Well i played on realistic + and general difficulty. And this is a lot of text, lol. Spent like an hour writing this
First try i went with the soviet first aproach(played this mod twice before, aroun 1.3 and 1.6 or somthing like that, major victorys then to, but with the help of a lot of save scumming) manged to capture moscow and leningrad somewere in summer of 42 and the russian oilfields around late 43. defeated the russians in march of 44, to late to try to invade britain, and i had also lost tunisia. Once the normandy invasion started i got kinda tired of that run, since i coudent really defend against the allieds bombing campaign in germany and defend the rumanian oilfields.
So i restarted, and this time i tried to go sea lion in winter of 41, stared pulling troops back imediatly and only destroyed the russian airforce and the minsk pocket, then i set up a defensive perimeter along the riga, minsk,zhitomir and southern bug river, so as to not antagonize russia to much. so sealion went rather smooth in winter of 41, managed to take london somwhat quick, and managed to destroy the kiev pocket winter offensive. managed to take out the brithis home fleet with several uboats my surface ships and every strategic bomber i had. And once the fleet was destroyd i sent the two heavy cruisers and a few uboats to africa to try and destroy as many american transport ships before the reach the shore in operation torch.
that went so,so the uboats got cornerd by the american destroyers before the coud inflict any losses, but the destroyers and the heavy cruisers sunk a few transport ships. I managed to take britain at the winter 42/43, and then stared to transfer the troops from britain to restart my offensive in russia. But i lost tunissia again, made the misstake of not having any troops guarding tunisia and only one saharian infantry guarding the norther road betwen bone and tunisia, so an american infantry rushd to tunisia after destroying the saharian infasntry guarding the road, leaving my forces stranded in tunisia. managed to sink most of the sicily attack force with the italian fleet, but a few units managed to land and destroy my units guarding sicily. But my tiger tank guarded catania and managed to hold it against the two last remaning allied infantry in sicily, though i had to reaload the last save a few times for it to survive,(if i hadent save scummed i woud have lost sicily as well)
By the time of summer of 43 things were starting to loke dire again, the british islands were out, but i had lost tunisia, i hade managed to break thru at el alamain and captured jerusalem, and were rushing towards the british oilfields, but the russian bear was awakening and i were starting to have troubel holding the line at kiev konitop against all the russian tanks, and there was no way i were gonna be abel to take moscow. At this time i just dident feel like restarting again, since i dident wanna replay the starting moves again, but then i rememberd that i had a save right before the start of my invasion of britain, so i reloded that save and tried for the third time.
This time i woud invade britain and be a bit more agressive in russia, i woud try and take leningrad to make it harder for the russians to field new troops, and i woud advance to kursk karkov and stalino to set up a defensive peimeter there to make it easier to advance to the russian oilfields after i had taken britain and to try and knock out more tanks before there were to many to deal with.
i took britain at winter of 42 again, and leningrad fell somerewere in summer autum of 42 as well, and i had a defensive likne at the kursk stalino line. i sent the heavy crusiers and 6 ubots to north africa, but this time i set the uboats to the north south and east of the american invasion force, that way the dident get surronded bu the american detroyers and managed to sink more transports. i managed to hold tunisia this time and destroy many allied units, but i was starting to lose ground at kursk once again, to god damn many tanks. so i restarted again. fourth times the charm....right?
This time i read some tips on here, think from you uhu about invading sea lion and how to take moscow in 41(recon units are your friend) destroeyd the minsk pocket and broke thru at rezhev recon units managed to reach moscow before the rasputinan set in, and some infantry and tanks followed after clearing the infantry guarding the rezhev roads. took moscow in early december of 41, lost teh southern airport and part of moscow for a few turns before recapturing it. once i had moscow i set up a defensive line to the east and south of moscow and a defensive line around kursk, this time i woud hold kusrk damn it. and once i had the defensive line around moscow, kursk stalino set up, then i stared to transfer troops for a spring sea lion of 42, but i coudent send any ships to north africa since needed them to destroy the british homefleet. but the italian uboats and a destroyer managed to destroy all the transport ships attacking algiers.
