Altaris

I find it to be compareable to War in the East in scope and playstyle. Personally, though, I much more enjoy this game to WitE. It's just cleaner interface-wise, and has a sensible air simulation and supply system. WitE looks nicer, but that's the only area I consider it superior to AoC.

This is true, and he is indeed playing smart by moving at a slower pace. But just having the threat there forces the Axis player to move slower, which is an advantage in its own way. I agree you shouldn't let yourself be flanked, but after August, it's pretty hard to flank the Russians anyway. I think you're in good shape, I was just saying I don't think it's ever a good idea to throw away LT's. Since they can't be rebuilt, you are ultimately just reducing the max size of forces you can field later.

I'd argue this is exactly what makes them NOT disposable. Anything which can be rebuilt is disposable for the Russians, as it can be rebuilt at a very reduced cost and in half the time. Divisions in particularly are very disposable, and infantry easily so as long as they serve a worthwhile delaying purpose. You can field more units on the map later in the war by keeping light tanks around, precisely because any lost infantry can be rebuilt but the LT's can't. As Steel32 very effectively taught me, light tanks are best used entrenched at key spots, waiting on panzers to end up adjacent to them. With their 2x attack, they can then usually inflict 2-5 points of damage to panzers (though taking fair damage in the process), then since they haven't moved yet, be pulled back well out of counter-attack range, refitted over the next few turns, and be useful for the same purpose further back on the line. If done properly, the Russians can salvage anywhere from 12-20 of their starting 25 light tanks by winter. When combined with the 5-6 heavy tanks which roll into the line throughout late 41/early 42, the Russians can have a very mobile, high damage dealing force in Spring 42. It's VERY effective to use infantry to pummel down the Germans throughout the winter and root them out of any good heavy entrenchments, then come March consolidate all the heavy and light tanks under several good commands and just hammer away at a front. Twice now I've effectively destroyed the Wehrmacht as an effective offensive force by summer 1942 this way. Big Al is right... the Germans just can't keep up with this sort of war of attrition.

IMO, light tanks are never useless, even later in the game. Simply having the x2 attack per turn is very helpful, if for no other reason than knocking entrenchment down 2 points and the ability to move farther than infantry. If you can get the Germans on the run in 1942, light tanks greatly help in following up on weak retreating Germans and really putting a hurting on the Axis powers. They also tend to work well against Romanians and Hungarians. He has some bad salients poking out all along the front for it being mid-November... if he doesn't pull back soon and consolidate a good defensive line, you could deliver a knock out punch in winter.

IMO, this problem would be handled best by lowering Western Allies' NM considerably, and the throw-away units would become a much bigger risk vs reward. This would mirror France's historical reality much closer too, as France was very politically divided and suffered from lack of unity. If their navy was used in a suicide attack, it would speed their surrender, simulating loss of confidence by the populace following a naval disaster. Later on, a disastrous invasion by UK or USA would be severe NM blow if it led to loads of units being destroyed. This again would be a good simulation. From a pure military standpoint, the USA could easily have invaded Germany in 1943, but wouldn't have risked doing so out of fear of taking unacceptably high casualties. It may not be the perfect solution, but seems like a sensible way of reflecting historical realities within the confines of the game engine.

Personally, I've found Assault on Communism to be the best of the SC2 games. Perfectly scaled map and unit sizes for an Eastern Front WWII game. WW1 is a close second, also a very good simulation of the time-frame. The only reason I put WW1 second is I find it to be too easy to pull unrealistic breakthroughs on the Western Front. Some of the other WW1 Breakthrough scenarios are quite interesting as well, Russian Civil War and Franco-Prussian War are well done. I don't really care for Assault on Democracy global game, as the map scale makes it very prone to gamey tactics with no historical basis, but it's a good Axis & Allies type of unrealistic, high-level WWII game.

