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I bought HOI 2 ~:)
I checked what it was going to cost me to order DD direct from Paradox, and in total it was going to cost $46. Since that was almost as much as my local store's 2 games for fifty bucks offer, I figured I was better off getting two games for 50 than one for 46.
The second game I bought along with HOI 2 was a Paradox compilation. So now I have HOI 2, EU II, Victoria, Two Thrones and Crown of the North, all for $50 ~:)
Nice one, thats 10 $ each. And Vicky is prolly worth 50$ just on its own.
Yeah, I could hardly believe that myself. I hope this is not some really early version of Vicky you can't upgrade or something, like HOI 1. It was actually bundled with HOI 1, but I haven't heard about a Vicky version 2.Quote:
Originally Posted by SwordsMaster
Does HOI 2 have a bug? I tried to play Italy, it's got 64 IC's. I'm not building anything and the game says I have 64 IC's free, which is how it should be, but when I go to the statistics sheet, it says I'm using 128 energy, 64 metal and 32 raw materials, as if I'm already using my production capacity to the max! I've got a daily deficit of 37 energy and 18 metal, and I'm not even building anything yet!
Have I missed something, or is this a bug?
I think it's WAD, because noone ever thought that someone wouldn't use his production capabilities to their fullest.
WAD, what's that?
Actually, I am already building a couple of ships, the campaign starts with those in the building queue. But they are only costing 6 IC's. But the game still says I have all my IC's free, but I'm using raw materials as if I'm using production capacity to the max!
This has surely got to be a major bug. Has anyone else heard of it?
No. that's how it works.
wad = working as designed.
Its a bad idea to let ic idle, since it still uses up your resources. If anything, dump it in supplies or consumer goods. Remeber your economy never shuts down, even if you want it to.
Oh great, so that means I'm stuck with these resource deficits and can only try and meet the problem by trading?
Heck, I'm sure the game wasn't working like this before. It was only counting the IC's I was using for production. I mean, it's got to work that way. If it didn't, why have an "available IC's" figure at all?
Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
You can try conquering some provinces that produce those resources you want.
Italy probably didn't have great resources in reality. Play as the USA if you don't want to worry about needing to trade.Quote:
Oh great, so that means I'm stuck with these resource deficits and can only try and meet the problem by trading?
Available ICs means the number of ICs you have enough resources to actually run. The game assumes you would want to maximize output, which you should if you want to wage war. Note that it goes full steam ahead until your resource stockpiles are empty.Quote:
Heck, I'm sure the game wasn't working like this before. It was only counting the IC's I was using for production. I mean, it's got to work that way. If it didn't, why have an "available IC's" figure at all?
About HoI 1, after loading up the toll tip says that I had enough resources to run n out of n. Not that that says anything.
Oh well, people seem to think this is WAD! I guess I'll have to take your word for it.
Maybe I'm confused because I was playing HOI 1 before, and I think in that game you can cut your resource use by putting it into supplies. But regardless this strikes me as a pretty silly mechanic. You should be able to slow down production if you're outstripping your supplies. What this mechanic means is you have no choice, you have to keep going until that scarce resource hits zero, causing your entire production to go haywire.
It also means you have to think twice before increasing your production capacity, because once it's there it has to be fed regardless.
Why didn't they include an "idle production" slider, so you could reduce production to keep everything at sustainable levels?
Ugh, I don't like this game mechanic, at all.
Factories are still running if they are making supplies like ammo and boots instead of equipment for a new division or cruiser.....
Why would you want to reduce your economic strength? In either case the end result would be you being weaker. And whats the point of that in a game based around one of the larger conflicts of the 20th century.
And yes it makes sense that your production goes haywire. The reason the Japanese attacked was that they were running out of resources.
Think of it this way: if you idled them then the workers wander off, the factories would fall into disrepair and those said workers would be unemployed thus increasing dissent. You'd have to start over from scratch(ie rebuild your IC).
Also, its REALLY easy to build up a massive prewar stockpile of resources from trade, so large that you can last the entire war on it.
You can save resources by setting up unused IC...minor powers (read: me) do it all the time because of their limited economies. Supplies don't count, though; what you need to do is put more IC into production, upgrades or reinforcements than you really need. Also, what version of the game are you using?
Wow. I had no idea idleing IC left it used. See, even a long time veteren doesn't know everything.
Still seems like a bad idea to idle IC during times of peace anyway. Then you don't need to worry about blockaids stopping trades, thus you can run your economy as fast as it can go, thus you can produce as much as possible. And since you are Italy you will be facing the might of the British in Afirca, probably, including most of their ground I think.
The problem is that if you wait for the resources to run out, you lose control of the economy. And you have to keep going back to readjust sliders because the resources keep arriving in fits and starts. It just becomes a micromanagement nightmare. At least, that's how I found it in HOI 1.Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Not at all. You don't completely shut down a factory, you just run it at 80% capacity instead. Real businesses do this sort of thing all the time. They don't wait until their cash flow hits zero and then start retrenching people! They plan ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
There should be an idle capacity slider. That way YOU would be in total control of where your available resources go and what gets built, instead of having to fiddle with the sliders all the time.
Hmm, not sure about that. Maybe it depends on what country you play ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Anyhow, I stlll think this looks like a promising game. I mean, this is a real wargame, not some cheesy plaything for the kiddiebrats. I haven't played a real wargame for ages. I just hope the somewhat clunky UI doesn't end up spoiling the fun too much.
Yeah, generally speaking, you'll want to trade to keep your deficits up, but sometimes, everything is just in use in every other country, or you can get no real decent trade deal. A good idea, though, is to trade small amounts of supplies for larger amounts of IC resources. If you could get 2 energy for .3 supplies, you're definitely ahead of the game.
