SoE Rebooted - Axis (Ash vs Will)

[AshesFall]

This will be a much more condensed AAR. I have some very big exams coming up and cant really be quite as detailed as before. I'll summarize the goings on and maybe include a picture now and then to show something (that I think is ) particularly interesting.

Conquest of Poland in two turns. Paid for the fast takedown with taking some damage though, and he hit some of my exposed HQs with the out of supply poles (good job being agressive with the poles! ). 320MPP's of loot was good. Marching troops across germany to avoid costs.

Set up to attack Denmark, bad weather every turn since october, so no luck so far (need the tac there to destroy the unit). Building two armor groups and two armies for France.

Will is definetly a lot more on the ball this game. He baited Mousollini into joining in november, and is out to destroy the ports and the ships in them with the french. I'm hiding, dont want to fight frenchies. Managed to send two armies, a corps, the HQ and arty to NA. Will focus on inf tech first this time. He also bombed me a bit, and stole the Saar mines with a french corps. Cant kill it. Heh. Trying to upgrade the Siegfried line army and a corps there to switch in and hit him, have arty there too now. This should prove interesting!

U-boat war OK so far. Three in the atlantic raiding. Going to try to use the italian bomber to raid the med convoys, never tried that, so we'll see.

[AshesFall]

Well, things have not been going exactly to plan.

I had thought to take Denmark in october, everything was prepared, tacs and ambhib. Bad weather. And then... nothing but. So I had to make it a protectorate instead, costing money instead of giving it and readiness. **** happens .

I also screwed up the buildup for France. At least now I know that you shouldnt invest much in research before france, I've done this twice, and it hasnt paid off. Even if it did, I wouldnt be able to afford to upgrade everything. Things stalled a bit so I could upgrade, and then stalled some more because will is doing very well with defending france. Dug in, good lines. I found the BEF, hit the HQ, but didnt manage to get it to 4 str (where destroying it would have meant full cost buyback). Paris should fall soon, but it will be in early august, which kinda sucks.

I'm not sure I much like the france/italy gambit, baiting italy into war to suicide the french navy into italian ports to lower their mpp and do some fleet damage. It's just so... extremely far from realistic. Oh well. It's a smart play though.

The Brits have been very active with their ships, hitting italian ports hard all along NA. That lowerd italian income, but at least it hurts his ships too. I think he may have lost more than he really should doing such things.

Bombing campaigns are a pain. We've invested in AA units.

I also effed up the u-boat war a bit, got caught in a corner in gibraltar, I knew it was a stupid move the second I clicked the square, but by then it was too late. Live and learn! I have been sinking about 24 mpp per turn from the brits. Until the last two turns at least.

[AshesFall]

France fell 30th of August. I'm a bit thoughtful about the representation of the French case. In the three games Will and I have played, France has not surrendered after the capture of Paris once, it's always transferred it's capital. Granted, it's fallen around August in every single game, and the French have surrendered in early september every game. Is it possible to achieve the historical result?

Anyway, I took quite a bit of damage in france. I didnt loose any units, but most lost between 1-3 steps. I have very little experience to show for the french campaign, which will be trouble come barbarossa. I spent time reinforcig, and am now marching everything across the map to poland. I think will recognized vischy france, because I got the Strasbourg battleship option and took it. I operated units to Yugoslavia, and have now declared war on it with what will be Heeresgruppe Sud.

The battle of the atlantic has been interesting, Destroyers and U-boats damaged back and forth, a fleet of three upgraded cruisers hitting Will and sinking two cruisers and a destroyer group. Britain keeps loosing MPP every turn to U-boats, sometimes 12, sometimes 30. The air war intensified as I repaired and shifted my three tacs and three fighters, all fully upgraded. I think I hurt his fighters/bombers pretty bad, and my tacs sank a carrier at port in the english channel.

Italians are sitting pretty, getting good readiness/organization with full strength and good supply/HQ. Waiting for inf tech.

Trying a bit of diversity for barbarossa, some fighters, tacs, special forces, armies, tanks, artillery. Things to deal with what comes, no matter what it is. My barbarossa wont be near as strong as last game, I lost a lot more MPP's both in damage to units and to Wills incessant attacks on my ports with his navy, and his bombing campaign against the dusseldorf industry.

