A solution to the elusive broken howitzer issue
 

(Tested on Update 1.5.12.0)

Before reading further, do the following:

[1] Start the game and go to Play Campaign --> 8: Essential Personnel --> Select Mission --> Start Mission --> Press any key to continue. You should be at the deployment screen.

Throughout the following steps, do not pan, zoom, examine units, or anything else. You want to do the absolute minimum needed to reach your first fire phase.

Deploy all of your units near the top of the screen. It doesn't matter what units or where; you are never going to move or fire them. Press continue and wait for the A.I. to move and fire. Hit "end phase" to finish your move phase without moving anything. You should now be in your fire phase with a bunch of road hexes highlighted as possible targets.

Click on a road hex that is close to an Ogre and fire on it with a howitzer. It should work normally.

Now select the road hex that is right next to the lower left howitzer. You will find that you cannot fire on it. Cancel and try firing on the hex where the road crosses the track closest to the train. Note that all of the howitzers except the lower left one can attack the road segment.

Have you figured out why the lower left howitzer cannot fire? Answer in the next post.

(You might see it right away, but for me it took a while).

Re: A solution to the elusive broken howitzer issue
 

The problem is in the Select Target and Select Attackers Overlays.

Any hex under an overlay cannot be targeted, and any unit under the overlay cannot fire.

The Select Target overlay is small, and near the bottom where it doesn't interfere with you selecting the road segment next to the lower left howitzer.

As soon as you select the hex to fire on, the far larger select attacker overlay (four overlays, actually) appears.

Because of the design decision to fade out the right and left edges of the overlay, it is invisible where it covers the howitzer. You can find the actual edges of the overlay by moving your mouse around; hexes under the overlay will not highlight when the mouse pointer moves over them.

So for someone who knows what the problem is, the workaround is simply to move the board up so that the howitzer can be selected.

In my next post I will suggest solutions That Auroch might want to consider implementing.

Re: A solution to the elusive broken howitzer issue
 

The first, most obvious fix would be to fix the invisible edge effect so that the player can clearly see where overlays end.

Also, make the overlays so that they cover as few hexes as possible. The deployment phase in particular has overlays covering far too many hexes, causing the player to have to move the screen around to finish deploying.

Another really helpful modification would be a configuration setting for an expert mode that puts up only a few, small, terse overlays. Experienced players don't need to be told how selecting the attacker works every time.

Re: A solution to the elusive broken howitzer issue
 

Sounds like a lot of work to fix a minimal issue. It didn't take me any time at all to figure out you have to move to select things that are under the overlays.

About the only part of this that I agree with is the fade out makes it harder to tell where the line actually is, so it's a little odd the first time you see it; but there are so many other places that you have to move to select things, this one is on the bottom of my list of things to care about. The whole interface works this way.

A much bigger issue is the fact the flyouts all go out to the right, even for units that are already on the right edge of the screen. Put an Ogre in the right 1/4 of the screen and then try to select a component to see the issue.. you have to scroll your view (i.e., orient so the Ogre is in the middle of the screen) to be able to see the components.

Re: A solution to the elusive broken howitzer issue
 

It took me two months of playing and three submitted bug reports. Please don't assume that just because you saw the problem immediately, everyone will.

Re: A solution to the elusive broken howitzer issue
 

Don't misunderstand me. Just because I didn't notice it as a problem and you did has no bearing on the fact it *is* a problem. There's no question the overlay should not be so transparent that you can't tell where it ends. Making it slightly opaque all the way to the edge would make it clear you have to move it out of the way to get to what's underneath.

I also agree that a "minimal" overlay option would be nice. Especially on smaller monitors, there isn't a lot of room for the board.