Keeping track of battle plans

[jaakvik]

Hi

I wonder about one thing...How do you keep track of battle plans in large scale theaters, for instance as Germany in Russia. I typically have a few 24 unit infantry armies, and some panzer and motorized armies of 10 divisions each - in my current game I have 4 infantry groups, and about 10 different motorized and panzer groups.

After a few months, I have a lot of frontlines for the groups, and I typically loose track of which units belong where. What I could wish for is a function that highlights an army group´s frontlines and battles plans. So that when you choose a group, you could press a button and easily see where the frontlines and battle plans are.

Does anyone else have a tip for how to keep track of all these lines (frontlines and battle plans)?

Best regards
Joey

 

[Praetori]

Hi

I wonder about one thing...How do you keep track of battle plans in large scale theaters, for instance as Germany in Russia. I typically have a few 24 unit infantry armies, and some panzer and motorized armies of 10 divisions each - in my current game I have 4 infantry groups, and about 10 different motorized and panzer groups.

After a few months, I have a lot of frontlines for the groups, and I typically loose track of which units belong where. What I could wish for is a function that highlights an army group´s frontlines and battles plans. So that when you choose a group, you could press a button and easily see where the frontlines and battle plans are.

Does anyone else have a tip for how to keep track of all these lines (frontlines and battle plans)?

Best regards
Joey

Unfortunately it turns into a clogged mess if unattended for too long (which is a hassle but less so than microing every single division). The only way to keep it sanitized is to adjust the frontages of each army as you go along. As soon as a new frontage opens up the various armies will start to overlap (sometime mega extending their frontage to include hundreds of km of front i a single stroke). Now before the effects start to get felt (ie division shuffling) you need to be quick and adjust the frontage by dragging the end-points (here it really helps to have different distinct colors assigned to the various adjacent armies).

Ctrl+right clicking the attack arrows, frontlines or targets will select the divisions assigned to that specific order (be it a part of an army or the whole army). If that order or front is no longer valid you can delete it or press ctrl+H to have them unassigned from that particular order/arrow and a red exclamation mark will appear next to any such divisions which makes it pretty easy to re-assign them to a new order or front.

 

[Dalwin]

I find myself usually doing one of two things. Either I frequently go in and readjust the borders between armies or I go in and reassign the units to new armies based upon their current location. I find myself doing the latter more often than I like in MP games since I rarely have time to do the former often enough to keep up with changing conditions.

Even in my slow paced MP group I am not going to try to justify a 10 minute pause just so I can realign my armies.

All too often, especially on the defense, the easiest solution is to delete all battle plans on day one of the conflict. Use your planning bonus while it lasts and here and there find quiet sectors where you can get away with setting up new plans and rebuilding a bonus without being shuffled to death.

 

[jaakvik]

Thank you for your replies

I guess I have to become better at fine-tuning my frontlines, do it more frequently. I have already tried, and it kind of worked.

Though, I still belive it would be a great idea to be able to highlight all the frontlines and battle-plans that an army has. Kind of the opposite of the function that lets you pick all the units that are related to a frontline. Maybe something to ask the developers for

Have a nice easter...

Joey

 

[Kaosium]

Thank you for your replies

I guess I have to become better at fine-tuning my frontlines, do it more frequently. I have already tried, and it kind of worked.

Though, I still belive it would be a great idea to be able to highlight all the frontlines and battle-plans that an army has. Kind of the opposite of the function that lets you pick all the units that are related to a frontline. Maybe something to ask the developers for

Have a nice easter...

Joey

Above someone suggested you change the colors of your armies to distinctly different colors and you'll find if you do that the shade of their battleplans is actually a little different and with practice you can tell them apart. For example one army will be dead black and the advancement arrow from it looks somewhat like a film negative looks like as opposed to a shaded white one. You can't really tell when all your armies are slightly different shade of lavender like it seems to default to, but with more distinct colors you can learn how to notice the difference and differentiate at a glance and the other tools detailed above (which are also on the army buttons on the bottom of the screen when you select an army) allow you to activate the units assigned with an arrow or detach them from their current orders.

 

[grandad1982]

Above someone suggested you change the colors of your armies to distinctly different colors and you'll find if you do that the shade of their battleplans is actually a little different and with practice you can tell them apart. For example one army will be dead black and the advancement arrow from it looks somewhat like a film negative looks like as opposed to a shaded white one. You can't really tell when all your armies are slightly different shade of lavender like it seems to default to, but with more distinct colors you can learn how to notice the difference and differentiate at a glance and the other tools detailed above (which are also on the army buttons on the bottom of the screen when you select an army) allow you to activate the units assigned with an arrow or detach them from their current orders.

Or use strategic view adjustments mod as it saturates the colour more and it's easier to see! Love that mod.

 

[hkrommel]

Hi

I wonder about one thing...How do you keep track of battle plans in large scale theaters, for instance as Germany in Russia. I typically have a few 24 unit infantry armies, and some panzer and motorized armies of 10 divisions each - in my current game I have 4 infantry groups, and about 10 different motorized and panzer groups.

After a few months, I have a lot of frontlines for the groups, and I typically loose track of which units belong where. What I could wish for is a function that highlights an army group´s frontlines and battles plans. So that when you choose a group, you could press a button and easily see where the frontlines and battle plans are.

Does anyone else have a tip for how to keep track of all these lines (frontlines and battle plans)?

Best regards
Joey

I usually use field marshals honestly. It's still a pain in the ass but it's less of one.

 

[Dalwin]

I usually use field marshals honestly. It's still a pain in the ass but it's less of one.

Doesn't the shuffle problem become significantly worse with Field Marshals? Considering the long distances some units would be travelling and how often the front will have shifted by the time they get there, I cannot see how a FM would not make that worse.

 

[hkrommel]

Doesn't the shuffle problem become significantly worse with Field Marshals? Considering the long distances some units would be travelling and how often the front will have shifted by the time they get there, I cannot see how a FM would not make that worse.

I've found that it happens more gradually, so periodically hitting "hold all divisions" is how I deal with it. It's basically a tradeoff between which annoying thing you prefer dealing with.

Edit: I also use 3 field marshals on the biggest front I deal with (USSR) so it's not like they're all on one front shifting from Estonia to Crimea, it's more like Crimea to north Ukraine.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

As others said, use (distinctive) colors. And another advice related to that: Try to assign a given color to a specific role across all games. Examples from Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffenfarbe

 

[melkor88]

When it comes to invading Russia I prefer to have all infantry in 1 army, then it is less to worry about. Then I only have to manage battle plans for my Panzers.