HQ Brigades

[Wraith11B]

I've come to the conclusion that as an expansionist power, Army/Army group HQs should have a brigade of GAR, MP, AA (if you're not devoting significant resources to your airforce, and if you feel like being a bit "realistic") as those units are not necessarily always moving, nor do they need to move fast.

 

[Phili]

In the past I've experimented with which brigades to add to HQ's higher than Corpse. I first tried Inf+AA+MP and then various other combinations. Now I stick to 2Inf+Art for all my higher HQ's. If I keep my Army and Army group HQ's in pairs or with a Corps HQ they support each other from enemy action and can even attack weak enemies to gain some extra xp.

For a theater HQ sitting on your capital you definately want more than Gar, MP, AA just incase the AI drops some Para's on it. Germany starts with 1Gar+AA attached to its Theater HQ in Berlin and I always upgrade the Garisson before War starts.

I won't add Garisson to HQ's because they rob the HQ of its ability to retreat. I think that Gar, MP and AA are best used as Divisions of 2 or 3Gar+AA+MP or with the MP as a seperate division of 1 or 2Gar + 1 or 2MP.

If you look back through older posts you'll find some people use MP's on their own or with Partisans*. Its also interesting to note that Cav and AC have suppression when so many other brigades don't.

*Edit: For Partisans read Militia.

 

[Kovax]

Is adding GAR and/or MP to some HQs (if you already have HQs in the area) worth it for partisan surpression or is it better to add INF in this role as well?

Also, it was a while since I played, what is the most effective way to build units regarding the conscription/mobilisation laws and are the air, land an naval units affected the same by it?

The first part is subjective, depending on which country you play. GAR has decent Suppression, two points, and is fairly tough on defense, although they're too slow for many fluid situations with a Corps HQ. They can be fine in an Army or AG HQ where you rarely move them, and they can be Strategically Redeployed to wherever they're needed. Adding an MP brigade for additional suppression is optional, and can be helpful in a few key supply bottleneck areas (like just below Lithuania, if you're playing GER). MPs have the same problem as the HQ itself: they can't fight without a line brigade. MIL has zero suppression, so it's only role is to protect the HQ, but the HQ will potentially move faster with some research, and the MIL will hold it back. Worse, a HQ with MIL will remain in combat and probably lose badly to just about anything, rather than auto-fleeing. INF works well enough, giving you one point of Suppression and enough combat power to hold off a Partisan attack.

Again, the second question depends on country. If you've got a long time before your first confrontation, switching to 1 year conscription or volunteer army can allow you to build up a huge infantry army before the war starts, and you can mobilize it up to its full strength at HALF the difference in cost between un-mobilized and mobilized for your FIRST mobilization. That won't work for Italy, for example, which is already at war against Ethiopia at the start, or if you intend to do an early conquest and then demobilize (with something like HALF of the demobilized manpower being returned to civilian life and no longer available for conscription). Air and naval units are only buildable at full strength, so there's no savings for building them as Reserves at reduced recruitment laws. I'm not positive about armor, but I don't think they're available as Reserves either.

 

[mrsund]

Thanks Guys, I almost left early from work because of this, just wanted to get home and play, sick cough cough, but I held out.
So I think I will try with INF and add MP, AA after need.

To maximum exploit the mobilisation, I will first lower conscription, build Land units (and the usual Naval and some minor Air) then mobilise and after that up the conscription laws, is that correct?

 

[ichitori]

My hypothesis that generals gain quicker experience in an HQ than a general in a division was wrong. It was just that I had the game speed turned up which I wasn't use to viewing in that task.

 

[ichitori]

As Germany basic training is a must and a trick to use on very hard difficulty. My successful very hard playthrough I switched to Basic Training after the first 6 months of gameplay. If I have another playthrough as Germany, I'm playing as Japan next, I might switch to basic training right away.

What sucks about basic training is your airforce will have weaker stats, if that is affected, but it's a sacrifice for pumping out extra ground units.

 

[Kovax]

As Germany basic training is a must and a trick to use on very hard difficulty. My successful very hard playthrough I switched to Basic Training after the first 6 months of gameplay. If I have another playthrough as Germany, I'm playing as Japan next, I might switch to basic training right away.

What sucks about basic training is your airforce will have weaker stats, if that is affected, but it's a sacrifice for pumping out extra ground units.

All non-Reserve units will end up weaker due to the reduced Experience levels, including armor, aircraft, and ships. If you're going Infantry-heavy, then reducing training time with low recruitment laws is a plus, since you can regain MOST of the lost experience by switching to maximum training laws when you mobilize, so that high proportion of reservists shows up with high experience levels. If going for armor and aircraft, or a strong navy, you'll want longer training times, because you won't get those reservists to bring the experience levels up.

You can still build a fairly large army using lower recruitment laws, and keep the training laws high. That still gains you a lot of Reserve units that can be brought up to full strength (at a massive 50% discount) when you mobilize, yet doesn't water down the non-Reserve units' experience levels. Unfortunately, the lower recruitment laws mean that officer recruitment is reduced, so it takes a lot more Leadership invested into officer training to prevent your Officer Ratio from suddenly dropping when all of those new divisions are built. Like so many other aspects of this game, there are few "freebies", everything has a trade-off. Whether that trade-off is better or worse depends largely on which country you play and on your build strategy.

 

[Pugmak]

In my experience, playing as Germany, I can keep my training level high as well as recruitment levels (for the officer ratio) and still build a big enough army to use up most of my manpower.

 

[mrsund]

It sure is a trade off and as Germany you dont have to really, I just wanted to try a something yesterday that I was thinking of when at work, i didnt go as planned...

When not building unit as reserves, is the only diff that reserves need some time to mobilise and max manpower or is there some advantage with non reserve units?

 

[Kovax]

It sure is a trade off and as Germany you dont have to really, I just wanted to try a something yesterday that I was thinking of when at work, i didnt go as planned...

When not building unit as reserves, is the only diff that reserves need some time to mobilise and max manpower or is there some advantage with non reserve units?

There are a few other effects, such as: building a reserve unit creates less threat than a non-reserve unit.

 

[ichitori]

In my experience, playing as Germany, I can keep my training level high as well as recruitment levels (for the officer ratio) and still build a big enough army to use up most of my manpower.

To be more specific, I meant on Very Hard difficulty and if you plan on defeating the Soviet Union as Germany then Basic Training is a must, imo. That is how I won anyway, after losing a couple of times against Soviet Union using Advanced Training Army.

I also go tank heavy, and a tank brigade has 2.33 manpower compared to infantry's 3.33 manpower. So maybe that is why you are burning up Manpower as Germany something that I have also done before. On normal difficulty you can do a lot of different things and still win because it is pretty easy. An Advanced Trained German Army might be a plus on Normal difficulty, I'm not 100% sure.

Maybe to invade United Kingdom on Very Hard difficulty you might want to go with an Advanced Training Army, if you can keep the Soviet Union from preventing war on you. But invading the United Kingdom on Very Hard is a little past my skill set, since they have a huge Navy that sinks everything. It is mid 1945 in my Very Hard Germany game after conquering the Soviet Union, I might still have time to also take United Kingdom but I'm busy dominating Africa now. The United Kingdom was not my real goal. On Normal difficulty I've conquered the United Kingdom before, with 10 divisions at that.