Long list of newbie questions

[Chernobyl]

Okay so I have spent the better part of the weekend trying to figure out how to play this game. I've made progress, but I am constantly encountering new puzzles.

Disclaimer: If the answer to any of these questions is obvious or in the manual, please forgive me. I am quite exhausted right now and I have checked the manual many times (it answered some of my questions but is maddeningly vague on others).

In no particular order:

1. HQs/Political Points/Kwangtung Army: So after spending quite a while deciding which units to send from Manchuria to China (cleverly keeping the total assault value above 8000) I discovered that you can't reassign units to a different command without spending MASSIVE amounts of political points.
-How many pp do you get per day and what determines the rate?
-What if any is the downside of using a unit under a different command outside of its 'region' (or is it distance in hexes that matters?) I.e. can I use those Kwangtung units in China anyway? Or should I simply move the H.Q. along with them? Can I transport Home Defense units from Japan to China and just ignore the fact that the H.Q. is far away?

2. Strategic Moves/Railways on map
-If I do a lot of strategic railway moves along the same railway, will there be any sort of bottleneck?
-There are some hexes where a railway seems to stop at a river and then there is a railway on the hex opposite the river, but the black rail line is broken. Am I correct in assuming there is no railway bridge?

3. Air unit commands/Altitude
-What exactly is the difference between Naval Attack: Port Attack and simply Port Attack?
-Do I want to set my CAP and Fighter Sweeps to basically always fly at the highest altitude? Or do I want to set them to an altitude of optimum maneuverability and risk getting "jumped"?
-What altitude do I want to use for torpedo bombers? It seems they can still drop their torpedoes from 8000 feet which makes no sense to me. With that in mind if I have a flight of 100% torpedo bombers should I just set them to fly at their maximum altitude?

4. Bases/Engineers/Set to Expand/Training
-Exactly how and how much do engineers/support/aviation/base personnel assist? Do I want aviation support at every single airbase or only the major ones? I'm looking for general rules and ideas here.
-I chose no for 'set all facilities to expand at start' option. I assume it costs industry or resources to expand facilities. Is this true? The manual doesn't mention whether expanding your base has any cost.
-There are oodles of forces all over that are sitting in places that won't see combat any time soon. Do I want to go select every single one of those to training?

5.Industry/Research
-The manual indicates that if you ever change anything in your factories, they will sustain damage. How much damage? Is the damage permanent?
-The manual claims that for every 100 aircraft or engines you 'produce' while researching an engine or plane, the availability time for that item is hastened by one month. So by that logic, if I research 700 planes worth of the 7/43 George fighter (and 900 for the engine), then I can have that aircraft available before the end of 1942(?)
-Is that a realistic goal? I am looking at the industry chart on WITPTracker and it seems that Armaments and Naval Yard are both taking almost ten times as much industry points as I am putting into aircraft and engines combined. I'm getting the idea that I could afford to produce a thousand or so George research craft each month and have it by March or April '42! Does this make sense?
-I can't really tell whether I have enough industry to do that. Is there a way to tell whether my industry is actually going into the research?

6. Misc.
-Is there an efficient/best way to capture all of the small unimportant unoccupied bases once you have gained control of the area? It seems stupid to lose marines to accidents in order to capture all of those bases.


Any answers are appreciated.

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod

Okay so I have spent the better part of the weekend trying to figure out how to play this game. I've made progress, but I am constantly encountering new puzzles.

Disclaimer: If the answer to any of these questions is obvious or in the manual, please forgive me. I am quite exhausted right now and I have checked the manual many times (it answered some of my questions but is maddeningly vague on others).

Welcome to the game and the community. While most answers are in the manual - we'll forgive you this time around [;)]

In no particular order:

1. HQs/Political Points/Kwangtung Army: So after spending quite a while deciding which units to send from Manchuria to China (cleverly keeping the total assault value above 8000) I discovered that you can't reassign units to a different command without spending MASSIVE amounts of political points.
-How many pp do you get per day and what determines the rate?
-What if any is the downside of using a unit under a different command outside of its 'region' (or is it distance in hexes that matters?) I.e. can I use those Kwangtung units in China anyway? Or should I simply move the H.Q. along with them? Can I transport Home Defense units from Japan to China and just ignore the fact that the H.Q. is far away?

