Blitzkrieg 1939-40

[kondi754]

The game is much more difficult than vanilla campaigns and it is much more important to choose the proper units, but I have to admit that I am very pleased again.
You did a good job Erik.
I play Lodz scn now.

[Horst]

Heinrich Ehrler and Fritz Fliegel are two new German air commanders that can be used in any German campaign. They were mainly stationed in Norway during the war, so a good opportunity to get them there also.
But I guess we are rather looking for more tank aces that hopefully come with Heavy Steel.

[kondi754]

Lodz scn accomplished.
I wonder how the battle of Kursk will look.

Each scn takes an awful lot of time, so going through the whole GC will probably take months.

[Horst]

Yep, this campaign will indeed keep you busy.
The danger in Lodz is that if you push too quickly forward then Polish troops can fall in your back or isolate units like the WSS units. Sticking many units together and most importantly guarding the paved roads for your supply lines is always important. Paved roads allow very far moves even for infantry units. Guarding your own cities is also important, so you shouldn't use all units for attacks there.
Keeping some distance to the Lodz city is recommended to stay out of AI arty-range. You can cut-off the AI in the city region from supply, but be prepared that the AI has a unique coded behavior that seem to cancel all scenario AI behaviors to reestablish supply lines.
It's a really good scenario from the GC although it looks so simple at first.

[kondi754]

Yep, this campaign will indeed keep you busy.
The danger in Lodz is that if you push too quickly forward then Polish troops can fall in your back or isolate units like the WSS units. Sticking many units together and most importantly guarding the paved roads for your supply lines is always important. Paved roads allow very far moves even for infantry units. Guarding your own cities is also important, so you shouldn't use all units for attacks there.
Keeping some distance to the Lodz city is recommended to stay out of AI arty-range. You can cut-off the AI in the city region from supply, but be prepared that the AI has a unique coded behavior that seem to cancel all scenario AI behaviors to reestablish supply lines.
It's a really good scenario from the GC although it looks so simple at first.

A lot of good advices, not good you write them as I have finished playing.
Frightful Piatek is the next scenario.

[Horst]

Piatek: there was no real attack coming on the far right side, so you can almost neglect any defense there. The main (tank) attack is on the left side, so you need your best defenders around the city there and especially more than one artillery gun.
It's a tricky scenario that can get out of control quickly. Good luck!

[WarHomer]

Erik, you dont need more commanders as rewards for the secondary objectives. Couldn´t it just be an extra unit (not too many though) or a little prestige (us on the hardest diff we could surely use it).

[Erik2]

In Sea Lion I have used a few Waffen SS units as rewards in scenarios.
Maybe I'll add something similar in the Blitzkrieg campaigns.

[kondi754]

Horts wrote:
Can't hurt to get a second Bf 109 for 5Piatek later, especially if you want to survive the bonus scenario Brest later versus the Soviets with plenty planes. I even purchased an Sdkfz 7/1 for that scenario, but Erik toned down the difficulty there after I messed through it, so it's possibly easier now.

In fact, I withdrew 1 Ju 87 after 4 rounds and bought the brand new Bf 109.

[Horst]

The AI generally withdraws own aircrafts if it detects air superiority and let the planes lurk in the fog until your planes require to refuel. This is sometimes ridiculous to watch. I've already noticed a couple of times how AI planes squeeze on the map edges trying to escape to the next scenario map, as it seems.
The long frontier in Piatek possibly welcomes plenty light instead of few heavy arty guns either. The key there is not to attack/destroy the enemy but to keep the enemy efficiency low that you get the offensive to stall. The AI behavior seems often failing in sitting still to recover efficiency fully. It rather has to rush around all the time while reinforcing. War is all about exploiting the enemy's weakness.

[rwm59]

Campaign link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/168 ... g39-41.zip[/quote]

hello, this link is broken. Can you help to find it elsewhere?
sorry I am new of this forum / game...
tnx
Ric

[Horst]

RWM, you almost hit the right topic there close to "Announce your Custom Scenarios here". Campaign DL links are found in the "Custom Campaigns" topic of the scenario forum.

[kondi754]

Screenshots of the defense of the Bzura River in front of the Polish armies Poznan and Pomorze.

[kondi754]

Piatek scn accomplished.
I must admit that it was a considerable intellectual effort.
Erik, once again, your GC is sensational!

[Erik2]

I tend to update campaigns and scenarios fairly often.
It always pays to check the scenario forum stickies where the latest versions are found.
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=374

Blitzkrieg 39-40 can be found here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/168 ... 40_4.3.zip

[kondi754]

Kampinoska finished.
Only Minor Win because don't like fighting in the forest, where there are many hidden enemy units and I already have that Luftwaffe commander.
I tried to win as quickly as possible, with the lowest possible losses.

[Horst]

Kampinoska: the trains move quite quickly out of the forest when the player units come close. I rather move along the bottom of the map and cut-off the railway line at first.

[kondi754]

Kampinoska: the trains move quite quickly out of the forest when the player units come close. I rather move along the bottom of the map and cut-off the railway line at first.

@Horst
You have not commented yet MY TRIUMPH in Piatek scn.

[Horst]

Piatek: what I see on your screenshots is that the AI cheats again by scouting into the fog-of-war. Trust me, I've played twice that scenario and every time no AI unit bothered about the victory flags on the right side. I had positioned the aux units on the road there in front of the two bridges below the hill, but not a single unit showed up in both sessions.
I guess the AI moves are coded that way that to spy if direct paths to victory locations are clear or not. I've noticed such behavior a dozen times before if I move a unit out of a town, like on the Lodz or the Winter War's Suomussalmi map, that the AI magically detects that many hexes away without recon to move its units in then. Doh!
Still a good job on fending that swarm off there, kondi!

[kondi754]

Piatek: what I see on your screenshots is that the AI cheats again by scouting into the fog-of-war. Trust me, I've played twice that scenario and every time no AI unit bothered about the victory flags on the right side. I had positioned the aux units on the road there in front of the two bridges below the hill, but not a single unit showed up in both sessions.
I guess the AI moves are coded that way that to spy if direct paths to victory locations are clear or not. I've noticed such behavior a dozen times before if I move a unit out of a town, like on the Lodz or the Winter War's Suomussalmi map, that the AI magically detects that many hexes away without recon to move its units in then. Doh!
Still a good job on fending that swarm off there, kondi!

In contrast to your words, enemy forces have made the most progress on the right wing during my gameplay.
So do you think the AI is cheating us?