New to the game - Basic Questions

A sub-forum for players new to WIF, containing information on how to get started and become an experienced player.

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Mayhemizer_slith
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Mayhemizer_slith »

When attacking from Gibraltar to Tangier, is Engineer unit supposed to be able to allow units attack with full strength just like over rivers?

Combat engineers rule is used [;)]
If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.

-Murphy's war law
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Centuur
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Centuur »

ORIGINAL: Mayhemizer

When attacking from Gibraltar to Tangier, is Engineer unit supposed to be able to allow units attack with full strength just like over rivers?

Combat engineers rule is used [;)]

No.

RAW:

Face-up ENG are not halved or thirded when attacking or
overrunning across a river, canal or fort hexside. They also provide
this benefit to as many land units they are stacked with as the ENG
unit’s combat value.
Peter
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Mayhemizer_slith
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Mayhemizer_slith »

Thank you.
If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.

-Murphy's war law
IBender
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

This is a broad question so I am really up for any sort of answers you throw my way. I find I struggle somewhat with Italy regarding unit set up. One option I see is to hit southern france hard. That one seems like an obvious one. Also to hit the french and british navy hard with the italian navy. These seem fairly clear to me Where I struggle is with other options that I might try with italy. Like what might I do in Africa? Tunisia is empty but doesnt seem to get me anything if I occupy it. Algeria gets me a resource but moving troops there overland isnt easy or if I do a naval movement of troops that seems.. risky just for one resource. Towards Egypt, the British frequently look pretty strong there. If I can capture it, I do cut create problems for england but that cutting off part doesnt seem easy. Conquering Yugoslavia is enticing as I can place troops right on the mainland there and there are 2 resources up for grabs. However, there are tons of mountains. Basically, I sure could use some ideas of what people have tried etc. Even some pictures of possible setups would be great.

Lastly, Italy gets some teritorial troops for eritrea, ethiopia and somaliland. they are fairly good troops but I really dont know what I might do with them? also I am curious about the supply point italy gets for this area...is this supply point required to keep these territorial troops supplied? Would they be out of supply is this supply point didnt exist?

Thanks guys in advance.
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paulderynck
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by paulderynck »

I'll leave the set-up question for others but about the Territorials and the Supply Unit:

No, the Territorials get supply from their home country cities like any other Minor country unit. AAMOF Ethiopia is conquered, but there's a special rule that Territorials from a conquered Minor still get supply from their home country cities. But of course once they get out of supply range they can't do much unless they can conquer another Minor country. Then Italy could build the Territorial for that country - rinse and repeat until a whole lot of Africa is conquered. Unfortunately, this doesn't do Italy much good and won't hurt the CW until the path from the CW resources to the sea is threatened. Also the CW only needs a couple Territorials of its own to frustrate Italy. But... it can be a distraction to the CW if left unattended.

As for the Supply Unit, it really isn't much good to Italy without an HQ and putting Balbo there is a huge waste since the instant war is declared, all Italian units (not the Territorials) will be out of supply. Some players will put the supply unit on the coast and go pick it up on impulse 1 of SO39 and then return somewhere with it on impulse 3 - all while staying neutral. If you wait longer to return with it then the CW will be tempted to DoW Italy and trap the TRS with the Supply Unit on the wrong side of the Suez.
Paul
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Courtenay
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Courtenay »

On the surprise impulse, the Italians can think of making an amphibious landing someplace. This will usually just be a nuisance, although an empty Algeria or Morocco can make a tempting target -- the Allies would have to respond to the thread, diverting resources from elsewhere. Also, if you wanted to, you could pick off Cyprus. Lastly, if the Italians build their MAR first and wait until it is ready to declare war, they can consider a serious amphibious landing at at target that is actually worth something, like the Suez Canal or Syria.
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Centuur
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Centuur »

To be honest, Italy simply isn't strong enough to be able to do a lot on it's own. Even an attack into southern France is usually not a good option at all. However, to stay inactive isn't a good thing too. Italy needs German resources and Germany needs Italian pressure on the CW in the Med...

In the East Africa area, the territorials can be used to grab French Somaliland and the Egyptian Sudan if there aren't any Allied TERR in those area's. But usually that area is simply nothing more than a huge Allied PoW camp with men trying to escape.

