abukede

Well the battle for the Atlantic began this turn. I discovered a U-Boat and attacked with 2 DDs. Poor weather kept me from doing much damage. From this point onward Jim’s U-Boats will be hunted. There was no action elsewhere. Really a sitzkrieg in Europe and Asia. That will not last much longer. I noticed Jim deployed the Italian general to East Africa. I expect things to really get interesting shortly.

I love Jim's posts. Nothing to really report on my end. All hell is going to break loose shortly when Jim invades France. At that point things should really get interesting. Beyond that everything is too quiet... especially in the Far East.

Not much to report this turn. Poor weather all around. German raiders raiding Liverpool area… where is the RN I wonder? I am pretty much moving lots of stuff around and building up my forces around the globe. Since there is really nothing that I care to show at the moment… lest I give Jim an advantage… I thought I would highlight 3 more units and there CTV’s. (SeaMonkey must be in heaven with all this use of SC jargon) This is the division. Upgraded and with experience this unit is very handy and can cause some serious damage. For the soviet (read below) it is a great early speed bump. Here is the corps. This unit is just a step above the division. The real power on the field can be the army and when fully upgraded they are devastating. Let’s talk order of builds for Russia for a moment. I typically will build all of my divisions first and have them deployed prior to hostilities with Germany. Divisions are cheap and fast to build. They take just 2 months to complete. If you research production first… they become even cheaper… and if you wait to buy anything prior to getting production level 2… you save more money and almost… almost get an extra division in savings before the invasion. Long-term production research can really pay off for Russia. Do not discount it. Next I build corps and finally armies, mech and armor. This is very important as Russia must slow the Germans down and wear them down. Don’t fall into the trap of buying armor first. You will not have enough ground units to withstand the powerful and experienced German army. Russia starts with a large army… mostly corps, a few armies, a bunch of light tanks and other stuff. What Russia is lacking are the divisions. These are your early speed bumps. Dug-in and upgraded… they will cause the Germans time and casualties… while Soviet production kicks in and you are able to get a powerful force together to counter the Germans. It is better to lose your divisions/garrisons and a few corps early than the expensive armies that you will need later as part of your counter attack. Off to Jim.

I look at it as the coastal defense gun representing more than just a simple gun battery but the combined defense of Malta... such as limited air assets, ground forces, coastal defense, etc.

Rosseau, I completely agree with you. For me to play WitE... I need the wife and kids to go on vacation for the weekend. With AoC... I can hop on and off at will.

No real action to speak of for turn 3… at least from the Allies perspective. I am moving lots of things behind the scenes. The Axis is in the driver’s seat… and I have to work slowly to blunt Jim’s initiative. I think it is likely that he will invade the Low Countries early, which could lead to an early invasion of France. I am making preparations just as fast as I can. My decision was an easy “Yes” on this one. I wanted to take a moment, especially since I am hiding my preparations from Jim, to show you the CTV’s (dedicated to SeaMonkey) for the Coastal Defense Gun occupying Gibraltar and Malta. Do not discount these guns. They don’t seem very effective till an enemy warship comes in to range. More unit highlights to come in future turns. Off to Jim.

Claus, Here is the advisory about sending units to France. You need a minimum of 2, however 5 are better… and help keep morale from collapsing. This also means that the likelihood of losing a UK unit or two increases significantly as the Germans can move fast… and the UK cannot afford to lose any units early. In my mind, the risk of France falling early is too great not to send the five units and opens the real possibility of an invasion of England. Jim and I discovered in an early game that an invasion of England is not as easy as in previous games, if the UK prepares properly. His invasion cost him German 4 corps, 1 army, 1 HQ, 1 CA and 2 Subs. I lost 2 BBs, 1 CA and heavy casualties on all units. We really had a knockdown drag out fight for supremacy of the Channel that only ended when the bulk of UK Mediterranean fleet arrived to assist. That said… it is still very possible to invade England if France falls early… however you must commit overwhelming force to succeed… this means clearing the channel of the RN… and assaulting at the same time… not an easy task. Here is the advisory on which cities and towns need to be occupied to keep Italy from mobilizing and entering the war early. Note Alexandria in the mix. As requested here is a screenshot of Warsaw to Moscow zoomed out with hexes. You can see it is a very long way for the Germans to go. Those Russian tanks in the picture are light tanks. Turn wise… Not much to report. Jim got moving in Asia with a brilliant and lightening assault on Foochow, taking that city and beginning the Chinese slide on morale. I think Foochow is worth 2 NM per turn. Poland obviously fell… with fewer casualties on the Germans that I would have liked. Not much to show picture wise this turn as I am building up and deploying units around the map. I conducted the first strategic bombing attack on Germany with no damage. I thought this image from turn 2 is worth looking at. It details the relative unit counts of each combatant. Note the number of Soviet units deployed in comparison to the Germans. Also it is worth looking at the size of the Royal Navy which will get much larger. Also note the size of the Japanese and Chinese armies! The Japanese navy is currently around only 10 units in strength. He also has a number of naval units in build, however, the Japanese player has some building to do. In this game there is a real careful balance between fighting in China and preparing to fight the Western Allies. It is easy to make a misstep and over commit to focus. Let’s see what Jim has in store for me next turn.

