Catacol Highlander

February 1940 and the Phoney War is in full swing. My French Army is now all at maximum with mpps left to spare, making me wonder whether it might have been worth the gamble of a tech investment early on. Didnt do it - never mind. Elsewhere the Chinese deployed some new troops, finished their first fortification square and watched the rain come down. That's 2 turns in a row of rain - maybe the weather hasnt been altered in Gold after all... :-P I am going to keep my first offensive action under my hat for now, but I am preparing it. I dont want to give Marc a free ride through 1940 and 1941, and harking back to my very first planning post I think the allied player needs to try and put the odd brake on the axis early doors otherwise momentum can be huge.

My Chinese mpps are at just over 130 so it is an increase. That extra 30 or so is proving very valuable. Nothing otherwise to report - I am redeploying various global units for operations I will show you in the future, and waiting for the inevitable Japanese drive deeper into China. To experienced GC players 2 more things I have spotted: 1 is that weather over China appears better. Now - this may be the trade off for a stronger Chinese army; better weather will allow the Jap air force to do more damage at the expense, of course, of supporting naval operations in the Pacific. An interesting strategic option. So far we are not far enough into the game for me to be certain of the weather change (it may just be the roll of the dice in the first 5 turns), but it feels that way. I could, of course, fire up the game editor and take a look! - but that would take the fun out of it... The second is that a script in France has given me a Polish unit that was not there in vanilla GC so France might just survive one turn longer. It is also the case that French supply is better than in vanilla GC - I had always wondered why supply in France was so low in the original, and it is put right here. France may well hold on to July 1940 in this new version. Not enough game play yet, so early in the war, to make a big plug for buying the game in terms of new features. That will all come soon... but if, like me, you dont have time to fiddle with the editor and make changes to mpps levels, or scripts, or weather or the host of other things available - and let's also say that, like me, you are a bit wary of spending lots of time playing second party mods that have not been fully tested and are full of bugs, then even 5 turns into this AAR I can tell you there is enough going on to convince me that this is a definitely improved version of GC, one where the axis cannot roll its way to inevitable victory if you know how to do it, and it is worth the purchase. A good player in vanilla GC could always win as axis bar some outrageous bad weather luck. I dont think this is the case anymore. So stay tuned to this thread and I will keep you very clearly in the picture as the action hots up into 1940. And while I mention features that will play a big part in coming turns I am already convinced that forced march is going to have a very, very big impact. We'll play on and let you see for yourself...!

No graphic from me - I did very little apart from revel in my enormous Chinese mpps. Such is the level of chinese points compared to vanilla GC that I was able to bring a damaged Chinese army that Marc had ground down to strength 2 after multiple attacks last turn back up to 10 and still invest yet another point into infantry weapons. I will have level 1 infantry in quick order and intend to get to level 2 sharpish. The upshot of this will be that the Chinese army is likely to be a major thorn in Marc's side by 1941, just when he is going to want to be preparing Pearl Harbour... ... or so I see it anyway. As a newcomer to GC Gold there are bound to be some surprises, so I must be careful not to assume anything! Elsewhere my navy scooted around from hither to thither - more of that in a future post - and the French prepare for the inevitable German attack. I wonder what Marc will do after he has crushed France. Try Sealion? Go for Egypt? Hit Spain? All exciting stuff. My plan is already laid out in terms of making sure Africa does not fall cheaply, but I must be prepared to halt Sealion in case he tries it.

