Poland in 1 Turn!?

[6thAirborne]

Hi,

I have been having a discussion with one of my friends and we were wondering if it is possible to take Poland in the very first turn of the game?

Niether me or my friend have been able to accomplish this and I personally think its not possible.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers.

[kenfedoroff]

If you take Warsaw on the first turn there is about a 10% (?) chance of surrender. It has been done.

Hope this helps,

Ken

[Comrade Trapp]

Ken is right, even if you do take Warsaw the first turn, its unlikely the Polish will surrender that quickly. In fact, there is a downside, when your forces do take Warsaw and Poland doesn't surrender that turn, the forces you used to take the city will prob be cut off and be running out of supplies by time turn 2 comes around. Ofcourse you can breakout with no problem, but some of your units will be out of supplies and therefore will take more losses if used to attack (everythig goes back to normal by the next turn).

I think I have got Poland to surrender on turn 1 a couple of times in the past, but its rare.

Comrade Trapp

[Kuniworth]

That is false Comrade Trapp. You dont have to get troops cut off at all. Ive heard about Rambo gettin the poles to surrender in 1 turn btw

[Jollyguy]

I can take Warsaw in one turn about 6 or 7 times out of ten. The previous poster who said Poland will surrender about 1 in 10 times if Warsaw falls on turn one is in the ballpark, but it could be as low as 1 in 20. It's rare.

I'm of the mind though that taking Warsaw in one turn is not needed, as it takes a committment of your airfleets to do so. Knocking off as many Polish units as you can, and taking Warsaw on turn two, is fine. Strategically, your air is better positioned to take out Denmark and the Low Countries ASAP, to forestall a Dutch Gambit.

[Comrade Trapp]

Kuniworth

I didn't say the troops always get cut off, I said its been know to happen. The Polish troops don't even have to move, the zones of control sometimes change automaticly.

Rambo prob can capture Warsaw on turn 1, but considering the Polish never surrended the same time every game I doubt that Rambo gets Poland to surrender everytime.

Comrade Trapp

[JerseyJohn]

I've taken Poland on turn one several times, naturally you have to capture Warsaw before the country surrenders.

Along with the capture of Warsaw the Polish Army has to be seriously depleted. Sometimes it takes the destruction of the two armies but usually it hangs on in any case.

If Warsaw is captured on the first turn but the country doesn't surrender, the remaining Polish units counter attack on turn two and sometimes inflict annoying casualties on the Germans.

I've found the least costly and best strategy is to destroy all the Polish border units on the first turn, bring two or three German units adjacent to Warsaw itself. The two remaining Polish corps withdraw to help protect Warsaw and on the second turn Germany can proceed to destroy them easily while capturing the capital. It isn't necessary to destroy the Polish Air Force to capture the country.

For supply purposes, destroy the Polish Army near the Danzig corridor first. After taking Warsaw your occupying force will be linked to this area and your northern HQ should be moved into it. With the southern HQ moved to the border your invading forces should be easily supplied.

Capturing Poland on the first turn is always gratifying but if it misses and all you've done is taken Warsaw you'll generally have higher casualties.

[Edwin P.]

JerseyJohn

Thanks for the background on taking Poland on turn 1 and taking out the army near Danzig (I usually go for the armies & corps to the south first).

I have always taken Poland on turn two or three (if the surrender is delayed) and never on turn one. I will try it.

Normally, I end-up taking Poland on turn 2 and Denmark on turn 3.

[JerseyJohn]

Good Luck. I've found it always leads to a lively offensive.

[Iron Ranger]

I've always been interested in this subject, if you can get the ball rolling fast for the axis (poland on turn one - denmark or on LC turn two) then france falls very fast and your looking real good!

So I ran some play tests on v1.07 - Hotseat

Attacked poland with the objective or knocking her out ASAP.

10 attacks

Warsaw fell 5 times but the poles didn't surrender

Warsaw didn't fall 4 times - left with '1' str corp in the capital

Poland Surrendered one time - the only difference was both armys were destroyed

Every attack involved all the german resources expect the two corps on the french border.

