Barbarossa II - eastern front

i just hat the thought that they repesented some sort of house-rule, that you have move them along with your Panzer-gruppe. well, my bad.

I know it was a long task, but the sheer amount of units (especially available to those minor axis members) is an impressive enough list to draw a lot of attention to this scenario.


ANYWAYS: Germany on MajGeneral


As I have played the original Barbarossa scenario many times and seem to progress on the same carbon copy thrashing of the Soviets, I decided to mix things up. I removed Germany from the Italy-Romania-Hungary(or is it bulgaria?)-Germany alliance. As this is the only countries at war, it allows time for the Finns and Germans in the north and the entire USSR to build up some defense/offense when/if war comes with the soviets.

Why? Trying to move through those allied southern territories is a hassle or to make any headway in a spearhead against the Russians, they always seem to counterattack through my weaker southern neighbors and then shoot for German territory. I decided instead of constantly having to save my flank, which was in their hands, I would secure it myself. The Germans start with their strong 14att, 12def infantry but lack striking panzer power with their predominant tank a bunch of 10att8def Panzer IIIs. So my idea was to use my Panzer force along with all my artillery units to conquer the eastern Europeans and Italy, while my best defensive units manned the borders: sound plan, I thought.

Therefore I could have peace with the Soviets and try and clear up those pesky countries on my southern border. I reinforced all my cities that lie on the soviet border with my infantry. Since I fancied a nice long drawn out big fight with the Russians later, allowing them to build up their infrastructure/defense, so therefore I decided Romania, Bulgaria, hungary and ,by association their ally, Italy must be taken out for a unified German front facing the Soviets.

As you start out with some units in the eastern european territory I made good headway at first. My Infantry stood up to their counterattacks, while my panzers cleared up the units outside the cities. The soviets continued to send units through the south near Iasi towards Belgrade and Sofia until I took those border cities. Once I took them I demanded they leave my territory or declare war and surprisingly they left! They could have wiped the floor with me.

Germany starts out with stellar aircraft and infantry (in comparison to other nations), but the soviets (as historically accurate) far outnumber them in armor (and the quality of armor).

Things were going so well with the conquest of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, until I realized a couple of big problems with eliminating my southern neighbors: 1. By conquering them, I had no southern Navy, whereas the Soviets have some serious naval capability in the south (albeit mostly of the harassment bomb and run type), 2. moving through the mountains was a bit slow, 3. all of these countries possess some good infantry AND 4. Italy has a very large and effective air force.

Bulgaria was gone and Romania/Hungary were falling. As I was approaching Sofia in the south and Belgrade in the west beating the eastern Europeans fairly handily and without great loss, the Italian AI began to use its air power to destroy the roads around me, (which when you have tanks going through the mountains leaves them stranded!!!). Before I realized the AI was actually doing this to me on purpose (it took 2-3 turns) I had three stacks of 10-12 tanks and 5-6 artillery pieces stranded. It takes Traivelleirs (workers) many turns to get down there and then build a road so that my panzers could move again! VERY SMART ITALIAN AI!! Suddenly I had most of my striking force taken out of the game for the next 10 turns or so.

Since: I wasn’t being attacked by the soviets, couldn’t reach my strongest enemy: Italy, and found my mobile units stranded in the south, I got complacent and made the mistake of “angering” Finland. Finland begins at peace with all other countries and has some amazingly strong infantry (13att,13def). There is little German striking power in Norway and not a ton defensively either. So when my PzArt (5AT,6DF) drunkenly stumbled into Finland, I was a bit taken back when a flood of strong Finnish troops emerged right outside Narvik, Petsamo and Trondheim. I began to ferry troops from Copenhagen to Oslo, but had lost all four of my northern most cities before these reinforcements got there. VERY SMART FINNISH AI!

So here I am awaiting worker assistance in the Balkans to free up my Panzers, while my scant infantry reserves barely cover whats left of Norway.
I guess the idea of beating up the little guys and letting the soviets build up their strength is failing a bit.

If I could only figure out what my cities are building and the benefit!

This scenario rocks!

Thank you Hammerwise for this very interesting report!

You're right Finland is a strong enemy with solid defensives lines. You need many turns to neutralize this country.

