noob questions re: interface and unit composition

[penlin]

Recently got the game and really struggling to learn it (and I play AGEOD titles). Here are my current questions:

1) is there a hotkey to cycle through all your units to make sure you have moved them?

2) I've been playing random scenarios, and I have to create lots of new units. Process is: 1) create unit; 2) set HQ; 3) transfer rifles; 4) transfer mortars etc... Now I want to create another unit, so I repeat. Are there any short cuts for this?

3) are there any recommended unit compositions? I do have the strategy guide, and this recommends ratios but what about overall unit size? shouldn't there be something that says "here is a default, generic infantry unit", "here is what an armor unit might look like", etc? I've been searching and cannot find anything.

I am trying to like this game. The ability to generate random scenarios seems awesome, but it's feeling pretty tedious right now.

[danlongman]

I found it was a lot of fun to learn these things by trying. The random game generator is a very versatile tool and many of the variables can be changed.
I liked to start small with technology very primitive and expensive and small armies. I always use the enhanced supply rules which makes geography more
meaningful. The time scales (calendar) can be tampered with in any way you wish. Somebody once put out a 19th Century tech set up which I have lost.
That was fun. Anyway I get a lot of enjoyment out of producing and organising units and developing doctrine and each one is usually meaningful to me
so I do not miss the use of hotkeys for shuffling through. I never have enough of anything.

[jreid]

1. It's interesting, but I've never felt the need for this in this game, while I use the "next unit" key all the time in other games. Units are greyed out when they can no longer move.

2. It's actually pretty quick to create new unit. I almost always create new units in the same hex as the HQ and then move them from there.

You can transfer (T) from you HQ to units in range. Or if you have trucks in your HQ and are transferring infantry (mostly), you can transfer a greater distance.

N for new unit, then select the HQ to set the HQ. While the HQ is selected, T to transfer units to the new unit.

Regarding unit size, there are penalties in defense when you have more than 100 stack points. 1 stack point for infantry, 10 for tanks, 5 for AT guns, I think. Less for Flak.

A good defensive stack has 100 stack points of an infantry, AT gun and perhaps tank mix. Preferably in rough terrain or a city.

When attacking, if you attack from 1 or 2 hexes, you can use 100 stack points without penalties, 150 stack points for attacking from 3 hexes, 200 for 4 hexes, etc.

Because of this, I tend to build attacking units of 50 stack points. So 4 Tanks + 10 infantry, 50 Cavalry, etc. Others have their own favorite unit compositions.

For artillery and air attacks, you can have 100 points without a penalty. So, 10 Artillery units, 20 Fighters, 10 Dive Bombers, etc.

I tend to build units of 4 Artillery + 2 Trucks, 2 Heavy Artillery + 2 Trucks, 8 AT Guns + 8 horses, etc., as a Gun Factory produces these quantities of guns in one turn.

I play in some pretty big multi-player games, and the creation of units is pretty quick.

The tough decision is what to produce and to make sure that you have enough Raw to produce it. And to produce guns, tanks, etc. from factories and not cities where possible.

Building factories, if you have the supporting Raw, give you increased production capacity, which is very important.

And then you need the Oil to fuel your tanks and planes. It runs out quickly.

[Tac2i]

The initial mobilization of your armies involves a lot of unit building but tapers off after a while. Effective unit size is limited by stacking points.

[jreid]

And select the HQ that will receive production and press F5 to make sure your factories and cities are within range (e.g. are green).

Also make sure that the units under the HQ are within 100 APs (e.g. are green).

And check the little boxes on the units to make sure they are green (e.g. fully in supply) and not yellow or red.

F6 toggles the unit display on and off, which can be handy.

F3 gives a lot of stats. The Totals tab is good to see what you have destroyed and lost this turn.

The OOB tab gives your HQ chain of command.

Fighters can intercept half of their movement allowance. So, 5 hexes for Fighter I, 6 hexes for Fighter III.

It's really a great game. It really grows on you once you get used to how to do things.

The random games are great and multi-player is even better.

I've been on the receiving side of many tricks and have learned a lot.

And you can check the Details tab of the combat report to see exactly how combat played out and the factors that increased and decreased your combat abilities.

