Case Blue: Bwheatley vs 'The German Sensation' abulbulian (no abulbulian)

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: olivier34

Great AAR and the fate of the 9th panzer is scary ! Maybe some preventive airstrike against those soviets that had a good starting position to attack the 9th could have help...
Reading this AAR, I understand that my friend Keunert is having some trouble with his boss, mister Staline. He may lose his job and finish in a goulag of some sort. [:D]

Heh i wasn't brave enough to play with dismissal on because i don't like a perm end being forced upon us. I'm ok if it pops up a message saying you lose but you can continue to play.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: balto

In my low skill experience with Case Blue, I see these results as typical. The Germans cannot win against a reasonably good Russian player.

What happened in the north to the 9th Panzer always happens. The Germans do not have time on their side, so they must relentlessly attack. It is somewhat easy for the Russians to hang back and strike a spearhead here and there (one to three a turn) while their replacements and reinforcement and entrenchment keep increasing. MY god the 5th Tank Army is a freaking monster unit!!

I predict the Olivier will be the only AAR where the Germans are successful. I believe that because Olivier's tactical understanding of the game's combat engine is freakishly great. He knows how to make penetrations into three lines of defenders and he knows when the defenders are weak. So barring his genius, I doubt anyone can win with the Germans.

I think the Dismissal option is great. It does not sneak up on you in the middle of a contested scenario. Based on Olivier's AAR, it arises ONLY when you have clearly beaten your opponent into a bloody heap. I therefore see the Dismissal Option as a great way to prevent someone from suffering for 20-50 turns in these super long scenarios. Someone like me that is not very smart, Dismissal would be a godsend.

Really looking forward to this AAR. Nothing against your opponent but if you combine the German disadvantage with bad luck in the weather on the first two turns, this one is already over unless you experiment and try some reckless maneuvers.

That's a good point about dismissal. And don't worry Ara is one tough cookie. Whenever we play he bests me 55-75% of the time.

[bwheatley]

Really looking forward to this AAR. Nothing against your opponent but if you combine the German disadvantage with bad luck in the weather on the first two turns, this one is already over unless you experiment and try some reckless maneuvers.

Heh anyone who sees my AAR's knows i'm always reckless. I always attack when i should defend. I always push when i should stop. LOL In War Plan Orange i managed to capture hawaii by just wrecking my entire military and navy.
So i lost the game heh.

I'm learning though i'm trying to keep at least 1 division per army in the backfield just in case.

At least with this germany has some flexibility to experiment instead of living and dying on the rails setup by WITE. And i'm still on the fence about whether the game is un-winnable as germany. They have such a good experienced military and generals with awesome cards. I think a good german player will be able to win.
It will probably be like when WITE came out and german players had to learn how to win. It will probably be a little less dramatic than that but anyone who's had AT/ATG experience shouldn't be that far off.
Worst case we as the community can build a version that gives germany increased replacements or some such.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: balto

Most importantly, this AAR is organized fantastically. You start off with your HQ units, than their subunits, and you work from the North to the South. To me, this is super fantastic. Looking forward to your excellent battle (that you will win).

Hah thanks the inspiration was from reading Barbasrossa Derailed by David Glantz. It goes over newly declassified daily reports the way he lays the data out is the way i'm doing it. It just really speaks to me. And I really enjoy AAR's that drag you in like you're in the HQ.

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley
At least with this germany has some flexibility to experiment instead of living and dying on the rails setup by WITE. And i'm still on the fence about whether the game is un-winnable as germany. They have such a good experienced military and generals with awesome cards. I think a good german player will be able to win.
It will probably be like when WITE came out and german players had to learn how to win. It will probably be a little less dramatic than that but anyone who's had AT/ATG experience shouldn't be that far off.
Worst case we as the community can build a version that gives germany increased replacements or some such.

Good post bw. I generally agree. If the scenario seems to play out ahistorically then it can be tweaked for combat values, replacements, etc. But if it plays out historically and Germans can't win then victory calcs can be tweaked.

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: balto
I think the Dismissal option is great. It does not sneak up on you in the middle of a contested scenario. Based on Olivier's AAR, it arises ONLY when you have clearly beaten your opponent into a bloody heap.

Sadly this is just not the fact. The Germans captured Voronezh by July 7 as you can see from this map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 942-11.png

In Olivier-Kunert AAR it isn't captured until around July 14. The Soviets also took terrifically high losses in June and July 42 leaving their armies in shambles and falling back toward the Don and Volga historically. So Kunert is actually doing as well as the Soviets did historically yet being dismissed. Furthermore I think Kunert is not necessarily losing the game. The Soviets start with only 25% of their total scenario strength on map. The battle has not yet even begun for Kunert.

But of course it's an option so you're free to turn it on in your games and have an ending forced on you and your opponent by the game rather than getting to experience the epic adventure that the full campaign game can bring.

I think you are seeing Kunert's Soviet difficulties and concluding the game is done - but on the contrary the real campaign has yet to begin because the Red Army builds throughout the scenario and southern Russia is vast.

[Keunert]

^you know i start to like you!
a great assessment of the situation.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

ORIGINAL: balto
I think the Dismissal option is great. It does not sneak up on you in the middle of a contested scenario. Based on Olivier's AAR, it arises ONLY when you have clearly beaten your opponent into a bloody heap.

