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I want to update my tactics guide with a section on C&C. There have been some excellent discussions of this lately and some of you have posted your strategies for playing with it on. To summarize:

-move the 0 unit last
-protect the 0 unit from supression
-have a reserve with accumulated orders
-set objectives ahead of where you want to go to provide some flexibility
-use FOs for arty to avoid wasting maneuver units orders on this

What other techniques do you use?

How do you buy and use your forces differently when C&C is on? Do you buy sections instead of platoons to get extra leaders? Do you buy more FO's (perhaps one per firing unit?)

Thanks!

With C&C on, I tends to buy Companies instead of platoon, since it provides one more level of C&C. I also plots the objective during deployment, that way my orders are not use up at the beginning of the battle.

I think you just mistyped it but I always set my object several hexes BEYOND where I want to go not ahead of it.

I agree with your other comments and try to use them. I try very hard to use only FOs to plot arty and not use other leaders. Lower ranking leaders get new orders at a very slow pace so the ones they have are in a way more valuable than the orders the A0 gets.

I try to spend a little time developing a plan and then, adhere to it.

Place FO near AO so they will have plenty of orders.

Sometimes, set fire missions for arty before moving and consuming the orders pool.

I change the stance of units when on defense so I don't have to spend orders to allow movement. Also don't have to deploy very near 0 unit that way.

Take great care to set objectives for ammo supply and artillery units which may have to move. Plan evacuation locations for these units so the ammo trucks can co-locate with rockets, SP mortars and the like.

Movement is critical - the ability to move forward and back is largely taken away and units can no longer dart about as with C/C off. This is related to the "plan".

Recon units are much more important.

C/C turned on creates an entirely different game.

Objective useage?

1. On the offensive. In general I will have something of a spread of my forces in a general line. Objectives are set up directly in front of a group, clear across the other side of the board. This way the ONLY deviation that will absorb orders is a horizontal one. With the objective being so far back, there's also quite a bit of horizontal deviation that can be made and still approach that goal.

There are also groups which in the more flank positions, will either do the above, or set the objective for the middle back portion or the other extreme flank back position (IOW, if group A is in a northern hex, it's objective would be in the back of the enemy to the extreme south - I very rarely do that as a southern group going straight forward would probably accomplish more).

2. On the defensive. There are only two objectives that I commonly use. This is the extreme opposite of the offensive objectives. The objectives are almost entirely horizontal, so that the northern mobile units could immediately go to a heavily threatened southern area in an instant. The other direction I commonly give, particularly to guns, and sometimes to infantry (anything pretty slow), is to give them some rearward type of objective in case things get really bad from their starting ideal positions (which the rearward objectives could be even more advantageous), thus aiding any mobile fire brigades in coming to their assistance before the beseiged are all but useless. Later as it becomes obvious that the enemy at least no longer poses an armor threat, I will then gradually start switching groups to the enemy's rear.

One trick I've learned the hard way:

When attacking, the first thing I do before deploying my troops is to set a single objective hex for ALL of my units. Click on the target hex, usually the far edge of the map centered N-S, then click on the green flag. (At least I think its the green one, I'm at work rght now.) That way, if I somehow forget to assign a good objective to a unit, at least the unit is able to maneuver forward without burning an order.

I have occasionally failed to assign objectives to infantry or gun units that were loaded onto vehicles belonging to different units.

For armor maneuver near a ridgeline or similar feature, once you move within about 2 to 4 hexes of the desired firing position(s)set the objective to a point midway between your armor and the firing position.

If you always end a turn on one side of the objective the next turn you can maneuver up to the full movement allowance in the direction through the objective hex. Obviously this works best with high mobility units and care must be taken not to fire too many times from the firing position least you end up with too few movement points to get back to your starting position.

This 'near the flag' maneuver tactic can also be used to allow centrally positioned extremely high mobility units (move 36+) to act as a rapid deployment mobile reserve in defense situations.

Although the 'near the flag' tactic works better with sections than platoons, I find myself still basing my core campaign group around company formations. The reason being that I prefer to keep my core group together in most battles until I see the lay of the enemy positions/formations. Then the extra C&C points from the company commanders becomes very helpful in responding to the situation.

As the previous respondee posted, recon is even more important than usual with C&C on. In fact, it has become so important to my strategies that when I finally lay my hands on v7.0 I'm seriously considering buying more recon elements for my core force. With C&C on, once you commit your non-recon elements to a position engaging the enemy, it can be rather difficult to extricate yourself from that position.

I almost always play with C&C on when playing vs the AI these days but still wish the game would give you an extra hex per turn for movement to the rear without charging you C&C points. It'd be nice if my ultra elite drivers could find reverse gear in a hurry without having to recieve permission from higher command.

Kluckenbill: I'm glad you mentioned that, in fact, I was wondering how to do that very thing. The problem must be that for some strange reason I only think about doing it during the battle, where I take it that it isn't available, but only available in deployment.

Units on the defensive I usually place the 0 unit behind the other units, and give them an objective on top of the 0 unit. That way when they retreat they can rally and move back to get back into contact with their leader. This is mostly for picket defenses, usually the defending platoon should always be in contact... but life isn't perfect. It's also nice to hide the leaders away from sight some in addition to providing a fallback plan.

Tomo

Brian Price: You are not so new to this as your number lets us now <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> Read again his points, I've tried many times to say same thing clearly <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

If I had to play Brits or Japs against human I'll change 'Platoon HQ' to similar name as other squads... sometimes HQ to simple Riflesquad...

mosh

stupid question...

what benefit does moving the leader (0) last incur?

and does the leader unit firing shots effect it's ability to accumilate orders?

Nikademus: I'm not sure what they're talking about, that is, the deal about moving the leader last. I've never paid moving leaders last too much mind, but then it depends on how you position the leader in the first place.

I believe the logic is that if a platoon's leader moves last, it will be more likely to draw less fire, since the poor saps that moved first are more likely to see response. Of course if you're generally in the habit of moving/firing with mobile formations on each turn, first, and there's any in the area, they're liable to soak off a good deal of fire anyway.

That does bring up an interesting thing that I used to do all the time, but now has been all but forgotten, and that is, that if you have tanks which are very vulnerable, that moving/firing the infantry first, if they're in the same relative area, is very liable to soak off some fire that otherwise would've fired at the tanks.

Nikademus: I think you want to move the unit leader last to make sure you don't move him "out of contact" of any his component units. You might forget and move the leader first, perhaps more than 3 hexes and you find out that there are some units with not enough movement points. Then you have to wait until the next turn before you can move the leader back within contact. This actually is only a consideration with pbem when you can not cancel your move.

Originally posted by Drex:
Nikademus: I think you want to move the unit leader last to make sure you don't move him "out of contact" of any his component units...

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This is the main reason, although the comment about moving last to avoid being shot at can be true to some extent.

Thanks guys

on the last part however, does the leader unit (0) firing off shots impeed the acumulation of orders? even when in contact?

Of course gaining supression will cause this but i want to make sure that firing does'nt impede either as i'm admitedly in the habit of engaging leader units (from the rear of course)

Bump because of requests.

mosh