Matrix Games Forums

12:40
That was the message I was waiting for: Sir, we have achieved the 'St. Vith' objective.

Thanks to the outstanding efforts of CCA yesterday, and the final push by CCB today, the 10th and 8th announced that organized resistance in St Vith had been put out just after noon today. The remnants of the 27th Fusilier are being pushed North out of the town by CCB. It was nice to see that despite the slow goings yesterday, it all paid off today with the two battalions of the 27th Fusilier being unable to put up any form of a stiff fight. The AI did a good job of placing them in a blocking position South of the city center, but it could only be a delay action.

Anticipating reinforcements from the West, I have started the process of moving CCA to meet this threat. I moved B Bty 489 AAA (attached to CCA) to help hold Breitfeld. The 35th has already moved out of town and taken up a position on the Southern flank of CCB.

Now we wait and react. For all I know, infantry may be coming from the East, so I do not want to move too many of my pieces prematurely. CCB will continue to clear out St Vith for the afternoon, and then we will await whatever the Germans can throw at us to try and take our holding from us.

Day 3 - 07:00
Sneaky, sneaky enemy. Even though I had pushed out the troops yesterday, they continued to sneak in throughout the night. Since you have to have a 10:1 ratio against the enemy to 'hold' and objective, this effectively kept me from getting any points from St Vith thus far. To help push them out, I brought in one of my division reserves, the 51st Arm Inf Bn. What followed was a cat and mouse fight throughout the night. It was tough to identify who I was fighting, as it was night time after all. But it would appear that I am now facing elements of the 12 VGD - or at least that is what my front line troops are telling me. With the darkness, who knows.

At least the good news is that the balance of the 4th Armored finally arrived: CCR. I am sending them immediately to St Vith to attempt to balance the situation there.

Outside of that, all is quiet - outside of the city at least. Still no sign of the German armor . . .

12:00
Looks like things are wrapping up. The German counter-attack finally showed up from the West. However, since I had taken St. Vith long before they arrived, I had plenty of time - and plenty of units - to prepare for their arrival.

Shortly after sunrise, we started to spot a number of German SS Armor units rolling towards St Vith. What followed was a torrent of on-call 105 and 155mm artillery fire directed by the AI against these units. Thus far, they have not even closed to within a kilometer of the city center - let alone pushed out my many, many waiting units.

I think that this one might be in the bag. From here on out, it is more of a wait and see game. Its a very nice feeling to have your planning work out.

Day 5 - 0600 - Scenario End
That's that. Decisive victory. Great job 4th Armored Division. In the end, we had 89 victory points and the Germans had 3. Ouch.

Just as I expected at noon on Day 3, the Germans never had a chance once I had a hold of St. Vith. However, I had an excellent opportunity to see the AI in action. On day three, as I showed, the German units were making a push directly against St Vith. This went on through the afternoon and the German units were beat up badly. They never even got close to St. Vith. Anticipating a big push again in the morning, I moved most of my remaining units into the city and its surroundings. In all other games that I have played, the AI would have done the worst possible thing: dashed themselves against my strong defenses until they were no more.

But no, not in BftB. What followed over the next 36 hours was the German AI trying to find holes all along my line. A great number of my supply convoys were hit at night in locations where the supply route was cut. A number of crossing points were attacking during both day and night attacks. The AI continued to look for a weak spot in my armor. I wanted to see what would happen, so I did not respond. The scenario ended before they could do any significant damage - and obviously I had plenty of line units that I could react with - but, it was really cool to see the AI look for other ways to get at me. It was especially cool to see the AI using his lighter, and more expendable line units for recon, while holding his heavy Tiger tanks in reserve waiting for the perfect chance to strike. If you enjoy playing against the AI, you will enjoy this game. The AI is a pretty tough opponent - especially when you are first figuring out the game.

