"What does this button do?" A TutoriAAR

[Lighthearter]

"NOT THAT BUTTON, MR. PRESIDENT!!"
"Why not?"
"Nuclear self-destruct system activated. Have a nice day"
"THAT'S WHY!"

_____________

Hello class, this is your teacher, Lighthearter. I am a longtime HOI2 player who is totally in love with Arsenal of Democracy, and it came to my attention that a tutorial AAR was needed. In this most noble endeavor, I shall seek to impart first my implicit knowledge of the inner workings of the various game interfaces, then my strategies, my cunning plans. I will provide first a set of lessons about the various game menus, then I will provide lessons to put to rest any confusion that any members of the class might have. Rest assured, future presidents of the United States, you shall not make the same mistake as your predecessor should you listen to my sage words of wisdom.

Contents:
A: Basics -
Lesson A.1 - Below the Table of Contents.
Lesson A.2 - Here.
Lesson A.3 - Here.
Lesson A.4 - Here.
Lesson A.5 - Here.
Lesson A.6 - Here.

B: Guderian's Military Academy -
Lesson B.1 - Here.
Lesson B.2 - Here.

C: Intermediate Knowledge -
Lesson C.1 - Coming Soon.

Alright - now, to the meat of the menu - the class.

Lesson A - The Main Interfaces - Part One - The Basics (A.1, as it will be referred to in the future.)

This is the main screen once you get into a game. I have booted up the 1936: Road to War scenario as the United States in order to showcase the game. Looks intimidating, no? Well, let's break it down into more manageable chunks.

This is the game map. Move the camera by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen. While you are viewing the map tab, this is where you will be performing most actions. We will get back to it later.

This is the topbar. You can see the national flag in the upper-left corner denoting my faction. For now, ignore everything else. We will get back to it later.

This is the game clock. It shows the current date. You can RIGHT-click it to bring down a menu where you can speed up or slow down the flow of time and switch between sprites and counters. We will get back to that last later. You can also LEFT-click it to instantly pause the game. This function also works with the "Pause" key on your keyboard.

These icons will appear as the game progresses. The first means that you have at least one research slot that is unused. The other means that you can move one of your sliders. Again, we shall get back to those concepts.

These icons allow you to switch your sidebar view mode. We shall return to that concept(This sound familiar?).

This is the province part of the sidebar. When you select a province, you will see this screen. The little flag denotes the owner of the province. Clicking the flag will take you into the diplomacy screen for that nation. Note that when you select a foreign - controlled province there is a much larger flag denoting ownership as well. Clicking it will achieve the same effect. We will return to the diplomacy screen (and other details of the province screen) later.

This is the "units" part of the province interface. It shows the units present in the province. We will, as usual, discuss more on units later.

Finally, this is the minimap. It shows the entire world. The light-colored spots as time progresses indicate the parts of the world where it is day, the dark-colored where it is night. Clicking any spot on the map will instantly jump your camera to that location. Below the map are the "mapmode" buttons. We will once again discuss them later.

This concludes Lesson A.1 of the TutoriAAR. Class is dismissed until later tonight or tomorrow afternoon, when the second lesson shall be held.

- Lighthearter

 

[TRP]

Yay a tutorialAAR! Learning things I already know!

Nice community project, looking forward to it.


-Laurence, TRP

 

[unmerged(68158)]

I learned quite a bit from this. Please continue.

 

[Lighthearter]

Lesson A.2

Now that you know the basics, let's get a little more detailed, shall we?

This is the History Log. Almost anything that takes place in the game will be listed here. Any message that appears can be LEFT-clicked twice in quick succession (double-clicked) to jump to the location of the message (where applicable) or RIGHT-clicked to bring up a small popup window that will allow you to decide whether future messages of that type are to be:

A - Not displayed at all.
B - Displayed in the History Log.
C - Displayed in the History Log & shown in an event popup.
D - Displayed in the History Log, shown in an event popup and trigger the game to pause automatically.

You can also make these adjustment from the game menu/options. You can open the menu by pressing F10, Escape, or by LEFT-clicking the "Menu" button next to the clock.

On the Topbar - from left to right, the tabs are as follows:

View Map - Takes you to the map.
Intelligence - Takes you to the Espionage screen. Will return to that later.
Technology - Takes you to the Research screen. Will return to that later.
Production - Takes you to the Production screen. Will return later.
Trade - Takes you to the Trading screen. As above.
Diplomacy - Takes you to the Diplomacy screen. Guess what? We're returning later.
Statistics - Takes you to the Statistical Overview screen. Ditto.

