THE LAST KINGDOM: Sillyflower v sveint. SVEINT WELCOME

[sillyflower]

After the titanic, and at times wonderfully absurd, struggle between us (see: www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4814300) which ended in a fluke Allied win on the last turn, we are starting round 2 with version .07 with the fixed '39 scenario ie the Russian inf xxx don't throw their guns away when the Evil Empire starts Barbarossa.

Anyone familiar with my WiTE AARs will know that I try to mix explanation with the narrative, with generous helpings of trash talk.

The name of the AAR comes from Bernard Cornwell's excellent series of books about the heroic efforts of the Anglo Saxons to fend off and smash the evil Vikings, of whom sveint is a no doubt a proud descendant. The DNA shows in his great love of invasions. The books have been made into a great TV show (4th series is now on Netfix) which I commend to anyone who has any interest in the period, or who just likes a lot of gory violence and treachery.

[sillyflower]

War is clearly imminent as shown by this picture said to be of sveint, taken by Polish Intelligence just across the german side of the border




How can we lose against such a poser??

[ncc1701e]

Awesome! I will follow this with interest.

[sillyflower]

We've both done T1. I am winning because he hasn't conquered a country yet, but I have. The people of Luxembourg welcome their new french overlords in true Kent Brockman style. (Those not familiar with the Simpsons should ignore the previous sentence).

There was also a serious security lapse on the German side. This was found on a dead german lieutenant just outside Posnan.






We all suspected that the Axis would try many invasions, but the Kriegsmarine is clearly looking for innovative solutions to a serious shortage of kit. I'm not sure that this is one of sveint's better ideas though.

[sillyflower]

T2

Sveint may have overrun the plucky Poles, but the biter has been bitten. I had taken a screenie but turned my PC off last night before saving it[:@]. This is not going to be a high tech AAR

The allies do the first sea invasion of the war! Silly 1 sveint 0 is not how the game is supposed to go....

Hamburg fall to a plucky British inf xx that landed at an unguarded Bremerhaven.. Sources close to the German gov.t report high levels of unrest, particularly as there are currently no German troops between our gallant lads and Berlin. The Nazi economy will be damaged for weeks and there are even rumours the German morale has fallen so low that a coup can be expected

Vaguely serious note: this invasion was done by a 3 strength division so the cost was tiny.

[Manstein63]

You should bite the bullet & invade Belgium, while he is distracted

[sillyflower]

T3

The plucky Brit brigade succumbs to attacks by half the wehrmacht but they will be credited with stopping sveint taking out Holland in T3. To any sceptical reader, I deny that truth is the first casualty in war, and nor will it be at any time in this AAR.

Nothing else to report other than shuffling the French around in much the same way as sveint describes in his AAR vs Liquidsky, but in a less well-organised way. Sveint plays with Nordic efficiency, I role play as the French. Their refusal to be organised by their government is legendary, and quite admirable in a way. As de Gaulle said when he was president 'it is impossible to run a country that has 500 different cheeses' - tho' undoubtedly he said it in french.

All ports inc on Cyprus are garrisoned to try to exert some control.

[Flaviusx]

Sigh. Stupid naval invasion tricks.

This is really my least favorite part of the game. Some people hate partisans, this is what I hate.

Naval invasions are too easy and lend themselves to endless cheese. Of course it is easy enough to prevent this particular cheese (DO NOT LEAVE PORTS UNGARRISONED FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) but even so.

[eskuche]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Anyone familiar with my WiTE AARs will know that I try to mix explanation with the narrative, with generous helpings of trash talk.

Hopping forums to confirm this part.

[MagicMissile]

Happy to see a more AARs.

Garrison your ports always unless you want unwelcome visitors [:)].

/MM

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Sigh. Stupid naval invasion tricks.

This is really my least favorite part of the game. Some people hate partisans, this is what I hate.

Naval invasions are too easy and lend themselves to endless cheese. Of course it is easy enough to prevent this particular cheese (DO NOT LEAVE PORTS UNGARRISONED FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) but even so.

