Checklist Thread

[NotOneStepBack]

Hi guys,

I thought this might be helpful for newer players, but I'm making a checklist of what I do every turn, and maybe if you guys want to chime in, we can expand my list. This is primarily against my human opponents.

ALLIED CHECKLIST

Some of these are the same as Axis.

1. The Allies live and die in the sky. Your primary concern needs to be checking your airgroups, and that is the first thing I do as an Allied player in this game. Once I get my turn, I will scour the airgroups and rest groups that are under 50 morale. In addition I will look for groups that have a low amount of ready aircraft. This means they are not getting replacements and either need to rest, or need to be upgraded to the latest model as their current AC is no longer being produced. WATCH YOUR POOLS!

Air Transfers (Hotkey F-10) are essential at the beginning of your turn too. I will move any aircraft around that need to be moved around the map and once they arrive at their new airfield I will make sure that airfield lines up with their air HQ and set supply priority for that airfield so they aren't left high and dry. I make sure all my patrol aircraft are in areas that need to increase naval interdiction (recent invasion areas). Your patrol craft and increase naval interdiction up to 30 hexes away. This is very important as the allies will move along with their invasions and they need to always have naval interdiction and air cover!

Set air directives. (F1 through F9). Finally I set up my air missions and assign the air groups which I want. Each mission I set up I will check load outs and escorts planes available. Day missions are deadlier but more costly. Each air directive I set I will check why a particular airgroup cannot fly and try to remediate it if I can. Sometimes this means going to the air doctrine settings. Once these are all set, I will execute my air directives (hotkey F12). Be sure to save any air groups you want to NOT fly to ground support missions for your ground movement phase.

As Allied, be sure that your bombers are not getting hammered and learn to set their paths around flak, in order to see the flak, press SHIFT-O.

2. Check victory points metrics screen (shift-M). I scroll through all of these graphs to see if anything went FUBAR. If it does, I dive further into it, if levels were near same as last turn, I move on. This screen is the first "check" I have that my game hasn't gone haywire.

3. I check logistics screen (shift-E). Here I will look at what was upgraded, who is supplied, what is lacking, who needs what. Check leader promotions. Pray that your good leaders survived another week. If you lose a good leader, look to replace him immediately.

4. After air directives run, I will check my airgroups again. You want to make sure that these rest, because the enemy will will counter, and low morale groups could break.

5. Spend my APs. The allies are awash in APs so it doesn't make sense to have any leaders in any positions which are inferior to someone who could do a better job, be sure all your HQs from corps up to Allied High Command are set. You'll want leaders with high morale, admin, and INF/MECH for your Corps HQs, and high admin ratings for your higher HQs.

6. Depot check. I will check logistics on the map. Here I will make sure that all my depots and ports are set to correct priorities. 0 for depots I want to drain, and 4 for the most important fronts. 1 - 3 will vary on situation. This is a little more lax than Axis as you don't have garrisons and you usually will not have supply issues.

7. Ground Turn. Be sure that your HQs stay within range of your commanders and depots. If you go to the commanders report, sort by "DTHQ" and it will show you who is out of range of their HQ and remedy this situation. Also, it is essential as allies to have air support in order to dig out the Axis defenders, so up in step one, be sure you have ground support for an Air HQ (I usually use the tactical air forces primarily for this feature) to support your attacks. Attacking without this is suicide.

8. Check supply priorities of HQs in the commander's report. Make sure important Corps HQ's on the front are set to 4 and other less important hqs up the chain and around the map are set to their proper priority.

9. Use your on map contruction units to repair rails and assign any support units to your hqs and units. Remember as Allies you will need the higher HQ with the support unit on the same land mass as the lower HQ, so you may have to ship units around here. BE CAREFUL. If you ship units in areas without naval control you WILL take losses.

10. Do a final check and end your turn.

AXIS CHECKLIST

1. Open turn, check victory points metrics screen (shift-M). I scroll through all of these graphs to see if anything went FUBAR. If it does, I dive further into it, if levels were near same as last turn, I move on. This screen is the first "check" I have that my game hasn't gone haywire.

2. I check logistics screen (shift-E). Here I will look at what was upgraded, who is supplied, what is lacking, who needs what. Check leader promotions, dismissals, and east front losses.

3. I go to commander's report (hotkey c) and sort all airgroups by morale. Anything that is under 50 I will set to rest, and anything that is over and rested I switch back to operational settings. Here I will also upgrade any needed planes to newer models. During this step I will also go to the production screen and check my pools.

4. Air Transfers (Hotkey F-10) At this point I will move any aircraft around that need to be moved around the map and once they arrive at their new airfield I will make sure that airfield lines up with their air HQ and set supply priority for that airfield so they aren't left high and dry. I make sure all my patrol aircraft are in areas that need to increase naval interdiction.

