Flaviusx v. Tyronec

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

WITE is not so punishing of individual small mistakes, but I think it requires more time and micromanagement. Turns take longer over there. It is as fiddly as you want it to be, and that can be very fiddly.

You can get by with careless play, but it will catch up to you. And the game rewards the player who takes minute attention to detail over the one who doesn't...just not immediately. It is more of a cumulative effect.

Even in WITE it is possible to make big individual mistakes, usually by failing to garrison some important city and assuming the German cannot get there. (The German side is less prone to such errors than the Soviet, obviously.) Mobile units with full movement have an enormous theoretical range of action. The combat system is also not very intuitive and takes a while to develop a feel for as compared to War Plan.

Once you get behind the curve in WITE it is difficult to recover. I have hardly ever seen it.

And over time WITE is pretty darn scripted. Veteran players practically have the opening turn down to a science and indeed one of my gripes about the game is that this opening turn is far more effective than it should be. The infamous Lvov pocket, where most of SW Front gets cut off on turn 1. I have never liked it and the designers never got around to fixing that. Min maxing this opening turn reached the point where it robbed a lot of fun of the game for me.

At any rate I am not going to say one of these games is better than the other because they are doing different things. Apples and oranges. They scratch different itches. If you are looking for operational warfare on the Eastern Front, WITE is the last word on the subject. (At least until WITE2 comes out!)

"Rubber-banding" (i.e., automatically buffing the losing side) needs to be more of a thing in strategy games in general. In too many games the decisive period is always the first few turns, and once one side is ahead there's just no way the other side can ever catch up as everything just snow-balls in the winning side's favour.

[Flaviusx]

Speaking of small mistakes, I think my opponent forgot to turn on raid mode for his subs on April 11. This cost him rather dearly.

These subs have cost me no less than 55 merchants and 5 escorts so far. It's actually becoming a real problem. So I am happy to sink one of them.

[Flaviusx]

I don't know why people are saying subs still suck, because in my last two games they have been sinking tons of merchants and putting real stress on the UK merchant marine. And this is with just the 3 subs they start with! I am going to regret deferring my escort builds in this game. Already am.

[battlevonwar]

What can they do Flavius? They have a range of 5 supply, they exit port -1 supply to get into a proper lane without air cover -2 supply. Now you have 3 supply left? If you raid now and lose any Submarines to escorts/air you now have to send them back. That will mean they will limp home have to wait 3-4 turns to repair if you put priority on. If you are lucky you got no hits on your subs and 2-3 turns of raiding. Use a Oiler and you might extend that.

Tell me how this pays you? Someone isn't doing something right if they're doing what you claim they do.

P.S. Later you do not raid the Atlantic with non Med Strategy they don't even get to the Lane without taking hits if they do they evaporate to escorts and their tech. (tried it 15 times) Trust me U-boats are a neat 1939 force. Early '40 or Heavy Rain... They work locally well with Air Cover other than that there is no room for operations in the North Atlantic. Long Range is a possible concept.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I don't know why people are saying subs still suck, because in my last two games they have been sinking tons of merchants and putting real stress on the UK merchant marine. And this is with just the 3 subs they start with! I am going to regret deferring my escort builds in this game. Already am.

[Flaviusx]

If I am doing something wrong here I am open to suggestions.

There are things I could do to make life harder on the subs.

I could redeploy my bombers to cover the atlantic. I could have made much bigger escort purchases earlier and flood the zone.

But if you want to make a fight of France, you won't be able to do these things. It's one or the other.

[tyronec]

Speaking of small mistakes, I think my opponent forgot to turn on raid mode for his subs on April 11. This cost him rather dearly.

These subs have cost me no less than 55 merchants and 5 escorts so far. It's actually becoming a real problem. So I am happy to sink one of them.

Not sure how that happened, they were in raid mode last turn. Must have clicked it when looking at them.

[tyronec]

Get CLEAR and the battle for France begins.
Had three new Luftwaffe units which swings the air war in my favor. get some good bombing in and push them back two rows.

[tyronec]

Bit of a bloodbath, hopefully he can't do more than push back some of my front row.
Shouldn't have done that last attack but it was 6:1 and thought I might have got a Shatter.

