The (in)famous Attack on Italy - revised!

[Norse]

Hello again boys and girls (mostly girls yeah?)

I have discovered an undocumented feature, well atleast I am looking up and down thru the manual and I cannot see it mentioned anywhere. I'm sure other's have noticed this as well, but you're too cheap to share it with the rest of us Well have no fear! Norse will share it with ya

Anyhow, before I go on, allow me to comment a few critics first. The critics (not saying this in a bad way) got me wondering if it would be possible to do this attack in a radically different way so the critics would be pleased.

I always thought that the allied tradeoff for commencing this attack, was that you hadto get the French HQ. Getting this French HQ costs about 400 MPP, which is quite alot for a nation that collects about 115 MPP per turn. You can do alittle math a sunday morning yea? France must collect MPP for four turns in order to afford the HQ (unless, of course, you disband a couple units, more on it later).

Critics then said, ahh but this will leave the frontline weakened and the Germans will stomp all over Paris, before the attack against Italy can even be commenced!

Alright, that is why I am in favour of salvaging the French fleet so all is good.

Critics then claimed that this would lead to unforseen consequences and so on. No free French battleships and such.

Well, all along while we discussed this, I thought that it was abelutely critical for France to have the HQ. Because the two armies that attack Rome are the two main units, they are the ones that need to knock out most of the Rome garrisons strenght, while the other units (called "support") take out the rest.

So therefore, it is abselutely critical that the two armies have the highest supply and readiness rating that is possible.

When you transport any unit out at sea, then it will report back to you with the same readiness and supply rate that it had while it was at land. That is why it was needed to have the two armies attached to the HQ, atleast one turn before they disembark and transport towards Italy.

This new feature thus changes everything. It might be a bug, I don't know, only Hubert can answer that. Regardless, the feature is there, and unless it is changed away in the future, then we will be using it. If it IS a bug, then Hubert needs to know about it so he can do something about it. If it is NOT a bug but a feature, then I need to go back and correct my advice to everyone, since the HQ is not needed.

The HQ is not needed, because the two armies, will get 100% readiness on the turn they invade Italy. This is a onetime feature that they get. I don't quite fully understand how this happens, but I leave that for someone else to figure out. I would make a wild guess and say that SUPPLY is the dominant factor when invading, and a unit will get invasion readiness according to how much supply it got.

Enough about that.

So how does this change things?

Well, as already mentioned, you don't need the HQ. Without the need of the HQ, you don't haveto salvage the fleet to do this attack. In fact, you don't haveto buy a single unit for this attack. Attacking Italy now costs 0 MPP, so you can afford all the defence that you want.

The only tradeoff is 1 army. If you can spare one single French army, then you can lanuch the attack. That's it. You got all the units you need for the attack.

There are two ways.

I only advice this first way, the Go Safe way

Hubert advices that you send the Canuck army to Egypt, where it will defend against the Italian hordes. Well since you are going to send it to the med anyway, might as well use it for this attack. Because it cannot be attached to any HQ, then this is the 1 time where it will perform just as good as any other army. It will get a 100% readiness when it invades, and this gives the French one more army to defend with at home, so let's use the Canuck army.

While you transport the Canuck army over to France and set it up, send a carier from Britain towards Italy. Use the French battleship in the Med for the attack, along with the one carrier from Egypt. Put your airforces to good use, and get the French airfleet in position with the one British bomber and one British airfleet as well.

This isn't too much, you can spare the forces. It will only take one turn to attack anyway, so your forces will be freed up when this is accomplished, not to mention that France will collect over 220 MPP per turn.

Do it this way, and Rome will fall April 14 1940. I'll include some tips at the end of the post on how to make the best use of your forces.

There is another way, for thoose who simply cannot wait. Use two French armies, use the airfleets, and don't bother to wait for any Canucks or the British carrier, just use the one from Egypt. This has a LOW probability chance, but it can be done. I don't advice this though. But if you do this, then Italy falls December 10 1939...

So how to make the best attack?

