Korsun Pocket - Basic Tutorial

--Intro--

I intend for this to be the kind of tutorial that I would have liked to have I had when I first started playing Korsun Pocket. It's important to understand, however, that I am still learning how to play KP, and I still have a lot to learn. That having been said, this tutorial will assume that you don't need help figuring out how to move units or need to be told what "fog of war" means. This tutorial also assumes that you won't want to start off by reading up on what each and every button in the user interface is for, and that you'd rather just be given enough information to be able to beat the computer for starters.

A lot of the stuff I'm about to say is common sense, but I will also illustrate how to apply that common sense in-game as the tutorial progresses. Generally speaking, this tutorial covers the following bits of advice:
- examine the strength of your units
- read the terrain
- use artillery
- distribute your attack strength
- avoid being surrounded
- mind your supply situation

--Getting Right Into It--

This tutorial is going to be more effective if you can somehow read it and have the game open at the same time. That way you can try stuff out, etc. and see what I'm talking about. If you can, fire up the game right now and select the Korsun Pocket full scenerio. Set the Axis side to be played as the computer. For getting the general hang of the game, playing as the Russians is easier, since they are on the attack in this scenerio. You'll notice that there are two fronts where the Russians are advancing: one on the far east side of the map, and one on the far west side. The action on the west side does not begin for three turns, so for now direct your attention to the eastside of the map.

--UI Tips--

Let's begin with some user interface tips that I've found helpful. This is not a tutorial on the user interface; just a quick list of things that you might find handy.
- use the L key to deselect a unit
- use the Spacebar to toggle between selecting all units in the current hex and only one unit in the current hex
- use CTRL-P to generate a screenshot of the current map (the entire map--not just what is currently on-screen) in the game's install directory
- hold down the ALT key for a magnifying glass

--Unit Strength--

It's important to recognise that the units you get in Korsun Pocket differ drastically in strength. Some units will have exceptionally high attack power and you should use these to lead your assaults. Some units are merely mediocre or have better defense values than attack values, so use these as support for your attacks (to apply additional pressure) or to create defensive lines. Finally, some units will have low power values or are lacking in steps. It is often a waste of resources to use reinforcements to bolster your weaker units, but you will also lose points if you allow your enemy to destroy them, so use these units to bring up the flank, defend remote areas, or execute diversionary operations.

As a general rule of thumb, armored units (tanks) are best for attacking and infantry is best for defending, but so far as I know, the numbers don't lie, so keep an eye on the actual stats. If you have the Korsun Pocket scenerio loaded and are playing as the Russians, click through the various units you have and check out their offensive and defensive power levels. Below is a screenshot of the three regiments that make up the 25th Gd Infantry division.



Notice that all three regiments are at full strength (3 steps each) with attack power of 13 and defensive power of 15. These are good units to attack with.

Now look to the 20th and 29th Tank Corps to the west fo the 25th Gd Infantry. Notice how these units are missing steps and have much lower attack values. If you can boost them with reinforcements, they should be useful attackers, but I wouldn't push them too far in their current condition.

--Terrain--

The first thing to realise here is that the terrain type for a given hex may not be entirely obvious just from looking at it. This is because Korsun Pocket does not use a "palette" of hex tiles to construct the in-game maps; rather, the map is one large bitmap, thereby introducing some abiguity as to the terrain type of each hex in exchange for better artistic value. If you want to be sure of what you are doing, you must click on a hex to see what it's terrain type is. Keep that in mind.

Common sense applies here: urban terrain is the best place to defend from, forests and hilltops are also good positions to take, and open terrain is the worst. It's good to defend from across a river (this prevents your opponent from gaining a bonus CRT shift from having your unit attacked by multiple enemy units all at once), and rivers are major movement obstacles. Pay extra attention to rivers and bridges, because your tank units will not be able to cross rivers without a bridge, and also pay attention to your engineers since they can be used to repair bridges. Finally, you will want to be aware of minefields and strongpoints; these work to the defender's advantage by hindering the attacker's advance.

