Barbarossa and the Red Army

[Flaviusx]

I disagree you should always use hold. There are intermediate fallback lines that don't need to be held and weaker units will explode if you do this rather than retreat and force the Germans to spend more moves and attacks chasing them down.

I also don't think you should necessarily immediately run back to the nearest river line.

What I think the Russians should do is use their depth in the first few turns to let the Wehrmacht outrun their infantry support and try to catch the panzers in exposed positions and counterattack them. This is where cavalry spam comes in handy. They can work their way around the gaps.

That's the theory anyways, and I'm hoping to find a non Sea Lion game where I can test it.

[Michael T]

and I'm hoping to find a non Sea Lion game where I can test it

Good luck with that.

[Flaviusx]

It's super frustrating. Either Sea Lion works and it is game over. Or it doesn't work (or work well enough) and it is also game over, but the other way.

It's forcing games to end prematurely before things really get cooking.

It needs to be made much harder and less tempting.

[AlbertN]

I don't believe Sealion is a game over at all for the Allies - since it boosts up USA production drastically.

The difference is only felt in the -long- run where there is the absence of UK units with their logistic cap. BUT at the beginning it is a huge advantage for the Allies by what I saw.
USA can take back UK a year after or so - which is plainly wrong as I see it.

In my game against Saper2229 though as he sent USA troops in Russia - well his Brits are awfully absent now.

But in regular games without Sealion the Allies are on steroids that can do '42 DDay happily (Sure they risk to get crushed depending how much Germany strips from Russia)

[Flaviusx]

Like I said: it's game over one way or the other. If it fails or comes up short and ends up bringing in the US early this is an Axis loss.

If it works and Britain is overrun quickly and Iberia flips, I'm going to call that an auto win for the Axis. This hole is so deep at that point that it will be hard for the allies to recover from it. It's an 8 point swing in VPs. That is huge.

It's an all in move.

The nature of all in moves is such that they will determine the outcome of the game then and there, one way or the other.

Right now the game's incentives are lined up to drive Axis players towards this early all in and many of them are taking it and we aren't seeing hardly any historical games now with the Germans turning east. I find this frustrating as hell and very questionable design.

The core problem is that Sea Lion is too easy. It needs to be made more difficult so fewer Axis players take this road. The fact that so many of them are taking it is highly telling.

[kennonlightfoot]

First a question on "Hold". Seems I saw something to the effect that a Unit on Hold traded extra losses rather than retreating. If so is it all that good of idea to use it unless the Unit is really in a position that must be held to prevent surrounds, etc?

It looks like some changes were made for games started using 05 update that make Sealion more difficult for the Germans. I can't be certain since I tested against the AI (just to judge production rate). But I didn't have equivalent data on 04. I can't pinpoint the cause of the change but by March 1st it looked like the UK raised their forces in England to 20 plus units. This may be enough to prevent any easy port captures.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot
This may be enough to prevent any easy port captures.

The problem as I see it is Germany's air dominance. Britain cannot prevent Germany from taking any port within ground strike range of the German air force. Germany begins the game with 4 tac and 2 cas, that's 12 ground strikes (more if he built more cas for France). Britain can only intercept a few of those, the rest will reduce a port defender enough to guarantee it falls due to Germany's 30 point experience advantage.

Perhaps the game should start with some AA in every southern port within 10 hexes of the French coast, that might help. The Chain home radar the British used to counter Germany's air power advantage is missing so use AA to simulate its effect or something.

I'm not saying make it impossible to invade, but at least make it a difficult proposition. Right now it's pretty much unstoppable if the Germans put some early resources into the effort.

Jim

[Michael T]

The other thing is Russia. There is no incentive to attack them. They can build these very ahistorical cav/mech armies and they have harder VP to capture.

More VP in Russia, less in the UK plus some restrictions on disbanding the crap Russian Corp while neutral would help make them a more tempting target.

As is all the Germans I have encountered are quite happy to spend 1940 and 1941 pounding the UK. Even though to date I have won all those games it is same story every time.

[Flaviusx]

I would say that Britain needs fewer VPs. 5 packed into that one island is a lot. And it's really 8 as part of a package deal including Lisbon, Madrid and Gibraltar. Spain activates if Britain is overrun. Russia has 6 total, but only 3 of those are easy.

The only reason the infantry corps get disbanded is because they are abysmal. Bump up their experience and I'd leave them alone. Give them 30% at least. The prewar formations were at least as professional as the wartime reservists that you get at 30% experience. Then, if you want to disallow disbands, ok.

[Michael T]

Yes, 20% exp is too low.