ORIGINAL: tyronec
The last ten or so moves, w/ no supply to speak of,
I spent the turns mostly trying out rail repair.
I found that stacking lots of RR embarked units
(five or six to a stack, next to broken rail)
nearly always repaired nearby broken hexes.
A stack of four, three, or two seemed to have
increasingly less chance to repair.
I didn't try stacking un-embarked RR repair units,
will try that next.
I can't fathom out quite how this works either.
It does seem that repair works less well during the early moves of the game, one possible explanation is that uncaptured rail hexes slow down the conversions in some way. Maybe the engine tries to repair those hexes and those attempts get wasted.
I think I have finally figured out how the RR repair works for the Germans,
looking back on the game, and reading more notes about it...could be wrong, but,....
RR repair is muchly "automated" and there are (iirc) a maximum of 12 hexes repaired per turn....
and "stacking" repair units (along w/ nearby supply points) will "optimize" repair in that area.
So, at beginning of game, when there are many rail to be repaired all over the map for Germans,
repair will occur more toward the rear areas ... no matter how many repair units you stack at front.
As result, as game progresses, you will see the rail lines being built from "back to front" ...
and, as result of THAT, eventually you will see "forward" repair being done.
I hope this makes sense. At least, that is the sense I am getting from it now, looking back.
For me, I like the way it was handled, and had I known more about the mechanism at first,
I would have handled my German and Rumanian RR engineers differently.
I get sense that German RR / supply is almost a "game within a game", and can be frustrating to the German side during the first year or so (game time), as it should be.
Now that it s pretty much a moot point for the Germans,
I focus on disrupting SOVIET rail w/ remnants still in Russia.
Well, back to the game: I managed to turn about seven moves for the Germans over the last few days.
Now I am focused on defense of the Reich from the Soviet Colossus. Am now at turn 183 or so.
Kharkov holds, w/ about four divisions there holding the burnt-out remains of that city and supplied by air I guess.
Smolensk has been abandoned, the but three divisions that were there are now fighting their way back toward Minsk.
Pskov units abandoned that area and have fought their way back to Riga, and Riga holds.
The German Homeland Defense Front is holding at the Polish border, and SS and other infantry are building reinforcements in Berlin.
Maybe I can make another offensive stab at Elmer when the weather lifts, but Berlin is safe for now.
But Elmer PO has the initiative and is trying to cross at River Bug.
To my benefit, many German HQ units have been evac'd by air from Kharkov / Smolens and are in process of refit to front line defense.
Going to be an interesting game to hold the Reich as long as I can. For Der Fuerher!! For the Reich!!!
Here's a look at Kharkov @Axis 182 PS: the arrow pointing to air briefing,
many times this "sidebar" of air briefing is not accurate, you have to look at "air briefing" from drop-down menu to get an accurate read from that .... seems to be a "glitch" in IV ....
