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Unit Comparison Principles
I don’t know why but it seemed like a good idea to write an essay on unit comparison. To compare different units it is important to understand the properties that units have. Units have a number of important capabilities.
Units have the ability to inflict damage on other units. This capability is represented by the various attack strengths. Which attack strengths are most important depends on what enemy units your unit is going to be fighting.
Next is a unit’s ability to resist having damage done to it. This is represented by the units various defence strengths in combination, for ground combat, with ground defence efficiency. These defence strengths represent the ability to shrug off damage without effect rather than the ability to absorb damage.
Next is the ability to absorb damage. This is identical for all units and is exactly 100 when at full strength. It is a highly important issue that this ability is the same for all units as it acts as a weakness for all the more expensive units. This is an important point for comparing units as it reflects a benefit in creating more units out of the same resources. We have, for example, the odd fact that militia divisions appear to be able to absorb far more casualties for the destruction of the same manpower and material than other more sophisticated divisions. It is only their other weaknesses that makes them such poor value.
Next is the ability of a unit to remain in combat and this is represented by organisation. This is often a highly important property for enemy units but if you are playing using my approach then it is far less important for your own units. As far as I am concerned, no unit of mine will continue to fight a battle in which it is taking heavy losses and therefore the ability to sustain such a fight is superfluous.
These then are the key capabilities of units and can act as a basis for comparison. If we ignore the organisation (which is what I intend to do) then the only variables are attack, defence and numbers of units. This is a significant point about numbers of units. Your ability to absorb casualties relates to numbers of units rather than any other property. My Russian infantry strategy exploits this by absorbing casualties across many infantry divisions it becomes difficult for the enemy to have much impact.
Assuming that I intend to use my units in such a way as to never take heavy casualties the ability to absorb casualties also becomes unimportant. This leaves me with only attack and defence really mattering. This is a point at which other factors need considering. There are a variety of combat modifiers according to weather and terrain which can influence the choice of units. These special circumstances will promote the desire for the use of infantry over motorised troops of all types and, more specifically, a preference for mountain troops and marines for use against difficult terrain. I will leave this as a special case indicating a desire for some mountain troops and a fair number of foot infantry in the army.
Moving on to the more general case, what should my unit preferences be? When fighting an enemy one for one all I need is for my defence to exceed their attack. Any defence strength beyond this is superfluous so this puts a limit on desirable defence strength. However, when fighting in larger numbers I can expect some of my divisions to be under attack at 2:1 or even 3:1. In these cases, because of the dramatic effect of having defence exceeded, it is important to have defence twice the enemy attack and desirable to go even higher. This suggests that the important aspect of defence is its ratio to the enemy’s attack strength.
Now I will have a small aside on brigades to consider how useful they are. All brigade attachments are expensive and often have quite limited effect.
Antitank brigades make infantry divisions 3x as expensive in ICs and only add hard attack capability. They cost an additional 2 manpower which is typical of brigades. The result is that any division with an antitank brigade creates a 20% increase in manpower and 200% increase in IC casualties when in a battle and it only has any benefit if attacking a hard target. This is ameliorated a little for other division types. Motorised are 2.5x ICs, mechanised are 2x, armoured are 1.6x to 1.8x. We have a similar story for other brigades.
Let us consider the most popular ‘attack’ brigade – the artillery attachment. If I build 5 InfA it costs 8525 ICs and 60 manpower. This gives me a potentially significant increase in soft and hard attack but no improvement in defence. Let us consider some alternative builds, I could build 6 mechanised divisions and save 300 ICs. In a typical mid-game situation the InfA may have a bonus of around 5SA for the artillery. Interestingly the mechanised will be very similar in total soft attack to the InfA divisions. On top of this the mechanised have an advantage of numbers which will spread enemy attacks and hence improve the ability to resist. They are high speed divisions. They are ‘hard’ divisions and subject to the enemies much lower hard attack strength. Overall I can see no reason to build these InfA given that I can get mechanised divisions at a lower price.
This analysis can be extended to all sorts of division-brigade combinations by comparing the resulting unit strengths with vanilla versions of other more expensive units. The argument always seems to work out the same, offering more combat capability to the more advanced vanilla units. I have concluded that it is best to avoid brigades until the IC cost has become unimportant. This has some consequences but you can evaluate for yourself from the performance in the AAR.
The next issue is a comparison of soft and hard units. There is always a need for soft foot units for difficult terrain and they are also the cheapest units so these tend to feature significantly in most armies. I will take some mid-war figures that are actually biased against my choice (i.e. the figures are often even more in my favour). Lets take an enemy infantry with 5 HA, 10 SA, 15 GD. If I fight this with infantry with 15 SA, 22 GD; or with mechanised 15 SA, 15 GD; what is the difference. First of all my ability to inflict casualties is identical (in reality the mechanised divisions are likely to have slightly better soft attack). Secondly their ability to inflict casualties is reduced. They need even higher odds to achieve a hard attack superiority against my ground defence and they have altogether half the attack capability. This suggests that when equal numbers of units are involved I will suffer less than 50% of the casualty rate. In reality the soft / hard attack ratio is likely to be even more in my favour. The attack/defence ratio is also critical as hitting the 1:3 ratio neutralises significant casualty risks from large battles.
This shows the significant advantage of mechanised divisions over infantry divisions. The second aspect is the manoeuvrability advantage of mechanised over other units, mechanised are move 10, motorised move 8 and foot move 5. This is significant as the expense of mechanised units means there will be less of them and they must use manoeuvre to engage in battles at good odds. The effect will be seen at its most dramatic during the Russian campaign but that is still a long way off.
I don’t know why but it seemed like a good idea to write an essay on unit comparison. To compare different units it is important to understand the properties that units have. Units have a number of important capabilities.
Units have the ability to inflict damage on other units. This capability is represented by the various attack strengths. Which attack strengths are most important depends on what enemy units your unit is going to be fighting.
Next is a unit’s ability to resist having damage done to it. This is represented by the units various defence strengths in combination, for ground combat, with ground defence efficiency. These defence strengths represent the ability to shrug off damage without effect rather than the ability to absorb damage.
