Strat Notes for People's General

[Velociryx]

Just wrapped up re-visiting this classic and figured that, since I'd seen it come up in conversation here a time or two, I'd jot down some notes. A bit less to read than the unofficial strat guide for the game....I tried to keep it to the essentials only....

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Tactical and Strategic Considerations for People’s General

Just finished playing the Western Campaign….won it with brilliant victories in all scenarios, which was the goal I had set for myself. It’s a fantastic battle system, and one that has guided my thinking in a number of ways, as I plan the battle system for Candle’Bre.

For what they’re worth, I thought I’d share my observations on the game, and what it took to get from here to there, down the long path of battles, fought in a staggering array of different terrains and with an equal array of differing battlefield methodologies.

Outfitting yourself
You need combined arms in this game. It’s as simple as that. If you go in with a linear task force, you WILL get handled by your opponents.

Recon Units
The first, most important consideration in your task force is recon. Recon units are your eyes. They have a good spotting range, are notoriously hard to kill, and can fight reasonably well against a good variety of opponents (your mileage will vary depending on exactly WHICH recon unit you buy for your troops). Recon units are also your cloak of invisibility, serving to help conceal your other units from enemy sight. This is important because your enemy can’t attack what he can’t see, and so, your recon units are proverbial bait for the trap, but getting used to using them in that fashion takes time and practice.

Finally, recon units have tremendously good movement. That, combined with their phased movement ability makes them invaluable, able to carefully scout narrow passages forward or penetrate deep into enemy territory (useful for going after those remote victory hexes).

Uses of recon units
Here are the principle ways you’ll find yourself making use of recon guys:

1) Scouting – This is prolly the most common use of your recon units. You gotta be able to see the baddies to shoot at them, and with their better-than-average to excellent spotting range and low profile (making them harder to hit), they’re excellent for this. By making use of phased movement (move-stop-move-stop), a single recon unit can scout out nooks and crannies, around hills, and inside cities all in a single turn. Simply invaluable.

2) Spotting – Similar to scouting, this is a “helper” function that I religiously use my Recon units for. Since they spend a good deal of time on or near the front lines, giving your recon units the “Forward Observer” special is a good choice….they spot for your artillery, and give those units the ability to deal out more damage. Can’t get much better than that!

3) Trapping – The baddies can only hit what they can see, and further, your recon units help “hide” your other units from enemy sight. This can be used to punishing advantage to set up ambushes for the enemy. To do so, simply don’t use your scout’s full movement going TOWARD the enemy. Leave a few movement points to back up a bit. Then, when you move your bigger guns up (anti-tanks and tanks, primarily, though if you’re facing enemy infantry, by all means, use infantry of your own), place them directly in front of your recon guys. The baddies rush forth to engage your recon unit (which they can see) and stumble right into your other units—which they can’t see. Result: You get a free shot, and your opponent gets hammered.

4) Penetration – Recon units have lossa moves. This is good, cos sometimes those victory hexes you’re after are in remote locations. Again, your scouts serve you well. Their long spotting range makes it unlikely that they’ll stumble into ambush if you’re careful, and their good movement range makes it easy for them to slip past enemy units and drive deep into enemy territory. A bit of creative air and chopper support, and a couple of deep recon units can really mess things up for your opponent! Give an artillery unit the “bridging” attachment (if needed) and let him tag along, throw in an Anti-Tank unit to handle the enemy’s big guns, and you have a real menace of a force!

Attachment considerations: IMO, giving your recon guys “Forward Observer” attachment is a must. The synergy you create by combining the scouting function with greater artillery damage is just simply too good to pass on.

Another vital consideration is “Bridging,” but only if the scenario requires it. Keep in mind too that some of your recon units come with this built in….those should be given an extra look, when determining what unit(s) to buy, as bridging “built-in” is extremely valuable in its own right.

Anti-Tank/Engineering: I rarely take anti-tank for recon units, but then, I have a peculiar fondness for the Stormer AT, and those units often travel with my recon units, so I have no particular need for that, however, I find the Engineering attachment to be highly useful, because I do use my recon units in combat roles quite actively.

Recon – An attachment made for the unit, it increases their already good spotting range. Nonetheless, I don’t make use of it often….I’d rather bulk up my unit’s ability to fight.

Tanks
Ahhh, and who can resist the lure of tanks?! Awesomely powerful units, especially for the western side. Their primary battlefield ability is the blitz, and a blitzing tank can clear the battlefield of enemy units with frightening efficiency. Tanks tho, are not the powerhouses you might expect them to be. They need help to go on one of their battlefield-clearing frenzies. If you try to do it using tanks alone, you WILL lose units. They’re good, but they need the synergy of working with other types of units to come fully into their own.

