Is it possible for the Axis to win?

Batavian1 · Post by **Batavian1** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 2:17 pm

Seems every AAR with the latest version ends the same way. Allies steamroll the Axis. Is there any way the Axis can win, other than playing the AI or an inexperienced human?

rkr1958 · Post by **rkr1958** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 2:20 pm

Moved -- This topic belongs in the general and not AAR section.

Plaid · Post by **Plaid** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 3:08 pm

Zechi resently won me with axis 2 times in a row.

I myself also had well not victory, but stalemate, with axis.

Kragdob · Post by **Kragdob** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 7:00 pm

Batavian wrote:Seems every AAR with the latest version ends the same way. Allies steamroll the Axis. Is there any way the Axis can win, other than playing the AI or an inexperienced human?

I posted the same post a month ago.

Those who plays says that you have ~33% chance of winning with Axis if both Players are equal.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sun Oct 02, 2011 7:52 pm

Kragdob wrote:
Batavian wrote:Seems every AAR with the latest version ends the same way. Allies steamroll the Axis. Is there any way the Axis can win, other than playing the AI or an inexperienced human?
I posted the same post a month ago. Those who plays says that you have ~33% chance of winning with Axis if both Players are equal.

I would increase that chance to 40-45%. Axis player has to do really well to win the game. With the new victory conditions I would say that the game is well balanced between same level players but the axis player cannot make any major mistake. So it is not a question of the allies/russians being stronger than the axis (in real WW2 it was so) but a question of playing well with the axis with an appropriate strategy. You have to carefully plan all your moves and strategies to avoid unnecessary (and irreplaceable) german losses. Allies are allowed to make more mistakes and they have a significantly superior war production so their losses are replaceable in many cases. But, on the other hand, allies have to fight against time: so it is not only they do the things well but they also have to the things in time.

Batavian1 · Post by **Batavian1** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 2:38 pm

I can't refer to many of the AAR's as they are still in progress. So I'll just say that for the last 10 AAR's since June, the results are:

too early
Axis losing
Axis loss
Axis losing
Axis losing
Axis loss
Axis loss
Axis losing
Axis losing
maybe draw (I'm being kind)

Several of these games appear to be abandoned, for various reasons, but probably because it would be pointless to continue as the result would be an Axis loss.

If it's true as Plaid mentioned, that Zechi won as Axis 2 in row, it would be nice to see those AAR's so others could learn. But I understand its a lot of time to post AAR's. All the AAR's are very interesting.

I'd be curious if any feel different about this observation.

gchristie · Post by **gchristie** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 2:50 pm

Having never won as axis by email in previous versions of GS, one might expect me to say "no." But I did have one game where my opponent claimed that the allies could not lose and after I captured the UK, destroyed the British air and naval forces and launched a strong Barbarossa, he resigned. As Maxwell Smart used to say, "missed it by thaaaat much!"

So, either I'm a glutton for punishment, or I think I can win as Axis 'cause I've come close and if I learn from my mistakes (and the AARs and other helpful posts here).

My inclination is to blame my loses on where I'm at on the learning curve, rather than the game being imbalanced and if others can win as Axis, than so can I. I think ver 2.0 is a step in the right direction for making it more possible for me to win in Axis, the rest is up to me.

Hats off to the devs of GS!

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 2:57 pm

You can't make statistics based upon those AAR's. Several of them were with Morris as the Allies and he exploited a possibility in the game rules to get the upper hand. Those exploits are no longer possible. It's better to look at the latest game between Supermax and Morris using the latest rules.

In some games the Allied player is clearly better than the Axis player so no wonder why the Axis is struggling there.

Many ongoing games aren't even reported. E. g. Pionurpo seems to win against Leridiano with his Axis. I'm also playing against Pionurpo with the Axis and we're in Spring 1943 with my Axis staying in Petrozavodsk, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Batumi and Grozny. I've absorbed most of the Russian offensive during the 1943 winter and will be on equal terms in 1943 in Russia. The Allies are about to land in Sicily, but the Italians are defending in force. So he will really struggle to get to Berlin before May 1945.

