Defeat

[mmarquo]

Isokron just obliterated me as the Axis by early July. I have some technical and tactical questions:


1. Consistently his prepping artillery attacks always caused me to lose 400 - 600 men, no matter the size of stacks. This seems very high; is it something he is doing or the engine?

2. The history playback seems to engine much better/readable details about his attacks than I can figure out about mine - anyway to know the damage done as we are doing it? The combat detail screen does not seem to help me much.

3. I found it impossible to advance into any hex next to his units which was open to three sided counterattack. No matter what the experience/integrity/readiness - even augmented by Hold orders. His counterattacks never failed.

4. He virtually destroyed the Luftwaffe by mid June by airfield attacks - and the losses were not several planes per attack, rather 20, 30 or 40 - how is this accomplished? How to counter?

5. To root him out of some low mountain hexes I amassed up to 8 army/corps artillery and shelled him - reducing entrenchment from 150 to no less than 120 - and this no matter how many units of artillery fired. Followed by air attacks - which had little effect on readiness - then 3-sided hex attacks augmented by Attack cards lead by 90 + generals - nothing worked. Why? What can be done???


Anyway, I learned much from this match and want to learn more.

Thanks


MArquo

[Isokron]

Thanks for the game Marquo.

1. I assume you mean the size of the defending stack here. The thing is that artillery is modelled the same as any other attack so the numbers in the receiving hex doesnt matter (until >100). In fact a smaller unit will take more damage since the readiness and entrenchment reduction from the artillery will be concentrated on fewer elements so the attacks in subsequent rounds will do more damage. But yes I think artillery is a bit overmodelled in this game as well and would like to see their offensive attack numbers reduced to the same as their defensive ones (-33%) or so.

2. This is probably the key to need to learn to read the detail combat report in order to understand how the different bonuses etc works. I would recommend playing a game against yourself without fow, that way you can see all the different bonuses for both defender and attackers. As for losses they are visible on the first (non detailed) screen, the red numbers are elements destroyed (they then have to be multiplied with the element size (100 for inf, 5 for guns/tanks etc)).

3. I think this is how the game is supposed to work, you can always drive someone back in open ground if you have prepared. And most of the time I did this I had been able to predict where you where going to advance and had tankcorpses+artillery zeroed in on that hex from the turn before. So my stuff had full readiness and movement while your had minimum entrenchment and less then full readiness. If you are going to advance over a river you probably have to clear several hexes (possibly over several turns) and then advance into all at once.

4. When you attack an airfield the defender has a chance (50%?) to be surprised on the ground which gives him zero defence first turn which results in huge losses. To avoid try to randomize what airfields you use better and place AA on them. And of course the axis need to be the one offensive in the air. Try moving your fighters where he is and strike airfields behind the lines. Since the soviets gets a lot of readiness loss from C&C in the beginning the axis should come out on top for a while this way.

5. This is also how the game is supposed to work I think, a 100 stack in low mountains probably need 4 sides attack to force back or maybe a overloaded three sided. The units get higher entrenchment and guns/planes/tanks only work at 40%(?) efficiency when attacking it. So you really need an infantry advantage to clear them out (but you still want a good artillery barrage before that).

[mmarquo]

After a period to regroup, maybe you will be so kind as to snatch Maikop from me [:)]

1. Artillery should suppress and cause readiness/morale loss, but to consistently lose 400 - 600 men per prepping attack is too much.

2. I think you did less predicting and more setting me up; it got to the point where I would only attack from 3 hex sides and I think you set up where so I would do it and then you were ready to counterattack; very strong work.

3. Like the artillery, airfield attacks losses are too high - depleted, inexperienced Soviet fighters should not be able to straffe and destroy 40 - 50 Axis planes on the ground in 1942. You have figured out how to use the system to best advantage, there must be a way to counter. If the only way is constantly rebase air units then this is a real pain because of the readiness drop.

[&o]

[Isokron]

1. Well from what I remember from some very old CMBB discussions artillery was the biggest killer during ww2, bigger than air attacks or direct fire weapons. So it should definitely be able to cause losses not just suppression.

2. Hm yeah you became quite predictable in going for the three sided attacks.

3. I agree that the air war feels a bit wrong but I'm not sure what the best solution is. I don't think you get any readiness drop from rebasing air units though.