Bit of an odd MP question

Weisenwolf · 02-07-2007, 15:24

I am playing an MP campaign (from 1936) at the momment (as Germany) and unfortunately Italy is AI. We are ploughing on next weekend and have found someone to take on Italy; unfortunately he is a rookie so I have knocked up a bit of a guide to the current situation and suggestions on what to do. I am after folk to have a gander at this and see if I have missed any screamingly obvious information he could do with (or of course my advice is nonsense

)

Summary of events so far

Bad News
• Italy has been kicked out of Africa
• Most of the Italian Navy has been sunk (some old cruisers and destroyers left)
• UK has the French Navy (and some other smaller ones too)
• UK has more than 50 French divisions and a lot are in Africa
• German Navy also almost completely sunk
• Sweden is in the Allied camp

Good News
• Germany has Gibraltar
• Spain is in the Axis
• Italy has Yugoslavia and bits of Greece
• Italy has plenty (more than 80) Infantry divisions
• Italy has higher tech than usual and lots of blueprints
• UK Navy has taken casualties including carriers 

What needs to be done
1. Challenge the UK Navy as soon as possible
2. Re-invade North Africa; we must take Suez and cut the UK’s supply to the Med.
3. Defend Italy (fixed AA, a division on every beach square etc)
4. Retake all those Med Islands UK has nicked; Malta would be useful

Top research and building priority (Do this first and ASAP)
• Get Long Range sub technology ASAP (you will have a blueprint) and build ideally at least 6 long series of them (just set it at 99). This will cost around 15IC/day and provide 18+ submarines a year. Deploy them in groups of 12 to 18 (depending on commanders available)
• Research Improved Naval Bombers (You either have or are about to get blueprints from Germany). You need at lease 12 of these (you may already have a few) and ideally 16 to 24 of them organised in groups of 4. Build at least 2 and ideally 3 long series of these. They cost just over 10 IC a day each and you may already have one series on the go.
• Germany is going to do exactly the same and as I have Gib I can base mine there and give you a hand in the med. I also intend to have Greece soon too since a German base actually in the med would be even better.

Other Top research priorities• Research Air Doctrines particularly for Interceptors and Fighters. UK is definitely in front of us in this regard by some margin.
• Research Naval Doctrine (as above)
• Research Ship tech. Do not build anything below ‘Improved’ and ‘Advanced’ would be better. Priorities are Carries, Destroyers and Cruisers.
• Research Fighters IF you think you can squeeze them onto your production queue

Build queue priorities
• Scrap all ships being produced; they will not be modern enough to take on the Royal Navy.
• Consider whether you will need more Transport ships (you have about 9)
• Make sure you have enough Convoy/Escort ships to support an invasion of North Africa
• Stop building Interceptors as you have about 16 squadrons and that is enough! Building Fighters when you have the technology would be more useful.
• UK has only 4 armoured divisions and I don’t think they are in Africa so you don’t NEED armour you may however LIKE to have some. If so build 3 divisions ideally with brigades attached but don’t build them if they interfere with the building of Naval Bombers and Submarines.
• Make sure you have enough Garrison Divisions (with MP brigades) to get decent (chequer board i.e. not adjacent to each other) coverage over Yugoslavia (you may have enough already)
• Upgrading would be useful too as Italy AI is not good at this and unlikely to be up to date; prioritise Naval Bombers/Fighters/Invasion troops.

The plan

Germany is going to Invade Greece (so I have a port in the med); Germany is then going to Invade Turkey. This will give me a border with Iraq (which is UK owned) and likely as not draw a lot of UK soldiers out of North Africa so you can Invade more easily. Basically it is my job to drive all the way to Suez and your job to get to Port Said. So here is how I suggest you do it.
• Prepare your Invading Armies in groups of 3 (possibly one group of 6 including a HQ) all with the best commanders and best units you have (Mountain etc.) also reallocate whatever brigades you have to these units remembering not to mix brigades that slow you down with those that do not. I suspect you need at least 21 Divisions in this group (As you have 9 transports that will be 3 Waves). Also prepare some more groups of 3 for reinforcement purposes after you have a bridgehead. You can afford to commit a lot of troops to this because I can use our Balkan Allies (Bulgaria, Hungary etc.) to cover Italy and you have lots of Infantry divisions.
• Obviously prepare your transports in 3’s too (or one 6 and one 3 if you are taking a big Corps with a HQ)
• Place single obsolete ships in a perimeter around the area of invasions. These are here to give advanced warning of when the Royal Navy reacts to your Invasion so you don’t get your fleet sunk. The ships themselves are doomed which is why you just need one in each sea province.
• Ideally do not make a contested Landing as you have no marines and are likely to lose. Use Aircraft to find landing points: the best location would be a province with a beach AND a major Port AND with nobody in it. An alternative would be two unoccupied Provinces either side of the above. Land on both and attack the Port from two directions at once.
• However you land you need to rush and grab territory as fast as possible while your transports shuttle the 2nd and 3rd wave in as fast as possible. Obviously keep an eye out for the reaction of the Royal Navy. You may get all three waves landed safely but you won’t get any more.
• If you have expanded quickly you ought to have several ports under your control. Try and monitor where the Royal Navy is and when you get the chance transport more and more troops to North Africa at the Ports farthest from the Royal Navy. With a bit of luck he will either keep missing you or if he splits his Navy up we can pick it off with Naval Bombers (or what is left of your Navy)
• Keep driving to Suez. You will need a mass attack at several choke points (Hence the need for a HQ) use you aircraft when you have an Airfield and expect German places to help too.
• Don’t forget to keep an eye on the replacement and supply sliders.