Next is the ability to absorb damage. This is identical for all units and is exactly 100 when at full strength. It is a highly important issue that this ability is the same for all units as it acts as a weakness for all the more expensive units. This is an important point for comparing units as it reflects a benefit in creating more units out of the same resources. We have, for example, the odd fact that militia divisions appear to be able to absorb far more casualties for the destruction of the same manpower and material than other more sophisticated divisions. It is only their other weaknesses that makes them such poor value.
Next is the ability of a unit to remain in combat and this is represented by organisation. This is often a highly important property for enemy units but if you are playing using my approach then it is far less important for your own units. As far as I am concerned, no unit of mine will continue to fight a battle in which it is taking heavy losses and therefore the ability to sustain such a fight is superfluous.
These then are the key capabilities of units and can act as a basis for comparison. If we ignore the organisation (which is what I intend to do) then the only variables are attack, defence and numbers of units. This is a significant point about numbers of units. Your ability to absorb casualties relates to numbers of units rather than any other property. My Russian infantry strategy exploits this by absorbing casualties across many infantry divisions it becomes difficult for the enemy to have much impact.
Assuming that I intend to use my units in such a way as to never take heavy casualties the ability to absorb casualties also becomes unimportant. This leaves me with only attack and defence really mattering. This is a point at which other factors need considering. There are a variety of combat modifiers according to weather and terrain which can influence the choice of units. These special circumstances will promote the desire for the use of infantry over motorised troops of all types and, more specifically, a preference for mountain troops and marines for use against difficult terrain. I will leave this as a special case indicating a desire for some mountain troops and a fair number of foot infantry in the army.
Moving on to the more general case, what should my unit preferences be? When fighting an enemy one for one all I need is for my defence to exceed their attack. Any defence strength beyond this is superfluous so this puts a limit on desirable defence strength. However, when fighting in larger numbers I can expect some of my divisions to be under attack at 2:1 or even 3:1. In these cases, because of the dramatic effect of having defence exceeded, it is important to have defence twice the enemy attack and desirable to go even higher. This suggests that the important aspect of defence is its ratio to the enemy’s attack strength.
Now I will have a small aside on brigades to consider how useful they are. All brigade attachments are expensive and often have quite limited effect.
Antitank brigades make infantry divisions 3x as expensive in ICs and only add hard attack capability. They cost an additional 2 manpower which is typical of brigades. The result is that any division with an antitank brigade creates a 20% increase in manpower and 200% increase in IC casualties when in a battle and it only has any benefit if attacking a hard target. This is ameliorated a little for other division types. Motorised are 2.5x ICs, mechanised are 2x, armoured are 1.6x to 1.8x. We have a similar story for other brigades.
Let us consider the most popular ‘attack’ brigade – the artillery attachment. If I build 5 InfA it costs 8525 ICs and 60 manpower. This gives me a potentially significant increase in soft and hard attack but no improvement in defence. Let us consider some alternative builds, I could build 6 mechanised divisions and save 300 ICs. In a typical mid-game situation the InfA may have a bonus of around 5SA for the artillery. Interestingly the mechanised will be very similar in total soft attack to the InfA divisions. On top of this the mechanised have an advantage of numbers which will spread enemy attacks and hence improve the ability to resist. They are high speed divisions. They are ‘hard’ divisions and subject to the enemies much lower hard attack strength. Overall I can see no reason to build these InfA given that I can get mechanised divisions at a lower price.
This analysis can be extended to all sorts of division-brigade combinations by comparing the resulting unit strengths with vanilla versions of other more expensive units. The argument always seems to work out the same, offering more combat capability to the more advanced vanilla units. I have concluded that it is best to avoid brigades until the IC cost has become unimportant. This has some consequences but you can evaluate for yourself from the performance in the AAR.
The next issue is a comparison of soft and hard units. There is always a need for soft foot units for difficult terrain and they are also the cheapest units so these tend to feature significantly in most armies. I will take some mid-war figures that are actually biased against my choice (i.e. the figures are often even more in my favour). Lets take an enemy infantry with 5 HA, 10 SA, 15 GD. If I fight this with infantry with 15 SA, 22 GD; or with mechanised 15 SA, 15 GD; what is the difference. First of all my ability to inflict casualties is identical (in reality the mechanised divisions are likely to have slightly better soft attack). Secondly their ability to inflict casualties is reduced. They need even higher odds to achieve a hard attack superiority against my ground defence and they have altogether half the attack capability. This suggests that when equal numbers of units are involved I will suffer less than 50% of the casualty rate. In reality the soft / hard attack ratio is likely to be even more in my favour. The attack/defence ratio is also critical as hitting the 1:3 ratio neutralises significant casualty risks from large battles.
This shows the significant advantage of mechanised divisions over infantry divisions. The second aspect is the manoeuvrability advantage of mechanised over other units, mechanised are move 10, motorised move 8 and foot move 5. This is significant as the expense of mechanised units means there will be less of them and they must use manoeuvre to engage in battles at good odds. The effect will be seen at its most dramatic during the Russian campaign but that is still a long way off.
Apology
Just a quick update on the ministerial analysis. Unfortunately I used -3% dissent for the silent lawyer when he is really only -1%. This means that the IC gain for him is a mere 3,500 rather than 10,500 which does rather change the balance between him and the man of the people. The choice is now much more in favour of the man of the people and I believe most players would be better of with that choice.
o
I'm surprised nobody spotted this and pointed it out.
Just a quick update on the ministerial analysis. Unfortunately I used -3% dissent for the silent lawyer when he is really only -1%. This means that the IC gain for him is a mere 3,500 rather than 10,500 which does rather change the balance between him and the man of the people. The choice is now much more in favour of the man of the people and I believe most players would be better of with that choice.
o I'm surprised nobody spotted this and pointed it out.
Strategy
German strategy is an interesting subject for analysis. It is all too easy to lapse into a strategy of conquering as many countries as possible as quickly as possible. This is not really a strategy and contains significant risks. It is worth taking a step back and thinking about what needs to be achieved.
