replaces the previous one, if it exists. Every choice automatically updates the stats at the bottom of the screen, so you can compare a variety of combinations. The components you choose have no effect on the physical appearance of the unit. You may note at the start of your career, that some of the components are greyed out. We cant have you playing with those. Top secret stuff, dont-you-know! Maybe one day, when you are a bit more battle-hardened, we will let you play with the rarer, more specialist components. At the bottom left of the screen is a window showing details on the current selected component. You can click any component to see details on it here. There are a number of juicy statistics to cast your eye over here. You might want to join us in the officers mess for a game of laser cannon top trumps when you really get the hang of what all the stats mean. No pressure.

7.4 Augmentations
Components are just part of the fiendish puzzle of custom unit design. There are also augmentations. These are a way to tweak an existing unit design to give it more GRRRR or more VRRRRMMM, and so forth. Augmentations affect an entire design, and change a vital statistic about that design, such as boosting engine speed, or the damage done by the weapon. Augmentations do not weigh anything, but they do cost. Using augmentations gives you many more options for customisation than just components. You can transform an otherwise short-range weapon into a better-ranged variety by using an augmentation, for example.

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7.5 Customizing designs

So far we have just talked about the technical design of a unit, such as a tank or those wonderful walking tanks (Mechs). Of course, this is all very exciting if you are an engineer or technician, but the real fun starts when you hit that customize button in the middle of the screen and go into customising mode. This screen lets you adjust the way that unit will look in battle. You might be doing this just for aesthetic reasons, or to help you differentiate between varying units better in battle. The Generals obviously take a grim view of altering standard issue camouflage colors but as this war has been going on for 200 years, lets be honest, we know the Bosch are there, they know where we are and we know they know where we are. Anyway, the chances of a General being anywhere near the front line and seeing a customised tank for himself is as slim as a trench rats whisker. Personally if the troops want polka dots they could just drink the bootleg gin but thats not to everyones taste.

7.6 Variants
On the right hand side of this screen are the unit variants for this specific hull. Some hulls have very few, some have lots. They often differ in what turret or gun barrel is employed. You can select the variant of your choice simply by clicking it. When you do this, the blueprint image will reflect the change, and you will see the layers in the strip along the bottom change as well.

7.7 Layer Colors

That strip of layers shows how a particular unit is built up. You can select the current layer by clicking on them. The reason you will do this is so you can edit the colors used in each layers appearance. To change the color of a layer, just click one of the colored squares on the left. There is a grid of common colors that are officially supported by His Majestys Government, and some spare slots you can add extra colors to, for your own convenience with a right click. To pick a totally new color, you simply click on the color picker at the top left. Try to avoid the temptation to have pink tanks with yellow highlights. They clash awfully, dont you think?

8 Medals, Unlocks and Achievements

8.1 Earning medals
Where is the glory of war to be found if its not in a chest-full of fine medals, polished to the point of blindness-inducing? You will earn medals as your career progresses, right up until the point where we crush the Hun, or you get your head blown off by a tank shell. Either way, you will find your current stash of medals on display here. Hovering your mouse over each medal will tell you why you earned it, in case youve glugged down too much patriotic port afterwards.

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8.2 Unlocks
When you first start out as an Officer, you dont really expect us to hand you Gatling lasers and nanotech-engineered super-Chobham armor do you? If you do, Im afraid you are woefully mistaken. You have to earn the right to get first pickings of the new technology coming out of the boffins labs. As you complete battles, you will unlock new equipment. One piece will be allocated to you for each battle you fight, and two pieces if you actually win it. You get some limited choice in which equipment becomes available, but not *too* much choice. This is the Kings army, not some department store in Oxford Street!

8.2.1 Rank and XP

Various actions will result in you earning experience points (XP), and through more and more experience points you will raise your rank. Your rank is a useful way to broadcast to the world how inferior they are, and alert them to their need to salute, and where appropriate buy drinks / open doors. The exact formula for experience points and ranks is still closely guarded by the SIS, but we understand that editing new maps, and having them highly regarded, and playing online challenges etc, are all good ways to boost your status and career chances.

9 Editing Maps

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If you are observant, you might have noticed that as well as attack and defend buttons for every battle, there is also an edit button. This lets you design your very own battles, from scratch. This is not something for the feint-of-heart, but then, what are we doing recruiting feint-hearted commanding officers in any event eh? The edit screen may look complex but basically it can be split into three different modes. There are buttons at the very top of the screen to select which mode you want to be in.

