How to Play Guide for Panzer Corps

This page will serve as a basic **how to play guide for *Panzer Corps***. Feel free to edit this guide with any tips, tricks, and suggestions.

## Basic gameplay

* *Panzer Corps* is a tactical game, where you don't need to worry about establishing bases or building units, but rather effectively using them in combined arms operations and defeat the enemy. All the action takes place on the tactical map which covers the majority of the screen. In most scenarios your goal is to capture or hold victory hexes, marked with golden border. Every unit may make one move and one attack per turn. A unit’s remaining actions are indicated by small icons above the unit’s strength plate.

### Deployment

* In a campaign game core units travel with you from battle to battle and auxiliary units may come temporarily under your control. At the deployment phase you are free to manage your core army – give the units green or use prestige to buy elite replacements, over-strengthen and upgrade them – all without using a turn. To do this, select a unit in the list and click the appropriate button in the UI sidebar. You can also purchase additional units by clicking Purchase button. Prestige is the games currency – you earn it by capturing cities and are allocated some at the start of each mission. You use it to repair and upgrade your units and recruit new units.
* Losses from previous missions are not replaced automatically. You need to do this manually for every damaged unit if you want it to fight at full strength in the upcoming battle. At the deployment phase green replacements are free, so you can always bring your core units to full strength, but they will lose some experience in the process. By giving your units Elite replacements you preserve their hard earned experience, but this costs prestige.
* Units with full experience stars are able to over-strengthen, i.e. increase its strength beyond the normal limit. A unit earns star for each 100 points of experience, and for each star it can be over-strengthened by one point. In order to over-strengthen a unit, just select the Elite Replacements button. Only one point of strength is added each turn. Note that over-strength points cost more than ordinary replacements, but every point of over-strength makes your elite units even stronger and resilient.
* When you have finished allocating replacements and upgrades, deploy your core units on the map within the highlighted deployment zone. To deploy a unit, select it in the list and then select the deployment hex where you want to place it. You can use the strategic map to quickly find all potential deployment locations.

### Units

* All units are marked with their unit class icons. Axis units are gray, allied units are green. The strategic map can show ground or air units, but not both at the same time. Use the Toggle Ground/Air button to switch between showing ground and air units.
* Units can move on the tactical map, with their range determined by terrain and weather conditions. After a unit has moved, you can undo its move and choose a different destination as long as the unit did not discover an enemy unit. To do this, use Undo Move button on the UI sidebar.
* In most cases units with transports (infantry or towed guns) mount automatically when you move them further than they can walk, and they dismount automatically at the beginning of their turn. However, you can also mount and dismounts units manually using the Mount/Dismount button. This can be useful if you want to attack from your transport, or leave the unit loaded for the duration of the enemy’s turn.
* Some units belong to a rare type of multipurpose units, which can change roles and switch between unit classes by using the Switch button. Note that after moving or attacking the unit cannot switch its role until its next turn.

Supply and maintenance
* Units require supply. After moving a lot or fighting several battles, they will start running out of fuel or ammunition. When the ammo drops to zero, the ammo icon will turn red, and the unit will lose its ability to attack or defend, while running out of fuel means they cannot move. To replenish a unit’s ammo reserves, press the Supply button on the UI sidebar. This command takes an entire turn and can only be done if it has not moved or fought. Note that enemy units standing next to your unit or bad weather can reduce the amount of supply received.
* Damaged units are less effective in combat and more vulnerable to enemy attacks. In order to replace the losses, use the Replacements or Elite Replacements buttons. This command takes an entire turn and costs some prestige (the exact amount is indicated on the tooltip when over button). Elite Replacements are more expensive, but the experience of the unit is preserved. Note that adjacent enemy units can reduce the number of replacements you receive, and it's perfectly possible for supply lines to be cut entirely.
* Units standing on a supply hex (city or port for ground units, airfield for air units), and can be upgraded to a different unit with different equipment, but it must remain within its unit class – i.e. a tank cannot be upgraded to artillery. To do this press the Upgrade button. This command takes an entire turn. Only use this as a last resort in a scenario, as it's cheaper to do in between scenarios.

Aircraft range
* Planes have special movement and range rules. If it does not return to an airfield before its fuel drops to zero, it will crash. To prevent this you should avoid any ‘dangerous’ hexes, marked with red dots. These hexes are too far from nearest friendly airfield or aircraft carrier for the unit to have enough fuel to return to base. This makes any attacks in the danger zone likely to be suicide missions unless a closer airfield can be captured or a carrier moves within range. Planes can be refueled and rearmed when above or adjacent to an airfield. An airfield can resupply up to seven planes on a single turn, but it can only repair the air unit directly above it.

### Embarkment

* Embarking on transports allows you to move units across the map with great speed, with the caveat that they are exceedingly vulnerable, particularly air units.
* Ground units standing on a port hex can be embarked on a naval transport. Using naval transports your units can travel across sea hexes, and then disembark on any vacant land hex. To load the unit on a naval transport, use the Embark button. The number of naval transports available to you is limited and is shown in the tooltip when over the Embark button.
* Ground units standing on an airfield hex can be embarked on an air transport. Using air transports your units can travel across land and sea hexes at great speed, and then land on any vacant airfield. Exceptions to this rule are paratroopers, who can jump from air transports on any land hex. To load the unit on an air transport, use the Embark button. The number of air transports available to you is limited and is shown in the tooltip when over the Embark button. Note that only infantry units without land transports can be loaded on an air transport – other units are too big and heavy for this (unless you are playing in a campaign that has super-heavy transports enabled; the Me 323 Gigant can transport any land unit).
* Ground units standing on a city hex connected to railroad network can be embarked on a rail transport. Using rail transports your units can travel across land hexes with a rail network at great speed and unload in any vacant city hex. To load the unit on to a rail transport, use the Embark button. The number of rail transports available to you is limited and is shown in the tooltip when over the Embark button.