Edit; One more thought. I did manage to kill Gort in france in low supply again, and damaged the BEF a lot. The question is, is it worth the damage I took doing so? I mean, from this game it sort of feels like Will is throwing the British and French at the Germans a bit nilly willy under the theory that "every point lost/spent against Wallies doesnt hit the USSR". As a large meta game, I guess that works. I mean, it's all kinda decided in the east. I'm pondering if it matters much how much the brits lose in MPP's to u-boats or in units or whatever. It's the US and USSR who wins the game anyhow. Hm.

It is now december 1940.

[Strategiclayabout]

- It's possible to have France surrender in june but not easy. You have to attack early with more troops (letting research a bit depleted) and damage french NM just below 50% before taking Paris to get a instant "shock effect" with the fall of the capital (NM going to 0). Then capital won't transfer to Bordeaux and you're free to prepare Sealion.

- The thing is to achieve this you have to destroy a good chunk of french forces, what happened at Dunkerque. The historical result is such a disaster it's hard to make as many mistakes playing Allies.

- Of course, overall result can also be favorably affected for Axis by UK not sending troops in France.

*

- About british MPPs, yes it matters ! Maybe US and USSR win the game for Allies but UK can lose it for them . The way UK plays is also about gaining strategic initiative in the West as early as possible. Anyway, better kill those Brits while you can (especially in low supply), you don't want to face them later, upgraded with support, when your panzers are busy somewhere else. It will be less units in England if you go for Sealion or in Africa to pressure Italians.

- UK can't develop everything, they have to prey on Axis weaknesses (research or tactical situation). Just think about what happens if UK manages to take a port in France during summer 1941 or 1942... Remember how operating costs are punishing (especially for elite upgraded units), you don't want to play ping pong between Moscow and Paris .

- Brits' role is to force Germany to divert MPPs to guard against POSSIBLE threats, not that much actual ones and that's why they have to be active whenever they can. Take bombing: UK can do it or not, just having the bombers around forces you to keep assets in the West while they can sneak in the MED to bomb the hell out of Italy.

[AshesFall]

Thanks for those thoughts StrategicLayabout!

How would you go about such a thing? With "early" do you mean in december, or like in march (providing decent weather).

About the game then. Barbarossa has kicked off. In summary, not a single thing has gone as well this game as in the last game. . I guess that's a good thing, since this game will probably go the distance! This downturn is partly due to Will playing well and milking what he has much better, partly due to bad luck (the smaller part, weather has been atrocious to me so far during all of yugoslavia campaign and stopping me from tkaing denmark when I should have) and mostly due to several instances of bad gameplay on my part.

I think this bad gameplay is also partly due to the fact that I'm not writing a proper AAR, it seems that writing them really helps me focus my thinking and evaluate the circumstances in ways I dont do when I just play.

General situation: War of atlantic going badly, no raiding for a few turns as all of MPP's have gone to barbarossa. Yugo taken, greece still in the game. Italy strong in africa with inf tech and dug in. Waiting for naval tech 1, did loose a battleship and a cruiser. Industries have been hit a lot, have built AA and keeping two fighters with HQ over france.

For barbarossa I really effed up. I accidently left warsaw ungarrisoned for a turn, and messed up the logistics around deployments trying to keep units away from the "bad" cities until the last moment. End result; Soviet declared war in june. This (I realized afterwards, after having spent 15 minutes in june debating whether to strikt first despite being completely out of position and in the end deciding against it to upgrade according to plan and -get- into position) has the nasty side effect of letting Will buy back the STAVKA stuff. Gah, winter and 42' will be bad.

These are the positions in July as barbarossa kicks off;

I build lots of arty, I know there will be several nasty sieges and they are going to be very useful there. let's see how this goes.

Tech wise, I do have an infantry warfare edge on the soviets, not sure about the tanks yet. I have lvl 3, but most tanks are just lvl 2. I probably wont upgrade until winter unless it really seems to be a good idea to pause. However, I dont have any industry tech at all, no AA tech, and only lvl 1 intelligence. I simply havent had the funds to invest properly. But, at least I did invest two chits in industry the turn after barbarossa. I have definetly been off my game so far.

[AshesFall]

Progress at the end of August. I broke defensive lines at Riga and Kiev, took some losses at Kiev (7 from a soviet counter attack excluding the ones you see on the picture).

Destroyed some four armies in total in north and south this turn, including a HQ spotted by bomber aircraft. I've discovered the joys of passive fighter spotting range, makes a lot of difference in the center. Realizing that I wont reach historical lines by the end of 41, I've gone for a "force conservation" strategy as far as possible. I try, as much as at all possible, to attack weakened and demoralized targets, and stay in 6+ supply. It's not easy, and it slows things more.

