Questions concerning Reinforce/Upgrade and and naval warfare

[Vampiro]

Hi folks,

I am having a blast with the game thus far (currently in the middle of a 41 campaign with the Allies) but have some topics I am, despite watching youtube and reading the manual, am unsure about.

1) Reinforce/Upgrade

I can adjust the amount of production put into reinforce/upgrade in the production screen. But is there a way of telling how much production I need to a) get all of my units back to full strength (how many turns would that take?) and b) how much production I need to upgrade all of my units? (it would also be able to prioritze upgrades, e.g. upgrade all CV first).
I can set a number as high as I want to. What happens if it is more than my production + stockpile - upkeep? Would the not used production go to / stay in the stockpile?

2) Fleet stance
From what I understand "fleet" basically means engage in surface combat and raider means avoid surface combat. Does this mean I could set a DD group on raider to protect my trade?

3) Surface combat
I tried to attack a Japanese fleet with a hybrid (BB and CV and others, no subs) in surface combat, but I could not. Can I only passively engage in surface combat? I was on the tile next to the other surface fleet, when I clicked right on the enemy, it said I can't move there.

4) Escort ships
In a Let's Play I learned that 10 escort ships will make my merchant ships stay safe. This is not the case. I lost 3 merchant ships on a lane I protected with 13 escort ships. Is there an optimal ratio for escort ships per lane?

5) Subhunting
From what I understand a DD attacks subs in a 24hex radius. Does this mean I could put the group anywhere, for example between two islands, and it has a chance to attack all subs within that radius? Would that include subs that are passing by or only subs that are operating within that radius at the end of the enemies turn? Would I have a chance of attacking subs that are hunting my convoys as well if they are parked within the radius or only if I am "parked" on the lane as well?

6) Convoy hunting
Do I need to park my subs exactly in a trade lane to hunt the merchant ships or is it sufficient to have the trade lane in my radius?
If I park subs in raider stance let's say two hexes away from an enemy port, do I have a chance to hunt down their supply ships or do I need to block the port with a surface fleet?

Thanks a lot

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Vampiro

Hi folks,

1) Reinforce/Upgrade

I can adjust the amount of production put into reinforce/upgrade in the production screen. But is there a way of telling how much production I need to a) get all of my units back to full strength (how many turns would that take?) and b) how much production I need to upgrade all of my units? (it would also be able to prioritze upgrades, e.g. upgrade all CV first).
I can set a number as high as I want to. What happens if it is more than my production + stockpile - upkeep? Would the not used production go to / stay in the stockpile?

The reinforce and upgrade costs are listed in the manual. To give you a very rough example, to reinforce the starting Aussie or New Zealand bombers, I set those countries to around 24 PPs for reinforcements. Below that their bombers never get reinforcements - not enough in the reinforcement pool. Of course that means the US or UK have to setup convoys to send those PPs to those countries.
I am not a min-max player, so I don't know the exact figure needed, I just adjust it until I start seeing some reinforcement going on.

Then also you have to set those units to have a priority in reinforcements.


2) Fleet stance
From what I understand "fleet" basically means engage in surface combat and raider means avoid surface combat. Does this mean I could set a DD group on raider to protect my trade?

I don't think so, but stand to be corrected.

3) Surface combat
I tried to attack a Japanese fleet with a hybrid (BB and CV and others, no subs) in surface combat, but I could not. Can I only passively engage in surface combat? I was on the tile next to the other surface fleet, when I clicked right on the enemy, it said I can't move there.

With CVs in the TF, it is assumed you want to engage in stand-off combat, ie air strikes from the carriers. The accompanying surface ships would essentially be the carrier's escort.

4) Escort ships
In a Let's Play I learned that 10 escort ships will make my merchant ships stay safe. This is not the case. I lost 3 merchant ships on a lane I protected with 13 escort ships. Is there an optimal ratio for escort ships per lane?

The 10 escorts do not guarantee safetly for the convoy. That was simply a max number that would actually attempt to defend against sub attacks on a given convoy lane. I don't remember if that 10 limit has changed.

