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The best way to save manpower is to just stack defense and soft attack on your infantry and let the AI suicide millions.  They can't stop your advance with no manpower.
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Aug 17, 2022 02:57
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I use support arty, support rockets, and support armoured recon using the cheapest light tanks I can build that will still hold an artillery piece. Against the AI you just can't get enough soft attack.
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Aug 17, 2022 04:07
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disaster pastor posted:How hard is this game to get into mechanics- and UI-wise for someone who has a little experience with CK2 and a bunch of experience with CK3? I realize the goals and gameplay are inherently different given the abbreviated time scales, but would it be like picking up CK2 for the first time was, or will enough knowledge carry over to make a difference? So I played the tutorial (Italy vs. Ethiopia). Did everything they said, understood almost half of it, got to the point of sending in troops with the game's assurance that it won't be a hard fight, and absolutely got my rear end kicked somehow. lolllll There's a lot of interesting stuff going on but I feel like I need to understand it all way better before I try to actually play with it.
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Aug 17, 2022 13:43
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disaster pastor posted:So I played the tutorial (Italy vs. Ethiopia). Did everything they said, understood almost half of it, got to the point of sending in troops with the game's assurance that it won't be a hard fight, and absolutely got my rear end kicked somehow. lolllll If you fancy uploading a save file or a screenshot we can try and talk you through what's going wrong In other news, new dev diary on peace conferences
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Aug 17, 2022 15:10
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Gort posted:If you fancy uploading a save file or a screenshot we can try and talk you through what's going wrong Thanks! I didn't do a save, just laughed and quit, but I'll try again today if I get a chance.
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Aug 17, 2022 15:41
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The first thing that I can think of that might be going wrong is a lack of forces involved in the attack. Ethiopian troops are poorly-equipped, but they've got OK experience and will often be defending in mountains which is about as good as it gets for infantry, so it's not a walkover. Try and hit them from as many different directions in the same province - attack one of their provinces with everything you've got in say, three of yours, if you can. It'll also help to have bombers on the "close air support" mission in East Africa - they'll periodically do strength and organisation damage to the enemy as long as there's a ground combat going on, and it'll cost you virtually nothing, just some fuel and the occasional plane lost to an accident, since Ethiopia has no AA guns.
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Aug 17, 2022 15:45
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Dramicus posted:This doesn't surprise me, it matches up with what I've "felt" was going on. The main reason I'd want them is to preserve XP on divisions, but it doesn't seem to do that much either. It absolutely does preserve XP to a significant extent. But to what end? You shouldn’t be attacking with infantry-heavy divisions, and that’s where the majority of casualties are taken. The two exceptions I’ve found are 1. Special Forces divisions (Marines, Paratroops, Mountaineers) who *will* be the tip of the spear and who will be taking significant casualties. and 2. The Japanese regular army. They have a tiny-rear end manpower pool compared to the heavyweights they will be fighting, they need to use their line infantry for attack and defense because the terrain doesn’t favor tanks, and they will be fighting constantly basically from the start of the game all the way till the end (so that saved XP really adds up).
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Aug 17, 2022 16:08
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I wish special forces had some kind of XP discount. It always feels inefficient to be spending precious pre-war land XP designing templates that are only going to be used in like, four divisions.
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Aug 17, 2022 16:11
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Special forces also have a premium on support companies because line companies water down their SF bonuses. Logistics and engineers are mandatory given where they are operating. A flame tank support company with dozer blades makes a ton of sense, as does support artillery since they will be fighting mostly infantry (hopefully). That leaves one slot open for Recon, Field Hospital, Rocket Artillery or AA. I think Recon (the stat) is still broken but the speed bonus is not trivial given the terrain you’ll be facing. Field Hospital gives that nice effective XP boost. Rocket Artillery gives more precious soft attack. Hopefully you aren’t using SF in areas where enemy CAS is a problem, but support AA is a nice contingency plan.
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Aug 17, 2022 16:35
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Vengarr posted:Special forces also have a premium on support companies because line companies water down their SF bonuses. Logistics and engineers are mandatory given where they are operating. A flame tank support company with dozer blades makes a ton of sense, as does support artillery since they will be fighting mostly infantry (hopefully). AFAIK, recon is useless as all it does it let your commander chose a counter tactic if you are attacked. IF you are on the offense then recon does fuckall.
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Aug 17, 2022 18:48
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Cimber posted:AFAIK, recon is useless as all it does it let your commander chose a counter tactic if you are attacked. IF you are on the offense then recon does fuckall. IIRC it lets you pick counter tactics both attacking and defending, but on the offense there aren't many good tactics counters so it doesn't really do much.
