Whats your method for handling combat?

[Evan]

In my 2020 scenario I am playing as India, Pakistan just declared war on me. After I called up my reserves, spending two hours getting all of my resources ready, spooling up production, and getting together a general game plan for how to handle the war, I unpaused and realized I am way out of my depth.


I have almost 200 hours on this game, but for some reason, have never enjoyed combat. I have nearly 1000 units on the map, with air and naval assets as well. It is impossible for me to manage them all! If I do manage them, I find that I am having to either playing it on the slowest speed, or, pause every hour to check / readjust orders.

I did this for a few days, and was just feeling overwhelmed with the amount of micro management I had to put in for my units to be effective. So I decided that I will give AI high level of initiative on land, that was a total mistake. The AI proceeded to just go ramming speed with everything at their cities, I lost many tanks and the artillery was just sent in like lambs for slaughter. The AI sent back units for repair, but took roads that were right in front of enemy lines, all of the units that were being sent back to repair were killed / sniped by nearby enemy units. Out of frustration, I quit the scenario.

How do y'all handle combat? Any tips? I feel its the one thing in this game I just can't understand or even have a proficient level of usage in.

[GIJoe597]

I do not have a tip as it is obvious by your post we have different ideas of how to play the game. I manually control everything except the trade minister. I do not have any issue or problems micro managing my units.

But then again, I am in my 60's and have been playing war games since before there was these nice graphics to go along with them. When you cut your teeth on text based game play, you have patience for micro management of these type of games.

I do have a suggestion you could try. Set up a defense line along your border with Pakistan. In every other hex place 7 Mech INF. Once hex behind place 7 ART. In between those two hexes place supply units. They will allow the INF and ART to reload faster.

Have your Air Force positioned along the front to assist with any Pakistani incursions. Planes, if managed correctly (manually), are a force multiplier.

Ideally, you would want to push up to the Indus River and hold a line there. But at the start of the conflict that may not be possible.

Some points to consider

• Move your military salary and maintenance and training to max. Your troops will perform better.
  
• Bring all forces out of reserve and allow them to come up to full efficiency and entrenchment when possible. Units fresh out of reserve need time to get organized.
  
• India has about 7 times the manpower of Pakistan.
  
• There are plenty of low supplied hexes in western India. This means Pakistani forces are likely to run out of supply fairly quickly as they advance.
  
• I would move in with subs on the first hour, they can be devastating to enemy fleets. If you are at a point you are ready to move up surface units, place subs 1 or 2 hexes in front of them.
  
• If you have to fall back/retreat do not get discouraged, simply adjust your line as needed. Those low supply areas will start to tell on enemy units.
  
• Do not be afraid to retreat back to a new defensive line if your current one is untenable. Trading land for time is very much a strategy.
  

[Sparky28]

I also play in the same way as GIJoe has said above manually creating a line to hold back the enemy. Only I tend to go for choke points and use jets to mop up anything else

One thing you can consider is using missiles to make their life harder taking out bridges always makes things harder for them.

Of course you can always nuke their milatry production helping in a long term war.

Its also worth pointing out if you can withstand the AI's first wave it gets a lot easier after that

[Grimlich]

These were excellent answers. But I think, they answered themselves and not what the user is asking for. there is more than ONE way to play the game. After 'bout 9K hours on the game I still fail at helping the AI perform otherwise than Evan described. I think SRu is an excellent game to play as Gi Joe said, the conventional warfare aspect is well handled by the game but the amount of micro management goes exponential with every new day of conflict especially as a great power and managing everything means I got 3 or 4 months to give to ONE game, immersed in my piles of paper meant to remind me of everything currently going on. Quitting such a game even just for a few days and I forget everything or my imagination wander to another scenario...

