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A real very beginner - 1/12/2010 10:35:59 PM   
Hankston

 

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From: Melrose FL
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I have been playing games for awhile,but not what I call real wargames as I see here.Also I am retired just a while back and thought I would try Advanced Tactics.I am very lost at what to do.I remember reading that the tutorial was bad,and not to offend the man who made this great game,the report was right.Being new at a computer and wargaming is a double hex on this old brain,but I find the game very interesting and intend tonight to read the downloaded manuel page by page.
Is there a way to learn some of the beginner steps from a few vets,here if you would and do you think this game is too much for a green beginner.Will soak up anything about the ins and outs of this game you give me and will be very thankful.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/12/2010 10:56:34 PM   
british exil


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Welcome Hankston.

One way to learn the game is to play a few random games against AI. You'll get the feel of building your units and then supplying them.

Then there are a few threads that might be helpful.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1723339

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2218154

Plus try reading the AAR's they help in learning what to do with your armies. I feel THE AAR to read is

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1866376


But the best thing you can do is ask, ask, ask.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/12/2010 11:41:25 PM   
Hankston

 

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From: Melrose FL
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Thanks for the tips and where to go,will follow these leads now

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/13/2010 3:58:18 PM   
Josh

 

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I think the best way to learn it is to play it versus the AI and read the threads British Exil posted. And then read some more, and play some more games. And again. I think we all did this, well at least I did.
I found it... puzzling at first, very puzzling. But after a few games you'll get the idea. Important to know is that the "units" are essentially "empty" counters (you create them by paying one Political Point... yes you have to produce Political Points too (PP)). After you created such an empty counter, *then* you can put Tanks, Inf, Art, or whatever in it. And don't make the counters too powerful, there's no such thing as an "Über-counter" (say 10 heavy tanks II in a counter). Try to make your units... flexible, that is, try to make units that are suited to the terrain they're facing. For instance, Infantery, AT guns and Mortars, Machine-guns absolutely rule in forests, cities and hills. Armour, even light Armour or armoured cars rule the plains. Try to achieve air superiority, allthough the AI is not *that* good at the airwar, you'll be suprised to see the amounts of divebombers the AI can use to annihilate your precious tanks. Artillery is great for reducing enemy strongholds and Inf units (their readiness goes down pretty fast confronted with 5 big guns level II)
Also remember that the fancy units (planes, tanks) do guzzle up large amounts of SUPPLY, and you have to produce that too. A LARGE army, especially when the majority of it is mechanized, eats away your supply. Producing a lot of supply also means that you can't use your production power for creating units/PP's.

Just a few other hints.
When you invade another continent be sure to send engineers too (one or two units of 40-50 engineers)... because supply goes via harbours/ports. And if there's no coastal city you already own on that continent you MUST create a PORT first, only then will supply flow again. Just create an engineer unit, wait till it's fully supplied (you can check the amount of supply on the counter itself by clicking on it), load it on a ship, and off you go to invade something. Land your unit on the enemy coast, then you must wait again a turn or two before the engineer unit has enough Engineer points ( I think they produce 2 Engineer Points per engineer and a port needs 100 EP's, so an unit consisting of 50 engineers need two turns to get 100 EP's).
Don't put green fresh unexperienced troops in an experienced unit, Exp. will go down rapidly that way.
Instead of creating a few big units, try to make more smaller ones, therefore you'll be more flexible *and* when you attack an enemy unit you can attack via more hexes ---> a multiple angled attack gets you a bonus, the more hexes you attack from the more bonus you get, up to 300%! (six times 50%). That is, if those units belong to the SAME HQ! (check that by looking at the coloured bar at the left hand side of the counter). If the HQ has a red bar on the left side, then the subordinate unit has a red bar too. You can even change that colour by clicking on the HQ, click on that bar (in the lowerhalf of your screen) and a popup menu appears, and then choose the colour you want. Personally I choose bright colours for my most active army groups ( red, yellow)
Protect your supply lines, units cut off from supply (they show a red dot on the counter) are a sitting duck after a few turns... You can use this to your advantage too. If the AI/ human opponent has a particular powerfull army group, try to cut it off from supply, encircle it and try to keep it encircled. Use you Art to lower his readiness, use your DIVE-bombers to hurt his armour, and then do a multiple angled attack. Blammo. The max amount of Power Points you can use in an attack is 100 points (that's 10 tanks, or 100 Infantery)*if* you attack from one or two hexes, more than that and you get a .... looking for the right english word for it... the opposite of "bonus" (malus?). So here you see that bigger is not always better. The max Power Point in a three pronged attack is 150 and so on.
I'm not quite sure about the number of bonus you get in a multiple angled attack, but it's displayed in the lowerhalf of you screen again. *IF* you use an unit from a different HQ in that attack the bonus is halved. And try to keep that HQ close to your troops, they get a bonus from that HQ too, but only if it's three hexes away, farther than that and the bonus lowers per extra hex added(100-80-60-40-20-0 percent bonus).
Oh, and horses are a great way to mobilize your troops! Forget trucks and armoured personel carriers, they're nice but costly and only come in later in the game, then you can give them to your crack troops.

