Germany Tutorial: Take 2.

[misterbean]

Great Intermission.

I saw this asked a couple of pages ago but never saw the answer(might have missed it).

But is there a reason why you don't order militia(and other things like Interceptors) be produced in serial instead of one by one?

no real reason, I guess. just personal preference. Doing it this way allows me to change my production queu based on immediate needs. suppose I'm playing Italy and I need say, some garrisons. I can just start it whenever one things gets finished.

on the other hand, if you know that you will need, say, 8 more tac bombers in 2 years time, serial/parallell building means you can be sure they will be done by then.

[Congoblue]

well, folks. It is a tie, right now.
2 votes for waiting for 3.06.
2 votes to continue right now.
I'll give you 2 more days to cast your vote. if it's still a stand-off at that time, I'll cast the deciding vote myself.

Hi Misterbean, I'm also pleased you're back. I bought vanilla HOI3 just as you started posting and on the back of your excellent tutorials have invested in SF and FTM. I vote for a continuation, if only to see whether my own strategy for 1939-1941 is any cop! Cheers.

[SSmith]

Nice analysis of the UK. They are certainly in a stronger position than France but, as you say, so much to defend against so many threats.

It think you are probably to continue with the current version. There is no saying when the patch will come out and if you wait you might need to spend time re-working the earlier chapters.

[misterbean]

well, I guess it's pretty obvious then. we go on.
update should be day after tomorrow at the latest.

[azedalis]

Great Intermission.

I saw this asked a couple of pages ago but never saw the answer(might have missed it).

But is there a reason why you don't order militia(and other things like Interceptors) be produced in serial instead of one by one?

There is a couple of reasons I don't do serial runs on normal units is that they don't automatically upgrade when a new unit starts. So if you do a run of say 5 infantry divisions and during that time you get a few unit upgrades, ALL the units produced in the run will be produced at the same unit level with only the upgrades that were availiable when you started the run. When you do it parallel only, everytime you produce a unit you will get the best upgrade availiable. This is especially important with Naval units since you can only upgrade certain parts of a ship. Also I am ensured all the practicals will affect all the units produced. Unlike research, when you complete a rank, the research is placed on the bottom of the que. Parrallel runs staty where they are, so you will start a new one but if you have more in your que then you can full produce, the things on the bottom will never get done or will be slower then I might like. So I prefer to create new runs manually so I can then determine right then where in the que i want to have them.

Now things that don't upgrade, go for serial runs like convoys, escorts, land modifications and such. But if it upgrades, it might be best to avoid serial runs.

[jbarnez]

Incidentally, my current game (based on MisterBean's awesome tutorial) has illustrated perfectly for me these points on serial builds.

The reason is that as I've progressed along my IC expenditure for upgrades is very small (as Germany I've had plenty of IC to spend to get all upgrades issued) - so I can see very easily in the production screen when a new unit is completed if a tech affecting it has finished after the unit went into production my upgrade IC demand increases (so as to apply the latest technology to the unit). Not really a big deal, except for Naval units which obviously only gain minimal upgrades after construction begins.

As a side, when I last posted in here I was concerned I might not have the moxie to complete Barbarossa. Not so! On February 22, 1942 I captured Moscow. The USSR surrendered the next day. Japan retained their conquests in Siberia and the East, the remainder of the USSR was annexed into Germany. Now I get to experience the joys and pain of the whack-a-mole anti-partisan efforts while I turn my conquests towards forcing the UK to surrender - all I need to do is invade India and capture a handful more VCs

Looking forward to more of this AAR, MisterBean, thanks again for your efforts.

-barnez

[misterbean]

@Azedalis: of course there's that too. quite right.

@jbarnez: congrats on your first succesful Barby. India, by the way, can be reached through Persia. I hope you build up the Kriegsmarine to shield your transports for the invasion of UK.

[jbarnez]

@jbarnez: congrats on your first succesful Barby. India, by the way, can be reached through Persia. I hope you build up the Kriegsmarine to shield your transports for the invasion of UK.

