First of all, thanks SO much for all the great effort you've gone to in making these videos. I've watched ALL of them up to this one. They've helped me start to assemble the various mountains of facts in the Manual into something useful. Here's a minor point, and then a suggestion at the end: At 48:13 where you're discussing "Ground Attack" you said it's when you are attacking, as in using land units (you had done an example of an attack to show air units getting involved). I believe that is incorrect, and later I mention the test I did that seems to confirm it. From the manual under 16.3 Air Missions: "The phasing player conducts recon, bomb unit, bomb airfield, bomb city, air transport, air transfer, and fighter escort air missions as desired during their turn. Ground support missions, to include fighter escorts, are automatically conducted by the computer based on air doctrine settings." Note two things: 1. The only mission it says are being conducted AUTOMATICALLY based on air doctrine settings are the ground support missions. The others are done "as desired" by the player, which means they only occur IF the player CHOOSES to do them. 2. "Bomb unit" is one that is included in the "Player choice" list, and I believe THAT is the one "Ground Attack" is used to determine the aircraft mix. The easiest way to confirm that is to load a scenario, set "Ground Attack" parameters to 0, launch an attack with a ground unit and see if aircraft fly to participate. They DO. Try to launch a "Bomb Unit" with Ground Attack parameters set to 0. They DON'T; you'll get a message saying "Bomber units unavailable or out of range" even when your airfields are very close, such as the "Road to Minsk" scenario. I didn't raise this to go "ha ha", LOL, rather it was to test my own understanding as when I heard you say that I went "hang on, have I got that entirely incorrect??". The simple fact is the people who wrote the manual clearly lacked even basic technical writing skills (which is fair enough, it IS a particular skill after all). I've gone through the manual page by page, used the search function in PDF versions, and the simple fact is it doesn't DEFINE WHAT EACH MISSION IS NOR WHAT THAT MEANS at ANY point. I expected to find it at the "Air Doctrine" page part of the manual, but NOPE. Drives me nuts, lol, as I AM a technical writer amongst other things. Am enjoying this series of videos greatly. I bought this game way back at release (which was, btw, in 2010 I believe) but I NEVER PLAYED IT because the manual was SUCH a clusterfuck and I'm someone who reads the manual EVERY time (probably because I write procedures etc for large corporations). I decided I couldn't be arsed trying to make sense of it as that reminded me too much of work. Plus I had "Second Front" and that was fun AND I understood it. If I could offer one small piece of advice, and perhaps you'll get to it somewhere, is based on my view that the greatest failing of the manual is that it DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT IT TELLS YOU IN TERMS YOU NEED TO PLAY THE GAME. My advice, therefore, is to include at SOME point in EVERY VIDEO, bits about "AND THIS IS WHY ALL THIS MATTERS". I'll give you a simple example. You covered the command and control elements very thoroughly. There were, however, 2 things I felt were lacking: 1. what exactly ARE the penalties for exceeding an HQ's command limits? 2. Units further than the relevant distance for C&C purposes experience WHAT, exactly? The implication is I ought to move my Corps HQs to keep their attached units within 5 hexes, and then the Army HQs when any Corp HQ is going to get beyond 15, and so on. Here's the thing, however: are there reasons NOT to do that? What UNDESIRABLE consequences are there from moving HQs? If I don't know THAT, I can't weigh up the benefits of keeping my units within their C&C limits vs the costs of moving the HQs up the chain as subordinate HQs or units are exceeding the C&C ranges. I will add that in this particular video you DID get into some of the implications, such as the idea of having rear area air bases into which to put units for rest and refit, etc. That's EXACTLY the sort of stuff I was mentioning above, and it's SO welcome. I know that's a lot of stuff to take in, but thought I'd put it out here for you to consider. The Manual is more an Encyclopaedia; sure, it contains a ton of facts, but it FAILS to put those facts in a coherent order that helps a player play the game, Which is why, as a "Players' Manual", it sucks. It fails THE most important function of such a document. A bit sad, LOL. Cheers
@@MrPhantom453 That's an intriguing question. What prompted it? On one of Dojo's War in the Pacific videos I commented that as he'd spent so much time looking at Sydney in his excellent tutorial series that he really needs to visit the place if he's never been. I then added that as a local, I'd hopefully be available to play tour guide. So, yes, guilty as charged. ;-D Glad you liked my comment, long though it was.
@@strategygamingdojo5278 Thanks, glad you liked it. I've finally decided to start playing the game and your tutorials plus my own habit of reading manuals end to end then looking things up as I play until I think I've understood it are making it a fun learning exercise. On top of that, some of my lifelong friends with whom I play wargames decided they wanted to play it and they expect me to understand everything, although that's kind of my own fault, LOL. Cheers
@@steeltrap3800 No mate, easier than that, it was your use of Australian technical terminology such as "cluster-fuck" and "can't be arsed" that gave you away. 😉 Adelaide boy myself. Still trying to get competent at WitE. Then I'll give WitP-AE a crack.
