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Newb question volume infiniti - 4/12/2018 1:14:56 AM

heliodorus04

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I'm not even playing the game yet, even though I've spent about 2 hours so far watching various videos, including the Matrix Logistics videos.

Where logistics are concerned, I'm confused with something in the manual. The manual describes levels of depots (4 to 1) and the logistics videos only ever refer to priority of depots (as far as I've witnessed).
If I understand the manuals, the levels of depots are static and assigned to National Production Centers (4), Ports, Railyards, and player created depots (lowest, at 1). Is that right?

Where priority is assigned to each player-created depot, I think I understand the basic concept. Where I am confused is what the difference is between having 25 depots covering (arbitrary example) the front from Antwerp to Switzerland versus having 10 depots covering the same distance, or having 50 depots covering it. Is "more" bad in this system? How would it function in War in the East 2?

Where air combat is concerned, why is "Interdiction" not a mission I can select from the hotkeys? It seems to be THE most important mission in game, from everything I've read.

I'm seriously, seriously concerned about the amount of management the air combat is going to demand. Too much data management, not enough gameplay... Seems like a ton of clicking... That's just looking at Sicily scenario; what's 1944 going to look like? How do you manage (particularly as a learner versus the AI)?

< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 4/12/2018 1:15:57 AM >

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/12/2018 7:05:08 AM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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Depots and Supply.

This could be a bit clearer in the manual (ahem).

Ok depots have 3 characteritistics.

1) Their type (national supply, port or railyard). This is fixed, in essence, it actually says what allows them to function
2) Their size - now this is sort of fixed. So a National Supply Source (NSS) and a railyard depot has its size set by the functioning size of the railyard, a port depot by the functioning size of the port. So a town with a level 1 railyard will have a smaller depot than one with a level 4 railyard.

But ... railyards and ports can be damaged, so operate less effectively in supporting their associated depot. Such damage can happen in combat or be inflicted by bombing. In fact bombing rail yards is a very good idea - not only does it reduce the capacity of the associated rail system, it also reduces the capacity of the depots.

3) Their priority - now you set this. In effect it tells the supply network two things ... how supply flows from the NSS towards the front, depots will send to an equal or higher rated target depot, so you tend to work from 1-3/4 rear to front and how to allocate the supply in a given region (so a 4 will take more than a 3 ... if it can be delivered).

You've not asked but the final step is depot-HQ. Setting HQ priority determines what happens once every HQ has enough to satisfy level 1 needs. Red Lancers one page guide is essential reading for this.

When transporting supply the system likes to rely on trains and boats. It will substitute trucks if the train network doesn't work or is too limited. As in WiTE, too much reliance on your truck fleet leads to damaged trucks and less MP for your combat units (did I mention that bombing rail yards was a good idea?)

Depot network and numbers is a bit Feng Shui to be honest.

There are two reasons for lots. If you have no large ones (the railyard/port size point above) and to ensure that as many combat HQs are within at least 3 hexes of a depot (this gives a much lower cost to the final supply distribution process).

So with the Allies in Italy, you may as build all the depots you can for a given configuration of the front. On the southern part of the French front (ie attacking towards Strasbourg etc) may as well do the same. As you move into Belgium this is less critical as you will get a few very large depots based in places like Brussels (once the railyard is repaired).

If you've landed in S France and are pushing up the Rhone, you just need a few to keep the supply flow going.

As the front moves on, disband some of these small depots, set others to #1/2 as intermediate links in the supply chain.

Edit:

There are two map views that are invaluable. Depressing the supply mode will show your depots and rail line usage (this the pt that Gunulf makes below) which gives you a nice oversight of how the system is operating.

As an aside, note you can only create a depot either in a friendly port or in a hex with a railyard that is connected to the rail net and NOT in an enemy ZoC. So defensively, it can make sense to try and hold on to the edges of a major city (say Brussels) as you deny its use to the enemy.

The other is by pressing '8'. You will then see where your units are pulling supply from (it only shows the link to the depot that provides the most), in combination you'll see where supply is short or where your units are having to use trucks to reach back to a supply source.

Second Edit:

Even more than in WiTE, play the scenarios. Breakout and Pursuit will teach you a lot about the tactical air war. Either Market Garden or West Wall will give you an insight into how to manage the supply system.

