Realistic+ (2 minus fuel/turn and exp of fighters got loosing from 43), manual calculated Rommel difficulty (prestige halfed with cheat) and Dice Chess (also possible with cheat).
With earlier versions it was possible - while only in the last turn! - to capture everything and make a Decisive victory. Vith v2.0 it will never ever happen such achivement! There is absolute no possibility to hold Sicily, therefore a new, south front will be opened. It is also impossible to capture one of the British major city before D-day (earlier capturing Plymouth could do this). So from now on, you can hope for a Minor victory as maximum. Again, on Rommel diff. it is absolute hard, so I many time reloaded even after 20 turns. I made mistakes: I tried to capture the Caucasus oil fields, which at this stage of war have no use. I also tried to invade England from the north, but it could not be done. While this hampered my efforts to crush the Soviet Union significantly. So I cancelled both operations.
My major decision was to give up Italy at all: I guarded the exit points at Fiume, where I could hold with just a few inf units and a 75mm arty (later boosted with another 3-range arty and small AA's). The other exit point at South France was even less attacked, only at the last 10 turns heated it up with Operation Anvill, but than it got real hard. Also a few units crawled through the Alps and appeared at Munich and Lyon which made problems for me, but it could be contained. My other general decision was from me, that I sent most AA units to Western Europe to counter the Allied Air Terror, while most of my air force was used in Russia - except some real though units with a lots of heroes. From 1944 the exp loss of my air units (3xp/turn, 5/turn in 1945!) got so critical, that I already the Soviet airforce got me on my neck. I could only hope, that when I finish Stalin, all combat units will disappear.
Back in the time: after I could destroy the Kursk salient (where I collected a lot of prestige by capturing units - this was my only chance to get some extra prestige, beside the scarce Rommel diff-halfed income), I turned my attention to Leningrad, while desperately holding the line in the middle at Vyazma. I mastered most of my arty to Leningrad, so I could capture it realitve fast and collect again another bag of prestige from the capturements. In the meantime I collected all my naval units and made a suicide but important ride to the convoy routes. I could collect many prestige and destroy a lot of destroyers, but they never disappeared and after the extra Allied waships appeared, the battle was over. Still as a wunder, I could save one of my heavy cruiser and one of my light cruiser unit and bring them to Western France! They were very useful assets later, when they destroyed many landing crafts, which tried to invade from the Brest-Lorient direction.
I carefully built up my Normandy defense forces: they were relative small, but effective. Many AA units were a must, than the extra apperating units and some arty, which had to brought back from Russia. I wanted to bring as many recons as possible to use them for capturing landed Allied units without staying on the endangered beach hexes. This could be done partly some turns later, which was not good. Still this strategy was mostly useful, that I captured many landed invasion forces and containing them on the Cotentin peninsula. Then, at last I could take Astrakhan, than Archangelsk, so the war in the east ended. I tried to transfer my units back to Europe, but it took a lot of time. Also my airforce was in ashes...the once proud 200+ exp units were maximal over 100, but many times below that...thanks for the continuing exp losses.
My plan was to recapture Italy. It was just partly successful: I mismanaged my defens at the Rhone valley, so I lost several key units there. I started another offensive from Montpelliere to the east but it was not an easy task. Still I succeed, which made a huge encirclement of the Allied units in the Rhone valley. Plus opened up the mostly undefended Italian mainland. But time was almost over... Also I started another offensive from the Fiume base with many strong armor units and arty. Now I faced the battleneck region between the Alps and the See...I could still got through, but as mentioned, the time was almost over. In the las turn, I could recapture Northern Italy and Rome.
Summary: with v2.0 the Kursk Save scenario got much-much harder! No more decisive victory, just hoping to crush the Soviets and survive against the Anglo-Saxons. After I realized this, I was happy with the endresults. This save is not as frustrating as the Bagration/Normandy Save, where you can hear 10 minutes long just the roaming engine sounds of the Allied airforce... But you get already the taste from it. So nice work again, McGuba!
(Now I try to make a decisive victory at least with the Stalingrad Save...it is also not an easy task, I have to say...
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