Thank you! You are the most in depth tutorial channel I have ever come across... and it is much needed; and it is very well done! It encapsulates the tangential nature of learning such a big game, too, with your rabbit holes haha. Really appreciate you, plan on joining the strat gaming dojo family very soon! xx
hey @Strategy Gaming Dojo... I cannot seem to figure out how to transfer units from airbase to airbase--it just ends up doing a supply mission. Any help? also, with air doctrine, it seems that I cannot incr/decr the percentages for airfield attack/escort as well as ground attack/escort... any help? EDIT: it's because we already air attacked -- im following along with you so i can do it myself, btw, so it makes sense! also, with recon, do you advise observing a hex that has multiple enemy unit counters around it, or observing the hexes with unit counters on it? Is there a benefit to either strat? *I noticed that the AI would do the former...
So from your experience, how good a job does the AI generally do of selecting missions and allocating aircraft to missions if you leave the AI to it/ select the most automated mission actions? For discussion sake, say if you set the Air Doctrine all to 100 in each air mission type, how well does the AI do? Thanks for this video series. Just awesome work and really appreciated. I binge watched five yesterday evening and I'm doing another five tonight! Yes they're that good!
I have been doing that, in the "road to..." scenario(s). Just setting everything to 100 and the minimum planes needed to fly at 10% and using the AI button. I feel like it's doing a good job. in the 41-45 long campaign, you probably need to learn more about air management and tweaking the numbers each turn. I don't know if I want to get that "into" this game. I like the shorter scenarios. I also fired up WITW for the first time, I see why people wish the air warfare from WITW was in WITE. The air phase in WITW is SOOOOOO much better. I'm also really looking forward to WITE 2 and hoping they incorporated the air phase from WITW into it.
@@CptLordCockburn Thanks for your reply and advice. Much appreciated. I've had both WitE and WitW since their release. Have only ever done a couple of the WitE scenarios years ago. Have not even touched WitW. I too am really looking forward to WitE2. From all the info I have seen so far, the air system in WitE2 is very much akin to WitW, but even better! Much better AI, Theatre boxes (to account for other theatres of war), two way/ single way rail networks, roads, better movement systems. We shall see Can't wait!
Your tutorials are excellent. Matrix should sign you up to explain WIE2 !
Thank you do much. I appreciate it. And we'll see what I'll be doing with Matrix/Slitherine in the future ;)
First of all, thanks SO much for all the great effort you've gone to in making these videos. I've watched ALL of them up to this one. They've helped me start to assemble the various mountains of facts in the Manual into something useful.
Here's a minor point, and then a suggestion at the end:
At 48:13 where you're discussing "Ground Attack" you said it's when you are attacking, as in using land units (you had done an example of an attack to show air units getting involved).
I believe that is incorrect, and later I mention the test I did that seems to confirm it.
From the manual under 16.3 Air Missions:
"The phasing player conducts recon, bomb unit, bomb airfield, bomb city, air transport, air transfer, and fighter escort air missions as desired during their turn. Ground support missions, to include fighter escorts, are automatically conducted by the computer based on air doctrine settings."
Note two things:
1. The only mission it says are being conducted AUTOMATICALLY based on air doctrine settings are the ground support missions. The others are done "as desired" by the player, which means they only occur IF the player CHOOSES to do them.
2. "Bomb unit" is one that is included in the "Player choice" list, and I believe THAT is the one "Ground Attack" is used to determine the aircraft mix.
The easiest way to confirm that is to load a scenario, set "Ground Attack" parameters to 0, launch an attack with a ground unit and see if aircraft fly to participate. They DO.
Try to launch a "Bomb Unit" with Ground Attack parameters set to 0. They DON'T; you'll get a message saying "Bomber units unavailable or out of range" even when your airfields are very close, such as the "Road to Minsk" scenario.
I didn't raise this to go "ha ha", LOL, rather it was to test my own understanding as when I heard you say that I went "hang on, have I got that entirely incorrect??".
The simple fact is the people who wrote the manual clearly lacked even basic technical writing skills (which is fair enough, it IS a particular skill after all). I've gone through the manual page by page, used the search function in PDF versions, and the simple fact is it doesn't DEFINE WHAT EACH MISSION IS NOR WHAT THAT MEANS at ANY point. I expected to find it at the "Air Doctrine" page part of the manual, but NOPE. Drives me nuts, lol, as I AM a technical writer amongst other things.
Am enjoying this series of videos greatly. I bought this game way back at release (which was, btw, in 2010 I believe) but I NEVER PLAYED IT because the manual was SUCH a clusterfuck and I'm someone who reads the manual EVERY time (probably because I write procedures etc for large corporations). I decided I couldn't be arsed trying to make sense of it as that reminded me too much of work. Plus I had "Second Front" and that was fun AND I understood it.
If I could offer one small piece of advice, and perhaps you'll get to it somewhere, is based on my view that the greatest failing of the manual is that it DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT IT TELLS YOU IN TERMS YOU NEED TO PLAY THE GAME.
