Fantastic game! And I enjoyed losing several games

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you for this excellent game.

I bought the game recently and managed to do a few games and I gradually lost each game throwing in the towel when the Russians started to overrun my battered Eastern front line while I struggled to contain the powerful Allied landings in Normandy in an extremely high bodycount battle for the coast and bocage. I leave Italy on AI control and I give the allies a 10% income bonus. I only moved Italian units during the invasion of France to keep Italy attacking west out of Italy instead of coming north to join my attack.

I really like the numerous clever designs, too many to mention, but for example the choice in making fort shapes, limited # of unit availability, many varied events with pictures, and very nice air war system. There is very little I felt could be better but I would like to have Waffen SS units included much more realistically.

As for my dismal performance, my greatest failure was with DAK in Africa was stalled by lack of supply and too few units to face the horde of British and Commonwealth ground & air units that overwhelmed my DAK and literally wiped it out, and the enemy had so many units that they could easily shrug off the losses I inflicted. I did the best in my first game by destroying about 8 enemy units in Africa before my DAK became part of the desert sands. I don't know how to get more units into Africa (I had a couple of infantry transports sunk next to Sicily so I gave up on that) and the supply is a big problem. I have read just before this about bombing Malta to clear it so it can be taken. The British bombers are brutal in Africa cause they reduce my units down to half and then their inf & tanks finish them off by rotating in units to attack. The AI attacks can be brutal with their nasty rotation attacks and constant efforts to breakthrough & surround my units which is quite impressive. I wish I could send Rommel an AA gun to somewhat slow down those bombers blasting DAK non-stop.

On the Eastern front I could barely progress at all and only in the Baltics area. The line is basically a WW1 style front solidified along the Romanian border and northwards to the Baltics. The numbers of destroyed Soviet units is staggering (maybe as high as 100) but they soak up the losses while continuing to flood my front with new units. I carefully built up my allies' little armies to help them resist the Soviet horde on their own borders which worked but I was not able to advance except for a few towns captures here & there. I kept a moderate defense in France to fight the Normandy landings and I was able to cause immense losses to the allies when they landed by denying them the ports so they couldn't resupply, but the Russians started to dangerously overwhelm my Eastern front and wiped out units (sounds pretty historical actually).

I'm playing a new game now and am just breaking into France while the usual lively naval & air battle takes place near Dover causing heavy losses especially to the French navy. I'm doing the usual sub interdiction of convoys with quite weak results cause their destroyers are pushing my subs off the lines every time. I have doubts about winning but I will at least get an A for effort and bag a huge # enemy units like in the previous games.

[LordOfPants]

I agree, this is a really great game, it has a lot of depth without the obnoxious micro so many wargames get lost in. Here's my advice for your issues:

If you're leaving Italy under AI control you're always going to have a hard time in Africa. What I do against the AI is bring in some Italian forces before Italy joins the war, Force-march the army from Tobruk to the front line (replace it with a garrison), and end up with an Italian force of both air forces, 1 HQ, 4 Armies, and 1 Tank, which can start hurting the Brits and then supports the DAK when it arrives.

Other than the Italians at the start I don't send additional units against the AI in Africa. If you do want to send units over, the trick is that if a transport runs into an enemy unit it's toast, or if it sits around in the water. You want to use your navy to make sure there are no ships between your units and the port you're landing them in, then use 'cruise' movement (double-click the unit) so that you get to the port in one turn, and immediately unload.

To fix the supply situation, you have to take Malta. Easiest way to get Malta is after France falls, pull all of your German bomber units, one HQ, and either one infantry corps or paratrooper down to Scicily (can be Italian). After getting them in place, bring the Italian navy out to cut off Malta from resupply - you need to bombard the town until it goes to 0 supply, and end your turn with a ship touching each port to blockade them. If the British navy comes out to play, trash it with your bombers and the Italian navy. Once you've dealt with the fleet, or if it doesn't come out then you just bomb the anti-air unit while blockading the island until it's dead, which usually takes two turns. Prep your paratroops or have your infantry board transports the turn that you start bombing in earnest, and you can land unopposed.

[Meteor2]

Totally agree. Very good game with a lot of replayability.
The balance between accessibility and depth is well done.[:)]

[nnason]

Best description of what to do in Africa I have seen.

ORIGINAL: LordOfPants

I agree, this is a really great game, it has a lot of depth without the obnoxious micro so many wargames get lost in. Here's my advice for your issues:

If you're leaving Italy under AI control you're always going to have a hard time in Africa. What I do against the AI is bring in some Italian forces before Italy joins the war, Force-march the army from Tobruk to the front line (replace it with a garrison), and end up with an Italian force of both air forces, 1 HQ, 4 Armies, and 1 Tank, which can start hurting the Brits and then supports the DAK when it arrives.

