Attention!!!! The UMIP...

[The ANZAC]

Greetings, Komrades! I have been dispatched to give this to you by the Komissar of the People:

"Salutations. The war has not been going well for us on the homefront. Our refugees have made it to the Urals, but, due to bureaucratic ways, have ended up in Kirov and Kazan , contributing to nothing. The high officials have been sent to gulags- I mean re-education centers! This has cut down on experience in the sector and help is needed. Any pragmactic and conformatory advice will be received well. Any anti-party or radical threats will be taken with severe force as your building manager will be informed of your behavior and will dispatch a pair of NKVD agents to dispose of you...But we won't have any trouble...Will we? But enough with that, help the Party, Down with the Petty Bourgeosie, Long live the Revolution!"

Well, the Komissar sometimes doesn't know what he's saying, but he'd appreciate any ideas, radical or not. So be a Patriot, stand up to the Krauts, Join in The Great Patriotic War!!!!

[Archangel]

Tell me, have you ever lived under a communist government?

And what does this have to do with anything?

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National Atheist's Day, April 1st

[The ANZAC]

Well to simply put it: I was putting the Stalinist-World War II Era feel into this simple question: Have any good Ideas for the UMIP (Ural Mountain Industry Program) in Red Front v1.4, where you resettle east towards the Urals and try to build it up. Is that clearer?
[This message has been edited by The ANZAC (edited April 01, 2000).]

[Archangel]

Crystal.

[The ANZAC]

Great then. Anyone have good Ideas?

[Captain Nemo]

ANZAC:
I am not sure this is what you were asking but the useless refugees are "future" laborers. As refugees they move fast but can't work but that will change when you load the first change of season in December 1941. After that they will move slowly but be able to work so the best to do is get them to where you want to use them by December.
I would add to FMK's suggestions: pick one or two new city sites to the East of Stalingrad where you have plenty of plain terrain and where the future T-34s will have a short trip to the front. I had 3 of my 5 best "shield" cities right there.

[The ANZAC]

What I wanted to ask was this: What cities are worth developing and how should one go about developing them. I have about 53 laborers and I'm working on building industries around Kirov, Sverdlovsk, Uralsk, Guryev, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, Kazan , and Zlatoust. Anything else I should do?

[Captain Nemo]

I think you are on the right track. There appears to be some players that are finding more "efficient" ways to win by using loopholes in the game... You are doing it the way I intended it to be done (The Historical way) It will take you until late 1942 before your efforts start paying off in the form of massive unit numbers.

I am amazed at the innovation that some have come up with: Building cities on top of fortified positions and Fortified batteries to be able to load them into freighters and transport them elsewhere to defend against the German advance... Very clever! and certainly allowed though not intended. I will make sure it can't be done in the next version...

Also disbanding certain units to circumvent the events that occur when those units are killed (However, if you have to look in the events files to devise your strategy, you are definitely cheating IMHO. Next they will note all the coordinates where German U-boats and reinforcements pop-up and station ships and troops there to prevent it from happening... might as well just edit out those pesky events to save the trouble)

I think that I will create a "Special" Red Front for those players... Fortified positions and batteries will be stationary helicopter units (No ship transport) and will convert into Red Army units by 1942 (No way to keep them past their intended lifespan).

[klesh]

Anzac,
I just beat RF 1.4 this weekend, and with the new addition of a super-laborer late in the game, I was able to have the best UMIP I've ever undertaken...

First make a list of all the eastern cities that will participate. They should build, in this order: Kolectiv farm, Steel Mill, Ammo Plant, Air Force Base( optional for air-lifting units), Barracks, units...
Keep track on your list what eack of the cities is working on. I generally rush-build everbody a kolectiv, helps them grow...

You want to make all of the doomed western cities build refugees at the start of the game. You'll get some None units too, but pump them out anyway. I have a good 40+ working in the Urals...

First go to like Kirov, or Orenburg... any city far from the Germans with excessive ammounts of naturally occouring plains squares. If the unit is a Labor Brigade, start "Build Industry" process. If it's a refugee, just fortify, or sleep/sentry him in the position he will be building. When they turn into Laborers, you want that first turn to having 40 Industries being built. Imagine the overall production increase 5 or 6 turns from then, when all those workers simultainiously build the square up into Industry!
Basically any Planes square in any city radius needs to be worked... but concentrate on building 5-7 squares of Industry for each city. So with the math, 45 Laborers/ 6 industry squares per city= 6 cities with tons and tons of prod.

There are cities that have three super-production squares like bauxite within the Ural Range... Seek these out and build farmland so as not to loose production when starvation from the winter sets in...

I had a few cities with 3 farmland squares, and all the rest were Industry. It's a bit of overkill, but it looks cool

I found 1.4 a bit harder, but I also stepped up a notch on the dificulty level. I lost Leningrad, Rostov, and Perkop which I hardly ever do. And After the battle of Kursk (Opperation Citadel), A pack of Tigers and Panthers and Wermarcht...(Oh My!) Made it into my soft Eastern area and took a city deep behind the lines. Wiped out Finland... it no longer exists. Invaded Northern Norway...made it half way down... Good overall game...
Good luck with your UMIP Komrade....

