KZ vs YohanTM Tourney game Post-mortem

[KorutZelva]

Hello,

this is one of those post-mortem thingnies.

For this one I tried to strip France defense in favor of a NA push for the UK.



France fell in the first turn of July... which is maybe 3-4 turn faster than if you actually put a fight in there. I maxed out my tanks to get over the limit when you get that Egypt one. I wanted to progress in lybia fast enough to have my fighters be in Malta air cover range but that wasn't a realistic goal in hindsight.

Yohan diploed Yugo and from there cashed in the Italian decision to declare war on Greece.

In Russia I tried the Sugary thing and spared my armies for later. This was handy in depriving the germans of experience. By not giving battle, the germans made very rapid progress and got Leningrad and Moskow just as 1941 ended.

In spring 1942 I made a move in Southern Italy to push the Italians from the war.



Wasn't planning to get to Naple before Sicily but a carrier spotted it was only defended by a wounded plane and when I took the city the port was higher than 5 supply so I changed my plan. When I finished conquering the lightly defended Sicily the Italians sued for peace, however the rest of the troops on the boot were destroyed in low supplies. Leaving Sicily has an aircraft carrier garrison.

Even after Germany took over Italy, the Axis held the unit count edge...



They would maintain the unit count edge until 1943. Russia focused on big ticket items which is why their unit count was low.

In the atlantic I mis-managed my assets and the uboats ruled the sea for a long time.



The situation was only reversed by investment in ASW and units. In 1943 we had a showdown between my depleted navy and the uboat off the coast of Britain and France which turned in my favor in part because part of the battle field was within range of my land-based aircraft.

Yohan spent 1942 a bit unfocused driving me off areas of low strategic importance and only in 1943 put all his resources to defeat the USSR. A battle of Kursk of sort happened around Stalino which turned in my favor.



Here's is the tech situation at game end.



Some surprises there. Namely the lack of long range tech and industrial tech of Germany only at level 3 which accentuated the mmp disparity.

More thoughts later...

[YohanTM]

Thanks for the game KZ, it was quite a bit of fun and a complete back and forth. I missed some very key opportunities. First big miss; I redeployed my air to take out Malta without first checking out GB thoroughly. It would have been clear it was weekly defended and I should have done Sea Lion. Second; my U-boats were wreaking havoc (over 200MPP in some turns), I should have resupplied them in the Spanish ports and away from France. Leaving Naples un-garrsioned was a big error. I was surprised Italy bailed though he was nowhere near Rome and morale was still at 6%. I did crush an entire army group at low supply.

On the diplomacy front, I got Yugo very early which was great but after that my diplomats were awful. Research breakthroughs were non-existent even though both Germany and Italy invested in spying early and often.

The end game was very well played by KZ, his superior units and tech in Russia, all focussed like a razor in the south left me unable to solidify my lines. There are a few other mistakes/lessons I learned but I'm keeping my powder dry to optimize my game play for the next challenge.

[room]

Sounds like quite the game. Gratz to you both!

[KorutZelva]

ORIGINAL: YohanTM

Thanks for the game KZ, it was quite a bit of fun and a complete back and forth. I missed some very key opportunities. First big miss; I redeployed my air to take out Malta without first checking out GB thoroughly. It would have been clear it was weekly defended and I should have done Sea Lion. Second; my U-boats were wreaking havoc (over 200MPP in some turns), I should have resupplied them in the Spanish ports and away from France. Leaving Naples un-garrsioned was a big error. I was surprised Italy bailed though he was nowhere near Rome and morale was still at 6%. I did crush an entire army group at low supply.

On the diplomacy front, I got Yugo very early which was great but after that my diplomats were awful. Research breakthroughs were non-existent even though both Germany and Italy invested in spying early and often.

The end game was very well played by KZ, his superior units and tech in Russia, all focussed like a razor in the south left me unable to solidify my lines. There are a few other mistakes/lessons I learned but I'm keeping my powder dry to optimize my game play for the next challenge.

I think the threshold is Italy bails when under 20% NM. That means Lybia-Sicily-Naples will usually clinch it.

Italy accounted for 7% of the total unit count at the time it sued for peace. That's a lot of unit to replace even if they were mostly used for garrison. Also provided a timely distraction at a time Germany was closing in on Stalingrad and was considering abandoning it and regrouping my forces further back.

YohanTM made the choice to focus on the opening Barbarossa and to deploy only after I made my move. I feel it would have been better to spend a bit more of garrisoning Sicily. Even with 4 tanks, UK didn't have much in terms of bombers so it would have been very difficult to assault had all the cities been covered in corps.

The Axis lagged in Advanced Aircraft tech vs the UK for a good proportion of the game which I used to lure the Axis in costly air battle in Sicily.

YohanTM went for Yugo and I didn't contest it going for Spain. By the time Yugo joined the Axis, the allies had managed to get Spain into a hole. He scored a couple of hits to revert allied influence but the only realistic way he was going to get Franco was going to Algeria. Once the USA joins, the diplo game is essentially a defensive game. Even more so in this game because by that time, the Italians and their diplo-chits were gone.

I think when the UK was pushing in force from the East in NA, he should have went to Tunisia and westwards to Algeria. Especially since Italy got caught flatfooted by the NA offensive and it became rapidly apparent their position were untenable.