Xin Yu's Strategy for Red Front 1.4 -- welcome comments

[Xin Yu]

That's a great idea! RF is the best scenario and it worths to have its own webpage! Reserve redfront.com now before somebody else has the name first! It's gonna be hot!

Polaris' webpage (Art of War): Check out a thread originated by 'PolarisGL' in this forum and click on the webpage on his profile.

[Xin Yu]

Too late... it has been used. How about 'redfrontscenario.com' then?

[The ANZAC]

Well, I'm not planning on spending money to register it, but I can have http://on.to/redfront !! Does that sound good? BTW, does anyone have version 1.1 of RF?

[St Leo]

The one on my site that is called 1.0 might be 1.1.

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[DarthVeda]

Boy, I remember Red Front Alpha. Didn't need too much strategy in there to win. I was able to hold Kiev straight through the winter.

[Sten Sture]

It is taking me a while to work thru this scenario between changing diapers!!

Do you sell your Ports? I did my first run through the summer of '41, since I had the Admiralty, but I am rethinking it now as I restart. One thing I am not going to do is build 175 refugees... The only refugees I build will be in high food, low production areas.

I lost Kherson and then Perekop too early last time and that opened up the Donets belly to Rostov too soon. Since Nikolayev Dneproetrovsk, and Kherson are on rivers and form a nice defensive triangle, I wonder if I can hold those by not throwing so much at Odessa and Kiev. Minsk I may throw away too, it is just too expensive to defend cities that aren't built on defensive terrain. Unfortunately in the center that only leaves Belgorad and whatever new ones you can get built (the river Ibza east of Kiev and the river Kollective east of Minsk.)

One advantage of the science specialist strategy is that it makes preparing for winter food stores without the Ukraine Wheat Fields (pyramids) a lot easier to manage. Just keep the food box from overflowing.

[Xin Yu]

SS: Please give details! What have you done to keep Kiev and Odessa? How did you lose Peretop? When did you get KV-1s? I understand the central front is tough, but how bad it is?

I'll sell everything I can think of in small cities. For example, if a city has size <5, I will sell marketplaces although I know I'll need it soon. The instant cash is more important for me at the moment. Later when I have money I'll rush-build barracks, airbases, and shield improvements. I never sell fishing fleet and kollective farm. Other than those two, no problem!

The ideal situation is: small cities grow to size 7 in winter 1941, build industry, and pump out units each turn; large cities provide money to support the economy and also build units each turn; supply convoys provides more money to buy units instantly for some cities and also provide science. You have 100 NONE labor brigades working on the land. Do not build too many new cities since you already have enough cities to improve.

[Sten Sture]

To keep Odessa - up through October at least - I moved the Black Fleet and defense from Sevestapol, used the Naval forces to take out Galati's stacked navy, bomb the city and capture it with a Naval Infanty unit and some Red Army grunts. Counter attacked the Romanian infantry and Germans with the Sevestapol units, and Navy; used the fighter planes from the airbase to attack every Stuka I could find. I cut every road in heavy terrain that I could, some with Cossacks.

Kiev I stacked with 40 units and counter attacked every stack I could reach with Howies. Kautushyas are so expensive I built a lot more Howies and a few ATs. With a FP of 4 and an vet attack of 10+ they can do some damage for only 30 shields.

I used Partizans to attack the 0a-10d motorized infantry wagons which killed the stack more than once.

I lost a poorly defended Perekop when heavily defended Nikolayev was bypassed and Kherson's small garrison was overrun... my stupid Generals fault, not mine.

I didn't get KV-1s until September, which is why I wanted to start over... I researched something else first since the Civpedia didn't show any units with Mobile 2. So I got some general research tech in July and then I missed an August tech by something like 5 beakers - argghhhh! That is what I get for cutting it too close.

City improvements - sounds like we do the same things. Sell something every turn in almost every city to cover the cash shortfall. Rush Barricks all over the place in June, focus on production outside of the Caucasus. Hike the Stalingrad Labor Brigade down to build some oil roads and fly in some others in July.