The rate of PP's are determined by the scenario designer and those can be changed via the editor (but you need to restart the scenario to change this).An AI game is different from a PBEM where HR(house rules) mean that you need to change the command of those units. Regarding combat the HQ command structure is not to worry about, whereas with gaining reinforcements iirc it is better to be closer to a HQ within the command structure. I'm too lazy to bother about such things though.

You cannot transport Home Defence units unless you change the HQ as they are Restricted and will not load onto TF's or be moved by air. Actually, something I dislike about the command structure is that in China, you need to change command (Restricted) to air transport troops.

2. Strategic Moves/Railways on map
-If I do a lot of strategic railway moves along the same railway, will there be any sort of bottleneck?
-There are some hexes where a railway seems to stop at a river and then there is a railway on the hex opposite the river, but the black rail line is broken. Am I correct in assuming there is no railway bridge?

Press the "r" key to bring up the road and rail overlay.

3. Air unit commands/Altitude
-What exactly is the difference between Naval Attack: Port Attack and simply Port Attack?
-Do I want to set my CAP and Fighter Sweeps to basically always fly at the highest altitude? Or do I want to set them to an altitude of optimum maneuverability and risk getting "jumped"?
-What altitude do I want to use for torpedo bombers? It seems they can still drop their torpedoes from 8000 feet which makes no sense to me. With that in mind if I have a flight of 100% torpedo bombers should I just set them to fly at their maximum altitude?

Naval attack is against TF's, Port attacks against a port and the ships disbanded there.
Set sweeps to the altitude of optimum maneuverability (although you'll get a lot of different opinions here)
TB always drop to low alt to release their torps. Lo Baron can talk more about that ...

4. Bases/Engineers/Set to Expand/Training
-Exactly how and how much do engineers/support/aviation/base personnel assist? Do I want aviation support at every single airbase or only the major ones? I'm looking for general rules and ideas here.
-I chose no for 'set all facilities to expand at start' option. I assume it costs industry or resources to expand facilities. Is this true? The manual doesn't mention whether expanding your base has any cost.
-There are oodles of forces all over that are sitting in places that won't see combat any time soon. Do I want to go select every single one of those to training?

Not sure what you're asking. 1 engineer = 1 engineer. Aviation support where you need it. HQ's have radius for Naval support etc.
It costs supplies to expand port/airfield. Other industry is more complicated and requires you to determine how much expansion you wish. Usually 1000 supplies/point increase to industry.

5.Industry/Research
-The manual indicates that if you ever change anything in your factories, they will sustain damage. How much damage? Is the damage permanent?

Changing anything - No. What I mean is if you increase an existing factory without changing what it is producing there will be no damage to the facility. Just an increase in the expansion. If however you change the factory you will get damage to the existing size. (can't remember the exact equation offhand). But, No damage is permanent, min 10K supplies at base and 1000 supplies/point increase to industry.
As a not - I wouldn't change any Arm -> Veh or NSY->MSY etc ... it is a waste!

-The manual claims that for every 100 aircraft or engines you 'produce' while researching an engine or plane, the availability time for that item is hastened by one month. So by that logic, if I research 700 planes worth of the 7/43 George fighter (and 900 for the engine), then I can have that aircraft available before the end of 1942(?)

Sounds easy but is a little more difficult than all that ... I recommend you read some forum stuff as well as my econ101 doc
tm.asp?m=2933397

-Is that a realistic goal? I am looking at the industry chart on WITPTracker and it seems that Armaments and Naval Yard are both taking almost ten times as much industry points as I am putting into aircraft and engines combined. I'm getting the idea that I could afford to produce a thousand or so George research craft each month and have it by March or April '42! Does this make sense?
-I can't really tell whether I have enough industry to do that. Is there a way to tell whether my industry is actually going into the research?

As I said it isn't as easy as all that ... and you need fully repaired factories before any points accumulate

6. Misc.
-Is there an efficient/best way to capture all of the small unimportant unoccupied bases once you have gained control of the area? It seems stupid to lose marines to accidents in order to capture all of those bases.
Any answers are appreciated.

Some unoccupied will just come over ... others you'll just have to mop up if you want later.

Not sure I did a sterling job of answering everything but I hope that others will come along and add some to and correct me as well [;)]

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod


3. Air unit commands/Altitude
-Do I want to set my CAP and Fighter Sweeps to basically always fly at the highest altitude? Or do I want to set them to an altitude of optimum maneuverability and risk getting "jumped"?

In my limited experience the air engine does almost exclusivity take only altitude and speed into account.