Now, the resources:

Energy - Lightning bolt symbol. Represents electrical power. Necessary for the running of factories. Generation will be discussed later.
Metal - Metal bars symbol. Represents any raw materials. Necessary to run factories. Mining to be addressed later.
Rare Materials - Gem symbol. Represents highly rare minerals and such. I.E plutonium and aluminum. Used in factories. Described in detail later on.
Oil - Drop of liquid symbol. Represents fuel. Used for planes, tanks and ships. Extraction to be chronicled at a future date. (I'm running out of ways to say "I'll get to it later")
Supplies - Box icon. Represents food, ammunition and other such luxuries your greedy troops just haaave to have. Manufacturing details come later.
Money - $ symbol. Represents cold, hard cash. Used for all sorts of things. Taxation & minting protocols will be discussed later.
Manpower - People icon. Represents military personnel. 1 point = 1000 men. Used in military units. Will be discussed later.
Nuclear Bombs - Nuclear symbol. The ultimate weapons. Acquisition & use will get their own chapter later.
Dissent - Flame symbol. Represents the people's happiness with your government. High dissent can cause negative effects ranging from reduced factory output to combat penalties.
Transport Capacity(TC) - Truck symbol. Represents roads, railroads and riverboats rofl that provide transport in your nation. Number on the LEFT is used TC. Number on the RIGHT is available TC. 1 point of Industrial Capacity(IC) = 1/2 point of TC. Exceeding TC makes all your units move slower.
Industrial Capacity(IC) - Factory symbol. Represents factory output in your nation. Used to produce . . . everything. 1 factory = 1 IC + modifiers. More details will come later.

This concludes Lesson A.2. Please return tomorrow for Lesson A.3.

Your teacher:
- Lighthearter

 

[theconfusedone]

My prayer was answered!!!

 

[Lighthearter]

Lesson A.3

Good afternoon. Today we will cover Mapmodes. We will begin with a return to the Minimap image:

The + and - buttons on the side allow you to zoom in and out. They correspond with the + and - keys on your Numerical Keypad (Numpad). The little buttons along the bottom represent the various mapmodes in the game. I will walk you through all of them so that you will be better prepared for your task as the President of the United States.

From LEFT to RIGHT:

Terrain Mapmode -

In this mapmode you are shown the various terrain types on the map. This is the default mapmode. Different terrain provides different effects on combat, which we will get to later. You can mouse over a province to get a popup window explaining its terrain type.

Political Mapmode -

This is likely to be the mapmode where you spend most to all of your time. In this mapmode, every country is given a specific color. Notice I did not say unique color. Notice Cuba and Guatemala share a color. Mexico and Czechoslovakia are another example, though strangely the latter is not visible on this map.

Weather Mapmode -

This mapmode showcases the current weather conditions in the provinces. Mouse over one for details. Weather can interfere with combat on land, sea and air, and bad enough weather will ground your planes.

Economic Mapmode -

This mapmode shows the resource incomes from various provinces. The icons correspond to those on the topbar for the resources and industry.

Supply Mapmode -

This mapmode shows how well supplied your various provinces are. The deeper the green the better. Notice Altoona, Pennsylvania is in yellow. The province is still supplied, but it does not operate at full efficiency for a multitude of reasons. TC affects supply distribution. For overseas supply, you need convoy ships. We will return to that concept.

Revoltrisk Mapmode -

In this mapmode you can see how likely provinces are to revolt - with 0 dissent, your national provinces (another concept we'll get back to) will have 0 revoltrisk. Occupied provinces will usually have a risk, how high that risk is depends on the nation you took the land from and how high your dissent is - the higher the worse. You can reduce revoltrisk by stationing troops in provinces. They will lower the risk in both the territory they are stationed in and all adjacent ones. If they have a Police brigade (as above) they will have a larger effect. Setting the unit to the "anti-partisan" mission will double their effectiveness. Garrison divisions might be more effective at this role then normal units - I do not know for certain. NAVAL AND AIR UNITS DO NOT EFFECT REVOLTRISK. SORRY.

Region Mapmode -

In this mapmode you can see the regions on the map. Useful for air attack planning. We shall return to that concept.

Area Mapmode -

A smaller version of the Region mapmode. Uses are as above.

Diplomatic Mapmode -

In this mapmode all territories controlled by your nation are displayed in dark green. All neutral provinces are displayed in white. All enemy provinces are in red. All allied provinces are displayed in light green. Note that clicking a province controlled by a nation will show you its diplomatic perspective on the world instead of your own.

Victory Points Mapmode -

This mapmode shows friendly Victory Points in green, neutral ones in yellow, and hostile ones in red. The deeper the color, the more value to the province. We will discuss Victory Points in detail later.

