War in the Pacific: AE Tutorial - Kull's Allied Setup Spreadsheet (MUST for New Players!)

[@jochenheiden]

***WARNING!*** Guys I made a huge omission about the INDUSTRY section of the Spreadsheet. There's actually something very critical you need to do for Allied industry. There are several industry centers that start damaged at the start of the campaign, namely in China. Building these back will waste thousands of supplies you cannot afford. I recommend going into the industry section at the very start of your setup and selecting ALL repairs off, blanket. The Allies honestly don't need to repair hardly any industry for their campaign so you're safe doing this immediately. Aside from this, I stand by all the other recommendations in the video. I've posted a screenshot on the Matrix Forums showing how to do this, you can read it here: www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5141916#p5141916

[@subsidiarity8839]

This game in indeed overwhelming for a new player. This is very helpful in getting started. Thanks!

[@jochenheiden]

You’re welcome! Also; I saw you joined my Discord today we are ready to help you learn there.

[@TheKenworthys]

Most excellent video! I'm going thru Kull's sheet now. Agree it's a great learning tool for understanding the interface. I am not sure if you can filter on color coding so I'm old school and add a column for those things that need follow up and add an x or a note in that column so I can easily filter for it later. I also tend to be lazy on some way-points... as long as it's doing what's generally intended. ;) Kull has an amazing mind (evidently) and I'm most appreciative of the effort! also... I found it helpful to filter on ships by port and sort by Kull's comments to pull each task force assignment together, so all ships for task force (1) are in a list... easier to assign them...

[@jochenheiden]

There are a thousand ways to skin a cat, choose the one you like best for your needs. Kull is a community hero in my eyes and I’ve given him a special role on my Discord to recognize his efforts for us all.

[@TheNordicVoyager]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share a quick tip to make working with this huge Excel table a bit easier. You can actually sort the table by two or more criteria to keep everything organized. Here’s how you do it: First, click on the "Home" tab at the top. Then find the "Sort & Filter" button - it’s usually on the right side. Click "Custom Sort" from the dropdown menu. A new window will pop up. Here’s where the magic happens: In the "Sort by" dropdown, select "Locations" and set the order to "A to Z". Click the "Add Level" button to add another sorting rule. In the new row, select "Comments" and set the order to "A to Z". Click OK, and voila! Your table should now be sorted alphabetically by locations first, and then by comments and TF (x) in numerical order. Hope this helps make things a bit more manageable!

[@jochenheiden]

Great advice! Thank you for sharing with the crew. I’m sure it will help.

[@five0-5281]

New player and your information is fantastic(discord as well). This video is great. Question on the second example with Alaska and setting air group to training and marking column to green. Will that group now stay to training for the rest of the game. Again great information.

[@jochenheiden]

@@five0-5281 thank you for the kids words! The unit will stay on training until further notice until you decide to do something with it. Your call. Kull is simply recommending that order set for a while.

[@five0-5281]

@@jochenheiden Perfect thanks.

[@jochenheiden]

Come over to Discord for more help!

[@prinzabubu]

On another note, have you considered doing a video on carrier vs carrier tactics. I have played that game quite a bit now as allies and feel I have most of the it down but continue to struggle against KB or even Baby KB in most encounters. I know Japan has a big advantage early in the war but is there a method to counter that or is the method to avoid conflict with them until the historical time frame of May/June '42

[@jochenheiden]

@@prinzabubu it’s quite simple. Avoid those sorts of engagements with KN until June or later. Your pilots aren’t ready and your TBDs are boar anchors and useless in combat.

[@prinzabubu]

Can you explain more about the CAP leak you mentioned? You said to set CAP to 0 instead of the normal or extended radius. Is that the same for squadrons that do both escort and CAP like carrier wings?

