Thoughts on my first entire game

[Otay]

Having played USA for an entire game for the first time, I have some thoughts and questions that I hope will be answered:

a) Sea Invasions - I already posted some questions and I thank you for the answers, they worked, but what really got to me was a lack of coordination. I wanted to invade Kyushu in Japan on multiple fronts from port relatively close by (Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Taiwan); however, there was no coordination between the three designated armies. As a result, they each invaded separably and got torn apart. What should I have done?

b) Peace Treaties - Since I have never gotten this far, I had no idea what to do. Seems to me that a nation has more of a say based on the points that nation accumulated during the fighting. So why did USA have at most 24 points, since I did a great deal of it (I thought). It seems to me that the British will have the bulk since they are the faction leader. Is this correct? Is there a thread that spells out how to handle peace negotiations? Do I need to get my troops, planes, and ships out of there? Thanks.

c) Naval Construction - Is there a way to get more capital ships on line faster? Never seemed to have any cruisers, battleships, or aircraft carriers when I needed them. From a historical perspective, I think the real USA out produced me in this area.

d) Naval missions - It seemed that when I wanted to move a fleet or task group from one area to another, the game would not let me. Please help me correct this. Thanks!

e) Naval Leaders - Is there a penalty for having a single naval leader command task forces in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?

f) Task Groups - Any recommendations for Task Group Compositions? I keep my submarines separate but combine the others. Thoughts?

g) Division Template - Any recommendations for a division template for Infantry, Armored, Marine, Paratrooper respectively?

h) Allied cooperation - How can I get my allies to cooperate in an attack? Should I simply take control of the faction? For instance, I sent troops into Normandy only to have the Axis mount a massive counter attack bottling me and my allies up in Cherbourg. I quickly get my troops out of there to prevent an entire army from being destroyed. I check a little later and see that the allies are now liberating Paris! I think, what just happened?

Anyway, I want to play this again very, very soon as I really did enjoy it and look forward to any responses to this rather long post.

 

[Mousetick]

a) Sea Invasions

You could have launched all invasions simultaneously from the same port, let's say Taiwan, rather than from 3 different ports more or less distant from Kyushu. They may not land exactly at the same time, but sufficiently close that they can support each other. There can be no implied coordination because they are 3 separate battleplan orders. So you need to manually manage and coordinate.

Also the fact that your 3 separate invasions failed may not necessarily be due to bad timing. The landing forces may have run out of supplies, and/or the enemy had air superiority and close air support. To ensure the success of a naval invasion, you need the following, the more the better:
- at the very least to capture a port to bring in supplies and reinforcements, with an unimpeded convoy route
- to use divisions designed for amphibious attack
- to have air superiority
- to provide close air support
- to perform shore bombardment

c) Naval Construction

Build more dockyards, assign more dockyards to production lines (max 5 for capital ships), start more production lines in parallel, so that you produce more ships sooner. Research the Production > Industry technologies to increase output. Complete certain National Foci, such as 'Two Ocean Navy Act' and 'Bureau of Ships', which give additional dockyards and reduce the production cost of ships, respectively, and 'Escort Effort' which reduces the production cost of light hulls. Hire 'Norfolk Naval Yard' as the Ship Designer, reducing ship production costs by a 1/4th.

d) Naval missions

Naval missions work in specific sea regions assigned to them. In order to have a fleet operate its naval missions in a new location, reassign its task forces to the corresponding sea regions, and remove the previously assigned sea regions as needed.

A task force on a mission, except Strike Force, cannot be moved manually, it moves automatically to the assigned sea regions. If you need to manually redeploy a fleet to a new location for whatever reason, you need to cancel its missions beforehand. Be careful to also unassign it from its previously assigned sea regions, otherwise it will move back to those sea regions as soon as you resume its missions.

e) Naval Leaders - Is there a penalty for having a single naval leader command task forces in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?

No penalty. But I wonder how you'd manage in practice to have task forces in the same fleet assigned to both Atlantic and Pacific sea regions. In theory the ships must have sufficient ranges to cover all assigned regions. It's also rather unrealistic or ahistorical, if you care about those aspects.

h) Allied cooperation

Short answer: you can't. You have no control over your allies. They each just do their own thing. Unfortunately they're more of a nuisance than anything, especially if you play as a major power.

See also:

Supply issue with allies landing a ton of divisions at an invasion point I made, which puts everyone in a critical supply shortage.

I'm playing the USA. Each time I make a landing in Europe, my allies send in a ton of divisions. So many that the supply can't support all the troops. I then find both my divisions and my allies divisions not able to fight effectively vs full...

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[Jayavarman]

Congratulations on your first game.