Have fun.

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Post #: 4
RE: A real very beginner - 1/13/2010 9:55:38 PM   
Knavery


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Ha. And this is supposed to be a game for beginners. Yeah right.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/13/2010 11:58:43 PM   
Hankston

 

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From: Melrose FL
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Thx for the info on the empty counters,as that is where I am really messing up.Sometimes I can fill them with a tank or a rifle and then another time I can't. I mostly can not understand how to play even from reading the manuel.I am lost on supply and the making of HQ's. I think you have to always have a HQ in a town,I think.
Thanks for trying to help me and I wish that I could be getting advice on warring,but I am lost on how this game works right now.Hope to read and reread this manuel.
Thx again

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 12:57:00 AM   
ghoward

 

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If you look in the "mods ans scenarios" section of the forum, you will find a bunch of tutorials, most by Tom Webber and Vic (you can pretty much take whatever Tom says to the bank and Vic wrote the program). Try walking through those. I have a 60 year old brain too, and although I have understood each part of this game once, understanding it all at once exceeds my memory capacity, so I visit the tutorials frequently. The game is really worth it, but initially, it is like getting your teeth replaced.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 2:22:52 AM   
Hankston

 

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Thx alot,Ijust turned 64 and have always in a respectfull way for those who lost their lives,loved the mystic of WWII.I will start reading those mods and scenarios.Right now I have the manuel only on my computer,but I have it coming in the mail.In my hand step by step I hope to do better.Also sorry about the bad spelling as I am learning to use computer,being kind of new at it also

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 3:20:18 PM   
Josh

 

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From: Leeuwarden, Netherlands
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hankston

Thx for the info on the empty counters,as that is where I am really messing up.Sometimes I can fill them with a tank or a rifle and then another time I can't. I mostly can not understand how to play even from reading the manuel.I am lost on supply and the making of HQ's. I think you have to always have a HQ in a town,I think.
Thanks for trying to help me and I wish that I could be getting advice on warring,but I am lost on how this game works right now.Hope to read and reread this manuel.
Thx again


Ah, I think I understand your question as to why you can't put a tank or a rifleman in a counter.You see, every city (or, most cities) produce things like supply, tanks, political points, planes and so on. This production then goes to a HQ. A random game starts with one HQ (well, most random games do..) and usually you have one city under your control (the start of your mighty and powerful empire). That city automatically is transferring the things it produces into the Supreme HQ (SHQ). But *when* you capture another city that is capable of producing things, *then* you have to assign a HQ to that city... it has to send its stuff somewhere... (if you do not assign a HQ to that city it does continue to produce things, but they don't show up in a HQ, they "stay" in that city until you assign a HQ. If it produces 20 Inf per turn then after three turns there will be 60 troops available.... if you assign a HQ that is).
Hope I am clear so far?
Well anyways, back to your question. The produced things are now *in* your SHQ, or another HQ for that matter, but not yet in a unit/counter. How do you get them in an unit? By transferring them to that unit you want, but for transport you need trucks/horses/armoured personnel carriers/ships. Each of those provide transport power, trucks and horses for transport over land, ships for seatransport. The actual number you have available for transport can be seen in the HQ unit counter. I think a truck gives 2000 transport points. A horse 1000 (something like that, I could be wrong). Now you want some Inf. replacements in an unit that has sustained losses. Click on the HQ, click on transport, and then click on the unit you want to transfer to. Every Inf. man/tank/AT gun you transfer cost transfer points that is subtracted from the total Transfer capability your HQ has. Heavy things like tanks cost way more than a Inf.man, and it will cost you even more when the distance from your HQ and the unit it wants to transfer to, increases. So, a Heavy Tank that you want to transfer across fourty hexes or so will cost you ... say, 10.000 transfer points. That's five trucks or so. Some scenarios have trains available too, they have even more Transfer capapcity. This way it reflects the huge network of transport you must have if you're battling on a huge scale.
Now if you have a HQ and the (new) unit in the *same hex* it does not require transport costs at all, but to make new units, or send them replacements, you'll need transports.
Now this is all with one SHQ... but when you take a city far far away, you might as well assign that city to a new HQ. Then the stuff that city produces does not need to go back all the way to your SHQ, but is sent directly to your new HQ. You will see that your HQ's will get filled with not only staff.... but all sorts of fighting stuff too. That HQ can then send tanks/planes/guns to his subordinate units without a *readiness loss*. Remember, if stuff gets sent from one HQ to an unit from a different HQ, they will suffer from a readiness loss= low fighting capacity, and to regain their 100% readiness they use up more supply too.
Now this transfer is different from the Strategic Transfer, then the unit is transported across a certain distance as a whole. The whole unit/counter is then transferred to a new place you want it to be.... needless to say it's readiness takes a significant hit too. That takes a turn or two/three to be 100% again.

