Quick Questions - Quick Answers

[Karmapowered]

That's indeed unfortunate.

Convoys and supply routes seem to be the bane of JAP (as it was historically, mind you, but still some more player agency would have been nice). About resetting, I concur that it's sometimes helpful and even required. I also resort to manage critical convoys manually during invasions.

Thank you very much for your insight, @Paglia.




EDIT : I just saw your reply, @blue emu. I might look into the option. Thank you for bringing it up.

I do want JAP to "suffer" because of supply issues, like it did historically, but again it makes no sense to me that all troops across whole Asia get supplied from a single port that is crippled by poor surrounding infra and jungle.

It significantly (and artifically) slows down any invasion projects when deploying troops or rebasing ships somewhere (even if I try to keep them to "reasonable" numbers) from Japan homeland.

Also, I would resent losing 76+ k supplies and I can't remember how much of precious fuel if the game didn't decide to put some of it back into the "network" at some time.

 

[Gavriil]

regarding stacking penalty and str loss for air units;

I know more air wings are less efficient. Wiki says, generally for air to air combat 4 wings and 7 wings because of penalty have '240' effective planes

my question is - do 4 and 7 wings take the same amount of absolute STR damage? Making 7 wings better at spreading the damage around? (less micro) , or does penalty effect make the STR loss proportional?

 

[blue emu]

Neither one. Defense stats go down (and therefore damage goes up) as the stacking penalty goes up, but doubling the penalty does NOT result in doubled damage... only in increased damage.

For comparison, a unit with zero defense takes double the casualties of a unit with infinite defense.

... so adding more air wings will increase the total damage taken... but not as quickly as it spreads the damage.

 

[Gavriil]

worth doing in your opinion? or too marginal ?

l suppose it really isnt less micro than rotating Wings

i should probably just wait out for hoiiv

 

[Paglia]

worth doing in your opinion? or too marginal ?

l suppose it really isnt less micro than rotating Wings

i should probably just wait out for hoiiv

Stack of 50 planes give insane results... crushing anything they meet, while losing only at the margin... that's why many MODs do introduce additional penalties and multiplayers games have home rule to prevent monster stack

 

[thexmassteam]

2/ Is there a way to retrieve the huge stock of supplies/fuel sitting in Rangoon for future conquests (on another island or continent), or are they as good as lost ?

You can edit the save file. Find "6070=" in the file, and move the supply manually to ... where you want. But it's a temporary solution. Your mainland supply point may also change as you conquer new territories.
I read somewhere in a mod thread (maybe BICE) that changing some infra in some place may help supply issue for japan (disallow a continuous supply line from korea to persia). But can't remember exactly where I read it, nor which province you should remove infra.

I remember the "black hole" bug with japan in FTM, where all your supply finish somewhere in china and all your units starve elsewhere. But I never see it again in FTH

edit : humm for some unknown reason I miss half of the post so blue emu solution looks pretty good in your case. First time I heard about those impassable far onection, that's look great I will investigate that in my next Japan game (I plan some kind of unholy alliance with SU, to push comminterm in an early war with the allies )

 

[Karmapowered]

Thank you again all for the friendly advice.

I'll definitely look into what you all suggested on how to remedy this issue.

I may be back with further questions if I cannot solve it on my own to my satisfaction. I am all for challenging prospects, but they have to be reasonably conceivable (mistakes, miscommunications or enemy deception happened!) in the frame of a war. Keeping a mountain of supplies piled up forever and uselessly in a jungle while my troops need them elsewhere is just a bit beyond what I am willing to accept.

Please have a nice day/evening.

 

[GIJoe597]

Karmapowered -

A low tech method would be to simply conquer the major ports of India without taking the whole area and linking the supply system. If you keep each port from connecting to the others, each one will be an independent supply depot.

Example; Capture Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay and Karachi. Do not move all the way inland to a point where you "link" captured land to any captured land from another port. In this scenario, each port will act as its on supply depot.

 

[Karmapowered]

A low tech method would be to simply conquer the major ports of India without taking the whole area and linking the supply system. If you keep each port from connecting to the others, each one will be an independent supply depot.

Excellent suggestion, that I will be certain to use in my next game. That should solve my issue with bottlenecks and shortening my supply routes. Instead of painting the map, I will have to be a bit more thoughtful in my future invasions. Thank you very much for the useful tip.

