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I've learnt loads from this thread, thank you misterbean. It's only a shame it can't be follwed to the leter anymore because of the changes with TFH.
Still a worthy, educaional read. 10/10 would read again.
Still a worthy, educaional read. 10/10 would read again.
Yeah, this thread is still being read (and re-read). Definitely points out something about this game, heh. It seems I need to be in a certain mindset to get into paradox games due to the complexity and can solely focus on them.
I played through when I bought the game (2 years ago?) went through your walkthrough to the end of Barbarossa, then hit the micromanagement nightmare of the "spaghetti mess" OOB at the end when bitter peace fired and gave up.
This time I'm at least going to try and get to operation sealion this time and Im finding after taking a break this long I needed your guidance again!
Thanks for your work misterbean, excellent. I hope they hire you to do some guides for HOI4
I played through when I bought the game (2 years ago?) went through your walkthrough to the end of Barbarossa, then hit the micromanagement nightmare of the "spaghetti mess" OOB at the end when bitter peace fired and gave up.
This time I'm at least going to try and get to operation sealion this time and Im finding after taking a break this long I needed your guidance again!
Thanks for your work misterbean, excellent. I hope they hire you to do some guides for HOI4
Yeah, this thread is still being read (and re-read). Definitely points out something about this game, heh. It seems I need to be in a certain mindset to get into paradox games due to the complexity and can solely focus on them.
I played through when I bought the game (2 years ago?) went through your walkthrough to the end of Barbarossa, then hit the micromanagement nightmare of the "spaghetti mess" OOB at the end when bitter peace fired and gave up.
This time I'm at least going to try and get to operation sealion this time and Im finding after taking a break this long I needed your guidance again!
Thanks for your work misterbean, excellent. I hope they hire you to do some guides for HOI4
If they ask me, I will most certainly consider it.
When one gets the self-propelled artillery in early 1940 or so, one is supposed to attach them to the panzer divisions. Problem: each panzer division already has four brigades (1 medium armor, 2 mot inf, 1 engineer). Presumably the SPA should replace the engineers. What should we do with the engineers that are now detached?
Those should have been Arm/2Mot.
The only ones that have Eng are the Light Armour Divisions.
That's ok. Keep the Eng in Berlin for now. After the fall of France, we will build more Light Armour divisions in preparation for the invasion of the SU. When you do, just remember that you already have the Eng. Any that are leftover after the invasion of the Soviets has started, can be disbanded. So for clarity:
Medium panzerdivision: Armour/2 Mot/SPart
Light panzerdivision: 2 Larm/Mot/Eng (8 of these will be build in total)
I have so far come to the end of Part 28, however it already is early July 1941 and I haven't invaded the USSR yet. I only have 3 Panzerarmeen, one of which is missing its Mot divisions (I managed to replace them with one Arm and one LArm, though). I have an Inf corps in every Soviet border province but I'm still slightly behind the AAR, as far as I can tell. The Luftwaffe is lacking one Luftflotte, which will only get finished in December, and one Zerstörergruppe but has one extra Fliegerkorps. The Marine (I believe) is a bit smaller than yours was at that point, but my first two carriers are due in August (one of which will be useless because I forgot to build the CAGs in time ...).
I managed to get Italy, Japan, Romania, Hungary, Finland, Croatia, Persia, Afghanistan and Yunnan (as well as their and my puppets: Manchukuo, Mengkukuo, Slovakia, Siam, Ethiopia) into the Axis.
My eastern front (with some battle plans). The armies directly on the border are the Panzers, everything else is 4-div Inf corps.
Can I still successfully invade the USSR? Or should I wait till next year and try to conduct Unternehmen Seelöwe this winter? I get the feeling Stalin will attack even before the fall of London if I do the latter.
I managed to get Italy, Japan, Romania, Hungary, Finland, Croatia, Persia, Afghanistan and Yunnan (as well as their and my puppets: Manchukuo, Mengkukuo, Slovakia, Siam, Ethiopia) into the Axis.
My eastern front (with some battle plans). The armies directly on the border are the Panzers, everything else is 4-div Inf corps.
Can I still successfully invade the USSR? Or should I wait till next year and try to conduct Unternehmen Seelöwe this winter? I get the feeling Stalin will attack even before the fall of London if I do the latter.
Ah, I see. I screwed up by constituting the divisions wrong (well, at least outside the guidelines of the AAR). And I thought of adding them to my mountain divisions, but I'm pretty sure that would slow them down because it would mean sending along with the Gebirgsjägers a support unit that lacks their special ability. The AAR advises against this, and I can see why. I'll put the pioniere in the pantry for later.