That's why most of my games are done in a way to emphasize more the industrial and economical aspects. Military units maintenance is costly. War breaks everything up and kill my future slaves/customers. Maintaining war is diplomatically costly and military goodsand unit maintenance is in the end the biggest expense of a great power after a decade of gametime. So the best of solutions is the quickest way to end it with minimal damage, cost for preparation and unit maintenance. This leave a lot of reserve manpower for supply facilities maintenance giving me a high supply level everywhere. The method ;
- Tick on capital in "win conditions" when setting the game scenario.
-Know the scenario you're using. War are all predictable in CW scen or '36. I'm rarely surprised.
- I use paratroopers or combination of foot infantry and med tanks for naval landings in or around capital cities.
- Send in a massive strike of air support following the transports. Air support must follow closely so the trasports are waking their airforce and the following strike flood the sky and take the anti-air attack allowing your transports to escape and even come back the next day to escort ground troops. This way a war may even last only one day, with only the capital city slightly damaged. Scrapping their useless military and facilities provides for a good part of the military goods used. Using only paratroopers you can win games with only 300 units total built, 200 of them being engineers used to build. I enjoy the house rule of 5/5/5. Only five military units production per "arm" for the whole game.Losing ONE unit, in this context is a disaster.
- In India's-Pakistan particular conflict, if wishing to win easily with conventionnal warfare. I advise at start to replace the airfield in Srinagar with airbase and/or add supply depots. Link the city with an east - west road to Pathankhot northgoing road through Himalayas.Build a few hex road down from Srinagar up to Pak's frontier and you'll have a higher supply level than them in their capital area. Assault the capital from land this way at beginning of conflict using all military territory-taking units: in-rec-ta.Build the road as you advance for every hex toward the capital. While all your artillery is used to stopand slow their advance eastward, in support of your garrisons.

[Grimlich]

Lol
Just realised, I failed to mention the cheesse to win easily ... massive paratrroop drop into capital. If the fight is to last more than a day then the ennemy airforce in the capital battle zone has to be taken down in the first 12 hours to secure the air transports returning to escort troops on the ground making them more effective especially as their combat time won't give them enough supply to completely do the job. Ratio of losses is around 1 or 2 units lost per country conquered.

[Evan]

Thank you GIJoe, Sparky, and Mournon. I know you all have vast more experience in this game than I, therefore I am grateful for the thoughtful responses.

GIJoe; I understand your wargaming background, so your style of play is totally understandable. However, I find micromanaging nations where you have thousands of units available a bit impractical - even in my India campaign, which for the record, is a stalemate - has its moments. The way combat is resolved makes fussing around with the clock a bit tiresome after a while.

Sparky: I deployed my ICBMs / highyields and those did limited effect on the targets, I didn't have many unfortunately. One mistake I made pre-war was not building a big enough airforce, most of my jets are mix between Russian & NATO. Pakistan combat AI sent quite a few fighters after me once I launched initial bombers. I attempted to 'escort' with my own fighters, but that just caused more casualties on my end as it appears Pakistan had medium & high altitude AA capability.

Mournon: You and I play similar styles of the game, I love the economic and societal aspects of SRU. As I mention above in regards to Sparky's post, I am suffering heavily to the lack of proper air force capability as Pakistan seems to just always have more jets than I or of better quality. I am assuming that when I select my own fighters, right click on pakistan fighters to engage, the AI does a so-so job of getting it done. (Their unit behavior is set to engage).

Perhaps what I am missing after all, is a in-depth combat tutorial to help figure out the smaller mechanics at play that I am not aware of. For example, as GIJoe stated, having supply units in adjacent tiles increases combat effectiveness of surrounding units. I had no idea!

Thanks

[GIJoe597]

Originally posted by Evan:

GIJoe; I understand your wargaming background, so your style of play is totally understandable. However, I find micromanaging nations where you have thousands of units available a bit impractical - even in my India campaign, which for the record, is a stalemate - has its moments. The way combat is resolved makes fussing around with the clock a bit tiresome after a while.
Thanks

I understand. I rarely have more than 500 units total regardless which nation I am playing.

[Evan]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

Originally posted by Evan:

GIJoe; I understand your wargaming background, so your style of play is totally understandable. However, I find micromanaging nations where you have thousands of units available a bit impractical - even in my India campaign, which for the record, is a stalemate - has its moments. The way combat is resolved makes fussing around with the clock a bit tiresome after a while.
Thanks

I understand. I rarely have more than 500 units total regardless which nation I am playing.

