Would Somebody Try This Back Door Strategy for Red Front?

[Xin Yu]

I spent two whole days trying to figure out how to beat Red Front. Now I think I got something but I'm already exhausted. Would somebody try this for me?

First thing to do: sell the anti-tanks of the cities you are going to lose in July 1941! Which means the cities will be destroyed rather than left to Hitler. And that could mean: no pyramids/Mich's chapel for the enemy, no basis for the bombers to launch an attack to Moscow, and no Karls!

Secondly: Destroy the roads (after your men retreated) to delay the advance of the panthers.

Now comes the back door strategy: In the winter ferry your units along the southern edge of the map to the Balcans. Build a couple of cities there and start building Il-2 (non-air units can be ferried from other cities). You need to be careful about the U-boat but you have several vet cruisers so you can destroy it early. After several turns of build up, in the summer of 1942 you are able to attack the German territory through Yugoslavia and Italy using your un-stoppable Il-2 (capture Tirana as a port to get to Italy). You'll use heavy artillary to attack when winter comes (or if a city has AA battery). Major target: wonder cities (women's suffrage and J Bach's cathedral).

[Djugashvili]

I tried the sell-all-tank-defenses-and-pillage-all-roads strategy once, but it was very dull whenever I started to reclaim my lost territory.

And I think the 'backdoor' trick is outright cheating.

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President of the Apolyton Workers' Union,
Vengeful Employee of Ghost Ham,
Personnel Manager at the Poke-Skinning Factory, and
Director of the APSA

"Workers of Apolyton, Unite!"

[Xin Yu]

I never planned to attack from Moscow. I'll ship my units from the sea to Romania/Poland and circumvent the German troops. Without killing them the AI won't start building troops, and I can catch Berlin with less trouble. See roads are not important anymore.

I have the readme file with me. The only things I can not do are sell courthouse/police stations and airlift caravan from UK. I can airlift as soon as the caravan reaches Murmansk. And if Captain Nemo did not want players to use back door strategy he would have the coastal square mined--he didn't.

[Djugashvili]

Nemo, if your reading this, I URGE you to put in the readme that you shouldn't sell tank defenses. IMO, it really subtratcs from the fun, and it's unhistorical to sell them off. There's plenty of other more expensive things to sell in a city before it's captured...

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President of the Apolyton Workers' Union,
Vengeful Employee of Ghost Ham,
Personnel Manager at the Poke-Skinning Factory, and
Director of the APSA

"Workers of Apolyton, Unite!"

[Xin Yu]

For a scenario all I need to do is trying to find a way to win easily. I don't have to obey history. If I were Stalin I could have sent some troops to Greece and Yugoslavia (at least some good weapons to Tito) in 1942.

Talking about history, Russians did destroy everything before retreating against Napolean. If I were Stalin I could have done the same thing. Why should I leave good wonders to the German? I'd rather destroy them.

[Djugashvili]

Frankly, I don't think Stalin cared what he left for the Germans. So long as it didn't threaten his own position, he woulda left ANYTHING for the Germans...

[Xin Yu]

Well, I'm not a Russian so I don't know. Even if what you said was true, do I need to do exactly what Stalin did (or could have done) in this scenario? What's fun with that?

Destroying a city will help the Soviet side since German is the antagonist (i.e., number of objectives are counted for German). Playing this scenario you can always get 'German decisive defeat' even if you lose all but one of your cities, provided that your objective cities are destroyed rather than captured by German. Captain Nemo: if you want to stop players from destroying cities, you should change the antagonist to Soviet.
[This message has been edited by Xin Yu (edited January 20, 2000).]

[Captain Nemo]

My guess is that no "easy" strategy will work. By the end of 1941 the Germans have so many units and are so well entrenched that it will take a massive build-up effort to beat them. The only reason they don't build units is because they already have so many they don't need to, so the Germans not building units is not an advantage to be preserved, only a sign that you haven't really hurt them yet.

To reclaim the lost territory the human player has to kill 100's of German units and when he does the Germans will start building again.

Also by 1944 the Soviets are up against Panthers, Tiger I & IIs, Jagdpanthers, Me262s etc... so if they don't have large numbers of tough units themselves any fancy "trick-strategy" will fail.

Selling the Anti-tank defenses will result in 3 things:
1. Big cities being wiped-out
2. Germans having an easier time killing the defenders
3. The cities not being available to the Soviets on reconquest... (The Germans use them to build capitalization anyway and don't use the money to buy anything so destroying the cities really doesn't harm them).

The game is trying to recreate history and tries to force the human player to follow a semi-historical plan to win...

[Xin Yu]

Ooops, thought I could save some space by editing my message. Captain Nemo: please check my previous message, it has been edited.

My trick is that I don't kill the German units. I use freighters (move=10) to ferry my troops to the German homeland and occupy the cities. Eventually I hope to get all German cities (which are not well fortified) while leaving their units out in the open (the sites of destroyed Soviet cities) untouched. If you have prepared for that strategy then congratulations!

[Kull]

Nemo - There's an easy solution to prevent (or at least delay) the "Southern Front" strategy. Fortify a "Pontoon Bridge" unit in the targeted rear-area cities. That should prevent any conquest until at least Summer '43 (at which point they'll convert to mobile Tiger II's). You could also achieve much the same result with "River Mines".

Xin Yu - I don't have a problem with your "Southern Front" strategy. If the designer allows it, why not. But destroying cities smacks of cheating since it wasn't possible in the "real world" of WWII. Burn them, bomb them, turn them into smoking ruins, sure. But returning the site to pastureland? Deliberately? Even the A-Bomb couldn't do that, so neither should you.

[Xin Yu]

The strategy was designed for RF 1.3. However I see nothing changed in RF 1.4 so this strategy should still work. Build heavy artillary and ferry them to Balcans in December 1941 and you can catch Yugoslavia and Italy. Use that as a base to attack Germany. No events will help the NAZI from this direction. Haha.

However you will be attacked by the Serbs in 1943.... Hey comrade Tito, don't shoot, it's me, Stalin...

[PolarisGL]

Art of War *cough*

[Mao]

Xin, that would be cheating...and cheating is wron...HAHAHAHAHAHA

Damn...almost got through that with a straight face...

Well, it's a nice strategy, kinda cheats it if you're a history buff though...

[Xin Yu]

I have another idea to test. In Summer 1941, I want to concentrate my forces to the North and defeat Finland.

Plan:
In June/July 1941, pillage the road on the forrest square east of Hersinki. The Fins will move its attacking forces towards me but they don't have enough moving points to get to my city. I can kill the whole stack in one blow;
In August 1941 or a bit later, using naval bombardment to occupy Hersinki (it does not have coastal fortress);
Then ferry my tanks to Hersinki and attack other Finland cities. None of them has anti-tanks so it should be an easy job;
Finland will become the base for me to attack Berlin from the sea during the next winter season.

[Sten Sture]

I was looking at this same idea last evening. It seems to me that you could hold the Caucasus and Leningrad - let the center evaporate back to the Urals and counter up into Finland to eliminate that threat. Then you could run the southern arm of the pincer as well thru the terrain of the Balkans.

Have you tried to get Partisans into the Romanian oil fields to do some pillaging?

I think I am going to resist selling my city walls (anti-tanks) unless I leave fewer units in the city than the population counter so the city isn't completely destroyed. Call it Ukrainian complicity.