New player, totally lost

[NiclasCage]

I bought the game about a month ago. I'm used to playing strategic and tactical games. I've played World in Flames for instance, so I consider myself a patient gamer and I love games with depth. I might be in too deep on this one though.

I've read the manual, and I've watched several videos of the game between XTRG and TGH on youtube. Especially XTRG is kind enough to show almost anything and everything he does, but I still feel clueless on several topics.


What I DO understand;
I think I got a decent understanding of the different TF's and aircraft types.

I understand how to move and use my units. I'm not smart about it yet, but that's on me.

I understand the basics of industry - like input/output values.


What I don't really understand;
How am I supposed to figure out how much supplies I should ship from the US to Pearl Harbor? And to Australia?

How am I supposed to figure out how many tons of resources I should ship from A to B?

How can I figure out how many support units I should have in my bases?

I've no idea how to calculate repair times. I've read the manual, but if I got a damaged ship at sea I have absolutely no clue whatsoever if I should send it to Pearl Harbor or to San Francisco to be repaired. I can send it to both bases and compare the numbers given while at port, but do I have to have a degree in mathematics to do this in my head instead?


I think the manual for this game is a horrible document. For games like CMANO and World in Flames the manuals are great. Are there any good sites or fan made documents that I can download somewhere?


Or if anybody is willing to just answer my million questions, I'll take it.

[inqistor]

ORIGINAL: NiclasCage

How am I supposed to figure out how much supplies I should ship from the US to Pearl Harbor? And to Australia?

You can't empty West Coast fast enough, so just send every possible transport ship. From Pearl Harbor you will send invasions against separate islands, so not that much supply will be needed. Australia will support your whole push towards DEI.
Just think, where will you load your forces for invasions, and put supply there.
Or better yet, think where you will defend initially, and need supply to build forts.

How am I supposed to figure out how many tons of resources I should ship from A to B?

As Allies you really don't care. Mostly there is enough Resource Centers in the area to supply all industry. You can check at Industry Screen if there is enough, or better install Tracker, and check it there.

How can I figure out how many support units I should have in my bases?

How many aircrafts are you going to keep there? Do you need to build forts fast? Do you need to upgrade airfield/port there? And if you need to unload/load lots of unit send there some Port Units.

I've no idea how to calculate repair times. I've read the manual, but if I got a damaged ship at sea I have absolutely no clue whatsoever if I should send it to Pearl Harbor or to San Francisco to be repaired. I can send it to both bases and compare the numbers given while at port, but do I have to have a degree in mathematics to do this in my head instead?

Check your flotation damage. Especially for Major ones. The more it is, the longer repair will take. If there is engine damage, especially Major one, it will take months to repair. But all of this for large ships, smaller one just put in any shipyard and it will be repaired in a week.
To send ship on long voyage, you want to repair everything you can at first place. Especially sys damage.

[kbfchicago]

Welcome NC.

I would suggest you may be overthinking things a bit. Especially as Allies. Other than in the first few months I've never had to play with "just in time" supplies. Always have a surplus, manage sites by the 1.000s, 10K, 100Ks depending how close to the front, Pearl is in the 100K category....gets below 100K, send over a convoy. There are some really good WITP logistics threads (I seem to recall Alfred's is called "Logistics 101" and is the 'bible"). I don't have it tagged but a google search should bring it up for you.

As Allied you don't need to move resources around unless you're playing some of the mods that require early war build ups (e.g. LST's Bottlenecks in the Pacific). I would not recommend a mod until you've got some time in playing the basic game campaign. Playing IJ is different story and IJ industry is a subject onto itself. As I primarily play Allied I'm not your best source if you are taking on the Japanese economy. Looks of good posts on the topic...

Air units get the most of my attention for support. You want to keep air support =< the # of aircraft on the field as a general rule. Ground support is helpful, especially to bring in replacements for depleted units, it will turn red when you don't have enough. Naval support, the more the merrier for loading/unloading... you'll find later a little will go a long way and is essential in amphibious landings. I likely missed some nuances here other players will post.

Repair times are calculated and shown for you. Just play around with the settings going between ready, pier side, and dry dock. Vary your priorities and you'll see the number of days shift around. Note that with the heavy repair needs on 8 Dec Pearl can be but is not the best place to see all this...best to look at a site with a small # of ships to see this in action. Pearl can be bit overwhelming on 8 Dec.

hope this helped point you in a good direction...suspect you'll get a lot of responses here, this is a good forum.