Claus, Yes, there is a much greater chance France will surrender "before" the Germans get to Paris if you do not send them. Later today I will post the pop up that advises of this.

I thought you might find it interesting to see the production for the allies at the end of turn 1. As you can see German raiders are already at work, cutting my convoy lines. I with have to do something about this before it becomes a real problem. The map is huge and it is easy for them to hide. Russian and US income is particularly low. I will work with what I have to maximize this income… more on Russia and the US later. All in all a very good start for Jim.

Turn 1 for the Allies. I am back for another Walkthrough/AAR… this time with Happy… aka Jim. Over the years… both he and I have played sooo very many beta games we have lost track. He is a good friend and a great player. In fact he was the person who recommended me to Hubert for the beta team. Thank you Jim! I confident this is the game that everyone wants to get their hands on We are going to give you a very detailed first look at that game. Please at any time feel free to ask questions. We will do our best to answer accurately, but keep in mind this game is under development and between this version… beta patch .06 and the actual release of the game there will likely be many thousands of tweeks and adjustments. So expect additional improvement/enhancement over what you see in this Walkthrough/AAR. Trust me on this… it is worth the wait as this one is an incredible game, and easily has the best Global campaign to date! The map has been completely redone with a lot of time put into making it graphically pleasing, playable and strategically challenging. The development team put in overtime on this one and as we move through the AAR both Jim and myself will highlight different areas of the map as the action develops. So… enough with the fluff. Let’s see what the Allies can do to the Axis! Poland was hammered very hard this turn. It will be a miracle if she survives the second turn. I conducted a number of attacks, including via the air. The poles begin with a fighter and medium bomber. All of my attacks were unsuccessful with the exception of my attacks on the German army above Krakow. I was able to hammer him with the corps in Krakow and the army to the south west, dropping him a couple steps. The allies are very weak at the moment so I have to take what I can get. My objectives with Poland and France are to try to drag hostilities out as long as possible and also to inflict the maximum amount of casualties on the Germans as I am able. Every step loss and delay helps Russia down the road in 1941. I will see if I can make things very interesting for Jim in France. Speaking of France you can see the French army starts very understrength. I have a lot of work to do to just get her up to strength and in shape to present a serious speed bump for the Germans. I also need to make her dangerous. Let’s see if Jim gives me the time I need to do that. You can also see the state of British ground forces. I need to send at least 5 ground/air units to France to maintain French morale. This does not leave a lot for home defense, especially should my ground units end up destroyed. As a result, one of my early primary focuses for the UK will be to build up a defense against a German invasion. I will attempt to field a force sufficient to hold the British Isles. This also has an upside in the event that the Germans elect not to invade. I can send these excess forces around the map when winter sets in to provide reinforcements to Egypt or conduct operations elsewhere. I can also hold them in reserve for an invasion of the continent. In Egypt, and elsewhere my units begin the game very understrength and in a general poor condition, Much like in Gold. It takes a lot of cash to bring everything up to strength. I have a strategy that I use, where I slowly rebuild units one step at a time… usually in theatre priority… as opposed to blowing all my cash on a couple of units at a couple of units at a time. This strategy seems to work better as I tend to have the cash I need to get my units up to strength, while still investing in technology and new purchases. Try it. In the East… there was no action to speak of. In fact, it was too quiet. I expect Japan is gathering herself to attack China. Time to dig in. I wanted to give you a quick picture of the Chinese theatre. It is so big that I had to take a couple of screenshots one level zoomed out!!! In this picture you can see the Northern Chinese front. There are a lot of hidden Japanese units… we are playing with fog of war “on.” This means that unless you have the available air recon with long range tech, it is easy to conceal offensive preparations and hide units. Note that most of the Japanese units are upgraded to Infantry 1. The Chinese units are not upgraded and they need to research infantry 1. That said I do not have the funds available yet. Here is southern China. Supply for the Japanese is terrible in southern China… but that will not always be the case as the Japanese gobble up city after city and build themselves a supply base. As you can see Southern China will be hard for me to defend, especially along the coast. That said I am going to do everything I can to make it as difficult and costly as possible for the Japanese.

