Tips, strategy, and tactics for Random Maps?

[Kevinorf]

Just got Advanced Tactics - love it so far. I had recently purchased Decisive Campaigns: WtB and Case Blue. Both look excellent and I've dabbled in the smaller campaigns. Advanced Tactics looks like a great game and good way to get my feet wet before moving on to those other massive games. I'm also a veteran of Panzer Corps and Unity of Command - taking a dip in some deeper waters.

I downloaded the Strategy PDF and have been reading that and the manual, as well as a few After Action reports (including Random Maps by a Beginner).

I've been starting a few small map games with 4 players (3 AI). Seems a manageable size country to start with. Looks like I usually start with infantry mixed with mortars and machine guns and some engineer units.

I'm mainly interested in tips on managing production. In addition to PP, supply, and infantry, I've been building armored cars, artillery, light tanks, and level bombers. Does that seem like a good mix? Been trying to loosen up positions with arty and bombing before attacking from the ground. I still feel like I'm maybe being too aggressive with infantry.

Also, what should new formations look like, with what mix of how many infantry and arty or infantry and light tanks, etc.?

Any thoughts you have would be great.

[JagdFlanker]

at 1st keep it simple - make a HQ with 60-100 staff, then produce inf/armour/arty until the staff level goes down to 100%

i do:
40-50 inf per inf unit
4 armour w/20 inf (each light tank can carry 5 inf with no movement penalty) for armoured units
4-8 arty per arty unit

you might get 6-8 inf units, 2-4 armoured units, and 1-2 arty units per HQ. you'l eventually find your own preferred mix

attack an enemy unit with arty 1st, then with a mix of inf/armoured (hopefully on multiple sides)

from there just play with all the other 'toys' on different maps - try out MGs, mortars, SMGs, cavalry, aircraft, etc and see which ones work for you and which don't.

just keep an eye on all your unit's readiness and make sure you have a good supply reserve at your supreme HQ to deal with upgrades and replenishing low readiness


have fun!

[Twotribes]

Don't play the small maps. Usually large extra large or to large. My infantry unit if I can do it is usually 50 Inf, 10 mg, 10 mortar, 10 bazooka 2 AT Gun, 2 Inf Gun 2 flak and then either enough horses or if I have the PP I research halftracks.

Once I have research under control I change out the at and Inf guns for Assault Guns and tankdestroyers usually research medium Tanks, and the units are.. 5 jeeps, 4 armored cars, 2 light tanks, 20 infantry, 1 half track. Or 4 Arm car, 2 light tank, 4 medium tanks, 40 infantry 10 MG, 10 Mortar, 2 flak and 4 halftracks.

before I have half tracks I don't put foot units in armored units.

I generally start with one city and explore. I can usually beat the AI and gathering cities so have the advantage. The disadvantage is that you start out with cities that have no production and have to repair themselves. So research is slow.

The Ai does not build much MG or Mortar in my experience and I dont think I have ever seen bazooka's from the AI. It will over research Inf guns and does research AT guns and Flak. People will tell you to ignore flak and concentrate on fighters, you cant always do that depending on oil, it is a good idea to build flak for all ground units.

[Kevinorf]

Great responses. Exactly what I'm looking for!

I'm a little confused on setting up HQs and production. Right now on a small map with four countries, and I have four cities. I have the primary HQ and added a second HQ. I attached the production of two cities to each one. Each HQ feeds about half the units.

In each city I'm producing PPs, supply, infantry, and then either arty, armor, or planes. Is there a more efficient way to do this? What rough percentages of each should I shoot for?

[Twotribes]

I don't play small maps. My strategy would not work with so few cities.

[JagdFlanker]

send all supplies to the supreme HQ (which should stay on or near your capital city), and it will automatically distribute them to the sub-HQs (really all other HQs should be assigned to the supreme HQ)

i find it easier to assign specific cities to produce only supplies since they have to go to the supreme HQ, and i assign other cities to produce PP and/or units so i can assign those city's production to front line HQs

PP production can be assigned to any HQ to get them all

you don't need %'s - a combat HQ can only take so many units assigned to it so just build the units it needs ASAP since they have to train up to 40 experience, then until you have to fill another new HQ with units you build only PPs with those cities. to over-simplify you can say PPs are what you produce in between the times you are filling a new combat HQ

[Kevinorf]

Thanks Flanker Leader. That helps a lot. I just majorly screwed up supply in a game by assigning everything to my sub-HQs. Doh! Need to dig deeper into the manual I guess.