Marc has advanced against the Chinese, but a few interesting points in Gold have already emerged: 1. Chinese mpps are up. Now this is a big boost: experienced players of GC will remember how hard it was to defend with the Chinese, but now I think this is much more doable. Note the research screen below: Only on turn 2, and I have a double chit invested in infantry weapons, and with the SCww1 revamped tech system I know that, before too long, I am guaranteed a tech advance. Note I have not even had to sacrifice unit rebuilding - I have an army being rebuilt already and will have enough mpps to rebuild a unit every turn. Very good news. If the weather does me a favour, and it has turned muddy for Marc's next turn, I should be able to conserve units and rebuild faster than I lose. Could be a fascinating war in China in the long run. The designers seem to have wanted to make life a bit tougher for the Japanese than it was in the original. 2. Chinese generals are up. No image here, but all 3 of my chinese generals are rated at 8, and not the 8, 7, 5 that was the feature of GC. This is going to help too. 3. Finally - to new players - I have highlighted an area of impossible defence for the Chinese here: In every game you play you will do well to save the armies within this triangle. Marc's efficient advance in this area has ended my resistance quickly, but it is less of a problem than it might look. The only way across those mountains to the west is using marine special forces, and then their supply drops through the floor. Therefore the key to his advance will either be to the south of Changsha, which at present he seems to be ignoring, or along the northern edge of those mountains. This is a favoured route for many old hands of GC, so we will see in the coming turns if it is any harder for the Japanese in GC Gold. I am expecting to be able to rebuild chinese units quite quickly with the new mpp levels that are evident already, so I am fairly optimistic. As a very final aside new players need to be aware of the combat scores of their units. One thing hasnt changed in GC Gold, and that is the defence values of Chinese armies and corps. They are the same, rated at 1. Note it is different elsewhere - in most nations armies are better in defence than corps...

OK - so here we go again. Round 2 with Marc on an AAR. New game, new challenges. Should be fun. So what's with this GC "Gold" then? Well - I'll be honest: I've not played it yet. From that angle I intend to do the best I can to show all of you how it works, how it is different from the original SCGC. I'm not too worried about the fact I havent played it yet - the map is the same as the original GC, and so I am not fighting on unfamiliar territory. So with luck my boys will prevail! I'm hoping I will find lots of new tweaks and goodies to make it clear that this is a much upgraded game worth every precious £ or $ or whatever sits in your pocket... Down to business... the plan. I am an old fashioned kind of a gamer; I dont see any value in going in to a strategic game without a sense of direction, and having played Strategic Command in its various forms I am firmly of the opinion that no plan tends to mean no success. So what to do as the allies? The key is to try and work out at what point the allies are able to seize the initiative away from the axis, and in particular how best to manage the Eastern Front where the global war will essentially be won or lost. Until this point the allied player can choose to fall back and conserve forces, or try his utmost to delay the axis so that geographically there is less ground to take back. There are obvious dangers with each approach: fall back too far and too fast and the axis will run riot. Try too hard to delay and casualties will be so bad that the initiative may prove impossible to regain. So here is my broad plan for this game - we'll see how closely I can stick to it and whether it will work: 1. Priorities research above all else. This fits into the delay strategy overall. 2. Prioritise infantry, armour and air research for the Red Army, to prepare for the inevitable Barbarossa. 3. Prioritise UK research on anti sub - with a view to attacking the U boats at the earliest opportunity - , infantry and air. I will try to use UK land forces to delay where possible, but need level 1 weapons to do it and an air force than can combat tac air. 4. Prioritise US research on the navy and ground attack aircraft. All else can wait, becuase when I decide to try and wrest the initiative away from Marc in 1942/43 it will be via a US naval assault in the pacific and US air force attacks in the west to try and relieve the Red Army in the East. 5. Try to get level 1 infantry for the Chinese - if this Gold GC plays out anything like the original then the Chinese have no chance unless they get infantry tech. So watch out for me to: a. Do virtually nothing throughout 1940 but defend, aside perhaps from a sortie with the doomed French Navy. b. Launch my first major operation at sea, via a UK assault on the U boats. c. Delay the Germans in North Africa using all the UK infantry I can in an attempt to prevent any nasty axis gains in the Middle East or India. d. Pray for Chinese tech, and delay the Japanese as long as possible. e. Plan my first land offensive in the European theatre as soon as US air power is ready. f. Peg back the Japanese via US naval operations in the Pacific in around 1942. Sorry for the long post, but now at least you know where I am coming from in this game. Buckle up and watch the axis advance in full swing, and I'll keep you appraised as to my own counter attack plans in the background...

Count me in also.

abukede is right - you must get ww1. The ww2 scenario for it is awesome.

Agreed - but I am not sure how the distinction can be easily demonstrated in SC without doing some complex maths on entrenchment and detrenchment values.