This concludes Lesson A.3. I shall return soon for Lesson A.4.

Anyone who wishes to provide a more detailed lesson on any of the mapmodes - feel free

​

- Lighthearter

 

[CatKnight]

Nice, Lighthearter! Thank you!

I may finally figure out how to play

 

[gianlucad]

Teach me or die!!!! :rofl:
Nice initiative

 

[Lighthearter]

CatKnight - Thanks! And I hope I can help If you want confirmation I have some idea of what I'm doing, check the AAR links in my sig

Lesson A.4

Good evening. Tonight we shall cover the Intelligence and Technology tabs, having completed our basic overview of the Map tab.

Right, this is the Intelligence screen:

Let's break it down, shall we?

This part shows you all of your basic diplomatic information. We will discuss all of that when we reach the diplomacy tab. It also shows your total espionage budget and how much of it is going to operations in your homeland. We will get to budgets when we reach Production. Also shown is the priority for sending spies. Only the homeland has priority initially.

This part shows how many spies you have in the country, as well as how many foreign agents there are inside your borders. It also shows Intelligence modifiers for both you and your enemies. These are affected by sliders and policies. That will be addressed in Diplomacy.

This is a list of all countries on the globe. The tabs near the top are used for sorting and organization.

Let's get down into the nitty-gritty, shall we?

This is one of the foreign country entries. The number in green represents how many spies of yours there are in the nation. The number in gray is the priority you have given to operations in this country. Priority from LOWEST to HIGHEST = 0 - 10. At zero no spies will be sent at all. At ten this nation has maximum priority. You can set every nation at level ten, but I would recommend setting priorities.

So, to use this knowledge. If I click the + button I will raise the priority one point. So -

I have raised the priority one point. Now the United States of America will send spies to Canada as long as you give the CIA funding to do so. As I said earlier, that aspect will be addressed when we hit Production. You can also lower the priority used the tiny - button on the other side of the numbers.

This is the Intelligence screen with Canada selected. Now Canada's diplomatic relations are shown instead of yours, and priority for sending spies to Canada instead of to home defense. Also you can see the Intelligence missions and Canada's technological researches, as well as general information about their military(which may not be entirely accurate - don't trust your life to it). The information and success chances improve the more spies you put in the target land. The missions are:

Steal Blueprint - Your spies will work to obtain blueprints for technologies that the target nation has researched but you have not.
Assassinate Minister - You select one of the target nation's ruling ministers (other then the Head of State and Head of Government - more info on those later) and you agents will attempt to "take him out". Low odds of success.
Smear Campaign - Raises dissent in target nation if successful.
Coup Nation - If successful (HIGHLY unlikely) replaces target nation ideology with one much closer to your own and changes their relation with you to astronomical levels.
Sabotage Industry - If successful, slows foreign production of a random project.
Nuclear Sabotage - If, in the unlikely event your James Bonds and Dirk Pitts somehow get into the hostile Nuclear Reactor (Will be discussed later) and aren't killed along the way, they will successfully knock out one enemy nuke. IT WILL NOT DETONATE. SORRY.
Fund Partisans - Increases revoltrisk in the target area if successful.
Global Manipulation - Raises target nation's belligerence (To be discussed later) if you can pull it off.
Sabotage Techteam - If it works, you set a random enemy research project back a certain amount.
Sleep Spies - Your agents will "go to earth" and become sleeper cells. You can't send any new people without reactivating the network, but enemy agents can't kill your men with the Counter Espionage mission if you take this action. Note that this mission is automatically launched for your agents inside the borders of any nation you enter an alliance with.
Counter Espionage (Homeland) - Your agents automatically perform this mission. It is the only one that can be performed in your home country. It takes out enemy spies. See above for protection methods for field agents.
Counter Espionage(Foreign) - Your boys will gang up to try and knock out enemy agents protecting their homeland.
Naval Intelligence - This mission periodically sends you popups that detail enemy naval force compositions and missions. Useful in the Pacific War.

The Technology Screen -

Alright - the circles on the LEFT of the screen are the techteam slots (I'll get there in a minute). The little white boxes on the top are the research categories. The categories can be lumped according to what you will generally find there:

Infantry, Armor & Artillery, Naval, Aircraft - Unit models. Will be explained further later.
Land Doctrines, Air Doctrines, Naval Doctrines - Technologies that indicate the path of battleplanning your nation takes in life.
Industry - Improves resources and production.
Secret Weapons - Development of nuclear bombs and other such goodies.

Right - into the breach!