Happy Gaming,

Kevin

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: NiclasCage

I bought the game about a month ago. I'm used to playing strategic and tactical games. I've played World in Flames for instance, so I consider myself a patient gamer and I love games with depth. I might be in too deep on this one though.

I've read the manual, and I've watched several of the game XTRG vs TGH on youtube. Especially XTRG is kind enough to show almost anything and everything he does, but I still feel clueless on several topics.


What I DO understand;
I think I got a decent understanding of the different TF's and aircraft types.

I understand how to move and use my units. I'm not smart about it yet, but that's on me.

I understand the basics of industry - like input/output values.


What I don't really understand;
How am I supposed to figure out how much supplies I should ship from the US to Pearl Harbor? And to Australia?

How am I supposed to figure out how many tons of resources I should ship from A to B?

How can I figure out how many support units I should have in my bases?

I've no idea how to calculate repair times. I've read the manual, but if I got a damaged ship at sea I have absolutely no clue whatsoever if I should send it to Pearl Harbor or to San Francisco to be repaired. I can send it to both bases and compare the numbers given while at port, but do I have to have a degree in mathematics to do this in my head instead?


I think the manual for this game is a horrible document. For games like CMANO and World in Flames the manuals are great. Are there any good sites or fan made documents that I can download somewhere?


Or if anybody is willing to just answer my million questions, I'll take it.

There's a 1000 ways to slice this cake, so the answers you get kinda depend upon who's doing the slicing. In order to figure out my approach to cake-slicing, keep in mind that I play against the AI and my overall approach is that "it's a very long war in which time is on my side", not "how do I maximize every element in this game?" In other words, this beast is too large to tame, and I'm just here to enjoy the ride. That said:

1) How am I supposed to figure out how much supplies I should ship from the US to Pearl Harbor? And to Australia?

For me, Pearl Harbor is mostly a way station so plus it's fairly close to the US. That means you can use a lot of the short-legged ships with few other uses to ship tons of supplies to a location that's somewhat closer to the primary arena. For Australia (and here I would include Noumea), it's "all that you can send". Eventually you'll be staging most of your invasions from Australia (and, eventually, points north), so you'll want as many supplies (and fuel) as possible out there to feed those operations. What are thos numbers EXACTLY? No idea. Just "lots and lots".

2) How am I supposed to figure out how many tons of resources I should ship from A to B?

For the Allies it's not really a big deal - you could probably ignore resource shipments altogether and still win handily. That said, a regional (i.e. a contiguous land area) deficit in which more Light and Heavy industry consumption exists than there are locally produced resources to feed them, could/should be fed by shipments. You could do the math yourself or use Tracker to figure it out for you.

3) How can I figure out how many support units I should have in my bases?

That's easy. Every base and unit has a notation on the left side which states exactly how many support elements are required. Deficits are in red, surplus is green. The one for the base sums up all land units in that hex, so you don't have to do the math. If there's a deficit, a spare base unit someplace can probably make up the difference. Much more of a problem for Japan than the allies (as is everything else).

4) I've no idea how to calculate repair times.

In general I don't bother trying to figure out which base is the absolute "best-est" for repairs. Larger (and closer) is usually all I care about. Having naval support and/or repair yards and/or repair vessels of the correct type all play into it, and the manual can tell you more. The main thing is that major damage usually requires repair yards, so heavily damaged ships eventually need to be routed to repair yards with the correct capacity.

As for the manual, it works best if you use the electronic version and run searches. Much better than trying to leaf through the physical document and find the right section.

[Mike McCreery]

There is too much info to cover in one post.


Base Support

There are 2 types of support, ground support and AV support.

The more of each you have the better re-supplied and repaired your ground/air units will be respectively.

Most units have enough ground support to be self sufficient until they come into combat. Then various ground support components will be destroyed or disabled. Thus it is good to find support units that can provide additional support during assaults. HQ units are pure support but there are other units that have more than they need.

For AV you want to have at least as many AV points as planes on a base. This prevents a backlog of maintenance and repairs on the planes you are flying missions with.

Supply - A division that is not in combat will burn about 1500 points of supply in a month. Supply is used faster during combat, base improvement and repairing/replacing troops.

Supply limits are also important for repairing air units. I think you need 25K of supply at a base before you can replace planes at that base but my number may be off.

The limitation on supply is listed on the base itself and regulated by the size of the af/port. Having as much supply as possible under the limit
is never a bad idea.

