Back to playing war in the East, baby!!
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2026 10:15 pm
Hi everyone. Long-time player of Matrix games here including both War in the East titles and War in the west, coming back to war in the East 2 after a few years. I only ever play against the AI though. A few comments and observations.
1) First, I would like to thank the many members of this forum who have contributed great threads and advice in the past. It's great having these pinned threads to guide me.
2) I've recently played two campaigns through the first winter now, and both times I was stopped just short of Bryansk and Stalino before the heavy rains came (when I start digging trenches for the winter). I feel I am destroying lots of Soviet units. In my last campaign the Soviets had taken 3.6 million casualties before heavy rain. I had isolated but not taken Leningrad/Orianbaum and Sevastapol, none of which held out through winter. So in some cases better than historical, but I am not getting near Rostov or Kharkov or taking the valuable Don Basin cities or the south-of-Moscow cities like Tula. I am not pushing past Velikie Luki and Smolensk either. Any advice on how I might do better? In general, I prioritize solid pocketing of Soviet units over grabbing ground, often moving mech units right up behind the Soviet line being pocketed to pin them for destruction the next turn.
3) Part of my approach has been to bulk up the 11th army to 13 division, put Model in charge and provide it with extra engineers and arty, then send it along the Black Sea Coast for historically early captures of Odessa and Sevastapol. You have to divert 8 or 9 divisions from the army for the capture of Sevastapol, and you might wait outside the city for 6 or 8 weeks until you get a patch of decent weather for your naval mission to isolate the city so it can be stormed. Any thoughts on this? would I be better off isolating Crimea with some Romanians or Italians and pushing the whole 11th army forward towards Stalino?
4) even with the more lenient activation rules for the Southern Front, against the AI you can still pocket most of the units along the Hungarian border--20-30 divisions and NKVD units in both of my campaigns. You do this by clearing the hills/cutting a key rail line southeast of Lvov on turn 1 instead of driving panzers down the railway to Tarnopol as the AI does in its turn 1. Then you continue southeast for the linkup with the Romanians on turn 2. Its a looser pocket than I like, but it has held up the two times I have done this. Note that I am keeping the AI at 109 morale boost to prevent infinite movement, which I think is just too cheesy. Any thoughts on this versus clearing the railroad to Tarnopol on turn 1??
5) I imagine everyone knows that security/static units get a 2X strength bonus when placed in the Soviet Garrison theater box. They don't get the bonus in the Balkans (the other partisan war TB) or the other boxes. I sent one of the German security divisions from the garrison box to Norway, because the garrison TB didn't need the extra help. The value of that division in Norway--3.80. Identical divisions still in the garrison TB--7.61. Just mentioning this.
6) I haven't played this out fully, but I focus the Italians on North Africa, quickly getting ground/naval/air strength in North Africa at least 20% each over requirements to generate as many extensions of the North African campaign as possible and relieving as many German units in Africa as I can. I would rather have the Italian army and air force destroyed holding out for a bit longer in North Africa than letting the Italian campaign event start and having them surrender en masse when Italy is invaded. I plan an early relief the Italian army facing Russia for them to all be in Africa in time for Operation Torch and Tunisia. This approach also allows me to send most German forces earmarked for Africa to Russia or other TBs. I don't expect that the extensions generated will do more than stretch the African war past June or July 1943, since each extension gets you 3 or 4 days added to the TB timeline, but I have been generating multiples of each axis air, ground and naval extension. Any thoughts on this strategy? (Note also that air and ground extensions generated in Africa push back the timeline on both the Afican and Italian campaigns, but the naval extensions only mention pushing back the Africa timeline. Not quite sure how that works, since the Italian campaign can't start until the Allies finish off Africa.)
7) Difficulty settings for the Soviets: 109% morale, 112% logistics/transport/fortification/administrative
8) Construction engineers. I've heard that having a couple battalions of these attached to each corps significantly speeds up entrenching, even though you can't attach the construction units to divisions/brigades. Any truth to this??
9) One other question--logistics. I know if you bump the setting by, for example, 10% it increases the amount of freight a unit receives by 10%, and that freight can become either supplies/fuel or replacements. But does the logistics setting increase the underlying production too? So if you bump logistics by 10%, and you would normally produce 100 aircraft and 10,000 soldiers per week, after the logistics bump you produce 110 aircraft and 11,000 soldiers?
