HQ's and OP's

[Greg J]

When I played the Germans I noticed that the HQ's OP's soon got drained to below 60, but always bounced back to 61 (as long as they where on a fully supplied rail hex) at the start of most turns. I never lost a HQ, so never got to build one (as the Germans).

However, when I played the Russians, I lost the Western HQ without getting a chance to save it. I noticed that rebuilding it immediately was to no avail, as it did not get any OP's. Not when I first rebuilt it, nor on subsequent turns. As an alternative strategy, rather than rebuild the Western HQ, I waited some months, and then built the Stalingrad HQ instead. But again it did not seem to ever get any OP's (I last checked in July '42).

All my other HQ's seem to get OP's (with only STAVKA seeming to being shortchanged and never getting to rebuild it's OP's to 60), but not the one's I add, they stay at zero. Am I breaching some sort of limit on Soviet HQ's. Even though they (HQ's) appear in the ADD HQ list, are you not supposed to add one back, until you have lost at least two?

I seem to remember that the OP's available to be distributed are a product of the resources that a player controls (but I can not remember which one), but I thought the actual distribution of OP's was dependent on the Replacement level of the individual HQ's. Surely my HQ's are not added at 0% replacement (I just thought of that, I will have to check that when I get home).

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Greg J:
When I played the Germans I noticed that the HQ's OP's soon got drained to below 60, but always bounced back to 61 (as long as they where on a fully supplied rail hex) at the start of most turns. I never lost a HQ, so never got to build one (as the Germans).

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60 is normal for everyone, you got OPs equivalent to the supply level of the square your HQ is in, thus 60 is max. The exception is in the beginning. The Germans get more during blitzkrieg supply, and the Soviets will struggle for awhile to catch up on demand. The total OPs you get are based on your industry so you can expend a lot in a couple of turns and need a couple of turns to resupply everyone with OPs.

However, when I played the Russians, I lost the Western HQ without getting a chance to save it. I noticed that rebuilding it immediately was to no avail, as it did not get any OP's.

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New or rebuilt HQs start with a replacement level of 0%, so you need to use the "+" and "-" keys to set the level you want. Your replacement level decides how much OPs you get. If your level is 60% or above you get the max number of OPs based on the location of your HQ as mentioned above. Below 60% and you get only those number of OPs. If you leave the level at a 0% that HQ will never see any OPs.

All my other HQ's seem to get OP's (with only STAVKA seeming to being shortchanged and never getting to rebuild it's OP's to 60),

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OPs for the Soviets flow through STAVKA, so STAVKA will often be short during bad times, and June through October of '41 are very bad times for the Soviets. If the Soviets survive, then the same problem will befall OKW eventually.

[Lokioftheaesir]

"All my other HQ's seem to get OP's (with only STAVKA seeming to being shortchanged and never getting to rebuild it's OP's to 60), but not the one's I add, they stay at zero. Am I breaching some sort of limit on Soviet HQ's."

Greg J

Just to expand on Ed's comment.

Say its the 1st soviet turn and you have lost the main HQ(Western) near Minsk. Click on any Sov rail hex and then click in 'Utill' then 'add HQ' and you should have 8 to 10 HQ's in the list. Click one and it will appear on the map, now leftclick on it and then click 'Replace' and you can set the replace level to what you want (say, 70) then click ESC to exit that screen.
You can then pick a new rail hex and repeat the above to place all available HQ's on the map if you wish. The OP's however will not appear in these HQ's till the next turn.
Remember to shuffle your leaders so you dont have Zukhov for example sitting a east map edge HQ training air units while your frontal HQ's are commanded by '3 or 4' rated leaders.

Loki

PS. Also there is some sort of replace bug so keep replace at 70 or 75 for soviets (is that right? can anyone else expand on that. I have sovs at 60 to 75 in all games and have not run into the bug yet)

[radical]

Why is the OP of a headquarter limited to 60? If it were more related to replacement rate (100 replacement rate = 100 OP, 50 replacement rate = 50 OP, etc.) one would be able direct special supply and focus attacks and defense to a certain front or sector without ahistorical "borrowing" of OPs from neighboring HQs. With a limit of 60 OPs (except in the beginning months) every HQ gets the same OP delivered. I would argue this is ahistorical. Look at the focused German buildup of men and supplies for offensives in the South for "fall blau" in June '42 and Zitadelle sector in July '43 (and the relative paucity of supply for HQs outside these areas). This could be modeled fairly well with the ability of certain HQs to have much higher OP limits, with the price of much lower replacement levels and OPs for the other HQs.

Currently, OPs are allocated to HQs (based on availability) according to relacement rate or 10 x supply status, whichever is lower. Why not change it to replacement rate or 20 x supply status, whichever is lower?

Yes, I know we've been over this before. Forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse.

[Greg J]

Thanks Ed and Loki.

Turns out that I was not in the habit of immediately setting the replacement level when I Added an HQ.

I am in the habit of bumping my replacement levels for all my HQ's, in my very first turn. But, so far have opted for setting them all at 80% or higher and my STAVKA and RKVG and OKW and AKG units at 100% to try and build up new units at a faster rate (this has not seemed to have been all that effective though). I knew the disadvantage of this strategy was weakening the experience level of the active units, but as long as they remained active, their experience still seemed to grow (but not if they remained inactive, I was aghast to find that my deeply entrenched units in Moscow and Leningrad still had low experience, luckily I never got to see if entrenchment is a real substitution for gathering experience).

Is there any old posts, discussing replacement strategies?