AAR, Rambo vs. Jollyguy, Axis Rambo in Full Retreat in Africa

[jon_j_rambo]

This game is Summer '43. Real cat/mouse. Russians sent all their Armor to prevent German breakthru via Eastern Turkey. There have been fights around the Marsh, with a few deaths on both sides. Neither of us have gone "all out"...yet.

The combined Italian & German Naval forces rule the Med. Allies still control Tobruk, RAF is working from that area, while Nazis Air Aces are near Istabul.

German Panzers (3 of them) took back Tunisa & Tripoli. I needed to make sure he didn't try any slippery stuff against my underbelly. Time for some uppercuts in Russia...I now have HT +5. LF is deadly.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Up to now this is the most entertainíng AAR... most of them were decided by the end of 42... and this one isn`t. Although with Turkey the tides turn in favour for the axis, the last word isn`t said...

[Blashy]

I wonder when the Allies will do something in the West.

I can see USA taking 1 city along the Atlantic coast, especially African Spain/Vichy territory.

Or US troops start to arrive via Cape of Good Hope.

Some screenshots of this game would be interesting.

[hellraiser]

Yeah, nice game, non-standard one, so to speak.

Axis went for the fun game this time, Rambo style. And Jollee countered with some nice moves.

Egypt could have gone a bit different for Axis, IMO. Kinda sloppy campaign down there.

[jon_j_rambo]

Everybody knows I'm an Entertainer. Play the Legend, something fun will happen. I'm not & have never been a follower of cookie cutters. I don't enjoy slow or boring play.

[hellraiser]

you're unique, we already know that

[Jollyguy]

Yes, interesting game. I have the Turkish capital back, but lost two African cities, Tunisia and Tripoli. Also landed on the Italian boot and took Sicily and the south boot city, but pulled out of both. Those level five amphib tanks are hard to stand up against without solid entrenchment and then air support. A three or four tank amphip task force is quite potent.

Malta still holds, I moved the corp out to try to capitalize on my Africa/Italy moves, but amphibed a corp just in case, which came in handy, as when JR saw Malta empty he jumped on it and disabled the port. But my bomber could see all his subs, so it was no problem for the captains of the transports to weave around danger and land the corp even without a port.

One thing I think we're both learning is that holding trophy cities near the frontline isn't of much value if it leaves you open for punishing, multi-unit loss counter-moves. I had every Russian city back except the north one by Finland, then JR launched a punitive offensve, and me in return. He is moving back into Russia now, but mud and then winter hit, so it seems at the moment that its a see-saw in Russia, except that the Russians have good hitting power, so it's not like the early game where the Axis gets his way and all the Russians can do is fall back; the Axis gets a bloody nose regularly. But I can see his level 5 tanks, so what I suspect is that the give-and-take war of attrition in Russia will break one direction eventually.

Meanwhile, out west, the Americans and Brits are assembling a potent teched-up strike force. I'm keeping my eye on his navy and tracking units. The Allies will have their pick of landing areas, the only question is which part of the expansive Axis coastline that they'll hit.

Bob

[jon_j_rambo]

You send the turn(s)? Do you want to start AAR for game #2 also?

[jon_j_rambo]

Feb. 1944 --- Russia is Iced over. Germans hold West side of Dneiper. I tried to surround Smoltzkey, but got popped from units around Moscow.

In Africa, the RAF pings a few of my ships around the Tobruk area.

[Jollyguy]

Okay, this one ended in an Axis (Rambo) victory. I resigned in June of 1945, could have fought on for two more years, but the balance of power shifted to the Axis, but I'm not much for playing games where victory is likely not attainable.

Seeing as Hellraiser and the American Baron are embroiled in a game where the Brits also moved to Alexandria, I'll give you a general rundown of the action and my opinion.