[Strategiusz]

Research technologies only if you are sure that you will use new units. Or if you have enough raw to produce them in large quantities. Or if you have a lots of units to upgrade (and supply).
Spend your PP on upgrade raw and oil first.
Merge your engineers to groups  of 50-60 units and use rail transport to jump from mine to mine.
If you need more engineers, create HQ on resource hex and assaign a city to it.

I never mix offensive (mortars, tanks) with defensive (MG, AT, flak) units.
Never mix artillery (artillery, HA, infantry gun) with normal units.
Planes are just support to tanks.
Infantry (rifle/SMG) in attack is only a chaff, you need tanks to do damage.
Don't attack enemy criusers with any planes, maybe exept torpedo bombers, and only when you have a big advantage (6 torpedos per 1 cruiser or more).

[Meanfcker]

You may wish to find someone willing to have a team "comp stomp" .
Having an experienced ally for one game will teach you more that 20 games on your own.
With an team mate, you may examine his order of battle and get an idea how to manuever your armies more efficiently
There are as many opinions on unit composition as there are players, your opinion in that area will come from bitter experience just like the rest of us.
A few suggestions though. Keep your cavalry and armor units (shock troops) seperate from your regular infantry (holdng troops), so that you can attack and counter attack with the maximum amount of movement.
Get your engineers into groups of 20-40 and get them on trucks or horses.
Try to get tank and gun factories down quickly. Try not to use cities for the creation of units which could otherwise be produced in a factory.
Do not penny packet your armor, mass it into great fists.
Hope this helps.

[Kevinorf]

I had no idea you can even build a factory - man this game is deep! The manual is not super helpful unfortunately but the tutorials are good.

Supply is throwing me for a loop, but then again it did in Unity of Command until I figured it out.

Great game. Thanks for all the tips!

[Twotribes]

For supply use about 30 percent of a city for production. Assign supply to the supreme hqs and ensure any extra hqs are assigned to the supreme HQs. Initially 30 percent should be enough. Every now and again go to your Supreme Hqs and click on the second view button ( bottom of the info screen in the middle) and it will let you see the amount of supply you have stockpiled how much you are receiving and how much is leaving your Supreme Hqs.

[Kevinorf]

Flanker Leader, I tried the strategy of assigning one city to build all the supplies for the supreme HQ, and having other cities build infantry, light tanks, arty, and level bombers. After the first turn or two most of the arty and tanks are no longer being produced. Am I trying to build too much too fast (I have it set to build 3-4 tanks, arty, and bombers a turn)?

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead64

Flanker Leader, I tried the strategy of assigning one city to build all the supplies for the supreme HQ, and having other cities build infantry, light tanks, arty, and level bombers. After the first turn or two most of the arty and tanks are no longer being produced. Am I trying to build too much too fast (I have it set to build 3-4 tanks, arty, and bombers a turn)?

Yep you build too much too fast. There are a few things you *must* keep an eye on, first there's supply; you should always have a little surplus, a little bit extra more than you need. As upgrading troops, building roads and bridges and airfields bunkers and such cost supply.

Then there's Raw (or ore) and Oil. You can never ever produce things, shiny stuff like planes and tanks, without having a decent amount of Ore/Raw, nor can you build Railroads (there are no "roads" only railroads. A stretch of RR is considered to be road for troopmovement, but has the huge advantage of making strategic movement possible. (for that you need trains in your HQ, or Supreme HQ)
If you are still producing tanks but have no Ore available the factories produce zero stuff. [:(] You can find that back when you click on a factory and check what you are producing, the slider may be set to four or so... but the actual number displayed there will be zero.
To make it even more ... confusing, it can be the other way around too, let's say you have enough Ore to produce tanks... but the city ain't connected to a HQ yet... via a railroad, the stuff you are producing in that factory/city just piles up. That is displayed in the factory tab, or production overview; prod 4 - left 4 - total of 8. The next turn those numbers will be; prod 4 - left 8 - total 12. Untill you get that city connected to a HQ and then all of a sudden all of it gets delivered to your HQ. Christmas time! [:D]


And last but not least, there's oil Your shinies need oil and lots of it too! If your Panzers are stuck without oil they can't move much, and even get a malus to their stats. Do not underestimate the amount of oil you need. Once you have a decent sized army and you launch during your turn a lot of airraids, don't be surprised when your oilsupply is 10.000 less

This may seem confusing but it all makes sense, you can't produce things when there's no raw materials, and you can't drive your tanks around when there's no gas. Keep an eye on those Oil/Ore numbers on top of your screen. Green is good, yellow is what you are using up in te prod. proces, red is bad! Now a factory can be set to produce nothing when there is no sufficient Ore, a city can be set to produce other things when your Ore is in red, like Inf or Supply.