In my Russian AAR there wasn’t really any question about strategy. Russian objectives are to survive and defeat Germany and then with the overwhelming force created in this process take control of the ‘mainland’ (Europe, Africa and Asia). This then creates a situation of world dominance that requires relatively routine application of overwhelming power to finish a world conquest.
Germany is different, contrary to popular belief there is no special enemy that needs defeating. Russia is often given this status but it isn’t actually all that difficult to defeat, there is just a lot of it. Obviously I am heading for the same ‘mainland’ conquest objective as with Russia but as Germany I have a much greater range of intermediate issues.
I have already indicated that the plan is to start the war at the ‘official’ start date. The reason I am doing this is to make sure I have some mechanised divisions before starting. If I was willing to sacrifice this then I would agree with others who suggest earlier starting. Waiting after Munich to acquire the province claims on Poland provides very little benefit and is not, of itself, worth the delay.
When I go to war the first objective is to conquer Poland. On balance this is probably the best thing to do but I have seriously considered the alternative of France first. The weakness of the France first strategy is that the Polish border is longer and requires more troops and the very limited mechanised forces available in September are not really adequate for taking down France. I strategy I have experimented with in the past is to avoid war starting in September 1939 and keep demanding territory from the French through the winter. This has a significant chance of working but most of the time just results in a declaration of war in early 1940. It is an interesting approach but cannot form part of a reliable plan.
Again there is an important difference between German strategy and Russian strategy. In the Russian AAR I made the point that the objective was to destroy the German army. The German strategy is not about destroying enemy armies, or at least not at this stage of the war. The German strategy is about taking key locations and annexing countries. When I invade Poland I don’t want to destroy the Polish army, I just want to take all the VP provinces as quickly as possible and with minimal casualties. This has a number of implications which will become apparent when I start describing the campaigns. One worth considering is the change in the status of air support. Air support is predominantly a weapon for defeating enemy forces rather than destroying them. As the Russians I didn’t really miss having any air support because it didn’t do what I wanted. As Germany air support is just the ticket and therefore air power plays a significant role in allowing me to defeat enemy forces more quickly and with lower casualties.
After Poland has been annexed Germany is in a very strong defensive position and I have the option of doing whatever I like. This is the point where major choices should be made. I am obviously going to declare war on a lot of countries and, as a result, take a lot of dissent hits which add up. At this stage of the war this dissent is a major issue that is often downplayed or ignored by many players. The fact is that each 1% of dissent costs 5-7 days production and a major DOW spree can have serious impact on science and unit build programmes. Therefore I need to focus on achieving grand strategy objectives with a minimum of DOWs. This leaves the question of which countries I need to conquer or are worth conquering in this period.
The Grand strategy objectives are primarily about access to resources. I need to acquire major Rubber supplies to keep my industrial machine going. I should be worrying about oil but in the game it is not an issue in itself. There is enough oil around to fuel an amazingly large mechanised army. The oil doesn’t run out until it is drained by conversion to rubber. When I have significant industrial technology enhancements and switch to prince of terror security minister I will also have a problem with coal and steel. This will be ameliorated in the long term by taking areas which have significant resource surpluses compared with ICs but is ultimately an insoluble problem. Fortunately it is perfectly reasonable to deal with this by reducing production by switching to different ministers.
The Grand strategy then is based on acquiring resource stockpiles from conquered countries and finally by taking the rubber areas in the Far East. This makes my priority the invasion of the Middle East and then on into India and Africa as quickly as possible. I will need a land path into the Middle East and typically this should be achieved by annexing Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey. It is possible to take Greece instead of Bulgaria but a bit less direct and more vulnerable to foreign intervention.
I am working on a world conquest strategy without allies and therefore I will, sooner or later, be taking out all my potential Balkan allies. In a more conventional game this is a mistake as these allies can provide substantial aid. The combination of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria can provide around 100 divisions to support the invasion of Russia. With full commitment to technology transfer these divisions are almost up to the German quality and make a huge difference to the forces available. I will be doing without this.
So my strategy after Poland goes as follows.
Invade and annex Hungary as it provides significant resources and ICs and provides access to Yugoslavia. Note that I am going with the partition with Hungary option of Czechoslovakia as otherwise I am stuck with Slovakia as an ally. This gives me a claim on Hungary which I will not demand off them as it halves the dissent hit for declaring war.
After Hungary I will take out Yugoslavia and then, with mountain troops, Bulgaria. By this time I will be well into the winter period but this has far less impact this far south. Next step is Turkey, another fairly routine operation except the mountains in the East which require the mountain troops and / or paratroops. After this I will be fighting straight through into Africa and Persia as quickly as possible. It is important to progress as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile I will conquer Holland as a base ready for the invasion of France. I could easily take out Denmark as well but it doesn’t fulfil any important strategic role so it is better to leave it till later. In contrast with most players I am not going to invade Scandinavia at all at this stage of the game. I have a reliable strategy – Denmark to seal the Baltic, Paratroops to gain a Swedish port and then major troop landings, overwhelm Sweden and then fight up through Norway. Despite this I will leave them as they are not a priority. Scandinavia leaves you with more coasts to defend, an additional front against Russia and major shipping commitments. The benefit is predominantly in steel production which I won’t actually need until much later. They will divert major troops during the rather long winded invasion and provide additional dissent to eliminate.
The objective of the winter 1939/1940 period is to set up ready for invading France in the spring and to break out into the African and Asian campaigns. As well as the Geographic issues there is also the need to build up forces. It is well worth having substantial mechanised forces for cleaning up France. The invasion strategy for France is a rapid penetration along the Belgian coast and head straight for the Vichy objectives (enough territory [25%] plus Paris). As soon as Vichy triggers I declare war on them to make sure I don’t end up with any allies.
The conquest of France is immediately followed by the invasion of Spain. It is tempting to leave this until later because of the dissent hit but annexing Spain gives me some supply bases in Africa that go a long way to reduce the logistic penalties. Through the summer 1940 I want to take Africa as quickly as possible with the objective of annexing Vichy France and Belgium. The annexing of Belgium is particularly useful as significant rubber supplies can be acquired from their African stockpiles as well as continuing production.