< Message edited by loki100 -- 4/12/2018 8:54:33 AM >

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Post #: 2

RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/12/2018 7:23:14 AM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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Air War

Seriously suggest start by using the air directive creation routine (again Red Lancer's one page guides are your best friend).

Imagine you are Churchill after that 15th brandy and you are dictating priorities to your air commanders.

So you tell the commander of 2 Tactical Air that you want 60% of his planes flying ground attack - interdiction, 20% doing ground attack - unit and 20% on ground support. You tell Harris that you want Bomber Command hitting German manpower and HI (you might as well tell him this as he'll do it anyway).

The system will then turn these priorities into actual Air Directives and it does a pretty sensible job of picking the right planes with the right load outs for these missions. Since its what the AI is doing, its more than good enough.

After a while, start looking at the created ADs. You can modify them manually. Perhaps you want the bombing area to be reduced, or the primary target changed, or perhaps to cancel a particular mission. This starts to give you a feel for what works etc.

You can leave it there for AI games.

Going deeper is interesting, you can choose which planes with which bomb loads do which mission. But approach this by steps, it does get intuitive after a while.

If the whole thing fills you with horror, you can fully automate, just tell the AI to handle the entire air war.

Interdiction

While bits of the air war show WiTE as the root, mostly its very new. There are three clusters of land bombing missions:

Ground Support
Ground Attack
Strategic Bombing

Ground Support you know from WiTE, you assign planes to a land HQ and they will support any relevant combat (in both turns). You can assign to say SHAEF (and they will help out in any combat in N Europe) or to a single corps (where they will only support that corps). Going to high level command can be efficient ... not least in most turns you only see 3-5 actual attacks but linking to a lower level means your planes are fresh and ready for a particular offensive.

Ground Attack is a cluster of missions that you would give to tactical aircraft. In the game these are mostly Fighter Bombers and 2 Engined Level Bombers. Some are to hit infrastructure (port and railyards), some directly impact the battlefield. Here you have two - unit and interdiction.

A 'unit' mission is to go and bomb the units in a hex, it aims to cause immediate losses to the target formation, it can be devastating as a strong unit can be ripped to pieces before the combat phase (and as you know the combat model means that disrupted elements do not fight).

An 'interdiction' mission is to go and bomb anything that moves in a given hex(es). A lot of things move, supply, reinforcements, units moving, reserves reacting to combat, units retreating from combat. For damage/plane this is the better mission but the effect is indirect (you also take less flak losses as your pilots have a bit more choice where they go).

Strategic Bombing in turn has a variety of specific targets. Some overlap with the Ground attack list (ports and railyards), some are unique. Strat bombing can only be done by 4 engined bombers (the best choice) and 2 engined level bombers (an ok choice). Its a very different aspect to the game and I'd strongly suggest playing both the intro air scenario and something like Point Blank. Use the approach above - give it to the AI, set your mission priorities, do it yourself - till you start to see how it works out.

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/12/2018 7:43:42 AM

Gunnulf

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I think what you will find about WITW is that while there is lots of detail, plenty of things you can fiddle with to optimise, if you dive in you can get very good results with logistics through a very intuitive approach. As soon as you click the button to bring up the logistics interface you will see a network of depots, it will be clear from the black bars which have tons of supply sitting there and if you hover over the tooltip will explain what depot type it is and whats coming in and out. It will be clear from the numbers on the depots which have priority and if in your first game you ensure the ones closest to the front have 4 and those elsewhere have 2 you will be fine, and supply will end up where its needed and you can largely ignore it and get on with shifting divisions towards Berlin.
Then you can start to fiddle and set zeros for depots in backwaters you never want supply to go to, maybe start to put 4s in depots close to your primary offensive and 3 in less vital areas. You will see from the colours on the railways where bottlenecks might be etc... You can do the detail to optimise but in most scenarios, especially in Northern Europe things work well without stressing too much in your first games.
Regards the complexity of the Air management, similarly you can take a fairly hands off approach to start with. You can set high level objectives for each air command with a few click, say tell RAF bomber command to focus on Manpower at high level, heavy industry & oil medium focus and click to auto-generate missions and it will do a pretty reasonable job of creating air missions and assigning aircraft and you can forget about it and focus on your divisions. As your front line advances your AI air marshals will adjust accordingly the targets, and the only task you might consider is shifting a few stacks of fighters closer to the front line when a base becomes available. But then as confidence grows from seeing what the AI creates you can start to fiddle, adjust some of these missions, switch squadrons around etc... So in short you have a smart system that means you can do well with a few clicks and let the AI air support you, or if you want more detail you can start clicking, but its not an ominous amount of clicking if you don't want it to be, and even if you dig into the detail its never too much.