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This game is really tough to play coherently 30 minutes at a time with a tiny baby in the house. My little Field Marshall keeps me trooping back to the command tent to change my orders!

[Captain Nemo]

Just a note on the Pedia not showing units... Because some units only appear when the later rules are loaded, the techtree won't show them in the early stages of the game. The tech tree stays the same throughout but units get added to the techs as slots become available. Your Mobile Warfare III would give you the T-34/85s but the Civpedia tech tree would only show them after you load the first winter rules.
However Mobile Warfare II should have shown KV-1s from the start of the game...
The other tricky part is that there are 2 of each mobile warfare techs... You may have been looking at the German one that would produce nothing until the Spring of 1943!
I should probably change the German MW to "Panzer Technology" 1-4, for example, to avoid this confusion.

[Xin Yu]

I think there's a way to hold the central front easily. Just rush build 2 bombers in Moscow and move them to the fortress square between Smolensk and Minsk and put several AA batteries under the bombers. By August 1941 you can setup such a combo to stop the German advances. I haven't tested it so I don't know how many AA batteries are needed to fend off the German fighters. But you can always use cheap troops there to sacrafice for the safety of the bombers.

[DarthVeda]

You may think building 137 refugees was daft, but I don't think so.

It especially payed off because I used those units these cities built to be in Ploesti, Riga, and Minsk by November of 1943. (Even though I had been sent back to the Don on the entire front). The ploesti was a straight shot too. No back door crap. It was kind of frustrating watching all these stupid hedgehogs peek up miles behind my lines.

It helps when you're producing over 25 veteran T-34/85s a month, 5 KV-1s, 10 Katyushas, 10 Il-2s, and 15 Motorized infantry a turn.

It also helps because I reached the end of the tech tree in March of 1943. (With Stalingrad victory and Zhukov's tactics)

[Xin Yu]

FMK: Thanks for posting your game here. It's very important for me to gather information about how this moving fortified position trick works. By the way, have you experienced money problem? When did KV-1 come?

Fortified position is weaker than fortified battery but the former has X2 vs air flag.

[klesh]

Well, the KV1's came 2 turns before the first winter. I was able to rushbuild one in Kiev, but it wasn't enough... I have had a bit of money problems.... more than usual. I have yet to build Civilian Donations or any Wonder for that matter. I just had to step up my tax rate so as to stay out of the red. Doing that bumped my science up to "Every 4 turns", but I'll have to take the hit

I built 4 cities along the Don river, each on one of those fort. pos. I called them "DonRiverBridge 1-4" I moved the F.P. out of two of them (Southernmost) and left the other two. Immediately slapped up antitank defenses in the bridge-cities that I was going to hold. One of the cities, right east of Tula was destroyed by armored units... the F.P. wasn't much help there...

What worries me most is the threat to Northern and Middle Siberia... If the Germans are able to roam free with their Panzergranadiers and PZKW's I'll be finished. As it stands now, all they'd need is a dozen Panzers to take the majority of my weak underbelly. *sigh*

Xin Yu, were you able to get any F.P.'s or F.B.'s to Moscow?


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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

[Xin Yu]

In addition to the anti-tank, you need to manually fortify the F.P or F.B in the city windows and build barracks there. Throw some cheap units there to absorb damage just in case. Most likely you were not attacked by tanks but by 105mm wespe (ignore anti-tank). Tanks got no chance against F.P. behind city walls.

No, there's no way to get F.P. to Moscow. There is a kollective square (on river) west of Moscow which you should build a city there on July 1941 for defense.

Only a science every 4 turns? I got a science every turn during June and July!

[klesh]

Yeah, I manually fortified them...I guess they really wanted to take those bridge cities.
I already built a city on that kollective outside of Moscow...I didn't get enough troops in to hold it. It was destroyed in September.
I guess the reason I don't get discoveries every turn is because I don't micromanage to the nth degree. I'll build universities in the Caucusus and I micro manage a fair ammount, but I'm not solving equations like you Xin

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!