[AshesFall]

The game continues. Supply in russia is terrible. I realized way too late (since we havent played to this point before) just how terrible it really is. You need at least 2 HQ's for each army to make any progress at all, and even then it's slow. Oh well.

There is something odd with supply too. These are screens from october with rain and other unpleasantness. The supply mode is active. See how the HQ that is receiving supply from another HQ isnt giving out full supply? Since he's getting at least 1, it should be 8 right? Not sure why this is, I've been suffering a lot from it.

These are the positions in october, rain is here, and soon it will be snowing. My barbarossa has been something of a failure, as I havent reached very far at all, screwed up war declaration so that I got attacked instead, and soon there will be oodles of soviets everywhere again due to cheap rebuilds of STAVKA forces and others. I did manage an encirclement or two, destroyed some units and so on, but not enough I dont think. The one area which is positive is that I havent lost any units (but plenty of str points) and I still have one more tech in both inf and armor warfare. odly enough, in this game it often seems the soviet achieves parity even in 41 with the germans actually investing into their research. Is that common, or just in our games?

All in all, the germans have 74 land units and the soviets 25, this is the losses screen;

Unfortunately, looking at the units "lost" and "collected income" for the soviet he's lost 4659 MPP's worth, and collected 7646, spending 5056 on units. So basically, since most of those units are half price, I can expect 1.5 times the units I've killed to appear soon (since the soviets lost some 23 land units, some 30 units then), not counting the damned Siberians. On the opposite side, despite not losing any full "units" per se, the germans have lost 8190MPP worth, and spent 6892, so losing more than I'm getting. Things are about to get tough.

[Bill101]

Regarding the supply question, what is the strength of your HQs in the above?

[AshesFall]

Regarding the supply question, what is the strength of your HQs in the above?

Strength ten in all cases. This is the "projected supply" view.

[AshesFall]

Hm. Not really sure what to say of the situation of the game. It's now may 1942. Barbarossa failed decisively, unable to achieve neither significant land gains (anywhere even close to historical lines) nor the destruction of units to a value that exceeded soviet income. The Soviet are now crazy strong, with equivalent tech in both armor and infantry (3/2). I think the american int gambit is responsible for that, it's the only reason i can think of since I've had a continous investment in both since 1940.

The winter hit me hard, damaging lots of Hq's and thereby hampering both supply and ability to rebuild the equally damaged troops around them. I still have units sitting in good supply with good HQ management who stubbornly court the 30-40 scale of morale.

The soviet offensive is in full swing, and I scramble backwards trying to gather my forces to hold them off. It's all I can do with my income to rebuild my lost str, I cant even think of building new units. Finland never joined, despite me being at the gates of Narva and Leningrad at one point. What are the requirements for Finland joining?

The U-boat war has picked up a bit since I hit lvl 2 subs, raiding and cat and mouse games are going on pretty much everywhere. I get hit and loose str, I think one will sink next turn, but I cause mischief.

I had to make one of those hard decisions this turn. Due to a serial combination of mismanagement, winter damage (and therefore loss of supply), partisans (bastards cut the rail and lowered supply) and other stuff the tank group that has been slated for africa since november 1941 never got operated to italy. Rommel and a special forces have been sitting in transports waiting. A serious mistake on my part. I feel that my window to do something i NA is closing. I have been holding off the brits through a series of gambits with supply, hitting the supply with heavy bombers and the HQ's with tac's. But it cant last. Even if I get the armor there now and manage to push a bit at the brits, it will take too long and the americans can show up and end it. It's a damned shame, I really tried to go for NA this time with the italians, but screwing up elsewhere made it not work. Oh well. I've decided to send rommel to russia and I'll try to take greece in combination with my long prepared "crossing gambit" when I try to extract the italians. I'll let them try and hold the Brits a little while longer.

Here are some screenies that show how bad my situation is. The Siberians arrived, and I think the soviets now have around 60 units total and I have around 70, many of which are not in the USSR. Given tech parity, Siberian elite reinforcements, and my own stubbornly low morale on the troops I foresee a summer of pain coming. If I am lucky, perhaps I can pull a fast one to destroy units and get a counter offensive going. Depending on what happens now, this will decide if I am effectively dead or not. Let the games begin!