Uses of Tanks
1) Snub-nosed artillery units! - Tanks (especially Stealth Tanks, with their range of three), make OUTSTANDING short-range artillery units, working in support of other units that might be better suited to rooting out enemy units (ie – tanks aren’t so good in the close confines of a city, but they can shell units IN cities from a distance, and weaken them so that your infantry units have an easy time).

2) Controlling open terrain - A tank (or group of tanks), protected by one or more anti-air units—air units being the bane of the existence of tanks—is almost impossible to move from the field of battle. Western Tanks, especially operating in fire teams of 2+ have little to fear from Eastern tanks, and shrug off infantry attacks like they weren’t even there.

3) Blitzing – This is the best use of tanks. What they were made for. To set up a blitz, you need support units to move in first and weaken the units to be overrun. Recon units and Artillery are your best choices for this. The recon units move forward (spotting for the artillery, so they cause more damage with each attack), slipping around the artillery-damaged units, and when they reach the end of their movement, they make an attack of their own. Then, the tank moves up, adjacent to the now-weakened units. BOOM! Buh-bye enemy units. The biggest danger to the blitzing tank is that you burn through your ammo at a terrifying rate. Thus, of all the leader specials you can hope to get for your tank crews, having the Quartermaster special (auto-ammo replenishment each turn), is a truly, stunningly beautiful thing. Guard that tank like the gem it is, and he’ll be an absolute WRECKING CREW on the battlefield!

Attachment Considerations: Tanks kill things. That’s what they do. That’s what they’re made for. Thus, the obvious choices here are attachments that help tanks do what they do, even better. Anti-tank and engineering for extra close combat punch, but combat support can be invaluable (extra ammo). I find the other attachments go largely unused (recon?! No thanks…I’ve got scouting units for that! Air defense? Again, I’ve got units to do that….it’s unneeded on the tank, and detracts from their primary role), save for bridging, of course, if the situation requires it.

Infantry
Foot sloggers, Mechanized Infantry….the grunts. The backbone of your army, there are a number of outstanding infantry units available to you, and it would be in your best interest to study them and their abilities closely. At the start of the campaign, when funds are tight, you’d be hard pressed to find a better value than the Lav-25. Good movement, bridging built in….solid all-around little guy (especially if you give it the Engineering attachment to help give them more “bite”). Later on, the Bradley is the standard by which all the others are measured, only being eclipsed later in the campaign by the Knight….a souped up Bradley with bridging built in…sweet. But, just cos Bradley’s are so awesome doesn’t mean that you should go with them exclusively. Bradley’s are good, but they’re not the ideal unit for busting baddies entrenched in cities. No…for those, you just can’t GET a better deal than the good ol’ Engineer. These guys are….amazing. Cheaper than they should be, IMO, and damnably hard to kill, they can take on entrenched infantry, tanks in the open….you name it. There’s not much that these guys can’t handle. When given proper support (recon and artillery), you’ll wonder if you even NEED battle tanks in your crew!

Using Infantry
1) General Advance – Taking and controlling ground, using their ZOC to protect your more vulnerable advancing units (air defense guys and artillery) are one of the most fundamental jobs of the Infantry. They’re your human shield, protecting the other component parts of your force.

2) Softening up targets – GREAT use for infantry! Of course, they’re not much good against tanks, but against pretty much anything else, they guys are tops! They can tangle with enemy infantry, charge in and put a royal hurting on enemy air defenses and artillery….they’re great at stopping enemy recon and anti-tank units cold, too! Infantry can be among your primary tools to set the local battlefield up for a tank blitz.

3) City attacks – some infantry types are better at this than others (Engineers), but most types do fairly well, depending on what’s guarding the city in question of course!

Attachment considerations: I consider recon, forward observer, and air defense to be a waste of a slot for infantry. You’ve got units to act as air defense, and other units to do your scouting for you….why waste a slot covering bases you can cover with units? Instead, my vote would be to enhance the existing capabilities of your units, more ammo, make them hit harder (engineering), bridging if needed, and good ol’ anti-tank if you want some hard-hitting foot-sloggers. Extra ammo is always a good consideration too, enabling your units to hang longer in a fight.