Funny you mention hitting India through Persia ... staging troops to do just that was the driving force behind some posts I put in another thread concerning supply. And then for all that I ended up doing something completely different

I had completed a UK invasion in fall of 1940 so the Kriegsmarine is in a pretty good position. I landed my Marine-SturmKorps in Bombay, now about this time Japan was pushing through from the east around Calcutta. I wanted to make sure I gave the KO punch to the UK - so I used my Fallschirmjagerkorps to attack Delhi (essentially undefended due to the Japanese invasion in the east). India was no contest.

But, this gives me a good excuse to ask a question that this has raised: when I conquered the USSR I annexed the territory and the Comintern Faction is gone. I've now gotten the UK to surrender but the Allied Faction is still at war and all of my UK lands are merely occupied territory. Confused!

-barnez

[Lord Curlyton]

Eh you don't a KM to land in the UK, to be honest. As long as the RN has been stretched between Italy, Japan, and you one or two solid BB-groups can take care of the local waters. At least until the US joins the war. Unless you've been keeping them out of the Allies...

[nimrod123]

But, this gives me a good excuse to ask a question that this has raised: when I conquered the USSR I annexed the territory and the Comintern Faction is gone. I've now gotten the UK to surrender but the Allied Faction is still at war and all of my UK lands are merely occupied territory. Confused!

-barnez

the surrender mechanics for the end of the war have never been stellar. they pretty much only work if it goes historical. the human player can make things change so much to ahistorical that it becomes impossible to predict under the current system what events are going to be required.

pretty much once your game becomes a sort of whack-a-mole you have won, which it sounds like your's is

[Lord Curlyton]

Basically you just have to keep finding out who the new faction leader is and eliminating them. Once they drop under a minimum number of held VP's for the faction, the faction collapses (seems to be 15-20 points). Until then all the GiE's just relocate.

[thebigj_a]

There is a couple of reasons I don't do serial runs on normal units is that they don't automatically upgrade when a new unit starts. So if you do a run of say 5 infantry divisions and during that time you get a few unit upgrades, ALL the units produced in the run will be produced at the same unit level with only the upgrades that were availiable when you started the run. When you do it serial only, everytime you produce a unit you will get the best upgrade availiable.

Am I reading this wrong? Because to me, it says, "I don't do serial runs because the later units won't automatically upgrade. When you do serial runs, later units will automatically upgrade." Is that not contradicting itself?

I distinctly remember being told once that later units in a serial run will have upgrades researched during the run. Perhaps I was misinformed.

[nimrod123]

Am I reading this wrong? Because to me, it says, "I don't do serial runs because the later units won't automatically upgrade. When you do serial runs, later units will automatically upgrade." Is that not contradicting itself?

I distinctly remember being told once that later units in a serial run will have upgrades researched during the run. Perhaps I was misinformed.

you where, a serial run ONLY makes the units that where researched at the start of the run, its been this way since HOI2, darkest hour let you work around it by paying a IC cost to have all later units upgraded in the queue, but its not automatic

[misterbean]

when you start a new serial run, it WILL complete all production of this run using the techs AT THE TIME YOU STARTED IT. If you're strapped for IC, officers or MP (playing a minor nation for instance), this could be a tactic used to keep building.

and my next admission is kind of embarassing (to say the least). I seem to have made a mistake with my CAS wings when recreating the tutorial game Please remind me did we have 1 CAS on the field and one in the queu when I last posted a chapter?

[Alycidon]

Welcome back misterbean, very pleased to see this AAR tutorial is going forward.

I've played Germany exclusively up until my current UK game and I was surprised as I read through this just how much I didnt know!

In your last update you had just deployed your second CAS to a wing you had named Stuka 1 and placed a third in the production queue.

[misterbean]

Welcome back misterbean, very pleased to see this AAR tutorial is going forward.

I've played Germany exclusively up until my current UK game and I was surprised as I read through this just how much I didnt know!

In your last update you had just deployed your second CAS to a wing you had named Stuka 1 and placed a third in the production queue.

thank you very much. I knew I was off in that regard.