Mid to late summer of 1940 is the ideal time for invading the UK mainland but I will leave the details of how to go about this for later. This is a key step in undermining the UK war effort and denying the allies a base in Europe.
The final step is to say a little something about Russia. I have no concerns about defeating Russia but the length of front has some issues. I will have a long front in the South as well as the West and this requires a lot of troops for holding back the Russians in critical locations. This means that I want as many troops as possible freed up from other fronts to support the invasion and that when it takes place I need to be as economical as possible. Any further comments will have to wait for the invasion but you may be a little surprised at how I do it.
German strategy is an interesting subject for analysis. It is all too easy to lapse into a strategy of conquering as many countries as possible as quickly as possible. This is not really a strategy and contains significant risks. It is worth taking a step back and thinking about what needs to be achieved.
In my Russian AAR there wasn’t really any question about strategy. Russian objectives are to survive and defeat Germany and then with the overwhelming force created in this process take control of the ‘mainland’ (Europe, Africa and Asia). This then creates a situation of world dominance that requires relatively routine application of overwhelming power to finish a world conquest.
Germany is different, contrary to popular belief there is no special enemy that needs defeating. Russia is often given this status but it isn’t actually all that difficult to defeat, there is just a lot of it. Obviously I am heading for the same ‘mainland’ conquest objective as with Russia but as Germany I have a much greater range of intermediate issues.
I have already indicated that the plan is to start the war at the ‘official’ start date. The reason I am doing this is to make sure I have some mechanised divisions before starting. If I was willing to sacrifice this then I would agree with others who suggest earlier starting. Waiting after Munich to acquire the province claims on Poland provides very little benefit and is not, of itself, worth the delay.
When I go to war the first objective is to conquer Poland. On balance this is probably the best thing to do but I have seriously considered the alternative of France first. The weakness of the France first strategy is that the Polish border is longer and requires more troops and the very limited mechanised forces available in September are not really adequate for taking down France. I strategy I have experimented with in the past is to avoid war starting in September 1939 and keep demanding territory from the French through the winter. This has a significant chance of working but most of the time just results in a declaration of war in early 1940. It is an interesting approach but cannot form part of a reliable plan.
Again there is an important difference between German strategy and Russian strategy. In the Russian AAR I made the point that the objective was to destroy the German army. The German strategy is not about destroying enemy armies, or at least not at this stage of the war. The German strategy is about taking key locations and annexing countries. When I invade Poland I don’t want to destroy the Polish army, I just want to take all the VP provinces as quickly as possible and with minimal casualties. This has a number of implications which will become apparent when I start describing the campaigns. One worth considering is the change in the status of air support. Air support is predominantly a weapon for defeating enemy forces rather than destroying them. As the Russians I didn’t really miss having any air support because it didn’t do what I wanted. As Germany air support is just the ticket and therefore air power plays a significant role in allowing me to defeat enemy forces more quickly and with lower casualties.
After Poland has been annexed Germany is in a very strong defensive position and I have the option of doing whatever I like. This is the point where major choices should be made. I am obviously going to declare war on a lot of countries and, as a result, take a lot of dissent hits which add up. At this stage of the war this dissent is a major issue that is often downplayed or ignored by many players. The fact is that each 1% of dissent costs 5-7 days production and a major DOW spree can have serious impact on science and unit build programmes. Therefore I need to focus on achieving grand strategy objectives with a minimum of DOWs. This leaves the question of which countries I need to conquer or are worth conquering in this period.
The Grand strategy objectives are primarily about access to resources. I need to acquire major Rubber supplies to keep my industrial machine going. I should be worrying about oil but in the game it is not an issue in itself. There is enough oil around to fuel an amazingly large mechanised army. The oil doesn’t run out until it is drained by conversion to rubber. When I have significant industrial technology enhancements and switch to prince of terror security minister I will also have a problem with coal and steel. This will be ameliorated in the long term by taking areas which have significant resource surpluses compared with ICs but is ultimately an insoluble problem. Fortunately it is perfectly reasonable to deal with this by reducing production by switching to different ministers.
The Grand strategy then is based on acquiring resource stockpiles from conquered countries and finally by taking the rubber areas in the Far East. This makes my priority the invasion of the Middle East and then on into India and Africa as quickly as possible. I will need a land path into the Middle East and typically this should be achieved by annexing Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey. It is possible to take Greece instead of Bulgaria but a bit less direct and more vulnerable to foreign intervention.
I am working on a world conquest strategy without allies and therefore I will, sooner or later, be taking out all my potential Balkan allies. In a more conventional game this is a mistake as these allies can provide substantial aid. The combination of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria can provide around 100 divisions to support the invasion of Russia. With full commitment to technology transfer these divisions are almost up to the German quality and make a huge difference to the forces available. I will be doing without this.
So my strategy after Poland goes as follows.
Invade and annex Hungary as it provides significant resources and ICs and provides access to Yugoslavia. Note that I am going with the partition with Hungary option of Czechoslovakia as otherwise I am stuck with Slovakia as an ally. This gives me a claim on Hungary which I will not demand off them as it halves the dissent hit for declaring war.
After Hungary I will take out Yugoslavia and then, with mountain troops, Bulgaria. By this time I will be well into the winter period but this has far less impact this far south. Next step is Turkey, another fairly routine operation except the mountains in the East which require the mountain troops and / or paratroops. After this I will be fighting straight through into Africa and Persia as quickly as possible. It is important to progress as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile I will conquer Holland as a base ready for the invasion of France. I could easily take out Denmark as well but it doesn’t fulfil any important strategic role so it is better to leave it till later. In contrast with most players I am not going to invade Scandinavia at all at this stage of the game. I have a reliable strategy – Denmark to seal the Baltic, Paratroops to gain a Swedish port and then major troop landings, overwhelm Sweden and then fight up through Norway. Despite this I will leave them as they are not a priority. Scandinavia leaves you with more coasts to defend, an additional front against Russia and major shipping commitments. The benefit is predominantly in steel production which I won’t actually need until much later. They will divert major troops during the rather long winded invasion and provide additional dissent to eliminate.
