Germany 1.9?? playtest report, and other notes.
It's been a while Rocoteh, but I have not forgotten this horribly fun(and slow!) scenario. I am not 100% sure of the version I am playing now, from reading the last six pages of the thread I am obviously back a version or two. Still I have some useful feedback I hope. This version was the first one where you added those fortress units to Turkey and USSR southern cities, and Iceland was US controlled. Hopefully that ID's it for you.
I'm only 14 weeks in, so this is not deep. It is also small map, if any map that big can be called small, so it explains the rapid results. Also, I used the saved game for the quick start, so it is only monarch or emperor or whatever it was, not one of the harder ones.
Week 36 I wiped Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and all Polish troops outside their cites, and was set up for Belgium, and the two Polish cities the next turn. if you really want to add to Poland's defense then the fixed garrison troops are the way to go, otherwise I've seen the Poles leave their cities to do pointless attacks. I also produced a worker in virtually every city since you need to do a lot of work regarding improvements.
Week 37 Poland, Belgium fell, I attacked Yugoslavia but did not have enough oomph to win.
UK began to use it's massed naval might to bombard Amsterdam with great, but eventually pointless effect, other then sinking a few UB that I thought would survive the first turn. French sent a stack of Infantry to invade Belgium, just like real life! I am doing mostly infrastructure work in the cities.
Week 38 Yugoslavia folds, I attack Norway via Oslo. I bombed the lone defender with air, and landed unopposed. That wee little special transport is getting a workout in this game.
Week 39-41 sees sparring over the French-Belgian border. I need to keep a large garrison(7+) of ground units in Amsterdam to survive the Naval bombard, but the barracks heals them all each turn. I advance in Norway and attack Greece during these turns. Bergen, and mainland Greece fall. Naval battles in the North Sea are a no-show; I bombard the English coast with the S-boats and start moving Navy north to engage Norway and end run around England. I forgot to mention that I lost most of the starting UB in the Atlantic(did some damage), and the Graf Spee is coming home via Greenland/Iceland. I bombarded the 2 air bases on Greenland btw.
week 42-46 the UK reacts to my Norweigan gambit by sending a ton of BB/BC north. At the cost of LOTS of UB(20+) we sink 4 BB and 2 BC. Considering they are prime bombardment units I am happy with the exchange. We march up Norway and take Trondheim/Narvik, but lose one of our SS Inf at Narvik to the defense on the hills. Too expensive to replace, too. I should note here the computer keeps resetting virtually every city to produce SS Infantry after a unit is completed. With a cost of 400 shields, that is not a good sign for the AI. You need to auto produce those like marines/paratroops, or change the cost again. Though the AI seems a bit thick with regard to a huge cost being a deterrent to building lots of them.
I also take Greece out via air attack and Airborne assault, then realize the fallschirmjaegers are trapped there until I can build a transport in Athens. D'oh! Funny how that worked out like IRL...
Week 47-52 Now it gets interesting! With the last Norweigan city falling, my forces are strung out all along Sweden, so I go in and blitz them for the naval production I hope to get out of them. I have built 3 transports in the Baltic and one at Athens, and when France falls I'll build more at Marseilles; no lack of transports for MY army! It goes well, but just a bit bloody at Stockholm.
With our transports slipping up the coast to Bergen, we then went and took Wick, followed in rapid succesion by Belfast, and Edinburgh! I've been able to plant spies in UK, France and US so far(failed on USSR which scared me to death but no war). Knowledge is indeed,power. Doing a little snooping of the northern English cites showed just how weak they were, and with my air force positioned in Norway/north Germany it was easy to pound the snot out of the defenders. The AI in the 1.8/1.9 versions has always been sharp with regards to getting it's air units to a threatened front and bombing the hell out of your offensive units; but this time I finally caught them. My spy saw like 10+! big bombers hiding in Belfast, and I absolutely let them have it with almost my entire airforce. It was a massacre!
