Getting the Most out of your Premium Account

Let’s look at the first of these features, queuing.

1 ) Queuing up construction or production

Quick summary: Add units or buildings to the queue with the hourglass button. These will be prioritized in the order they are added and will be started as soon as the resources are available. Resources may be reserved for higher priority items on a first added - first started concept.

When you click on the unit production menu you will see that you have both the Produce (1) and the Queue (2) buttons available to you. Mobile mode uses the same button, so the first click will begin production and additional clicks will add items to the queue for that province.

You can now click up to 5 times on the Queue button and this will immediately commence the production of an AT unit and have another 4 (max amount of units in the queue) lined up ready to move onto the production line without further action from the player. Your province queue will now appear like this. This means that as soon as the first unit is finished, the next one will start (as long as there are sufficient resources, more on this later)

This feature also works for buildings and you can see we now have a naval base, infrastructure, airfield, fort and barracks queued up to build one after the other.

You can queue up to 4 buildings and 4 units in a single province at one time.

Above we see there is a unit in production and there are also 4 more in the queue but because I have added them after the buildings they do not appear in the small windows. Nevertheless the next unit will start production as soon as the current one has finished production. Mobile users have the advantage that the province will show all units and buildings queued up for that province.

This brings me to the next part of the feature, the Build Queue Menu.

Desktop players will find this tab as a part of the province menu on the right edge of the screen. As of this writing there is not a mobile feature to manage the build queue in this manner, only from the individual provinces.

Clicking on the build queue tab shows us that we have 2 LTs that will be built in Rome and Turin (who are currently building ACs in the above picture) and then we can see all the buildings and ATs that are queued in Naples.

You see that there are numbers in the column to the left. This is the priority of the items. To begin with this is the order in which they were added to the queue. Resources will be reserved for higher priority items and lower priority items will be delayed until needed resources are available.

Waiting for Resources

Highlighting the colored areas on the left side of the column raises a pop-up which advises us that there is a problem with production. In this case we are actually nearly out of oil and production won’t start until we have enough oil. This will happen in 20hrs 48mins at which time production will start. and The unit will be completed in 1 day 15 hours’ time. Note that this prediction is based on the current hourly production rate and items currently in the queue. If oil is purchased from the market or acquired in some other way the production may start sooner.

This is one of the features which causes confusion among players. When there are items which are waiting on a particular resource (oil in this case) then at the moment which the resource is acquired the items will be started. This gives the appearance of a purchase or trade not being completed, or of other resources suddenly vanishing.

Other useful features in this menu are:

1. Time for completion column – useful to know when your nuclear reactor will be ready so you can login and start building your atomic bomber.

2. Priority buttons – If I wanted to raise the priority of the Infrastructure at Naples then clicking on the white up arrow will take it straight to the top. If I clicked the white down arrow it would be the last item in the queue built. The arrow buttons cannot move it up or down one or two places, it is either to the top or bottom. To move something simply a few places you can click and drag it higher or lower on the list. This is very useful if you want the battleship you’ve just decided to produce to start immediately and not be delayed as resources might be scarce and items at the top of the list get started before the battleship. Remember items get added onto the list in the order that you select them so your latest selection will be built last unless you reprioritise here.

3. The Cancel Item button – this cancels the particular item on that row.

4. Clear All – this will delete ALL items in the queue. Very useful if you want to clear the entire queue instead of going to each province and cancelling individually. This feature is not currently available on mobile devices. It is one of features that are being worked on for future updates to the mobile app.

This menu is quite often overlooked but when resources are scarce it is essential to juggle priorities to meet the conflicting demands.

2 ) Rally points

Quick Summary: Set a rally point for a province and units produced there will move towards the rally point when they are constructed.

The next major feature is the Rally Point (RP) feature. Here you can click on individual provinces, groups or all provinces and direct any units rolling off the production lines to make best speed to the selected RP. This is very useful for assembling armies in one location after production without needing to do this manually, or to ensure that units start moving at the moment they are completed if you are not online.

In this example I want to ensure that the LT being built in Genoa will join my other units in the Adriatic Sea in order to form a large convoy. Clicking on Genoa I get the province menu and at the bottom right is the flag with the + sign indicating that no RP has been set.

Once I click on this button the + sign disappears and I can then place the RP at a point near the other seaborne transports and a path is drawn to this location which will be followed by all land units produced here, this will entail converting to a seaborne transport when it hits the coast. A naval unit would however find the quickest way to get there by sea. An air unit would turn into a truck convoy to cross N Italy and then turn into a seaborne transport. If the RP point was set at a province center that contained an airbase the air unit would fly there provided it has the range for bridging airbases to fly all the way, if there are gaps it would cover these as a truck convoy. The RP is represented by a small red flag.

You can select multiple provinces and send them all to a single RP by using the Province Administration menu. Here we can see that we have selected Genoa together with Turin and Milan. Note that in the RP column outlined in red we can see Genoa already has an RP denoted by the grey flag.

The small tick box at top left will allow you select ALL provinces you control in one go. Mobile users can select multiple provinces in the province menu as well by selecting each one they desire before giving an order.

On the map below we can now see routes leading from these 3 provinces to our new RP in the same general area.

Units will now make their way automatically to the RP once produced. The RP can be placed anywhere on map and planes will use airfields to get to the RP, if the RP is not at an airfield then they will convert to convoys to get to it. Similarly land units will turn to convoys wherever the route to the RP takes them across water. Naval units will sail as close to the RP as possible if this is placed on land.

Keep in mind that if a rally point is in enemy territory that your units will still attempt to reach that by the fastest path, which may result in the unit marching into an ambush. Units on a rally point mission will not adapt to avoid things in their path.

