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Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey cheats / Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey hints / Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey faqs / Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey solutions Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey hints INTRODUCTION You control either the Federal(Blue) or Confederate(Gray) army starting in July 1861. You have four years to defeat the other side by capturing the opposition's cities and defeating him in battle. Play takes place at a high level where you move counters/armies around in a turn base game. When the two forces meet a micro minatures battle takes place with the result feeding back up to the high level. CONTROL Use the mouse, select items by using the left button. Keyboard support is also available - just press the first letter of the command word, if it differs the letter you need to press is underlined. The game MUST HAVE a mouse to play. SETTING UP THE GAME After the title screen, click the mouse to skip, select which type of game you wish to play. Either STANDARD - the full civil war, LOAD in a saved game or load in a historical battle (the First Bull Run is included with the initial game). You then decide whether to play the Federal (Union) or the Confederate side. AIM OF THE GAME For victory the Confederate player must move the victory bar to the 'F' end before the game ends (April 1865 - the economic strength of the Union is assumed to have won). This takes 80 points, points are earned as follows: Each battle won +1 Each battle lost -1 Each city captured or retaken +3 Each city lost -3 Washington or Richmond taken +10 Washington or Richmond lost -10 The Federal either holds out or moves the bar to the C. In addition a rating out of 100 is given so when replaying you have a target to aim for. The Confederate side has the harder task to achieve victory, but it is not impossible in this game. GAME PLAY The game is turn based and each turn represents a week. You start in July 1861 with the Confederate army having a slightly larger starting force (the Union has been reduced as in reality not all of their men were available - they did have the west to look after!). After each Confederate turn the week ends. Whether you play the Federal or Confederate army you always get the advantage of moving first. THE MAIN DISPLAY - THE STRATEGIC SCREEN You get a menu bar with the date and the following options: ABOUT Shows game version number. FILE Allows you to save the game or load in another or RESTART the game or EXIT TO DOS. GAME OPTIONS MAP SCROLL - the speed at which the map will scroll (10 is best) GAME SPEED - when the Micro-Minatures battle is running the speed at which it will run. DISPLAY DETAIL - either High or Low. When Low the scenery is not as detailed but it speeds the game and scrolling up. Used only in the Micro Minatures Battle. FOG OF WAR - if set to ON the player has a far greater challenge as enemy unit data will not appear on the small map, on View data commands. Enemy pieces will only appear if they are in sight. SOUND FX - toggles FX Tunes - toggles music STATS Gives you the overall size of the two armies. MAP Allows you toggle what information is displayed on the map of the USA, info is: city names, state names and who currently controls the city. WEATHER The weather also appears on the info. bar. This gives you a fairly good indication as to the weather should you fight a battle. Four classifications, Dry Wet Fog and Snow. The season you are in is taken into account when calculating the weather. The weather effects the Micro-Minatures battle. Beneath the bar is a scrollable map of the play area. SCROLLING THE MAP Besides clicking on the scroll bar and buttons, you can use the keyboard arrow keys, page up, page down, home(page left) end (page right). To use the scroll bar click on it, the mouse is then attached onto the bar - move the mouse and scroll the map. Click again to release the mouse. You can also move the display by clicking on the little map on the right. PIECE INFORMATION You move the pieces (blue for Federal, grey for Confederate) by first selecting the piece. When selected info about the piece appears on the right and the full name of the piece along with it's armies commanding officer, is on the info bar - the piece is highlighted on the map by a white square. There are five types of piece and each side can have up to 300. The pieces are: Infantry Divisions (up to 96,000 men per piece) Cavalry 'Division' Artillery 'Division' Train Ship Info' on the right covers: type of piece - S next to indicates the piece is STACKED - this means there are other pieces on the same square. terrain square piece is on plus description (City, Hill Impassable) Movement Points remaining this turn Quality of the men Approx. number in the Division (this is approximate as through the passage of time you will lose men through disease, dissertion etc. but is a close indication of how many men you will have in a fight) Status - Ready, Moved, Fought Special Orders - covered later SELECTING OTHER PIECES Either click on the plus/minus near the men to step thru your army or if you see the piece you want just click on it. If there are several pieces stacked (no stacking limit) just repeatedly click on the stack until the piece you want surfaces. If you want to find out your total army size on a 'stacked' square click