Axis vs. AI my first attempt

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Jim,

Definitely continue - while there are some nits to pick with the AI, we've all played through many turns without any significant problems. It will give you a good fight and historical outcomes overall.

Regards,

- Erik

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 6

The Fins continue advancing through the tough terrain of the north against virtually no opposition. With such a cakewalk here I decided to take an extra turn to isolate the Russian division in Vyborg instead of trying to push further on in the hopes of catching some of the retreating Russians. Better to force one division to surrender than have it route away and survive to face the Germans.

I’ve cleared most of the river line west of Pskov with my infantry. I’ve decided to hold them here in hopes the 4th Panzer Group can surround a good chunk of the defenders now that it has managed to open a small break in the lines through the marshes east of the Sinyaya River. That line was very tough to break through, but I think they’ve managed it. Next turn will see if they can capitalize on the gain or not.

3rd Panzer Group made a nice breach south of Vitebsk this turn. I’ve redeployed the rest of the group south from their positions along the Dvina River and they are now in a position to exploit the breach next turn. They’ll head due east towards Smolensk and then turn south to try and link up with 2nd Panzer Group who made a nice breakthrough across the Dnepr in the area northwest of Gomel this turn.

2nd Army has arrived in the area and will take up the southern flank guard next turn as 2nd Panzer Group strikes hard to the northeast towards Smolensk.

Near Kiev the blob of Russian units has grown to absolutely huge proportions. Instead of sending 1st Panzer Group due east this turn, I’ve decided to hook south with it and try and use it to form a large pocket around the blob next turn. At the same time 6th Army’s infantry will drive east and try and cross the Dnepr north of Kiev.

In the far south Odessa does not appear to be heavily defended, so I’ve decided to keep 11th Army heading east to try and capture Nikolaev before the Russians can set up a defense along the Yuzhny Bug River. The Rumanians will form a pocket around Odessa and hold until the 11th Army returns to assault the city.

Although at first I balked at the blob style defense the AI uses, this turn has lead me to respect it more than I had before. The sheer pain of lost movement caused by the mass of ZOCs prevented the 2nd Panzer Group from breaking out near Gomel this turn (though it came soooo close). And the other Panzer Groups had real trouble getting enough units to the point of the spear to mass against some of the heavily entrenched Russian stacks they face, so their attacks were not as large or focused as they needed to be and many battles from the march were lost.

I’ve now got most of the Panzer Groups adequately massed where they need to be, so I’m hoping next turn has some real breakthroughs. I’m starting to feel the pinch of time, and I need things to break open soon. Being over the Dnepr does help mitigate some of the stress I was feeling though.

Against the AI I could probably have easily raced some Panzers over early, but that would have been suicide vs. a human opponent so I restrained myself. The past two turns has made me really respect Major Rivers and taught me a lot on how to successfully get across them in the face of heavily dug in troops.

My first mistake was putting the panzers along the river line in the first place. They suck at crossings so you need to pull them off the line to make room for enough infantry to move up. That is lost movement points thrown away for no good reason and that combined with the extra movement you pay for all the ZOCs you then have to try and move through once the river is breached, means most of my breakthroughs suffered for it.

Rookie mistakes, but that’s why I play the AI first.

Jim

[kfmiller41]

Jim,
Great AAR so far. Might I ask how you are making those huge screen shots your posting? I assume your stitching together several but i am probably wrong.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: miller41

Jim,
Great AAR so far. Might I ask how you are making those huge screen shots your posting? I assume your stitching together several but i am probably wrong.

I use Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, it's a nice image editor. Basically I create a large blank new image 2000 pixels across by 8000 pixels high. Then I cut and paste screen captures onto it after I've cropped out all the game interface stuff around the edges and merge them all when I'm done. Then I crop it down to get rid of the white areas and Walla huge screenshot.

It took 8 screenshots to create the last one above. If you're gonna try it, I recommend making your crops along the x in the infantry symbols (though not through the very center as you need part of a v cut in half along the crop edge for it to work) of the units along the edges. It makes mating up the images very easy as you only need to focus on a single unit and it gets both the left right axis and up down axis aligned at the same time.

The whole process takes about 5 minutes once you get used to it.

Jim

[kfmiller41]

I would but i don't have paint shop pro, always had trouble with it because the learning curve is as steep as WITP AE[:D]

I use Snag-it 9.0 for screen captures, it can't do as much as yours but is does provide enough tools to get your points across. Good luck when winter comes, from what I have seen in other AAR's it isn't pretty at all.

[Avenger]

Great AAR! The AI does indeed recover nicely. I took Kiev on turn three, and was very over extended. I rested for a single turn, while I brought up units to cover my flanks, and woke up to a massive Russian invasion. Turn nine and I am still halted at Kiev. (I patched a couple of times since then). Keep going. This is fun.