I'm with seamonkey here. Engineers perform the role allowing entrenchment in the open up to level 4. If units can entrench independently then engineers become redundant. Artillery of course is very good at wiping this entrenchment out, even with the reduced ammo capacity of 2. I am still unsure as to whether this makes artillery too strong still.

Abukede is right. It's not about local supply with HQs - it is about operational strategic movement which, if disabled through random partisan attacks, would make German strategy very difficult. Currently the partisan problem is one that can be addressed - but to be honest there are so many partisan squares that it cannot be FULLY addressed. That forces a player choice, and makes it more of a strategic challenge. An example would be in the southern sector where either Kiev or Odessa form the key hinge of the supply network, linking on to other centres further forward. The Russian player might try to hit these with bombers or naval attacks, and the German player needs to keep at least one of these functioning, and that makes it part of a strategic challenge. However a random partisan hit that struck both at the same time would render German operational movement in the southern sector impossible, and if it was a heavy hit it may do so for more than one turn. That is a game breaker for me - we already have a random element with tech advance which is about as much fortune as I think the game should present: add another random element and it could become frustrating.

Nope - leave it as it is. There are not enough garrison units on the axis side to police all the partisans, so the player has to prioritise where he uses them, or if he is so short of troops whether he dare use them to garrison a port. This is all about playability and choice - I would hate to see some random factor brought in that could totally derail an axis advance due to shortage of supply that a player could do nothing about. That would end the fun very quickly.

Nope - they are absolutely no good in combat so supply guarantee only. Marc kept using them to garrison towns, but almost always I was able to destroy them in a single attack so I wouldnt even bother to use them this way. ... and any port you actually want to hold needs a corps. A garrison will get blown away.

You must have seen an Italian Tank I think, because all my German Panzer Divisions were at max tech within 2 or 3 turns of me getting tech 5, sometime in 1942 as I remember.

Finally - my 2 major battlefronts around Stalingrad (Offensive) and Moscow (Defensive). I dont know exactly how much Marc had left - I was a bit stretched myself by the end of August and in need of some unit rebuilding, but with an mpp total of at least 1050 every turn I had the luxury of being able to maintain my combat strength fairly easily.

Here is the full situation around England, a front I had significantly beefed up as I realised that Marc was struggling to push me out of the SE corner: Note the massive air power, but also the build up of the Kriegsmarine under the air umbrella. I also had 3 or 3 U boats slightly off this map finishing refitting and reinforcement in German Docks. You'll also note that I was beginning to run short of ground units that I could ferry across to help the beleagured HQ and paras, but the job of wearing down the RAF and RN was being done, and actually had the game gone on I suspect that my hold on the SE would have stayed in place until Winter, such was the destruction created by my air power.

Finishing with the Italian theme here was my considerable efforts to make sure that Rome was not successfully attacked - my Italian units were so important in anti partisan and action in Leningrad, plus potential naval ops coming up in the Med, that I really did not want them taken out.

... and here was the Leningrad front. Note that actually my offensive power here was pretty meagre, but Marc had totally pulled all his armour away to the SE, and so Leningrad was left to slowly wither under the pressure of the stuff I was able to gather here. I suspect that the city would have fallen in 2 to 3 turns - when I took this turn from here (remember that these shots come from the start of the final turn that I took in the actual game...) I reduced that city corps to 3 but could not take it out fully.

On my previous post you may also have noticed quite a large concentration of Italian icons. This is what they were: I was hoping that my attack on Britain would drag Marc's naval forces away from the Med - in fact I knew at the point of surrender that at least 3 carriers were providing intercept air cover over England, and so was close to deciding that the time was right to unleash this Italian Navy. Note that I had naval tech 2 for the Italians, but to put a battleship to level 2 cost 240mpps, almost my total mpp acquisition in 2 turns, so it was really hard to upgrade this navy. This was particularly the case when one considers the Italian commitment near Leningrad...

