Did I beat super-hard AI?

[ChuckBerger]

Well, yes and no. Read on.

First, a general word about the super-hard difficulty setting. It's a good simulation of the Eastern Front, circa 1944. The combat and movement bonuses for the AI Russian are so extreme that you'll mostly be on the defensive across much of the front from about the end of July.

Let me put it this way: in a game on normal difficulty, a line of infantry divisions, one per hex, is pretty much all the German player needs to hold, perhaps with an extra division at key points or where there is a huge concentration of Russians. In super-hard, a continuous line of 2 divisions per hex will not hold, even if rested and entrenched.

In numerous tries, I was seldom able to get much past Riga, Minsk and Lvov before the AI had me on the defensive.

So finally I developed a plan...

[ChuckBerger]

Here's the plan: choose military independence, so that taking any of the 3 major goal cities and holding it for a month would result in victory. Then blitz hard on Leningrad by the most direct route possible - Daugavpils-Ostrov-Pskov-Luga-Leningrad. Have the Finns aggressively tie down and sucker in Russian divisions. Cancel D+2 air offensive immediately. Reassign PzG3 to AGN and have it support the main spearhead by PzG4

Then, at the right time, massively breach the theatre command boundaries by shoving PzG2 into AGN as well, and as much infantry from AGC as I need, and have the Finns breach the border as well. From this point on, I will have no PP, but hopefully enough troops to capture and hold the city.

According to the manual, if I can take and hold Leningrad, I'll get at least a minor victory, even if the VP situation is disastrous, which it will be, since I have no ambitions at all in AGC and AGS area. Take Lvov, maybe Minsk. No further.

[ChuckBerger]

After playing with this approach a lot - like 30 restarts - I became convinced it's possible.

And so here's a quick synopsis of the game I just finished:

Turn 1 - PzG4 gets off to a good start, heading towards Daugavpils. In AGC, PzG3 gets to Grodno, Brest is surrounded. In AGS, a standard opening. With the surprise rules in effect, this first turn plays out similar to a normal game, though already the defence is tougher and the Russians far more mobile.

Turn 2 - PZG4 takes Daugavpils! PzG3 moves up to Vilnius, trapping lots of Russians in and around Kaunas. Brest is stormed. PzG2 switches to sustained offensive to save fuel for PzG3. Mostly the Russians are pulling back.

Turn 3 - PzG4 takes Ostov, there was no garrison there, and pushes north nearly to Pskov. PzG3 continue to press north, as far as the Dvina River but still in AGC territory. Lvov and Kishinev fall, no further ambition in AGS. The Finns seal their first pockets of Russians in Karelia.

Turn 4 - I swear the Oath to Der Fuhrer and join the party, to improve relationships with Der Fuhrer enough to allow PzG reassignment. PzG 4 takes Pskov, and SS Totenkopf swings through Novgorod (no garrison) all the way to a hex next to Luga (garrisoned, unfortunately). Kaunas pocket is nearly eliminated. Infantry screen off Riga, which I have no intention of taking, given it has a major garrison. Some Russians cut off in Courland. Some of PzG3 moves into AGN, incurring PP penalties for next turn. But I need them there...

Turn 5 - fuel running low in AGN. Finns trap lots more Russians. PzG3 is officially reassigned to AGN and moves up through Daugavpils/Ostov. Pretty much all of the Russians left facing the Finns retreat south, and show up in and around Luga this turn and next. First attack on Luga fails.

Turn 6 - Still low on fuel, but huge masses are showing up on my eastern flank from Novgorod all the way south to Daugavpils. PzG2 is attacking towards Polotsk, drawing some of them off. PzG4 has to attack with last dregs of fuel to rescue the encircled Totenkopf near Luga. Finns advance all the way to the border at Leningrad, there are no Russians in sight save a single division and the Leningrad garrison.

Turn 7 - Fuel is flowing fast and free! PzG4 smashes through the Russian forces at Luga, taking the town and a hex to the north. Seven divisions of Finns cross the border, overrunning the northern Leningrad fortifications. PzG 2 and 3, with elements of infantry armies moving up to join them, are engaged in a desperate see-saw battle to keep the supply line through Daugavils/Ostrov/Pskov open. FSB is at Daugavpils.

