Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: bahzeel

For anybody new who ends up reading down this thread, here's what I learned about game mechanics after my first pass through the game on easy mode - hopefully these learnings will be helpful to others. (Some is definitely my opinion based on all of 1 game's experience :D)


1) conquering Russia. Besides all of the obvious spots, the short version is you really DO have to get ALL of the victory point locations. The spots that caused me grief were the need to drive all the way to the Urals (but there's good resources to grab over there, so its not all bad), and Murmansk (ALL the way on the northern edge of the map). The key to Murmansk is to get Finland to join the cause, capture Leningrad, and then strategic move some troops up north in Finland. I spent literally half a year hiking through the forest to Murmansk because I'd wasted some early diplomacy elsewhere and the Finns hadn't yet joined up.

1a) You can grab every victory point in France, or there are a subset that will enable the Vichy France event (that's how it seems to work). Good news with Vichy France - you're done with Western Europe a month or 2 sooner. Bad news - you don't actually control all of France, as Vichy France becomes an axis leaning nation. You can get the details on other posts here in the forums for this (or don't go looking for that info if you like the mystery).

2) It might not be the best use of diplomacy points, but the 2 key nations in my estimation are Romania and Finland. Romania so that when you prep your own Barbarossa, you can stage troops close to Odessa (Army Group South). I don't know if Romania comes into the fold on their own soon enough if you're ahead of Germany's historical Barbarossa schedule or not (I was able to launch on May 1 '40, and the extra 6 or 8 weeks of summertime were huge in the drive for Moscow). Finland second, so that once you capture Leningrad, you'll be able to shift some troops up north to get Murmansk and not waste a half year or more the way I did picking up a random single victory point

3) Amphibious operations - Sea Transport (move troops from port to port). There are times when you can move your sea transports directly from the port of embarkation to the port of debarkation. I don't know if that's a bug or not, but (for instance) I was able to move from Le Havre to Portsmouth, and save a week with transports out at sea. This might also work in the Med, going from Yugoslavia or Greece to North Africa (you'll just have to look for it).

4) For assaults, the first key is that you pretty much have to capture a port (that you can tie a Convoy to) to get supplies for your landed troops. If they don't get it right away, they will fade fast (no supply). You load amphibious troops the same as you would a sea transport - the difference is which button you click. Unlike Sea Transport which you unload on the Fleet screen, you unload Amphibious Units on the regular map. Click on coastline hexes and look for the button to light up (in the typically black box that has icons for various actions to perform on enemy hexes, roughly top right corner of the visible map for me). Amphibious units move out to sea and have to finish there (i.e. - not be in a (M) state) in order to then be eligible for landing along touching / associated coastline.

4a) Know that Sea Transport points 'regenerate': i.e. - once you unload a unit, the ST used to move the unit is available to move another unit. However, Amphibious points are a one shot deal. Pretty spendy to move the good stuff, but if you're invading something that is well defended, pay it anyway. Nothing like landing 2 or 3 Panzer Korps to take and hold a beachead / port.

5) From what I've been able to figure out, the German army built Panzer armies out of 2 Panzer corp and 1 Panzer division. The Operation Barbarossa OOB at least bears that rough relationship out (11 corp, 6 divisions at the start). I'd say my own invasion of Russia on easy mode supports that split - I went in with about the opposite setup (12 corp and 25 or so divisions - easy mode like I say :P), and after the opening weeks with Russians surrendering when you drive by, I would have been happier with more like 18 corp / 9 divisions.

6) I made the mistake of upgrading infantry divisions to infantry corp in reasonably robust numbers. The infantry is needed in Russia for sentry duty and sealing off deep panzer strikes; and they need the extra action point for movement (especially in the winter) much more than they need the extra assault strength (In winter, infantry with 4 AP move 2 hexes, those with 3 AP move 1 hex). Or at least - the Germans start with plenty of Infantry Corp units; wholesale upgrades the way I did it left me with masses of infantry that really never engaged anywhere, they were left so far behind. So I'll use max level Infantry Divisions as rear guards and fill to plug holes. Probably also use a fair bit of strategic movement during the invasion this time that I didn't use before.

