EUBanana
Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
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ORIGINAL: davekinva
A few questions/comments:
Well, I'm hardly an expert, but here goes... take it or leave it (or argue over it :D).
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3. WRT transports, I get that as a basic strategy for the CP you should always use 2 transports in the Baltic at all times, and that it's really not a good idea to use transports in the Atlantic, as they get sunk. Correct?
More or less, though you get cargo from TRs in contested naval hexes, so if you sortie the High Seas Fleet for fun and games it might be worth sending out the transports as well. If you make it as far as the Atlantic and have a battle, you'll get some resources.
But yes, usually I just save them all for the Baltic.
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4. Is there a good submarine strategy for the CP? Has anyone ever used subs effectively? How many do you need? Where do you deploy them? Is it cost-effective, or a waste of CP resources?
Subs are extremely effective until the Entente gets ASW, which takes them about a year assuming they are R&Ding right from the start. The presence of submarines does rather force the Entente to divert valuable R&D to ASW warfare, and in 1914 at least there is precious spare Entente industry to go around.
If the Entente doesn't invest in ASW, and the CPs invest in a sub fleet (say, five submarines) then the Brits are toast. So yeah, their impact can be major.
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5. Bulgaria enters the war, I use them against Serbia. I exhaust their 2 HQ points. Bulgaria eventually accrues enough industrial points to purchase new HQ refits, the HQ refit button is there on the national purchase screen. . . but I can't purchase any HQ refits.
On the later versions you can do this, though you usually need to transfer finished goods from a major power to a minor as their industry is tiny - fractions of a point.
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6. This is probably in the manual, but are assaults into hexes improved by attacking from multiple hexes/directions?
Don't think so, though if you surround a hex completely then it out of supply.
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7. Any tips on the "ideal" attack into a hex? I'm guessing it's a mix of "Arty on 1st impulse, attack with high readiness/high strength units plus Arty support on 2nd impulse, outnumber the enemy, outclass the enemy" kind of tactic, but I was wondering what the best way is to maximize my chances.
Multiple waves and sustained pressure is the guaranteed way to take a hex. The Western and Italian fronts have special rules that make attacking harder, though I dont find them noticeably static until trenches at level 3 are common.
If an assault fails, assuming the odds were not totally in favour of one side you will have badly damaged the enemy even if they won. So a followup assault will crush them badly.
If you dont have reserves you can try a massive and sustained artillery barrage to cut their readiness, but thats still somewhat about reserves as the enemy can rotate in fresh units if they have spare ones.
Rather like the real WW1 its largely about brute force mass.
Poison gas is an exception, you don't get many gas attacks (4 per research, and that only if you beat the enemy to researching it) but gas /rocks/. For those four doses you will have a major advantage. Don't use more than one dose of gas per assault though, pumping all your gas into one hex is a waste.
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8. Is there an advantage to attacking with friendly artillery that's already been loaded vs. "reload and barrage"?
Not that I know of.
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9. Is there a defensive advantage to having friendly artillery in a hex? Does it have to already be loaded? Is it just versus enemy artillery (counterbattery) or is it against enemy units attacking into the hex? Does friendly arty assist surrounding hexes when attacked?
AFAIK if you dont set it to barrage artillery does nothing. It does help in defensive war though in two ways.
a) if you happen to fire during the turn of the attack it will cut the enemy readiness before the actual assault, thus improving your defence.
b) after the enemy has taken the hex - if they take it - they will be in an untrenched position, so if you promptly drench it with artillery you'll maul them horribly.
I consider artillery to be mainly an attritional thing. Generally speaking it is cost effective to use at all times, providing R&D keeps up (firing level 1 artillery at level 4 trenches is a waste of time). I tend to fire my guns constantly throughout the game, its just a question of finding the juiciest target.
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10. Is it better to use artillery early and often, even when not attacking? For the points cost, it seems a cheap way to keep up the "wastage" on the enemy front, as long as the enemy isn't entrenched. But not sure if this is cost effective to use artillery outside of assaults.
Exactly so.
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11. If I understand it correctly, artillery vs. trenches is a straight progression, i.e. Level 1 artillery is good only against targets out in the open, but nullified by Level 1 (or higher) entrenchments. Basically, to be effective artillery technology level must be at least one level higher than the target entrenchment. Is this true? Or is artillery still effective if it's equal to the entrenchment? Is there any (degraded) effectiveness in using lower-level artillery against higher-level entrenchments?