It's not as annoying as partisans because the solution lies in the hands of the port-owner and garrisoning is neither difficult or a chore, and they needed garrisons IRL. 1 of my other opponents invaded America a few turns ago. It was a different way to fail ..........but warplan is not a WiTE -style simulation. I like both but I think that the weird 1st game I had vs sveint is the game I'm most likely to look back on with a smile. I don't eat cheese so perhaps I just need a different source of it [:D]

The other solution is a simple house rule re invasions. The root cause of the cheese is that players can see which hexes contain units anywhere the map, for which there is no historic justification. However, I do not advocate changing that.

[Flaviusx]

You don't eat cheese? But it is the best source of calcium and tasty and it keeps you from doing silly naval invasions. A sharp cheddar is a sovereign remedy here.

But then you'd have to change your name to something other than Sillyflower.

Cheeseeatingflower admittedly does not roll off the tongue.

More seriously, yes, an alert player can shut this stuff down by planting a division on every port and should do so. But I still think the whole thing is way too easy. No prep required, no escort, no political consequences for total suicide missions. There is no real cost at all here. The division you threw away is completely disposable in game mechanic terms. I don't like any of it. It ought to be harder than this. I hope the Pacific version of this game steps it up.

Am also doubting that even the crazy British would be okay with this sort of suicide mission, notwithstanding their historic tolerance for suicidal ventures in Norway, Greece, Dunkirk, etc. You guys have a bad habit for this sort of thing.

[sillyflower]

Noncheeseeatingflower would be more accurate but even sillier. Anyway, I thought that cheese-eaters are surrender-monkeys, and I try to avoid having to do that. Perhaps Polleneatingflower would be a better match, though somewhat self-contradictory.

I think you meant to refer to Dieppe, not Dunkirk. We had the sense to use someone else for that. We have both posted elsewhere that invasions are too cheap to do, and I think that particularly true of long range ones that need a bit more than Siebel ferries.

[sillyflower]

We are now up to early Jan '40 but nothing happening. Sveint's subs seem untouchable and using guided torpedoes wich is qite annoying. He's turned off the iron ore shipments from Narvik to prevent the loss of Germany's merchant fleet. Sensible but still annoying.

I scrap 2 Soviet inf xxx per turn, building 2 replacements per turn as the programme to create Red Army 2.0 (or perhaps 1.5). At least it's something to do whilst the wehrmacht is quiescent. I have no idea if this the best way to proceed. I have been scrapping the corps at the front first to tempt sveint into doing an early Barbarossa (he does have twice the necessary units in Poland) but it's a long-shot.



Astute readers may notice that some of the inf xxx created at the same time have the same name. I am assured that this is to confuse the enemy, rather than a trivial glitch in the game.

[RoadWarrior]

Yes, I feel your pain.

Just started playing a few weeks ago and the invasion thing does seem a little gamey.

But it does make for allot of non-historical out comes - not boring for sure.

[RoadWarrior]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

More seriously, yes, an alert player can shut this stuff down by planting a division on
every port and should do so.

Even that does not work all the time. Some ports you can land at two hexes with Corps and cap the port.

One way to slow it down would be 3x the cost to build landing craft and 2x per point cost to carry per point of unit.

Quick simple fix - less mindless cheese more thinking aka planning.

[sillyflower]

Still nothing to report except that sveint's uboats are getting to be a little more than annoying. I suspect there is a bug.

See my 'invincible subs' thread www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4821637

[Flaviusx]

Nah, they've been like this for a while. The allies need a lot of luck to get any hits on those subs early on, and subs can cause quite a bit of damage during the phony war.

[Harrybanana]

Well an average of over 5 merchants sunk per turn over a dozen turns is more than I ever accomplished playing solo. But maybe I haven't played enough to be an accurate sample size.

[Flaviusx]

Are you grouping them together? Use them in packs of 3 for best results. Don't split them up. This is the secret sauce.