5) Subhunting
From what I understand a DD attacks subs in a 24hex radius. Does this mean I could put the group anywhere, for example between two islands, and it has a chance to attack all subs within that radius? Would that include subs that are passing by or only subs that are operating within that radius at the end of the enemies turn? Would I have a chance of attacking subs that are hunting my convoys as well if they are parked within the radius or only if I am "parked" on the lane as well?

Subs attacking a convoy must be situated on the convoy lane. Correspondingly, for a DD or CV to go sub-hunting against raiders on a convoy, they must be placed on the convoy lane. When doing so, they add a bonus percent to the assigned Escorts for that convoy lane. The 24 hex range is on the actual convoy lane.

6) Convoy hunting
Do I need to park my subs exactly in a trade lane to hunt the merchant ships or is it sufficient to have the trade lane in my radius?
If I park subs in raider stance let's say two hexes away from an enemy port, do I have a chance to hunt down their supply ships or do I need to block the port with a surface fleet?

Raiding against ports requires that subs, surface ships, air units be in range of the port, in order to interdict it.

For convoys, the subs must be on the convoy lane.

Thanks a lot

[Vampiro]

Hi, thanks a lot for your superfast and helpful reply!

1)

I double checked in the manual and there is in fact some cool information that I have missed, like the order of reinforcements and that a unit will repair 20% of its full strength each turn if possible.

But it seems to be there is no information on the points I could (!) spend on reinforcements and upgrades each turn.

Example: I have 10 units at full strength. After some combat, 5 units have 50% strength, 2 units have 60% strength and 3 units have 70% strength. In order to know how much production I should spend on reinforcements in order to get the maximum reinforcement for all my units I would have to manually go through all of these units (including to check if it only has basic port supply!) every single turn and do the math myself in order to know how many production points I need?

I am also still unsure what happens to an overflow. Let's say I have done the math (highly unlikely I will ever do that considering the amount of units) and know that I can sensibly spend 100 production points to reinforce/upgrade my units. What if I spend 150 instead? What happens to the extra 50? This is in particular important to know if I want to (without knowing how much I need) maximize the reinforcements/upgrades. According to the manual (page 22) it says: "No more than the amount set will be spent on repairs and upgrades per turn." --> that is good, but like I said, I actually don't know the amount I "need". "If it is set to equal to or more than what is available in the stockpile, then all production will be used." --> it does not say anything about an overflow going into or staying in the stockpile.

If I am right about this, the solution could be to let the overflow go/stay into the stockpile or even let the game do the math to tell me how many production points I need to spend in order to reinforce and/or upgrade as much as possible. It probably does the math at some point when it distributes my points spent on reinforcements/upgrades. Maybe there could be a button that initiates such a calculation (because, obviously, the amount I need will not only change during the enemies turn, but also my turn).

2)
Thanks a lot, that would be really bad because a single DD group not on raider is pretty easy prey.

3)
Thanks a lot, that explains the problem. Considering that there have been surface engagements including carriers I am not sure if this is the right call. Gameplay wise, I would have to deselect my carriers and attack with the other ships, while the enemy can still use his carriers to defend. There is possibly a reasoning behind this rule that I don't get (yet). I will try out attacking without CVs in the composition though

4)
Thanks a lot! Makes sense, that there is no guaranteed safety. I could assign more than 10 ships though (did it on two lanes) and I was not told that the limit is actually 10.

5)
Thanks a lot Tha helps quite a bit.
And can I go subhunting OUTSIDE trade lanes at all, for example the ones that are attacking my supply ships for ports? If so, what is the radius for my DD? Probably 1 hex like for surface fleets?

6)
Thanks a lot! So this means like next to the port tile for surface fleets and 3 (or 5, not sure right now) for submarines.

Thank you

[incbob]

ORIGINAL: Vampiro

I double checked in the manual and there is in fact some cool information that I have missed, like the order of reinforcements and that a unit will repair 20% of its full strength each turn if possible.

But it seems to be there is no information on the points I could (!) spend on reinforcements and upgrades each turn.

Your units upgrade/reinforce uses whatever is the lowest between your Reinforce and stockpile numbers. If it doesn't need all the points in either of these then I believe the excess stays in production.

To determine how much you need you would have to go to each unit, determine how much they need to reinforce, then determine how much they need to upgrade.

I just watch the "upkeep" number. It shows how much was spent last turn on upgrades/reinforcements. When it begins to get considerably lower than what you are allocating for reinforcements lower your allocation.