[battlevonwar]

Flavius, I am not the expert but CV strikes alone, Escorts and Iceland should put a damper on his U-boats exploits. You might fear Britain it just too vulnerable. Should I reveal Allied Strategy to you here? I am a rookie Allied Player. The CV in the Med is doing God's work in the North Atlantic or staying parked?

Use Ireland(it obviously doesn't cost anything) a Bomber works from range very well on any Naval Unit, but indeed it's expensive.

Though now you have already placed a strategy in front of you it's likely hard to change your dinner plans. The CVs and escorts alone with wear him down 'a bit'.

[Flaviusx]

The allies counterattack the leading German XVII infantry corps, cripple it, and send it back. The 1st French Armored Corps arrives just outside Paris and receives an AT advancement. I now have 3 full mobile corps in France. The 2. British Mech is due to arrive in mid May. For good measure, i got Heavy Armor 40 this turn with the UK and Heavy Armor 41 with the French. The 2 UK units were upgraded for me at the beginning of the turn, the French will hopefully get their tech upgrade going into next turn.

[tyronec]

May is CLEAR and the attack continues.
One core well trashed by the French last turn, gets sent to the rear.

Am able to break through to the French second line, which has some weak units in it. Shatter 3 corps and a division.
My lead units are exposed this time, might just lose a corps if they attack all out - so a bit nervous to see what happens.

[Flaviusx]

You can rest easy, I crunched into a couple of your corps and retreated them but couldn't manage any outright kills. France is in trouble here, and I need a spell of rain yesterday.

At least I am making you pay for it.

Allied airpower is shrinking fast. I may soon have to start disbanding French air.

[tyronec]

Switch the attack to the South where the French have their weaker units.
Shatter 2 iNfantry Corps and 3 Divisions.

The Maginot line is isolated, not sure if they can be reconnected.
Have deliberately kept out of contact of any Commonwealth units, am hoping next move will be a bit of a dilemma for Flavius. If he attacks my exposed units in the South he might not be able to get any UK units back to Dunkirk. Don't think there are enough French units to do them much harm.
Expect he will just trash another infantry corps instead, but we shall see.

[Flaviusx]

I do neither. I run. I will be very lucky if France can last through June. The extra clear turn you got in April demolished my plans. Really have no idea how you are supposed to make France last past July against a German who knows what they are doing.

In retrospect I would do one thing differently: build flak in France. It is incredibly effective now, even two points will make a hex unappetizing. The Russians have taken notice of this.

[kennonlightfoot]

Where did the British get their armor and mech units?
I didn't think they had enough production to start a new unit in time.
Assume the armor came from Egypt?

[Flaviusx]

The armor came from Egypt, and the mech I just had to save up for. 3 turns of full production for that.

[tyronec]

Take Metz, Vichy and Lyon and France gives up. First time I have seen this without Paris.
Looks like the manual is incorrect, is says 'if morale is below the break point' but I think they are equal and thought I would have to take another objective. Which would have happened next turn.

Weather luck has been about average, 4 turns of CLEAR since September.
I think what has been effective has been all the CS. Air is the real killer for creating breakthroughs in this game.
For the Battle of France, apart from the core units, Germany built 2 Panzers, 1 Interceptor and 4 CS. Feel that has given me a better strike force than in past games where I was building more Panzers.

[Flaviusx]

The mechanized portions of the BEF escape to Britain. Not sure what is going to happen to the HQ and the Canadian corps on the ports.

The Germans have no fewer than 7 dive bombers. I really am not sure how to respond to this as the ally or indeed if there is any answer to it. More fighters? Britain and France might have been able to build 1 each in time for this in lieu of the mech they did build. But that would have meant fighting a purely passive French campaign. The infantry alone cannot counterattack. And with so much airpower, the German strikes would still get through, albeit at higher cost.

[Flaviusx]

As for the weather, the luck was in the timing. It's been nothing but clear since the last half of April. Having some rain mixed in there would've slowed this down a bit and bought me another turn or maybe 2.

To describe this as "4 clear weather turns September" is true but not exhaustive.

[Flaviusx]

So, anyways, I still think the low countries should have linked DOWs. If the German is going to build up a massive airforce like this every time, pretty much the only thing I can see slowing it down is forcing them to attack the low countries all at once rather than sequentially as is now possible.