Effective use of HQ

[GetSome]

hello Novice question here,

What is the affective range of a hq who is manually controlling units,

What affect does a HQ have on supply numbers on the map?

Is it best to postion a HQ near a city or to use it bridge supply between a city and the units in question?

What is the affective difference between the high and low rated and experienced to inexperienced HQ?

I can see the affect the HQ has on units, in reducing loses when attacking and would like to understand this more.

[Chargin Smith]

I can respond to the effective range. Look in the editor under edit country data and you will see both the range and number of units HQ can control. You can adjust both.

[Bill101]

Hi Vespa

HQs are really important both as providers of supply and also in increasing the combat effectiveness of the units under their command, and units commanded by HQs at the higher ratings (e.g. 8-9) will, all other things being equal, quite significantly outperform those commanded by HQs with low ratings (e.g. 3-5). One guideline might be to use the lower rated ones for defense and the higher rated ones for offensives.

As to the best place to position a HQ, most of the time it is near the units they command, preferably adjacent to them but in the rear so that they are less vulnerable to air and ground attack (hopefully their position will be out of view of your opponent's aircraft).

But like everything else in life, drawing hard and fast rules for every situation isn't easy, and sometimes keeping the HQ further back is advisable. For instance, a Soviet HQ during Barbarossa in 1941 may be an easy target for German Panzers as they drive east at top speed, particularly as HQs cannot retreat as fast as they can advance, so if the enemy is smashing through your front lines then placing them adjacent to units under their command could be a way of ensuring that the HQ has a very short military career!

[Wushuki]

I would say that the optimal distance for your HQs depends on whether cities in your immediate surroundings have 5 supply or 10 supply. For the USSR, cities provide 10 supply, which means that your units will generally already receive very high supply from the cities. In that case the HQs should be kept at maximum command distance to prevent enemy attacks on HQs, the advantage of keeping them closer is very small anyway.

For Germany in the USSR the reverse is true, the low supply forces you to keep the HQ close. At the very least you should make sure that your units never fall below 5 supply to prevent the enemy from destroying units that you cannot rebuild for reduced cost.

The difference between an inexperienced HQ and a experienced one is huge, an experienced HQ provides a massive morale bonus to units under its command. I believe its like 10% per shield or something. HQs reduce damage to your units by increasing their readiness, readiness determines to what extend damage reduction modifiers (experience / terrain and entrenchment) are applied.

For a complete understanding of the combat mechanics please refer to the manual, all combat formulas are given there. In addition, the exact workings of HQs are explained there as well.

[GetSome]

so does the HQ need to be 5 tiles or less from a valid supply point and then 5 tiles or less from the units its supplying?

[GetSome]

"Look in the editor under edit country data and you will see both the range and number of units HQ can control. You can adjust both."

how do you look at the editor and edit the country data?

[Bill101]

so does the HQ need to be 5 tiles or less from a valid supply point and then 5 tiles or less from the units its supplying?

Yes, that's right.

[Bill101]

how do you look at the editor and edit the country data?

In the game's folder where there is the exe for playing the game, there should be another exe for the editor.

If you double click on it, you can then open up the campaign of your choice and from there I would suggest going to File; Save as and call it something else (it might take a minute or more to do this). Then have a play for a while, looking at everything in the editor to familiarise yourself with it.

To edit the HQ's ranges and the number of units they can support, while in a campaign in the editor go to Campaign; Edit Country Data and these can be edited in there (on the right of the screen that pops up, nearly half way down).

There's also quite a bit in the manual that may help.