quality v quantity / inf v mec...

[unmerged(27576)]

What's better, investing in quality or quantity? You only have so many IC to spend...

What's better mec or inf? Ignor supply costs.

Are mec's hard attack or soft attact targets?

A game as Germany its about 42 I have the bomb and V2's to deliver it, a superior navy and air force, however russia is kicking my ass on the Eastern Front, even when i nuked them twice so far! About 150 units and the graph shows it has SUPERIOR land tech, I'm second only to them. I have about 30 land units (8 panzers 6 mec, 4 mot, rest inf) all attached up with mostly artilery or engeer birgades. and both of my bomber squads (6tacs/6fighters) and I still can't stop their hordes form advancing.

I can say my bomber squads paid off earlier, and my navy bombers were a very good investment (can sink any navy force that comes along to my borders except for by britian, where about 20-30 fighter divisions can intercept and ruin my navy bombing force's day.)

Early in the game I spent alot of research on improving my military, maxed artilery and inf techs and very high close to semi-modern tanks and mot/mec units, and of course spent alot on the air and naval techs. However I'm paying dearly for not producing units with those IC points used on tech. But I have no idea how I would have gotten as far as I did without the techs for my land units.

When should you draw the line on teching v unit building. Do any of you build all-birgade units or a mix?

 

[unmerged(15618)]

mech are hard and better than ordinary inf , BUT if you are attacking mountains you MUST have ordinary inf , and dont forget of the oil they consume... , 30 German div against SU's 500 roflol , spend your manpower...

 

[unmerged(21447)]

Mec are hard attack targets, which means they are far superior than infantry in combat. Infantry is good for holding the line. 12 divisions in each province will discourage most attacks, and they'll hold long enough to give you time to rush reinforcements when the russians do attack.

30 land units is really not enough. You can't cover the russian front with so few troops. I recommand having at least 100 divs on the eastern front before Barbarossa, and at least on third of them panzer/mechs.

My recommandation : put every IC you can into production to rush build vanilla infantry to hold the line, and do your best to hold until they arrive.

As for the tech advantage, it is my understanding that once war begins, the russians stop researching and go all out on production, so it is actually in your interest to start the war early if you can muster enough troops. Basically, don't try to secure a tech lead before attacking, because with the SU's IC they can research at least as fast as you can. My advice is to focus on land techs before Barbarossa, but keep at least 1/3 of your IC in production at all time (or 100% production for the last two years before the war), and build tanks and mech infantry. That (and superior tactics) should give you the edge you need to resist the russian grinding machine. Once the war start, keep researching at the same rate, and watch your tech advantage grow...

 

[LewsTherin]

First, what version and what difficulty are you playing?

Second, I am not surprised that you don't have any extra production if you have invested so heavily in nukes and rockets early on. Really, you can't afford it.

I used to only do research for the first 2-3 years as Germany. But I found that I always lacked enough infantry once war started. It's too easy to be tempted to research "just that extra...just that extra" technology. Now, I always produce at least 5 vanilla infantry at a time. That way, after 3 years I have about 60 infantry besides what you start with.

Also, initially I wouldn't recommend researching any naval techs, except perhaps subs, if you want to make them integral to your strategy. If you will invest in naval bombers, I'd ignore subs.

 

[unmerged(29447)]

one thing that i experiensed was that you need good divisions.
not 8 inf but 5 inf 1 inf(engininer) 1inf(at) 1/2 inf(artillery).
if you just have ordinary inf they are going to run away from tanks. get stuck in the river etc.
but you are in 1942 . after you take france start to build mec/motorised.
in 1942 you should have 150 inf 20 tanks 50 mec.
and you need to have top weapons.
dont spend them on the navy.

 

[unmerged(27034)]

one thing that i experiensed was that you need good divisions.
not 8 inf but 5 inf 1 inf(engininer) 1inf(at) 1/2 inf(artillery).
if you just have ordinary inf they are going to run away from tanks. get stuck in the river etc.
but you are in 1942 . after you take france start to build mec/motorised.
in 1942 you should have 150 inf 20 tanks 50 mec.
and you need to have top weapons.
dont spend them on the navy.

You are forgetting that ordinary infantery cost less than brigaded infantery.

IC wise, ordinary infantery is better at most tasks than brigaded, because you can have almost 2 ordinary for every brigaded.

The reason to go for brigades is improving performance with minimal increase in manpower use. ( River crossing and concentrating firepower in offensive operations would be two exceptions )

And why should anyone build motorised, considering their poor performance ?

 

[unmerged(27034)]

What's better, investing in quality or quantity? You only have so many IC to spend...

What's better mec or inf? Ignor supply costs.

