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One of the tricks I pulled as the Soviets was to bomb the oil rich fields around Budapest. Hamburg, Settin, Berlin, etc..early in the game. Sometimes heavy industry would get hit. I would pull the airforce back first couple of turns, train, then send long range bombers out from around Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov. If the German player does not check his industry and forgets to CAP planes around these cities he will slowly bleed to death running out of gas for the tanks! A few players hoisted the white flag after a few months because the tanks stop moving! Quite a sneaky play if the German player is not ready for this.

Any other tricks out there?

MGL

mglsharkson wrote:One of the tricks I pulled as the Soviets was to bomb the oil rich fields around Budapest. Hamburg, Settin, Berlin, etc..early in the game. Sometimes heavy industry would get hit. I would pull the airforce back first couple of turns, train, then send long range bombers out from around Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov. If the German player does not check his industry and forgets to CAP planes around these cities he will slowly bleed to death running out of gas for the tanks! A few players hoisted the white flag after a few months because the tanks stop moving! Quite a sneaky play if the German player is not ready for this.

Any other tricks out there?

MGL

I think this works so well because german review of soviet actions works so bad. The soviet review of german actions is much much better. So as soviet player it should be a house rule to report such unusal things (city bombing). I always try to do it (I do forget it sometimes, shame on me) as soviet. In reality there is no such thing as bombing Berlin to dust without anyone noticing it... So I dont think this is sneaky, it is a bug in the game that the german player doesnt get a report about these things. Leaving holes in your front with several tank armies way behind is sneaky:)

I have not tried it yet...but it may work. Front line is inf corps. A tank corps are in 2nd line. One KNOWS that the tank cannot plot through the inf corps. However, one MOVES the inf corps out of the way(behind the tank corps)...and the tank corp then plots 5 hexes forward.

Oddly enough, my sov report didn't work until i edited the '41 campaign to make the PBEM option work. Now it works normal and I spotted all of my opponents attempts to bomb my oil/factories last game. Since I'v been playing with house rules which force the Germans to have 2 ftr/1 bmr each on Italy/OKW my only potential problems are Budapest/Ploesti, so I put a HQ on each with min 1 ftr each and a pile of 88's. I think to be polite I wouldn't startegic bomb anyone whom i know is inexperienced unless he made a feeble attempt to bomb my cities first - then it's no holds barred!

I am very confused about your post MikeB - isn't that common sense as opposed to a dirty trick? Huh? Wha?

Soviet air blitz is not abug because if the German player checks oil it will show as being bomb plus review of soviet move would show any CAP action around those cities. If no CAP response and player does not check stats then it becomes sneaky / cheating as his tanks grind to a halt. Fun to pull on old wargame buddys! House rule can be to inform any bombing action however then should the German tell the Russian player "hey your HQ full of planes is 5 hexes from my Panzer corp" or "Ready to cut off your 5 units here from supply"so were do you draw the line? need a true replay feature to handle this. Some people "practice" by running the computer AI vs their move to show any holes, etc., then do the "offical" move. Is that "cheating"? I think so!

Other stuff:

Sneaky German trick is taking Moscow and cutting supply to ALL units up north which makes Leningrad fall easy. Producing only FW-190's and tiger tanks - nothing else. (work well in old versoins have not check in the latest)

My fav without the house rules and version changes was move axis allies to west front. pull the good stuff out of africa allowing collaspe then putting in crap and allies units to hold that front. As Germ use heavy transport planes to supply any breakthru with tank units which run rings around Soviet units up to '43 - only then can soviet air units nail air transports. Yanking finns out before fall of Finland to defend Berlin in '45 - those guys got morale! They never break!
My buddy got even in '44 game by swapping tank / infantry symbols at the front allowing almost trapped infantry to switch to panzer and running out of choke holds cutting ME off! No can do now!
He laugh for weeks......

one other - post "dummy" HQ near bad *** enemy tank unit away from any good hexs- put one crap guy leader and art or low level unit in - invited a 4-5 hex move to crush you - make sure no units are hook into this unit allowing it to be crush wasting his move then slam in with your heavy units behind him cutting supply.

Use crappy planes to scout "dummy" tank / HQ units to see what's inside - tank units can have just inf., etc. Put a tank unit in Inf. corp and park in the swamps - tough fight to move these guys!
MGL

mglsharkson wrote: the German player will slowly bleed to death running out of gas for the tanks! A few players hoisted the white flag after a few months because the tanks stop moving!

Are we talking WiR here?

this one works fine:
the player simply need to put all his planes on training
move (with move option) all units to their destination

then
save the game
exit the game
load the game
(and repeat it for i.e. 50 times)

After that, air units will have 99 experience, and factories will produce their weekly portion of tanks, guns, squads etc (no more supply problems). You may also bombard enemy positions/cities/airfields in the meantime. Of course even Your isolated units will receive more readiness and will be better entrenched. Additionally You may move/form Your units from Odessa to Lenningrad without loosing readiness, in one "turn".

When You'll finally end Your "turn" the enemy will be shocked, having no idea where the hell his tanks, factories and units went ...

Ability to attach enemy units/HQs under any enemy HQ is commonly known proably. It can be nice to attach all German Panzer Corpses to 1st Rumunian Army.

Anyway - the game is loosing its enjoyability. That's why it should be read at own risk. :p

Wise guy - yup WIR oil hits drop production down and German tanks move like infantry and readyness goes down (as I remember)

Hey I got to try that air trick on my oppenent just cause he is killing me mow, late aug 41 he slip one tank unit thru the lines and took Leningrad! My turn and Zuk got sent away to the Gulags for mouthing off! This ranks with my other game when first turn I lost high value leader then Zuk became "sick" and never return. After I pull then I will go back to the dup save game and play normal but just to torment my buddy is well worth it. He had a bug were Germans got 880000 rail points at one point in the game but it disappeared when he tried to use them.
Reminds me of 3rd Reich on the Atari, move a German unit in North Africa then you can build non-stop big 5-6 ss tank units all through out Germany! Fun!
And finally a west front (remember that gem) cheat for that old game - as allies take all your para units and drop them on d-day on big german factory cities, since the german is frozen he can't fority and you wipe out alot of production. They then get wipe out but are cheap to bring back. Ends the game rather quick.

MGL