Early game = produce simple stuff like Inf, horses, Staff, Engineers (engineers are probably *the* most important troops in the game), mid game is light/ medium armour, AT guns etc, late game is producing everything you want.

Have fun. [:D]

[Kevinorf]

Great tips, Josh (and everyone else!).

What do you attack with early game? Machine guns and mortars instead of armor and arty? I am getting bombed by AI early game - okay to develop any fighters or level bombers?

Also, why are engineers so important?

[Tac2i]

Early game attacks: unless you have superior numbers infantry attacking infantry, even with MGs and mortars, won't get you far. You'll need armored cars and cavalry. Pick a spot or two and concentrate your combat power.

Engineers: 1) only they can build factories, 2) only they can build bridges, 3) only they can build new rail lines, 4) only they can build air fields, 5) only they can build fortifications, 6) only they can build ports and shipyards, and 7) and only they can upgrade your resource hexes.

Air attacks: You'll need fighters and/or flak units to defend against air attacks. Placing your units in cities/rough terrain types also lessen the effects of air attacks.

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead64

Great tips, Josh (and everyone else!).

What do you attack with early game? Machine guns and mortars instead of armor and arty? I am getting bombed by AI early game - okay to develop any fighters or level bombers?

Also, why are engineers so important?

[JagdFlanker]

as josh mentions, you do need RAW to make tanks and arty. it's not very well documented in-game how much RAW you need to make each tank or arty (unless you are in the production screen), but you need 20 RAW per tank (less - 5 RAW? - for armoured cars) and (i think) 10 RAW for each arty.

one of the very 1st things you want to do when you start a new game is to build/assemble a unit with 40 engineers and 2 trains - trains don't use oil and move fast, and since everything this engineer will do will take place on a rail line they are a perfect combo. note that if you do need to build a road with this engineer unit you have to detach the trains 1st, then build the road.

next send this engineer to your rear RAW facilities and upgrade them until you have at least 80 production/turn so you can produce 4 tanks. then upgrade as much oil as you can the same way - you can never have enough oil. upgrading your resources costs 40PP each upgrade so you have to build/save up PP for this. i personally go straight to light tanks, but if you want to start with armoured cars then they are cheaper than tanks so you don't need as much RAW to build them

once you'v done this, then build a tank factory (costs 80PP) so you can 4 build tanks every turn. 80PP isn't cheap, but if you can build something without using your cities then it's worth it since you want the cities to make max PP.

next send that engineer unit to upgrade more RAW to hit 160 (maybe less if it only costs 10 RAW per arty), then build a gun factory (80PP again) so you can build 4 arty/turn.

if you want to build aircraft that dramatically raises the RAW and oil needed and it's likely not economical on a map smaller than large so be careful you have enough resources to support an airforce before taking that plunge. the gun factory that makes arty also can make AT-guns and flak guns so it might be easier to make flak guns to defend against an airforce than construct expensive fighters

[Kevinorf]

Thanks guys. Good stuff. You are keeping me from giving up on the game.

[Tac2i]

You don't want to give up on the game: ATG has the best random game generator of any IGOUGO game, bar none. There is a little bit of a learning curve but once you get the hang of it, you'll be beating on the AI and achieving victory. One day you may even wish to venture into multi-player games against human opponents. As someone else suggested I believe, you might want to team up with a human player and both fight the AI as allies.

ORIGINAL: Cheesehead64

Thanks guys. Good stuff. You are keeping me from giving up on the game.

[JagdFlanker]

the map i enjoy using for playing a land battle is medium map, 4 players, land world, mirrorish (essential for 2 human players, not important against ai), 1 town start, i prefer stone age tech since it keeps you from overbuilding, and pangeaic continental size. i also like limited initial roads since it gives you a bit more breathing room at first

when the map is made i look at it to make sure it's an open map for a good land battle, then turn on shroud (optional) and play

i think it's the perfect size - big enough to maneuver in but small enough to manage (might need 3-4 front line HQs max). plus usually lots of resources to build with

the map generator will ensure the top 2 players will be on opposite sides of the map so if there's a 2nd human player then you should both be only the top 2 opponents in the list and let rest be ai as they'l be in the middle

[Kevinorf]

Yeah, I was ready to give up on Unity of Command and now I'm rocking on it - love it. This game is great too.

Any of you guys own the Decisive Campaigns games by the same designer (WtB and Case Blue)? I do - like 'em but huge step up from Panzer Corps and Unity of Command. I thought ATG would be a good way to learn the system (and great game in its own right).