Attack question

[unmerged(90516)]

Hi there. I have a few simple questions about this great game.

After you give an attack order, you are not allowed to attack again for 24h. Fine and realistic. But I sometimes manage to give a "double" attack order, as in "attack this province, and then proceed to attack that one". I am not sure how that works though, and whether it matters if a province is empty. The manual has a lot of tips, but not the actual game controls. I suppose I should use shift and set up some kind of attack-waypoints, but I don't know how.

This order would be very useful for tanks and blitzkrieg, and not having to wait after a breakthrough. Anyone know how to do this (queue up attacks)?

Oh and my other question: how does unit retreating work? Shouldn't tanks (faster) annihilate retreating infantry (slow)? The stupid retreating units often cut off my tanks that have rushed forward to exploit a breakthrough. Any thoughts on preventing this?

And just one more question: what's the best way to use leaders and promotions? Do you keep them at Lt. generals, or get them to general? I find that having smaller formations helps me guard my flanks/send reinforcements after a blitzkrieg breakthrough because it's easy to split up my forces. But on the other hand having promoted officers allows you to manage large numbers of units more easily and have more troops get the benefit of the leader's skills. I suppose that for infantry, generals should lead, because there's always a lot of them. But my question is how to best use the great panzer leaders, like rommel? Promote or not?

Is it true that if a leader is leading more troops in an attack than his normal max (9 for generals), even if there is a HQ nearby and he is not overstacked, the troops don't get his bonuses (if there is more than 9?). I am playing the compendium mod.

And how do you handle air-force leaders? I get a huge and superior air force, which ends up overstacked because there are too many planes in a province: 4 bombers + 4 fighters end up in a province quite often. So should I promote my air leaders like mad?

One more question: how should I use brigades? Is it manpower/ipc efficient? Should I give brigades to all my troops? If not, how many and when?

Thanks a lot, I absolutely love this game (the only one where you have to actually make complex plans for your attacks!), but these things are bugging me.

Oh yet another question: can I create new supply depoes? If yes, how? Where's the button?

Well, these are quite a few questions really. But I'd be very grateful for any answers! Thanks in advance!

 

[unmerged(89506)]

Hey there! Welcome to the forums. I am quite a new member myself, and your questions seem complex. I do, however, believe I know the answer to your last question. In the production tab, at the bottom right you will see a list of trade/supply routes. When you gain new regions, I believe, then new convoy routes would be set up automatically. If you wish, you could manually make routes, but that is confusing. You need a required number of convoys to transport the supplies/resources to and from that province.

I hope I helped a bit.

 

[sbr]

Hi there. I have a few simple questions about this great game.

After you give an attack order, you are not allowed to attack again for 24h. Fine and realistic. But I sometimes manage to give a "double" attack order, as in "attack this province, and then proceed to attack that one". I am not sure how that works though, and whether it matters if a province is empty. The manual has a lot of tips, but not the actual game controls. I suppose I should use shift and set up some kind of attack-waypoints, but I don't know how.

This order would be very useful for tanks and blitzkrieg, and not having to wait after a breakthrough. Anyone know how to do this (queue up attacks)?

Yes you use the shift key and can then attack through as many provinces as you want. One thing to be aware of is that you cannot schedule this sort of attack in advance, once you pick the second province the attack is scheduled to happen immediately, just be aware and not do it until you are ready.

Oh and my other question: how does unit retreating work? Shouldn't tanks (faster) annihilate retreating infantry (slow)? The stupid retreating units often cut off my tanks that have rushed forward to exploit a breakthrough. Any thoughts on preventing this?

If your units reach a province before the enemy's retreating units do theyr will be destroyed, the trick is getting there first.

And just one more question: what's the best way to use leaders and promotions? Do you keep them at Lt. generals, or get them to general? I find that having smaller formations helps me guard my flanks/send reinforcements after a blitzkrieg breakthrough because it's easy to split up my forces. But on the other hand having promoted officers allows you to manage large numbers of units more easily and have more troops get the benefit of the leader's skills. I suppose that for infantry, generals should lead, because there's always a lot of them. But my question is how to best use the great panzer leaders, like rommel? Promote or not?

