New player with questions

[Lützow]

Back to the day I possessed the first TOAW title but never could get in for some reasons. Maybe because I was more in tactical games like Close Combat and East Front at that time. Anyway, some days ago I rediscovered an old demo, toyed around a bit and came to the conclusion that I indeed could have missed something. So I just purchased TOAW 3 in order to get the full version along with a comprehensive manual. This is really an amazing product considering complexity, amount of scenarios and high polish of the remastered version. Kudos to the dev's who resumed this series and thanks for making it available. Guess it will keep me entertained for a long time.

There are, however, still some things I didn't find answered in the manual at first glance and so I opened this thread, hoping to find some answers.

1. What means the colored dot, sometimes appearing left of a unit's tolerance pip. I assume it has to do with overstacking problems but couldn't figure out under which terms it applies. Is it due to the sheer amount of unit's in a single hex, their overall strenghts or something else ?

2. I already learned that hq's are crucial for supply but don't know how far their range last and if it makes a difference where I place them. Is there some formula to express this in numbers, like a hq in a unit stack gives 100%, in an adjacent hex 75% and so on ? Also where is the difference between a division hq and an army hq not attached to any formation ?

3. How to cut off opposing forces from supply and disrupt their command line? Do I need to encircle the enemy or it's enough to occupy roads in their back ?

TBC in case I get some more questions.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

1. What means the colored dot, sometimes appearing left of a unit's tolerance pip. I assume it has to do with overstacking problems but couldn't figure out under which terms it applies. Is it due to the sheer amount of unit's in a single hex, their overall strenghts or something else ?

Number of "active defender" items in the hex. That means infantry squads, direct combat vehicles etc. It reflects increasing loss multipliers for overstacking, ranging from just over 1 for green to at least 2 for red.

It used to only apply with more than one unit in the hex, but I don't know if this has been fixed.

2. I already learned that hq's are crucial for supply but don't know how far their range last and if it makes a difference where I place them. Is there some formula to express this in numbers, like a hq in a unit stack gives 100%, in an adjacent hex 75% and so on ? Also where is the difference between a division hq and an army hq not attached to any formation ?

HQs only benefit units adjacent or in the same hex, and the benefit is the same whichever it is. There is no difference between HQ types, what matters is whether they can co-operate with the unit, which depends on icon colour and formation support levels. Typically, higher HQs should be assigned good co-operation levels, but this is not always the case.

This is distinct from supply units (with the half-shaded circle icon) which increase supply levels to all hexes in the supply radius, which is variable. To find this radius, trace supply along a road from a railhead and see how many hexes it takes to drop down a level.

3. How to cut off opposing forces from supply and disrupt their command line? Do I need to encircle the enemy or it's enough to occupy roads in their back ?

You have to have units physically ringing the unit(s), or at least covering the empty hexes with their ZOC. Cutting the roads will reduce supply, but this is far less effective than a complete ring.

[Lützow]

Thanks for reply.

I guess the tactic for using corps and army hq's, not beloning to any formation is, to deploy them behind combat units which are low on supply. And in addition it would be wise to keep hq's out of combat so they can't suffer casualties or get destroyed ?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

Thanks for reply.

I guess the tactic for using corps and army hq's, not beloning to any formation is, to deploy them behind combat units which are low on supply. And in addition it would be wise to keep hq's out of combat so they can't suffer casualties or get destroyed ?

Legitimately, yes. But it depends on what the designer has put in them. It's becoming common to have artillery in the HQ, which is typically more valuable than the supply role. Occasionally, you will see all kinds of combat elements in the unit, from combat engineers to self-propelled AA guns and even armour. These units can often mix it up with the best of them, and are usually motorised, so if you've got a surplus of HQs and there are few or no units in the formation, throw 'em in.

Losing support squads does affect the formation supply level, of course, but this isn't significant if the HQ does have any major units under direct control.

[Lützow]

Considering the supply issue I figured out that the radio button for displaying units shows circles around HQ's. Those circles are white or black/red, depending if one press the button once or twice. What the different colors mean in particular ?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

Considering the supply issue I figured out that the radio button for displaying units shows circles around HQ's. Those circles are white or black/red, depending if one press the button once or twice. What the different colors mean in particular ?

I think this is actually artillery ranges being displayed.

[sPzAbt653]

From the 'What's New' document in the main Toaw III folder:

White = Unit currently selected.
Black = A unit that is set to attack/bombard, or is in any support deployment mode (D, E, F, L, or T), or has no remaining Movement Points (MP’s).
Red = A unit that has MP’s remaining, is not set to attack, and is not in any support deployment mode.

But those of us using Win98 don't get to see this feature. *wah, wah*

[Lützow]

Thank you. Have to admit that I didn't study the comprehensive patch notes yet. Gave the manual a first look but for complete reading I'm rather going to wait till my boxed version arrives by next week. Not up to print all those pages.

What brings me to another question. While trying to convert user created scenarios with the editor into TOAW 3 files, it gives an error message like 'not able to load large scenarios'. That happened with Operation Konrad par example.

Actually I'm looking for smaller East Front scenarios with less encounters in order to learn the game before I venture on PBEM's.

On another issue: Considering I launch an attack from a hex with stacked units. Does it matter which one is above in the stack, like choosing infantry over hq ?