NOOB question

[Satyros]

Hello and well met .

I've only just discovered that such a great game exists and decided to start from the first game of the series ( I stumbled upon HoI Platinum just yesterday for a really sweet price at a local store , yay ) , as Greece .

Nevermind the huge difficulty of this attempt which is a nice challenge , my problem is on a far simpler level .

I haven't figured out how to move my 3 divisions from Heraklion Crete to the Greek mainland .

I 've read the manual , then I read it some more , but I failed to understand ( or find in the manual for that matter ) the exact instructions on transporting troops with transports . I just read a FAQ that says I have to move them with transports from there , or am I wrong ? Can I build enough infrastructure to be able to strategically redeploy units to and from Crete ?

Could you please help me out ? I'd be thankful .

Cheers .

P.S. : Oh , by the way , good job on the FAQ's , they will really help in my attempt to learn how to play this great game .

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Hello and well met .

I've only just discovered that such a great game exists and decided to start from the first game of the series ( I stumbled upon HoI Platinum just yesterday for a really sweet price at a local store , yay ) , as Greece .

Nevermind the huge difficulty of this attempt which is a nice challenge , my problem is on a far simpler level .

I haven't figured out how to move my 3 divisions from Heraklion Crete to the Greek mainland .

I 've read the manual , then I read it some more , but I failed to understand ( or find in the manual for that matter ) the exact instructions on transporting troops with transports . I just read a FAQ that says I have to move them with transports from there , or am I wrong ? Can I build enough infrastructure to be able to strategically redeploy units to and from Crete ?

Could you please help me out ? I'd be thankful .

Cheers .

P.S. : Oh , by the way , good job on the FAQ's , they will really help in my attempt to learn how to play this great game .

The normal way would be to use ships.

Move enough ships to carry your troops into the seazone next to Crete.
If you play the CORE mod Greece should have 2 transport ships so you can only move 2 units from Crete at one time, not all 3 (there are 2 Infantery and 1 Cavalry on Crete at the start). So first select the stack of 3 units on Crete and split it into e.g. 2 Infantery and 1 Cavalry or however you like.

Move your troops from Crete onto the ships and they should board them. Move the ship to a seazone next to mainland Greece and unload them. Repeat for the remaining 1 unit on Crete.

 

[unmerged(17617)]

Move your troops from Crete onto the ships and they should board them. Move the ship to a seazone next to mainland Greece and unload them. Repeat for the remaining 1 unit on Crete.

Also, if you sail a loaded ship into port all divisions will automatically disembark upon arrival.

 

[Satyros]

Thank you guys for the answers , my fault was that I was trying to embark my troops when the transports were in the ports , clicking in vain .

For the record I survived until the fall of '45 having annexed Albania early in the game ( and lost my entire fleet in the aggressive Italian response before peace was signed ) , and at the peak of the Axis glory ( I joined them because my survival instinct told me so , heh ) I annexed Syria in an attempt to distract the English from the torrent of pain they had unleashed upon Italy .

It was a great game even though the Soviet Union maimed me in the end ( hell , my allies the Germans couldn't stop them , it was a lost cause ) , and I will give it a try again tommorow . I only regret that I didn't attack Bulgaria before they too joined the Axis .

Just one more question so as to know what to expect more or less : does the game always follow the historical path of events ?

Thanks again fo taking the time to answer .

 

[bestmajor]

Just one more question so as to know what to expect more or less : does the game always follow the historical path of events ?

nope, not always. eg sometimes the SOVs annex the finns completely or other things happen, depending on the mod you play (or even vanilla).

I only regret that I didn't attack Bulgaria before they too joined the Axis .

i would save the game before, sometimes you get a sphere event (depending on the version you play). eg if you attack poland, playing as germany, very early (before 1939) the soviet union will declare war on you. dont know if similar things happen when bulgaria is attacked. but i'm not sure about this, better save your game before.


bm

 

[unmerged(20887)]

One last word of advice; toss the manual. From now on let this Forum be your manual. The manual is incorrect on many things, and includes functions which were never impemented in the actual game. Seek your game knowledge here. Most of the people here are helpful and friendly, and are more than happy to help.

 

[Satyros]

My second game .

Boy oh boy !

My second attempt as Greece ( joined Axis again , I seem to be ever drifting towards fascism - on the ideology scale in game [any advice on how to stay democratic welcome ] - so the democratic kids won't play with me ) was also an extremely fun game .

