Please Eradicate my Misconceptions

[Michigan Ex]

Hi everyone,

When I started playing Darkest hour I used the Paradoxan wiki strategy guides as a quick reference guide to improve my gameplay. Although much of the information is outdated in relation to the darkest hour rules I found much of it useful in serving as a beginners strategy guide. I have been perusing the forums here recently trying to take my DH gameplay to a higher level. I have some questions and clarifications regarding conflicting information between the two sources and am hoping some veteran players can help me out.

Mixing infantry and Militia

Is it still beneficial to mix in 1 militia for every 2 regular infantry divisions in order to reduce IC replacement costs of casualties overall? Is this still a favored tactic to expand frontage overall, or do most players find the extra hitting power of regular infantry divisions more valuable than the IC savings and the extra numbers of men on the front?

What is your attachment to detachments?

Based on information from the Paradoxan wiki I have heard that detachments are generally not worth it. My experience in gameplay has tended to confirm this. It seems like having 3 vanilla infantry is better than having 2 infantry with artillery. There are some exceptions to this, for example EF’s for bombers and SP for tanks. I am interested to hear people’s thoughts and experiences on this issue.

Gearing Bonuses and auto-upgrades

I am trying to nail down the exact value of gearing bonuses. As I understand it there is a 5% bonus in production value for each run, however, there is a 10% loss when that run is upgraded. Assuming my understanding is correct, my question is whether the 10% loss is taken from the bonus as a whole or as a fraction. So does a run of 2/10 with a 10% gearing bonus that gets upgraded no have a 0% gearing bonus or a 9% gearing bonus?

CAS or TACs

Whenever I do the math I see more damage overall coming from bombers. I a notoriously bad at math and I frequently see people talking about use of CAS. What am I missing here? What makes CAS so great and how do I utilize it effectively?

Thanks for feedback your willing to provide on these topics.

 

[Furor_Teutonicus]

To CAS or TACs...

I guess TACs are better suited for Ground Support to reduce your opponents Organization while battling. CAS are better for Ground Attack to kill your enemies (-> reduce Strength) after they lost a battle and retreat. CAS also have a higher hard attack value and are therefore better at bombing tanks/mech than TACs.

 

[vcgetdown]

Gearing bonus is flat not multiplicative. If you have 10% and upgrade a unit you lost 10%. I don't mix militia unless I have manpower to spare (China, India, ETC) and not much IC. Militia may very well be better in most cases but it feels gamey to me and I am not going to put military on the Front as Germany for example.

 

[Baron Jukaga]

Hi everyone,

When I started playing Darkest hour I used the Paradoxan wiki strategy guides as a quick reference guide to improve my gameplay. Although much of the information is outdated in relation to the darkest hour rules I found much of it useful in serving as a beginners strategy guide. I have been perusing the forums here recently trying to take my DH gameplay to a higher level. I have some questions and clarifications regarding conflicting information between the two sources and am hoping some veteran players can help me out.

Mixing infantry and Militia

Is it still beneficial to mix in 1 militia for every 2 regular infantry divisions in order to reduce IC replacement costs of casualties overall? Is this still a favored tactic to expand frontage overall, or do most players find the extra hitting power of regular infantry divisions more valuable than the IC savings and the extra numbers of men on the front?

What is your attachment to detachments?

Based on information from the Paradoxan wiki I have heard that detachments are generally not worth it. My experience in gameplay has tended to confirm this. It seems like having 3 vanilla infantry is better than having 2 infantry with artillery. There are some exceptions to this, for example EF’s for bombers and SP for tanks. I am interested to hear people’s thoughts and experiences on this issue.

Gearing Bonuses and auto-upgrades

I am trying to nail down the exact value of gearing bonuses. As I understand it there is a 5% bonus in production value for each run, however, there is a 10% loss when that run is upgraded. Assuming my understanding is correct, my question is whether the 10% loss is taken from the bonus as a whole or as a fraction. So does a run of 2/10 with a 10% gearing bonus that gets upgraded no have a 0% gearing bonus or a 9% gearing bonus?

CAS or TACs

Whenever I do the math I see more damage overall coming from bombers. I a notoriously bad at math and I frequently see people talking about use of CAS. What am I missing here? What makes CAS so great and how do I utilize it effectively?

Thanks for feedback your willing to provide on these topics.

Inf + Militia
As others have said, I think this is only really necessary for an IC poor but MP rich nation. China comes to mind.

