Matrix Games Forums

T32, Stalingrad
Here's what's going on down south right now. I'm making slow progress in pushing east and south. Supply levels are adequate for operations but only just and it's getting worse. I may have to stop everybody where they are right now. I'm not sure how much further I need to go; maybe all the way to the edge of the map.

Does the Game represent the Oil Fields and do you get any benifit from getting them ?

T34, OilFields
It's possible that there's an event ( "1 occupies" ) that will benefit the Germans or subtract something from the Soviets but I couldn't find it. There's 1500+ events and I didn't want to look through all of them. But I did find a graphic on the map that probably represents an "oilfield" but I have no idea what benefit it is to either side to own that hex.

T37, Moscow
It's only late October and I'm already starting to surround Moscow. I'm thinking that this scenario isn't balanced really well. I'm going to change the scenario and restart my playtest.

Yeah seems a bit too easy, being able to crush Moscow that early.

8/17/2021: Okay, I restarted and I'm now on T10 and here's the front lines. Things are going well and I'm optimistic about this game.

Here's what's going on between Orsha and Smolensk right now. I'm using engineers to leap my troops over
the river and I'm slowly pushing the Soviets to the east. The supply level on the east side of the river
isn't the greatest so the advance in this AO has slowed down to a significant degree. I've railed a lot of
troops into this area to help accellerate things but I haven't noticed any speed up. The Soviets are railing
troops into this area also so there's a magnificant conflict going on with losses for both sides. I'm in a
little bit of a hurry because of the need to arrive at Moscow before winter arrives. When the rivers freeze
over the Soviets tend to get to be adventurephiles. So then I need to man the river banks as well and
that causes my lines to get REALLY thin in places. I get really uncomfortable when my lines get thin. I'd
rather have a reserve available in case the Soviets break through my lines somewhere...and they absolutely
will break through from time to time.

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

It's only late October and I'm already starting to surround Moscow. I'm thinking that this scenario isn't balanced really well. I'm going to change the scenario and restart my playtest.

What did you change? It seems the boost to rail lift is making it far too easy for the Axis to get supply forward, I assume you've pulled this back a bit?

Yes, and I wanted to make sure that all my changes were reversed out of the scenario by starting all over again with the original D21 and changing things from there
to make my mod. So now, the only changes are that all the Axis Corps HQ's have some RR engineers and I changed all the Panzer units to a white on black icon. That makes it easier to find them quickly on the map. I find that I save approx. 17 nanoseconds per turn because of that change. Other that that it's a stock scenario.

Here's what's going on at Pskov right now. I've captured the city and my troops have advanced up the roads
and rails to the east and toward Leningrad. It looks like I'm going to need a lot more troops in this
area. So I'm going to have to look around and see who's unemployed and get them up here. The problemo
is that almost everybody is doing something important. I don't even have a reserve. I've got plans to
turn the Panzer divisions into a reserve but so far they are involved in the heavy fighting going on.

Here's what Kiev looks like right now. I'm not all that keen on fighting my way through the city so I'm
going to bring up all my RR arty and start pounding all the Soviet units that are in my way to the city
proper. Sort of pound a path for my units to advance one hex at a time to see if I can't capture the city
even though it's a fortress. Also, I'm going to do a lot of air strikes to help whittle down the Soviet
morale. I need to find out which Soviet HQ is over the troops guarding the city and bomb it to drive all the
appropriate Soviet units into reorg. Also, I need to drop the bridges on the east side of the river that
allow supply to flow to the defenders. I don't really mind waiting for my forces to surround the defenders
on the east side even though it may take 20 turns or so for that to happen.

Here's a zoomed out view of what it looks like in the middle of the map. Supply levels are adequate and
the weather is good. The Soviet air shock has risen to 50% and when I did some airfield attacks in the
first combat round I lost a LOT more aircraft than I was expecting. I'm going to have to quit doing that.
I'm still looking for opertunities to make the Panzer divisions a reserve but they are still in the thick
of the fighting.

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Here's a zoomed out view of what it looks like in the middle of the map. Supply levels are adequate and
the weather is good. The Soviet air shock has risen to 50% and when I did some airfield attacks in the
first combat round I lost a LOT more aircraft than I was expecting.