Your tactic of annexation of the minor states is interesting. However I am afraid that the soviets benefit from this time to be reinforced. The next turns are announced enthralling. Please, hold us informed of the advance of this game

For you i try to translate the buildings. I hope it will hep

French : english

Aciérie : steel-works
Docks : docks
Bureau du NKVD : NKVD office
Laboratoire de recherche : research lab
Camp militaire : military camp
Dépôt de ravitaillement : supply warehouse
Eglise : church
Marché : marketplace
Bibliotheque : library
QG militaire : Military HQ
Ville retranchée : fortified city
Réservoir d'eau : water tank
Fabrique de munitions : ammunition plant
cathédrale : cathedral
université : university
pipeline : pipeline
Usine de pièces détachées : repleacable parts (?)
industrie chimique : chemical plant
chaines de montage : assembly lines
hopital : hospital
forteresse : fortress
goulag : goulag
Forteresse cotiere : coastal fortress
office de propagande : propaganda office
port : harbor
raffinerie : raffinery
aéroport : airport
Kolkhoze : kolkhoze
Sovkhoze : sovkhoze
usine de tracteurs : tractor plant
Camp de concentration : labour camp
Camp d'entrainement SS : SS training camp
Industrie agro-alimentaire : Food industry
Banques : bank
QG de l'Officier Politique : HQ of the Political Officer
Dépot de munitions: ammunition warehouse
Usine d'armement : Arms factory
industrie automobile : car industry
Raffinerie évoluée : improved raffinery
Richesses : wealth
Capitale : capital
Exécution sommaire: hanging (martial law)

general-jcl said:

Usine de pièces détachées : repleacable parts (?)

Click to expand...

Isn´t an "usine" a special kind of a manufactoring facility, here a foundry for replacable parts?

A foundry for replacable parts:yes that is

Thank you Civinator

Yes, General, a risky plan to “ignore” the Soviets while I take on the “little guys”. Things were going to be slow and deliberate.

I wanted to explore the massive and IMPRESSIVE tech tree. And while they take little time, 1-4 turns each and you have to discover about 20 techs before you get to be able to produce German units with “hitting power”. I think the Motorized infantry at 15att12def2mvt is by far “the daddy” until you reach the PzIVF2 at 18att16def2mvt, but its about 40 turns to get there.

The tech tree is great, full of “one-off” wonders which autoproduce flavour units fairly rapidly.

And since I played Barbarossa many times, I wanted to give the Soviets a lot of time to build up. As usually they start the game reeling back from their borders and can only counter attack piecemeal (even with superior units, making too easy a match.

GERMANY-MajGen:

The Finns while still holding my northern cities have discontinued the attack. I sent a scouting unit to check Narvik (?) and found they have dug in quite well. Smart land grab for them and they seem to be building up to defend like mad. SMART AI, by calling off the offensive and holding strongly what they can. As far as developing a northern war, I don’t have any illusions/thoughts of offensive in Finland and subsequently into USSR (Leningrad) I can’t see it happening. I think the movement of some infantry is possible, and if Finland-Soviets go to war with each other I will try to feed off the leftovers, but unlikely. I will build up a defense in Norway and hold what I have.

I have kept all of my air power (fighters and bombers) and almost all my infantry on the soviet border, while only my panzers and artillery attacked Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy. The Soviet AI must have seen this, because they so far have stayed out of the fray and I have seen a soviet worker or two building roads and railroads like mad. On such a broad front it’ll be a bit scary when I do attack, because they’ll be able to move “by rail” north-south-east-west to counter me. My Plan of attacking on a broad front from Odessa to riga might keep them off balance.

Most of my cities are in “build-que”: infantry, building, fighter plane, worker, Bulding, infantry, etc… Once I build about 100 or so infantry I should be at the motorized infantry tech and will switch then.

Because the Italian AI’s airforce removed some key roads, I have had to shift almost all of my mobile units to the south. While this offensive is sounding impressive, there are only 3-4 of the Motorized SS at 16att14def2mvt, while there is about 15-20 of the useless little recon units at 2att3def2mvt. I am moving them in about 5 stacks of about 10-15 armor and 6-8 artillery (albeit some of the artillery is only of the 9 bombard type). Therefore I am taking down/conquering 2 or so cities a turn.

I have subdued Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria is gone with only a few cities left. I have razed 4-5 cities to create growing space, as some of these cities are quite “packed-in”. In regards to one of my earlier worries: I will in all likelihood ignore creating a southern navy. The Soviets can not really “kill” anything, they could come up and bombard/wound my airpower in those port cities but in all likelihood the damage they cause will be negligible.

I have yet to get to grips with the Italians, they have not made much of an appearance yet on land. In the air they continue to harass and attempt to destroy my approaches to their land. While a few loose Romanian infantry have appeared here and there on German soil, no armor or Italians have been seen. With a few bunkers in the coastal cities and some 13att10def infantry it has been slow going and I am losing 2-3 tanks/cavalry for every bunker. My panzIIIs continue to knock off infantry outside of the cities fairly easily, but the cities have been well reinforced and the losses are clocking up.

