I have rolled the original version 2.2 readme data in here together with the 2.2B to make it easier to track the changes. In a later version of the game, we will rewrite the entire Game Guide, folding all the data into one document, but we do not have the time for that at the moment.

Please READ the Game Guide (GG), as it is the manual for the SPWW2 game. In addition, we assume that you have read the original SSI SP2 manual, or SP3 (which is close enough in many respects) if all you have is that game. Many help calls we get are about things already detailed in the Game Guide. Many calls also come from folk who have not played any SP series game – and have therefore not read the original SSI game documentation.

V 2.07 is the base release upon which we apply all our patches. This is a complete game, and the download size is about 30 megabytes.

All that is required is an SSI Steel Panthers 2 or Steel panthers 3 CD-ROM in the CD as a security check, and as a source of the cut screen video sequences the game plays. Should you have both, then use the SP3 CD_ROM as this has world War 2 video footage which SPWW2 will happily utilise.

Please note that SPWW2 is a complete game, and not a patch of SP2 as was our original first game, SP2WW2. Many users seem unaware of this, and try to overwrite an (SSI) SP1, SP2 or SP3 game installation with SPWW2. This produces a somewhat mangled goulash <G!>.

You will need a full version 2.07 installation in order to proceed.

This was released just before Christmas 1999. It was a minor enhancement to 2.07, for the features see below.

It is released as a zip file – containing an Installshield installation package.

1. Unzip the files to a temporary directory, not the SPWW2 folder! – as these files are just used to install, and you will want to delete them later.
2. Click on setup.exe and follow the instructions to install
3. Once correctly installed – you may now delete the installation files from the temporary folder.
4. As with all downloads – keep the original zip files backed up somewhere safe, should you ever need to reinstall the game.

It is important to note that the 2.2 upgrade is a patch file set – it overwrites your existing 2.07 installation.

Note that some users have been confused as to what a zip file is – please see the FAQ section.

This is the package you now have, and it is a patch file set to go over a 2.2 install. It consists of a new executable, and some mob (organisation) files.

It is a self extracting zip file – simply point it at your C:TGN\SPWW2 directory (or elsewhere should you have installed to a location other than the default).

In all cases – read the supplied documentation, including any readme text files. Also – try the FAQ section below.

Version 2.2 is an initial step on our progress to the full 3.0 release.

We concentrated in the main on removing some annoying bugs (both our own, and inherited from the SP2 code), but added a few new features as well for your game enjoyment.

This is now called SPWW2.INI, and lives in the \data subfolder.

Parameters are the same as for the GG, but extra ones added:

[Line 1] - The default MONTH which will be shown in the battle generator etc. (1-12)

[Line 2] - The default YEAR which will be shown in the battle generator etc. (10-49, but use 35-49)

[Line 3] - The default Player 1 (Human) Mob number - see GG for Mob Nos.

[Line 4] - The default Player 2 (Computer) Mob number - see GG for Mob Nos.

[Line 5] - NEW - the %age chance of using the new SP-Camo Victory hex style (0-100)

[Line 6] - NEW - the %age of SP-Camo 'shotgun' type V-hex usage in the meeting engagement (0-100)

As mentioned in the GG - use NOTEPAD or a similar text editor to edit this file.

DO NOT insert new lines etc or the game will be most confused!.

These new style victory hexes are there to liven up the game somewhat, and to remove some of the predictability of the default SSI style V-hex cluster placement, especially in the meeting engagement.

We provide 2 new types of V-hex usage in the meeting engagement. The first is a set of 3 traditional 7 hex clusters, however all these will be centrally placed - no 'home plate'. All 3 will be flagged as neutral. Other than that, there is no difference to the SSI meeting engagement - but all 3 being out in the middle will tend to spread the battle out more. No more 'grab the middle objective and hang on' - you have that 3 times over now, so your forces will be more spread out.

The second pattern is the 'shotgun'. You will understand why when you see it <G>. here there are NO 7 hex clusters any more!. Al 21 are spread around the map, half on one side and half on the other. Those near the centre will be marked as neutral, those more into either player's side with their flags. These hexes are marked up in terms of points over a traditional meeting engagement - 75 points each. However - the 3 objectives deepest in each player's zone are marked as 200 points each to make them worth going for.

The shotgun is intended to provide a sweeping dogfight of a meeting engagement. It should be fun for PBEM.

In the defence or delay, we use the 3 7 hex clusters, but these are not as tied to the road network as in the SSI setup. In particular the extremely easy to defend '3 sets along a road' will no longer appear. We have tried to go for the original SP1 flavour of defended areas - spread quite widely apart for the most part. Also - our victory hexes are not as tied to hill tops as the SSI type - they can be happily placed in marshland.

Usage of the new-style SP-Camo victory hexes are controlled at the moment by 2 lines in the SPWW2.INI file, as laid out above. If line 5 is set at say, 80 then for each battle - there is an 80% chance of our style, and 20% of original SSI victory hex format being used. (We may put these numbers in a preferences screen in a later version - ini files are unfriendly, but easy to do).