Sooooo long story short, your HQ need transport vehicles

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 3:23:22 PM   
Josh

 

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Oh, by the way, I still don't know the word for the opposite of "bonus"?
Sometimes after a day or so the right word pops up in my mind... not this time... must be the whiskey

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 7:07:43 PM   
Hankston

 

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From: Melrose FL
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Thx so much Josh.That really helped me alot and am going to try another small random map.Did not really know how real the transport system was untill your explanation.I laugh now as I thought a couple of trucks would satisfy the game.I have played way to many fantasy games,lol,and still learning how this new type of war game I am learning is the real thing.Just to last awhile in the game do you or other vets out there suggest I just defend right now to learn the game.I was kicked to the curb very fast while trying to learn against two AI's I made,but I was trying to advance with decent research going.The tranfers and HQ's were messing me up and I got destroyed.I would like to defend and learn from their attacks.What do you guys think?
And thanks again for the help.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 8:45:08 PM   
Hankston

 

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From: Melrose FL
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And I did go back and I got it right now on the transfer,but now I grabbed a new city and even though I set it up to make stuff it does not do it,plus I can not make it a HQ.I am trying to get this how to do out of the manuel but I can not do these things.It says I can have four HQ's but I can not make them.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 9:18:15 PM   
british exil


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You need 5 pp's to create a HQ. You should be able to create a HQ in the city You've captured. Then click on the city and assign it to a HQ. All your production will be placed in your HQ.

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WitE,UV,AT,ATG,FoF,FPCRS

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 9:52:17 PM   
Hankston

 

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From: Melrose FL
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Thanks,I will check on the PP's but I think I had them,also the button you refer to is set HQ,Correct?

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 10:46:09 PM   
Josh

 

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Thx Hankston. It's a good thing you're getting clobbered now, because that proofs the AI is okay. Multiple AI's can be a challenge, even for a seasoned player. AI + or ++ does not make the AI better, ony gives it huge amounts of troops and endless amounts of tanks ---> no fun.

You can have much more than four HQ's, I think the HQ-tree is limited to four (that is three subordinate HQ's). So you can have say 20 HQ's, each with subordinate HQ's attached. More HQ's tend to become a bit... confusing. Like British Exil said, you need Political Points to create HQ's, units and research. PP's are produced in cities. In a random game you start with one HQ attached to that city, all of it's production goes to that HQ. You can change that later though, if more convenient, and set that city to produce stuff for another HQ. Just click on the city, click on "set HQ" and click on the HQ. You can also change that way the HQ of an unit. Say a unit strayed far away from it's HQ, things like that happen in games, then you can either track all the way back to it's HQ... or you can assign a new HQ to that unit by clicking on the counter, click on set new HQ, and click on the new HQ. Note that now also the corresponding coloured bar on the unit has the same colour as the bar on it's new HQ.

So ahum, in the first city you want to produce a few things at first. Supply is foremost, because without it even the most powerful units are sitting ducks. At first you don't need much supply (until you start to create the fancy things like tanks and planes), so crank it up one notch, maybe two. That should create something like 200-300-600 supply points. (depending on the size of the city). The other three bars should be used for Infantery (cheap, the foundation of your army), horses (cheap, great for transport capacity for the HQ *or* by attaching them to your foot soldiers they become faster moving soldiers, one horse moves 10 Inf, or one gun,AT gun, Flak gun) and some armoured cars. The second turn you build engineers, very important for building roads. Supply moves freely over roads... till a certain distance that is, but that is of no concern right now.
Oh yeah, you need to build PP's too for creating new units, research and HQ's... choices, choices, choises...
So anyway, after a few turns you should have a core army of some Inf. units (say consisting out of 30, maybe 40 Inf grunts), some of them on horseback. Some fast moving armoured units (for the moment armoured cars) and one or two engineer units for creating roads, bridges (!) (supply does need bridges to cross rivers) and airfields. Move FAST! It's a goldrush out there, the faster you are the better, because the more producing cities you have the stronger you are. (personally I play against multiple AI's and the People's Republic, they "own" the country and alrady are in the towns everyone else wants to conquer. If you set the PR at + or ++, they can really put up a fight against you *and* the AI's. Otherwise it would be first come first serve, read the first one that enters a town owns that town... now you need to take if from the People's Republic. Yeah it's tough to be a Supreme Ruler hehehe. That also means that the AI must take it from the PR, and this creates a very lively battlefield IMHO.... (that's: In My Humble Opinion)