[NiclasCage]

Thanks all of you. I'll try to force myself to let go of my need to control/understand every single thing that's going on.

Another question - when a TF has a movement of 5 hexes I understand that it moves 5 hexes during the day and another 5 hexes during the night, for a total of 10 hexes/24 hours? But does this apply to industry as well? Will a resource center create 20 resource points twice a day? Or is this just once every 24 hours?

[Yaab]

Industry creates its output once per 24 hours provided input is available. Remember, if i.e your LI needs 1500 Resources, and you have 1-1499 resources at the base, your LI will produce 0 supplies for that day. As others said, Allies do not generally suffer resources deficits, though in a given economy some resources may not reach industry, like resources produced in Darwin and Corunna Dawns (south of Port Hedland) in northern Australia.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: NiclasCage

Thanks all of you. I'll try to force myself to let go of my need to control/understand every single thing that's going on.

Another question - when a TF has a movement of 5 hexes I understand that it moves 5 hexes during the day and another 5 hexes during the night, for a total of 10 hexes/24 hours? But does this apply to industry as well? Will a resource center create 20 resource points twice a day? Or is this just once every 24 hours?

Read the manual on this. Resource centers produce 20 resources per center per day, unless the enemy is in the hex. If the resources are not needed at that base and are not being stockpiled, they will flow to where demand is or accumulate at the biggest port within range (varies with rail and road connections).
So your 20 points of Resource industry produces 400 resources per day.

Your light industry uses 15 resources per LI center. So if you had LI with 20 centers, it would use 300 resources and the other 100 resources is surplus that can go elsewhere.

Read the manual for the inputs required for HI, and other industries as well.

[NiclasCage]

I've read the manual, but I still find it a bit difficult to understand when a day means 12 hours and when it means 24 hours.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: NiclasCage

I've read the manual, but I still find it a bit difficult to understand when a day means 12 hours and when it means 24 hours.

Unless otherwise specified, it is always 24 hours, not 12.

One of the few clear cut errors in the manual is found on page 189, s.8.3.1 where the incorrect 12 hour period is referenced. That section of the manual should read per day, not each 12 hours.

Alfred

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: NiclasCage
Another question - when a TF has a movement of 5 hexes I understand that it moves 5 hexes during the day and another 5 hexes during the night, for a total of 10 hexes/24 hours?

Welcome Niclas. Glad you're being patient, as this game requires that (and a big ole' wallop of humility) to develop comfort with. It doesn't look like anyone answered this aspect of your question, so I'll just say that a TF with a movement of 5 hexes moves 5 hexes during a 24 hour period, not 10 hexes. Yes, the movement phases are broken up during the course of the day / night and the number of hexes moved per movement phase varies somewhat depending on the movement type selected, but a TF that is slated to move 5 hexes at a given ordered movement speed (full/mission/cruise) will move that distance unless another modifier (avoiding enemy, engine damage, reacting to enemy, etc.) intervenes.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

It depends where is he looking at

in this example; it will move 3 hexes in the night phase and 3 more hexes in the day phase, for a total of 6 hexes in 24 hours



obviously subject to other factors; 6 hexes in 24 hours will be the target

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

It depends where is he looking at

in this example; it will move 3 hexes in the night phase and 3 more hexes in the day phase, for a total of 6 hexes in 24 hours



obviously subject to other factors; 6 hexes in 24 hours will be the target

Cruising at 10 knots works out very neatly to 120 NM in 12 hours = 3 hexes. But if you had an xAK moving at a cruise speed of 12 knots, it would move 144 NM in 12 hours and 288 NM in 24 hours. That works out to 7 hexes plus 8 NM additional. So the actual move would be 3 hexes in the first Naval Movement phase and 4 hexes in the second Naval Movement phase.

What about the 8 extra NMs? They are carried over and added to the next turn's movement potential. So if this 12 knot xAK moved at cruise speed uninterrupted for 5 days, on the fifth day it would have accumulated enough "leftover" NMs (5 X 8 = 40NM) to move an additional hex.

[NiclasCage]

If I've read the manual correctly a TF always moves the same number of hexes during both impulses, so it's never 3 in the day and then 4 at night. I guess it will move 3-3 some days and 4-4 on other days (days here being 24 hours). Or have I got this wrong too?

[Alfred]

Generally correct but do not make the mistake which you want to do of then inputting this info into a spread sheet to determine exactly movement times.&nbsp; There are many other factors which&nbsp;can and will invalidate your spread sheet.
&nbsp;
Alfred&nbsp;