We're using the same rules and the same Allied player. Still the result is so different. Don't you think that's because of the Axis player more than the game bias? I agree with Leridano that the Axis will be punished if they make big mistakes. I haven't done that in my game against Pionurpo and are on track to win the game. If I mess up I can still lose, but if I make sound moves every turn I hope to get a nice victory by holding Berlin and maybe even Paris or Rome.

In my other Axis games I've had the same progress in Russia.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 3:05 pm

I think the Allied player can't afford to be too passive in GS v2.1 or he won't make it to Berlin in time. He has to save the Russian army so he can grind down German units ther from 1943 and beyond every turn. The western Allies need to get ashore on the continent in 1943 and 1944 they have to rush towards Berlin. Failing to do so will make the job easy for the Germans to defend well.

In my game against Pionurpo I have maybe 700 oil left so I don't have to worry about upgrades etc. The Luftwaffe is a max tech for dogfight and close air support and can really hurt the Alllies. The armor is now panthers and mechs are good too. I focus on antitank and tank destroyer so the Russian armor will really lose steps when attacking my units. That means the Russians will rely upon mechs and those are easily killed by German armor unless the Russians also focus on antitank.

I don't get to this position from nowhere. I captured the Maikop and Grozny oilfields. I focused on industry to increase production from the synth oil plants. Industry tech 4 = production 2 from each plant. Industry tech 6 = production 3 from each plant. Since each production produces 4 oil it means I get 8 extra oil per turn at tech 4 and 16 extra oil per turn at tech 6. The Allies can reduce that by bombarding the plants, but Me 262's can hurt the bombers hard.

So with no oil problems for the rest of the game I can afford to build many armor and mech units to kick out the Allies from France and Italy.

The bottom line is that you need ot have a solid plan with the Axis and then the end game can be good for them.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 3:12 pm

I think most players lose with the Axis because they're too aggressive and greedy. I follow a rule of thumb where I don't attack unless I can destroy the unit or I need to weaken it to grab a city I want to take. I advance to a good defensive line (rivers etc.) and dig-in there. So I only spend oil for a reason. I don't attack if I get a risk of losing more than 2 steps unless it's absolutely necessary.

The key to German victory is not to gain a lot of ground by moving, but to kill Russian and Allied units if you can. If you kill enough units then they have to retreat and you gain the ground anyway. If you try to break your way through the double defense line you lose a lot of steps and maybe units.

The single worst mistake you can do with the Germans is to attack for too long in Russia in 1941. You need to get to your main defense line there by September 1941 and use October to dig-in. I usually only attack in Russia in October to get the last few hexes in the main line or capture important cities. If I fail to get where I want I retreat back to the other defense line and dig-in there. The goal is to get the efficiency as far up as possible before the severe winter hits.

If you attack in every fair weather turn then you might get down to 50-60 efficiency before the severe winter and then you drop to maybe 30-40 when the winter hits. If that happens the Russians can really cripple the Germans with their offensive. If that happens you don't have enough strength in 1942 to kill enough Russian units and that means the Russia 1942 winter offensive will break the Germans.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 3:17 pm

So being a bit less greedy in 1941 really helps the Axis long term.

I also see Axis players trying for too much. E. g. they go for Sealion, Gibraltar and the Middle East. They even succeed with these offensives, but since Barbarossa 1941 was not strong it means the Russians will roll over them.

A good Axis player can get away with doing one of Sealion, Gibraltar and Middle East and still have a strong Barbarossa. Look at Supermax. He didn't go for Sealion or Egypt with his Germans. He took Gibraltar and then builds all he can for Barbarossa. He knows Russia is the most dangerous opponent and will be in a position to get Moscow and Rostov in 1941. Then he has every chance to win the game. If he had gone for Middle East then his Barbarossa would have been too weak and Morris would have punished him in Russia.

