Some Newbie Questions.

Advanced Tactics is a versatile turn-based strategy system that gives gamers the chance to wage almost any battle in any time period. The initial release focuses on World War II and includes a number of historical scenarios as well as a full editor! This forum supports both the original Advanced Tactics and the new and improved Advanced Tactics: Gold Edition.

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GaryChildress
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Some Newbie Questions.

Post by GaryChildress »

OK. I just purchased ATG and am trying it out for the first time. I've read a little of some posts here on the forum, seen a couple videos on Youtube and also read the strategy guide a little. I've started with "stone age", "no roads" and "1 town" on a 4 player map against the AI. I believe all the AI opponents are set to "normal" rating. I've run into a couple things I'm uncertain about.

1. Supply: How does supply work? I see up in the top that I can keep track of how much oil reserves I have and how much "raw" I have but I don't see anything for supply up top. Does supply accumulate if there is extra or should I try to only produce enough supply for a given turn? And if I should produce extra, where do I see the extra at?

2. It appears I am limited to only being able to produce 4 different things at a city at one time. Just starting out I guess I want limited quantities of various things so that I don't stretch my HQ ability and supply ability too thin. I find myself with 10 production points I don't think I need. Is it bad to let those production points go to waste by not using them or should I just throw the extra 10 points into supply?

Thanks for any enlightenment!
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Twotribes
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by Twotribes »

There is a page for supply on the graph header. You need to produce extra supply as you will continue to need more as you produce more troops. As for where your supply reaches there is a check mark on the bar to check the limits. Starting with out roads was probably a bad idea. Supply is easier across roads and to send troops to units is easier with trains.
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ernieschwitz
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by ernieschwitz »

In my experience it is always bad not to use your production for something that can be used later. So yeah, I would if I wanted to use your production setup, choose supply, for those last production points.
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danlongman
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by danlongman »

Hi Gary. This is one of the best "play war" sandboxes ever but it has some limitations with the AI. Don't worry for now.
I love to play with Lancer's ERM system, but get to that layer after you have fooled around.
Look at some of the scenarios just to see how they are made up.
For your questions. 1)Supply: your guys and machines burn supply all the time. Never waste a production point as they are lost.
Supply will keep unless you are told otherwise. You will find you never have enough of anything so it takes practice to fine
tune what you are doing. It IS part of the fun. The numbers show up on the top bar and at your HQ's. Look everything over carefully
turn by turn. Use the tool tips, Play around with stuff, junk it and start over.
2) Four (max) or less items/city. The cities themselves will produce varying amounts of production depending on size. You will need
supplies (beans and bullets) and PP's ( money) in varying a mounts but they accumulate if produced so don't waste anything.

The AI is fairly good in the tactical sense but you will eventually learn it's weaknesses. A whole bunch of the other stuff is on sliding scales
you can play with and tinker with to your heart's delight. Once you learn the basic mechanics it is easy to play with. I have sunk more
hours into this game - just fooling around with things - than any other and I have a couple of thousand computer games. The editor is very accessible
but my computer skills are pretty low and my time is limited so I have barely scratched the surface and squeezed hundreds of hours of entertainment
out of it with only a few basics.

Some of the other guys on here like Webizen and Bombur and Lancer and Ormand have done amazing things with this incredibly flexible toy.
Just plunge in.
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danlongman
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by danlongman »

Build roads. Develop your mineral and Fuel resources in strategic games.
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GaryChildress
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by GaryChildress »

Thanks for the advice. I thought no roads might be an interesting challenge. Hopefully it won't be doom for me. I assume the AI has no roads either so it will be equally hindered won't it?

Also I can't figure out why my engineers can't do another road segment? When I started out I was doing about 2 road segments per turn. I went the first turn with 2 segments, then on the 2nd turn I could not do any road segments and now on the 3rd I can only do one? But it says my engineers only used 30 APs building the road and have 70 left? My other engineering unit is doing fine, it just seems to be the one that is bogged down. Is there something else I need to understand about road building that I am missing? [:o]

Much thanks.

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ernieschwitz
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by ernieschwitz »

If i don´t recall wrongly building roads requires resources...
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danlongman
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by danlongman »

There is much in here to be learned. Your engineers have EP's (engineering points). They also use material
depending on some things. It takes more to build roads with bridges than it does on dry ground and it costs more
in swamps or forest or mountains. A unit with 30-50 engineers will be able to build roads on 1-3 hexes depending
on terrain. You don't need to mix rifles with them. They will fight but with different mods than rifles.
You can stack rifles with them but mixing doesn't really do anything good for you.
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danlongman
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by danlongman »

The design is very clever and comprehensive and (to me anyway) intuitive.
Do stuff with your guys and watch all the numbers change in all of them boxes.
I don't know a better way than just moving stuff around. Make a war with 2 sides
and a relatively small map so you can observe things turn by turn.
Or don't. You can do almost anything with this within limits.
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Josh
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by Josh »

Hi Gary, glad you bought the game [:)]

As for the engineers, yes they do need "Engineer Points", (EP) to build things, they accumulate EP's during every turn, 2 EP per engineer per turn. So an unit of 40 engineers (or seabees as I like to call them) gets 80 EP per turn, enough to build most things, except forts. They also need Raw (Ore) to build things like railroads, airfields and factories and such. So no Ore is nothing build, a thing which happens to me * a lot* early game. You might consider upgrading an Ore mine to lvl II, sometimes even lvl III (and you need engineers for that as well).
A map without roads is very doable, but you definitely need engineers then, to build roads, airfields and ports, to have the supply flowing.

And you might want to have your factories idle, not producing anything, don't produce more than you need to. That's a matter of finetuning and that'll come to you. But you *never ever* want production in your cities go to waste, either PP's or Supply. And *always* produce more supply than you directly need, because upgrading troops costs supply too. Not way way too much supply, just so that the Supreme HQ accumulates supply gradually. Oh and keep your forces, if possible, during the winter in cities/suburbs. Protects from the cold (although I feel bunkers should have the same effect but they don't), they lose readiness to 95%, which also means they need extra supplies to regain readiness.
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ernieschwitz
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by ernieschwitz »

Very good post, Josh :)
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  • Advanced Tactics Gold
    DC: Warsaw to Paris
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Try this Global WW2 Scenario: https://www.vrdesigns.net/scenario.php?nr=280
GaryChildress
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by GaryChildress »

Many thanks Josh! I finally figured out the problem I was having with the engineers building roads. I was running low on Ore. Woops.  [:o]
davebob
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RE: Some Newbie Questions.

Post by davebob »

As a beginner myself, I would say the game is a bit more complex than intermediate depending on how much you give yourself to bite off to start. No roads is difficult because on a one town start, ore is at premium, the ai, with the production bonus can afford to waste supply on a no road map. Best to learn how to expand quickly, best w small factor cavalry,as the horses eat a lotta hay. Start w an all land map, no need figuring out ships til you got horses, trucks and trains wired. Also, if you start w roads, you can more quickly acquire all the other fun units that also require the ore that road building burns so fast.
Having said that,that being said,that having been said,saying that,that having been said,having said all that,that said.....
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