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So I'm playing a campaign as the germans. I have a company of riflemen, w/ a platoon of engineers, a platoon of PzIIIe's, 4 plt's of 222's (to be upgraded to TD, Flame Tanks, StuG's, and Hvy Tanks), 2 plt's 231's (whoops forgot to see they can't carry recon teams), 2 plt's scouts, and 4 or so 81 mm mortars. 2 FO's and some ammo trucks too, plus trucks for all my troops (i.e. a mot company). All in all it's roughly 2600 points. I got 600 support points I think, and I bought 2 squadrons of planes plus a few motorcycles and I think that was it.

Now, the planes seems a bit over the top, probably, BUT last campaign my first mission was either a meeting or advance (forget which) vs. the FR or US (forget which, again) and they had like 40 tanks. It was obscene. I would have been ok but i screwed up and didn't use my smoke right...meh. Back to the story.

So this first mission is an advance/assualt (one or the other) with a vis of 33. 33!!! This was the first time i've ever used smoke with my arty (really it's also my 2nd or 3rd random map scenario too, so that's why). As soon as I emerge from the smoke my 222's start getting pelted by invisible frenchies. I'm literally 3 hexes away from their inf squads, and I can't see them. It sucks. So any hints on how to see/kill them would be nice. I'm moving up my recon squads but they're still stuck in the smoke b/c they don't have transport. The plus side is that I was smart and massed all of my units at the top of the map. I'm planning to bust through and take the top VH and then swing down, since the VH's are arranged in 2 columns, one w/ 2 and the other w/ 3. I'm sure you've all seen the arrangement.

The other question I have is this: how does the computer get so many units? I swear-it was more a problem the last game I played (vs the 40 tanks) but how in the world do they get that many tanks AND the 2/3 companies (it looked like) which followed behind? gaah anyways, thanks for any help! Almost forgot-June 1940, turn 3/33, vis 33, weather clear.

First, I think your troop mix is a bit weak. The 222's really aren't all that great against even light armor. Which brings us to those 40 tanks....

If they were all tanks, I'd wonder where they came from, too. I usually run into about two companies of tanks and the rest various other AFVs -- armored cars and the like. Some of those pack a punch, but for the most part French armor is light, under gunned and really cheep. Even the big ones, while beefier in the armor, tend to be low on penetration. When you run into the Brits, your 222s and 223s are going to be toast -- Brit tanks have real armor.

Best way to see the inf is to move slow or not at all, turn hex facing back and forth, and wait for the scouts to catch up. Usually I get the scout unit with its own transport (basically a Volkwagon Thing) or pick up some to use where I need them. In H2H these come with a FO, a couple of scouts and three of the little jeep things.

Instead of six AC platoons, you might consider some P-IIs. Better survivability and you can carry your scouts on them.

There are a lot of threads in this section devoted to scouting, spotting, and force composition. Just do a search for a couple of key words like "scouting", "puchasing" and the like and you'll get more than you bargained for.

Oh, and your concentration of force in one area will sort of work against the AI, but most of the humans in this game will run behind you and squeeze you in the middle. The AI moves toward the VHs in assualt and meeting engagements, and hold position around it's own VHs in a defend or delay mission. Human's aren't that predictable.

Welcome to the Warzone. As an AI once said: "DO - YOU - WANT - TO - PLAY - A - GAME?"

Thanks for the info. I just tried the 232's (or 223 6-rads or whatever the heck they are) because I wanted something that could shoot at infantry instead of a kubelwagon, but it's back to the old standard for me. Meh the fact that these things are armed with 2 cm guns isn't bad-though for some reason all i'm seeing is inf in this scenario. The 222's are only there to be upgraded-i'm using them to scout right now because I can, but I don't plan on hanging on to them. I want one platoon to be flame tanks, one platoon to be tank destroyers, another platoon to be heavy tanks, and the last either stugs or whatever I feel like (I forgot I bought a section of stugs ). Anyways yeah, I'm only trying the massing thing because I noticed the comp tends to spread it's units over the whole field and not to move in defend scens, so I wanted to try turning its flank. Meh. But the 222's and 232/223 whatevers are phenomenal against the FR inf. A few turns later I"m realizing that waltzing up to 2-3 hexes from inf isn't harmful for em, so it's not too bad. After this scen I'll probably upgrade the 232's to PzII's, if they can carry my scout teams/squads. If not i'll 'upgrade' them to kubelwagons. If only the kubel MG's could carry 4 men...*drool* jeeps...

The problem is that the unit has to survive to be upgraded or you lose all the improvement and start with a green unit as a replacement. You lose some of the improvement when you upgrade, but not all of it.

I prefer to start with the balanced force with everything usable for the job I need done -- this means a mix of inf/armor/artillery and a variety in each catagory. You seem to have done that, but as a result you start off with more units, but individually weaker ones. The French inf in a word, s***s. Brits have more AT weapons on the plt level, and so the lighter ACs don't fair as well against them.

Upgrades are expensive as well. You have a limited number of points between campaign scenarios, and after replacing losses -- even if you replace them with upgrades -- you'll find you may be hard pressed to keep up with them battle after battle.

