Kampfgruppe Engel question

[mbristol]

Question for anyone on the 2nd to last mission in the campaign. It is the mission where Kampfgruppe Engel must escape the Polish Division under cover of night and exit the map in the 70 minutes allotted. I did this with 5 minutes to spare, hit cease fire and yet the mission ended as a Draw and of course in the next mission my Kampfgruppe Engel is obliterated. What have I missed? Must I exit earlier? Evade more of the Poles? Little help would help be great. Many thanks! Such a great game.

[ChrisND]

*SPOILER*

You took too many losses. The way the scoring system works is that units destroyed count as units not exited, so if you lose too many units you might draw or lose even if you manage to exit the force. The way to avoid this is to avoid the Poles as much as possible, and advance on a pre-plannednarrow front avoiding obvious garrison locations. Using demos to make your own path will help you avoid the enemy as well, although it will also slow you down. If you run into resistance, hit it hard and fast with massed HE to overwhelm it so that it doesn't slow you down.

[tdogg]

Question for anyone on the 2nd to last mission in the campaign. It is the mission where Kampfgruppe Engel must escape the Polish Division under cover of night and exit the map in the 70 minutes allotted. I did this with 5 minutes to spare, hit cease fire and yet the mission ended as a Draw and of course in the next mission my Kampfgruppe Engel is obliterated. What have I missed? Must I exit earlier? Evade more of the Poles? Little help would help be great. Many thanks! Such a great game.

I actually survived the finale battle with a reverse slope method, worked well.

[mbristol]

Many thanks for the feedback guys. I am avoiding contact at all cost and we'll see how that goes.

[Erwin]

My worry is that I won the 2nd mission but I fear am not getting sufficient replacements to keep on winning. Is it accepted strategy to throw a game, just to allow replacements to build up, or is there a penalty?

[ChrisND]

My worry is that I won the 2nd mission but I fear am not getting sufficient replacements to keep on winning. Is it accepted strategy to throw a game, just to allow replacements to build up, or is there a penalty?

The loss will be counted against you in the overall campaign tally, but if you throw a game or two, and do well in the others, you should do fine in the balance at the end. Mission 3 is an important mission though, and losing it would be bad. You'd be better off aiming for a draw without getting too committed. At any rate, you get fully reinforced between missions 3 and 4.

I don't know about completely throwing a mission though. If you stop before you've reached all of your objectives, you could still win or at least draw most missions in CMBN. Stopping when you are ahead or taking heavy casualties and calling it a day is not something that most CM player seem to be very good at. The urge to keep trying until every objective is taken and all the enemies are dead seems to be too strong to resist. Imagine the bloodshed if we were actual commanders. :eek:

[Tigrii]

@tdogg: yeah same, I just lined up my inf along the bocage at the back of the hill crest and covered the flanks with my tanks behind the crest. Got a tactical victory in the mission and campaign (campaign was draw when I surrendered).

But yeah, I was similarly outraged when I exited most of my force and lost the battle. But I guess it makes sense.

[Erwin]

I posted a question elsewhere re what are players' personal policies re ending a campaign scenario vs the AI.

If you know you have a win with a lot of time in hand (say 30+ minutes), do you:

1) Wait out the rest of the game and avoid any friendly casualties if you can, even if nothing happens for 30+ minutes?

2) Immediately Ceasefire, even though the enemy AI may have time to mount a counterattack?

3) Try and improve your position/get a higher victory level in the final 30+ minutes, even if that risks suffering additional friendly casualties that could cripple you in the next campaign missions?