Hmm, you seem to be saying something different to the other guys. This is all starting to get a bit confusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
What you're saying is how I thought HOI 1 was playing. I mean, I thought I found some slider that I could put excess production into that didn't use resources. But the other guys seem to be saying no, you can't do that. And they appear to be right, because when I was tweaking the sliders around in HOI 2 it didn't seem to be affecting the number of resources I was using.
BTW, I'm using version 1.10OOCO, as far as I can tell...
Dump everything into reinforcements, then watch, just to be sure.
Tip about trading: Perferably only trade with countries you are already on good terms with, like Germany. They will give you better deals.
PATCH!
The unpatched version definitely doesn't work as well. You're right, though; you should be able to save resources by 'wasting' IC. The AI does it, I've done it, it's a wonderful thing.
Also, are you fiddling around with the sliders before the first day ends, or any other day, for that matter? Resource status is updated every day at 0:00.
Trading supplies for the raw materials is definitely the way to go in my opinion. Crank up your supply slider to use all your currently unused IC capacity and trade it for metal, oil, energy, etc. Supplies are considered very valuable and so you can get some very good deals when trading with other countries. With luck, you'll have a large supply stockpile to fight with when war breaks out too, meaning you can concentrate your IC on more important areas such as reinforcements when the time comes.
Okay, looks like Gorebag was right, you can indeed idle production capacity just by putting the excess into the production slider. Using that method I've just been able to reduce my IC usage by more than two thirds.
I was pretty sure you could do it because I was doing it in HOI 1, but I guess I forgot what method I'd been using.
The other thing that I think confused me is Italy was converting 70 energy to oil at the start of the game for some reason, I don't really understand why, or why it's stopped converting now, but I'm glad it has because it was leaving me with an energy deficit in excess of 70 a day!
Anyhow, all seems to be well now, I just need to tweak my IC usage up to the appropriate level. Thanks everyone for your help ~:)
Oh and thanks LordHugh for the tip about supplies, I assumed they'd be pretty worthless to trade but it's good to hear they are not. Although I've also found money to be a pretty decent trade, which you can make from producing an excess of consumer goodies, but I haven't figured out which is the better trade commodity yet.
Oh, pooh, the 1.3 patch has robbed Italy of a research slot ~:(
Oh well, never mind, you win some you lose some :laugh4:
Energy is converted to oil when you do not have enough oil as a stockpile. This can cause your industry to totally collapse as all your energy is used up. You can make the ratio better by researching in the industrial research part of it
Is that what it is? The blasted game is converting 30 to 40 of my energy every day to make a thimbleful of oil, and I don't seem to be able to stop it ~:(Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadesPanther
Not only that, but it looks like I spoke too soon on the idle IC question. The game is still using resources at maximum capacity, regardless of how little I'm actually building. So obviously the method I thought was working, isn't. :stupido2:
Hmm, more study required... :coffeenews:
Erm, can IC be idle? At all?
I thought the best (or worst, actually) you can do is to waste it on an idle area (production/upgrade/reinforcements beyond your true need) and still "pay" for it. I always put my excess on money (consumer) and supply. If I have any, that is. Money and supply helps a lot because you'll at least be getting something back which can be used, especially for trading to make up for resource deficits (pumping ICs up too much? Just put all the excess in supply and make a swaggering effort to create trade deals everywhere with your supply for their resources). Not to mention the fact that putting ICs in consumer goods reduce dissent. The more the better.
The value of trade goods, by the way, can be edited in the db folder. It's only affecting diplomatic deals, though.
By the way, I personally think Italy sucks big time for some reason. They lack major resources majorly. You have to strike out on your own and be quick about it.
Of course, fortunately Italy is one of the major-minor powers with the ability, tech teams, and military to fight on your own initiative at your own will and can expect to survive, as well as not being forced by events to engage in the mighty Great War if you really don't want to. Well, you ARE expected to strike out quickly if you take the role of Il Duce, anyway.
Again, this game is really amazing. In fact, some people are more amazing at this game than others... That Hungarian AAR over at Paradox is wicked. Oh how the CESA rises!
It will automatically stop the conversion when you have less than a 3:1 ration in energy to oil. So oil conversion won't make you run out of energy, but it does make stockpiling it a rather horrible process. Also researching the conversion techs does help in making the process a lot more economical when it comes to energy.Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
Don't know. Still haven't figured it out ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
I made some great deals with Germany. 10 supply for 100 energy! That solved my energy problems real quick.Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
Now though I'm trying to build up my supply a bit, just in case I need them for war. I'm just coming to the end of '39 and reinforcing the Near East in case Britain tries to grab territory. And if she doesn't, I'll probably try and grab some of hers ~:)
I don't know, compared to the powers I've been playing up to now, Italy is a powerhouse!Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
I was playing Brazil and Argentina before and they've got so few IC's you can hardly do a thing.
Yeah, I haven't figured out what strategy to adopt with Italy yet. I've taken Ethiopia and Albania already, but now I'm waiting for war to break out between the major powers so I can hopefully grab some more goodies while they're preoccupied with each other.Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
The big decision is whether to go into an alliance with a major faction or not. And if so, which faction?
I'll probably end up just doing the historical thing and making an alliance with Germany, but I don't know if it's the right strategy. What I'd really like to do is conquer Yugoslavia, but I'm not sure how to achieve that. If I ally with Germany, she might invade Yugoslavia when I declare war, which is not what I want at all!
ATM I'm finding it amazingly long, mostly ~:) I wish there was a way to speed up the game so you could go straight from one interesting event to another, having to go through the whole lot hour by hour gets a bit old after a while...Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
The trick with Italy is to be opportunistic. I.e. grab Ethiopia (its practically free anyway), grab Albania (ditto) and then ally with Bulgaria (usually you have a pretty god relationship with them) and try grabbing Greece as quickly as you can. You can't sustain long wars because you do not have a big surpulus of supplies at this early stage.