Other Matters

1. Diplomatic Sliders: Move towards either Central Planning (gives more IC) or professional Army (reduces upgrade costs)
2. Resources: yell out if you are desperate for anything and I will try and supply you with whatever you need.
3. If you build tanks remember that Medium Tanks require more than 1 transport per division so either build light tanks or be prepared to use more transports.
4. When you do finally get around to building a real Carrier Navy aim for 4 carriers and at least twice as many Cruisers and Destroyers (ideally more). The carriers will take about 2 years to build the Cruisers several months and the destroyers a few months so you may be able to build the smaller ships in a series to reduce costs but the carriers are likely to be one off buys.
5. In the case of Ship research and Air/Naval Doctrine research we need to cooperate so that we are not both doing the same tech at the same time. Better for one of us to do it and pass the blueprints to the other. Other than advancing submarine and naval bomber tech as Top priority above you will want almost all you research on these three areas for some time to come. If deemed necessary use one tech team for research elsewhere (Tanks, Artillery, Industrial or whatever) but only do those tech that you have a blueprint for; I will keep pumping the blueprints your way.
6. Ministers. Have a look at your ministers and see if it is worth changing any of them. Bare in mind any change causes dissent but it may be worth it if you can boost IC or ship/Naval bomber research/build cost or you can reduce supply demand or consumer goods demand.
7. Obviously while all this is going on I need to plan for War with the Soviet Union and I hope this will not happen until we have retaken North Africa. I then intend to give you control of a couple of choice German units (Like the Africa Corps) and let you get on with it while I get hammered by the Commie Red wedge. 

sbr · 03-07-2007, 00:37

I don't play MP, but I skimmed through this and this caught my eye:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weisenwolf

3. If you build tanks remember that Medium Tanks require more than 1 transport per division so either build light tanks or be prepared to use more transports.

IIRC one transport will move one division regardless of type. I actually haven't played HOI II in a few months but I am pretty sure that is correct. Is MP different, or do you have a different version?

lek · 06-07-2007, 13:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbr

I don't play MP, but I skimmed through this and this caught my eye:

IIRC one transport will move one division regardless of type. I actually haven't played HOI II in a few months but I am pretty sure that is correct. Is MP different, or do you have a different version?

Nah you are correct, one transport equals one division. But back to the original part, i was under the impression that the AI will continue to resupply though contested straits regardless? (clarification please)

Squash · 09-07-2007, 09:21

It's a well constructed guide, and I hope you don't take this to be insulting, but I do have one piece of advice. You could let him play his own game instead of telling him exactly what to do. I'd leave the good news and bad news section, and reword the what to do section to be a description of what you're going to do, and suggestions for how he could help the war effort.

Weisenwolf · 09-07-2007, 09:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squash

It's a well constructed guide, and I hope you don't take this to be insulting, but I do have one piece of advice. You could let him play his own game instead of telling him exactly what to do. I'd leave the good news and bad news section, and reword the what to do section to be a description of what you're going to do, and suggestions for how he could help the war effort.

He willl take it as nothing more than a suggestion anyway and there is every possiblity that what we do will vary from 'The Plan' but the Axis are going to have to co-operate to have any furtehr influence on North Africa and we may as well have a starting plan even if is it heavily modified before it gets carried out.

Allies are not much use to each other if they play their own game; also the new player will simply get eaten alive by the more experienced UK player if he doesn't get a bit of help and that will not be much fun for him either.

screwtype · 09-07-2007, 10:37

My only comment - as I have some experience with Italy, having played through several half campaigns - why bother with the naval side of the game? Challenging the UK at sea will be a major task and Italy is hardly likely to ever provide one.