Actually, I suspect mechs might be better, but I'm not sure.

Are mec's hard attack or soft attact targets?

Hard.

A game as Germany its about 42 I have the bomb and V2's to deliver it, a superior navy and air force, however russia is kicking my ass on the Eastern Front, even when i nuked them twice so far! About 150 units and the graph shows it has SUPERIOR land tech, I'm second only to them. I have about 30 land units (8 panzers 6 mec, 4 mot, rest inf) all attached up with mostly artilery or engeer birgades. and both of my bomber squads (6tacs/6fighters) and I still can't stop their hordes form advancing.

1 ) Which version are you playing ? It doesn't sound like 1.06, Soviet should have had more troops.

2 ) How did you manage to have so few land troops ? That's actually less than what you began with, isn't it ? How do guard the atlantic coast ?

3 ) Since you have spent so little on land units, you should have plenty of manpower. Buy infantery, lots of it. For 300 IC, you can build 50 divisions at a time, and it being ordinary infantery, you will get it fast too. Then use your new divisions for holding the line, and your mechs / a-brigaded infantery for offensive operations.

4 ) Are you sure you need 6 fighters for every bomb squad ? Those bombers are a lot more dangerous when they come in stacks of 9 or 12.

I can say my bomber squads paid off earlier, and my navy bombers were a very good investment (can sink any navy force that comes along to my borders except for by britian, where about 20-30 fighter divisions can intercept and ruin my navy bombing force's day.)

Early in the game I spent alot of research on improving my military, maxed artilery and inf techs and very high close to semi-modern tanks and mot/mec units, and of course spent alot on the air and naval techs. However I'm paying dearly for not producing units with those IC points used on tech. But I have no idea how I would have gotten as far as I did without the techs for my land units.

You should have skipped research on Naval units, most Naval Doctrines ( except the ones that apply to subs ) , Rocketry and nukes. You probably could have reduced spending on air techs a little.

When should you draw the line on teching v unit building. Do any of you build all-birgade units or a mix?

For most countries, this would be reasonably clever;

Tech untill 1938/39. Then divide IC equally between units and tech.


Brigades is a question of manpower.

Brigades increase performance for a huge cost in IC, and a small cost in manpower. So, IC wise, ordinary provides better performance, manpower wise, brigades provides better performance.

When manpower is scarce ( like it usually is for Germany ), brigades make sense. When manpower is abundant, ( like it usually is for Soviet ) brigades don't make much sense.

Some points that also apply for Brigades..

It can make sense to have an army of e-brigaded units, for though rivercrossings.

Stacking limits how many troops can effectively fight in one province. After the first 12 units, you lose the leaders skill point bonus. Every units after the 24th fight at - 75 % efficiency. So at some points, you cannot increase firepower by adding more divisions. You can only increase firepower by having better divisions. Brigades is the solution in such situations.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

As Germany fighting the Red Army, you should MINIMUMALLY have on the Eastern Front what the Germans had historically:

19 Pz
15 motor inf
120 inf
divisions plus allies. More is better. As others noted, you don't need to mix bombers with fighters. At most 2 escort fighters with 10 tac bombers, but it's probably better to just use pure bomber squadrons while having some fighters around to clear the skies. I found a stack of 12 basic tac bombers under Kesselring was sometimes better to clear a province of 3-4 enemy fighters than using 3 or 4 of my fighters against their's.

You can not research almost everything and still be able to produce a lot of units. You have to decide what to focus on and what to ignore for at least a while. When I play Germany at very hard in 1.06, I research armor levels, all inf stuff, arty up to level 3 where you get 120 province AA, basic bombers and basic fighters, and land doctrines after the Munich crisis. You did not mention electronics or industry research where I go for industrial growth then for conversions; in electronics I research all components leading to computers, combat efficiency (man portable radio), and surprise (vehicle radio). I ignore rockets, nuclear, subs, and navy until later on after I have started to succeed in Russia. I use a 3 plain inf build cycle in 1936 and 1937 until I switch to airplane upgrade and pz/motor builds. Plus several size 12 inf builds.

For brigades I build pz with eng brigades for all my early Pz. I use them in size 3 Pz corps so they need to survive on their own and cross rivers easily so eng brigades for Pz div work best for me. I build plain inf except for occasional size 12 inf-eng brigades which I use for fortified areas or for cities. As of Dec 1940 in my current game I have 24 inf-eng in two armies while the other brigaded inf are in one elite army.

 

[unmerged(29447)]

i have abaut 120 inf.
30 mec and 20 panzer im in 1941.
can i invade su in 1942.
i own hole europe. allied whith:japan.italy,vincy france,hungary,yugoslavia,afganistan,sudi-arabia,spain,portugal.

