HQ's

[sdhp112]

I understand the importance of HQ's, but what can you do with an HQ unit that doesn't have a formation with it? In FitE there are a boatload of corps and army HQ's that don't have any units detailed to them. Will they confer the supply bonuses to units anyway? How about aircraft? artillery? Is there anything useful they will do or should I stack them up out of the way and leave to help with trasnport sharing? Thanks.

[JAMiAM]

It depends on the cooperation level of the formation in which the HQ's are in, or that of the units that they may be adjacent to. Any units that may freely cooperate with the HQ's can gain the supply boost from being adjacent to them. Do a search in the manual for details, and in particular the cooperation matrix in the Appendices.

[golden delicious]

Check the TO&E of the unit, too. A fully motorised HQ with no support units makes a great light cavalry peice. Some of them even have armoured cars or motorcycles. Occasionally, AT, AA or other combat assets get thrown into these units too- which means these chaps will be great for bolstering a defensive position.

Or you could be a good, well-behaved player and follow JAMiAM's advice. But this is a cautionary tale to designers: be very, very careful when adding HQs with no or few subordinate units.

[Dave Ferguson]

Of course real generals did not use HQ's as light cavalry and this is a example of something that needs improving in TOAW. Those higher level HQ's were important in real armies and this should be reflected in the game. This is something which interests me as I intend to develop a east front scenario this winter (after constructing a 15km map).
 
Would attaching your artillery assets to a higher HQ make them more valuable or does a units losing its HQ not make much difference?
 
Dave

[Szilard]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Of course real generals did not use HQ's as light cavalry and this is a example of something that needs improving in TOAW. Those higher level HQ's were important in real armies and this should be reflected in the game. This is something which interests me as I intend to develop a east front scenario this winter (after constructing a 15km map).

Would attaching your artillery assets to a higher HQ make them more valuable or does a units losing its HQ not make much difference?

Dave

Losing its HQ can cause a big hit to a formation's proficiency & supply capability. This obviously needs to be taken into account when designing a force structure - do you really want to introduce that kind of vulnerability, and if the hit happens, should it really affect all the units you have in the formation? Sometimes it really will be better to just not have an HQ unit at all.

I think this will often be the case for bunches of units associated with higher formations (like Army-level artillery or whatever), where the real operational control of the unit would usually rest with whichever subordinate HQ it was attached to at the time. Presumably, you would usually not want the unit to be affected by the senior HQ being trashed (or at least, no more so than units in subordinate formations). But on the other hand, TOAW doesn't give you any way of making the unit suffer effects from the destruction of a subordinate formation HQ.

Somewhat paradoxically, I think usually the best thing to do is to just not have HQ units for formations representing these higher-level bunches. Let the units get supply & readiness boosts from subordinate HQs.

AI considerations: Ralph's improved AI handling of HQs a lot, but it still leaves a bit to be desired - still seems too willing to put them in danger. This can lead to the conclusion that maybe you're better off just not having HQ units at all in many cases.

I don't think there's a hell of a lot to be done about this stuff until real formation hierarchies get modelled in TOAW; I'd guess that's probably on the drawing board for some future release.

[Dave Ferguson]

Not having a higher level HQ at least stops their use as light cavalry but Army Group North without AGN, 16th Army and 18th Army HQ's just does not look right. Would having all artillery and StuGs etc use the army HQ make players less likely to put it in danger? I suppose the AI could be tweaked to put HQ's in less exposed positions.
 
Another thing that irritates me is the inability to change a units replacement priority during the scenario, especially in longer scenarios. Take russia 1942 as a example where the germans prioritised replacements to the southern units in preparation for the summer offensive, just not doable in TOAW? HQ's and supply already influence supply for nearby units so why not extend this to replacement priorities as well, a crude solution but at least the player will be able to influence replacements somewhat.
 
Dave

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Another thing that irritates me is the inability to change a units replacement priority during the scenario, especially in longer scenarios. Take russia 1942 as a example where the germans prioritised replacements to the southern units in preparation for the summer offensive, just not doable in TOAW? HQ's and supply already influence supply for nearby units so why not extend this to replacement priorities as well, a crude solution but at least the player will be able to influence replacements somewhat.

Dave

You can set the replacement priority for each unit in the editor, but you can't change this during play.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Of course real generals did not use HQ's as light cavalry and this is a example of something that needs improving in TOAW.

Actually, in this case this is something which can very easily be fixed by good scenario design. For example in my Poland scenario I just took out all the German higher HQs (apart from a few which had combat assets directly assigned). An alternative solution would have been to strip them of their transport or to put artillery in the units themselves.

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Of course real generals did not use HQ's as light cavalry and this is a example of something that needs improving in TOAW.

Actually, in this case this is something which can very easily be fixed by good scenario design. For example in my Poland scenario I just took out all the German higher HQs (apart from a few which had combat assets directly assigned). An alternative solution would have been to strip them of their transport or to put artillery in the units themselves.

