Matrix Games Forums

1. Connecting lines from units to HQ while moving?

I was playing the other day and perhaps I've turned something on but I can't identify what. I have under the soft factor button on the op right switched to 'units attached' so I can keep my corps together within ranges of HQ. What was happening when I moved a division is that an orange line would connect it to the HQ as well as blue lines or maybe they were yellow to the peer divisions under the same HQ. These lines would stretch and move as the counter was moving. I really liked that visualization but can't seem to turn it back on. I'm guessing it was a hot key but I'm not sure which one. Do you know what this is and how to activate/deactivate it?

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2. Hasty attacks vs Deliberate

So I've normally been doing deliberate attacks as the German to help mitigate losses and in the long term and better preserve my manpower and army. However I don't really think it's helping all that much as far as losses go. On turn one, I compared the losses of a AGN attack on the border with 1 division using both Hasty and Deliberate and only saw a casualty difference of about 10-15 men. I know the MP savings of hasty attacks gets you east farther and maybe it pays off in the long run in trapping Russians but is it a good strategy to use hasty attacks as a general rule of thumb if you're not going into a swamp or river or urban area? Do you all have a rule of thumb for using hasty vs deliberate or do you do make ad-hoc decisions as you move/attack? I'm curious.

Thanks

1. shift-z

2. hasty are the way to go most of the time. But you have to judge the right CV ratios, and also the number of men/elements taking part in the battle. Else, you can easily get some black eyes. Remember that hasty attacks use only half of the unit CV AND half of the unit men/elements.

As a rule of thumb, always consider the number of men (or elements) in your attacks, both hasty and deliberate, (and also fatigue, exp etc). By exemple, if you use a regiment to attack a full division, you may have an initial 5:1 CV ratio in your favor, but if the enemy has more elements to fire at yours, he might end up creating a lot of disruption, and you will see a big drop on your CV when the final odds are calculated.

One brief point - as the Axis you get significant advantages on T1 so I'd be cautious of drawing any conclusions from performance in that turn.

More generally in terms of Hasty v Deliberate - in terms of just 'winning' battles I think that making the right choice basically comes with experience. There are lots of factors that are not immediately apparent if you are just looking at the displayed CV values. Thinking a bit wider than individual battle results Ccrtainly as the Axis in the first few turns I'd agree with joelmar that as a general rule you want to be saving movement points at the expense of slightly higher casualties and the odd 'surprise' defeat. But I do think it is important to be alive to the situations where it might be worth going with deliberate attacks. A big thing in the early turns from an Axis perspective is getting routs (although obviously it is different with units you want to pocket who you don't want to rout to safety). I think there are plenty of situations in the early turns where you have the choice of gradually knocking a unit back with hastys (and potentially routing it with a final hasty attack from a Panzer unit) or routing (or sometimes even shattering) it with a single early deliberate attack from an infantry unit. In those situations the latter will cost less MPs overall and also give better loss ratios.

Edit - just for clarification those deliberate attacks should be with infantry units not armour/motorised. DAs with the latter are really expensive in terms of MPs and you only want to be doing that where it is essential in terms of getting enough CV together.