A couple of BB led task groups with transports headed towards my 1 88 defended Wick(had tons of sea and air units in there, it had to be too tempting for the AI to resist), which my UB and capital ships took care of. Lost the Scharnhorst and a lot of UB doing that.
The US holding Iceland was the first time I've ever seen them control that city, and it has an obvious effect; I've seen hordes of ships headed there after battles in the Med with the Italians to repair...it must be their nearest port. My navy has been operating in the Iceland/UK gap for some time, and has chewed up lots of those crappy DDs and a good many not-so-crappy CL and CA, plus a BB or two. The US is also sending hordes of DD toward Murmansk for some reason.
I swat as many as I can, but lose UB and can not stop them at all. Someone mentioned AI not attacking UB, and I had a Elite UB fortified north of Wick while this parade of US ships heads NE and they completely ignored it. Maybe them all having 3 hp to my fortified 8 discouraged them? There were at least 40+ DDs in those stacks.
I also spied on Iceland twice, and after seeing 1 defender I came back 2 turns later and they had airlifted 2 infantry in the turns between! The AI noticed my spying? I am still planning a strike at Reykjavik soon, but I don't know if they were reacting to my Transports hitting the UK, or what.
After some truly bloody battles in Belgium/north France I turned the tide and have taken Paris/Brest and just this turn Lyon. My forces are burnt now, so next turn will be quiet too. I want to say the armies being reduced to 2 capacity was a good idea; can you reduce them to capacity of 1? With maybe +2hp? I was actually OK with 3 units,but after seeing these in action 2 is probably much better. First, even at full strength you sweat a little. Also,the AI does not buiild many. I had burned myself out attacking Paris, had lost several units and a full strength Inf. Army, but had gotten into their artillery so I knew I was hurting them. Next turn an Elite Somua jumped out and wasted an 88, popped a leader and he ran right into Paris. I was *&%$%! They didn't build an army though, and the stack of 2 artillery and 7 Infantry divisions right next to Paris decided not to move, so I took Paris next turn, after smashing 6-7 more units, mostly armor and support types. I was absolutely mystified by that stupidity of theirs. They are still there now, btw,threatening Paris I guess, but not doing much. Now that they are out of CAP range they die SOON. I really like the idea of the Fortress units having AA! that would make the mop up much harder and it would be sure to cost Germany a fair number of precious air units.
So that where I stand now. Mainland France dies within 4-5 turns most likely. I'm stalled in UK due to lack of troops, and their navy is dribbling in from the Med. I am sitting on all their food squares now, starving them out. I like seeing the culture borders hemming them in, it feels like a real blockade. Uk is sending minor armor attacks to try and take their cities back, but it's not going to happen. I got stretched something fierce, but managed to pull off all three offensives at once; Sweden,France AND the UK! France was bloody though, and I made the mistake of trying to bomb a French stack within range of UK and French CAP,and lost like 8-9 air units. Mostly Do-17s, which I now regret, since they are my best recon air units.
After France, I will definitely finish off the UK, and I want Reykjavik real bad. It would help immensely in the naval war over there. Whether I go for Spain depends on what thier cities look like; if they are fortified like Turkey I really doubt it,but I have to do SOMETHING about helping Italy down in the Med/Africa. This is the first time I've ever seen all the minor Neutrals not involve themsleves in bloodbaths early. Spain and Turkey especially have not gotten involved, and those Turkish forts are looking absolutely nasty. Why are they stronger then the Maginot line??? I agree with the unit types, just not the numbers. Wouldn't two per square have been enough? If Spain is as solid as Turkey then I am going to have a heck of a time helping Italy down there. I do have a ROP with Spain though, hopefully I can use it to whack Gibralter. I have my first Carrier and capitol ships coming, but it is going to be a long while before I get a big navy.
USSR is quiet, and I am happy for that. The new forts in the Southern ports that I can see look like they will be a pain to deal with; I like it! I think the Germans bypassed Odessa IRL and now I see why.
