How does VC affect H&M exactly?

[Sabratha]

What is the exact mechanism of VC affecting H&M?

Does it simply need to be enough VC on the map regardless of position) to affect it? Does VC need to be in contact or in a certain distance of a village? Does NVA affect H&M in the same manner as VC?

[Chippit]

VC units can engage in one of a few kinds of missions when created. One of those has them enter a village and directly lower its score by some value between 5-10. You will need to prevent them from entering the villages in order to stop this.

[Seytan]

VC units can engage in one of a few kinds of missions when created. One of those has them enter a village and directly lower its score by some value between 5-10. You will need to prevent them from entering the villages in order to stop this.

AH HA! I thought that was what was happening. I need to stop staying in the village and set ambushes more then.

[Sabratha]

Now I know how the members of XIX century plague-prevention cometees must have felt.

I had a wrong theory on how VC lower H&M. However, the measures I came up with based on this wrong theory, proved somewhat accidentally sucessfull in preventing the actual H&M loss. (Place forward bases with arty and locate VC in the field with numerous units, then crush them limiting their numbers).

Having said that, now that I know the real mechanism, I hope to become more effective. Hopefully as effective as the plague-prevention comeetes became once they learned the germ theory of infectious diseases .

[Every Single Soldier]

Remember you can't lay an ambush within 1 hex of a village, this and the fact that troops stationed in a village don't stop VC infiltration is to prevent the player simply placing one unit in every village and then game over !

[Seytan]

Remember you can't lay an ambush within 1 hex of a village, this and the fact that troops stationed in a village don't stop VC infiltration is to prevent the player simply placing one unit in every village and then game over !

Yes but maintaining a presence via minesweeping seems to make a diff yes? I see the flags shift after a period of time. Is it simply because the VC havnt used the HM influence tactic over time and the village gradually goes over to the SVN? As a aside the above is precisely what I did to win my most recent game. I had all but one village garrisoned. Screenie is on the steam forum for the game, game was Vet and score was 67, I can do better lol. Sheytanaslan. I did however also actively use 2 SF guys to find their force concentrations and kill them with cobras and a foreward deployed battery at a FOB. In the above case only one village that I had control over shifted its flag back and forth from NLF to NVA as I executed the minesweeping mission in the village. And I can only surmise there was a base in the corner of the map to retain influence? Anyway I don't know all the mechaincs on what influences what yet, but im learning.

[tomchick]

I had all but one village garrisoned.

Which, as the developer was trying to point out, doesn't do anything. I know it seems counterintuitive, but stationing infantry in a village isn't "garrisoning" it. The only thing you're doing is setting up a 1-hex sighting range around the village. Given the VC movement rate, that means you're only going to spot them as they infiltrate the village.

Instead, you want to watch for the pins on the intel map to deduce the direction the VC are coming from. Set up ambushes, which have to be at least two hexes from a village, along that axis.

-Tom