[MemoryLeak]

Vampiro, I wish you all the luck in the world in getting your questions answered in a thorough and comprehensible manner.

There is only one person on the face of this planet who fully understand how naval combat works , and he is laid up at the moment.

I have been asking the same questions since the game was released. People have tried but it still doesn't make sense. Partially it is my fault, partially the manual, partially people who try to answer do it in a fashion that only leaves more questions and partially because it goes against all reason.

Fortunately for me I am corresponding via email with one of the players who is presenting the information in a logical and 3rd grade level so I am starting to understand it. Not that I like it, but some of it is making sense.

Good Luck

[willgamer]

ORIGINAL: incbob

ORIGINAL: Vampiro

I double checked in the manual and there is in fact some cool information that I have missed, like the order of reinforcements and that a unit will repair 20% of its full strength each turn if possible.

But it seems to be there is no information on the points I could (!) spend on reinforcements and upgrades each turn.

Your units upgrade/reinforce uses whatever is the lowest between your Reinforce and stockpile numbers. If it doesn't need all the points in either of these then I believe the excess stays in production.

To determine how much you need you would have to go to each unit, determine how much they need to reinforce, then determine how much they need to upgrade.

I just watch the "upkeep" number. It shows how much was spent last turn on upgrades/reinforcements. When it begins to get considerably lower than what you are allocating for reinforcements lower your allocation.

I take a simpler approach by, as Allies, just setting the upgrade/reinforce to 9999 (but this is not optimal in WarPlan Europe).

All surplus goes into stockpile and I just build within that limit.

I'm sure this can be optimized, but it's very doable as a starting plan and will demonstrate how the rules work.

[YueJin]

Later in the game (Summer 1943+) as the Allies I've found reinforcement can just be maxed out as you'll have more than enough production to repair everything and build whatever you want as well. Logistics becomes the main bottleneck for powers other than the USA then. The early game needs a more optimised touch against the AI at higher difficulty levels or a human. Nationalist China in particular really doesn't need all its armies at full strength but greatly benefits from an early CAS unit since defending the railroad hexes is all that matters in that theatre. For the UK and USA as well, the quicker you can get land based air on the map to threaten the Japanese fleets the better. Setting reinforcement to around 25% of production with any units that might actually be doing fighting on prioritised reinforcement and spending the surplus production on air groups and transports felt really useful throughout 1942.

For naval combat, using surface warships against carrier groups rarely seems to work well unless you can get a night attack off or catch the carriers next to a heavy rain hex. There's a good chance your ships won't be able to engage and even when they do, any damage typically goes to the escorting BB/BC's rather than the carriers. In my limited experience the best anti-carrier tactics are to overwhelm it with land based air to cripple the air complement of the carriers then launch your own strike with 4+ carriers which is usually devastating.

[eskuche]

I will add in a few points. You can control reinforcements in two major ways. Either set unlimited and then micromanage units by turning on/off and priority (what I do) or limit the amount and let the AI decide. The former is better to fine tune with especially if you know how much stuff is going to cost. Very generally, each infantry point costs 3.6-4 to reinforce, while air costs 6-8 per. Easiest example is China. Since it makes about 60 production a turn, you know you can sustain 15-20 casualties a turn and not be in the red (heh).

Agree with YueJin about naval combat. The reason mainly is the target profile. Carriers are preferred targets with only air (and sub, but these are weak early on) attacks, so surface engagements won’t do too much.

[slo]

i see a lot of people complaining about things that i feel are right with the game.

For example ships attacking a carrier fleet.....carrier fleets almost never fought against other fleets...they fought against another carriers aircraft.....

[willgamer]

You are right, of course, about unlimited R/R.

Just to give a little more context to my suggestion... I've played WPE, but I used this approach in my very first game of WPP, historical, Allies, no save scumming even for finger slips, etc. Loads of mistakes, mis-understanding rules, frustration, but...

I had a blast; this game is a lot of fun.

Thus the suggestion to keep it simple and enjoy the first few times out.

[Vampiro]

Hi folks

Thanks a lot for your fast replies and help! I have just noticed that my entire reply from earlier today did not appear :-/ I will rewrite it later today