I have seen poland fall and units operated west for the LC attack on turn two but this has to be a very low odds success rate (1%?). Remember when playing he AI on beginer the Human seams to have a bouns 'luck' factor always working to his advantage.

The bottom line is that your better off using an over all attack that plans for the possiability of the LC gambit and going for Denmark and maybe Norway before moving onto france by turn 5 or 6.

[JerseyJohn]

Regarding Poland by itself:

Taking Warsaw on turn one with Poland falling is a quirky situation. At one point I thought it could be done pretty much at will, but I've followed the same plan repeatedly with what seemed to be the same results without having the country fall.

The numbers you've listed are pretty much why I've given up on looking to take Poland in one, or even taking Warsaw on the first move. I've found the losses are lower for Germany by taking it in two steps. Turn One destroy the armies and corps to the East of Warsaw simultaneously moving adjacent to the capital. Turn Two take Warsaw and destroy the remaining two armies.

As for hitting the Low Countries on turn two even it means taking Poland a couple of turns late, I haven't tried it but the Low Countries Gambit seems to have returned with a vengence, so it probably isn't a bad idea.

[gorber]

Regarding Poland you should calculate with 2 turns.

Take denmark next (takes two turns) and also use these turns to redeploy your armies to the west. Think it can be done in one of you use both tank units an all warships to bombarde plus one or two air units. But they take one turn to redeploy so you end up with two turns from Taking Poland anyway. It should be possible to redeploy the tank units to the Danish borders after taking Warsaw and let the armies do the sweep-up of the rest of the polish units. I always hit one of the center polish units first with armies to make a hole for the tank units to hit Warsaw directly on first turn together with all air units.

Low countries takes one turn, two if you are unlucky with the airstrikes.

After this you have the MPP:s to buy two more airfleets and you can take down those frensh and english airmen with an advantage of 5 to 2 (if he doesnt move forward his carriers but then it will just take 1-2 turns longer and he will loose them as well).

In the 1.07beta patch i noticed that the AI will retreat to Paris of you punch a serious hole in his northern defences (always leave the maginot untouched). Now if i push beyond Paris with my tanks he will start to become undecisive and it usually takes not that long time to kill Paris and he then will surrender. Think the AI shouls stick to defending Paris to make it last longer.

[ April 29, 2003, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: gorber ]

[SeaWolf_48]

I know you are a bunch of smart guys, but why doesn't someone complain about the Polish Airforce being to strong. They had Krapski planes. No way should they start out with 10 points, maybe 3pts! I've never beat AI on turn one, and against TCP player Poland Campaign can go on forever, hiding planes and units in the corners of Poland. Another example that Panzers in SC are too weak! Panzers cut thru Polock Troops like sh_t thru a goose! And they were mostly PZKW 1's and 2's. How long did Poland last in history....... Sept 1st thru Sept 28th, four weeks, one month, ONE TURN .

[Shaka of Carthage]

SeaWolf_48

The strength of the Polish Airforce was complained about back way too many pages. Just like there were complaints about the Partisan forces being too strong.

It comes down to the fact that it was a easy way to get these units in play without having to make a new unit to represent them. And the player always has the option to edit the scenario unit strength of the Polish Air Force (which most of the "historical" mods do).

[gorber]

what about a system where the maximum capacity of the airfleets had different starting positions?

US air could start on 10 like today with max 15

polish on oh say 6-7 with max 11-12 (like they ever are going to last that long right! hehe)

Anyway it could work for the other countries like Italy, France, Britain, germany...

But hell that would possibly be an overkill. Havent seen that solution in any other game either (not even hicom )

[JerseyJohn]

SeaWolf

Glad you brought it up. As Shaka says, many people, including yours truly, have hit the point that Poland's Airforce was destroyed primarily on the first day. No knock against their pilots, many of whom proved themselves repeatedly later flying for the RAF. As you say, their aircraft were incredibly obsolete.

In the 1939 scenario, the Luftwaffe and RAF should both be L=1 with France and Italy L=0. In scenarios I usually start the Luftwaffe out at L=2 with the RAF at L=1 with the assumption they'll catch up by the Battle of Britain, which nearly happens. At L=2 the Luftwaffe destroys the Polish Airforce the way it did historically.