AI v GB - First Steps

[skippy]

The following is an account of my first steps into a proper wargame. Sorry there are no screenshots, and that the comentary is a bit vague: I didn't keep any notes as I went along, because I only discovered the forums when I was nearly finished. Any comments and advice would be very welcome: I feel like I got lucky and dodged a bullet.

AAR
Gazala v. AI


Intro

Being new to war gaming, I decided I’d better start at the bottom, which seemed to mean trying to do better than the British performance at Gazala, so I put on the red, white and blue shorts and squared up to the Afrika Korps. My only experience of similar games was an old copy of Allied General which was well past its prime in 1997, so I reckoned the learning curve here would be steep. I had read the manual but didn’t have access to it while playing, and I expected things to be pretty ropey. I had also read Armchair General’s ‘Strategy 101’ to give me an idea of what I was doing.


Preparation for battle

I began by analysing the map. The Korps seemed to be lining up for a big right hook through Bir Hacheim north east towards Tobruk, which seemed about right. I decided to let them come, and line up my forces on either side of the main road to ambush them. The idea was to create an armoured bag and suck them into it. Then, when they were well inside, I would use the other half of my forces to seal the bag at the top and cut off their supply, leaving them – hopefully – easy prey to the waiting tanks. This depended on a pincer movement around Bir Hacheim.

To put this in place, I needed to buy time, so I asked the Free French to defend Bir Hacheim, and told them they would need to hold out for a few turns until the Axis by-passed them and got sucked in. Once the jaws of the trap closed, the advanced forces would move back to relieve Bir and roll up the Axis from the rear. Meanwhile I needed to prepare pincers south and north of Bir. To do this, I should need to break through the lines from the north and cut off the Axis salient. For insurance, I therefore decided on two southward thrusts, one east of Rotunda, the other west of it.

In case the flank attack in the open desert failed, I began to prepare a fall back position between the escarpments near Tobruk. If the worst came to the worst, I reckoned I could hold the Axis there. with troops and fortifications to east and west, and that my remaining forces to the west could swing back east and cut off supplies and retreat.

In the north I needed to protect the coastal route from Gazala to Tobruk: there was no point succeeding in the desert if the enemy could just steam up the coast road. I also had to protect the area to the south east of Alem, since I needed freedom to launch my twin drive southwards around Rotunda and I had to know I could control that area to get supplies through.

So much for plans – needless to say they didn’t survive contact with the enemy.


Opening – Turns 1 to 4

This is where the rookie bit took over. The combat adviser was giving me odds which didn’t seem to be reflected when I tried to launch an attack. The attack button was greyed out, and my troops would not fight. I could get the artillery working alright, but unit combat was beyond me. After a while I realised that the screen was not showing attackers on the left and defenders on the right as I thought, but Axis on the left and Allies on the right. I had been looking at the reverse of the actual odds! It took about 4 turns to figure this out. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t keen to attack during this time. I wanted to get in position, and was hoping the Free French would hold up at Bir. They were doing well but suffering some damage. Much less than I had feared, however, and my artillery was helping them from a distance.

During this time I managed to make some ground with the southern arm of my pincer, below Bir. However, supply could not keep up and, frustrated, I had to pull back. The Axis had secured Point 171, and I thought I needed to clear it to open a way south of Bir. In fact, I had not figured out how to open up a supply route.


The Developing Battle- Turns 5 to 8

There seemed to be formidable quantities of armour coming and going around Bir, and on the front line to the east of it. I was able to hold the line some distance away but could not make any progress. Axis forces on the other hand, seemed to have stalled at Bir. They would not or could not press beyond it, and were unable or unwilling to press an attack into the town against the elite French troops. A bit of artillery kept them on their toes. Seeing an opportunity I managed to retake Point 171, but was knocked out of it again next turn with a very bloody nose. I pulled back, expecting a major push from the Korps, but it never materialised.

It was becoming apparent that I could not wait for the Afrika Korps to advance on Tobruk. I was going to have to come out looking for them. I abandoned the attempt to lure them in and moved all units up towards the jump off points for my pincer attacks, keeping a light screen across the front line, and ready to move back to the sides of the road to Tobruk if the Korps broke through. Having abandoned the southern pincer that I could not supply, I had to rely on the twin northern pincers either side of Rotunda.


