[C3C] The Nine Conquests

[Ruin]

How many men did the Nazi's field?

Germany's had 14 million men who served in WW2 in the Heer. Not all at once obviously. I don't know if that includes SS combat troops.

From Wikipedia: " a study by American colonel Trevor Dupuy found that German combat efficiency was higher than both the British and American armies – if a combat efficiency of 1 was assigned to the British, then the Americans had a combat efficiency of 1.1 and the Germans of 1.45"

A more telling statistic than army size: Germany suffered 600 k combat deaths on the western front and 4.3 million on the Eastern.

 

[Lanzelot]

Another update, and what I think can be called an "unexpected breakthrough"...

 

[choxorn]

Well that's definitely easier than it in reality was (in Iwo Jima's case) or would have been (in Tokyo and Osaka's case)!

Looking at the scenario in the editor, Iwo Jima starts with just an artillery and a destroyer but nothing else and much of the rest of the Japanese core has little if any defensive units in it, they just have such overwhelming numeric superiority at the front lines that it doesn't matter, and the AI can't really take advantage of the empty or weak cities if it's trying to attack Japan (and it might also not prioritize Marines) because it doesn't know how to do sea invasions, and I can only guess that the AI doesn't know what you're doing well enough to realize "oh crap I really need to send some of my forces back to deal with this invasion" and so it just... doesn't, even though Iwo Jima and most of the rest of the core cities do have airports.

 

[Lanzelot]

" a study by American colonel Trevor Dupuy found that German combat efficiency was higher than both the British and American armies

I think that the combat value of German troops varied considerately depending on the type of unit and available equipment. Two examples to illustrate this:

• Later in the war, the Panzer troops as well as the Fighter groups were notoriously short on fuel. So even though they had Panther and Tiger tanks at that time, which were better than the earlier Panzer IV types, they didn't make much of an impact anymore, due to lack of fuel, ammunition and spare parts.
• In the last few months of the war, everyone was drafted into the so called "Volkssturm" units ("storm of the people", kind of like the "Volkswagen", which means "car of the people"). From 15 year old boys to 65 year old veterans. The combat value of these units against the battle-hardened Red Army and the well-trained and well-equipped US/British troops was negligible.
  (Personal story: my Granddad (and his classmates from school) first served in a Flak unit starting at age 16, and then in early 1945 all Flak personal was thrown at the front lines to fend off the Russians in the east and the Allies in the west, just with a few "Panzerfäuste", a couple of hand grenades and a Karabiner 98. (Panzerfaust means literally "tank fist" and can be compared to a one-shot bazooka). While fighting on the western front, he lost his right leg at age 17. When I was little, he showed me pictures of his Flak unit and a Flying Fortress he and his buddies had taken down. But he never talked much about his time in the Volkssturm. I learned much later, that the friendly old man I knew as "Uncle Gustav" (they visited each other every couple weeks, and sometimes my sister and me were taken along and played with their kids) was in fact no real "uncle", but his best buddy from the Flak unit, and it had been Gustav, who had dragged my Granddad out of the fire and carried him on his shoulders back to the paramedic station. Without uncle Gustav, my Granddad would certainly have died that day in Feb '45. That's what 17 year old school boys went through in those days.)

 

[Lanzelot]

Game finished! And I indeed saw a video by an animated Sid Meier... (and who is the guy next to him? Soren Johnson, the lead developer?)

 

[Toxicman007]

Congratulations! The WW2 scenario seemed much easier than I thought it would be, but maybe you are just a much better player than I am...
I feel like I have learned a bit from your playthroughs nonetheless, so I must thank you for that.
I know they aren't "real" scenarios, but I would love to see you play the "tutorial" games, particularly the Three Sisters scenario, on deity. You can even play as your native Germany in the New Alliances scenario, with a different unique unit than in the base game.

 

[Lanzelot]

Never played the Three Sisters and New Alliances, but I remember playing Ancient Treasures on Deity a couple of years ago, and losing quickly... The problem was, that in that scenario, the AI does start with the usual additional Deity units and sends them quickly to the VP locations. By the time the human player has built the first few units, all VP locations are taken, and the AI already racks up points quickly. And by the time, the human player has built up enough forces to dare a war against the AI (in order to capture some VP locations), the game is already over... But perhaps I'll give it another try some time.

 

[Spoonwood]

Congratulation to the King of Conquests, Lanzelot. Ra! Ra! Ra!

 

[Lanzelot]

Ra! Ra! Ra!

Yeah, that was, well, "different", wasn't it...