The Rome garrison will start with an entrench value of 4, this means that it is generally a bad idea to use your two armies to attack first, because you want them to do maximum damage.

That's why, you use your worst units first. That is, the ones with the lowest readiness value, and the lowest probability to actually do some damage.

For every attack commenced against Rome, the Italian garrison's entrench value will be reduced by 1 point. This is regardless as to what kind of unit attacks.

By the time the garrison reaches 0, then unleash your armies, and then use the rest of your support units to wipe it out.

It might not work every time, but it works more often than not. So just give it your best shot. If you feel that you need to do an overkill, then just buy some other units (or even include the third carrier) and you should be good. This attack already costs you 0 MPP, so you can easily afford some extra stuff.

As always, this is just a guideline revised, if you feel that you must do any changes then just do it. I am probably not replying to anyone this time unless they got a real question. WIP, Whine In Peace

tadda!

~Norse~

(pictures coming as soon as the webserver I host them on starts working)

[Henri]

Norse, from the 1.5 manual, one cannot salvage (disband)naval units any more. So the old strategy is dead anyway...

Henri

[Norse]

lol

Here i am saying that disbanding fleets no longer are needed, and you come on whining like that, LOL

I love these cute little l33t n00bs, they are so cute, awwww

~Norse~

[ November 03, 2002, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: Norse ]

[Henri]

Originally posted by Norse:

[QB]lol

I love these cute little l33t n00bs, they are so cute, awwww

QB]

I ain't no noob, check out my member number...

And what does 133t mean?

Henri

[Yohan]

With all this MMP spent and 2-3 carriers in the Med the UK becomes a pretty easy Sea Lion. Either way it makes for a quick, and IMHO un-fun game for both players.

Happy to play you a game to prove it.

btw, fleet disbanding still works

[Norse]

Originally posted by Yohan:

With all this MMP spent and 2-3 carriers in the Med the UK becomes a pretty easy Sea Lion. Either way it makes for a quick, and IMHO un-fun game for both players.

I stated that you spend 0 mpp to successfully knock italy out. But you didn't really read that, did you?

~Norse~

[ November 03, 2002, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Norse ]

[I/O Error]

Originally posted by Henri:

I ain't no noob, check out my member number...

And what does 133t mean?

Henri

You're a n00b to the game, your member number is unimportant. Fleet disbanding works just fine, unless they're taking that out in some (so far unannounced) future patch. Where the hell are you getting this idea that naval disbanding was taken out? :confused:

And l33t is more or less a tortured derivative of the word "elite". Pronounced "leet".

[ November 03, 2002, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: I/O Error ]

[Yohan]

Norse,

By deploying all those units south you displace MPP that could be used elsewhere. You missed the point that this makes for a very short game every time. Either you make it or the game is over, not much fun. Sorry you choose only to address the portion of comments you prefer.

Yohan

P.S. The offer of a game to prove this can work is still open when 1.06 gets out of beta

[ November 03, 2002, 08:20 PM: Message edited by: Yohan ]

[Jollyguy]

Norse;

In a prior post I challenged you to a game. No response from you.

I don't consider your strategies gamey, because IMO there really aren't any gamey strategies, because all major moves prior to Barbarossa carry action/reaction consequences to each side. But I do believe your strategies to be flights of fancy that will only work against the AI, not a real human opponent.

So, do you want to play TCP or not?

Bob

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

Remember guys, norse is an a pretty oddy timezone. Its hard for him to get games going with most of us.

CvM

[Rouge]

who gives a damn who has more posts but norse mate- not a good idea to call someone with twice as many posts as u a n00b.

henri- nobody likes a smart arse

[Norse]

Originally posted by Carl Von Mannerheim:

Remember guys, norse is an a pretty oddy timezone. Its hard for him to get games going with most of us.

CvM

My timezone is better than yours ffs

~Norse~

[ November 04, 2002, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: Norse ]

[Henri]

Originally posted by I/O Error:

I don't have it here, but the updated pdf manual that comes with the latest patch specifically says that naval units may not be disbanded.I'll try to remember to check it out and give the exact quote and page number.