Stalemate – Turns 9 to 12

The battle reached something of a stalemate as we approached the mid-point. I realised that the Axis were bringing up several units and stacking them in order to launch a multiple attack by several units. I copied this. By turn 12, I had figured out that you could launch multiple attacks from several stacks – again by watching the Axis do it to me. Unfortunately, the practice I got on this was from my twin southward drive, and I lost a lot of steps figuring it out. As a result, the pace of progress was less than stellar.

The Axis came back at me around Rotunda and Bir, launching probing attacks with multiple units. As things hotted up, I tried a line of weakened units to stem the attack. The mutual support which these units gave one another deterred further attacks, and again the line was probably far enough back to be outside the Axis supply net. However, there still appeared to be a formidable amount of armour mustered around Bir, and I was fearful of a big push and a breakthrough by the Afrika Korps.


Coastal Diversions – Turns 4 to 12

Throughout these turns, Italian and German units kept demonstrating outside Gazala. There seemed to be as many as 12 units against the 3 or 4 entrenched and fortified ones I could spare. Artillery and probing attacks were causing worry to the south around Alem Halfa but, when the line seemed quite unstable, the 2nd South Africans from the Tobruk garrison were released and I sent them to bolster the line. It took them three turns to get in position, but once they got there, I felt more secure. However, I had wanted to send them to bolster the Rotunda attacks, and their absence left me very short here. Nonetheless, the attack northwest of Rotunda began to make progress. I managed to get around on the flank of a few Italian units, and cut them off. In doing so, I also managed to cut off supplies to my own outflanking units.


Supply Difficulties – Turns 13 to 16

Supplies now became quite a serious issue. I realised that many of my units were not within range of their headquarters, and I needed to move their HQ forward. This took several turns to achieve. I then also realised that I had split my units somewhat arbitrarily. I knew units from the same command should fight together. I had read it. It made sense. I was trying to achieve it. But somehow, I had just sent units where they were needed, and I was finding it hard to remember who came under whose command. The order of battle screen did not help much: each time I clicked on a subordinate unit, it moved into the place previously occupied by its superior formation. I could understand this, but somehow it still confused me. I needed a schematic diagram showing how my units related all the way to the top, and I needed to know what their badges were. I could have stopped to produce these, but decided to just muddle through. However, by about turn 16, some semblance of order had been established. Things were far from perfect, but I felt I might hold on, and at any rate, even if they got through, I didn’t think they could make it to the outskirts of Tobruk. Still, there was an awful lot of armour moving around up by Bir, with probing attacks to the north, east and south-east of the town. The Free French had lost the town centre and their supply dump, but they clung on grimly in the suburbs, and resisted all efforts to dislodge them. Having sorted out my supply, I was able to shell the attackers from my batteries to the east, and this seemed to weaken them enough to stop them pressing their attacks too hard.

The attack southeast of Rotunda got through and got near to some artillery but was then beaten back, and that sector became quite unstable. I was able to shore it up by moving units from east of Bir, then had to move them back again when another attack threatened in the east. This all involved extended marches, with no ability to fight during the turn – probably just as well because most of the units involved were only at half strength.


Turning the Tide – Turns 16 – 20

Things began to turn in my favour west of Rotunda. My breach of the Italian lines was holding up from about turn 14, and I began to expand it. Probing southwards, I located 2 headquarters and a bunch of artillery towards the end of a turn. I brought up everything I could, using extended marches which precluded fighting, but was unable to surround the units. Inexplicably, they failed to move away during their turn, and I was able to attack them over the coming turns. The attacks suffered from supply difficulties, which I was still figuring out, but I managed to destroy these units. This reduced the severity of attacks on Rotunda: without artillery support, the Italian units were unable to make a breakthrough.

About turn 16 I saw an opportunity south of Alem. Reconnaissance patrols seemed to show a complete lack of activity south-east of the town. Probing it, I discovered a massive gap in the lines at this point. I pushed my reconnaisance forward, thinking that I could locate the Italian artillery and stop the pounding it was giving me in the area. It seemed from my own supply lines that a unit pushed onto the supply point at the edge of the screen could cut off supply permanently. Both points were in range and I went for them. (If the game gives you this option, I thought, don’t turn it down.) Going for this objective, I stumbled across the Italian HQ and artillery. I managed to push forward enough reconnaisance units to surround them, but not to force home a useful attack, so I stripped as many units as I could find from elsewhere, and sent them up as far as I could. At this stage I discovered that supplies were not getting forward to these units. I expected them to call back attackers from Alem: indeed, the whole purpose of the move in the first place was to draw attackers away so that, by the time they came back, it would hopefully be too late for a breakthrough. However, my attack was growing, and I needed more units and supplies for it. I noticed that the road was not completely in my control. What if I need to control the road? I asked myself. Pushing out my control of the road and its surroundings over the next few turns, I saw the supply net miraculously open up for the near stranded units, and I was able to take out the Italian headquarters and artillery.