9.1 Tile Edit Mode

Tile edit mode is where you select most of the gameplay-related options for a specific battle map. That means such things as defining who can place a unit where, the paths that the attackers can take, and so on. It also allows you to place fixed emplacements such as trenches and bunkers, and for some reason, this is also how you place road segments (although that is automated, to some extent). Before going any further, we should probably explain how to control the map. You can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, or use the arrow keys on the keyboard. You will notice that zooming zooms to the current cursor position, so you might not need the arrow keys much at all. The key to normal edit mode is selecting tiles and then editing them. You can do shift+click, single click a tile, or drag-select a group of tiles to highlight the ones you wish to work with. You can then edit that tile with the right-click menu, or you can apply a particular emplacement to it by clicking an emplacement icon on the far right of the screen. 18

When you right click a tile, or have a bunch selected and then right click, you get a whole host of buttons. These apply to all currently selected tiles. The different buttons do the following:

Arrow keys: These toggle that path direction on or off. They show the routes attacking
army can take; you can have more than one arrow per tile. Make sure every path is complete from entrance to exit. Be aware that paths can have multiple branches. When you use these arrows on defensive positions, they set the default facing for turrets placed on that tile.

Exit icon: This button toggles this tile as

being an exit or not. Exits are the positions attacking army units must reach in order have advanced through the enemy line. On reaching the exit the unit or supplies will disappear off the map, and contribute all important victory points to the attacker. You MUST have some exit icons on every map, and a clear path from entrance to exit.

Clear path icon: Resets the paths so there are no path settings for this tile. Deployment colors: Green denotes positions on the map where only defenders can be
placed, red is for positions where attackers enter the battle. The green stripes are for defending army support-structures such as hospitals. Grey clears the tile so nobody can deploy there.

Rotations: These turn the current emplacement through 90 degrees in either direction.
They are used for bunkers and for paths. You shouldnt have any need to use them for trenches.?????

Clear emplacement: Removes any path or trench or bunker on that tile.

9.2 Prop Mode

Prop mode is the most fun you can have on a battlefield without shooting anything. This is where you get to decide where the trees, craters, dead bodies, tank traps, barbed wire and other fluff gets placed. You will notice in prop mode that all of the props have a red outline drawn around them.

9.2.1 Moving props:

To move a prop just click once to select it (it turns white) then click again to place it down. Note that you can draw a box to select a whole bunch of props at once if you like.

9.2.2 Deleting props:

To delete a prop, select it, then press the delete key, or alternatively right click. 19

9.2.3 Scaling props:

With a prop selected, use the mouse wheel to make them bigger or smaller

Rotating 9.2.4 Rotating props:

With a prop selected, use CTRL + mouse wheel to rotate either way.

9.2.5 Placing new props:

The prop selector on the far right lets you click a new prop for placement on the map. There are three types of icon, the normal ones which select a specific object, the random group ones, for stuff like some trees, which selects a random tree from that group each time it is used, and the brush icons which place a whole bunch of trees with each click. There are also two buttons at the bottom of the prop selection window. The left hand one swaps between fixed and random angle. This allows you to place down a whole bunch of objects with a different random angle each time, if you choose. The other button switches from single placement to multiple placement mode, where each click on the map creates another prop of the same type. Right clicking cancels that mode.

9.3 Terrain Edit Mode

The final mode on the map editor is for the terrain. You will notice the grid size gets a bit larger in this mode. This is where you get to determine the background of the map. There are tiles to select from on the right, and the select an existing tile, then select its new terrain type on the right. This only changes the actual texture, not the bumpy shadow map, more on the bumpy shadow map later

9.4 Automatic path generation

The two buttons to the right of the save button automatically create path textures for any path you have defined. They each use a different set of path textures. They will remove existing paths and replace them with new ones. This saves you a lot work.

9.5 Bumpy shadow maps

The hills and bumps on the map are automatically generated when you save out your map, to follow the contours of the paths you have chosen. If you drastically edit an existing map, the shadows may conflict during editing, but it will be fine once it is saved out. Note that, using magic, the bumpy shadows are slightly different for everyone who will play the map.

9.6 Saving a new map & battle scenario

Once you have got everything on the map as you want it, press the save map icon to save it out as a new map. This will launch a new window to decide options. First, it will advise you to create a new name and description for your customised map. Most of the data on the configure scenario window should be self-explanatory. Here you get to set all the 20

variables that determine how frantic, fast, or well supplied the battle will be. If your ear drums havent been burst to smithereens yet and you care about such things you can and also pick the background music although Its a long way to Tipperary still isnt an option. Dust-type affects what dust is kicked up by tanks, and ambience changes the background sound effects. Time of day determines whether there will be night time effects and night-vision mode. Saving a map might take some time, as our super-clever technology assimilates an image of the map for later use.