When to go against USSR is going to be a very big decision. My border with them is completely naked except down south. The Hungarians and Romanians are dug in like ticks. I highly approve of the little 0-3 Soviet garrison units I can see; all that ROP invasion nonsense goes out the window. If I want to hit the middle east I'm going to have to go into russia or find another way. Good job!
Random notes: I like the Type IX as is so far. Maybe long term if you built lots and lots of them they could tilt things, but then you would not be building other things you need. At least in the small map, you are forced to decide whether to build army or navy; you only have so many port cities. Didn't help a lot that I razed Danzig to make space for other cities. Gives Germany another reason to go into Scandanavia too. Besides, UB in general get crushed at no risk to air units, and the AI is good at 'finding' them.
Once again I have to say I LOVE the way you used auto-production for the Germans. Forcing the AI to put up a decent UB force is a master stroke. I like the limit on marines too, but do I get any more airborne?? Also, considering the SS Inf units I would say either give them only what they have to start and not buildable, or a very LONG auto-production, likes marines or better. I definitely want more airborne even if they are a very long auto produce! One benefit to having all those wonders in cities is if you decide do do a little more auto-production all you need to do is modify a wonder.
Speaking of wonders, the only city I ve seen razed so far is the tiny French city in the Horn of Africa. Japan has conquered 5-7 cities so far, no razing. Always good, that. Either the rest of the world is sitting this one out, or I am just not hearing about any other wars. It seems awful quiet out there...
Italy razed that one I figure,and did the usual bone-head move of taking Cyprus and stranding about 8-10 armor units on it;what a waste. Italy also lost the easternmost city in east Africa, the one right on the horn. Outside of me and Japan in China(they also took Sarmi and Fakfak) not a lot going on. I hurt UK big time by my air and naval smashing of their air force though, I know that for a fact. Figure 15+ big bombers, and 8+ fighters...they should not have left that french airfield so lightly guarded.
Before I forget, I DID have units get hurt moving past french fortresses, it just does not happen every time. It works that way in regular games too. Coastal forts likewise. Also, AI does not build enough workers, that has always been obvious. Perhaps give them a few to start? Another auto-produce woner? It's always annoying to see all those unmined hills. I help them when I can with ROP and my own workers, but it still bugs me.
I played Italy once, and it was really fun. I had to stop because that was the version with the psycho USSR mech Infantry, and I had spent too much on infrastructure in the East Africa area so when the UK massed those 20+ HB and started to trash me it was looking pretty grim. I'd like to mention here that Italian infantry s****.
I still would like to see their Alpini units they start with be Italian Mtn. Infantry, everything else is alright. It is really fun to play Italy because if you haven't played them their navy is absolutely first class. The Allies parade their ships through the Med and you have a fine time sinking the lot.
I'm definitely going to play Italy when the next version comes out.
Speaking of which, I can't really follow all you are saying about the resources but if you are limiting the areas where you can build different things that is a great idea. Also the larger English channel and such would make my argument against the S-boat being broken kind of moot if you keep the speed at 3. I still don't like those little rat ships having more bombard then a BB but I can live with it. As it is I refuse to build them myself, but I can't resist using the ones I get to start with. Cleared the English coast too! Oh, and the German predreadnaught has lethal land bombard, was that intentional???
I like the auro-production wonders too much maybe. Just one more idea; I'm using like 7 artillery in this game, and I'm probably going to limit how many I build to 10-15 since I like there not being too many around. The AI though, still does not use them well except defensively. I was wondering though, if you limited each country to what they have to start, and then use auto-production for the rest, with a buildable wonder when the tech comes in later to auto produce the newer ones might be better then having players build them while the AI does not. I don't think I've ever seen a game report where a Soviet AI built Artillery Corps, but I would "love" to run into one someday. Just a thought.
Wow, this was way too long a post, sorry Rocoteh. It has definitely been a while.
Edit: This limit of 10 smilies per post is killing me; I had to delete like 13 of them.
