The Perfect General II — TUTORIAL


BEGINNING
Choose one of the six actions and an opponent, then press "Take the field".
Kessel Crossing is the one to learn on: two columns reach the same river from
opposite banks, there are three bridges, and neither staff knows which the other
has chosen.

You will then buy an army, set it down, and fight.


THE CONTROLS
Everything is done by clicking. The sheet itself pans by dragging and zooms with
the wheel, a pinch, or the buttons at its top right; press 0 or "Fit" to get the
whole board back. Selecting a body that is off screen brings it into view, so a
magnified map never hides an order you are about to give.

Everything is done by clicking. Your counters are the pale red ones along your
own edge of the sheet. Click one to select it; the panel on the right then
offers the orders it can give. Escape cancels whatever you have started. Hover
any hex and the strip at the foot of the sheet tells you what the ground is and
whether you are observing it.


REQUISITION
You are given points and a number of slots. Press "+" beside a class to buy one;
click a tag in the bought list to sell it back. Watch the line that tells you how
many orders a turn this action allows. Buying sixteen bodies against eight orders
is a real choice, not a mistake — but it is a choice, and you should make it
knowingly. A cheap rifle section that sits on an objective all game earns its
slot without ever needing an order.

When you are done, press "Done buying".


PLACEMENT
Your bodies are set down one at a time, in the order shown, into the shaded band
along your edge. The marked tag is the one about to be placed. Click a shaded hex
for each. When the last one is down, press "Open fire".


TURN ORDER
You move first, then the machine, and that is one turn. At the head of every turn
your order slate is refilled — orders do NOT bank, so an order you decline to
spend is an order burnt. Any fire mission you plotted last turn lands before you
give your first order this turn.


MOVEMENT
Select a body, press "Move or fire", and the hexes it can reach are shaded.
Click one to march there. That spends one order. Marching into rough ground or
across a river costs more of the body's movement, and a body that has moved is
easier to hit for the rest of the turn.


TRANSPORT AND ENGINEERS
A lorry carries one foot body or tows one gun. Select the lorry, press "Take
aboard" and click the body alongside it; drive it where you want it and press
"Set down", then click a hex alongside. Each of those is an order. A lorry dies
to anything at all, so what you save in marching you may pay for once.

Engineers can blow a bridge behind you or span one ahead. Select them, press
"Bridge work" and click the crossing. A bridge blown at the wrong moment strands
your own armour as neatly as his.


COMBAT AND SCORING
Select a body and hover an enemy you can see. The Fire panel gives the attack,
the defence, the odds column and all six rows the die can land on — read it
before you commit, because those are the same numbers the engine will use. Click
the enemy to fire. That spends one order.

Bodies you did NOT order still take one opportunity shot each at reduced
strength, so a firing line left standing is not wasted.

Artillery is different. Press "Plot fire mission" and click ground you can
observe; the shells arrive at the head of your next turn. They will not scatter
if a body is still watching that ground when they land.

Your score is the value of the objectives you hold plus the enemy you break.


WINNING
Hold more objective value than your opponent and break more of his force than he
breaks of yours. At the end you are shown your margin against PAR — the margin a
general actually manages on that ground. Par is not a pass mark. It is what the
machine does.


LOSING CONDITIONS
The action ends when the turn limit is reached, or when one side has nothing
left on the field. If your margin is below zero you have lost; if it is above
zero but below par, you won the battle and a better commander would have won it
by more.


SAVING AND RESTARTING
Press Save at any point to keep the battle in this browser; press Load to take
it up again. There is one slot. The save holds the whole state including the
random generator, so a restored battle continues exactly, not approximately.

To start again, reload the page. Finishing an action offers "Play again"
directly.