The apex of Allied (my) power was pushing west in Africa and taking Tunisia, while at the same time taking Sicily and the Italian boot city. But by then Rambo had reinforced his Italian and German navies, and got them both up to gun layng radar two, and contrary to the other poster who has minimized naval power, John put his combined Axis navy to superb use. He sealed off the Med at the occasional cost of getting hit by my air, and then steadily rolled me back. He establshed a three tank, level 5 raiding group, and cleared me out of Italy, then Tunisia, and then all the way back to Tobruk. He was slow, steady, and patient. He presaged his Med advances by first delivering a powerful offensive in Russia, then another, where I had reclaimed all but one city. So, while he was advancing out west, I was repairing in the east.

The turning point was a climatic battle of Tobruk. I had pulled back and was in the process of setting up a defensive line around my final English capital, and fearful of his teched up tank raiders, when he came right at me, backed up by level four fighters in Greece and his beefed up navy. It was a short, sharp battle, but when the smoke cleared he had much more left standing in Africa than I. Then he moved in Russia, with lesser but still advantageous result.

So, here's my take on the game:

1) When I had the upper hand in the Med, John did the correct thing IMO, and collected minors, as he was going to eventually need the economic base.

2) John is good at keeping one off balance. We also had a battle of the arrows at the bottom of the board, where he placed his Axis navy mid-game. This made me tech up my navy in order to get units to Africa, and cost me time.

3) John also did tactical retreats well. He had no problem retreating in the Med and living to fight another day, same in Turkey.

4) Tech is paramount in this game. I tried to have a low tech Allied force hold Turkey, and it didn't work, even in the mountains. I should have operated over high tech Russians, which I did eventually to reclaim the capital, but meanwhile it cost me time and units. IMO a smart player will play his tech advantage to the opponents tech weakness, and like in poker, draw to his advantage and make the other players pay to beat you.

5) IMO if the British capital moves to Alexandria, the Axis needs to take this seriously, and slowly build-up down there. If the Axis can take Alexandria he knocks them out of the war, while if the Allies get entrenched in the Med, the Axis has a big underbelly to protect.

6) Losing Gibralter hurts at times, as when Allied supply is effected some cities and ports are knocked below 5, which if this happens at an inopportune time, can trap Allied units, or impede they're ability to amphib, transport, or operate.

7) As the Axis I suspect John went hi-tech for both industiral/manufacturing techs. Eventually he kicking out units and repairing them at a fast clip.

8) I finally had to reclaim Turkey, as it occured to me that if he broke through he could come in behind Alexandria and take out the Brits. He almost poured into Iraq before I was able to stem his advance.

9) The Russians as non-cooperative Allies mean the Western Allies cannot operate into Russia, or vice-versa. I even moved my American bomber into Russia at one point, but without an HQ he had zero supply, as the Russian don't supply Western Allied units.

10) Long range air could be valuable. Had I had more advances I would have been able to spot things. So IMO a bomber is a valuable unit.

11) Tanks are the kings of this game, hand's down, and to counter you need good fighters, which hit tanks fairly well. It's like rock, paper, scissors, you need to counter your opponents advantages.

12) Interestingly, we were both locked in the struggle so long, that Sweden never go invaded. I intended to, but could never spare the expeditionary force, and I guess same for John.

13) Urals industry really helps the Russians, especially if they can rollback the Axis advance at some point. I think at one point I was up 475 Russian mpps per turn, which included Turkey and Finland for Russia.

All-in-all it was a great game. I think a handful of better moves on my part as the Allies could have turned the tide, but live and learn, John is a great player, and there is no doubt that I learn more playing him in less time than against any number of less experienced players.

Bob

[jon_j_rambo]

My strategy was quite different in this game. In the early game, I put chits in Diplo for Romania & Hungary, got a nice base going, but a slower France.

I got crushed in the first weak effort for Egypt way back in 1940. So I did a SeaLion, Allies had a ton of stuff in Egypt. SeaLion was relatively easy.

Russia was very cat & mouse, I only jabbed at him, while I controlled the rest of the board (minus the Med losses, Sweden). Swallowing those minors gave me a nice base of MMPs, 500 & something. I figure MMPs were thus even between us. Thus I had the advantage.