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Aug 17, 2022 19:29
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Doesn't recon increase movement speed or is it some other support company?
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Aug 17, 2022 20:03
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Lostconfused posted:Doesn't recon increase movement speed or is it some other support company? Thats engineers in rough terrain. [edit] sorry, engineers affect attack and defense in rough terrain. Recon does adjust speed. Cimber fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Aug 17, 2022 |
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Aug 17, 2022 20:06
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Vengarr posted:Special forces also have a premium on support companies because line companies water down their SF bonuses. Logistics and engineers are mandatory given where they are operating. As they tend to be pretty light divisions and get supply grace bonuses for the really critical initial phase I'd even drop logistics for more soft attack if you can supply by air. Supply in rough areas is just so on/off that logistics won't help you - even 40% off is worthless when the supply available is 0. If you're clawing your way across the Asiatic steppe it's either airsupply or nothing, whilst if you're paradropping/storming the beaches you either secure a port within the supply grace period or everyone dies anyway.
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Aug 18, 2022 01:46
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I haven't played naval stuff in forever, teach me like an idiot how to set up these uh, task forces? or flotillas? etc?
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Aug 18, 2022 02:30
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Elendil004 posted:I haven't played naval stuff in forever, teach me like an idiot how to set up these uh, task forces? or flotillas? etc? Select your entire navy and put it in one port, never select it again unless you need to do a naval invasion. Then build as many naval bombers as possible.
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Aug 18, 2022 06:08
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Elendil004 posted:I haven't played naval stuff in forever, teach me like an idiot how to set up these uh, task forces? or flotillas? etc? How you set up your navy depends on what you're trying to accomplish with it. For the most part navies either raid convoys, seek to control the sea, or defend against either of those two. First step whenever you play, move your navy into one spot and combine it into a single unit. The game will often start your navy split up in ways that make sense historically, but no sense in gameplay terms. For convoy raiding, it's fairly simple. Split your navy into task forces of similar type (EG: Early subs in one unit, 1936 subs in another, surface ships of similar speed and range in one unit), pick some places the enemy will be sending convoys through, and set the task forces on convoy raiding. If there are convoys to raid, they'll periodically find and engage them. To defend against convoy raiding, especially where submarines are involved, is the most complicated job in the navy game. You can prevent convoy losses OK with pretty much any motley assortment of ships (usually destroyers) set on convoy defense in the areas your convoys are going through. You can flag sea zones as undesirable to pass through to lessen the area you have to guard. The big problem with convoy defense is that even if the ships you set on convoy defense duty have sonar sets, they'll basically never detect an enemy submarine. The subs will be scared off and will do no damage, but they won't get sunk, so your problem will only grow and continue costing you fuel. To actually sink submarines you have to build purpose-built ships for it - destroyers with the best sonar and depth charges, probably at least ten - and set them on patrol in areas you know enemy subs are operating. This is because when subs initiate a combat they are hidden and thus invulnerable, only becoming visible on very rare occasions. On the other hand if destroyers initiate a combat against subs (which is what happens when you patrol) then the subs are all visible for sixteen hours, which is usually plenty of time to sink them by the dozen. To control the sea and make it safe for naval invasions, there are a couple of tactics you can use. If there are already combats going on in the sea, you can mash your surface ships into one fleet, set it on "always engage" and manually drive it out to a combat. It'll join the combat after a few hours and should sink whatever's there. Repeat that a few times until your enemy has no ships. Alternatively, you can use the patrol/strike force method. The idea here is that you have a small (I usually use a single ship) task force that's good at spotting (I usually use a cruiser with the best radar, entirely full of float planes) set on "do not engage" patrolling a sea zone. This task force is in the same fleet as another task force made of your big ships with four escorts (destroyers or cruisers) per big ship, set on strike force. When the patrolling task force spots the enemy, it'll call in your big ships, who will initiate the combat and sink the enemy. The reason why you only use a single ship for spotting is that having extra ships doesn't help you search - all that matters is the average spotting stat of the task force. So giving your cruiser a destroyer to help it search for the enemy will actually make the task force worse at spotting. It's also important you set the spotting task force on "do not engage" or they'll join all sorts of combats and get sunk. ----- If you're getting into the navy game, another thing to not sleep on is refitting your existing ships. If you play as someone like the UK, you start with a huge fleet and very little oil. Virtually every ship in the fleet can be greatly improved from it's starting stats with a refit, so the pre-war time should be spent finishing stuff that's under construction, then just refitting. In the officer corps screen for the navy, you can spend 35 navy XP to increase refit speeds by 25% and repair speeds by 15% - I like to buy a bunch of oil from the USA day one, set the entire fleet on exercises until I get that 35 XP, then work on refitting the UK's destroyers and cruisers pre-war. Destroyers get fitted for ASW, cruisers get fitted for maximum light attack. Once the war breaks out you can look at refits for the larger ships - you're restricted by treaty from changing those pre-war.