Do you start your games "without military" units? I tried doing that with a cold war scenario and the AI ended up declaring war on whomever without any military units for either side.

[GIJoe597]

I do not. When I start as a nation with a large military, USA/Russia/China, for example. I scrap everything I consider outdated/obsolete. I only keep what I intend to use. I then start producing the most modern units I can. As they roll of the production lines I scrap the current/less modern units. I do not constantly increase the size of my military.

I can do that since I do not use AI control of my units. I have noticed most people who use AI have 1000's of units. It seems most people do not understand you only need small fronts, the facilities are all that matter when attacking/defending. They are the supply producing areas. For example, only attack along a road, why worry about the 100's of kms to the left and right.

[DARI]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

...
I can do that since I do not use AI control of my units. I have noticed most people who use AI have 1000's of units. It seems most people do not understand you only need small fronts, the facilities are all that matter when attacking/defending. They are the supply producing areas. For example, only attack along a road, why worry about the 100's of kms to the left and right.

This is most useful info!
A complete Frontline is not needed in this game - especially in useless empty areas
(also not in 1914!)
Go along transportation corridors and get the population centers, top prioritiy goes to supply generating facilities as GIJoe597 wrote, then military repair and production facilities - even if you think you can hold it only for a few day - then start scrapping or destroy them.

As for controlling units - i tend to just lasso up to 100 units , put them to a control group and use it as in any old-school rts vs. a non-superpower or a superpower with already depleted units.
For a better kill to death ratio - use several control groups, so you supply vehicles dont arrive on the front before your combat units.
But this is easy enough to control for a human and not that unfair vs a computer run enemy that cant handle it very well.

[DemonicSquid]

My own personal method is to use hotspots and territory priorities and let the AI control everything. That leaves me to make sure that everything is supplied (supply depots), and we have enough equipment and fuel to keep the war going. I keep an eye on the hotspots as the AI likes to add it's own but otherwise will let it run it's course. I keep all unit types on fully autonomous except ships (as I prefer to control those myself).

At the beginning of the game (I generally start in 1914 though) I will micro everything until my nation is powerful enough to start releasing control of certain aspects of it.

[SifuHotman]

Really the only thing you need to do is make good units and make sure your military spending is maxed. The AI basically never maxes it so you're guarenteed really good performance out of your units

[Chris]

Originally posted by Evan:

In my 2020 scenario I am playing as India, Pakistan just declared war on me. After I called up my reserves, spending two hours getting all of my resources ready, spooling up production, and getting together a general game plan for how to handle the war, I unpaused and realized I am way out of my depth.


I have almost 200 hours on this game, but for some reason, have never enjoyed combat. I have nearly 1000 units on the map, with air and naval assets as well. It is impossible for me to manage them all! If I do manage them, I find that I am having to either playing it on the slowest speed, or, pause every hour to check / readjust orders.

I did this for a few days, and was just feeling overwhelmed with the amount of micro management I had to put in for my units to be effective. So I decided that I will give AI high level of initiative on land, that was a total mistake. The AI proceeded to just go ramming speed with everything at their cities, I lost many tanks and the artillery was just sent in like lambs for slaughter. The AI sent back units for repair, but took roads that were right in front of enemy lines, all of the units that were being sent back to repair were killed / sniped by nearby enemy units. Out of frustration, I quit the scenario.

How do y'all handle combat? Any tips? I feel its the one thing in this game I just can't understand or even have a proficient level of usage in.

I just go for it, I manage and then take control over everything personally, and always have backup plans. Funny enough I had one game where argentina(me) developed nukes before everyone else and used that to win multiple wars and take over half the world before anyone else got nukes. It was comically funny that argentina was the world power

[Excalibrrr]

War is intellect

[Evan]

Originally posted by CJ:

War is intellect

thanks for the insightful commentary

[Grimlich]

War is deception
Sun Tsu

"Heretics"