on the men button or F7. DETAILED DIVISIONAL INFORMATION If you want a full list of the division click on List Division. You will get a complete list including weapons in the Division. You can also perform some useful tasks such as: If the Division is big - several thousands of men - you can split the Division click on the percentage you wish to split it by. If the Division is too small you can TRANSFER it into another Division - note for this to happen the Divisions must be in the same square. To perform this click on TRANSFER, then use the next and previous buttons to move thru them until you come to the one you want, click on YES to complete the merge. You can CANCEL the TRANSFER by clicking on the CANCEL button. You can also move the Division to a new Army click on CHANGE ARMY and select the new Army from the list. MOVING A PIECE Having selected a piece to move, just click on the adjacent square and the piece will move there - assuming it has the move points to enter a square. Costs are: Rail (on a train) - 1 else 2 Sea/River (on a ship) - 2 else impossible Land - 2 City - 2 Hills - 4 Forest - 4 You can repeat the process until your piece has run out of points. To help you decide whether you can move there press p or click on the move pts button. The move points required to move your piece into the next square will be displayed around it. An X means you cannot move there! If you try to move onto a square which has one of your own pieces already on it you will get a message box asking whether you should MOVE ON to that square (answer YES) or transfer control to the other piece (answer NO). (This means if you just want to transfer control to an adjacent piece you can double-click). STARTING A BATTLE To start a battle you should first move the pieces you want to be involved in the battle next to the enemy piece. Then move one of them onto the enemy piece. You will be asked to confirm the attack. If you say yes you have the opportunity to name the battle (it defaults to the name of a close city). Then you are asked for each adjacent piece whether they are taking part in this battle. The micro-minatures battle system will then take over. If you win all enemy pieces will retreat from the square, which you will now occupy. They retreat in the same direction that you entered the square. If they are unable to retreat because they are surrounded or are being forced into the sea the units will disband and take no further part in the game -consider them to have surrendered to you. Also if their remaining strength is low they will also disband. If you lose you will fall back to the square you attacked from. The computer opponent will attack you in the same manner. Once you have fought a battle your move points are all used up for that turn. BATTLE HISTORY If you click on History you'll get a scrollable list of the last 100 battles fought in your war - you can get victor or losses. You get total cumulative losses and losses thru disease. SHIPS AND TRAINS There function is mainly for transportation although they can be used for capturing cities. If a military piece is on a square and an unloaded train or ship is also there - the special commands will be available if you have all your move points left. To board click on the load Special order - you will be able to move next go. To off-load click on the same special order - you will be able to move away next turn. Ships and trains can only carry one division at a time. The Union start with more resources than the South (e.g. 3 ships to none). Note - you can also block rail lines for two weeks by using the Destroy railways order - an X will appear over the damaged lines. Lines are automatically repaired after two weeks. FORTIFICATION If you use this order and get attacked you will find barracades available to you in the Micro-Minatures battle. END TURN When finished click on end turn, the computer opponent will move and then it will be back to you. At the end of the year, the quality of the troops will rise to reflect their experience. Also the weapon types and percentages will change to reflect the advance in technology, also the Union player will gain a further advantage as you will find that they are slightly better armed. RECRUITMENT Every month more recruits become available for your use. Click on Recruitment to use them. The screen gives a helpful map of the play area with the cities color coded to show who owns them - blue and grey! You also get an organizational breakdown of your army - on the right. Above this are the number of available recruits. REPLENISHING EXISTING DIVISIONS Adjust the percentage figure and click on Replenish Divs to give them some fresh men. CREATING NEW DIVISIONS Click on Build Divs. Click on the arrows to create new divisions. MENU BAR ABOUT - version of program EVENTS - on or off or view them all at once - at the end of every week you will sometimes get information as to what was happening in the actual Civil War at this time in history. MAP - turn cities on or off. ORGANIZATION - list of all the armies and their composition - you can also change the armies name and leader on this screen. TRAINING - if set to low you get recruits straight away but their quality is low. If set to high you have to wait three months for them but there quality is improved. (Note Confederate Cavalry automatically arrive with a good quality). VICTORY BAR This tells you how you are doing. The arrow shows the trend. GIVE ORDERS Takes you back to the strategic display. END GAME At the end you will get a rating out of 100, a map of the final position and an opportunity to see the battle history. FIGHTING A MICRO-MINATURES BATTLE MICRO-MINATURES BATTLE SYSTEM This part tells you how to fight an MM battle. The battle runs in a pseudo 'real-time'. The battle starts frozen, you issue commands and then press 'go' - the battle runs. When you wish to issue fresh commands you can 'freeze' the battle. PIECES AND SCALE Each side has up to 125 pieces. Each piece represents more than 1 actual man, the actual number varies depending the scale of the battle being fought. The battlefield is a rectangle of 80 by 80 squares. Each square can hold 1 piece (no stacking). A square normally represents approx. 