VR Designs

Flak is what you should buy if you have lost air supremacy. Flak is also what you should buy if your still fighting for air superiority. In the first case you will need flak to protect your panzers and artillery. In this case flak will be your only hope to have some chance of successfully going on the offensive. In the second case you will be smart to add some flak guns to your airfields since it will help you win the battle for air supremacy.

Flak in range of a hex under air attack is always used in defense. Flak I and Flak II have a range of 1 hex (so they provide cover for their neighbor hexes as well), but Flak III has a range of 2 and Flak IV even a range of 3. When you have lost air superiority it is much advised to research all the way to flak III. The extended range will really make a huge difference as overlapping fields of fire will emerge.

Flak stationed outside the hex under attack cannot be destroyed, but only fights at 50% of its regular strength as a trade off. Flak stationed in the hex under attack can be destroyed and often will be.

When your enemy is employing strategic bombers you might want to put some flak in your vital locations to protect them from the worst effects of bombing.

Flak is not that lethal to enemy aircraft and mostly causes readiness damage and retreat-hits. However it is when flak defense is combined with fighter intercepts that flak really shines. By diminishing the readiness of enemy aircraft they make them easy targets for the defending fighters.

A side-advantage of flak is that is has also some value in an AT-Gun role, they are not an 88 Flak Gun, but they do have a little punch.

This also concludes the first season of ATG college. I will bundle all lessons in a small booklet in the comming month. I think this booklet will be a very welcome companion to the existing manual, especially for players new to ATG!

Thank you all so very much for your attention! And for hanging in there throughout all these lessons!

Best Regards,
Vic

The engineer is a specialized troop type. It fights at only half the strength of rifle infantry. Its important to realize that engineers are not combat-engineers. Engineers are your construction troops! They can perform a wide variety of tasks, that only they can perform. They can build roads and bridges, the can demolish bridges and locations and they can construct a variety of locations including ports, airfields, fortifications and factories/shipyards. They can also upgrade resource locations.

The answer to the question if you need engineers depends strongly on the scenario you are playing. Lets discuss the four most prominent reasons to get engineers…

First of all if resources are scarce in your game world then you must try to upgrade your oil wells and mines as soon as possible. For upgrading resource locations you need some raw materials, but also you need an engineer unit on the actual hex to provide the EP (engineer points) necessary to make the upgrade.

Secondly if the map contains several continents or islands and requires you to make amphibious invasions into enemy territory in order to win the game you should definitely build some engineer units to go with the first or second wave of your invasion. This because in all likelihood you will not be able to capture a port town immediately and thus land at a weaker defended stretch of coast. When doing so you will run into supply problems since supply does not easily flow from sea to land without the help of a port. Use an engineers to quickly build a port on a just conquered coastal hex. (like for example the Mulberries during Normandy landings)

Thirdly if the map you are playing is lacking roads you should build engineers to construct them. Without an adequate road network your empire will have serious supply, transfer and production deliveries. Although it is possible to play and organize your empire in a sort of decentralized fashion it is not recommended.

Fourthly if the map does not contain that many towns and you want to keep your troops under air cover then you should get some engineers to build yourself some airfields. Keep in mind that level I fighters provide an air umbrella maximum 5 hexes away, check the amount of hexes between towns on the map to see if you’ll troops will run out of air cover or not.

A good size for an engineer unit used for road building is 20-30 engineers. 20-30 engineers generate 40-60 EP a turn. Enough to build 2-3 road hexes a turn or after 1 turn of waiting to upgrade a level I resource hex. A good size for a engineer unit used in repairing bridges and building fortifications is 40-50 engineers. For using engineers to help amphibious invasion I would use at least 60 engineers to make sure you have the required 100 EP as quick as possible. I would recommend issuing trucks to your engineer units to give the some radius to move them quickly to a spot of need.

Is a specialized troop type. Staff fights only half as well as regular rifle infantry, but that’s ok since they will not be deployed in the frontline and see little actual fighting. Staff should be deployed in your HQ units. Staff is the only troop type with staff points. Each staff has 10 staff points. This means it can direct the operations of up to 10 power points of regular troops in units subordinate to the HQ the staff is stationed in. The game will show you if you have enough staff in your HQ to direct the battles of all subordinate units by showing a STF % in the unit info window.