My final kill ratio was almost 10 to 1 - not too shabby. But, this is a tutorial after all - not a stand up, even fight. With the odds stacking handily in your favor, this makes a perfect way to be able to try out different things with a smaller force. It was very nice to have my planning pay of. This is not a game where you just window all your troops and tell them to attack. Sure you *could* do that and let the AI work it out, but that defeats the purpose of playing. It felt good to have all my blood, sweat and tears from the first day pay off the second day. I was in St. Vith in good order long before the enemy could do anything about it.

Overall, a great experience. I am very happy with the game - and with my purchase. I know many hesitate because of the price. This is a game that is well worth your investment *if* you are a serious wargammer. Congrats to Panther Games and their great achievement.

Ha, and this was just the tutorial . . .

I mentioned this above, but I again wanted to point it out with a picture.

Instead of wasting his precious heavy tanks looking for a kink in my armor, the AI instead held them in reserve until he could find a best way to employ them.

Sneaky, sneaky AI.

ORIGINAL: OlegHasky

Heres a good opportunity to observe the AI potential as well.

Now that it is finished, I feel like I can better talk about the AI in this tutorial.

First and foremost: the AI faces impossible odds. Until their armor arrvies around the end of the third day, all he has is two rifle Bn's against two combat commands of the 4th Armored. One must think about that before making any snap judgments against what the AI did in this AAR.

What the AI did do was delay my advance for effectively 12 hours. I spent the entire day trying to get across the river and to secure the high ground. He did the only thing he could: try and hold me as long as possible. I had two armored artillery Bn's on the first day - thats 36 105mm tubes. Any movement by the German AI brought immediate death from these batteries - not to mention the organic mortars of the line Bn's. Despite the odds, his defense even caused one of my infantry companies to surrender.

Also, even after I had (finally) swept aside the front lines, he continued to harass me and caused me to loose quite a few points by denying points for St Vith on the first night.

I can not stress this enough: this was only the tutorial. The odds were impossibly against the German AI. The *entire* 4th Armored Division against a single Fusilier Regiment and some late, although heavy, armor units. Thats one of the great things about this game - you dont realize how powerful three combat commands, with supporting units and artillery, really are.

If you, or anyone else, has any specific questions, feel free to ask. It has been fun writing this AAR. I hope it gave an example of the rewarding experience playing this game is.

Chad

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: OlegHasky

Heres a good opportunity to observe the AI potential as well.

Now that it is finished, I feel like I can better talk about the AI in this tutorial.

First and foremost: the AI faces impossible odds. Until their armor arrvies around the end of the third day, all he has is two rifle Bn's against two combat commands of the 4th Armored. One must think about that before making any snap judgments against what the AI did in this AAR.

What the AI did do was delay my advance for effectively 12 hours. I spent the entire day trying to get across the river and to secure the high ground. He did the only thing he could: try and hold me as long as possible. I had two armored artillery Bn's on the first day - thats 36 105mm tubes. Any movement by the German AI brought immediate death from these batteries - not to mention the organic mortars of the line Bn's. Despite the odds, his defense even caused one of my infantry companies to surrender.

Also, even after I had (finally) swept aside the front lines, he continued to harass me and caused me to loose quite a few points by denying points for St Vith on the first night.

I can not stress this enough: this was only the tutorial. The odds were impossibly against the German AI. The *entire* 4th Armored Division against a single Fusilier Regiment and some late, although heavy, armor units. Thats one of the great things about this game - you dont realize how powerful three combat commands, with supporting units and artillery, really are.

If you, or anyone else, has any specific questions, feel free to ask. It has been fun writing this AAR. I hope it gave an example of the rewarding experience playing this game is.

Chad

Thank you first of all. I did have a problem with the price at first, but now it's how modable is this game. what units can you create? SS? Russian? If you can create Russian units, then I will buy this game right now.

