Burns vs. Flaviusx

[Flaviusx]

Anyways, the Axis reoccupy Sardinia and otherwise do nothing at all this last turn. No combat anywhere. I burned through more oil than I care for in all this Med excitement already. This is supposed to be a quiet time.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Your call, Jim

I'm fine, been building up to an Overlord all game. Why on earth would we call it before we even tried it.

Jim

[Flaviusx]

Well I have to say your forces in the UK look most imposing.

[John B.]

Did you ever figure out the US problem in Sardinia? It seems that the invasion would have gone better if they had been able to move off of the beaches.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: John B.

Did you ever figure out the US problem in Sardinia? It seems that the invasion would have gone better if they had been able to move off of the beaches.

Nope.

Might be possible it was due to ZOC movement costs, or perhaps due to only having 3 of 6 actions available, not sure.

Air superiority was the reason I had no time to figure it out. Had more than one fighter been able to reach the beaches and protect them, perhaps that would have saved the troops, but there was so much German air, I doubt even that could have helped much.

May also have been a map glitch, just don't know.

Jim

[John B.]

Thanks.

[Flaviusx]

Nothing to report here, we are both in winter quarters and waiting for clear weather. Just turned in my February 24, 1944 turn. It took about 5 minutes to do.

[Flaviusx]

Some tech notes: close support and interception are fully maxed out. Several other techs will likely hit their caps by mid year at the latest. At this point, all I really care about is getting assault, breakthrough, escort fighters and heavy tanks completed, the rest is gravy. Out of all these, assault is the one lagging the most and has been all game long. Interceptors have consistently been in the lead, not surprising since they start at 1940 tech.

[Jim D Burns]

25 Febuary 1944

Nothing to report, so thought I'd tally research points. Germany is almost 2 years ahead of some of the allies in critical tech's. So wondering if they have some kind of advantage in the tech game or if it's simply really lucky die rolls.

Some of the US tech's are still 42 and just now about to reach 43. This is probably due to overspending on naval stuff early game, but I did switch to land and air focus when I realized the Germans were ignoring naval stuff. Perhaps that's the problem, you need to play a min max game to be sure techs reach high level near end game, but that would require ignoring quite a few techs.

Here are the total tech points per country:

UK: 35
US: 41
Soviets: 29

[Flaviusx]

I am very surprised to hear this.

In solo play the allies can do just fine in tech research provided they make priorities. Any critical tech should get a minimum of 4 points. More if possible. Secondary techs 1 point. Tertiary techs...zip. Each country has different priorities here. Obviously the Soviets are going to deemphasize anything naval. Germany probably can skip things like strategic bombing altogether (I always do, anyways.) Or for that matter electronic detection and escort convoys and warships and all of that.

None of the allies has to research breakthrough tech because none of them have any such units to begin with. They can focus purely on heavy armor. The Germans, in my experience, need to do both heavy armor and breakthrough tech, but have a starting edge in breakthrough and can do this.

I did try to keep up my sub tech early on but dialed that back after the discovering the bug. Still, German sub tech is at 43.

The USA ends up getting the most tech points over the games I have played, the Italians and Soviets the least. Some of the major powers start off with 1940 tech in some areas. Like interceptors for both the UK and Germany, and both those countries can cap that early as a result.

No country has enough points to do it all, but the US does come close.

The USA, uniquely, has the choice of skipping all fighter techs but escort fighters because they aren't going to be in the war for a while anyways, and can disband their starting fighter and go all in on escorts. I think they should do exactly that. The others need interceptors immediately and can't really afford this luxury.

The tech game is an interesting minigame in of itself, and each country has its own strategy here. But I do not believe the Axis has an edge as such. I haven't seen it in solo play and have tested both sides here.

[Jim D Burns]

I think part of my problem is I was spending 2's and 3's. Hadn't seen the post in the main forum that said 1 or 4 is best, so I probably wasted a lot of points until I saw that. But naval stuff is the main culprit I think, chances are you were at zero in all of those and I was not, thus giving you a decided edge in the number of techs you had riding 4+ all game.

I also made the mistake of assuming you could do both assault and anti tank with Britain at level 3 as it starts at. Big mistake, pick one and stick with it and get to the magic 4+. Yeah I guess now that I think about it it was probably wasting points on 2's or 3's that cost me the most in the end.

Jim

[Flaviusx]

The only country that absolutely has to prioritize both assault and antitank tech is imo the Sovs. The others can focus purely on one or the other, usually assault. The Soviets are locked into doing assault because all their massive infantry reserves are assault formations. But at the same time, they have good reason to make any new infantry builds AT.