I find that putting ranged artillery in lower HQs like Bn and maybe Reg facilitates proper use.
Otherwise there are only very few combat equipment in these HQs, maybe a MMG, motor Cycle sqd etc.
The number of command sqds in a HQ also determines how efficient it is regarding reorganizations.
Three is for normal sturdy HQs, 1-2 could be used for brittle ones.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Not having a higher level HQ at least stops their use as light cavalry but Army Group North without AGN, 16th Army and 18th Army HQ's just does not look right.

Playing right is more important than looking right.

[qupte]Another thing that irritates me is the inability to change a units replacement priority during the scenario, especially in longer scenarios. Take russia 1942 as a example where the germans prioritised replacements to the southern units in preparation for the summer offensive, just not doable in TOAW?[/quote]

Thing is, TOAW is designed for operational games- a scenario covering the whole war in Russia (where this would be a concern) is an extreme example.

[Dave Ferguson]

Those large or long scenarios are popular but are you saying they are not examples of operational warfare and changing replacement priorities need not be a part of TOAW? A large scenario covering a campaign season I reckon qualifies as operational. Take summer 42 as a example, a scenario covering the German offensive would benefit if the germans could try a different plan and redirect their replacements accordingly. I am not sure of this but would it be possible to start with large pools of equipment which  are allocated to units according to player preference.
 
Dave

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Take summer 42 as a example, a scenario covering the German offensive would benefit if the germans could try a different plan and redirect their replacements accordingly.

A scenario covering the whole Russian front during that period wouldn't really be operational. In fact I'm not aware of any such scenarios (unlike for 1941 where the whole front was encompassed in one operation). In the scenarios covering just the southern front, obviously the replacement priority is going to stick with the southern front.

In any case, I think you may misunderstand the way replacement priority works. It determines what proportion of the unit in question's requested replacements will be received. On any given turn, it is best for every unit to have the maximum replacement priority. As such, in order for this to be manipulated, it is not enough just to let the player change these priorities- he'll just crank them all up to full. There has to be a system whereby the average priority level will remain constant.

[Dave Ferguson]

Ok, so maybe I am misunderstanding this. Say you have two units, one with a 100% priority and the other with 60%. both units request 10 infantry squads and there are 20 in the pool so one unit gets 10 squads and the other 6 with 4 remaining in the pool? If both units have the 'normal' 60% request level they would each get 6 squads in which case being able to increase one units proirity to 80 or 100% would be useful.
 
What happens if there are only 10 squads in the pool? does one unit get 5 squads and the other 3?
 
Dave
 

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Of course real generals did not use HQ's as light cavalry and this is a example of something that needs improving in TOAW. Those higher level HQ's were important in real armies and this should be reflected in the game. This is something which interests me as I intend to develop a east front scenario this winter (after constructing a 15km map).

Would attaching your artillery assets to a higher HQ make them more valuable or does a units losing its HQ not make much difference?

Dave

..have a look at Pierro's Vendee mod in acow, a very good and accurate use of HQ's as light cav...

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Check the TO&E of the unit, too. A fully motorised HQ with no support units makes a great light cavalry peice. Some of them even have armoured cars or motorcycles. Occasionally, AT, AA or other combat assets get thrown into these units too- which means these chaps will be great for bolstering a defensive position.

..Ben [X(]gamey play advice[&:]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..Ben [X(]gamey play advice[&:]

Read the rest of the post. It was design advice, not play advice.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

If both units have the 'normal' 60% request level they would each get 6 squads in which case being able to increase one units proirity to 80 or 100% would be useful.

My point is the player must only be allowed to do this for a limited number of units. Otherwise he can just speed up replacement delivery for the entire force.

What happens if there are only 10 squads in the pool? does one unit get 5 squads and the other 3?

I believe there is a degree of random variation.

http://www.tdg.nu/articles/design%20art ... tution.htm

[Dave Ferguson]

My point is the player must only be allowed to do this for a limited number of units. Otherwise he can just speed up replacement delivery for the entire force.

If units had a enhanced replacement priority due to HQ proximity it would be unlikely that all units would be adjacent to a HQ so there would be some choice for the player. Using supply unit proximity might be even better as there are likely to be few, if any of those units in the scenario.

I believe there is a degree of random variation.

Thanks for the link, so the overall replacement priority is more important than a individual units request and the problem lies with those low or zero percentage request units whose demand is still part of the calculation. If zero priority units were NOT part of the calculation things might be better as individual units could be marked as 'ignore' during the upcoming distribution.

Dave

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

If zero priority units were NOT part of the calculation things might be better as individual units could be marked as 'ignore' during the upcoming distribution.

Thing is, this peculiarity is actually useable (I think Jarek Flis has experimented with it) in some circumstances. I'd be disinclined to "fix" it.