I went crazy on tech, since I played conversative in Russia. I ended up with nearly ever tech Maxed!!!

I figured the key was pick on the Allies were they were weak. The Russians had slight tank advantage, so I tried to avoid a collision with them. I went into Turkey, retreated when I saw Russian tanks. Then back to Russia.

Finally, I decided on working on the weaker Allies, USA & UK. The LF was positioned in Romania for most the game, had maximum experience with a 3-star HQ They were deadly and in a safe spot to work Southern Russia, Turkey, and eventually moved to Greece.

A major battle at Tobruk really hurt the Allies...He went on an offensive, just when I put my LF in Greece, and had the majority of Navies with GLR+2 in the area. I put a few ships near the arrow to Suez, to annoy the USA, almost killed Patton! I took in 5 strong ground units, and was able to sting the enemy quickly.

Good game, was different.

[guinty1]

good game,very intresting read.

[Guest Mike]

Thanks for the tips - John's using at least a few similar strategies against me - forewarned is forearmed!!

[hellraiser]

@Jollyguy - good game and not a shame at all to lose -> Rambo knows how to play strategy games

It may seem that he's all mouth but if he focuses he's a very difficult opponent.

Regarding your strategy - the Med approach is a very interesting one but it bears a great risk -> losing the game in 41

Because the victory conditions are not allright now, Axis needs to hold Berlin, Paris, Rome, London and Moscow to win the game -> so after a Sealion , Axis should amass great strength against Moscow, playing defensive in other areas, get Moscow and bye bye. There is little to be done in 41 if the bulk of the german army concentrates in front of Moscow, unless Russians were extremely lucky with techs.

As it is now, the game is heavily biased towards axis - it is way too easy to get Egypt and England during the same time (a strategy I noticed from the very beggining, when the game went out), it is way too easy to capture USA and Russia is a joke until mid 42. Attack values are too high, defence is almost impossible in a lot of areas. Tanks need a bit of nerfing - you get lucky with tech (i got tigers in 40 ...) and you wipe out a unit in one hit. The economic model is nice, Allies being weak at the start then having lots of cash later on...but their problem is that by then Axis is on par in mpp terms and Axis retain the huge advantage of using all their cash in the spot of their liking, due to 'operating units' and a compact empire they get.

As a side note - I remember an older thread after the game went out to public - I raised this question of how easy is to knock UK out of the war and the importance of the british home isle as a springboard for opening the second front. Blashy argued that USA and USSR will join and things would be balanced out and even the Allies would have the upper hand.

It would be the case if they had the cash, but they do not. So they just lose the game if they lose the UK. Ask Yoda and he will explain you as well, why pursuing this strategy is so tempting for Axis.

For avoiding this unrealistic scenario, amhibious landing system needs reworking which will make RN useful at fending off ridiculous Sealions or USA invasions. The old model of SC1 of waiting a turn prior to landing works better in terms of gameplay.

Russia needs a bidding of some sort - either cash or troops put in the queue. Even without Sealion, Axis is sick strong and Russia can't do jack till very late in the game. The Axis player needs only to build up, play patiently, take mid east, be careful with border garrisons vs Russia and just steadily push in Russia after Barbarossa. Nothing more.

Sorry to hijack a bit this thread but I was too lazy to open another one

I think my considerations are supported by Terif as well, as they are all a result of a game we had - consider this game a MP beta testing if you like

A patch will come which probably will solve some issues. After the patch is out, we need to edit the remaining issues and if editing won't solve all of them, implement a bidding system and some good houserules in order to be able to play competitively - league games or whatever.

Anyway, Jolly and JJR - very entertaining AAR, GG to both of you.

[Terif]

Yep, can only second Hellraiser:

In version 1.0 Allies have simply no chance if Axis goes for Sealion and the axis player has at least a bit experience and doesn´t make major mistakes - like neglecting russian border garrisons as Boron did in the other game.

