Trouble winning battles

[Kaiser554]

OK, Im a little frustrated so i will try not to hate on this game. Let me just give some examples of my problems.

1. I attacked malta ( containing 1 british air unit) with 3 german fighter squads ( with a jet aircraft research of 3) along with 2 Italian Fighter squads (with jet research of 2) and two italian battleships and 1 cruiser. I attacked this one air unit from early 1940 to late 1943 with no success, at times not one of my attacks managed to hit them at all!! At the same time I took horendous losses.???????????

2. It took me 14 turns to take the capitol of norway with two panzer units, 3 fighter squads and 3 armies!????????

3. Another time I invaded the us. I had 4 tank units ( all @ strength 14), 2 infanty units (all with a experience of 3 medals), 2 bombers and two battelships. I landed in the US in 1941, by the end of 1945 I made absolutly no progress.??????? I didnt take out one single US unit!!!!?????????

4. I attacked france in may 1940.......by the time Russia entered the war I wasnt even out of the low countries. Now I understand that the french had the strongest most expertly trained and lead army at the time but shouldnt I atleast get one or two wins with the puny Germans (thats sarcasm in case you missed it)

I understand stratagy...but when you have one infantry unit in the open surrounded by tank units the stratagy is attack!!! But I guess for this game the mighty French infantry can withstand the attack of 5 panzer groups ( Thats more sarcasm ) Maybe im doing something wrong? I hope someone can explain it to me before I throw this game in the trash

[Terif]

Hmm...first you should read the user manual . It contains not much details, but the most important basics you can find there like e.g. how combat works, about readiness, HQs and entrenchment...

For a bit more details you can read here in the forum the FAQ sticky for new players (including my Hints for new/intermediate players and basic knowledge SC ).

Your basic problems seem to be:

- your units need HQ support to be really effective in combat, especially when they want to attack (HQs make ~1/3 of the combat efficiency for land/air units).

- supply is also very important and if you attack without supply i.e. you loose up to another ~1/3 of your combat efficiency.

- terrain can provide good protection for defenders (e.g. fortresses, mountains, forest, cities) or hinder attackers (rivers, swamps reduce the attackers combat value by 50%). Entrenchment protects a defender also.

- before an attack you can see the expected combat results for attacker and defender in the middle of the information bar at the top of the screen, so you can plan your attack in advance and you can see if it makes sense to attack or not.

Solutions for your descibed problems:

1. Malta is a fortress (= huge defence bonus especially vs air attacks (Bonus: 4)) and if the enemy unit there is additionally entrenched you can´t harm it with direct attacks - so direct attacks are usually not a good idea if there is an airfleet (=AF). Nevertheless if you have jets lv 2+ you can kill it even with direct air strikes if you have reduced the entrenchment to zero AND your AFs are HQ supported.

But it´s pretty easy: attack Malta port and you will force the Malta AF to intercept. During an intercept it is not protected by its fortress and entrenchment any more. Since Sicily provides much better supply and the axis air there has HQ support, the allied AF will usually loose 2-4 times as much mpps than the axis one. If the enemy reinforces Malta, be happy, train your AFs there and Allies will spend most of their income to reinforce Malta each turn...(human players remove their air from Malta if Axis air appears in Sicily and placing a land unit there is also not a good idea since then the italian navy can train).

2. Norway: You should take Oslo with the first strike and your initial landing forces (during the first turn of an amphibious landing they start with full supply/readiness). 2 armies/tanks left and right of the capital, 2-3 AFs in Denmark and the Oslo corps will be killed for sure. A corps lands too and takes the port after the defender is dead, a second corps lands via port and takes the capital -> Norway surrenders.

If you can´t take Oslo in the first turn, then your units are stranded without supply and without HQ and can´t do much harm any more, so you should avoid this. But in case it happens, you now need 3-4 AFs in Denmark and much more landing forces (perhaps including a HQ) to save your stranded units before destruction.

3. To invade the US you should take Canada first, then you can place 6 AFs + HQ there and you need a lot of carriers too (5-10). Therefore if the USA are defended you can only successfully invade the USA after you have conquered Russia (+ England).

If you want to land directly without airsupport from Canada/carriers, you will have a problem if Allies defend USA (if it is empty that´s another case ) since they can buy their units there, have full supply + HQ support and can easily block any landing sites - usually not possibly to conquer USA or to even kill a US unit this way (i.e. this is a bad idea ) .

4. Russia only enters so early if you have not conquered Poland or leave no guarding unit at the russian border. You have 5 turns (more than enough time if you don´t do something stupid) to conquer Poland before russian readiness really starts increasing and until October 1940 you only need one unit in either Königsberg or Warsaw to prevent a russian readiness increase - read my help thread for more details about how russian readiness works.

If you do it right, Russia will not enter before the summer/end of 1941.

To kill an enemy unit you should use combined attacks of airfleets and ground units. Normally in open terrain you can kill an enemy unit with 3 (HQ supported !) armies/tanks, but if it is entrenched/protected by terrain you can also need 4 or more. But your opponent will most likely not allow you to attack with 3+ ground units - especially not in France. In France it is no problem to reduce the front to 2 hexes, so you can only bring 2 ground units into combat. To kill the enemy you need some airfleets too (after you have conquered Poland + Denmark, Germany can afford 1-2 additional AFs and a third HQ, i.e. it has 4-5 AFs). So strike with your ground units first, then you see where you can make best use of your air and can finish the enemy unit with some airstrikes.

Last but not least: it is usually not a good strategy to attack everything that comes into your sighting range - sometimes it is better to defend. Before you attack somewhere you should take into account e.g. enemy entrenchment, terrain, expected combat losses for both sides, the strength and weaknesses of the different unit types and not to forget possible counterattacks during the enemy turn .

[ October 24, 2004, 03:42 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Kaiser554]

Thanks Terif, lots of good info,I really want to like this game, I guess I just got frustrated and stopped paying attention to the "little" things. I sleep on it and try again tomorrow with a more detailed mindset. The way you descride the game makes it sound really awesome and im sure i'm going to love it. Thanks again

[it's Les]

It's all in the details.

What difficulty settng were you using?

And as with what Terif said, are you sure your units were capable of the missions you gave them?

In my first plays of the game way back when, I suffered a great deal from simply not paying attention to the details in the lower left of the screen.

[Feldtrompeter]

Les said:

In my first plays of the game way back when, I suffered a great deal from simply not paying attention to the details in the lower left of the screen.

LOL, nicely said.

[hoolaman]

Also if I am not mistaken, armor units attack much better if they have a "run-up" ie. a stationary or entrenched armour unit will be much less effective than one that moves then attacks.

[Terif]

Sorry Hoolaman, you are mistaken

In contrary it is the other way round:

If a unit just moved or is entrenched doesn´t matter for the attack value. But if you move a unit you will loose entrenchment (i.e. loose protection against a possible counterattack). And there is also a slight readiness loss if you move a unit and then strike (0-6% readiness, depending on the terrain where you move). So an entrenched/stationary unit is more effective than a unit that moves and then attacks .