Slitherine

The latest updates make a 39 Blitz into the low countries a viable strategy now - tried it myself in one game and had it done to me in another. In the one where I am the victim the combination of the early Fall of Belgium and good weather spells an early doom for France.

please explain?

When dow on low countries they spawn lower value units making it relatively easy to take out Belgium and Holland in 39 even while taking out the Poles.

You mean a simultaneous DOW on both countries, don´t you?

If this is so (simultaneous DOW) my first thought is that is nearly impossible to take out Belgium in turn 1. So if you DOW Belgium on turn 1 but you don´t conquer it, the french army can be quickly railed to Belgium in allied turn 1 with fair chances to build a double defensive line there and avoiding the allied morale loss of the Belgium conquest in 1 turn.

Yes. It is fairly easy to invade both countries on turn 2 and by turn 3 a substantial attack with good prospects for success are there. Perhaps we could make the Netherlands and Belgium spawn full strength units in 39 to discourage the early Blitz and the reduced strength in 1940.

If you invade om turn 2 then you need to take Brussels on turn 2 (not turn 3) to get the efficiency loss of French and UK
forces. Are you getting the efficiency loss when Brussels surrender on turn 3? If so then it's a bug.

Remember that the reduced strength of the Belgian and Dutch forces is because the forces aren't fully mobilized. So if they were attackec in 1939 the surprise would have been the same.

Taking out Brussels in 1 turn is very hard because the Liege fortress is still intact.

I think it's ok that the Germans can do blitz. They will fight the Allies with no efficiency loss and mud will come soon. So they will deal with the Allied forces only having 2 fighters and 2 tac bombers. Britain will get a fighter and a mech and corps from Canada. To attack west om turn 2 means forces sent to the west before Poland surrenders. That means losses can be higher in Poland.

So it's not certain the Germans will benefit fro
Blitz.

Victim of another early BLitz. Belgium taken easily on turn one of offensive and Den Hague down to 1 step. This early in the game there is little the Allies can do. Another turn of good weather and they are into France - Paris will fall in February despite the weather as there just isn't time for a defensive line. So, I will expect a Sea Lion in Spring of 40 and the game will be essentially over.

Only replaying turns cheating could explain such a spectacular campaigns. We have discussed about it before but there´s nothing we can do about it since it is very easy to cheat in CEAW. May be in a near future when PBEM sliterine server can be also applied to CEAW GS we won´t see these things any more.

I don't think it is cheating. Given the weakness of the low countries if DOW'd together they are not difficult to take out in 1 turn. In my case, a 1 turn take out of Poland combined with good weather made it fairly simple.

A one turn conquest of Poland happens very rarely. Ronnie tried it out and found out it falls maybe in 5-10% of the tries. So a 2 turn conquest of Poland is more normal.

It's certainly possible to take out Belgium in 1 turn in 1939 if you send many units including air units to the west and pay quite a bit of money on overuse of rail capacity. Liege is an obstable because it's a fortress so you need to get units on Brussels via Holland.

I think only very good Axis players with some luck can take out Belgium in 1 turn in 1939. If it happens the the Axis still have to attack in France during mud and winter turns. Paris can fall earlier, but the Axis losses can be higher too.

We just can't prevent any possible alternative strategy. We have to tweak the balance if the alternative strategy becomes much more lucrative than the normal strategy. The fall of France stats using GS v2.01.22 show that there aren't that much difference from before we linked Belgium and Holland. We can't guard against the Axis player having luck.

Why not no morale loss and normal (2.0) low country forces in 39? The initial goal of the changes was to better simulate the real war but it seems to have the opposite effect. The lack of morale loss wouldn't really be to simulate better preparedness but rather a penalty for the Germans who, in reality, would have found it difficult to transfer an entire army and air arm in 20 days.

Another possibililty could be to make polish forces stronger so we can turn Lodz garrison into a corps unit. Poland has a really strong army in 1939 so no objections based in real OOB could be made. Additionaly, it could works to increase dutch garrison in Arhem from 5 to 7 steps: the germans will be still able to overrun these forces in 1940 and we would make it a little bit harder for the players that use this strategy so it will depend even more on the luck for this rapid campaigns to succeed.

I think there are two things combining here:

one is the weather, if you get all fair or -1 all fair in 39 then its doom for the western Allies and its horrible to be on the end of

Poland in one turn is relatively common, I have now achieved it twice (although thats probably 10%) but I think its easier than when Ronnie tested it.

Also Poland is an issue, I think we need to make Polish units weaker i.e. more GAR's but have 1 more to stop a one turn Polish fall.

The other issue is that in our current balance Polish forces can really hurt the Axis on turn two.

I would prefer a situation where two turns are required to take Polandm but where teh Axis don;t lose too many steps.

richardsd wrote:Poland in one turn is relatively common, I have now achieved it twice (although thats probably 10%) but I think its easier than when Ronnie tested it.

If I get the time I can run the numbers again but I'd be surprise if they're higher than 10%. I've probably ran 100 hotseat tests and several of them have been close but I'd say 1 in 10 (10%) to 1 in 20 (5%) result in a 1-turn conquest.

I think it will be higher, when I tested it it was something like 30-40% based on gut feel if the first attack works - i.e. gets the retreat from the 5-1 inf attack

now I didn't record the odds to check, but gut feel made me use the opening, and its easy to modify if the first attack fails

richardsd wrote:I think it will be higher, when I tested it it was something like 30-40% based on gut feel if the first attack works - i.e. gets the retreat from the 5-1 inf attack

now I didn't record the odds to check, but gut feel made me use the opening, and its easy to modify if the first attack fails

Interesting! If you can achieve a 30 to 40% 1-turn knock out of Poland I'd sure like to know your attack sequence. Because using the one I tested with (see viewtopic.php?p=185183#185183), I could only achieve about a 7% 1-turn success rate.

This would be interesting indeed as I never got lucky enough to take out Poland in one turn yet, neither in Hot Seat tests nor in any of my games. I do not think that we should change the Poland/Fall Gelb OOB. As the opening phase of GS is already quite similar each time, so I think its important that with luck/skill there are alternative opening moves.

I also do not think that the game is over for the Allies, if they loose France early. The Allied player could prepare for Operation Sealion and not sent any British forces to France. Of course Sealion cannot be stopped if the Axis player is committed and does not any significant mistakes, but the game is far from lost, even with a succesful Sealion.

the issue is that with the right weather combination you can do Sealion with next to no impact on Barbarossa

French out early, Italy in Early and the UK just doesn't have enough PP's or manpower

does anyone now what the weather odds are for a near clear run in 39?

Ronnie - look at Supermax's AAR against Morris for the sequence