### Weather and terrain

* Weather icons are shown at the top-right of the screen, next to the End Turn button. The left icon shows the current weather and the right icon the forecast for next turn. The forecast is about 80% accurate, so gives an approximation but no guarantee of next turns weather. Bad weather can have dramatic effects on combat. In rain and snow air units cannot attack or be attacked, and their spotting drops to zero.
* Furthermore, the ground becomes muddy after several turns of rain, and frozen after persistent snow. Both conditions have dramatic effects on a unit’s movement. Usually units move more slowly, consume more fuel and crossing rivers becomes impossible in mud. However in some cases the weather can help - frozen rivers are not a barrier and can be crossed without penalty making offensives easier.
* The ground state is shown by the colour of the terrain tiles. Brown tiles are muddy and white tiles are snowy, but you can also see current ground state, as well as predicted state for the next turn, on the weather icons. Keep in mind that forecasts are only about 80% accurate.

### Combat

* Combat occurs when two units clash. In a nutshell, the game first compares the initiative score to determine who fires first, then the relative attack and defense scores to determine the result of combat and losses sustained by both sides. While you cannot attack a single target with multiple units simultaneously, the defending unit receives an initiative penalty for every additional adjacent enemy unit able to attack it.
* Normally any suppression caused in combat disappears immediately after that combat, but some units (artillery, strategic bombers, capital ships and forts) have the ability to cause long-term suppression which persists until the next non-ranged attack. Long-term suppression is shown by the units strength number colour: yellow for moderate suppression, red for heavy. The exact number of suppressed strength points can be seen on the UI sidebar. Suppressed strength does not participate in the combat, which is a severe disadvantage.

Special states
* Certain units have the ability to protect adjacent friendly units from attack by firing on them before the combat is resolved. Any attacking strength killed or suppressed by defensive fire does not participate in the main attack. The following unit classes can provide defensive fire:
	+ Artillery. Assists ground units when attacked by other non-ranged ground units.
	+ Anti-air. Assists ground and naval units when attacked by air units.
	+ Fighters. Assists any units (except other fighters) when attacked by air units.
	+ Artillery and anti-air units can provide defensive fire multiple times per turn (as long as they have ammo), but a fighter can only fire defensively once per turn.
* Ambushes are triggered when you move a unit into territory covered by the Fog of War and it meets a previously hidden enemy unit. Ambushed units often take heavy casualties so be careful when moving to tiles you cannot see.
* Rugged Defence occurs when the defender has managed to surprise your attacking unit and catch them in a cross fire at close range. This situation is known as a rugged defence. When a rugged defence occurs the attacker often takes heavy casualties. Only entrenched units can put up a rugged defence, and the higher their entrenchment level, the more often it occurs. That's why it is often a good idea to soften entrenched unit with bombers and artillery before attacking it to reduce the entrenchment level and suppress the defenders. When planning your attack, you can see the chance of a rugged defence in the extended combat prediction window, opened by Ctrl+click on an enemy unit. Military engineers are specifically trained to fight against entrenched enemies and so are immune to rugged defence.
* Submarines have special bonuses: When attacked by destroyers or tactical bombers, submarines have a 50% chance to evade the attack and completely avoid any damage. Keep this in mind when planning your naval battles.

Terrain
* While tanks have strong armour to protect them from infantry weapons, in *close terrain* (such as cities, forests, hills and mountains) the infantry is able to get much closer to the tanks without being detected and can use short range weapons to exploit any weaknesses in the tank’s protection. In the game this is modelled by giving all units a close defence value which is usually much lower than their normal ground defence. In close terrain infantry fire against the close defence, not the ground defence and can be much more effective. Keep this in mind when attacking with your tanks and when moving them. If a tank ends its turn in a close terrain hex, the enemy can exploit this by attacking with infantry against the close defence value of the tank.
* Rivers are a very dangerous place to attack from or defend on, as there are severe penalties to both the unit’s attack and defence ratings. This makes rivers very useful for defence: units standing right behind a river will be much more difficult to attack.When a river become frozen it is no longer a serious obstacle and so combat penalties no longer apply.

## Controls

* Move the cursor to the edge of the screen, and the map will automatically scroll in that direction. You can also drag the map by pressing and holding the left mouse button or use arrow keys. Click the minimap to quickly jump to any location.
* You can zoom the map in and out using mouse wheel or the keyboard shortcuts (+ or PgDown to zoom in, - or PgUp to zoom out). You can also press the Strategic Map button to get an overview of the entire map, which is useful when planning your strategy.
* Select your units by left clicking. To move or attack, left-click one of the highlighted destination hexes or target units. To deselect the unit, right-click any vacant hex on the map.

## AI behaviour

AI doesnt cheat in regards to spotting. Long range spotting units like Bunkers (spotting=4) can spot exposed units.

### AI unit type turn order

1. Artillery shoots
2. Recon
3. Aircraft
4. Ground Units

## See also

* Release dates
* System requirements