If one puts Balbo at the Egyptian Border and makes a surprise invasion in Egypt, one can try to get a front going on there. However, that's a risky venture for the Italians, because the huge CW fleet might find your precious TRS when you try to get extra units into the area, and supply might be difficult to maintain. But if you can get an aircraft with an air-to-sea factor in the Red Sea, one might be able to put Wavell out of supply in Egypt. Risky, but than the Italian capture of Egypt becomes somewhat more feasable.
But it's all a high risk strategy. Same with an invasion into Algeria. The fast Lybian TERR (if you draw that one) can be used to capture Tunesia and start moving on land towards Algeria, but usually a CW unit (replacing the French INF which is needed in France) at Algiers will stop any Italian aggression there. The best way to proceed in the Western Med is to take Oran, but a good CW player will simply put a unit at Rabat and Algiers. That's it...

And to be "aggressive" with the Italian fleet in the Med? That's not something which is advisable, since the French fleet is available to the Allies to take the losses...

Italy can be a nuisance to the CW in the early days of the war. But a nuisance can be enough. Make your goals simple, don't "fritter" away the Italian navy and grovel, beg and demand resources from your big German ally. Building the MAR is something which is quite a good idea because it increases the Italian "nuisance" factor for the CW tenfold...
Peter
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

I agree with Centuur.

In general, Italy should be viewed as an ally of Germany. If Germany wants to do something, then Italy can help.

Obvious choices are to attack France through the southern Alps. Or even to send some Italian units into the Lowlands to help out Germany's attack on France (even weak air units would be useful).

Usually Italy concentrates on controlling the Med using air power: Naval Air and Fighters. Towards that end, German Naval Air units can be a big help. The Commonwealth doesn't have a lot of air power to use in the Med. Sending carriers is possible but losing one would make the Commonwealth player cry pitilessly.

The Italian navy should be held in reserve until France is conquered. Once Vichy is declared, all the French naval units will go to Vichy. So having the Italian navy fight the French navy just means the Axis is destroying its own naval units. But once the French are Vichified and the Italian naval air forces have helped control the Med, then the Italian navy can be a serious threat to the Commonwealth's navy in the Med. But always remember, the Commonwealth can repair its units using a larger supply of build points and can even have the US help repair them eventually. The Italians don't have enough build points to do 1/4 of the things they would like to build, and refurbishing their navy would be both expensive and take a lot of time. Even worse, once the US enters the war, the Italian navy can easily be overwhelmed by the Allies.

So the Italian navy has a short interval to shine: after the French are gone and the British cowed, and before the US appears in the Med.

As for adventures in the NW Africa coast, that is quite feasible. Wandering territorials from Libya westward towards Morocco is the usual path. The idea is to force the Commonwealth to spread its land units all around: Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Algeria, the BEF to help the French, some for homeland defenses of the British Isles, India, Singapore, eastern Africa, ... The more places you can threaten, the better. If the British build a lot of land units to cover all the threatened areas, then they aren't build naval air and fighters (that they need everywhere), or building up their naval forces (e.g., transports to deploy those land and air units about the map).

I think of Italy as providing small pinpricks to the Allies, to slowly bleed them dry.
Steve

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IBender
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

Well you both have helped a lot and basically what you have said seems to match my limited experience so far.

Thank you both.
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

Help please with naval invasion. Clearly I need to read the rule carefully again because I dont seem to get it yet. Here is what happened. Japanese move huge fleet with planes 2 naval infantry / marine corps and 1 naval infantry / marine corps, next to Sumatra (NEI) Going to capture that oil. There are no defenders in or around the city of Palembang (also where 2 oil fields are located) *Weather is also fine. I landed 1 6-3 naval / marine corps and expected that there would be 1 notional force, instead there seems to have been 8. I havent yet figured out how it was 8 yet. I am working on that but could use insight on that. I added 2 planes with small ground strike from my carriers, and added shore bombardment. Then...I roled and rolled low (if I recall correctly) and the result was...I lost this awesome naval / marine infantry corps.