7) Elsewhere in this thread, I'm told that the key to Denmark and most importantly Norway in the '39 Grand Campaign, is don't invade Denmark (I did - oops). There will be an event early in '40 that brings both Denmark and Norway into the fold. And as a bonus, you don't have to flub a Norway amphbious invasion as I did, and leave yourself at war with them the rest of the way.

8) If you can push fast enough / farn enough in North Africa, you can drive all the way across into the Middle East, through Saudia Arabia, up through Iraq. As you approach Turkey, those wise Turkish folks think joining the alliance is a good idea. Although this resulted in the Turks getting capture credit for the juicy southeast corner Russian resource nodes, it also allowed me to have a 4th front when I launched Barbarossa. I don't know if I'd really need that in practice, but it sure helped getting to the Urals.

9) I don't know how historical this is, but game mechanics with tactical bombers aren't friendly towards the purpose I've always associated them with (namely dive bombing of land units). What I learned is that they take too much damage that way to be of practical use, but they are just brutal on ships at sea. So I used my bombers first to clear out the British fleet in the North Sea, then the Russian fleet in the Black sea, and THEN the US fleet in the Central Eastern Atlantic. Same 12 original tactical bombers in the '39 Grand Campaign OOB - upgraded to level 3 (could have gone higher, they were brutalizing the ships without that though). In effect, the tac bombers created naval superiority for me, and that let my fleet survive the onslaught from much bigger navies. Oh yeah - the Italians seemed to do a bang up job taking and holding the Med.

10) related to the tac bombers - I DID build fighters and used them ruthlessly to hunt down and kill anything air (fighters first) that I could find in Britain after France fell. I used roughly 10 or 12 on the western european sea coast, and another 10 to 12 on the Russian front to establish and maintain air superiority. The fighters were kept upgraded to the highest tech level.


I sure am enjoying this game. I think next game will be another Grand Campaign, though now that I feel like I understand game mechanics. The question is what settings to use - I'm thinking I'll play Germany again at normal difficulty; I'm thinking Britain will get +50% resources. Any others suggestions for a setup that provides a good challenge to Germany?

Thanks - and hope somebody else finds this of value,

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tomokatu

1a) While, I'm not completely certain of this, not having the skill or chutzpah to get into editing the "events" file, I think the speed with which you conquer France has some effect on triggering the Vichy event.

4) You don't mention the placement of a Mulberry to support your invasion force. Did you discover this? You need a lazy 300 PPs at the time you send in the invasion troops, another option lights up on the Amphibious Assault box and you just place the Mulberry on a non-port coastal hex as you did with the assault troops. Mulberries expire after a certain time - not certain offhand but it's definitely in the manual.I found one useful when using Axis air to bomb the defenders of Crete from the coast of Greece. CAUTION: Mulberries only supply troops of their own nationality, either German or Italian, not both.


Economies: From your reading of other threads, I will assume that you've discovered the use of the F12 key. This is/was a developer's tool but it's wonderful for PP transfers between allied nations with land rail connections. In general, and for PBEM play, I use a House Rule that simulates losses in transit. A 5% losss and wastage rate is assumed. Germany can transfer 100 PPs to Romania but only 95 are added to the Romanian exchequer. If you use the national AI difficulty options (minor nations set to "Very Easy") their economies are quite robust and they can afford to send PPs back to the Fatherland at the same wastage rate.

I mention this specifically because it's worth spending some PPs to buy a few SR points in the minor Axis nations because their infantry divisions are quite useful in garrisoning German and Polish cities against Partisan activities and marching there is just a waste of time.

6) You're right about the need to keep infantry divisions as garrisons in your East Front areas. This is especially important once your opponent (human or AI) starts activating Partisans against you. You HAVE to be mobile enough or close enough to crush them as soon as they appear while they are still out of supply. They will take any city left ungarrisoned and get supply unless you're careful. Be aware also that isolated Soviet units will move WEST to take cities in your rear areas if you don't contain them and eliminate them.

10) Once you have air superiority over Britain, build another Strategic Bomber unit or two and pound those resource-point-producing cities FLAT.  I have four German and one Italian heavy bomber fleets dedicated to the Englandblitz and the GB PP levels are barely enough to keep a field army in supply (I am playing PBEM against a skilled and wily human and I need all the advantages I can generate.)