I have so far come to the end of Part 28, however it already is early July 1941 and I haven't invaded the USSR yet. I only have 3 Panzerarmeen, one of which is missing its Mot divisions (I managed to replace them with one Arm and one LArm, though). I have an Inf corps in every Soviet border province but I'm still slightly behind the AAR, as far as I can tell. The Luftwaffe is lacking one Luftflotte, which will only get finished in December, and one Zerstörergruppe but has one extra Fliegerkorps. The Marine (I believe) is a bit smaller than yours was at that point, but my first two carriers are due in August (one of which will be useless because I forgot to build the CAGs in time ...).
I managed to get Italy, Japan, Romania, Hungary, Finland, Croatia, Persia, Afghanistan and Yunnan (as well as their and my puppets: Manchukuo, Mengkukuo, Slovakia, Siam, Ethiopia) into the Axis.
My eastern front (with some battle plans). The armies directly on the border are the Panzers, everything else is 4-div Inf corps.
Can I still successfully invade the USSR? Or should I wait till next year and try to conduct Unternehmen Seelöwe this winter? I get the feeling Stalin will attack even before the fall of London if I do the latter.
I would try to invade the Soviets because the longer you wait, the harder it will get. Just spread the panzers out a bit, and make sure you have enough infantry. Sealion is kind of useless now, since the SU is hardcoded to attack as soon as you take London anyway.
In case you're wondering why I made the distinction. The Medium Armour are your main battle tanks. As such, they need as much firepower as they can get. The Light Armour are exploitation units. Their main weapon is speed. With all the rivers between Germany and Moscow, having engineers helps to cross those rivers faster.
It makes sense. I think the only other support option that would not slow the light armor down is armored cars, but I'd think that the river crossing benefit would outweigh anything that an aufklärungs brigade could give them, considering the light armor divisions' purpose. If artillery is the best bang per buck in the game, and medium armor divisions are meant to throw a very heavy punch, then you'd want artillery that could keep up. I guess all the game's engineers are motorized, which is pretty nice.
Nothing is faster in the game than a division of 2 Larm/2 AC. And the best part, in terms of FTM, back then they were still soft enough to make them Combined Arms.
What is the ideal military force to have built up for TFH? I think these is what was in the guide but I'm not sure.
115 infantry
5 mountain
48 militia
8 Larm
16 arm
16 mot
115 infantry
5 mountain
48 militia
8 Larm
16 arm
16 mot
I don't know if this is ideal, but what I had was the following on 31/5/1941, just a couple of days before Barbarossa:
West:
32 x 2inf/art/AT
51 x 4 mil
7 x gar/3MP
7x 2 cav
East:
93 x 2 inf/art/AT
20 x arm/2mot/Spart (some of these may have been W-SS)
15 x 2mot/spart/td (same here, may be some W-SS instead)
8 x 2 cav
11 x gar/3MP
2 x 2mtn
1 x 3mtn (the mtn divisions are just the ones I got after the Anschluss).
Luftwaffe:
12 cas
21 int
14 tac
Kriegsmarine:
5 BC
4 DD
9 CA
14 CL
12 Landing craft (license build from Japan)
BP on 10/8/1941.
West:
32 x 2inf/art/AT
51 x 4 mil
7 x gar/3MP
7x 2 cav
East:
93 x 2 inf/art/AT
20 x arm/2mot/Spart (some of these may have been W-SS)
15 x 2mot/spart/td (same here, may be some W-SS instead)
8 x 2 cav
11 x gar/3MP
2 x 2mtn
1 x 3mtn (the mtn divisions are just the ones I got after the Anschluss).
Luftwaffe:
12 cas
21 int
14 tac
Kriegsmarine:
5 BC
4 DD
9 CA
14 CL
12 Landing craft (license build from Japan)
BP on 10/8/1941.
That's another question, Misterbean. For TFH, how would Waffen-SS brigades fit into your German strategy as you played it out in Take 2? Myself, I think they are a little silly from an historical standpoint, because one can't specify which combat arms specialty applies. There were Waffen-SS units that were armor, infantry, cavalry, artillery, panzergrenadier, military police, flak, paratroop, you name it. It was not like Gurkhas, where you could reasonably suppose that most units designated Gurkha were light infantry manned by tough dudes from Nepal with kukris. It was a whole different service with the whole support train, except that so far as I'm aware, the Waffen-SS didn't have its own air force except for perhaps spotter planes (perhaps).
In the game, the Waffen-SS are motorised troops specialised in urban warfare, so I treat them just like I would any other motorised brigade.
Thanks for the breakdown misterbean, I appreciate it. Where are you using the gar/3MP, just wherever there is trouble? How much light armor do you use?
In this case, I didn't use any Light Armour. They were all upgraded to Medium Armour and each one had to give up 1 Arm brigade to serve as the base for another panzer-division.
The gar/3MP in the west were spread out across the Low Countries and France. The garrisons and cavs in the east were behind the line, on the former border between Poland and Germany to suppress partisans who have a nasty habit of springing up just after you storm into the SU. This way, I prevented them from severing my supply lines.