Dicerolls are involved, its not an absolute, so artillery will do something, even if outclassed by the defence, just not so much. It isnt cost effective to use low grade artillery against high grade trenches, though. Hopefully by the time they have good trenches, you have good artillery, though! Artillery or aircraft (or both) I consider crucial, I'm R&Ding one or both of those every turn, pretty much.
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10. I've found the number of industrial points to be VERY limiting-- I find myself wishing I had just a few more on every turn. I understand that you can't/shouldn't be able to do everything you want every turn, but it's really on the margin of being less than it should be. By the end of 1916 my R&D is far behind what I think it should be, my HQ points are hard to keep up, I have understrength units everywhere, not enough air, forget about doing more than one naval sortie of the High Seas Fleet, I haven't built ANY new units, etc. etc..
I don't think so. If you're playing as the CPs though managing your economy is much more difficult than as the Entente. If Germany is on ~10 industry a turn then you are suffering due to the general lack of resources the CPs suffer from.
I know food is very important too but to keep the CP war machine rolling in the short term as opposed to the medium its imperative that you keep control or capture raw materials hexes. My favourite is the three hexes in France right on the German border (Verdun is I believe a double hex so that counts as x2 raw materials). Even in an east first strategy I simultaneously assault in the west with those as objectives. There are Russian resources in easy range of the Ottomans in the Caucasus too which are well worth having, but in my experience even though the Caucasus Front looks like its not well covered by the Russians, the Ottoman troops are so dire that they need a couple of German units to stiffen them if you try and take those. Also Tblisi has a fort so you need to send some siege artillery down there too ideally.
The other thing to manage is the Ottoman/Austrian Empires. When Serbia and Bulgaria are in the CPs by hook or by crook, you can transport raw materials from the OE to Germany. By the time Bulgaria is in the OE will have built up quite a stockpile, assuming the Entente havn't stomped them. This will provide a much welcome boost to Germany in the mid war - having 27 industry for a couple of turns in mid war isn't too hard to achieve, and thats a /lot/. Austria needs the raw mats themselves, but they have a one or two point surplus until quite late on, so thats more stuff to be shipped to Germany when the opportunity permits.
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12. After the first few turns I realized that I was playing the game FAR too aggressively. I did great in France-- during the setup I reinforced the Schlieffen right wing, marched into Paris before 1914 was out-- but used up HQ points like crazy. I ignored the east until 1915, and found that the Russians have a steamroller right on the border. I'm into 1916 now, and AH is growing very weak, still haven't finished off Serbia, the Italians and now Romanians have jumped in, and I just can't seem to do much against the Russians with Germany-- the line is as static as in the West.
HQ points are extremely valuable and should be used efficiently (obviously!). Try and position your HQs so you get the maximum mileage out of them, you dont really need all that many activations to do a front wide offensive if they are nicely spread out. The initial stock of HQ points is, IMO, if anything too generous. I don't tend to start buying new ones until late 1915 at the earliest.
You can rail in Austrian, Bulgarian or Ottoman HQs too to use them up commanding German troops too remember. I tend to do that quite a lot - the OE is usually a complete backwater in my games.
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Aside from the obvious advice to take things slower next time, is there any advice/basic strategies for handling the East and the Balkans?
I'm a big fan of attacking everywhere as the CPs in 1914, though with the focus on France as Russia is just too damn big - they need to be starved and bled out, which takes a long time, while France is small enough for you to actually be able to feasibly occupy it without running out of HQ points. Poland should be fairly easily grabbed, thats 2 food right there. And you want those three raw mat hexes in France too.
The other side of attacking everywhere though is knowing when to give up and go defensive. A lot of people including myself seem to attack and attack and attack with the CPs until long after its doing any good. When you get bogged down and aren't getting anywhere pause and bide your time. Ultimately its attritional warfare and HQ points are expensive (24 arms, thats a whole corp-equivalent of industry used up in an offensive before anybody has been shot!) so unless you're achieving an objective you shouldn't be spending them.
That said putting the hurt on is an objective in itself. Russia and France both need to be bled and badly hurt in the early war - if they survive with their armies intact into 1916 Germany is toast. Russia in particular has a glass jaw due to a lack of industry - they get a lot of units but if the fighting is intense they'll not be able to recoup their losses due to being unable to buy arms. France is more resilient but even they can be bled, France should be a shadow of its former self in 1916 and propped up by the BEF!
...flop. well, thats a long rant/discussion. There really is a lot of possibilities, thats just how I play, but GoA has a surprising amount of depth to it for an outwardly simple game. I've been playing it all year and try out new things all the time.  . So these are only suggestions/observations.
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