Quick Questions - Quick Answers

[Pro_Consul]

I started a invasion of the UK. Everything went right, occupied ca. 50% of main land but now im having a ****** supply problem.
I have made convoys of suppy to the uk, but it does not help, UK is now striking back and my men escaping. Thats why i hate attacing oversea countries in HoI3.

What should i do?

What port(s) is/are the target(s) of these supply convoys? Remember that a port can only receive so much each day, that amount based on the size of the naval base present there. So if your only port supplying the beachhead is a weeny level 2 naval base, and you landed an entire army or more of troops, then you can expect supply shortages. If that is what is happening, you need to get yourself a major port, and soon. You might consider staging a second invasion at a high level port and then try to connect the two beachheads.

 

[koerake1]

Could someone tell me about soft-, hard- and piercing attack.

 

[Opanashc]

Each brigade has a softness %. In real-life terms, it means how many human bodies vs how many machines like trucks or artillery guns or tanks, are in the unit.
Each unit has a soft, hard and piercing attack value. When in combat, soft attack is used to target the soft part of the enemy unit, and hard attack - the rest. Say we have a division with 10 soft and 5 hard attack, and an enemy division with 60% softness. During your firing phase of the combat, your division will use 60% of its soft attack, and 40% of its hard attack - 6 soft and 2 hard shots.
Piercing attack attack comes into play, when an enemy unit has an armor rating. AC, tanks, SP, TD have armor. If your piercing attack is less than the enemy's armor, then the damage the enemy unit takes is reduced by 50%. In the above mentioned case, it would mean that you basically have 3 soft and 1 hard shots. If your piercing attack is equal or greater then the enemy's armor rating, than combat proceeds as normal - no modifiers are applied.

 

[Pro_Consul]

If your piercing attack is less than the enemy's armor, then the damage the enemy unit takes is reduced by 50%....

...and your own org loss from the enemy's return fire is increased. Failing to pierce enemy armor simultaneously hurts you and helps the enemy.

 

[koerake1]

Also i have a question about National Unity. It is currently 70% and is sometimes lowering and sometimes highering. Only negative thing is fractured government(-0.05), what is this and how to raise it? I've been raising overall national unity with spies but is there anything else?

 

[Opanashc]

Fractured Government is due to parties not in power having enough popularity to claim minister positions (at least 1), but not assigned any. You can try raising your ruling party organization, in hopes in will tug its popularity high enough to deny other parties the cabinet, assign the rival party a minister (sometimes impossible to do) or ignore it.

 

[Pro_Consul]

Also i have a question about National Unity. It is currently 70% and is sometimes lowering and sometimes highering.

Things that lower national unity include enemy spies on the appropriate mission, suffering convoy losses to raiding, suffering damage from strategic bombers, and fractured government (see below).

Only negative thing is fractured government(-0.05), what is this and how to raise it?

Fractured government happens when there is a political party in your nation which is under-represented in the cabinet, proportional to its popularity. Basically the more popular a party gets, the more seats they expect to have in the cabinet. You can tell how much by checking the tooltip for the specific party in question (hover over their little bar in the chart on the politics page). It will tell you how many seats they expect to have. If any party has less seats than they expect, you get the fractured government penalty. The surest long-term way to combat this is to raise support for the party in power... a lot. As their support goes up, support for all other parties goes down, until it reaches the point that no other party has enough support to be demanding any seats. In the short-term, you might be able to meet their demands if you have a minister or two of their party available to appoint to one or two positions. I don't recommend that, though, unless they have the traits you want in those offices anyway. The fractured government penalty is too small, in my opinion, to justify seating a minister with an unwanted trait in place of one with a desired trait.

I've been raising overall national unity with spies but is there anything else?

That is the only straightforward way, aside from trying to eliminate the sources of any penalties. That said, convoy raiders and strategic bombers are special cases. Successfully killing enemy vessels engaged in raiding gives a slight short-term boost to NU. This usually doesn't come anywhere near to breaking even with the NU damage the raiders do, though. Bombers, however, are an opportunity. Successfulling intercepting an enemy unit that is on a strategic bombing mission, even if you lose the interception battle, more or less negates the NU hit by giving you an offsetting NU rise. And if you intercept the same bombing mission more than once, it is a net gain in NU, even if both interception battles are lost. And of course if you turn back a bombing mission before it can execute its bombing run, that is a gain since you get the NU boost from the interception without taking the hit from the bombing run. If you do a forum search on automating air defenses you will find several posts that give detailed methods for how to setup and automate an interception system which will regularly provide a boost to NU, provided you are actually being bombed by somebody of course. If you can't find one of them, holler at me and I will pull a link for you.