First off, great AAR, was a lot of fun following you guys! Secondly, I don't think it's ahistorical to leave Russia as an army in being, this is pretty much what happened. In 1915, the Centrals stomped Russia, dropped its morale, then just let it crumble from the inside while they refocused on the Western Front. Lastly, I really think the Centrals can easily win this game by simply not invading Belgium at all. Britain starts at 80% mobilization, and will need coaxing to come into the war (though don't send subs or other ships into the North Sea, or it will trigger them). Instead, focus on the Eastern Front from the onset. Russian troops suck vs German ones (they have 1 less attack and defense), so if you concentrate against them, you'll push them back whenever and wherever you want. Personally, I'd take out Serbia first, then focus on Russia proper, this protects a potential back-door attack from the Entente landing in Montenegro or Albania. Additionally, you're likely to get Bulgaria into the war early on this way too, which helps when you turn back against Russia. Another, kinda hidden, advantage of this strategy is making it far easier to cycle troops from the fronts to upgrade them, a very important consideration. I really don't like the infantry tech upgrades in this game, as infantry didn't suddenly vastly improve over the enemy like it does here, and leads to ahistorical breakthroughs, especially on the Western Front. But it is what it is, and historical strategy severely hurts the Germans as its very tough to cycle troops from their entrenchments on the West to upgrade without leaving severe holes in the line. A shorter front really helps a lot with this (and in the East it's not that big a deal as you'll have plenty of real estate to cycle and upgrade). This route does open a lot of possibilities for the Western Powers to launch offensives elsewhere, but it also vastly reduces the Western Front for the Germans, so it's a fair trade-off. With luck, you'll drive the Russians out of the war in 1916 and can focus on taking out the Western Powers before the USA can arrive in force.

Yes, this piece of code means the event will not fire until 10/10/1917. I agree it's odd, but since you're so close, you may want to stay on the defensive vs Romania until it fires.

Nickerson quit sending me turns at least 3 weeks ago, and the game was progressing at a snail's pace (1 turn a week or so) prior to that. I think it's safe to assume that game is dead. Steelman won his game vs me and the one vs T-man, I'm assuming T-Man had Nickerson disappear on his game as well. I've offered to Amadeus to forfeit my position and let Steelman/T-Man face off for our bracket, but I'm not sure where that offer stands.

I have been working on a mod to the WW1 Breakthrough SC2 game for a while now, and wanted to see if anyone would be interested in trying it out in PBEM. The mod is designed to create a more historical based scenario than vanilla. Primary changes include: 1) Infantry upgrades are completely removed. In vanilla, infantry tech has too much power, IMO. Whoever hits infantry techs first tends to mop the floor with their opponent, especially if it's Germany vs Russia. While Russia did perform poorly in the war, it did okay when not faced with overwhelming artillery. In this mod, Russia's weaknesses come from poor leaders and lack of artillery (and toughness keeping units at full strength due to MPP constraints), but they don't get shoved around with impunity when it's just infantry vs infantry. 2) Infantry stats are the same for all sides, 4/3 attack/defense values, except Germany which is 4/4 (to represent their slightly better defensive engineering and machine guns) and Ottomans are 3/3 to somewhat represent their troubles on offensives. 3) Between #1 and #2, artillery (and later bombers/tanks) becomes the key to breaking heavily entrenched positions. All sides should aim to build and research artillery to effectively wage offensives (and mass those trench busting equipment at key locations). 4) Lemberg is no longer a fortress for Austria, and the Russians can make a good offensive in 1914 into Galicia. Przemysl is still a fortress. Austria can really find itself on the ropes in 1914 if the Russian advances smartly (which in turn forces Germany to evaluate whether to rush to Austria's aid in late 1914/early 1915). 5) Winter months give extra MPP, scaled to the number of days per turn. Winter becomes important for rebuilding, teching, and building/planning for the next year's offensives, as opposed to vanilla where it's tough to regain footing in winter months due to MPP constraints. 6) From July 1916 onwards, the USA will become more and more aligned with the Entente (1-3% per turn). This goes up faster if the Germans are waging unrestricted warfare. From my playtests, I've found this to be a pretty close representation to WW1. No side blows huge gaping holes in the enemy's defenses after trenches set in, and it's a grueling, grinding war of attrition. Germany gets faced with a situation in late 1914/early 1915 of choosing between continuing its offensive in the West and risking Russians dominating the Austrians, or massing their artillery in the East and punishing the Russians in Poland while the Entente tries to build up artillery power of it's own to face off against the Germans. I could play roughly 1 turn a day in a PBEM, if anyone is interested in trying it out, let me know.

