Slitherine

Since I just finished the '39 campaign on the playstation version of PG this weekend, you'd think I'd remember:

1. Renaming German forces with recognizable names is tough, but getting too attached to them and feeling loss when they get crushed is even tougher (Okay, Hans, Franz, and Strudel aren't the best names for your German tanks)

2. If you go full-bore into "the fog" with your best tank, you will get ambushed by infantry and be doomed to die on their next turn. This goes for tanks vs. Inf who are entrenched as well.

3. If you leave artillery or infantry "mounted" and on the frontline, they will be found and crushed. This goes for plane and sea transports being left unattended.

4. If you clear a city but fail to secure it, the opponent will fill it back up and you will have to send resources back to recover said town. This should also include AA and Artillery can't secure cities!

5. No matter how many times you look at a 4 losses vs. 5 losses matchup, it's never a good idea. See also #2 and #3 and KNOW it’s not a good idea

6. Weather sucks. Don’t buy a bunch of planes at the expense of slots and prestige, they just become high priced scouts

7. Save every now and then. Don’t waste 6+ hrs rolling through the 1st three battles and realize your set-up was bad in France…..so you restart…..with your last save on turn #1 in Poland.

Ahhhh….makes me remember the 1st time I played PG 15 years ago thinking “This game doesn’t look too hard”…..

patriot14 wrote: 4. If you clear a city but fail to secure it, the opponent will fill it back up and you will have to send resources back to recover said town. This should also include AA and Artillery can't secure cities!.

I´ve found that AA guns are quite effective defending cities against infantry. They can´t repulse a heavy assault but they could manage a single infantry or light vehicle attack.

Ryben wrote:

patriot14 wrote: 4. If you clear a city but fail to secure it, the opponent will fill it back up and you will have to send resources back to recover said town. This should also include AA and Artillery can't secure cities!.

I´ve found that AA guns are quite effective defending cities against infantry. They can´t repulse a heavy assault but they could manage a single infantry or light vehicle attack.

I think he means he forgot that artillery/ AAA cant "capture a city"
Which I often forgot in my own campaigns

patriot14 wrote:6. Weather sucks. Don’t buy a bunch of planes at the expense of slots and prestige, they just become high priced scouts

Ohhh, but I have to disagree. When the weather is fine, and your troops get massacred by enemy air superiority, you'll really wish you'd spent a little more on fighters. And even in bad weather, scouting is a task of no little importance.

6. Weather sucks. Don’t buy a bunch of planes at the expense of slots and prestige, they just become high priced scouts

Well, it's somewhat hard to even call your planes scouts in bad weather...

Well, okay, so my post seems to have taken a turn in a different direction than I thought it would. I actually thought some old PG gamers would have read it and said, “Oh yeah! And I did this and knew I shouldn’t have, or that and shouldn’t have”, but you didn’t. Instead it’s a post of my own reflection of my own failures now analyzed by others. I guess I could now write the “7 topics I should have remembered not to post on a gaming forum”. Anyway;

1. I was trying to point out you can’t capture cities with AA or Artillery, but they can defend a city. I’m really interested in seeing the 88 defend in the AT position.
2. I was frustrated about using the old “dominate the skies” rule and buying planes early, only to have it rain 60% of the time. Yes planes are a force, and yes planes can scout, but that doesn’t help in a 3 day downpour while you lack tanks and inf.
3. The whole frustration really stemmed from not saving enough, rule #1, and having to do all this again. But next time I won’t make the same mistakes…..maybe

I remember my first and most important lesson from PG. It was Poland, and I spent all my precious prestige on as many bad-ass units as I could afford. Which wasn't very many. And it didn't go too well. Watching a friend play the same campaign, he bought many and dirt-cheap units instead. PzIA, 12 prestige a pop. "But that unit's crap," I thought. Well, numbers and speed turned out to be just what was needed, and those expensive units could wait until I could afford them.