So you need to know what you're capable of with the Axis and not try for more. Balancing out the forces between Russia, Med and west is very important to have a chance to win as the Axis. If you focus too much on one of the fronts you risk losing on the others.

Kragdob · Post by **Kragdob** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:52 pm

I agree with the above completely. But as always I have my 'but's....

If you Play with as experienced Allied Player as Axis above you can also expect very good results:
=> skilfull landing in Italy in 1941 or even earlier
=> defense in Russia the way that you do not overinvest in defense and know when to be aggresive and how much forces it takes to attack Germans
=> Allied invasion in Europe VERY early.
etc.
etc.

Doesn't it, with skillful Allied Player, push Germans to the point when they can no longer defend Soviets effectively even in 1942/1943?

I agree with the point that all the AARs (most of them) show Axis losing the game much earlier than in 1945 this is why I'm waiting for at least one with decisive Axis victory over equally experienced players.

What struck me in both AARs with Morris as Allies is that Axis sounded very optimistic and looked very good prepared in 1941 and than suddenly all collapsed as early as in 1941! Current AAR doesn't look any different now. I hope it will be as I'd like to see all that you wrote above.

P.S.: I still think that naval landing are too easy in this game. If you look at the history there were much less naval operations that (skillful) GS players do. Right now you can just jump into water, cross whole ocean and land in Sicily with Americans...

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:08 pm

The problem for Supermax was that Morris exploited 2 rules.

One was a setup logical issue about the number of Russian guards units in 1941. We had set the limit to 6 to allow for 2 that can be promoted and the 4 you get as shock troops in October. The problem was that Morris purchased the guards before October and therefore ended up with 10 guards units in 1941. We fixed that by setting the limit in 1941 to just 2.

The other was that Morris was min/maxing his techs. E. g. he only focused on air (bomber focus) and armor with USA, infantry and air (dogfight focus) with UK and infantry and armor with USSR. Then he could build just the units needed for his blobs and get up the tech very fast. We fixed that by adding a rule that you can only build 2 labs in an area freely. For the first 3rd lab you need to have at least 1 lab in 3 other areas. For the second 3rd lab you need to have at least 2 labs in 3 other areas or at least 1 lab in all 4 other areas.

With that change you need to have 9 labs in total to get 2 level 3 labs. Before you could do it with just 6 labs. The change is about 240 extra PP's per country spent on labs. That's a huge difference in 1941. It means Morris could build 3 extra armor units for the PP's saved on labs.

Morris also sacrificed UK to crippled the Germans before Barbarossa. Now this is far less lucrative since you get punished if losing Britain and the Royal Navy (convoy size dependent upon number of Atlantic escorts). Max efficiency for UK unit drop if too few units in Britain.

We also prohibited UK from sending the RAF to Russia. E. g. Morris sent 4+ RAF fighters to Russia in 1941 to fight the Luftwaffe. That's more than doubling the the Allied fighters in Russia.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:15 pm

So building with the Allies as a common country and specializing in different areas meant that Morris was able to be on par tech wise with the Germans in 1941. That's not historical and a major game exploit. We hope to have closed that loophole now and therefore I think you will see a completely different game.

99% of the players don't find such loopholes so the problem was not huge, but as long as it existed then more and more players would have adopted it.

Many of the AAR's are beta games where the players are testing different things. They try out strategies they wouldn't have selected if they were fighting in a tournament, but they do it to get valuable feedback data about what-if scenarios. Most of the times these strategies aren't good and the player trying it out is punished and loses the game. At least we then learn than such a strategy is not a good idea.

So we shouldn't read too much into the AAR's.

I actually think the Axis is slightly ahead balance wise in the hands of an elite player. It's a nightmare for the Allies to kill Axis units late game with good techs in the key areas. If you send a tac bomber against a German armor and lose 3 bomber steps and don't even hit the armor then it's frustrating. When the Russian armor units get odds like 2:7 against German armor it's not fun either. This s the scenario in 1944 if the Germans have saved enough oil and built labs as early as possible.