Have your units stay within 100% HQ power (3 hexes from your HQ, I think) to have maximum HQ advantages.

[Kaldadarnes]

Hi penlin, welcome to ATG. It's a bit tricky to start but stick with it! There is also a lot of manual clicking around which can seem a bit tedious but the game is worth it.

Everyone tends to end up with their own preferred unit composition depending on their style of play but to give you some more ideas (I certainly can't speak as to an optimum unit) but a good defensive mix in the early game, i.e. first dozen or so turns, I use is as follows;

12 rifle
6 smg
9 bazooka
9MGs (will hold off huge numbers of infantry)

A city can churn out one of these each turn if you ship in riflemen from the SHQ and use your garrison units as well.

As the game goes on I tend to add
3 anti tank guns (bazookas don't need much raw to build, and they can move with the infantry, so when you first start the game they're great, but they struggle against heavier armour unless in favourable terrain)
3 jeeps - really good recon scores so you can see what you are facing
3 flak - keep the flies off...
A few horses to move the guns (they eat grass rather than drink petrol!)
And another dozen rifles and SMGs to soak up the artillery shells...

Swap the MGs and anti tank guns for mortars and infantry guns if you want a more offensive mix

I assign 6-8 of those to a corps HQ then add
corps artillery - 8 guns + horses and some infantry for close defense (I allocate artillery on an "as needs" basis but 1-3 of these is a good start)
Engineers - 40 engineers and a couple of trucks to move them
Light armoured unit 4-6 light tanks or armoured cars if I'm feeling generous, although I normally end up assigning them to my armoured corps instead.
And that is my basic infantry corps...later on I can upgrade with transport, SPGs and tank destroyers if I need to - but to be honest if they are fighting in a defensive role I tend to leave them as they are and allocate the Gucci kit to my armoured units.

An armoured corps tends to be all armour units (6-8 tanks per unit) + motorised or mechanised infantry support to hold the ground taken by the tanks rather than attack themselves. Good idea to have a bit of flak as well if the enemy airforces are active. Oh, and half tracks do increase the survivability of your infantry but are pricey. Some motorised artillery is a good idea so your tanks can crack the tougher nuts as required.

As people have pointed out 2x50 stack point units are often more versatile than 1 big 100 pointer.

To be honest, just keep plugging away and you'll find your preferred style. Good luck!

K

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: penlin

Recently got the game and really struggling to learn it (and I play AGEOD titles). Here are my current questions:

1) is there a hotkey to cycle through all your units to make sure you have moved them?

2) I've been playing random scenarios, and I have to create lots of new units. Process is: 1) create unit; 2) set HQ; 3) transfer rifles; 4) transfer mortars etc... Now I want to create another unit, so I repeat. Are there any short cuts for this?

3) are there any recommended unit compositions? I do have the strategy guide, and this recommends ratios but what about overall unit size? shouldn't there be something that says "here is a default, generic infantry unit", "here is what an armor unit might look like", etc? I've been searching and cannot find anything.

I am trying to like this game. The ability to generate random scenarios seems awesome, but it's feeling pretty tedious right now.

Hi Penlin, welcome to the forum.
Not much to add because most of your questions already have been answered in an excellent way.
Maybe a bit superfluous but here's my 2 cts.

1)I don't feel the need for a "next unit" key because I tend to move/attack/pull back my Corps one by one. So first this Corps and all of its subordinate units. Then the next Corps. That's because attacking with units from the same HQ gives them a bonus. Adding units from a different HQ/Corps diminishes that bonus. Besides moved units are greyed out, if they have used up all of their movement points then that unit is completely greyed out, if they still have movement points left then that unit is a lighter shade of grey.

