WWII- Challange

[Sten Sture]

They built a special WW2 AI for this???

I restarted last evening and played a few rounds, but this time I Allied with the Allies right away, I think I had to give them 100g or something, but when the Nazi's attacked me, the Axis/Allies naval battles started in earnest. I still lost Tangiers, but at least I wasn't getting pounded by the HMS Hood. Along the Atlantic I pulled my defenders back from the coast figuring that they were out of paratroop range. If I could get a couple of engineers preworked to transform Barca and Valencia to hills - build a coastal fortress and add a vet Alpine they would be invulnerable - but I haven't done that yet.

On the bribe front, I bought one of the two Swiss guards in the Alpes, but didn't have enough movement to stack him, or the ZOC to get him out, so I waited a turn and sure enough, Nazi's buy the other Swiss alpine (with a bomber of course) and then immediately buy mine. There is a fine waste of 155g and a dip. I had thought a mountain stack of vet alpines would make a nice airbase if I could get an engineer over there and swap the fortress out.

Last game the British Navy kept patroling the Portugese coast (no doubt still smarting from their Euro2000 loss) and couldn't figure out how to get into the Med. I finally moved a couple of transports over there to act as sheep dogs - LoL.

[Carolus Rex]

Test.

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

An update on how my game is progressing. This one is going to take weeks!

I have a somewhat incomplete log, but here it is. Bear with me if it has some flaws, I was sloppy when keeping the log and I may also have confused the Allies (i.e. Churchill) with my allies.

Some clarifications:

- A city name followed by "(C)" means that I've captured that city
- A city name followed by "(L)" means that I've lost that city to the AI
- If a city name is followed by "(CE)" or "(LE)", then the city was eliminated as a result of my or the AI's attack.

June 1940

- Alliance (Turks)
- Sold the marketplaces in all cities but Madrid, yielding 640 gold
- Picked Communism as first tech
- Changed production in all cities to freights except Lisbon (transport)
- Traded Railroad for Communism with the Neutrals
- Revolution
- Treasury is 693 gold

Dec 1940

- Comrade

Feb 1941

- Sold the cathedrals in every city but Madrid and Seville (sold banks instead)
- Treasury is 1112 gold

Feb 1942

- Oil (318) and coal (200) to Manchester
- Copper (152) and oil (378) to Southampton
- Another oil to Manchester (360)

Dec 1942

- Advanced Flight in tribute (Churchill)
- Mass Production in tribute (French)

June 1943

- Coal to Washington (246)
- Dye to NY (336)

Aug 1943

- Oil (546) and Salt (155) to NY
- Rocketry in tribute (Axis)
- 500 gold in tribute (French)
- 100 gold from my ally
- 150 gold from ???
- Stupidest move of the turn: Traded Advanced Flight with the French for Amphibiuous Warfare
- Treasury is 2893 gold

Oct 1943

- 500 gold (French)

Dec 1943

- 400 gold (French)

Feb 1944

- Attacked the French
- St Nazaire (C), Bordeaux (C)
- War with Churchill
- Treasury is 3390 gold

June 1944

- Cease fire with Churchill

Oct 1944

- Churchill breaks the cease fire
- War with the Axis

April 1945

- Germans bribe Bordeaux

June 1945

- Marseille (C), Bordeaux (C)

June 1947

- Vichy (C)
- Alliance with Hitler

Oct 1947

- Strasbourg (C)

Dec 1947

- Alliance with Hitler dissolved

I lose St Nazaire somewhere between december 1947 and december 1951!

Dec 1951

- Frankfurt has been reduced to size 6 after conquering back and forth

Feb 1952

- Frankfurt (C)
- Marseille (L)

June 1952

- Munich (C)

Dec 1952

- Prague (C)
- Axis activates alliance with the Allies!

Feb 1953

- Dresden (C)

April 1953

- Dresden (L)
- Dresden (C), Cologne (C)

June 1953

- Prague (L)
- Prague (C)

August 1953

- Berlin (C)

Oct 1953

- Marseille (LE)
- Dumbest move of the turn: Hitler kills all defenders in Prague, then he offers a cease fire. He could have walked right in...
- Vienna (C)

Dec 1953

- Kiel (C), probably a mistake

Feb 1954

- Kiel (L) (it was on purpose, I withdrew all units, impossible to hold)
- Krakow (C)
- Vigo (L) to Churchill

April 1954

- Vigo (C), Warzaw (C)

June 1954

- Venice (C), Milan (C)

August 1954

- Russians break the cease fire (I'm now at war with everybody but the Neutrals, who is my ally and the Turks)
- Paris (C), Strasbourg (L) to Churchill

October 1954

- Strasbourg (C)

Dec 1954

- Rome (C) (cost me 6 stacked howies in the counter attack)

Feb 1955

- Budapest (C), Kiel (C)
- Kiel (L) to Churchill

Apr 1955

- Kiel (C)

June 1955

- Kiel (L) to Hitler, who starts on Manhattan Project in Bergen
- Kiel (C), St Nazaire (C), Bristol (C) (located north of St Nazaire), Bucharest (C)
- Kiel (L) to Churchill

Aug 1955

- Kiel (CE)
- Dumb move of the turn: I took a newly built vet AEGIS cruiser to attack an unfortified partisan on a mountain. The AEGIS lost.