Playing the Germans is all about planning where the HQ's are going and where the tanks are relative to them, and keeping the tanks at full strength or very close to it. German panzers with full strength and readiness (particularly with experience steps) will stomp anything the Russians put in their path. As the Germans, when my tanks get a little too far ahead for my liking, I'll pull them to a stop for a turn or so, get HQ's in place to get them better supplied, and heal up any damage they've taken. If you position the tanks in a centralized spot for striking in multiple directions, you also put the Russian player off footing and stretch his defensive line. Moving forward quickly is of course a concern, but you're better off in 1941 making a steady pace and keeping supply logistics good rather than racing ahead at top speed (in the end, you'll get there just about as fast, since tanks at supply of <= 5 have less action points for movement anyway, and are in danger of taking counter-attack damage). If played right, I fully believe the Germans can put the Russians out of commission in 1941. The Russians aren't likely to be outright beaten in 1941, but if you take enough MPP's away from them, they'll be in steady decline through 1942 and 1943 while the Germans grow stronger. Then it's just a matter of attritioning the Russian to defeat in late 1942 to mid 1943.

Reached March 1942, and found some issues with this setup and the winter 1941 events. Russians were able to completely break open the German front in the center, mostly due to the heavy morale losses the Germans pick up via the winter events. Up to December 1941, the mod played very well along roughly historical lines. I really liked how Leningrad was playing out. The Germans took half the city, but couldn't root out the defenders in the northern part of the city. That was largely due to my decisions to take the tanks away from the fight after I took the southern half of the city, I think had I kept them there I could've cracked the rest of the city eventually. It also was likely to fall in 1942 if I concentrated artillery and tac's up that way, but Leningrad wasn't going to crack without concentrating a lot of firepower in the vicinity. Sevastopol in the south was a similar situation, though I think that one would be easier once the fortress was surrounded. End lines as of 1941 were practically identical to historical end lines. Never took Rostov, but then again, the Germans couldn't hold it in 1941 either. MPP's for each side were very close by end of 1941, about 420 a turn for Germany vs 380 for Russia, but Russian factories in the Urals were starting to equal out the difference. So going to restart with some additional changes to help balance out winter in this scenario. I've changed the winter events to only do strength damage, so that German morale doesn't get shredded. HQ's losing strength will reduce supply for the Germans anyway, and the strength losses will also take a bit of a toll on readiness and morale. This setup leaves the Germans with an interesting choice in early winter. If they pull back to city vicinities, they can greatly reduce their winter woes due to HQ hits affecting supply. But doing so can mean letting go of some prime defensive positions around the Moscow area. My end goal is to create a situation where Russians can launch an effective but limited offensive in winter by concentrating their new tanks and prime infantry. But I want to ensure they don't breach too far and take some damage in the process. I'm also slightly increasing research gain per turn for lvl 1->2 tech, moving it from 2% per chit per turn to 3%. As of March 1942, the Germans were still only around 60% the way to lvl 2 infantry and tanks, I want them to hit this by spring 1942 for launching a spring 1942 offensive with a slight advantage.

Currently, I am playing with the following changes. Nothing too drastic, and seems to be working well thus far: 1) City and capitals now have a +8 tank defense bonus. Tanks won't do much damage to cities unless the defenders are already in bad shape. But they can still use their double-strike to reduce trenches by 2 on the city, which is sometimes worth it. 2) Swamps now have a +6 tank defense bonus. In my mind, tanks should be next to useless in swampy terrain, this seems to do the trick. 3) Divisions can no longer de-entrench (but corps can). This is to avoid semi-gamey tactics of using divisions to lower trench levels for a really cheap cost. 4) Medium bombers no longer lower trenches until Ground Air Attack is teched up to level 2. They are still pretty handy for lowering readiness and morale, but they need to be massed to really be effective. 5) Tech levels increase faster at lower levels. Level 0 -> Level 1 progresses at 5% per chit per turn, 1->2 and 2->3 at 2% per turn, and 3->4 and 4->5 at 1% per turn. So Russians get lvl 1 infantry and tanks a bit earlier (usually sometime around October 1941), then Germans will get lvl 2 tanks and infantry around springtime 1942, which I'm thinking will work well for a 1942 resurgence. That's it. They aren't drastic changes, and the Germans still are quite potent. But the Russians aren't as toothless as I've found them to be in vanilla once they get past those initial 3-4 rough months. I really want to see a campaign that plays like the Eastern Front really did, a bloody slug-fest from mid-1942 onwards. For that to occur, defensive positions have to be at least somewhat adequate to allow for both sides to have counter-attacking potentials.

I agree that for a game on the scale of, say, Assault on Democracy different rules should apply. But AoC is very much built around tactics, and for the most part it does this well. To clarify, I'm not advocating making cities impregnable fortresses. What I'm finding with my mod is that cities fall pretty quickly once flanked and surrounded, especially when subjected to heavy artillery and air bombardment. But they typically won't crack under direct frontal assaults, which they shouldn't when the defender is well dug in and prepared. I just reached October 17, 1941 in my hotseat test of my mod. Germans are reaching very close to historical lines, and I've been impressed with the closeness to dates I'm getting. For example, I'm just about to surround Kharkov, which historically fell on Oct. 23, probably right in line with what I'm going to see. Kursk should fall too, but I think that's as far east as the Germans are getting in 1941. Leningrad played out well, I thought. Germans reached it by early September, and I put 2 Tac's, 4 Medium Bombers, and 1 artillery in the vicinity to try and crack the city. It took a few turns (about 10 days of game time), but I finally managed to get 3 adjacent squares to Leningrad under control and isolate the city from the mainland. The next two turns, I was able to whittle the Russians down and take the southern part of the city. As of mid-October, the Russians still hold the northern part of the city, and poor weather is hampering my efforts. I think winter could be interesting, as the Russians might have good reason to try and relieve the city (though their tanks will also suffer from trying to crack through swampy terrain - it is a dual-edged defensive sword). My end analysis is that even with tac's and artillery, entrenchment levels can be brought down quite well, and the medium bombers then serve an important role of demoralizing and de-readying the defender. But it was a big commitment, and probably kept me from getting further in the Ukraine or near Moscow (I still came very close to historical lines though). That's what I'm advocating, and liking about the setup so far. It makes for hard choices on the German part, not just randomly steering an endless wave of destruction on three broad fronts forever. MPP-wise, things look well, very close to even right now. The Russians will build up some more as Ural factories relocate. Russians also have hit lvl 1 infantry tech, and I'm upgrading them as quickly as I can along the front. The tech bump seemed to come at a good time, right about October 10th 1941. That's usually when things start to be rather desperate for the Russian anyway.

Actually, after reviewing the last PBEM turn, I was wrong about what was adjacent to Stalingrad. There actually were 2 tanks and 1 mech already adjacent... not that it mattered one iota, as after the bomber attacks, the mech alone destroyed the city army garrison, the tanks then could carry on the endless wave of destruction. Just out of curiosity, what exactly is a feasible defense for the Russians in vanilla? Even level 6 entrenchments are completely pointless when they can be taken out by 4 medium bombers and 2 tacs in one turn (and even less if artillery is present). Not to mention readiness and morale are ruined after such an attack. I think putting a tank corps there has some merit, but even that is only going to be slightly effective for a turn or two extra. This is where I find the inability of the Russians to mount any kind of counter-attack on equal terms particularly frustrating. If I'm reduced to trying to defend only as best I can, but that's not a viable option either, then there's little that can be done except wait for the inevitable. I would point out my opponent is a very capable veteran of SC2, which makes a big difference. He keeps his units up to full strength, under good leaders, so they have excellent readiness. Thing is, I understand those mechanics as well. The only thing I could've done better (and this is hindsight learning the scenario) is to delay further back to the west. But I still don't see this being a long-term solution, it would've just been 1943 when I was faced with destruction after being grinded down for two years. If he had stuck his tanks out ahead more, I probably could've attritioned him down, but he's too smart to do that. He'll send in his infantry to the front lines, let them grind down my defenses entrenchments and such, then move the tanks in the next round when I am no longer able to mount any kind of counter. Then it's a rinse/repeat all the way to Moscow, evidently.