3 ) Fire Control for bombardment units

The next feature in High Command that we will now cover is the use of Fire Control. This feature can be used on all ranged units such as artillery, ships and submarines. This allows an automation of unit behavior to react the way you desire in different situations.

Important note: There were updates and changes to the fire control features on March 25, 2020. This guide has been written to explain these changes. If you see references to how fire control works elsewhere in the forum please check the date as older posts describe behavior that is no longer valid.

Quick Summary: Use Offensive setting to advance with a artillery or naval group, and your units will pause to bombard any visible targets from range before continuing movement.

In the picture below we can see 2 SP Arty units. Clicking on Button 1 brings up a small pop up where you get Button 2 which in turn activates a drop down menu with 5 options. From left to right they are

1. Hold Fire – The unit will not fire under any circumstances even if attacked.

2. Return Fire – The unit will return fire if first fired upon by an enemy unit. This is useful for submarines as they will sail under enemy ships and carry out intelligence gathering of the enemy ships or carry on sailing and slip past a blockade. If the submarine is detected and attacked it will then return fire.

3. Fire at Will – This is the default setting and the only setting for non High Command users. Here a unit will open fire on any enemy that comes into range if there are no movement orders in place.

4. Offensive – A unit on this setting will stop and engage an enemy that enters its range. So for example, a naval stack with a battleship and cruisers can be set to sail around both islands of New Zealand and it will stop and open fire on all units that are in range of its guns as it sails along the coast until those units are destroyed. Once a an enemy unit within range is destroyed the naval stack will continue with its movement orders until another enemy unit comes into range. On a land setting a stack with artillery units or a rail road gun will proceed with it’s movement orders until an enemy unit comes into range. Once the unit is destroyed the stack will carry on moving along its movement orders.

In the example above we can see 2 stacks with artillery on Offensive Mode which is denoted by the red symbol above the stack (this changes depending on the chosen Fire Control mode). Both stacks are heading for Odienne but they will come to a stop as soon as they are in range of the Upper Volta units which are engaged with the armored car. As soon as the Upper Volta units are destroyed they will carry on moving to capture Odienne.

This feature is particularly useful in that you can set a stack with artillery in it to march into enemy territory and engage all units that come into range along it’s route. It will eliminate defenders of provinces before capturing the provinces themselves. It will only be involved in a close quarter (melee) battle if enemy units are on the move and move into contact with the stack that had stopped to engage at maximum artillery range.

Using this setting the stack will not engage any neutral units who have a relation of peace. (Naturally giving Right of Way to another country allows their units freedom of movement

5. Aggressive – Here the stack will engage any unit that comes into range be they enemy or neutral. This mode is particularly useful to defend your coasts and borders from sneak attacks. It could be described as a blockade or a shoot first setting.

A unit placed on the very edge of the coast will begin to engage any ship approaching the coast the moment it enters in range. If this setting was not in use then the enemy could approach the coast, disembark and march to the province center and engage your units without getting fired upon until they make contact with your units. Using Aggressive mode your units would have been firing at the approaching stack throughout the whole process of approaching the coast, disembarking and march to the province center.

In the other example if Egypt didn’t have ROW then any Egyptian units would be fired upon the minute they crossed the border and entered the artillery’s range circle.

There are some dangers to this. Keep in mind that the Offensive or Aggressive settings will cause other orders to be ignored. So if your units are bombarding a target and you want them to retreat, they will ignore that order and will continue to attack anything in range without regard to your frantic attempts to order them to move. Remember they are following their orders.

A common tactic is to create a large stack of artillery and send it forth into enemy territory set on aggressive. Typically this works very well as it pauses to bombard and clear the path ahead of it, and then continues on. You can largely not have to worry about where the enemy is exactly. This is dangerous to do against players who are prepared and can maneuver your stack into a trap. Your units are also subject to being bombarded by rockets as they will halt to bombard and become a target themselves. Against an attentive player this strategy can result in disaster.

4 ) Shared Intelligence data

Quick Summary: Shared intel means share map plus spy reports.

Shared intelligence is a diplomacy setting that is higher than Share Map. This setting gives anyone you have assigned this permission to a copy of all the spy and intel reports that you receive from your spies and planes. Note this only works on intel data gathered after the shared intel status is enacted. (This also gives shared map which allows the recipient to see everything within sight of your units and everything displayed within your provinces)

Gathering intel data is done by spies, or by planes on patrol. There are several other threads that explain spies, such as:

https://forum.callofwar.com/index.php?thread/26397-how-to-properly-use-spies/&postID=169961#post169961

For planes, Anything that is caught within the patrol circle of the plane will be marked on the map. This will be displayed as a shadow exactly like units revealed by spies. These intel images will also show the path of the orders being followed at the moment the data was gathered. Keep in mind that these orders can be changed at any time by the other player.

Intel images will persist until the day change or until new data is gathered. Evaluating intelligence data is one of the most important skills of a commander. For more details about intel data see this thread:

https://forum.callofwar.com/index.php?thread/23843-question-about-shadow-spy-man-intelligence-from/&postID=155248#post155248

Spy reports that are not unit positions will be listed in the espionage tab. Both the data gathered by your own spies and by allies giving you shared intel will be listed in the same report and it is not easy to distinguish between the sources. You do not need to do anything special to receive this data, and I should note that only the sending party needs to have high command and it will be their spy reports which are shared. The recipient does not need high command.

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5 ) Ability to create one game per month with custom settings.

Users with high command and who have reached level 11 are able to create one custom game per month. This allows custom settings such as peace periods, teams, and the ability to set a password to make it a private game.

The maps are limited to smaller maps such as the 10 and 22 player sizes. Larger maps are system generated to ensure that they are always available and fill up with players for a rewarding game experience.