[Strategiclayabout]

Various questions

- I don't remember seeing the HQ supply chain thing working. Don't know if it's a bug, manual issue or something I/we don't understand but it seems HQs don't consider other HQs as supply sources (WWII Gold or WWI Break).

- About Finland: as I remember, you have to get very close to Leningrad, something like 2 or 3 tiles away. So you definitely need to get past Narva and Luga to show your might to the Finns .

- About France: "early" means as soon as you can get/operate units there and have good weather (meaning no snow). Then it's a MPPs choice: do you want more units, better ones, or a fresh group operated quickly to recover as much morale and readiness as possible before your offensive ?

- The more you wait, the more chances you'll face Brits, upgraded french tanks and anti-tank but worst of all, some kind of prepared defense in a continuous line between Luxembourg and the Channel.

ZOCs and retreats

- At this point your true enemy are ZOCs because it restrains your panzers higher mobility, you need a gap with any kind of supply line, pour your best in it and let enemy deentrench itself . Concentrating demoralizing attacks (stukas & co) on 1 or 2 tiles can open the gap you need by forcing enemy retreats.

- However that retreat "option" can also work against you: sometimes, you kill an unit guarding an objective then attack another before occupying that objective and the new foe will retreat in the tile you just cleared (gyaaaaah !). Usual result: you lose a turn .

- An enemy unit can retreat on any friendly controlled tile as a combat result if having low morale or taking high casualties. Enemy supply and ressources tiles will always be friendly to enemy units even if empty unless you occupy them. For other tiles you just need to move your units adjacent to them and your projected ZOCs will make them ineligible for retreat.

- That's why sometimes it's better to let an escape path to enemy units occupying important objectives so they can flee because if surrounded, they will have no other choice but fight to the last man.

- Actually, you can even use snow turns: combat won't work very well but you can reduce entrenchments or move in the gaps. I agree that kind of approach isn't historical at all but as I said, it's hard to redo all those french strategic mistakes.

Current game

- Gamewise, I think Axis divided its forces too much this time: even in 1941, it's hard to attack everywhere. Since you also bled MPPs in Atlantic and Reich industry (bombings), setting more limited objectives for Barbarossa could have help. Not getting Smolensk hurt you a lot in the center for supply. Cities are nearly always needed for deep offensive in good conditions .

- For supply/readiness in USSR: it takes longer for units to recover after losing steps, longer if in low supply, longer without being attached to an HQ, longer if being attached to a low level HQ and the russian winter event doesn't help at all (as well as movement and combat in bad weather) so it's quite usual to have atrocious stats for your units in early 1942. the only thing you can do is operate elite units out of USSR before winter to save their elite steps/experience/morale... But it has a cost, of course !

- By the way, the "intel" thing can also be used by Axis since they have the MPPs advantage at start, if you keep a chit there from the start as Germany, US probably won't have any decisive research bonus at any given time.

[Bill101]

Various questions

- I don't remember seeing the HQ supply chain thing working. Don't know if it's a bug, manual issue or something I/we don't understand but it seems HQs don't consider other HQs as supply sources (WWII Gold or WWI Break).

Hi

We've looked into this and it will be fixed in the forthcoming Breakthrough patch.

Bill

[Strategiclayabout]

Great ^^ , thanks for dropping a line Bill, will make for some new interesting moves !

[AshesFall]

Various questions

I found a bug and now it can be fixed! Yay!

Good thoughts in general, as usual, though I'm pondering how I could have focused more. I had pretty much 90% of my forces in USSR (bar some of those derped away units around italy, i never did get around to sending any units to NA) and my main thurst was definitely north, with a smaller thrust south. It's true that I lost MPP's from bombing, but I dont see any way of stopping that really, bar keeping most of the luftwaffe in france. I do have one idea, but that will have to wait until another game. perhaps I could have given up completely on the atlantic war, but that just feels... wrong somehow.

So supply/morale/readiness takes longer in Russia than anywhere else?

About the intel thing: I respectfully disagree. I'll write a more detailed explanation after the game, but I do not believe that the axis can ever implement this strategy in a way that gives them anything but an "even steven" game against the US, which really doesnt give them much at all.

[AshesFall]

About the game then. The summer of 1942 has indeed been quite painful, but not without more or less significant successes either.

This is pretty much the axis low point, july 1942. I've conducted strategic retreats fron the gates of Leningrad to Pskov and behind the river. In the picture you can see two paratroopers positioned for a planned Leningrad gambit. Pushed back all the way to Minsk in the middle, and having lost Tartu and everything about Pskov.