I usually use auto-promote, which promotes leaders based on the number of troops you have. The reason for using it is that when a leader is auto-promoted he does NOT lose a skill point like he would if manually promoted. Using the lower ranked leader is best because they gain XP faster so it is mostly a matter of how much micromanaging you are willing to put up with.

Is it true that if a leader is leading more troops in an attack than his normal max (9 for generals), even if there is a HQ nearby and he is not overstacked, the troops don't get his bonuses (if there is more than 9?). I am playing the compendium mod.

I don't know anything about that mod, you should ask the people who made it. In the vanilla game that is an incorrect statement.

And how do you handle air-force leaders? I get a huge and superior air force, which ends up overstacked because there are too many planes in a province: 4 bombers + 4 fighters end up in a province quite often. So should I promote my air leaders like mad?

You just have to pay attention to how many planes are given a mission in each air zone and what type of leader each has. It is definately helpful to have some Air Marshals around if your Air force is large.

One more question: how should I use brigades? Is it manpower/ipc efficient? Should I give brigades to all my troops? If not, how many and when?

You should brigade your expensive troops, not so mus=ch for infantry. Sp-art is the best for your mobile units-armor, motorized,mech. Regular artillery is very good to have on para and marines because you want as much firepower as possible in a small group.

Thanks a lot, I absolutely love this game (the only one where you have to actually make complex plans for your attacks!), but these things are bugging me.

Oh yet another question: can I create new supply depoes? If yes, how? Where's the button?

Well, these are quite a few questions really. But I'd be very grateful for any answers! Thanks in advance!

 

[unmerged(90516)]

Yes you use the shift key and can then attack through as many provinces as you want. One thing to be aware of is that you cannot schedule this sort of attack in advance, once you pick the second province the attack is scheduled to happen immediately, just be aware and not do it until you are ready.

So do I hold shift and then right click one province after another? Or right click one province, press and hold shift and then click another province? Thanks.

I don't know anything about that mod, you should ask the people who made it. In the vanilla game that is an incorrect statement.

Hmm. I got that info from here:

http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/index.php/Land_Combat_Efficiency_FAQ

"HQ increase the CPC of the stack, but they do not increase the rank command capacity of the formation's leader. Example: You can give a Lt General 6 div with an HQ adjacent and you do not get the -75 over command capacity penalty; you lose, however, both the skills and traits of that leader when you do this. You would be better off to just assign 3 div to a Lt Gen and then have 3 separate single div formations. Note also that as soon as the HQ effect is not available, you would get the -75 over command penalty for 3 of the 6 div under a Lt General."

Thanks to both of you for your answers! The questions were not so simple after all

 

[theokrat]

The Wiki is correct on that.

 

[sbr]

"HQ increase the CPC of the stack, but they do not increase the rank command capacity of the formation's leader. Example: You can give a Lt General 6 div with an HQ adjacent and you do not get the -75 over command capacity penalty; you lose, however, both the skills and traits of that leader when you do this. You would be better off to just assign 3 div to a Lt Gen and then have 3 separate single div formations. Note also that as soon as the HQ effect is not available, you would get the -75 over command penalty for 3 of the 6 div under a Lt General."

An HQ only doubles the number of troops a leader can lead in combat. If a Lt General has more than 3 units in his stack he is overstacked regardless of HQ's and they then lose his traits and skill so never overstack a leader. With an HQ nearby you could attack from the same province with 2 Lt. Generals both commanding 3 units and be under the command limit.

 

[unmerged(90569)]

One more question: how should I use brigades? Is it manpower/ipc efficient? Should I give brigades to all my troops? If not, how many and when?