Other than the Italians at the start I don't send additional units against the AI in Africa. If you do want to send units over, the trick is that if a transport runs into an enemy unit it's toast, or if it sits around in the water. You want to use your navy to make sure there are no ships between your units and the port you're landing them in, then use 'cruise' movement (double-click the unit) so that you get to the port in one turn, and immediately unload.

To fix the supply situation, you have to take Malta. Easiest way to get Malta is after France falls, pull all of your German bomber units, one HQ, and either one infantry corps or paratrooper down to Scicily (can be Italian). After getting them in place, bring the Italian navy out to cut off Malta from resupply - you need to bombard the town until it goes to 0 supply, and end your turn with a ship touching each port to blockade them. If the British navy comes out to play, trash it with your bombers and the Italian navy. Once you've dealt with the fleet, or if it doesn't come out then you just bomb the anti-air unit while blockading the island until it's dead, which usually takes two turns. Prep your paratroops or have your infantry board transports the turn that you start bombing in earnest, and you can land unopposed.

[Rannug61]

The best you can do to defend Malta is to have Antiair level 2 and hope for bad weather. This can delay things but in the end Malta will fall if the Axis player stays around long enough. The art of delay is the name of the game during the two first years if you are playing the Allied side.

[LordOfPants]

ORIGINAL: nnason
Best description of what to do in Africa I have seen.

Thanks, though I did make one mistake in the writeup - you should also bring 1 fighter in with the bombers so that you have escorts if the British carriers decide to play. Malta isn't that hard to take but you have to make a couple of game systems that aren't well documented work together to do it.

[GiveWarAchance]

ORIGINAL: LordOfPants

ORIGINAL: nnason
Best description of what to do in Africa I have seen.

Thanks, though I did make one mistake in the writeup - you should also bring 1 fighter in with the bombers so that you have escorts if the British carriers decide to play. Malta isn't that hard to take but you have to make a couple of game systems that aren't well documented work together to do it.

Thank you LordofPants for advice. I know leaving Italy on AI is asking for trouble so I considered it part of the challenge of the game. Next time I'll do Italy myself to get those units down to Africa like you advised. I didn't feel good about moving all the Italian units down to Africa cause it leaves their giant exposed mainland open to invasion so I think I will move down German units to protect their coastal cities. I've always been scared of leaving Italy undefended in WW2 games. Thanks for the cruise function tip cause I didn't know about that. I should probably read through the whole manual cause I've only read parts of it so far.

[LordOfPants]

FYI, I don't recommend bringing all the Italian units to Africa, just the 4 armies, tank, and HQ that I mentioned plus the 3 garrisons that start down there (and that stay in cities until you take the Suez Canal). The corps sized units and additional garrisons are just going to get in the way when you're fighting in Egypt, and once you break into the middle east against the AI you're in the clear and don't need more.

If you're trying to garrison every coastal city, or even just every Italian coastal city, you're never going to have enough units for winning against Russian. You can easily leave an Italian corps in Rome, Palmero, and Albania, plus garrisons on Syracuse and Naples, and still have an HQ and 2 corps on the loose to do other stuff. You don't need to put land units on the east side of Italy unless you lose pretty much all of your navy, as any invasion going that way has to push past your ships, and Genoa is too far away for the AI to get to it without you noticing (I'd definitely leave a corps there against a human player).

The manual is pretty good, but it's huge and some things aren't very clear. Blockading ports with ships is either not mentioned or only mentioned in a confusing way, I found out about it from forum posts. Same thing with the 'check that ocean is clear, cruise from land-port-sea-port-land in one turn' technique, all the pieces are in the manual but the fact that you can do that doesn't really jump out at you.

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you Lord for you good advice. I like your ideas about garrisoning Italy and reinforcing Africa.

I'm going to read through the manually again more carefully anyways just to help my game.

In my current game I made some odd choices like having no DAK and I gave up on Africa from the start so I can go stronger against Russia with more money for units & research (it's only sand & flies down there anyways). I know this is sub-optimal cause I can't get Egypt but it will be interesting. The game is fairly different each time. In a previous game, Spain actually joined me early so I could take over Gibraltar. I have fully 3 levels of diplomacy on Spain in this game now but they aren't joining. The Reich newspaper said I need to takeover Egypt to convince Spain to join me.

[PvtBenjamin]

When sPz isn't drinking heavily he puts together some very excellent thorough posts on Mobilization in the WAR ROOM section. Check out his several posts on Mobilization

here is an example

tm.asp?m=4380022

enjoy, understanding HQ's will significantly improve your game

[GiveWarAchance]

In my previous game, I accidentally declared war on Lithuania instead of Luxemburg when I was starting out and it enraged the USSR so they declared war on me very early. I found it ironic that the allies feel it okay to annex the Baltics as they please but when I make a typo and do it accidentally I am somehow bad. I actually did feel bad about having to invade hapless Lithuania but I didn't do it willingly.

