Terif

- units in forests and mountains HAVE already an immediately better position: represented by the defensive bonuses these terrains provide - Bombers also DO reduce entrenchment of units in fortifications built by engineers (like in the example around Leningrad: attack a fortification with bombers and entrenchment is reduced by 2). Only when attacking the more powerful fortresses bombers don´t reduce entrenchment (only existing ones in Fall Weiss: Maginot, Gibraltar, Malta and Sevastopol) which makes the pre-war built fortresses harder to crack - just how it should be - than the fast assembled fortifications from engineers at the frontline .

Yep - this discussion could be continued endlessly like most history discussions... e.g.: if Axis leave these territories to the uprising civilians and lastly grant them autonomy, then they have no more reasons to form larger partisan units since they already reached their goal to get rid of any oppression and now live peacefully with their axis neighbours...i.e. no partisans in corps size any more

Just think a little further - it´s not a bug, only realistic (just because you don´t understand something at the first glance doesn´t mean it is a bug, btw a term used a bit too much inflationary...while when you think a bit deaper in most cases such things are not a bug but the logical consequence of the abstract concept of SC2 ): With airstrikes you may be able to destroy / scatter larger partisan formations in corps size so they won´t be able to put up a real fight any more, but without ground troops you will never be able to clear a territory completely from enemy forces - i.e. it will remain in enemy hands until you send ground units...and that is exactly how it works now in SC2 . P.S.: trying to train air units is not a really good idea and usually only contributes to the demise of the training side - it is only a waste of mpps and time...(very bad cost-revenue ratio...) experience will be collected automatically in the normal missions they have to fly.

As long as the tile it came from stays in the colour of the enemy nation, it will never again appear - i.e. you have 3 possibilities: - in Russia just avoid moving into partisan infested terrain so it stays russian and you won´t have a partisan problem there - or e.g. in Yugoslavia let the partisan either move away and kill it somewhere else - or kill the partisan with airstrikes then the tile it was standing on will also not turn to your side and therefore no partisans can appear any more

Keeping Hamburg is necessary if you want to protect your fleet in the Baltic. Essen is not really necessary to garrison (but you can if you have placed your intervention squad in France/northern Germany): if an enemy lands in Essen, just kill him. He can´t do much harm, has nowhere to go and can only die there... Rome is better to always keep garrisoned, same as Berlin - you never know if the enemy has hidden an amphib somewhere or some Long-Range Paratroopers...so better spare one unit than to loose the war because of not protecting your most important capitals. For Rome an alternative is to screen the whole med with your italian navy for a left amphib, but usually they have better things to do...but for Malta you should in deed use a damaged/weak ship to surveille it, so the corps there can´t go on a rampage tour... Finland is the same as the other capitals (including the romanian one) - if you loose the capital of one of your minor or major nations, then this nation will surrender...and Finland is in range of allied Paras from Norway, so if you don´t garrison it, you can be sure sooner or later a Para will land in your capital and force a finish surrender - UK bomber tests if Helsinki is empty and then the Para jumps... .

So let´s go into details...: Eastern Europe (8 units): - you only need 1 unit for Yugoslavia (west of the capital), one partisan will appear in the mountains but he can do no harm, just destroy him when he moves out and you have silence there forever . - For Leningrad area you only need 2 units - for the Pripjet swamps at Kiev/Minsk you also only need 2 units if you don´t touch the southern part of it (or destroy the partisans that appear) - 1 unit for Odessa - 1 unit for Romania (capital) to prevent amphib landings - 1 unit for Finland (capital) With Spain conquered you only need for the west 12 units: - Gibraltar, Portugal, Bilbao 3 units - Bordeaux, Brest, Brussel 3 units - Hamburg, Denmark straits, Kopenhagen 4 units - Berlin 1 unit - Rome 1 unit These are the fix garrison units you need, the rest is flexible and depends on the situation: You can protect Cassablanca/Tangier with 1-2 units or with your fleet and an Axis task force consisting of a HQ and half a dozen (or up to a dozen) ground troops should be ready to fight against western Allies whereever they come from, be it in France, northern Germany, Spain or Africa. To garrison Greece or Albania is unnecessary, same for northern Italy or the other Mediterranean cities if you have the entrance points into the Med under your control. Even if Allies are going on an african campaign, your front troops should take care no one comes past them and use your italian fleet to protect your cities in the rear against naval raiders (amphibs). You simply can´t secure all landing places, so better don´t waste a lot of forces trying to – but instead have an intervention squad ready inland so you can move them to any actual landing site and crush the invaders before they can establish a real beachhead. This means including western Russia you only need 20 fix garrison units but already have a minimum of 22 minor units for garrison duty - and a few of the garrisons, especially in France are better german corps anyway since they should be able to put up a fight if necessary. So in the end Axis have more than enough units left for combat purposes. Even if you are using besides the 20 garrison troops a dozen german units as fast intervention squad, Germany still has up to 30 ground units (corps, armies, tanks) left for combat purposes in Russia or anywhere else . [ January 23, 2007, 03:20 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

