Matrix Games Forums

Hi,
anyone want share good tips for unit composition ?
As there is a stack limit for attacks, I assume that stack value of unit should be around 50.
What sub units and how many of them are you using for first line troops, defend troops, armor spearheds etc ?


And what about air units, one big air fleet or smaller wings with 4-5 planes per unit

And composition of navy ? BB+CA+DD, CV+DD, SS, Cargoships + DD but how many of them in unit ?

thanks for advice

Arkady

Hey I can tell you a bit about my land unit composition, as I have somewhat an experience of that. First of all I have one principle:

1. Rifles are the unit that protects the rest of your units.

Basically I love to have rifles mixed with other units as they act as a target "buffer" for enemy attacks vs other rifles or bazookas. One of my favorite land grabbing unit is 1 armored car + 4 rifles and 1 mg. This unit is fast and can stop a turn on  a forest and do well vs mugh higher numbers than its own. The infantery is there to protect the ac. The weakness of this stack is dive bombers, so have interceptors nearby to do a nasty suprise on anyone trying to attack with those dive bombers. Another weakness is its recon capability, it might be better with 2 ac's and 10 infantery, but the big problem is that with deep penetrating units you run the risk of getting encircled so you dont want to risk loosing too much.

Another favorite normal offensive unit is a truck with 15 infantery and 5 mortars or mgs (or a mix) + one tank or armored car.  This unit usually does well in offensive operations, expecially when attacking from several fronts with several such units. Another reason for a total of 20 infantery is that I want to be above 20 in recon so I dont get nasty surpise combats on me.

A nasty suprise unit is a unit of around 10 rifles and 5 bazookas on an heavy forest, if a tank squadron walks into such a suprise you can get a good kill ratio.

Defensivly you can never go wrong with 15 rifles + 5 mgs and 1 at gun or flak depending on what your expecting. With entenchment this unit will be very hard to dislodge. But you will also need to have a staggered defence as you can expect (play by mail) that the enemy will use artillery on a city he wants and he will be able to breach 1 unit unless you have a very very high number of defence there. (and then you have allready done him a favour by putting the battle on his term by consentrating all your forces near him.)

So optimal for defence imho is some forward units with a few rifles and mg+s and then a 2nd line of defence where you really want to be defending with rifles, mgs and at guns. (if your protecing a city make a line in front of the city with small defensive groups and then the main defensive group in the city.) This will also allow encirceling the enemy unit easier on his turn. Finaly remember the best defence is offence, if you are putting the pressure on the enemy you wont have to buy a lot of inflexible units as defensive units can only be used defensivly while offensive units can be used for both. Given that I will say machine guns are great for theyre cost no matter what situation your in. Just be weary of upgrading them as this increases the cost from 250 to 300 (so only do upgrade when you are finished with the number you want.)

Air wise you cant really go wrong either way, personally I would love to have 1 dive bomber or fighter in each formation as this would allow me optimal usage of them, but you will waist a lot of pp this way. So usually I have 2-3 dive bombers and a figher or two in the same unit, if I can afford it I seperate the fighters from the divebombers. Sometimes I bring a flak into the bomb group to protect it from counterattacks. Flaks btw are a pretty good unit to replace at gun with as they are decent vs armor too, especially in very high entrenched cities.

I prefer 40 rifle 2 infantry gun 2 armored car 2 antitank gun 4 trucks/halftracks, I will mix in machineguns , mortors and bazookas as needed.

For armor I do 2 medium tank and 2 or 4 light tank with 40 smg and 2 truck or halftracks.

Air I generally keep small. 2 dive bombers and 2 fighters. Artillery the same 2 artillery a flak an AT gun 20 rifle or smg and 3 trucks.

Engineers I like at least 60 with 20 smg and 2 AT guns with 5 trucks.

I forgot to add another general rule for compositions:

1: either Maximize the unit to carry ratio (20 infantery + one truck) or make sure you anticipate losses and plan accordingly what you will need now and also after you loose that one truck you had due to a divebomber.

(Example having attacks with frontlines with maxed carry ratio while behind that front you have units with surepluss transport capaicty so you can replace any transportion losses without halting the advance.)

thx, I 'll experiment with it

1.  Land mix - I like to minimize unit diversity in order to maximize the impact of R&D (e.g., better to have rifle III and MG than rifle II and MG II).  For offense I like 25 rifle, 1 lt tank, and 1 truck (or 2x of each).  Also nice to have artillery (5 art, 10 rifle, 3 truck) for every 4-5 units.  For defense, especially in the Russia scenario, I like 20 rifle and 1 lt tank.  It is cheap and performs well.  You should have enough units that you can defend in depth and have too many targets for you opponent's AF.  Also good to have engineering unit (40-60 engineers, 2-3 trucks) per every 10 -15 units whether in offensive or defense role (good to build / cut bridges).  I try to keep staff ratios at 100-110%.  Put both trucks and flak in the HQ.  Finally, you also want to have 1-2 paras (20 each) on the board to force an opponent to defend in depth. 
 
2.  For sea - Naval construction is tough since the units are expensive.  The naval units were designed for balance so a mix is probably the best bet (if you can afford it).  Adjusting for cost, BB and subs do well vs ships.  CG do well vs air.  DD do well vs subs.  CV's are weak unless they have dive bombers, then they are strong (again adjusting for cost).
 
3.  For air - Air is simple since there is just a mix of fighters and bombers.  In the War in Europe game, there is often a tech race to get to the best fighter and I have been in games where we got to level 4.  This is the only unit that ever got this far.   

ORIGINAL: tweber
3.  For air - Air is simple since there is just a mix of fighters and bombers.  In the War in Europe game, there is often a tech race to get to the best fighter and I have been in games where we got to level 4.  This is the only unit that ever got this far.   

I was on my way to show you Flak IV, too [:D]
Maybe next game.

A unit mix i like:

2 light tanks
2 trucks
2 flak (yes, i´m always worried about plane attacks)
25 rifle
5 mortar

But it depends on the situation and terrain.