[GiveWarAchance]

After I finish this game, in my next game I'll try the advice of LordPants to move Italian units to Africa and opt for DAK and try to push into Egypt. The game I'm having now is quite fun and I even managed to sink a British carrier along with a lot of other ships unlike in my previous games when the Royal Navy did a Trafalgar on the Axis navies. At some point I wanna play as the allies and attack Turkey with the British & commonwealth and relive the Gallipoli adventure all over again. This game is great fun.

[GiveWarAchance]

I'm doing good now. Russia declared war so I'm giving them a nice beating creating massive gaps in their lines so they are relying mostly on mud to stop my advance, Greece & Yugo have been put under the nazi yoke of oppression, and Spain joined our noble cause and they are now pecking away at the Gibraltor garrison with troops and ships, and the Royal Navy has suffered immense losses losing a 2nd carrier and many capital ships, destroyers and what not, and I'm building up a fairly good defense in France with forts and troops. I think opting not to do DAK helped me a lot so I could afford more research and boots on the ground at the cost of seeing Britain turn North Africa a whole wheat brown color which isn't so bad cause I like whole wheat pancakes. The UK will most probably bully their way into Tunisia again while the US carves up Algeria as they unshackle their craven imperialist tendencies.

[GiveWarAchance]

I can feel the familiar slide into oblivion well in progress again. The Russians flooded their front with their vodka buddies along with prolonged rain & mud turning the eastern front into a WW1 reenactment. My subs are being chased around so they can't interdict, the cocky UK is roaming freely in Africa, and the naval action has slowed down with only a couple ships here & there sinking. Italy managed to sink a cruiser & battleship with my sub helping, and I sunk some destroyers but the US coast seems to be infested with schools of star spangled destroyers beating my subs senseless. One of my subs got trapped between Ireland & Britain and was sunk. One strong sub reached 3 stars so some Canadian destroyers are only shadowing it without attacking. I'm building up the French defense for the inevitable masses of allied landings in mid 43. I can't wipe out the landings but will at least cull their numbers a fair bit.

[GiveWarAchance]

A few turns ago, Geneinasau and Scharnhorst with Scheer cruiser, some subs, 3 destroyers and a maritime bomber sallied forth against a gigantic combined allied fleet escorting a lot of transports towards France and Spain. The resulting fight was ridiculously violent. Scheer heavy cruiser and the beloved Scharnhorst battlecruiser and a destroyer were sunk on my side and the US lost 1 carrier, 2 battleships, a cruiser, two destroyers and 7 transports and the British lost 2 destroyers and 9 transports including the cocky Montgomery himself slid into the drink. There were most probably more allied ships sunk too that I forgot about and numerous other ships & subs on both sides were damaged, and the deadly Bismark just arrived to join the fight and should deliver some good damage in the coming turns. Despite all this, the US landed, led by General Bradley, decisively in Spain and lost a fighter plane on the tarmac when Spanish tanks charged in. They have too many troops to be dislodged so that will be an ongoing problem for us plus the Reich newspaper said Spanish communist guerillas are popping and need troops here & there just when I need them to help against the US incursion. On the Russian front, the vodka buddies are building up tremendous momentum and are squeezing my worn-out troops back to their starting positions.

[GiveWarAchance]

In this photo it shows two Spanish cruisers blockading the port the badguys are using to ferry units into Spain. All the British units there ferried in while the Spanish cruisers were in that position so I'm very confused about why the ZOC of the cruisers coupled with the blockade situation would not have at least slowed down the British transports that seemed to teleport into the port? Is there no way to stop enemy transports once they have captured a port?

[KorutZelva]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

In this photo it shows two Spanish cruisers blockading the port the badguys are using to ferry units into Spain. All the British units there ferried in while the Spanish cruisers were in that position so I'm very confused about why the ZOC of the cruisers coupled with the blockade situation would not have at least slowed down the British transports that seemed to teleport into the port? Is there no way to stop enemy transports once they have captured a port?

Bomb it (or blockade it) under 5 supply. They can still use it to disembark troop but each unit as to start its turn in port if it wants to disembark. At 5 supply or over they can unload an infinite amount.

[Taxman66]

You could also move your ships out of spotting range of the port to catch ships trying to get in. Once they 'see' the ships they can avoid them even moving right next to them.

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you Taxman and Korat. Now I get it.
I will try bombarding it cause I don't want to move away which will allow supplies to flow freely and their units in the Spanish pocket are rapidly being destroyed now and the pocket is at half that size now.

[sillyflower]

Put a blockade in the 3rd sea hex to stop stuff getting in - including supplies. Blocking 2/3 achieves nothing useful.