--Artillery--

Artillery is absolutely essential for mounting an effective offensive in Korsun Pocket--in fact, it is probably the single most important thing. Without artillery, breaking the enemy lines requires a heavy concentration of powerful units bearing down on one spot; with artillery support, fewer powerful units need to be dedicated, allowing for the enemy line to be broken in multiple places. The reason for this--speaking in terms of the game rules--is because artillery power is not measured in terms of simple "attack power," but rather in terms of combat shifts. So if an attack is proceeding at, say, 5-1 odds, and a +2 shift piece of heavy artillery is thrown into the mix, the odds column used in the CRT is 7-1. That is often far more effective than adding that many more units to the combat.

The first turn as Russians in the full KP scenerio is a good place to play around with the effects of artillery. Initiate an attack on a German strongpoint and see how adding more artillery to the attack improves your combat odds and the possible outcomes of the attack. It should become apparent how using artillery can be even more effective than adding other units to the attack.

--Distributed Strength--

One aspect of KP that wasn't immediately obvious to me at first was that several sufficently strong attacks can be far more effective than a single super-strong attack. For instance, if an enemy unit is surrounded and out of ammo, it will be far more effective to attack that unit two or three times with weaker attacks than to hit it all at once with everything you have. The difference could be as severe as eliminating the enemy unit in one turn versus taking three turns to completely wipe it out. Another place where this principle is important is in breaking down enemy fortifications, particularly during the first turn. As the Russians, the first turn is a simple story of "more progress = better"; it isn't until later that it is possible to get too far ahead of oneself (ie. getting your units cut off from supply.)

In order to better familiarize myself with this part of the game, I actually played through the first turn as the Russians several times without even bothering with turn 2, and I recommend that you do the same. Try to clear away as many German strongpoints as possible and see how far you can wedge your units into the German line. You should be able to make better progress by spreading your attack power around and making many smaller attacks rather than a few powerful ones.

--Keeping the Enemy In Front of You--

An aspect of KP that I learnt the hard way is how easy it is for units to get surrounded. This is more important for the Germans, on defense, but it also applies for the Russians. Basically, a unit that gets completely encircled by the enemy is almost always lost, and units trapped behind enemy lines are usually difficult to recover. To avoid this sort of thing from happening, form lines with your units rather than bunches. You might think that one super-strong bunch of defenders will hold an objective point longer than a spread-out line over three or four hexes, and you would often be right--a skillful opponent will break your defensive line forcing you to pull back and regroup. The difference is that the units in the line will tend to survive having held the enemy off for a turn or two, whereas the powerful bunched-up defenders will be surrounded and annihilated a few turns later. Even if your opponent loses 50 points by failing to capture the objective in time, you will probably have lost three or more times that amount in points alone, and you will have fewer forces left for defending objective points elsewhere.

I got my practice in building defensive lines through first playing as the Germans against a human opponent (I lost badly) and then switching sides to play as the attacker against the same opponent. My opponent was also playing KP for the first time, so when we switched, he made many of the same mistakes as I did--bunching up his units to create strong pockets of defense but thereby weakining his overall defenses in the long run. I don't know if there's a particularly good scenerio to see this aspect of play in action against the computer, but you're bound to see it consistently in general.

--Supply--

This area of the game is fairly sketchy for me. It's obvious enough that supply routes originate from supply points and follow roads, and that supply trucks also help distribute supply to units within a radius around them, but I am sometimes still surprised to find that one or more of my units has been cut-off. It's probably just that I keep forgetting to check on the effects of bad weather turns. In any case, the general idea here is to avoid moving your units into enemy lines without backup and, perferably, a supply truck in the vicinity. It is also of vital importance to not allow your enemy to destroy your supply trucks, as this will tend to make supplying your units that much more difficult in the future.

--More to Come--

I hope to post a lot more details and case-by-case sort of tutorial info in the coming posts. What I will probably do is play through the KP full scenerio as Russians and write quick posts about the more interesting developments that occur along with what decisions I'm making and why. I'll then move on to playing as the Germans and playing other scenerioes such as The Ardennes Offensive.