Newbie on random Map

[chesire]

I just bought Advanced tactics after reading some of the AAR's and decided after playing a game I'd do one of my own. My first play through was an absolute disaster but I learned a lot both by my mistakes and watching the AI. What follows is my turn by turn account of my 2nd game played.

GAME SETUP
I choose a rather large map, 60 x 60, with 5 regimes and 60 towns. I changed the names and icons of the regimes as others have done. I'll be playing the U.S. And my opponents are China, Russia, Germany, and... Turkey! All opponents are using standard AI, and I turned off full 1st techs and increased the research level to 200%.

TURN 1:
Below is the startup map.

The blue square at the bottom is me and the red circles are my opponents. My position in this game is much better than my last game. I have some nice defensible choke points both north and east of me though the forest to the north of me will slow my land grab a bit.

[chesire]

TURN 2:

One of the things I learned from my first game and from reading a lot of posts was that you really need a plan up front so I've decided to create a number of mobile units, 10 rifles with a truck, and head north. My plan is to take those two towns directly above me and then head west to try and claim the south west quadrant of the map. My reasoning is that it's more easily defensible then if I were to head straight north from those towns on the roads. I'll also send some infantry units consisting of just rifles to the east. I figure either I'll make it to those two towns on the coast or will at least be able to create some sort of blockade on that portion of the penninsala to prevent the opponent on the island from advancing towards my capital as I fully expect them to, immediately after leaving their island stronghold.

[chesire]

TURN 3:
Not much new to report. As mentioned above, you can see that I've begun to move north with my mobile units and sent a larger unit on foot to the east to possibly claim those eastern cities.

[chesire]

TURN 4:

Still churning out units and sending the majority northward. I've hit the forest with the northern most units... hopefully it won't slow me down much. Eventually I'll get some engineers up there and build a road on through but right now I'm just in a rush to grab as much territority as I can before first contact with the enemy...

[82ndtrooper]

Hi Chesire and welcome to the forums !!

I always like to read these random map aar's.

just one question, how did you change the unit Icons ? That is something I always wanted to do when I played a random game and could never figure out how. Plus how did you also change their names ?

[ehzorg]

If I may offer advice - looks like there's a good deal of ocean in your map, and it looks like at least three of your enemies are positioned in port-cities to start with. Consider building a factory or capturing a production city on a coastal hex.

Good luck!

[chesire]

[82nd Trooper] Thanks for the welcome. The way I changed the regime names and icons was, after the random map was created, there's an option to "Edit" it. From there there's a bunch of buttons up top. One is called "Reg". If you click on that and click on one of the listed regimes a menu will show up below to change the color of your units and the name. Also, if you want to change the HQ and the little top left corner icon for your units, you select the option in there... I think it's called statistics, and the options then for those will be on the left side of the screen. Let me know if you have any trouble finding this and I'll try to pull together some screenshots for ya.

[ehzorg] Advice always welcome! Ya, the Chinese it turns out are on the island to the east and the peninsula where my main HQ is has two cities, one a coastal all the way to the right. But as you'll see in my upcoming updates, capturing that port city isn't going as well as I'd hope.

BTW, nice profile pic. The old D&D Player's handbook. Love it!

[chesire]

TURN 5:

This turn I deviated slightly from my plan of sending all my mobile infantry north and sent one lone truck east in an attempt to make a land grab for those two cities. If nothing else I'll be able to reinforce the divisions heading in that direction. I also decided to change my production a bit. After looking at my supply I realized I was producing far more than I needed so I dropped down the supply percentage and bumped up my PP since I really want to get going on some research. Mortars here we come!

[chesire]

TURN 6:

Finally reached the northern cities and captured one this turn. In preparation of setting up a front, I created a new HQ unit there to and set production from my new city to that new HQ. Right now I'm building some supply and rifles there. Once I'm sure my supply from Supreme HQ is getting funneled through I'll probably start producing Staff there instead of supply.

[chesire]

TURN 7:

My exploration North is going smoothly thus far. Another city came into my possession this turn and it was a great one... matching my capital in production! I decided to produce about a half/ half division of rifles and mortars and send them to my new HQ in the area. I've also bumped up my PP production in my capital. I'm trying to decide if I should spend points next to research Machine Guns for Defense or save up the 108 PP now to upgrade my Rifles. I may have to wait until I have more cities to increase my production first.

[chesire]

TURN 8:

Another city under my control, this time on the eastern peninsula. I haven't seen any activity from the regime on the island east of me which worries me a bit. Are they stocking up units to make a large amphibious assault?

[chesire]

A bigger concern for me, however, is the regime to the north. They are aggresively making their way north and south:



I'd love to grab the cities to the north east, but I'm concerned at this early stage I'd be spreading myself too thin and would not be able to properly setup a defensive line covering my current territory. Thus my plan remains the same, setup my northern line above the cities which I currently own and continue to expend west and north from there.

[chesire]

TURN 9:

Well, as I had expected the island forces east of me have indeed sent out a force to land at the port city I was heading towards and it looks like it's the Chinese.



Not sure what kind of forces they're composed of but hopefully my limited force on the peninsula can hold them back until I can get more forces mobilized at Supreme HQ. Incidentally I have built some engineering Corps at my capital and will be building roads north and east so hopefully this will improve the logistics some on those fronts.

[Jeffrey H.]

Great going Chesire, keep it up. I'm already hooked on reading this.

BTW, take it from a 'random game' junkie like myself: When you get a chance go to the community site and download the ARHS mod by Zaratoughda. He's added some really cool features that make the AI play a better game and that balance production between the regimes so there isn't one regime that get's a big bonus. Worth looking into !

[chesire]

Glad you're enjoying the read so far.    I've got some more updates which I'll try to post when I get home.    Things are getting quite... interesting...   Still trying to feel out the right combination of units and attack strategies in this game, but win or lose I'm having lots of fun.
 
And thanks for the tip on that mod.  I had actually read on the forums about it and I think I'll definitely be downloading it and checking it out.   My interest is also more towards the random games but I may try out a scenario at some point once I know what I'm doing.
 
 

[chesire]

TURN 10:

I created a number of new units on my northern front to help me start filling in the line as I'm soon to bump into the regime north of me at any moment. I also had my first battle on the eastern front against the Chinese. It wasn't much of a skirmish but I did get the better of them this time around.

[chesire]

TURN 11:

I had another skirmish in the east. This time my casualties were a lot greater:





I'm not sure if I simply had bad luck or I did something wrong. I checked my readiness score after the battle and it was around 65-68 for both units... compared to theirs which was in the 10-30's. Also I figured with my HQ unit nearby it would help, so I'm not sure why I had so many casualties.

[chesire]

In the north my line is coming together nicely and I'm expanding still to the west. I've also made first contact with Turkey in the North. Those are the expansionist buggers I've been worried about.

[chesire]

TURN 12:

I continue to take larger than expected casualties on my eastern front while China continues to reinforce their units with rifles. My city in the area produces a pitiful 2 mortars a turn so I decided to stop producing staff in my capital and switched their production over to rifles so I can continue to feed the effort to the east which is proving more stubborn than I expected.

[chesire]

TURN 13:

Ugh. Turkey's got some armor and I have nothing to fight against it. I took some more casualties last turn and I've decided I really need to pump up my research so with the two new towns I captured in the Southwest I've put all my production into my research. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to save up for Rifle/ SMG II which gives better defense against tanks or if I immediately research Bazooka's or Anti-Tank. Decisions Decisions. Here's what I'm currently looking at on my Northern front: