Allies Set-up Spreadsheet for AE

[Zovs]

Yes I am reading through that but in some cases I am have DAT issues with deciphering and incorporating the change logs into my mindset lol.

What I like about WITE2s living manual is all changes are added to the living manual and can be searched by “errata”.

[RangerJoe]

Someone had been working on an updated manual. But he quit doing so, he became banned, and he has not come back. It is unknown if he will come back . . .

[Hano]

Hi Kull,

I just wanted to thank you for your fabulous set up spreadsheet, even without your recommendations the base data such as arrivals dates would be worth their weight in gold.

Thank you for putting so much time and effort into producing something that will enhance my enjoyment of the game so much!

Cheers

Hano

[Ashcloud]

I am unlucky enough not to have Excel and am trying to view the setup in any other way - all I can see is the instructions part and not the actual setup? IS there another way to view this besides having Excel? Is there any way it could be saved as another format?

[Evoken]

There are online Excel programs where you can just upload the file and view it that way , like google docs

[Nomad]

Libre Office will do what you want. https://www.libreoffice.org/

BTW, there are tabs at the bottom, the first tab is the instructions, there are other tabs to show the setups.

[Ashcloud]

Fantastic, I have it up and running. Thank you so much.

[haegint]

The spreadsheet is invaluable for making a start with this behemoth! It's all easy enough to set-up but I do have a question:

Are Cargo TF's supposed to be set up as being "CS" or "Human Control"?

I have so far not seen the notion in the Excel that I should make them "CS". So I left them all at the default "Human Control" for the moment. But I reckon CS would make a lot of sense for most of them. Human controlled would require me to periodically re-run them manually, right? So what is the take here?

So far I have set up only a few convoys to Alaska from Canada and from US West Coast, e.g. Tanker TF (3) from Seattle to Seward and the Cargo TF (6) from Anchorage to Cold Bay (xAKL Mapele).

Perhaps CS is expressively noted in some specific convoys, but I just don't have come across them yet? Thank you for your help.

[Panjack]

The vast majority of your supply TFs should be human-controlled.

But, Alaska routes are often good candidates for CS supply task forces, at least until you find the Japanese are taking an interest in Alaska. You might consider using Prince Rupert as the home port for your Alaska-bound TFs. One thing to keep in mind is that your supply ships and escorts will accumulate damage over time, and this is particularly the case around Alaska. You will need to occasionally check on your CS TFs to see if repairs are needed.

You might also set up some purely off-map supply routes as CS TFs, say from the East Coast USA to Cape Town. Other places are sometimes okay for CS TFs in certain situations, but they are the exception and not the rule.

[haegint]

Thank you very much

[Moltrey]

Yeah, I kind of force myself to do it all manually as part of learning the game as Allied player. May not be the best idea as setting up the Kull spreadsheet takes me quite a number of days usually. Probably less now I don't have a cat anymore!

[BBfanboy]

For me the issues for the Allied side are:
1. At game start, most of your merchant ships are in the wrong places and need to be brought to where there is good supply/resources or fuel/oil to be moved. There are also a very few unrestricted units that could be moved by xAP/xAK, but ...

2. The Japanese expansion and raiding potential of her carriers and cruisers is so great that there is little opportunity to set up Continuous Supply convoys in reasonable safety. The suggestion to use them initially in the Aleutians/Alaska mainland area is usually good, but if the Japanese have a "Northern strategy" to push there first, the player must be ready to pull everything back quickly.

For sure, PH industry will need resources and nearby the only source is at Hilo. I set up a CS using a small 1750 capacity xAKL to home port in Hilo and haul resources to PH via coastal routing to minimize sub encounters. Leave the CSTF on Full Refuel so it tops up at PH. Even with that convoy PH will need more resources to run continuously so look to locations in SOPAC or Australia that can load up ships returning to the US with resources and have them stop at PH to drop off the goods.

You might get a few weeks of CS convoys hauling resources from Port Hedland to Perth and Darwin to Townsville and Suva/Noumea to Auckland.

Do not stock too much supply in forward bases that the Japanese will likely overrun - it will just be used by them! It will take a while playing the game to get a feel for how long an isolated garrison will be able to hold out and try to match their supply to that.

[haegint]

Thanks for the instructive ideas. So I keep plodding along with getting orders out. Did not manage to review all 4600 units - or lost patience rather after 10 days - before running my first turn (turn 2) as Allies. Result was not too terrible - I think. I already learned some things I want to prioritize differently in a next game.

I am in awe at how polished and refined the Excel is! This must have been an insane effort. So really, eternal thanks to Kull!

I did notice one odd instruction for Far East USAAF HQ, ID 135 at Clark Field. It says: "Disband (Send all planes & pilots to 24th PG/20th), Reform in 120 days". I think this is not even possible for this unit and probably just a slip-up (copy-paste from one of the AG instructions in the same hex)? In any case I ordered this HQ to march to Bataan.

[Moltrey]

I did notice one odd instruction for Far East USAAF HQ, ID 135 at Clark Field. It says: "Disband (Send all planes & pilots to 24th PG/20th), Reform in 120 days". I think this is not even possible for this unit and probably just a slip-up (copy-paste from one of the AG instructions in the same hex)? In any case I ordered this HQ to march to Bataan.