Sadly this is just not the fact. The Germans captured Voronezh by July 7 as you can see from this map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 942-11.png

In Olivier-Kunert AAR it isn't captured until around July 14. The Soviets also took terrifically high losses in June and July 42 leaving their armies in shambles and falling back toward the Don and Volga historically. So Kunert is actually doing as well as the Soviets did historically yet being dismissed. Furthermore I think Kunert is not necessarily losing the game. The Soviets start with only 25% of their total scenario strength on map. The battle has not yet even begun for Kunert.

But of course it's an option so you're free to turn it on in your games and have an ending forced on you and your opponent by the game rather than getting to experience the epic adventure that the full campaign game can bring.

I think you are seeing Kunert's Soviet difficulties and concluding the game is done - but on the contrary the real campaign has yet to begin because the Red Army builds throughout the scenario and southern Russia is vast.

I've been looking for the options but i think vic might have hard coded this instead of calling the endscen() exec. Or maybe it's there and i'm just blind.

[bwheatley]

Alas it looks like this might be on hold awhile until abulbulian relaxes about it. He wanted me to redo T1 since we both assume the random seed isn't generated until after you end a turn but i told him i have no interest in doing that.

So if anyone is looking to play germany i'd be glad to take on a new opponent for a bit. I typically can get to a turn a day though on weekends maybe more. And it's still early in my gaming cycle so i don't foresee a burnout similar to what happened with me and WITE. Well burnout and my son requiring more attention.

Abulbulian is a good guy and good opponent but i'm really itching to get some PBEM play with DC2 on with case blue.

[Flaviusx]

The weird thing about this Voronezh business is that it was von Bock who got dismissed in real life for getting sucked into a battle there. Arguably it shouldn't be a German objective at all. It may have even prejudiced the drive down the Don and ultimately Stalingrad.

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
The weird thing about this Voronezh business is that it was von Bock who got dismissed in real life for getting sucked into a battle there. Arguably it shouldn't be a German objective at all. It may have even prejudiced the drive down the Don and ultimately Stalingrad.

Yah the whole dismissal rule is a bit odd really. It's not an RPG, it's a strategy game, wargame, simulation of the campaign. The war went on and commanders were sacked all the time on both sides.

[bwheatley]

In the games i've played against the AI on hard so far as germany i haven't found it terribly hard to take.

But anyway it would be relatively easy to mod the scen to have the first objectives be randomized. Every time i've started it's always rostov, voro, millo.

[Grotius]

I personally enjoy having the Dismissal option, but I hope Vic considers adding a less punitive new option too. Maybe a per-turn VP penalty for failing to take an objective in time.

Alternatively, emulate War in the Pacific and allow the players to play on after "Dismissal." In WITP, you could have an auto-Japanese victory in January 1943, but players would play on anyway, and then they'd see who had the VP edge in 1945.

For now, though, I'm playing the AI with Dismissal on. It adds tension. If I lose, I lose, and I'll start over (maybe without Dismissal!).

[James Ward]

Regarding the dismissal option, who exactly are we when we command a side? We are not OKH or Stavka, or else we are schizo and beg ourselves for more troops when we use the cards. Was there a command level between Stavka and a Front commander? I know there were different Army Groups for the Germans, is that who we are when we play the Axis? We seem to be a bit of an abstraction, we don't even rate a counter. [:)]
I don't think the option should be eliminated but maybe the penalty for the first , or even 2nd, failure should be changed. As suggested by others costing VP's or changing the number of VP's required for different levels of victory might be a solution.

[Flaviusx]

Early in the war the Soviets instituted theater commands in between STAVKA and the Front, but in practice this proved superfluous (Stalin mostly ignored this command layer and intervened directly at the Front level.) They were wound up in 1942.

By the end of that year and for the rest of the war the Soviets developed an ad hoc command layer between STAVKA and the Front via so called STAVKA representatives. These were not formal geographical commands like the theaters, but STAVKA would designate such and such general with oversight responsibility over a given operation involving multiple Fronts. Vasilevsky, for example, coordinated the Stalingrad offensive in this capacity. Him and Zhukov were the two primary STAVKA representatives until nearly the end of the war.

[James Ward]

^ Thanks.

[bwheatley]

Alas this game is dead. That's a bummer put a lot of work into the first turn AAR. OH well if someone else wants to do a PBEM let me know. Case Blue (allow flieger on, Dismiss off). I'd prefer to play with password on but pbem protection off to make it easy to save and come back and review and build the AAR but i'm fine with it on until someone is comfortable about potential "cheating/retrying things". Just making an AAR is a bit more of a pita with it enabled and I enjoy having an aar going with my games to add another level of fun. But it's no deal breaker.

[Keunert]

^ you want to play the soviets again? how many 'restarts' in case of bad weather do you offer?

[olivier34]

I am in if I can start a turn, check the weather and if there is rain in the first 20 turns, I re start until I get a sunny weather like I have here in south of France [8D]

[bwheatley]

ok we struck a deal. We're going to both restart i'll run a german game and he'll run a german game. That way there can be no tears over one random unlucky turn.