Yorick

I played a few turns culminating in the picture above this morning. I had the bonus set to zero and the AI set to 100%. My experience was that the computer took few chances. Depleted forces were quickly reinforced. Assaults were slow and focused on destroying my armies rather than covering ground quickly. The result is that France falls late but there's little doubt of the outcome. I'll have to try some more experiments. Yorick.

Note the french transport in the top left corner. Turns out he survived when France fell. I wonder what pulling significant numbers of armies out of France would do? Yorick

By the way, I just started playing the allies and the "drop out to desktop w/ screwed resolution" bug appeared usually after turn 3. Never had a problem as axis. I download the patched .exe and everything works fine now. Yorick

Leave your ground unit adjacent to the hex you want to invade for one turn. No city or port required. Note that you'll be able to land on any adjacent hex to your transport and then move one more hex and attack. Remember, you need to be at war with whoever you're invading. Yorick

I'm not sure how the game exactly determines which French units surrender, which go into the Vichy pool, and which can operate out of England if already transfered. I see the air fleet move over but nothing else. Vichy seems to have a couple garrison corps and a couple ships. On a side note, I've had a similar experience where France surrenders but the BEF army does not. So there's this lone Brit army running around in occupied France... Yorick Yorick

Nice going wolfpack. It'd be amusing to give the Americans a better fleet until Dec. 7 '41 in case they're drawn into the war early. It's occured to me that the rules regarding seaborn invasion can be circumvented against countries that aren't at war with you yet. That is, you can park off shore for a turn and then declare and invade the next. The whole point of waiting a turn is to permit the defenders foreknowledge of the invasion. Perhaps the "1 turn" clock should be started only once you've declared war. The other consequence would be a 1 turn slowdown in the invasion of America, Sweden and Greece. At least, you'd have to declare before you got there which might give the allied player time to reposition. Not sure if this would be good or bad. Yorick

The demo is great. There are a lot of combinations I haven't even tried yet and it's just one year. SC and ww2ol is about all a person needs to get by in this world. Anyone invaded America yet? Yorick

Other than the resources from Alexandria and Suez is there any advantage to the British of owning Suez? Did convoys travel from the far east through Suez and Gibralter? Does that production dry up if Suez falls? Thanks. Just trying to sort out the best stratagy... Yorick

It occured to me last night as I was stuffing subs into the north atlantic that the same MPP loss message is used for sub hits and bombed industry hits. Isn't there a different? When 5 industry points are destroyed that's actually a per turn loss until rebuilt. Sub hits are actual MPP that goes to the bottom but doesn't effect production, yes? Or maybe it does, I don't know. Anyhow, perhaps the sub messages should stay the same but damage to industry should say something like "4 MPP of Production Capacity" or something like that. Yorick

Someone posted something about buying Italian. I was lost on this for a little while until I noticed the Italian flag on the purchase menu. Click it and you can buy on the level 4 generals you want! Yorick

So on a lark, I spent all my "winnings" from the French on a carrier and subs followed up by more subs and air fleets. The results was that the Brit fleet in the N. Atlantic was almost wiped out. Even so, only my subs generated convoy intercepts. You'd think a carrier task force would be able to sink a couple as well. Wasn't the idea of a pocket battleship convoy disruption? Yorick

Seems that if one forgoes invading Spain or the Balkins that Russia will stay put through barbarossa. I am taking Vichy, Sweden, and Alexandria. I think it's the Russians that make Sealion useless in a real game. Grabbing GB isn't going to help stop the Red tide before they reach Berlin. At least, I don't think so. Yorick

I'm told America may enter the war earlier but it's hard to test in the demo. I get a message that "America is preparing for war" if I invade GB but there's no such message when Vichy falls and it's worth a lot of RP. Taking Algiers also gets a German army in North Africa that can swing around and attack Suez. This might be a good alternative to Sealion. Any thoughts? Yorick

I been having a great time beating up on the brits but haven't been able to finish them off before the demo ends. Great game! I can hardly wait for the full version. The concern is whether or not it's worth it and the wild card here is Russia. Even before Britian falls Russia will declare war on Germany. Although they don't storm into Poland before the end of the demo, the DO start cranking out 450+ resources per turn. So, the question is, is Sealion worth it? A lot of money goes into the invasion force, a June Barbarossa probably isn't possible, and the Russians get several bonus turns of 450+ production. Can Russia be defeated in a stand up war of attrition if GB isn't knocking in the West? Yorick

Sacking the Suez and Alexandria worked for me as well just as described above although without the +1. The air cover is key, imho. There's a sizeable British fleet that can show up and the combination of german air and italian navy takes care of them handily. I'm toying with the idea of taking Vichy first and then swinging around and sacking Alexandria. Might be a good way to build up axis industry and sock it to the brits before 1941. Yorick