A good general carefully judges the available options and their consequences before committing his troops to the horrors of war. The following briefing should give you the information with which to make those decisions.
Contents
How to play?
Select a game from our list of war games in the 'Games' section. Click the launch button to start the game. If you face problems, consult the 'troubleshooting' section at the end of this help page, or ask in the forums.
The controls of our games should be relatively easy to figure out without any guidance. There are, however, some concepts with which you should familiarise yourself. These should be familiar for anyone who has played war and strategy games before either on the computer or as board games.
Hit Points
A unit has a number of Hit Points (HP), marking its condition. When a unit's Hit Points drop to 0, it may, depending on the scenario and the conditions in which the last HP is lost, either be destroyed or become unable to fight. Units with less Hit Points are also marginally weaker in battle. Units with 0 Hit Points (in scenarios that allow it) are unable to engage in combat or move into enemy territory.
Unit Strength
Unit types differ in how well they fight. Tank units, for example, are predictably stronger than is common infantry.
Move
Moving a unit once (to an adjacent hexagon) costs one Move Point. Some units have only one Move Point per turn, others have more. If a unit has been forced to retreat in the previous turn(s), it may not be able to move at all. Units that still have moves left for the turn can be recognized from a small white circle displayed in the upper-left corner of its icon.
Dig in
By pressing "D" on the keyboard, you can set a unit in an entrenched mode ("dig in"). As long as the unit remains in its position after this, it receives a defensive bonus. Moving the unit automatically removes the "dig in" effect.
Transport
Certain units such as trains function as transportation units. They have relatively many Move Points at their disposal, and each can pick up one friendly unit at a time in order to transport it to another area. Picking up units works by pressing the "L" key on your keyboard. Transport units cannot enter enemy territory. Moreover, if a unit is attacked while sharing an area with a transport unit, the damage it suffers is increased.
Battles
If a unit moves to a hexagon occupied by enemy forces, a battle ensues. If the target hexagon contains more than one enemy unit, the defender is chosen randomly. With all other things being equal, defending units are in slight advantage over the attacking forces. A battle may inflict 0-4 points of damage to the defending unit, depending on the difference in the number of units taking part in the battle (see 'support') and luck. If the attacker has not been defeated, there is a chance that the defending unit is forced to retreat, in which case the attacking unit advances to the vacated hexagon if no enemy units remain there. The retreating unit may move one or two hexagons.
Support in Battle
Units engaged in battle automatically receive support from surrounding units. The extent of this support is calculated in the following manner:
1) First, each unit friendly to the attacker and adjacent to the hexagon in which the defender is located is marked to be giving attacking support.
2) Then, each unit friendly to the defender and adjacent to a unit giving attacking support nullifies one of the attacking supports.
3) After this, each unit friendly to the defender not employed in phase 2 to nullify attacking support and adjacent to the hexagon from which the attacker is attacking is marked to give defending support.
4) Finally, each unit friendly to the attacker not marked in phase 1 to give attacking support and adjacent to units giving defending support nullifies one defending support.
To illustrate this perhaps rather complicated rule, consider the following diagram, in which unit A attacks unit 1:
Here, units B, C, D and F can support A in its attack. E cannot support A, as it is not adjacent to the hexagon in which the defending unit 1 is located.
From these units (B, C, D, F), C is nullified by the adjacent unit 6, F by unit 2 and D by unit 4. This leaves only B to support the attack.
On the defender's side, units 2, 4 and 5 are adjacent to the attacking unit and could therefore offer defensive support. Units 2 and 4 are however already nullifying attacking units' support, so they cannot offer any defensive support. Unit 3, meanwhile, is not adjacent to the attacking or any units providing attacking support, and therefore it takes no part in the battle. Consequently, only unit 5 can offer defensive support.
As there are no attacking units that could nullify the defensive support offered by unit 5, the final result is that both the attacker and the defender are supported by one unit.
