A Noob's Guide to Noobiness

[Joel Billings]

I assume it gets tricky because the forces involved are greater and the distances from ports are greater. You need to repair rails to your inland depots, and rail limits will cause constraints. In Italy, you are never far from a port, although many of them are small. Mostly the forces involved are less. Trying to supply multiple armies that have moved inland in France, while also moving in substantial tactical air assets, can be a challenge, as it was historically. Antwerp is the key (Marseille helps, but only so much due to limited rails coming north).

[HexHead]

Thank you, it's what I thought.

[TigerTC]

I am playing Torch to Tunisia, trying to get familiar with the logistics and interface before tackling more of the game.

So a bunch of random questions I can't find the answers to in the manual or player's guide:

-Next to the cities I see what looks like 4 black stick figures, some outlined in red, some yellow, and some green. What do these mean?

-What do I need to do to improve airfields?

-What does it mean if there is an exclamation point next to an airfield?

-Rail engineer guys? I've got a rail unit hanging out with Patton over in Morocco. Do I need to do anything with them? Maybe send them up to Casablanca to find Rick's? I've also got a Brit unit up in Algeria.

-Two of my ports in Morocco (Rabat and Port Lyautey) are 0 priority. Does that matter?

-I can't assign two of my US units to II Corps (3-26 IN and 2-509 PARA). They are both attached to 1 BR Army. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

[carlkay58]

Some answers:

The 4 black stick figures are manpower 'factories'. Red is a factory with over 50% damage (so it no longer produces), Yellow is a damaged factory (chance of no production = 2xDam%), Green is no (or little(?)) damage.

To improve an airfield you must click on Expand (or Build) Airfield on the city display. To really have a chance of doing this you should have a depot in the same hex. You can also assign an engineer unit to the hex.

An exclamation point next to an airfield means that you have more aircraft based at the airfield than you can fly/support/maintain at that airfield. Either expand the airfield or move some of the air groups to other airfields.

Rail engineer guys must move to a damaged rail hex and then click on the RRC button on the Unit Display. THis fixes the rail for your use. VERY IMPORTANT!!

The zero priority supply depots will not draw supply. If they are far enough behind the lines it should not matter. I rarely place depots that low - 1 is about as far down as I go.

The units you are trying to reassign may be too far away from the Corps HQ to be assigned to them. Make sure they are closer to the Corps HQ and then try again.

[TigerTC]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Some answers:

The 4 black stick figures are manpower 'factories'. Red is a factory with over 50% damage (so it no longer produces), Yellow is a damaged factory (chance of no production = 2xDam%), Green is no (or little(?)) damage.

To improve an airfield you must click on Expand (or Build) Airfield on the city display. To really have a chance of doing this you should have a depot in the same hex. You can also assign an engineer unit to the hex.

An exclamation point next to an airfield means that you have more aircraft based at the airfield than you can fly/support/maintain at that airfield. Either expand the airfield or move some of the air groups to other airfields.

Rail engineer guys must move to a damaged rail hex and then click on the RRC button on the Unit Display. THis fixes the rail for your use. VERY IMPORTANT!!

The zero priority supply depots will not draw supply. If they are far enough behind the lines it should not matter. I rarely place depots that low - 1 is about as far down as I go.

The units you are trying to reassign may be too far away from the Corps HQ to be assigned to them. Make sure they are closer to the Corps HQ and then try again.

[&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o]

[HMSWarspite]

Just as an explanation of 0 priority depots, I use them when the war has moved on. Often you create them, and they are vital to supply your front line, so they are Priority 4 or 3 (supporting main thrust, or secondary attacks). Then the war moves forwards a little, and they end up supplying your forwards airfields, and the front line supply is now further forwards, so you use 2 or 1 (watch where and how many red lines emanate, and where they go- use the '8' key to see this). Often you find they are still supplying a couple of bases, but have built up a huge stockpile. I then switch them to 0, as they can 'live off their hump' and keep on supplying the bases without the need to strain your rail network by drawing more. Finally, the war moves completely away, and you can disband them completely, although you can leave them be if you are WA, as you don't need to reclaim the supply. For Germany, putting a depot on zero is a good compromise if you fear a depot might be captured but don't want to disband it (and it has stocks) - you have the supply source without risking further supply if lost. A port that spends much of its time being isolated but occasionally isn't, and which has plenty of stocks is another good example. The logistics system could waste time and effort directing supply there in preference to somewhere more urgent. But of course you must not disband it or your port units will have no stockpiles. Germany is much more keen to disband depots as they do not want to lose supply stocks unnecessarily!

[Delaware]

You know.... As hard core as this is, it is more intuitive than Hearts of Iron 4 which I just bought. As I'm playing I think, what I really want is in Grigsby