To any good RF players...

[Leonidas]

Here's a challenge for all you Red Front veterans: see if you can win this scenario at Deity level, but DO NOT build any new cities. Try to win with the cities that you start the game with. Can it be done?

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[Saint Marcus]

quote: Here's a challenge for all you Red Front veterans: see if you can win this scenario at Deity level, but DO NOT build any new cities. Try to win with the cities that you start the game with. Can it be done?

Yes, I did.

quote: As the Germans are going to overrun you anyhow once summer of '42 comes around, I don't really see the overall value of trying to hold onto cities west of the Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad line. I strip down many of these cities, pillaging industry, in the first rounds of the game.

IMHO this is bad advice. Try to hold on to Smolensk, Sevastopel, Kerch and especially Rostow. If you manage this then the Germans will be a whole lot easier to defeat when the winter comes in 42. Also, if the Germans get Rostow and Kerch they can move into the Caucasus very easely. Better to defend two cities then a whole bunch of them.

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Lancer: MarkL, well said, everything...

"Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the Angel of Death."

[Sortub]

Mark-

You're basically right, IMHO. Of course, Kerch and Rostow should be held-earlier I mentioned bringing bunkers into Rostow. I stacked Kerch with lots of Red Guard and AA before. Smolensk-I'm not so sure about defending to the hilt-I prefer to bring units back into the Moscow-Gorkiyy area.

My foible

Another idea I had recently was building the "airfield" railroad back to Gorkiyy, and guarding good units there until winter so they don't get beat up in the early stages of the game. Then, once December '41 comes, go "postal" near Moscow. In the early months, I tend to move NKVD to cities further East, and support them from there, for example.


[This message has been edited by Sortub (edited June 04, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Sortub (edited June 04, 2000).]

[CapTVK]

Well, the winter passed (thanks for the tip on red army units generating partisans Xin) and I survived the summer of 42'. I lost the last of my cities east of the river near moscow but they didn't manage to cross so I was okay. Nothing big happened in the north but things got a little hairy in the south when the germans suddenly got their pontoon bridge! Thankfully, I had already build up some forces in Rostov 6 KV-1's, a lot of troops and (sailors are pretty good for defense) and 7 AA so it was well defended. I managed to keep the germans from my oilfields thanks to some units quickly shifted back to the caucasus.

Meanwhile convoys were arriving in significant numbers so I got start building my forces in earnest. I'm now on a very succesful winter offensive. I'll post a new map when the winter offensive of 43' ends.

Anything I should watch out for in the summer of 43'? I've heard the germans get new
units at this stage...

[Saint Marcus]

The Kursk event is pretty nasty, the Germans managed to capture two cities because of it.

I didn't want to pull many units away from the front in Ukraine and Poland so that's why I lost the cities. My solution: Captured Kiev. This worked both ways since I didn't had to pull my forces from the Front lines (could just use a two point attack from Poland and Southern Ukraine to Kiev) and it cut German supply lines to German troops near Kursk. After that it was easy.

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Lancer: MarkL, well said, everything...

"Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the Angel of Death."

[Xin Yu]

CapTVK: you are doing great! After winter 41-42 Red Army no longer generates partisans. However some other units do. Test it when you start a new period to get the correct ones.

[Sten Sture]

After being computerless for a couple of weeks, I finally got up and running on a new machine this weekend and played Dec41. (I am going really slow.) I had just lost a poorly defended Kursk in November so I counterattacked it from Byelgorod and Orel and the walls weren't up yet. I wiped out the four citizens in the first four attacks and then attacked the stack once more and knocked off 41 units. Uh, oh. Did I just create 120 units somewhere???

I managed to hold all of the Dnieper valley except for Gomel (starved to size 4) and Kiev. I also lost Novgorod and Narva through bad tactics and weak defending (Narva I left empty one turn!!) I also lost Kholm and Velike Luki last turn, but both are size one cities now. Bryansk is another story - I lost it in October, and it is pretty hard to get to since I cut a bunch of the roads that lead up to it; though it is effectively surrounded with the German loss of Kursk, by Smolensk and Kharkov. About 10 PzIVs are in front of Voronez, but I have plenty of defense and counterattacking punch to eliminate them. Vitebsk and Smolensk are well defended and all forces around them back to the forests have been cleared.