From what I understand, you can make Russian (or anybody you have good data on) units, but they won't "act" Russian, as the AI doesn't cover some aspects of Russian doctrine. If I made Russian units, I'd probably render them as battalions for the most part, but with low staff efficiencies all the way up the chain of command. Due to lack of tactical radios, I'd also re-do the 'formation' estabs- line, vee, etc. just for the Russians, but adjust them to gravitate to lower cohesion values (this is adjustable in the estab editor). Therefore a Russian assault would tend to get more disorganized than a western assault given the same circumstances.

That way, a Russian attack would take a while to get rolling, but with a ton of bn sized units, you could render a Tank Army and they'd be a juggernaut to face head on...

Forrest Green (isn't that what the Russians paint their equipment?) with Red data fields on the counters IMO would look good.

Sounds like alot of work. I'm sure this is a good game, but I'm not sold yet. When the demo comes out I will play it.

Again.. That was a tasty AAR.

I see the the example of using Your imagination towards AI. It looks that Your creativity is working well, so You have a future finding satisfaction against the AI.
AI can give You a good expierience . but that not necessarily equals - resonable acting.
I think sometimes Your satisfaction bout the game can start a proces of excusing things, things that potentialy threatning to cloak the satisfaction itself. Its natural. And I am using it myself [:'(]
The most important thing is personal satisfaction.
Less important - standing along the most important [:'(] are facts.
I encounter unreasonable, and unrealistic AI acting in almost evry of my game against it.
I have also open eyes for positives. (as Ive pointed in my "Defending the City Rabat" AAR for COTA, where the AI did made a good strategic move) . So Im not seeking holes.
I just want to express my personal opinion on the heavily priced.....

Now back to Your example.

First and foremost: the AI faces impossible odds. Until their armor arrvies around the end of the third day, all he has is two rifle Bn's against two combat commands of the 4th Armored. One must think about that before making any snap judgments against what the AI did in this AAR.

Allright, but this isnt a reason to left 1of2 of your battalions defending the outside bridge face to face with the enemy advancing with such power.
In fact, defending like this is this the most dubtfull thing You can do with such odds. If you want to dely the enemy, witch such small power. I think You schould consider comming up with someting to do it from the in-side.

German doctrine had a prior to use in defence, and turn evry rivercrossing in to hell for the enemy - As they learned in Itally, and late Russia campaigns, and developed it good. Here thier force compared to the enemy arty power was denying that.
But as said , thats not the excuse for what AI actually did there.
The strategy "at" (or rather "before") the bridge by Germans was a disaster of thinking.

Talking bout the realistic reflection. With the awareness that was within the Wehrmacht at this stage of the war. I do not think any of the German commanders could let himself, and other to force such crap.

Thats for the bridge situation. ( I wanted to focus on the bridge, as I fealt straight away, that AI will make something "sneaky" there [8|])

He than compansate it to You, by schowing its care for the armour. The final move was good.. I wonder how good in matter of micro tactics used by him.
Doubtious from the brighter Battle perspective. But I take it as and tutorial here, and understand that the purpouse was to face such potential counterattack.

I hope you get my overall idea.

Oleg,

Thanks for the comments Oleg.

But you have to remember that at this point in the Our, since it is shallow enough for fording, the infantry can cross at any point - they are not restricted to the road bridges like the armor units. So I could have taken the time to send the 1/318th on an end run anywhere along the line and *then* used the 35th and 51st to spearhead my attack. So this was not a major river that required special engineering to cross. The infantry could ford it (and be freezing afterwards, but they would be alive), thereby allowing them complete freedom against the overpowered defenders.

Honestly, if I ran the scenario as the Germans, I would have done the same thing the AI did. He was in a reverse slope position with overwatch on the high ground. The reverse slope would allow his infantry to use both Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck AT weapons, and overwatch could call in the very limited artillery support that they had. What 'sneaky' thing could you have done? I would have loved to see the enemy moving units out of their foxholes trying to do something sneaky - my 36 (6 batteries) 105mm tubes would have torn them to pieces.

I have attached a screenshot showing the relative powers of the immediately available troops for the Germans and Americans. Against those odds, defending a fordable river, without flank security, what could anyone do?

