Any advice for learning the game?

[Aelicity]

I'm fairly new to games like this. I've learnt the gameplay basics and feel comfortable shuffling the counters around, attack/defend, how to do manual air missions etc. My problem is more psychological and I feel overwhelmed by the size of the grand campaign. I've completed many scenarios, nearly all of the smaller ones which are less than 50 turns long. I would really like some advice, especially for the early turns 1-6 for either side, to overcome the intimidation of it all.

Thank you!

[TheeWarLord]

Greetings,
Just the fact that you sunk your teeth into this monster of a game is half the battle. I also recently purchased this monstrosity and I’m hooked. Have you watched any of the YouTube tutorials? They are very useful, reduce some of the anxiety and they are also entertaining. For myself, and I work full time, I do an army group a night, chunk plays, I am getting more proficient, my game play is becoming faster, and I’m in no hurry. Perhaps, this would be helpful to you. Good luck, stay with it, and give an update.

[Wiedrock]

Colorcoding the Corps HQs helped me the most at the start. Then just keep the colors together and move one after the other.

[AlbertN]

Start with smaller scenarios if you feel overwhelmed.
Velike Luki and Road to Minsk are good introductions to learn some mechanics!

[56ajax]

As above.

Read AARs

Read the player guides.

There are a couple of guides that give a step by step instructions on how to create T1 pockets for the Axis. At times a touch tedious but it will teach you movement and combat.

Air War - for the start ignore but do perfect recon and aerial supply first.

Good luck

[Teo41_ITA]

I made a lot of dedicated tutorial videos on my YT channel. Some of them might be outdated but for most of them, what I said a couple of years ago still holds true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGirdXe ... l_i-kTdK9I and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46UtylU ... x=1&t=144s

[MarkShot]

I made a lot of dedicated tutorial videos on my YT channel. Some of them might be outdated but for most of them, what I said a couple of years ago still holds true: https://studio.youtube.com/playlist/PLP ... K9I/videos and https://studio.youtube.com/playlist/PLP ... Z7c/videos

Your links do not resolve.

[Teo41_ITA]

Your links do not resolve.

Thanks! I fixed it now!

[MarkShot]

Your links do not resolve.

Thanks! I fixed it now!

Howdy, Matt. Yes, great stuff which I watched long ago (didn't know that was your MATRIX ID). Such good stuff that I all bulk downloaded and ripped transcripts and added to my AI gaming expert (OLLAMA/AnythingLLM). BTW, the link still don't resolve, but these do.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPdz ... -Y_ZzAMtaR

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPdz ... fsPMXTNRv4

I see you fixed them in the original.

[Aelicity]

Thanks for the advice everyone! It really helped. Got my first German campaign going. I tried the Soviets but I found the T1 situation too chaotic for me. Wish me luck!

[MarkShot]

Despite playing years, I only tried the GC 41 as the NAZIs once.

What I realized was get your force organized and keep it organized. Once you let your force become a rable, it is very hard to pull things back together again.

[WingedIncubus]

Thanks for the advice everyone! It really helped. Got my first German campaign going. I tried the Soviets but I found the T1 situation too chaotic for me. Wish me luck!

It is the opposite for me; I only play as the Soviets in the Grand Campaign against the AI. I just have more fun with the logistics of strengtheing the Red Army, trying to trade space for time until the Rasputitsa arrives.

With the AI, it's easy to embrace the chaos as a learning experience. I played the first time in Normal difficulty and yet remember how scared and overwhelmed I felt playing the Soviets the first time, it's like getting your face hit with a brick. The first fifteen or so turns are painful; your airforce is decimated, and whatever land units survive the early pockets cannot hope to go toe-to-toe with the Germans. And yet, you cannot just run away East because it surrenders VPs toward a sudden victory for the Axis.

However, the suffering is worth it. I love reorganizing and upgrading my units and play with the logistics, to turn those squishy conscripts into an army juggernaut. Stopping their advance with your fresh troops, then cracking open those panzer and infantry divisions when the winter arrives, is so, so satisfying.

[MarkShot]

I play the Germans (usually first in most games German v Soviet situations).

I have no political preferences as these are games, but my gaming history has left me far better educated in regards to US and German equipment than Soviet (but for lend lease).

[thek3mu]

Colorcoding the Corps HQs helped me the most at the start. Then just keep the colors together and move one after the other.

... great! also, when you're done playing with the color sliders you might wish for a 'rgb peek sheet' to pick colors instead of sliding the sliders.

(you still have to enter the numbers, though ...)

[MarkShot]

I color code the armies. Aren't there too many corps give each a unique color?

Yes, keeping units together is challenging especially as the Germans during the start rushing for encirclements.

The biggest thing haunting me is supply dropping to 25% in the harsh Winter.

[thek3mu]

yep, you're right i guess - way too many. no need to re-color them all to keep them separate, i try to add different colors to the corps i'm working with ... but still, i love nice visuals and colors help.

[Wiedrock]

You can use shades of the same base color for the same army for the corps.
So a yellow Army with 3 Corps using other shades of yellow.
A Red Army using 3 other shades of red for the corps. ...

On soviet side the same. Just keep the Front colors and change the shades for the Armies.

[56ajax]

For each Front of typically 4 armies I use Red, Blue, Green and Gold from top to bottom. You can see at a glance where units are misplaced.

[MarkShot]

Herr Wiedrock,

Have you worked out the hex values which give you an Army base color and a corps variant? If you have, would you be gracious enough to share them. I still love your Soviet screens.

Thank you!

[Wiedrock]

Herr Wiedrock,

Have you worked out the hex values which give you an Army base color and a corps variant? If you have, would you be gracious enough to share them. I still love your Soviet screens.

Thank you!

RGB
R is the X coordinate.
G is the Y coordinate
B is the number of the current date, added up and then taken the root of it.
For Army you simply add the (day+month)/2 to each value.