1654

:D :D :D

Use the beta patch.

1655

In my experience Free Trade just means you end up without enough resources for important things.
The US is swimming in resources so they can do it, but everyone else seems to have some critical resource they barely have any of that going FT cripples them in some way.
USSR is pretty massive, but I still recall a couple resources being limited, so I’d be wary of it. You might run out of Rubber and maybe Chromium if you do it.

1656

My strategy has been going free trade for the first few years to speed up factory construction. My thinking was I got a few civilian factories back from the countries I traded resources to so it wasn’t that big a loss to free trade for the speed boost. Am I better off just keeping my civilian factories for construction and not using them for trade? I don’t really know the math the game uses to calculate factory construction speed.

1658

If you can get the PP to do it, it’s probably not a bad idea if you know you definitely wont be at war for a while. At least on paper it sounds good, but I don’t know the interactions well enough to say anything with any authority.

1659

Looks great, @jpinard. Very similar to my run. Whether you continue to allocate one factory to naval/strategic/tactical is up to you, but I don’t think you’re going to get much value out of having just one allocated to each.

My only really suggestions are, as factories come online, to ramp up anti-tank weapons a bit (I think I ultimately went as high as 3 or factories), start another line of infantry weapons (so you can convert your production in two steps) and to continue producing new fighters.

Your allocation on mediums is interesting! I didn’t even consider building them until the T-34 was available (but I saved my ahead of time armour bonus for the T-34 and then rushed it in '39).

One other thing that you may not be aware of is once Germany shares Poland with you, make claims on the three Baltic states individually. It’ll cost you some PP, but you have a very high chance of forcing them to join you without firing a shot. Unfortunately Finland has a very high chance to reject, which is where the Winter War comes from.

1660

HOLLY COW

My line has been holding really well, and now that I have some leeway in that the Germans don’t insta-overrun my line, I was able to try some of the techniques you all mentioned… and it all finally makes sense! Filling in lines, moving troops to fallback positions as their division has a leak, putting a reserve troops into position where one is faltering due to organization, counter-attacking breakouts. WOW. It’s like a whole new game has been opened up. This stuff all made sense in theory, but in practice I was frustrated not being able to wrap my head around it. But with the entire front holding with only 1 spot falling apart at a time, it is easily manageable, so I can do an extremely slow holding retreat back to my fortified lines along the Rigi-Dneiper River-Odessa line. This gives me plenty of time to replace lost factories and ramp up more production. Unfortunately I am in the red for air supremacy everywhere except for the Baltics. Also somehow while I wasn’t looking Germany Broke through my Finnish defense line up by Norway. I’ll be replaying the German assault over since I was distracted trying different techniques and see how it goes in round 2.

BTW - knowing what research can be safely skipped is huge. I do wonder if I made a mistake in the tree fork I took for land doctrine. @meeper would you look at that? Airland Battle vs. Shock & Awe

1661

Since political points are at a premium before Operation Barborossa, I think you end up behind because not only does it take longer to get some of the other bonus’s you need, you’re also technically out 300 political points (unless you stay with Free Trade forever) then it’s 150.

1662

This was the day that jpinard became President General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1663

How did your u make such a nice chart? :)

1664 
|Titles|Go|Here|
|--|--|--|   <-- precisely as many of these as you have columns
|table|data|etc|

produces

Titles Go Here
table data etc

You can also copy and paste from Excel or similar, the forum software converts for you.

1665

I went Shock & Awe, though by the time I got to that choice, I was already planning ahead to WW3.

1666

If my feeble mind can interpret it correctly, is Shock & Awe for generalized buffing of infantry lines, whereas Airland Battle is more for anti-tank warfare?

Also - do you ever convert old equipment into new equipment in the field? I guess you’re able to do that somehow but I can’t find the button.

I forgot to mention, one thing I think ended up being so important I didn’t realize early on was creating variants of units. It didn’t dawn on me until this playthru that it’s basically a free huge upgrade. Sof ro units I thought I"d sit on for a while - LaGG3 and T-34 I’ve been pouring all my points into them.

1667

I don’t have the tree descriptions in front of me, but that sounds about right.

To be honest, I always forget about this damn feature because of how well hidden it is!

Upgrading equipment can be pretty beneficial, especially if you wind up with a 5/5/5/5 piece of gear or something. But the next generation is always going to be superior to that fully upgraded gear, so except perhaps for 1940 aircraft, I don’t know that I’d pour too many points into it. Remember, it’s not just the experience point cost of the upgrade, but the efficiency loss in your factories for the conversion.

1668

Should my fighters be set to Air Superiority only, or Air Superiority and Interception?

1669

My understanding is that air superiority missions that aren’t necessary will automatically perform interception (at a slightly reduced efficiency), so for air zones on or near the front, I’d use that. For missions defending Moscow or Leningrad for example, I’d use interception.

1670

So well hidden I have no idea where/how to do it? I even looked it up on Internet and still not clue.

1671

Say you have a bunch of Light Tank I’s in inventory (since you upgraded your tank divisions to mediums). You can convert those to something more useful, such as Light Self-Propelled Artillery II. So you make a factory line building Light SPA II and check the checkbox for converting old equipment. Now each Light SPA II that this line puts out will be built much faster and with lower resource cost, but it will consume a light tank I (or a light tank II) in inventory. Once the inventory of old equipment runs out, the line goes back to regular speed and resource cost.

The only difference between air superiority and interception missions is that interception only flies when there are enemy aircraft on bombing missions (air support, strat bombing, etc) in the air zone. Once they are in the air they behave exactly the same (except for different bonuses from doctrine).

1672

Oh sorry yet another question on air power. I noticed German is shooting down most of my CAS aircraft. Should I be holding them back until they are on their way to my final fortified defensive line? Or have them hit the Germans from the start of Operation Barbarossa if the losses will help in the long run?

1673

If you are at a big fighter disadvantage, most of your CAS will be disrupted and not help out on the ground (those they might shoot down the odd fighter and lower your fighter losses by soaking up bullets). So normally you’d save them for when the air superiority is balanced or in your favour.

1674

To elaborate further, the AI tends to really tends to jump its fighters around. If you really like to micro manage, you could order your CAS aloft during one of the cycles where the AI has decided its fighters are better used elsewhere.

Personally, I assigned my CAS units to my armoured army directly. Because my armoured army saw relatively little use in the early war, my CAS wasn’t in daily use – but when I needed to use that army, my CAS (and the 200 or so fighters I attached to the army as well) got to jump into action without me worrying about positioning the wings or issuing specific orders.