AtD Russian AI: Defends in depth?

[stevel40831]

Chelco,

Right click on the objective cities and move the cursor over the German flag and you will see how many point you get for capturing it by a given turn and how many points you ger per turn for controlling it. It is also important to view the points that the Russian player gets per turn for each objective. Take some time looking around the map and doing this to each objective city and you will understand the general direction you should be headed and roughly what turn you want to try to capture it by.

Also, as I look closer at your maps (which are excellent by the way!) I would highly recommend that you spread your units out a bit. It appears that you're stacking complete divisions within the same hex, or, at a minimum, are stacking some combination of 4 units in most stacks. Stacking like this, and not spreading out, creates a couple of problems. First one is that you're giving the defender a pretty good idea where you're massing and where you plan your main attacks to come from making it a bit easier to defend against. The second, which goes hand-in-hand with the first, is that you're restricting your options. By that I mean that if you're fanning out a bit more you're also forcing the Russian player to spread out more, thereby reducing the defensive strength of individual hexes. In the first map, I usually have a few infantry units moving slowing through the woods south of Senno, herding the defenders to the southeast (nothing is worse than partisan activity in the rear!). By not doing this you're leaving units in your rear areas a bit too much and they can become a pain to get out afterwards. The "herding units" should stretch from south of Senno to the woodline south of Kovali. Also, you can see by the 2nd map that the computer player took advantage of your stacking and not spreading out by slipping a couple units between your formations and closing in on your replacement hexes. Although I'm sure you didn't have much trouble mopping these units up, would you rather be attacking units to your rear or in front of you? Although I've only played AtD a few times I do remember that you can get units into the woods southeast of Kovali fairly quickly. A division or two or even a division and a couple of support units would have been a nice force to put a wedge between your flanking group in the north and the forces coming from the west, providing flanking protection to the northern group and threatening the northeastern side of the computers pocket. This could have been accomplished with probably one of the stacks (again by spreading out) coming down from the north.

Keep in mind Chelco that the spreading out strategy works fine in AtD because the Russians have very limited counterattack capability. In KP you must be much for careful as the German counterattacks can be quite nasty. Hope this helps a bit on your next try!

Steve

[BrubakerII]

Steve is absolutely correct about the VL's. This is where I think many people fall down in Dnepr. It is easy to feel comfortable as german because you are destroying maybe five-ten units a turn, but if you work that out that equates to only about 25-40 points each turn, and this will certainly not guarantee a win. The VL's are critical.

Therefore the very first step in the game as german is to study the VL's (or the first few anyway) and the way those locales lie in the terrain (in relation to rivers) and decide of a course of action from there. If you can capture Orsha and Mogilev in time to get the 100 points each, you are well on the way to winning. Personally I think Mogliev is the vital objective because once captured and across the river, the landscape opens up nicely and allows all sorts of moves to be made.

Chelco in your picture in the first couple of posts, the first thing I see (as a german player) is a great opportunity to strike at Orsha, destroy the artillery and supply trycks just in front of it and surround the units defending to the ewest of it. This could launch you across the river and split the defence. I know you are well past that but just wanted to tell you what I see as a player.

[Real and Simulated Wars]

ORIGINAL: stevel40831
...I would highly recommend that you spread your units out a bit...
Keep in mind Chelco that the spreading out strategy works fine in AtD because the Russians have very limited counterattack capability. In KP you must be much for careful as the German counterattacks can be quite nasty. Hope this helps a bit on your next try! ...

Thanks Steve for your points. Highly appreciated here. I think that in the game of my post I was a bit concerned of being caught off guard. The Russians get too many points when they eliminate German units.
Indeed, in the new game I have started I had one heavily stacked infantry division heading towards Mogilev from the east. The route to Mogilev was SOLID full of Russian infantry, some of them even stacked. The hexes near Mogilev were also full and cramped of Russian defenders. So, I thought, it's time to try Steve's trick! I spreaded the above mentioned infantry division and MAGICALLY ( [&o]) the Russians came out fully dispersed to counter my division. It was so spectacular that I wish I could have made a screenie. This Russian redeployment left Mogilev almost free and I could bring a Panzer division (man, I love the mobility of them...) down to one hex from Mogilev. I still cannot take Mogilev, but I am chewing up the Russian troops east of Mogilev like hell.

Thanks for your points.

[Real and Simulated Wars]

Hi Brubaker,
Indeed, it takes some time for newbies like me to realize where the meat and potatoes (is that the phrase?) are.
Fortunately there is only a few towns in AtD that give you points. I say this because the majority of German troops are on foot and even worse, it's a huge terrain to cover with so few troops.
Mogilev, the reason of my insommia. Man, it's hard to get that city! In my previous post I mentioned how I pulled Steve's trick and got right into the gates of Mogilev. But now I am stuck there, I cannot get the city.
Regarding my pictures, you are right. I used a variant of what you mentioned but I failed. Shame on me: I took Orsha only when successful forward thrusts of my troops ANYWHERE ELSE forced the WHOLE Russian troops westward. Yeah, they gave me the city, just when points from having it are worthless...

[Janet Reno]

I have played AtD a bazillion times so far and the best I've gotten to date is a marginnal victory. What works for me is recon units. When I get close to a point city I'll send out a recon "to die for the fatherland" in an area away from my target city. The AI will pile way lots of guys on it to take it out. Next turn another recon takes the city and gets the capture bonus.

[Henri]

Before a hacker destroyed this forum, I had an AAR up of a game as the Germans against the computer. I have kept a Word version of this AAR with graphics that I will send to anyone who wants it (email arseno@phy.ulaval.ca).

Although I only got a marginal victory in this my first game, I later restarted the game about halfway through and got an overwhelming victory, which proves that such a victory is possible with the moves I made early on. Unfortunately I did not keep a copy of the AAr of this second game.

BTW, I wonder why it was not possible for Matrix to use a backup to restore some of the most interesting threads, including all of the AARs? This would seem like good marketing to me...

Henri