Newbie questions (mostly Sealion-related)

[Abraxas]

Hello there! I'm a long-time fan of EU3, but having played that quite a lot I decided I'd finally give HoI2 another go in spite of not being too impressed the first time around. I'm glad I did, since this game has been a lot of fun.

I'll try to cut a long story short. I started as Germany in 1939. Poland, France, The Benelux, Denmark and Norway fell way smoother than I expected. I left Yugoslavia and Greece on their own, since I didn't want to concentrate on too many fronts. Barbarossa was hard, but I finally got a bitter peace in late 1943. From then until my current point (spring 1945) I've been cleaning up in Africa where the Italians had held the line surprisingly well. For a long time, the main focus of my research and production has been on a future invasion of the British Isles, about which I now have some questions.

1. As expected, my navy is a lot weaker than UK's so I'm a bit worried. On the other hand my air force is well capable of matching anything stationed in Britain. What's the best choice for getting my troops across in such a situation? Currently I'm thinking of placing all my ships in a single seazone and ordering a number of Tactical bombers to perform naval bombardment to make up for my lack of ships. Is there a reason why this is obviously infeasible?

2. Supposing I manage to land some troops (I'm quite sure of this, at least the Fallschirm can not be stopped by enemy ships), how do I supply them? My manual seems to be hiding somewhere and I couldn't find a relevant article in the wiki. The only thing I know for certain is that an unsupplied invasion force is a dead invasion force.

3. I've been keeping up with historical nuclear research and am currently building a level 6 reactor, so nuclear warfare will soon be available. Am I better off postponing the invasion until I can start it with a nuke or two?

4. My garrisons in the east are quite minimal. How safe is it two assume that I won't have to expect a serious military threat from the Soviets in the future?

5. The British have been controlling the southern Sicilian province with a single division for something like two years. Yet, in spite of having three divisions and several air units on the northern half of the island, the Italians have done nothing to retake the province. What is the reason for this odd behavior? Is there anything short of assuming military control I can do to encourage them to reclaim the province?

That is a long list of questions probably asked as often as "How do I put troops on ships" over at the EU3 forum, but I have trust in the friendliness of the community

 

[Abraxas]

6. For some reason I built a carrier air group shortly after the game started but I can't seem to deploy it anywhere. When I try deplying it, all provinces are yellow. What gives? :wacko:

 

[unmerged(105989)]

1) Use your small navy to lure the RN out, then sink them with TACs. Watch where they port, then port strike them into oblivion. Otherwise, spend the couple years to build a decent navy. You'll need it anyways to fight the US.

2) As long as your convoys are on auto-create, this will happen on its own, assuming you have enough convoys. In this game, a bigger hammer method to logistics is always the best route. Otherwise, you'll need to create your own supply convoy.

3) Nukes are always nifty, but using them depends on the level of threat. Also, I wouldn't use nukes against provinces I'm personally attacking, as at least in DD 1.3, nukes reduce infra to 0 making it a long hard move in.

4) Depends on how much of a hurt you put on the SU. I generally surround a BP province, then fight deep into Siberia, releasing all the Asian puppets. This will get the SU down to 4-5 IC. You need to advance to a line even with Tanna Tuva to make this happen.

5) The AI doesn't always do what is best for it. Take mil control (assuming you're allied) of them for long enough to launch the appropriate counterattack, then if you feel like it, give control back to them.

6) You built a CAG, but perchance did you build a carrier to put it on? CAGs can only be placed on CVs, like a brigade. When you click on the CAG in the deployment screen, you should have a list of CVs without CAGs.

Hope this helps.

 

[Abraxas]

Thanks for the quick and informative replies, ecnan A couple of follow-ups, though:

1. Never thought of luring them out to the open, but that does indeed sound viable, gotta try that when I have the time to play again. I'd rather do this asap and while building a bigger navy to evetually invade the US.

4. I only went about as far as is required for the event to fire. Having dived head first into the game, I wasn't aware of the event's existance until it fired. So I take this to mean I should be prepared for another round of war in the east once the peace treaty expires.

5. Stupid me, never thought it was possible to also return military control. OTOH, since there is not much the Italians could do from their current positions anyway, I might as well keep control just to get my hands on their air force

6. So a CAG is equivalent to a brigade and not a division? I feel a little stupid now for not figuring this out myself. But a million thanks anyway!