Status report as of dec 1955

- I have 27 cities
- Treasury is 5192 gold
- Germans have 8 cities left
- The Neutrals have 3 cities
- The French have 8 cities
- Haven't counted the other civs'

Losses are (only counting selected units):

- 47 howitzers (I have 42 active)
- 35 armor (7 active)
- 29 partisans (10 active)
- 27 alpine troops (26 active)

Hope I got the turns right!

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

BTW, I haven't even started with the Russians yet and already I need a new right arm...

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

Played a couple of more turns. No conquering, just consolidating my position and preparing for an invasion of the UK.

I'm planning for a one turn blitz, a howie sweep. Amassing howies in St Nazaire and Bristol, both cities have coastal fortresses and port facilities.

Veteran fighters continuously patrol the Channel and have thus far taken out three Allied transports (one was fully loaded). There will be no successful Operation Overlord...

I think it will take at least four fully loaded transports, including settlers and possibly a partisan guiding the troops past enemy units in the field. I'm going to take out all defenders in all cities before capturing a single city.

The Axis' remaining cities are geographically spread out (Koningsberg is the capitol), which makes them more difficult to take than those on the European mainland were.

The Manhattan Project in Bergen troubles me somewhat. My rep is atrocious so I expect nothing but a nuke fest if it's built. Problem is getting there in time, the waters are full of patroling Allied ships. Do I have time to launch the invasion of Britain first, clearing the waters?

Carolus

[Sten Sture]

CR - I am in 1952 and just Howie blitzed the French. The Axis (in Republic!) and Allies have been allied for a long time and both at war with Russia. I am also allied with the Allies and at 'war' with Russia, but at peace with the Axis.

My dilema - If I attack the Axis, I will get bombered & helied by the Allies, if I attack the Allies I will need to keep big defenses at home for the Axis 2 howies at a time 'blitz.'

An option I am considering is to attack Leningrad and move west through the Russians first - leaving a few Rus cities in a buffer zone to the Axis. The major drawback to that idea is not being able to rail reinforcements from France & Spain.

My city build order is pretty much (external Eng transforming to Hills) Walls, Coastal Fortress, SAM, Barricks, Mech inf, Howies. The vet Mechs on hills with SAM should protect against bombers and with fortresses against battleships.

[Xin Yu]

SS: Fortify several AEGIS cruiser in coastal cities new England (if you don't have the tech, build caravans and send them to London or New York).

Then attack Axis.

[Sten Sture]

Aegis are 2x vs air, and with a SAM they get an additional 2x - is that the logic? That offsets the 1hp for getting caught in port I suppose - or won't they attack at all?

I haven't built a ship yet in this one, and I don't know if I have the tech - but I can get it from the Allies by asking.

Just for kicks, I haven't built a single caravan yet either so I could do those first.

[Xin Yu]

AEGIS x3 against bomber/heli, x5 against cruise missile. Better than mobile infantry. However I'm not sure it can use the sam factor. If you have laser you can build SDI and (not verified) sam battery's factor is doubled by SDI.

[Smash]

Argh!This is a "hardwork" challenge.Spain is really hurtin to start.You get 1 tank and a handful of lame cities all within bomber range.First thing I did was bribe those alpines and build some engineers.As well as selling pretty much every improvement.
I gotta feeling I won't see this thru.Way Too much work.Hard challenge though.

[Carolus Rex]

Yes, it's a lot of work. Due to the small number of units I look after them like babies!

A typical turn when taking out the Axis' main cities went like this.

i) Sending howies to the city and letting each attack one time (veterans first) until the city is defenseless. Many times there were only one way in (without losing movement points) or enemy units in the field requiring partisans and fighters to guide the howies.

ii) Covering as many squares as possible near the emptied city, first and foremost the city radius. Fighters for the squares that ground units can't reach and alpine troops or partisans for unroaded squares. The howies with a movement point left for roaded squares.

iii) Capturing the city.

iv) Moving every possible unit back into my own cities (except some defenders of the new city). This means eliminating ZOC once again.

v) New turn, new city (cities). Repeat i)-iv).

Each turns seems to take forever.

Update: Hitler will complete MP the next turn. I renamed all cities with a SDI by adding "SDI" to their original names to keep track of the defenseless cities. Will probably have to rush some SDIs very soon.

Carolus

[cavebear]

If I may interject a note into this discussion: I tried a few of the scenarios a year ago, and found them either too simplistic or too impossible. So I set them aside.

However, after reading this thread, I have a new appreciation of the possibilities inherent in the scenario games. I am amazed at the persistance with which you all attack the difficulties.

I will let that be a lesson for me. I had not previously considered the challenge of overcoming the odds to obtain a victory (or at least a qualified success) in such games by trying and retrying different approaches.