Just for the record my Haha, yes comment was directed at sea monkey's use of CTvs. He had me stumped and I asked what he meant by that. I was saying Yes we will show them during the AAR/walk through. I have no idea when the game will be released. That is up to Hubert and Battlefront. A lot of work is going into it and if I had to guess we are several months away. Sorry to unintentionally offend.

HAHA... the answer to your question is yes.

Seamonkey... what do you mean by CTVs?

This will all be covered in the AAR/Walkthrough that will begin in the coming days.

There is diplomacy with AoC. Check out the Walkthrough. I discuss it and the Turkey option. Specifically you can perform diplomacy on Turkey and Persia... though it is usually easier for Russia to invade Persia.

Lol. Very funny. Did you break the Russians yet?

That map is crazy large.

Rosseau, I would recommend getting the game. AoC feels and plays very differently than other SC games... plus it is also a great way to help support Hubert in developing SC3. If you get it ... I will even throw in a PVP game with you with me as the Russians. abu

A lot of work went into it. I hope everyone gets it! Enjoy Abu

With the release of AoC this will be the last turn of the Walkthrough. I will make a few additional posts in the coming days… but I will leave you here… and let you explore the rest of your game in your own way. Turn 25 Winter strikes. Massive hit on my supply in that the values of my towns and cities took a major hit. Then my troops took a major attrition loss and I mean major! The Russians struck across the entire front causing nearly as much damage on me as the attrition losses! Several German units were thrown back with a number coming close to absolute destruction. My ability to repair units has been severely limited as well. All that said… I was able to continue my offensive against Leningrad… using arty to hammer down the defender and then destroy it. Due to poor supply… I was unable to exploit my success and take the rest of the city. That will have to wait for the next turn. Only one picture of the front this post… as it was the most interesting. I really want to show you the losses. You can see Russian losses have steadily begun to fall as German supply and readiness began to suffer due to worsening weather. Check out the massive losses on the German side for the last 2 turns!!! Over 2k in losses from the first hit from winter (the North) and the beginning of the Russian winter offensive!!! That is a massive loss for the Germans. To prepare for it I saved income from the last 2 turns, around 900, but it is not nearly enough. A hint for the German player… when winter strikes and you take attrition loss. Your first repairs should be your HQ’s. Damaged HQ’s provide reduced supply. Disruption of the supply chain (cities and towns) is bad enough… damaged HQ’s make it worse. If you fail to repair your HQ’s your losses due to the Russian winter offensive will be much worse! I sincerely hope everyone enjoyed this walkthrough. It was a lot of work… I did not give away everything strategy wise… but just enough to make you dangerous. I am off to help improve AoD and in a few days will begin a new walkthrough/AAR with Happy on the 1939 World campaign for AoD… which I know has nearly everyone’s attention. I am playing several games now on it and it is a lot of fun. As a side note: If you are a fan of the SC series… I implore you to go forth and purchase ApC to help support Hubert and bring us SC3 that much quicker! Best regards, Abu

T24. Some serious fighting in the North and Center… but weather conditions are deteriorating and it is getting very difficult to fight. In the South supply and weather really hammered me. I decided for the most part to move into defensive positions, strength up units and prepare. I also brought up a number of fresh reinforcements corps which are now arriving in a steady stream each turn. Remember my build strategy early? It is now paying off as I have about 2 to 3 corps arriving each turn. All of my Division are now deployed as well. Between the corps and divisions I am now able to fill out my line, create reserves and am generally becoming much better prepared to receive a Russian offensive… that said… it is very hard to prepare, as the Russian winter offensive if timed right can get pretty bad. In the center… the Russians pushed their limited offensive forward. I was able to knock back a couple of units and pinch off 3 units from supply. I am sure the Russian have reserves pushing just behind the front… but at this point it looks as if I have pretty much blunted their advance. I am very concerned about the coming major winter offensive. The Russians now have 114 units deployed, of which most are likely front line units. I have to prepare myself to receive this offensive and will stage units on rail heads to rapidly relocate them if possible when supply rebuilds itself. Winter affects supply at the rail heads… more on this later. In the North the final assault on Leningrad began. I was able to seize half of the city after serious fighting. I was lucky enough to have flying weather… though the ground conditions are frozen. My medium bombers reduced the morale of the defending unit and I was able to effectively push the attack home. I hope to take the second half of the city next turn… and have staged my artillery to support that effort. You can also see the Finns were able to get into the action. My goal has been Leningrad instead of Moscow this year. I am almost halfway there.