Because of my pushing the Finns across the border before Finnish intervention, I will have 0 PP for the foreseeable future. None. My Chief of Staff will be running the show. And as a result of that, my relationships with everybody except Brauchitsch and Der Fuhrer start to plummet from next turn. And I have no ability to shift posture, reassign air or artillery assets, move airfields, etc. No matter. I needed the Finns to take those forts and prepare to attack Leningrad. I'm nearly there. Eyes on the prize.

Turn 8 - PzG4 links up with the Finns east of Leningrad! There is only a battered infantry division and the major garrison inside the city, which is now cut off from Russia. Novgorod is retaken. There are lots of Russians in Estonia and northern Latvia, they now begin pulling back to the north.

Incidentally, in AGC 4th Army had been slowly moving forward, against pretty much no opposition. This turn they surround and take Minsk.

Turn 9 - Leningrad falls to a concentric attack by PzG4 and the Finnish Army. Now I just need to hold it for a month.

Turns 10-17. Along the entire front, the Soviets counterattack, but the battles are particularly fierce around Ostov/Polotsk, where I only just manage to keep the main rail line open. In Estonia, cut off from supply, the Russians are rounded up. On Turn 14, I took Tallinn (no garrison) and Narva. Conversely, the Russian counterattack at Minsk is successful in recapturing the city. In AGS, I push slowly forward in western Ukraine, opportunistically attacking here and there, and taking Proskurow, Rovno and Tarnopol by the end of the game. The Russians counterattack in Karelia with about 30 divisions; the six Finnish divisions up here are hard pressed, but hold in a few chokepoints.

On Turn 16, The Finns formally intervene, and my -90PP penalty per turn goes away. I actually have PP to play with. But by now all my relationships except with Der Fuhrer and Brauchitsch range from terrible to terrible. And my logistics are a complete shambles, since I haven't been able to do any truck refits etc.

After the AI turn 17, the game ends...

[ChuckBerger]

... in a minor Soviet victory?! Never have I been more annoyed with a video game.

The manual (page 58) clearly clearly states that if the German holds his objective and the Russian holds his objective, with the "military independence" victory conditions, the result should be a German minor victory, with no further conditions.

The only effect of VPs should be to downgrade a decisive German victory to a minor German victory, if the Germans haven't gotten enough VPs.

But in this game, I got downgraded from a minor German victory (I hold my objective Leningrad, and the Russian holds their objective Moscow) to a minor Russian victory.

So, Vic and Cam, did I win (as the manual says and as all in-game info says I should), or did I lose (as the final game report claims due to insufficient VPs)?

[ChuckBerger]

final "victory" screen

[ChuckBerger]

And finally, some stats from this game:

- I lost 847 PP to border crossing violations (!!)
- Delegated 62% of decisions to my Chief of Staff (because I had no PP, of course)
- lost 290K casualties, to 1.2m Russians, a loss ratio of barely 4:1. And I'd say after the surprise turns it was more like 3:1 on average.
- I only lost two units, the 5th Finnish Infantry, and an Occupation division at Minsk.
- I killed only 6 Russian HQs and 112 divisions.

[lancer]

Hi Chuck,

Hey, well done! That's no mean feat.

Victory wise your victory is a minor one because the Soviets held their objective. If this wasn't the case you'd have a major victory.

You've also had your victory downgraded a further notch to a minor defeat as your score was too low.

Have you won or not?

Well I'm going to be a politician here and say that the answer is both yes and no.

The minimum score requirement (that's caused the downgrade - NOT mentioned in the victory matrix in the manual) is there to prevent German players from doing exactly what you've done - throw everything but the kitchen sink at a single objective. In one sense this is a-historical (you're expected to take a minimum chunk of russia, not just a narrow part of it) and very gamey (you could probably beat anyone at PBEM with a similar strategy).

On the other hand it doesn't take into account that you have been locked in battle with the fiercest of foes - Super Hard AI - and that taking an objective is a definite win regardless of anything else.

