Your views on HQs

[Jenska]

Like Hollywood, as a random game pvp player using the new Officer MOD, I've adopted the HQ tree based on a central supply depot ("Central Depot") follwoed by a few offcier based HQ's and then non-officer combat HQ's as close to the front as possible. This provides less micromanagement of supply, makes it less likely any particular HQ will get cut off from supply and makes it possible to use that first (free $$) Supreme HQ as a real combat asset. Leave out the office part if you're not using them. Non-Combat SF's such as pure Enginner units get attached to te central Depot HQ, so they're not supply dependent on an HQ that could be cut off since they move alot and don't benefit from the HQ very often anyway. As Hollywood points out the PP cost of officers can be painful, and the problem with the lowest level HQ's is that they DO NOT APPEAR to pass their combat exp upward the their officer, slowing his promotion due missing out of the low level combat. If anyone knows for sure about this, please confirm or deny this impression, thanks.

As much a possible I try to get new units close to the front line and create SF's for them prior to engaing them in combat. Endgame this doesn't work so well since you need them right away, but its good until the final crunch time. Old savaged SF's get consolidated rather than reinforced.

A prodcution tip, depending on the type of game you play (random vs scenario), is to create those low level combat HQ's as far forward as you dare early in the game to get their SF units close to the front lines right away without any oil or time cost; don't move them out from your original staging areas, just make sure they're within the 100% supply range of their prodcution cities. While at higher risk of getting cut off or destroyed, this can be a significant advantage late in the game as well. Hollywood, I think you've recently learned this, so I'm not losing an advantage I once had.

Another tip to determine the supply coverage of a location since ATG seems to only display it properly for hq units: Create a bogus HQ (assuming you've got the points) at the origin location, production city or factory, then use the supply display (F5) to show its coverage. Then simply delete the HQ and you get the PP's back. Repeat as necessary. Do this at the beginning of your turn so you have the PP's, especially with the Officer HQ bug in effect.


[&:]
One question about the supply chain though. I've noticed that even though all the HQ's and units dependent on my Depot HQ are within the green supply range, not all the supply requested gets fulfilled at 100%. I know that all requests are pro-rated if they can't all be fulfilled to 100%, but when my available supply is 120% of the total requested, why isn't it filled completely? I thought that the fulfillment only looked at the next level, not all the way down the tree, so that HQ B might request and get its 2000 supply but only deliver 1800 due to units being cut off or out of range, but that doesn't affect the delivery of the 2000 supply from the "Depot" or the delivery to any other first level HQ's, does it?

[Twotribes]

ORIGINAL: Hollywood

@Twotribes - I'd have to question your usage of your Supreme HQ as a production point rather than a front line HQ as you are leaving ~+20% combat and morale modifier on your bench which is a HUGE factor in the field. Why not just make the Supreme HQ subordinate to a new non-officer, supply HQ? (Of course, if this is what you are doing then disregard )

My hats off to those of you with very structured methods. My method: get an officer near every major geographic area of combat and get my HQs as close to the front line as possible taking advantage of the 100% leadership bonus as much as I can. If my officers aren't racking up XP and advancing in Level then they aren't in the right spot. HQs with officers cost a LOT of PP when you are in a scrap fight and you just can't afford to crank out a new Officer very often, so I just load up on the Staffers to stay as close to 100% as possible and then make sure he can hear the shells whistling overhead.

As I read the posts, I think a lot of how you use HQs are dependent on the type of ATG game you play: random vs human/AI, scenario v human/AI, large or small maps. I am exclusively a random v human player and each game is very much on the edge as it relates to producing PPs v material v manpower, so Officers become a luxury after awhile when you are scraping PPs for new units or to upgrade to Raw2/Oil2 or Aircraft Factory - there just aren't a lot of PPs to spread around.

I only play against the computer and would never risk my supreme Commander )

[Jenska]

Twotribes: What's sacred about the "Supreme HQ"? Why not put it at risk for the benefits? With the new officer mod, he's no more valuable than an officer you can buy (for 10 or more PP's), and before the officer mod it was "just" the first HQ. In a recent game my Supreme HQ was cut off and bleeding to death along with the rest of its SF's, but I had several other HQ's with as much exp by then. Having him at the front significantly delayed my opponents advance, due to the combat boost he provided. It wasn't the loss of the HQ and officer that was my problem, but that the entire region had become untenable and I was in fact losing slowly everywhere on the map.

[Twotribes]

If the officer that I get with the Hqs has enough Staff points I move him to a front line Hqs. I leave officers with too few points in Front and supreme HQs. I like having all Hqs with officers. But I will move one or more if I can not afford a new officer for the front.

My supreme Hqs has all my trains in it, has large truck numbers and if in a port has cargo ships as well. I add trains and trucks to front HQs so they can transfer their charges about too.

I have seen nothing that claims the mere HQs shell of the Supreme Hqs has any special bonus.

I modified my officers, they come with between 170 and 230 staff ability. My Infantry Corps need about 190 staff and my armor and mech corps need 210 to 220.

As PP permits I buy about 6 extra officers and if they are good enough as I add hqs I assign them to the front.This lets me know if I can properly command a Mech armor or Infantry Corps.

[Jenska]

@twotribes: Okay, I get it, you move the officers around to your HQ's rather than using Supreme HQ as a combat HQ. That works. What I don't see is what good buying extra officers does before you need them, when the PP's may be more important for upgrades/tech/factories at the beginning of a game.

For those of you planning on creating a central DEPOT HQ for your supply chain (Supreme isn't usually in a very central location after all), make sure you create your HQ subformations BEFORE subordinating the HQ to the supply DEPOT. That way you'll avoid the readiness hit by preventing an HQ change for them; only the units still in the HQ SF will suffer the readiness reduction, though the new units will still suffer a reduction due to the SF change.

As twotribes points out, the supply HQ should have the bulk of your strategic transport capacity in it, since it should be centrally located. Each Officer HQ should have some strategic transport to bring SF's to it since the strategic transport distance is the sum of the distances from the original to the HQ to the final destination.

Huh you say? An example, hex notation aside.
If the SF is at location 3 and the HQ is at location 5; then

• the distance to location 5 (the HQ) is 2
• If the destination is loc 10, then the distance from 3 to 10 is 7
• but the distance from 3 to location 4 is THREE (2 to the HQ at 5 and 1 back to loc 4).
• Likewise, if the HQ is at loc 2 and the SF is at loc 5, moving to loc 8 is a distance of 9, not 3; 3 to the HQ at 2 and 6 back to the destination.

Cases like these can exhaust your transport very quickly if you're not careful. Using HQ's as close to the source or destination is important to minimize the actual distance the SF travels, as opposed to the apparent distance that it needs to move.

Three more important notes:

• Strategic transport can take place after an SF has moved, so in example 2 (loc 3 -> 10) if the SF could first move to loc 4, then the distance is only 7, not 8, a 12% saving, and the strategic move from 3 to location 4 could be eliminated entirely.
• SF's suffer a 50% readiness reduction after a strategic transport
• After transport the SF has no AP's