Matrix Games Forums

Lessons Learned. First Lesson. Keep CPs in Reserve for the CW.

In my original setup up I worked hard to get all factories producing with the maximum oil points saved. However, I didn't consider having a few CPs in reserve just in case the Italians entered the war on the first turn and did some damage. Without the push from you guys for CW intervention in northern Denmark, which then forced an early Italian DOW against the CW and resulted in the loss of 5 CW CPs (2 destroyed and 3 aborted) in the Cape St. Vincent on the surprise impulse I wouldn't have learned this lesson. Without any CPs in reserve the CW was looking at the loss of 5 PPs, or 3 BPs, from this attack.

So in my revised setup I worked a bit harder to maintain 22 of 22 factories producing and kept 7 CPs in reserve (3 in Plymouth and 4 in Gibraltar). To my surprise (delight), the revised setup resulted in the exact same number of oil resources saved.

LESSON LEARNED: As the CW player you need enough CPs in reserve to handle a successful u-boat, sub or surface raider attack in a critical sea area. Even one heavily escorted.

You could use the rules for rounding to more benefit, rkr:

If you use 1 less oil for production, You will have 21factories producing (1 idle) -> 10,5BP = 11BP.
This oil resource can then be saved as well, for a total of 6 saved oil, and you'll also have an extra 3 (mimimum) convoys as reserve.
I play with the 'food in flames' optional rule, to get to 12BP + 8saved oil per turn and not to forget, 7reseve convoys.

I play 'food in flames' because otherwise I feel the oilrule hinders the allies too much, as opposed to the axis not really limited by oil. In other words: without FIF, I feel the axis position if playing with oil gets better instead of worse.

ORIGINAL: TeaLeaf

You could use the rules for rounding to more benefit, rkr:

If you use 1 less oil for production, You will have 21factories producing (1 idle) -> 10,5BP = 11BP.
This oil resource can then be saved as well, for a total of 6 saved oil, and you'll also have an extra 3 (mimimum) convoys as reserve.

Thanks for the tip. That's exactly what I do during the preliminary or final production phase. The oil assignments to production or save that you see in the two graphics are my default assignments. I will override these during either of the phases to do exactly what you suggested.

At a higher level, the way I manage production is to get as many factories producing as possible with default assignments. I then adjust as needed (desired) using override assignments.

ORIGINAL: TeaLeafI play with the 'food in flames' optional rule, to get to 12BP + 8saved oil per turn and not to forget, 7reseve convoys.

I play 'food in flames' because otherwise I feel the oilrule hinders the allies too much, as opposed to the axis not really limited by oil. In other words: without FIF, I feel the axis position if playing with oil gets better instead of worse.

Interesting. I've found that both food and flames and oil benefit the allies. I'd like to hear more on your experience with oil and how it's benefited the axis more.

I'm not a expert, but I feel like oil rule hurts Germany the most...

ORIGINAL: rkr1958

ORIGINAL: TeaLeaf

You could use the rules for rounding to more benefit, rkr:

If you use 1 less oil for production, You will have 21factories producing (1 idle) -> 10,5BP = 11BP.
This oil resource can then be saved as well, for a total of 6 saved oil, and you'll also have an extra 3 (mimimum) convoys as reserve.

Thanks for the tip. That's exactly what I do during the preliminary or final production phase. The oil assignments to production or save that you see in the two graphics are my default assignments. I will override these during either of the phases to do exactly what you suggested.

At a higher level, the way I manage production is to get as many factories producing as possible with default assignments. I then adjust as needed (desired) using override assignments.

Here's an example of how I use override to take advantage of rounding (up).

ORIGINAL: rkr1958

ORIGINAL: TeaLeafI play with the 'food in flames' optional rule, to get to 12BP + 8saved oil per turn and not to forget, 7reseve convoys.

I play 'food in flames' because otherwise I feel the oilrule hinders the allies too much, as opposed to the axis not really limited by oil. In other words: without FIF, I feel the axis position if playing with oil gets better instead of worse.

Interesting. I've found that both food and flames and oil benefit the allies. I'd like to hear more on your experience with oil and how it's benefited the axis more.

Attached is the oil usage report for the game I restarted and for the Sep/Oct 1939 (first) turn. Note that Germany and Italy both only have 1 oil point saved (or to be saved) and Japan has 2 after this turns oil expenditures. The CW has 5.

And here's the final production report for this same turn.

Interesting. I've found that both food and flames and oil benefit the allies. I'd like to hear more on your experience with oil and how it's benefited the axis more.

It may be a matter of playstyle, I don't know.
I've found that 'cautious' Axis play (launching only high odds attacks and/or threaten to pocket allied units rather than attacking at all) disorganizes not enough units to be a huge strain on their oil reserves.
Take Germany for example. With maximum production, they can save enough oil to fuel all their units. Compared to playing without oil, their production doesn't need to suffer. They even save enough during their 'cautious turns' to go wild in a few others.

I feel that the Comonwealth however, is better off without the oil rule!
Without it, every oil resource is just another potential production point and convoying is therefore a bit easier (more resources for production close to their factories).
In other words: without the oil rule it is easier for the CW to reach maximum production.
Therefore my thought is to either play both oil+FIF or none of them. If you'd play FIF without the oil rule however, that is definately an allied bonus .

Same for the USA. Without the oil rule, all their oil can be use for production without worries.
With the oil rule they will most likely need to sacrifice a little production for more saved oil. Especially if they also want to send resouces to Russia.
Just out of scratch, the USA can use 40 resources for production and want to ship 5 at least to Russia. That's a total of 45 and then they will want to save how many? 6? 7? More?
As far as I know they only have 46 total resources, so the oil rule costs them production compared to what they could do without it.

