Matrix Games Forums

Has anyone been able to capture Stalingrad and/or the Caucuses, as the Germans?

Stalingrad, well yes, but for that you need to destroy as much as possible of the the Red Army before reaching it.

As to the Caucasus, it's huge, can an Axis player 'conquer' it all? I won before ever reaching Baku... Anyone else having made it there?

Versus the AI, it is quite possible to capture Stalingrad and Baku. Have never attempted it against a human player.

ORIGINAL: stonestriker

Versus the AI, it is quite possible to capture Stalingrad and Baku. Have never attempted it against a human player.

So if you were playing against Zhukov himself and if Hitler didn't interfere, could the Germans have taken those areas in question?

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

ORIGINAL: stonestriker

Versus the AI, it is quite possible to capture Stalingrad and Baku. Have never attempted it against a human player.

So if you were playing against Zhukov himself and if Hitler didn't interfere, could the Germans have taken those areas in question?

Well, considering Zhukov was a human, I can´t say for sure You should take a look at the AARs for any PBEM games and see the results. AFAIK, Germans have won against the Russians in these games, but the opposite has also happened.

But the players have the option of selecting different variants. Constrained Oil for the Germans necessitates less armoured assaults, while Command & Control for the Russians will ensure that they cannot run/retreat as fast as possible in the beginning of a game. So it very much a mix of the players skills and the variants chosen which will affect the outcome.

About 'historical accuracy': a look at history in general shows how much is due to randomness, moods, chance, weather, personalities, timing, freaks, snafu and luck, to name a few. Napoleon had bellyache at Borodino, to name but one thing.

Of course the historical Case Blue raises a lot of questions, a lot of what-ifs: what if the Axis concentrated on Stalingrad? Or in the Caucasus? What is Hitler let OKH run the show, instead of unduly influencing it? On the contrary, what if Stalin had done like Hitler and micromanaged everything? What if Turkey intervened? What if there were more reserves behind the Axis front in November? We know the historical results, but those are due to a long chain of events which no game can reproduce. That's why we play, after all, and not watch a slideshow of the units moving around.

Like someone said in this forum, once the first shot is fired, history goes out the window.

However, back to more sober matters, the start-up situations of the scenarios appears to me fairly historically, and the game is certainly playable, if you like epic strategy games!

As the German player, does the game allow you to bomb the oil fields? I think 70%-90% of the Red Army's oil came from the Caucuses and they must have been in range of the Luftwaffe. Of course Hitler would never have approved.

I have been watching this WW2 series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp-qr_aoHeo

I don't have the answer, but good idea to try!

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

As the German player, does the game allow you to bomb the oil fields? I think 70%-90% of the Red Army's oil came from the Caucuses and they must have been in range of the Luftwaffe. Of course Hitler would never have approved.

I have been watching this WW2 series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp-qr_aoHeo

Problem was that by the time they realised they weren't going to reach Baku at all the Luftwaffe had been decimated, up until the Stalingrad disaster there was always the idea that the Germans could advance to Baku. They wanted to capture it intact, therefore there was no point in bombing it. At the point where it would actually be desirable to deny the oil to the Soviets the Luftwaffe was incapable of doing so.