Kragdob · Post by **Kragdob** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:19 pm

Stauffenberg wrote:One was a setup logical issue about the number of Russian guards units in 1941. We had set the limit to 6 to allow for 2 that can be promoted and the 4 you get as shock troops in October. The problem was that Morris purchased the guards before October and therefore ended up with 10 guards units in 1941. We fixed that by setting the limit in 1941 to just 2.

I agree this was the exploit. Still 6 guards + 4 ultra strong shock units in USSR in 1941 is a bit too strong for me. In history you haven't seen such force in USSR till 1943. Soviet Armored armies were no match to German Panzer Corps till very late in the game (Warsaw 1944, Hungary 1944/1945, Budziszyn 1945).

Stauffenberg wrote:The other was that Morris was min/maxing his techs. E. g. he only focused on air (bomber focus) and armor with USA, infantry and air (dogfight focus) with UK and infantry and armor with USSR. Then he could build just the units needed for his blobs and get up the tech very fast. We fixed that by adding a rule that you can only build 2 labs in an area freely. For the first 3rd lab you need to have at least 1 lab in 3 other areas. For the second 3rd lab you need to have at least 2 labs in 3 other areas or at least 1 lab in all 4 other areas.

I do not see an issue in specialization. For me UK and USA should share PP and research pool (the same way they share oil).

Stauffenberg wrote:With that change you need to have 9 labs in total to get 2 level 3 labs. Before you could do it with just 6 labs. The change is about 240 extra PP's per country spent on labs. That's a huge difference in 1941. It means Morris could build 3 extra armor units for the PP's saved on labs.

I agree with this change though.

Stauffenberg wrote:Morris also sacrificed UK to crippled the Germans before Barbarossa. Now this is far less lucrative since you get punished if losing Britain and the Royal Navy (convoy size dependent upon number of Atlantic escorts). Max efficiency for UK unit drop if too few units in Britain.

We also prohibited UK from sending the RAF to Russia. E. g. Morris sent 4+ RAF fighters to Russia in 1941 to fight the Luftwaffe. That's more than doubling the the Allied fighters in Russia.

Agree but, I think you should not 'prohibit' but make it highly risky for UK to send such force to USSR. I think fall of UK should be desastrous for Allies - even after recent changes it is just painfull, but when US enters the war you can still win (not to mention how Sealion effort can harm Axis).

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:53 pm

The rule now is that you can have 2 (not 6) guards units in 1941. Then the 4 shock armies arrive so the new total is 6 and not 2.

I don't agree that the Soviet armor were no match against the Germans until very late in the war. The T34 tanks were better late 1941 than any German tank at the moment and they gave the Germans a helluva beating during the winter offensive.

The Russian tanks won the battle of Kursk against the panthers and tigers in July 1943 and so on. The British can fly missions into Russia, but not be based there. Stalin was paranoid against having Allied soldiers on his territory.

The point is to make a balanced game where the players who win aren't the ones who are best at finding game engine exploits. You should win because you followed the best strategy.

Kragdob · Post by **Kragdob** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 7:17 pm

Stauffenberg wrote:The rule now is that you can have 2 (not 6) guards units in 1941. Then the 4 shock armies arrive so the new total is 6 and not 2.

Right. Still more powerfull than everything Soviets had at that time. I can agree with that though - see below.

Stauffenberg wrote:I don't agree that the Soviet armor were no match against the Germans until very late in the war. The T34 tanks were better late 1941 than any German tank at the moment and they gave the Germans a helluva beating during the winter offensive.

T-34 as construction yes, but organization was so inferior that Soviet units were no match to Germans even when they were outnumbered. Best example battle of Smolensk where Germans were outnumbered in number of tanks and any other type of units (maybe except air) and yet they broke through Soviet lines. Took Smolensk and managed to defend against totally uncoordinated counterattacks of Soviets armored and mechanized corps.

