Simple Suggestions for Easier Unit Management

[Marshall Thomas]

For me, the most difficult aspect of playing WW2:ToW is moving and keeping track of all your units when you play as a nation with a sizable military. Every time I hit the "end turn" button, I wonder if I've missed and not move some units that I would have liked to.

I've been thinking of some basic features (which don't change game rules at all) that could make unit management much more effective and less disorganized.

Currently, the only way to cycle through your units is by using the TAB key. The problem with this is that it cycles through ALL of your units. If a feature could be added which allows the player to divide and catagorize his units into groups, then cycling through your units one group at a time would be so much easier. If you could divide your military into "army groups", by assigning units to a particular group, this would have no effect at all on gameplay or game rules; it'd simply be for helping the player manage his forces with greater ease and efficency.

I guess the easiest way to create "groups" would be with hot-keys. Hold down the shift or control button while a unit is selected and then press 1 or 2 or 3, ect to asign a unit to a group. You could then cycle through every unit within the group before going on to the next group.

a few more simple suggestions for making unit management more organized:

- you should be able to cycle through unit types (a cycle "filter"). Cycle through only armor or only infantry corps or aircraft.

- the TAB button allows you to cycle foward. There should also be a key that lets you cycle back.

- It'd be useful if you could issue a "don't move" or "done moving"order to a unit (with a hot-key), which takes it out of the cycle. By the end of your turn, the TAB button would then only be for units with "action points (AP)" remaining.

I thought about these possible improvements while playing my current campaign as Russia. The hardest thing for me is just keeping track of all my units (during both peace time and war) and knowing which ones have moved and which ones I've already decided not to move. If there are any already in game features which help with this that I don't know of, please let me know. Also, I'd like to know how other players deal with the problem of dealing with so many units to move or to remember not to move. Thanks in advance