The objective of the winter 1939/1940 period is to set up ready for invading France in the spring and to break out into the African and Asian campaigns. As well as the Geographic issues there is also the need to build up forces. It is well worth having substantial mechanised forces for cleaning up France. The invasion strategy for France is a rapid penetration along the Belgian coast and head straight for the Vichy objectives (enough territory [25%] plus Paris). As soon as Vichy triggers I declare war on them to make sure I don’t end up with any allies.
The conquest of France is immediately followed by the invasion of Spain. It is tempting to leave this until later because of the dissent hit but annexing Spain gives me some supply bases in Africa that go a long way to reduce the logistic penalties. Through the summer 1940 I want to take Africa as quickly as possible with the objective of annexing Vichy France and Belgium. The annexing of Belgium is particularly useful as significant rubber supplies can be acquired from their African stockpiles as well as continuing production.
Mid to late summer of 1940 is the ideal time for invading the UK mainland but I will leave the details of how to go about this for later. This is a key step in undermining the UK war effort and denying the allies a base in Europe.
The final step is to say a little something about Russia. I have no concerns about defeating Russia but the length of front has some issues. I will have a long front in the South as well as the West and this requires a lot of troops for holding back the Russians in critical locations. This means that I want as many troops as possible freed up from other fronts to support the invasion and that when it takes place I need to be as economical as possible. Any further comments will have to wait for the invasion but you may be a little surprised at how I do it.
Ministerial equations
I am now going to publish some equations about minister choice. These are interesting as they help analyse how to combine IC allocation policies with minister changes.
Industry Minister
The default choice here is +15% ICs for an administrative genius. It is difficult to better this but there are some specific situations in which others are better.
Firstly the laissez faire capitalist who gives -5% dissent. What this actually means is that more of your resources are converted to useful ICs. He will never give higher production unless your production is resource limited but in that case he may be a good choice. Also see dissent reduction issues below.
Finally the military entrepreneur has a role. He gives a 20% increase in supply production which will be an improvement on total output if ... Take X as the IC commitment to research and unit production and Y as total ICs without the administrative genius.
Admin genius gives Yx1.15 – X ICs dedicated to supplies.
Military entrepreneur gives (Y-X)x1.2 dedicated to supplies
With a bit of manipulation we find that the second choice is better if Y is more than 4X. If you are checking with the admin genius in place this would be spending of less than 21.7% of ICs on anything but supply production (nice handy figure to check). Obviously this is all fairly uninteresting as this situation won’t generally ever arise. There may however be optimising opportunities for building up supply stockpiles by efficient burst production. It is worth bearing in mind that he also reduces resource consumption.
Minister of Security
The choices here are even more diverse.
The silent lawyer at -1% dissent is only of real interest in dissent reduction or in peace time as a choice against man of the people but I have discussed this before.
Once we have conquered significant territory then there is the opportunity to use a minister who increases the ICs from captured territory. Any occupied territory will normally supply 25% ICs and annexed gives 33% ICs. This is what gives an IC boost when you annex. The ministers that improve this give values (15%, 25%) which add to the official values and hence have far more impact than you might at first expect.
Personally I discount the efficient sociopath as Germany as I don’t think a 25% reduction of manpower is ever really acceptable. The prince of terror (+25% foreign ICs versus +5% dissent) is better and his penalty balances directly against his benefit.
If production is X ICs from national territory, Y from annexed and Z from occupied then we balance total production of 0.85(X+Y+Z) against 0.8(X+1.74Y+2Z) assuming standard wartime dissent levels. As you can see this actually starts paying off pretty quickly and there is not much point playing around with the equations as it is quite difficult to extract the parameters from the game, much easier just to try it.
Dissent reduction
This is a special category as dissent reduction rates are unaffected by the actual totals of ICs, all that matters is the %age of the total dedicated to extra consumer goods. This means that maximum dissent reduction occurs with 100% of ICs on consumer goods combined with switching to low dissent ministers. This means laissez faire and silent lawyer giving war time base consumer goods of 9% as opposed to a more normal combo of admin genius and prince of terror giving a base rate of 20% consumer goods. Often there is a need to continue research spending whilst carrying out dissent reduction. The big question is were is the balance point, if the research spending is less than 11% of the base IC production then this combination is better. The actual cut off for each minister varies as the controlling factors differ. The main point is that if you can afford to cut current research down to around 30 then these ministers will improve dissent reduction rates and usefully reduce resource consumption which becomes a significant issue.
I am now going to publish some equations about minister choice. These are interesting as they help analyse how to combine IC allocation policies with minister changes.
Industry Minister
The default choice here is +15% ICs for an administrative genius. It is difficult to better this but there are some specific situations in which others are better.
Firstly the laissez faire capitalist who gives -5% dissent. What this actually means is that more of your resources are converted to useful ICs. He will never give higher production unless your production is resource limited but in that case he may be a good choice. Also see dissent reduction issues below.
Finally the military entrepreneur has a role. He gives a 20% increase in supply production which will be an improvement on total output if ... Take X as the IC commitment to research and unit production and Y as total ICs without the administrative genius.
Admin genius gives Yx1.15 – X ICs dedicated to supplies.
Military entrepreneur gives (Y-X)x1.2 dedicated to supplies
With a bit of manipulation we find that the second choice is better if Y is more than 4X. If you are checking with the admin genius in place this would be spending of less than 21.7% of ICs on anything but supply production (nice handy figure to check). Obviously this is all fairly uninteresting as this situation won’t generally ever arise. There may however be optimising opportunities for building up supply stockpiles by efficient burst production. It is worth bearing in mind that he also reduces resource consumption.
Minister of Security
The choices here are even more diverse.
The silent lawyer at -1% dissent is only of real interest in dissent reduction or in peace time as a choice against man of the people but I have discussed this before.
