Through a glass, darkly (vs Soviet AI 110/120)

[loki100]

T183 – 17 December 1944

So if the 1944 VP test works then only a couple of turns to go.

Combination of TOE and NM changes, lack of artillery and the AI 120 morale has rendered my infantry pretty useless. I have a few with a decent artillery allocation and that makes a difference but now really need a stack of 3 and some sort of terrain/fort bonus for them to have any chance.

A few turns back I tried to cut off a spearhead and almost lost a Pzr Corps in turn. Basically my mobile units are holding the clear terrain hexes in the hope that they can stand up to an attack.

The result has been a steady retreat, but with the safety net of holding a lot more terrain than historical. So on most sectors, still on the Soviet side of the 1941 borders. AGN trying to hold the Neman, will then commit 18A to the Koenigsberg fortifications.



AGC protecting Warsaw, good fall back line on that sector if I ever need it.

My practical interest is as short a line as possible (to aid stacking) that incorporates as much broken terrain as possible – but no point using salients as I have space to retreat (just don't tell E-Adolf).



AGS covering Lvov (the last Soviet VP city in my hands).



Rumania surrendered a few turns back, Bulgaria went this turn but holding the Carpathian line for now – its a long way to Budapest for the AI.



W Allies a little behind schedule.

The Germany mobilises event after the fall of Paris is a bit of a double edged sword for me.The manpower is welcome but its the lack of heavy weapons that is crippling my formations and another dip in NM doesn't help staying power.

Still they can be given Panzerschrecks which is usful.



Losses – mine is a bit misleading due to the brutal end of the Rumanian army – after losing the Dneistr line I just let it sit in blocking positions.



OOB, given all the in/out transfers my numbers are holding up well.



My manpower situation looks better than it is as I still have the Rumanian pool at the point of surrender. So the Paris numbers have been committed, Hungary can sustain its army for some time.



Tank pools, helps keep my Pzr divisions effective.



Have I mentioned the lack of artillery?



VP chart. If it works as designed then I should win in 2 turns as the AI fails against the 31 December 1944 HWM test. It will get Ploesti and possibly Belgrade (which would give it 627) but even so its well over 100 short.

Ignoring German cities the Soviets never reached (& Berlin as that is a special case) there are 260 city VP in my hands. So unless they fall with time bonuses the AI can't reach the 1 April sudden death test of 950 (unless the off map VP start to work in their favour).

I'm ignoring Berlin as while it has a VP value, in effect if it falls the game ends regardless.

But it should be over before 1945.

Which I think is how the VP/game system is meant to work. If the Axis player can do well enough in 1942 to generate a high HWM then the Soviet side struggles to match it.




So the game has a natural logic of the opening German offensive, 1942 as a period of dominance and then 2+ years of Soviet dominance. While I know most axis players have a 'win by T18 or give up' mindset, I'd say from this you are missing out on a lot of the design.

Now of course that depends on 1941 not ending with Soviet counters in every hex from Smolensk to the Urals.

[loki100]

T186 - 7 January 1945

So, that is that - I'll do some sort of overall commentary when I get the chance

[Beethoven1]

GG, congratulations on the win, and nice AAR.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: loki100

T186 - 7 January 1945

So, that is that - I'll do some sort of overall commentary when I get the chance

Congrats Loki & look forward to the commentary.

[Gunnulf]

An epic struggle, well played sir

[loki100]

thanks for the praise.

Ok first post.

There is a lot of complaint from some of the player base that the game is pro-Soviet or similar.

So who knows about the secret, ahistorical Axis reinforcements?

1) N Africa, 9 turns post the Axis surrender a load of German and Italian units appear in the AR. Some are slated for a disband and the Italians have a short shelf life, but you get some really good ground and air units that never appeared (afaik) in the war with the Soviets

2) Finland, 4 turns after the Finnish surrender you get the German units (most if not all) that were in the Theatre in the AR. Now some you do need to send to Norway (to match the new demands in that Theatre), but you get the rest to use as you wish. Here is some idea what you get:



Now to me this is wide open to huge abuse. Since there is no time limit on Helsinki, the Axis player is guarenteed to lose 36 VP for Finland at some stage, even if it was just a matter of saving the time bonus, there is a corps worth of very useful German mountain divisions there.

In this game I sent them all to Norway apart from 2 mtn divisions, but as it is that is a one way bet for the Axis player

3) There is a disaster in the West event that eliminates 20% of the units in the West Theatre Box. 9 turns later they pop up in the AR. And among the VG dross, there is some very good stuff - note that in a game where I have been struggling for artillery they come with a near full complement.

In this game they appeared on T184 and since the game ended on T186 there was no point to doing anything. But I would have disbanded the VG to get hold of the artillery and that leaves a full Pzr Corps and a near full Corps of FJ formations.