After you get a peace deal out of Greece or annex them (whatever the circumstances dictate), watch the Spanish civil war. Do NOT send reinforcements to any of the sides and when one of the sides controls more than 60 % of the territory, attack them. Usually your navy pwns theirs (even though it's still crap compared to France or UK) and so you have a clear landing pad. Grab as many ICs as possible, and naval bases and airfields (if you are a tac bomber maniac such as myself) and then just hold them until the other Spain finishes the job. Then I usually rebuild my economy and reinforce for 6-7 months, and then hit Portugal. You can take out most of their european posessions in no time and then they will offer you some sort of deal that will include some African posessions too.
By 1939 or so you can hit the Spain you "supported" (do not ever ally with them as if you do, they will take control of the territories you have claimed from the other Spain) which should be fairly crippled after you took a good few ICs from them.
After that your economy should be a good bit stronger and you have planty of opportunities.
What I like to do is ally with Germany after 41, give up Ethiopia and take out the Suez channel (which you will be fighting for for the rest of the war), and Gibraltar. That keeps the brits out of the mediterranean, and your crappy navy can take care of the rest of the navies in th area. Then You can hit the Middle East, and after that is secured, hit Vichy France. With German help, Vichy France should be a walk in Europe, fairly easy in N. Africa, and forget about the rest of the world. There is not point getting your marines to Saigon for a dubious fight for the colonies, that in all likelihood you want be able to hold...
That is my strategy. A few unexpected events happened though, such as Yugoslavia attacking me during my war in Greece, or Turkey attacking me while most of my forces were tied down in Iraq with the brits. But it is a very interesting game.
If you are allied to germany when they invade yugoslavia then when they annex then you get the territory you have claims on, more if you occupy it.
The tip for Italy is to take the two northern Provinces connected to Germany and then advance down. Also try to get alot more quickly if you have balkan allies.
You do know how to speed up the game, though, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
Hmm, some good tips there guys. It's too late for me to do the Spain thing because the civil war is already come and gone, but the others sound doable.
I want Yugoslavia because I figure I'll get all its IC's, it seems in this game if you have to transport stuff overseas in wartime it never turns up. Or is that only your trade deals? There's a lot I haven't figured out in this game yet. There's no shortage of stuff to learn in a game like this, LOL.
I only know the Ctrl-+ key combo, but even at "extremely fast" it still runs a lot slower than I would like it to. Especially in the pre-war years when there is often nothing to do but wait for that next technology or for that piece of infrastructure to be built.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Yugoslavia is often getting screwed in just about every game you play in their vicinity, except, of course, with you as Yugoslavia!Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
They're surrounded and don't have the German, or Allied blessing, for that matter. And their lands are large...and quite a good addition to any of the nations around the place, Italy included. Not to mention the fact that you can always liberate smaller nations out of their territory if you don't need them and need someone to free up the TC's used in occupying territories
But I would NOT strike them before all the "guarantee independence" (if any) and non-aggression pacts expire, about 40' if I can remember correctly. Doing so before that might bring on you the wrath of the major powers. They have a set of ties at the start of the game...
And quite frankly I agree that, as an RTS-RTW player, the game is bloody slow occasionally. It doesn't matter though once you achieve something amazing or succeed in a grand encirclement. Or beat up the Bigs on your own. Or, as the best experiences so far in this game, carve your own alliance that becomes just as powerful as the game's prime Three. The dry, old graphic-plain map was more beautiful than any graphic-filled game would ever be once I look over Europe and realize that all of them are either liberated by me or under my direct leadership. :2thumbsup:
I always loved to create an Italian-led alliance when I play them. Then again, I'm on a normal difficulty with the default aggression.
I suggest you take all of greece before you take yugo. I know the ai does it all time. There are beaches in the Pelopenese.
I find it pretty fast, and I would suggest normal/above normal for war time. Don't forget to change to the slower times.
Okay, I took Spain but the partisans are eating me alive! I'm losing 86 TC to partisan activity according to the tooltip.
What the heck do you do about partisans? I know you can assign divisions to anti-partisan activity but they're not that effective, and it's going to end up costing a heck of a lot of troops just to keep the natives down!
What do I do - build heaps of garrison divisions? Seems like an awful waste of resources, but these partisans are proving to be quite a nuisance.
BTW, why aren't I getting the IC I've captured from other nations? Am I supposed to assign convoys to ship it home or something?
Use garrisons with police brigades attached to them and assign them on anti-partisan duty. Spread them all over spain (one per province and not neccesarily every province) and when the revolt-chance starts to drop low enough you can assign some garrisons to other, newly conquered places.
About the IC, you will only be able to use a portion of enemy IC. I don't know how much however. There are ministers (diplomacy menu) that raise how much enemy IC you can use by the way.
So, I really do have to churn out a whole bunch of garrison divs, huh?
There are no shortcuts in this blasted game, are there? LOL.
I just spent the last three years researching the '39 infantry division at agonizingly slow speed. Finally got there in April '38. I figured if I researched it early I could go straight from an 18 pattern div to a 39, thus saving me a whole heap of IC's on the 36 upgrade.
Nothing doing, the baskets make you upgrade to a 36 before you can upgrade to a 39. What a scam. All that time wasted, the cheats!
Garrisons are indeed the way to go. I'm not sure if I should ruin the surprise surrounding their use, though. In any case, building MP brigades won't help so much on their own, either, unless you have something else in your homeland sitting around, waiting to be sent to Spain. To fight partisans without garrisons, you'll want to pay attention to your Authoritarian and Open vs Closed Society sliders.