However, it is an AI. It will do stupid things at times. Any AI will. Thats why its an AI. Outside of maybe chess, and AI will never be as challenging as a human oponnent. *BUT*, the AI in this series comes very, very close.

Nice AAR. What are the specs on the machine that you are using?

ORIGINAL: Treale

Nice AAR. What are the specs on the machine that you are using?

Alienware M15x
Windows 7 64 Bit
Intel Core i5 2.53GHz (4 CPU's)
6 GIG RAM
1920 x 1080 Widescreen

Runs it nice and smooth with a nice big screen. Its cool that the game accepts so many difference screen resolutions.

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

Thanks for the comments Oleg.

But you have to remember that at this point in the Our, since it is shallow enough for fording, the infantry can cross at any point - they are not restricted to the road bridges like the armor units. So I could have taken the time to send the 1/318th on an end run anywhere along the line and *then* used the 35th and 51st to spearhead my attack. So this was not a major river that required special engineering to cross. The infantry could ford it (and be freezing afterwards, but they would be alive), thereby allowing them complete freedom against the overpowered defenders.

Honestly, if I ran the scenario as the Germans, I would have done the same thing the AI did. He was in a reverse slope position with overwatch on the high ground. The reverse slope would allow his infantry to use both Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck AT weapons, and overwatch could call in the very limited artillery support that they had. What 'sneaky' thing could you have done? I would have loved to see the enemy moving units out of their foxholes trying to do something sneaky - my 36 (6 batteries) 105mm tubes would have torn them to pieces.

I have attached a screenshot showing the relative powers of the immediately available troops for the Germans and Americans. Against those odds, defending a fordable river, without flank security, what could anyone do?

However, it is an AI. It will do stupid things at times. Any AI will. Thats why its an AI. Outside of maybe chess, and AI will never be as challenging as a human oponnent. *BUT*, the AI in this series comes very, very close.

Yes - well said - I have played through the phase one of the tutorial and have been generally impressed . AI use of on call fire support is very good .. many times when I saw something happen and thought I need to call down artillery support seconds later the AI was sending in salvos already.. As defences go I thought the AI did what it could in defence very well - but this is an alamo situation.

I have all the previous series but never really tried to get into them properly - after watching the tutorials and playing a bit - I have a feeling I may have been missing something special here.

Actually the force dispositions are historical as I understand it. So if I follow your point you are in fact incorrect. The germans did make many tactical and strategic mistakes in the war. Placing thier forces in a untenable defensive position was not unknown. Thus your assertion really dosnt hold water. The AI takes over from this historical deployment and force disposition. As a consequence it has to defend in that location because...heres the kicker...HISTORICALLY that unit was in fact deployed there and ordered to defend. Not much it really could do considering the 4th armored was the opponent and much stronger then a single infantry regiment. Logically I agree that the MLR should have been behind the bridge but once again germans made mistakes as well.

Regarding the AAR, nice work, keep em coming.

ORIGINAL: OlegHasky

Again.. That was a tasty AAR.

I see the the example of using Your imagination towards AI. It looks that Your creativity is working well, so You have a future finding satisfaction against the AI.
AI can give You a good expierience . but that not necessarily equals - resonable acting.
I think sometimes Your satisfaction bout the game can start a proces of excusing things, things that potentialy threatning to cloak the satisfaction itself. Its natural. And I am using it myself [:'(]
The most important thing is personal satisfaction.
Less important - standing along the most important [:'(] are facts.
I encounter unreasonable, and unrealistic AI acting in almost evry of my game against it.
I have also open eyes for positives. (as Ive pointed in my "Defending the City Rabat" AAR for COTA, where the AI did made a good strategic move) . So Im not seeking holes.
I just want to express my personal opinion on the heavily priced.....

Now back to Your example.

First and foremost: the AI faces impossible odds. Until their armor arrvies around the end of the third day, all he has is two rifle Bn's against two combat commands of the 4th Armored. One must think about that before making any snap judgments against what the AI did in this AAR.

