John DiFool Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 :confused: I consider myself a fairly competent gamer. I have now seen several posts claiming that they have won total victory (as Axis) by the end of the game, with the difficulty settings maxed out. I am curious how you accomplished this, because in my experience with several such games, it is darned near close to impossible. In my last effort I toyed with the 39 campaign and shuffled all German troops into the French theatre (to take out the Frogs before they got too strong and then kill the Poles). Despite the huge advantage in extra resources this gave me, and the extra time it afforded me to build up a huge army to take out Russia (Poland fell in March '40 and Italy naturally enough joined me after France fell giving him a head start, plus I was able to take Scandinavia), and DESPITE lucking out into getting level 5 Industrial Tech (plus a few other goodies), by the start of '42 my sitrep was as follows: 1. My Russian Front was crumbling, and I was losing Tanks and Infantry Armies left and right. Any such unit sitting on the front lines without AT LEAST a strength of 8 almost inevitably bit the dust. The Russkie had so many planes I could never get the Luftwaffe (6 air groups) healed up enough to aid my armies in the field (too much time spent intercepting raids-I lose 3-5 points on my air groups per raid he loses 1-3). I managed to make it to the Minsk/Kiev line before the hordes threw me back. 2. The Allies just landed in January of '42, absolutely plastering my army in Brest with a combination of air fleets and ships (my subs managed to sink one before dying-alas). The Brits now have FIVE air fleets in Britain (ok one of them is the Malta one), plus the bomber, Free French one, and a US fighter, and any unit within range gets blown to bits. I am hesitant to transfer any air fleets over there because they will inevitably suffer the same fate. I guess I should have stuck a bunch of my 63 cost corps over there to deter the invasion-maybe... 3. Only the Italians are doing well, but now I will have to transfer the army group I was using to take Alexandria and shift it over to France, and pray they survive longer than 2 turns. So I am curious how you win against such odds. It seems to me that (even with Industrial Tech maxed out) you end up in an ever-worsening spiral of attrition, with all those enemy units of Elite experience just chewing those rookies which you futilely throw into the line to bits. Combine that with an invasion by the West which by all logical criteria they SHOULDN'T have been able to make by such an early date, and a promis- ing situation turned hopeless. I guess my only hope was using the Brest sub exploit to sink all those transports-too late now I guess-absent such 'gamey' tactics I frankly don't see how you it is possible. John DiFool [ August 14, 2002, 01:36 AM: Message edited by: John DiFool ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacob lundgren Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 i am begining to think we got 2 different games or we got either lots of liers (not likely) or a lot of really lucky people. people who are beating the world on this difficulty have to be doing something very odd or very different or very lucky or i am just very unlucky since on defult it took me till late 43 to beat russia admitedly my research wasnt very lucky but still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niklas.Andersson Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 Yes you are right about research beeing very importent and thats a hazard game. 1-3 levels higer tech than the AI in tank/fighter/anti-tank in the USSR theatre is needed. Max sub tech lvl to keep the USA in place is importent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 I haven't beaten it on Expert +2 either. Right now I'm trying Expert +1. The sub war went well for awhile, I killed the two carriers off plus some other ships. . I also killed a lot of the transports coming across before the U.S took out the subs. England and the U.S. just invaded France and they have a lot of strong air. Just received Jet +3 so I might be able to move a air unit back into France without having it wiped. I also have the Italians sending in two tanks and two armies to aid in beating them back. On the Eastern Front I've taken Riga, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa and the southern mines. I have had a huge pocket battle going on around Minsk and I'm trying to slowly grind them down. Hanging on by my fingernails, great game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gengisjon Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 I had a very tough time the first +1 game I played. Got beat up quite nicely. Because of this I did a little math using the combat formula’s provided in the users manual. Mind you math is not my strong suit so I may be off. If an army attacks an army with both at equal readiness (I used 87% for smiles) and experience (with no bonus for entrenchment or terrain) the attacker will take 1.74 points damage and the defender will take 3.48 (there is a random aspect – looks to be roughly + or – 1 point based on some simple tests). If the attacker has an experience level of 1 then this changes to 1.3 points for the attacker and 3.91 points for the defender. This is 25% less damage to the attacker and 12% more damage to the defender. If the experience level rises to 2 for the attacker then the losses become 0.87 for the attacker and 4.35 for the defender or 50% less for the attacker and 25% greater for the defender. If you factor in the increase in experience from winning battles the differential gets even greater. So to make a long story short you have to make sure that you are getting lot’s of bonuses (entrenchment, HQ, terrain) in order to win. (And I finally won playing the Allies at +1 late last night – still haven’t tried at +2). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P z B Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 I've posted a few threads on this thema! It's very challenging to win the +2 game... I won the +1 game on my first try, but +2 was a lot more difficult. I've picked up advice from ppl and I'm starting to get the receipt right! Poland, Denmark & France by early summer 40. Then Norway, Sweden, Spain, Yugo by summer 41. If I garrison the Russian border properly, they doesn't declare war on me until september 41. Buying 5 research points and putting them on subs, jets, tanks, AT & production should give you a very strong hand! With 13-15 str subs, you buy 5-6 of them and join them up with the Italian fleet. As the Allies try to invade you sometime in 42, you're ready and sink everything you come accross! This worked fine the last time I tried, turned my 100% attention on Russia in 44-45. When the game ended in 46 I was unstoppable in my move towards the Urals. Won a +168 points victory without invading England or getting Russia to surrender... Hope this will be helpfull Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackbellamy Posted August 15, 2002 Share Posted August 15, 2002 they key is to be ready for russia you have to fight every battle up until barbarossa with two things in mind, first to not lose even a single unit and then to make sure all your units accrue max experience i take poland, benelux, france, denmark, norway, sweden - by then yugos are mine courtesy of the revolt and my minors are activated the swedish force transports to danzig and is ready to invade russia - after fighting in 3 campaigns all those units are at 3+ exp i buy nothing but research until maxed for both axis - i max out industrial, then crank out cheap airplanes, then research jets and build ground units, after which i switch research to anti-tank i fight russia normally, for the challenge of it, but if you want to be gamey about it drive a huge force to moscow and surround it, but don't take it - russia will be unable to build new units or reinforce - you can then take the rest of the country easy as for the allies, i don't contest any landing due to their airpower - i let them land and get into a battle of attrition in france - it works out well because the americans are low tech with their 10's and the wermacht is at 13 or 14 by that time the west front doesnt matter unless they break into germany - if russia falls you will have overwhelming forces coming back to the ruhr and kick the allies ass, so just concentrate on russia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunslingr3 Posted August 15, 2002 Share Posted August 15, 2002 i fight russia normally, for the challenge of it, but if you want to be gamey about it drive a huge force to moscow and surround it, but don't take it - russia will be unable to build new units or reinforce - you can then take the rest of the country easy Hadn't thought of, or tried that, but I see how it would work. Yikes! Hubert, any chance of patching the Russian production supply line? Would it be possible to give them three capitols for the purposes of production? This would prevent PBEM games from devolving into the gamey tactic cited here, and would also allow for split fronts (fighting for the Urals and the Caucasus). I realize this isn't as simple as adding a few units for the Black Sea Fleet, but it would do a lot more for the Russian player. Gunslinger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts