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Demo AAR: HQ Tutorial as Germany

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But still... this Ai theatre thing is totally wrong IMO. I want to play the game, not watch it for christ sake!!!!!
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Then there is nothing stopping you. That's the great thing about it. It helps new players like me adjust a little easier. Of course I want to direct control as well but I'll be happy to switch some theatres to AI control if I'm struggling with micro.
 
Well, that was very useful. I will probably maintain AI control for most large scale areas, while using my own human brain to carry out complex encirclements. Still, the tutorial was very very useful. This should be stickied somewhere.
 
Yeah, A very informative guide. Haven't had a chance to play about with the demo yet, but kudos, you've answered a few of the questions I had, the whole HQ setup makes significantly more sense to me now.
 
Tweakd said:
Then there is nothing stopping you. That's the great thing about it. It helps new players like me adjust a little easier. Of course I want to direct control as well but I'll be happy to switch some theatres to AI control if I'm struggling with micro.
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Is it possible to give specific orders to divisions under theatre AI control? Or will AI cancel my specific orders?

In other words, to manually control divisions, should I detach them from theater and then give them orders or do my orders cancel that of the AI?
 
It seems that when you give order to the theatre, you cannot give orders to lower HQs/divisions. So yea, you need to detach them to give specific orders.
 
Great tutorial! Should be of considerable help to all the players out there struggling with the demo.

edit:
Subcomandante said:
... or give orders on the army or army group level.
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That would be my preference. Detaching units from the command structure, seems to me to be too much of a recipe for chaos. Will see...
 
In fact, you gain the great honour of being awarded the first HOI3 Lord Strange Cookie of British Awesomeness ● for services to both AARland and to HOI3 players everywhere. Add it to your Sig!
 
First off, thank you all for your kind words. :)

Now, to specific replies:

Spricar:

Remember you can choose to have the AI control as little or as much as you want. HOI3 has many more provinces and more divisions, so its definitely a 'bigger' game overall and it would be easy to become overwhelmed if you try to do everything. But neither do you have to let the AI do everything. You could, for example have the AI manage the western theatre and focus on the campaign in Poland.


mib:

Notice that this AAR relied alot on pictures (you kind of have to). It's not really possible to have a manual of decent file size with that many pictures in it, I think. I'll grant that the tutorial could have covered the subject matter like I did step by step.

Comtrav & spricar:

You're both basically asking the same thing. The answer is yes and no. Let me explain. You cannot give orders to a unit that's under an AI controlled HQ. However, if you detach a unit, give it some orders, and then promptly reattach it, the AI will not interrupt those orders, as far as I can tell. I've experimented with this for a bit now, and it seems to hold true. YMMV, of course. Still, if what I have seen on my own is at all normal, it should be quite possible to close off any developing pockets without the AI mucking it up.

In fact, I will make a note of that in the tutorial, editing it in a bit...
 
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Allrighty, this AAR/tutorial should hopefully be in its final form now, I just finished editing it one last time. If anyone could do me a favor and read through it again and point out any errors, that'd be great.

I'd also like confirmation from someone in the know that my supposition that division hand offs always flow downward and can never flow upward is correct, as that's the part I'm least confident about.

Some final general commentary:

The AI tends not to form a proper schwerpunkt or an axis of attack, even on 'Blitz' mode. Rather, it tends towards a general advance with occasional, small encirclements when the oppurtunity arises. It is notably more organized in its attacks than the HOI2 AI, despite having more forces and more provinces to deal with. And it *is* capable of encirclements, something I'm not sure I ever saw the HOI2 AI do.

An AI set on defensive and told to hold a line will do so perfectly well given numerical parity. How it would handle a defensive front in which it outnumbered might be another question, but then again a player would have some trouble in these circumstances against the AI in any case.

It would be terribly useful to be able to create your own theatre areas. Of course, part of this is a player tendency towards trying to give the AI clear lines of responsibility in a somewhat ahistorical manner. The same results as several theatres can be achieved by letting the Theatre HQ remain under human control and have the army group HQ set to deal with a theatre.

After the Polish campaign, if I had continued this AAR, its likely I would have shifted an entire army group from the eastern theater to the western theatre, set OB West to Human Control, and then set Heeregruppe C to defend the French border while the other armygroup was tasked with taking Belgium and the Netherlands.
 
Nicely done and written. I actually learned a couple of things I missed when I tried the demo. For the life of me I could not figure out how to assign AI control and objectives to HQs. I didn't even think to click on that little flag to enable AI control.

Thanks!
 
I know this has probably been answered a million times already on the forum, but I couldn't find it easily. I thought I might just as well ask you. If I use the AI at an Army Group level, as opposed to a Theater level, or Army as opposed to theater, will that mean that the different AI armies do not coordinate at all? Like if I give two different AI entities objectives that are fairly close to eachother, will they support eachother in any way? The way I plan on playing, at least at first, I won't be making the minor decisions, I'd like to only make the big ones. If that means I have to only use the theater AI, then I'll do that, but it'd be great if I could use it a bit more in depth. Though, from looking at this AAR, maybe it's not really necessary? It looks like you roughly got what you wanted simply by being careful about setting your objectives.

I was quite desorientated at my first (and so far only) go with Germany, though I suspect it will be much better (even at Theatre AI level!) when I've had a few years to organize my own forces, as opposed to being thrown into the thick of it.
 