I again launched a "crusade" on foot through Turkey ( peace loving fellows they are , good for them , see below ) , hehe , annexed Syria , Lebanon and Egypt , pushed the Brittish in the desert westwards , then got bombarded to a pulp by the U.S. ( which was a nice change I must say )retreated all the way to the Turkish border , all the way being bombarded , evacuated as much army as I could to Greece so as to make it just in time for my usual "I-will-crush-you" appointment with the good old comrades of the Soviet .

For some reason nobody wanted Crete so I waited there until the end of the scenario with a lonely mountain division under dog-o-war skill 6 Field Marshal Papagos for a year and a half I think . Hey , I survived the War , glory glory .

I hope it is not too much of a bother for you to read such summaries of my first games , I'm not into A.A.R. a lot , plus I think that if anyone were to give any advice on how to make the most of what Greece has to offer in the game the summaries would be helpful .

Some last info on this game , I disbanded most of my army immediately after I annexed Albania about a month in game and slowly built it up again focusing on mountain divisions ( better Org methinks ) , and kept in the pool ( is this an abuse ? ) to save me some IC for building more units and perhaps a bit research . My allies shared a lot of tech after I lost the war and was isolated to Crete but not that much tech before that .

Questions/Observations : should I research the other types of units not available to Greece in the beggining of the scenario ? I am asking about Mechanized Infantry and Marines in particular , or focus in arms and equipment instead ? I understand that industry is luxury for poor Greece .

Is Turkey a viable target ? Bulgaria seems unbeatable early in game , too high troop concetrations digged in the mountains . Tried many approaches , always failed ( the objective would be to annex them before war breaks out ) . Serbia as soon as I beat them a couple of times becomes a puppet state of the Brittish so nothing much there .

I understand that the Allies are out to kill me since no-one ever accepts a peace offer . Is "peace offer" something more besides another button in the diplomacy menu ? Should I even bother ?

I play C.O.R.E. and being a Noob I play on Normal/Normal Settings , info on the differences of the settings also welcome .

Sorry for the big post , thanks in advance if someone decides to provide some answers .

P.S. : And what's the deal with manpower , I thought that having annexed some territory it would go up a bit monthly , but alas , stayed the same and proved to be a crucial factor in my defeat .

 

[unmerged(138510)]

Congratulations on surviving the war! I'll try and answer a couple of your questions. "Is "peace offer" something more besides another button in the diplomacy menu ?" When you're enemy is a whole alliance, suing for peace really does *not* seem to work. Generally, this only works for nations who are not in an alliance, and even then, you are lucky if it works. Turkey generally seems to be a good place to control, In My Opinion. Considering it sits at the crossroads of the middle-east/africa and Europe, this real-estate seems to be heavily attacked, but is good real-estate to control. When I first played HoI, I could have never beaten the allies back that far as Greece. I think my first game wound up in annexation of Germany by France, because I was continuously attacking the maginot line, rather than going through Belgium.

 

[Satyros]

Well , I didn't push them that far , I threw them out of the Nile into the desert , enough to annex Egypt , but not too far and it was only the Brittish then ( well and the Egyptians but they were no match for the "elite-that-had-walked-all-the-way-from-Greece" ) . Also , at the time I had allied Bulgaria watching my back , a task at which they performed brilliantly . When the U.S. arrived bombing like they wanted to evaporate me , as well as a couple of Brit Mecha Inf from the far south joining the other Brits storming through the west desert I was utterly crushed in the counter-offensive as I've mentioned earlier .

Also , I never conquered Turkey during that campaign , they were kind enough to let me walk through their lands in my quest for glory and eventual doom .

On that note , I find them presently in my third game ( yep I'm rather enthousiastic about HoI I must say ) a particularly tough nut to crack . On the other hand , I only use infantry , since I lack the strategic ability to use something other than land forces as my main weapon , with navy complementing their ability providing support during amphibious attacks . But where I snob planes ( I swear I wouldn't if I could construct a transport plane but my current IC forbids it ) my opponents don't and I have been quite used to people bombing my troops to oblivion .

Anyways , I'll stop ranting and get back to my bloody struggle for survival .

Oh , and one last thing : I hate it when the countries I attack hurry to join an alliance if they 're neutral thus dragging me in the War . I think I'll try a waiting game next , to see if I can stay neutral for long enough to attack bloodied foes and deliver the coup de grace before they hand me their precious lands .