When I play Italy I completely ignore the naval research tree and the navy, except to build a few transports early while I want to move stuff around in peacetime. I'm not sure of the best way to approach the game when Britain already has a firm grip on the ME but I would be looking for a coup against Suez if possible, with paratroops if navy invasion is out, other than that probably just a land campaign through Turkey. Or maybe just forget about the ME and help Germany knock off the Soviet Union instead?

Weisenwolf · 10-07-2007, 19:43

I understand your point but the UK is not going to let him ignore her so he is going to have to find away to engage the UK in North Africa. The paratroop idea is a nice one but that is still going to require reinforcement by sea and the med is crawling with allied Naval Vessels.

02-07-2007, 15:24	#1
Weisenwolf Captain Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 405	Bit of an odd MP question I am playing an MP campaign (from 1936) at the momment (as Germany) and unfortunately Italy is AI. We are ploughing on next weekend and have found someone to take on Italy; unfortunately he is a rookie so I have knocked up a bit of a guide to the current situation and suggestions on what to do. I am after folk to have a gander at this and see if I have missed any screamingly obvious information he could do with (or of course my advice is nonsense ) Summary of events so far Bad News • Italy has been kicked out of Africa • Most of the Italian Navy has been sunk (some old cruisers and destroyers left) • UK has the French Navy (and some other smaller ones too) • UK has more than 50 French divisions and a lot are in Africa • German Navy also almost completely sunk • Sweden is in the Allied camp Good News • Germany has Gibraltar • Spain is in the Axis • Italy has Yugoslavia and bits of Greece • Italy has plenty (more than 80) Infantry divisions • Italy has higher tech than usual and lots of blueprints • UK Navy has taken casualties including carriers  What needs to be done 1. Challenge the UK Navy as soon as possible 2. Re-invade North Africa; we must take Suez and cut the UK’s supply to the Med. 3. Defend Italy (fixed AA, a division on every beach square etc) 4. Retake all those Med Islands UK has nicked; Malta would be useful Top research and building priority (Do this first and ASAP) • Get Long Range sub technology ASAP (you will have a blueprint) and build ideally at least 6 long series of them (just set it at 99). This will cost around 15IC/day and provide 18+ submarines a year. Deploy them in groups of 12 to 18 (depending on commanders available) • Research Improved Naval Bombers (You either have or are about to get blueprints from Germany). You need at lease 12 of these (you may already have a few) and ideally 16 to 24 of them organised in groups of 4. Build at least 2 and ideally 3 long series of these. They cost just over 10 IC a day each and you may already have one series on the go. • Germany is going to do exactly the same and as I have Gib I can base mine there and give you a hand in the med. I also intend to have Greece soon too since a German base actually in the med would be even better. Other Top research priorities• Research Air Doctrines particularly for Interceptors and Fighters. UK is definitely in front of us in this regard by some margin. • Research Naval Doctrine (as above) • Research Ship tech. Do not build anything below ‘Improved’ and ‘Advanced’ would be better. Priorities are Carries, Destroyers and Cruisers. • Research Fighters IF you think you can squeeze them onto your production queue Build queue priorities • Scrap all ships being produced; they will not be modern enough to take on the Royal Navy. • Consider whether you will need more Transport ships (you have about 9) • Make sure you have enough Convoy/Escort ships to support an invasion of North Africa • Stop building Interceptors as you have about 16 squadrons and that is enough! Building Fighters when you have the technology would be more useful. • UK has only 4 armoured divisions and I don’t think they are in Africa so you don’t NEED armour you may however LIKE to have some. If so build 3 divisions ideally with brigades attached but don’t build them if they interfere with the building of Naval Bombers and Submarines. • Make sure you have enough Garrison Divisions (with MP brigades) to get decent (chequer board i.e. not adjacent to each other) coverage over Yugoslavia (you may have enough already) • Upgrading would be useful too as Italy AI is not good at this and unlikely to be up to date; prioritise Naval Bombers/Fighters/Invasion troops. The plan Germany is going to Invade Greece (so I have a port in the med); Germany is then going to Invade Turkey. This will give me a border with Iraq (which is UK owned) and likely as not draw a lot of UK soldiers out of North Africa so you can Invade more easily. Basically it is my job to drive all the way to Suez and your job to get to Port Said. So here is how I suggest you do it. • Prepare your Invading Armies in groups of 3 (possibly one group of 6 including a HQ) all with the best commanders and best units you have (Mountain etc.) also reallocate whatever brigades you have to these units remembering not to mix brigades that slow you down with those that do not. I suspect you need at least 21 Divisions in this group (As you have 9 transports that will be 3 Waves). Also prepare some more groups of 3 for reinforcement purposes after you have a bridgehead. You can afford to commit a lot of troops to this because I can use our Balkan Allies (Bulgaria, Hungary etc.) to cover Italy and you have lots of Infantry divisions. • Obviously prepare your transports in 3’s too (or one 6 and one 3 if you are taking a big Corps with a HQ) • Place single obsolete ships in a perimeter around the area of invasions. These are here to give advanced warning of when the Royal Navy reacts to your Invasion so you don’t get your fleet sunk. The ships themselves are doomed which is why you just need one in each sea province. • Ideally do not make a contested Landing as you have no marines and are likely to lose. Use Aircraft to find landing points: the best location would be a province with a beach AND a major Port AND with nobody in it. An alternative would be two unoccupied Provinces either side of the above. Land on both and attack the Port from two directions at once. • However you land you need to rush and grab territory as fast as possible while your transports shuttle the 2nd and 3rd wave in as fast as possible. Obviously keep an eye out for the reaction of the Royal Navy. You may get all three waves landed safely but you won’t get any more. • If you have expanded quickly you ought to have several ports under your control. Try and monitor where the Royal Navy is and when you get the chance transport more and more troops to North Africa at the Ports farthest from the Royal Navy. With a bit of luck he will either keep missing you or if he splits his Navy up we can pick it off with Naval Bombers (or what is left of your Navy) • Keep driving to Suez. You will need a mass attack at several choke points (Hence the need for a HQ) use you aircraft when you have an Airfield and expect German places to help too. • Don’t forget to keep an eye on the replacement and supply sliders. Other Matters 1. Diplomatic Sliders: Move towards either Central Planning (gives more IC) or professional Army (reduces upgrade costs) 2. Resources: yell out if you are desperate for anything and I will try and supply you with whatever you need. 3. If you build tanks remember that Medium Tanks require more than 1 transport per division so either build light tanks or be prepared to use more transports. 4. When you do finally get around to building a real Carrier Navy aim for 4 carriers and at least twice as many Cruisers and Destroyers (ideally more). The carriers will take about 2 years to build the Cruisers several months and the destroyers a few months so you may be able to build the smaller ships in a series to reduce costs but the carriers are likely to be one off buys. 5. In the case of Ship research and Air/Naval Doctrine research we need to cooperate so that we are not both doing the same tech at the same time. Better for one of us to do it and pass the blueprints to the other. Other than advancing submarine and naval bomber tech as Top priority above you will want almost all you research on these three areas for some time to come. If deemed necessary use one tech team for research elsewhere (Tanks, Artillery, Industrial or whatever) but only do those tech that you have a blueprint for; I will keep pumping the blueprints your way. 6. Ministers. Have a look at your ministers and see if it is worth changing any of them. Bare in mind any change causes dissent but it may be worth it if you can boost IC or ship/Naval bomber research/build cost or you can reduce supply demand or consumer goods demand. 7. Obviously while all this is going on I need to plan for War with the Soviet Union and I hope this will not happen until we have retaken North Africa. I then intend to give you control of a couple of choice German units (Like the Africa Corps) and let you get on with it while I get hammered by the Commie Red wedge.  Last edited by Weisenwolf; 05-07-2007 at 08:27.