[@jochenheiden]

If you want a unit to fly only CAP missions, set them to do that at 0 range. At 0 range, they will only fly CAP in the hex theyre in, and will remain highly concentrated. If you set the range to anything more than 0, this allows the CAP to “leak” into other hexes. Every hex they stray away from the main hex means less acft will in any given hex to perform defense duties. Also, for escort missions, if you set a unit to do both escort and CAP, the range you set for max range of the escorts to fly also means the CAP can leak that far out which means your CAP will be extremely diluted if a strike shows up.

[@prinzabubu]

@@jochenheiden so how do u handle carrier fighter squadrons who have that dual role?

[@jochenheiden]

You pick a mission for it and stick with one. Get another squadron to take up the other role. Or divide your fighter squadron into 1/3s and assign each 3rd a mission.

[@Heathcoatman]

Question: So are we supposed to set all fortification upgrades, all LCU upgrades and all reinforcements to off? there are quite a few on the spreadsheet that say 'turn fortifications on', or 'turn upgrades on', which would only need to be added if they were all set to off, which is not the default. I couldnt see anything on the spreadsheet saying turn all these off. I did turn off all industry upgrade off as you said.

[@jochenheiden]

To be clear; for industry I said to set the REPAIR to off, not the upgrade. Repair off is critical to making sure you don’t burn a ton of supply in China repairing industry that the Japanese are simply going to capture anyway. For the rest, it is usually safe to set reinforcements and upgrades globally to OFF and manage that on an individual unit basis as required. Come to my Discord so we can help you more!

[@Heathcoatman]

@@jochenheiden Thanks, yeah I meant repair on the industry. I do have some issues with my game, but I've had trouble with Discord channels in the past. I know about war and gaming, I dont know much about computers. In my limited experience with Discord channels it ends up being an endless stream of computer jargon and if I ask them to dumb it down or act like I'm not an IT guy they often get rude and dismissive. For example, my game is small-windowed only. When I hit the maximize nothing happens. There is no 'option' to change from windowed to full screen in the options or preferences, I'm stuck in small window mode. This is not how the game was a couple of years ago when I played, it was full screen. Also, all of the text now has bright pink boxes around it, it gives me a headache after just a few minutes of looking at the screen, plus it's ugly as hell. What is with the pink boxes around the text? I cant scroll the map at all, the only way to move around the map is to click the minimap and hope I get close to where I need to look. There are no hex numbers, either so when I try to set patrol zones using the spreadsheet, it's trrial and error. Click a hex to set patrol, then see what hex it is, try again, and again.....etc.

[@jochenheiden]

@@Heathcoatman our Discord server is probably unlike any you’ve seen. You won’t find a bigger collection of like minded WitP fans. We are technically expert on the game and can help.

[@jochenheiden]

@@Heathcoatman what’s your name there? PM me and I will direct you accordingly.

[@Heathcoatman]

@@jochenheiden Thanks for the help JH, most helpful. Safe trip home.

[@casparblattmann755]

Has anyone done this setup and posted the saved file for this?

[@jochenheiden]

I think someone has done it in the past and posted it on the Matrix forums but honestly I don’t recommend indulging like that. Half the point of this spreadsheet is for a new player to do all these clicks and learn the muscle memory and get acquainted with the UI and force disposition. If you skip this entire thing and load someone else’s save file, you miss the whole point.

[@casparblattmann755]

I understand that. I followed once a spreadsheet, maybe the one in this video, i took me hours (I might have done 1/3) and I felt overwhelmed when I imagined that every turn will be like this.@@jochenheiden

[@jochenheiden]

@@casparblattmann755 The Allied Turn 2 is always a bear but they get progressively easier after this. The game takes a lot of time but it’s a labor of love for us. The beauty of it is you do it at your own pace.

[@rickmcconnell5093]

For a new player, it might better to let the computer do the auto sub ops. They are very daunting at the beginning and a continuing hassle.

[@jochenheiden]

The AI’s sub ops are completely sub optimal and borderline useless and I do not recommend that at all. New players need to learn how to use them, no time like the present. Dive in.