Current Human vs Human 41 campaign games

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

Ok thanks for cheering me up a bit. [:D]

Going through already 10 turns of blizzard really saps the axis player's moral...
[:(]

I think blizzard should be very tough for axis units especially any that are silly to attack with out rest and maybe from a city or Urban if necessary. But, I think units defending in well prepared positions and good supply and supply lines are treated with indifference with WitE game mechanics. IMO this is very bad and unhistorical. Since I had an easy time of the Smolensk pocket.. most sov units surrendered without a fight. Many of my units holding the from had high TOE % (80+) and were well rested. But in the 1st turn of blizzard sov attacks still ripped through most of these units. By t3 of blizzard no unit could hold and if you don't evac a city and get surrounded.. lets just say isolated units get the harshest penalties and won't last more than a few turns if attacked (expect CV display of 1).

I guess we'll see if my low # planes, 4k, can wrestle air superiority from these 18k sov planes in 42.

Yea don't get me started on the isolation stuff. Having 750k guys surrender without you having to fire a shot really burns my ass.

[bwheatley]

Question for you flav or another tester how come i have 535 T34's sitting in my pool? Do they take awhile to divy out? All my dang tank brigades are missing their complement of t34's while they sit in holding.

The save is on the slitherine server bwheatley & abul is the game (where i'm soviets) if you guys need to take a peek.

[bwheatley]

Oh looks like i might need to get them to a railhead to get them to soak up tanks . Guess i know what i'm doing during mud.

And my line from north to south is 2 (some places 3) hexes deep with units. So hopefully that will slow down the german tank encirclements from now on.

I also have 3 floating armies with 12 divisions each in the backfield.

I pulled all 8 of my new guard divisions out of the line and they are formed up as their own army. During mud i will transition them to be underneath a shock army to help them even more. I'm hoping since they are guard they will have 10 morale and then another +5 because of being in a shock army. Is that the case? if so that will make them as potent as SS troops and much more concentrated.

[raizer]

yah I think 550 t34s sitting in the pool is a problem...some bean counter working back in moscow needs to be put up against a wall and shot

maybe its a plus-build some fresh tank brigades then from them up into tank XXX

[Flaviusx]

Having them in the pool right now isn't so bad, tank brigades suck anyhow, nice to have something in the kitty when you begin building up tank corps.

And you can raise some tank battalion SUs with this, too. I like to attach one of those to each mobile corps. The early 42 tank corps TOE is pretty bad and can use the extra afvs.

[jomni]

ORIGINAL: raizer

yah I think 550 t34s sitting in the pool is a problem...some bean counter working back in moscow needs to be put up against a wall and shot

maybe its a plus-build some fresh tank brigades then from them up into tank XXX

Yes. I see this as an opportunity to build more tank battalion SU's to beef up my other units if they don't trickle down to the Tank Brigades. I also attach one directly to cavalry corps to give them more punch.
I'm in Jan 42 and the Tank Brigrades TOE are light-tank heavy. In my case, most of these aren't filled or at 0% TOE. Production of light tanks is not keeping up to the destruction.

[abulbulian]

A lot of those units that look like destroyed in bwheately's screen shot of lost axis units were fortified zones I disbanded before they would have just surrendered. I can estimate a total equivalent of 6-7 inf div that were trapped and then surrendered on attack. A few of those were Romanian. [:'(]

[randallw]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

Oh looks like i might need to get them to a railhead to get them to soak up tanks . Guess i know what i'm doing during mud.

And my line from north to south is 2 (some places 3) hexes deep with units. So hopefully that will slow down the german tank encirclements from now on.

I also have 3 floating armies with 12 divisions each in the backfield.

I pulled all 8 of my new guard divisions out of the line and they are formed up as their own army. During mud i will transition them to be underneath a shock army to help them even more. I'm hoping since they are guard they will have 10 morale and then another +5 because of being in a shock army. Is that the case? if so that will make them as potent as SS troops and much more concentrated.

Morale is important, but experience ratings are still important, and those Guard units will need time for the experience numbers to creep close to what the Germans have.

[bwheatley]

T39 i'm spending a lot of AP to upgrade all my old I* planes to either migs/yaks/laggs or il2's.

No winter german blitz. It appears my opponent is husbanding his strength until after mud. Good for me time to build forts. Hopefully this will slow the german monster down.

[Flaviusx]

Don't go overboard with airplane upgrades. This is a nearly bottomless pit for APs, and you've got huge expenditures coming in 1942. You should be thinking ahead and trying to bank APs for corps conversions.

The only airplane upgrades I ever do is to shturmoviks from U2Vs and the I15bis bomber groups. Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system will respond accordingly, switching those groups to newer models gratis. The Luftwaffe is your silent partner here, they need to kill thousands of I16s and whatnot and clear the decks.

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

T39 i'm spending a lot of AP to upgrade all my old I* planes to either migs/yaks/laggs or il2's.

No winter german blitz. It appears my opponent is husbanding his strength until after mud. Good for me time to build forts. Hopefully this will slow the german monster down.

Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system w

Lol, well considering I'm your opponent I can tell you that the axis armed forces are in no condition for any offensive actions. After 13 turns of blizzard and constantly attacking sov superhuman units, my army is too depleted and I see no point to risk any senseless attacks as manpower is in short supply. Keep in mind I lost 1.2 million men in Dec41, Jan42, and Feb42. Just the fact that one could think the axis could mount anything in March 42, tells me how much they don't understand the axis issues after the 41-42 blizzard turns. Playing as axis against sov AI will not give you a great perspective on this.