You already can easily occupy every coastal city with your existing axis forces: - Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria provide 7 units - Finland is another 5 units - Italy has alone 5 corps + 5 armies, i.e. at least 10 units for garrison duty - Germany has 20 corps besides its more heavy stuff So you have more than 40 weak units for garrison duty if necessary, but you only have to use a maximum of 15 units in the west if you have the Med and want to garrison everything - including 2 additional units for the Denmark straits. Without the med you need to garrison Italy, but don´t have to defend the african cities...in the end that leaves you plenty of units - including all the heavy stuff - for Russia or other battlefields .

To go for Africa or not is one of many decisions both sides have to take . If Axis really want Africa, then they will get it before Russia is in the war no matter what Allies will send - but on the other side this will weaken the main front in Russia. Same for Allies: if they really want Africa, then they will get it after Russia and USA are in the war - but this most likely means no real D-day and lots of forces bound down there. In the end it depends on both players skills in desert warfare as well as the planed strategy if it is wise to fight for Africa and with how many forces. Africa is nice to have, but not a must have for both sides - so loosing it means never defeat...always better to give up some territories if necessary - both sides have more than enough expendable land - than to loose too many troops in a desperate try to keep it .

It all depends on how and with which forces Axis defend those areas - so reconnaissance is key if you want to invade anywhere outside the spotting range of your air in England. With enough forces you can conquer everything, it is only a matter of if you are willing to spend the necessary mpps for such a task. Against a standard defence you need to be sure around 4-6 amphibs (half of them should be armies) and a HQ amphib. In the first turn you remove the entrenchment, in the second one it will fall. Depending on the actual defence, more or less forces are necessary - best case scenario is of course if one of the coastal cities is empty so you can take it for free and establish a bridgehead there. P.S.: Axis have more than enough units to cover everything necessary, you only need to learn how to use them efficiently. Of course you can´t expect to hold every spot against a prepared assault and everyhting else would be pretty bad for gameplay - otherwise Allies would have no chance to invade anywhere if Axis really could split their armies or raise the corps limit so they were able to block all landing spots .

Taking Gibraltar back as Allies is not the problem - holding it is . Allies have a good invasion point in Western Africa from where they can take Gibraltar easily with the help of some air + carriers. They can also take it directly with 3-5 amphibs and carrier support. Alternatively they can invade Portugal first and then move to Gibraltar... But Axis can as easily crush the invasion force while it is still unloading at the beaches, sitting there pretty much helpless if Axis send strong forces from Madrid/Valencia to throw them back into the ocean. Pretty historical - the first days/turns are critical for the success of D-day (be it in France or Spain or anywhere else) since at the beaches they are very vulnerable and need to secure the beachhead first. This is also why a simultaneous russian counterattack is so important to bind Axis there, cause otherwise Axis can operate the necessary forces west to eliminate the invaders before they can fight their way inland into safe positions.

Here some more screenshots from 2 games in 2007 : First 5 Screenshots - Western Allies invade in France while Russia prepares and finally launches a massive attack on the axis defence line in central Russia - start of the battle got postponed till winter weather set in so Axis couldn´t use their superior airforces and had to rely only on their comparably weak ground troops: Last 2 screenshots show a different game - final stage of an open field battle between Moskov and Kharkov...russian units ready to sacrifice themselves for the greater goal: to prevent Axis forces from operating west... ....so Allies can leave the landing beaches unthreatened and unfold their massive invasion in Spain: [ January 19, 2007, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: Terif ]

@Bromley: The single league starts fresh into each season - so everyone has a new chance to reach a top spot . Your individual results (reported games) can all be seen in your stats and there is the over-all-league that will never be reseted, so there points will continue to add up and you can see the results till the beginning (something in 1996 )- each star as Generalfeldmarschall is 500 points so you can always see how many points in total everyone got since he registered for the league .