Attachments
Math-wise spamming Vanilla Inf will be better, but flavour wise I like to mix in brigades. A regular corps will be Inf+Art, Inf+Ac and Inf+AA for me, heavy corps all art. Mots get AC or ENG. TACs and NAVs always get escorts, and for tanks I favor ENG even though SP-art is cheap and powerful.

Gearing boni
I wouldn't mind knowing that too, though I don't really bother with gearing that much as a favor the free market slider for cheaper builds and upgrades.

CAS/TAC
If you can afford both, do it. TAC softens up battles in progress with interdiction and CAS decimates retreating troops through attack. If you have to choose 1, go with TAC as they are more versatile and still do nice damage on retreating stacks.

 

[Michigan Ex]

Inf + Militia
As others have said, I think this is only really necessary for an IC poor but MP rich nation. China comes to mind.

Attachments
Math-wise spamming Vanilla Inf will be better, but flavour wise I like to mix in brigades. A regular corps will be Inf+Art, Inf+Ac and Inf+AA for me, heavy corps all art. Mots get AC or ENG. TACs and NAVs always get escorts, and for tanks I favor ENG even though SP-art is cheap and powerful.

Gearing boni
I wouldn't mind knowing that too, though I don't really bother with gearing that much as a favor the free market slider for cheaper builds and upgrades.

CAS/TAC
If you can afford both, do it. TAC softens up battles in progress with interdiction and CAS decimates retreating troops through attack. If you have to choose 1, go with TAC as they are more versatile and still do nice damage on retreating stacks.

Sounds like I need to drop the militia strategy as Germany and pick up more infantry. I will probably stick with vanilla infantry until I get a better handle on game mechanics. Quantity has a quality all its own I suppose. I do like attachments for the expensive units though and always choose SP for MOTS and Tanks. I am curious as to the reason for choosing AC's though. What is the advantage there? The FM vs CP debate is something I have come across as well. Definitely something I need to look into.

 

[Michigan Ex]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Definitely some lessons learned here. Will pick up some CAS units and drop the militia as Germany for sure.

 

[Furor_Teutonicus]

I am curious as to the reason for choosing AC's though. What is the advantage there?

Armored Cars increase Soft Attack a bit and very late in a game (about 1948) hard attack, too, but both of them not very much. But they decrease the softness of your units and the defensive and offensive vulnerability. They also help suppress partisans. They also give a bonus to fighting in urban provinces.

 

[Pasha]

Armored Cars increase Soft Attack a bit and very late in a game (about 1948) hard attack, too, but both of them not very much. But they decrease the softness of your units and the defensive and offensive vulnerability. They also help suppress partisans. They also give a bonus to fighting in urban provinces.

I think they also give a boost in ORG as well. I think the logic being that they act as recon for the division in which they are attached.

 

[Furor_Teutonicus]

I think they also give a boost in ORG as well. I think the logic being that they act as recon for the division in which they are attached.

Yes, I think that's it. I fully support your statement.

 

[Eugenioso]

Hi everyone,

When I started playing Darkest hour I used the Paradoxan wiki strategy guides as a quick reference guide to improve my gameplay. Although much of the information is outdated in relation to the darkest hour rules I found much of it useful in serving as a beginners strategy guide. I have been perusing the forums here recently trying to take my DH gameplay to a higher level. I have some questions and clarifications regarding conflicting information between the two sources and am hoping some veteran players can help me out.

Mixing infantry and Militia

Is it still beneficial to mix in 1 militia for every 2 regular infantry divisions in order to reduce IC replacement costs of casualties overall? Is this still a favored tactic to expand frontage overall, or do most players find the extra hitting power of regular infantry divisions more valuable than the IC savings and the extra numbers of men on the front?

What is your attachment to detachments?

Based on information from the Paradoxan wiki I have heard that detachments are generally not worth it. My experience in gameplay has tended to confirm this. It seems like having 3 vanilla infantry is better than having 2 infantry with artillery. There are some exceptions to this, for example EF’s for bombers and SP for tanks. I am interested to hear people’s thoughts and experiences on this issue.

Gearing Bonuses and auto-upgrades

I am trying to nail down the exact value of gearing bonuses. As I understand it there is a 5% bonus in production value for each run, however, there is a 10% loss when that run is upgraded. Assuming my understanding is correct, my question is whether the 10% loss is taken from the bonus as a whole or as a fraction. So does a run of 2/10 with a 10% gearing bonus that gets upgraded no have a 0% gearing bonus or a 9% gearing bonus?