5. Set air directives. (F1 through F9). Now I will set up my air missions and assign the air groups which I want. Each mission I set up I will check load outs and escorts planes available. Each air directive I set I will check why a particular airgroup cannot fly and try to remediate it if I can. Sometimes this means going to the air doctrine settings. Once these are all set, I will execute my air directives (hotkey F12). Be sure to save any air groups you want to NOT fly to ground support missions for your ground movement phase.

6. After air directives run, I will check my airgroups again on the commander's report to rest any that took exceptional losses to morale.

7. Garrison check. Here I will look at the garrison screen and make sure I don't have any regions in need of additional CV. CHECK WHEN THE GARRISON REQ INCREASES/DECREASES!! This can get a little dicey, but I will usually do the dance BEFORE my ground combat starts because I don't want to be left high and dry with a huge VP loss due to garrisons. Check all required cities here too!

8. Spend my APs. Here I will check if I need to move any AA units, or change any leaders, or build any fortification units, or build any depots. If I am going to move any units to/from the east front, skip this step for later.

9. Depot check. I will check logistics on the map. Here I will make sure that all my depots and ports are set to correct priorities. 0 for depots I want to drain, and 4 for the most important fronts. 1 - 3 will vary on situation, but keep in mind that these settings will also impact the CV of your garrisons, and it's easy to manipulate these to get to the CV you need a few turns down the road.

10. Fly Supply missions and move combat ground units and attack if necessary. Here I will move around my combat units on the map in theatres, check their levels of supply, and attach / move support units. This, like all steps, will be up to your plans in the game, but at this point in time I go through the ground units.

11. East Front box - make sure that you have enough CV here to hold back the Ruskies. Check units that need to be refitted on the east front, and decide to send any west if need be. This is usually the last "major" item I do during a turn.

12. Check supply priorities of HQs in the commander's report. Make sure important Corps HQ's on the front are set to 4 and other less important hqs up the chain and around the map are set to their proper priority.

13. End your turn!

I'm sure I missed some things so feel free to add and I will edit as I wrote this fairly quickly!

[marion61]

Sometime during ground movement I also fly supply missions where needed from transports, even for the axis. Usually at the end of the turn.

[Jajusha]

Alright, let me share mine:
My Axis Checklist:
Air Phase
- (Turn 1 only, GC) set all italian pilot experience to train at 10. This will minimize 100 italian airplane losses per turn.
- Shift+E - check if anything odd pops out
- Repair - Repair Key VP industries - mainly, keep my uboat factories or vbombs in priority repair. Put key ports repairing (Remember that ports generate sea interdiction automaticaly)
- Check Air Battles- Use the filter to filter to strat bombing only. Check where i am being bombed. Will move flak later on to key regions, or units to possible invasion sites.
- Flak - Move Flank (Heavy) to areas hit by bombing the hardest.
- Air Production - See if any new model started production. Check my pools and see if i should upgrade some obsolete airframes.
- Air Transport - Move airframes away from the frontline if the airfields are in risk of getting captured. Move airframes (LB and Tac) to possible invasion sites.
- Depot - Check for depots that will fall next turn and disband them. Create depots if my airframes are going dry, increase priority near the front and near the places i moved LB and Tac in the last turn.
- Leaders - If AP permit, swap some of the dreadful 5 air leaders for something better. See if any land leader loss needs to be manually replaced.
- Set Air Directives - depends on the situation.

Land Phase
- Garrison - Check Garrison requirements, and guarantee the future new Garrison requirements won't take me by surprise.
- Arrivals - Check arrivals, and put them into rails, moving them to where they are needed. Move arrivals from last turn out of the train and into position (fighting, or depot to refit, depends of situation)
- Reinforce SU - Move SUs and newly arrived SUs to where needed.
- Interdiction - Check interdiction levels (land). I don't want the panzers losing units while moving.
- East Box - Check CVS, set refits, check if hq requirements are met.
- Normal move - Move your units.

[cmunson]

NotOneStepBack and Jajusha, good tips all. New players should take their advice to heart as it is important to develop a routine each turn so you don't forget something. In WitE I always repaired rails first so I wouldn't forget. I had not thought of Jajusha's tip on the Italian air force but it is a good one. My last game I tried to use them a little more and some of the units put in a good account for themselves especially in the German ME 109's.

[NotOneStepBack]

Edited for our current suggestions.

[rickier65]

Has anyone made an Allies Checklist to complement this one? Or is following the one-page guide sheets in order what folks do?

Thanks
Rick

[NotOneStepBack]

I'll write one up later today if no one else chimes in.

[NotOneStepBack]

Edited with Allies.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

Edited with Allies.

Thanks!

Rick

[Mac Linehan]

Gents -

Thank you both; a very useful checklist.

Mac

[Rondor11]

Newbs like myself find this invaluable!

Thanks