Thanks!! Advice or comments are appreciated. Thanks again to the many people who have contributed to valuable advice threads in the past.
1) First, I would like to thank the many members of this forum who have contributed great threads and advice in the past. It's great having these pinned threads to guide me.
2) I've recently played two campaigns through the first winter now, and both times I was stopped just short of Bryansk and Stalino before the heavy rains came (when I start digging trenches for the winter). I feel I am destroying lots of Soviet units. In my last campaign the Soviets had taken 3.6 million casualties before heavy rain. I had isolated but not taken Leningrad/Orianbaum and Sevastapol, none of which held out through winter. So in some cases better than historical, but I am not getting near Rostov or Kharkov or taking the valuable Don Basin cities or the south-of-Moscow cities like Tula. I am not pushing past Velikie Luki and Smolensk either. Any advice on how I might do better? In general, I prioritize solid pocketing of Soviet units over grabbing ground, often moving mech units right up behind the Soviet line being pocketed to pin them for destruction the next turn.
3) Part of my approach has been to bulk up the 11th army to 13 division, put Model in charge and provide it with extra engineers and arty, then send it along the Black Sea Coast for historically early captures of Odessa and Sevastapol. You have to divert 8 or 9 divisions from the army for the capture of Sevastapol, and you might wait outside the city for 6 or 8 weeks until you get a patch of decent weather for your naval mission to isolate the city so it can be stormed. Any thoughts on this? would I be better off isolating Crimea with some Romanians or Italians and pushing the whole 11th army forward towards Stalino?
4) even with the more lenient activation rules for the Southern Front, against the AI you can still pocket most of the units along the Hungarian border--20-30 divisions and NKVD units in both of my campaigns. You do this by clearing the hills/cutting a key rail line southeast of Lvov on turn 1 instead of driving panzers down the railway to Tarnopol as the AI does in its turn 1. Then you continue southeast for the linkup with the Romanians on turn 2. Its a looser pocket than I like, but it has held up the two times I have done this. Note that I am keeping the AI at 109 morale boost to prevent infinite movement, which I think is just too cheesy. Any thoughts on this versus clearing the railroad to Tarnopol on turn 1??
5) I imagine everyone knows that security/static units get a 2X strength bonus when placed in the Soviet Garrison theater box. They don't get the bonus in the Balkans (the other partisan war TB) or the other boxes. I sent one of the German security divisions from the garrison box to Norway, because the garrison TB didn't need the extra help. The value of that division in Norway--3.80. Identical divisions still in the garrison TB--7.61. Just mentioning this.
6) I haven't played this out fully, but I focus the Italians on North Africa, quickly getting ground/naval/air strength in North Africa at least 20% each over requirements to generate as many extensions of the North African campaign as possible and relieving as many German units in Africa as I can. I would rather have the Italian army and air force destroyed holding out for a bit longer in North Africa than letting the Italian campaign event start and having them surrender en masse when Italy is invaded. I plan an early relief the Italian army facing Russia for them to all be in Africa in time for Operation Torch and Tunisia. This approach also allows me to send most German forces earmarked for Africa to Russia or other TBs. I don't expect that the extensions generated will do more than stretch the African war past June or July 1943, since each extension gets you 3 or 4 days added to the TB timeline, but I have been generating multiples of each axis air, ground and naval extension. Any thoughts on this strategy? (Note also that air and ground extensions generated in Africa push back the timeline on both the Afican and Italian campaigns, but the naval extensions only mention pushing back the Africa timeline. Not quite sure how that works, since the Italian campaign can't start until the Allies finish off Africa.)
7) Difficulty settings for the Soviets: 109% morale, 112% logistics/transport/fortification/administrative
8) Construction engineers. I've heard that having a couple battalions of these attached to each corps significantly speeds up entrenching, even though you can't attach the construction units to divisions/brigades. Any truth to this??
9) One other question--logistics. I know if you bump the setting by, for example, 10% it increases the amount of freight a unit receives by 10%, and that freight can become either supplies/fuel or replacements. But does the logistics setting increase the underlying production too? So if you bump logistics by 10%, and you would normally produce 100 aircraft and 10,000 soldiers per week, after the logistics bump you produce 110 aircraft and 11,000 soldiers?
Thanks!! Advice or comments are appreciated. Thanks again to the many people who have contributed to valuable advice threads in the past.