Where to Start for a Beginner?

[redrum68]

Turn 3 I take the final VC and just clean up some Russian units but only play about half the turn as its clearly over. Here is the final screenshot showing the decisive victory.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: redrum68
So towards the start of turn 2 I notice that some of my divisions didn't get full MP so I'm assuming they are out of supply. Interestingly, even panzer divisions on the same hex didn't get the same and I don't fully understand why though it must be something to do with the HQ they are tied to? Here is the screenshot:

At the start of every turn each unit has a an admin and a initiative ratings check. If it fails one it loses 20% of its MPs (which would reduce 50 MPs to 40MPs). If it fails both it is compounded (0.8*0.8 or approximately two thirds - would reduce 50 MPs to 32MPs or so). In addition there can be reductions for fatigue etc.

It seems to me 3rd and 4th Panzer passed both ratings checks and so got all the MPs they could get for their fuel. 17th Panzer failed on ratings check. How do the admin and initiative ratings of XXXXVIIPz corps compare to those of XXIVPz?

[loki100]

worth adding to this, your base MP (before the checks above) is variable according to fatigue, fuel and available trucks.

Fatigue will take off the average fatigue/10 MP. Remember you get fatigue not just off movement/combat but also elements recovering from disruption.

Fuel caps movement, if you have say 80% of your fuel you can only get 80% of your MP (this only applies to mobile units)

Trucks are also a cap. Missing trucks can really degrade MP, and as the game progresses you may find your units shed a lot of trucks as they go in search of supply - not likely to be a major factor on T2 though.

the truck and fuel cap doesn't stack, in effect the lowest is the one that is taken out of your base MP.

[hei1]

I would like to emphasize the point, joelmar mentioned in the beginning: read about warfare. Because: WitE is a simulation of WWII warefare. It's not an Excel-sheet or a 250page rule set. A good simulation should go by intuition. And it goes! (WitE is realy a masterpiece in that point). If you feel, that tanks in heavy wood are not a good idea, logistics is important or air strikes in blizzard is a bad choice - you are right! This (and mutch more mentioned before) is extremly well simulated in WitE (by lots of rules - in fact). So for me personaly, it's just excitement in playing and focussing on strategy. In a second phase you can switch to the tactical details and - step by step - unfold the deepness of the simulation (with the great help of this forum - thanks to all!).
WitE is a great game. Enjoy! (ok, I still hate VP conditions - it reminds me to scripted games ... but thats another topic)

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: hei1
I still hate VP conditions - it reminds me to scripted games ... but thats another topic

+1

In the past I just ignored VPs unless they were needed for a sudden death condition and just made up my own view of whether I won or not. But if given victory conditions are important then yes!

[joelmar]

@redrum68

I know you won a decisive victory, but this is against the AI which almost never does what it should.

I would advise playing the same scenario against yourself. Or if you have saves from all your turns, just take the End of Axis turn 1, set the opponent as human and play the Soviet.

And as the Soviet, try things out. That should show you a few tactical mistakes right there.

I would mention a few:

-not securing your pocket by leaving gaping holes,
-not securing your spearhead flanks, so 3rd pz army was almost isolated at 2 places and wasn't only because the AI doesn't know how to recognize opportunities, but a human would have done so. In the first turn, it's no big deal because of all the fuel and supplies that the HQ's carry, but after that, communication to the railhead becomes a big priority.

If you can on turn 1, and as a general rule, try to keep a few corps of infantry not involved in combats at the frontier and push them as deep as possible in the Soviet territory following the panzers. I know panzer are the glamour guys and are very important, but without infantry they soon bug down before obstacles, or they easily wear down attacking towns, cities, forts, swamps, heavy woods, river lines. You need to be aware that armored units have penalities against those kind of objectives.

As a general rule, infantry digs holes and blows obstacles, panzers exploit, hopefully against very little opposition.

[redrum68]

@Telemecus @loki100
Ok. I realize there are a lot of factors for supply and glanced through the rules (though a lot of it is a bit beyond my understanding at the moment). I'm struggling to understand which factors are impacting how much MPs I get each turn and whether I'm making bad moves/decisions or I'm getting unlucky rolls (essentially what can I do to make it better next time). Is there a way to see for example why the 17th Panzer only got 40 MPs? Maybe the unit's supply details screen or one of the reports? I think the question I should have asked is "how can I predict how many MPs I'll have next turn and how can I determine which factors impacted how many MPs I got?"

I'm struggling to get information from the UI on where I'm making mistakes as its seems maybe because of the complexity and sheer amount of information that the game can be kind of subtle and isn't yelling at me "this was a bad move because of X" or "this was a poor attack because of X" (besides being isolated or too far from railhead which are highlighted on the UI). Though maybe I'm just not looking in the right place

@joelmar
Thanks for the feedback. Playing as the Soviets at the end of Axis turn 1 is a good idea as I think that would help see if there are ways I can exploit my own Axis moves. I realize I have some auto-saves but I'm not sure how to change sides when loading the game as it seems to just reload with AI as the Soviets even if I change it in the main menu? Also it doesn't appear that autosaves include the scenario name so when I play another scenario it overwrites autosaves from a different scenario and I've lost some of them. Is there a way to change the autosave naming so different scenarios don't overwrite each other?

