Random thoughts/observations

[LiquidSky]

If all the units attacking come from the same Corp....then your concentric bonus is doubled. For example if you have three hexsides (and your german) you will be +40%...added to the +40 for divisional units.

The lower the readiness, the more damage a unit will take. For that reason, I use artillery first, followed by air.

Double tap enemy units by attacking them twice if they retreat. The first attack will greatly reduce their readiness/entrenchment and leave them with low morale....the second attack will panic/break everyone. Do this even if there is a fresh unit in the hex.

At the very least, bomb retreated units.

You cause more damage to readiness/entrenchment then the enemy can repair/recover by attacking. If you keep grinding, a hex will fall. For the defender, if you want to hold a hex, you need to be able to rotate fresh units in, and the beat up units out.

Personnel/Care/Promotions etc...will (permanently) raise the stats of your units. Raising a unit from 25% to 50% is like doubling the units combat power. And raising HQ's staff experience with Personnel will add morale and combat strength to every unit of the Corp. (if within 5 hexes range)

[LiquidSky]

If you play Avoid Krasnador, you will no longer have to attack into the Caucaus until you take Stalingrad (which leads to Astrakahn). Unless you take Krasnador, of course.

You will lose the air war eventually as the Germans, so try and conserve your stuka's and fighters as long as possible. Only use the stukas on armour, and fighters on occupied enemy airbases. Playing the fighter card will severely weaken your fighters experience, so try and use it to maintain strength as opposed to rebuilding.

[Bonners]

Really useful stuff thanks. I had a couple of weeks off PBEMs to do an experimental campaign against the AI. I concentrated on two things, playing experience and personnel cards and trying to work out the air war.

With the personnel cards I noticed that there seems to be cut off point where they no longer work, but I'm not too sure at what point this is. I noticed that corps HQs in Manstein's army seemed to be able to get up to 145%, but in other armies it seemed to stop around the 130-135% mark. Anybody know how this is calculated? I am also not too sure how the experience card works when units approach 70. How many points does the experience card grant and is it dependant on the general and the distance from him? I've noticed that even when a unit is within the green command radius the amount of experience points seems to be different depending on which unit is closer? Also, does the amount of points go down when it nears 70? I'm just not sure on what the actual equation is. Similarly for the training card when units reach 60.

As for the air war, as it was an experimental game I was playing the AI on easy, stopped my advance, played all the avoid cards and just used it as an experiment from then on to see what happened in the air war. I found that by the end of November I'd destroyed in the region of 2500 Soviet fighters, yet they still had about 800 fighters left. I'd just about managed to keep my fighters intact, although numbers were beginning to drop. With the large number of Russian fighters I found that I was having to launch my fighter strikes with at least 140 fighters, because the Russians would typically launch about 200 in defence and my guys were getting over whelmed. I wasnt attacking towns by the way, it was an experiment so I was working on the presumption that a human player wouldnt have his fighter bases so close to the front. Despite my best efforts, my experience was still dropping rapidly, although by resting units in turn I was able to keep most units near to 30. So, even against the easy AI and in a vastly superior strategic position, I only just managed to achieve the historical starting position of Uranus (something like 450 German fighters to about 850 Russian IIRC)

Another interesting point is the use of concentric attacks, especially combined with your other point of following the attacks up. I really like hounding units down when they are in the open, but when you split your units for a concentric attack then depending on where you started you could end up with less APs for the attack and less chance of following up. As an aside to this, especially when on the frontlines, I like to try and keep my panzer divisions stacked, obviously if you have the separate then there is more chance of being able to get the concentric bonus and still follow the attacks up.

Avoid cards I have also experimented with. I had a specific objective, to play one of the cards before the first three objectives (Rostov etc.) were taken. I think it was Krasnodar, but the point was that if you play the card before it appears as an objective, it will never appear as an objective. However, if you then take Krasnodar, then the next objective will still appear, unless you have played the avoid card (cant remember which the next one is off hand?). I'm fairly sure the above is obvious to experienced players, but I couldnt quite get my head around how they worked until I'd tested them myself.

[Bonners]

Another odd thought, if you are playing a canny Russian opponent, attacking airbases may not be a good idea. In my game against Finz, I have noticed that he is putting flak units in cities behind the lines, whether they have fighters in them or not. Really useful tactic as it actively discourages me from attacking cities as even the puny Russian flak units cause enough damage to skew the odds back into the Russian's favour.

[LiquidSky]

Personnel raises the experience of Staff in the HQ. When the experience reaches 100, you will no longer gain.

Note that the value shown for exp when you click on a counter is the weighted average of all the pieces in that counter. You have to click on the staff itself to see it's exp. Same (probably) goes for morale.

Promotions/Exercise uses one of the stats of the General (like all cards). Havent bothered figuring out which since the experience gaining generals are rather rare, I can't afford to be picky.

I usually ignore flak....it doesn't do enough damage for me to worry about it. And Russians don't get heavy flak, so they rarely shoot down level bombers.

[Isokron]

Raising a unit from 25% to 50% is like doubling the units combat power.

This is not quite true since its build ontop off a base 100%, but it increase both offense and defense so I guess you could say that it increases the efficiency of the unit with 150*150/(125*125) = 1.44.

[LiquidSky]

Hmmm I thought 25% was the benchmark. SO if 25% is 1, then 50% would be 2x, 75% would be 3x and 100% would be 4x.

[Bonners]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



Personnel raises the experience of Staff in the HQ. When the experience reaches 100, you will no longer gain.

Note that the value shown for exp when you click on a counter is the weighted average of all the pieces in that counter. You have to click on the staff itself to see it's exp. Same (probably) goes for morale.

Promotions/Exercise uses one of the stats of the General (like all cards). Havent bothered figuring out which since the experience gaining generals are rather rare, I can't afford to be picky.

I usually ignore flak....it doesn't do enough damage for me to worry about it. And Russians don't get heavy flak, so they rarely shoot down level bombers.

Just to check that I'm understanding right, for example one of Manstein's corps has a percentage of 120, and when you look suboordinate units it shows them as having a HQ bonus of 120 percent, are you saying that they actually only get a bonus of 100 percent, despite it stating the 120 figure? Just need to know so I don't waste the personnel card if that is the case.

[RayWolfe]

Can anyone explain to me in simple terms what happens when reducing replacements to high HQs then the upping the replacements for lower HQs has?
I can't make head nor tail of the last two lines of the mouse over message for replacements ... and English is my first (only [;)]) language!

[Hugolin]

@Raywolf: maybe it's just me, but I can't understand clearly your question.

what happens when reducing replacements to high HQs (re. OKH/Stavka, correct?) then the upping the replacements for lower HQs has?

[RayWolfe]

Sorry, by trial and error, I've cracked it.

[freeboy]

now we all want to know whats going on???

[Bonners]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

now we all want to know whats going on???

I think he means what happens when, for example, an army HQ is on priority replacements and you then want to reduce the replacements to one of its subordinate HQs. What happens is that it shows up as priority 75%, priority 50%, etc...

What does this mean[&:]

I've yet to figure out fully, I just kind of have a vague idea of how it works.