I don't mind keeping one major continental supply depot, since that's the rule for all the other AI countries too (GER -> Berlin, SOV -> Moscow, etc.), but not at Rangoon (that's worse than GER creating its main supply depot deep in the Austrian Alps), especially not if it locks all my supplies!

I will check out @blue emu's solution for that tomorrow.

 

[Kizarvexis]

I believe that you and France will fight, yes. I would seriously consider pulling back over your border, cancelling military access, and doing it the usual way by declaring war on them. The problem that I see coming up in the future is: can you supply a whole Army Group by using military access through Belgium?

You'll find that the supply mechanics will often be a much tougher limitation on your actions than concerns like available forces, IC or Leadership.

Yep, once I realized that my panzers were not moving as they were out of fuel, I flew transport resupply missions until the panzers took the French from behind. I then pulled out of Belgium & Luxembourg and cancelled the transit rights. I have now conquered the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, although Luxembourg won't surrender and continues to fight even without any troops left. My next produced Military Police division (MP, MP, anti-tank, Militia) is landing in Luxembourg along side the Inf division there to garrison the place. I'm half way through France and just discovered strategic movement, so my 1st Mountain Korps is on the way to the French Alps. Switzerland gave France transit rights, so I am garrisoning the Swiss/French border to keep French troops in Switzerland at bay. I'm thinking of taking on the Swiss, but I want to finish off France first to release the Paras, Inf, and Mountain troops for the assault. If I can get enough Marines built, I will land in England first. I'm leaving Russia for as long as possible. I have been doing limited war, so Italy hasn't lost in N. Africa yet. I finally found Rommel, so once France is done, I may make an Afrika Korps, but that will depend on what the UK is doing. I really want to take them down, before the US enters the war. The influence on the US has them moving steadily towards the Axis, but I feel Japan will throw a wrench in that.

p.s. yes, I used some cheat codes to have enough IC to build units and research to get all but the secret units unlocked, so I could play around with different division makeups as I flounder around learning the interface. Started in 1938 and now I'm in July 1939. Still learning to use warships and lost almost all my U-Boats, so I am building more.

 

[Makje]

One thing that still sometimes eludes me is the supplies system.

During my continental conquests (China, Burma, Indochina, India), a huge pile of supplies (76k+) gathers at a single port. In my latest TFH 4.02 game, it is Rangoon. I assume it's because it's a level 10 port with decent infra on spot. From that point, all my troops on Asian mainland, from Karachi (India) to Pusan (Korea) are supplied from Rangoon.

That should not be possible. There is an artificial impassable infra = 1 corridor of provinces between Indochina (Vietnam) and China just for the purpose of separating these (supply) areas
Someone has been building infra....

But even with smaller area's the main supply depot sometimes moves port. Sometimes that is closer to the main presence of forces and sometimes it seems to move just for moving sake. In the China/Korea area that is usually Shanghai, but it can also be HongKong, Qingdao, Tianjin , Dalian or Hamhung. Moving the depot around can leave your units out of supply fo quite a while...

@ Kizarvexis:
Can you tell me what the purpose is of a MP, MP, anti-tank, Militia division?
Seeing as antitank brigades are very specific battle oriented brigades (hey they want to fight tanks) whereas 2 MP brigades really just want to do some policing and want to run away from tanks. Coupled with one single weakest frontline brigade (Mil) that does not want to fight tanks and on it's own probable can't stand up to a rebel division of several Mil brigades either....

MP, MP Mil, Mil could probably be used for protecting conquered lands and Mil, Mil, Mil, antitank could be used as cheap antitank divisions. Your mix is new for me

 

[Kizarvexis]

That should not be possible. There is an artificial impassable infra = 1 corridor of provinces between Indochina (Vietnam) and China just for the purpose of separating these (supply) areas
Someone has been building infra....

But even with smaller area's the main supply depot sometimes moves port. Sometimes that is closer to the main presence of forces and sometimes it seems to move just for moving sake. In the China/Korea area that is usually Shanghai, but it can also be HongKong, Qingdao, Tianjin , Dalian or Hamhung. Moving the depot around can leave your units out of supply fo quite a while...

@ Kizarvexis:
Can you tell me what the purpose is of a MP, MP, anti-tank, Militia division?
Seeing as antitank brigades are very specific battle oriented brigades (hey they want to fight tanks) whereas 2 MP brigades really just want to do some policing and want to run away from tanks. Coupled with one single weakest frontline brigade (Mil) that does not want to fight tanks and on it's own probable can't stand up to a rebel division of several Mil brigades either....

