Lightning Tournament Rd. 1: Lucky1 V. Xianing UV 2.1

[Lucky1]

My first AAR....

**************
Fall 1939

In response to Polish aggression against German minorities and a Polish commando raid against a German radio station, the peaceful Reich is forced into a confrontation she does not want. [;)] Striking forcefully into Poland on three fronts, the Wermacht makes short work of the Polish troops, sustaining no significant losses.

(This was where I was going to paste a prt scr of the combat, but evidently this is not how it is done... Grateful if a more computer savvy person tells me how I save a copied screen as a .jpg . Anyhow, Germany sustained no casualties.)

In the Atlantic, the first Wolf Pack hits the seas and scores minor hits against English Shipping.

Hitler sends diplomats to the British and French. With Poland a fait accompli, why do they see the need to fight for a failed state? Especially when Stalinist Russia makes any lingering defence of Poland impossible.... In Italy, Ciano advises Mussolini that notwithstanding Germany's rapid success, it was prudent for Italy to remain aloof from Hitler's war for Danzig. France and England are still too strong for Italy in the Med...

Around the world, the Japanese unleash major air offensives against Chinese infrastructure. But for egregious faults in bomb sight technologies, the offensives might have obtained spectacular results. (Mitsubishis....) Rather, the Chinese enjoy a nice show of precision aerobatics.... However, few fail to miss the build-up of Japanese troops on the mainland!

[xianing]

Fall 39,
As Germany attacked our friend, UN decide to put all force into defence and to hope Hitler will countinue to attack our enemy too.
Other news is one of UN TP was damaged when fishing, hope that accident won't come again.

[xianing]

Other side Japan did nothing but to show off their planes. China withdrew all troops from sea shore to show peace and invite an Japanese occupation.

Russia bear sleeps.

[Lucky1]

Ok. Correction. NOW it is fall 1939. Was just checking to see if you were paying attention....

Noting the massive build-up of troops in France (rough parity in numbers with Germany), Hitler orders troops shifted to the Western borders. Evidently his diplomatic overtures have been rebuffed. If the French want war, they may still get it..... Minor wolf pack activity occurs in the South Atlantic. The British are already starting to establish convoy routes. German bombers target Glasgow's industry, giving a foretaste of what is to follow if England pursues war with the Reich....

In the Pacific, Japan accepts the gift of land from the evacuating Japanese. Bomb sight issues have been corrected in tactical and strategic arms. However, significant issues persist with the sights of CAGs.... The infrastructure of Southern and Central China remains undamaged....

(Don't know if my screen shots will work properly... Forgive me - my second attempt!)

[xianing]

Sorry for my mistake and now Fall 39 again.

Allies did nothing but to dig holes and wait for Germany. If Germans attacks TLC in the winter, a big counter attack is waiting for them.
I just added another part of Lucky1's screen shot.

[Lucky1]

Ok. I decided to take the low countries in 1940 (and sufffered an infantry casualty!!), notwithstanding the very massive buildup in France. Germany's infantry are at rough parity with the French 6/6 v 6/5 and her tanks are 7/8. Artillery is the same. As such, there is no big advantage to be gained from delaying an attack to let the allies build up further.... Although historically the French had a larger military than Germany, I am wondering whether this will work with AWD... especially since there is no way to replicate ardennes or the blitz (rather than a three month staging period) through Belgium. Perhaps it was unwise to remove two infantry from East Germany in this mod.... In any event, this game will be another test... I had to strike a tricky balance between placing enough troops in Belgium and leaving them in Germany to stave off a possible game-ending attack from France. In retrospect, I might have been able to place some more troops in Belgium, especially noting that I decided to buy five militia for W Germany.... Again, it will be interesting to see how things play out.... Anyhow, I await whatever counterstrike Ning chooses. (ouch)

Air raids v. London industry bear no fruit. Attacks v. allied shipping create a few casualties. If France does not fall soon, it will be very onerous to resupply the wolf packs.... (not that it will matter)


In the Pacific, not much activity. Air raids damage industry and rail in Changsha (I think it was that one -- the first inland province with a factory).

[Lucky1]

Although it is not evident in the screen shot, six of the numbers in West Germany are fleet. Three are bombers.... Perhaps Ning (who is seemingly better at the screen shot thing than I am) can capture the relative troop strengths in a photo.

