Minty

The multiple dives / move / surprise gives the sub a chance of survival which it needs. Vs BB / Cruisers they are a litte too powerful but only if you aren't careful with your BBs. Yes HvS has a point about doctrinal thinking, at the start of WW1 the U boats were very successful sinking Royal Navy BB and Heavy crusiers in Summer 1914 before switching to merchant raiders. But they had no choice as BB and HCs changed their tactics and stopped steaming around so slowly. I think WaW is about right, yes subs are incredibly powerful and in WW2 it took enormous efforts intelligence/ship production/ASW technology/ long range aircraft to defeat them. Only think i would change is to make Strategic bombers have an ASW upgrade so if the player chooses he can can upgrade the LR and ASW of his bombers. Other than that it's spot on. subs were a huge threat and in SC2 they could be almost dismissed without effort. now they can't be.

Yep think my shipment got sunk coming over on the UK lend lease scheme too. Ordered first day and not got CD yet.

leisurely PBEM I can do, about a turn a day or so ok for ya?, mild preference for allies. email me at minty at rocketmail dot com if you want. You'll probably kick my ass

Yep that's for WaW, and all new tricks for against the AI only I might add as WWMD asked for some tricks against it. it's really not that hard to beat, just as disapointing as SC2 but different that's all. After a couple of games you get a feel for it's style. First game was a shock though! Onto my first Human games now and the tricks don't work of course.

Ha Ha, yes it's certainly harder than in SC2. But yep the AI can be defeated every time even on expert level. you playing allies? Top few dirty tips Axis AI goes luftwaffe crazy. There's not a lot the USSR can do about initially this but use the weather. don't attack in summmer, plan your pushes for early spring and autumn winter.Keep your few fighters on STR10 all the time. reinforce every turn and let them fight the luftwaffe as interceptors only. this way they will build up exp quickly by 41/42. If USA invest steadily in advanced aircarft you'll be able to take down the tactical bombers for D Day Middle east. AI isn't smart enough to defend it. Iraq / Iran harder than SC2 but very valuable. Once you have siberians in 42 send a HQ, Army, tank and corp (not less! in SC2 corps were enough) to mosul in winter whilst landing british corp amphib at kuwait. use tactical bober fi you can from russian border. Baghdad should fall in 2 to 3 turns. Lots of juicy MPP for USSR and Oil for UK. Iraw one fo few places where UK and USSR can both fight together and get supply from same cities. saudi arabia is harder but it's free money and if you go inhard it will be over quickly. watch the diplo % though. AI is not as good at humans at garrisioning against para drops. by 42/43 you should have LR 1or 2 and with bomber spotters be able to find a city or two on mainland europe to capture. This drives the AI mad! Sigefried line. tough to break after d day especially with heavy AI aircover. get a cheap motorised corp in 43, amphib land him and destroy the line before he starts to garrison it. AI can't really cope well with 2 fronts. It tends to waste a lot more MPP than a good human would operating units from east to west front.so start D day early, don;t worry if it is half arsed and you fail, the AI isn't going to follow up enough but it will divert a lot from russia. Axis AI scripst are pretty smart at taking the first few russian cities. After kharkov they get confused BUT never leave a front or medium city undefended, the AI will KNOW and rush to take it. Supply is tough past vorozenh and the AI is not very good at optimising it. You can hold stalingarad as long as you haven't fought to the death over earlier cities. Keep your RN together. don't let it get split up too much. In 1939 go mad for his subs- run straight into norway - kill them on the way out before they get strong. Then be cautious from summer 40 onwards until yanks come. Computer is overly aggresive with Italain fleet early so keep your ships in the Med and pick him off when he comes east of Tobruk. DOW on Norway from UK and invade on turn 4. it's a no brainer against the AI and a must nowhe gets 3 units for free. As regards north africa. you can't lose that against the Axis AI if you do the following. go mad for Tripoli. AI scripts rommel arriving in March 42. if you control tripoli (OR THE SQUARES AROUND IT) then it can't pop up. Or they do pop up but in 1s and 2s and out of supply. you can get there by saving all the UK MPP from the intial turn , this will give you a chance to buy a tank BEFORE the 7th armour is formed. buy it early 40, ship it to cairo and then in 40/41 you have 2 tanks in the desert vs only italians. youshould get to tripoli use the artillery against tobruk. do all that and the AI will be mincemeat, you'll get a major by 45. But where's the fun in beating a machine?

Is the pdf available for download yet ?

Awesome support thanks, wasn't sure if they counted as bombers or not. thank you both

Sorry on a simplier note, does anyone know the answer to this? Just a quick question. Anti air increases a city's defence against bombers but not against Air Attack. Does this include Tactical bombers?

Sounds good, would also be an incentive for the Germans to go after Moscow adding a little realism, at present the smooth transition to Stalingrad makes the loss of Moscow like any other city, whereas in centralised Soviet days it would surely have had a huge effect on morale. And although the game is normally decided by the time Berlin falls it would also be accurate that German morale would drop.

Nope, the Destroyer wasn't next to the sub and it was the carrier that hit it.It made me laugh out loud! I think I've got the saved turn after if that helps. Anyway not a big deal as seems like a one in a million. Funny though

Playing Allies vs AI Axis. A U Boat made surprise contact with HMS Courageous during the AI's turn. It was clearly surprised as it proceeded to automaticaly launch an air strike on Amazon destroyers in the other direction! It took 3 points off the destroyers and the sub was left alone. I know SC2 WaW is historically accurate but reinacting Swordfish torpedo bombers attacking Royal Navy ships by mistake is pretty impressive.

Just a quick question. Anti air increases a city's defence against bombers but not against Air Attack. Does this include Tactical bombers? Also does that apply to Anti units when they upgrade

So far finding AT very useful, soviet motorised AT units sit behind a city/fort/infantry screen and come out to finish off the tanks that have been damaged destroying that screen. they don't last long but are quick to rebuild and cheap. do a lot of MPP damge to expensive German tanks. Against a human player I think they could probably be negated more easily. as regards artillery. my money is on Terif's first Waw wonder strategy involving artillery. going to take a smarter man that me but I think there's a few tricks to using them and I haven't figuredit out yet. AA might be a game winner too.....time will tell

Ha Ha! Mallory's big wing hey? With regards to sending all your fighters against a single bomber raid. The RAF tried this in mid stages of the Battle of Britain. The Idea was instead of intercepting directly and just picking off a couple of heinkels, to build up an overwhelming force of several fighter squadrons to deal a huge blow to the German bombers. It didn't really work though as it took too long to get everyone together and coordinate the meetings between different units.

Colin, you can still win this. Hold on. Stalingard can hold for a while i'm sure. bring him deep into russia, stretch him. his supply must be down now. stop pissing about at sea land some WAllies where it will do harm, not scandinvia or africa but mainland europe. You must stand strong against the forces of evil. gams sounds far from over.

Wow, so I just finished my first full game vs the AI. I was Axis and played on expert expecting to kick the AI as per normal. Right? wrong, It was giving me a real game. Ok I won with a full Axis victory in early 44 but the AI hasn't challenged me like that since early days when I was new playing SC1. Here's some things the AI did Pull back from the Maginot line to protect paris, thus holding France until end of Spring 40. Pull units back from Barby front line although it stills lets itself get cut off too easily. Launch a winter counter offensive in the south against romania, forcing me to regroup to protect the oil. INVADE FINLAND! it did a really good job of this, so much so I had to send some Germans to Helsinski or it would have fallen. I knocked the british our of the war by 42 so I naver got a chance to see how it would handle a D Day. As per old AI it has a tendency to just keep building yanks though but it did snedn them across eventually. however after the first 3 flotillas of amphibs got sunk by U boats in the atlantic you would have thought it would try something else like North afrcia or scandinavia. It just kept sending amphibs to Manchester to try to reactivate britain though. However the USSR AI is pretty smart now though. Now it's time for some Human players!! My thoughts on WaW is that upgrading minors gives the Axis a big advantage. it can now use bulgarians, romanians, finnish troops.even spanish tiger tanks! that and that they will be fighting aginst IF weapons 2 max means they can be very tough as rear guard, garrison or even front line support troops. The 3 free corps from invading normay ensure that A) axis will take norway or allies will try and stop them. makes it more interesting i suppose. Is it a bug that the Spain tank can't attack twice though? or hubert's comment on the quality of spanish tank crews. That said fighting deep in russia is now really hard for the axis. the supply lines seems to work differently, need another game to work this out but it seems that it's tough to get some of the soviet cities over supply 3!! that really makes it tough for the axis forces. Also i think turkey will be a much more attractive route for Axis as it caucasus easy to cut off from rest of USSR and will have high supply deep under russia. Not being able to operate through parts of Middle east or libya changes little so far. Tactical bombers are devastating when they have some Exp and antitank 2 or 3. use your fighters as tactical bombers on the target first, they will do morale damage and take on the enemy' interceptors. then when the intreceptors are used up the tactical bombers make mincemeat of the enemy. mine were taking 4,5 even 6 points off enemy troops for no damage by 43 when supported by HQs in high supply. That and the special focres and double tank attack mean that there is no way a single point can hold up a determined offensive with the right troops. Germany and italy having strategc bombers is a real advantage. Plus subs are cheap and effective. Overall I think the pendulum has swung slightly in Axis favour apart from the Soviet supply problems. Cheers and well done Hubert and the Playtesters for improving the AI so much, it was really fun to play against it.

Does anyone tend to look at WW2 as starting around 1870 and finishing in 1957? (signing of the treaty of Rome). you can;t look at WW2 without WW1 which was born out of victory over France in the 1870s. Aren't we simply looking at the birth and growing pains of a new nation and therefore threat to the existing order in Europe. Germany, that upon creation threatens the existing powerhouse , France.Then over 3 increasingly desperate wars and 3 generations that suck more and more countries in until the power in europe moves east to the USSR?

Has Yoda not been invited to test play this before release? considering he's responsible for coming up with some of the most explotative strategies which have led to some of the patches on SC2 it would make sense. I'll pay another $5 for if it says , as tested by Terif!

