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...but I have noticed something. The memes are the same. "The Soviets have too much rail. They get too many units and can build a carpet defense that stymies the German. The Soviets can just run and avoid losing."

These statements have been re-occurring since the release, and in a moment of prediction I believe they will continue. However, I do not think they are true. The problem is that the German side is often the more alluring, but technically harder. With far less margin of error, even just a few problems in the first few turns can magnify into the problems bemoaned about.

Maybe I have been lucky, but I have avoided most of these in my (more recent) games. No, I am not special, I just played the hell out of this game for the first 2 months of release before venturing into PBEM territory. I saw multiple winters, tried opening moves time after time, and even did a "first four turns" look a few times in order to set up a better game from myself. Yet success for me becomes "you played an easy opponent" or somesuch.

I am not the best Axis player, and I am sure I would meet frustration and heartbreak against some of the class Soviet players. However, that is neither here nor there - right now I can avoid some of the "broken" problems that people complain about. I got this game on release day, and I will be playing it for a long time to come. To avoid these I urge people to play, then play some more, then continue playing and try new things.

My point? I am still a novice, and I learn. Sure there are things that need fixing, but perhaps the biggest one of them is that my game needs fixing and constant bettering.

my game needs fixing and constant bettering.

The mantra of every Axis player out there with any sense...me most certainly.

ORIGINAL: Mynok

my game needs fixing and constant bettering.

The mantra of every Axis player out there with any sense...me most certainly.

That's the mantra of my Soviet play. It *really* needs fixing and constant bettering.

The most fun I have had in all my PBEM games is my game with 76mm. We both started the game as noobs as out first PBEM and have both made mistakes along the way.

Sometimes knowing the best way to play can take some of the fun out of it.

I hear the sound of addiction, hope your not married...lol...It took me three to find one that understands, at least I don't chase tail, just squares...

ORIGINAL: PyleDriver

I hear the sound of addiction, hope your not married...lol...It took me three to find one that understands, at least I don't chase tail, just squares...

Heh, my ex-wife said I loved the games more than her. Not true, but I hear where you are coming from. [:)]

My wife loves my gaming. Keeps me from bothering her.

My girlfriend now says it is good, she can watch TV and not worry - though it is odd she thinks that I play a game with little envelopes and one that I can't win.
 
I will show her! I will play this and win someday!

you are in a good way actually [8D]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

My girlfriend now says it is good, she can watch TV and not worry - though it is odd she thinks that I play a game with little envelopes and one that I can't win.

I will show her! I will play this and win someday!

You could make up a picture with some cute graphic that announces you've won the Envelope Game, and she wouldn't know it's fake.

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

My point? I am still a novice, and I learn. Sure there are things that need fixing, but perhaps the biggest one of them is that my game needs fixing and constant bettering.

Me too but I have learnt enough playing russians to give Mikemann ( aka von Robin) a good kicking (he's in denial if you want to tease him) though time will tell whether his strategy will work. I he can hold Berlin beyond 1st week in May '45 that would make him truly insufferable so I shall do my best

This is a game that should finish in '45 if players are both good and equal and we don't know the answer to that yet.

I hope I can take my scissors to your envelopes one day

Mikemcmann? I am playing him now with me as the Germans. I hope you haven't taught him anything.

I will have to look into this "retreat at all costs" defense in blizzard...

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch
I am still a novice

Wonder what that makes me... [&:]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch
Sure there are things that need fixing, but perhaps the biggest one of them is that my game needs fixing and constant bettering.

[&o]

Totally agree here.

There are a number of basic concepts that the Axis player has got to get his head around, and I think once he does that he will stop battering it against a Soviet wall.

Your ongoing AAR and commentary provide many useful insights into understanding these concepts. I also found it enlightening by playing myself in a human vs human game so that I could see what my strategy as the Axis player allows the Soviet player to exploit or defend against.

Either way, the Axis folks (including myself) have just gotta get better playing the game... [:)]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

Mikemcmann? I am playing him now with me as the Germans. I hope you haven't taught him anything.

Unless he's dumb ( which he just pretends) I'm sure he learned a lot. His only german game he isn't winning it seems.
We're swapping sides when this is over I expect so just make sure he thrashes you at the border so he tries that with me.

Learning every turn still at the moment

I reckon I'll graduate to "novice second class" in about a year

I said a while back that I might graduate beyond novice in a year. To me, the game is that complex. I am at 4 months now, and I am learning things all the time.