Line 6 controls what percentage of meeting engagements IF an SP-Camo type is chosen, will be the shotgun type. So a 50 here means that 50% of the battles of type meeting engagement, which have decided from line 5 to use SP-Camo type, will use the shotgun. 100 here would naturally mean that all meeting engagements using SP-Camo format would be shotguns.

Should you decide not to use the SP-Camo types - just set line 5 to 0, and then line 6 is irrelevant. You will then only get the original SSI flavour of objectives.

Artillery has been remodelled somewhat, as the original SP2 model was too tied to post WW2 mode artillery.

The major change is that a minimum delay of 1 turn is imposed for fire plotted onto a preregistered 'gold spot' target. This delay will increase in the earlier time frames, for between the war and WW1 artillery. No more almost instant artillery response - you will need to plan ahead, and predict where moving enemy are likely to be when the rounds arrive.

Artillery observers are much more important now.

The spotter plane is now counted as an OP type.

Delays for call of fire from non observers is higher than if an OP type calls the shots. Additionally - only observers will have an 0.1 delay per adjustment of fire - others will have much longer delays added per 'hop'. These delays will also increase as you go back to WW1.

(Note as an aside - we plan to produce WW1 mobs etc in due course - this is why the dates start at 1910 after all! - but WW1 is a very secondary project, and requires more than mere mob changes. It needs to be built into the code as we go along.)

Having LOS to the impact hex is much more important now. If fire is unobserved, then it can drift quite considerably off the intended spot, barring any pre game move 0 bombardment.

Fire missions plotted on Gold spots will not drift too much even if unobserved - a maximum of 2 hexes drift on pre registered targets. This also applies if you adjust back onto a gold spot from 'dirt'.

If the observer has LOS to the impact hex, then it will drift no further. It can be worthwhile accepting a longer delay by using a regular unit HQ with LOS to the target, than a faster call from an OP who is on the other side of the field and has no LOS.

When fires fall on an unobserved hex, then the shell pattern will loosen up, as it is assumed that harassing and interdiction fires are the objective. This spread can in fact be useful if all you want to do is beat up an area.

NB - you can now plot a smoke mission for your guns, even when all HE ammo is expended, unlike before.

Smoke ammo has been allocated to some types which previously did not receive it - e.g. SP Mortars.

The artillery HE pattern is now more of an oval, longer in the 'X' direction, than a circular pattern. Mortars tend to be a bit

more random and circular.

Bridges are slightly more resistant to artillery fire - where 1round was needed to drop one before, it may now take several hits.

The plotted artillery "gold spots" are now cleared between battles, but not it would appear when using the scenario editor.

Now, only batteries which have no mission planned will join in counterbattery fires, unlike before when some batteries would fire on map, and then also shoot CB.

CB missions will destroy guns from the last to the first in an off map unit, this avoids the previous problem where if CB destroyed gun No. 1 - the entire battery was then useless despite having several viable weapons.

CB missions can now DESTROY off map batteries if lucky, previously there was no way to do this, and hence get the

points value your opponent had spent on these added to your score.

Hits on off map batteries do not always do damage points, but now they will kill both men and guns, as well as doing damage points. However, the targeted battery is subject to morale rules now, so a veteran battery may take a heavy hit, perhaps losing a gun - and fight on, or green gunners may decide to rout for a long time. Better morale gunners will tend to retreat less on recieving CB.

On map artillery have a small percentage chance of being marked as spotted per round fired, as with SP3. This really helps the AI out more, as human players already know what the 'smoke plumes' in the enemy rear are and can target them.

The AI will fire on map CB fires on your smoke plumes, and it rates a spotted on map artillery piece higher than a smoke plume. Therefore you may need to consider moving your artillery - i.e buy gun tractors etc - and also the old habit of parking ammo trucks by firing pieces is less viable.

Ammo tucks do not explode yet - but they will later!.

There was a cheat in the old SP2 code which the AI used to switch fire all over the battlefield at no delay cost, this is now eliminated. The AI uses the same rules as the human to plot and adjust fires. It knows about 'repeat' shots at low delay, but is not very good at using this. It does not use gold spots - these points will be adressed post 2.2.

The AI will now attempt to predict ahead of moving targets, though it is still not very good at it. This area of AI will be adressed more fully in a later release. The AI's use of artillery is therefore best when you stay in a place too long.

When the AI has no better targets located, it will plot fires both on and around neutral or enemy victory hexes on occasion. Note that aircraft are artillery, and that means that sometimes the AI will manage to get some strafing runs in on you as you approach, especially in meeting engagements. At the moment this plotting is pseudo random - some more intelligent plotting is planned for future releases - e.g having the AI dump all over the roads in the deployment area in a pre game bombardment just like a human player will, so negating the mass traffic jam most players adopt vs. the AI. AI smoke usage, and some form of planned fires when advancing are also on the cards.

The AI will now plot fire missions from SP-mortars, though it will not move them as yet. In a later release the AI will move its artillery, and I will tell it all about ammo trucks as well.