OK - requests for final maps coming in. Here is my bst effort to debrief on that. This shows my final war map. Notice my 4 main areas of operations in England, Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad. Notice how I had stripped units away from the Caucasus where I could not sustain a 5th front at this point, and had much of Spain undefended. On this turn Marc landed in Spain - my reaction actually was to operationally move armour and tac air down to Spain as he had not taken out my supply route this time as he had done in 1942 - not sure why not - and had he not surrendered that US Army would have been wiped out in 1 or 2 turns. All major ports in France, Norway and Italy were also garrisoned as you can see - I didnt really mind Marc landing in Spain but didnt want landings anywhere else. Notice also the number of units scattered in the East countering partisans...

Hyazinth is right - it was a term I may have used simply to identify very key towns with vital links. Kiev, Bryansk, Odessa, Stalino - these are 4 examples of very key "rail hubs" that I had for getting supply routes secured, both for troop movements and resource collection. You need routes to be on supply 5 otherwise that movement is interrupted. Russian partisans can strike on most towns if they are not garrisoned to destroy the supply level, and if one or two of these key towns are hit it can totally destroy axis strategy. One thing I will be looking at when I play as allies is whether it is possible as the soviet player to use heavy bombers to hit some of the these key towns at the same time as launching ground offensives. If you stare at the map for a few minutes it is easy to see where the key towns are, and a bomber strike or two could well end up being enough to stop the flow of troops into a zone of the battle. Naval units can also be used - Marc did this effectively in 1942 in Spain and stopped my moving units into Spain quickly.

I have just fired up the last turn I have again to give you this, but how do I get a "complete" map? Marc surrendered voluntarily rather than the computer telling us who had won or lost, and I dont see a function to surrender. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks to Marc for the game - I enjoyed it immensely. Doing my own debrief these were the strategic bits I was most happy with: 1. Focus on Russian economic resources in the South 2. Tech advance in Tac Air which became my most powerful asset. 3. Harvesting of my Armour Things I am less certain went well: 1. Invasion of Spain. Was it wise? I got away with it because it distracted Marc, but it meant I never got Greece and Yugoslavia and had potentially much to defend. Gibraltar was an asset though. 2. U boats. I held them back a long time, though when they did strike I was surprised how long they were able to sit on the Arctic convoys and eat up mpps. Was it wise to hold them back? Unsure. 3. North Africa was lost too quickly, but again I got lucky and it didnt lead to an early attack on Italy. 4. Beefing up my Italian Navy at the expense of sending them out to maraud in the Med. Not sure... Might have done much to distract the RN, but I cant help thinking they were a big asset I never used. Hope everyone enjoyed the AAR. Thanks to Marc and also Hubert/Bill for the opportunity.

I think one thing the AAR did not manage to illustrate was the potential of the max 5 point AA upgrade for all ground units. I can tell you that adjacent AA units to the Allied units I hit hard in England did more damage to my Tac Air in the course of the attack than any of Mac's air power ever did. I have not played enough myself yet, but I imagine that a unit on AA3 or 4 or 5 may well do quite a bit or return damage and also be more resilient to Tac Air so I would hesitate to say that it is still an unresolved issue.

The end of August 1943 and it is a question of driving as hard as possible before winter comes. I took Saratov, destroyed 3 or 4 units there including an HQ and in England destroyed another 2 ground units. I am bottled up in the SE for now and dont see any easy way out at present, but at least it is keeping Marc honest and unable to plan any proper D Day assault. I also assaulted Leningrad but was unable to reduce the defending corps to less than 3. For all my artillery and armies up there what I really need is some German armour, but it is all busy elsewhere. Soon I will need to decide to call a halt for winter, and then deal with the second Spanish landing which has occured plus perhaps at last get around to taking Yugoslavia. I will also need to rebuild some lost units soon too as I am quite a few down now, but on the plus side the Italian Army has just outgrown the British one, so that cant be a bad thing. :-)

Yep - that is how I would see it too. I think if the Mediterranean has any value it has to be in trying to take Italy out of the war. Alternatively the oil of the middle east might be an attractive objective. I definitely got intel a few turns ago that British units were gathered ready to attack for that oil, but curiously it hasnt happened. I wonder what devilish scheme Marc has up his sleeve... But Russia is absolutely the key. Even now, with only one capital left, they still represent my biggest threat because they can put much more armour and infantry into the field than the Western Allies.