Supply
In scenarios that so degree, each unit needs to be connected to a supply point from which ammunition, food and fuel is sent to it. These points are those cities that are marked on the map with an 'S'. When a unit moves, the areas that it travels through become part of its side's supply area, thus extending the total area in which units of its side can stay supplied. A unit may, however, end up being out of supply if the supply line behind it becomes too long. The more direct the line between the unit and its source of supply, the smaller the probability of this is. Note also that when an enemy unit moves to a hexagon that was previously part of your supply area, it converts that hexagon into your enemy's supply area. If by doing so the enemy cuts off your unit's only supply line, it causes your unit to become out-of-supply (indicated with a red circle on the unit). Out-of-supply units move slower, are subject to potentially losing one Hit Point each turn, and fight worse each consecutive turn. The longer a unit remains out-of-supply, the more severe are the consequences.
Fatigue
Fatigue stands for how tired and disorganised units are. Battles increase a unit's fatigue by 1 or 2, while using up all the move points in a turn increases it by one. If a unit's move points go under 0 (for example due to the unit having to retreat), fatigue is increased further. Fatigue is meanwhile lowered by not moving with the unit, as well as resting it in friendly territory: in this case the unit needs to be in a city within friendly supply and no less than four hexagons from the border of the supply area.
Experience
Each battle gives a unit one or two experience points. The more experienced a unit is, the harder it fights, with each experience point giving the unit one tenth of a strength point in battle.
Reinforcements
There are three types of reinforcements in the War Game Bunker games. One is brand new units, another an increase in the Hit Points of units, and third an increase in the HP of a resting unit. In the case of the first two, reinforcements enter the game at pre-defined times. Meanwhile, in order to gain an HP increase for a resting unit, the unit needs to be in a city within friendly supply and no less than four hexagons from the border of the supply area.
Fog of War
While the terrain of the whole map is visible to you at all times, the enemy's moves behind the front line are not. Areas not visible to you are covered by the "Fog of War", and appear darkened on the map. Depending on the game, different variables such as weather may reduce unit visibility. As you advance into the enemy territory, the area visible to you is also increased.
Victory Points
The target in our war games is to gain Victory Points (VP). Depending on the game, these can be gained from locations, events, and/or destroyed enemy units. A game ends when one side either gains a required number of Victory Points, or the total of VPs under its control drops under a certain limit.
If you have any further questions about the game play, you can discuss them in the forums.
How to win?
It would be practically impossible to tell what the best way to achieve victory in our war games is. There are, however, a few things that we feel we should mention to get you started. If nothing else, the following paragraphs should give you an idea how the game engine works, and what the mechanism behind the games is.
Encircling enemy forces
Encircling enemy units is an extremely powerful technique to master. The more units you can lure into being out-of-supply the better, as these units lose Hit Points simply by getting no supply, thus making it easier for you to destroy them. Out-of-supply units also have the need to break through and get back within the reach of their own supply lines, which means that they will attack you more readily. This puts them into a disadvantage, as units fight better when defending than when attacking.
The downside of encircling the enemy is the time that it takes, and the number of troops that it requires -- troops that could be making a breakthrough elsewhere. It is therefore crucial to plan your grand strategy in a way that a manoeuvre to encircle enemy forces in one place does not hinder your plans elsewhere. It is, for example, often a good idea to use slower units to maintain the encirclement, enabling your faster (for example motorised) troops to fight elsewhere.
Concentrating your forces
Building groups of units is also important, as advancing or retreating towards a common target with more than a single unit brings with it a number of advantages. For one, it is easier to defeat an enemy unit when attacking it repeatedly within a single turn. Each successive attack causes more fatigue to the defending unit, making it weaker. Similarly, each time an enemy unit has to retreat, it loses Move Points, making it far more difficult for the enemy to take control of the situation on its own turn.
Another reason why a group of units is more than the sum of its parts has to do with momentum. While the enemy can fairly easily influence the direction towards which one of your units is heading, it is far more difficult to stop or re-direct a larger force. Even if one of your troops loses momentum, the rest of the group will keep on going.
It is also far more difficult to encircle your units when they move as part of a larger formation, leaving behind them a wider line of supply.
Plan your actions
Perhaps the most important thing is to plan your each move with the utmost care. For example, once you have taken control of an area, make sure that you can also keep it under your control before moving onto the next target. If you have to seesaw between two or more places, you only lose vital momentum and time.
