Date Goals for Axis??

[Blathergut]

Could any of you souls out there who seem to be able to manage the Axis fairly well, post a few ideas as far as:

-number of German/Axis units by June '41 and June '42
-number of Russian units destroyed

I seem to be unable to get very far with the Axis. I attempted the invasion of Spain in one game and that went well, but it meant the invasion of Russia barely made it to the first river line by winter '41. Now, in summer '42, the Russia line is double inf corps (not garrisons) plus tanks and mech in behind. If I don't invade Spain, I still never seem to have enough German inf corps to be able to really do much of anything.

I won't go into the irksome partisans, where the Allied player gains 2-3-or-4 corps a turn. Garrisoning all those cities in France and Spain and down through Greece sucked up mucho manopower!!

Ideas/Help??

[henri511]

If you look at the victory conditions, you will see that the Germans win even if they barely hold on to Berlin at the end. Therefore the game is strongly biased in favor of the Soviet player. Against a human player, there is little chance for the Germans to reach the historical conditions in 41 or 42. For example, even against the incompetent AI, it is impossible for the Germans to reach Smolensk by the historical date of July 41, you are lucky if you make it to Minsk bu August 41...

And against the AI, you can expect massive British invasions in France in 1942, which were impossible in real life. And considering the long harsh Winter turns and the innumerable partisan units that pop up every move, and the need to waste moves to upgrade your armies, you can barely make hay with your powerful units half the time. On one move, I had aver a half dozen partisan units pop up, and it is not unusual to have 4 of them pop up at a time in Russia; this means that you either have to dedicate a major part of your forces to anti-partisan work or the partisan situation gets out of hand (if you don't repress them early, you could end up haveing a dozen partisan units in Russia only, and increasing by 3 or 4 on every turn. If you play with fog of war, your chances of intercepting significant numbers of Lend-lease convoys are practically negligible.

For example take Summer 42: it will be May before you can launch a major offensive. First you have to waste a couple of moves to refit. After 3 or 4 moves, most of your best units will be seriously depleted, and will also need to be upgraded. This removes 6 to 10 weeks weeks from the time that they can fight. Consider a few more moves for maneuvering and bringing new units to the Front, and just as you are about to beat the crap out of the Russians, severe Winter hits and you are in a War of attrition for another 15 weeks. And you have to spend the last move or 2 before Winter to position your units for the Soviet counter-attack. In sum you hae to"waste" almost half of the good-weather time for the above, and this is not counting the mud turns that severely slows down your offensives and running out of oil pralyzing your motorized units.

In sum, against a human, consider yourself lucky if you win by holding on to Berlin until 1945...

Afainst the AI, even on Easy level, taking Stalingrad and Moscow as well as the Middle East oil fields does not end the game at all, because the Russian capital moves to Omsk and innumerable tough elite Russian units show up near Archangelsk and from the East, and bythis time half your army is required for figting partisans and guarding critical areas. Actually tking Moscow seems to have no serious effect on the Russians at all. And as for the Leningrad fortress, since only 2 units can be adjacentto it at a time, you will be lucky if youo can take it at all, expeciallly if the Russians have taken Finland.

Henri

[timhicks]

Henri, you rightly mentioned the Allied Invasions of France that start in 42. In my game against the AI, (max advantage allies) I have 2 or 3 transports a turn arriving off the French coast from the beginning of 1941.

I'm not sure how to view this, on one side if you can wipe out the supporting Navy, then it's a turkey shoot for the Axis, but of course the use of all that air power is incredibly expensive.

These silly invasions happen even with 'normal' advantage levels, and is not realistic. I think that the allies invasion limts need to start at a low level , and build gradually.

[joerock22]

It really depends on your opponent and the strength of your Barbarossa. In 1941, you can kill lots of Russians OR take lots of territory. You usually can't do both unless your opponent blunders, and which option you have to go with depends on how he defends. 1942 is the decisive year in most CEAW games. If the Germans can break the Russians, capture Stalingrad and Moscow, then they are in great shape. If not, then the Soviets have the advantage because they will probably be able to being going on the offensive in 1943. In 1942 the Axis have to kill a substantial number of Russian units and take a good chunk of territory. That's really the only way they will win the game. Ronnie's "Spanish Gambit" AAR game shows what can happen when Germany doesn't have a good 1942 on the eastern front.

This advice was made with GS in mind, but it probably applies to standard CEAW as well.

[rkr1958]

Ronnie's "Spanish Gambit" AAR game shows what can happen when Germany doesn't have a good 1942 on the eastern front.

It's good to be useful.

[Lynz]

Against the AI, I dealt to Russia straight after Poland. If you can get amongst them before they can ramp up their production you can make hay while the sun shines. Then stop before the Winter, concentrate you forces, upgrade and refit. Once the weather came right I had two fairly powerful mechanised armies. One set about and took Moscow while the other went hell for leather for Omsk which is lightly defended.

I concentrated on keeping my supply routes open using the otherwise pretty useless allies and some not bad Italian Mech Corps.

Turned out to be a breeze. The one thing is that the French remained quiet. I left Belgium and Holland alone to protect me flank. Silly Allies didn't declare war and come through them.

Defeating France thereafter was easy. But the red measles sprung up fairly quickly in Russia. And when the Yanks got going, their forces invaded in dribs and drabs so were easily defeated. But their Navy made things impossible and it turned into a war of attrition which I could not win before 1945.

I sort of thought, well by then they had the A Bomb so, even if it had have been the way it turned out, I'd been toast.

Russia isn't the problem. The bloody Ham Shanks are.

[trulster]

Turned out to be a breeze. The one thing is that the French remained quiet. I left Belgium and Holland alone to protect me flank. Silly Allies didn't declare war and come through them.:

IIRC the Allies *cannot* declare war on Benelux cause it is considerd a minor Allied country. In this scenario it allows you to get away with murder

Against a human player of course Russia 40 will be more tricky. For instance, Italy will be very vulnerable to French/UK invasions, so will draw off some German corps for defence.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The Allies CAN DoW Belgium and Holland in GS, but we haven't altered the AI so there probably is no code to let the Allies makes these DoW if Germany invades Russia. Belgium and Holland are pro-Allies in the vanilla game, but we turned them to neutral in GS so both sides in fact can DoW them. The above example is a good reason why that was a good decision.

[timhicks]

Against the AI, I dealt to Russia straight after Poland. If you can get amongst them before they can ramp up their production you can make hay while the sun shines. Then stop before the Winter, concentrate you forces, upgrade and refit. Once the weather came right I had two fairly powerful mechanised armies. One set about and took Moscow while the other went hell for leather for Omsk which is lightly defended.

I concentrated on keeping my supply routes open using the otherwise pretty useless allies and some not bad Italian Mech Corps.

Turned out to be a breeze. The one thing is that the French remained quiet. I left Belgium and Holland alone to protect me flank. Silly Allies didn't declare war and come through them.

Defeating France thereafter was easy. But the red measles sprung up fairly quickly in Russia. And when the Yanks got going, their forces invaded in dribs and drabs so were easily defeated. But their Navy made things impossible and it turned into a war of attrition which I could not win before 1945.

I sort of thought, well by then they had the A Bomb so, even if it had have been the way it turned out, I'd been toast.

Russia isn't the problem. The bloody Ham Shanks are.

Hi Lynz, does this strategy still work on Max difficulty, (&GS) plus I would think that if you do knock the Russians out then you could wear down the Yanks eventually (since you would have a much bigger PP income than the Allies by then).

Assuming of course that you'd want to play the game after 1945 !