On the issue of enemy IC's: You only get access to a fraction of your non-national factories. This can be modified by your diplomacy window, particularly your security minister. Ministers to consider are either the [+5% Foreign manpower, +5% Foreign IC use] or the [+10% Foreign IC use, +10% Consumer Goods Need]. The first is all-around better, obviously, since there are no real drawbacks, but the second may be more useful if you hold a considerable amount of foreign territory.
You do have a lot of questions, but are you enjoying the game?
I'm still playing it, so I guess I must be ~;pQuote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
I don't know how long I'll stick with it though. There are a lot of good ideas in the game, and there must have been a huge amount of research go into it, but the UI really stinks.
A few examples:
(a) I still haven't figured out a quick way to divide up armies in the same province, because the only obvious way is to merge everything and then de-merge into all the separate units you want. And I haven't found any way of merging air units except by flying them to a province empty of ground units. Perhaps another careful reading of the manual will reveal a method a bit less clunky.
(b) The naval system is really confusing. Missions are assigned to sea zones but the names on the map don't appear to correspond to the sea zones in the list. I find I just have to click on one of the names and hope for the best. It's pretty annoying.
(c) Assigning and re-assigning commanders to units is a pain. Does the list of alternative commanders you get include commanders already assigned to units? I can't tell. But either way, it's a problem, because if they're not, it means you're not looking at all your available commanders, and if they are, there's nothing there to tell you they are already assigned, at least not that I can see.
I'd swear the list of available commanders is constantly changing too. Does the game reassign divisional commanders back to the force pool when you merge into a larger unit? Maybe that's what's going on.
(d) I've been finding combat to be quite troublesome. Especially selecting the start time for an attack. I think maybe I've been confused because in HOI 2 combat seems to occur from the moment you start moving toward the province, whereas in HOI 1 it only occurs when you arrive in the province. But what the "sychronize attack" button does I have no idea, it might be hidden in the manual somewhere but it's not obvious in the game.
I guess I'll probably figure out most of these issues, but the point is their implementation is anything but user friendly. It's a pity, because for some reason lousy UI's seem to be the usual story with computer wargames, which IMO is a big reason why they don't sell better.
Really though, I just haven't had enough experience with the game to know whether it's going to become a favourite or not. There's a lot I like about it, but then again I have little patience with games that have a crap UI. Things that ought to take seconds in this game take minutes. I'm hoping that with more practice and knowledge I'll be able to do things quicker, if not the clunky UI might eventually drive me away. :juggle2:
But right now? I'm looking forward to getting back to it to teach those evil partisans a lesson or two :laugh4:
syn attack = sync arrival
select an aircraft, then shift left click a box around the aircraft I think.
Note that some missions cover areas, which are alot larger and have different names. That might be the problemQuote:
(b) The naval system is really confusing. Missions are assigned to sea zones but the names on the map don't appear to correspond to the sea zones in the list. I find I just have to click on one of the names and hope for the best. It's pretty annoying.
Yeah, this is a slight problem. Just divide up things the way you want them went they are built, and reorg your starting troops as you see fit. If you find yourself suffling troops around near the front lines, you probably poorly planned things out and your troops take an org hit. Don't let it happen.Quote:
(a) I still haven't figured out a quick way to divide up armies in the same province, because the only obvious way is to merge everything and then de-merge into all the separate units you want.
No commanders assigned to troops are seen in the select commander pool.Quote:
(c) Assigning and re-assigning commanders to units is a pain. Does the list of alternative commanders you get include commanders already assigned to units? I can't tell. But either way, it's a problem, because if they're not, it means you're not looking at all your available commanders, and if they are, there's nothing there to tell you they are already assigned, at least not that I can see.
Are they? But I haven't seen anything there that actually tells you they're already assigned. Which means you might be inadvertently stripping one of your armies of his commander!Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Not good.
No, no. They are jsut not there. If you attach a General to an army they are removed from the pool, then added back when you select remove.
Note that when strat deploying the generals of the divisions being moved end up back in the pool, but are reassigned to their old commands when they arrive usually. Sometime old commands get merged but not often.
Oh, and if you have auto assign commanders turned on, which is generally a good idea, then make sure you assign mj gens to your garrison divs manually otherwise the ai will assign good mj to there, which I imagine you don't want. Just assign your worst commanders to garrisons.
2nd edit: TO see what I mean start a game as GER, and pick out a field marshal(make sure you note who) and assign him a command. Then open put the command menu(be sure to arrange by rank) and look for him.
Oh sorry, I completely misread your post. When you said: "No commanders assigned to troops are seen in the select commander pool" I thought you meant "No, commanders assigned to troops are seen in the select commander pool." ~:)
Do you happen to know if commanders are sent back to the force pool when you merge two or more led units? I haven't figured it out yet, but I think they are. (Which reminds me of another little UI gripe. There doesn't seem to be any way to select which commander leads the new group when you merge units, it just appears to be assigned randomly).
One of them is yes. As for which gets the post, I think its based on skill. I generally don't merge corps and armys. Just pump out divisions in groups of 3, and get instant corps.Quote:
Do you happen to know if commanders are sent back to the force pool when you merge two or more led units? I haven't figured it out yet, but I think they are. (Which reminds me of another little UI gripe. There doesn't seem to be any way to select which commander leads the new group when you merge units, it just appears to be assigned randomly).
I've been trying a new strategy as Japan in Doomsday. Built 9 Light Tank Regiments, grouping them into three seperate Corps. Then I built A LOT of Infantry, and blitzed China from Japan held Manchukuo. It's February 1939 and I've managed to Push Nationalist China into Shanxi and Yunnan. Capitulating Communist China was a bit difficult at first, but the AI was dumb enough to focus all of their forces in their Capital, allowing me to ceal off entry from Every side. After I take total control of China (which I presume isn't too far off) I'll have enough forces to easily blitz India from Tibet.