Basically this entire thing turned out entirely different than I expected. Any insight / information on what happened here would be awesome. Thanks
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by paulderynck »

ORIGINAL: Azorn01

Help please with naval invasion. Clearly I need to read the rule carefully again because I dont seem to get it yet. Here is what happened. Japanese move huge fleet with planes 2 naval infantry / marine corps and 1 naval infantry / marine corps, next to Sumatra (NEI) Going to capture that oil. There are no defenders in or around the city of Palembang (also where 2 oil fields are located) *Weather is also fine. I landed 1 6-3 naval / marine corps and expected that there would be 1 notional force, instead there seems to have been 8. I havent yet figured out how it was 8 yet. I am working on that but could use insight on that. I added 2 planes with small ground strike from my carriers, and added shore bombardment. Then...I roled and rolled low (if I recall correctly) and the result was...I lost this awesome naval / marine infantry corps.

Basically this entire thing turned out entirely different than I expected. Any insight / information on what happened here would be awesome. Thanks
Read the section on Notionals. Basic value is 1, plus 1 for a city, plus 1 in friendly ZoC, minus 1 if surprised, minus 1 if Out of Supply (OoS). Terrain effects apply, so defender doubled. Sounds like NEI was not surprised and no friendly ZoC was on the hex or vice versa. It's an NEI city so it's impossible for it to have been OoS.

A major power home country also gets a plus 1 to its notional. Another important rule is the defender can choose to decline the notional and let the attacker take the hex. Why would you ever do that? Because the attacker might be a lone Para or invading Div with other attacking units assisting from an adjacent hex. If you deny the notional, there's no attack and only the Para or Div is left in the hex, perhaps becoming a very easy target for a counterattack.

On the first turn of a Japanese offensive in the Pacific, when the defenders are surprised, the Japanese can take as many non-city islands as they have Divs because the Notionals are worth one minus one for being surprised and since terrain effects come after that, they can do this to mountain and swamp hexes (without cities). But it is even possible against cities on an island if they are also put OoS.
(1 + 1 - 1 - 1 = 0)
Paul
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Centuur
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Centuur »

Here is RAW:

The notional unit has 1 combat factor, modified by:
• +1 if it is a city hex;
• +1 if the hex is in the home country of the major power that
controls the hex;
• +1 if it is not stacked with a land unit, but is in the ZOC of a
friendly corps or army;
+ the shore bombardment modifier for each invading unit;
• -1 if it cannot trace a basic supply path of any length; and
• -1 if surprised (see 15.).
The shore bombardment modifier applies to each unit that invades.
Use the modifier from the section of the sea-box the unit invades from
(remembering the effect of weather ~ see 8.2.7).


Notice the part I've put in bold. If you invade f.e. out of the 1 box, the notional unit gets 2 extra factors for each unit which invades of that box. So what we've got here is probably the fact that the three invading units are in the 1 box.

Than the calculation is: Notional unit 1 factor, the city of Palembang adds 1 extra factor, and the three invading units out of the 1 box add 6 factors for a total of 8...

If you make invasions, always make them out of the 3 or 4 box. The two box already adds a +1 per invading unit.
Peter
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Courtenay
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Courtenay »

ORIGINAL: Azorn01

Help please with naval invasion. Clearly I need to read the rule carefully again because I dont seem to get it yet. Here is what happened. Japanese move huge fleet with planes 2 naval infantry / marine corps and 1 naval infantry / marine corps, next to Sumatra (NEI) Going to capture that oil. There are no defenders in or around the city of Palembang (also where 2 oil fields are located) *Weather is also fine. I landed 1 6-3 naval / marine corps and expected that there would be 1 notional force, instead there seems to have been 8. I havent yet figured out how it was 8 yet. I am working on that but could use insight on that. I added 2 planes with small ground strike from my carriers, and added shore bombardment. Then...I roled and rolled low (if I recall correctly) and the result was...I lost this awesome naval / marine infantry corps.

Basically this entire thing turned out entirely different than I expected. Any insight / information on what happened here would be awesome. Thanks
I strongly suspect you were invading from the one box. If you invade from too low a sea box, the defenders get additional notional strength. If you did invade from the one box, two would be added to defender's strength for each unit invading from the one box. (The number in the sea box. In bad weather, add one more for an asterisk.) Also, Palembang is a city, that adds one to the defense. So the notional strength was 1 (base) + 1 (city) + 2 (sea box) = 4. Palembang is a swamp. This doubles the defensive strength. 2x4 = 8.

