GC 41 2ndAcr (G) vs Oleg (R) No Oleg please

[2ndACR]

Turn 30 Casualties

[2ndACR]

Turn 33

No attacks anywhere north of Kiev. Good, because my units are taking a beating bad up there.

In the south, the issue is in doubt. Big Time. I may have to start falling back heavily. He has opened almost the entire southern front. Only my mountain units are holding strong and launching counter attacks.

[Mynok]

No mobile force in the south yet to pummel those tank brigades as they come through?

[randallw]

Glad you kept the weather on; keep seeing AARs with weather off, makes the blizzard period look too friendly for the virtual troops.

[2ndACR]

Mobile forces are in the area. Have been. 4 Panzer div north of Kirovgrad along with the mountain boys.

2 Panzer down south near Odessa. Partisans destroyed rail like no tomorrow and had to fix it. Could not risk my armor in the open during blizzard.

Situation in the Center, in 1 turn he smashed all around Smolensk and I have 2 Panzer cut off. 6 Panzer div are nearby but don't think I can save them. This sucks.

[CavLancer]

Perhaps the experience the Germans had going in isn't well represented and German unit strength should be raised.

Actually I really don't know, but something doesn't seem right, its only '42.

[2ndACR]

There are a couple of bugs at work. These are listed in Beta 3 patch as fixed. We will soon see.

[randallw]

One dislike I have of the map is how water is shown during a blizzard; it looks more like powder than a large frozen surface.

[2ndACR]

Turn 37

Please let the snow come. Almost the entire winter offensive is concentrated in the deep south. The entire front is shattered. The blizzard has crushed my armor units, crushed my infantry across the entire front.

So far the damage is horrendous. I managed to lose 5 Panzer Div to the mass of armor and cavalry units. It was all she wrote when I had to use my armor to try and hold the door open and the immediate crushing 1CV they went to once he did a wide circle doomed them. Even though they had almost full supply, ammo, fuel the previous turn, they were doomed. They were trying to hold the door so my mountain boys could escape after they kicked a door open. Then they got crushed.

I should have let the troops just die and saved my armor, but I can think of no military commander worth anything that would allow 50,000 troops to die without trying a rescue. Once the snow hits, I should be able to use what few armor units I have left and what few infantry div left to try and toss those armor brigades back. But doubt it due to all the exp and stuff I have been hit with.

[2ndACR]

Turn 38

Finally some MUD!!!! Situation in doubt, but my confidence is increasing. I will have a hard road ahead to rebuild. But at least now my CV is coming back and I can start tossing these armor brigades back.

[2ndACR]

Most of the worst is over. But seeing as how I already know that I cannot do anything offensive wise, guess it is time to turtle hard.

I hate doing it, but due to those lovely bugs, I am not going to waste my manpower even trying to crack his lines. It would be a useless waste. So, time to go boring and just dig. I have sent 3 million picks and shovels to the front. And ordered another 6 million spares.

I will be conducting some small actions in the far south where I might be able to find low forts, but I doubt it, his men dig like moles and I am already seeing level 3 forts down there after 3 turns. So I expect that he is going to find a very boring game from here on out.

[Senno]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Most of the worst is over. But seeing as how I already know that I cannot do anything offensive wise, guess it is time to turtle hard.

I hate doing it, but due to those lovely bugs, I am not going to waste my manpower even trying to crack his lines. It would be a useless waste. So, time to go boring and just dig. I have sent 3 million picks and shovels to the front. And ordered another 6 million spares.

I will be conducting some small actions in the far south where I might be able to find low forts, but I doubt it, his men dig like moles and I am already seeing level 3 forts down there after 3 turns. So I expect that he is going to find a very boring game from here on out.

Well, even the Russian dirt is obstinate. Might want to quadruple those shovel orders.[:'(]

[Pawsy]

I am playing Germans in a pbem game and I started digging in Sep well before even the mud and have by Oct 41 already dug two lines to level fort level 4 along the front from Leningrad to Gomel. I think you have suffered by not preparing for winter. My strategy in 41 was just to destroy his units not take geographical objectives. By turn 15 I have destroyed 2.2M manpower and some 9700 aircraft as well as a large part of the Donbas region where most of my armour is. Blizzard in the south is much less severe so a limited offensive in the north and major attack in the south seems ideal? Also by effectively not attacking on a large frontage you save trucks and manpower which will be sorely needed to survive the winter and come out fighting in 42 Its a long war.

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: starbuck310

I am playing Germans in a pbem game and I started digging in Sep well before even the mud and have by Oct 41 already dug two lines to level fort level 4 along the front from Leningrad to Gomel. I think you have suffered by not preparing for winter. My strategy in 41 was just to destroy his units not take geographical objectives. By turn 15 I have destroyed 2.2M manpower and some 9700 aircraft as well as a large part of the Donbas region where most of my armour is. Blizzard in the south is much less severe so a limited offensive in the north and major attack in the south seems ideal? Also by effectively not attacking on a large frontage you save trucks and manpower which will be sorely needed to survive the winter and come out fighting in 42 Its a long war.

Lol, starbuck310 I have some very bad news for you. Your forts will not help you much in blizzard due to the reduction for 1st winter. I had fort 2-4 on my line and still got blasted on very first turn of blizzard. Good luck with that.

Also, I destroyed about 10k sov planes by end 41. Still doesn't matter sov air forces will be about 15k by spr 42 with current version.