Later Soviets improved organization but Germans grew even more in weaponry. This is best summarized by the fact that German armors were ordered to avoid direct combat with Soviet tanks as late as in February 1945 when IS2 (or IS1 - I don't remember) was introduced by Soviets and only then such fights resulted in considerable casualties.

Stauffenberg wrote:The Russian tanks won the battle of Kursk against the panthers and tigers in July 1943 and so on. The British can fly missions into Russia, but not be based there. Stalin was paranoid against having Allied soldiers on his territory.

Battle of Kursk was actually won by Germans

This is vast topic but can be summarized by the fact that Hitler ordered to stop the offensive when both Soviet fronts was on the verge of collapse. This was especially visible at Prokhorovka (no mythical panzer battle took place) when 3 German SS Armored faced last Soviet defensive line: ~50 tanks - what was left of 5th Guards Army. Germans wouldn't have a breakthrough anyway as Soviets had another front in reserve. If offensive was continued the bulge would have probably be eliminated but not major breakthrough would be achieved. Separate question is German ability to hold agains Soviet counteroffensive at Orel etc.,etc.

I'm not criticizing you guys at all. GS is still the best simulation of WWII I found and become my favorite. The problem is that it is very hard to simulate as there were so many mistakes, especially on the East, that Players are not going to make. Good example is Moscow where weak Germans escaped to towns and were encircled by even weaker Soviets. You'd probably need to drop German effectiveness to 0 to show that in the Game.

I think the changes you make are going in right direction and the only two things that hit me hard right now are unrealistic naval landing rules and weakness of German armors in defense (they should be much more expensive as well).

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 8:35 pm

What we have to think about is what happened in the real war and what's possible with the game engine. E. g. recreating the Russian 1941 winter offensive is quite hard without the arrival of the Soviet shock armies and the Siberian reserves. These units virtually saved Moscow.

So the Russians need to have some kind of firepower to actually turn the tide. If they're permanently behind Germany on all techs then it will become very hard for them to actually get anywhere and start the steamroller towards Berlin.

The techs we have are meant to show the firepower of the units. So USSR should have pretty decent tank firepower to simulate the T34 etc. It's the organization tech that will actually show how well the army fought as a unit and not the individual soldiers and vehicles. This is the Soviet Achilles heel in GS and it takes quite some time to get the organization to tech 3 get pretty decent efficiency. Therefore the Russians can rarely do any big operations before the Summer of 1943 except in the winter where their units have better firepower.

I don't agree regarding the German armor defense. If you're able to research armor tech 6 and you have some XP level then you will see armor units with survivability of 11-12. If they're SS units they have even higher survivability. Since survivability is used to determine the chance that a hit actually inflicts damage then the ground defense doesn't matter so much. I've noticed that the King Tigers or Mauses can be bombarded with max tech tac bombers and maybe you inflict a total of 1 hit from 2 strikes. Then the Soviet armor attacks and you're able to inflict another step. So you need to surround the unit to destroy it. If it can be attacked from just 2 sides the armor units can easily repair losses each turn.

So I actually feel the German armor units are too POWERFUL and not too weak in the endgame. The main reason these units can't completely crush Russian units is that at that time the Germans are almost out of oil and don't have enough of them.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 8:44 pm

I also don't agree that the Germans won the battle of Kursk. The battle ended in a stale mate. The Germans failed to cut supply to Kursk and the Russians failed to stop them completely. When the smoke had settled the both the Russians and Germans had lost thousands of tanks. The main difference was that the Russians could replace their losses while the Germans couldn't. Germany squandered their strategic reserve in the east in the battle of Kursk. That led to the collapse of Army Group Center in Bagration. If the armor units had not been lost then Russia would have struggled getting across the Dnepr etc. So the battle was a stalemate, but strategically the Germans lost because of the result of the battle.