3rd sub I tend to hide out somewhere and keep him sheltered then get him hitting the Med convoys in the South atlantic just as france falls, and Italy joins. Spring 40 is the weakest time for the Allied navy and the 4rd sub will strech him just as the Italians start to threaten in the med , and he has to watch out for a sealion.

One of the best posts for a while. I do believe though that the USSR whilst it may not have surrended if the Axis reached the Urals, that is it woudl have collapsed. It had only been in existence for 20 year and if Moscos had fallen then it would would not have sustained a united resistance, most likely breaking apart into regional areas (as we see today) that would have been fought over interbally between pro and anti communsists (the latter with Axis support). Chechnya and Georiga would have broken away way before German troops could have even gotten there withou the fear of the Moscow controller red army and as for Borat's grandad defeating the SS Panzers by himself I just don't think he would have the organisation behind him without the moscow led USSR. Post 1989/90 has shown what a divided and barely held together state the USSR war after 70 years of unity. After 20 all it woudl have needed was the head cut off to have divided.

With the recent discussion about commmander over Europe (or whatever it was called that I wasted my last weekend on) and the new WaW expansion coming up ( you better have some fast server to download that from the second it is released ...) I was interested in something. How many people bought SC1 and SC2?

Realism in this game would be: germany loses every single time. whatever you do. guess what? awful game! So this is a great game cos it allows a "win" for germany to be the slightly plausible scenario of taking more ground than historically happened so that USA/USSR/UK surrender and say "yeah well national socialism is a persuasive argument after all" so a "win" is to do a little better than history.result is a great game.

all great advice. Axis is a little tougher on a the newbie as you only dominate the game early and have to keep momentum, if you screw up then the allied factories will grind you down. kill france, then decide the big question of sealion (UK invasion) or not.if you do then you have to massively commit to wiping out the UK and making te brits surrender, this means Africa too adn that can take a little experience as supply is a fine art sometimes. If no sealion then just build build build build units in 40/41. Axis have the better troops but the key is to concentrate them at points and not get too spread out. take easy minors for the MPP and morale boosts but don;t wate mpp operating them aroudn too much when you could buy another AF or LR air or another panzer etc. invest in IW. don't have a long term aim like "I must take the casucaus" in 41, you never know what will happen, what techs will luck etc. whatver your decsion as axis you cannot fail once so juts go in hard and focus your firepower. always remember it's a game not apersonal history of europe and the victory conditions. for the little austrian painter with one testicle he has to take Moscow. stalingrad, paris and I think London too . aim to win by 43, the longer it goes on the more trouble you are in.

Liddell Harts's history of the first world war is incredible. I mentioned it in more detail in the forum a few months back. Castles of Steel the follow up to Dreadnought is incredible too. forget author's name

The only chance of doing it really against a human player is the following. I pulled it off once and REALLY pissed my friend off. I have never tried it since (although I might Gavin so keep a corp in DC at all times when you play allies aginst me! prefarably a really expensive tank ALL GAME!) and the intention was not actually to take US in the first place. you wait until the US is in the war as washington must be empty and most of the country. As Operation torch or better yet D day starts and there will be few US troops there and they will be places in New york or boston most likely. so it means the opposite player must have not garrisoned DC. hell I'm sure we've all done it from time to time especially when Russia is being pounded and if Alex looks like it might fall. send a motorised amphib unit ( german corp or spansh tank I think I did it with). I actually sent about 4 or 5 cheaps units with Franco HQ. my plan wasn't to take washington , I simply choose that the extra US units arriving was worth the US guy losing the inititive and I aimed to take Philly and some of his oil, hold it for a few turns and maybe force him to D day in autumn instead of psring / summer. I wans;t even sure I would actualy d it but as it takes months for them to get there I reckoned I's wait to see it a possible trick up my sleeve if I needed to buy time. The units were very low on supply by the time they arrived off the US coast. D day was imminent and I was just about to take stalingrad and couldn't afford to operate big germans back to France / UK ( had sealioned and held London so about to win) to hold paris/ london. I figured he'd lose MPP at critical time, have to sent some ships to close off the threat of transports going quickly from Lisbon to the newly captured US ports and maybe operate a AF back. and besides it's fun to do some crazy stuff sometimes. So they landed and took philly and oil and spotted that DC was empty. my last unit to land (all in same turn and IT HAS TO BE THE SAME TURN) was motorised and could take DC. before the extra Us army troops could arrive Franco was sitting in the White house rolling FDR down the stairs and making him surrender. game over. man was my friend pissed off. But crucially had even a basic corp been in DC he could have easily fought off my low on supply troops for one turn and then next turn the extar amercians arrive. ot if he had a cruiser patrolling the south atlantic (north atlantic is too busy to try this) I suppose if you don't want to risk it you could always buy a LR german carrier to spot off the coast if DC is empty but this would cost a fortune and who the hell builds Jerry carriers against human players ?? As a distraction it might have worked but only because it would have been very short term. In the long run it strengthens the US.