The way to install Open General is by using Tinyrodent's new installer: Open General Installer.

Tinyrodent's installer includes everything is needed to play OpenGen plus a bunch of campaigns ready to play. Installer is made using standard Microsoft msi so you can either do a full install using default c:\panzer2 folder, or a custom install picking only the choices you want to install/update and defining the folder to use. This installer can be run on same folder than PG2 (none of the PG2 files are overwritten) or in a different folder. This installer will be updated regularly with new "openized" campaigns
 

Each option requires to be enabled on scenario file, so some scenarios could be designed to allow blow and repair but not enabled for building, or could be enabled to build but not to repair.

• Units having equipment file's special "sapper" or "engineer" attribute can blow up Bridges, Airports, Cities and Ports.
  Unit must be placed on hex to blow, and should have not taken any action
   
• Units having "sapper" special attribute can either repair blown hexes or convert terrain to be Bridge, Airports, Ports or Fortification (build)
  Unit must be placed on hex to blow, and should have not has fired, reinforced or moved
.
 

Mines are  implemented as a new terrain attribute. Can be defined in scenarios at design time, but can also be dropped by certain units.
For ground mines, units having sapper special attribute can drop and remove mines . Any infantry unit can try to remove mines.
For sea mines, destroyers and naval units having sapper special attribute, can both drop and remove mines.

Minefields have no side, so they can damage any unit regardless which side dropped it 

• Entering spotted minefields (ground/sea) require spend full movement (cost 254, like rivers)
• Entering un-spotted minefield can cause some losses - up to 3 strength points - depending on unit experience and engineer attribute
• When any unit is on a minefields its movement is limited to 1 and gets reduced its defense by 3.
• To clear mines, unit must be in the minefield, but not always will success and if no success, unit can suffer some loses

OpenGen allows to define units to become core on any scenario of a campaign, not only the first one.
Also there is a new flag on campaign file to reset all core units on any scenario, as it first scenario will be replayed. 

Scenario must enable this optional feature.
Then, artillery units and capital ships, having non zero "bomber size" value (same than level bombers), can fire to empty hexes in order to blow up bridges, towns, airfields,... on that hex.

If hex had any unspotted enemy unit, then:

• Unit's entrenchment is reduced by 2
• Unit strength can suffer up to 1 strength point - although cannot be destroyed by this action
• Unit can suffer some lasting suppression
• Unit can get reduced ammo and fuel

This option must be enabled on scenario.
If AD/Flak is hidden plane is fired as soon as it enter any surrounding hex. Plane can go on flying after fired.
If AD/Flak was spotted, it only fires if plane stops on any surrounding hex.

Must be enabled in scenario file.
This option reduces spotting ground units:

• mountain, hills and cities cut spotting from 2 and up for ground units
• forest cannot be spotted from distance>1
• if gnd unit is obstructed, no further spot from behind that hex
   

And for Air units:

• forest and cities cannot be spotted from 2 and up from air.

Some of the internal tables used by the game, can be overridden by using external tables if located close to Equipment File.
These are the tables you can currently override:

• Weather.txt - modify weather tables
• Terrain.txt - to modify base-entrenchment, initiative-cap and cost to enter
• Eyear.txt - to override default base year.
  An alternative way, which takes precedence, is to include this token:  "BYEAR = ####" within first equipment item name (first record of Equipment File)
   

OpenGen allow to configure different things, like screen resolution. Some of the settings are accessed by mean of the Settings Window which can be accessed either from main game menu (start window) or from sidebar menu in game.
Setting window allow to change:

• Screen mode : Windowed or Full exclusive directX mode
• Screen resolution: can pick on both modes which screen resolution and color depth you prefer.
• Recently files used, quick launch
• Media Settings, including different volume controls for:
  - game effects (capture, leader, click, ..)
  - weather sound effects
  - units sound effects
  - background music
  Here you can also configure game videos, in case you want to replace defaults
• Options to include on After Action Report.
  AAR can be obtained at any point from HQ, Turn Status, End Scenario and Dossier windows at any time.
  AAR can be obtained also for standalone scenarios
• Game preferences
  Here you can select some visual effects, related with explosions, weather animations and AI to use, as in a future several AI engines can be developed for OpenGeneral
• Scroll speed
• And here you can review which files are loaded and game version you are running.

