Leadership Variant AAR or how to shovel noodles uphill

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, I tried it out. You can manage to get the mountains before the italians do, but the hardcore logistics are a real killer (5PP wasted for each conquered city..) and wasting PP on factories is not a possibility before you managed to beat them.

[Appren]

Allright, I'm giving this a shot, I think it should be doable.

Turn 20: Nothing special, setting up to counter the Italians. One factory raised.
Italians also control the land to the northwest.

[Appren]

Turn 40.

The Germans have surrendered to the might of the Ottomans. Ottomans also cleaned their lands of Italian influence, and are now slowly approaching my lands. Setting up the defense for them now.

On the Italian front, things are fairly quiet. They are now bringing lots of Medium Tank III's, and I am building AT-Guns to counter this. For a long time (almost 20 turns) I had a city on the western side of Italy, captured by rebels, but it was finally overrun.

Hatecastle and Porpouch captured by my forces and AT-Guns and machineguns are defending.

More factories built, 5 or so by now.

[TheArchduke]

I actually managed to secure the 2000k production north of the Isthmus by turn 12, the real problem are the obscene AC hordes the Italians can field.

[TheArchduke]

Nice work, Appren, keep us posted. I gave up on playing the hardcore logistics, it adds too much hassle for me.

[Appren]

Turn 55

Italian front still holding on, only twice has the Italians broken through, only to be repelled again.

Ottomans are pushing on hard, and they also twice managed to capture one of my forts, and only barely got pushed back.

Soviets are threatening my cities of Porpouch and Hatecastle, and I am getting ready to withdraw.




Edit : On turn 57 the retreating cargo ships from Porpouch, carrying the heroic defenders was sunk on the way home. A sad day for every citizen. If this was Civ 4 I'd have a serious "should I reload?" issue on my hand, bye bye 97 XP AT-Guns

Second edit: Horrible quality on that screenshot...oops.

[Appren]

Turn 80.

The Soviets and Ottomans are slugging it out in the north, and the Ottoman attacks on my border is down to puny 50 men formations every other turn.

On the Italian border, my air forces are forced to chose their targets extremely careful, due to big stacks of Flak II. The AI started building these after I started using air offensively. My first ever armored vehicles (Medium Tank III) were constructed on turn 75, and in 4-5 turns or so I am ready to go on the offensive against the Italians.

Screenshot showing my infrastructure at turn 80. In addition are the four factories surrounding New Doopcastle in the northwest, which are producing 16PP every turn.

[Appren]

Turn 86

The invasion is a fact, in 5 turns the mighty Italian army is cut off, crushed and demoralized.

At this point in the game, I call it "Game Over", since nothing the AI do at this time is going to stop me from defeating them. It would just take a lot of time, another 10+ turns to finish off the Italians, and then a few turns to build a navy to hit the Ottoman flanks. After that it would be a simple "grind-fest", with my experienced troops slowly but surely killing the AI.

[Appren]

My forces at the end of turn 86.




I would like to thank the OP for the good read, without your added command flavor this game would certainly be beatable, but it would be a far less enjoyable read for sure

[lancer]

Goodaye Apren,

Hey, I'm impressed !

I was struggling to get enough PP's to build up my factories while at the same time fending off the Italians but you seem to have managed it easily.

I didn't realise that you can build factories right next to towns. I thought you had to have a 2 hex spacing. Obviously not the case going by your screenshots.

I'm assuming you didn't turn the hardcore logistics option off?

Well done.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Appren]

I did not change any options, and used hardcore logistics (don't think it would be possible to change it either, since the game was already started on turn 1 from your savegame). The limit for factories is 2 hexes between each factory, cities and other constructions does not matter.
All the little 500 prod villages made 1PP every turn, so I did not have to use time transfering 5 rifles every turn. Newly built factories was then assigned to one type of production, and pretty much stuck with that for the entire game, some making PP, some rifles, some AT-Guns, some making mortars and so on. After the first 6-7 turns the Supreme HQ only built supplies/PP/planes/ships in variable numbers, so no troops had to be moved by sea after that (except the defenders of Hatecastle/Porwhatever). At the end of my campaign, a total of 4 factories also built supplies, the southwestern army feeding from one, the airforce from another, and the northwestern from the third. The biggest HQ (SW) was alternating on being supplied from two factories, allowing me to build enough supplies without  having to split this army into multiple HQ's. Supplies can often be a problematic issue in hardcore logistics games, once your formations gets too big to be fed purely from a Supreme HQ ---> Factory/City HQ---->Combat HQ line, and making supply dump type HQ's that gets the chance to build up while they take turns feeding your main combat HQ's will solve this issue.

[lancer]

Goodaye Apren,

Now I'm really impressed.

As I am with your guide in the War Room. I've learnt a fair bit.

Cheers,

Lancer