[azedalis]

Am I reading this wrong? Because to me, it says, "I don't do serial runs because the later units won't automatically upgrade. When you do serial runs, later units will automatically upgrade." Is that not contradicting itself?

I distinctly remember being told once that later units in a serial run will have upgrades researched during the run. Perhaps I was misinformed.

No I accidently said serial only instead of parallel only, I just fixed it.

[misterbean]

Chapter 15: June, 27 to December, 31 1937.

Author’s Note: I followed my own tutorial to the letter, so I think everything will be allright. After all, this is a new campaign for me. Especially in this first new chapter, some of the timing may be jumbled a bit. So if I mention deploying something that you allready did, you all know what happened. Especially concerning CAS, I may have messed up.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE 3 CAS WINGS BY HALF NOVEMBER 1937!!! (forewarned is forearmed)

On the 27th, we get a new detroyer for the Kriegsmarine, but we are about to complete something much more interesting.

As you can see, I have Austria’s NSDAP almost powerful enough to fire the Anschluss. This will raise our threat level, which, in some mods, may be enough to trigger a war if you’re not careful. Just to be on the safe side, let’s deploy the 1. Armee, shall we?

Find them just north of France, in Darmstadt. Select the IX. Armeekorps and click the green bar to select the corps and all it’s divisions. The idea is to have 2 divisions in every border province with France. With all of them selected, right-click Trier. This gives them an order to march there. Click the white “x” next to the corps HQ to deselect it and leave it with orders for Trier. Next right-click Saarlouis. Again deselect 2 divisions, reaving you with 2. Give them orders for Saarbrucken. When you’re done, selecting them all again will look just like the screen above.
Now do the same for the V. Armeekorps. Set the corps in Kaiserlautern and send 2 divs each to Pirmasens and Landau.
The XII. Armeekorps will go to Pforzheim, while the divs will take up residence in Karlsruhe and Baden Baden.
The VII. Armeekorps will be send to Rottweill and it’s divs to Offenburg and Freiburg.
Finally we have the XI. Armeekorps with only 2 divisions. The corps will also go to Rottweill and the divisions to Lorrach.
When you’re done, selecting the entire 1. Armee should look like this:

On the 1st of July, simmering border incidents between Japan and the republic of China will flame into what many historians consider the start of the 2nd World War: the 2nd sino-Japanese war has begun.

First off, the date, like the Spanish Civil War, is not set in stone. Neither is the outcome anymore. It used to be, in Semper Fi, that japan walzed right over China is less than a year. Not anymore. Sometimes they still do, sometimes they get kicked right out of continental Asia alltogether, sometimes it turns into vicious trench warfare that lasts for years.
In your own campaign, you might want to wait until you can see a winner prevailing. In this one, however, we set out to enlist Japan’s mighty Imperial Navy against the UK’s Royal Navy. So if you haven’t been able to get Japan on board the Axis yet, now would be a good time to try again.

Remember to keep prioritising CV techs as they get finished and shut others down that have become up-to-date.

On the 8th, we get the Anschluss. Austria becomes German core territory. Annexation without blood of fear of partisans. What more could a guy want?

Note the fine print here, though. We get 5 dissent and 20 threat, plus diminished relations with several of our neighbours.
On the other hand, we get all their IC, resources, MP and LS as if it were our own, along with a bonus of 500 MP to simulate the integration of the Austrian army into the German Heer. (sorry, no free units in vanilla FtM).
Before we continue, we’ll have to deal with that dissent. This simulates elements of the Austrian people less than happy with the “reunion”. Put ALL our IC into CG for a few days until the dissent is back to zero.
Again, the date may differ, depending on your game and the success of your spies. Just keep going at it if you haven’t gotten them there yet.