2)Yes you have to create a lot of units in the beginning of the game, as you expand your territory on random maps. But, as the game continues you'll find that you will create less and less new units. Maybe even two per turn. That happens when all your fronts are covered with enough HQ's and their subordinate units. Say a large continent with lots of battles needs about 4-5 HQ's. Each HQ has a efficient coverage of about 10 hexes wide (six hexes for 100% HQ bonus, and with each added hex distance 10% less HQ bonus ; 80%-60%-40%-20%-0%)You want your units pretty close to your HQ also. Now you can not, well you can actually but it's not adviced, add evermore units to an HQ/Corps because each Officer/General has a max efficient amount of Staff. So a "green" newly created Officer only has a Staff allowance of maybe 50. 50 Staff is about 100% coverage for a few units. Only when that Officer "upgrades" or levels up, only then can he get more Staff and therefor more subordinate units. Leveling up goes pretty slow though, so adding new units goes slow also.
If and when I create a new HQ/Corps and I want it to have some Inf units, I act as follow; Create HQ, create say three new empty units subordinate to that HQ, then transfer 30 rifles into each empty unit one after the other, then say 5 Mg's into each unit one after the other, then the AT guns. So click on the Superior HQ (that has all the infantry/tanks/mortars and all the stuff) click on the "T" for Strategic Transport and move 30 to the first unit then the next unit and then the last unit, then I move the AT guns to the first unit by clicking on the first unit in the upper right corner (that lights up a bit) then I click on the next unit and transfer again two AT guns (or whatever amount you wish). So in the end I have three units created simultaneously, instead of creating one fully unit and then create another full unit.

3) Yes unit composition is very personal, but common sense says make them about 50 points each. Although some vary, make them bigger. And sometimes you want to make them smaller, sometimes I make an unit consisting of 10 cavalry for some quick recon, or 5 jeeps with 10 Inf for that purpose.
Early game I create Rifles units only with some horses because that's all I've got. Later on, a fully fledged unit consists of 30 Rifles (or a mixture of Rifles/submachine guns) with 2 AT guns (you *definitely* want to have AT gun capability in each of your Inf units) some mortars, Mg's (Mg's are *the* Inf stopper) and maybe some Inf guns and Flak. Flak included in your units gets them more experienced quickly. I create both Flak only units, say 10 each to fight off planes, and include some of them in my Inf units also. Then there's the Armoured stuff, Tank units consisting from 1-5 Tanks, sometimes some Inf added to protect them from enemy Inf.

Yes I agree it involves some more clicking then other wargames where you "buy" complete new units, but it has the huge advantage that you can create any unit you want. From a small Inf unit composed of 5 Rifles and 2 MG's up till a fully fledged Inf unit with all the hardware the grunts need.

Good luck. [:)]

[penlin]

Thanks everyone for the advice on unit composition - it all helps a lot.

I'm still a little bummed that it's not faster to create units. I know it's not "hard" per se, but wow - tedious. Seems like each player could define their favorite unit templates and then crank them out in one click. If I want to make the unit Kaldadarnes suggested:

12 rifle
6 smg
9 bazooka
9MGs

the steps *really* are something like this?

-click on hex where unit will be
-N for new unit
-click on HQ
-click on ok to confirm HQ
-T for transfer
-click on rifle
-double arrow once for 10, small arrow twice to get 12
-some ungodly number of clicks to dial in 6, 9, and 9 of the other equipment

I'm counting like 15 clicks to make one unit??

And I suppose that if I want to reinforce a unit that has taken casualties I have to transfer each item of equipment individually?

[Philo32b]

I'm counting like 15 clicks to make one unit??

And I suppose that if I want to reinforce a unit that has taken casualties I have to transfer each item of equipment individually?

It would be nice if more things were automated, but that being said your fingers start to do the proper sequences very fast and without thought, so I am normally thinking about how the unit I am creating will be deployed while I am creating it. Reinforcements are quicker if after you do your first transfer from your corps HQ, don't exit out of the transfer screen. Instead click on the next unit and you can immediately reinforce that one, and so on. Mostly I just watch the unit weights at the bottom as I click from unit to unit: if the weight is off from a typical 50 (or whatever is typical for that unit type), it means the unit had some casualties and then I look at what's missing.

I would love to see a template that you can assign for a unit composition, like what you describe above, which then gets summarized at the start of each turn ("To reinforce all your divisions' compositions you will need to assign production for 78 infantry, 12 light tanks...") and then automatically replenished if sufficient resources are produced. The supply side of the game is that sophisticated, so it would be nice to see that for reinforcements, too. Or, similar to this, something like the AGEOD games that you mention.