My only problem in the beginning was that Japan has a relatively low IC. However after taking China my IC has improved very much. So now I can focus on building LOTS and LOTS of Marines for my conquests in the Pacific Rim. I plan on taking South East Asia as soon as I'm at war with the Allies. Quickly take down Indonesia, and puppet Australia/New Zealand. Then I'll shift my focus north and capture Far Eastern Russia. Thereby dooming the Soviets by cutting off their Lend-Lease with the Allies. If all goes according to plan and I continue appeasing the Americans, the Pacific Theater may never even happen. I would REALLY Really like to get my hands on Parts of Africa and the Middle East, thereby giving U-Boats valuable basing in Africa as part of my Greater plan to eventually invade America.
Heh. I've spent all evening blasting those miserable partisan baskits down to zero. And I'm on the verge of getting dissent back to zero, so I can finally pull all those otherwise wasted IC's out of consumer goods (damn whingeing public!)
The problem now is - what to build? what to build? I've got enough garrison divs (24), I'm pumping out two infantry divisons every three months but I've already got 40 or so - gee, it's tough to decide what to go for!
I thought I'd create an assembly line for destroyers, since they're cheap to build, but apart from that I'm undecided. Planes are horrendously expensive, maybe I should build a few tank divisions now?
BTW does anybody know if you get the production line improvements on an already existing (ie geared) assembly line? Or do you have to start all over again to get the benefits? I thought I noticed when I got a tech to build forts 50% faster that it didn't affect the speed of forts I was already building, so it made me wonder.
Yeah, I think that's a good strategy. If you make bigger groupings it tends to hamper your options on the battlefield a bit, doesn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Hmm, now that you mention it, maybe I should add a third infantry division to my assembly line...
Actually this issue isn't as important as I thought since I found out you have a complete list of all your commanders, their rank, skills etc and which unit they're assigned to (if any) in the Statistics screen. And although you don't seem to able to go directly from there to the location of the relevant commander, you can make a note of the name of the unit and then just doubleclick on that unit in the unit statistic screen and the game will take you straight there. Not quite as straightforward as it might have been, but good enough ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
What to build? Well, it depends on your objectives: If you are going to just defend your borders, build infantry with different kinds of artillery brigades attached, if you are planning a war in N.Africa, research and build light tank divisions supported by motorised infantry, if planning to take out Turkey, you'll need Mountain troops...
Tanks and planes are usually expensive, ships are expensive too, but in time more than ICs, I always have a BB or 2 on a prodction line just because it takes me so long to build them.
You might also consider building HQ divisions for every "front". They add to the defence and improve the performance of nearby troops, so they come in handy.
BTW, planes are expensive, but they are great. I love the CAS + tac bomber combo. If you have 2-3 groups on "Ground attack" missions above your front lines, the enemy will be at half strength even before they reach your lines.
I wouldnt actually say that is a good deal at all! Energy is the most abundant resource and probably the lowest resource in order of value.Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
Im sure you could get much better deals.
Screwtype, you can merge air units in provinces that are occupied by land forces by either de-selecting any forces currently selected, then right-clicking the land forces, an occupied port, or an occupied airbase icon (basically, right-click any military unit once you have nothing selected). A pop-up menu should appear. Select the 'select all air units' option and boom! Merge all you want. Keep in mind, though, that even though a general may be able to command more than 4 air divisions, 4 is the maximum to be under direct command (Air generals, who can command 8 divisions, only really come into play when two air groups are performing missions in the same province and stack with each other - more on this later if you want.)
Alternatively, hold the shift button and click on the airbase until you've selected them all (or only two groups, so you can use the 'exchange' button instead of the 'merge' button).
As for building stuff...well, once you go to war with Britain you can say goodbye to your fleet, and to North Africa. My suggestions would be to build a few destroyers, but not many, and to build some more infantry for immediate transport to North Africa. Allied planes will be on your ass hardcore once things get hairy, so interceptors/fighters will be needed...because you should build naval bombers and smash the British fleets out of existence (until you can capture Gibraltar and the Suez).
Hmm, I'm sure I tried that in my last war and it didn't work. I had my airbase in Madrid and every time I tried to click on the airbase, the dang ground units would come up instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Anyhow, thanks for the tip and the shift-click thing. I've been trying to use Ctrl-click to multi-select things, maybe that's one mistake I've been making.
What's the advantage in capturing Gibraltar exactly? And I'm a bit confused here. You seem to be saying both that I can't hang onto North Africa and I should put more troops in there.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
As for the destroyers, I'm just building them because they're so cheap. Yeah, I should probably build a few fighters - but planes are so expensive, I can't bring myself to spend the IC. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to spending IC's ~:) I keep thinking of all those cool divisions I could be building instead ~;p
I'll probably only start building planes once it becomes obvious I need a few.
I'm not sure about the naval bombers though. Some folks over at the Paradox forums seem to think that naval bombers are a waste of IC's, you're better off building tacs because they are more versatile.
Oh - the other reason I'm reluctant to build these more expensive items like planes is because I'm not teched up enough yet, I want to wait until I get better techs so I don't have to spend more IC's upgrading them later. That's one of the reasons I went for the destroyers - the next best model is years away, and by the time I got one out of the shipyard the war would practically be over anyhow.
Speaking of which, upgrading is a bit of conundrum too. I mean, should I upgrade those 1918 Inf to pattern 39, or just build new pattern 39's and demobilize the 18's? I'm not sure, I think it is actually a tad cheaper to upgrade them, but after I get some of those production tech bonuses I'm not sure if upgrading them will be cost effective anymore.