Oh yeah, unless you skip everything between France in 1940 and the Russian Campaign, you'll be meeting the Brits on the desert. Kind of limits where you can hide for the AT guns. If you do skip, the Russians will do a number on your armor because it'll be out of date if you don't upgrade.

Much fun, this game. I've been two months out of the fight with computer problems, so now I'm playing catch up on the community.

I tend to use armor with only 3 to 5 platoons of Engineers in defensive support as my core unit selection. I then use the supplementary points for the battle to purchase Scouts, Artillery, Mines, Infantry, Transport, etc.

Scouts die fast. they're just not worth trying to advance in Experience.

Artillery doesn't really gain enough experience to matter. IME, artillery advancement in Campaigns tends to be erratic. Sometimes they lose experience?

Mines speak for themselves.

Infantry transport can be useful in Advance/Assault battles. Visibility, terrain and weather would largely determine usefulness in a Meeting engagement You can trade the trucks off for ATGs in a Defense battle.

In an Assault engagement, I'd consider mine-clearing tanks to assist the Engineers. But in a Defense I'd buy the mines and deploy them. While the Engineers drop even more mines.

Consider your upgrades carefully. It's usually not useful to upgrade your infantry. Direct Fire Kills seems to be the driving factor in gaining experience rapidly. Infantry doesn't usually survive that environment for long. They'll benefit more from being grizzeled Grognards of an old Rifle platoon than Green replacements fresh out of boot camp.

Armor, however, does the Direct Fire Kill task well, and if you're careful with your units, they can advance in Experience levels fairly quickly.

When you upgrade, the unit loses Experience. It takes 2 to 3 games to regain the lost experience in armor units (much longer in infantry). So you don't want to upgrade to the next generation PzIV after every battle.

Your PzII platoons could start with 70 -80 experience in '40, and they could end up driving Tiger IEs in '45 with 40 experience after upgrading every other battle. But if you're careful and resist upgrading every Spring, you can advance your platoons to 100+ experience Tigers.

I like the Campaign Generator. I set 10 battles from '40 to '45. That's about a battle every six months (I know, I know, I'm a lightweight :rolleyes: )

About every 1-1/2 to 2 years, I upgrade entire platoons to the next level of technology. So I upgrade my tanks about 3 or 4 times over the course of the war years.

They increase at about half their total gained Experience (after accounting for the several Upgrade's experience loss). By 1945, they are each a 'Whitman-class' crew, fearsome and deadly.

If your Core units are too weak to survive 2 or 3 battles, you should consider buying better units to start with. If the upgrade you're considering doesn't improve your combat capability substantially, wait until a better unit becomes available.

Don't Upgrade across basic unit types (armor, infantry, artillery) They each start with their highest Experience in their respective type. ie. Armor units have higher armor command experience than any other unit.

The Experience gained is gained in the current unit's type. If you Upgrade your FO (infantry) to a vehicular FO (armor/vehicle), you'll have a unit with penalized infantry experience (from the upgrade) and inferior armor experience (~30-50). Even after many battles, it won't improve much. Infantry upgrades to Infantry, Armor upgrades to Armor, etc.

In the special case of the FO, it's the artillery experience that's truly important. The higher their experience in artillery, the faster and more often they can contact and plot a barrage.

If your country's Experience tends to improve over the years, you're better off buying a new FO with the supplementary points. They don't advance in experience very fast at all.

If your country's Experience tends to decrease over the years, it might be nice to have an FO in your core unit who actually knows what he's doing.

Thanks for all the help, guys.

Yeah, I just remembered-only a quarter of the 'tanks' were M1A2's or whatever-the rest were M3 command cars, Mae Wests, etc.

As far as upgrading goes, I'll try not to do it much, but I am upgrading my GE rifle squads to SS ones asap. First so I don't gain too much xp before doing it and second because I think the SS ones have more xp anyways. I'm also upgrading the 222's and then after those are done i'll upgrade my opels to halftracks. One question-how the hell do my opel blitzes have better rally ratings than my SS rifle squads? Am I the only one who thinks that is strange? See it's kinda frustrating because when I reassign my trucks to my inf platoons (they were GE Rifle Squads at the time) the C0/D0 unit is no longer the head of the platoon-instead the truck gets the parenthesis around it's +. While this might not seem like a big deal, it means those inf squads don't get an extra chance to rally. I know, I could just have separate squads, but I like to keep my units organized. *shrug* I guess I'll just have to live with it or buy motorized companies from the get-go.

When you reassign units the highest ranking unit becomes the formation commander -- just like in the real army. So if you have a truck commanded by a Lt and a plt commanded by a sgt, guess who takes command?

I'm not sure about the rally queston the way you phrased it, but if I think ...

All units rally based on the rally and the experience of the unit. They get a bonus for leaders in the vicinity and the leader rallys them once the unit fails it's own check. This is why grouping a formation around its leader is important. (But I think you know that. ) I think (but after two months, I'd have to look it up to be certain) smaller units (ie fewer men) are easier to rally (have higher chances) than larger units simply because you have less people to kick into gear. Trucks only have two-man crews.

Like I said, I'm not sure of this and it's early. If that answers the question, cool. If not, rephrase and I'll try again. :p

Yeah, that makes much more sense. Especially the bit about rank...ah well, guess I should have settled for the company of PzG Mot Inf instead of ordinary riflemen. *shrug* 's all good.