Screwed, blued glued and tatooed...

[henri51]

I started a random scenario on a Xlarge map with mostly land, the map areas are all connected, but there are a lot of inlets and peninsulas. I didn't pay much attention to choosing my side, and ended up with the Russians on a small island connected to the mainland by a looong causeway about 3 or 4 infantry moves long. There is only one city on my "island", but a few oil and raw resources. The nearest other city is about 8 moves away on the "mainland".

So I create a few armored cars to carry my infantry, only to find out that armored cars don't move much faster than infantry on roads, whereas tanks move about twice as fast. To make things worse, when the road reaches the mainland, it splits right and left with a city on both ends. On the Eastern end the city is a dead end, but in the west, when it reaches the coast, it loops right and follows the coast North until further on it splits NE and W. The Western road continues to a small peninsula, smaller than mine, which means that anyone starting there is closer to the cities further to the North.

I make a couple of tanks and some artillery, and a couple of fighters and dive bombers to support my infantry, while producing more infantry, and horses and trains to increase my transfer ability, a second HQ to go with the infantry, and additional staff to support the increasing army.

The only city my air force can reach is the one to the NE so I send them there, which turns out to be NOT where they are going to be needed. From there they can reach no other city, so I decide to produce 50 engineers to build an airport at the intersection at the end of the causeway, from where I hope they can reach the city to the NW.Then I have to move these engineers to the intersection, wait until they get ready, only to find out that 50 engineers are not quite enough to build an airbase.[:@]

In the meantime, I have sent my tanks up the road to the West then NE to capture the unoccupied city there, while a few infantry units with horses and a bit of artillery, AT guns, SMGs run around grabbing resources and oil, and two of them head straight North from the intersection for a long cross-country trek, having a long way to go before they get to a road heading further North and East.

It was then that the doodoo hit the fan! One of my armored cars headed North on the road to the West with infantry and a bit of artillery and mortars collided with the Chinese who apparently were coming from the aforementioned peninsula to the West. A check on the strategy map showed that I was FAR FAR behind all the other nations in all areas. I managed to bring another armored car to help, and created a new infantry unit behind them, and began to move all other infantry units to the area, because I could count 13 enemy units, mostly infantry and militia.I turned around my tank unit, which had 3 light tanks supported by a bit of infantry and mortars, and headed SE in the direction of the enemy, where there was a city that looked unoccupied. It was occupied by 3 enemy units [:@], and my armored unit got its nose bloodied, although fortunately the 3 tanks survived. So I swung the tank to the South, hoping to arrive at the point of contact before my units were wiped out.

Here the AI impressed me, because instead of attacking my units, it proceeded to flow its units around them a la Blitzkrieg with foot infantry! I retreated my forward unit and tried to form a kind of line, which is not obvious with only 3 units against 13.One of them was temporarily put out of supplies, which gave me a chill when I saw the red dot on the unit, but I managed to move it temporarily behind the line so it could recover.

At this point I figured I might as well resign the game, because I had only 3 cities able to produce units and 3 others producing PPs and resources, and according to the strategy map info, all of my opponents had many more.

But still, by now my engineers had built an airbase at the intersection, and my air units had moved there, and next move could move to the city where my defence hinged. So I moved them there, and my reinforcements were arriving allowing me to get a better defensive line, although the enemy was still on the verge of flanking me on both flanks. My tanks unit had arrived to my right flank, and with the aid of an air attack and an infantry unit there, blasted the enemy flanking unit who took heavy casualties and was pushed across the river, whereas my losses were light. On my left flank, a combination of my armored cars and infantry also dealt heavy damage to the leading unit on that flank, which consisted of only militia.

However considering the huge difference in production power, it seems improbable that I can survive a battle of attrition against the Chinese, especially given the fact that they don't seem to be in contact with any other of the 4 other nations, who are also far ahead of me.[:(]

If anyone thinks that they can survive this game, let me know and I will send you the saved game...

henri

[Tac2i]

I hope my offline tips and suggestions help you with this battle. Long run, it may be too little too late. We always learn and apply. I'm still learning stuff myself.

[henri51]

Your suggestions to build cargo ships to send units overseas to capture cities and to use the engineer to build a tank factory etc. make sense, but as you say, it may be too late, especially if those cities are already occupied by another opponent. I do have earlier saved games where your ideas could have been applied with better chances. Anyway this is a learning experience. Indications are that I might be able to hold out against this opponent despite their being 3 times stronger than I am, especially if they continue using only infantry. The ones that really worry me are Germania, who are more than twice again as strong (about 5x stronger than I am).

Feel free to post you graphic file here with the suggestions - it could be useful for other players too.

Henri

[Josh]

Been fun reading you AAR Henri [:D] Screwed, blued glued and tatooed...
Can't you post a screenshot of your situation? A pic says more than a thousand words see?
 
English is not my native language, so I'm having a little difficulty understanding "screwed, blue glued and tattooed" I mean... what have a screw, blue glue and a tattoo have to do with each other? It probably means something like getting your butt kicked right?

[henri51]

Here is the part of the Xlarge map concerning the AAR. The mneaning of the title is an old expression I heard when I was a kid meaning "more than dead" [:D]

[Barthheart]

WOW!!![X(]

Never seen map like that before..... what are the chances......[:D]

[Jeffrey H.]

A suprise naval attack perhaps ?

[rainchild33082]

Surprise naval attack or at the very least do a elastic defense and double and triple team single units to try and KO them one at a time.  Heavy losses will happen, but at the least.  I am buying the game today 

[henri51]

ORIGINAL: henri51

Here is the part of the Xlarge map concerning the AAR. The mneaning of the title is an old expression I heard when I was a kid meaning "more than dead" [:D]

That map in the NW has two cities and a couple of resource hexes (the whole map is a LOT larger - I think it has 57 cities if I remember right). Webizen has rightfully suggested that I should early on have made a ship and gone after those while doing what I did. We both continued few moves on our own, captured the two cities and resources, and noticed that the Germans were biting at the rear of the enemy. Considering the curves in the strategic map,Germania is about 10 times stronger than I am, and when I sent a transport ship to capture that city in the NW corner of the above map, there were 9 German units on the city, some of level II and III (*gulp*) who immediately obliterated my infantry. This means that my units will have to made do with what they have...

I have invited Webizen to post his continuation on this thread, since he is a better player than I am. Although I cold survive a while longer, I don't see how anyone could survive this situation.

Henri