Then again, it's a while ago since I've played a long WIF campaign... Maybe the allies have enough other resources later in the game from aligned minors, more convoy points on the board, etc.

Food in Flames is just a rule that helps more the Allies where they're already well overpowered compared to the Axis.
It's like ... 4-5 BPs per turn to the Allies or what, considering France, UK and Russia have resources on more than 1 map?

My Historical Global War AAR #3. A Restart.

I flubbed the start to my second global war (Historical Global War AAR) and I decided to restart as I posted a few days back (see post #120). I decided to restart this AAR with the same set of optional rules that I was using except for the CRT. I'm now using the 2D10 CRT versus the 1D10 CRT with Blitz bonus.

Also, I was WAY too ambitious in the number of screen caps I took and posted in my previous start. It took well near a week to finish the first turn and I could only image how long it was going to take at that rate when the Soviet Union and USA were at war. Honestly, the time I was taking for screen caps and posting was taking a lot of the fun out of the game for me. I've decided in my restart to post significantly less and generally at the end of each turn. This will allow me to pause, assess (reassess) my game play and strategy. However, I still do plan to post at critical points in order to seek advice from this community. I hope folks still find it worth their time to follow and, especially, to provide comments and criticism on my play, which I have found are invaluable to me in learning and understanding this game.

Scrapped.

I'm probably too conservative in my scrapping. I just don't have the experience yet to know what I'll really need and what I won't.

Germany Setup.

Poland.

1. Two army groups and the bulk of the Luftwaffe are positioned to subdue Poland as quickly as possible.

2. Rundstedt commands Army Group A deployed in Silesia and Czechoslovakia.

3. von Brock commands Army Group B deployed in Prussia and on Germany's border with the Polish Corridor.

The Western Front.

4. In the West, von Leeb is in command of a Germany Army ready to march in and conquer the Netherlands this first turn as soon as the weather permits.

5. von Leeb's army consists of his HQ unit, 6-3, 6-4 and 5-3 Wehrmacht infantry corps, 1-4 Wehrmacht infantry division and a 1-3 SS infantry division.

6. Luftwaffe support for von Leeb consists of three fighter units: Bf 109 5-5 (3 TAC), Bf 100c 3-3 (3 TAC) and HE 112 3-3 (0 TAC).

7. I did make a tactical mistake with von Leeb and his army in their setups. A mistake which I didn't realize the potential of until the allied surprise impulse. I put von Leeb as his army in clear hexes instead of setting them up in forest hexes, which made them more vulnerable to allied ground strikes. More on that later.

8. Also, I learned my lesson last game on trying to take Denmark too cheaply (i.e., with 2 divisions). There'll be none of that this game. When the Germans do decide to conquer Denmark, they plan to use corps and in the strength to hopefully deter the CW from intervening.

Setup - Southern China.

The Nationalist Chinese player knowing that the Japanese player had a preference for setting up and going after the communist Chinese in the north decidde on an aggressive and forward deployment. Unfortunately in their zeal to setup the Nationalist Chinese player forgot to deploy a unit to block a Japanese crossing from Hainan. A grave error and one which the Japanese decided to exploit. Strong forces under the command of Umezu are setup in the south. This game, the Japanese will began their focus on the Nationalist with the goal of wiping them from the map.

Setup - Northern China.

Sep/Oct 1939. The Western Front.

1. Germany conquers both Poland and the Netherlands.

2. von Leeb escaped the surprise allied impulse and a ground strike by the French TAC, with 3 factors. In clear terrain, clear weather and a surprise impulse the ground strike had a 51% of disorganizing von Leeb. It also had a 51% of disorganizing the Luftwaffe fighter unit stacked with von Leeb. The French ground strike failed to do either (24% chance of that). So von Leeb dodged a bullet.

3. The CW decide to use their air during the surprise to bomb Germany. RAF bombers hit Berlin and Essen with less than spectacular results. The only managed to destroy 1 German production point.

4. The CW player debate as to whether or not to use their bombers for strategic attacks or for a ground strike against one of von Leeb's infantry corps. In the end they opted for the strategic bombing raids. The CW player's thinking was that deep down they were hoping for a German invasion of the Netherlands this turn, which would give them 10 Dutch CPs and a transport.

5. When Germany invaded, the 10 Dutch CPs, transport and terr were deployed to the Dutch East Indies. The rest of the Dutch navy was deployed to Rotterdam and the Dutch corps to Amsterdam/The Hauge. The attack by von Leeb's army managed to destroy the Dutch corps and capture Amsterdam without loss. However, von Leeb and his army were disorganized by the attack. The CW during the following allied impulse took a naval and were able to move the entire Dutch navy out to sea and into the fold of the RN. All in all, while Germany conquered Holland, the CW came out almost as well and without being labeled the aggressors.

6. The first three impulse pairs were fine weather in the North Temperate. This allowed the Germans to easily conquer Poland without seeing any disorganization except for air. However, in a bid to quickly transfer forces to the west, the Germans railed both HQs, both armor corps, a mech corps and several infantry corps from Poland to the Western Front. While this did put Germany in a position to quickly pivot their war effort against France (as soon as weather permits) it did cost them a bit of oil. Maybe the Germany player was too aggressive in the rails and cost himself a couple more oil points than he should have had to use?

Sep/Oct 1939. Units Destroyed.

Sep/Oct 1939. US Entry.

The US chose option 4, "Intern French aircraft carrier."

Sep/Oct 1939. Southern China.

The Nationalist are definitely on the run.

Sep/Oct 1939. Northern and Central China.

Mao and the communist are definitely breathing a sign of relieve this game as for once the Japanese aren't focusing on them.

Sep/Oct 1939. Manchuria.