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/12/2018 4:26:36 PM

cfulbright

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Loki,

Can you post a link for Red Lancer's one-pager on Logistics?

And question: Is it better to leave rear area depots at zero, or disband them, and is there a different answer for rear area depots in ports (i.e., will a port still channel supplies to frontline depots if there's no depot in the port)?

Cary

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Post #: 5

RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/12/2018 4:48:17 PM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Loki,

Can you post a link for Red Lancer's one-pager on Logistics?

And question: Is it better to leave rear area depots at zero, or disband them, and is there a different answer for rear area depots in ports (i.e., will a port still channel supplies to frontline depots if there's no depot in the port)?

Cary

Its Guide 11 from the manual - not sure if there is actually a web based version?

Depots:

Zero or disband? My view is you never need to use it again you may as well disband but it makes little practical difference. A priority 0 depot will claim no freight and hold no trucks but you may shed the trucks etc faster by disbanding. More from WiTE2, it makes sense for a German player to set depots to 0 on the assumption that if you are pushed back it saves you admin pts if all you need to do is simply change the priorities?

You need a network in the rear - somewhere I saw something (Pavel maybe?) that indicated a depot every 8-10 hexes along a rail line helps the flow of supply etc but they can be at #1 as they are simply intermediate store pts. I think the logic is that if a rail line maxes out and you lack the rail cap to push supply to the final destination these intermediate depots will pick up the surplus. In turn you can access via trucks or its going to be cheaper to move up to the front next turn.

Depots/Ports.

I can't find a definitive statement either in the WiTW manual or the draft for WiTE2. Its clear you need a depot in the receiving port to attract freight. The rules say that freight tends to flow between lower and higher priorities so that indirectly suggests you need a depot in the sending port. You may also need a depot in the sending port to ensure that the port attracts freight from the NSS.

On the other hand this suggests you only need a depot in the receiving port:

quote:

Supply trace over all water hexes requires a port to port connection, with at least one of the ports being on the supply grid and possessing a type 3 depot (port supply source).

I can't get a handle on this in my current game as almost every port has a depot (even if at 0) and those without are odd ports in the UK where I'd not actually expect to have any supply to send out (and there is no local demand).

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/14/2018 7:48:23 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Loki,

Can you post a link for Red Lancer's one-pager on Logistics?

And question: Is it better to leave rear area depots at zero, or disband them, and is there a different answer for rear area depots in ports (i.e., will a port still channel supplies to frontline depots if there's no depot in the port)?

Cary

Hi Cary

Done a test, simply destroyed all the N African depots apart from Oran (you can't remove this as its a NSS) and reran an early turn from my current game.

None of the ports without a depot shipped any freight, so the only source for the Sicily depots was Oran and a little came via the US depots.

So its clear you need a depot in both the sending and receiving port for the freight link to work.

Roger

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/14/2018 3:24:23 PM

cfulbright

Posts: 2778
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Roger,

Awesome! Thank you.

Cary

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Post #: 8

RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/16/2018 5:29:26 AM

Bobbybat

Posts: 57
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Where are the 'Red Lancer One Page Guides'? I know 4a and 4b are installed with the system, but is there a link somewhere to the others?

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Post #: 9

RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/16/2018 6:24:07 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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If you look in the folder where the game is set up you'll find a players guide (this came with the original game so hasn't been updated like the living manual).

The original group of 1 page guides are in section 19 of that.

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 4/16/2018 7:51:10 AM

Bobbybat

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Perfect - thanks!