Wait one day and pause the game. Go to the research screen and send all extra Leadership to research. 1938 will be a busy year in this regard, so the sooner we can get started, the better.
In my game, dissent went back to zero on the 14th. In the production screen, adjust the sliders:
0.75 in reinforcements, CG 0.05 above need (in my game, this was 9.08), and supplies to 29,00.
Put all the rest in production, giving us 24 extra IC to play with, enough to start building 2 new interceptors.
On the 16th, we get a new infantry division. Deploy it to Köln and give it a new corps (III. Armeekorps, mysteriously missing from the starting German OOB), and attach it to the 2. Armee. We will build this up to 4 divisions as well and send them to occupy the fortresses bordering Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. Give the division a defender or a log wizard, and the corps a log wizard. Start a new one right away.
Two weeks later, we get a new interceptor for the III. Fliegerkorps. As always, start a new interceptor.

By the Way, I was asked why I don’t use serial builds. There are two reasons. First, doing it this way allows me to adapt my queue more easily to the needs of the moment. Secondly, this way whatever I build, will use the most advanced techs AT THE TIME PRODUCTION START.
Playing a minor, however, or a nation with a limited budget, makes this a viable strategy: produce everything you need first and update later. (heck, to some extend we’re doing that even with Germany. Large scale upgrades will wait until 1939).

At the end of august, our subs get commisioned. Deploy them in a new fleet (IV. Unterseebootflotte) in Kiel. We could start a new batch, but we are very close to finishing submarine research. Much better to wait a month. Transfer the wasted IC to supplies or upgrades for now.

On the 7th of September, we get some new artillery for our infantry. Attach it and check the OOB browser to see how many we are short (remember to add the ones allready in the queu!!). Start building them (there should be 6 or so) in a parallell build. Time is precious here. We still need to get started on our tanks and motorised infantry. Adjust the sliders to account for the added production load.
On the 22nd, our light cruiser is done. Attach it to the Kriegsmarine and go to the production screen. We have tons of Manpower wasting away in our pool.

In the division tab, find the template for the “Gebirgsjäger”. This is a division of 2 mountaineer brigades. Add a third one and save the template before starting production.

In case you’re wondering, it is always better to keep these kind of special forces “pure”: you should never mix marines, mountaineers or paratroopers with any kind of support brigade. Some players use marines mixed with engineers. While this makes them awesome in river crossings, it still dilutes their unique skill at amphibious landings.


On the 24th, the final sub tech, Submarine Hull, gets finished. It gives us the opportunity to start 1938 research:

Industry: agriculture, education, industrial production, industrial efficiency, decryption machine (in the case of the UK, should you ever start a game with them, this one is part of the key to catching those rotten subs faster), oil refining and supply production.
Theory: Supply transportation, supply organisation.
Infantry: small arms, infantry support weapons, light artillery, infantry anti-tank weapons, desert warfare equipment.
Armour: all Light Armour, Armour, artillery and anti-air techs.
Escorts: all Destroyer and Light Cruiser techs.
Capital: all 3 Battleship techs, capital ship main armament, heavy cruiser anti-air, battlecruiser anti-air.
Fighter: multi-role. Essentially, this gives us an interceptor with decreased combat power and increased range and ground-attack potential. Perfect for taking out isolated enemy bombers at the edge of the front. Just don’t expect them to win against the Uk’s Interceptors.
Land: mobile warfare, operational level command structure, elastic defense, blitzkrieg, infantry warfare, special forces, assault concentration, integrated support.
Air: all fighter, CAS and Tac pilot traing and ground crew training, interception tactics, ground attack tactics, Interdiction Tactics, Tactical Air Command, all naval plane techs (note that there is still one naval tech researching 1936 technology; leave that one alone).
You should now have a total of 77 techs in the queu, to be finished (hopefully) by the start of 1939. Hence my choice to drop militia support weapns and some of the tactical mission techs (log strike, intallation strike and runway cratering).

While we’re here, we might as well make a little change. Check the number of idle spies in the intelligence screen. If you have over 50 of them, you can sefely decrease the leadership spend on spies by a full point and transfer that point to research instead.
Research: 23.01
Spies: 3.11
Diplo: 2.05
Officer training: 2.19.