Sometimes the AI will bombard an objective in turn 1 or 2, which is quite early. This could mean that an on map battery

and its observer can see the impact hex, and are highly skilled, sometimes the AI will by happenstance select the same hex that

the battery had set for it on game entry. (If you select a battery for the first time, it is usually plotted somewhere on map)

Maximum formation number is now 60 (was 52), so you can buy more of the 200 max units now.

(We have built a version with 400 units and 160 formations per side, but this caused problems with already written scenarios and PBEM security. This will be rescheduled for the 3.0 release when we can address the scenario and PBEM security more fully).

SP3 type formation lettering is used A0-AZnn for when we are able to provide reliable 400 unit armies.

Actually, 160 formations (80 each) seemed to work OK with scenarios but we decided to stick with 120/60 for safety's sake this release as the 120 formations was already there - users were restricted to 52 by the A..z formation ID scheme.

A new terrain type named "DEFAULT" has been added to the campaign generator which will allow you to pick up these maps and locations in generated campaigns making this not quite a true "long campaign" but much better than the previous release.

A true "Long Campaign" will be released with version 3.0 as will user defined linked scenario campaigns (the button is already in place for this). However, if you select Germany in 1941-45 with all 3 opponents as USSR, and campaign terrain as 'default' you will get your battles as per the battle generator terrain. In other words, close enough to the long campaign for certain select opponent pairings, eg. Germany vs Russia from June 1941 onwards , The British vs Germans from the beginning of 1941 onwards, the Americans vs Germans from Tunisia to the end of the war in Europe and the USMC vs Japan from 1942 to the end of the war.

The river assault battle type has been temporarily removed from the campaign. There is a severe bug in the original river assault code when more than a certain number of assault troops have rafts added, which will cause a memory leak and overwrite your preferences before eventually causing a crash. We will fix this later, but for now please limit river assaults to scenario games only, or where small numbers of assault troops are used.

Campaign core is 100 units as per SP1 this should be half max (200), also the 125 given before was over the max of 120 units allowed for a beach assault. We will further address this issue in version 3.0 when we increase the number of units and formations available in the game.

Campaign support points values have been changed based on the real value of your troops points (adjusted for experience etc), and battle type. No more 350 support points for every battle. Assault support points can now be 800 or so. A bottom end cap allows a decent support base for small cores, and a top end cap is used to limit elite cores from simply wiping the floor with the AI.

The main problem with PBEM is the user unfriendly nature of the process. We intend to address that later, but for now a few minor changes have been made which we hope may help avoid user errors, the commonest form of PBEM problem.

The 'exit' button is removed from the password screen, as if one exits the game during this phase, the game data is corrupted. Also added (hopefully) more meaningful help strings on the password entry scheme when you hover your mouse over the buttons.

NB - when setting up a secure PBEM game, as player No 2 - when you get your initial turn and open it to purchase your forces, do not under ANY circumstances exit from the purchase screen - go through the entire process and enter your password, then save the game. Any exit between the initial load by player 2 for purchase and before the entry of the password and subsequent exit to the deployment screen (the one with the 'AUTO DEPLOY', 'HUMAN DEPLOY' buttons with a red bar asking for password entry at the top) - will totally trash the game as the security 'keys' are not set up until the password is entered and the game is initially saved between the password entry screen and that deployment scheme. So do not exit in the middle of buying troops, unless you are player 1 and wish to abandon this game entirely.

I have added (hopefully) more meaningful error messages when security warnings arise.

"Security violation - Corrupt saved game file"

Something dreadfully wrong has gone wrong with the PBEM data file.

"Security violation - Executable corrupt - Reinstall Game"

Maybe someone was poking new values into the .exe?.

"Security alert - Player 1 MOB file not found"

"Security alert - Player 2 MOB file not found"

The game was unable to find the required mob - did you delete it somehow?.

"Security alert - Player 2 MOB file corrupt"

"Security alert - Player 1 MOB file corrupt"

You MUST play the PBEM game right through with the identical pair of mobs in place on BOTH player's PCs. This one means that one of the mobs has changed, or if you are player 2 and this is the first move - player 1 and you have different mobs, so ask him to send you his or otherwise resolve this issue. The likeliest reason for this is somebody loaded thier mobs into Mobhack or another editor during the game. NO mob changes are allowed during the lifetime of the PBEM game on both player's PCs so do any mob hacking in a different installation of the game than the one you play PBEM on.

"Security alert - Player 1 has already played this turn?"

"Security alert - Player 2 has already played this turn?"

This means you are most likely trying to reopen a move you have completed, and have either not yet sent to your oponnent, or have done so and not recieved the reply back yet.

This error - trying to open a played move - does not corrupt the PBEM data any longer.

"Security violation - Cause unknown"

Well - if you get that one, I an equally baffled as well <G!>.

NOTE - the 'unable to load mobxxx' error will sometimes be seen when attempting to load a saved game of any type - but especially a PBEM game - which was unreadable or corrupt in some manner. It is most often seen when a move from a different version of SP:WW2 is sent over. PBEM games are NOT able to be transferred between different versions of the executable.

