AAR - PBEM Game 2 (The FIRST public AAR)

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

ORIGINAL: Tacoma

No action today? Have the Ruskies fallen to the mighty Wehrmacht? [:D]

Turn is with MB if I am not wrong.

O.

He'll be watching the Flames try and win the Stanley Cup tonight.

[paullus99]

Yeah - probably won't see the next turn until tomorrow.....no prob - we're trying out a new build anyway, so the extra time is good.

[MButtazoni]

Winter 43 - Western Allies

Well with winter at hand most of my plans were foiled, so i just reinforced Vichy France and finsihed the redeployment of my Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic. There is one serious impact losing England has had on the Western Allies, i am WAY behind Germany in research, that would not be the case with a more historic production and research game (i think). a nice surprise for the Western Allies is the the US factories increased in production (to a x4 production multiplier) this should happen in 1944 as per the documentation not 1943, i will post this over on the dev boards.

On a sadder note, Oleg: i just could not swing getting any supply this turn to RU. i do apologize; but my navy is in place and i wont need to spend 70 supply moving it again. so from now on you'll be getting 20+ supply a turn.

Here is Europe:

[MButtazoni]

...and here is the Force Pool and Production Queue

[paullus99]

Germany, Spring 1943

The war has now entered its most decisive stage....Our strategic movements over the winter paid off, as we were able to crush the Allied landings in Southern France - netting us tens-of-thousands of prisoners & much abandoned equipment.

Once again, we send our wolf packs into the Atlantic to hunt down enemy shipping, damaging or destroying four transport fleets & an enemy heavy fleet making waves near Scotland. We have redeployed our land forces to better combat additional enemy landings & we are hopeful that the losses inflicted this season will set back allied timetables for additional invasions.

On the Eastern Front, we move into the decisive phase of the campaign. Having survived our first winter intact, we remain on the offensive, capturing Smolensk & Bryansk and making an armored thrust on the Russian capitol itself. Although we were pushed back, we did inflict heavy losses on the defenders. Our armor is concentrated for another push in the Summer. We are also hopeful that the losses inflicted on the Russia resource base will be sufficient to delay additional Russia production long enough for our forces to be victorious.

In the Middle East, after witnessing additional allied landings in Arabia, we pulled out more of our forces to bolster the home front. The territories there have served their purpose - now we must defend the Reich against our enemies to the West & look to crush our true enemies to the East.

[MButtazoni]

???? how can you destroy 27 units in 1 turn? the reason i have't answered any questions on the combat system is because i honestly just don't get it.

[paullus99]

Man, your guess is as good as mine - I was fully prepared to take a spanking, but I had to try to kick you out....now since you can't retreat, it does tend to destroy more units.

Maybe just a quirck with the system, since its only alpha, I expect some crazy results from time to time.

[Hanal]

Just guessing here as an outsider but is the "quantity v. quality" issue, that has been discussed, finally raised its' vengeful head?

[paullus99]

Could be - my armor is a lot higher in evasiness/defense & I did send quite a bit of fodder in as well - I could have just as easily gotten my ass kicked. We'll have to see how this plays out & get some more testing done before we can say for sure.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

Could be - my armor is a lot higher in evasiness/defense & I did send quite a bit of fodder in as well - I could have just as easily gotten my ass kicked. We'll have to see how this plays out & get some more testing done before we can say for sure.

Many things could come up. First, it takes 2 to 1 in surviving land power to take an area. Air units don't count. If the Allied 27 was made up of a lot of airpower, that would mean it took less surviving German land power to take the area. Second, if their was no transport link to a factory at the time of the battle, the remaining troops would be destroyed once they were forced to retreat (otherwise they were just damaged). Does the German player remember what the expected loses were saying when he attacked? Did it say you should expect to take the area? Research is a big part of it. My guess is that the German armor was so good that only a lucky attack by an Allied unit would damage it. The Allies start with weaker units and my guess is with England captured the German quality advantage only got bigger. You cannot ignore research in this game, unless your opponent is also ignoring it. You will often find in Russia that huge numbers of Russian troops can barely fight even with a few Germans if the Russian player didn't research his units up in quality.

I think this is where this game shines. Research makes each game different and gives it great replayability. It also allows one to match research with grand strategy (want to contest the seas, research torpedoes on German bombers and research subs and suddenly Allied ships are threatened). I'd be interesting to see the infantry, artillery and armor ratings for all the units in the game (3 screens needed for this).

[MButtazoni]

i posted most of that info over in the dev forum Joel

[paullus99]

Joel, once I got everything in - it did say that it expected the attacker to take the area. There were a lot of air units in Southern France for the allies - but I don't remember exactly how many. That would also explain why my attack on Moscow failed last turn - I was still outnumbered by ground units.

I'll put up the screens on my next turn if someone doesn't get to them first.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

Joel, once I got everything in - it did say that it expected the attacker to take the area. There were a lot of air units in Southern France for the allies - but I don't remember exactly how many. That would also explain why my attack on Moscow failed last turn - I was still outnumbered by ground units.

