Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
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A unit will not move into a hex if doing so will cause the hex to be overstacked. (What I'm not sure of is if you order unit #1 to move into hex A which already has maximum stacking, while also ordering unit #2 to move from hex A to hex B, what happens if unit #1 has the higher movement rating. When it's turn to move comes it will not move into hex A as it would be overstacked, does it then get a second chance to move after unit #2 moves out?)

if neither hex is attacked, my experience is that you can swap units between fully stacked hexes and they will move as desired. But as you point out above, if a hex is attacked, those units are locked in place, and so nothing can leave and additional units can not enter if the hex is fully stacked. Now if your units are higher quality and higher readiness than the enemy's, you may be able to move the units before your enemy's units move into your hex. But that is not normally the case, because attacking units tend to move first.

1. If you have a stack of units that you fear are going to be attacked at disadvantageous (to you) odds you are probably generally better off just moving them rather than "withdrawing." The reason for this is that it is very unlikely that you will be able to "Withdraw" all of these units before an activated enemy unit enters the hex feezing in place the remaining units that have not yet moved. Since a withdrawal order lowers unit readiness it means your remaining units in the hex (perhaps even all of them if none sucessfully withdrew) are now going to be attacked at even worse odds. By just "moving" your units you are virtually guarenteed that either all of your units will defend in the hex together with no loss of organization or else (if the enemy does not in fact attack the hex) all your units will move together again without loss of organization.

2. Even if you only have 1 unit in a hex which you fear is going to be attacked by a stack of enemy units you are taking a big chance "withdrawing" the unit rather than just moving it. The reason for this is that if you have 1 unit to move out of a hex and the enemy is moving in 3 units, your odds of having a higher movement rating than all 3 enemy units, all things being equal, is only 25%.

3. Probably the only times it is worthwhile to give a "withdraw" order to a unit is if you believe that because of the unit's type, quality, organization, or terrain it is more likely to have a higher movement rating than the opposing units.

4. If you are attacking a weak enemy hex that you fear your enemy will be reinforcing from adjacent hexes, sometimes it is a good idea to attack these other hexes as well in an attempt to freeze the enemy units there so they can't reinforce the weak hex.

5. As a counterpoint to 4 above, it is often a good idea to have reserve units behind your lines that you can move into crucial areas of the front without the risk of being frozen in place by enemy attacks.

Those are all good points. I usually only withdraw units when the odds combat is so uneven that you would likely lose the unit(s) anyway if you cant get away. And sometimes its worth using a Withdraw command simply because its imperative to move a unit into or out of a hex, for tactical or strategic reasons. Because of their generally higher quality, its easier for the Germans to withdraw than it is for nations with lower quality troops.

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ORIGINAL: Snowbart1943

Sometimes it is a good idea to 'give up the good ground' to your opponent.  You may for instance want to give up a mountain hex, as your opponent will be limited in further attacks from that hex. 

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ORIGINAL: ILCK

quote:

ORIGINAL: Snowbart1943

Sometimes it is a good idea to 'give up the good ground' to your opponent.  You may for instance want to give up a mountain hex, as your opponent will be limited in further attacks from that hex. 

Along those lines, it costs the same activation points to "attack" an empty hex as an occupied hex. You can burn an opponents activation points without losing many men in this way. For example, in the Bukovina the Austrians can defend as far back as the Carpathians and force any Russians trying to advance in that region to burn 3 of their rare AP's just to reach the AH resistance.

On the flip side, cavalry is mostly useless but stacked with infantry you can let your cavalry lead you across large open tracts of land like on the eastern or Ottoman fronts and save you AP's for attacking cities or actual enemy units.

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ORIGINAL: andyinkuwait

I don't quite understand this strategy. If you are roaming your cav across the plains you are roaming with an inf unit that will need to be activated to move. Cav can only move into friendly hexes if stacked with inf but the inf will need to keep up with the cav and therefore will need to be activated to move. It doesn't seem to be saving any HQ points to use cav in this way or am I missing something?

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ORIGINAL: hjaco

12) Remember to change base judiciously. IT greatly improves your naval units efficiency.

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ORIGINAL: lordhoff

RE: Capitals lost = no production

Just wondering for Austria - do both capitals (Vienna and Buda-Pest) have to fall or just the German capital?

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Just Vienna needs to fall.

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ORIGINAL: hjaco

Certainly.

Naval action is carried out at the very end of the strategy phase i.e. before the next turn begins. In each strategy phase there is 3 rounds of naval actions. Think of them as separate naval impulses.

Naval units going to/from their base spends one naval impulse to enter a new sea area. It is "free of charge" to enter/leave ports so naval Squadrons are considered to be in the sea area where their port is located in.

So a British DN in Scapa Flow with patrol orders for the North Sea to intercept German ships will automatically enter the North Sea immediately conducting search in the first naval impulse and each naval impulse thereafter.

Imagine the same British DN being ordered to patrol the Eastern Mediterranean to say hunt the Austrian fleet. Entering the North Sea will happen automatic and the 3 naval impulses in the same turn will be spent entering the Atlantic, Western Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean (3 sea zones = 3 naval impulses). In this example no naval impulse remains to execute the patrol mission i.e. searching for the Austrian fleet. So you have to wait until next turn in order to get that DN to search for the Austrian ships (if still there at that time )

So if that DN was based in Alexandria it would be able to search for full 3 impulses instead of using those impulses to travel that long distance.

Bottomline is base the necessary naval units next to where you need them. Say you concentrate on protecting the Atlantic as the Entente thereby abandoning any shipping attempts in the mediterranean and you can base all 12 French/British ships in Atlantic ports giving you far better chances to find those pesky SUBS. 12 DD times 3 impulses - even at low odds you stand a reasonable chance finding something. Whether you actually can sink something is another matter though.

It is equally important for the British to base your main fleet in an Atlantic port if you dismiss patrolling the North Sea. Each search attempt is crucial.

Hope this makes sense.

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ORIGINAL: hjaco

9) Send French cavalry into the middle east in order to gobble up empty hexes. Serbia is another great place for that.

10) Cavalry are great to block free enemy cavalry advancement. This forces your opponent to pay for each hex with activation points.

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ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

It does make sense Hjaco; but I assume this is only for the first turn you move the fleets to the sea area. Since fleets can stay at sea for a few turns I assume that during the subsequent strategic phases your fleets will get 3 full searches. Is my assumption correct?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

I am still very new at this game; I have only started 6 pbem games of which I won 1 quickly, lost 2 even quicker and the other 3 are still in progress. I say this only because I am unsure if the following suggestion is good advice and standard practice or not. If it is not I trust one of the more experienced players will correct me.

In any event in my recent game as the CP I went with a France 1st Strategy. However what my opponent did to blunt my attack was use his HQs to activate some of his cavalry units and move them into some of the hexes from which my units were attacking. As cavalry tend to move 1st if activated this had the effect of freezing my units in place and preventing them from moving at all. Of course in the subsequent combat phase his cavalry then retreated without loss. Although it meant using up a French Offensive I think this was a very effective (if perhaps ahistorical) use of his cavalry. Makes me wish I had thought of it. Perhaps I am the only one who never did think of it which is why it is not mentioned in any of the above posts as it belongs in the "Well Duh, of course" category.

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ORIGINAL:  FrankHunter

One correction OrvalB, when you activate, the adjacent combat units are activated even if they are stacked with a non-activated HQs.  The thing is, the HQs themselves aren't activated so if you click on that HQ and want to use a Move Stack order you can't do anything offensive.  But if you instead select a combat unit in that hex, you will be able to.