Regular save games are (but will not be when we go over to 400 a side), and scenarios are as well. we hope to provide a scenario conversion utility when we change to 800 units maximum in a later version.

Note also – the game can get confused as to player number – depending e.g. on the dates of the aux. file and the dat file differing. Therefore take the player number with a pinch of salt, and look more at the problem reported.

Over 120 new battle locations have been added to the battle generated terrain, and these are used in specific dates and opponent pairings. Some of these produce city terrain - e.g. USSR vs. Germany in December of 42 will give you Stalingrad, Canada vs. Germany in 12/43 will have you fighting in the town of Ortona in Italy.

Countries should now take the "correct" map side in the main, but still a few may need ironing out.

Soviet 'horde' extra points bonus removed. Soviets use normal points values multipliers. They no longer get 50% on top of the agreed points level.

Japanese infantry will now pull back but after taking higher casualties than other nations but they will no longer stay pinned and be slaughtered. Japanese will retreat where others rout. Japanese will not rout, so will rally faster after a setback. Japanese scout planes will retreat on damage like other scout planes, not sit still in 'permanent retreat'.

The 1 hex to-hit bonus is based on experience and pin state, and is slightly reduced if firer moved. (NB - for those who wonder why they cannot hit at 1 hex - target speed is a factor, as is your speed - so if the target did 30 mph, and you charged up to him at 30 mph - there is a 60 mph speed difference that being at 1 hex helps, but does not remove completely !)

Civil wars - if both sides are the same nation, player 2 uses a different flag for victory hexes and ID tags. This does not apply to the encyclopaedia, or the turn indicator flag at RHS of the screen, it is there to help you tell things apart on the battlefield is all, and you will both be called 'USA'. Civil war is good for human vs. human 'chess' play - where both forces are drawn from the same toolkit, and so the difference is more down to pure generalship.

Landed gliders now convert class to a truck type - so are far easier to shoot up on the ground. As air units before - even when landed - they were very difficult to hit even at 1 hex landed beside you. This problem still exists for spotter planes when landed, as they have to be able to take off again - but will be fixed in a future release.

Russians and Australians are now less likely to surrender, more likely to fight on or retire. We will be expanding the list of national characteristics in Version 3.0.

The A0 units will no longer be placed on transport when "auto deploy" is used. This increases the life expectancy of the AI's commanding officer considerably.

Trucks will now pick up, as will jeeps etc. In the AI's or "auto" deploy. Trucks and APC's will pick up MG teams - tanks will not use them as riders.

Snipers will not be picked up as AI tank riders.

In snow, there is a possibility of vision being further reduced to represent snowstorms etc.

The main page uses buttons, not the dial. All menu screen graphics have been upgraded as well.

Infantry, on becoming pinned, are now classed as stationary targets, i.e. not as moving at the speed they were before the pinning fire was received.

Rifle and MG suppression on AFV's has been reduced, small arms hits from under 3 hexes may still retreat or rout AFV's, but long range small arms fire is merely an annoyance now.

A hit by a shell fired in indirect fire will now throw any tank riders off a tank with possible casualties, just like direct fire.

Close assault code is nearer original SSI's spec code, modified slightly. Both sides of the assault can take more suppression, infantry squads who fail an assault can be spotted, infantry AT will occasionally fire, infantry who move and then assault are severely handicapped. (Note that the movement includes transport movement, so charging riders in a HT 12 hexes and then offloading to assault a target is less of a reliable tactic now).

The number of smoke grenades issued to infantry has been reduced

Increased the chance of bridges not being blown in a river crossing slightly - still very rare

Several artillery types (e.g. SP ARTY) were classed as armour, so did not get artillery command ratings - now they do.

Moving infantry is now much more vulnerable, especially out in the open. Try not to move over 1 hex if under fire - and passengers count the vehicle speed when debussing, to represent being tightly packed on exit. Just debussed infantry are therefore highly vulnerable if caught at that point.

Not a new feature - but in actual fact item14 of the PBEM section is wrong - you CAN play a secure game with passwords on the same PC, for example if you have a friend over from time to time, and the game may take several days to finish playing 'hot seat'.

To play hot seat with a password, just go through the regular PBEM sequence without the file transferral. Player 2 will imply come to the PC as required, and the passworded game will be autosaved to whichever of the 5 secure PBEM slots player 1 originally saved to.

To play hot seat unsecured PBEM, proceed as normal, but without entering a password. After the game has been loaded and saved, and has actually started - unlike playing password secured head to head, the game will simply put up the next player's start screen (With QUIT ORDERS, SAVE etc) - change seats at that point. The unsecured game can be saved in any slot other than the first 5. It is good for a game that will be done in one session, or if playing someone who you know will not 'peek' at the saved game if you have to break the session in the middle and come back another day to complete.

1) Player 1 goes to battle generator, sets sides and dat. and all buttons to 'human' and sets preferences as desired.

