Well I lost!

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich >> Well I lost!

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Well I lost! - 8/4/2010 11:13:58 PM

jimbo12

Posts: 33
Joined: 11/12/2007
Status: offline

I just finished ( it really finished me ) the 43 germans in BTR.I really enjoyed it, learned a lot and now have to decide whether to try again or sink my teeth into those new BoB files.

In general I lost on turn 592, yes for you experts it is a bit embarrasing. The Western front blew wide open south of the ruhr and I basically got overrun. I went from feeling like I had a good chance to win to ........ in a matter of weeks. I made it to march 31st 45 which based on my forum reading wasn't very good. Here are the issues I would change based on my first game.

1. I rested too often and took off too many turns
2. Need to better manage moral
3. I like to play historical so I did not manage production ( probably won't next time )
4. Put way to much AA in the Romanian Oil fields only to see it all lost with a very early surrender. I wish I remembered the date
5. My focus was to kill pilots and focus on killing bombers. I might have died by not intercepting the small raids. I had a 4.3 to 1
Kill ratio.
6. Manage my aces better. My top pilot had 31 kills and I seemed to go through a time where I lost a lot of top pilots.

There is more but if anyone has any comments I would love to here them as I plan to do better next time.

This is really my favorite game and I can't thank you guys enough for all the work that continues going into it

I was always a BoB player but I hate losing so I will probably take another crack.

THANKS!

Jimbo

Post #: 1

RE: Well I lost! - 8/5/2010 2:53:34 PM

joey

Posts: 1408
Joined: 5/8/2004
From: Johnstown, PA
Status: offline

Think we all lose a few before we get the hang of it. I play BOB a lot as the Germans. It took a few restarts (loses) before I was able defeat the RAF.

(in reply to jimbo12)

Post #: 2

RE: Well I lost! - 8/5/2010 6:21:43 PM

Nicholas Bell

Posts: 549
Joined: 4/10/2006
From: Eagle River, Alaska
Status: offline

Actually the only way you can "win" as the German player in a long campaign game is to force an "early ending" victory. Otherwise the Allied ground forces will always overrun Germany. There is no way to slow down the Allied ground forces, although it is possible that the breakthrough dates and the rate of advance of the front (depicted in game only by the location of the German ground units) can be sped up by extremely heavy Allied attacks on German ground units.

The final push into Germany normally starts about the 3rd week in March. How quickly the game ends after that depends on what the current score (I am curious to know what yours was) and the rate of Allied ground advance. In repeated AI vs AI testing I have observed radically different rates of Allied advance - and they don't always advance the same direction. So you may have just been unlucky in the ground war with the Allied ground advance taking out areas rich in industries, which once captured add to the Industrial Damage Point Score.

If somehow the score remains below the victory threshold until turn 700, the game ends in a draw. In my tests the Allied ground advance have never fully captured all of Germany by turn 700 when I have artificially raised the necessary VP score to win by hex editing. Normally there are pockets in northern and southern Germany. Oddly, the Soviets never advance beyond their January 1945 breakthrough advance, so in the end Berlin is not captured. It should be noted to those reaching the endgame that the Allies also land in Denmark and advance south a little, so cramming a lot of units in those apparently "safe" northern airfields will result in their loss sometime after the Rhine breakthrough event.

I would say you did rather well, actually, given you let the computer run the production. Its choices are not war-winners for sure. If the LW player cannot achieve an early ending victory in the winter of 1943 when weather can make it difficult for the Allied player to keep up the VP level, the next best hope is for the "secret weapons of the Luftwaffe". It is quite easy to get the FW 190Ds early, but these only help level the playing field a little. The real key IMO is to get the Ta-152s and jets as soon as possible. Once the R4M rockets are available in 1945 the LW player has an opportunity to inflict real slaughter on the 8th and 15th Air Forces - given you have pilots and fuel <g>. Then it might be possible to hang in for a draw, but the odds forcing an Allied loss via early ending in 1945 seem impossible. To do this around where your game ended would require the VP score to drop below 38-40 pts, which is probably not possible given the amount of industry lost to the advancing Allied ground forces. As you no doubt noted, once the Allied breakout from Normandy occurs in the 3rd week of July 1944, coupled with the Soviet advance west in August, the ID score jumps dramatically as factories are captured. So my best guess is the German player has to plan to force an early ending on the Allied player before August 1944 to "win".

(in reply to joey)

Post #: 3

RE: Well I lost! - 8/5/2010 10:59:17 PM

jimbo12

Posts: 33
Joined: 11/12/2007
Status: offline

I wish i had saved more often. My final score was 2/7 /70. At the end of feb i was feeling pretty good. I had 1 or 2 AS depending on the turn. My AS terror was bouncing between 19 -21 and this is a guess i believe i had about a 24 to 28 points below the 85 required. I was really about 2 to 3 weeks and it all went away. I really wanted to get into April to recreate a German result but it was not to be.

(in reply to Nicholas Bell)

Post #: 4

RE: Well I lost! - 8/5/2010 11:02:34 PM

jimbo12

Posts: 33
Joined: 11/12/2007
Status: offline

Sorry it was 2/70 /15

(in reply to jimbo12)

Post #: 5

RE: Well I lost! - 8/6/2010 12:19:34 AM

Hard Sarge

Posts: 22741
Joined: 10/1/2000
From: garfield hts ohio usa
Status: offline

if, the Allies get out of Overlord, they are going to win, or at least draw, the Ge still have a chance, once the landings take place, but, they really got to keep the score dropping during the Overlord lock down, once past that, the Ge will lose (then it is a game of seeing how well you can do, vs winning the game)

hassle is, I wasn't very lucky in getting changes made to the AI, to make it HARDer for the AI to lose before the landing

so, basicly, the GE can/Needs to win in the first year, once the break out happens and the commands are freed from Overlord, it is a done deal, other then the shouting

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