Well it depends on what you want to use the divisions for. I agree with sbr, that's the "vanilla" way of using them.
I'm experimenting with using only and ONLY AA brigades (researched as high as possible, usually semi-modern). They will give a nice boost to infantry against armored units (since I don't build my own tanks) and huge air attack/defense. For example 2 '41 garrisons with AA got bombed by 3 tactical bomber squadrons: not only they didn't take any damage but they damaged the bombers quite badly and after 3-4 attacks they gave up.
The drawback is that it gives no soft attack bonus so unless my infantry and land doctrines aren't advanced enough it's goinna be hard to attack and defeat enemy infantry behind fortifications. Still I think it's more useful than Art. and it uses less supplies/oil, can be built faster/cheaper and doesn't have -1 speed.

 

[theokrat]

Use brigades on high value units, tanks with Spart, Motors and Mechs with either Spart or AC, Paras with ART, Marines with Spart, somtimes MTN with ART.

Regular troops should e brigaded if and only if your limitation is manpower and you do not mind a -1 speed. If this is the case you should use ART and only ART. All other brigades, particullary AA are crap.

 

[Medi]

For example 2 '41 garrisons with AA got bombed by 3 tactical bomber squadrons: not only they didn't take any damage but they damaged the bombers quite badly and after 3-4 attacks they gave up.

And what was the Garrisons' dug in level before being bombed?

 

[unmerged(90569)]

errm... 20... lol
Anyways the bombers always seeked out the province with the least garrisons and bombed that. Otherwise they would have bombed my attacking forces along the border. So it was still worth the IC/supply investement

And as I've said I'm experimenting atm, I didn't say AA owned ART

 

[unmerged(90516)]

An HQ only doubles the number of troops a leader can lead in combat. If a Lt General has more than 3 units in his stack he is overstacked regardless of HQ's and they then lose his traits and skill so never overstack a leader. With an HQ nearby you could attack from the same province with 2 Lt. Generals both commanding 3 units and be under the command limit.

I have just verified that if you have a leader that has more troops than his command capacity (9 for generals), but less than double, and a HQ is nearby (doubling the command capacity to 18), he is not overstacked when he has more than 9 troops, but all the troops lose his skill and trait bonuses. If he has 9 or less troops, they retain the bonuses. So HQ just prevent overstacking penalties, but you lose your general's bonuses as soon as you go over his (unmodified) limit.

I tested this by looking at the combat screen of a general with 9 troops, then with 10 (after a reload).

This is important info! Probably means that keeping generals at low promotions is fine.

 

[Medi]

But then saying that the AA brigade saved the Garrison's ass isn't really true, now is it?

 

[unmerged(90569)]

True but it's the AA that did significant damage to the bombers (and the static AA of course)

 

[sbr]

I have just verified that if you have a leader that has more troops than his command capacity (9 for generals), but less than double, and a HQ is nearby (doubling the command capacity to 18), he is not overstacked when he has more than 9 troops, but all the troops lose his skill and trait bonuses. If he has 9 or less troops, they retain the bonuses. So HQ just prevent overstacking penalties, but you lose your general's bonuses as soon as you go over his (unmodified) limit.

I tested this by looking at the combat screen of a general with 9 troops, then with 10 (after a reload).

This is important info! Probably means that keeping generals at low promotions is fine.

When I say overstacked I mean the number of units in a leaders' stack. If he has more than he should there will be a red number in the unit display and they will lose traits and skill, HQ's do not modify this number.

 

[blue emu]

When I say overstacked I mean the number of units in a leaders' stack...

I suspect that you mean "in a leader's formation".

"Overstacked" means too many units in one formation... it causes the number to turn red, and causes all of the Divisions (not just the overstacked ones) to lose all skill and trait modifiers. Leader rank affects this limit, but HQs do not.

"Over Command Limit" (aka OCL) means too many units in a stack. It causes a -75% penalty (-25% for Air or Sea units) for the OCL units only (not for the units that are within command limits). Both Leader rank and HQs affect this limit.

"Stacking Penalty" reduces combat effeciveness for Air and Sea units. It penalizes efficiency for all units in the stack, by -2% (Air) or -1% (Sea) for every unit in excess of the first two. HQs and Leader rank do not effect this limit.