Dec 8. Novice Edition (Full Version)

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Rankorian -> Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 4:17:47 AM)

Imagine, you experts, someone trying to start this AE without ever playing the WITP original.

From someone who is going to play the AI, likely only one campaign (Japan. I would like to play as Allied against the boosted Japan scenario.....but let us be real.....I will be impressed with myself if I get to Japan 1943)

Read the 300+ manual.

Thinking about some of the game concepts. [air units are not the planes, but the "box":one can empty the box and then refill it--not immediately obvious]

Read these forums. [very useful]

Do the tutorials, stickied.

Puzzle over China.

Read these forums more.

Run the first turn, historical, with the surprise.

Go over ever Task Force [we are going to have a more compact empire]

Go through every base [stopping, mostly, the automatic expansions]

Looking at every LCU and air unit. Puzzle over China. This is the most time intensive step.

Review the manual. Discover hot keys. Only start owning hexes around curren units!--not immediately obvious.

Realize that marching a unit 3 hexes, over a river, will take a long time--correct. Turns out I only give movement orders to two units in China.

Run Dec 8 turn. Highlight is 54 Zero's and 90 Vals on Pearl Harbor. Thunderstoms may have helped, on net--the CAP is fragmented.

Spectacular. Just Spectacular. I feel I have my money's worth in just one turn.

Thank you.



bradfordkay -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 4:44:13 AM)

You seem to have the proper mindset. Welcome to the madhouse.



Skipjack_ -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 5:16:23 AM)

Sounds like a similar process to what I am going through - tried the Guadalcanal scenario in Witp, but did not get far.  I did not like it anyway - for a game like this, it's campaign game or nothing for me.
I started with India - moving units around (I love the images, sending elephants marching around makes me laugh), quickly found out how nice rail movement is.  Slowly learning what all the auxiliaries do - AGPs to reload PT boats at Balikpapan, ADs to service DDs, etc.  I just decided to start a game and begin the painful learning process by stumbling my way forward.

Keep us updated!  If you are hooked now, let us know what you think of surface combat - I sent force Z and the Dutch CLs to Miri and pasted 2 transport TFs - tons of fun!




LoBaron -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 12:54:11 PM)

Welcome to the madhouse. [:D]

Two things I´d like to point out:
quote:

ORIGINAL:  Rankorian
Run Dec 8 turn.  Highlight is 54 Zero's and 90 Vals on Pearl Harbor.  Thunderstoms may have helped, on net--the CAP is fragmented.


Bad weather is usually a disadvantage for the attacker because it fragments the attack (so high chances of unescorted bombers because
the escorts cannot keep contact)
The advantage for an attack in bad weather can be late detection of the strike, but it also has a huge negative effect on hit rate.
CAP does not "fragment" in bad weather.

And another hint: Don´t underestimate the Guadalcanal Scenario. It teaches you many things that are less obvious in the
Grand Campaign. You have the advantage of concentrating on a smaller set of tasks and get a feel to your unit composition
on a tactical level.
Also it teaches you a good lesson how to coope with supply/fuel shortages, about the effects of submarine warfare on supply
routes, about correct ASW composition, 100´s of such small things that make life in the Grand Campaign much easier if you
just know them by heart.

This is not to say that its a bad thing to jump into cold water. But this can result in the learnig of bad habits you´ll have
a hard time to get rid of if you start your first PBEM. [;)]


Have fun. 



topeverest -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 12:56:44 PM)

Been playing for almost five years, and I cant put this game series down. You will always be learning new techniques and rules. After you master your first AI game, PBEM is where its at. After you lose your first maor battle, I am curious if you will feel the same way as you do today!

Enjoy



Oldguard1970 -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 3:41:33 PM)

You will be very tempted to restart after the AI nails you.  ("Rats!  I goofed.  I didn't understand the rules.  I should have been doing this and that, but I wasn't.  Surely that is a good enough reason to restart, isn't it???") 

My recommendation is to fiddle with one of the smaller scenarios until you are comfortable that you know a bit of how the game works.  (You will never know ALL about how it works.)  Then you can return to your grand campaign against the AI.  Resist the temptation to start over.  Accept that your errors represent the learning curve that actually happens when a country engages in a new war.  You will discover soon enough that you "own" the AI, even given the major improvements made by Andy Mac.  You will have a better struggle and much more fun if you have to recover from your earlier errors. 