 

[2653Man]

Hi all! first post. Couldn't find the answer with a search. My question "Is there a way to remove a theatre HQ that is on the map?" Playing as Bulgaria and Romania and would like the option to build up to a theatre HQ. Thanks!

 

[LordBhaal]

Hi all! first post. Couldn't find the answer with a search. My question "Is there a way to remove a theatre HQ that is on the map?" Playing as Bulgaria and Romania and would like the option to build up to a theatre HQ. Thanks!

Deassign all units attached to the Theater HQ before trying to disband and that should do the trick.

 

[Pro_Consul]

If by "remove" you mean disband, then yes. Just make sure that there are no units or other HQs reporting to that HQ, then assign all its area of operations to another theater. Then you can disband it. Obviously this means you cannot disband your very last theater HQ since there won't be another theater HQ you can reassign its territory to.

Edit: emu'd

 

[Gen. Marshall]

then assign all its area of operations to another theater.

This part is important. You can leave units attached to the theater, you just need to make sure that its area of operations (the theater) is assigned to another theater. To do this, select your other theater HQ and click the button which shows some territory being selected (this button is only on theater HQs so it shouldn't be hard to find). Click and drag a box over all your territory, and you should be able to delete the first HQ then.

Incidentally, why remove a theatre? Both Bulgaria and Romania only have one to start off with and you can rename them. Consider these units your "army high command".

 

[gunstickuncle]

Do convoy escorts also generate naval combat xp when they (try to) fend off enemy raiders?

 

[Pro_Consul]

Do convoy escorts also generate naval combat xp when they (try to) fend off enemy raiders?

An excellent question that had never occurred to me. My guess would be no, but the plain fact is I haven't a solid clue in the world. Waiting to see the answer to this myself, if anyone has it.

 

[feye1]

Do convoy escorts also generate naval combat xp when they (try to) fend off enemy raiders?

If a convoy or convoy escort is attacked (and get sunk?) both countries do get some naval experience. With other words, if you convoys get sunk, you get naval combat experience. It doesn't matter if you have escorts attached to the convoy.

 

[gunstickuncle]

If a convoy or convoy escort is attacked (and get sunk?) both countries do get some naval experience. With other words, if you convoys get sunk, you get naval combat experience. It doesn't matter if you have escorts attached to the convoy.

Thank you very much, apparently failure is some kind of experience^^

 

[koerake1]

I've got easy question for you guys. So, how should i build a divison? What should it contain, for example as germany. I would like to have powerful attacking forces.

 

[Premu]

I've got easy question for you guys. So, how should i build a divison? What should it contain, for example as germany. I would like to have powerful attacking forces.

Well, there's no easy answer to that question... It mainly depends on the purpose your division has to fulfill, how many IC and manpower you have available, etc.

Your main force will be infantry - standard builds are 3Inf+1Art, although in some cases it's sensible to replace the Art with AT, or to build 2Inf-2Art-divisions.
Armour should be both powerful in combat and fast to exploit breakthroughs. Good builds are 1 Arm/2 Mot (resp. Mech)/1 SPART or 2Arm/1Mot(resp. Mech)/1 SPART. Alternatively replace SPART with TD for more combat power against enemy tanks, but the division will be slower.
Then there are motorized or mechanized Infantry-Divisions - not so good in offense, but great to defend your breakthrough.
A few specialists (mountaineers/paratroopers/marines) are also very valuable for tactical flexibility.
And of course there are quite special builds - e.g. some crazy combinations like HArm/2Mar/Art or other things like that...

 

[koerake1]

Thanks!

Also still confused with air power. Let's say i want to attack a province with planes(strat. bombing, ground attack, port att, logist. bombing etc.) so how many planes would be enough and effective to do the job?

 

[Premu]

Thanks!

Also still confused with air power. Let's say i want to attack a province with planes(strat. bombing, ground attack, port att, logist. bombing etc.) so how many planes would be enough and effective to do the job?

I make my bomber stacks at least normally with four wings.

 

[misterbean]

Thanks!

Also still confused with air power. Let's say i want to attack a province with planes(strat. bombing, ground attack, port att, logist. bombing etc.) so how many planes would be enough and effective to do the job?

I always have my interceptors and M/R in groups of 4. My bombers will be in groups of 3.