 

[bestmajor]

should I research the other types of units not available to Greece in the beggining of the scenario ?

no, concentrate on inf, leave the commandos, cav and esp mil alone. inf is a reasonable unit.
if you are at war with the allies or some other major powers, build a lot AT brigeades which is cheap and far more useful then the other stuff.

mech should be your friend, as greece (maybe hard to get, but once youre in an alliance your buddies will give you a lot of level techs + some doctrines).
commandos are a waste of IC IMO.
hard attack for units is one of the most important value in game esp later.
promote early and build no stacks out of your divisions in early wars, let every commander gain some points (hint: the early experience points are easy to get, raisng a one skill commander up to 5 will take as long as raising a skill 8 commander to 9, so if you promote them to skill one, you'll soon have some good leaders with high ranks). make sure an FM is never absent.

Is "peace offer" something more besides another button in the diplomacy menu ? Should I even bother ?

forget that one

I play C.O.R.E. and being a Noob I play on Normal/Normal Settings , info on the differences of the settings also welcome .

thats hard coded and is always the same, its just that core has those difficulty adjustments which fire as soon as you start the game).

i think you get 10% less resources, IC and manpower and combat value with every step harder. just start a game on very hard and compare the resources on your map with the resources the ai has got. you'll have some strange numbers like 32.5 coal or what while the ai will have mostly numbers without decimals.

its worth a try, even if you loose, you know the game better afterwards and know whats important and what not.

bm

 

[Satyros]

no, concentrate on inf, leave the commandos, cav and esp mil alone. inf is a reasonable unit.

Will try that asap . Have been doing the exact opposite actually , commando only troops .

if you are at war with the allies or some other major powers, build a lot AT brigeades which is cheap and far more useful then the other stuff.

Whoa there ! Are you actually suggesting that the Russians won't beat me to a pulp ? I have come to believe that the Soviet march of anihilation is something like a universal truth when playing as Greece so far .

hard attack for units is one of the most important value in game esp later.

Thanks for the heads up .So would you go AT or AA with that sweet upgrade that gives +3 hard attack ? Anti-Air Gun 85mm+ . On that note are AA inf troops any good with basic upgrades against planes ? How does their capability to counter aircraft interact with the AA batteries built in a province ?

promote early and build no stacks out of your divisions in early wars, let every commander gain some points

Aha! I suspected that I should do something like that , again , thanks for letting me know .

Thanks for the answers so far guys , you are really helpful .

 

[bestmajor]

Whoa there ! Are you actually suggesting that the Russians won't beat me to a pulp ? I have come to believe that the Soviet march of anihilation is something like a universal truth when playing as Greece so far .

that all depends on germany which i mostly play in core (very hard/vurious/ core level: hard).
then it lasts ages to get them down, but on those levels with restricted IC, and - more important for germany - resources the sovs are a bit harder to beat, never played greece so far (just playing germany again and again).

btw i posted some tricks for germany some while ago here:

http://www.stonyroad.de/forum/showpost.php?p=157962&postcount=55

but i never played as greece, my only advice would be to check minister regularly and make wise changes, concentrate on only some models, like inf, mech and intercptors as a maximum (dont think you can afford more).

Thanks for the heads up .So would you go AT or AA with that sweet upgrade that gives +3 hard attack ? Anti-Air Gun 85mm+ . On that note are AA inf troops any good with basic upgrades against planes ? How does their capability to counter aircraft interact with the AA batteries built in a province ?

that doesnt help you directly (the AA builds in provinces), its just causing more damage to your enemy.

a silly trick is to build some inf from start (5 IC each), but dont put any IC on that, research those armoured brigades in the armoured section (better combat vaslues but +1 IC per unit, iirc). then put IC on unit production, its saving you 1 IC per unit for what (maybe 90 days?). makes 10 IC for ten inf divs multiplied with the ammount of days, not to talk about upgrade costs.
these are two inf divs "for free", which is maybe a lot for poor greece?


if you want other upgrades for core 0.91, look here:

http://www.stonyroad.de/forum/showthread.php?t=8853

nothing forgreece, so far, sorry

 

[Satyros]

Well that was some solid advice !

At yet another attempt to conquer Bulgaria early , I decided to tech up a bit remaining neutral as long as possible , teching on specific weapons , no doctrines and slowly buiding my armored tech aiming to field light tanks someday .

Well the whole early conquest thing went out of the window soon , since I wasn't ready by late '39 ( got carried away teching ) I think when they joined the axis , so I gathered my forces and decided on a new goal , to join the allies .