100x100 yards, however this can change if the scale of the battle is particularly large. PIECE TYPES Three types - infantry, cavalry and artillery. ARMY CONTROL To help speed movement of the pieces, you can give move commands at three levels. The highest is ALL, which means the move will apply to every piece in your army. The middle is GROUP. Any number/type of pieces can be placed in the same group. In this mode any move command applied to a group member will also be carried out by it's fellow group members. The last is SINGLE, here you control each piece individually. TERRAIN Type Move Effect Combat Effect grass None None river Slows Reduces success trees None increases defence hill crests Slows increases defence/attack barracades Slows increases defence The battlefield is computer generated. The preset battle that is given away with the product will not - it will be 'hand-crafted' for accuracy. MAIN SCREEN LAYOUT The top bar is for menu selection plus the date. The second line gives information such as the name of the battle and what the weather is like. You can click on the name of the battle and edit it. The left hand side displays a portion of the battlefield. The scroll bars move you around the field. The right hand side gives you information on the piece you have control over and has the command buttons. The piece currently selected appears with a white rectangle around it on the battle window. A white cross will appear to show where the piece is moving to. Piece information is: Type of piece and number (every piece has a unique number) Weapon Quality (how good the unit is - increased by training and experience) Morale Men - how many soldiers the piece represents Group - which control group it's assigned to Attack - how good at hand to hand combat when attacking Defence - how good at hand to hand combat when defending Firepower - how powerful the weapon is Current Orders PLAYING THE GAME Two steps: 1. With the game paused issue commands 2. Start the game by pressing PLAY 3. When you wish to stop the 'real-time' action click on the E for EXIT Repeat the steps until the battle ends. LOADING/SAVING AND EXITING Click on File on the Menu bar. Select Save to save a game (extension is .SAV). Select Load to load in a saved game. Restart - restarts a game. Exit to DOS - need we say more... AUTOSAVE FUNCTION As the games run the game will be saved silently in background as AUTOSAVE.SAV. This can be switched off from the load/save panels. CONTROL MODES To select which control mode click either on Single Group or All in the Mode box. (key m cycles thru them). PIECE INFORMATION If you wish to see info. on all of the troops on display in the battle window click on View and then select which data you want to see displayed. It appears above the pieces head. Hot icon short cuts are available use the A,D,F,G,M, and Men buttons. Note for Morale, 0 is very low, 4 is very high. OVERVIEW This options displays a map which covers the entire battlefield. You can either see a display of the armies on a black background or a terrain map showing the river and hill ranges (trees also appear as light green dots). You can move the battle window around by clicking on the small map. SELECTING TROOPS You can select troops by either clicking on the + and - icons to step thru them or double-click on the unit in the window. Note you should click on the head of the infantry man. For the other pieces click on the top left. If you need help press g or click on the white box which meets the two scroll bars. A GRID will appear over the screen to aid selection. MOVING TROOPS To move just click on the window where you want the piece currently selected to go. If you are in group mode his fellow group members will also move the same relative amount. If in all mode - everyone will move. Cavalry move at double speed. All pieces are slowed by rivers (not bridges) hill crests and baracades. MOVING THE DISPLAY WINDOW Several ways, I recommend the keyboard arrow keys - 1 square in the direction of the arrow page up - moves up half a screen page down - moves down half a screen home - moves left half a screen end - moves right half a screen I next recommend clicking on the little green map - the white rectangle shows the area that is currently displayed in the battle window - to move the display. Other ways: - click on the arrows on the scroll bar - click in-between the bar on the scroll bar - click on the bar (the mouse will attach itself to the bar as you move the mouse the screen display will scroll - click the mouse again to detach the mouse). STOPPING TROOP MOVEMENT Troops will stop when they reach their target or if they get involved in hand to hand combat (after the fight