The UK and Italy both have a handful of AT formations, but not enough imo to want to make AT a primary tech. The UK indeed can eventually disband their AT units once they ride out the initial German blitzkrieg. I would put a single point into AT with both those countries, and maybe eventually none at all.

The USA and Germany should never even bother doing AT. They have the best infantry in the game and their infantry can lead in the attack. The German landsers because of their intrinsic starting experience, and the US GI because of their intrinsic mobility and tanks.

[Flaviusx]

March brings rains and the luftwaffe comes out of hibernation in the East to strike at both ground and airfield targets. The Red Air Force, though still not a match, does inflict some damage in return.

Screenshot of the German war economy included for examination. I am now subsidizing Italy and my minors to the tune of 150 production a turn (50 to Italy, 25 each to the 4 others) because why not?

I don't know how much is in the kitty here because the game strangely does not count past 1000. It's a lot. Production has ceased to be a constraining factor for the Germans. I've been saving up to 300 points a turn since October of 43. I'm buying 5 trucks a turn and 3 AA a turn and really have nothing else to do with my wirtschaftswunder.

Manpower has recovered very nicely indeed. I spent most of 1943 just barely above 50%.

The real concern is oil. Just under 1k. That sounds like a lot. But with an active East and West front Germany could easily spend 150 or more oil a turn. Simply conducting a full round of airstrikes in the Eastern front this turn cost nearly 40 oil.

The allied disaster in Sardinia was not without effect, either. I probably burned 200 oil just to to set that straight and including large oil subsidies to Italy, which ran dry during this campaign.

Oil is the weak spot here.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Oil is the weak spot here.

You can expect a full court press when Overlord gets underway. The only chance the allies have is to knock Germany out of the war, so once it begins I shall push till you break or my manpower collapses with all nations. Yes even the Soviets. They built a bunch of armor to hopefully give them some more bite, though experience was low for the builds so who knows.

Both Britain and the US are finally within a few hundred of their logistic caps, and I expect them to reach it before Overlord launches. That will be a LOT of air power on map when it all arrives. Soviets are still almost 2k away form their cap, they never had a chance to get anywhere near the 4k+ cap they are allowed, manpower is all but gone with about 1600-1800 cap unused by them.

Jim

[Flaviusx]

It's going to be rough. You may have finally reached the critical mass in airpower to do the job. I have 6 fighters in the west (including two escort fighters in Germany) which is respectable but maybe not enough.

I really cannot afford to put more air in the west than this. 5 fighters in the East is about the minimum possible to maintain air superiority over there. And that's all of it, 11 total. Italy is taking care of itself for the time being.

Northern Russia unexpectedly clears up this turn and somewhat against my own judgment I launch a limited offensive in the general direction of Rzhev and Kalinin. Results are good. 4-1 exchange ratio and I even shatter an army. But can I really afford to be spending oil like this? Then again, can I afford to not knock down the bear when I get a chance? Too passive a stance in the east might just give the bear a chance to recover and try to get something going somewhere.

[Flaviusx]

I found a possible bug this turn.

Production sent by Germany to its minors and Italy gets multiplied by whatever the recipient's multiplier is.

This is pretty ridiculous when you consider that the production itself has already been multiplied by over 2 in Germany proper and then is getting another bite at the apple in its destination country. I suspect this works in reverse, too, that if these countries sent their production to Germany, it would get multiplied at the destination again.

Maybe this is working as designed, but it feels like an unintended freebie to me and a bit of a perpetual motion machine. You end up with a single point of production turning into 3 or more this way after all the multipliers take effect. Keynes would be jealous.

[Flaviusx]

To clarify here, for example, Germany sending 50 points of production to Italy, ends up turning into about 80 when it gets there.

Total Italian production: 185. That's astonishingly good, enough for Italy to crank out a trash infantry corps every turn.

[Jim D Burns]

I'll test this with Canada next turn. I know it didn't work that way with the US/UK - Soviets as when I checked them a while back they were somewhat short.

[Jim D Burns]

I just had another thought. Make sure you crunch Germany's numbers closely too. It could be you are not sending 50 production after multiples, but rather 50 before it is effected by the multiple, thus Germany should be down 100+ production from the turn before it sent it if this is the case.

Jim

[Flaviusx]

I'll double check this next turn.

Germany was at 621 before I started doing Nazi lend lease.