If I wait until the war is over, it'll be at least a month from now, so why not issue a report on what has happened in my playtest (playtest? it's gaming!!
) up until now;
I am playing as Germany on a medium difficulty.
Started with conquering Poland in about 3 or 4 turns, can't remember anymore. I always attempt to use massive force, first bombing enemy units and cities, while bringing artillery closer and then finishing the remainder off with tanks and infantry. During fighting in Poland, I stayed realively quiet on the western front, only doing small raids keeping the Dutch and Belgium within their boundary.
Next was Netherland and Belgium, then I attacked France - keeping the Italians off Marseilles was a bit tricky, as I intended to conquer it for myself, to have a nice access to the western part of the Mediterranean. Sometime in between I declared war on Denmark/Norway - they detected my mines in the Skagerrak and where more or less asking for it. Finland joined and took the northern cities, with me getting the southern ones - I am happy with that, up north it's too cold anyway.
Next was Greece, including Crete, and Cyprus from the British. Cyprus makes a nice airbase to attack French Damascus, and for disturbing the British in Iraq, bombing their oil resources. crete on the other hand is perfect for disrupting British shipping via the Suez canal.
In the west, the British used their Home Fleet to bombard Bremen and the conquered coastal cities of the Benelux down to almost rubbles. Only by a massive effort with submarines and bombers I managed to fight them off, and in the process almost the entire British fleet was destroyed.
I realized I can't go east unless Britain was defeated, and decided to invade. Invading the southern coast was impossible, first because there were too many fixed coastal defence left (I wish there were some graphics of fortifications to use, rather than the ships), second because I reckoned the British will concentrate their forces there. So I planned a invasion up north at Edinburgh, via Norway, and in doing this, luring the British forces up north, exposing their south.
Building up my transport fleet took time, also I reckoned I'd need a couple carriers as well for close air support. When the invasion started, the British just had started to build Valentine tanks, which turned out to actually being hard to tackle, to my surpirse. Okay I invaded Edinburgh, and simultaneously sent a marine force up to Scapa Flow, which I took with the first attack. I also sent a "suicide force" to the southern coast near London, keeping the British busy there as well.
Edinburgh fell, and next was the western Scottish city. I lost a lot of Panzer IIIh on the British island, but my supply line via Copenhagen/Oslo/Bergen and transports to Edinburgh worked wonder. It was a long fight, but finally the British were defeated and ousted from the islands, its fleet remainders spread out over the oceans, its submarines destroyed, its air force reduced to a couple fighters.
At one point the Swiss decided to declare war on me....
Mid-42 I controlled all of central Europe including Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, southern Norway, Sweden, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, France, Switzerland, Britain and Ireland, and even Reykjavik - I took it to prevent its use as a allied bomber base.
My policy so far towards Spain is too keep them in line, i.e. to keep them from doing anything. I trade some resources with them, but have never attempted to drag them to my side - wouldn't work anyway, since during my Norway campaign, as Norway asked for peace, I granted it but attacked again within 20 turns, so now I can forget about free passage through foreign territory, even Italy doesn't want to grant it. But hey, I play as Germany, so I am bound to be the bad guy...
My policy towards Turkey is to invade them after I finished my Russian campaign.
In the east, the Russians were building up their forces, and so was I. I filled the border with Security Divisions, building three lines of troops there, just to keep them from surprisingly attacking me. I sent almost all new units to the east, tanks, planes, infantry. At one point, Russia was even friendly to me, Stalin (with Katharinas face
) was smiling whenever I cintacted him. Russia's force was pretty impressive;
.) Around 700 infantry
.) 170 T-34
.) 150 KV-1
And loads of other stuff.
Week 25 1942 or so, Russia decided to declare war on Sweden, and this was my red line. I did not want Russia to get bases north of my central cities, threatening me day in day out. So I watched them sendiong almost all their tanks into northern Swedish territory, also sending out the fleet from Murmansk. As mentioned in a earlier post, one of their carriers ran into one of my submarines (the so-called sub bug? If it is a bug, I'd say it's the best one a I ran over - it's a perfect way to get civs declaring war on you!) and Russia declared war.
What shall I say, Russia started with using its crappy bombers, and lost them in dozens. 3 turns into the Russian war they had no bombers left, their fighters - about 35 I-16 and a couple Yaks diminished as well. I placed a priority in destroying the T-34's, bombing them without care of losses. It's now week 15 1943 and the front runs as follows, north to south;
I hold everything including;
.) Leningrad
.) Yaroslavl
.) Gorki
.) Kazan
.) Kujbysjev
.) Stalingrad
.) Astrachan
.) Baku (or is it Grozny? One Russian city left between my territory and Persia)
I have now started my attack on Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk, and plan to take Perm in the north, and Aralsk and Krasnovodsk in the south as well. But I want to stop my advance there, not getting beyond the Ural. Russia's force now is reduced to
.) 203 Infantry
.) 17 T-34
.) 25 Guards Infantry
.) about 15 or so Mig-3
.) Not a single KV-1 left
Moscow, that's now a Russian enclave within my territory. I keep a ring of beleaguering infantry, and stationed Ju-87's to bomb any unit which might try to get out of Moscow. It's still Russia's capital, and I want to keep it that way - in a earlier post here one posted that having the capital of an enemy civ isolated, keeps it from building certain units. Is this true?
What can I tell about my Allies?
Italy is, well, yes, there. It's tanks are crap, and Italy spent years and years trying to get Gibraltar. Right now I am there, and managed to destroy the fortress, and Gibraltar will be mine in one or two turns. Somalia was lost fast, and Italy only keeps Bengazi and the other town east of it. Tripoli is in US hands, which bugs me, as the US use it as a bomber base - Liberators now bombing Sardinia, and Italian held Corsica - the only city Italy managed to conquer.
Japan is at a stalemate with China, nothing happening there. Japand didn't manage to take Hongcong, even losing 2 cities to the British. But Japan invaded the Philippins, Dutch East Indies, Singapore, never managed - or even attempted to - take Hawaii, and now lost Kwajalein to the US.
Finland suffered hard, losing 2 cities to Russia - sorry can't remember the names now, the ones en route to Sweden - which I now recinquered fro Russia. When Murmansk and the Russian city south of it (Krem?) is taken, I plan to hand over the entire territory to Finland, including their own 2 cities.
The US was sending the occasional carrier plus 2 destroyers to the French coast, and were frequently sunk. Now, the northern Atlantic filled with submarines as "early warning posts", I am aware of any naval movement, and can react quickly - my fleet consists of 3 carriers, 5 Bismarcks, 2 Hindenburgs and smaller vessels.
From gameplay, I encounterd no inconsistencies, no bugs, no oddities - yes the AI is crap at naval operatiosn, but that's not your fault, that's the AI - and overall I enjoy this scenario like no other before. I might not be a frequent poster here, and even less known here, but I play Civilization since ages, and this one is a very nice experience.
Also I need to say that my WW2-Global differs completely in terms of graphics - I separated all the ship classes and tossed in Wyrmshadow ships, also did the same with planes and tanks (and Mobile Artillery) if necessary. It's so much better to actually see a Texas battleship when it is one, or being able to recognize a bomber. But I know that when the scenario was released, many of the needed graphics weren't available. For the terrain, I use Aares de Borg's. I've changed nothing at all in the unit stats except improving the Japanese Yamato BB, which I thought to be a bit underrated.
Keep up the good work Rocoteh and don't let anyone drag you down. Your scenario is a masterpiece!
What has made you think that Rocoteh?