BTW, have you had a look at the great combat bonuses you get with Mountain Divs? They use less supplies than Inf too. In my next game, I think I am going to be very tempted to build an uber-army of Mtn divs instead of Inf, I reckon my armies would be next to unstoppable! :idea2:
Hmm, well I did shop around before I settled on the German deal. I tried all the major powers and the Germans were way ahead on the offer, probably because we've got better relations.Quote:
Originally Posted by lancelot
Maybe I could have got a better deal with a minor power or two, but I tried quite a few minors too and they only had dribs and drabs of energy for sale, and none better than the 10 to 1 Germany deal anyhow.
You're joking right? Nav bombers are rediculously overpowered....Quote:
I'm not sure about the naval bombers though. Some folks over at the Paradox forums seem to think that naval bombers are a waste of IC's, you're better off building tacs because they are more versatile.
And its actually cheaper to disband your armies, well it depends on your free market and standing army sliders. But then you are left w/o an army so....
And ships can't be upgraded.
And no they aren't unstoppable, and they probably are alot more expensive. Use normal inf in places other then mountains anre forests. Makes sense that they use less supplies, since they have much less if any heavy equipment.
Maybe so, but they're aren't much good for attacking anything but ships, are they? Whereas tacs can be used in both roles (I think).Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
I don't think it is actually. It's taking me about 10 days to upgrade an Inf. That's 10 days at about 5 IC's per day. It's a lot cheaper than a new div, which costs 6 IC's for 60-90 days. Even with a couple of upgrades in a row, it's still probably not more than half the cost of a new division in most cases. At least that's how I've worked it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Not unstoppable maybe, but they get great bonuses in all types of weather and terrain, not just mountains. Have a look in the divisional statistics chart. Their only drawback is that they have 2 soft attack points less. But IMO that is more than offset by the extra 10% org and morale alone.Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
As for being "probably a lot more expensive", they are a fair bit more expensive, but you can eventually get them down to about 90 days at 7.5 IC, compared to Inf 60 days at 6 IC. And then with the assembly line tech you can get them down to 75 days. Mind you, you can get Inf down to about 40 days with the same tech I think, but still, 75 days ain't bad.
The trick is I think to get your production lines up in '36, so you are taking full advantage of gearing at the earliest possible date, because the first few that run off the production lines are really slow, around the 142 day mark which is only 2 1/2 per year.
Screwtype, I meant that if you don't reinforce North Africa now, you'll lose it because you won't be able to run ships in the Mediterranean to transport, since big bad Britain will be on your ass in short order.
Mountain troops also cost 15 manpower, as opposed to 10 for infantry and 8 for a garrison. However, screwtype, check out the later versions of Infantry and compare them to mountain troops. '45 infantry are more generally versatile, but I would still recommend mountain troops, if only for your elite home guard. They move more quickly than infantry in the mountains and hills, too, so capturing and recapturing territory will be less of an issue.
On the naval bomber issue, I wouldn't recommend using Tac bombers if you intend on causing any real damage to a fleet. Sure, they can deal with a few isolated ships, but against the 20+ ships in a single flotilla that Britain will have packing, I'd want, say, 8 nav bombers on them at all times. If you're unwilling to specialise your air force in this way, though, consider Close Air Support bombers. They come in second place for naval attack and pack a very mean punch on infantry and armour. They're very vulnerable against fighters, though.
The idea behind capturing Gibraltar has several motivations, but the biggest one is cutting off transport into the Med. from beyond the Pillars of Hercules. This goes for supplies as well, so if you can push for the Suez, you can trap any naval forces still in the Med. there and starve them to pieces. I caught about 30 ships in my last game as Germany and slowly (too slowly!) bombed them out with my Tactical bombers. Also, Gibraltar can't be invaded from the sea because there are no suitable beaches, and has a gigantic port sitting right there. It's kind of a nice prize.
GAH. This STOOPID game!
Having taken all of Spain, and then mounted a suprise declaration of war on Britain to get my hands on Gibraltar, I then turned to France which had just started war with Germany. Gave her the old Italian stab-in-the-back special from the Spanish border.
The object was to grab a bunch of French provinces all along the coast so I wouldn't have to transport supplies by sea to my Spanish possessions anymore. However, scarcely had I captured a couple of provinces from France when she capitulated to Germany and established Vichy France. This was IDEAL because it meant I didn't have to compete with Germany for a whole stack of French provinces!
So then I got stuck into Vichy. It took me all evening to beat them down and capture their capital, I had the last few Vichy divisions bottled up around Vichy, and was about to deliver the coup-de-grace when up pops a window which tells me Syria is offering me peace in exchange for three of its provinces. Heck, I thought, why not? One less protagonist and I get three provinces for nothing.
So I hit "accept" and the next second all my divisions vanish from Vichy France! What the heck is going on, is this a bug???
Oh no, what the STOOPID game didn't tell me is that by making peace with Syria, I was also making peace with Vichy. A whole evening's work pissed away by a single mouseclick. YEEEEAAAAARRRRRGH.
:wall: :wall: :wall: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :wall: :wall: :wall:
Dude, just release Nat spain as a puppet. They supply themselves and send you extra resources. Even better is to dow republican spain and ally with them I think, since it gives you a halfway decent ally. Course, all AIs are pansy so that you will have to station troops around gibralter if you want to take it, or mil control Spain, although that may or may not work. Believe me, you want to release them as a puppet. They use all of their ICs, and you don't have the TC burden of Spanish partisans.
And Syria is an ally of Vichy, so a peace with them should be a peace with the mother country.
And I'm surprised Vichy put up such a fight. They NEVER even have an army in the mother country when I play. Course, it might have something to do with the capital being in their American possession....