If you build the fortifications only 2 tiles away from the coast, then any enemy landing unit can move into these fortifications and destroy them (i.e. they would be more or less useless or you have to place a unit in them all the time). With 2 tiles distance Axis don´t need to man the lines, but can wait to operate units in till a real invasion takes place

Hi BufordForrest, at Panzerliga you can still find a lot of SC1 players (as well as SC2 ) - last season from July-December 06 there were 46 active players. Panzerliga can be found here In the SC2 forum there is also a little description how to find opponents: here

Here a few screenshots: Axis forces when Barbarossa started at July 13, 1941: Within 2 months the main russian defence line gets reached - lv 2 IW vs lv 0. German tanks smash through the enemy lines like butter... During Winter 41/42 Axis forces regroup, implement their newly researched Infantry Weapons Lv 3 and prepare for the final assault at Stalingrad (Moskov and the northern cities already conquered in Summer 41). USA joins in May 1942 - so Germany can operate its units used in the west to conquer Portugal, Vichy and Switzerland to the eastern front. The following 4 screenshots show the last battle - in the first stage Russia tried to kill one german tank at all costs - one german tank lost, in return 8 russian units destroyed. Second stage: Russia launches its kamikaze fighters on the ground and in the air: 2 german corps lost, russian air destroyed on the ground, 6 russian units destroyed and with them the core of the russian forces, gates to Caucasus and Ural wide open...unconditional allied surrender the consequence. Total losses of the war: 3 german units (tank + 2 corps) vs 25 russian units (24 ground + 1 AF): [ January 02, 2007, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

In this game Axis used a non-aggression strategy and even never sent units to Africa (italian army got evacuated to defend the mainland). UK expected the usual diplo way and neglection of Spain so it obviously didn´t block it and invested instead heavily into Iraq - therefore Spain joined Axis end of 1940. Liam prepared against my aggrssive strategy from last game where Axis took all minors and Africa pre-Barbarossa but started Barbarossa late, so he invested 5 research chits into Industry Tech as Russia instead of combat techs. When Axis now unleashed its concentrated power against Russia already in the first summer turns of 1941, Russia had no combat tech at all and how revealed after the war sold his IT chits to buy now IW and AT chits - within only a few turns he managed to get to IW level 3, but at this time Axis forces were already standing at the gates of Stalingrad .

Yep, Kharkov is often the city my Axis opponents desire the most and the furthest point they reach in the east...and they are willing to sacrifice everything to get it...which can be taken literally ...sometimes they may win the battle, but the war is then lost for them P.S.: in the screenshot-game Axis got much further, conquered Vologda (city east of Kharkov) and reached Stalingrad + Moskov (see grey tiles, Rostov got destroyed and only one turn before the screenshot reconquered - therefore str 1 )...but got then beaten back by the strong counterattack that ended in the huge encirclement battle where the reds broke through the last enemy ground troops to reach the airfleets behind them...in the previous turns dozens of units got killed on both sides before the russians reached Kharkov again (screenshot) . [ January 02, 2007, 04:05 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

No need to take a turkish city : You can advance with HQs into Caucasus from Iran if you use a second HQ that supplies the first one in the mountains. Position the second HQ in range of Baghdad (2 clear tiles + mountain tile away), the first one is one mountain hex further and there it has supply of 8-2 = 6 and still has 2 action points in clear weather. So it can move either in the marsh or mountain tile further northeast and the next tile is the clear one next to the eastern russian city. Et voila...Axis HQ in Caucaus, supplied from the russian city and again at supply 8 so it can support the invasion forces .

It depends on your opponent and planed strategy - they both are pretty much equal in their cost-potential benefit ratio With 1.05a I sometimes diplo Romania+Hungary to be able to conquer Spain in 1940 - sometimes I diplo Spain and if the opponent awaits diplo in R+H he can be surprised and without a block Spain can still join (like in my last game yesterday: diploed Spain, my opponent Iraq and so Spain finally joined in 1940 ).

Intended - got changed via patch so they entrench to half the max level.