[Jim D Burns]

Russia’s turn 6

Ok this game just continues to surprise me, after Russia’s move this turn, you can color me impressed. This screenshot is after very heavy recon flights by me but before my moves (actually I made three attacks near Kiev, you can see the hole I created near the Uzh River, but that is all), so you can assume not a lot of Russian units remain unseen unless they are heavily entrenched or in dense terrain. At least within 10 hexes of the front or so, I didn't do deep recons.

So what does the recon tell us? It tells us the AI is capable of identifying potential pockets and capable of reacting to the situation. That’s right gents it reacted to my moves to try and form pockets. First take a look at the small salient west of Vitebsk. Now my plan wasn’t to encircle those units, but the potential was there and the AI saw that and pulled back.

It also identified my move by the 1st Panzer group south of Vinnitsa to try and encircle the large blob of units there and pulled back much further as the threat there was greater than the one near Vitebsk. I will still probably surround some units here, but it saved a lot of units from suffering that fate by conducting this turns move.

I then see what must have been a strategic decision by the AI. A large percentage of the units that formed the large blob near Kiev have apparently redeployed north near Smolensk to react to the threat posed by 2nd Panzer groups crossing of the Dnepr River.

This is amazing to me, I have never seen an AI make a judgment like that before where it weighed the risk to strategic objectives and redeployed forces to the objective it felt is more important. Both Kiev and Smolensk were threatened and it chose to defend Smolensk, a correct assessment in my book. But unlike most AI’s that would move everything north, it left a line of defenders and also left a defense group in and around Kiev, not bad.

The one lesson this turns Russian move brings home to me is that I must achieve significant progress for breakthroughs in a single turn, enough so that the AI is unable to undo what I’ve attempted to do. Unfortunately for me I’ve learned this the hard way this turn.

Bravo 2x3 on what has to be the best Wargame AI I’ve ever seen in action. Not a human opponent no, but far above anything I’ve ever seen before for an AI.

Jim

[karonagames]

The SU gets a ton of reinforcements on turns 4 and 5, that really should be rested and trained up before being sent to the front, but GAIA tends to throw them straight into the fray, so a lot of what you are seeing are "paper tigers" and very fragile, by turn 9 you will be probably have routed a ton of them, and then they do stay back refitting and training.

Some people are more shocked than others when they see this, but it doesn't last long.

[Jim D Burns]

Turn 7

I end my moves on turn 7 and am beginning to think the 150% entrenchment bonus I gave Russia may have been a tad too much. 4th Panzer Group is having a heck of a time trying to make progress through the dense terrain east of the Sinyaya River and only made about 2 or 3 hexes progress this turn.

With Russian units averaging 3 or 4 levels of entrenchments, I am starting to lose more fights than I win with the 4th Panzer Group. I’m beginning to think they won’t be able to breakthrough before the weather changes. And that makes Leningrad a long way off.

My only hope is the two Corps from the 18th Army that have been clearing the way to Tallinn will meet little resistance when they turn east towards Leningrad. If they can get across the Narva River quickly, it may prompt the Russians around Pskov to abandon their entrenchments and fall back to defend Leningrad which will free up the stagnant front in the north.

The 3rd and 2nd Panzer Groups continue to make good progress however. Both gained at least 4 hexes this turn and both widened their breaches as well. The 3rd Panzer even got across the Dnepr with the help of the infantry in the area and grabbed the 90 degree bend in the river hex north of Mogilev.

South of the Pripyat Marshes 6th Army blasted most of the units opposing it in front of Kiev, but the slow moving infantry simply lacked enough movement to exploit anything so the lines have moved only a few hexes there.

The 1st Panzer Group broke down several units in order to cover a lot of terrain and raced to encircle what remained of the large group of units southwest of Kiev. In total it appears I’ve trapped 27 units, most of which are combat divisions. Unfortunately I couldn’t seal the very northern tip of the pocket, so the AI has a chance to relieve the pocket in its move.

Jim

[Grotius]

Fascinating AAR, Jim. Keep 'em coming.

[Flaviusx]

Yeah, panzers are not amazing at cracking forts. You may want move a lot of pioneers into those corps and directly attach them to the mobile divisions given the fort setting in this game. 150% ratings are impossible level, btw.

In normal settings Soviet units have very poor construction abilities and a human player has to spend a good deal of time and APs to bring that up to speed. (By building many subunits with construction abilities.)

This isn't quite as bad as supercharging the Red Army by cranking up their moral setting, but I'd say it's about the second worst thing you could have done to handicap yourself. Forts are a pretty big deal and a huge defensive multiplier.