AGEOD Forums

Good afternoon,

hopefully such a thread does not yet exists. I'm curious what your build up during the war is? I'm not well informed if the nations build new divisions and if yes how many. I do not think too much about building the right army ATM, usually I build a little bit of everything Would be interested in some strategies for the three factions.

Cheers

I tend to build corps (divisions in ACW 2 terms) composed of 2 infantry divisions (when you build them, 1 division = 2 Inf reg + 1 field art reg) and 2 med or field art. Which gives 1 corps = 4 inf/mil regiments and 4 artillery. Stack two corps like these with a ** general and you have a nice independant corp with a fire power of about 500 and no CP penalties.
For armies, I stack 2 of those "doublle corps" with a *** general, add in transmission and balloons, 1 cav, and whatever heavy or super heavy art can fit without going over the CP limit of 48.
I think that in case of a siege, one can add extra super heavy artillery even if it gives something like 5% CP penalty.

As WE, I usually buy all infantry, field artillery and med artillery as soon as possible (I nearly exhaust the pool), merge them all in one province once they are ready, deploy there all my ** generals, and build my corps from here.

I start off building artillery. Lots of it. Troops come second, especially
infantry. I don't build much cavalry because they don't hold up well in
battle. My 3rd priority is aircraft.

I start off building inf. Lots of it. For establishing a frontline and don't forget german mountaineers for the soon to be Italian front as CPs. Then four supply waggons as Aus-Hung, for being better supplied, when defending in the snowy Carpaths. Arty comes next, esp. medium arty, then the heavies. Also fighter plane squads from 1915 onwards to make air recon more costly for the enemy. Then some support units for newly created armies. Haven't build any naval units as CPs though.

Right from the start, as CP, I build submarines! Other than that, as Capybara said. A couple of new Corps if possible, especially for the Austro-Hungarians!

I build artillery- some light for the Austrians and Medium for Germany and Austria. Lot of it initially.
Later, i.e. 1915 onwards, 2-3 new armies are built by me- (2 German and 1 Austrian; German Armies 1 each for both fronts as reserves for tackling the AI deep breakthrough and the Austrian army for tackling Italy)
For this 8 or so infantry divisions stacked into corps having at least 1 medium artillery and support-
SIGNALS is quite useless, i build- Hospital and Engineer (very good for recovery of cohesion and small defensive and siege boost) and also Fighters (fighters have natural signal and balloon ability i.e. they are a combination of a signal+recon element an further they butcher enemy recon planes).
I also add PONTOON Bridges to all my existing armies once my initial builds are over, this is useful for crossing rivers without losing much cohesion so good for Italy, Balkan and Russian Fronts.
CAVALRY is useless, i stack existing cavalry in Corps and use them as emergency reserves or as Guard troops to hold supply line, repair railways destroyed by AI etc on the Balkan and Russian Fronts.
As far as possible build- Austrian and Hungarian units alone as Austria, rest of units get a penalty in Cohesion.

Keep in mind that signals and balloons can be very valuable for an army. The
signals reduce a penalty unless there are aircraft already present.

Why Signals is useless? The most efficient armies are those that take advantage of the last drop of CP in a stack. I speak of experience. Everyone dreaded sagji from PON's PBEM because he knew how to take advantage of that little technical detail to destroy his rivals. I know they should not be considered priority, but if you create your own designed armies, adding auxiliaries is helpful. Even if the only thing they do is add CP. I understand your preferance for Fighters (which have a combined advantage) but I think Signals is much cheaper and always there.

As for Cavalry, I prefer to play it totally different. There is no use of attaching it to a Corps, it will be slowed down to the slowest of units. I mostly leave Cavalry independent so they can be fast and stealthy (small units have bonus in their Hide attributes), ideal to harass the enemy near the front or behind it. Not only for reconnaissance, but also to destroy his logistics (railways, depots, etc).

As the CP I mostly build additional infantry (incl. Mountain) in the first few turns (mostly for the East to raise 2-3 new German armies, but also some new divisions in the West to rotate in for depleted ones on the front line. Paralel to the infantry I build some field and medium artillery (about 1 for every 3 divisions). Supply, Ammo, Engineers and occasionaly Pontoons for the new armies. Fighters for the Western Armies. Additional artillery for the Austro-Hungarians...

Rarelly cavalry, if I build any it's mostly for added recon rather than combat (I wonder how cavalry evolves in the game, historically many divisions eventually dismounted as the fronts became static, though some cavalry was always retained for scouting and as rapid reaction forces)...

If you compare costs of Recon+Signals, Fighters don't seem that costly and they give both benefits + they butcher Recon.

By corps, i meant- CAVALRY only Corps not mixed corps and used as emergency reserves as the AI often does deep raids into Austrian territory from Serbia and Italy, so to whack these deep raiders a fast force is needed and cavalry helps in this.

In my ongoing AAR, I have built a lot of infantry because there are several areas in my opinion, that are troop poor, like Egypt. But after an initial build of several infantry divisions, I have build a lot of artillery. I just got the tank units and have built almost all of them - (actually they are not finished yet).

Mountain is also a good build for CP Germany, Austria already has all its mountain troops in place. If you can build say- 6 mountain divisions or so and send them by early 1915 to Italian Front, it really helps the Austrians as your corps will get entrenchment in the mountains in regions which have already built in forts, which will help the main Austrian army in Italy to be concentrated as an attack/counter-attack force.