Henri

[pzgndr]

The original version only allowed disbanding of land and air units, as stated on p33 of the manual (which has not been updated, yet). v1.0 reduced disbanding value to about 50% less. v1.01a added disbanding of naval units (max return 10% of purchase value). At only 10% value, disbanding fleets is not a wise thing to do, but is of course an option.

What's the difference between a risk and a gamble? If you take a risk and lose, you should be able to recover. If you take a gamble and lose, you probably won't recover. IMHO, cashing out the French fleet and attacking Italy is a gamble. If you fail to knock out Italy immediately, the consequences are pretty brutal.

[Norse]

Why would you want to cash out your fleet? :eek:

~Norse~

[Norse]

I agree that the manual needs some updating. Henri, consider it an undocumented feature in the game (there are more of them).

~Norse~

ps, number of posts don't mean anything....if you think it does, then...

[ November 05, 2002, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Norse ]

[Norse]

...you will soon find me making alot of them

aww you n00bies are so cute awwww

[ev]

Invading Italy seems very risky.

Anyone out there tried the following:

Park the British Med Fleet in Malta together with one Airfleet. Reinforce the French Med Fleet with 2 Cruisers from the Atlantic. As soon as Italy Declares War, knock down as many Italian ships as possible.

If you knock out the Italian ships, my guess is that Italy wont be able to hold North Africa later down the game... The Axis player would be forced to bring the Luftwave into the Med (and away from Britain) just to hold Lybia.

...I will try this next weekend. If any one out there have tried it, let me know.

[I/O Error]

Originally posted by Henri:

I don't have it here, but the updated pdf manual that comes with the latest patch specifically says that naval units may not be disbanded.I'll try to remember to check it out and give the exact quote and page number.

Henri

The latest version is 1.05, the TCP/IP patch. There was no updated PDF file. It's still the same ol' manual as before.

Henri, I recommend you read the updated "SC version Changes.txt" file, that will bring this pointless discussion to an end rather quickly.

(Far as I'm concerned, this sort of thing proves what Norse was saying, post count and member number mean NOTHING.)

[I/O Error]

ev - I would say that I agree with you, but if the gamble IS successful you're looking at one HELL of a game decider. Personally I'm far too defensive minded, but this is a perfect strategy for the more aggressive players out there.

I mean, most "uber-special plans" we see put forth tend to rely too much on luck, player skill and the enemy being clueless. This one only relies on luck, that's a lot better than most master strokes can say for themselves.

[Henri]

Originally posted by I/O Error:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

The latest version is 1.05, the TCP/IP patch. There was no updated PDF file. It's still the same ol' manual as before.

Henri, I recommend you read the updated "SC version Changes.txt" file, that will bring this pointless discussion to an end rather quickly.

[/QB]</font>

[Norse]

You are right Henri, the manual does say that. In the "gold" version of the game you could not disband your fleets, but Hubert added this feature in a later patch. Now you can disband fleet's that start the turn in a port.

Studying the manual is a good thing, but you might want to check out "SC version Changes.txt" like IO Error said, so everything is sorted. The Changes.txt file includes all updates to the manual.

~Norse~

[Henri]

Originally posted by Norse:

Studying the manual is a good thing, but you might want to check out "SC version Changes.txt" like IO Error said, so everything is sorted. The Changes.txt file includes all updates to the manual.

I did read that, but if there is a change that says that ships can now be disbanded, I missed it.

Anyway, am I wrong in supposing that eveyone agrees that ships should not be allowed to be disbanded? Well maybe not, if Hubert changed it so that they could...

:confused:

Anyway I enjoy your posts about strategy. Keep it up.

Henri

[Norse]

Thanks Henri

When the game was released (or was it the demo?), someone wondered why ships couldn't be disbanded. I remember that a huge discussion came out of it, where Hubert eventually said he would add the feature to the game. The thread is way back there now, hehe, but if you look really hard for it

~Norse~