Recently I've been hearing a lot of people wondering about how buildings work in terms of protection and such-so here's a little guide to let you know which buildings are best for protecting your troops.
Some buildings have lots of windows on all sides-each window allows one dude inside to shoot out of it. So if you are attacking a building from a side with lots of windows each dude in the building will be able to shoot back, (i.e. if the building has a rifle squad in it, and three windows on one side, three rifles will be shooting at something attacking it from that direction). Keep in mind that if you kill a guy in the building-another will come up to the window to take his place if available. Also, any troops unable to take up a window position on one side of a building will be available to shoot at enemies coming from a different side. Using my previous example, the three riflemen who cannot be used to shoot from that side of the building can use windows in different sides of the building to shoot at enemy troops approaching from a different side.
However, if you attack from a side with less windows, less guys inside will be able to fight back. And some buildings have no windows at all, or blind spots-allowing troops on that side to shoot in and kill the squad with no fire returned. If you attack a building from a side with only one window, only one dude inside can fight back, so you can clear the building much easier. As an interesting side point, if you hit a building with explosives, (such as tank shells, panzershreks, etc.) you can open up holes that let people inside shoot out. I found that out after my Stug was shooting at a paratrooper squad inside one of the wooden shacks in Sturz, he shot a hole through the southern blind spot of one of the buildings, and one of the recoilless rifle guys could start shooting back!
Also keep in mind that the protection granted by a building depends on its size and composition. That's why if you put your rifle squad in the tiny wooden shack south of the larger stone buliding in Angoville your squad will usually lose any fight there. Bullets entering smaller buildings will have a much better chance of hitting or killing someone. Stone and metal buildings, such as those in Sturzdorf, grant better protection to troops than wooden buildings. That's why the wooden buildings in the middle of Sturz do not offer as good protection for troops as the brick buildings on the outskirts of Sturz.
The last thing to keep in mind when choosing a building to garrison is location. Some buildings, (such as the church in Semois) are more valuable than others. Try and pick a building that puts your troops near an important location, such as the strategic point that links your opponent to his resources, or near a VP you need to hold.
As for dealing with people in buildings, there are some weapons that cause SERIOUS damage to garrisoned troops. Any type of flamer will kill garrisoned troops quickly, though the damage depends on the size of the building. Larger buildings always die slower from flames than tiny buildings. Grenades are the other big building clearer-but you have to keep in mind that you have to throw the grenade in the part of the building where troops are shooting from, unless it's an outhouse or tiny shack. If you throw a grenade on the other side of the building, it won't hurt anyone. So if you see a MG shooting from the north side of a house, throw your grenade at the north side of the house so that it comes down nearer to the MG squad.
The other way to kill guys in buildings is to use flanking manuvers, where you send one squad to draw the fire of the people in the building-(hopefully putting them in cover, or in another building nearby), and then using a different squad or a flamer engineer team to attack from a different direction. This allows you to quickly kill MGs in buildings while taking less casualties than you would with a huge direct assault.
As for the buildable types of buildings-(MG nests, bunkers, and HQs)-they offer the best protection and firing lanes for your troops. An MG in a bunker is very difficult to kill because it has no blind spots and the bunker is very good protection from all kinds of fire-(except flamers, which still toast people inside). If someone attacks your base-put units in the HQ. It's one of the best defensive buildings in the game!