soon... very soon!

Turn 23. Lots of fighting. The weather cleared for airpower. The Russians conducted a number of air attacks, followed up by ground assaults. The Germans pushed the soviets back around Stalino, destroying a number of units that had pushed forward. I am also going to try to force the Soviet forces back toward Pavlosk… however it is December 10th and I am unsure whether I will be able to do so. German readiness is becoming a problem… essentially my forces are starting to run low on supply… and are exhausted. In the center winter has arrived. You can see I was able to finally eradicate that pocket of trapped Soviets. The soviets launched a major offensive North of Smolensk, with Siberians!!! Notice the AA... the artificial intelligence is keeping it with the most experienced units!!! I was forced to pull back to better defensive positions with improved supply. I am going to have to quickly move to reinforce and strength up the units in this region. It is about to get very ugly. It is now time to take up defensive positions in the center and cede the initiative to the Soviets. In the North, the weather cleared enough for German air units to reduce enemy fortifications. Artillery also added their assistance… enough so that I was able to send forward ground units to break the Soviet line around Leningrad. I was also able to reduce the defensive fortifications in Leningrad to 0. Next turn I intend to begin my direct assault on the city. I still may not be able to take the city this year. The soviets could easily counter attack and spoil my chance. The Finns were also able to move south… and should make their presence felt next turn. So I will be assaulting the city from two sides. If you think this walkthrough is interesting from a single player presepctive… make sure you try multiplayer!

heyhellow, I think you will love the scope of the map in the Pacific. When I looked at it for the first time as the Japanese player... I was like "how the heck am I going to do this?" The Pacific is huge and the islands really look great... add to the strategy... check out the Philippians. I had to use the pull back view… just to get them all in the picture. (sneak peek... shush... dont tell Hubert.) Think of the strategic options for offense and defense of these islands. Now… when you move to conquer the Pacific you ‘really’ have to think about what you are doing… and I mean think. Also… as the US… the map is sooo huge you have to give it some serious thought as well. Take a look at the Pacific map from the Strategic view. It’s huge… So much room to play… so many places to hammer with a surprise strike… and this is only 1/3rd of the map!!! Note the size of the Philippians on the strategic map and compare that to the picture zoomed out 1 step. I think you can now see the scope of the map! This is a thinking game… especially against a player. I love the naval aspect of this game for the Pacific… and this is where I think the game shines… especially with addition of the light carrier. I know some betas really don’t care much for it… but I love them. They are great for finding and killing subs, scouting, giving a landing a little more power when you don’t want to risk the real carriers. I simply can’t wait to share this game with you all during the Walkthrough/AAR, which should begin any day now. I hope you all are excited as I am.

David, I think that the AI has been improved significantly. I just wrapped up a game with AoD as the Axis where the AI kicked my butt on the hardest setting... In another game I was able to win as the Allies... but just barely... There was a moment when the Axis really threatened Moscow... were on the gates, broke through my fortifications... and I launched a massive counter offensive to push them back and it was a close thing. At the end of my offensive my Russians had pushed the Germans back a bit... I had lost almost all my armor and the Russians were basically exhausted. The Germans were in no better shape... but I held Moscow in 41... and was able to rebuild over the winter... I think if I had lost Moscow the game would have been over, unless I was able to get the UK in sooner... but I was having a hard time in North Africa... so who knows. Throughout the game... I had a difficult time, with the exception of China. My feeling is that with both games... AoC and AoD you will find improved AI game play. There are a lot of changes being made to AoD at the moment... a lot... after the next beta patch Happy and I will be holding a multiplayer walkthrough AAR for everyone that I think will show off the game in great detail which I think everyone wants to see.