Select one of the circles and you should get this screen. All of the items in the bar on the LEFT are the techteams. See that each one has several little icons and a "skill" meter. The icons represent the team's skills - for a complete listing, go here. The skill meter is important as well - hold on for a few more minutes.

If I select the techteam "Norfolk Naval Yard" and then select Naval/Basic Destroyer, I should get this screen:

If you look, you will see at the bottom an area labeled "historical date". Check the current year. If it is before the historical year for the tech, you will suffer a penalty to research speed. If it is after, you receive a bonus. If it is the year, you receive neither.

Check the "components" at the bottom of the screen. The little blue icons should match the ones of the techteam you chose - you can quickly see by looking at how many boxes on the techteam panel are bordered in green as opposed to how many different icons there are for the tech. As it is, Norfolk has all the requirements. Also note the small numbers next to the components. These are the component difficulty numbers, and they pair with the skill of the team. As it is, Norfolk is quite capable of doing this job. Clicking "Start Project" should get this screen:

The effects of the technology are listed to the LEFT of the picture. The progress of the research is displayed in a percent on the techteam panel. If you mouse over the techteam while it is researching you should see this little popup:

This describes the penalties and bonuses to your research effort.

Thank you for listening to Lesson A.4 - Tomorrow I shall present Lesson A.5 - Production & Diplomacy (Perhaps with Trade in there as well)

​

- Lighthearter

 

[unmerged(166917)]

Pretty interesting idea.
Can't wait for the Lesson D.8: Nuking the Bad Guys.

 

[Pier]

Very nice, but a very minor comment. In 1936 there was no CIA. And OSS was not formed till 1942.

 

[TRP]

My my, I am actually learning, I didn't know about the tech team popup, thanks!

Very nice, but a very minor comment. In 1936 there was no CIA. And OSS was not formed till 1942.

The public does not care about such minor nitpicks, the CIA was now founded in 1936.


-Laurence, Totally Random Productions

 

[Lordban]

I like the comprehensive approach you have taken for this. If all the AAR is in the same vein it will make an excellent manual for AoD.

 

[Lighthearter]

Karaiskandar - Actually that's Lesson Q.2

Pier - Thanks - but what TRP said.

TRP - OMFG!! I know something that the almighty TRP doesn't!?!?!?! The apocalypse is nigh!

Lordban - Thanks! I really didn't expect that much out of this, actually. My strong point is the kind of writing in A World of Difference and AARsenal of Democracy - not manual-writing!:wacko:

Lesson A.5

Production -

This is the main Production screen - let's break it down, shall we?

This is the main production menu of the main production screen of the Production tab(head spinning yet?). In this screen you can see all units under construction, as well as the buttons to start new projects. We'll get to that as we progress. The "AA", "Radar", A-type thingy and anchor all are shortcuts to build installations, which we'll get to later on the tutorial. The "Convoy" and "Escort" buttons allow you to build convoy ships and escort destroyers to protect them. We'll get to that concept in Trade.

This box details conversions of resources. Synthetic Oil Plants (an installation) will convert energy to oil at a rate you can modify here. Sythetic Material Plants (ditto) will magically transform oil to rare materials (rares) at a rate modified from this slider.

This box shows your resources + incomes (mouse over the resources in the topbar to see incomes as well) and your IC and production sliders. The sliders will be addressed momentarily.

IC -

Is your nation's industrial strength. the total of all factories you possess physically is your Base IC. That is the number farthest to the RIGHT. The MIDDLE number is your Effective IC. The formula is =

Base IC + modifiers - penalties = Effective IC.

Modifiers can be granted from many sources. So can penalties. The USA and Britain, for example, start with massive "peacetime modifiers" that restrict their IC while they are at peace. These will go away with the "gearing up for war" events(Events - we'll get to that mess later).

The number on the LEFT is your Wasted IC - How much of your Effective IC you are not using for anything. Note that IC above what you have to spend in Consumer Goods and Supplies does not show up on this gauge.

This is the Expenses panel. You can set how much money goes to various projects from here. We will talk about it in more detail later on in the lesson.

Now, I am going to delete all production projects except the two carriers to free up IC. You can see how much IC a project costs on its panel. I do this by clicking the little X icons on the projects themselves. I should wind up with this screen:

Now I am going to teach you about the production sliders. Before you can modify them you will have to disable "automate production sliders" which AoD ships with activated. Click the "automate production sliders"button to get this screen:

Now click the green check box next to "auto set production sliders". You should get this screen:

Now close the automation window and let's get to work!

