Matrix Games Forums

Hi everyone. Been playing HoI2 for while, and decided to have a go at this. Been thru tutorials and then had a go at Road to Moscow I against Russian PO yesterday. Managed to get a draw. Now, I have figured out the mechanisms to manage combat rounds effectively (getting plenty of attacks per turn etc) so I thought that would stand me in good stead for victory, but not so it seems. Looking back at my game I realize I made two obvious errors:

1. I did not study the distribution of victory points carefully, so i didn't plan specifically to take the hexes that matter - I should have bypassed Minsk with my Panzers.

2. I don't think I've got my head round supply management yet: my panzers ran out of steam and couldn't get to the high value VP hexes quickly enough.

A few questions:

It seems to me that the victory conditions in this scenario are tough playing with FOW for the first time unless you have all the skills necessary to keep your armour moving quickly. Is this typical of TOAW scenrios, i.e. being so tough?

How do units recover their movement allowances and how fast? This scenario is 12/13 turns, and the supply level at the front (where the panzers are) is usually 7. There doesn't seem to be enough time to retreat them to a high supply point, wait for them to recover organization and get past Minsk. So in this scenario is it basically a one shot deal in that you have to carefully conserve movement point levels etc and press on regardless?

In Road to Moscow II you have 27 turns. In that time scale would one normally expect to rest up panzer corps and if so for how long?

I gather from the manual that the key to high supply is four hexes from a town at the end of a good road or rail line (or an airfield?), plus proximity of unit's HQ. Is there anything you can do other than this to increase supply levels for the panzer groups? With engineers for example?

Is the HQ supply bonus applied once and once only at the end of turn, or is it applied in some way during movement/combat?

I've found so far that biggest problem tactically is dealing with small units in the way in towns etc. Just attacking them head on doesn't seem to work fast enough 'cos they just retreat unless they are week enough that you can steamroller them with RBC's. Even then they seem to stick next to the road like glue exerting ZOC and slowing your column down. For RtM II I would like to try some more sophisticated tactics to deal with this. I have thought of two ideas. One is to create a horseshoe like formation to eject the defenders two hexes away from the road as quickly as possible (following infantry can capture them later). A complete surround seems to take too long. The second is idea I had was to split one fast unit using the parts to recon ahead of the column and to try to take evasive paths round defenders where possible. I would be interested in any tips on this question since success in this scenario seems to be all about speed.

This looks like a pretty damn good game to me BTW.

supply is calculated at the begining of the turn, so to get the HQ benefit your HQ mmust end next to the unit.

In these escenario there is no stopping to get your supply back up, you just have to keep on going, and with the Pz try to go around the enemy.

In the first scenario try to have some units going the north path, and some units going the south path. With teh south path you can manage against the AI to get to the 3 point bridges. And don´t expect to take Minsk till the end (as you said, by pass it with your Pz).

Having units with low supply means that they will not be as fast, but I do not think the reduction in movement is that drastic.

To get a unit resupply fast you must:
- have it in a railroad hexe, or near it, which is conected by rail to a supply point
- do not move the unit
- have a cooperative HQ next to it

But in these escenarios it is very difficult to keep your units well supplied. You just have to keep on moving.

In longer scenarios you might have more time to rest and prepare assaults, but for these two is just a rush fordward.

Thanks for that. I'll give RtM II a whirl this weekend and see if I can do better!

I do not know how well is your spanish, but I once played both scenarios against two oponents at the same time, and managed to do an AAR, in spanish. If interested:

RtMI:
http://www.panzerzug.es/pzg/component/o ... ic,3548.0/

RtMII:
http://www.panzerzug.es/pzg/component/o ... ic,3571.0/

I played always as the rusians.

Thanks. I have no Spanish unfortunately, only a bit of French. The screen shots tell an interesting story, I wish I could read the commentary as well.

I've managed to get four Pz groups behind Smolensk by turn 16 this time, ripped right through them basically, but I haven't really got the hang of maintaining supply lines properly with my following infantry. I had a marginal victory at 16, but the Russians have beaten me back a bit to a draw by turn 22 'cos their holding up my infantry with stubborn defense and cutting my supply lines so my tanks are in a bit of a sorry state. The other thing thing is it is obvious that as your units loose organization and strength through the battle they become much less effective, which is probably very realistically modeled. Maybe I'll manage to restore marginal victory by the end.

Next scenario I'll try to work on efficient mopping up operations and keeping good supply lines open etc to support the Pz corps. I think my problem is impatience - I think maybe you've got to take the time to surround pockets of defenders rather than just attack them head on otherwise they just melt away and live to fight another day. This game is very detailed I think. I used to play Eastern Front a lot, and I've been playing HoI recently, but you don't really have to think about the fine details of supply lines and mopping up in those games. These Russians are all over the place!

I imagine it's pretty hard to defeat a human Russian opponent in this scenario - so many ways to frustrate the blitzkrieg if you know what to expect and how to go about it.

Thanks for the feed back. I have made a few modifications to Scenario I Crossing the Border- namely increasing the German movement bias to 125%, which gives the Germans a more historic movement. In the 27 June map in Panzer Leader Guderian shows the movement of 4.Pz Div as 60-70 km per day from crossing the Bug R. to reaching BOBRUISK. I also modified some of the VPs as well as a couple of map modifications- namely adding a secondary road form SLUTSK to BOBRUISK that Guderian shows in his book.
If you would like, I can send you a copy of the v1.2. I would appreciate hearing your feed back.

As it happens, I got a significant victory in RtMII in the end, so I started studying RtMIII (which is somewhat more complicated), and I decided to replay RtMI to refine my armour handling skills bit before starting it. Specifically I went for a) minimum loss attacks to get multiple rounds and minimize organizational loss, b) assigned specific corps to follow the Pz north and south around Minsk and patrol to keep the supply lines open down the roads etc, c) had my main body infantry divisions systematically surround and evaporate defensive pockets on the direct approach to Minsk in preparation for surrounding the city.

I was actually very happy with the results - I've put some AAR style shots below to illustrate - however I could only achieve a draw again by game end at turn 12, despite the fact that IMO I have achieved an excellent result from a historical perspective with virtually no losses.

From a scenario design point of view I can see this is difficult in that the Soviets have absolutely no chance of "winning" as such, so the location of VP hexes and the number of turns is a knife edge balance since basically either the Pz have the time to get there or they haven't, there not being a whole lot the Soviets can do about it one way or the other (which I suppose is historically the case).

One comment I'd make is that RtMI is IMO a pretty obvious scenario to start learning this game with, so it might be good if it played so you got a pretty wide range of results based on how much skill you've used. At the 'mo it feels like its all or nothing really, from a German perspective anyway.

This was my position near the end of turn 8. Err, my jpg shots are 400k (200k limit!!???), so I can't post them, have to give up on that idea. Basically I got pretty much all of my Armour round Minsk by both the north and south roads and they had very nearly joined up to complete the pincer. However they did not have time to capture the bulk of VP hexes near the NE edge - they where 1-2 turns away. I dare say there are a number of "gamey" tactics I could use to that would get units to these hexes in time by hook or by crook, but that would probably wreck my nice position and expose me to losses.

Anyway on to RtMIII now, but I will try the update on the scenario since I know it now and see what the difference is.