Bagging the Fox

Seeing that this was all going well, I started pushing units through the gap west of Rotunda on a broad front, using the reserves of the 10th Indians and some armour. The objective was to get astride the Bir road and try to cut supplies to the strangely ineffective units around Bir. Progress was slow, as I kept outstripping my supply, but I eventually got onto the road on the penultimate turn. I was confident the AI would do nothing to shake me off, and so it turned out. Following the final Axis turn, I pushed all units in Bir forward to relieve the French, and discovered that the massed armour whose attack I had so feared was largely a bunch of anti-aircraft guns – deadly 88s, admittedly, but not up to an assault. There were some tanks, but nothing to sustain a big advance. I still could not figure out why the German forces did not push forward beyond Bir; I suspected that they weakened themselves attacking Bir, and were unable to proceed.


Conclusions: I got lucky!

My final score was over 3,900, under 4,000. 1,000 was required for an overwhelming victory. Whilst very gratifying in its way, it is hardly a fair reflection of a rookie general in his first battle making every mistake under the sun. It seems much more likely that the AI is not up to a sustained offensive. I was particularly surprised that headquarters units and artillery did not withdraw when I came alongside them on extended movement. I was even more surprised that no units were called back from the frontline to defend a breach and protect supply routes. In fact, I was a bit annoyed at that: the whole purpose of my first successful flanking manoeuvre was to draw off the attack on Alem Halfa. To find that attack going ahead while I took out its command and artillery was just silly. The AI played a static campaign which did not reply to the developing situation. It failed to cover its lines, and failed to do anything to deal with flank attacks.

Probably the key decision I made in the game was to hold the towns, even when surrounded, and move material up to relieve them, rather than falling back ahead of the attackers. My luckiest break was most likely that, not knowing how to attack, I left the Axis advance to blunt itself before I started to counter. Apart from that, I think my conduct of the game was an inglorious mess which a competent opponent would have dissected like an anatomy lesson.

Overall, I enjoyed the gameplay: in spite of its limitations, overcoming the AI requires a good deal of concentration and is quite engrossing. Obviously I’m going to have to go online and play some email games. That way I can take my beating and learn how to play properly. Before I do, I think I’ll go back to Gazala and see how I get on as the Axis side: I suspect the AI might have a bit more luck in defence.

[Howard7x]

Welcome to the forums Skippy and congrats on an excellent first post!

Looks like you had fun destroying the lackluster AI. I also found it to be a little to easy to overcome on my first game and i was playing the computer +. I think the scope for a cunning AI is there, i just think its a little hard to program.

This game is truely best played against a human opponent via PBEM and i think you will be best off playing against another rookie and learning from each others mistakes to start with.

If you dont already own it, Battles In Italy is probably the best SSG release in terms of AI and number of scenarios. It can be really quite difficult to beat even on the normal settings to start with.

Also sign up over at the RUN5 forum and post your AAR there as well as alot of the people that play SSG's releases dont always frequent this forum and im sure they would be interested in it.

[AVisme]

Superb

discover this site too SSG, OMG tourney is heating up!

tourny thread

[flintlock]

Enjoyed the AAR, skip.

I've never played this scenario myself, though grinned when I read "a competent opponent would have dissected like an anatomy lesson," as that happens to me during PBEM games all the time.

No matter though, because Battlefront is a great wargame and a lot of fun!

[skippy]

Thanks for the comments. I've been reading the Run5 forum. AAR on the trial version was superb. I've just started my first PBEM game, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out. In the meantime I finished off playing Gazala from the other side, but it really doesn't merit an AAR: too many flanking manoeuvres taking out artillery, hq and supplies. I think there's a lot of scope for programming that AI to defend. Never mind: I'm feeling cocky - time to get a bloody nose!