• Toggle to paint terrain type labels and roads on map
• Toggle to outline range of fire for selected unit
• Toggle to mark spotted hexes on map
• Toggle to hide  unit strength
• Option to review scenario intro - and if playing a campaign also campaign introduction
• Option to review turn data info, including victory conditions status, current player type, side and stance, date and weather conditions 
  
  All this options can be toggled also by using a hotkey

By default every time you start a campaign, OpenGen will check mapfiles and map pictures to be sure you have none missing. if any is missing it will try to download and install from Gilestiel server using FTP. This is done on a background process and it will log any file downloaded or any file missing.

This automatic check can be disabled by mean of a check-box available on "Pick Campaign" dialog. On this dialog there are also two useful buttons to check for the campaign you have highlighted missing files. One button just check and report files, and the second, will also check but will try to download any missing map too.

Available info.

Screen shows this info:

• Current turn and total turns
• current weather and ground conditions. Hovering mouse it shows also a forecast regarding number of turns to change weather
• Selected unit, name, equipment, leader, experience, ammo, fuel & entrenchment
• Tool tips for menus show also the alternative hotkey in case you prefer use keyboard
• Can configure if you want to show always to show terrain in addition to hex name on top of window
• Can also configure to see an explosion on the target unit when it is fired from range 2 or bigger..

I call "Efolder" to the directory where Equipment File and all its stuff is located. Main game folder can also be used and in fact if you had already installed PG2 Main game folder will be added automatically.

Any EFolder must include at least these sub-directories in order to work (either it won't be included on Equipment File combo-box selector):

• SCENARIO, to hold all campaigns and scenarios available for the Equipment File
• SAVE, to hold all save games played with the Equipment File

but you can replicate any of the Main game folder to allow custom overriding of common files. So you could create any of these additional sub-directories:

• USERSCEN, can hold standalone scenarios if you prefer to keep them on different folders, but not needed
• OPENDAT, to include any Equipment File specific graphics, like flags, start screen, medals, dossier, portraits, ...
• SOUND, if you want custom Equipment File music or game effects for this Equipment File
• SFX, for custom equipment file's units sound effects
• OPENGUI, if you want to have a different UI appearance for this Equipment File.
• SMACK, to have specific videos for this Equipment File

Each time the game need to load any file it looks first on EFolder & their subdirectories and if not found, then looks on Main Game & their standard folder. So you can use a mix of files, putting only specific files on EFolder subdirectories, i.e.: those being different>

Main game folder should include this sub-folders

• MAP, to include all map pictures. This folder can be used also as a common repository for mapfiles (.map)
• OPENGUI, to include all user interface files.
• OPENDAT, to include default Equipment File graphics files, like flags, start screen, medals, dossier, portraits, ...
• SOUND, to include default music and game effects
• SFX, for default units sound effects
• SMACK, for default videos

If Main game folder is used also as another Efolder, then it should include SCENARIO and SAVE sub-folders, and optionally USERSCEN if you like.
Any Equipment File defining more than 31 countries must include a custom OPENDAT folder and all the Equipment File graphics files for its countries.

Within each EFolder you need also:

• EQUIP97.eqp and EQUIP97.txt - to define units types (equipment) and icons.
• Nations.txt - to define countries.
• NAMES.txt - to define leader's names.
   
• Rest of text files defining terrain, units, leaders and interface labels can be missing as default data is included
  but it is strongly advisable to put a proper set of files.
  • Terrain.txt - to define terrain labels and data, including cost to enter different hexes.
  • Units.txt - to define unit related labels, including leaders types
  • User.txt - to define menus and messages labels
  • Colors.txt  - only needed if you want to change UI colors)
  • Eyear.txt  - only if you want to set a different base year (default is 1900)
     
• In order to allow the new features to work, OpenGen checks if file Fronts.txt is found on efile folder, and if not found it switches to "Pg2Mode" (Pg2 compatibility mode), disabling any new feature for legacy stuff compatibility. Fronts.txt file is not actually loaded and it is really not needed to play, but it must be found (even empty) to enable Open Gen new features.
  This method will change when new formats are ready and Fronts.txt will be needed only for edition again.
   