You should try to get 100% staff points in your HQs, but not much more. The problem with having for example 200% staff points in your HQ is that your staff will then be twice as slow in gaining experience as when you would have had 100% staff points. Might want to picture the staff officers taking turns in directing the battles to understand the reason for this diminished experience growth.

Experience of the staff is crucial for the bonus staff gives. Staff with 0 XP gives 25% bonus in combat, 12% in morale recovery. Staff with 50 XP gives 75% bonus, 24% in morale recovery. Staff with 100 XP gives 125% combat bonus and 50% morale recovery bonus. These bonuses can increase if you research and upgrade to the expensive staff II, III and IV levels. Staff IV with 100 XP will give for example 200% combat bonus. However higher staff research levels are very expensive to research.

Experienced staff is a valuable asset, you should make sure you HQ cannot be attacked by the enemy and either have some flak protection, air cover or are stationed in a hex with favorable terrain.
Furthermore keep in mind that staff has a limited range in which its benefits apply. Up till 3 hexes away from the HQ the bonuses are in full effect (100%), 4 hexes distance effect is 80%, 5 hexes distance 60%, 6 hexes distance 40%, 7 hexes distance 20% and 8 hexes distance or further away no bonus at all is given anymore. The game will show the % of bonus that is applied on unit as HQPOW % in the unit info window.

Now there is a very special rule in effect with staff you should also know about… Basically staff can lose experience, it’s the only troop type that can do so. It can lose experience when the composition of the troops under its command change. So when you transfer for example new infantry to a subordinate unit of a HQ the staff in that HQ may lose some experience. The same if you attach new units to an HQ. This rule represents the close relation that staff experience has with the actually getting to know and work with the troops under command.
If you are losing the game and your armies are shrinking then your ratio of staff : troops will get larger and larger. You should in such a case send excess staff to frontline units to act as cannon-fodder and delay the enemy advance a little bit longer.

Is an expensive infantry troop type that requires no research to produce. However its levels will go up when you research infantry. Although it has the same number of hit points as rifle infantry it is three times as expensive (in production points) to build. Off-setting this costliness cavalry has three times the offensive value of regular rifle in attacking enemy infantry, artillery or soft-mobile. However that in itself would not make it a valuable troop type since using three rifle instead of one cavalry would still be much more cost-effective, especially in defense.

What makes cavalry really useful is its speed. Cavalry can move over six friendly hexes or four enemy plain hexes in one round. That’s not as quick as tanks, but getting close.

Now when you are fighting in open terrain I would advise to build tanks and armored cars because they will be more cost effective in battle then cavalry. But when you are fighting in forests, mountains and swamps then I would advise to build cavalry. This because cavalry has better all-terrain movement rates then mechanized troops. Also cavalry has much less penalties in attacking troops in difficult terrain (max -25%) and also much less problems in crossing rivers without a bridge.

Remember to not use cavalry in defense since that would be a waste of this quite expensive troop type. Use regular infantry for defense and use cavalry in attempts to encircle enemy troops and raid behind the enemy frontlines. Try to see them as soft-skinned panzers!

Furthermore it should be pointed out you can make a cheap poor-mans variant of cavalry by putting horses and infantry in the same unit. One horse troop type will carry ten infantry. However the movement rate of horse is not as good as cavalry, since horses are basically work horses, not riding horses.

Welcome back to Advanced Tactics Gold college! Today we discuss ships! Let’s start with the basics: Not every map with sea hexes on it requires you to have a navy. A navy is only necessary if you want to invade hostile territory and conduct amphibious operations or if you want to (strategically) transfer troops overseas.

It is important to keep in mind that supply and production flows freely over sea hexes and you do not need any navy to get a factory on continent A to deliver tanks on continent B. You may wonder if some sort of magic transport is involved? No, please consider this supply and production delivery done by unseen merchant ships.

This shipping of supplies and production over water is free, but it is prone to damage due to enemy navy or air activity along the movement-path the supplies take. Not having a safe lane of supply to your overseas destinations can cause up to 90% of supplies and production to be destroyed. Building at least a small navy to safeguard your sea supply lanes is always a good idea.

Now what ships can you build? And when should you build them?