This is also the turning point, prepared positions with artillery and a river blunted a heavy soviet blow from the north, and two tank groups took serious losses without breaking through. There has been fighting for months, and I have mostly come out on top because of one thing; the careful husbanding of my one advantage, elite armor groups. By making sure these are not unduly exposed, that they are in supply and with good readiness, and built up elite steps before they strike and then only at enemies in low readiness/morale, they have decimated wills units with very few losses.

This of course has meant moving forward slower than I would like, but I have realized that rushing ahead and getting all of your units into poor readiness and supply is nothing but a recipe for disaster anyway, so slow it is. These pictures are from September, in the middle of the axis counter attack. A hail mary paratroop drop (from the positions you saw earlier) took leningrad, and finland joined. I basically aimed for the square i could reach next to leningrad that didnt hold the fortification built last (the one next to kronstadt) and prayed that the city would be ungarrisoned. It was. Big whoop! ^^ As you can see from these pictures, it became necessary to expose my armor, and some of it has been badly hit. I still try to take the time to replace their losses into elites, I -must- maintain that advantage.

Mannsteins army group would chase the withdrawing soviets up to and around Luga, before I realised that chasing the soviets through that swamp would take both winter and spring and leave me entirely out of supply, readiness and time. A bad idea then. The army group has instead (as of october) redirected towards the central northern front, I hope to reach smolensk before spring and then use that as a springboard to reach Moscow in 43.

In the south, I have retreated further as far as odessa and the river there. Hopefully, bad weather will stall the soviets in the south until reinforcements arrive. I have lost a few units (some 5 of worth) in the south here, but the soviets have lost some too.

In NA, the italians finally quit in late september, after stalling the brits heroically for over a year. I am very proud of them. However, it now seems unlikely that they will escape through the damaged harbors. A mistake on my side. On the other hand, the Regia Marina has savaged the British RN, and are giving the americans a decent enough fight. They may just escape yet!

Finally, these are the losses so far; Note the rediculous amount of armor the soviets have lost. And yet they keep replacing them...

[AshesFall]

Btw, before I get that far. Does soviet winter strike every year, or are the germans better prepared after 41? If so, when exactly does it strike? I'd rather not have all my painstakingly preserved and built elite steps killed by weather

[AshesFall]

Hm. I'm pondering going after Vichy france and Spain in 43. Right now I'm earning less MPP's than USSR, and that isnt good. I'm not quite sure of the ramifications, or if I can even do it though.

[Bill101]

Btw, before I get that far. Does soviet winter strike every year, or are the germans better prepared after 41? If so, when exactly does it strike? I'd rather not have all my painstakingly preserved and built elite steps killed by weather

No, if it struck in the winter of 1941-2 then that's it, it won't happen again.

It can happen later, but that's only if it hasn't happened before, i.e. if you managed to delay war with the USSR for a long time.

[Strategiclayabout]

I found a bug and now it can be fixed! Yay!

Good thoughts in general, as usual, though I'm pondering how I could have focused more. I had pretty much 90% of my forces in USSR (bar some of those derped away units around italy, i never did get around to sending any units to NA) and my main thurst was definitely north, with a smaller thrust south. It's true that I lost MPP's from bombing, but I dont see any way of stopping that really, bar keeping most of the luftwaffe in france. I do have one idea, but that will have to wait until another game. perhaps I could have given up completely on the atlantic war, but that just feels... wrong somehow.

So supply/morale/readiness takes longer in Russia than anywhere else?

About the intel thing: I respectfully disagree. I'll write a more detailed explanation after the game, but I do not believe that the axis can ever implement this strategy in a way that gives them anything but an "even steven" game against the US, which really doesnt give them much at all.

No problem with any disagreement at all and congratulations for finding your first bug .

- About focus, your southern thrust still had something like 10 armies, 3 HQs and 2 panzers in august after taking Kiev, maybe a bit too much. True, some of those planes in NA were badly missed .

- You probably spread forces too much along the front in the north, in 41 it's usually better to forge ahead along supply lines to capture supply sources. ahead.

- At some point your 3 thrusts didn't have enough forces left to reach any major objective. You'd have had to transfer most panzers in one area to achieve something (as Germans did, taking all tanks from AGN to push on Moscow).