I'll put up the screens on my next turn if someone doesn't get to them first.

I will just say that I find Germans to be practically unstoppable and undestructable (mostly in my other games) - and that's the reason I didn't attack them in this game seriously (so far). It is strange that small difference in modifiers (eg. 4 to 6 in evasion, with every other modifier being equal) would be responsible for such a difference!

You say you were repulsed at Moscow? I find that hard to believe, so could you post more details, just so we see that it's indeed possible [:D].

Turn is with me now, and I suggest we transfer the discussion re combat system to the dev board (as I guessed you already did).

Oleg

[Tacoma]

Sounds like business has picked up on D-Day and the mighty German war machine is rolling on..... [;)] Oleg, can you now hear the panzer engines at the Kremlin... [:D]

Good information fellas and keep up the good work!

[Oleg Mastruko]

OK Soviets here again; some interesting discussions are started on the beta board, as the result of the latest results of this AAR, but for the purposes of written history - the war goes on. [:D]

As I said, I find the Germans to be nigh on invincible, and am very reluctant to attack them face to face, and I won't attack at all if GE has 2 or more MECH units in the province because I simply can't do anything to them. I just hope... they... will... attrit themselves... and stop... somewhere... [>:]

Then, when they stop, we plan to send them Sturmovik-loads of booklets with Lenin's speeches and convert them to Communism [&o]

We are short of everything (except above mentioned booklets) - supplies, resources, population... we don't even think about investing in research right now (mental note - research during peacetime!). But we do expect our German foes to be in almost equally bad position regarding strategic materials and production, with all those partisans (and Americans [:D]) raiding their back areas...

We launched relatively huge offensive to the north. First Guards Airborne Corps (note - they became Guards) was in action again, using the fact that Finland was badly guarded, with Finnish fascist looting Karelia and Leningrad. We transferred some more units from Siberia, and used troops from former Central Asian Military District to retake North Caucasus (Rostov) area.

This war is proving way tougher than expected..



Oleg

[MButtazoni]

Well the loss of such a huge force in Southern France earlier this turn was a tad disheartening. it was made worse by the fact that his subs had broke my convoy chain back to the US so all the retreated units out of France could not trace to a Factory so they were destroyed to a man. had there been a link back they would all have been damaged and put back in the production Queue.

the German research is proving decisive in the west and eastern fronts, all we can do is keep hurting Germany and hope we can out-produce (and out-research) him by mid 1944. So for the turn i set about destroying the last of his transports and unleashing my newest research project, a leaner meaner sub hunting Light Fleet, the only sub that survived was the one tucked away in a port in Italy.

then i unleashed the wrath of my 7 carriers on Southern England (God forgive me[&o]) and in a wave attack softened his defenses enough to bring in a Tank, an Infantry and an Airborne unit to succesfuly retake Southern England. the 4 Factories are in horrible shape but nothing 40 supply wont fix next turn to get them producing at 100% capacity.

I operated this on a shoestring budget so that i could lend Russia 40 supply. along with China's 20 supply that i also lent Russia, he should be able to kick the Geraman aggressor out of Russia his next turn [:D].

my production is being severly hampered by the lack of population in the US, so i took it as a sign that i should produce a lot of supply and research points (the only two things that don't require population). i produced 15 Research points and 135 supply.

Here is a picture of Europe after Summer 1943:

[MButtazoni]

and here is the Force Pool and Production Queue for Spring 1943

[a19999577]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

[...] We are short of everything (except above mentioned booklets) - supplies, resources, population... [...]

The USSR running short on population? Seems kind of odd...

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko


We launched relatively huge offensive to the north. First Guards Airborne Corps (note - they became Guards) was in action again, using the fact that Finland was badly guarded, with Finnish fascist looting Karelia and Leningrad.

Finland was conquered by paratroopers alone! [X(][:-]

[paullus99]

Germany, Summer 1943

Time for decisive action on the Eastern Front. Those pesky paratroopers won't be bothering us again for a while, after our Infantry Corps (ably supported by our dive bombers) launched an attack to recover the Finnish territories. We also moved north again & recovered Karelia as well - hopefully opening up a new northern front into the Russia steppes beyond.

Our armored forces, still smarting from their first unsuccessful attempt to capture Moscow last season made another bold thrust into the Soviet capitol - and after much hard fighting sent the remaining Red Army troops fleeing to Gorky.

We also thrust once again into the Caucausus, capturing the vital Rostov/Donbas industrial areas & possibly opening up a way back to Persia for our brave troops. We also made some internal re-alignments of the front, reinforcing our positions with additional armored forces in anticipation of Red Army counterattacks later this summer.

In the West, the allies once again land in England - although they won't find much left to capture, as all industries & resources were ruthlessly plundered over the past three years of occupation. Let Churchill sift through the embers.....

We also re-allocated our forces in the West - building a wall along our coasts to prevent any sort new adventure & will most certainly continue to send our subs out to wreak havoc on the allies long supply lines.

We will remain on the offensive in the East - hoping to end the Red Menace once and for all....