Nice idea Chilango, you beat me to it. And as someone new to the game you've done very well to get all of that information in.

I hope you don't mind if I correct two important details. First up:

Chilango2 said:
You'll also notice I have already selected the first objective for this HQ, Todtmoos. I did this by the simple expedient of right clicking on the province. When HQ AI is turned off, right clicking will move the unit, as normal. With it turned on, however, right clicking selects or deselects objectives. If I wanted to undo Todtmoos as an objective, I could just right click again. Let's finish setting objectives for this HQ.

HoI3_13.jpg


As you can see, I have told the HQ to defend the border with France to a depth of two provinces. This should be sufficent for our purposes.
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This is not necessary. When we are giving a Defensive Objective we are not telling the AI which of our own provinces to defend - it knows that it should defend them. What we are doing is directing the HQ to a particular area of the front.

Here all we need to do is give the AI ONE province as the Objective and that province should be in France. What we are saying to the Theatre HQ is: please defend our border with France. It will then defend the border whether it advances deep in to France, or if we are forced to retreat and those provinces you have highlighted are now occupied by France. This will do the job just nicely:

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Pretty much any province will do. In fact, it is even possible to give the AI no Objective province when selecting either Prepare or Defensive stance. The AI knows it is at war with France, and not with Holland, and should distribute its forces accordingly.
 

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Nimic said:
I know this has probably been answered a million times already on the forum, but I couldn't find it easily. I thought I might just as well ask you. If I use the AI at an Army Group level, as opposed to a Theater level, or Army as opposed to theater, will that mean that the different AI armies do not coordinate at all? Like if I give two different AI entities objectives that are fairly close to eachother, will they support eachother in any way? The way I plan on playing, at least at first, I won't be making the minor decisions, I'd like to only make the big ones. If that means I have to only use the theater AI, then I'll do that, but it'd be great if I could use it a bit more in depth. Though, from looking at this AAR, maybe it's not really necessary? It looks like you roughly got what you wanted simply by being careful about setting your objectives.

I was quite desorientated at my first (and so far only) go with Germany, though I suspect it will be much better (even at Theatre AI level!) when I've had a few years to organize my own forces, as opposed to being thrown into the thick of it.
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I second this question and would like to add: Are you sure the Theatre AI never takes divisions "away" from an army or group and redistributes them? You said the theatre AI will only distribute its reserve divisions downwards, but I can remember Johan once saying something that made me believe the Theatre AI could also take away from its subordinate groups and redistribute them.
 
Nimic said:
I know this has probably been answered a million times already on the forum, but I couldn't find it easily. I thought I might just as well ask you. If I use the AI at an Army Group level, as opposed to a Theater level, or Army as opposed to theater, will that mean that the different AI armies do not coordinate at all? Like if I give two different AI entities objectives that are fairly close to eachother, will they support eachother in any way? The way I plan on playing, at least at first, I won't be making the minor decisions, I'd like to only make the big ones. If that means I have to only use the theater AI, then I'll do that, but it'd be great if I could use it a bit more in depth. Though, from looking at this AAR, maybe it's not really necessary? It looks like you roughly got what you wanted simply by being careful about setting your objectives.

I was quite desorientated at my first (and so far only) go with Germany, though I suspect it will be much better (even at Theatre AI level!) when I've had a few years to organize my own forces, as opposed to being thrown into the thick of it.
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AI controlled HQs are aware of each other. They will generally attempt to maintain a continuous frontline, and where they meet units from one HQ can support or join in the attacks of another HQ.

OK, second point that needs correcting to clarify that statement:

Chilango2 said:
Some final general commentary:

The AI tends not to form a proper schwerpunkt or an axis of attack, even on 'Blitz' mode. Rather, it tends towards a general advance with occasional, small encirclements when the oppurtunity arises. It is notably more organized in its attacks than the HOI2 AI, despite having more forces and more provinces to deal with. And it *is* capable of encirclements, something I'm not sure I ever saw the HOI2 AI do.
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Setting a Theatre on Blitzing Stance doesn't always make a great deal of sense. This is primarily a Stance that we might use lower down the HQ hierarchy. What we are doing is telling that HQ not to worry too much about its flanks and what other HQs are doing.

To form a schwerpunkt with three Army HQs we might give the centre Army a Blitzing stance, and the two Armies on the flanks an Attack stance.

The Blitzing stance really comes into its own if we define an Axis of Attack. To do this hold the Shift key down while you right click on the map. You will see a green arrow on the map showing the Axis of Attack.

In this case, I have given 10. Armee a command to carry out a Blitzing attack with the Objective of Lublin, and given them an Axis of Attack towards their Objective:

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Note that you might not actually see the difference between the Attacking and Blitzing Stances and using a different Axis of Attack. As Moltke said, "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." The AI will attempt to carry out your commands, but the Poland AI is doing everything it can stop your Army.
 

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Mieszko said:
I second this question and would like to add: Are you sure the Theatre AI never takes divisions "away" from an army or group and redistributes them? You said the theatre AI will only distribute its reserve divisions downwards, but I can remember Johan once saying something that made me believe the Theatre AI could also take away from its subordinate groups and redistribute them.
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For a player country, the AI Controlled HQs will never change the structure below them.
 
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