The sliders:

Consumer Goods - Amount of IC dedicated to production of money through various means. Good to keep it high if you like having cash to spend.
Production - Industry devoted to producing what you have queued up in the production menu.
Supplies - Factories devoted to manufacturing supplies for frontline use. Extra funding will increase stockpiles.
Reinforcements - Amount of IC going towards shipping new men to your units in the field. Always necessary to have some funding attached to it for replacing losses to aging & disease.
Upgrades - IC dedicated to upgrading your standing units to the most modern levels.
Repair - Used to set up installations after they leave the production menu and repair ones that are damaged in fighting. Advanced concept.

These levels are how I set mt sliders. You might use entirely different priorities. You can change a slider setting by dragging the little box around or by clicking the + and - buttons. RIGHT-click to lock the slider.

This is our return to the expenses panel. As you can see, I have boosted the Espionage funding so that we can begin sending agents to Canada. change the funding here just like you would change the levels of the sliders.

Expense types: (all cost money)

Civil Expenses - Reduces dissent.
Military Salaries - Not sure - I just leave it alone. Someone more knowledgeable to explain?
Espionage - Funding to commit subterfuge. Increase the more nations you are sending to. No funding = no espionage actions.
Research Funding - funding to Research and Development projects. Lowering costs less money per research, but lowers speed of research significantly.
Nuclear Funding - adjusts rate of Nuke production. Will be covered later.

Alright - let's say I want to build some heavy cruisers for the navy. I click the "Flotilla" button to go into the naval build menu, and should be presented with this screen:

You can clearly see the division statistics listed to the RIGHT, under the unit portrait. I will not detail them here. Scrolling down to "New Orleans-class" and selecting it should give me this screen:

Now I decide what naval attachments I want added. Attachments increase the ship's performance in certain areas - You'll have to find the combinations you like best for yourself. I add my attachments by selecting the box underneath the icon -

And then I decide I want 2 cruisers. So I click the + button next to the "Parallel Runs" part. This should be what I see:

I press "Start Project" to go.

Now - on the project bars. You know the red X's cancel. The little arrow, if green, means that the project is running normally. If you click it once, it turns yellow. The project is now going faster for double IC cost. Clicking again once again improves speed, transforms the icon to red, and makes the cost tripled instead of doubled. The red and green arrow buttons adjust build priority - red is lowering, green is raising. The single arrows are single moves in the appropriate direction, and the double arrows are moves all the way to the top or bottom of the list.

The little checkbox, if checked, means that the line will be shut down upon completion of the order. However, SINCE RETOOLING IS NOW A FACTOR, it can be wise to leave a line you're likely to need again (Fighters, anyone?) so that you don't lose a month and a half to retooling time.

The little gold arrows around the numbers - clicking the arrow on the RIGHT will add another unit to the order, while clicking the one on the LEFT will remove one. So, If I click the increase arrow on both of my cruisers -

I get this. Click the other arrow to revert.


Trade -

This is the trade screen.I have selected Denmark and moved the slider on the "supply" resource so that I am giving Denmark ammo and guns. The chance of the Danes accepting is 100 - perfect. You can see that I need 33 convoy ships to execute this trade deal - that's what they're for. They also can ship supplies to overseas ports to supply your men abroad. Escorts can be added to convoys to protect them from enemy raiders.

​

- Lighthearter

 

[Lighthearter]

Whats the small circle thing at the Production screen?Top-Left First picture?

It only shows up in the production screen - it tells you you're building units without brigades. I didn't even see it until you pointed it out. The reason it's gone from the later pics is because I deleted all brigadeless production

 

[quaazi]

Aww, why did you cancel that half done cruiser and started a new one instead?

 

[TRP]

TRP - OMFG!! I know something that the almighty TRP doesn't!?!?!?! The apocalypse is nigh!

Me be Laurence, me not need "technolagey" to win battle, whaaaagghh!

Also, wasn't IC and infra supposed to be buildable in the "province" list in the production tab? If so why can't I do that?

Whats the small circle thing at the Production screen?Top-Left First picture?

Admiral Quantum has become a spotter.



-L

 

[Lighthearter]

Also, wasn't IC and infra supposed to be buildable in the "province" list in the production tab? If so why can't I do that?
-L

Sorry - no. Just everything else IC and infra has the same build system as always (for all the newbies out there, I'm getting to that).

- Lighthearter

 

[Pier]

I assume you will cover retooling, gearing bonus, having a line sit idle, and upgrading a line later?

 

[unmerged(68158)]

I prefer to produce stuff without brigades and then make the brigades seperate. That's cause I use a range of brigade types instead of having the same one on all units. Ships are best made with brigades on them though, of course. For ships I only made camo on the side in cause I need to make my ships better for shoot & scoot missions.