Do HQs have a Readiness level?

[Bromley]

Readiness of the defending unit is used to calculate how much damage they take when attacked.

HQs don't have a visible readiness stat (their Rating is displayed instead), which would lead me to believe that they always have a default of 100%.

However, I'm pretty sure I've seen their Strength number grey out after a few attacks, indicating that they might have hidden morale/readiness stats. Anyone know the answer?

[Terif]

The readiness of a HQ only depends on its strength and no other factors like for other units. So with str 10 they have 100% readiness, with str 5 = 50% readiness etc.

An interesting thing about HQs:

Airstrikes don´t cause a morale drop, which means in the right terrain (like forests, cities, mountains, fortifications..etc) they are pretty much safe from airstrikes since the defence bonuses will prevent them from taking much if any damage as long as their strength points are close to maximum. So HQ hunting with long-range air like complained about in SC1 is no viable option any more in SC2 .

P.S.: the effectiveness of HQ support for units under their command depends on the strength points of the HQ, so if you leave a HQ e.g. at str 5, then its command bonus will also be halved . This means it is useful to reinforce damaged HQs always to full strength as soon as possible if you want to support combat units with them (+ it greatly improves their ability to survive enemy airstrikes).

[ December 29, 2006, 01:47 PM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Bromley]

Once again, thanks Terif for the info.

I found out about the HQ strength/effectiveness after someone demonstrated it to my Allied desert forces. So I've started reinforcing Gamelin now, although perhaps he has little effect on the outcome.

[JJColorado]

Well I have to disagree about HQ's being safe from long range air-hunts. I had a landing in Vichy a few games ago. The Germans operated all 6 air units into the Paris area and proceeded to bomb to death my US HQ in a city, my Brit HQ in a mountain hex, then 2 more HQ's that I landed in the city. I could not keep my HQ's alive even though they were in protecting terrain. The air was able to hunt them down and successfully kill them. Eventually my entire invasion of at least 12 units was killed to the last unit once all HQ's including HQ's that I amphibed in as reinforcements were destroyed.

[Liam]

Actually Terif is right, HQs are not really at high risk much anymore. You can rebuild them if they get destroyed and few can employ so much air to as to destroy an HQ. I think since SC2 has started I've lost 2 HQs in all! Back in SC1 I could lose 2 HQs per game in a long game anyway!

Keep your HQs entrenched Sucks up those Airstrikes and the Tiles make it easy for you align them in a tough place to get to

[Terif]

Yep, I also never lost a HQ in SC2 to airstrikes (except the french ones obviously, and a german one by mistake in the french planes ).

If the enemy can muster so many and obviously experienced airfleets that he can destroy a HQ in a city or even mountain, then he could have destroyed all your ground units with them much more easily...I personally are happy about any airstrike against my HQs (as long as they are not unentrenched in open terrain.. ), since this means he didn´t do losses to a vulnerable combat unit .

Remember:

Cities and mountains have a defence bonus of 2, i.e. full strength HQs absorb 2 damage points, each entrenchment level increases this by 1...

i.e. airfleets do only expected losses of 0 even against an unentrenched HQ and need at least around 2 medals of experience to achieve even 1 expected damage point !

So in the end if the enemy killed you a HQ in a mountain or city, this means he could have killed with the same amount of airstrikes something around 20-30 strength points from your combat units (+ crushing their morale/readiness), which means with some supporting ground units could have wiped out all your ground forces instead...

[ December 30, 2006, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[BioWizard]

May I just add that you should never ever leave a HQ, or any other unit for that matter, in a marsh when there are enemy air units nearby! These tiles provide a -1 defense against air attacks and you cannot entrench in them. It increases vulnerability against air attacks.

In a recent PBEM I did as axis in which I had already taken Stalingrad but 15 Russians armies were still in the vicinity well entrenched in fortifications right on the other side of the river, protecting Caucasus and Eastern Stalingrad, I was able to kill 2 Russian HQs, one in the open, the other in a marsh, in one turn only with air attacks! The next turn, all those good looking armies were at supply 0 !!!

[Night]

The whole Idea of HQs being destroyed by air attacks is silly. It was silly in SC1 and it is silly in SC2. Historicaly I can't remember ever hearing about something like it being effectivly used. In other words commanders of armies in WWII were overwhelmingly safe unless their entire army got surrounded like in Stalingrad. No top generals that I can think of died to air strikes, and the most I can see an airstrike doing is disrupting operations for a short time while the staff gets cover.

Also consider how ridicilous it is that an HQ unit, something that should encompass a few generals and their staffs respectivly, take up tiles that are like 50 miles wide lol. How could anyone find a few hundred men 200 miles behind the lines with enough accuracy to do an airstrike in the 40s! Didn't happen.

Now if you consider HQs as some kind of supply depot or all the logistical troops it makes a little more sense, but supplys for multiple armies were not all stored in the same small area both for the reason that they were vulnerable and that 4 or 5 armies tend to be to spread out to rely on the same spot for supply.

IMO HQs should not be able to be targeted by aircraft at all. And if they are, it should effect the supply of attached units or something of that nature, not kill off the HQ. If it was so easy to just bomb enemy supply and command units then the Germans would have had no commanders or supply by D-day! Certainly not a month after words. Why didn't the allies just kill Rommel with an airstrike and destroy all the supply and logistics for the German defenders at and around Normandy? Sure much of these supply lines and even command instulations were bombed, but did it have such a drastic effect that we should see results like BioWizard had, were 15 whole russian armies or corps had ZERO supply and were completly useless in combat!