Sooo, your idea of turtling up=bad! The AI will come at you fast and even worse, it will outproduce you, which is even badder. So go get them. Then, when you have conquered some turf, then you can set some areas to defend (that's turtling up yes). That's just a HQ with some Inf units, some armour and Artillery. You can't be on the offensive everywhere.... well you can, but usually some areas are active and some don't need that much units/troops/attention. Shift your attention and the majority of your forces to the most important areas. That is his advancing units, and the cities... those are the goldmines. Try to use the terrain to your advantage, Inf in forests and hills with AT guns, machine guns and Flak behind it, Armour in the plains. Try to keep your frontlines intact, and exploit the holes in your opponents frontlines. Encircle with fast moving troops (that's where the horses, or trucks come in), cut off, destroy.

Do make armoured cars at first, cheap, trough to beat, and fast. Later on tanks and tankhunters. Try to keep Inf units filled with Inf, and armoured units with .... armour, duh. ... that rule is certainly not set in stone though. I make units with about 50 powerpoints. Then you can attack with two units (= 100 points) from one hex without a ... what's that word again... malus (?) but even better with those two units you can attack from two hexes to get that bonus. *If* those hexes are opposite (an attack from the front and the rear hex) you'll get 50% bonus. Some turns later in the game I fill the 30-40 Inf units up with Machine guns (defence) and Mortars (great for killing enemy troops) and maybe even some AT guns (the AI fears AT guns I've noticed... and rightfully so). Do put some horses in there too, because without them the Inf unit with guns becomes an "Art" unit and moves ONE hex per turn... which sucks. If you have 30 Inf men and ONE gun and ONE horse it becomes a FOOT moving unit, which is still slow. If you then attach THREE more horses it then becomes a horse moving unit, which is pretty fast... and importantly, it moves fast in mud, hills and swamp. Tracked vehicles, which rule in the summer in plains, bog down in the mud. One horse has a carrying capacity of 10, a truck 20. So one truck can carry 20 troops and 2 guns.

Hm, almost midnight here, I'm off to bed, have fun.


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RE: A real very beginner - 1/14/2010 11:07:37 PM   
Hankston

 

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Thanks again Josh.I know that is alot of typing you did to explain and thank you.I think I got the set up for HQ's now.Click city,click set HQ button,then click HQ Button.Once I get that right I will savor your tips as I reread them.It's Only 1800 here in Florida so I got the rest of the night,lol.Thx again

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/18/2010 4:06:43 PM   
rjh1971


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Josh

Oh, by the way, I still don't know the word for the opposite of "bonus"?
Sometimes after a day or so the right word pops up in my mind... not this time... must be the whiskey


I would use penalty. Feeling any better?
Bty very good tips Hankston must be pleased.
Regards.

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RE: A real very beginner - 1/18/2010 10:11:28 PM   
Josh

 

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Thx Rjh! I just couldn't remember the proper word, penalty seems okay, but I was looking for a different word.... then again maybe my mind is playing tricks with me

Well anyway, AT is a great game, and I enjoyed it for 2 years straight. Playing it almost every day... half an hour or so, sometimes more. But it does lack a good tutorial, and like many I was puzzled too at first. Took many mouseclicks to discover the gem this game really is.
Bought The Operational Art of War (TOAW) recently, and this game does have a decent tutorial. You start a small scenario and open a txt.file at the same time, where everything is explained step by step. Simple, but effective. I'm most certain that Victor will include a tutorial or two in his next project. Sometimes it is very hard for a seasoned player to explain all these things to a new player, he doesn't see any problems at all whereas a new player sees nothing but a moutain of difficulties That's why a good tutorial is as important as a good manual is.

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RE: A real very beginner - 5/24/2010 9:03:03 PM   
82ndtrooper


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From: tennessee
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hankston

Thanks again Josh.I know that is alot of typing you did to explain and thank you.I think I got the set up for HQ's now.Click city,click set HQ button,then click HQ Button.Once I get that right I will savor your tips as I reread them.It's Only 1800 here in Florida so I got the rest of the night,lol.Thx again


oh bro I see what your doing wrong.

you have to click the create unit button not the set HQ button. you create a unit and then you have the option to make it a regular unit or a HQ.

I hope your still around and havent given up on the game

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