Grit -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 5:19:26 PM)

Here is a link to a thread with an Allied Setup Spreadsheet for the first move. It will give you an idea what to do with all those units. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2306421



AcePylut -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/4/2010 5:27:50 PM)

Here's a trick I learned the hard way.... ok, so the first turn takes like 20-30 hours "to do".  And it really sucks if you spend all this time on that turn only to realize that after hour 15, when you started messing with whatever, you screwed everything up and now you can't go back.

So when you're doing your first turn, save frequently, under different save files.

For example.... when doing the allied first turn, the first thing I do is Sub Ops.  After I "finish" giving orders to all of my subs, I will save the game in slot xx as "Allied Subs Complete".

Then, I will give orders to my Carriers, Force Z, CL Boise, and CA Houston... and save this file in slot XX+1 as "CV's complete".

Then after I go through all the ships, lcu's, theaters, etc. etc. I'll get to the point where I start harvesting good pilots from front line units in crap planes and setting up my training squadrons, tweaking what group s have what planes.... and in this step, it's really easy to mess up.   So lets say I do mess up in this step, but having multiple save files, I don't have to go "back to the beginning" and do everythign all over again.


Also, this allows me to "see" what happens when I make minor changes.....  (  For example, lets say I don't want any of the KB's planes on search during the PH attack... what effect did that have?  did I just open myself up to a fast cruiser strike?  Did the extra planes have an impact on the attack?  Should I put a squad or two of Vals that are on Airfield to Naval?  What happens if I put 4 Zero groups on Airfield attakc... and so on...)



jimh009 -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/5/2010 12:29:10 AM)

I keep the Allied first turn must shorter, at least against the AI. While it's obviously smarter to do everything "at once" on the first turn, realistically, it isn't necessarily needed. Plus, by not doing everything "at once" on the first turn, I think you get a bit more historical accuracy since the Allies in real-life hardly "ramped up to war" overnight.

For the Allied player, you can get away with a 2 hour first turn if you focus on the "essentials," and saving the micro-management stuff (like the pilot pool, checking every base to build fortifications, examing every aircraft group, adjusting altitude, etc...) for later.

The only thing about doing it this way is that you then need to remember to come back to some of those less-urgent but still needed micro-management tasks in the days/weeks ahead.



Torplexed -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/5/2010 1:33:21 AM)

I think the thing I puzzled with the most on the first turn as Allied, was where was the best place to send all those British, Indian and Ozzie brigades out at sea in convoys. They all ended up in Java, where they're still holding out. (March 1942) [:D]



jimh009 -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/5/2010 2:38:02 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

I think the thing I puzzled with the most on the first turn as Allied, was where was the best place to send all those British, Indian and Ozzie brigades out at sea in convoys. They all ended up in Java, where they're still holding out. (March 1942) [:D]


I send them to Colombo, since Java is ultimately doomed INMO. My philosophy is why waste the troops, when they can be put to good, long-lasting use defending Colombo and key areas in India.



Rankorian -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/10/2010 12:04:10 AM)

Did someone say madhouse? Great, we than compare meds. (JK!)

Playing the Guadacanal scenario is likely a great idea, in general, and I am sure it is a great scenario. But, I know my own attention limits, and it is a GC now, or never. And IJ just seems more attractive to me--as the side I least have understood, strategically.

As for reverses, turn 2: I decided not to invade Tarawa, sending that invasion fleet back....only to run into 3-4 US destroyers, which decimated them. OK.....so the AI can do some damage (overly aggressive, I hear--but that does make for a better game, particularly against a novice.)

Per the poster about multiple, intra-turn saves, yes, I do that. I am finding the pilot pool issues still a bit mystifying--the supply stuff seems intrinsically intuitive to me (sort of HOI3-ish, which I also liked--and, it seems like others, pointed me to this title)



minnowguy -> RE: Dec 8. Novice Edition (5/10/2010 1:23:20 AM)

Last time I started a campaign versus the AI, I resolved to document everything I did.  This lasted about 30 minutes and the results are on the AE Wiki (http://hc-strategy.com/ae/wiki/index.php?title=AlliedFirstTurnActions).

If anybody found this useful at the conceptual level, it might be worthwhile to go back and fill in details for more areas.  Or perhaps a group of people could volunteer to split up the different regions.

DEFINITELY save your work while doing the first turn.  By the end, that save file represented dozens of hours of work for me.  I actually started using git to stash my saves so I could go back to earlier versions.



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