That being said having a CAP up at 35k might not always be a good idea. You will build a lot of fatigue and if bombers fly in at 4-6k you might not get to them. But if your opponent it making use of high altitude sweeps the only way to counter this is either to set your CAP on the same altitude or suffer huge losses as his sweep "dives" on your CAP.

That is my experience at least.

[StK]

3.1: The difference between Naval Attack->Port Attack and Port Attack is Naval Attack is special in that sense that your bombers will (ofc) only fly and attack something if there actually are Naval Taskforces around and get spotted by you.
So if you set your bombers to Naval Attack you will get the option of giving them a secondary order what to do when there is no enemy Task Forces spotted in their range.
(Port Attack, Airfield Attack, Ground Attack, Recon or Rest)

Something else about Airstrikes:
Try to keep them together at similar altitudes or they will arrive piecemeal at the enemy base. Torpedo bombers (when using torpedos) will always drop down to use them, as already mentioned but dive bombers you have to set to an altitude between 10-15K feet otherwise they wont dive and be a lot less effective.

[Lokasenna]

I heartily recommend Damian's Econ 101 document as well - it helped me a ton when I decided that I'd better get around to setting up Tracker and CS convoys for my IJN game.

For taking the small little island/dot bases that are in the midst of your carefully (or recklessly) acquired bigger bases, I've actually found that a small amphibious TF with a disposable unit (about 10 AV or less, so it unloads in a day and loads in 1-2) that methodically takes the small bases to be handy. Having plenty of extra supply on the transports will ensure that disabled and lost troops from landings are replaced quickly. A human opponent might decide to interfere, but against the AI this is my chosen method for making the map look nice and red all over.

[erstad]

Press the "r" key to bring up the road and rail overlay.

R for road/trail, Y for rail

[KPAX]

I was going to responed, but Damian, wow, excellent job!


Liebesto, if you want to play Japan, I would strongly suggest you stop, and as mentioned above, read Dam's Econ 101; it is required reading [8D]. But, before all htat, kinda just grab a short campaign, jump in and have some fun with this incredible game!

[Chernobyl]

Thanks for all the answers, I read the economic 101 document and it was helpful.

Very mature and helpful people we have here, I can tell. I was expecting to get flamed.


Regarding expansion of bases, do I want to go wild with port/fort/airbase expansions or limit it somewhat or do I want to be extremely selective due the supply cost? I'm confused why there is a "set all facilities to expand at start" option because this seems economically suicidal to me

[KPAX]

As Japan, you have to be VERY selective as to which bases you expand (port, AF and Fort).

As Allied it is a bit easier as supplies are not a problem.

[Biggus63]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod

Thanks for all the answers, I read the economic 101 document and it was helpful.

Very mature and helpful people we have here, I can tell. I was expecting to get flamed.


Regarding expansion of bases, do I want to go wild with port/fort/airbase expansions or limit it somewhat or do I want to be extremely selective due the supply cost? I'm confused why there is a "set all facilities to expand at start" option because this seems economically suicidal to me

All good questions mate, and you have my sympathy as it would seem I'm about 2 or 3 weeks further in than you. I can affirm that the community is very strong and you're unlikely to be flamed, something about it being a humungus hard core game with minimal graphics not appealing to the flamers I guess.

[jmalter]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod
2. Strategic Moves/Railways on map
-If I do a lot of strategic railway moves along the same railway, will there be any sort of bottleneck?
-There are some hexes where a railway seems to stop at a river and then there is a railway on the hex opposite the river, but the black rail line is broken. Am I correct in assuming there is no railway bridge?

a) as best i can tell, there's no limit to the amount of 'strat-move' rail-movement.
b) use hotkey 'Y' to toggle the display railroad lines, hotkey 'R' for roads. if no rail or major-road connection crosses the river, you'll have to change from strat-move to move. but you don't have to wait for the unit to change modes before you assign its destination - a unit that's unpacking from strat-move will make progress in normal move during its 1-3 day unpack time.

welcome to the forum! everyone here has learned a lot about the game from these threads, & many are eager to give back when newb questions are posted.

[Chernobyl]

Okay so couple more questions. In some other threads people are talking about the political points they have to spend to move troops from manchuria to china. And they are talking about the garrisoning requirements of chinese cities. I don't understand. I thought you only have to spend political points to allow a military unit to travel elsewhere by sea and air. Can't units from Korea and Manchuria just take a train to Suchow? (I already made a list of the best units to take out of Manchuria while keeping assault >= 8000) And what is this garrison requirement and where does it apply?

