Hearts of Iron II: War Stories

[Spaced Cowboy]

LOL, like dominoes. As I was moving to surround Bulgaria and DOW it, she joined the Germans, as I was slicing her in half, Greece joined in on the fun and joined the axis. I still have Spain to own next, then not sure where to go. (Maybe South America?)

[DarkCloud]

I'm still playing my Italian game. Too much going on right now to detail, but it is the start 0f '38 and I own yugo, albania, romania, and hungary, I'm at war with germany and spain, Russia just owned poland (who allied with germany), and the allies are also at war with germany.

Germany is going to be toast. They should have never declared on me when I declared on yugo.

Quite definitely a bizarro world game... I'm interested in seeing how that plays out... does germany still get its "historic events" in the version that you're playing... so therefore, what happens if you take over the Sudetenland before Germany gets a chance to do that?

[Harovan]

Since DC seemed to be a bit reluctant to do Barbarossa, here are a few impressions from my campaign, just to demonstrate how ridiculously easy it is (at least in HoI2 ). The Order of Battle May 24th, 1941. Note the 2 big invasion forces in Suwalki and Zamosc. The rest of the infantry along the front is just ordered to hold the line, the airforce is on interdiction duty.

[Harovan]

Twelve days later, June 6th, the three pockets are ready. The armor and mot infantry regenerates their org, while the infantry marches to clear the pockets. The airforce is switched to ground attack. Note that I let the Soviets have Memel. It's too hard to defend, and I will drive them out soon enough.

[Harovan]

Oh noes! Georgia is being invaded! Usually the mountain troops come via the route Crimea-Novorossijsk, this time it's easier as I have Turkey.

[Harovan]

The Brits are losing big in Africa. Mussolini took El Alamein and is driving the Brits toward Suez, where my anvil awaits.

[Harovan]

June 26th, 1941, 32 days after the begin of Barbarossa. The three pockets are cleared, the troops are on the march, in about 2 weeks the new front will be manned and ready for the second offensive, which will begin July 10..15-ish depending on weather.

Things in the Caucasus don't go so smooth, the Soviets have there about 30 divisions and even though a third of them are only militias, my 13 mountain divisions could not advance and were driven back. Among the troops there are 2 Croatian divisions - I seize military control over puppets but not over allies and I don't accept expeditionary forces either - house rule. Since the offensive in the main land goes so well, I decided to ship the Second Army with 13 divisions to Turkey to help there out.

Japan declared war on the USA the first day after they joined the axis, oh joy! It's always like this, there must be an event or something - the stupid Germans are on board, let's get them one more powerful enemy. Oh well, who cares. My ships and planes already sunk half the American Atlantic fleet meanwhile.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Harovan
The airforce is switched to ground attack

I'm not sure I would do the same. The pockets should already be losing org, and if the airforce is doing the other one (i forget the name), the pockets would just entirely collapse, no? I tend to use ground attack more for attrition fights than for cleaning up pockets

[Main_Brain]

Interdiction, Ground Attack is most useful against fleeing enemies (But why would you bomb those helpless guys)

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ninot
I'm not sure I would do the same. The pockets should already be losing org, and if the airforce is doing the other one (i forget the name), the pockets would just entirely collapse, no? I tend to use ground attack more for attrition fights than for cleaning up pockets

Interdiction is for causing the loss of org, hence it is good for breakthrough fights.

Ground attack is causing the loss of health (it does not affect org). And the point of cleaning pockets is to get rid of the forces inside, i.e. not let them flee (they have nowhere), but to completely destroy them.

By the way, after Peru declared war on the Brits, I found out what's wrong with my game, and why Iraq has been ganged up against. Something screwed up the aggressivity of the allies. Iraq has 192, Great Britain even 650! All others who are part of the allies have also 650, even Holland. In comparison I, who should be the king of aggressivity, have mere 110. Hell knows why and how that did happen, but since half of the world is part of the allies, the game is pretty much destroyed now, as sad as it sounds considering the effort I put in it. Oh well.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

Quite definitely a bizarro world game... I'm interested in seeing how that plays out... does germany still get its "historic events" in the version that you're playing... so therefore, what happens if you take over the Sudetenland before Germany gets a chance to do that?

I'm pretty sure that event fires only if Germany is not at war, it is mid '38, and Germany is pretty much through, Berlin is lost to the Russian mobs as well as one line of provinces to the west.

In the meantime Bulgary and Greece are now part of Italy and I'm redeploying troops to take out Spain.

I could ask Austria to join my alliance (which is just me) and then move through them to take some Germany lands, but I'd be doing it for Austria.

I can't DOW Austria either as the Brits have a independence guaranty, and I'm not ready to fight the allies. So looks like the bear will take out Germany while I gut-punch Spain.

My only hope is that Austria joins Germany, but looks like that won't happen fast enough, if ever.

[Nikolai]

Harovan: You could open the save and tone down the Allied belligerence, to correct the gameplay.

[Harovan]

I know, but the damage is already done and several wars going on since months.

[DarkCloud]

Hmm... I don't quite understand harovan, why are you quitting the game--- because it will be too easy to win?

---
The fear about attacking russia still remains... I might get bogged down excessively, since the russians aren't at war with anyone at all and have been building up their troops for the past 3 game years without anyone to throw at them.

i'll keep in mind the strategic chokepoint goals.

My plan had been to secure middle east oil and take palestine, then have two forces attack, one from Iraq/the caucasus and the other on the logical front. The caucasus front would capture Baku and guarantee me fuel... but due to Convoy issues, my separated units in palestine are in big trouble.

[Nikolai]

The Russkies will attack you if you don't not too long after the non-aggression pact expires. And I'd think it'd be best to be the one to have the initiative.