Russia to 107 by End of Demo

[Hamstersss]

So is this strategy an exploitation of the AI and the game or legitimate?

-Conquer France, Low Countries,

-Mass Rommell and 3 Armor units next to Baltic States.

-Transport all Italian Armies from Africa and Italy and mass, with fleet, on the coast of Turkey.

-Declare War on Baltic states, operate a corps from Italy to Konigsberg. Conquer Baltic States and take Riga with Italian Corps.

-Spend Baltic booty on a Balbo HQ, transport it with a corps to coast of Turkey.

-Declare war on Russia (If they haven't declared war on you all ready), beat up on Russia with the Germans, declare war on Turkey, drop a corps off across from Istanbul, steam through with the transports. Make sure to park the Italian Cruiser in the Straits, thereby preventing its recapture.

-Drop two Italian corps to take/destroy the Oil resources around Grozny and Tiflis.

-Drop four Italian Armies plus Balbo HQ to take/destroy mines next to Stavropol and conquer Stavropol.

-Link up with the Germans, chuckle heartily.

I botched a number of executions in this, including spending too much on a wasted defensive air war with Britain, letting Russian partisans grab Warsaw, and getting a randomly pissed off Russia who was 90% when I took the Baltic, and I still managed to end the demo with Italy having respectable (~180) resources and Russia having diddly-squatovitch.

[ July 30, 2002, 08:32 PM: Message edited by: Elijah Meeks ]

[Old Patch]

Wow! Looks like some more "Gibralter Straits" rules are in order!

[Aloid]

Hmmm... in the gold demo, Russia is always taking the baltic states pretty quickly. What level do you have the gold demo set at?

What turn is France falling on?

Aloid

[Hamstersss]

Just beginner level, France falls on 3-4. Even so, the tactic can be adjusted, it just means drawing out the war in France a turn or two to take the Baltic States quickly. The important thing is the 300MPP from conquering them, which lets you buy the HQ that makes the armies effective.

[Hamstersss]

Bump as a more feasible enabling of Italy than giving them France.

[Guest Mike]

Is there a russian Black Sea fleet while all this is happening??

[Hamstersss]

There's nothing but the fortress at Sevastopol.

Geez, there's more attention being given to a 19th century era Swedish battlefleet.

[Camicie Nere]

Maybe a Black Sea fleet unit would be a decent idea for the Russians in SC. I do not believe it was particularly large or powerful in real life, though.

I do know the Soviets were mightily worried about what the British and French could potentially do to them in the Black Sea during the Winter War with Finland. (And indeed, carrier strikes on the Caucasus fields were extensively planned by the silly Allies).

So that's an interesting strategy, and perhaps one that is not so "gamey" as some may think. I like the thought of giving Italy some run and seeing what mischief one could cause along the Black Sea. It might be a winner as part of an Iraq/Caucasus strategy - especially since the terrain makes it so difficult to go overland into Russia from the south.

[Jollyguy]

This Turkey gambit would seem easily slowed down against a human. Simply move the British fleet up a few hexes. The Italians may or may not defeat the Brit fleet, but they would definately be slowed down. Meanwhile, if you've taken the Baltics, the Russians will prepare for war.

I consider most "easy" strategies like this good practice against the computer, but that's it.

I think a key w/fog-of-war will be continual scouting/recon, to try to get some sense of where the opponent is, what he's up to, and where he's massing.

[Hamstersss]

Even though the British Navy didn't attack during my game (Perhaps they should be made more aggressive, that navy just sits around in most games), even if they did, under the control of a human player, the speed of the transports and the sizez of the Italian navy (Which has nothing to do except fight the Brits) precludes any real disruption of the Italian troop movements until it's too late.

And really, who's worried if Russia gets into the war early if they're down to double digits in less than a year?

And according to:

http://www.skalman.nu/soviet/ww2-navy-fleet-blacksea.htm

This was the composition of the Black Sea Fleet during WWII:

1 battleship

6 cruisers

18 destroyers

44 submarines

84 motor torpedo-boats

18 minesweepers

56 escort, patrol & river craft

Though it gives no word as to the quality of the ships, maybe they were Sweedish loaners.

[ July 31, 2002, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: Elijah Meeks ]

[anoldman]

I have used this strategy as well with slight variations.

When italy comes into war I send one Army to take the french city to the south and send the other one to the northern italian port. Isend my fleet south to prepare to destroy British fleet.

Next turn (Italy has no money to transport troops the first turn), I start my attack on the british fleet, and load up all coastal units into transports and head toward turkey gap.

3rd Turn I declare war on turkey, park a cruiser in the trukey gap, and land a corp on the east side of turkey. I then shoot through my transports.

(I am buying only corps for italy at this point and sending them for the gap when ready)

on turns 4+ I have my transports stationed off shore of the mines and oil fields ready to go.

With my German forces ready, I declare war, land my italy troops and start destroying the mines/oil fields. My italian forces have 0 to low supply but they can move the one hex needed to destroy the oil/mines.

Russian AI spends money to create 3 or so corps to defend cities and such in south. this is a bonus as the forces are not on the front lines where my german forces are pushing/surrounding/ and destroying russia's forces.