CAS or TACs

Whenever I do the math I see more damage overall coming from bombers. I a notoriously bad at math and I frequently see people talking about use of CAS. What am I missing here? What makes CAS so great and how do I utilize it effectively?

Thanks for feedback your willing to provide on these topics.

Even though im late to the forum argument:

Mixing infantry and militia is only ever useful if you are desperately short on IC but still have a somewhat dependable Manpower base, like China or a SU that is losing and needs boots on the field pronto.

(Note that there is no penalty for disbanding divisions; if you are playing as China and have won the war and you are in the process of modernizing your army, or if playing as the SU and are suffering from MP shortages late in the war, you can disband the militias and get back the manpower to turn it into ARM or Infantry divs. This is useful for the soviets if you have a very bloody war and need to start relying more on tanks than on flesh)

As stated, and by having seen someone doing some outrageously complex number crunching, yes, ATTACHMENTS ARE NOT AS GOOD AS NUMBERS. But, as you stated as well, attachments can be used to potentiate powerful divisions for your benefit, as well as for flavor in your army. ARM for example are really powerful, but they suffer in river crossings and urban fighting; give them an engineer brigade for the extra speed, hard and soft attack, slight org bonus and fortification destruction. Marines are your best bet for successful landings, so giving them artillery brigades is a must to quickly secure terrain. Mountaineers with ENG brigades are even faster in mountains, allowing for massive traps that the enemy wont see coming. Its all about potentiation rather than mass brigading.

As a personal comment, i do add arty brigades to my infantry, because i usually dont build lots of infantry and i want my smaller force to still be powerful, not to mention that researching more powerful brigades does help.

In regards to gearing, the bonus has been nerfed titanically since HOI2 days. Back then you could get upwards to 45 or 50 days gearing bonus for central planning, and it was in fact a huge factor to look for when playing as them, to offset the blatant advantages of Free Market. Nowadays however it has been reduced to merely 20 or so, not constituting the bonus it should. Getting a division ready 20 days early might be a slight asset, but really with the way it works now it is a barely noticeable bonus in the short run, adding the serial builds stopping gearing when upgrading to a newer model. Some mods fixed this by giving you the opportunity of building older models of divs even with the research achieved, to keep constant gearing speed.

Finally, CAS is meant to attack hard targets like tanks or mechanized, especially while on the move or retreating. TAC is meant to attack organization, by doing ground support missions to rear enemy forces or to support an offensive.

Their ideal use would be this: TAC attack the enemy org while CAS ground attack the enemy targets directly, inflicting a powerful org-damage combo, while during their retreat the CAS target ARM and other valuable targets and the TAC target group concentrations to keep their org low during their retreat.

 

[Epaminondas]

In regards to gearing, the bonus has been nerfed titanically since HOI2 days. Back then you could get upwards to 45 or 50 days gearing bonus for central planning, and it was in fact a huge factor to look for when playing as them, to offset the blatant advantages of Free Market. Nowadays however it has been reduced to merely 20 or so, not constituting the bonus it should. Getting a division ready 20 days early might be a slight asset, but really with the way it works now it is a barely noticeable bonus in the short run, adding the serial builds stopping gearing when upgrading to a newer model. Some mods fixed this by giving you the opportunity of building older models of divs even with the research achieved, to keep constant gearing speed.

Agree with everything in this post, but this is the standout.

 

[Michigan Ex]

Even though im late to the forum argument:

In regards to gearing, the bonus has been nerfed titanically since HOI2 days. Back then you could get upwards to 45 or 50 days gearing bonus for central planning, and it was in fact a huge factor to look for when playing as them, to offset the blatant advantages of Free Market. Nowadays however it has been reduced to merely 20 or so, not constituting the bonus it should. Getting a division ready 20 days early might be a slight asset, but really with the way it works now it is a barely noticeable bonus in the short run, adding the serial builds stopping gearing when upgrading to a newer model. Some mods fixed this by giving you the opportunity of building older models of divs even with

Interesting, so it seems like there is a slight advantage although it is nominal, especially if you value upgraded units vs. quantity of units. In my case playing as Germany it would seem that the best use of a gearing bonus is in preparation of Barbarossa. I.E. get as much of gearing bonus as possible for infantry 39'infantry deploying for Spring 41' offensive.

 

[Michigan Ex]

I think they also give a boost in ORG as well. I think the logic being that they act as recon for the division in which they are attached.

huh, I will definitly have to play around with these then, I like the idea of adding more ORG to my German divisions.