We're actually doing something to amphibious invasions in the next update. These are the changes we will implement.

1. Units aboard a transport will lose 5 efficiency per turn at sea down to a threshold efficiency of 60.

2. You still pay 8 PP's embark a transport, but you get PP's back when you disembark from a friendly port (not adjacent to a port). The amount you get back is the the port strength / 10 * 8. So if you bombard the port you will get less back. By adding this we make it smarter for e. g. USA to send transports to British ports and disembark the US units there. Then the units move to the English channel ports and stay near a general to get efficiency. When it's time for Overlord you disembark again.

This will help against long range invasions. It's risky to stay at sea for long because you also lose quite a bit of efficiency from landing. So if you have only 60 and land you could get down to 40 or 50 and that can easily be exploited by the Axis.

Germany and Italy can now more easily reinforce Libya, Norway and Finland. If you sail to a port you get the PP's back so you don't have to worry about the cost for embarking on a transport. If you fast disembark to a coastal hex then you don't get the PP's back. So you disembark at ports when you have time to do it.

Peter Stauffenberg · Post by **Peter Stauffenberg** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 8:58 pm

We can't prohibit long range invasions because the Allies used that in e. g. Operation Torch and would have used it to liberate Britain if Sealion had been successful. Then taking Belfast first to build back efficiency would be a good idea.

What we hope to see now is that the US will start sending units to Britain in 1943 to prepare for Overlord. They sail from USA and pay 8 PP's per transport and get those PP's back when they land in Britain (if landing from a port). You pay the cost again when you embark for Overlord and don't get those PP's back if you land in France, unless you land from a captured port. Then you get a fraction of the PP's back dependent upon how many steps you've managed to repair the port capacity.

I think that this is going to work very well and sailing directly from USA to Sicily will not be advisable. You will arrive with max 60 efficiency and it will drop further by landing. In 1941 only corps units have amph capability so the Axis can start preparing by sending Italians to Sicily and maybe placed a German mech in Messina to have some offensive firepower. If you place Italian subs near Gibraltar and Alexandria you will get a warning when the invasion force is closing in. German subs can actually block the entrance to the Med from the Atlantic so the Allies need to spend several turns to clear the path before they can sail in.

It's always a good idea for the Axis to have a strategic reserve of some units in central Germany that can be railed to any area that's under invasion threat. When you see the invasion force arriving you send the units to southern Italy and get them to Sicily or defend there. You can rail them again to southern France or central Italy if that's where they're heading.

So I believe that with good Axis play you shouldn't lose any territory in 1941. I always manage to keep my gains in 1941 and the only place I start crumbling is in eastern Libya in 1942. That is because I choose to by not sending the Luftwaffe to Crete or the DAK to Tobruk. If I wanted to I could keep the British out of Libya for all of 1942. It's quite simple to keep the Allies out of the Med before 1942. You can place Italian subs just at Gibraltar to prevent the Allied DD's from getting anywhere. At that time only CV's can get within range to bombard these subs. They can eventually get a strat bomber in Gibraltar, but early in the war the Royal Navy is not super strong. If a wolfpack of 6 subs gather near Gibraltar you can actually finish off several of the Allied ships in 1941.

So I think that you only get into trouble as the Axis in 1941 if you don't do anything to prevent it. Many players send all they have towards Russia to get as far east as possible. That's not a smart idea if the Allies make a landing in e. g. France. Without reserves they can get a foothold there. I've managed to defend against a strong Allied invasion in France in June 1941 when Barbarossa started. I fortunately had some reserves and I sent them plus one armor unit to France. It took 3 turns and 5-6 British corps were crushed (including 2 mechs). That setback meant that the Allies didn't show up again in force until 1944.

Is it possible for the Axis to win?

Is it possible for the Axis to win?

Re: Is it possible for the Axis to win?

Re: Is it possible for the Axis to win?