Once we have conquered significant territory then there is the opportunity to use a minister who increases the ICs from captured territory. Any occupied territory will normally supply 25% ICs and annexed gives 33% ICs. This is what gives an IC boost when you annex. The ministers that improve this give values (15%, 25%) which add to the official values and hence have far more impact than you might at first expect.
Personally I discount the efficient sociopath as Germany as I don’t think a 25% reduction of manpower is ever really acceptable. The prince of terror (+25% foreign ICs versus +5% dissent) is better and his penalty balances directly against his benefit.
If production is X ICs from national territory, Y from annexed and Z from occupied then we balance total production of 0.85(X+Y+Z) against 0.8(X+1.74Y+2Z) assuming standard wartime dissent levels. As you can see this actually starts paying off pretty quickly and there is not much point playing around with the equations as it is quite difficult to extract the parameters from the game, much easier just to try it.
Dissent reduction
This is a special category as dissent reduction rates are unaffected by the actual totals of ICs, all that matters is the %age of the total dedicated to extra consumer goods. This means that maximum dissent reduction occurs with 100% of ICs on consumer goods combined with switching to low dissent ministers. This means laissez faire and silent lawyer giving war time base consumer goods of 9% as opposed to a more normal combo of admin genius and prince of terror giving a base rate of 20% consumer goods. Often there is a need to continue research spending whilst carrying out dissent reduction. The big question is were is the balance point, if the research spending is less than 11% of the base IC production then this combination is better. The actual cut off for each minister varies as the controlling factors differ. The main point is that if you can afford to cut current research down to around 30 then these ministers will improve dissent reduction rates and usefully reduce resource consumption which becomes a significant issue.
Kanitatlan said:
I don't know about that. A good organization can be helpful in sustaining an offensive. You lose org as you move through enemy territory, so a higher org allows you to move and fight your armies longer before taking a break to reorganize. Without a high enough org, you might find yourself in the position where you REALLY want to attack just one more province, but can't.
@ Kanitatlan: beautiful breakdowns.
Now you just add Manstein's genius into the equation and you got yourself a World Conquest
Now you just add Manstein's genius into the equation and you got yourself a World Conquest
Beppo said:
This is a reasonable point but I have never found it to be a problem. The only real problems I have had with org exhaustion have been from strategic redeployment leaving me with low org units. If you look at the Russian AAR the main campaign against Germany had my divisions fighting their way from eastern Poland to the Atlantic coast without any pause for org recovery. As a counter example the fighting in southern Italy had some divisions operating below acceptable org levels so it is not completely irrelevant, it is just incredibly rare that I find it an issue.
Start
There are always a number of things to do when you first start a scenario and I’ll give them a quick run through.
First I put all the brigaded infantry divisions into upgrade. Whilst they are upgrading and whilst they are left in the build queue (called strategic reserve) they consume no supplies. The upgrade cost for divisions with brigades = 19IC or 62 supplies = a mere 30 days supply cost so well worth doing. (Current supply rate is 3.3 supplies per IC)
I put all the destroyers into convoy escort as they are very weak naval units for active service and this takes them out of the supply requirements. Some of the ships in the build queue are cancelled, basically any that aren’t a lot cheaper than standard cost.
All ground units are provided with logistic wizard leaders. The armoured divisions are moved to Hamburg ready for embarkation for the Spanish civil war. All troops are evacuated from East Prussia for convenience (and so the InfA can go into upgrade).
I upgrade a wide collection of leaders to field marshal status. This includes everyone with a panzer leader combination of any sort giving me lots of panzer leader field marshals with additional abilities. In addition one or two other generals with offensive doctrine get promoted. As a special I always promote Von Pannwitz as he provides offensive doctrine with winter specialist which can be a very useful combination in bad weather. I also promote several engineer generals as my mechanised divisions are never going to be any good at river crossing. Any army group of mechs crossing a river will need one of these.
This now puts me in a steady state requirement of 36 supplies per day. This is costing me 10.8 ICs per day (or quite a lot). At this rate the total demand for supplies prior to war will be approximately 50,000. Industrial research will allow me cheaper supplies by the end of 1938 but as soon as Munich kicks in I need to focus on the resulting technology stream and productions stream so all supplies need to be pre-produced. This means that there are no time constraints on when to produce supplies and therefore it is pretty much the earlier the better whereas technology spending and a lot of the unit spending wants to be delayed until it can be done more efficiently.
I immediately put 12 mountain and 12 infantry into the build queue to absorb the excess ICs currently available. The initial research is based on key theoretical technology. I have flat out research on infantry theory, relevant electronics and relevant industrial technology right from the start through to the war. Other areas can be delayed. The basic air types required can go straight into research as they will need to join the build queue reasonably early.
There is an initial surplus of rubber and I put maximum Late May 9999 rubber in east Prussia and 99843 in main stockpile. Trading in rubber cut to exact requirements. Maximal trading of coal for rubber has given me maximum stockpiles before the world supply has dried up.
On 25th June I get a submarine tech that allows upgrades so I upgrade them all. As long as I leave them in the strategic reserve they will pick up all upgrade techs I develop so there is no need to wait till all the tech is available. This cuts my supply demand to 34.7, not a big change but 1.3 for 1000 days pays for the upgrades (5x21 + 31) and a bit more.
The Spanish civil war breaks out on July 18th 1936 and I immediately send all 3 panzer divisions giving an immediate supply reduction (nominal 5.7 less logistic wizard, approx 1.5 ICs/day, every bit helps). These divisions are commanded by General Pannwitz, FM von Arnim and FM von Kleist.
To get your troops ashore assign them to the Spanish Nationalist as an expeditionary force before landing them. They can then land without needing military access or anything like that. Anytime you want to change them they can be returned to owner, reorganised, new leaders assigned and then resubmitted as expeditionary forces.
The Spanish civil war was rather boring, I sent my divisions to secure the north so they can’t be cut off and then in a flanking move east of Madrid. The idea of this is to attack somewhere less important and with worse terrain to try and make the war last. Unfortunately the Nationalist quickly subdued the republicans and I was able to obtain quite limited experience for those leaders. This is actually a fair bit but in some Spanish civil wars I have been able to achieve loads of experience for quite a few leaders. At least I managed to get Pannwitz to a level 2 field marshal which makes him a genuinely useful leader to have around.
Shortly after this I started another 48 Infantry Divisions to maintain IC consumption.
1937
Jan 1st – change ministers, silent lawyer and school of fire power. In hindsight the silent lawyer is not so useful and I probably should have gone with the man of the people to get more manpower. During the year I upgraded all fighters and order 7 more.
1938
On Feb 22nd I changed to zero consumer goods, on 10th March the Anschluss event occurred and all dissent crushed. I lost an average of 2.5% of IC to dissent during this 18 day period but gain 27% of ICs normally assigned to consumer goods. This demonstrates another minor exploit for the human player. I also ran down coal and steel resource stockpiles with 4:1 trades for rubber ready for a big boost from Austrian stocks – didn’t check but mostly coal with some steel and oil.
During this year I selected Goring as industry minister, submitted all bombers for upgrade and an additional 11 dive bombers for building and then immediately changed back to administrative genius. I did the same for the naval guy and ordered 8 torpedo bombers.
All Austrian divisions are sent for rebuild as soon as available from strategic redeployment.
1939
Immediately switch to guns and butter to reduce supply consumption. In march (?) the technology plan for mechanised divisions matured and I ordered lots of them. From this point on the focus is on delivering mechanised divisions and technology that makes them better. The ultimate objective is the advanced infantry weapons, advanced halftrack, heavy assault guns and 150 inf gun. The self propelled rocket artillery also gives defence bonus that is useful. The full set of techs is some way off but remain a focus to achieve for the invasion of Russia.
There are always a number of things to do when you first start a scenario and I’ll give them a quick run through.
First I put all the brigaded infantry divisions into upgrade. Whilst they are upgrading and whilst they are left in the build queue (called strategic reserve) they consume no supplies. The upgrade cost for divisions with brigades = 19IC or 62 supplies = a mere 30 days supply cost so well worth doing. (Current supply rate is 3.3 supplies per IC)
I put all the destroyers into convoy escort as they are very weak naval units for active service and this takes them out of the supply requirements. Some of the ships in the build queue are cancelled, basically any that aren’t a lot cheaper than standard cost.
All ground units are provided with logistic wizard leaders. The armoured divisions are moved to Hamburg ready for embarkation for the Spanish civil war. All troops are evacuated from East Prussia for convenience (and so the InfA can go into upgrade).
I upgrade a wide collection of leaders to field marshal status. This includes everyone with a panzer leader combination of any sort giving me lots of panzer leader field marshals with additional abilities. In addition one or two other generals with offensive doctrine get promoted. As a special I always promote Von Pannwitz as he provides offensive doctrine with winter specialist which can be a very useful combination in bad weather. I also promote several engineer generals as my mechanised divisions are never going to be any good at river crossing. Any army group of mechs crossing a river will need one of these.
This now puts me in a steady state requirement of 36 supplies per day. This is costing me 10.8 ICs per day (or quite a lot). At this rate the total demand for supplies prior to war will be approximately 50,000. Industrial research will allow me cheaper supplies by the end of 1938 but as soon as Munich kicks in I need to focus on the resulting technology stream and productions stream so all supplies need to be pre-produced. This means that there are no time constraints on when to produce supplies and therefore it is pretty much the earlier the better whereas technology spending and a lot of the unit spending wants to be delayed until it can be done more efficiently.
I immediately put 12 mountain and 12 infantry into the build queue to absorb the excess ICs currently available. The initial research is based on key theoretical technology. I have flat out research on infantry theory, relevant electronics and relevant industrial technology right from the start through to the war. Other areas can be delayed. The basic air types required can go straight into research as they will need to join the build queue reasonably early.
There is an initial surplus of rubber and I put maximum Late May 9999 rubber in east Prussia and 99843 in main stockpile. Trading in rubber cut to exact requirements. Maximal trading of coal for rubber has given me maximum stockpiles before the world supply has dried up.
On 25th June I get a submarine tech that allows upgrades so I upgrade them all. As long as I leave them in the strategic reserve they will pick up all upgrade techs I develop so there is no need to wait till all the tech is available. This cuts my supply demand to 34.7, not a big change but 1.3 for 1000 days pays for the upgrades (5x21 + 31) and a bit more.
The Spanish civil war breaks out on July 18th 1936 and I immediately send all 3 panzer divisions giving an immediate supply reduction (nominal 5.7 less logistic wizard, approx 1.5 ICs/day, every bit helps). These divisions are commanded by General Pannwitz, FM von Arnim and FM von Kleist.
To get your troops ashore assign them to the Spanish Nationalist as an expeditionary force before landing them. They can then land without needing military access or anything like that. Anytime you want to change them they can be returned to owner, reorganised, new leaders assigned and then resubmitted as expeditionary forces.
The Spanish civil war was rather boring, I sent my divisions to secure the north so they can’t be cut off and then in a flanking move east of Madrid. The idea of this is to attack somewhere less important and with worse terrain to try and make the war last. Unfortunately the Nationalist quickly subdued the republicans and I was able to obtain quite limited experience for those leaders. This is actually a fair bit but in some Spanish civil wars I have been able to achieve loads of experience for quite a few leaders. At least I managed to get Pannwitz to a level 2 field marshal which makes him a genuinely useful leader to have around.
Shortly after this I started another 48 Infantry Divisions to maintain IC consumption.
1937
Jan 1st – change ministers, silent lawyer and school of fire power. In hindsight the silent lawyer is not so useful and I probably should have gone with the man of the people to get more manpower. During the year I upgraded all fighters and order 7 more.
1938
On Feb 22nd I changed to zero consumer goods, on 10th March the Anschluss event occurred and all dissent crushed. I lost an average of 2.5% of IC to dissent during this 18 day period but gain 27% of ICs normally assigned to consumer goods. This demonstrates another minor exploit for the human player. I also ran down coal and steel resource stockpiles with 4:1 trades for rubber ready for a big boost from Austrian stocks – didn’t check but mostly coal with some steel and oil.