[christian brown]

Sean, awesome work so far.....a great read and thank you

[Lucky1]

Thx... I have come into some spare time recently (i.e., I took leave of my job and we decided to stay in Australia rather than transfer to the Philippines). Why aren't you in the tourney?

[MrQuiet]

Also remember:
W germany gets 5 free milita if attacked.
W Germany has fortress bonus
You would get winter bonus also
 
Those three make it pretty tough nut (German infantry would be at 8ev and mil would be 7ev)
plus the Allis are probably pretty short on supply and would have to ship it in from all over the globe.
 

[xianing]

Ok Let's see what happened next.

First, Lucky1 has made a mistake so Allies got a combination arm bouns when attack TLC. The result is Germany 11 hits, France 9 hits, UK 3 hits. Till now I can say it is not bad for UK.

But what is not lucky is 3 damaged allies tanks are all from east France, so next turn Germany can get a bouns when attack into East France. (All TLC artilleries are gone for repairing, so no attack bouns on West France) I should say if there was one tank left in EF, next turn Germany can't win battle at both sides.

Here I have to choose. I can just left France and prepare for next North African campaign, the problem is Germany will surely attack EF and damage all UK troops there. Another choice is try to put everything to hold France one more turn, but it is less possible in this situation.
I choosed the third option, which is to put more armies into EF to discourage an attack into Maginot but left WF lightly defended, then hope all UK troops could be well preserved when Vichy declared (Notice that all WF troops are French).

So Lucky1 also has two choices. If he attack WF, I can say Germany has lost the first France campaign, because Germany lose 11 population and built 5 militas for nothing. If he attack EF, he may give a higher damage to UK troops but I'm not sure he could win.

[Lebatron]

Ouch. It seems Lucky1 has overlooked garrisoning TLC properly. In UV2.0+ the French can now get CAM on the Germans if they're not careful.

Earlier xianing claimed he was going to launch a counter attack on TLC in the Winter. If Germany advances into TLC in the Fall a counter attack from France could be a typical response but not so in the Winter. The Winter bonus plus the fact that Germany should have better infantry and tanks by then makes this a poor attack for the Allies at that point unless Germany positions itself wrong.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: Lucky1

Perhaps it was unwise to remove two infantry from East Germany in this mod....

UV2.0+ has 16 starting infantry just like Total War and the original UV. Same for tanks. Only the starting map positions and Que placement are different. A few more tanks are in Western Germany's factory que than before(moved from Cech)to put more pressure on Western France so the Allied player has to garrison it better.

[Lucky1]

Ouch indeed. First time playing against someone who liquidates the globe to defend France!!! Italy, where are you now that the med is evacuated? Think of Greater Rome!

Anyhow, the bad news is that my mistake in not garrissoning Belgium in W40 with every available troop has probably already lost me (or should I say Tom!) the war. With this turn, there is certainly a feeling of deja vu since I was only able to place roughly the same amount of troops in it again.... Here is to hoping that England does not have enough supply for any major attacks...

As for any counter-attacks from me, none had any probability of success....

In the Orient, Japan scores a strategic bomb hit and a hit against rail. Otherwise, repositioning occurs....

[Lucky1]

The screen shot might make it look like I could have put more troops in Belgium from W. Germany. However, these were again the tac/strat bombers, navy and all the infantry/arty etc. rebuilt from my damaged units from the turn prior..... Sigh.... I see a vicious cycle developing that ends rather badly for Germany. Although I tried to cut off supply from India with my subs, these are undoubtedly being shuttled via the Med.... No joy!

[Lebatron]

Its looks like Germany is missing a bomber in TLC again to prevent a French CAM bonus. If Britain has a bomber in England and if France has any Arty left then xianing may just put Germany through the ringer one more time. 

[Lucky1]

Hmm. I had forgotten that one could prevent combined arms bonus that way. Will become part of my set piece openers in the future! Interestingly, from what I can tell from Lebatron's AAR with Xianing -- and this is subject to error, as there was no specific screen shot --Germany had only one more unit in Belgium for that counterstroke. Of course, in my game Xianing seemingly had more units in Eastern France. In any event, something made a massive difference -- undoubtedly it was the tac bomber!)
 