Air Defense
A necessary evil, in my mind’s eye. I don’t much care for air defense units, but they have their place in your force structure. Without them, the only real defense you’ve got against enemy choppers are your own choppers and what air points you can spare. This is less-than-ideal, so you need them! Two basic flavors of air units….passive and active. Passive units are units like the Patriot defense system. They can’t actually attack units, but will fire on enemy air units that are incoming. The good news here is that the tend to have good range (the Patriot has a range of fire of ten hexes….as good as your best artillery). On the other hand, your active units (ie – the “Linebacker” are short ranged, but can be ordered to fire on enemy choppers….they’ll also fire on incoming craft, but of course, given their range limitations, that’s not always a thing to be relied on). A good spread of coverage would be two passive and four active. I’ve only ever used Patriots and Linebackers, but others can be mixed in if they fit your force structure plan. In the early goings, you can afford to go light on air defense, since you will have clear air superiority, and your choppers CAN be used against enemy choppers in a pinch. My recommendation would be to focus on your core force first, throwing in maybe two patriot defenders for the early scenarios, and bulking this up with Linebackers as you get more prestige.

Uses of Air Defense units
1) Zone of Protection – The idea here is to spread your air defenders out a bit so that you create an overlapping zone of protection for units vulnerable to enemy air attack, and keep your vulnerable and valuable units inside that overlapping pocket. Enemy air units fly in…BOOM, they get damaged, and your vulnerable units take less of a hit.

2) Hunting – Only possible with your active air defense units, the goal here is to keep your active air defenders at or near the front, where they’re most likely to encounter enemy choppers. When they do, do whatever you must (even at the risk of exposing them to enemy ground fire) to position your anti-air unit(s) so that they can strike the enemy chopper. BOOM! No more enemy chopper, or at the very least, a badly damaged enemy chopper that your own choppers can sweep in and finish off.

Attachment considerations: Anti-Air and extra ammo are really the only ones worthy of consideration here. The others are, in my view, a waste of 30 prestige, if applied to anti-air units.

(to be continued)

[Velociryx]

Artillery
Kings of the battlefield, your artillery units are your most deadly, and also your most vulnerable units. Used well, they can make a given battle an absolute cakewalk. Used poorly, about all you’ll wind up with is a lot of dead or damaged artillery.

There are only two things that should be on your mind when shopping for artillery. Range and ammo supply. Everything else is extra. Good movement is a bonus, NOT a requirement. If you have range, you don’t need good movement. Of course, if you enjoy putting your artillery at risk by getting them into knife-fighting range, by all means, go with mobility over range, but in any case, it’s an easy choice to make in the Western Campaign. The Crusader is THE artillery unit of choice. Good ammo supply, ten-hex range, and good movement. It’s the total package, and I find that even if I get more advanced artillery as prototype units, I’ll invariably downgrade them to Crusaders for the extra ammo (plus, I like symmetry). Range trumps movement rate for artillery though, for one reason alone. You want to be in a situation where you can hit the enemy’s artillery without him being able to hit you back. Can’t do that if you have to get up close and personal to use your guns.

Uses of Artillery
Forming a Gunline – This is the MOST fundamental use of artillery. A gunline is a line of artillery that follows at some distance behind your advancing force. The every turn, the gunline advances sufficiently to bring key enemy units into “reach.” These enemy units are then fired upon by the artillery units before your main attack units actually engage in combat. Principally, you want to focus your attention on enemy artillery units that can’t hit you back, and (unless you have lots of points for air missions), air defense units. Not far behind these are recon units and lightly armored tanks, and finally, use your artillery on enemy infantry and AT units. NEVER waste your artillery fire on heavily armored tanks. You know it’s a heavily armored tank if your artillery barrage will only deal out one point of damage. That’s not what you’re looking for. Shoot at something else in that case. The obvious exception here is if you have a unit that has retreated, is only at 1-2 strength, and there’s no other way to kill him off before your turn ends. Then, by all means, blow his freakin’ doors off!

See….the best use of artillery is en mass. That is to say, if you have 6+ units of artillery (which should be one of your TOP priorities), then you can lay down an absolutely WITHERING amount of fire into any spot on the battlefield you choose. This can very quickly turn the tide of battle in your favor, even if you begin the turn badly outnumbered.

Hand in hand with this is the notion of zone of fire. The bigger the better! Thus, moving your artillery toward the edges of the map is generally a bad idea. You want to maximize the number of enemy positions you can fire on, and only in a few specialized cases is this possible by skirting the edges of the map with your artillery. You want them to control the center of the map. Then, if you get any units trying to sneak around your flanks, you can bust them. If not, you can focus on rooting out enemy units from those victory hexes and get your unbroken string of brilliant wins!

1) Straffing – A subset of the gunline theory, this methodology of artillery use is best-employed when you have tanks in position to do a blitz. The idea is to use infantry to weaken the forward element of the enemy’s force, use artillery (generally one shot each, tho over-strengthed units may require more) to weaken units that are a bit further back, and slip recon units in to do further damage. Then, unleash the tanks on the field littered with badly weakened units. BIG BOOM! No more enemy units.

