henri51
Posts: 1151
Joined: 1/16/2009
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Being something of a newbie myself and having been playing this mod for over 2 weeks, here are a few comments for newbies and a few hints for the designer.I am playing the Germans with the betaC version (next to last version), but except for graphics and some map corrections such as railways instead of roads, I don't think there is a big difference with the latest beta version.Take the latest beta version if you haven't started yet.
IMHO this scenario is hands down the best WW2 whole world game available, and would be worth buying as a game alone by itself. It is particularly valuable for newbies because at the normal level (no AI advantages), it is very forgiving, so a newbie can make mistakes like I did and still correct them and win.
If I may get ahead of myself a bit, the toughest parts of the game are AFTER one conquers Russia, I will say why a bit later.
Conquering Poland and France is a walkover, and is good practice for learning the ropes -you can't lose unless you try really hard. I am assuming that you will follow Hitler's lead and forego the invasion of Britain in favor of the USSR, but first you have to get the Balkans, and time is short if you want to follow the historical timetable. If you make a mistake and don't leave enough German units on the Russian border as Idid, Russia will declare war on Germany in January 1941, which is embarrassing since you are still busy in Greece. Even if that happens you can still recover as I did, but I don't recommend it.Chances are that by the historical date of June 1941 for the invasion of Russia, you will not quite be finished with Greece (essentially a mopping-up operation by this time), but you should have your 3 armies (ASGN, AGC and AGS) ready to invade Russia. The Rumanians and Hungarians will join you in the South.
There are a lot of possible objectives at this point, so let me make a few comments. Don't bother buiding surface fleets for Germany early on, the British will wipe only them out. Air power against ships is much too strong - the British wiped out the whole German surface fleet with a single attack with 5 level 1 divebombers early on, and later on when the Americans showed up near England with a 17-ship fleet consisting mostly of battleships and carriers, I destroyed over half with a similar attack then wiped out the rest with a single multiple-sub attack.
So build as many subs as you can and upgrade them as soon as possible, and you can strangle the Lend-Lease to Britain. At one point I was interception 15,000-35,000 supplies to Britain each turn. Keep subs away from the British coast so airplanes can\t get at them.Keep your subs in wolfpaks of 5-10 subs and you will be king of the ocean. Much later you can add a few aircraft carriers to your sub fleets.The same goes for the Mediterranean: your subs can wipe out the British fleet there, then you can build carriers.
Africa is not worth spending much effort on, because it will take a sizeable force to take Cairo (not to mention possible sea losses if the British fleet is still there), which is better used on the Eastern Front, and there is not much to gain down there anyway unless you can take Koweit, at which point the Turks will join you. When Russia is on its knees (i.e. when you have taken Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad), then you can send some units down to Africa. This version of the scenario has been beefed up with sizeable garrisons at major cities, and Cairo is one of the tough ones, given the small number of your units down there.
There is a bug where carried units eat up transport supplies and you may find that in the middle of the med your transports ferrying Rommel's Afrika Korps can only move one hex per move. In my case Rommel never made it, being sunk after spending about a year in the sea Only later did I realize that the Rome HQ can send supplies to ships at sea in the Med.
Gibraltar is a major pain: Gibraltar is WELL defended and practically impossible to invade by sea. Spain will only join the Axis if you control Gibraltar, but Gibraltar is difficult to take if you don't control Spain. The only way is either to declare war on Spain so you can get to Gibraltar by land, or declare war on Vichy and get to Gibraltar by means of North Africa. The latter is probably best, but don't waste units doing this until you have the Soviets on a leash.
OK, back to the USSR. As stated earlier, your main objectives are Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, as well as the oil fields on the Caucasus.The Germans lost the war because they diverted half of their Stalingrad army to the Caucasus, so you can try this at your own risk. Also you don't want to leave Sevastopol under Soviet control, because having Soviet units behind your lines is not recommended. And taking Sevastopol opens an alternate route to the Caucasus, so its worth some losses to take Sevastopol.
AGN, AGC ,AGS and the Rumanians etc. should typically both have a couple of armored units (one of them SS for the 20% bonus) typically with 2 tanks, 30 infantry, perhaps a few scouts and some flak, about 4 infantry units with typically 40 infantry, 4 mortars, and some flak, and one air unit with 4 or 5 fighters and the same amount of divebombers. Although you would prefer a fully mechanized army, trucks are MUCH more expensive than horses, you units should be horse-driven except for the few that have to move fast and far (usually armor).Later on when you are rich you can replace the horses with trucks and halftracks.Don't bother with machineguns unless you go on the defensive.You might want one or more units to have SMGs for assaulting cities, although I don't think that is necessary at this level of difficulty.
Although this is not optimum, I recommend sending ALL production to one main HQ (OKW), and let OKW distribute replacements as needed. Supplies will be distributed automatically, so just make sure you are producing enough. The first thing you want to upgrade is infantry and submarines, then either armor or artillery, then fighters.As you gain more and more objectives, you can put more and more production into upgrades.If you go past the Urals put all Eastern Front HQs under a new OKH HQ in Smolensk or Moscow that is under OKW, to avoid distance penalties.
IMHO the first Winter is not hard enough on the Germans,and you can continue your offensive during the first Winter and probably take Moscow or Leningrad or both before Spring if you haven't made too many mistakes. In History, the German army ground to a halt in October due to the Rasputitsa (mud), and the coldest Winter in 50 years froze their tank lubricants solid, not to mention that the soldiers had no Winter clothes.The Germans only survived because they hunkered down around strongpoints, and at that point of the war, the Soviets did not leave strongpoints behind their lines. Anyway this could be corrected by increasing the German movement and readiness penalty for the first Winter, and to avoid unbalancing the game for PvP, not allowing Soviet deep penetrations during the first Winter (and if necessary also reducing Soviet readiness so that they can't do heavy damage to the stalled Germans).
Once you have taken the major objectives, you can continue to the Urals and beyond to capture more supply-rich objectives. I made it all the way to Vladivostok, but it is a pain that you can't declare war on China to help your Japanese ally, so you have to circle around China.
Now it gets interesting: you can go after Britain, which Ihaven't tried yet, or the USA (not recommended based on the AAR that I read), or after taking theMiddle East, go after Australia. The latter sounds like fun, because it will hurt the US, help the Japanese, and give you a base in the Pacific. I haven't done this yet, but if you do, don't forget to bring a HQ and an engineer in case you can't take a port immediately. But I suspect that the Westernmost Aussie city is not well defended, and if you have reached this point, you can afford to lose a few units, so go for it!
If you invade Britain (a risky proposition given the inflated power of air over ships) you will win the game if you take London. You could still continue, but if you want to try uncharted territory, go for Australia. But this is Allied territory, so watch out for Allied fleets, and go for a city on the West coast then travel by land. Once you control Australia, you can join Japan in rolling back the US, and eventually do a two-pronged attack on both the US East Coast and West Coasts.
I'll let you know how I make out.
Henri
< Message edited by henri51 -- 2/27/2009 12:37:45 PM >
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