Understanding the first Turns

[mantrain]

Just hoping someone can steer a newbie of this swell game to an AAR or thread which sort of describes the initial setup for turn 1 and 2.?
I recall that in AT, the HQ's were a ,ajor pain in the arse, in that connecting them to their superior and subordinates was anything but seamless.
The tutorial seems to be overly basic and superficial.

[RocketMan]

Turn 1 and 2 of which scenario and for which side?

[mantrain]

Well in general, I was thinking first turn concepts.
However, to be specific, Axis, Case White.
THANKS!

[RocketMan]

HQ linking is seamless in DC. The only thing you have to remember is to keep your HQs within 8 hexes of all the units under their command for them to be at full effectiveness. If units are further than 8 hexes from their immediate HQ, they don't recover readiness as fast and action cards played on them don't have the full effect. But note that if you play an action card from a higher level HQ on a unit, distance doesn't matter (for instance playing a card from OKH on any unit).

You also will want to keep your HQs on roads to reduce the number of Action Points (AP) supply costs. Supply flows from the highest level HQ (OKH) down to the next level HQ and so on. For a unit to be in full supply this path needs to be a total of 100 AP or less, but most units have extra supplies (check the unit details tab to see home many rounds of stock a unit has) so going below 100% won't effect most units immediately.

The rest of the game is pretty easy. Soften up enemy units with air and artillery attacks prior to attacking them. Surround enemy units so they surrender instead of retreating. Use your armored units to spearhead your advance. Standard stuff really.

[Keunert]

there's not much in game mechanic ways to consider. on the first round as attacker you may want to check for unit commanders with speed action cards.
i save those units for the breakthrough work: i don't use them in attacks to save up AP for a maximum movement to exploit broken up defences.

other than that i think the planning and of course the knowledge of the map and the ennemy setup are important. if you play non historical it sure is important
to know what cards your ennemy has at hands: british landing in poland as an example.

[gravyface_]

Hopefully I'm not hijacking a thread here but I've just completed my first turn playing the Netherlands campaign.

Couple of questions:

- the 18th army (in the southeast, forget the city area, but quite built-up) seems to be just hanging around there. Is this army considered to be the operational reserve?

- Turn ended, AI completes his turn, and casualties are listed at 1% for the Germans. Besides seeing some AI unit movement, I didn't see any results of AI-initiated combat from their first turn. Should I? I don't think I took very many losses in my first turn: I softened my only attack in the south with artillery and a couple of airstrikes and my two-unit stack showed 50 and 49 in the white, large two-digit number on each unit, so I'm assuming there must've been some attacks/casualties from the computer's turn, but I'm not sure where I should go to see this.

[Frido1207]

To review the AI turn press the "History" button.

[gravyface_]

Thanks.

Another question (hope you don't mind): should I be seeing combat odds anywhere? I'm roughly going with a 2:1 "effective" ratio, i.e. if my unit has 50 (the large white numbers) and the enemy has 25 or less, I attack, assuming I'll come out ahead, but usually there's some sort of combat odds displayed somewhere.

[Frido1207]

ORIGINAL: gravyface_
usually there's some sort of combat odds displayed somewhere.

No, not in this game.

I would recommend to have a look at this good combat tutorial written by Barthheart.
tm.asp?m=2561038

Generally, after softening a defensive position by art. & air, try to make multi directional attacks (preferably with troops from the same division) to get concentric & divisional attack boni.

[Keunert]

and keep in mind the combat modifiers by terrain. panzers are not good at attacking urban hexes etc.

[gravyface_]

Thanks guys.