[Gunnulf]

On point 2 doesn't seem too bad, in fact doing yourself short. Seems like some did stay in Norway but at least 6 SS Mtn, 2nd Mtn, 163rd & 169th Infantry divisions all shipped south to fight in Germany, albeit not all in the east. Maybe the abuse is losing Finland early on purpose to get the units sooner is what you mean?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Gunnulf

On point 2 doesn't seem too bad, in fact doing yourself short. Seems like some did stay in Norway but at least 6 SS Mtn, 2nd Mtn, 163rd & 169th Infantry divisions all shipped south to fight in Germany, albeit not all in the east. Maybe the abuse is losing Finland early on purpose to get the units sooner is what you mean?

aye, I raised this in the beta forum and the view was that most of those units did get back to Germany.

But that leaves 2 bits, first it took some time for most. The ones in the south shipped out as part of the armistice discussions but the formations in the Arctic had to retreat to Arctic Norway, overland to the south and then ship across the Baltic

edit: I've skied and climbed in the Finnsmark Vidda, even in summer moving large divisional combat units would have been very slow, in winter conditions you're looking at what was then a single track road snaking along the coast to Hammerfest and then a broken up road/ferry system to where the rail head ends (even if Sweden was still co-operating units would have had to reach Narvik)

The bigger potential abuse to me is that on one hand you are guarenteed to lose 36 VP for Finland changing sides but if you set this up to happen early then here's a really nice batch of reinforcements and you can pull them down pretty much when you want (it being very hard for the Soviets not to meet the conditions from their side). So its a one way trade off, and with the issue of whether Leningrad really is worth the effort still unresolved ... I now think I'd settle for Pskov, Talinin and sort of dig in along the Luga?

[loki100]

I'm not going to rehearse the stuff that is the manual about how the AI plays at 110/120. I realise its not to everyone's choice but crudely the AI can't anticipate (if defending) or really plan (if attacking) so the benefit in terms of reaction is a compensation.

Big Strategy bit

Carlkay has made this point but it needs to be reinforced.

The AI makes a threat assessment in its line forming (in addition to a range of specialist decisions as it cycles through its phase). I *think* this keys off how strong you are on a sector (it is hampered by FoW here), how much ground you've just taken and the importance of the local geography (so a threat to Moscow rates much more highly than say Novy Oskol).

So the key to 1941 and 1942 is to give it at least 5 threats, and only use 2-3 in a given turn, basically you will get better pocket chances if a sector was quiet last turn than if you managed a breakthrough.

1941 vs 1942

I think it behaved differently. For most of 1941 it was very astute, a defense in depth and generally pulling back, so any breakthrough (even with 50 MP mobile units) got stuck in a cat's cradle of ZoC. 1942 I felt it went more linear (perhaps as it had near 6m men in May 42).

That created the basis for my 1942 approach. In effect constant pockets, even if all I cut out was a couple of divisions, in the end movement space opened up.

AI On the offensive

With hindsight I should have given it 120 morale when the initiative changed.

It had a decent 5m+ army, even if I had badly bit its tank forces. It launched a grim front wide offensive that drove me to distraction but between combat losses and being able to cut out pockets as it pushed on, I ran it down to 4m+.

At that stage at 110, the game stalemated.

At 120 it actually took a leaf out of the Soviet operational manual. It held large parts of the front fairly weakly and hit key locations repeatedly. At times this failed badly (it was shedding 30k a week around Leningrad) but in other cases it nearly shattered complete armies running down my manpower and heavy weapons.

120

I really would counsel against giving the Soviet AI this morale setting from the start. But it did make for a much more engaging second half to the game.

What this does is replace pockets (which the AI remains poor at) with shatters/routs. The higher German NM meant no shatters but each turn I'd have a cluster of formations down below 10% of their TOE. So off the line, need to refit and increasingly hard to regain heavy weapons.

Worth noting what the 120 does.

The battle is resolved normally, come the final 2-1 test clearly the AI has a boost (while the setting affects NM unit morale, and thus cv, will tend towards it). If it loses that is it, if it wins it adds extra disruptions, heavily reducing your TOE. Those disruptions can push a unit towards unready, even depleted, so the retreat becomes a rout or shatter. In that case more of the disruptions become damage/destroyed.

Winning and Losing

As is clear, in the end I won fairly easily, up to early 1944 I wasn't sure but it steadily ran out of time bonuses. This is part of the lack of wider planning, a human Soviet player would have followed the VP breadcrumbs, perhaps shedding some to optimise othere.

In effect, I shifted from counting what I had to do to deny the AI, to working out what it had to do extra to achieve the HWM. By the time it was clear that this involved taking cities actually in the Reich it really was just a matter of playing out the turns and retreating to try and stop my infantry formations just collapsing.