I suspect that me free time for a couple of weeks is going to be locked up in examining the WWII scenario!

Thank you all...

------------------
Proud participant in GameLeague...

Proud Warrior of the O.W.L. Alliance...

[Sten Sture]

I think my game is going along pretty well, but I am playing it in v2.42 - so you can basically attribute 99.9% of my success to the AI's complacency.

It is June of '55 and the Axis is down to 3 cities in North Africa and Oslo, they are still allied with the Allies, but so am I and the Allies didn't give me grief for attacking the Axis. Not sure why, but it really helped.

I haven't built a single caravan; I know it is heretical, but I have gotten 5 or 6 gift techs from the Allies, including Robotics, Labor Union, & Rocketry. I have been running taxes at 80% and have kept Science at 0% until a couple of turns ago (JSB & Mike) when I could bump it to 10% and back off Lux to 10%.

I didn't really attack anyone until 1950. Up until then I was mining, begging, and building some defensive units. All of my Spanish cities are size 8 or below. Once I got Robotics I went on the offensive.

1950: Marsailles, Vichy, Strasbourg and Paris
1952: Cherbourg, St Nazaire

Then I consolidated, sold off extra improvements, rush built SAMs, Barricks, Howies & Engineers, and built three new cities, and turned all city squares into hills.

In April of '54, I Howie rushed Amsterdam, Kiel, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt and Milan; emptying all cities before occupying any.

I didn't worry about partisans, except for on mountains. As I captured each city I took out the local partisans with Mechs on grass and plains, Tanks on rivers, and Howies on hills. When I captured the final city, I accepted a cease fire and let those partisans go.

Oct '54: Milan again, Dresden, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Venice.

Dec '54: Krakow, & Rome, (left the partisans east of Krakow for the Russians.

April '55: Warsaw, Turin, Taranto, Budapest, Belgrad.

June '55: Konisburg, & Bucharest

xxxxxxx

I think I will be able to transport Howies to the UK and America by the end of '58 while still clearing Russia back to the Urals, depending on how much rail I have to build. Then it should be a mop-up of the Med and Persia. I might be able to finish by '63.

Of course this just demonstrates how much easier it is to fool the AI into disregarding you in v2.42. Here is a case where playing a scenario in MGE is probably much better than in 2.42. Russia has been fighting the Axis and Allies since 1940 to very little effect, except for letting me develop into a contender.

[Carolus Rex]

I've also had taxes/science/luxuries at 80/0/20, but I think I've kept them that way even after capturing MC and JSB. In addition I've sold off marketplaces, banks and stock exchanges and used Elvis where needed. I got into selling off improvements right from the start and just kept going...

I'm now at december 1956 and have just conquered Great Britain. My one turn blitz turned into a two turn mess after a minor mistake...

First I founded a beachhead, Granada, two squares from Southampton at the very tip of England (in Cornwall, I guess ). Then I sent in the howies.

I emptied London and Southampton, both cities were heavily defended. Then I turned to Manchester and this is where I lost the initiative. I didn't see the flag go down and threw in another howie...

Pof! A zillion partisans all the way up to Newcastle... I didn't think I could both clear them out and capture the rest of the UK, but at least I took Newcastle and then I stopped.

The Allies took Newcastle back, but during the next turn Newcastle, Edinburgh, Scapa Flow, Belfast and Portsmouth (size three city south of Belfast) fell.

I'm writing this from memory so I may have confused the city names. Posting log later.

BTW, the Soviet Union is vast... I hope they've had busy little engineers...

Carolus

[Sten Sture]

Glad Midsommer! Oh wait, that was last month.

Good news on the eastern front. The white civ engineers have indeed been busy linking up their rail-lines in preparation for my arrival. The bad news though is that I am only getting 30-75 gold for each city. Damn Commies!

edit: forgot October '55... lets see, I got six cities. Minsk, then Moscow, then Leningrad, then Verona (Novograd) then Gorky, then something else, is there a Smolensk? I did leave Kiev and the south alone...

In Dec '55 I relieved the local government of their responsibilities in Dnepetrovosk, Kharkov, Kursk, and our old friend Stalingrad. I hadn't rotated my Howies quite right, so there weren't a lot of fresh ones, but they have yet to discover Labor Union or Rocketry, so it should be quick. Especially the cities that aren't built on rivers. I suffered counterattack casualties for the first time last turn.

I think I may use more weak units to defend front line positions in the future - no sense losing Mechs to Russian Howies when Rifles will do just fine. I have also adjusted my city build orders to discontinue and sell walls and SAMs except on the Atlantic & Med. For the periodic haphazard attack it just isn't worth the cost.

Thanks for the tip on the British Isles, I think I'll launch from Amsterdam and try to build a port in the middle so I can line things up easier.

Did you switch to Fundy or are you still in Commie-nism? I know the no Revolutions thing is on in this game, but when you first get a govy tech you can still revolt. Do you know if that applies to the Statue? I am wondering if I capture NYC if I can switch over to Fundy. Might be worth a floatilla - or at least six howies and an engineer.
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited July 20, 2000).]