sea lion went okay, managed to invade and take the southern parts, the russian line was holding, leningrad fell in summer 42, and i had like 5 or 6 focke wulf, i transferd all 3 of them from the western theater plus one bf 109 to north africa, my plan was to detroyed the american airforce there and as quickly as possible, and then transfer it back to suport operation sea lion. that went so so, managed to defeat operation torch, but still hadent ataken england by summer of 43, the allied were starting to get p-47 and a lot of bombers, and i had no air support over england, so it was starting to become a real slog over there. only had glasgow left to take, but i were unable to transport any artillery there to take it, caus as soon as i moved them with truck, they got destroyed by the allied bombers. And the fucking russian tank offensive of 43 were destroying my defensive line around kursk once again(the got so many units around kursk, that they managed to build defensive trenches around kursk while i was still holding kursk, lol), my tiger was surronded and about to be destroyed, had only taken one oil field, and the line around moscow was falling. this was a bust once again.
So, this time it was personal, i had spent way to much time with this game the last few weeks now, i woud accept nothing but a major victory, with minimal reloads. This time i went russia first once more, but this time i knew how to take moscow in 41. took it by december 9, lost the southern parts against a kv counter attack.destoyed the kiev pocket and once moscow fell most of my tanks and tank destroyers(had upgraded 5 at guns to panzerjagers) turnd south to try and clear all the tanks that was beeing built up east of the don river. took rostov in winter of 41(ignored sevastopol for now, left a few troops to guard the aproach) sent loads of mountain troops against the oilfields(the 2 paratroopers had already cleared voroshilvosk) sent some units to take volgoda and gorky. bu summer of 42 grozny was mine and all the tanks south east of stalingrad were destroyed and by early summer most of the units around tambov were destroyed as well. only a few tanks left further east near stalingrad.
all but 2 of my airplanes were focke wulfs, rommel had taken torbruk and was holding the line at mersa matrue against allied counter attacks. sunken like 8 or 9 transport ships in operation torch, and managed to destroy operation torch by august of 43(the had 3 artillery one tank 2 infatry and one tank destoyer left) and by auguste 11 (turn 53) i only had ulynask left to take, Russia defeated in summer of 43(Yey)
Now i coud focuse on britain, i started to transfer all my tanks to france, upgrade my 3 remaining panzer 3 to panthers, bought a ton of 88 to defend germany, and weakend the p 51 mustangs. rommel were allowed to restart his advance towards alexandria, and the moutaneers started advancing towards british controled iran, with 2 panzer 4 and a lot of artillery. My tiger and three panthers landed south of london by winter of 43. my surface fleet was strong, and i had 14 submarines guarding the invasion force
sea lion started strongthe british and american tanks were no match for my tiger and panthers, london fell quickly. And soon the whole of southern england was filled to the brim with panthers, stugs, infantry and loads of 88 and self propelld aa. (like a third of my sea lion force was aa units) and 9 focke wulf, 2 bf 109g, 3 bf 110 g, and one italian centauro. and lots of bombers and 3 stukas(though the bombers dident se much action, had a hard time shooting down the american fighters, even with all those planes and aa units), did manage to capture my first english victory point by may 8 or somthing like that, so just avoided the normandy invasion
. and once i had cleared southern england, the rest was a breeze. they coudent really stop me at that point. But the allied air force was a pain in the ass, real hard to shoot down, still took me to turn 97 before i had taken england(england fell at turn 92) and the middle east.the last victory point to fall was aleppo, at turn 97(coud have fallen at turn 96, destroyed the battleship renown at turn 96, and wanted to see if there was any flavor text for sinking the ship with winston churchill in it)
Majore vitory at last. only took five tries during a 2-3 week period, YEY.
I mean how big force you need to do a successful Sealion in 1941, and is is possible or even worth a try to do it if I want to capture Moscow in early 42 as well, and keep continiue a successful attack in Southern Russia in 1942-43 ?
.) Only took me like five tries and non stop playing for like two to four weeks. can´t remember how long i have played. Steam says almost 60 hours for the last two weeks at the least. Damn you mcguba, what kinda black magic did you use for this damn(good) mood, havent been abel to stop playing for the last few weeks. And now i see tiny airplanes and tanks when i close my eyes 