The Axis soon after conquering Serbia went berzerk on me , I joined the Allies , but their conquest came to a halt after grabing the Albanian territories from me ( annexing Albania has become a good luck charm , and some more precious oil always comes handy )

Anyways taking the advice into serious consideration I developed good AA guns with hard attack bonus , and artillery as good as I could afford ,and produced them on a 1:2 ratio to the vanilla guys , promoted up to field marshall my defensive doctrine generals , fortified up to level 4 Ioannina and Thessalonike and added non stop AA batteries to the provinces .

Since the Germans were preocupied elsewhere , and were not too keen to attack me after grabing the Albanian provinces , I took about 5 units and went on the usual trip to Syria , which was a puppet state of Vichy at the time but before I achieve victory France installed a puppet state government ( it didn't play out as I expected but it was fun all in all and I got to promote my only offensive doctrine general up to field marshall too ).

As soon as I got my 3rd 12 unit stack , I attacked Bulgaria ( yay - primary objective ) via Istambul and after a bitter winter struggle I managed to corner them in their mountain fortress capital , Sofia , unfortunately yet another time the Soviet Union snatched final victory away from greek hands installing a puppet state . At least they kept the Germans busy and I got to keep 3 more provinces .

So as 1943 comes to a close I have a bigger borderline and a wounded giant slowly turning to face me , I expect to be crushed soon but I have to say that I seriously love this game . I have not seen a light tank yet coming out of my factories . It seems that I will not live long enough to see one . Pity .

God save the Field Marshalls . Holy Mother bless our troops . Greeks please do have more sex , we are out of manpower .

I love my AA inf units , I withstood countless tons of bombing .

Anybody got any adventures with small poor low tech countries to share ? Has anyone forged a new great power out of the ashes of the War ?Is it at all possible or am I torturing myself playing Greece ?

Hmm.. off to the A.A.R. section I guess .

Cheers .

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
Anybody got any adventures with small poor low tech countries to share ? Has anyone forged a new great power out of the ashes of the War ?Is it at all possible or am I torturing myself playing Greece ?

Hmm.. off to the A.A.R. section I guess .

Cheers .

Have you seen this minor nation guide?
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=164165

 

[Satyros]

I have , but playing Greece I realized that I cannot remain neutral , which forces me to adopt more radical approaches to my strategy .

Which is to say that I have two main problems :

1) If I don't join the Axis I have the Germans raining destruction on me with many years to go until the end of the scenario and not that much helpful allies , having to win their own wars elsewhere . I must go into a defensive stance quite early and bide my time for a counterattack which could seriously harm my plans of conquest

or...

2) If I join the would-be aggressor's alliance out of simple fear which most of the times will mean that I can now strike at some countries though none of my European neighbours , I will annex some lands ( eastwards ) and in the end I will have to find a solution to the problem how to survive against three giants ( U.S. , U.S.S.R. , U.K. ) later in the game and to be precise how to survive the obliteration of carpet bombing .

In any case I have to be ready for War .

My main concerns are two : I cannot research just theory because it randomizes big time the techs I get from my allies whoever they happen to be . And I really need flak power .

The other concern is manpower , even with a mobilized nation it never is enough , and I seem not be understanding something essential here because even though I annex - not merely capturing which incurs a penalty - territories ( which provide manpower ) it never goes up . Does this mean that I'm stuck with my 2.9-2.8 per month for ever ? Or is a big number in a province required to achieve a significant change in my manpower change per month ( say 10+ ) ?

One more thing I have to look out for is the strategic resources , "rubber" , I cannot afford to have too developed industry because I will run out of "rubber" , I have no means to go capture and secure "rubber" where it is , in times of war I haven't been able to secure even one rubber by trade , so I amass as much as I can ( about 25000 ) before war breaks out and try to keep things at a minimum consumption , so as to always progress steadily , albeit slowly . I do not mention this as problem though , since this is the common denominator for practically most of the minor European nations .

I would like some info on how industry works because I need to provide a fine balance for my economy ( for example how much IC is consumed when I build things - which lowers significantly resources consumption ) , and I promise to look it up for in the F.A.Q. section .

Cheers .

 

[bestmajor]

hi,

you'll never get significantly more manpower by conquering territories. the provinces you conquer arent national territory, means that you only get a certain percentage from IC/ manpower/ resources, and this again depends on your difficulty level.

My main concerns are two : I cannot research just theory because it randomizes big time the techs I get from my allies whoever they happen to be . And I really need flak power .

maybe you can influence things a bit. lets say you want to have a certain land doctrine which requires knowledge of a minor tech like an inf weapon or some electronics stuff, whatever. if you research this stuff, its more likely that this tech is given by allies (i think).

playing as germany, i sometimes saved and reloaded as eg SAF to see what they had, and it seemed that most land doctrines were there (given by allies, i think).