I have watched as russia will continue to occasional spend additional money for corps as it attacks my weakend italian units who by now have accompplished their objectives and reduced the Russian mines/oil.

Over all, it really makes my push into russia a lot easier. considering that you knock russia down about 50-60 dollars from the start, AND all of the money it spends on Corps to defend, AND the fact that those corps arent holding up your main German army, it really makes for a nice operation against russia.

I play on the standard setting. I actually find this pretty challenging but as you can tell from my lack of naming cities and such, I am no wargaming grognard.

Great Game Hubert! I need to change my Sig since I preporderd the other day Cant wait!

--An Old Man

[Sol Invictus]

I hope that in the full game that these types of gamey strategies have some unpleasant diplomatic effects. Of course they probably wont work against another human.

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by Sol Invictus:

I hope that in the full game that these types of gamey strategies have some unpleasant diplomatic effects. Of course they probably wont work against another human.

Why not?

[Jollyguy]

I have already developed a counter for this Axis strategy. Try the Turkey gambit on me when PBEM starts, and you'll find out what it is.

[Guest Mike]

Well for starters a Human player probably won't hang the Med fleet out to dry so you can wipe the floor with it.

Adn then if they see you putting lots of forces into Turkey you might find the 8th Army in Tripoli a bit earlier than it was historically.

Or Torch in 1941, or even an invasion of Italy.

I tried teh turkish scenario last night a couple of times.

there aer limitations as to what you can do - I invaded Sweden, Yugoslavia, Greece, Vichy (& Algiers) and Turkey.

The best I did was get the Italians into the Black Sea by the end of the game. I COULD have done a bit better I suppose, since all those campaigns required resources that might've ben used elsewhere.

But the main thing I remember was that Western Europe was Garrsoned by 1 Corps in Paris and a couple of British Home Guard platoons in dingys could probably have ended the war by Christmas!!

[Jollyguy]

Exactly. Any Axis player foolish enough to drain all Med forces for a distant landing elsewhere will find Allied units landing in his exposed Italian cities.

What I did was move all French naval units into the Med, as they do little good elsewhere, and planted the Southern France naval unit right in the middle of where the Italian Navy pops ups. I transported the Middle East French unit to Sicily, and was surprised that the computer was smart enough to operate a German Corps there, blunting that landing. I moved the Brit Navy into position, and elements of the Atlantic Brit Navy into the Med also. When the Italians declared war they were greeted with one French naval unit in their midst, and then pounded the next turn by the other three French naval units arriving on scene, plus the Brit navy. I let the French attack first and sustain most of the losses, as they disappear once France surrenders. Heavy losses were incurred on both sides regardless. But if the Italians had transports massed, they would have taken a beating also. Plus, that would have told me the Italians had left their cities exposed, leaving me the option to move/transport British ground units to the cities I would know to be undefended.

Good Luck

[Hamstersss]

Keep in mind the accelerated timetable due to the demo's time limit. Also, maybe my game's are the exception, but France doesn't last more than a turn after Italy's declaration of war and it's fleet doesn't have enough time for more than a volley.

Assuming the full game is no different, there are three issues to keep in mind for this strategy:

1) Not in such a hurry - Find the money elsewhere, maybe transport an Italian corps to Sweeden, maybe just let the money pile up.

2) The Caucasus are far more strategically important than North Africa - Who cares if the allies take Tripoli? Any invasion of Italy can be slowed by operationally moved German and Italian troops and, because it would be too early for US intervention, would leave Britain open to invasion.

3) The Italian Fleet is useless - If it takes the destruction of the fleet to a) render the British Med Fleet non-operational or b)keep the British Med Fleet busy while the transports rush across, who cares?

The issue of gaminess boils down to two points:

The Black Sea Fleet: Should the Russians have a Cruiser or even a Battleship in the Black Sea? According to the information I posted above, this fleet is larger than any other Russian fleet in WWII.

Should Control of the territory around Istanbul be so easy to wrest from Turkish forces? If you move the Turkish army one hex to the left(west), this can be avoided.

[Sol Invictus]

I realize using the word gamey when refering to a game is sorta strange but what I mean is that I try not to accomplish objectives that I know had no historical plausability. I realize that the fun of games like this is to try different strategies than the ones that were actually attempted, but for me at least, it is not fun to attempt to use strategies that had no historical chance of being attempted. I think we all can agree that there is no way Italy would have attacked Turkey to get at Russia. It just would never have happened. Germany attacking Sweden, Italy attacking Malta, Germany and Italy going all out for Suez, Germany invading Spain, these were all possible. The other major gamey strategy I have heard mentioned is Germany grabbing the Baltic States; wouldnt have happened, or at least if it had then the Russians would have reacted to it in a way that the game can't, at least I think. Sure you can do these things in the game and they can be very effective strategies, but I feel that they are taking advantage of the limitations of the game.

Now against a human opponent, the sky is the limit because they would be free to counter these very ahistorical strategies and would certainly do so. This is just for me against the AI. It's just more fun for me to play with some restraint on what I attempt. I am impressed with some of the clever strategies people come up with but if I cant reconcile them with what I feel had even a remote historical chance of occuring, then I wouldnt use them. But thats just the way I am.