So I have to wait until maybe May to launch any sort of attack. However, I can see the sov lines are already 3-4 hexes deep in all but maybe the far north. So I'll be fighting against a Kursk type line all over (minus the minefields) in spr-sum42. Doesn't look promising as he also has reserves lurking of a shock army and GUARDS units (nice little red guys) to check any break through I might achieve. Where ever I go, I can expect him to react and react quickly in force.
[:(]

[Avenger]

Even against the AI the TOE of any Axis unit that was not in a city is horrible after the blizzards. I don't see how anyone can think attacks until summer. Me I just look around the battlefield and hit next turn after the blizzards.

[bwheatley]

hehe interesting advice. But yea i'm still getting used to the system since you don't have pilots i guess it doesn't matter if you get your crappy planes killed off since pilots are not separate.

Oh yea i have that coming up for tank corps shortly. This is my first soviet game against a player so i'm learning by the seat of my pants. I remember someone said turn off automatic plane upgrades so thats what i did. I did that with witp i like the manual control of when i move new aircraft out.

It looks like mud is going to come and go peacefully since germany is still licking her winter wounds. Which is good because about 80% of my army is "unready" at the moment. Those lines that were 2-3 deep were all for show with units of 1-2 cv. There are a few 12 division armys further back with 3-4 cv avg though to counter any german advances.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

T39 i'm spending a lot of AP to upgrade all my old I* planes to either migs/yaks/laggs or il2's.

No winter german blitz. It appears my opponent is husbanding his strength until after mud. Good for me time to build forts. Hopefully this will slow the german monster down.

Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system w

Lol, well considering I'm your opponent I can tell you that the axis armed forces are in no condition for any offensive actions. After 13 turns of blizzard and constantly attacking sov superhuman units, my army is too depleted and I see no point to risk any senseless attacks as manpower is in short supply. Keep in mind I lost 1.2 million men in Dec41, Jan42, and Feb42. Just the fact that one could think the axis could mount anything in March 42, tells me how much they don't understand the axis issues after the 41-42 blizzard turns. Playing as axis against sov AI will not give you a great perspective on this.

So I have to wait until maybe May to launch any sort of attack. However, I can see the sov lines are already 3-4 hexes deep in all but maybe the far north. So I'll be fighting against a Kursk type line all over (minus the minefields) in spr-sum42. Doesn't look promising as he also has reserves lurking of a shock army and GUARDS units (nice little red guys) to check any break through I might achieve. Where ever I go, I can expect him to react and react quickly in force.
[:(]

When you say 3-4 you mean 2-3 i don't have any lines that are 4 deep except where i might have a corner to a line that makes 4 but 90% are 2-3

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Don't go overboard with airplane upgrades. This is a nearly bottomless pit for APs, and you've got huge expenditures coming in 1942. You should be thinking ahead and trying to bank APs for corps conversions.

The only airplane upgrades I ever do is to shturmoviks from U2Vs and the I15bis bomber groups. Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system will respond accordingly, switching those groups to newer models gratis. The Luftwaffe is your silent partner here, they need to kill thousands of I16s and whatnot and clear the decks.

Well, I got that part of my strategy 100% wrong then. I should have let the Luftwaffe kill as many of my aircraft and pilots as possible in order for my Air Force to modernize more quickly! Counter-intuitive at least, strange game design option at best...

[karonagames]

No, you can spend APs however you like. Flavio likes spending his APs in a specific way, and gets his army organised in a specific way. Having been on the receiving end of the results of his organisation I can verify how effective it is. I am sure you will find out for yourself whether prioritising AP expenditure on the Red Airforce is the way to go.

Everyone is able to develop their own styles of play, only time will tell whether they are successful or not.

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Don't go overboard with airplane upgrades. This is a nearly bottomless pit for APs, and you've got huge expenditures coming in 1942. You should be thinking ahead and trying to bank APs for corps conversions.

The only airplane upgrades I ever do is to shturmoviks from U2Vs and the I15bis bomber groups. Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system will respond accordingly, switching those groups to newer models gratis. The Luftwaffe is your silent partner here, they need to kill thousands of I16s and whatnot and clear the decks.

Well, I got that part of my strategy 100% wrong then. I should have let the Luftwaffe kill as many of my aircraft and pilots as possible in order for my Air Force to modernize more quickly! Counter-intuitive at least, strange game design option at best...

Yes, there are some interesting and sad oddities in the air war. currently I have 600+ FW 190A, which are sitting in my prod pool and no place to put them. Going to be so happy when players have a bit more control on some of these choices, as it stands the 'auto' part to this feature is in need of some changes.

I'm sure the devs are dealing with a lot of air issues and trying to find the best way to solve them. If, not and you're playing with a friend in PBEM you can always use the editor before starting a game. [8D]

[abulbulian]

So I haven't seen anybody respond about there pbem human vs human games. I know the ones that are in AAR, but anybody hit blizzard or get past it like our game?

[kfmiller41]

Seeing as you asked, i do have a none AAR game that is about turn 32, and I am doing much better than I expected as the Russians, I will post screens when I get the next turn of the production and casualties in this thread, but based on what I have gotten from my opponent, he thinks I will be in Berlin in 43:-). It is that bad. I have outrun my supply lines in all areas ans have freed Smolensk and am almost halfway to Kiev in the south. Still have 6.5 million men.

[abulbulian]

Well, unfortunately, I think that's going to be more of the 'norm' for opponents of equal skill. Soviets having 6.5 million men on turn 32 and with the situation of the front line where it is... well I feel for your opponent. Berlin by 43 might be very possible.

What are the axis player's loses at for men, tanks, planes? How big is your sov af?

thanks for this info.