I would like some info on how industry works because I need to provide a fine balance for my economy ( for example how much IC is consumed when I build things - which lowers significantly resources consumption ) , and I promise to look it up for in the F.A.Q. section .

there have been some exact numbers somewhere here, dont know where exactly. just avoid too many oil consuming units (well, but i mean, you're playing greece, not the USA ).

forts will lead you nowhere in the long run, they're just destroyed by heavier tanks.

if your resources go down a lot, build something like AA, infra or coastalforts to hold your IC down, avoid IC increasing techs if thats possible, make sure you have that naval doctrine which increases coastal fort effiency.
about the air attacks: i think the basic interceptor is a good one, til maybe 43, but dont know how many you can afford (eg everything below lets say five is useless, best combined with a lot of AA in this specific province).

about the rubber: dont know if this is possible, but head towards the conversion techs (just in case greece has not the agrar economy tech).

 

[Satyros]

Ok , I'm all about a good challenge and stuff but what's the deal with the head of the alliance stealing provinces conquered by me in a war that I started and moreover a province that I have a claim over ?

My frustration is reaching epic heights as Skopje was stolen from me by te Germans , nevermind Pristina , but Skopje ? Hey man , mister Adolf , I sent good Greek troops to die over a disputed strip of land between us and the country I attacked - first , giving you right to join the feast - , so why don't you keep the rest of the country and **** *** please .

What's the deal with this ?

I will try to load as Serbia and give in to demands , even though I sincerely doubt that Greece will accept , because I found this quite silly .

Grrr ...

 

[bestmajor]

its an event in Seurope.txt (HoI/mod-core/scenarios/events/core_SEurope.txt)

if germany has conquered certain places in yugoslavia, it has to decide weather to divide it in some parts (and then CRO and SER show up) or continue the conquer.
if it decides to divide this, yugoslavia gives those provinces to defined countries AFAIK.

hmm, dont know how to solve this quickly, but theres always an a option and a b option for an event (which is very unlikely to fire but still does sometimes).

however, if you have the nerves and dont know how to mod, you can make a save just before the yugo war starts, and reload always til the ai germany chooses the b option (or you simply play germany during this war, choose the b option, walk around til you reach greek territory and conquer yugoslavia from south with superior german troops, if annexed, lage parts will be greek, you can save again and switch to greece and continue playing.
well, thats cheating

otherwise write an event for those countries you want to have provinces from, add it to an already existant events file, reload and get your provinces.

a how-to is in HOI/DB/events/event commands.txt

(or simply compare with other/similar events and try some things)

theres also a pretty old but still useful site about how to mod hoi1

http://hearts-of-iron.totalh.com/

(but basically every folder in the main game contains a detailed tutorial, the website just adds some comments.

bm

 

[Satyros]

Hey no problem , I got so frustrated ( forgive my previously bad language please ) that I quit the game and started another making a holy oath to destroy the Axis .

My Greek troops are currently enjoing their stay in Bologna . Oh how I enjoyed the annihilation of 10 Italian divisions in the Ancona pocket . I know , I know , I play at normal level , but still , it was a fancy move . Oh , the Brit tanks helped a lot in this , thanks guys .

Ha! So there Mr. Hitler , see what you get when you mess with the Greeks ? ( courtesy of the Orphans gang leader from the 1979 uber epic cult movie " The Warriors " inspired by the Epic - real - history of Xenophon and 10000 Greeks )

Huh ?

Huh?

Well , the Germans just broke through in France via Belgium , so I have to finish this italian thing quickly , their Bulgarian allies are massing troops at Plovdiv .

So I got Napoli , Roma , Bologna , the Brits have Messina , and the Italians still have Tripoli in Africa and Venezia , Genoa , Milan . If I capture 2 more cities , say , Venezia and Milan , I could install a puppet regime in Italy , am I right on this ?

 

[bestmajor]

satyros, would be cool to post a screenshot for us to understand better.

press f11 in game and you'll find a bmp in your mod- core folder

you can convert this into a jpeg with eg paint

and upload it here via

http://imageshack.us/

and post the lines in your next post.

now re the puppeting thing:

yes this should be possible, otherwise, the rsi event will probably fire if africa is taken and some southern italian provinces.
italy will switch the sides and the social republic will show up on axis sides (so, i never experienced that, but its againpossible that theres no territorialy gain for you? ).

really if you're still new to the game i would start with one of the major powers to discover the tech tree, etc and then proceed to the minor nations which are harder to play