2) Concentration – Useful if your opponent has local numerical superiority. Use your artillery to methodically focus on one unit at a time till that unit simply is no more (or weaken him to 4 or less, so that your ground-pounders can kill them without taking any damage), then turn your guns on the next unit. Six artillery units can (even if they’re all at baseline strength) demolish at least three or four enemy units a turn, and with over-strenghing, you can easily get to the point where one artillery battery = one dead enemy unit. Cleans up the field very quickly, and one of the chief reasons that artillery should be your FIRST choice for over-strenghening.

3) Supporting Fire - You don't really have direct control over this, but just realize that if your artillery is in range to do so (and it's a good idea to keep them in range to do so), if your ground troops are attacked, your artillery will open fire on the attacking unit, ammo permitting. Nice way to do some additional damage....

Protecting your investment
Always, always, ALWAYS keep at least one, preferably two of your anti-air units hovering in the neighborhood of your artillery. If you use them right, they’ll be firing every single round of combat, and as such, your enemy will know where they are. A couple of choppers sent to hammer your prized artillery can REALY mess things up for you!

Attachment considerations – There are none. Unless you need bridging for mobility, take special munitions (more punch) and combat support (more ammo). Hands down the best thing you can do for your artillery.

Anti-Tank Units
Some folks don’t like them, but I find them invaluable for one reason alone….the Stormer AT. It’s one of the cheapest units you can buy, but it’s awesome (especially for the price!). They have good movement rates, come with bridging built in, and can hit enemy tanks pretty hard….less effective against enemy infantry, but with a range of two, they can still deliver some punishment at a distance. I find that they make extremely valuable additions to my force pool, boldly accompanying my recon units on their scouting missions, rushing in to polish off damaged tanks or enemy mechanized infantry, and providing general cover and fire support. They’re also outstanding units to use in setting up ambushes! Awesome units!

Uses
1) Use anti-tank units in much the same way you’d use tanks (except that they can’t blitz, of course), but use them a bit more conservatively (since they don’t hit as hard as your tanks do). The west has an advantage here though, in that eastern tanks just aren’t as good, and a souped up (anti-tank attachment), over-strengthened Stormer AT can deal out a tremendous amount of punishment to enemy tank crews.

2) General support – Good units to sprinkle in with your infantry or recon units (in case an enemy tank decides to bust up your party), and cheaper than sending one of your battle tanks. Plus, AT’s generally have better movement rates than tanks, and can penetrate enemy positions more easily.

Attachment considerations: Anti-Tank, definitely, Engineering is a good choice to beef up their ability to mix it up with enemy infantry, but even still, I’d recommend against going head to head….they’re good at picking off the wounded tho! Extra ammo is nice, as always, but if you stick with the trusty ol’ Stormer, you’ll have no need of bridging, as the unit comes with that built in!

Choppers
The Cadillac of your force….they are AWESOME! The perfect tank-busting unit, the perfect clean-up unit, capable of reaching out and touching the enemy from a staggering thirty hexes! That’s too huge for words!

Still, they’re fragile. Never send your choppers into un-scouted territory, unless you just feel like losing choppers. Use them to run behind your established lines, putting out fires wherever they may be. Use them to chase down enemy tankers with leader specials and/or enemy choppers. Use them in support of flank elements of your force…..use them anywhere you need a little extra OOMPH in your attack and they’ll provide it.

At the start of the campaign, my recommendation would be to consider your choppers as auxillery units. Awesome, yes, but fragile, and as such, you must guard them even more carefully than artillery. Because of this, a wise player will free up as much prestige as possible by downgrading his choppers till they can be sufficiently over-strengthened to at least 14. Tigers are still menacing, and will save you a boatload of prestige points to flesh out your initial force. Upgrade to longbows as you can, and then keep them up to date. Also, OS your choppers when you get the money for it. Don’t make it a huge priority, but know that when they hit 14, they become a lot more useful to you as main battle units. Something to keep in mind.

Attachment considerations: chopper and ammo….nothing else matters!

Uses of Air superiority missions
1) Passive Anti-Air – In other words, use 2pt recon missions to run the enemy AA units out of ammo, then move your choppers in to kill the offending units or blast them with artillery.

2) Active Anti-Air – Wild Weasel missions. 5pts. Each, but devastating to enemy AA.

3) Anti-Tank missions. Tanks can be tough customers, but they’re not so tough after somebody “sets them up the bomb.”