they will continue on). Troops will not leave the battlefield. TROOP FORMATIONS When in group mode you can get the current group to move into a set military formation. Just use the arrows on the first formation icon to set whether it's row or column or diagonal, then set the second icon for whether they end in a single tight line or double tight line or single skirmish (spread out) or double skirmish or square. TROOP FACING When the group is in it's final location you may wish to tidy up the way the group is facing - just use the formation icon on the right. CHANGING GROUPS The purpose of groups is to enable the player to reduce the number of commands they have to give to get their men to move. So by grouping troops together that have the same mission/destination you will reduce the number of orders you give. The first way to change a pieces group is to set the mode to single man mode then you can then use the arrows by the side of the group to reallocate the piece. (There are 50 groups available). LISTING GROUPS If you wish to merge a whole group into another do it using list groups - this also gives nice group info. Select LIST GROUPS use NEXT and PREVIOUS to move thru the groups until the one you want to disband appears. Press Transfer. Use NEXT and PREVIOUS to move to the one you wish to move the group to, when ready hit YES to transfer the group. Hit CANCEL at any time to exit the TRANSFER procedure. HAND TO HAND COMBAT When two opposing pieces meet a fight ensues. The outcome depends on: the advancing units attack-strength the defending units defence-strength the number of men in each piece the terrain the two pieces are on the quality of the two troops the morale of the two troops the number of other enemy/friendly troops immediately around whether the piece has orders to fire (this hampers hand to hand combat) The result will generally result in the loss of troops on both of the fighters with the losing troop retreating or being removed from the battlefield. ORDERS ENGAGE Normally attacks by your troops will only happen if you order them by movement however you can set the Engage Order from ON COMMAND (which means you have to move the troops) to AT WILL whereby your troops will automatically engage any enemy troops near (7 squares) them. ORDERS FIRING There are three settings: Hold - no firing (helps in hand to hand combat) At Targets - will only fire in the direction that the piece is currently facing (enables controlled fire) At Will - will fire at anything within range EFFECTIVE RANGE This depends on the weapon the unit has: WEAPON RANGE IN SQUARES Flintlock 1, Musket 2, Harpers Ferry 4, Springfield 5, Remington 6, Enfield 5, Lorenz 5, Sharps 7, Henry 6, Spencer 6, Colt 5, Enfield Car. 4, Sharps Car. 5, Spencer Car. 4, Sabre 0, 12p Howitzer 11, 24p Howitzer 13, 6p Smoothbore 15, 12p Smoothbore 17, Rodman 27, 10p Parrott 29, 12p James 17, 12p Blakely 17, 12p Whitworth 88, 20p Parrott 44 SPECIAL CAVALRY RULES When the piece selected is a Cavalry piece, additional commands are available. Use the arrows that appear by the type data on the right to dismount and then remount, or to change their weapon from sabre to firearm and vice versa. GAME OPTIONS MAP SCROLL - the speed at which the map will scroll (10 is best) GAME SPEED - when the battle is running the speed at which it will run. Note on a DX2 66MHz - no local bus it runs slightly too fast - alright if you want to play ARCADE COMMANDO but too fast if you want to think about what's happening and have a chance to react. (10 is best) DISPLAY DETAIL - either High or Low. When Low the scenery is not as detailed but it speeds the game and scrolling up. FOG OF WAR - if set to ON the player has a far greater challenge as enemy unit data will not appear on the small map, on View data commands. Enemy pieces will only appear if they are in sight. The distance you will be able to see will vary with the weather. SOUND FX - toggles FX Tunes - toggles music UNIFORM - the human player can have up to three uniforms on the battlefield, this option allows you to set uniforms 2 and 3. (Uniform 1 is always the same standard traditional uniform). The uniforms only effect infantry - but are used to show who has what weapon. STATS Shows how the battle is progressing gives you by piece type the number of men and pieces active (available for action) and lost. BATTLEMODE Pressing play enters battlemode. During this period to exit click on the E (for exit key e also works). You can scroll the screen either by using the keyboard as mentioned before or by moving the mouse over one of the directional arrows - there is no need to click on them (as you'll be doing a lot of scrolling this will save your finger). ENDING THE BATTLE The battle ends when either side has lost more than 50 percent of their original starting force. Alternatively a side may retreat before this happens. RETREAT This allows you to withdraw from the battlefield. AUTOPLAY This will quickly resolve the battle for you and give you the result. KEYBOARD COMMANDS Besides the ones indicated on the main screen by underscores etc. there are: c- center screen g- display grid F1- display attack data F2- display defence data F3- display firepower F4- display group number F5- display morale F6- display overview map F7- display number of men END OF DOCUMENT Other Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey cheats hints faqs solutions: 2. Edward Grabowski's the Blue and the Grey hints |