• PG2 standard files are also read if Nations.txt is not found (GUI97.txt, MISC.txt)

There is always a working Equipment File folder in use which can be changed by browsing for a new one or by selecting a campaign/scenario into a different folder.

Game effects (must be located on SOUND folder)

• Mouse/keyboard "click" (Click.mp3/wav)
• Flag captured (Capture.mp3/wav)
• Victory Hex captured (CaptureVH.mp3/wav) - if not found. normal flag captured will be played
• Leader raised
(RaiseLeader.mp3/wav)
• Rain and Snow weather conditions.
  Two different sounds for rain can be played: Rain and Rain2 (mp3/wav). If game finds only Rain file, it will be repeated.
  For Snow condition Winter.mp3/wav will be played if found
• End turn (EndTurn.mp3/wav)

 Units effects are defined on Equipment File and mp3 files should be located on SFX folder.
 

Same than sounds effects music is better played when files are mp3. Wav files can also be played, but sometimes fail due to missing codecs, so mp3 format is more advisable.

Default music can be defined by entering Settings/Media Settings and picking up to 2 mp3 files. I said default, as this is the music to be played when no scenario is loaded (menu music), or when no Equipment File's custom music is found.

As soon as you start any scenario, either standalone or within a campaign, game checks if there is any specific music defined for that scenario and if any and it can be found then that music is played. But if scenario doesn't define any music, then Equipment File music is searched.

• Equipment File music should fit a structured file name system to allow find the files, based on main country number of first player not being computer.
  Lets say it is Germany, country# 8, then these files are searched:
  * Music8_a.mp3/wav and Music8_b.mp3/wav
  
  For any other country# it would be
  * Music#_a and Music#_b (mp3/wav)
   
• But you don't need to define music for every country. When any country file is not found then a generic equipment file music:
  * Music0_a and Music0_b (mp3/wav)
  are used, if found.
   
• If Music0 is not found neither, then standard files are searched if main country is 8,10,20 or 23:
  * gplay/usplay/rplay/bplay (mp3/wav) (check available package on top of page)
   
• All music is first searched into  EFolder's SOUND subfolder, and if not found into main game SOUND subfolder.
  So you don't need to define music for ALL equipment files, just put default music files (Music0-*) on main SOUND folder and any equipment file will play that music.

In case none of the above files were found, then those default files defined on Media Settings will be played
 

These are the files needed for any Equipment File:

• dossier_medal (png/bmp)
• dossier_portrait (png/bmp)
• flag_med (png/bmp)
• flag_small (png/bmp)
• inspect_leader (png/bmp)
• inspect_medal (png/bmp)
• roundels (png/bmp)
• Start_Open  (png/bmp) - (* really any png/bmp with a filename start+anything can be used)

Files are searched using this sequence:

1. In EFolder's OPENDAT subfolder
2. In Main game OPENDAT subfolder (if any is missing yet)
3. If any is not found then PG2 standard shp files  (dossier.shp, flags1.shp, inspect.shp) are searched:
   • As external shp file in EFolder's OPENDAT subfolder
   • As external shp file in Main game OPENDAT folder
   • within panzer2.dat

REDIST package includes all different pictures delivered with Graph-Switcher tool (well except those having old format) compressed in a package to allow installing equipment files folders easily.

Regarding sizes here are the proper sizes expected by OpenGen:

Dossier_panel
Should be 640x480 otherwise medals and losses will be painted offseted.

Dossier_medal
66 pixels width for each medal (198 pixels per country), height is figured from the image, one row layout

Dossier_portrait
146 x 171 pixels each photo, one photo per country, one row layout

Inspect_portrait / Inspect_leader
80x91 pixels each leader. One column per country up to 15 photos in column.
Inspect portrait is checked first and if not found inspect_leader is loaded

Inspect_medal
22x19 each medal, one row layout

Flag_small
12x9 each flag, 2 rows layout (12x18 per country)

Flag_med
21x14 each flag, one row layout

Flag_big
Not used !!!

Roundels
60x50 each roundel (should be properly aligned to be painted on hex pos rectangle. One row layout

Do not remove any of these files or game won't run!