First Game From A Average Joe Player

[tm1]

Well after finally taking my first steps after having the game for 3 days I had to ignominiously concede to the AI before even the first year winter!!!!.
I was at 501 in the points score and had no chance of reaching 4 key objectives Orel, Kalinin,Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye.
This will tell you how fare I got in the Center and South, I was close but my last hope was Sevastopol.
I had broken through and taken all ports there and for 4 turns assaulted the city coming oh so close.
Turn 23 came as a unpleasant surprise having believed I had secured the Crimea except Sevastopol and finding soviet troops had landed on beaches either side of the city.
My center was crumbling even before the first winter with 2nd Armee on the verge of collapse and both 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armee's just hanging on.
Important lesson for this game regiment level defence lines will not hold back the Russians of course I was so thin in some places I had no choice.
I needed the Crimea as i believed I could have held Rzhev even if the rest of the centre collapsed.
The sea borne landings really through me, as they landed on the beaches, lesson learned.
The North and for the most part the South were solid but again I never got to the real winter so who knows.
18th Armee beat 4th Panzer Armee to the gates of Leningrad but I could not isolate it.

Supply is the key, I captured early objectives Kiev and Smolensk and Pskov only to be bogged down firstly waiting for infantry to catch up and also the supply chain.

This new system is nothing like Wite 1 and I will need to be more careful next time.
The city of Lvov is vital, but here again was my issue supply as my rail conversion crews raced off ahead to convert rail the pesky partisans would disrupt the rail lines running from Jaroslow through Przemysl, Sudovaya to Lvov and from Jaroslow through Lyubachev, Rava - Russkaya to Lvov.
For 4 turns the partisans would knockout a rail hex which would make Lvov unconnected to the rail grid and thus the whole South apart from a rail link through Romania to Odessa.

Important note convert all rail lines coming into Lvov before pushing you rail repair unit forward, another lesson learned.

I also through to much into the Theatre boxes to early maybe I was worried about penalties or over confident either way it was a mistake.

I kept throwing Recon squadrons into both the Finnish and Balkans TB because they were low but it did not seem to help, don't know if Recon count for the Air section.

After reading @AdmiralHalseys review I would like to echo some of his points.

Firstly though I didn't capture Leningrad this time, but a 5 % chance of getting 3 Finnish Divisions if you take 2 cites by X time needs to be looked at.
How about the entire Karelian Army with no time limits or % chances .

I like the SUDDEN DEATH option however I'm a average Joe and although I like a challenge and its a fine idea but though I may only speak for myself I always enjoy overrunning Russia,as would players who use the Russian side would like to sweep through Germany.
So how about a regular game like the old 290 point score victory.
If anything it would help players get better so that they will take on the SUDDEN DEATH option.

The theatre boxes are a great idea but as @AdmiralHalsey has said I think it needs more balancing in a positive way if players are prepared to commit more troops there.

I know this game is what would be termed a Historical simulation but the Theatre boxes and and over stacking them turns that side of the game Ahistorical so you if there overstacked to the positive I think we need more bonuses.
For eg North Africa overstacking and the capture of say Cairo could mean NO Allied Invasion of French North Africa which means a massive reduction in that Theatre.

I got beat by the AI in my first game, i remember the same thing when I played the original the first half dozen times disaster, but I got better, hopefully the more I play the more I will learn the tricks of the game.

Despite the supply frustration it was fun, the is map great and BIG, I wont be starting a new game just yet I want to take time and do some studying of the manual.

one last thing for any DEVS reading this but for some reason I feel there was not as many of the AUTO rail repair units in game as there is in the original, well maybe its me but they seem very sparse, in the original they sprung up everywhere in the game.

regards

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: tm1

..
For 4 turns the partisans would knockout a rail hex which would make Lvov unconnected to the rail grid and thus the whole South apart from a rail link through Romania to Odessa.
...

interesting report but this isn't right. Partisans in #2 don't cut rail lines, they place interdiction on the map, that can do anything from denying you admin movement (important esp for the supply and for bringing up the infantry from the border battles) to some sort of movement delay

ORIGINAL: tm1

..
one last thing for any DEVS reading this but for some reason I feel there was not as many of the AUTO rail repair units in game as there is in the original, well maybe its me but they seem very sparse in the original they sprung up everywhere in the game.

regards

yes there are less, the original overstated the number of axis engineering assets that could carry out this task. But equally remember that in #2 fast rail repair is not the single minded goal that it is in #1

[carlkay58]

tm1: As loki pointed out the Soviet partisans place interdiction (and usually low level at that) rather than rail cuts. What probably happened is you did not complete a rail hex in the Lvov area. I can't remember the exact hex but I know I made that mistake once before too.

[tm1]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

tm1: As loki pointed out the Soviet partisans place interdiction (and usually low level at that) rather than rail cuts. What probably happened is you did not complete a rail hex in the Lvov area. I can't remember the exact hex but I know I made that mistake once before too.

I will check of the map next game and make certain all hexes surrounding Lvov will be converted, it cost me at least 4 turns or there about for 1st Panzer Armee at Kiev.
Hopefully I wont make that mistake again, valuable time wasted.

cheers

[Erik Rutins]

Thank you for the feedback tm1!

ORIGINAL: tm1
Supply is the key, I captured early objectives Kiev and Smolensk and Pskov only to bogged down firstly waiting for infantry to catch up and also the supply chain.