I'm playing a different version of this scenario at the moment and when the bomber losses from airfield attacks started rising I started using the Me-109 units instead. This has a few advantages;
1) They're definitely not needed for air superiority- Axis air superiority is normally pretty overwhelming in 1941
2) There are scads of them. I've lost far fewer Me-109s than I've received in replacements
3) If you're hitting an airfield with fighters, then by definition it's in fighter range- you're not going to get caught with unescorted bombers

If there are fighters at the target, or any on Air Superiority in range, then it'll provoke an air-to-air battle and you'll get some nice losses. Hitting only bombers in this way is not so effective I find. You have to let the PO destroy its own bombers making pointless airstrikes...

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
Here's a zoomed out view of what it looks like in the middle of the map. Supply levels are adequate and
the weather is good. The Soviet air shock has risen to 50% and when I did some airfield attacks in the first combat round I lost a LOT more aircraft than I was expecting.

I'm playing a different version of this scenario at the moment and when the bomber losses from airfield attacks started rising I started using the Me-109 units instead. This has a few advantages;
1) They're definitely not needed for air superiority- Axis air superiority is normally pretty overwhelming in 1941
2) There are scads of them. I've lost far fewer Me-109s than I've received in replacements
3) If you're hitting an airfield with fighters, then by definition it's in fighter range- you're not going to get caught with unescorted bombers

If there are fighters at the target, or any on Air Superiority in range, then it'll provoke an air-to-air battle and you'll get some nice losses. Hitting only bombers in this way is not so effective I find.

Wow! I've just found out that I'm a moron. Of course you are correct in every particular. Why the hell
didn't I ever think of that? Congratulations Golden dude, I've just promoted you to TOAW expert.


[Joe Biden and Dr. Jill are in the front row in this above image.]

Here's what Odessa looks like right now. I've forced my way over the river and now I'm starting to get
a surround on the port of Odessa with my Romanian troops. I'm going to make a huge stack of Romanian HQ's
to utilize their arty on the Soviet stacks one stack at a time to reduce the defenders and make a way to
get to the city despite Odessa being a fortress. I need some railroad arty but all the railroad arty I
have is busy at Kiev right now. I think Odessa is a slightly higher priority than Kiev so I'm going to
rail all that arty over to here just as soon as the rail is repaired a little closer to the city. The
railhead isn't all that far away from being close enough so I'm optimistic about this AO.

Here's what Leningrad looks like right now. I've advanced past the bottleneck at Narva and
I'm now trying to find the best path to the port. I'm running into Soviet resistance which is slowing down
my push. I made the mistake of leaving my ships where Elmer could get at them and the Soviets sank all
three of the naval units I was operating up here. D'oh. The supply level is 11 at the tip of the
spear but the repaired rail is almost up to the front lines so it should improve each turn. The Finns are
having a lot of success and I'd like to have posession of the city before they reach the stop line so they
can continue south and help out south of the city. I'd like to have them push east along the coast and see
if they can reach Archangel eventually. I'm wondering if I should rail a couple more divisions up
here to lend a hand. I've got a gap in my lines and it's making me uncomfortable.

Here's the front lines in T14.

I'm sneaking up on Bryansk slowly and I assume I will soon own it. I need Bryansk because of
all the rails and roads that intersect there. Plus the airfields near there. The supply level is 11
at the tip of the spear. Which is barely adequate. But the railhead is getting closer so the levels should
increase each turn. The weather is still good even though it's early August and about 1/3 of my bombers are
yellow and therefore resting. I'm using 50% supply in the aircraft unit to decide whether or not to rest
that unit.

It's T15 and I'm only just now reaching Chernigov which is an important crossing on the Desna
river. It's one way to get on the east side of the river to begin a push to the south to trap all the
Soviet units on the east side of the river and kill them. Supply is 13 at the tip of the spear
but if it goes much lower I may have to slow the advance down. I need to find about 5 more divisions from
somewhere to stream through Chernigov and move south...join the party near Kiev. I have no idea where I'm
going to find 5 unemployed divisions.

It's T16 and I'm using engineers to leap over the rivers to get on the other side and confront some
few Soviet defenders. The repaired rail is nearby so supply is close, although the level is 11 at
the tip of the spear. I'm asaulting Z-town and Kerson also to try to open a path to the Crimea.