2) Player 1 then builds his forces and hits DONE

3) Player 1 now saves game to

- one of the first 5 EMAIL slots if a secure (passworded) game

- any other one for unsecure (no password) game

4) Player 2 now comes to the PC - no email exchange of files required.

(Player 1 goes and has a coffee or something.)

5) Player 2 goes to save game screen and opens the save game slot player 1 used

6) Player 2 now purchases forces, then hits DONE

7) Now player 2 deploys - if a secured game he needs to confirm his password first

8) Having deployed, player 2 hits 'QUIT DEPLOY'

9) Player 2 now saves game to the SAME slot he opened from (autosaved there if secure)

10) Player 1 approaches computer and opens the saved game slot

11) Player 1 - password if required - then deploys, then hits quit deploy

12) Player 1 - password if required - then performs his move 1

As stated above - a password protected game will autosave, and exit at each point. However - at this point a unsecure head to head can be played continuously, and only saved off if desired. It does not need to be opened from the saved game menu on each player turn.

HINT - the head to head method is a good way to run yourself through the PBEM process before taking folk on by EMAIL. Just try a game for fun playing both sides head to head against yourself a few times until you get the hang of it.

Heavily damaged squads being able to rally to Ready, but unable to move is fixed.

Too many secondary weapons were being removed when damage was received - less now, so depleted squads should have a shot of LMG, AT weapon or hand grenade at move start - though movement will reduce this as will suppression.

Landed gliders now become a 'truck' type - so are reasonably easy to shoot up, as they are no longer classed as 'aircraft targets'.

There was a bug that was giving very low leader rally ratings when the user preferences for 'national settings' was unselected. This has been fixed.

An annoying bug/cheat has been removed whereby if you right clicked on a hex which had hidden enemy units in it , your unit did NOT turn and this gave away the fact there were enemy units there.

An annoying bug/cheat where the hit locations of unspotted armour was reported by artillery shells has been removed. Unspotted vehicles now behave the same as infantry - only if destroyed will you be informed.

Found out why the close assault code sometimes crashed the PC in weird situations as well - squashed.

The annoying bug where off map crews etc. shot up your off map batteries has been addressed.

A bug has been fixed where the AI random map generator would place buildings on rough terrain, this was an illegal placement. Side effect of this is that you now are not allowed to place buildings on rough in the scenario editor, nor does the scenario editor allow you to place buildings in lake hexes any more.

Vehicles should no longer eject 2 crews on occasions

Vehicles no longer 'explode' when crew bail out with low morale.

Removed a bug where shooters at infantry were getting suppression reduced.

Wrong protection factors etc were being used for HE and artillery fire. Artillery, rifle and MG fires now more effective, and trucks will be destroyed by indirect fire HE.

There was a bug where stationary vehicles were classed as moving when firing - accuracy is now better for stationary firers.

Invisible buildings - in cities etc - this seems to be related to some building graphics not covering the required area, we have found one major culprit and replaced that graphic. There will likely be more to track down.

Game now uses a bound version of DOS4GW.EXE - the separate DOS4GW.EXE is no longer required.

2.2B was meant to be a bugfix of 2.2, but inevitable mission creep set in, and there are some new features added as well <G!>.

Are now saved and restored properly in savegames.

There are no longer any restrictions in battle type – you can buy off map in any type of battle now.

This removed the need for mob ‘cheat’ artillery formations with an observer in slot 1 and batteries after.

These cheat formations caused an occasional ‘bug’ when end users inadvertently selected the observer and then pressed the ‘deploy all’ key.

Sometimes the batteries would then be deployed on map as ‘tigers’.

The mob set included with this game has therefore removed these formation types.

This button is made available in the purchase screen. It allows you to select any nation and buy their forces under your command.

Allied troops will show their correct national flag as an ID tag, if that preference is selected in user preferences.

Due to the nature of the SP graphics engine – the infantry will use the ‘main’ nation’s default colour set – e.g. if you have ‘green’ USA and take Finnish (normally grey) infantry as allies – they will show as green coloured infantry, not grey as expected.

NOTE - some old scenarios will now show the 'wrong' ID tags. This was due to the way the scenarios were implemented.

Also – if you use the allies button to buy units as ‘captured’ kit – then the original nation’s ID tag will apply (the problem with the early scenarios).

At a later date, we will allow a ‘captured’ option on the allies – then the home nation’s ID tag will override the allied nation’s.

Also note – the main nation’s flag will still be used, for example when your australian ally infantry take a victory hex, if the main nation is the UK, then British flags will be shown when the objective is taken.

A nation’s flag will disappear if the current date is before that mob’s use, and also if the date is beyond that for a given nation.

A WW2 era block was wrapped round all of them (1930-49).

• they all switch off pre 1930 for the WW1 era
• they all switch off after 1949 for the post WW2 era

Or ‘how do I get my Spanish Civil War campaign ??’.

The flags in the campaign menu are also date switched.

If you select a nation in the campaign – then the campaign is limited to the date ranges for the selected nationalities in the ‘campaign mix’ – the date dial will not go beyond the date of any of the participants in either direction.

