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01 Infantry
001 - Just Hit Go
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 240x240m
Your units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: Just hit “Go”.
Instructional Rationale: The goal here is to just have the student go through the entire process of starting and completing a scenario. The student’s unit starts right next to the flag, so they don’t need to issue any orders to win.
Results from testing with actual students:
Renu:
It’s worth starting the student at the main menu screen so they learn how to start scenarios, rather than doing the work of starting the scenario for them.
The camera starts zoomed out, so the camera controls should be explained at this point to let the student see their soldier up-close.
The goal of the game being to capture flags should be explained at this point.
The end-of-game screen needs to be explained at this point (“this is where you can see that you have won”).
002 - Move
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 240x240m
Your units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: Give your sharpshooter a “Move” order to the flag.
Rationale: The goal here is to introduce the student to the “Move” order.
Results from testing with actual students:
Renu:
The student needs to be told where their soldier is.
If the camera controls weren’t explained during the previous lesson, they definitely need to be explained at this point for the student to be able to see the soldier up-close.
The student needs to understand that they need to left-click on a unit to select a unit, then right-click on the unit to open the orders menu, then left click to select an order from the list, and then left-click on the map to issue the order. If they accidentally right-click on the map for the first order they’ll remain in give-Move-order mode and won’t be able to click the “Done” button, and you’ll want to delete all their waypoints so that orders delay doesn’t prevent the soldier from arriving on time.
The student needs to be directed to click on the “Look at the map” button at the end of the game to see that the flag has changed to their side.
003 - Camera Controls - Rotate
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 240x240m
Your starting units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: Give your sharpshooter a “Move” order to the flag.
Rationale: This lesson forces the player to use the camera controls. The player only needs to use the “rotate camera” button. The camera starts looking at your unit so that new players get as little disoriented as possible. (The screenshot is of the student's initial viewpoint.)
003b - Camera Controls - Down
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 240x240m
Your starting units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: Give your sharpshooter a “Move” order to the flag.
Rationale: Introduce the player to the “Camera Down” button. (The screenshot is of the student's initial viewpoint.)
004 - Run
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 240x240m
Your starting units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: Give your sharpshooter a “Run” order to the flag.
Rationale: Introduce the student to the “Run” order. A “Move” order won’t get the student’s Sharpshooter close enough to the flag by the end of the turn to take control of it. A “Run” order should get the Sharpshooter to end the turn very close to (if not right on) the flag.
Results from testing with actual students:
Renu:
This went pretty smoothly, since most of the difficulties were encountered in the previous “Move” lesson.
Thoughts:
I think it might make sense to have a lesson before this one that forces the student to use the camera controls, e.g. by having the camera start far from your unit. And it might make sense to also have this lesson and the lessons after it require the student use the camera controls in the same way, to give the student practice with that.
005 - How Close Do I Need To Be?
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 240x240m
Your starting units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: Give your sharpshooter a “Run” order to the flag.
Rationale: Introduce the student to the fact that they don’t need to be right next to the flag to take control of it. The flag is about as far away as it can be while still being capturable in one turn if the sharpshooter is given a “Run” order to it.
Results from testing with actual students:
Renu:
If the student knows to click on the flag and isn’t yet comfortable with the camera controls, they may “beat” the scenario without seeing how far their soldier is from the flag.
006 - The Setup Phase
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 400x240m
Your starting units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 1
How to succeed: During the setup phase, move the sharpshooter to the part of the deployment area closest to the flag. Then for the first (and only) turn, give your sharpshooter a “Run” order to the flag.
Rationale: Introduce the student to the setup phase. If the student just gives a “Run” order without repositioning their soldier, they won’t finish close enough to the flag to take control of it.
Results from testing with actual students:
007 - Two Turns
Play as: Allies
Objective: Achieve a “Total Victory” (by capturing the flag).
Screenshot: Imgur
Size: 1040x240m
Your starting units: 1 sharpshooter
Enemy units: 1 Kübelwagen
Turns: 2
How to succeed: During the setup phase, move the sharpshooter to the part of the deployment area closest to the flag. Then for the first turn, give your sharpshooter a “Run” order to the flag. It will take two turns for the soldier to get close enough to the flag to take control of it.
Rationale: Introduce the student to the idea of multiple turns.
As it currently exists, it also gives the student more practice with the setup phase and controlling the camera.
Results from testing with actual students:
Renu:
She had trouble using the camera and finding the Sharpshooter. It might be a good idea to add a scenario that forces her to learn to use the “Hide Trees” (Shift+T?) and “Unit Scale” (Shift+C) buttons to more-easily find her units. Like, maybe a slightly larger map where she starts off not looking at her unit.
It might be a good idea to get rid of some of the far edge of the map (beyond the flag), because the larger map size seemed to be a bit confusing for her (meaning, she was getting disoriented and couldn’t find her unit).