With only 5 cities left in Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian hands I have lost about 15% of my entire armor. Not a tremendous loss, given they are middling units. Altogether, I envision losing about 25% of my original armor force subduing the eastern Europeans and Italy. And while most of these will be some of my best units at the moment, they are outclassed by most infantry and definitely would be outclassed by the Soviet armor. This isn’t a huge price in losses as they are weaker units and I hope to delay the real fight (against USSR) until I reach PzIV F2’s in about 12-18 turns and Panthers about 12-18 turns after that.

It will take me about 4-6 more turns to take all of Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Add in another 8 or so turns to grab most of Italy. Most of the Italian cities (about 6-7 cities) are 1-3 squares from my border. Only the three-four southernmost Italian cities are remote and will remain outside my grasp at that point. At that point it will appear to be an all Soviet east versus an all German west. I can see the real barbarossa beginning then.

I have made it out of 1941 techs and can now produce the motorized infantry which will be my strongest unit for a while.

Within a few turns of getting PzIV Fs I intend to get to grips with the soviets.

In about 12-14 turns I’ll be able to transfer whats left of my mobile force back to the German soviet border. This is excluding one strike force of 15-20 or so panzers and 10 artillery that will have to “slog” down the singular road running north-south down the Italian territory.

All my newly produced motorized infantry, as well as the autoproduced Motorized SS, Jager and standard infantry will go up to the line in a view towards three spearheads of about 50 units each towards Minsk, Riga. In the south my large “Eastern European blooded” (and ultimately outclassed) force will try to clear out the Odessa region. While they are individually outclassed, they will contain most of my artillery and are numerous enough to be about 4-5 stacks of 50 units. While I may create a bulge in my line, this presents a nice juicy target with Lublin for the Soviets. Which should be handled by the newly produced PanzIV Fs.

Since I am not fighting the Soviets, the AI’s turns are very fast.


What are the ocean going Steamers (I think) 1AT.1DF.4MVT for? They don’t transport troops?

Also the ammunition/supply trucks? Do they only join cities?

And the Negier? Which appear as units? Grey Squares?

There's a steamer in the game which can transport 2 infantry units.
But the unit you are talking about is a cargo merchant ship which is autoproduce by the docks.
You have to dissolve this unit in a coastal city for improving production.

The ammunition supply truck can be dissolved in a city for the same purpose.
The supply truck (food, ...) must join a city to improve population.

What is "Negier" ? If you mean "neige" (snow in english). It's a special unit:
invisible, can be paradrop, ....
It can be used to obstruct the movements and to weaken the enemy

If you play alone againt the AI, it's quite easy to win with the soviets.

But i can suggest you a very interesting game with them:
- you play the USSR
- use the highest or very high level for the AI
- don't buy anything in your cities except in the turn 5-10-15...etc (every 5 turns) where you can buy buildings only (no unit)
- every autoproduce units which must be dissolve in a city should be dissolve in another city that the one which build this unit

With these extended rules, the game with the soviet player is not so easy to win ... just try

There's some wav file that's a real problem, it is some kind of motorized unit movement file and it just keeps playing in a loop rather than only playing 3-4 seconds. Then I have to turn off the sound option.

I will correct this in a next patch
Temporarily it is necessary to turn off the sound then to turn it on again when you encounter a looping wav
It seems it happens only with player units don't know exactly why...a civ3 bug ?

When the sound is not at his maximum this problem seems to disappear

Great scenario general-jcl! I'm really enjoying trying out the Germans. The game seems well balanced and the Soviets are a tough enemy.

I think Hammerwise will be in for a big shock when he finally gets around to attacking the Soviets. With the amount of time he is giving them to build up (and don't forget they are researching technology as well), he may not be able to defeat them.

I replaced the different T26 unit 26runner wav files with another vehicle movement file and that fixed it.

I guess that the minor Axis powers don't like Bulgaria. Seems like you can't play 10 turns without fighting breaking out among them.

While Germany has taken all of the western map. Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy have been destroyed and much needed population in the form of large cities have been added to the “basket”.

While I have no ambitions to conquer Finland, after losing my northern cities to them, we have come to an “agreement”. I have reinforced Norway with Germ Inf 1941 and unless Finland signs a right of passage agreement with the Soviets, the Finns do not have the manpower for any more “conquests”. We are at peace with Finland and of no threat to another yet, and it allows me to concentrate wholly on the Soviet front.