This is not a an invasion I would expect to work. To take the Dutch East Indies, invade close to the capital, and take that. Then the whole place falls into your hands. On the surprise impulse, you can land in non-city spaces with a single division, and have it automatically succeed, as there is no defender at all.
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IBender
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

Ohhh you are exactly right. I went back looked at what was occurring and it matches what you described exactly. Thank you
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

Looking for just general thoughts regarding something I notice in many AARs. Seems to me that many AARs come to an end with the allied player conceding the game if / when things turn bad for them, sometime between mid 1940 and 1942. Things seem pretty bad, hopeless I guess. This, however, seems to reflect what occurred in real life. The allies barely hung on, then...American joins the war + Russian slowly tips the tide, and the tide slowly, gradually turns in favor for the allies.. However, in the AARs, the allied player often surrenders either before America enters the war and well before Russia can really do its thing, or very shortly after America enters the war. Why is this? Is it because in this game America isnt as strong as it should be? Is it because people give in to hopelessness? I keep reading AARs to watch a long game and see the impact of America, but there are not that many that play a full game.

Thanks for your thoughts.
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by Centuur »

This is a difficult one to answer. The game is aimed at the conquest of Germany and Italy at the end of J/A 1945 and Japan on the ropes of collapse (as historically happened). To me, there are two things which makes sure that the game ends in an Axis victory:

1. When the USSR and China gets conquered.
2. When the UK and China gets conquered.

Both things are very difficult to be done. The Axis need an awful lot of luck to be able to pull that off. But it can happen. And if that occurs, the Allies can do whatever they want, but with only the USSR and the US in the game, or the US and the CW, the Allies will never pull off a victory at the end of J/A 1945. If one of the above two things happens, the game ends up in a WW I type of warfare, with almost no possible gains for either side on the map. Sure, somewhere in 1946 the US might have produced so many units that they will conquer Japan, but that's about a year after the Allies should have won the game...

Apart from that, one tends to see that the Axis throw the towel more on the board when things aren't going their way. However, to me that's something which is almost always done too early. It's amazing to see the regenerating power of the German army, as long as it has some oil available to them. I've seen quite some games where if one looks at Germany end of 1944 concludes that it's over, but at the end of J/A they still hold factory cities. Same goes for Japan (but Italy is usually out of the game by then...
Peter
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

See, that makes sense to me. While I have not played a full global game ( I keep restarting as I make mistakes and learn), it does seem to me that one side or the other surrenders too soon. I am to the point where I look at the end of the AAR now and see how far they got in the game before I take the time to read it. Otherwise, its poland, france a bit more then quit. Over and over. Thanks for your insight into this.
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by paulderynck »

I think some Allied players simply fail their morale check. I think the only condition I'd consider throwing in the towel as the Allies would be a complete conquest of Russia. The US and incompletely conquered CW can take back the UK, and China doesn't matter that much, it still needs a large garrison of Japanese troops or eventually it overflows with partisans. Losing Gibraltar is a major hit on the CW but the Allies can come back from that, too.

I really don't understand resigning with the Allies early. First off, you miss out on your turn to go on offense, and secondly the game is rigged production-wise in favor of the Allies. I've played many FTF games through to MJ45 or JA45 and the amount of power the US can throw down every turn with O-chits is phenomenal. As the Allies the one thing you need in abundance is patience. The next most important thing is leaning the value of combining action limits, FREX CW and FF Naval with a US Land, then US Naval with a CW and FF Land. With that you can invade just about anywhere in the world and the Axis cannot garrison everything. I'm a firm believer in an as large as possible FF navy, it can take a lot of pressure off the CW mid-game in terms of guarding the CP lines and replacing lost CPs, and most important reducing the need for the CW to take Navals. Later on FF should build all the ATRs they can get from the USA so again you can combine action limits to make multiple paradrops or have the FF drop the paratroops and the US ATRs assisting with re-orgs. A well-managed Allied juggernaut starting in 1944 is simply amazing to behold.
Paul
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by IBender »

I am glad to hear this. I dont mind losing, I just want a good long fight. I suspect you are correct also on all your points.

Can you recommend an AAR that you like and that plays it out for a long time?

Thanks
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RE: New to the game - Basic Questions

Post by paulderynck »

Sorry, others may have to do so, I don't really follow the AARs.
Paul
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