Correction: Nice catch Platoonist, I overlooked it. Making the change on my spreadsheet.
In general, there are options for certain units and/or HQs in the first turn(s) as many air units are split up for various reasons. I would also point you to Page 8 of this thread and a post at the top by Yaab. I printed this one out and keep it handy for starts as it will let you practically double your starting Political Points. That is invaluable for replacing commanders on units like subs where you want aggressive captains if at all possible. (Note that only certain units can be withdrawn for PP, just the way the Devs set it up)
Kull hasn't been around much, so you may need to see if someone else drops by with a better answer to your original question.

I will say there is a lot to learn with regards to unit splitting, recombining, withdrawing, disbanding and reforming (whew!). I am still a Noob at them so other than reading the manual, maybe someone can give a synopsis of basics on how it all works and the pitfalls involved.

[Platoonist]

I did notice one odd instruction for Far East USAAF HQ, ID 135 at Clark Field. It says: "Disband (Send all planes & pilots to 24th PG/20th), Reform in 120 days". I think this is not even possible for this unit and probably just a slip-up (copy-paste from one of the AG instructions in the same hex)? In any case I ordered this HQ to march to Bataan.

It is a slip-up. The instructions for the disbandment of the 24th Pursuit Group HQ squadron from several cells above probably got accidentally duplicated into that box. Marching the unit to Bataan instead is just fine. Hey, on a spreadsheet that voluminous something will always go amiss.

24th PG-HQ.jpg (60.15 KiB) Viewed 1363 times

[BBfanboy]

haegint, an Air HQ does not have any aircraft or pilots within its TOE, so something is not right. It could be that:

1. Kull meant to name an air unit to disband. Look at the unit that he said to send the planes to - it would have the same model aircraft as the unit intended to be disbanded. See if you can figure out the unit from that.
2. Kull did name the unit and you misread the spreadsheet line - very easy to go up or down a line when reading across a long series of columns, or if the leading column scrolls off the screen to the left and you are reading the HQ it belongs to rather than the unit.
3. The disband instruction is, as you surmised, an incorrect instruction (because HQs do not have aircraft) probably pasted there. Just ignore that.

EDIT: Platoonist had the spreadsheet and gave the real answer! This should be drawn to Kull's attention in a Private Message so he can change it in the spreadsheet. He updates it every so often.

[Moltrey]

Another observation regarding Kull's spreadsheet I just noticed when making the error change:

Kull used a font called MS Sans Serif in the spreadsheet back when he created it. Not a real problem in and of itself, but it looks like Microsoft made changes to Windows and more modern computers don't display it well anymore.
YMMV; it may look OK on other folks' computer, but the MS Sans Serif on my Windows 10 Pro PC appears rough and jagged-edged.

As a quality of life improvement, I ended up highlighting the whole sheet (small square in upper left corner with arrow) and then trying different fonts to see what is more clear and readable.
As long as you choose a similarly sized font, you should not have to adjust the font size or spreadsheet cells much to make the text still fit.
In my case, I ended up using Arial Nova Condensed font that was plain (sans serif) and it works fine and is much easier on my old eyes.

[haegint]

It is a slip-up. The instructions for the disbandment of the 24th Pursuit Group HQ squadron from several cells above probably got accidentally duplicated into that box. Marching the unit to Bataan instead is just fine. Hey, on a spreadsheet that voluminous something will always go amiss.

Yeah... totally agree that small issues like this can easily happen. I did disband the actual AG group where the order was possible and made sense, the one in the screenie you showed (unit 4315).

The issue with the font I also noticed on my Win 10 PC as well and changed it to the "Microsoft Sans Serif" (note "Microsoft" is written out here) which gives a very clean and contrasty look, at least on my monitor. Other good options are Arial and Calibri.

Just saying, I use MS Office version 2016 which is not the newest. "Arial Nova Condensed" I do not have in my list of available fonts and I did not manually install or de-install any additional fonts. Maybe it was added to the suite in a more recent version.

[Rofar]

Looks like Kull hasn't been around much for some time but I just want to echo what has been said many times. This spreadsheet is incredible. Without this and Strategy Gaming Dojos fantastic YouTube series, I highly doubt I would have been able to figure out how to start.

I do have a dumb question (I know, there are no dumb questions). For some LCU's, the comments make reference to "After AV reaches 20, ...). What does this refer to? What is AV referring to?

[RangerJoe]

Looks like Kull hasn't been around much for some time but I just want to echo what has been said many times. This spreadsheet is incredible. Without this and Strategy Gaming Dojos fantastic YouTube series, I highly doubt I would have been able to figure out how to start.

I do have a dumb question (I know, there are no dumb questions). For some LCU's, the comments make reference to "After AV reaches 20, ...). What does this refer to? What is AV referring to?

AV => Assault Value

I do not know what part of the spreadsheet that you are looking at plus I never used it but it sounds like it is for garrison duty. Using weaker units for garrison duty frees up larger units for combat operations.