Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.

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Squid
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:50 pm

Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by Squid »

Hello Guys,

Ive just purchased WITW and I am amazed by its attention to detail and scope. As a very happy player of WITE, I am comfortable with the ground based aspects (Having gotten my head around the Amphibious landings and para drops)

I do feel overwhelmed by the air war though. I am keen to manage the air war, as its an area that intrests me. However I am not sure the best way to go about it.

Is it best to create directives via the Automatic Air Directive screen and then tweak or start from scratch?

What tips would you suggest for someone starting out learning the air side of the game (Ive watched the tutorials).

Many thanks

Squid
decourcy2
Posts: 516
Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2015 4:45 am

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by decourcy2 »

The AD's are definitely a useful start. The first turn is a bad turn for micromanaging but after the first turn that problem goes away.

Start by looking at your missions that the game generated for you, your AD's.
You will see something like 3 bombing missions from Bomber Command at various cities in Germany. On the right side of the screen showing your missions you will see a list of the aircraft in Bomber Command and you will see very few night fighters.
The first micro you HAVE to do is moving fighters in particular to forward airfields and adjusting your air headquarters. Most of your night fighters are in Fighter Command. I suggest moving all of the Mosquitoes to Bomber Command so they can escort your night bombers.

Now look at 'area' in the instructions for each mission it gives you. This is how many hexes around the central target hex the computer will try to perform the mission. This is incredibly important to change. Interdiction, recon, and air superiority have reasons to be in multiple hexes, strategic bombing missions in particular do not EVER want to have an area larger than zero. You will be torn up by flak if your heavy bombers just wander around Germany looking for targets.

Sometimes the automatic AD creator does not take advantage of all of the aircraft an air force has available. For example, Bomber Command may have some recon aircraft but the AD creator may not create a recon mission.
When you see your directive it will look something like this...

Bomb City
Bomb City
Bomb City
Bomb City >>>>

The first three are missions that are planned, the bottom button is how you add new missions. Click that button, now look on your top bar and click the directive type you want for this mission, for example 'recon'. That will create a new recon mission that you will choose a target for, and for something like recon i suggest a 6 hex area, depending on how many aircraft you have available.

Now days to fly. If you are clicked on a mission within an air directive you will see at the bottom of the mission details a line that says 'advanced options'. That is the easiest way of seeing what days a mission will fly. I suggest recon fly 1-3-5-7, with 1 and 7 being the most important. I will often make a bomber group fly one mission 2-4-6, while another strike from the same group would use 3-5-7.
Recon missions are critical for your strategic bombers to hit their targets and for your tactical air to know, for example, what air bases are full of German fighters. So recon has to be done on the first and last day at least.

Level bombers can be turned into extra naval patrol missions. For Example Malta command has one squadron of Baltimore light bombers, i create a naval patrol mission with Malta command and that squadron happily flies about helping out my naval interdiction.

Figuring out how many days you can fly without over fatiguing your pilots is art not science. Honestly, just run a couple turns and watch what happens with various amounts of days flown.

And fighter bombers do need escorts. I lost 151 Typhoons the first week thinking Typhoons don't really need escorts, their fighters, right? Yeah, it was bad. Fighter Command has buckets of Spitfires doing nothing but drinking tea, put some of them in the same HQ, say RAF 2nd TAF, as your Tiffies.

Hope some of this helps, ask any other questions you have as well.

Mike
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Nico165b165
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 8:54 pm
Location: Mons, Belgique

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by Nico165b165 »

Try things and learn what works (and what doesn't). Both tutorials are your best friends. See my latest test attempt here -> http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3793940 (aka "how to destroy bomber command as fast as possible" [8D])

Auto AD are great to learn at the start. They're not as optimized as a human would do, but you won't make big mistakes using them. Look what the AI choose and why. Then try to modify some parameters : aircrafts, altitude, area, targets type... And see what happens. Next step is creating your own AD 100% manually. It's better in the long run, but probably overwhelming when you begin.
Squid
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:50 pm

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by Squid »

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll play around with the ai generated stuff and see where I get from there. At least now I have a good idea where to start.

Thanks again
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nedcorleone1
Posts: 162
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:09 am

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by nedcorleone1 »

ORIGINAL: decourcy2

<snip>

Can we get this information in the consolidated tips and tricks? Very useful.
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NotOneStepBack
Posts: 917
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:30 pm

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by NotOneStepBack »

Play a '43 campaign but play both sides. It's an interesting learning experience.
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Chuske
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Location: Exeter, UK

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by Chuske »

If you haven't played the smaller scenarios good to start with those. Husky then Breakout is a good way to get the hang of things
The user formerly known as jonboym

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Toby42
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Joined: Sat Aug 09, 2003 11:34 pm
Location: Central Florida

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by Toby42 »

The air war has me stumped also? I can't believe that the Allies lost 600 to 700 aircraft per week and still won the air war? And then again, maybe the losses were that heavy?
Tony
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nedcorleone1
Posts: 162
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 11:09 am

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by nedcorleone1 »

From what I've read around on the forums, 600-700 aircraft losses per week as WA is much too high. You can temper your losses by doing some of the following:

- Manually setting your flight paths and routing around enemy flak (shift-O)
- Adjusting the altitude of your missions. Finding the sweet-spot may take some trial-and-error
- Ensuring that your bombing groups have escorts that can make it all the way to the target (give your escorts drop tanks).
- Flying at night can minimize your losses but the effectiveness of your bombers will go down.
- Don't fly your air groups every day of the week. You could try to do a setup like this... Recon target D1, D3, D5, D7 and only attack the target on D2, D4, D6 (or even just hit the target on a single day and thats it).
- Lower the number of strikes you perform on a target per day. I've been trying this set to 1-Day strikes.
- Be sure to rest your units. Fatigue and morale should be tracked.
- Don't lose more than you can replace. Check your pools.

Just some thoughts. My problem with the air war is trying to measure/observe/understand the effects of certain missions. When I hit the rail network in Europe (particularly in Italy), its difficult for me to know how the German units are suffering from lack of supplies.
Numdydar
Posts: 3271
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 9:56 pm

RE: Incredible game but feeling slightly lost

Post by Numdydar »

Just like the real war [:D]
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