I've got the whole of Spain, not just Nationalist Spain ~:)
I did consider making them a puppet but I couldn't figure out how. I was only given a choice to "Annex Nation" after I conquered them as I recall. Do you get as many resources from a puppet though?
And yeah, Vichy wasn't that strong, but then neither am I yet ~:) You just seem to need more divisions as you expand. Half of my divisions attacking Vichy were pattern 1918. Most of my good divisions are protecting beaches here there and everywhere from invasion. I'm not sure if that's necessary, but I don't want to get suprised by a British amphib op. In fact Vichy tried an amphibious invasion of Tripoli, with five divisions, which I managed to beat off with one.
BTW do you know if the AI can mount amphib attacks into port provinces? Or can they only mount them on beaches? Because if they can't mount them on ports that don't have a beach, I'm wasting quite a few troops in useless defence.
To tell the truth, it probably didn't take me all evening to conquer Vichy. It took about three hours I think. But I found it pretty hard work. Infantry divisions are really s-l-o-o-w. And even when you get them into place, you have to wait longer still while they recover org.
So now I can see the advantage of motorized troops. My three semi-motorised divisions got into position so much quicker.
Click the diplo tab at the top. Then look in the upper right corner of the screen.
Only beach provs can be invaded.
Why are you using your best troops for BEACH DEFENSE? 1918 inf should be able to handle that.
Thanks for the clarification. I thought maybe they could invade through major ports too. That will save me some worry. I had three divisions defending Gibraltar alone ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
Because when I was playing Brazil in HOI 1 my best troops invariably got creamed by US amphibious invasions.Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery1
But actually my use of the old divs against Vichy wasn't really planned that way. I started out the war against Britain/France by gathering all my best divisions for a suprise attack on Gibraltar. I haven't attacked a fort province before, and since G. has a level 6 fort, I thought maybe I'd need a heck of a lot of firepower to take it. So I had 15 of my best divisions on the job. As it turned out, the solitary militia div. defending it was quickly overcome in the first wave of attack, so the fort didn't seem to make a lot of difference.
I then had to redeploy these divisions to the French border, but in the meantime I had a bunch of six 1918 divisions already there. The French attacked along the Bordeaux side of Spain (closest to Britain) and I had to divert six of my divisions there. The other nine went on the offensive along the Marseilles coast, but since I already had those six 1918 divisions sitting there, they ended up being used in the attack as well ~:)
Yeah, I just found that out ~:) Once war is declared, you really don't want to risk getting your good divisions sent to the bottom of the sea by the RN.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Yeah, I didn't pay much attention to the '45 upgrade, because it's so far away, and I figured the war would probably be won or lost by then ~:) But since the game goes right through to 1947, I guess that final upgrade could turn out to be quite useful.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Yeah, the CAS have some wicked stats, but I only have first gen. tech for them and with a lousy air defense rating of 1, figured they'd be too vulnerable. Maybe with a later tech.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
I should probably ask you how to go about "cutting off transport to the Med", but if I get everything from you guys, I guess it will spoil the fun of figuring out these things for myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
I'm not sure I want to bother too much with the naval war anyhow. Since I just lost most of last night's campaigning time, I'll be restarting the game before I declared war on Britain and France, and this time I think I'll just wait until Vichy is declared and then attack that. That way I won't have to fight the Brits too, at least not for a while longer.
I really just want to keep picking up continental countries without getting involved in the larger war with the major powers. I figure Vichy France, then Yugoslavia, then Greece, then maybe Portugal or Bulgaria or Turkey. Build up my IC's as much as possible before I join the big one. That's the scheme anyhow :eyebrows:
You want to take out greece before Yugo. It can be done and it gives the yugo's a longer front to defend and you more places to attack. Oh, it would be a REALLY good idea to put some effort into marine divisions. They rock on land and are great for amphibious operations(unlike everything else), which you will find VERY useful as Italy. And don't neglect your navy. You will have to face down the RN in med, especially if things get bogged down in NA. And get the CAS level ones, just be sure to include fighter cover if operating in north africa. Against the RN I think they will be ok, at least if you take malta.
Even researching marines improves your ability to launch amphibious assaults with all troops.
Screwtype, to check out what I mean about trapping ships in the med., click on the sea zone directly south of Gibraltar. A little window on the left should pop up. The rest will all fall into place.
Ah, now I get it. Thanks for the tip ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Vichy won't capitulate. I have to capture all its major provinces before it will, which presumably means all its provinces which have associated VP's. But they are scattered all over the world. Not that I couldn't do it I guess but I wonder if it's worth the bother. Do you think I should bother to capture them all, or just forget about Vichy and forge ahead anyhow?
Leave Vichy alone. Not worth tracking down all their VPs.
Patience. Slowly, but surely, France's colonies will rebel and join Free France's cause, and then, Vichy will be yours. You can always take Syria/Lebanon in the meantime, and if you're so inclined, Madagascar.Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
I ordered Doomsday at Bol.com on april 30th and the delivery date was between 2-4 days. 3 days later it changed to 2-3 weeks. Okay... a bit annoying. Then about a week later they cancelled the order because they couldn't get it anymore!?
I decide to order it elsewhere and today I got the game. 'Woohoo!' I thought. I slide the disk in my dvd drive. The loading takes ages! The disk is spinning, then stops and makes a clicking sound, starts spinning again, makes a clicking sound and continues doing this for a while. And then FINALLY the loading menu pops up. I click 'Install'..... AND MY PC FREEZES COMPLETELY!!! ARGH!!! It did this a everytime I tried until I gave up. Called the shop I ordered it from and now I have to sent it back and possibly having to wait a week or even longer until I can get my hands on this game! ARGH!!!