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

[Xin Yu]

Hey Nemo, I just checked the German units in my June 1941 saved file. The German got 225 Weimarht, so I guess whether to disband my red army or not makes little difference. I'll not recommending that from now on.

The trick to prevent Karl to appear-- I'm using a 'sincere' way to do that. I can simply rename the cities to prevent the events to be triggered. But that's irrelavent now--the German can never get there.

I'm really itching in occupying Romania. If I can get the oil field of Romania, then I get a boost in economy and I can airlift the Iran convoys from the Caucasus (set home city there) to Romania, getting a huge trade bonus. This is definitely my top priority, and could be more efficient than building up the Ural Montains. Even if I lost two of the three major cities I can still win if the Caucasus and Romania are both mine. I suggest that in the next version you set some events to protect the Romania oil field during the first winter.

Changing fortified positions to helicopters is a good idea. But I can still put cities on top of them and gain advantages (for a limited time). Maybe you can lower their defense as well so the German troops will not be so 'chicken'.

Karl is not that tough if attacked by naval units. It is because that when a naval unit attacks a land unit, both units' fire powers are lowered to 1. So high FP doesn't help Karl -- One vet Cruiser can kill it on marsh/minefield, two can kill it on grass/plain.

[Captain Nemo]

They were already supposed to be enormous advantages to the Soviet player, designed to prevent "deep penetration" into the Soviet back country. Before I added them, I had Wespes and Panzergrenadiers threatening Magnitogorsk and the cities near the Aral sea in early 1942!

I am very happy with you finding the loopholes... It will allow me to close them in future versions (Not to prevent you from having fun, but simply to make it a better game)(I am sure you will find new loopholes anyway).

[klesh]

I'm with you on this one Nemo. I'm no computer programmer, so I have no idea what all those 1's and0's are in the rules or pedia or whatever.
When I hook up some RedFront I want to battle the Germans, not the programing of the author! You have made this a unbelievable scenario...both historically accurate and quite challenging. There is no need to fake out the AI with tricky little schemes in order to win. What's the fun in that? If one were to listen to all the advice here at Apolyton regarding this scenario, one would have a very winable game, but would still get the felling of the struggle. By using the loopholes, you show your programmer mindset skills, not your tactical ones. No offense intended toward Xin, he obviously knows his tactical stuff and could kick my arse all over the place in MP. But taking advantage of glitches seems to me like an unfair way to beat the allready idiotic AI.(BTW Nemo, the AI is getting better as we go through the versions.)
I had no problem(yes I did ) defeating the Germans on my first try of 1.4
I even stepped up muy dificulty level from my normal one, yet the right strategy always prevails.

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!
[This message has been edited by Field Marshal Klesh (edited April 03, 2000).]

[Sten Sture]

I think it is great that Xin posts these ideas, since in the long run they give us better scenarios. His moving the fortifications idea is very clever! I picked a couple for founding cities, but it never occurred to me to put them on a ship. I really like Nemo's strategy for dealing with it, make it a helo and it will decay and can't ship - brilliant!

From a design standpoint it demonstrates that everyone be careful with SUPER defensive units. Nemo could also use the .bat files to make the forts decay/lose def & HP gradually in the rules. Without labor brigades - perhaps by starting them further west, the first several forts can't be moved before they are destroyed or encircled. Generally this also applies to high defense units used as impassible terrain. Some of the scenarios I have seen don't stack these terrain units, and they can be bribed very cheaply - if they are water adjacent they can be moved almost anywhere.

Back to the Front! I am thoroughly enjoying this game, my defense tactics center on stalling the capture of Minsk and Kiev while I construct defensive terrain traps behind their lines in river valleys. Also picking cities to burn in the path of Moscow, Leningrad and Sevestapole that would be used as staging areas like Narva and Luga, and pillaging fortresses and costly terrain road sections that are not on my counterattack path. I have only gotten through a couple of turns, and I have no idea if I will be able to survive or not, but this is AWESOME!!!

[The ANZAC]

Yeah, I heard how all you have ideas to beat the game, but what to you do on the defensive? Ahh, that's what counts. I have this problem: if I hold Sefamovich and Voronezh, I still get Hummels running around the Trans-Urals threatening Saransk and Saratov and cities like that. Anyone have an idea to stop the Jerries from doing this (I don't want any programing cheats, if that's what you use!)? I do have the general idea on how to make a scenario and I have John Possidente's Scenario Building Guide, but that never gives as much as information as if to build a goliath like Red Front. Keep up the good work, Captain Nemo!! (BTW, dos anyone know where and when Austieg might be released?)

[Captain Nemo]

The same happened to me the German AI sends out a few "scout" units ahead of the troops. The Hummels seem to be a favorite but in one game he used a "Karl" which really unnerved me... Suddently a Karl attacking Yaroslav!
The way I deal with it is having at least 3 Red Army units in each rear city so it won't fall immediately and then I use IL-2s to scout the path between my fortified cities in each turn even in the winter so very few Germans "sneak" through there.
The T34s, KV-1s and Katyushas continuously moving up from the rear usually are enough to deal with that occasional threat by making a little detour. Early in the game when units are scarce it's worse.