But despite all this the game is totally worth it. There is nothing else I have seen that fits this niche better.

[Vic]

ORIGINAL: Philo32b

I would love to see a template that you can assign for a unit composition, like what you describe above, which then gets summarized at the start of each turn ("To reinforce all your divisions' compositions you will need to assign production for 78 infantry, 12 light tanks...") and then automatically replenished if sufficient resources are produced.

This is actually the next big thing I am considering to add to ATG

Best wishes,
Vic

[Josh]

That's a good thing to hear Victor. We've been discussing this template idea every once in a while because some players find it tedious to do so many clicks. And indeed once your force is quite big it can take some time to replenish them all, a few rifles here a few Mg's there and so on. Doesn't sound easy to implement though but then again I'm no programmer.

@Penlin, there are many times when you can use your "spacebar" instead of a mouseclick. I do that *all* the time.

[penlin]

Ok, thanks again guys for the tips. Now that I have a better idea of what I should be building, I will persist a little longer. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything too obvious. I don't want to sound like I am dissing the game too much, but I was feeling a bit let down with the klunky interface. A unit creation template and auto-replacements would go VERY FAR and seems feasible??

[major.pain]

+1 for Unit Templates/Auto Reinforcement and a genuine thank you to Vic for the continued support of this great game

**This would be an awesome addition**

[Twotribes]

You realize if you replace losses in a unit with high experience from the general pool you dilute that experience? What I do is combine units of the same corps when they lose enough strength and then put replacements in the now empty units.

[baloo7777]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

You realize if you replace losses in a unit with high experience from the general pool you dilute that experience? What I do is combine units of the same corps when they lose enough strength and then put replacements in the now empty units.

I totally agree. How come I didn't think of that?!! I will from now on though. And much thanks to Vic for continuing to support this great game. [8D]

[Philo32b]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

You realize if you replace losses in a unit with high experience from the general pool you dilute that experience? What I do is combine units of the same corps when they lose enough strength and then put replacements in the now empty units.

This is certainly a best practice and good to do however much you can. I suspect that a lot of players, though, will do this to generate a few key elite units, and the majority of other units will be the blended units of veterans and raw recruits. Having the template-added feature gives the player the chance to automate if they wish or manually create elites if they wish. If I recall correctly, supply in this game can be adjusted to have more or less, so that you can manipulate how supply is distributed. I imagine how reinforcements could be similarly manipulated, where you can turn off automated reinforcements for particular units that you want to manually handle to create these elites.

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

You realize if you replace losses in a unit with high experience from the general pool you dilute that experience? What I do is combine units of the same corps when they lose enough strength and then put replacements in the now empty units.

That is what I do as well. Gets you some very experienced troops. Never ever give units in their 60's, 70's ( I mean experience not age) or higher fresh green troops.

[Whydmer]

Has anyone ever put into practice creating sort of a R&R headquarters where you could pull experienced troops out of decimated/damaged front line units, allowed them a turn or so to fully recover their readiness and then reassign them to existing experienced units? I have thought about this but never actively tried it.

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: Whydmer

Has anyone ever put into practice creating sort of a R&R headquarters where you could pull experienced troops out of decimated/damaged front line units, allowed them a turn or so to fully recover their readiness and then reassign them to existing experienced units? I have thought about this but never actively tried it.

Nice idea, but I do that only locally, meaning pull back the damaged unit let it recuperate a turn or two and then either recombine or just send them straight in again. Pulling them back to a R&R HQ (nice idea btw) has a nice touch but I fear may lead into even more clicking and book keeping.
I do however reshuffle my units once every while, usually when a job is done and only a skeleton force stays. The rest goes back to a sort of R&R area where they then are assigned new jobs. Those reassigned units are always the most experienced ones, it's of not much use moving 40 exp units all over the map...

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: penlin

I'm counting like 15 clicks to make one unit??

And I suppose that if I want to reinforce a unit that has taken casualties I have to transfer each item of equipment individually?

The "click load" on this game is a bear and has been one of my complaints on the overall interface going back to I don't know when. It's never been the focus of any game improvements. Although the "unit template" debate did get a lot of discussion back in the day.