1.05.42 Axis AI vs fulkerson

[larryfulkerson]

Um........I find myself with some time on my hands and one of the playtesters asked for anybody who has had recent experience with the AI and so I thought I'd give it a go as the Soviets against the Axis AI to see for myself how the AI reacts, etc. Another reason I'm going to
do this is that I need the practice. I've been loosing games and being on the defensive for so long in my ongoing game(s) that it's
starting to make my brain ache. Anybody who wants to lend a word of advice, let me just say that it would be WELCOMED and thanks
ahead of time. I feel like a beginner still because of so many losses so far and I've decided to keep practicing until I get better at this.

I'm fully patched up to the 1.05.42 beta version and I'm going to use "normal" settings for this first game.

The Axis has now flown the turn 1 air base strikes and done all their land combat moves and now it's the Soviet turn. This is the results
of the air war so far. I'm getting off easy it seems judging from the higher Soviet losses that humans can obtain from playing the Axis
side. So I'm not complaining about the losses.

[larryfulkerson]

There are a lot of planes on frozen air bases but the rest of them I moved to the National Reserve. I did that so I can get better
organized next turn. And besides, most of those planes are damaged and won't fly anyway.

This is the Axis turn 1 moves:

[larryfulkerson]

Those almost isolated folks west of Riga........I'm thinking I need to see if I can't evacuate them
via the port and move them to Riga to help with holding the Axis back. The folks in Riga now
can move to somewhere else that way.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the end of the experiment. One of the units is still embarked in the boats in the harbour at Riga. I should have moved him to
a different spot it seems. Other than that I have more depth to my defense now and maybe some of those routed dudes on the port
at Ventspils will rally and I can move them next turn. Maybe.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the condition of the Front HQ's. It seems that four of them start the game already overloaded. I'm not sure that anything can be
done about that for a while either.

EDIT: I moved Konev out of his back water spot into the available leaders pool. I should have waited because it cost me all the AP's I
had left. D'oh. If I had only known it was going to be that expensive.

[larryfulkerson]

There's a large pocket west of Minsk and I don't think I can break the pocket and it's looking like all those isolated guys are going to be
write-offs. I'll keep them moving to the east for sure but they are as good as dead right now. Maybe they can still slow down the Axis
some how.

[larryfulkerson]

There's 4 each of Armaments and Heavy Industry in Minsk but I can't rail out any industry on turn 1 so they are going to be lost I'm
pretty sure. It's pretty much a given that the Minsk Industry gets destroyed on turn one most of the time, or very shortly thereafter.

[larryfulkerson]

In what's probably going to be a sacrifice of two units, I moved two units across the supply path of one of the Axis spearheads so it will
be out of supply next turn. Maybe it'll slow down the Axis just a little.

[larryfulkerson]

A different pair of Soviet units isolates another Axis spearheader.

[larryfulkerson]

Well, I think I'm ready to hit the "end turn" button. All the planes are moved to the NR, all the HQ's are set on 0 for support level, except
for STAVKA which I've moved to 9 for support level to hold it all. I'm hoping all the SU's will flood into the STAVKA tanks and I can spread
them out among the HQ's that need them, evenly. I'm all out of AP's so there's not much left to do this turn.

Here's the Soviet moves:

[comsolut]

Good to see someone take this project on (seeing how good the German AI is) and do an AAR.

I like the German move in the South. Really tired of German players (notice I am hiding this comment here) driving to the Rumanian border. Seems very gamey, unhistorical, and unrealistic.

Much to like and dislike about the game. Hopefully in time the developers will give teeth back to the Russian players to make a forward defense and counterattacks. That makes for a very interesting game. But to do that you need to strengthen the Russian Army so attacking has some effect on the German Army, but not allow the stronger Russian army to just retreat. If we have a finnish no attack line, why not a Russian no retreat line?? Then beef up the defense potential of the Russian Amry, give it some attacking potential and watch the sparks fly. Fun for all maybe. Just musing really.

Again, thanks for taking the time to test the German AI. Most reports say it will do a good job in 41, but lacks the ability to launch a 42 campaign. Hopefully your game will give an answer.

Comsolut

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the statistics from the beginning of Soviet turn 2 before anything has moved.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: comsolut
Good to see someone take this project on (seeing how good the German AI is) and do an AAR.
....
Hopefully your game will give an answer.
Comsolut

Um........I'm glad you're happy about this project......it's people posting stuff that keeps me going.....so thanks. And um........it sounds
like some disclaimers are in order. (1) I'm not an expert. I have yet to win a game. Yeah, that bad. So take what you see here with a
grain of salt. Some of the moves I'm making are those of someone enebriated. How do you spell eeee-neeb-briate---ed. Anyway, I
play for fun and for what I can learn about the conditions for the original participants etc. The Soviets are faced with chaos in the early
turns 'cause that's the way it was. And so on. It's been fun so far.

[larryfulkerson]

I have reason to believe that these are the turn 2 Axis moves:

[larryfulkerson]

I hold Riga still and the Axis can't run their railroad through there unless and until they capture the town so I have high hopes on
delaying the Axis on their drive on Leningrad by holding up the rail longer than would ordinarily have been. The pop-up at the
bottom applies to the Soviet units in Riga itself.

[larryfulkerson]

The Riga city display sez that the port is still undamaged so theoritically I could use the port for a supply source if the city itself gets
surrounded. So depending upon Axis intentions I might be able to hold out for a turn, maybe two, from now.

EDIT: I debated whether or not to build a fort on the Riga hex but it costs 16 AP's at this time so I'm not sure it's worth that much to me
since I've only got so many and a lot of stuff to spend AP's on.

[larryfulkerson]

According to the Logistics Log there were some changing of airplane type(s) to an inferior one. I needed to set the upgrade to
'manual' last turn. I'll do it NOW, better late than never.

[larryfulkerson]

I did a sort on %TOE in the units tab and used the 'refit/reserve' function to change everybody to refit. Then all those guys over 90%
TOE I put on reserve or ready in that order. And the thumb scroll is about 40% down the slider so I'm guessing that about 40% of the
force is on refit and 60% are not.

[larryfulkerson]

I got a good look at the Air Doctrine screen just now and changed some of the settings to these:

[larryfulkerson]

I've broken the pockets all the way back to Minsk. I couldnn't figure out a way to isolate the Axis units this turn however. Also, there's
some industry I want to pull out of Mogilev before it gets sacked.