The best way to be able to navigate all the dates, and then select a nation set which does not come up is to change the 4 nations to one of those which exists through the entire period – the UK, say.

Then dial up your campaign dates so that those you desire – the 2 Spain’s say – appear, and select them in the required portions (e.g. perhaps with Italy in the mix on the Nationalist side) – now dial in your start and end dates, the dial will now not let you go before or after the dates of the time limited participants.

This used to be limited to about 22 formations, then these fell off the bottom of the page.

Now, there are next and previous buttons on the purchases pages.

This means that a lot of formations which had to be placed on inappropriate selection pages can now be moved to the correct page, rather than say, being hidden on the MISC page where many users simply did not think to check for say a mortar platoon <G!>.

This means that mob designers can be much more creative in the formations we offer at a future date as we do not have to ensure that only 20 or so of a particular type are valid at any point in time.

The mob set included with this release has moved many ‘orphan’ formations to their correct pages – all artillery on the ARTILLERY page and so forth.

Now, in order to load something onto a carrier, they must both be in the same hex. This does not apply to loading into barges.

This has the side effect of removing the cheat where if one had a continuous line of vehicles, then you could ‘warp transport’ a passenger along the line of vehicles ‘instantly’.

You now have 1000 save slots for saved games, scenarios, and maps.

PBEM is still limited to the first 5 slots – in a future release PBEM save games will be saved in their own directory, and will have a separate PBEM load and save page.

The game now uses a more WW2 related game length when calculating number of moves. Games will tend to be a bit longer.

Time is added if the game is an assault (someone defending) , less if it is an attack (someone is delaying).

Time is added for earlier years – 1941 and before – as most armies were ‘marching armies’ in this time frame.

Later versions will perform a more sophisticated battlefield analysis to calculate a proper move tariff for the game.

Later versions will also have game length as a user preferences item as well.

NB – remember you can override the given number of moves for a game as player #1 (#2 in PBEM) – in your deployment phase press the ‘.’ (‘period’, ‘stop’, ‘full stop’, ‘dot’, ‘point’, ‘decimal’ depending on your culture) key and enter the desired length in moves. Maximum about 90 – the game uses move 99 as an end of game marker ISTR.

NB – bug fixed that affects move length in campaign games as well.

In campaign games on reloading the saved game from disk, the saved tariff move was ignored, and the game engine recalculated a random move tariff for the game each time – it does not do this any more. So if you entered say 60 moves for game length – the campaign game will stay budgeted for 60 after a save is reloaded now.

Dug in infantry are more difficult to hit at > 2 hexes with direct fire. Dug in infantry etc will not retreat/pull back due to casualties unless the fire is received from 1 hex or less - better to stay cowering in the bottom of the trench.

Infantry with retreat or rout status in trenches will not always retreat, as staying in the trench is safer – consider these troops ‘neutralised’. They will retreat from fire at 1 hex, however.

An attacker now needs to close to eject dug in infantry, mgs etc., as in real life.

Close combat at 1 hex or less - a test for panic based on morale and experience, less current suppression now occurs - if failed, a very low hit %age is applied.

This test is on a line by line basis, so it is possible the rifle teams panic, but the LMG group are quite fine. Or the hull gunner can have a bad day while the main gunner is happy. A 'firer panicked' msg. will appear on the to-hit %age line if a team panics.

This means that high quality troops in close combat are a better bet than low experience or low morale, or very badly suppressed (and especially combinations of these!) troops. Better quality troops will tend to do better at close quarter battle, while poor or badly shaken troops will sometimes make mistakes with unfortunate results.

Ambush fire from a stationary squad or other team from under about 100 metres is given a sharp bonus. To get the bonus, the firer must be stationary in this move and before, and unspotted. The bonus will last until he is spotted so an ambusher could get multiple chances of ambush fire.

The suppression model has been changed so that you need to hit or come close to hitting the target in order to add suppression points to the target. In the previous SP model– no matter the percentage chance to hit, 4 suppression points per weapon were added with no regard to range, target dug in status etc. So a squad with rifles and 2 LMG firing at 10 hexes added 12 points per shot onto a target squad, and so everyone was soon routing, despite the hit chance being about 2%..

Now – a near miss within 5% of the to-hit is needed for a substantial add, and a miss within 25% or so only adds 1 point. This is per weapon fired.

To balance this more realistic distribution of suppression – kills are worth more suppression.

Additionally – a multiple kill in one burst causes more shock effects. A squad which receives 3 kills as 3 singletons, will have less suppression than another squad who lost all 3 men in one weapons burst.

Team weapons – such as MG sections and AT guns – can receive an extra ‘bonus’ kill to represent the close packing of the operators round the weapon.

Kills received at less than 100 metres range cause more shock as well.

Cavalry and motorcyclists do not receive the ‘prone’ bonus when pinned – they cannot go to ground like foot troops can.

A point to remember – infantry weapons in weapon slot #1 are a special case. Rifles, Smgs etc in this slot are multiplied by the number of squaddies in the squad when firing. Thus the Soviet SMG squad with SMG twice does not have ‘2 Smgs’ – it gets weapon number 1 times squad members shot opportunities, and then 1 added for the one in slot 2.