- Russia is the same as anywhere else for s/m/r game mechanisms but given the distances/lack of cities/partisans/winter event, you will always struggle to reach high levels.

- Of you get a lead in intel with Germans it will probably not penalize USA but UK and USSR can feel it. So it would be more about keeping the tech advantage you have at start as long as you can than anything else .

[AshesFall]

I havent been posting much, but thought I'd give a summary of events so far since the last update from my perspective.

First though, I'd like to share something I thought was slightly odd, vis a vis the recovery of morale.

These are three pictures of the fifth army in Russia. As we can see, it has great readiness, good supply and is under the command of Mannstein. However, it's morale is only at 23%, and has been very low for some time.

Now over the coming turns it barely improved at all;

It feels a bit weird that it would improve so very slowly under close to optimal conditions. Is morale intended to move so slowly, or is there something strange going on?

Another thing I was pondering is the rebuilding of damaged HQ's. If the HQ itself is damaged, it doesnt matter if it's on a "good supply" tile, the HQ itself (while standing on a supply 7 tile for example) is only in five supply for example, and thus cannot be rebuilt fully. Wouldnt it be more logical if the HQ as a unit had a minimum supply of the tile supply value?

Anyway. One other effect of these pictures is to show the buildup before the battle of Smolensk, that pretty much went on for most of the summer.

[AshesFall]

Allright, the actual update then.

In the planning for the summer of 43' I made one more mistake. I decided to play for the very slim outside chance of a win rather than comitting fully to playing for a draw. The previous pictures have shown the buildup for the main event, my bid to take smolensk during 1943 and then push on to Moscow at opportunity. I should have started a slow withdrawal, forcing the soviets into bad supply where I could constantly destroy units while preserving my own and building more forces for the inevitable invasion of the west. It didnt quite happen that way.

Now I realized a couple of things during the winter. One was that Russia had a bigger income than all of germany and all her conquests, the other was that readiness, supply and morale is damned difficult to manage, and that morale definitely didnt rise in the way I had hoped. To remedy these things I planned the invasion of several minors, using as little resources as at all possible. After long debate and looking at the map with terrain and distance, I forewent the invasion of Spain. Too time consuming, too costly. Too much risk of allied intevention. No, I wanted easy one turn conquests. Using rebuilt units that had to be placed in Germany and operated to USSR anyway, I quickly took both Vichy and Switzerland in may or april (cant quite remember). some loot, but most importantly a much needed boost to morale.

The summer kicked off with fierce fighting over Smolensk. I lost some four or five armies/special forces, and the soviets lost... a LOT more, Despite this, I simply could not make any actual gains. Supply was too hard to come by, and the Soviets too numerous. Now in september, the USSR has lost fully three times as many land units as germany, and no less than sixteen or seventeen tank armies, with only one lost for germany. It's staggering that they can replace those losses, and still come back for more. I couldnt even replace the lost armies for several months, needing to restrengthen, upgrade and redeploy. The soviets did all of these, and still rebuilt pretty much everything I think. I think the OKW and Hitler must have shared my disbelief, flabbergasted at Russian resilience in the face of such horrendous losses. I come to the conclusion that any war in russia must target the russian income above all. Destroying the army is just a nice perk.

With Kuchler and heeresgruppe sud pushed back into Romania, the USSR has gone for a thrust along the southern pripyat valley and towards poland. I've been hard pressed to hold this off, and the newly rebuilt rommel was in very hot water for a while. In september, this is the current situation in USSR.

In the very south, Kuchlers backhand blow is ongoing (a year too early and the wrong commander, but meh!). I've spotted at least three armor units near Poland, so I figured the odessa position must be at least a little weak with all the units I've seen in the far north and around Smolensk. We'll see what happens.

On the polish border, rommel is slowly gathering forces to repel the red tide, more forces are moving to reinforce his position, and part of the luftwaffe is flying back as well. Note the careful placement of the CAS in supplied towns to operate them if the need arises...

In the central northern position Mannstein, Kesselring and Leeb have started a slow withdrawal. Rundstedt stands northwards, having repelled a thrust of two tankovy armies with two panzer corps, destroyed them, and then overseeing the strenthening of the panzers again (they were both down to 10 from their elite steps, and had to be rebuilt. Gotta preserve that edge!). The finns have fallen back to dig in at leningrad, hopefully that will buy me a little time.