My advice, therefore, is to include at SOME point in EVERY VIDEO, bits about "AND THIS IS WHY ALL THIS MATTERS".
I'll give you a simple example. You covered the command and control elements very thoroughly. There were, however, 2 things I felt were lacking:
1. what exactly ARE the penalties for exceeding an HQ's command limits?
2. Units further than the relevant distance for C&C purposes experience WHAT, exactly? The implication is I ought to move my Corps HQs to keep their attached units within 5 hexes, and then the Army HQs when any Corp HQ is going to get beyond 15, and so on. Here's the thing, however: are there reasons NOT to do that? What UNDESIRABLE consequences are there from moving HQs? If I don't know THAT, I can't weigh up the benefits of keeping my units within their C&C limits vs the costs of moving the HQs up the chain as subordinate HQs or units are exceeding the C&C ranges.
I will add that in this particular video you DID get into some of the implications, such as the idea of having rear area air bases into which to put units for rest and refit, etc. That's EXACTLY the sort of stuff I was mentioning above, and it's SO welcome.
I know that's a lot of stuff to take in, but thought I'd put it out here for you to consider. The Manual is more an Encyclopaedia; sure, it contains a ton of facts, but it FAILS to put those facts in a coherent order that helps a player play the game, Which is why, as a "Players' Manual", it sucks. It fails THE most important function of such a document. A bit sad, LOL.
Cheers
Excellent comment. Thank you
Great post!
May I ask, are you an Aussie?
@@MrPhantom453 That's an intriguing question. What prompted it?
On one of Dojo's War in the Pacific videos I commented that as he'd spent so much time looking at Sydney in his excellent tutorial series that he really needs to visit the place if he's never been.
I then added that as a local, I'd hopefully be available to play tour guide.
So, yes, guilty as charged.
;-D
Glad you liked my comment, long though it was.
@@strategygamingdojo5278 Thanks, glad you liked it.
I've finally decided to start playing the game and your tutorials plus my own habit of reading manuals end to end then looking things up as I play until I think I've understood it are making it a fun learning exercise. On top of that, some of my lifelong friends with whom I play wargames decided they wanted to play it and they expect me to understand everything, although that's kind of my own fault, LOL.
Cheers
@@steeltrap3800 No mate, easier than that, it was your use of Australian technical terminology such as "cluster-fuck" and "can't be arsed" that gave you away. 😉
Adelaide boy myself. Still trying to get competent at WitE. Then I'll give WitP-AE a crack.
Thank you! You are the most in depth tutorial channel I have ever come across... and it is much needed; and it is very well done! It encapsulates the tangential nature of learning such a big game, too, with your rabbit holes haha. Really appreciate you, plan on joining the strat gaming dojo family very soon! xx
Soon an episode on winter management in the big main scenario?
Yes, I will be covering winter management in the Supply episode
@@strategygamingdojo5278 looking forward to it
nice. thanks for the tutorials.
Glad you like them!
Great job as usual.
Thank you! Cheers!
hey @Strategy Gaming Dojo... I cannot seem to figure out how to transfer units from airbase to airbase--it just ends up doing a supply mission. Any help?
also, with air doctrine, it seems that I cannot incr/decr the percentages for airfield attack/escort as well as ground attack/escort... any help? EDIT: it's because we already air attacked -- im following along with you so i can do it myself, btw, so it makes sense!
also, with recon, do you advise observing a hex that has multiple enemy unit counters around it, or observing the hexes with unit counters on it? Is there a benefit to either strat? *I noticed that the AI would do the former...
So from your experience, how good a job does the AI generally do of selecting missions and allocating aircraft to missions if you leave the AI to it/ select the most automated mission actions? For discussion sake, say if you set the Air Doctrine all to 100 in each air mission type, how well does the AI do?
Thanks for this video series. Just awesome work and really appreciated. I binge watched five yesterday evening and I'm doing another five tonight! Yes they're that good!
I have been doing that, in the "road to..." scenario(s). Just setting everything to 100 and the minimum planes needed to fly at 10% and using the AI button. I feel like it's doing a good job. in the 41-45 long campaign, you probably need to learn more about air management and tweaking the numbers each turn. I don't know if I want to get that "into" this game. I like the shorter scenarios. I also fired up WITW for the first time, I see why people wish the air warfare from WITW was in WITE. The air phase in WITW is SOOOOOO much better. I'm also really looking forward to WITE 2 and hoping they incorporated the air phase from WITW into it.
@@CptLordCockburn Thanks for your reply and advice. Much appreciated.
I've had both WitE and WitW since their release. Have only ever done a couple of the WitE scenarios years ago. Have not even touched WitW. I too am really looking forward to WitE2. From all the info I have seen so far, the air system in WitE2 is very much akin to WitW, but even better! Much better AI, Theatre boxes (to account for other theatres of war), two way/ single way rail networks, roads, better movement systems.
We shall see Can't wait!