J Muller

I like to keep my research at the limit with Germany. I have had some runs of bad luck, but then again, I've had some runs of great luck as well. In one game against the AI, I had such rotten luck with tech that the Russians ended up having better tech than me in 1941. In the next, I got hits on Advanced Aircraft two turns in a row at the very beginning of the game. In another, I've had no luck with HT despite having a research chit on it for two years. You just have to roll with it and focus on what you get good luck in.

Thanks for the invite. Unfortunately, I don't have quite to much free time as Targul. I'll look into it this weekend, though. I'm still getting the hang of things by playing against the AI--figuring out how to distribute my research, discovering the importance of HQs, etc.

Yeah, I definitely plan on doing HvH once I get better... as is, I'm not very good at all. In my current game, it's late fall 1942 and I'm still miles from Moscow. The Americans have come into the war in force, toppling Portugal and Spain in a few turns. The LV4 tank division I sent near Spain for when it got attacked didn't even get a chance to help out in Spain--Madrid seized two turns after America invaded. With Leningrad in Axis hands, Finland's focusing on defending Arkangel from a Russian counterattack. I've got to starve out the Russians before the Allies invade France and send my meager defending forces packing. As is, I'm making excruciatingly slow progress through the USSR, though I have smashed a Russian counterattack near Odessa. The German army is superior in numbers and technology to the Russians, and I'm even producing almost twice as much as they are, but if America invades from the west I'll be hurting. Italy's digging in at Sicily and the Boot, having been decisively kicked out of North Africa by the British. Obviously I still have a ways to go in terms of skill at this game...

I realize the AI isn't very good, and I am only playing it on the default setting. I just found it amusing that the British were such fair-weather friends to the French, and so willing to throw away half their total fighter strength. Of course, as far as loyalty goes, it's not like the French were any better--in real life, they had standing agreements with Poland to go on the offensive against Germany if Germany attacked Poland, and if they had kept to these agreements, Germany would have found itself fighting a war on two fronts in the middle of September 1939.

...or not? I only recently got this game, and though I looked at the forums enough to pick up that the AI's not too sharp, I've been playing matches against them to figure out what I should focus research on. So far, I've learned to always have a research point in the Industrial and Production techs. So now I've got a pretty good game going, and due to lucky tech breakthroughs in Industrial and Heavy Tanks in the early years, I'm doing pretty good as Axis--at least, I think I am. It's 1942 and though I'm making slow progress into Russia, the Wehrmacht has both numerical and technological supremacy over the Red Army. I'm still annoyingly bogged down near Odessa, but I'm hoping that now that winter's over and I can reinforce my armies there (mostly the weaker armies of Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania) my LV4 tanks can make a breakthrough there. I did recently capture Arkangel with a Finnish corps, though, which means the Russians may quickly find themselves running low on gas without those convoys from the UK. Anyway, the point of this thread, before I got sidetracked, was to point out something interesting the Allied AI did in 1940. When I launched my blitzkrieg into Benelux and France, the BEF was there, as usual. However, the instant I broke through the French lines with my tanks, the BEF operationally fled to Brest and quickly transported out and back to Liverpool. Nice show of courage there, and I'm sure the French were absolutely delighted with their British allies. However, that show of cowardice by the BEF was shortly followed up with total stupidity on the part of the RAF--namely, moving their air fleet into Brest. Where, pouncing on the opportunity, I quickly destroyed it, leaving Britain without fighter cover for a full year. They're just lucky I had Barbarossa to focus my MPP's on, or the sky above London would have gone dark with German aircraft. I'm starting to see now why people seem to prefer HvH games...