If I was you I'd crack open a beer and take a well deserved victory drink.

Figuring out a winning strategy against this level of AI is a mighty achievement all on it's own.

Cheers,
Cameron

[Jonathan Pollard]

ORIGINAL: lancer


The minimum score requirement (that's caused the downgrade - NOT mentioned in the victory matrix in the manual)

So why not include this in the manual errata?

[ChuckBerger]

Thanks Cam, yup I enjoyed my victory drink! Was a really fun challenge, even if it was a big departure from history and I had to break the game a bit to "win". Or lose. Or whatever.

Would be good to have a precise account of victory conditions in the manual errata. Players need to know what they have to do to win the game! And I'm still in the dark as to exactly what the "minimum score requirement" is...

[lancer]

Hi,

There is a one cell in the Victory Matrix table that was omitted in the manual. My fault. I'll update the errata.

The minimum score requirement is pretty simple - the German adjusted score needs to be equal to, or higher, than the Soviet score.

It's there to ensure that the German player captures a reasonable chunk of Russia, not just the narrow corridor that leads to the objective as Chuck has done.

There's enough flexibility in the relative scores to allow the German player to leave a decent slice of Russia untouched but there's a minimum requirement that needs to be met in order to claim a win.

Cheers,
Cameron

[ChuckBerger]

OK, I did the math on this. On Super-hard difficulty, the German player needs to have roughly 83 VPs worth of cities to pass the score threshold, vs the Russian 58 VPs worth of cities. (83 * 1.3)/ 2 = 54 German score, 58*.9 = 52 Russian score.

On map, that equates to the German player taking all of the Baltics plus Leningrad, everything short of Smolensk in the centre, and everything up to the Dniepr in the south including Odessa and Kiev, plus a few minor objectives over the Dniepr in the south.

I believe that is impossible to accomplish in Super-hard.

So I see 2 ways of beating super-hard.

1) Do what I did - blitz Leningrad - and hope that the Russians choose Leningrad as their must-defend objective. One in three chance. If so, German decisive victory gets downgraded to minor victory, but it's still a win.

2) It might just be possible to defeat super-hard AI in AGS, playing a long-game strategy. Send PzG2 south, possibly via Gomel -> Kiev, aiming for a very large encirclement. The conscript armies are beatable, even in super hard. Hope the AI doesn't send extra armies south. If you get really lucky (eg, no major garrison in Sevastopol), it might be possible to get enough VPs down south to pass the threshold if you can push the AI far enough so its armies can't maintain a continuous front and you can encircle lots of troops.

Not sure I have the stomach to try option 2 at the moment! Maybe later.

[ChuckBerger]

Also, Cam, the victory conditions do give rise to some potentially quirky situations in the "military independence" option.

For instance, suppose the German player very quickly captures Leningrad, as I did in this game, but doesn't get far enough in other fronts to pass the threshold within 30 days of capturing Leningrad? The game ends in August with a minor Soviet victory. That's really counter-intuitive; it effectively means the German player is penalized by losing the game for the fact that he captured one of the three main objectives too quickly, before the other theatres had time to catch up! The victory conditions are fine for an orderly end of January 1942 ending, but they lead to some strange results for early game completions.

I think that in any situation where the game ends before the end of January 1942, in anything less than a decisive German victory, the German player should have the option to keep playing in order to get the required VPs for victory.

[lancer]

Hi Chuck,

Good point on the victory conditions.

It's a tricky one as if the Germans had followed your Leningrad keyhole strategy on the day they would have, most likely, found themselves in an untenable situation once the Soviets started punching back hard elsewhere. The loss of Leningrad wouldn't have been enough for the Soviets to surrender.

However the loss of Leningrad plus the loss of a lot of extra territory might have been, hence the requirement for the minimum VP floor.

I'm not sure that giving the Germans longer than a month to catch up is a good idea. Hammering into an objective and creating a long narrow salient might not be that desirable from the point of view of High Command.

On the other hand it's probably worth tweaking things for the higher AI levels to give you a fighting chance.

Cheers,
Cameron