@Jollyguy: Yep, that was our last game from yesterday - as you can see in the other screenshot, my usual defence line between Brest and Paris was a bit incomplete and some fortifications not built yet due to your early attack . @TaoJah: 1) No, I never research mobility 2 for Axis (or any other country), it is simply too expensive both to introduce as well as to replace lost units and brings no real advantage. Mobility 1 is useful for armies so they can move 2 hexes instead of 1 in mud or when they are at lower supply - that is a real improvement, but mobility 2 means still only 2 hexes under such condition and in clear weather the main problem is the speed of the HQs, not the front troops . 2)Yes, allied Paratroopers are always a danger and that is why I always occupy Berlin with a unit as well as the capitals of my other joined minors that could surrender if a Para/amphib snatches their capital (like Romania, Finland, Iraq + Spain if joined). But normal cities only need protection if they are in key positions...if a Para drops into cities like Munich or Frankfurt they do no real harm and will only be killed a few turns later cut off from any help - dropping too far behind enemy lines is only suicide for paratroopers . 3) This is often a problem for Allies as they have to fight in many theaters and can´t send enough HQs to every one of them, and early in the game they also don´t have the mpps to buy additional ones, combat troops have priority to build. But for this you have the possibility to set the mode of your HQs to auto-assist or manual, so you can choose the units it will support (e.g. in Africa it only needs to support the frontline troops and airfleets, the ones behind don´t need HQ support at the moment and are only for reserve to replace lost units. Germany on the other side usually doesn´t have that problem, at least my Germany always buys enough HQs to support all units in Russia - here the additional HQs are only outside the screenshots. Nevertheless when unit numbers increase there will sooner or later be the point where you have not enough HQs (build limit) to support them all...and here again comes "auto-assist" and "manual" into play: just change the support mode of the HQs, so they support the units currently in battle and not the ones in reserve behind the frontline. 4) The first thing my Italy buys is an engineer, same for Germany - and they build extensive fortification lines not only in France (see screenshot) but also between Brussel and Königsberg to protect Germany against invasion from Denmark/Scandinavia if they have the time. If Germany buys additional air or better tanks/armies first depends on the strategy: With a strategy to keep allied readiness and therefore strength low, Axis don´t need additional air...here I build only ground forces to smash through any defence line while they are weak. But if Axis go e.g. the aggressive way by conquering all minors before Barbarossa, then for once they will have a lot more mpps than in the other variant and on the other side Allies will also be very strong when Barbarossa starts. Here Axis need additional air to use combined arms...preparing the ground assaults with bombings and reducing enemy morale and entrenchment first before ground troops do the rest and kill the demoralized defenders in their trenches...without air Axis will only get a 1:1 bloodbath on both sides and since Allies have superior mpps and numbers, such an exchange would most likely end in favour of Allies - that´s why they need air against any strong opposition. @n0kn0k: There were a few tanks in the previous turns around Kharkov, but they didn´t survive the skirmishes before the main battle...you can still see the damaged german units around Kharkov that just killed the russians which destroyed their tank comrades... @Liam: Yep, Scandinavia and Lybia screenshots are from our battles there . Barbarossa is from a different game - when making the screenshots I noticed that I have only very few games where my axis opponent broke through my Kharkov defences and reached the areas further east in Russia...actually the screenshot with the counteroffensive from Rostov-Stalingrad was pretty much the only one I could find .

Sealion, but England never gets conquered - Russia faster in Berlin than Germany in Manchester... ...simultaneously with Sealion the russian bear awakes in the east and finally forces an Axis surrender: Successful Sealion with large naval battle while transports with reinforcements sneak in the north around the blockade – but Axis steamrolled by Russia short after UK got lost: Trench warfare in Iraq... US and UK forces launch Operation Husky – the landing in Sicily while the italian fleet fights its last glorious battle:

Western Allies meet with Russian forces in Egypt – sealing the end of Axis Western Allies invading France and Denmark... Huge tank battle on the way.... Allied aircampaign with landings in Königsberg while... Russia fights the main encirclement battle in the east Germany can´t bear such losses any more each turn and surrenders:

Change of sides Allies stop Axis in Spain and it never gets conquered: Axis siege fortress Tripoli with all ground and air forces they can muster...after the loss of a dozen units they finally surrender: Heavy battles for Africa and Spain with the entire Axis forces bound there – in this turn Italy looses all remaining ships and Axis surrenders with Russia slowly awakening... Battle for Finland... ...Germany can keep it...Russia starts an offensive towards Romania instead... ...and takes it together with the other balkan countries before the german main forces can return from Finland, resulting in the unconditional Axis surrender:

Different game: Battle for Westafrica: Russian forces approaching Middle East after Turkey joined surprisingly Allies when Axis DoWed Iraq... ....Axis changing plans and approaching from west and north to reconquer the lost Middle East...Turkey fighting on without capital for 2 turns and only 2 units left... Russian offensive at Rostov-Stalingrad failed against german Claw formation – attackers encircled in the bag between both cities and cut off by fast motorized axis forces from north + southwest...finally destroyed without supply...Axis forces formerly retreated to Egypt reach Middle East again...encirclement of the last russian forces in MiddleEast-Turkey-Caucasus area completed...unconditional surrender followed 2 turns later: Various other games: German Claw formation at Rostov-Stalingrad: Allies thrown back into the ocean... Battle for Scandinavia: [ December 31, 2006, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Terif ]