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Aug 18, 2022 09:42
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Select your entire navy and put it in one port, never select it again unless you need to do a naval invasion. Then build as many naval bombers as possible. The advanced version of this is to build as many cheap light cruisers with nothing but float planes, radar, and the best possible engines to patrol your sea borders while naval bombers reduce enemy fleets to scrap. Expensive ships are a trap in vanilla.
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Aug 18, 2022 09:45
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I feel like a lot of players leave a lot on the table with the navy. Sure, don't take focuses to make your navy better or build extra dockyards, but if you've got a navy and dockyards day 1 the least you can do is sink hundreds of thousands of Axis soldiers and tanks as they take the tramp steamer from Hamburg to Djibouti.
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Aug 18, 2022 09:55
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What do you mean my Australian Super Heavy Battleship project is insane? once 1950 rolls around we'll have like, THREE of these things.....nevermind them being designed in 1938 with tech to match.
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Aug 18, 2022 09:56
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navy is a great example of why being bound to history is actually bad for gameplay as if you don't already start with a navy it's Extremely Questionable if building one is worth it The total conversation mods help since then you can get situations like naval arms races or naval wars that are mostly freshly built small ships where your designs can actually matter and having one battleship is actually huge, but for irl history where the then current naval power is on the same side as the #2 naval power and #3 doesn't really have the economy to support theirs the same way.
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Aug 18, 2022 15:27
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This can be mostly solved by just reducing naval build times. There's a mod that readjusts naval production to match what the US was able to do in WW2 in terms of making GBS threads out cruisers and DDs. It does open the door to a lot more a-historical outcomes, like Germany being able to field a pretty substantial surface fleet if it wants, though.
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Aug 18, 2022 15:57
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I saw an interesting video that said to make 4-5 carriers (if you are able to support them), then pack them with heavy cruisers with 1 basic heavy gun to make them not be a screen ship and every other slot with the best light cruiser gun you can get. No armor. For screens make tons of ulta cheap destroyers that exist just to die, and put as many torpedo launchers as you can on them. Make as many of these 'heavy' cruisers and destroyers as you can and basically make a doomstack. Apparently they got rid of the rules about overstacking? I tried this with the US, and i was absolutely crushing Japan's navy with this tactic.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:37
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Cimber posted:I saw an interesting video that said to make 4-5 carriers (if you are able to support them), then pack them with heavy cruisers with 1 basic heavy gun to make them not be a screen ship and every other slot with the best light cruiser gun you can get. No armor. For screens make tons of ulta cheap destroyers that exist just to die, and put as many torpedo launchers as you can on them. Make as many of these 'heavy' cruisers and destroyers as you can and basically make a doomstack. Apparently they got rid of the rules about overstacking? Yeah, this is currently the optimal strat which is probably going away in the next patch. It seems like Paradox has reworked the navy system to negate this exact strategy.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:39
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That strategy relies heavily on already having a pre-existing navy and is still easily destroyed by ground based navs if it strays too close. Good for mid-ocean dominance, though.
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Aug 18, 2022 17:12
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Eh, Germany plus Japan plus Italy plus occupied France's shipyards building brand new ships gives the Allies a run for their money. The Royal Navy's big but their ships are bad by thus game's rules. Plus you can base the Kido Butai out of Taranto.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:24
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Cimber posted:I saw an interesting video that said to make 4-5 carriers (if you are able to support them), then pack them with heavy cruisers with 1 basic heavy gun to make them not be a screen ship and every other slot with the best light cruiser gun you can get. No armor. For screens make tons of ulta cheap destroyers that exist just to die, and put as many torpedo launchers as you can on them. Make as many of these 'heavy' cruisers and destroyers as you can and basically make a doomstack. Apparently they got rid of the rules about overstacking? The "one heavy cruiser gun makes you a heavy cruiser" exploit's getting removed next patch
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Aug 18, 2022 21:26
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Gort posted:The "one heavy cruiser gun makes you a heavy cruiser" exploit's getting removed next patch Hopefully means can choose not to have a main gun at all. Gotta save those hundred-odd IC where you can
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Aug 18, 2022 21:29
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Often Abbreviated posted:As they tend to be pretty light divisions and get supply grace bonuses for the really critical initial phase I'd even drop logistics for more soft attack if you can supply by air. Supply in rough areas is just so on/off that logistics won't help you - even 40% off is worthless when the supply available is 0. If you're clawing your way across the Asiatic steppe it's either airsupply or nothing, whilst if you're paradropping/storming the beaches you either secure a port within the supply grace period or everyone dies anyway. This is true if are withdrawing your SF divisions after their initial attack. If things go Guadalcanal/New Guinea style and your SF has to stick around and help win the battle, then eking every drop of supply really makes a huge difference.