10-07-2007, 19:43	#7
Weisenwolf Captain Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 405	I understand your point but the UK is not going to let him ignore her so he is going to have to find away to engage the UK in North Africa. The paratroop idea is a nice one but that is still going to require reinforcement by sea and the med is crawling with allied Naval Vessels. __________________ 'In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it' Rommel 'There is every possiblity that any facts alluded to in this post are incorrect' Weisenwolf 2007

09-07-2007, 09:21	#4
Squash Second Lieutenant Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 173	It's a well constructed guide, and I hope you don't take this to be insulting, but I do have one piece of advice. You could let him play his own game instead of telling him exactly what to do. I'd leave the good news and bad news section, and reword the what to do section to be a description of what you're going to do, and suggestions for how he could help the war effort.

09-07-2007, 10:37	#6
screwtype Colonel Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,078	My only comment - as I have some experience with Italy, having played through several half campaigns - why bother with the naval side of the game? Challenging the UK at sea will be a major task and Italy is hardly likely to ever provide one. When I play Italy I completely ignore the naval research tree and the navy, except to build a few transports early while I want to move stuff around in peacetime. I'm not sure of the best way to approach the game when Britain already has a firm grip on the ME but I would be looking for a coup against Suez if possible, with paratroops if navy invasion is out, other than that probably just a land campaign through Turkey. Or maybe just forget about the ME and help Germany knock off the Soviet Union instead?