MP, MP Mil, Mil could probably be used for protecting conquered lands and Mil, Mil, Mil, antitank could be used as cheap antitank divisions. Your mix is new for me

I did that for when partisans show up, the MPs will have Mil and AT for support vs the partisans. I initially used Inf for backing up the MPs, but then I got them mixed up with regular Inf divisions. I swapped to Mil for the warm bodies vs rebels (the M also helps me remember MP div) and the AT were to have bigger guns than the rebels. I saw someone elses idea of using Cav instead of Mil to support MPs, but I wasn't so sure about that. The MPs only move at 4, Mil at 3, Cav at 6, but partisans move at 1 so speed isn't an issue. The AT has 2.5 hard and 1.2 soft attacks, so the MP, MP, Mil, AT has a 2-2 when all is said and done. If partisans don't ever end up with hard units, like armored cars, then I should probably swap the AT to Art as it has a better soft attack for the same time to build.

 

[Motorkingpus]

I did that for when partisans show up, the MPs will have Mil and AT for support

Why? MP aren't supposed to fight, they're just supposed to suppres. Using an AT unit is a waste. A 1xMP 1xMIL, or 1xGAR, 1xMP should do the trick for suppresing. Using your setup you're using valuable manpower and IC.

 

[Kizarvexis]

Why? MP aren't supposed to fight, they're just supposed to suppres. Using an AT unit is a waste. A 1xMP 1xMIL, or 1xGAR, 1xMP should do the trick for suppresing. Using your setup you're using valuable manpower and IC.

I am re-thinking my MP divisions after reading this thread. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/garrison-militia-and-mp.472349/page-4

I haven't looked at it in game yet, but I'm thinking of Gar, MP, MP and spreading more around. The Gar to keep the MP from being overun. I need to make some Mot divisions for partisan squashing and spread some around in central locations to be in convenient reach for squashing duties.

 

[Motorkingpus]

I am re-thinking my MP divisions after reading this thread. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/garrison-militia-and-mp.472349/page-4

I haven't looked at it in game yet, but I'm thinking of Gar, MP, MP and spreading more around. The Gar to keep the MP from being overun. I need to make some Mot divisions for partisan squashing and spread some around in central locations to be in convenient reach for squashing duties.

Cav divisions with support from a bomber would be enough, and much cheaper.

 

[Kizarvexis]

Cav divisions with support from a bomber would be enough, and much cheaper.

Yes I agree. But a Motorized division will be faster, squash them quicker, and can server as a rear guard vs para raids. (Note to self, place units on airports to trap raiding paras as my rear guard right now is very thin) More importantly, the Motorized division will also be a part of the Theater mobile reserve for unexpected events along the front.

p.s. Since this is for quick answers, should we move my ongoing education in all things Hearts of Iron III to the other thread I started?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/1st-time-player-needs-help-please.880582/

 

[Paglia]

Yes I agree. But a Motorized division will be faster, squash them quicker, and can server as a rear guard vs para raids. (Note to self, place units on airports to trap raiding paras as my rear guard right now is very thin) More importantly, the Motorized division will also be a part of the Theater mobile reserve for unexpected events along the front.

p.s. Since this is for quick answers, should we move my ongoing education in all things Hearts of Iron III to the other thread I started?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/1st-time-player-needs-help-please.880582/

MOT eats fuel, CAV don't, so no supply issue to be expected

 

[Sails]

Building airborne divisions, it says max permitted 4 but I have only built 2 and it won't let me build any more. What am I doing wrong or what else do I need to get the max permitted?

 

[thexmassteam]

Building airborne divisions, it says max permitted 4 but I have only built 2 and it won't let me build any more. What am I doing wrong or what else do I need to get the max permitted?

"4" design a brigade number, not a division number. So if you build 2x3Airborne you 're ok (afaik it's 4 or 10% of regular infantry brigades, but may be buggy sometimes)

 

[Makje]

it sounds like you are building rangers, the US elite unit, instead of normal para brigades that everyone can build after they unlock the '39 tech.
Of these rangers you can have a max of 6 brigades OR 4% of the number of infantry brigades that you have (i beliieve it's 4%)
http://www.hoi3wiki.com/Land_unit_guide#Rangers_.28USA.29
a link might help