The first type of ship that we’ll discuss is the Cargo Ship. Its costs 2000 production points and 20 raw to produce. The Cargo Ship is the Train/Truck of the oceans, so to speak… You can place your Cargo Ships in a HQ located in a port city to enable that HQ to (strategically) transfer troops overseas. But you can also put your Cargo Ships in regular units and use them to load/unload land unit troops. The Cargo Ship is the only type of ships that allows loading and unloading of units and thus your only means to conduct amphibious invasions into enemy held territory overseas. The Cargo Ship is very weak in combat and should always be escorted when you expect either enemy ships or enemy airstrikes.

An ideal escort is the Destroyer. The Destroyer is a relatively cheap naval unit and is just 10 raw more expensive then the Cargo Ship. The Destroyer is the lightest ship of war available and will perform well against Cargo Ships, other Destroyers and Submarines. However when facing heavier ships of war the Destroyer will only be temporarily capable of protecting your Cargo Ships.

The two capitol ships of war are the Cruiser and the Battleship. They rule the waves but come at heavy cost. Producing a Cruiser takes 4000 production points and 70 raw, a Battleship 8000 production points and 160 raw. However if you are serious in attaining naval superiority these ships are a good investment. They are vulnerable to submarine attack, but you can protect them by assigning a Destroyer escort. The Battleship is on a cost-versus-effectiveness comparison better in ship-to-ship combat and shore bombardment then the Cruiser, but the Cruiser has better anti-air capabilities. A battleship attacking a Destroyer for example has 50% chance to kill the Destroyer but only 5% chance to get killed itself. A Battleship attacking a Cruiser has 50% chance to kill the Cruiser, but only 10% chance to get killed itself.

Now the submarine is a bit of a special unit. It has 20 hide points making it harder to spot by enemy forces. Basically it is best used in attacking unescorted Cargo Ships and capitol ships and causing anti-supply damage to enemy supply lanes. Submarines should avoid fighting Destroyers at all cost. For example a Destroyer attacking a Submarine has 30% chance to kill it while it has only 7.5% chance to get killed itself. Also Submarines should avoid coming under air attack at all cost. Submarines are relatively cheap ships with a higher survival rate in combat due to their ability to submerge (turn a kill hit into a retreat hit), but you must remember they are weak units. A submarine is preferably used in an offensive role, since it is very weak when attacked itself. For example: A submarine attacking a Battleship has 12.5% chance to kill it versus a 30% chance to get killed itself, but a Battleship attacking a Submarine has 30% chance to kill the submarine versus only 5% of getting killed itself.

The most complicated and expensive ship to properly use is probably the Carrier. The Carrier is as expensive as the Battleship and though it has some solid anti-air defenses it is vulnerable to almost any form of direct naval attack. The Carrier should be kept out of combat or be heavily escorted. The key to making the Carrier investment pay off is to transfer the maximum amount of aircraft to the Carrier unit that you can. Ideally you’ll have researched carrier fighters and torpedo bombers since they take less space on the Carrier then regular aircraft. For example a Carrier can carry 10 carrier fighters but only 5 normal fighters. Torpedo bombers are in a cost-versus-effectiveness comparison the best unit to destroy enemy ships. A Carrier with full aircraft compliment will be a decisive asset when fighting out major naval engagements in big oceans. For example 5 torpedo bombers have a chance of 50% of killing a Battleship while on average losing only 1 aircraft.

When a lot of islands and coastline is available you might want to consider using land based air support for conducting your navy battles since it will save you the cost of building Carriers.

One thing to keep a serious eye on is the oil expenditure of your navy. For example: Cargo Ships use 50 oil for moving the full 100AP and battleships use 200 oil for full movement. A Cargo Ship used in a HQ for (strategic) transfer also uses up 50 oil when its full transport capacity is utilized.

For Submarine commanders it is important to keep in mind that urban harbors (Urban Landscape) provide extra protection for submarines.

When your enemy has a larger navy you may want to keep your fleet inside port and buy some Artillery. Artillery guns stationed in a port town will help defend the ships in the port when they are under naval attack and can be used to attack any enemy ships trying to blockade your port by artillery attack in your own turn.

Having naval superiority can be decisive, but study the map carefull and decide if you really need a strong navy to win. Be careful not to sink to much production power, raw materials and oil into your navy.

That concludes the lesson for today. I hope you enjoyed it! I am not sure yet on the topic of the next lesson, but I should still discuss Staff, Engineers, Flak and some other specialized troops.