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RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 6/11/2018 3:19:39 PM

Bobbybat

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Joined: 4/16/2003
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quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

Interdiction

While bits of the air war show WiTE as the root, mostly its very new. There are three clusters of land bombing missions:

Ground Support
Ground Attack
Strategic Bombing

Ground Support you know from WiTE, you assign planes to a land HQ and they will support any relevant combat (in both turns). You can assign to say SHAEF (and they will help out in any combat in N Europe) or to a single corps (where they will only support that corps). Going to high level command can be efficient ... not least in most turns you only see 3-5 actual attacks but linking to a lower level means your planes are fresh and ready for a particular offensive.

Ground Attack is a cluster of missions that you would give to tactical aircraft. In the game these are mostly Fighter Bombers and 2 Engined Level Bombers. Some are to hit infrastructure (port and railyards), some directly impact the battlefield. Here you have two - unit and interdiction.

A 'unit' mission is to go and bomb the units in a hex, it aims to cause immediate losses to the target formation, it can be devastating as a strong unit can be ripped to pieces before the combat phase (and as you know the combat model means that disrupted elements do not fight).

An 'interdiction' mission is to go and bomb anything that moves in a given hex(es). A lot of things move, supply, reinforcements, units moving, reserves reacting to combat, units retreating from combat. For damage/plane this is the better mission but the effect is indirect (you also take less flak losses as your pilots have a bit more choice where they go).

Hi Loki. I have asked a similar question before, but I understood from that conversation that the AI creates the missions based on the 'Automatic Air Directive Creation' settings. What I am taking from the above though is that somehow the player can choose whether or not a given Ground Support mission is of type 'unit' versus 'interdiction'??

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Post #: 12

RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 6/11/2018 3:38:15 PM

cfulbright

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Bobby,

The player can manually set every air directive, or alternatively give it over to the AI to do this. Or you can have the AI set them up, and then you make edits and additions. I personally rely on my own and don't use the AI.

To correct your last sentence, you can choose among targets in Ground Attacks air directives, including Interdict and Unit (also Airfield, Port, Railway, Ferry, and Railyard). Ground Support has no such options.

Cary

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Post #: 13

RE: Newb question volume infiniti - 6/11/2018 3:42:01 PM

loki100

Posts: 10920
Joined: 10/20/2012
From: Utlima Thule
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bobbybat

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

Interdiction

While bits of the air war show WiTE as the root, mostly its very new. There are three clusters of land bombing missions:

Ground Support
Ground Attack
Strategic Bombing

Ground Support you know from WiTE, you assign planes to a land HQ and they will support any relevant combat (in both turns). You can assign to say SHAEF (and they will help out in any combat in N Europe) or to a single corps (where they will only support that corps). Going to high level command can be efficient ... not least in most turns you only see 3-5 actual attacks but linking to a lower level means your planes are fresh and ready for a particular offensive.

Ground Attack is a cluster of missions that you would give to tactical aircraft. In the game these are mostly Fighter Bombers and 2 Engined Level Bombers. Some are to hit infrastructure (port and railyards), some directly impact the battlefield. Here you have two - unit and interdiction.

A 'unit' mission is to go and bomb the units in a hex, it aims to cause immediate losses to the target formation, it can be devastating as a strong unit can be ripped to pieces before the combat phase (and as you know the combat model means that disrupted elements do not fight).

An 'interdiction' mission is to go and bomb anything that moves in a given hex(es). A lot of things move, supply, reinforcements, units moving, reserves reacting to combat, units retreating from combat. For damage/plane this is the better mission but the effect is indirect (you also take less flak losses as your pilots have a bit more choice where they go).

Hi Loki. I have asked a similar question before, but I understood from that conversation that the AI creates the missions based on the 'Automatic Air Directive Creation' settings. What I am taking from the above though is that somehow the player can choose whether or not a given Ground Support mission is of type 'unit' versus 'interdiction'??

If it is 'ground support' then you have no further choices. That is probably best seen as a varaint of the ground attack - unit attack which is only triggered by combat and, feasibly, bring an awful lot of airpower to hit a single target.

If you use the auto AD, you basically say to the AI routine make GS say medium priority and it will allocate a share of the tactical (by choice) and level bombers to match.

As with GA-unit, I think its an expensive style of attack. Your bombers can't evade flak etc so a lot will be damaged (even if they escape destruction). In turn that will produce low morale and then you'll need to rest.

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Post #: 14