Allright, but this isnt a reason to left 1of2 of your battalions defending the outside bridge face to face with the enemy advancing with such power.
In fact, defending like this is this the most dubtfull thing You can do with such odds. If you want to dely the enemy, witch such small power. I think You schould consider comming up with someting to do it from the in-side.

German doctrine had a prior to use in defence, and turn evry rivercrossing in to hell for the enemy - As they learned in Itally, and late Russia campaigns, and developed it good. Here thier force compared to the enemy arty power was denying that.
But as said , thats not the excuse for what AI actually did there.
The strategy "at" (or rather "before") the bridge by Germans was a disaster of thinking.

Talking bout the realistic reflection. With the awareness that was within the Wehrmacht at this stage of the war. I do not think any of the German commanders could let himself, and other to force such crap.

Thats for the bridge situation. ( I wanted to focus on the bridge, as I fealt straight away, that AI will make something "sneaky" there [8|])

He than compansate it to You, by schowing its care for the armour. The final move was good.. I wonder how good in matter of micro tactics used by him.
Doubtious from the brighter Battle perspective. But I take it as and tutorial here, and understand that the purpouse was to face such potential counterattack.

I hope you get my overall idea.

Oleg,

Actually, the tutoral is a hypothetical scenario.

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

Regarding the AAR, nice work, keep em coming.

Thanks Sheytan, its been fun doing them. I think I might keep doing them after the second tutorial is done. Its actually a very nice way to enjoy the game - and get really quick with Microsoft Paint [:D]

Thus your assertion really dosnt hold water. The AI takes over from this historical deployment and force disposition. As a consequence it has to defend in that location because...heres the kicker...HISTORICALLY that unit was in fact deployed there and ordered to defend

Actually, the tutoral is a hypothetical scenario.

a kicker indeed. [;)]

I designed the scenario with really two things in mind: new players should learn the game's basics as quickly and as easily as possible, and experienced players should get an idea of what's new in this game. O, and the players should have fun doing so.
I have to admit in did't consider the tactical soundness of the initial German dispositions - I just needed a bridgehead that the Americans can attack [;)]
By the way: while the scenario is hypothetical, the OOB of the forces involved is historical.

Pieter

OK, the scenario is hypothetical, but one should not lose sight of the forest for the trees.

There are a few things that are clear (forgetting for the moment abot victory points):

1)The Germans will not be able to hold the bridge nor the objectives on the way to St. Vith.

2)The one IMPORTANT objective is to hold open the supply line from the East to PzGrp Peiper. If that fails, Peiper is lost and whatever else has been accomplished is irrelevant.

3) As a consequence, the German actions until Peiper arrives must be seen as a delaying action, hopefully to allow Peiper to arrive BEFORE the US at ST Vith, and if that is not possible to give the biggest chance possible for Peiper to break through at St Vith (by harrasing the flanks of the US and so on so that the fewest possible US units are t St Vith when Peiper fights there), and if that is not possible, to cause the biggest damage possible to the US forces (sell German skins as expensive as possible).

Therefore any German plan to "hold the bridge at any cost" is a recipe for disaster, as is any plan for a counter-offensive before Peiper arrives.

For my solution to this quandary as the Germans, see the companion thread to this one by Chad.

Given the a fortieri information that is now available about the scenario (arrival times and sizes of reinforcements for both sides), I don't believe that it is possible for a German player to win against a competent Allied player, but given my marginal loss result with the Germans against the AI, I do think that against the AI it is possible for the Germans to draw, because the human player has a lot of essential information that the AI does not. It is now clear to me (having played both sides), the simplest and best Allied strategy against the AI is to go hell-bent for St-Vith, leaving only a minimum (battalion or less) force defending each intermediate objectives. But against a German human, this could lead to disaster if the Germans know you are doing this and sends a significant force from PzGrp Peiper down the Allied left flank to cut the Allied line of commmunications.

War is hell, but God I DO love it so (Patton).

Henri