4) Harassment – Using your Air missions as “extra” arty strikes against enemy positions. You generally don’t have enough points to do much of this, but kudos to you if you do!

Putting it all together
So….those are the ingredients. The main thing is to stay focused. Remember that the goal is not to kill the enemy, but to capture the victory hexes. The enemy is, of course, in the way, and actively trying to kill YOU, so you cannot ignore the enemy, but only kill those you have to. Don’t send units you can’t really spare off on hunting missions to round up the last of the enemy AA units currently fleeing from you.

Stay focused. Methodical. Clear out the enemy positions blocking you from those victory hexes, occupy them, and move on. Use artillery and recon units to snipe at any stragglers who try to sneak past your main force and re-occupy victory hexes you’ve already taken.

Kill, don’t wound. When you hit a unit, either stay on him so he can’t get reinforcements (units cannot receive reinforcements if they are adjacent to enemy units), or kill him this turn. Don’t d*ck around. That’s a good way to overlook something and lose the brilliant win. Keep it simple, and keep your opponent reeling.

Use overwhelming attack tactics. Don’t hold back from turn one. Unleash everything you have on your enemies at the very beginning and use momentum to keep right on going. A ferocious initial attack will shatter the enemy’s organization and if you keep the pressure on him, he’ll never be able to recover from that. Be relentless, and you will get the unbroken string of brilliant victories.

Rest your units! Important point….watch your ammo! You won’t win a brilliant victory if your guys (of any troop class) run outta bullets on a critically important turn. To that end, if you’re beginning to run low on ammo, and the current turn is NOT of critical importance, give serious consideration to not firing or moving this turn and replenishing your ammo stocks. Better to do it on your terms before you’re out than on your enemy’s terms, yes?

Rest your units part two! – Attrition is your friend! Keep it in your head that not all your units are destined to be bada$$es! Some of them are there to simply soak up fire, and don’t be bashful about giving these units reinforcements if they take a serious hit. It’ll keep them fighting, and that’s what you want! OTOH, don’t EVER give your artillery or choppers reinforcements….their experience is far, far too valuable to dilute! (exception – if you get a prototype unit, it can’t be over-strengthened anyway, so you may as well, if it takes a savage hit, restock….no real loss there).

Do all that, don’t make any mistakes that your opponent can exploit, and you’ll jam….

-=Vel=-

[Main_Brain]

Choppers are the Best Unit in PG :=)
With big Air Superiority they can fly veeeery far and I used them for Recon purposes

[Velociryx]

Oh, without a doubt, choppers rule, but I found them to be far, far too expensive to use in a scouting/recon role....in my games, I preferred to keep them as the ultimate "big stick." - If I found myself confronting a too-well dug in position, or a really big, over-strengthened tank group....bam! In come the choppers to even things out. Likewise, I sometimes made miscalculations when determining the size of a force to shave off to send to some distant (and surprisingly well-guarded) victory hex. Again, the choppers were there to ride in and save the day!

-=Vel=-

[Case]

I really should reinstall this game - it's SSI's unsung masterpeice IMO

[MattyBoy]

First read this as "Strat notes for people in general" and I thought that Vel may have been taking this strat guide thing a little too far.

[ravagon]

Thanks Vel,

Love both the game and the setting but was never really able to master it - unlike PG and all the rest.
I'll give it another try using some of those outfitting tips.
Previously I think I always tried to put too many extras into my units which just blew out the cost too much.

[Main_Brain]

I took another approach on this Game:
Only German Units ( and those germans own ie Tiger Heli)
Ah the Pure Proudness of Chinese Town owned by the Mighty Germans.
I I have to use less Choppers as the Tiger is uhmm.. welll yeah u know biut the Mighty Arty Germans own wheew :=)

[Case]

I remember being rather fond of using the ASLAV as my primary scout in the early stages of the game. From memory, the ASLAV was dirt cheap, and had all kinds of usefull extra abilities.

[Standup]

I think my main disappointment was that the different Nationalities and range of units didn't play a greater role. Despite say the number of different tanks i always tended to play with the same units - the main US battle tanks. I also tend to buy loads of Ghurkas despite there only being a very small number in the British Army.

Not sure how different nations could be used - perhaps in a Ukrainian scenario you could only buy Ukrainian units ( a bit limiting) or you get a discount on them/experience bonus to make them more worthwhile ? Or just limits on the US units ?

[Main_Brain]

Well an American Company tends to make the US Units better
The Russian Draftees are QUITE cheap :=)
Well in Scenarios you could limit it to only One Country's Units I think and Play uhm the Forceful Reuniting of the Warsaw Pact or smth. ...