Campaign in Hamburger Hill

A new campaign opens on a newspaper. The American Courier for March 1976 reads “War declared! Troops sail for Granovia” under the line “Pentagon: home by Christmas”. Behind it sits the campaign map, with Col Hard in the corner as your adviser.

The top bar. Five readouts sit along the top: the turn number, your money, the date, a Support meter and the weather. We started on turn 1 with $126,672,125, a Support value of 148 and clear weather. The money readout shows +$25M, and our balance grew by about $25 million when the turn ended. Ending turn 1 also moved the date from March to April 1976.

The first choice. Col Hard asks “What’ll it be, Sarge?” and offers two ways in: Drop on Riverbend or Storm the Beaches. Picking one opens the battle setup, where you choose how to go in (on foot, by beach, airborne, by helicopter or by boat, as the mission allows) and the time of day. You then check the 12-man squad and each soldier’s kit before pressing Assault.

Fighting the battle. You play the battle in first person as the squad leader. If he dies, you can carry on as another man in the squad. When it ends, the after-action screen shows your kills, head shots, accuracy, health lost and time, stamps KIA on every soldier who died and shows the change in Support. On our failed Riverbend drop the screen stamped 9 of the 12 men KIA and took 60 Support, and our army list was empty when we got back to the map.

Between battles. Recruit hires new soldiers: each of the five regular roles cost $5,066,885 in our game and the Flamethrower $15,200,655. Auto fills a 12-man squad for you. Inventory has 16 slots, empty in our game, and the 0.8.0 notes say more weapons can be looted after battles. End Turn moves to the next month, and a new newspaper sums up the war. Ours reported that no paratroopers came back, that a civilian was killed and that the GPA had taken Red Clay Valley from the Warlords. The menu behind the gear icon has a Save button, and the main menu showed Load Game after we left.