10Recordings
10.1 Saving a recording of an attack
Once a battle ends, if you were the attacker, you have the option to save out a recording of the attack. You might do this for two reasons. One is so you can re-play the battle map as a defender against your own army (excellent for practice). Another is so you can include your well-honed attacking forces in a challenge game.

10.2 Fighting against recordings

When you go to play as defender on a map, if someone (you or a challenger) has included battle recordings with the map, you will see it as an option. You can then select the name of the recording and fight against it.

11 Challenges
Fighting against AI is all well and good, but far better to actually beat real people eh? Thats what gives you bragging rights in the Officers mess, after all.

11.1 The online browser

One of the options under battle is online. Select that (above the campaign map) and you will connect to Bletchley Park to download decoded transmissions of other peoples maps and battles. You can filter which ones are shown in the list using the filter buttons at the bottom of the screen.

11.2 Challenge Details

Selecting a challenge will show you some information about the map, and the person issuing the challenge. They might be a fine upstanding honourable general such as one of ours, or possibly a sneaky two faced cowardly general such as the enemies. In either case, you can compare your rank and experience against them, and see notes fellow officers have left about the map. You can also delete the challenge here if you are the author, or fight it as attacker or defender.

11.3 Posting challenges

At the end of a battle where you played as the attacking force you have the option to post the map and attacking army online as a challenge. This can be on a custom map you 21

designed yourself, or on a regular map. When posting a challenge, you can pick who to send it to, or choose all if you are happy for it to be an open challenge. Private challenges are only viewable by you and the person you challenged.

11.4 Rating challenges

At the end of playing a challenge someone else has set, you get the option to rate it, and to post a comment on what you thought of it. You can use this to offer honest impartial feedback but dont let the Generals hearing you say a good word about the repugnant rotters from across the Rhine or the terrific Teutonic technology at least not without a good dose of Anglo Saxon sarcasm.

12 Online
Officers able to unwind from the stresses of war might well be thought of as the more gregarious types always at social events, glass of fine wine in one hand, and service revolver/laser-pistol in the other. Whats the point of glorious victories if you dont get to boast about them over port and cigars eh?

12.1 Your profile

The online screen lets you edit your profile. This is effectively your military CV. Before you get anywhere, you need to enter your top secret serial code, and pick a unique username. Once that is out of the way, you can either pick a random regiment and Commanders name, or type in your own hilarious and original witty inventions.

12.2Regimental badge editing and custom badges

You will notice that initially a random regimental badge has been generated for you. Your badge is displayed to both friend and foe, for example on loadings screens during challenges played by others, on the details screen for challenges, on the compare friend screen and of course on the gravestones of the tens of thousands of poor chaps that died under your command etc The good news is you can edit it. Click edit badge to do so. You then get to play around with various combinations of insets, surrounds, backgrounds and color tints, plus size and position editing. You can skip all that and just load in a custom jpg image from /My Games/Gratuitous Tank Battles/Bitmaps. Once you are happy that your new badge reflects the history, ingenuity or fighting spirit of your regiment (or it simply looks delightful against the grimness of war), click the save button to commit your design to Bletchley Park. Do not however use offensive images or words or you and your regiment will find yourselves does missing in action, yes the General does have some morals you have been warned.

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12.3 Friends
In war, all men are brothers. Except the Hun, obviously. Should you wish to stay in touch with specific Officers, you can add their usernames using the add new friend button. This allows you to filter challenges by those friends. You also get charming little icons showing onfriends challenges and comments. You will see your friends listed in that window, and you can delete them (or just their name, depending on how badly they have fallen from favour), send them a message (we suggest something along the lines of tally ho old fruit!), or compare your career achievements to theirs.

12.4 Messaging
Just had an idea for a new top-secret weapon? Concerned that you havent bragged about your latest medals to your friends? You can send any fellow Officer a message, or read incoming messages from others using the buttons in the messages window. Its always good to stay in touch, although obviously remember that the patriotic chaps in the censorship department will blank out anything top-secret.

13 Good Luck Soldier

I know what you are thinking, you dont need luck. You are a soldier in the Kings army, and we are bound to have this nasty affair with the Kaiser all sewn up by Christmas this year (1919 1945 2218). However, far be it from me to dampen a chaps spirits, but we have to say that statistically speaking, you are somewhat disadvantaged. Just ask your parents, or their parents, or any of the fine line of ancestors you have that did their patriotic bit for King and country. Fine men, the lot of them, and it fills me with pride to see you in their boots. Quite literally their boots in this case, so thats a nice bit of army recycling too. Top show! Now do your duty, and remember, its not just your sweetheart you are fighting for, but King and country. Good luck soldier. See you for cocktails and pretzels in Berlin on Christmas morning!

Field Marshall Jonty Huntingdon Cumberbunch IVth

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