Question for you guys - how aggressively would you conterattack in the first winter? I would like to get Nikolayev back since it is on a river and close to Odessa and Kirovo (or whatever that city is up 5 squares or so.) Bryansk I think I will wait until the IL-2s can take off in the summer, it is far enough away from other forces and in rough terrain.

I am not moving Fortified positions or batteries, but I have located cities on some of the ones on the Volga, or stacked them with Artilery/machine guns for offensive punch and bribe prevention.

Kiev is probably well defended, so I might just use a freighter from Dnepoptrovski to found a city on the river grassland where the Dnieper bends to the north west. I should have built there right away - the only approach from the south is through one swamp square and the northern approaches offer no terrain protection. From that base I could use IL-2s to attack Kiev in the summer with plenty of power.

Before summer I should have Air Defenses built in all of the front line cities to counter the Stukas.

Given the defensive line I have held so far seems to be further west than was the case historically, I am trying to figure out where the '42 offensive will come from. Will the forces start behind my lines if I don't occupy certain squares? Or will they be forced to start back at the Bug River west of Nikolayev?

[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited June 12, 2000).]

[Xin Yu]

Why you guys all lost Kiev? If you build a transport in every river-cities (including Kiev) in June 1941, then by July 1941 you can ship a labor brigade from Stalingrad to Kiev, then use it to move the fortified position South of Kiev to the city. How could you lost it?? It is very important since it gives your partisans an exit so you can use them to attack hedgehogs.

[Sten Sture]

I thought the scenario would be too easy if I moved the fortified positions so I gave myself a house rule to leave them in place. I also decided not to occupy the one by Nikolayev for the same reason. Gotta do something to make this scenario difficult.

[Xin Yu]

quote: Gotta do something to make this scenario difficult.

Captain Nemo, did you hear that?

[Sortub]

When I built cities on the fortified positions-not batteries, mind you- in the summer of '41 something like 2 T26 tanks and 2 NKVD (or was it Red Army) units appeared instead of the fortified position. Has this happened to anyone else? I am playing on MGE.



As far as winter '41, I generally don't counter attack to retake lots of cities cities, as long as I can hold the Rostow/Kerch/West of Don/Moscow/Leningrad line. In the north my last game, the Germans got to Kalinin, but I quickly expelled them in winter. IMHO, the main thing to do at this point is destroy the Germans around Moscow and Leningrad. There will be plenty of time to do the rest. Besides, the Germans attack with a vengeance in the south in summer '42 and the drive for Stalingrad and in the '43 Kursk couteroffensive. Just keep thinking -- I will survive until '44. Cool events happen when you retake Minsk and Kiev at that point.

Machine guns, Red Guard, artillery, tank hunters, and some T34s do the trick, IMHO, in winter '41. The Siberian infantry are especially effective, too. Besides, the Germans attack with a vengeance in the south in summer '42 and the drive for Stalingrad and in the '43 Kursk couteroffensive.

Another thought: In the late stages of the game after December '44, does anyone else deliberately go after the King Tiger tanks to get the bonus T34 Guards in Warsaw? I've found that 1 JS2 vet Heavy Tank is about even money to knock out a King Tiger upon attacking. IMHO, the evolution of armored vehicles -- in the scenario and the actual war, is remarkable for such a period of time.


[This message has been edited by Sortub (edited June 12, 2000).]

[Saint Marcus]

I agree with Sten...moving fortified positions is way to easy.

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Lancer: MarkL, well said, everything...

"Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the Angel of Death."

[Xin Yu]

Sten: I have never built fortresses but I suppose you can do that in RF. Why don't you pack 40 vet T34-85s (they only cost 60 each) and a labor brigade together and move towards the German? The labor brigade can build a fortress each turn. See if the German will attack them. You can build a city behind the stack and move injured units back to heal them.

[Sten Sture]

LoL! Or have two columns for the slowest ever pincer envelopment.

I just looked through events1 and I can't believe how insidious Nemo was. I was rather rudely punished for counterattacking wounded Germans, especially those Stukas! I had no idea I was the cause of all those things. I hope he changes some of that with v1.941.

[Captain Nemo]

I am following this thread with great interest... I will make sure the "new" Germans defeat EVERY tactic listed

The map is still being worked on by Harlan and many changes are planned even for the economy, the Wonders, the city improvements, the tech trees. A new Civ (Swiss) has appeared because the map reaches further East now.

On the other "front" nice progress is being made on SF... 6 playtesters working on the two first phases right now (June 6-June 14, 1944). Things look tough for Ike and Monty