Slitherine

How are people finding this campaign?

I gotta say I'm not the biggest fan of it, it's frustrating in many ways, and glitchy as well looks like. The start is difficult which is to be expected, and the early units are crap, especially air units and infantry, but at least I have enough prestige on Zhukov to perform well.

The scenario design however is what annoys me, it's a bit all over the place. I just played Kharkov 2 and didn't get a Triumph despite clearing the entire map of units including the edges and taking every single city/airfield, because the game spawned some more units in at the end and get this... in the very last turn (18/18) the mission objectives changed from taking Kharkov to now capturing Kupyansk. Well, that city is across the river and I can't do it within the very last turn, is that a bug? Surely mission objectives should have changed sooner. If I had known that Kupyansk is important I would have kept a force there and no problem.

One possible explanation for this is the devs perhaps wanted me to bring the Commissar bridge infantry unit to Kharkov sooner, maybe I brought him to Kharkov too late, despite capturing it earlier. If so, it's an oversight on the map design part, there was no clear instruction to bring Commissar to Kharkov. So I suppose the devs wanted this scenario to feel intense as the units start encircling you from all sides, but since I cleared the sides and edges first where units just stood there doing mostly nothing I was never under any pressure and the few units they spawned in hardly feel a real threat.

But overall, I am not a fan of spawning units in. Many of these scenarios feel weird to play, most of the German units just stand there doing nothing and just wait for me to kill them. Sorry to say that I am not enjoying the Soviet campaign. It's a struggle to keep up with the instructions, devs obviously want you to play them out in a specific way, but no clear instructions or hints like in the GC means I don't know which type of units I need to deploy, and whether the game will spawn some more units to help me out at some point, like with the 2 Hurricanes in an earlier map.

MaxDoge wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2021 5:02 pm One possible explanation for this is the devs perhaps wanted me to bring the Commissar bridge infantry unit to Kharkov sooner, maybe I brought him to Kharkov too late, despite capturing it earlier. If so, it's an oversight on the map design part, there was no clear instruction to bring Commissar to Kharkov. So I suppose the devs wanted this scenario to feel intense as the units start encircling you from all sides, but since I cleared the sides and edges first where units just stood there doing mostly nothing I was never under any pressure and the few units they spawned in hardly feel a real threat.

Ok, so this seems to be correct, I was apparently expected to bring the Commissar to Kharkov earlier, luckily I had a save from a few turns ago just in case of weird things like that. I got the Triumph by playing out the last few turns differently, which is good because Stalin would be very displeased with me if Commissar failed there with his "special mission" whatever that was

Ok, maybe I spoke too soon. The open Caucasus scenario was really fun to play, repeatedly smashing German armor was really satisfying The scenario where you have to capture a tiger tank was good as well. Then Stalingrad came next and I dreading playing another big city map, but surprisingly it was the opposite of what I expected, the constantly shrinking map was pretty fun and the scenario was pretty easy for a change.

Needless to say, I will be continuing the campaign

It could be related to the German counterattack and to make sure you hold the line (in June 42)?

I worked it out like I mentioned above. It's a bit confusing and clunky, the counter attack seems timed per turn but the objective change only happens once you get the special bridging infantry to BOTH of the "B" victory hexes, there should be more clarification about that besides the "make sure the Commissar can complete his mission".

In another scenario where you have to save a few paratroopers from encirclement, found the objectives to be a bit clunky there as well, luckily I save to prevent these issues but I tried extracting the paras out of the map and this has failed my mission. They need to stay on the map to get the Triumph victory.

Now playing Operation Uranus where you pincer and encircle the 6th Army in Stalingrad. Brilliant scenario design, the map expands as you capture victory hexes from both sides.

Lmao, this campaign continues to troll me. Missed out on a Triumph victory again at Operation Uranus because I didn't read the fine print "Capture all objectives in 15 turns", despite having 18 turns available. I was taking a more cautious approach thinking I had time for it Have to redo the scenario completely or Stalin will have my head, never had these issues on GC Rommel.

Misreading the briefings has caused me a lot of frustration in all sorts of missions. Even though I know it's important, I get distracted, forget or just make a mistake.

Hopefully you can get the Triumph when you do follow the instructions (it doesn't always work out for me)

I actually really enjoyed playing the Soviet pieces and thought the campaign was quite good, even if very linear. The only truly disappointing scenario is Manchuria. Terrible ending to the game.

A little update on the campaign, I'm at the battle for Romania and really love it so far despite the rough start. Every scenario feels uniquely different and there is a twist to it, for this one it looks like I'm going to force Romania to switch sides and then I will have to use only them to capture the remaining objectives, that would be a first!

Great job by the devs.