Leave the game paused and go to the production screen to start building 3 shining, brand new long-range submarines. (these babies can reach halfway the Atlantic from Kiel). Adjust your sliders to match before unpausing.
Let the game run until you get a new infantry division. Attach it to the III. Armeekorps, but DON’T START A NEW ONE.
In stead, we are going to begin building up the thing that made Germany so feared in real life: the panzers.
In the production screen start production of 1 armour division, consisting of 1 arm and 2 mot brigades. Alternately, you could use 2 arm and 1 mot for added combat prowess, but they use more supplies and fuel. Precious commodities deep inside the Soviet Union.
Adjust the sliders to match. Our supplies will turn red, but that’s ok. We can handle a few weeks of shortcoming here thanks to our careful stockpiling in the last 2 years.
On the 10th of November, NAV tactics gets researched. It is now 38 tech. Leave it at the bottom along with the rest of the air doctrine stuff.

Because I messed up in recreating the tutorial from scratch, I get a 3rd CAS in november. Attach it to stuka 1 and send the IC to supplies to make up for our shortchanging it these past weeks. You may have gotten this one sooner. Or not. The important thing is that by now you should have 3 CAS in the field by half november.

One day later, we get 2 new interceptors. Deploy them in Stuttgardt and rename them into “IV. Fliegerkorps”. Attach them to Heeresgruppe B and start work on 2 new ones. Also start training a new mountain division.

On the 26th, I get a message that Japan conquered Shanxi (the green Chinese warlord in the north of China). While this does not concern us directly, there is one reason to keep an eye on it every once in a while. If Japan can conquer all of China by 1940, they usually puppet it, leaving them with a handful of idle Army Groups that could be used to help keeping British attention away from us. I’ve seen them take India for us by 1942 in some games.

The next interceptor should go to the IV. Fliegerkorps and a new one should be started.

On the 14th of December, our 1st CAG gets done. This wing will eventually be stationed on board the escort Carrier KMS Weser. Contrary to HOI2, you can station CAGs on regular airbases and use them as short-range naval bombers (no that’s not an excuse to go for gamey tactics, they never get the kind of hitting power a real Naval bomber has), but where they really shine is in CAG duty, protecting the carrier from enemy fleets. Note that a CAG can only be attached to a Carrier. Never to a land-based HQ by itself.
For those of you interested in history, it should be noted that a CAG strike on an enemy naval base out of range of your land-based bombers, such as Force H’s strike against the Italian base of Taranto, is possible. I plan to give a more indepth look at naval and aerial matters once we’ve reached january, 1939. So bear with me.

Station the CAG in Stettin and rename it “I. Trägergruppe” (or is that Tragergruppe without umlaut? Germans help me out here). Transfer the IC to supplies.
20 December sees a bunch of infrastructure works get done (finally!). Set supplies to 30 and transfer any wasted IC to upgrades for now as this will give us a clearer view of how much we have left.
CV techs should still be prioritised when finished.

Our last artillery shoud get done by the end of the month. Attach them and don’t forget the 3 divisions in East Prussia. How you do it without troop transports is the following:
1) Click the deployment queue once.
2) Click the OKH.
3) Open the OOB browser by clicking the edge of the OKH card.
4) You can now drag the art over to the division and drop it in place. (also very neat for those micromanagers among us)

Use the IC to start a new armour division.
Save on 31st of December.

If you thought 1937 was fun, just wait to see what I have in store next year, when we really start building an army to be feared!
‘till then, have fun!

[Ready_Set_Go]

No more green and white? I saw it as easier to get the concepts, which is more what I was reading for.

[COLOR="#FFFFFF"]The next interceptor should go to the IV. Fliegerkorps and a new one should be started.[/COLOR

What?

Glad your back Misterbean, I haven't actually touched my HoI3 since you were "indisposed" (Can't think of a better word)... Now to get back to it.

[misterbean]

No more green and white? I saw it as easier to get the concepts, which is more what I was reading for.

What?

Glad your back Misterbean, I haven't actually touched my HoI3 since you were "indisposed" (Can't think of a better word)... Now to get back to it.

there. mistake corrected. thanks for that.