Slitherine

Hi,

I'm looking for tips for the Battle of Ebro scenario on Generalissimus difficulty.
So far I've tried it twice and after about 10 turns it's pretty much game over.

Problems:
* The Nationalist AI is too inept, huddling around La Fatarella and doing nothing (this is on Defend order)
* The AI drains prestige at breakneck speed, I lost 1000 prestige in just 4 turns (you only get 50 per turn due to difficulty level and 20 if you got the hero)
* +20% accuracy from the difficulty level makes enemy artillery very deadly
* Defending near the forward positions at the Ebro river leads to much suffering due to enemy artillery and air force
* Position at Flix is too exposed and thus untenable due to enemy artillery on the nearby hills and multiple hexes enemy can attack from
* Positions from Mora de Ebro to Rasquera get overrun in about 5 turns, enemy has a high concentration of artillery, recons and infantry there

During my first attempt I tried to hold the line near the river.
Got bombarded to smithereens by artillery and air force and was spread too thin to defend everything.
Suffered unsustainable casualties and had to call it there.

The second time around I abandoned the Nationalists to their fate and built a defensive line at the north and near the mountain passes.
Still, the drain of prestige was too great and I still suffered losses from the artillery and the air force.
Republicans broke through pretty much everywhere. I wish there was a way to tell AI to retreat from VH :/

Additional observations:
* My air force, together with the Italians was able to eventually neutralize the enemy air force
* The 2 northern positions are the most defensible
* Position at Asco could probably be defended with enough artillery on the nearby hills and some Italian infantry for close support

I'm thinking of taking a strike force north of Fayon and sweeping the enemy units and then coming behind them.
Problem is, I'm not sure that the AI will survive long enough and that I won't be attack in the back by yet another wave of Republican forces.

So, Panzer Generals, do you have any tips to beat this scenario?
.. or should I just wait until the patch when supposedly the devs are going to tune the difficulty of this scenario?
PS. Can't seem to attach an image :/ ... figured it out, looks like there are issues uploading PNG files

This scenario is definitely not for the faint of heart, doubly so for the highest difficulty setting (without external modifiers like Manstein +5 str). I can clear normal Ebro on Colonel just fine, but when I beat it on Generalissimus I definitely had to settle for minimum objectives and not full main and bonus objectives.

In future, yea probably this scenario will get toned down a bit, so more players can finish out the DLC with less of a struggle.

But until then, and for what I personally did on Generalissimus...

Go aggressive at start. I deployed everything I had, all Condor Legion and all my Italian CVT (aircraft and tanks) to the northern sector. Completely smash the lead Republican elements, and then sweep my way south forming huge encirclements as I went. This has the double effect of chopping down entire waves of Republican units wholesale, and also shoring up your prestige levels which is really low with this difficulty cutting out 80% of your income.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcIKFS-Ekf8

I attack as hard and fast as I can, to delete as many of those hill mounted artillery pieces that are bombarding the length of the Ebro. Sooner or later, I have to give up the offensive, because reinforcement waves are in danger of encircling me. But you can clear at least half the map of these static artillery positions before reinforcement waves become too problematic and you need to fall back and defend wherever they are launching new attacks towards.

To get your Nationalists in the rear to move forward, just set them to 'attacker' for the first few turns of the scenario. Once they are close enough to the Ebro itself, swapping them to Defender will buy you a ton of time while the Republicans try to force their way across the various points of the Ebro.

In the end, I completely swept the Northern half of the map clean. But I got overrun so badly in the South, the enemy starting driving up and took the deep mountain Victory Hex.

While they were doing that, I was more than able to maintain control of the Northern Clusters of VHes, and I even did some limited counterattacking to regain some of the central and lower Ebro Victory Hexes. Ended with 5/9 VH... which after patch should read 5/10.



I use few simple character traits too. Killer Team + Trophies of War.

Ingenious Kerensky! Thanks for that advice. I've been having a lot of trouble with this one, and I'm keen to try this early encirclement plan.

Thanks for your tips Kerensky.

I finally managed to do it. Took me 2 more attempts :/
In my 3rd attempt I split my forces in 2, one sweeping north from Fayon and one south from Benifallet, abandoning the center of the map to its fate.
While this worked well in the first few turns, soon my offensive ran out of steam and enemy reinforcements ground it to a halt.
The final nail in the coffin was when the Republican broke through the center and started running amok.

During my last attempt, I concentrated most of the armor in the north and placed 4 artillery pieces on the hills next to Asco.
The artillery and the 2 Italian infantry managed to grind down the enemy forces at Asco and eventually my armored fist came from behind closing the encirclement.
All the while I managed to hold on to the southern part of the river, with the Nationalists doing quite well near Benifallet.
However, during the last 5 turns the enemy reinforcements broke through the southern part.
I managed to hold on, but you can see in the screenshot that my forces are battered.
This mission cost me ~4000 prestige plus additional 2000 in the next scenario to bring everyone back up to full.
I got 5/9 VHs and I don't think it would've been possible for me to get all 9.

I really hope this scenario gets toned down. As it stands now I can't say that enjoyed playing it, I'm just glad it's over.