You guys who already have DD are so lucky!
I hope I don't get even more unlucky...
BTW guys, I'm not playing right now because I have other things to do, but thanks for giving me a leg up with this game. You've cut the learning curve by about 90%, I might have given it away in frustration if not for the help I got here. Much appreciated ~:cheers:
Harsh. Play the demo-downloadable version in the meantime?Quote:
Originally Posted by [DnC]
Screwtype, no problem.
What's with this screwy game? I started my campaign over, and this time I tried puppeting Republican Spain instead of annexing to see if it made any difference to the goodies I got. I made sure to tick both "puppet nation" and "allow military access" though.
Then I declared war on Nationalist Spain, and now the stupid game won't allow me to attack NS provinces! Whenever I try to attack, there's just a dull "thud" sound and nothing happens.
This can be quite a fun game, but geez, there are so many frickin' control problems and "undocumented features", it gets very frustrating. Why the heck won't it let me attack the Nationalists?
Oh and here's another funny thing. When I puppeted the Republic, I was given a whole bunch of provinces in the middle of the country - where they are most useless - and the Republicans get to retain control of all the coastal provinces??? Doesn't make much sense to me. Why couldn't I have been given a choice about which provinces came to me?
Edit double post
Quote:
Originally Posted by screwtype
They get to keep all the provinces with VP that they claim as "national provinces".
Yeah, but why won't the game let my attack Nationalist Spain from those provinces? I made sure that "allow military access" was one of the conditions, so there's no reason I can see why I can't attack it.
Is it a bug maybe?
you can only attack from an allies provences, or your own. Mil access isn't enough. After all, if one nation lets another attack through it seems like it would be a casus beli. This case is a bit screw since you are co-beligerents. Just ask them to join your alliance.
Hmm, tried offering them an alliance and it didn't work. My chance of allying with them is "0", LOL.
I know what I'll do. I'll just have to defeat Nationalist Spain before I make peace with Republican Spain, and then puppet both of them. Or maybe puppet R Spain and annex N Spain, since it's only got a couple of provinces.
But I'm not sure if I can be bothered with this puppeting business anyway. Do you get as many IC's puppeting a nation as you do annexing? Because it's not really *that* much trouble keeping the partisans down. And at least you get total freedom of movement, and don't have to rely on alliances and stuff to do what you want to do...
I bought Doomsday and began a campaign with Guatemala, it's now March 1940and I control Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador, I've increased my original IC from 7 to 16 and am still in the process of upgrading my conquered territories. I've created an alliance with Germany and without the help of the Luftwaffe I wouldn't have been able to conquer Honduras and Nicaragua as easily as I did.
My only question is why the Axis alliance only includes Guatemala and Slovakia, Italy and Japan are missing from the alliance, but Japanese ships are patrolling off the coast of Guatemala. Does this mean that their supporting the Axis even though their not yet members? Also while help from the Luftwaffe is nice I'd like to be able to enlarge the size of my Air Force and Navy. Right now I only have 3 fighters and 2 Great War light cruisers, I'd like to increase that number to 16 fighters and 4 early cruisers and 4 submarines. I understand that even with these numbers I won't be able to hold off an American invasion without German support, especially if the Americans recieve military access through Mexico. At the very least these assets will allow me to dent American forces, and I doubt that they would be willing to commit to many assets to Central America once their engaged with Japan and Germany. I'm not really worried about the British right now since their occupied in Europe and will be for awhile.
My question is should continue my conquest of Central America and conquer Costa Rica and Panama after the US enters the war. Or should I begin to focus on British colonies in the Carribean and South America?
It would be easy to gain the British Caribean islands and the part of columbia the Allies own.
I think panama is a puppet of the USA though so DOWing them might bring the yanks into the war.
With 16 IC it will take you forever to build anything really. Ships take 100s of days to build. If you're going after the US, I'd recommend infantry with artillery brigades attached, deployed in mountainous, jungle, or river bordered terrain. Some armor divisions are good too. Airplanes won't do much good, except maybe interceptors and fighters. Conquest is out of the question, you'd need dozens of divisions, both motorized and mechanized, armored divisions and cavalry divisions (do not underestimate cavalry).Quote:
Originally Posted by mercian billman
From my experience, Japan has it's own alliance, and is usually in a war with Germany's enemies, so they keep away from each other (fairly good relations, too). Italy and Hungary join the Axis after or around the Vichy event.
For learning, I'd reccomend a faction with more industry, and, by extension, more research. There's a reason why the flags are put over next to the scenario ... it's the recommended factions. Italy is a good start, they can avoid war as long as they wish.
Oh, and declaring war on a puppet state gets you into war with the master state, I'd avoid that if I were you.
As far as US entering the conflict, they sometimes don't. I'm playing Japan right now, and the US is keeping neutral (naturally, I didn't attact Pearl Harbor ... yet).
Thanks for the advice, I originally chose Guatemala because it was a small country in a relative good position for conquest and they were simple to play. I've heard that Italy is a good faction to start with, but I've also been thinking that in my next campaign I might play as Turkey, they seem to have a decent military and there's a possibility of allying with either the Axis or Allies.
The thing about the US is that I'm allied to Germany so after Pearl Harbor if the German's declare war on the US, Guatemala would be drawn into the conflict by default. Even if that were the case I doubt the US would send a large army to Central America, unless I attacked the Panama Canal. If the US were to go to war with Germany I wouldn't seize the Canal unless the Germans were winning and the US would have to make be using it alot.
Otherwise it would seem like a waste, why seize the canal if the US is hardly using it and if the Germans are losing it makes no sense to worsen my relations with the US.
The US will kill you either way. There can be no peace, except by event, between alliance members. So just take the canal when war with the US happens.