 

[unmerged(2833)]

You are forgetting that ordinary infantery cost less than brigaded infantery.

IC wise, ordinary infantery is better at most tasks than brigaded, because you can have almost 2 ordinary for every brigaded.

The reason to go for brigades is improving performance with minimal increase in manpower use. ( River crossing and concentrating firepower in offensive operations would be two exceptions )

And why should anyone build motorised, considering their poor performance ?

You get 4 vanilla for one brigaded infantry...

 

[unmerged(14102)]

You are forgetting that ordinary infantery cost less than brigaded infantery.

IC wise, ordinary infantery is better at most tasks than brigaded, because you can have almost 2 ordinary for every brigaded.

The reason to go for brigades is improving performance with minimal increase in manpower use. ( River crossing and concentrating firepower in offensive operations would be two exceptions )

And why should anyone build motorised, considering their poor performance ?

When i infrequently play GER, I do not consider performance/IC, but rather performance/MP when chossing what units to build. GER is MP restricted not IC if you manage your economy correctly. You need the most you can get out of each and every MP you have.

This translates into:
AIRPOWER: fighters to clear the skies and TAC/DIV to punish the SOV and to get your max combined arms bonus in fighting. IC intensive, but MP friendly.

ARMOR: Panzers and MECH. As much as you can. IMP MED 70's are the starting point. Get ADV HVY 120's when you can.

BRIGADES: always. ussually i get arty as GER going against SOV because they will have so many INF div and you want the additional SA. So that means i build MECH-A and ARM-A. GER has good enough ENG leaders that you can develop for river crossings.

The last VH/F SP game i played, i had converted most of my INF into INF-E for garrison [1 INF-E with a good leader can hold against up to 3 div of USA/ENG landing easily. also keep 3 DIV in the area and you can hold agisnt up 9 div landing!], and the rest into MECH-A for attack. I kicked Barbarossa off with like 20 panzers and 36 Mech, and i had lot's in the production queue. Oh yeah, i had also like 12 ME109's and 24 TAC's 12 DIV with more coming also.

Combined arms really works ... use your air power. with the last update, finally your air power can be used in quick defense support also.

Early strike is crucial. when i started, i was a bit overwhelmed, but my porduction queue kept cranking, and i kept taking provinces from SOV. once i got their oil, their economy started to crack, MIL units started to appear and then the route was on. You end up taking peace with them about the historical line the GER achieved because your supply hit becomes so bad that you cannot keep going. this is good proof of the effectiveness of the new supply model. GREAT job again MathGuy!

The only way i have beaten that was by planning and having numerous points to start my attack from [east and south and west]. That strategy required early PARA development. then i could blitz the balkans and avoid the SPhere of Influence DoW's, roll through PER, AFG, and CHI. this gives you a land bridge all the way, so you are in fully in supply. Now when atacking SOV, you can go from multiple angles. Of course you have to defend multiple angles, so be sure to have your allies in place. you do not have enough MP to solo this strategy [at least i have not got it to work solo]. Then once the SOV is gone, well say bye-bye to everyone else. The world goes grey fast. You then have IC and MP to dominate everything. Just be sure to choose your minsters for MP, not IC and you're fine.

When you invade USA with your 60 DIV ADV HVY 120 Panzers, 120 div MECH-A, supported by a cloud of air .... ;-)

 

[unmerged(6780)]

Like most such series of questions, the short answer is both.

You have to invest in quality AND quantity; it does no good to have 1,000 divisions if your troops are at 1939 tech and everyone else is at 1944.

As for mech or inf, again, you need both; the cost and construction time cannot be divested from the answer as to whcih is "better". Inf form the backbone of the army; they're your occupation and defence forces, they're used to hold the line and to provide weight to an attack. Mechanized forces are what you use to add the needed punch to the critical attacks, but you cannot have a huge force because of how long it takes to produce them and, most importantly, the amount of fuel they use. Another consideration is that, when long distances are involved, inf more or less remain in the theatre to which they are first deployed, because of their slow speed, but mech can redeploy faster over longer distances, even when strategic redeployment is accounted for, as there is a finite SR capability.

As for building reinforced units, a mix is usually best, but an intelligent mix. For example, I tend to build 1 out of every 3 inf divivisions as an inf-arty for my standard inf corps. For beach garrisons, I build them as plain inf divs. I rarely attach brigades to my armour, as I want my armour (and mot, and mech) to retain their speed. I will occasionally build some light armour with attached engineers (no more than 4-6 divs) to use as exploitation forces. The problem with brigades is that they do take up more manpower than they are worth if you build an all-brigade army , but an all plain army doesn't have enough concentrated combat power unless massive force is brought to bear, and there will be situations where you will only be able to use smaller forces and the added punch of those brigades can sometimes make the difference.