Air power was far far better at pre-battle and battlefield attacks on combat units. Even the massive strategic bombing campaign is argued by some to have been more a waste of resources then it was worth.

[Terif]

@Night:

HQs in SC2 certainly do not represent only "a few hundred men" - this is an abstract strategical game of larger scale .

Anyway, in SC2 you already have the desired effect (except for french HQs - they will die one way or the other..):

As long as HQs are used in the right manner, they will never die from airstrikes, very seldomly take damage and usually not even been attacked since this is a waste of airpower

Only in some rare cases they will die - if their commander is unexperienced in warfare (e.g. placing HQs in marshes when nice fortifications are nearby as much better places...) or does a grave mistake like I did once in France, so I lost my only non-french HQ to airstrikes...so only a single HQ in total got killed by air in several hundred games .

[TaoJah]

I agree that HQ's shouldn't take up the same space as armies. Same with Engineers, Corps, Planes, Rockets...

But I bet that it would be a nightmare to program stackable units into this great game, so it probably will never happen.

[Liam]

This was an argument by many before Night

However, you do know that you're wrong about Generals. Rommel the man himself was strafed by RAF planes in France! How much closer to death do you want than that?

HQs are abstract Supply bearing machines, not real men. They are meant to show by MPP level and Experience level the leadership in general... Destroying them by air is a bit gay... Difficult if you know where to place them. If you want to increase this effect, raise the support range possibly? Or lower the air attack of High Experience Luftflottes, that get 4 or 5 bars by 1942 or '43 and can possibly kill an air unit.

Originally posted by Night:

The whole Idea of HQs being destroyed by air attacks is silly. It was silly in SC1 and it is silly in SC2. Historicaly I can't remember ever hearing about something like it being effectivly used. In other words commanders of armies in WWII were overwhelmingly safe unless their entire army got surrounded like in Stalingrad. No top generals that I can think of died to air strikes, and the most I can see an airstrike doing is disrupting operations for a short time while the staff gets cover.

Also consider how ridicilous it is that an HQ unit, something that should encompass a few generals and their staffs respectivly, take up tiles that are like 50 miles wide lol. How could anyone find a few hundred men 200 miles behind the lines with enough accuracy to do an airstrike in the 40s! Didn't happen.

Now if you consider HQs as some kind of supply depot or all the logistical troops it makes a little more sense, but supplys for multiple armies were not all stored in the same small area both for the reason that they were vulnerable and that 4 or 5 armies tend to be to spread out to rely on the same spot for supply.

IMO HQs should not be able to be targeted by aircraft at all. And if they are, it should effect the supply of attached units or something of that nature, not kill off the HQ. If it was so easy to just bomb enemy supply and command units then the Germans would have had no commanders or supply by D-day! Certainly not a month after words. Why didn't the allies just kill Rommel with an airstrike and destroy all the supply and logistics for the German defenders at and around Normandy? Sure much of these supply lines and even command instulations were bombed, but did it have such a drastic effect that we should see results like BioWizard had, were 15 whole russian armies or corps had ZERO supply and were completly useless in combat!

Air power was far far better at pre-battle and battlefield attacks on combat units. Even the massive strategic bombing campaign is argued by some to have been more a waste of resources then it was worth.

[ev]

Originally posted by Terif:

If the enemy can muster so many and obviously experienced airfleets that he can destroy a HQ in a city or even mountain, then he could have destroyed all your ground units with them much more easily...I personally are happy about any airstrike against my HQs (as long as they are not unentrenched in open terrain.. ), since this means he didn´t do losses to a vulnerable combat unit .

Remember:

Cities and mountains have a defence bonus of 2, i.e. full strength HQs absorb 2 damage points, each entrenchment level increases this by 1...

i.e. airfleets do only expected losses of 0 even against an unentrenched HQ and need at least around 2 medals of experience to achieve even 1 expected damage point !

So in the end if the enemy killed you a HQ in a mountain or city, this means he could have killed with the same amount of airstrikes something around 20-30 strength points from your combat units (+ crushing their morale/readiness), which means with some supporting ground units could have wiped out all your ground forces instead...

...but what happens when the HQ is unentrenched in open terrain? I think JJ refered to such cases:

Originally posted by JJColorado:

Well I have to disagree about HQ's being safe from long range air-hunts. I had a landing in Vichy a few games ago. The Germans operated all 6 air units into the Paris area and proceeded to bomb to death my US HQ in a city, my Brit HQ in a mountain hex, then 2 more HQ's that I landed in the city. I could not keep my HQ's alive even though they were in protecting terrain. The air was able to hunt them down and successfully kill them. Eventually my entire invasion of at least 12 units was killed to the last unit once all HQ's including HQ's that I amphibed in as reinforcements were destroyed.

I had one similar experience to JJ and it did not take quite as much effort to eliminate all allied HQ's landing in Germany.

But unlike JJ, I do not think this is a bad thing. You should not be able to conduct a successfull amph invasion without adequate air support. If JJ's advesary tried a seaborne invasion of France without adequate air support, he deserves what he got.

I have my reservations about airfleet effectiveness against non-HQ units (particularly infantry). But, HQ's are supply units (...as well as command units). And airfleets were very effecttive against supply lines during WWII.

[jon_j_rambo]

Patton should have high readiness!!!