Fixed bug where vehicles with passengers did not fit the displayed info box (minor).

Fixed bug where OP vehicles (and some others) disappeared when destroyed.

Certain vehicle types were classed as armoured when hit by HE, even when unarmoured (e.g. OP vehicles) - the HE hit routine then added 1 S point and exited. Now, completely unarmoured vehicles even if a nominally armoured type - say an 'MBT' with nil armour - will fall through this test and be treated like trucks etc.

A problem with flame-throwers and planes firing 'wild' with a 'no Los' msg. fixed

Loading and unloading units cancels undo - fixes some cheats, such as the ‘barge warp’.

1 Burma location fixed (was desert) – the Arakan was an arid plain, but not a desert <G!>.

Added same 1 hex or less bonuses for attacking hard targets - was only for soft before.

Some infantry close combat bonuses were in the wrong place, fixed.

Spain vs. USSR 41-43 should now be in USSR and on LHS of map. Italy VS USSR 41+ should also be on LHS.

campaign bug fixes

- there was a bug whereby starting a campaign could jump over the purchasing of support and the deployment in certain cases - fixed.

- The 'view map' button does not appear on the initial core purchase as map not generated as yet (this confused some users)

- on reloading a saved campaign game, the correct turn count is restored, not randomly allocated.

Have you run the setsound utility to set your sound card up as per the Game Guide, installation section (right at the front of the document) ?.

Have you read the Game Guide Frequently Asked Questions, question #2 ‘Something funny happens with sound’ ?.

Note that turning the sound or music to 'off' in the preferences menu does not cure a set of bad drivers being loaded - you need to use setsound to set it to ‘no digital sound’.

Having run setsound, and it either does not recognise your soundcard, or still does weird things.

You may have your IRQ and other settings not set to the default - so may need to set up setsound using manual procedures - find out your IRQ, DMA etc settings from your control panel as usual. (W98, right click on 'My Computer then select 'device manager' then find the card and inspect its properties).

Also - some modern sound cards will need a DOS mode emulation driver loaded, typically for SoundBlaster. See your particular sound card documentation - this may be in a readme.txt or similar file on the driver disk(s).

Don't ask us - ask the manufacturer or read their manuals.

Note also that some modern video cards are unhappy with DOS games - and may need their drivers, or hardware acceleration removed, reduced, or other tweaks, to like DOS games. Again - see your card's documentation. Some Voodoo 3D cards need the VESA drivers loaded - this invalidates them for 3D work until they are reloaded, so consider reading the manufacturer's documentation as to how to run a 2D and a 3D card in parallel.

We have found there are certain sound cards which have problems with DOS mode games - the Sound Blaster 128 value (possibly PCI?) - seems to be one. My laptop has an integrated ESS sound chip - this chipset requires the game to be run from a DOS boot diskette, with DOS mouse and CD drivers etc. And a special utility to be run before starting the game.

Have you read the game Guide FAQ section, question #3, ‘My game crashes at random intervals’ ?.

I will reiterate the main points about running a Dos game under windows.

1. Make a proper Windows shortcut and run it from that. See Windows help.
2. Make sure that ‘allow screen saver’ is unselected, ‘idle sensitivity’ is set to as low as possible, ‘protected’ is ticked on the memory page, and that ‘full screen’ is selected. Also – ensure the ‘working directory’ entry is the same as where the game executable resides.
3. Windows 98 is more likely to run the game – W95 is less friendly and may require a boot disk.
4. Ensure no other windows programs are running, especially the screen saver.
5. ALWAYS run the game as the first thing after a fresh reboot of Windows. Running any Dos mode game after other Windows applications have run is a recipe for Russian Roulette. A restart of Windows often makes crashes go away. Even with development builds – I often find that after a compile, the new executable wants a nice fresh Windows session.

This ‘bug’ is actually a hardware conflict. You will have to isolate and resolve whichever element of your system is conflicting with the game.

It therefore applies only to certain PC boxes, and as well it can vary due to what software has been run prior to running the game.

If your system decides it will crash with the Z key – it will always crash with it, it is not restricted to one particular unit.

Always save the game before trying the Z key – a fresh reboot and reload of the game as the only app running, will usually cure the problem.

However - some folk will always have the problem due to the particular setup of their box – hardware or software.

We know it is a resource sharing problem – one of our playtesters has a system where if he loads his scanner software then tried to play, he would always have Z key crashes. However – if he loaded the game first, then ran his scanner, the game ran happily, even if exited and restarted.

Basically – this game is a MSDOS game. MSDOS never had to share resources with anybody – any MSDOS program could assume all the hardware belonged to it, as only one application could run at one time, even with task switching software of the day. So if the game wants IRQ123 or resource X – it just uses it. Fine in MSDOS. Windows shares resources under a managed scheme that MSDOS programs do not know or care about. Windows programs ‘ask nicely’ if they can use resources.