And yeah, having the 3rd panzer army almost get isolated is a good point as well as trying to push a few infantry divisions further forward behind them. Is there a way to see how many MPs enemy units will have? I'm not sure the pocket really matters much as even if they break it they are all still going to either get crushed or re-pocketed in this case but I realize in other scenarios that could have a bigger impact.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: redrum68
@Telemecus @loki100
I'm struggling to understand which factors are impacting how much MPs I get each turn and whether I'm making bad moves/decisions or I'm getting unlucky rolls (essentially what can I do to make it better next time). Is there a way to see for example why the 17th Panzer only got 40 MPs? Maybe the unit's supply details screen or one of the reports? I think the question I should have asked is "how can I predict how many MPs I'll have next turn and how can I determine which factors impacted how many MPs I got?"

I'm struggling to get information from the UI on where I'm making mistakes as its seems maybe because of the complexity and sheer amount of information that the game can be kind of subtle and isn't yelling at me "this was a bad move because of X" or "this was a poor attack because of X" (besides being isolated or too far from railhead which are highlighted on the UI). Though maybe I'm just not looking in the right place

You can go in to the unit details of any unit and then click on the supply details to get some information on why they got those MPs (retrospectively). I think @EwaldvonKleist produced some sort of supply calculator to look at it propectively - check their library of WitE resources https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4317692 . Certainly do look there at their guide to how supply works.

Rather than trying to understand everything at once you may want to work down the list of things in importance. Usually the first thing to look at is fuel in motorised units and that is maximised by placement of your HQs relative to your units and the rail network. After that comes ratings checks which is most improved by getting rid of command penalties of the HQs and then after that by getting better leaders.

[king171717]

I recommended playing road to leningrad now.

Too answer your one question. U want to pocket as much as u can. Because isolated units will surrender, where non isolated units will rout. So the open turning is about pocketing as many units as u can and driving as deep as you can.

[redrum68]

@Telemecus - I'll read a bit more on supply and maybe try to analyze it a bit during my AAR to see if I can figure it out.

@king171717 - Excellent suggestion! I actually just started a new beginner AAR for Road to Leningrad: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4773226

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

@Telemecus @loki100
Ok. I realize there are a lot of factors for supply and glanced through the rules (though a lot of it is a bit beyond my understanding at the moment). I'm struggling to understand which factors are impacting how much MPs I get each turn and whether I'm making bad moves/decisions or I'm getting unlucky rolls (essentially what can I do to make it better next time). Is there a way to see for example why the 17th Panzer only got 40 MPs? Maybe the unit's supply details screen or one of the reports? I think the question I should have asked is "how can I predict how many MPs I'll have next turn and how can I determine which factors impacted how many MPs I got?"

...

Treat my response with some care - its actually a while since I played WiTE1 but I am writing the documentation for #2 and much of the logic around the supply routines is similar.

Yes the supply tab (either per unit or via the Commander's Report is where it all lurks).

Now the factors are: base MP (the leadership roles that Telemecus mentioned) and variables.

In essence a Pzr division starts at 50.

You can control the leadership rolls by having them within 5 hexes of the corps and that within 15 of its army (ideally closer) and with commanders with good admin scores.

You can control fatigue by not moving or attacking for a good reason. Its obviously very hard with the Germans in 1941 to rest and this is an area where good play in WiTE2 is going to be rather different.

As I mentioned missing trucks and/or missing fuel cap your MP. its the lowest that matters, so if you have 100% of your fuel and only 60% of your trucks then the cap is 60%. Again this is v different in #2/WiTW but what you ideally don't want is your unit sending off its own trucks to look for supply. Again easier said than done and it was a major problem for the Germans in 1941. The solution is trying to make sure your railheads are advancing so that the Pzrs are not too isolated. More tactically, watch out for high MP supply paths (ZoCs, unbridged major rivers, mud) as these add to the volume of trucks needed for your resupply.

So crudely - HQ placement, leader quality, length (in MP) of overland supply path to the rails are the things you can control.

[redrum68]

@loki100 - Ok, thanks for the details. I'm reading through all the supply documentation and starting to get a better feel for it now.

I've created a new AAR thread for my Road to Leningrad attempt for any beginners who are interested in what a good next scenario would be: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4773226

[redrum68]

So I finished the Road to Leningrad scenario and AAR as the Axis.

I decided to test out some of the map mods as I noticed they looked pretty nice in some other AARs. The main ones seem to be listed here: fb.asp?m=4031161. I ended up trying out both Jison's MapMod and chemkid's "A rainy day in Russia" which is a darker version of it. I personally prefer Jison's MapMod as I think its a bit easier to see even if it is fairly bright/light colored the map looks great.

To install them, first make a copy to some location of your "Dat" directory in your install which should be located something like this if you bought off steam (\Steam\steamapps\common\Gary Grigsby's War in the East\Dat). Then just download the zip files, unzip them, and copy the files over the original files in the "Dat" directory. You can always just delete the modified "Dat" directory and copy back in the original if you want to revert or start fresh.

From testing, it appears you can even choose to combine different mods together or even choose to only use certain files from the unzipped mods. For example, I don't really like the unit counter and font changes in Jison's MapMod so I just didn't copy over the "WiteFontConfig.txt" or the "Units" directory.

Here's what it looks like with Jison's MapMod without the unit and font changes:

[redrum68]

Are there any good air mechanics/strategy guides?

I'm thinking of playing Road to Kiev as Axis and figuring out air mechanics.

[eskuche]

Best is probably Minsk because the other Road to scenarios don't have Stukas, which destroy disproportionate numbers of enemy planes on the first turn.

[redrum68]

@eskuche - Fair point. I was thinking Kiev as AGS is the one part of the front I haven't played yet. But if its easier to learn air mechanics in other scenarios then I'm pretty open to it.

[eskuche]

Trial by fire is actually the best option. Running a full turn 1 campaign I did it twice in two weeks