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This has been mentioned a couple times deep in other threads, but it's a helpful enough little trick to merit its own thread, I think.  Always figured most people knew about this bug, but I'm always surprised by the number of people I play who evidently don't:

When the terrain window of an unspotted unit goes blank, that unit is dead.  So, for instance, in the shot below:



I know that gun is dead, even though it is unspotted, because the terrain window is blank.  Most helpful in knowing exactly when a gun dies, but it's also helpful when fighting infantry in good cover - a lot of times when they die, the unit just goes unspotted.  If the terrain window is blank, the unit is dead.  If the terrain unit has a terrain type pictured in it, the unit is alive somewhere on the board.  Really helpful when deciding if you need to keep area firing or not.  Always feels a bit like cheating when I use this, but it's almost impossible not to notice once you know it's there.  I post this now in an attempt to absolve my troubled conscience by levelling the playing field (and maybe garner a clickie or two...   )

In similar vein, when mortaring/shelling a gun, and the gun goes unspotted to icon status before you kill it, when you finally do kill the gun the icon will disappear.

Um, if I recall correctly, that is. Been a long time since I had it happen in a game.

That map looks vaguely familiar... how come you didn't include all the burning Panzers in the screenie?...

Why do you have to show exploits of the game engine? A bug is a bug, this is an exploit.

Bug, exploit, unwise programming decision, thing they overlooked, however you look at it, it's a part of the game, whether you like it or not.  Not talking about it doesn't make it go away, it just gives the advantage to those who know about it.  I mentioned it to sort of level the playing field - make sure as many people as possible know about it so nobody has the advantage.  I suppose you could agree with your opponent to not look at terrain windows or something, but it's almost impossible not to notice it at some point.

I'm not sure how not talking about it makes it better, it just insures the  people who already know about it have the upper hand.  Plus, it's fairly common knowledge among experienced players - it's been mentioned in Leto's DAR, my DAR, and another thread somewhere on these boards in the last few weeks, not to mention a host of other places on other boards. Not mentioning it just means the few players who don't know about it will be at an artificial disadvantage.

Ummm...there were so many I couldn't fit 'em all, and I didn't want any of them to feel left out. I did manage to squeeze your flaming Firefly in at the edge there...

This strikes me more as an element of understanding the information that is presented on the screen, whereas exploiting the game engine comes up more in the form of getting units to do impossible things. (I seem to recall on a board somewhere that there was an intense debate about the "gamey" positioning of guns with respect to a hill crest which was considered exploiting a bug in the game engine, but I could be mis-remembering....).

Hi,
I never heard about nor noticed it myself.
Thanks for this advice. As you said, now I'll really look for the terrain to disappear.
Greetings,
Mugger

There are several gamey bugs/cheats available to be used. No one forces any of us to use them, and if you do not want to yourself, then don't. Make sure your opponent is aware and agrees to the terms of the game before you start, that way both players will be on a level playing field. I prefer to play with the "detailed armour hits" off, and not to select enemy units for information, as well as only directing fire from units in Command-using the "next target" button only. If my opponent agrees to the terms then I expect him to stick to his word, if we don't discuss terms then I know that I will be at some disadvantage but expect that all will be done to gain an advantage over me.