Other land warfare questions: What exactly is the effect of Leadership, Morale, Land skill, Air skill, Experience, Inspiration, etc? Does air skill help a land unit when it is being bombed? And the game suggests what type of unit a leader is best for (command, rear area, etc.) Are these just suggestions, or is there a penalty/bonus for matching the leader to his type of unit?

About how many troops can you supply on a main road? On a secondary road? Does the road distance matter?

How realistic is invading India in the first half of 1942?

EDIT: Ok I just noticed the garrison requirement on certain cities. Damn 450 assault value in Shanghai? That really ruins my plans

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod

Okay so couple more questions. In some other threads people are talking about the political points they have to spend to move troops from manchuria to china. And they are talking about the garrisoning requirements of chinese cities. I don't understand. I thought you only have to spend political points to allow a military unit to travel elsewhere by sea and air. Can't units from Korea and Manchuria just take a train to Suchow? (I already made a list of the best units to take out of Manchuria while keeping assault >= 8000) And what is this garrison requirement and where does it apply?

Many people have "houserules" active in their PBEM games. A common one is to have to "pay" PPs to move units across national borders. This to prevent unbalancing the game.

In some cities in China the player is required to keep a certain amount of AV present or they will lose Victory Points.

ORIGINAL: Liebestod
Other land warfare questions: What exactly is the effect of Leadership, Morale, Land skill, Air skill, Experience, Inspiration, etc? Does air skill help a land unit when it is being bombed? And the game suggests what type of unit a leader is best for (command, rear area, etc.) Are these just suggestions, or is there a penalty/bonus for matching the leader to his type of unit?

There was an exellent thread about this recently. Here you can find it. Click me

ORIGINAL: Liebestod

How realistic is invading India in the first half of 1942?

Even for extremely experienced players this is close to impossible. To my knowledge PzB is the only one that has managed to do it in a PBEM. Against the AI I would guess its perfectly doable. But it would probably destroy the rest of the game since I don´t think the AI can handle the loss of India. May be wrong though!

[Lokasenna]

Why would the loss of India in particular disproportionately hurt the AI, as opposed to Australia or China? Other than just the obvious (high VP value of the bases), I mean?

[CaptDave]

Just for the sake of full disclosure, the Allied player also has some city garrison requirements, so this isn't just picking on the Japanese side. (The Allied requirements are, however, considerably lower as a rule.)

[Lcp Purcell]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod

About how many troops can you supply on a main road? On a secondary road? Does the road distance matter?

the mystery of Supply flow.

As I under stand it (incompletely) units call for supply and the program check the closes bases first and spirals outward. , if a base has it it will send it to the units first before it meets it's own needs (like repairs and expansions) but the base send it to the closest units in need first. After that a base will send extra supply to other bases requesting more.

The amount of supply which reaches a unit or a base degrades with the distance and terrain. basically the better the roads the more supply which will actually reach it's destination.
If you have a base selected then hit the hot key "5" little white numbers will show up telling how far your supply will flow and how much will spoil on the road.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Why would the loss of India in particular disproportionately hurt the AI, as opposed to Australia or China? Other than just the obvious (high VP value of the bases), I mean?

Ah, I wasn´t trying to say that loosing India in particular will upset the AI. I think anything out of the ordinary will pretty much mess up the AI for example taking India/OZ/PH/NZ.

[Chernobyl]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Many people have "houserules" active in their PBEM games. A common one is to have to "pay" PPs to move units across national borders. This to prevent unbalancing the game.

Wait all you lose is victory points? That could actually be a useful way to prevent the game from suddenly ending if I am doing too well against the ai

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Liebestod

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Many people have "houserules" active in their PBEM games. A common one is to have to "pay" PPs to move units across national borders. This to prevent unbalancing the game.

Wait all you lose is victory points? That could actually be a useful way to prevent the game from suddenly ending if I am doing too well against the ai

Welcome!

Don´t confuse victory points with political points. Thats two different things.

[LoBaron]

Short addon with regards to sweeps: Houserule permitting always sweep at max alt, except the opposition has a better max ceiling than
you planes, then it really depends and can be a bloody affair.

Against the AI I would use sweeps very conservatively, as the AI can be worn down with this method, and you want an interesting game.
So I´d suggest you either sweep only in concert with bombing attacks and not exclusively to gain air superiority, or skip it completely.