Supply is indeed key and I think that focusing on the rules for logistics will help you in your next game.

This new system is nothing like Wite 1 and I will need to be more careful next time.
The city of Lvov is vital, but here again was my issue supply as my rail conversion crews raced off ahead to convert rail the pesky partisans would disrupt the rail lines running from Jaroslow through Przemysl, Sudovaya to Lvov and from Jaroslow through Lyubachev, Rava - Russkaya to Lvov.
For 4 turns the partisans would knockout a rail hex which would make Lvov unconnected to the rail grid and thus the whole South apart from a rail link through Romania to Odessa.

As others have mentioned, Partisans can interdict the rail but if you hit your "R" key and the rail was actually disconnected, then that's something where you may have missed repairing a hex and you need to get a rail repair unit over there ASAP to connect things up. If you had many turns without a functioning rail network for a large part of your front, that would certainly make things much more difficult and also cause a lot of wear and tear on your trucks and units.

I also through to much into the Theatre boxes to early maybe I was worried about penalties or over confident either way it was a mistake.

I'm assuming folks are thinking that they can reverse the course of the war in the Theater Boxes if they throw enough in there, but that's not the goal. If you don't need the extra forces, by all means reinforce the theater boxes and you may delay the historical timeline and earn some bonus points. However, you won't be able to reverse it and ultimately the war is won on the Eastern Front while buying time on the other fronts.

I kept throwing Recon squadrons into both the Finnish and Balkans TB because they were low but it did not seem to help, don't know if Recon count for the Air section.

If you click to expand the Ground and Air totals for each theater box, it should tell you what is counting towards your total there to help inform you on which units will give you the most bang for the buck.

Firstly though I didn't capture Leningrad this time, but a 5 % chance of getting 3 Finnish Divisions if you take 2 cites by X time needs to be looked at.
How about the entire Karelian Army with no time limits or % chances .

Personally, I'm not convinced the Finns would have gotten that involved even if Leningrad had fallen, but I can see the argument for this as an alternate history event option. There are major benefits to taking Leningrad even if you don't get a good roll for the Finns though.

I like the SUDDEN DEATH option however I'm a average Joe and although I like a challenge and its a fine idea but though I may only speak for myself I always enjoy overrunning Russia,as would players who use the Russian side would like to sweep through Germany.
So how about a regular game like the old 290 point score victory.
If anything it would help players get better so that they will take on the SUDDEN DEATH option.

I hear you both on that and when we get through the initial bug-fixing part of post-release support we'll definitely look at providing more options for this. I really do believe that a bit more practice, especially on logistics, or an easier difficulty level, will allow you to avoid the Sudden Defeat with ease though until other options are available.

The theatre boxes are a great idea but as @AdmiralHalsey has said I think it needs more balancing in a positive way if players are prepared to commit more troops there.

See my comments above on this, though we'll always pay attention if enough players tell us that they want something, but it starts getting into very alternate history, which would really require a separate campaign scenario with a whole new balance pass. Balancing a campaign is a work of many months, so this is not taken on lightly.

For eg North Africa overstacking and the capture of say Cairo could mean NO Allied Invasion of French North Africa which means a massive reduction in that Theatre.

The number of things that would have had to change historically to completely prevent Operation Torch and the later invasions of Sicily and Italy is pretty massive and really outside the scope of a theater box in an Eastern Front game, IMHO.

one last thing for any DEVS reading this but for some reason I feel there was not as many of the AUTO rail repair units in game as there is in the original, well maybe its me but they seem very sparse, in the original they sprung up everywhere in the game.

There are still quite a lot of them, but remember also that you can guide their activities by assigning them to lower HQs (even Corps HQs which limit their range) that are parked in the general areas of rail you want them to repair rather than keeping them at the highest levels where they may go all over the map.

Regards,

- Erik

[vinnie71]

I think that what is also a game changer is the map itself. I honestly didn't care much for where I was attacking and wasted the panzer forces in futile 'push back' attacks. Frankly, one of the biggest changes comes at a cost for there are clearly limited 'paths' of clear terrain which are suitable for swift strikes. In most others, even a half dead Russian division can stop a hasty attack, blunting the German offensive. After the second turn, there are no easy victories either.

The infantry also take a lot of weeks to catch up with the panzers and in the meantime its very frustrating to see the panzers just twiddling their fingers up front, which leads to foolish decisions...[:D]

However, one should review a bit the sudden death thingy. In my first campaign as the Germans, I overlooked the victory condition and basically concentrated on destroying the Russian army. 3 million losses later, the Red Army could barely counterattack during the blizzard (except for the poor Italians who were routed on contact...). However, I didn't advance much beyond Smolensk in the center and withdrew to the Luga up north when winter was coming while in the south I fell short of taking Kharkov. That basically screwed the game for me. Having said that, I don't think that it would have been a decisive loss in any sense and the Red Army was almost completely unable to counterattack. I even had the luxury of sending 14 German divisions to the Reserve without compromising the front.

BTW loved the theatre boxes and how they are managed for both sides. The event system is also a fantastic addition. Of course now I'm taking the Soviet side and applied the lessons learnt on the AI...[:'(]

Really enjoying the game!

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: tm1
I kept throwing Recon squadrons into both the Finnish and Balkans TB because they were low but it did not seem to help, don't know if Recon count for the Air section.

Recon and Patrol planes count toward the Patrol value. Gives a max 5% bonus to Ground and is the base value for Naval.