The italians held on in NA until late july, and then collapsed. I have withdrawn and rebuilt as much as possible. After a sneaky invasion of Greece (part of that economic buildup plan I jabbered on about earlier) the italian navy returned to the boot of Italy. Heavy bombers have spotted a concentration of allied naval vessels close to Cicily, which worries me. There are two paths of attack for will, either into Italy, or into southern france. I'll try to keep an eye on that naval concentration and see which it is. Still, if he goes for italy, he'll likely go for Rome directly. The SC mechanics favor lightning strikes on the capitals. I've concentrated my defenses around Rome, hoping to hold off the invasion for a turn or two once it comes. Enough time for the CAS to operate in and give the allies plenty of pain. I also hold naples with a strong army, if he lands further south to build supply.

Another thing I realized I forgot is to build any sort of engineers and fortifications in the west or in Italy. Heh. Doh.

Here is a shot of the world map, I really love the size of the SoE campaign map. The scale seems just right, and makes the terrain varied and interesting.

it's clear that I've lost the initiative and any chance of winning is probably out the window as well. The russians alone could likely beat the Axis at this point with their insane ability to rebuild even losses like the ones they have been taking, and still keep pace in tech and come back even stronger. going for the long shot in 43 have made the coming years that much harder. I guess the game will be a valuable practice in defensive retreats. I'm not going to give Will the victory easily, if he wants anything but a draw he'll have to pry it out of my dead cold hands... ^^

[Strategiclayabout]

GAME:

- Good elite panzer management, you did great at the tactical level but I agree you lost initiative by making no strategic gain in the center while Soviets pushed in the south. Smolensk was a good objective but it was also "Kursk-like" as it was one of the most obvious targets and you ran in the might of Red Army when you decided to attack first.

- Now you'll enjoy the thrill of mobile defense, trying to surprise advancing Russians with local superiority achieved by clever maneuvering hehehe.

- Nice move to grab MPPs wherever you can now that diplomatic penalties are irrelevant, probably a good call to avoid Spain too, you wouldn't have any spare troops to defend it with GIs already in the MED. By the way, any gold in those swiss accounts ?

- Italy will be fun to defend (but probably short-lived). Sorry for the engineers, didn't think to point it out, it's the kind of obvious thing (like "meh surely Ash recruited them already, no need to bother") easy to forget in the heat of battle. Your (fake) Atlantik Wall can still has some propaganda use huhu.

*

HQs:

- When HQs lose too many steps, their supply ability suffers meaning you can't rebuild them in one turn. You have to reinforce them as much as you're allowed to first, then they'll get back in good supply and you'll be able to bring them back to 100% strength ^^ .

- Just think about those british HQs in your France campaigns, if you blow them up when they have 10 steps they'll be rebuilt at half-price. But if you kill them at say 4 steps, even if they're on a good supply tile, the damage they took before will prevent them to create enough supply to sustain themselves.

- You can see the supply level generated by an HQ in its stat window (screen left bottom corner when clicking on the unit). You'll see it's linked to its strength/step number .

- That's what make them such lovely targets, so rebuild them when you can, no brainer (unless they have no units left to command ) !

*

MORALE:

- For your 5th german army in USSR, I'm not sure because I don't see supply and HQs locations for all turns but there are some things to consider:

1) supply displayed for units is the one they have for this turn, so after moving them they will still have good supply at the end of the turn even if they'll fall to 0 next turn. Sometimes, moving an HQ one tile is enough to cause trouble. Players never use the "S" key too much .

* In your january pic your 5th army is at 6 supply this turn but can't be next turn (should be at 4) unless you move an HQ closer.

2) partisans can disrupt supply on some tiles and only going from 6 to 5 supply will keep your unit stats low.

3) only one turn in "bad" supply is enough to send your unit morale back to low levels

4) a unit not at 100% strength will have big trouble to recover morale

5) a unit just reinforced after losing steps will also take some time to recover morale

6) supply at level 6 is considered "good" supply because it doesn't penalize your units (full movement, ability to reinforce at full strength...) HOWEVER there is a big difference between supply 6 and supply 9 or 10 in morale/readiness recovery.

* Guys frozen to death for several monthes will be happier in a city or supply center than in a swamp with only the "necessary" supply. To make them truly recover, you have to pull them back, wherever there is better supply.

* That's why I said in another message that you NEED cities for deep offensives/heavy fighting areas: their supply levels 10 or 8 allow HQs to have supply 9 and 8 tiles around them, boosting readiness/morale recovery.