However – as our playtesters experience with his scanner shows – windows appears to be able (sometimes!) to detect if someone has grabbed a resource when it tries to allocate the things for the windows scanner program. So you may get away with running the game with problem software or hardware if the game is run first, as recommended.

If however your conflict is with software or hardware loaded before the game plays – video cards, sound cards, piggy back disk drives, scanners, or whatever, then as with any system resource conflict, it is your job to try to track the conflict and resolve the issue for your particular system.

The Game Guide is the manual for Steel Panthers World War 2.

It is called GameGuide207.PDF, and lives in the game notes folder under your game installation. Please do read this as it actually answers many of the queries we get from users.

Many users are unaware of some standard Windows file formats - Adobe Portable Document Format is one of these, it seems.

PDF is a very common document format for such things as game manuals – it is often the sole document format used in budget games where all the paperwork is included on the CD.

Many web browsers will have a plug-in to let them read PDF – so try firing up your browser and then opening the file with the ‘file/open’ or equivalent command.

Again, several users have been confused by this standard Windows compressed file format.

There is no password!.

This error usually happens when the download is incomplete due to an interruption, or it was a corrupt download attempt.

A major cause of this is AOL users, as they are unaware of a feature of the AOL client, whereby the connection to their ISP is cut after a certain period of inactivity. Unfortunately the AOL client does no consider downloading a file to be an ‘activity’ – so it terminates in mid download. This can be configured – see your AOL help documentation. Some other ISP software is also rigged to cut off after a timeout period of no activity as well.

Refer to the Game Guide section entitled ‘New Hot keys’.

Actually - I do not use the scroll speed keys - I use a utility called mo’slo.com to slow the entire Pentium down.

Then set up your SP:WW2 shortcut to look something like:

PROGRAM tab

Cmd Line: C:\SP2test\mo'slo.com /50 C:\SP2test\spww2.EXE

Working: C:\SP2test

With the path set to wherever you installed SP:WW2 - the /50 slows the clock to 50%

NB - mo’slo.com will only recognise old style (8 letter) DOS directory names!

Of course it does, as this game is based on original SSI SP2 source code!. See the Game Guide, installation section right at the front of the document.

The game will work with either an SP2 or an SP3 CD ROM in place - the arsenal product works as well, we have been told.

The SP3 CD is best as then the WW2 video footage will be used.

How long is a piece of string?.

We have no master plan – we develop this game in our free time.

3.0 is our ‘target’ for what will be our complete game system. Whenever it is done.

We have decided that it is best to issue step releases on the way towards 3.0, than not to issue anything at all for 6 to 9 months. So expect further releases along the way to 3.0 as time progresses.

However – here are a few items on the agenda for future releases. These are things we hope to implement, but are not promising.

• The ‘long campaign’ as in SP1 (we are already part way there with the ‘default’ terrain choice in campaigns).
• User designed linked scenario campaigns. (Including some off the shelf ones from our team).
• Campaigns playable between 2 human opponents. (this one is a real maybe, but we have always wanted it!)
• Command and Control rules (absolutely necessary for WW1, really – or rather the lack of any command or control..)
• Some tidying up of campaign games – upgrade paths etc.
• Off map reinforcements, flank marchers etc.
• Better PBEM – procedures and security, more savegame slots.
• More unit types – e.g proper ski troops, paratroops, bridge-layer tanks, helicopters, guard/elite or militia types.
• Proper paratroopers that jump from transport planes.
• Carpet bombing – at least for scenario games (Normandy, Cassino etc.)
• Improved AI opponent.
• World War 1 (this needs more than just some mobs done!)
• Post war era mobs (Korea etc.)
• More battle locations.
• Fix river assaults, so the rafts do not cause crashes..
• More realistic weather code, possibly ‘real’ night fighting as well.
• Better morale rules, national characteristics etc.
• Enhanced map generation capability – e.g. more tailored battle locations in random battle maps.

We will not be doing internet head to head gaming – that is what TGN’s WaW project is about. By using the SP3 code engine they gain that facility, to play the game on TGN’s game servers.

Since most of us come from countries like the UK, where local calls are not free we decided to focus on the PBEM side of things. Playing an SP game head to head will require several hours of connect time – economically non-viable outside the USA <G!>.

The Game Guide mentions that there was no editor for the organisation files (mobs).

Do NOT use other editors – they do not know about the new WW2 data fields.

(SP-Camo publish here, also check out Wild Bill's Raiders for scenarios, and the TGN web board (SPWW2) is quite useful for discussion)

See the other SP Camo items – better troop icons for SP2 (modern) and SP3

Usenet :

Useful newsgroups are comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical and sci.military.moderated

(comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic is not really useful for proper wargames as such – it is for RTS games and Railroad Tycoon etc.)

Playtesting of Version 2.2B was done by:

Dale Hight

Helge Bertram

John Malcolm

Claus Bonnesen

John Turesson

Pascal Di Folco

Ken Sharman

Marc Bellizzi

Dick Burleigh

SP:WW2 ver2.2B is a production of SP-Camo Workshop