As to the how much to allocate to tech as opposed to production, that depends entirely on what year it is, how advanced you are, what your manpower situation is, the overall strategic situation and, most importantly, the country you're playing and thus there is no general answer that would be worthwhile.

The same can be said for what areas of research are pursued as well as how many resources are committed to naval, air, and land. Very broadly speaking, land must have top priority, as battleships are spectacularly bad at taking or holding ground (as are aircraft), but they can certainly help the ground pounders.

The real trick is to recognize what research and production priorities to set and when it's time to change them.

 

[unmerged(27576)]

first, what are vanellia infantry?

I'm playing 1.06, and I'm amazed that the soviets do have more land tech than me, but not surpised at their numbers. I thought the bomb would help turn the tide. Rocketry has helped STRategicly bomb London, V2's cheap and efective and can hold the bomb. The bomb totaly wipes out the big places.

I have about 10-15 divisons mostly inf in france protecting the shore. I have a total of 1000 IC give or take. My ally (the nation bordering russia just below poland) fell and now the russians are sneaking in the back door. I own most of yugoslavia and chezk and all that.

Ithought that a all birgade army would be far more powerfull than regular units, but I was wrong. I just love the thought that Artillery adds like 15-25 attack points, thats why most of my tanks and units have A attachments. Man power isnt a problem cuz I have so few units... isnt that wonderfull!?!?

I like my air power tho, it's failing me now. I want to try the 'clear with figthers then bomb them to pieces strategy' but how do you clear fighters... Do you send your fighters to incercep the province you want to attack an hour before you send your bombers? It seems the enemy can scramble and take out your bombers, really do some damage if they dont have fighter divisons. If you knew where they had fighteres stationed you could send them at the same time I guess to tie them up, but then they have more than one fighters! ahhhh help me on using my air power effectivly.

I'll start massing regular inf I guess. I already have about 10 inf divisions on the way but they take forever (no attachments!). Or at least it seems like forever when your playing on below normal cuz so much is happening at once and your empire is crumbling apart!

 

[unmerged(6780)]

Vanilla infantry are infantry without attachments. As for an all-brigade army being powerful, yes, it is, but an all-brigade army will be a small army, and most of the big powers need large, good armies, especially the Germans. If the Germans, for example, go with a relatively small, quality army, they'll either be snowed under or won't be able to do much more than conquer their local area, which means they get crushed.

 

[unmerged(27034)]

first, what are vanellia infantry?

Nickname for infantery without brigades. ( Arg, PBI beat me to it )

Vanilla HoI, is playing HoI without any mods.

 

[bizkit]

i have abaut 120 inf.
30 mec and 20 panzer im in 1941.
can i invade su in 1942.
i own hole europe. allied whith:japan.italy,vincy france,hungary,yugoslavia,afganistan,sudi-arabia,spain,portugal.

with 120 inf. it ll be hard to march through stalingrad..try build some divisions faster...

 

[unmerged(27576)]

Ok what's the story behind vanilla inf... cuz it makes no sense to add a 7 letter word just to describe a basic unit...

Thanks for all your help guys.

I guess I'm going to prioritize any ground research, then transfer 100-200 IC over to production, and order up the vanilla flavored shields.

Since I'm going to be fighting for berlin with alot of units stacked, I was wondering what the stacking penality looks like. If you attack or defend with 3 units of 12 divisons each with FM leaders, do you still get stacking? even when the 3 leaders combined can command the max ammount of units, or is stacking strictly for number of units in a province no matter whose in command?

 

[Vasiliy]

Are you shure that hard attack is applied against the mec? I heard that minimum from hard and soft (or maximum?).

 

[unmerged(23946)]

Ok what's the story behind vanilla inf... cuz it makes no sense to add a 7 letter word just to describe a basic unit...

Thanks for all your help guys.

I guess I'm going to prioritize any ground research, then transfer 100-200 IC over to production, and order up the vanilla flavored shields.

Since I'm going to be fighting for berlin with alot of units stacked, I was wondering what the stacking penality looks like. If you attack or defend with 3 units of 12 divisons each with FM leaders, do you still get stacking? even when the 3 leaders combined can command the max ammount of units, or is stacking strictly for number of units in a province no matter whose in command?

First of all, what version do you have? If the soviets only have 150 divisions in 1941 then I'm pretty sure you don't have 1.06. And vanilla isn't used just in HOI, it's used in all games. Kind of like the term "pwned" or "lol", it's just basic internet jargon.

 

[unmerged(27576)]

they have about 300 divisions, I under estimated