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Aug 18, 2022 21:35
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Ya'll with your fancy division planning and optimization are great, Meanwhile I just use 2 40 width divisions with 4 arty 4 AA 4 AT packed in and support companies fully focused on you know Support It seems to work. 
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Aug 18, 2022 21:45
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The AI division design and production priorities are pretty terrible, yeah. You will win as long as you bring enough Soft Attack to mulch the cannon fodder. Optimization is mostly for MP or playing minors.
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Aug 18, 2022 23:53
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I'd say the worst thing about the AI right now is it's need to send divisions to sea. Second to that, inability to do naval invasions - using the wrong kinds of division, landing without capturing a port, getting surrounded and wiped out. I do think the game rules should change so that if a unit gets wiped out on a coast you control you can rescue the manpower and infantry equipment of the unit. For production priorities, the AI doesn't build enough tanks, so Germany's "blitzkrieg" is just masses of infantry and artillery with a very occasional tank. The other big production problem I see from time to time (particularly the US AI) is countries running out of resources and not trading for more, or changing their export laws to let them use more of their own.
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Aug 19, 2022 10:39
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Gort posted:I'd say the worst thing about the AI right now is it's need to send divisions to sea. Second to that, inability to do naval invasions - using the wrong kinds of division, landing without capturing a port, getting surrounded and wiped out. I do think the game rules should change so that if a unit gets wiped out on a coast you control you can rescue the manpower and infantry equipment of the unit. I was playing as Argintena and had taken over all of south America (Later I conquered North America too). I joined the Axis so i could finish off the British and get victory. Germany meanwhile had taken over Russia and annex the entire country. But the stupid AI didn't change the occupation policy and kept it at Civilian Police, so they kept having uprisings and revolts. Maybe they didn't have the manpower to garrison all of Russia, or their garrisons absolutely sucked in terms of suppression? I dunno.
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Aug 19, 2022 12:55
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If you can believe it, it used to be worse
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Aug 19, 2022 14:38
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AI seems to naval invade vs other AI pretty ok. In a Poland run my AI puppet Italy landed somewhere up around the White Sea area, Sweden landed in the Kuban, and the UK snagged Leningrad and the surrounding area. But that's probably also the Soviet AI just not guarding any ports which is another issue.
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Aug 19, 2022 18:27
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Creating a fake weakspot for the AI to land with all defenses standing 2-3 tiles out and no ports is so effective it will happily throw away hundreds of thousands of troops to supply maluses because they can't figure out how to not keep shoving in more manpower.
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Aug 19, 2022 18:31
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here's my biannual post reminding people to play Expert AI mod if they want a decent historical WW2 experience
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Aug 19, 2022 18:57
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I slogged across Russia to defeat them as the German Empire, took a bunch of stuff I wanted around the black sea and stuff, latvia, etc. Then my other enemy, Japan took everything else so I just don't have it in me to slog across Russia now Japan again. Especially since it'll be almost nothing in VP. I'm just gonna say I won. Really hope the new peace conference stuff helps, I was having the hardest time puppeting, then i accidentally took land from Iran after puppeting and I couldn't give it back.
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Aug 21, 2022 02:50
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Elendil004 posted:I slogged across Russia to defeat them as the German Empire, took a bunch of stuff I wanted around the black sea and stuff, latvia, etc. Then my other enemy, Japan took everything else so I just don't have it in me to slog across Russia now Japan again. Especially since it'll be almost nothing in VP. I'm just gonna say I won. Really hope the new peace conference stuff helps, I was having the hardest time puppeting, then i accidentally took land from Iran after puppeting and I couldn't give it back. My brother you need to install player led peace conferences and state transfer tool
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Aug 21, 2022 03:00
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Tell me more
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Aug 21, 2022 03:19
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