You better have bagged about 5 million sov by end 41 or you'll be facing a monster sov army of about 7-9 million by spr 42. I bagged 4 million by end 41 and faced sov strength of 7 million by spr 42.

Either way, you need to get through those 13 turns of blizzard and we can chat again. You find the same as all axis player in current version ... prepare for mostly a defensive posture from 42 onward.



Sorry for the grim news. [:(]

[Pawsy]

Well its Sep 41 so far and I have about 15 divs in the bag for next turn. I know about the blizzard, been there hence why I have dug in months in advance and conserved manpower. Already sheltering in towns. I know whats coming dont worry My plan is to do all I can to minimize the losses as far as possible. I just noted that the German player was, I feel, late in digging in. I dont think, apart from manpower and resources that grabbing many of the geographical towns in the centre and north are worth much effort compared to the south where all the real large resources lay. If you can strip the Soviets of 3 - 4 million manpower and capture the southern region you will have severely hampered the Soviets.

TBH I dont judge my game on the final computer result. I know how well I have done.

[2ndACR]

Okay, since Beta 3 is out, and I have already been hit with massive TOE upgrade killers and the replacement bugs, I have surrendered this game for a restart.

If Oleg agrees we will restart with a new AAR. He has been warned that if we continue this game, he will face a turtle from hell all the way to Berlin.

I much prefer an exciting game than a turtle.

[Oleg Mastruko]

OK since this game is over I am allowed to comment (I guess).

I do think ACR was in very very bad situation, and bugs or no bugs in his place I would be thinking about surrendering too. He asked for a "restart", now it may seem as rhetoric but I absolutely hate the word "restart", so I said, just surrender this game (that I believe is indeed lost for Germans) and then lets start another. I don't believe any turtle would stop me, because unlike Kelblau I did attack and destroy 15-some of his units, including 5 Panzers. Smolensk and Odessa are firmly in Russian hands... spring 42.

I think ACR made lots of mistakes in the opening turns and this game should not be taken as representative of Sov vs German power. In parallel with ACR I have played two other Sov PBEMs, albeit with much slower tempo. Lets just say I was ready to surrender both of them, but one of my opponents persuaded me to continue. Still, I find Sov situation in at least one of those two games completely hopeless.

We'll see...

Vs ACR I wasn't any smarter than vs those two guys, basically Sov player plays in as much as the German allows him. ACR simply wasn't aggressive enough. Every turn that other two Axis guys completed MASSIVE encirlements, he would try to do the same and come up 2-3 hexes short. I would simply evacuate my units thru the gap in good order, so instead of bagging 60 divisions, he would catch only 6-10 most unlucky ones. Repeat that three times and instead of 160 Russian divisions killed, you have only 15-30....

In this game things pile up, snowball, or skyrocket pretty fast. Domino effect. Lets say by mud season you capture mere two cities short of historic Germans. That's two cities worth of production and manpower more for Sovs etc... Come winter you will be 4 cities short, blizzards - 8 cities short, and by spring 42 German situation, compared to history, will look catastrophic as the situation in this game indeed does.

I believe the same goes for Soviets and losing cities, but we'll see. Anyhow, this kind of brutal snowballing effects and razor thin balance is what prompts people on board to whine and ask for (mostly pro German) changes. I hope developers will be very cautios before introducing possibly game breaking changes. Balance in this game is very elusive concept!

It's good that I play against ACR too, because based on my two other opponents I would think Germans are ridicolously overpowered. However, I am afraid I didn't do anything special vs him, so his failures are his own.

In the new game we just started, I wanred him he will have to advance much further into Russia before mud to stand any chance of winning.

In the meantime, I am getting THOROUGHLY smacked in my other two games vs human Axis, so don't take this particualr game as being representative of Soviet (overstated) might.

[randallw]

I haven't seen a human Soviet allow 50 or 60 divisions to be surrounded in a group.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: randallw
I haven't seen a human Soviet allow 50 or 60 divisions to be surrounded in a group.

There is nothing for Sov player to allow or disallow there, Axis player can do it, and there's nothing Sov can do to prevent it. Except maybe for spreading his units in a manner that prevents more than 30 being caught in one sweep.

[karonagames]

I believe the same goes for Soviets and losing cities, but we'll see. Anyhow, this kind of brutal snowballing effects and razor thin balance is what prompts people on board to whine and ask for (mostly pro German) changes. I hope developers will be very cautios before introducing possibly game breaking changes. Balance in this game is very elusive concept!

Wise words indeed! I think most of the discussions in the development forums in the early days after launch were about the apparent lack of aggression on the part of the Axis players. In my "benchmark" game with Trey, it was commented that I, as the Axis, was being "Insanely Aggressive", and I feel that this should be the attitude that Axis players need to stand any chance of knocking the Soviet defence off balance, and prevent it solidifying. Once the SU defence gets locked in a strong defence line, it is very difficult to crack and maintain the initiative. The Axis must fight hard to maintain the initiative, which is why I wince when I see the attacking stop and the digging begin on turn 17, 8 turns before the initiative is forceably taken away by the blizzard.

Prior to release, I felt that both sides had very little margin for error in 1941 - Trey left 2 hexes unguarded and lost the Crimea and Leningrad as a result; I cocked up the Turn1 pockets and had to chase Trey around for a couple of turns, but I managed to catch up with some big pockets in the south.

1942 is the true test of balance, and it remains to be seen if the 1.03.3 changes will achieve the desired result.