Welcome back to Advanced Tactics college! It has been some time since the last lesson, but I have been away to code on the next DC title in a log cabin in the north of Sweden this summer. So far we have discussed combat troops and equipment, today we will tackle a slightly different subject: troop transportation and motorization by land transport vehicles.

By putting transport vehicles in your HQ you will provide your HQ with transfer capacity points. Trucks and halftracks provide 1000 regular land transfer points per vehicle and trains will provide 2000 rail transfer points. Horses do not provide any transfer points. These transfer points allow you to strategically transfer whole units from one place on the map to the other side or to transfer individual troops from your HQ to frontline units many dozens of hexes away. It is important to realize that trucks, halftracks and trains only provide transfer capacity points when they are stationed in HQ units, when they are stationed in normal units they just mobilize the troops in that specific unit.

If you are in a scarcity of production situation this means you’ll have to chose between mobile frontline formations or high HQs that enable you to reinforce and (strategically) transfer.

A prudent player always makes sure he has at least some HQs with some transfer capacity. Because this will allow this player to make some emergency moves to react to enemy threats. Agreed… only a limited number, but most of the time that is all you need to contain or slow down a surprise enemy offensive, unexpected paradrop or amphibious landing. Time bought by containment will allow you to move in larger forces by foot, horse or own motor transport.

Trains are by far the best to use to provide these transfer capacity points. First of all because trains do not use oil when you use their rail transfer capacity points, secondly because they provide double the amount of points that trucks and halftracks provide. However the downside of using trains is that any transfers you do are limited to what can be reached by rail-lines. Trucks and halftracks don’t suffer this limitation.

Though trucks spend oil while they (strategically) transfer troops, they are cheaper to build then trains in terms of raw resources and production time. Trucks are also the more flexible buy, since they can be switched from HQs to units to provide motorization. Granted you can send trains to frontline units as well. But “motorization” by train will limit them to railroad tracks and in most cases it is only practical to do so for artillery and flak units.

A transfer point basically represents the ability to transport 1 weight unit (for example 1 infantry) over 1 action point. For example: transferring 10 infantry over 10 hexes connected by rail movement (10 ap per hex) will cost a 1000 transfer capacity points. Keep in mind that the action point cost of a certain strategic transfer from hex A to hex B is not the “straight line” cost between those hexes but a “triangulated” cost from hex A to the hex of the HQ providing the transfer points and from there to hex B.

Now using your transport vehicles for transfers is one option. The other option is to use them to motorize units. In theory you could use trains to do this (as discussed above), but in practice trucks and halftracks will be more practical since they will allow your unit to move outside rail hexes. Trains, trucks and halftracks can all carry 20 weight points, for example 20 infantry or 2 artillery guns.

Especially when you are the player that is on the offensive it is very useful to have at least some motorized artillery, engineer and flak units to support the advance of any “panzer” units you might have. For if your panzer spearheads drive forward so fast they outrun their artillery complement and infantry they will have a much harder time defeating enemy units and holding the territory they take.

If your motorized troops are going to participate in direct land combat you might want to issue them with halftracks instead of trucks. Yes halftracks are more expensive, and need to be researched first, but they provide a unique feature: they take hits for the infantry in combat. Every time an infantry guy is targeted by the enemy there is a 50-50 chance the enemy will fight a halftrack instead of the targeted infantry.

For example 5 light tanks attacking 100 lightly entrenched infantry will have a 55% chance of success and on average will kill 29 rifle while losing 1 tank. Using the same example but with the change that the defending 100 infantry are now supported by 5 halftracks the chance of success will drop to 32% and the average number of rifle killed to 21 and average halftracks lost is 0.2, while average tank losses go up to 1.5.

The low number of halftrack kills in the example above is partly due to the sturdiness of these vehicles and partly due to their mobility to escape dangerous situations more easily then trucks: they have a 30% chance to translate a kill hit on them to a retreat hit.

Furthermore halftracks will do better than trucks if under air attack since they have eight times more hit points. Halftracks are also slightly quicker off-road since they are tracked instead of wheeled. If you have the production power and the resources then halftracks can make a subtle but decisive difference.

That concludes this lesson. Thank you for your time and good luck with motorizing your army! Next lesson will probably focus on naval warfare, ships and submarines.