During this year I selected Goring as industry minister, submitted all bombers for upgrade and an additional 11 dive bombers for building and then immediately changed back to administrative genius. I did the same for the naval guy and ordered 8 torpedo bombers.
All Austrian divisions are sent for rebuild as soon as available from strategic redeployment.
1939
Immediately switch to guns and butter to reduce supply consumption. In march (?) the technology plan for mechanised divisions matured and I ordered lots of them. From this point on the focus is on delivering mechanised divisions and technology that makes them better. The ultimate objective is the advanced infantry weapons, advanced halftrack, heavy assault guns and 150 inf gun. The self propelled rocket artillery also gives defence bonus that is useful. The full set of techs is some way off but remain a focus to achieve for the invasion of Russia.
Pseudo-War
This next post should be a quick rundown of the situation at the outbreak of war but a strange thing happened, the Soviets turned down the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Now this is a very interesting development but, unfortunately, not the game I was proposing to play. I have a save from just before this so I will be going back to it for the main AAR. I played the game forward a bit, as I have never had this happen to me before. It shouldn’t be that unusual since its option b in a three-way selection and I’ve definitely played Germany plenty of times. Anyway I ran through the next three months several times and always got a Soviet declaration of war in November. They turned out to be utter rubbish and I couldn’t see any problem beating them.
This situation is an interesting problem as there are significant choices to be made. The first choice is easy, as soon as you are at war with the Soviets you need to concentrate on them. It is possible to take France out prior to this but the Franco-German frontier is actually a far better defensive position than the channel coast. The only handicap is that if you leave France then the allies well spend lots of DIs trying to get Belgium and Holland to join in and once they are successful you have a major front in the West. This risk is probably unacceptable and therefore you need to take France out quickly before the Soviets are pulled in.
I don’t want to spend too much time on this but it is worth looking at some of the Soviet events and their impact on this path. The first one is the pact events and the outcome selected gives an extra 10 hate against Germany. After this the German attack on Poland has triggered another 15 hate (second choice was war) and the Ruskies are now getting pretty annoyed with us. All it took after this was the Fins giving in to Russian demands so they are free of ongoing wars and an early DOW is pretty certain. Interestingly they declared war on Latvia first and this demonstrated that already being at war doesn’t prevent the AI from declaring war on another country.
I might come back to this another time to see how it plays out but, for now, back to the main story.
This next post should be a quick rundown of the situation at the outbreak of war but a strange thing happened, the Soviets turned down the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Now this is a very interesting development but, unfortunately, not the game I was proposing to play. I have a save from just before this so I will be going back to it for the main AAR. I played the game forward a bit, as I have never had this happen to me before. It shouldn’t be that unusual since its option b in a three-way selection and I’ve definitely played Germany plenty of times. Anyway I ran through the next three months several times and always got a Soviet declaration of war in November. They turned out to be utter rubbish and I couldn’t see any problem beating them.
This situation is an interesting problem as there are significant choices to be made. The first choice is easy, as soon as you are at war with the Soviets you need to concentrate on them. It is possible to take France out prior to this but the Franco-German frontier is actually a far better defensive position than the channel coast. The only handicap is that if you leave France then the allies well spend lots of DIs trying to get Belgium and Holland to join in and once they are successful you have a major front in the West. This risk is probably unacceptable and therefore you need to take France out quickly before the Soviets are pulled in.
I don’t want to spend too much time on this but it is worth looking at some of the Soviet events and their impact on this path. The first one is the pact events and the outcome selected gives an extra 10 hate against Germany. After this the German attack on Poland has triggered another 15 hate (second choice was war) and the Ruskies are now getting pretty annoyed with us. All it took after this was the Fins giving in to Russian demands so they are free of ongoing wars and an early DOW is pretty certain. Interestingly they declared war on Latvia first and this demonstrated that already being at war doesn’t prevent the AI from declaring war on another country.
I might come back to this another time to see how it plays out but, for now, back to the main story.
didn't know that about upgrading brigaded units and the anschluss thingy, good info.
do you keep some generals or will all your leaders that you will be using be field marschalls?
do you put all the brigaded units into special armeekorps or do you spread them out amongst the units?
I must say that i am amazed at how calculating you are.
When do you expect that the world will be eating sauerkraut and drinking bavarian beer?
You forgot to mention that another handy thing about the spanish civil war is that franco seems to be eager to keep your divisions at strength 100, so no need to worry about sending your precious pzkpfw1s into the mountains. Even if you don't call in replacements a 2 week fight in the mountains will surely make the panzers hurt.
What will you be using your panzers for? do you continue to have them in spain until war kicks in and then draw them out of spain or do you use them in your grand plans of wc? maybe you pick them apart and decide that the uniforms has more value inside your mechs?
Cheers
do you keep some generals or will all your leaders that you will be using be field marschalls?
do you put all the brigaded units into special armeekorps or do you spread them out amongst the units?
I must say that i am amazed at how calculating you are.
When do you expect that the world will be eating sauerkraut and drinking bavarian beer?
You forgot to mention that another handy thing about the spanish civil war is that franco seems to be eager to keep your divisions at strength 100, so no need to worry about sending your precious pzkpfw1s into the mountains. Even if you don't call in replacements a 2 week fight in the mountains will surely make the panzers hurt.
What will you be using your panzers for? do you continue to have them in spain until war kicks in and then draw them out of spain or do you use them in your grand plans of wc? maybe you pick them apart and decide that the uniforms has more value inside your mechs?
Cheers
Timpino said:
You don't need to depend on Franco, you can reinforce them yourself (at his expense). I am always tempted to send troops to help the Republicans as I'd rather they won but they never seem to have the resources to replace my losses and I can't bear to have damaged divisions coming home.
Timpino said:
I don't leave units in Spain as this is too much of an exploit and clearly unrealistic. I know I keep expressing the game player approach but that is going too far, Franco would never have permitted it.
The main use for the armour is as mobile scrap metal. They remain useful as divisions for some time whilst fighting weak opponents and they can move at speed 10 and can be used for capturing empty provinces. They usually get abandoned in France after a bit and left to fester.