Unfortunately defence of England (and Egypt) is not possible with the current amphibious landing system since Axis is much stronger on the ground, but can land its troops without any possibility for Allies to prevent it.

Since Russia and USA gear up only slowly and are not ready to fight before 1942, game will already be over at this point. In contrary to Allies Germany has tech and units already in 1941. So Axis either simply takes Moskov, or collects the minors. USA can´t do much anyway without a springboard for a landing and so it is Axis with income >500 mpps/turn against Russia, i.e. also no longterm chance for Russia.

P.S. advantage for an attacker is in deed too large and attack values much too high with some tech (lv 4-5 tanks wipe out an enemy unit with one hit...), so defence is not really possible and games end only in a simple bloodbath at the moment where the side with the better tech and more units wins - strategy doesn´t matter much, and this is bad for a strategy game .

But let´s wait and see what the first patch brings, since there will be a lot of changes in gameplay .

[Jollyguy]

I am going to have to make it a third and agree on some of the points made by Hellraiser and Terif.

In my game against Rambo I was constantly aware that once the English Home Islands fell, that the US/Canada were under a real and constant threat of Axis invasion. With the standard unit limits in place there is no safe way to protect the US coastline. Assuming the Brits are committed to Egypt, all the Axis player would have to do is count the US units in the field, tie those down, go on the defensive in Russia, and dispatch a level five tank force to North America. The combined German/Italian navy is strong enough that with level 3 or 4 subs, they could clear the way, and scout the coastline, and simply punish the Allies with amphib landings before they could react.

The other problem for the Allies is if they lose the English Home Islands, is that if they also lose Gibralter, the turns that their supply gets effected they run the risk of permenantly losing units. In my game with Rambo, after I took Tunisia and then he hit me with his 3 tank, level 5 counter strike, Gibralter supply kicked in and knocked some of my cities below 5. I lost one of my 2, level 3 US tanks in the fray even though it was in or near a city, and boom, that tank was gone forever from my queue. This also could be a problem, as the Axis will have more opportunity to permenently attrit the western allies.

And like water seeking its own level, I am currently in a game where I am in the middle of employing Rambo's strategy. It's 1943 and I penetrated to Moscow, but the Russians with the Siberians are hitting back. So what I'm going to do is pull a tactical retreat and start collecting minors, starting with Switzerland, then Spain, et al. I have an Axis bomber out west and my entire Italian navy at France, at level 2 gun laying radar, I'll do like John did, and once pushed back to my German border out east, use punitive offensives to wear down the Russians. It's a non-ladder game, so a good beta of the strategy. The difference is that John started collected minors early, but we'll see how it works. I suspect this could be a problem, as I have about 10 games under my belt now, and its clear that in most instances the Axis player simply does not bother hitting Russia hard to begin with, and many times does not even bother DOW'ing them. This is historically anomolous, as in SC 1, with a properly handicapped game, if Russia wasn't hit hard and fast, the game would likely result in an Allied victory if the Allied player was competent.

I love the fluidity of SC 2, but like the Dutch boy with his fingers in the dike, I'm beginning to think that by fixing one problem, transports not having to linger offshore, that a leak popped up somewhere else, making it harder to protect agaisnt level 5 tank attacks. I beleive the intent was for this to work against the Axis by making them more susceptible to landings on their expansive coastline, but the Axis can capitalize too, as the Allies also have a fair amount of coastline to protect. And by creating build limits, it handicaps the Western Allied ability to protect their coastlines more, particularly the US, and more so when combined with the small US navy.

If John's collect minors strategy becomes standard, then once most players get X number of games under their belts, the Axis will again be in a superior position similar to SC 1 that will need to be handicapped. The Axis will be able to establish an expansive economic base that will give them the resilency in most cases to counter Allied incursions.

Bob

[hellraiser]

USA invasion is best done immediately after France.