Guys, something about my last GC is bothering me...I'm even thinking about changing my approach in my next play.

Well what happened was this:

I was playing Axis, vs the AI and used a leapfrog retreat from strong point to strong point, rotating my rearguard units in and out of "havens" as much as possible and pulling all non essential units to within German or Romanian borders as fast as I could. In this I used rail, port, and foot march, only leaving these retreating units outside for a single turn at most.

I planned ahead, and had the "havens" well fortified by the time Blizzard set. So there was no panic, nor from my little envelopes nor from me (So different from first 2 blizzards...I don't even like to remember those...).

Anyway I managed to hold Minsk, Kaunas, and Vilnius and both town ports Riga and Tallin (these totally cut off except by sea) in the northern and Central sectors of the front when the winter finally abated.

In the South, Kiev held, isolated, and garrisoned by 2 inf divs plus Corps. My line Held in a Zhitomir, Vinnitsa, all the way to Kyshinev axis in the southern sector. Odessa also held albeit cut off.

So now you have an idea where the line stood at the spring thaw. I would just like to add that casualties from winter/blizzard effects were minimal. Combat casualties were more than acceptable as I never, ever attacked unless in the case of the most favorable of local counterattacks (usually after the soviets had spent their offensive capability in a previous attack against that position), or in the most desperate cases (saving an encircled garrison or retreating unit from encirclement...) Gladly I had to resort little to these last kind of operations which were always costly on the relief force ( Precious panzer power cant be dissipated )


So this finally brings me to the thing that is puzzling me...

In early 42 I was strong in both infantry and panzers. And what I've done was to use smashing odd infantry attacks, to kill as many soviets as I could while keeping my own infantry casualties to a minimum. Thus diverting some soviet power from the spots I had picked to attack with the panzers.

You all know what the Axis player is facing by then... A carpet of Soviet units dug in 4 or 5 hex deep. So we can't hope to achieve anything by going against that in an all out offensive, we get nowhere.

We have to look for a weak spot then drive a panzer wedge in there, followed by infantry and then, wherever we can to start "chopping" chunks of that unit carpet wherever we can until we start getting to those rearguard hexes with little or no fortification.

Also its important knowing when to change the focal point of an offensive whenever we get bogged down...Its better to lose one turn than continue hammering a solid wall of units, 5 hexes deep without any hope of achieving a breakthrough, least of all a pocket...

So what are my questions?

Were those infantry attacks a good call? Do you use them in Spring 42 to "help" the task of the armored offensives elsewhere along the front?

Should I hold the line and only use the panzers and infantry in the focal points where I look for a breakthrough?

Is it better in the long run?

Was my initial strategy sound? During Blizzard? Trading space for lives?

One last aspect that may be useful, I have said where the line was in the Spring thaw of 1942. But blizzard hit when I was in :

North - Narwa (no Leningrad...), Novgorod, Pskov

Central - Smolensk, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Gomel, Chernigov, Kiev.

South - Cherkassy, KirovGrad, Krivoi Rog, Nikolaev

Thank you in advance, I hope my questions fit the thread, as certainly I'm still a novice.

btw - One last note one the games learning curve...its steep, no doubt, but for me from all the computer games I have played the game I found the harder to master was 12 o'clock high...Still one of my favorites. WitE is easier to master mainly because its, in my view, more polished as a game its in no way less complex or deep.

The shortfalls of Wite will get in the most part get solved by patching as they are mostly bugs and not design or mechanics faults... Mostly ,the issues I have seen as attributed to faulty mechanics or poor design are a matter of subjective discussion and view. Again its been a very long, long time since I said anything like this regarding a game.I have played pretty much every ww2 strategy game that came out. If I think about it Its what I have been doing longer in my life. Longer than marriage, profession, anything...If i'm at least half decent in my job, and my wife still puts up with me after all these years and I'm not a husband or a worker for nearly as long that I am a ww2 strategy game player, well then I have to be a better player than I am husband or worker, and I feel say with some confidence we will not see a game as good as this one in a long, long time...I'm enjoying every try, every scenario.

Good Gads! I'm nearing my very first blizzard ever and you're scaring my underwear brown! I just took Moscow in my game and I refuse to give it up. I'll move my whole German Army there if I have to. I'll let them take Berlin before I give Moscow back to them! Never! I'm going to put hotels there, overlooking the Moskva River with a pretty shrub boarder.

[:D]

Those nice level 4 towns all around the moscow region need to be garrisoned - they can help you hold out.