* I see your 5th army gained 6% in one turn at 6 supply with HQ backing between april and may, I think that's about right. I don't know the rates for each level but if you gain 6% turn at supply 6, I let you imagine how better it goes at higher levels .

[AshesFall]

- When HQs lose too many steps, their supply ability suffers meaning you can't rebuild them in one turn. You have to reinforce them as much as you're allowed to first, then they'll get back in good supply and you'll be able to bring them back to 100% strength ^^ .

- Just think about those british HQs in your France campaigns, if you blow them up when they have 10 steps they'll be rebuilt at half-price. But if you kill them at say 4 steps, even if they're on a good supply tile, the damage they took before will prevent them to create enough supply to sustain themselves.

- You can see the supply level generated by an HQ in its stat window (screen left bottom corner when clicking on the unit). You'll see it's linked to its strength/step number .

- That's what make them such lovely targets, so rebuild them when you can, no brainer (unless they have no units left to command ) !

*

- For your 5th german army in USSR, I'm not sure because I don't see supply and HQs locations for all turns but there are some things to consider:

1) supply displayed for units is the one they have for this turn, so after moving them they will still have good supply at the end of the turn even if they'll fall to 0 next turn. Sometimes, moving an HQ one tile is enough to cause trouble. Players never use the "S" key too much .

* In your january pic your 5th army is at 6 supply this turn but can't be next turn (should be at 4) unless you move an HQ closer.

2) partisans can disrupt supply on some tiles and only going from 6 to 5 supply will keep your unit stats low.

3) only one turn in "bad" supply is enough to send your unit morale back to low levels

4) a unit not at 100% strength will have big trouble to recover morale

5) a unit just reinforced after losing steps will also take some time to recover morale

6) supply at level 6 is considered "good" supply because it doesn't penalize your units (full movement, ability to reinforce at full strength...) HOWEVER there is a big difference between supply 6 and supply 9 or 10 in morale/readiness recovery.

* Guys frozen to death for several monthes will be happier in a city or supply center than in a swamp with only the "necessary" supply. To make them truly recover, you have to pull them back, wherever there is better supply.

* That's why I said in another message that you NEED cities for deep offensives/heavy fighting areas: their supply levels 10 or 8 allow HQs to have supply 9 and 8 tiles around them, boosting readiness/morale recovery.

* I see your 5th army gained 6% in one turn at 6 supply with HQ backing between april and may, I think that's about right. I don't know the rates for each level but if you gain 6% turn at supply 6, I let you imagine how better it goes at higher levels .

Good info!

So, 6% at 6 supply then is about normal. Wow, that does make it take a lot of time to get morale back if you're not at perfect supply ^^. Is the gain affected much by commanders/current readiness?

And yeah, i realized that was how it worked with rebuilding/supply of HQ's, I just thought it might be more logical to have a "minimum cap" on supply for the HQ unit at the supply value of the tile it's in, meaning that a HQ standing on a tile with 8 supply could still rebuilt fully even if it's at 5 strength. Just to make it more in line with how all the other units work ^^

[Strategiclayabout]

I edited my previous post with a game part ^^ .

- Having an HQ is important, having a high level one too but difference between a level 8 and a level 9 commander isn't that big unless there is a big experience difference (not sure excatly how much but a lvl 8 HQ with 2 stars will work better than a 9 one with no star).

- Good question about readiness, I can be wrong but I don't think it's linked directly to morale (your 5th army has a decent readiness with low morale) except it has the same basis for calculation (supply). A unit can regain readiness just by not fighting (unless it has low supply of course). To be sure you'd need the calculation formula to see if there's anything with "morale" inside .

- HQs are different from other units because they generate their own supply so I suppose it was logical to have them work a bit differently than combat units but that's only my opinion . You can say to yourself that HQs need to reorganize themselves (executing traitors, eliminating corruption, that kind of things ) before working again at full capacity.

[Bill101]

The idea is that the weakened HQs are in a state of disarray, so they aren't working very well at what they should be doing: coordinating supply and leading their forces.

Thus by reducing their supply distributing value, there is a really strong incentive to reinforce any damaged HQs as soon as possible.

This makes them even more valuable in some situations where previously pockets of troops cut off in an advance had the potential to survive virtually indefinitely unless the HQ was destroyed, because as long as the HQ existed with them they could always reinforce back up to full strength.

Now, coupled with the new supply rules, cut off units are much more vulnerable, which is how it should be.