USA simply does not have units to defend that early in the game

It is done very simple: axis land in Canada - canadian corps comes in nov 40 - and next turn USA is triggered into war (+100% readiness if axis set foot in Canada) - this way around is better because you do not have to DOW USA yourself thus keeping USSR low (Axis dow on USA have a serious impact in USSR readiness, over 30% if i recall correctly). USA will probably have 3-5 units maximum (a human player would go for the obvious route of investing in IT instead of buying troops early on) - AI does a better job, it buys corps But it won't have techs later on, so it is the same

[Sombra]

And again simply limit the range of amphib transports. If the allied player still fails to patrol the seven seas and the axis player commited himself to a high risk adventure ... Let the best player win.

[hellraiser]

As Yoda said - let's see what the patch brings to us in term of gameplay and after that we will begin testing the multiplayer aspects.

I can understand that the game as it is provides an enjoyable experience for the casual players. Those playing mainly multiplayer games and wanting to seriously compete, need a balanced environment for MP - as I said, some things can be adjusted via the editor some things will need bidding or houserules. This is not necessarily about bugs finding , which is Blashy's job as a beta tester, but for the multiplayer component only. I think the game has a lot of potential and will provide a good MP environment eventually.

[Jollyguy]

And I want to make clear that IMO SC 2 is a masterpiece. As a platform the sky is the limit. What we're doing here is not complaining by any stretch, just giving input on how to make the game even better.

Two heads are better than one, and scores of beta testers are better than a handful. That's all that's happening, is the legion of informal beta testers are now reporting in, especially the premium players (which I am NOT one by any stretch), who take time to disect the game and strategies and for any number of reasons simply understand it better than other players, and are more talented at doing it.

I listen to the premium players and incorporate their strategies into my games for one reason...they work.

Bob

[jon_j_rambo]

One way of changing things is to make the United States realistic. So, lets say Germany captured a couple of Eastern cities, including Washington D.C., so what? There's no way the USA would surrender, look at the size & resources. California alone is the 5th largest economy in the world, you think they'd surrender? In the very little town of Vancouver, Washington, they produced 144 warships! If Germany ever landed on North America, the entire Pacific Coast military machine would be on the move....everybody in the USA would enlist, etc. The Sleeping Bear would awake! The USA is known for being a little bit lazy when times are good, but when we get motivated, we'll fight. When we feel threatened or are going to lose freedom, everybody & their brother would put up a heck of a fight, especially on the loss of an Eastern City. Nobody is going to take us over with conventional weapons, either in WW-2 or now...we will be destroyed within, by God, or a long spiral downhill like the Romans over time.

So, the question is, how do we make a game fun (balanced, 50% chance of winning with either side), and keep it somewhat historical?

[Lars]

Start existing US troops entrenched, script a Tank and a few Armies to show up at whatever tech the US is at if Canada is invaded.

[jon_j_rambo]

USA & UK need to be given more troops. Not necessarily "Army" power, but think...look at the population...any landing by Germany, would cause nearly everybody to enlist immediately! Yes, training & equipment would be weak at first, but no way a small German force is going to march thru our cities (Philly, Pittsburgh, D.C., New York City).

And another thing which is lame, NO WAY would a German Army be getting "Supply 5" out of our cities. What are they going to eat? Where is the ammo going to come from? They need supply ships, not just Boston's port.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Mmm JJR. I hope in SC3 cross-water supply is

interdictable, in precisely the same way MPP convoys

are interdictable, and not abstracted like it is now.

Even HQs should not have more than 2 turn's

worth of (meager lvl 5) supplies-after the second

turn their supply goes to zero unless a supply link

is re-established, city or no city.

[jon_j_rambo]

@TheFool --- I agree with you son, good point. How does a HQ supply itself? Sherman's Army & march to the sea required living off the land & finding food, along with the rail connection to Nashville. Even harder to do with tanks, trucks, & other weapon's requirements.

SC2 is still real early, with proper adjustments, things will be more realistic & help game play.