I lost a good amount of my armor in the war against the eastern European cities, but most of it was in the forms of Panzer IIIs (10att8def2movt) and recon units (2att,2def,3mvt). With these territories “annexed”, I built up many of my cities and then “program built”. Germany has quite a few large cities and adding sofia, Belgrade and Budapest has helped.

So now the build up to the mother fight had begun. So far I have had a program of developing cities followed by “program building”.

Program build: Once I reached the Motorized Infantry (15att,12def2def) I had every large city build 3 or 4. Then when I reached the Leopold artillery, I did the same. So when the fight with the soviets come I can march stacks of 20-25 units with movement of 2 and good attacking values as well as 8-10 leopold artillery units, also movement of 2. Almost as soon as I had 40-50 Motorized Infantry and 40-50 leopolds, then came the PzIV Fs and then the PzIv Hs. I am about 3 techs from Panthers now.

So I have enough “attacking units” to put about 8 armies on the march. My composition of an army tends to be 20-25 armor units, of which 5-8 must have attack values on 15 or higher, (watching a stack of 10 PanzerIIIs and their attack value of 10 completely impale themselves on a fortress unit isn’t pretty). Along with the 25 armor pieces there has to be around 10 heavy artillery pieces with them. Now a Leopold has no defensive value, but you can’t beat the 24 bombard and the movement of two. Theres tons of cities but they tend to be very close to each other. Its not improbable that a city I take will be in striking distance on the very next turn. Masses of infantry (15 or so, with the slower 1 movement artillery) will follow behind to occupy the cities, (there’s nothing worse than putting 5-6 “hurt” armor units into a newly won city with 4-5 fresh infantry only to watch 30 Soviet tanks wipe them out and raze the city.)

However the Ai has built a lot of railroads and I can see that most of their border cities have fortresses now. As I have let the soviet AI build up its defenses and forces for way too long, I can only hope that the AI plays smartly when I do attack.

My air power will stay in reserve for the expected counterattack. All my fighters are in air superiority mode and I have built fixed or mobile 88MM AA like mad, so I am well protected against an air counter strike. I have put most of my northern naval power close (but out of striking distance) to the Soviets. They’ll have to come out and get me (but as most as movement of 3 or 4, they won’t reach me until they are within my air/sea power space.

I intend to take the four Soviet cities in the south as well as riga in the north, my other 2 armies will move in a straight east line for Minsk. I intend to hold back one stack of 30-40 armor pieces for the inevitable counterattack. I am bidding my time until I get close to Panthers in three techs time. The turn I discover them I will attack. Any counterattack will be held off by the newly built Panthers and some of the “autoproducers”: Jagers, grossdeutschland units, captured t-34s, etc….

I am looking at a limited offensive with three main objectives:

Take a defendable crescent from Riga in the north to Minsk then down to Kiev (?) and down the Crimea.

North of Riga is a line of heavy woods (through which most armor can’t advance) which will serve as a natural barrier if I destroy the only roads.

I plan to advance to the natural barriers of the rivers, which begins just a tad east of minsk. The rivers have a city at the gaps and therefore the river means I can funnel the enemy, while protecting 90% of my holdings easily.

This means not a ton of advance in the south. Odessa is the city that is reachable and conquerable on the initial invasion turn, the city just east of Odessa will be reachable/conquerable in the second turn and the third and last on my southern axis will be reachable on the third/fourth turn. The key and hard task is the river barrier which will be hard to get to (woods/swamp).

The key will be to continually create units that can hold and take ground. And this is mainly dependant on the soviet reaction to my attack.

Thank you Spartaca !!
And great report Hammerwise, i think the battle will be terrific...and i hope you will tell us what happened with the soviets.

@M60A3TTS: i'm happy you found a solution for the sound. Bulgaria has many neighbours (Italia, Germany, Romania). So it's difficult to stay neutral.

I think Spartaca might be right.... but I wanted a good challenge and letting the soviets build like mad should give them just as much ability as I have, we'll see if the AI can use it.

I am suprised that in all this time the soviets haven't gone after the Finns.

I hope you have not lost all your reco units in the balkan wars. These units may be very usefull to "see" and detect the position of the enemy.

Use the "reco" button (the same available for some aircrafts)...

looking very nice.
DLing now, and the rar file isnt that complicated either

ill try and make a run at it tomorow.

@hammerwise, very nice plan and execution. keep us informed

wellcome soul_warrior
i hope you'll enjoy this game

geral-jcl: I'm looking to set up a PBEM game using this scenario. I notice in your PBEM version, the countries cannot make railroads. I was wondering what the reason is for this and whether there are any other significant differences between the two versions?

PBEM game at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=38619&page=12