Tutorial Scenario Question / How to continue

[philsublime]

Hi there. I just started out with WitE. I have read maybe 10% percent of the manual (in no particular order; whenever I had questions) and played the tutorial scenario together with the tutorial manual.

In the tutorial manual, unit merging and stacking-up is described, in order to concentrate fighting power in a single hex. This concept seems logic to me and I had no problems applying it. However, I found the tutorial scenario so easy, there was absolutely no need doing so. I replayed the scenario on normal difficulty, and again I had no trouble winning it. The AI doesn't even try to defend the victory locations. The axis have a pretty strong force available and I'm sure I would have troubles taking and holding the v-locations playing against a more aggressive opponent. Is the AI so weak or is it simply not made for this small kind of scenarios?

Where should I go from there? What's the next best scenario for a beginner? Any suggestions?

Thanks

[loki100]

my own process was:

the very short Minsk scenario - only from the German side (too harsh to learn much with the Soviets), but it'll get you used to planning turn 1, encirclements and so on

Road to Leningrad - I think its biased to the German side but its good for both. Low unit density, relatively clear objective, will get you used to putting the bits together but not getting lost in the process

Road to Smolensk - bigger than the above, so its a nice step up in scale.

I was lucky to then find a PBEM opponent who was also learning their way so we went over Leningrad/Smolensk and then Dnepropetrovsk (which I found as the Soviet side the most fun of the 1941 scenarios), Moscow and then into the 1942 scenarios.

overall - I'd say this game has one of the best AIs I've seen. It is probably too aggressive but you can play around with the settings (and alter them over a campaign game) to give it a decent hand up and to stop it suiciding - the German AI in 1941 is particularly keen on encirclements (which is good), but tends to overextend (and gives you a free cull of 4-5 Pzr/Mot divisions). What I do is to start it on steroids, tone down the morale bonus over late summer-autumn and then put it back up for the rest of the game. That seems to prevent the suicides I'd seen in a couple of earlier tests.

Certainly play a 'Road to' in each of the main German army groups and one of the Moscow battles (that in Lost Battles is a lot better than the original) before launching yourself into the campaign.

that way, if it all goes horribly wrong you've not invested too much time and effort.

[Priapus1]

ORIGINAL: loki100
overall - I'd say this game has one of the best AIs I've seen. It is probably too aggressive but you can play around with the settings (and alter them over a campaign game) to give it a decent hand up and to stop it suiciding - the German AI in 1941 is particularly keen on encirclements (which is good), but tends to overextend (and gives you a free cull of 4-5 Pzr/Mot divisions). What I do is to start it on steroids, tone down the morale bonus over late summer-autumn and then put it back up for the rest of the game. That seems to prevent the suicides I'd seen in a couple of earlier tests.

Brief hijack... I'm doing a little bit of rebalacing of the 1941 scenario at the moment and am running a lot of AI vs AI games to test AFV production rates. The german AI is doing a terrible job, hammering head first all along the line into the russians 6 unit deep defences, using hasty attacks that are often resisted. I haven't seen a single encirclement so far. I'm not sure if I've screwed up the scenario AI, but it is currently set to 0 for both sides. Is this the correct AI selection for the 41 scenario?

[swkuh]

Next scenario? try Stalingrad to Berlin. At some point you have to do production & TOE assignments for air & land.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Priapus1

Brief hijack... I'm doing a little bit of rebalacing of the 1941 scenario at the moment and am running a lot of AI vs AI games to test AFV production rates. The german AI is doing a terrible job, hammering head first all along the line into the russians 6 unit deep defences, using hasty attacks that are often resisted. I haven't seen a single encirclement so far. I'm not sure if I've screwed up the scenario AI, but it is currently set to 0 for both sides. Is this the correct AI selection for the 41 scenario?

Personally I think the German AI in 1941 can't cope with 1-1. The key shift I've made is to lower Soviet morale (even 5% makes a real difference) as well as giving it lots of help. These are my current settings:



But I let the German AI have 130 morale all June-July-mid-August, then set it down to 110 for the balance of the summer/autumn (I did this to stop it going on very deep penetrations). In addition to the early game pockets it pulled off a really neat around Rzhev that completely disrupted my lines.

Here's the northern sector of the front at the moment - last turn in December with the new winter rules:



so its worked out well. By end November most of my rifle divisions were 2 CV except those I stored behind Moscow for the winter offensive and the few that arrive with high morale. Obviously your own skill etc comes into this, but this has produced a decently challenging game where I've not exactly gone out to find the best solutions.

But I think the German AI won't do the things a player will to lever its advantages, but it does indeed like to pull off encirclements if it can see how.

[philsublime]

Thank you guys! I'll try one of the mentioned. Concerning the AI, I'm sure it's much stronger. It just doesn't show in the tutorial scenario, as it seems...

[Joel Billings]

We always suggest that players that have learned the game system play at least at Challenging level. We also suggest that the German AI be given a larger advantage, especially in 1941, as it's a real challenge for the AI to play a strong offensive game requiring pocketing when it doesn't have a ton of extra units around to make sure it's covered the front line to prevent counter-infiltration.