In terms of observations, it seems that WA are able to get some initiative a bit earlier in UV than otherwise (i.e. German strategy becomes reactive to WA moves moreso than in other mods/scenarios). This is probably not killer (in the absence of an egregious player error) in view of the longer Soviet war entry threshold, but requires a very set attack pattern by Germany if France is mounting any defence. Of course, this is stating the obvious in retrospect. A lesson for me....
 
This AAR may prove to be rather short....[:(] 

[MrQuiet]

Just going to chime in with my thoughts (keep in mind I  have not played UV2.1 just per-oozed the setup)
I noticed France has 3 armor units ready to 'pop' in the build cue.
Seems a bit much, If I were going to give them any it would be just 1 and they would have to decide where to position it.
 
Again I have not played it out and do not know how things work out in the real world, that was just my first observation on the subject.
Carry on!
 

[Lebatron]

Concerning the invasion of France, UV2.0+ is not as forgiving of player error as the stock scenarios. Germany has to play good during the first few turns to lay down the proper future of WWII. In real life, if Germany had bungled its invasion of France, WWII as we know it would not exist. France may have hung in there. Just imagine that. The WWII genre of strategy games would probably look a lot like WWI games, and I'm sure if that was the case the US Civil War would surpass the popularity of WWII as the genre of choice for many.

About your speculation of the Allies early initiative I would have to say your mislead by the way xianing played his opening moves. Just because he liquidates the whole globe, as you put it, to defend France does not IMO steal some initiative from Germany. In order for any of them British forces to actually harm Germany they would have to be used in a counter attack or stay defending France till the bitter end. In either case lots of British forces are going to get damaged making Allied defenses around the globe very weak for some time. A skilled German player will certainly take advantage of that. Maybe via Sealion or perhaps just an easy roll through Cairo. Also lets not forget that Allied transports have a 15 base capacity in UV2.0 making it difficult in the early years for the Allies to move large numbers of troops around. All them British forces in France have to get back into position to face the Italian entry or face the consequences.

[Lucky1]

Perhaps I have been misconstrued. I would not disagree with any of what Lebatron has stated. Indeed, had France and England taken the initiative while Germany was invading Poland, the war might have been over ASAP (I do not think it would have been another WWI). While this most certainly would have been the preferable historical outcome, this does not make a very exciting game. Fortunately for gamers (and not the 30+ million who died in WWII), the French allowed were trapped in a defensive mindset and suffered from a lack of operation coordination etc. I suppose this was modelled in all other versions of AWD to date insofar that France really could not take Germany unless the German player actually evacuated W Germany. I am guessing that this was also why the original WAW started in 1940 with the preset German blitz through Belgium. In both versions this meant that Germany did not really have to react to the possibility of French invasion (effectively game-ending). So, obviously this version is not as forgiving as the prior versions.

Now do not get me wrong, I actually LIKE that France / England can pose a threat to Germany from the outset. It keeps the German player honest and provides the WA with some choices (i.e. force an exepensive confrontation etc. - this was what I meant by initiative). To be honest, I was not prepared for a whole world evacuation (which would not have occurred historically), but I have no objection to it in principle in the game if the right balance can be struck, with adverse consequences to the WA if they pursue this strategy. These adverse consequences may well be present, but they seem to have not been tested overmuch (you did not play out your game with Ning, after all. And, this tourney was to get feedback, was it not?)

At this juncture, I think it is premature to say that this strategy is a game-killer. Had I done the Belgium thing properly (and it would seem there is only one way to do so), things might have been quite different. While I will gladly play this particular game out to the best of my limited ability, I think it can be written off as a result of my ignorance of how to prevent combined arms attacks (I did not know this was possible). I am not sure that I could have garrissoned Belgium much more in face of the large number of troops threatening Germany, but I could have gotten a couple more infantry in there.... This comes from personal inexperience b/c all other versions of AWD to date did not really make an attack against W Germany feasable (and I have no experience being in Xianing's shoes, as I have only played UV 2.x once as allies and did not pursue a similar stategy) and I did not know how much to leave behind in Germany.

I am curious whether Ning could redo the W1940 turn by attacking W Germany instead. Did I grotesquely over-garrison Germany? Did France have any chance at all of success?

Anyhow, I look forward to the next moves, no matter how devastating they might be!