Slitherine

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

Beta 2, On Road to India

FM level played
Prestige start: 6,400. End: 7,300. Net: +1,100
Result: DV at 17/27
Left many units playing at fractional strength or retired from combat to minimize use of elite replacements. Quite a few armour, air, and infantry units at 1 to 5 strength to “elite” up in next deployment.
Played through with 4 core slots undeployed (34/38)


First, should the title be actually “On Road to India” or perhaps “On THE Road to India?” Or “The Road to India?” An article or preposition needs to be added or deleted to make it sound correct. English is my native language; but I do know it's not everyone's, so I do not intend to sound superior. (God I know what that's like - I married an English woman once and let's just say we aren't eagerly going there again). Ok, :

Amphibious section:
I did not catch that the amphibious deployment zones could not be re-used. (only six deployments/sea transports). Glad I sent an armoured first wave. Albeit survivable, but not balanced. Also I liked the positioning of the light cruiser in the probable landing zone of the amphib group inside the Arabian Gulf. Found it and avoided sending craft onto it. Always feels good to be rewarded for recon. So nice touches here to keep you on your toes and switch things up a little. This was good work by the designer.

In general:
I expected this scenario to be a bit boring after scanning the map, but I had hopes given the mountains and terrain to canalize combat and tactics. And it worked well. My landing east of the Straits of Hormuz was with three strong Panzer units; I came within a hair’s breadth of losing a very good Tiger unit to the Fireflies there. (side note: I don’t question the Firefly Sherman’s ability to do damage, but I do question the Tiger’s 88 and Panther’s 75 ability to return harsher damage on the Sherman’s inferior hull and armor. The exchange ratio is not realistic.) Harsh fight there.

This turned into a great scenario because of it developing into a classic Blitzkreig of pushing armor ahead and leaving infantry and arty behind to take individual AT and infantry units holding good ground/objectives. The enemy air did lots of damage in the first half of the game; I retired two air units badly damaged, and relegated two very good infantry and one armour unit to the “clean up” of the bypassed opponents. It was costly (in my conservative perspective).

The diversion group was a nice touch, though no victory objective they could threaten. I ignored them to apparently no ill effect.

The airfield at 54,5 spawned a Tempest at turn 16 even after I had taken it. I was in the process of air-landing a GJ unit on the airfield I already possessed. The Tempest mauled the mountain unit to 1 strength. I don’t think “taken” fields should be spawning new units? This happened also in Palestine at a base and I think uran21 was going to fix it in that scenario. Hope it applies here, too.

I thought at the start I'd find the scenario boring. But the terrain and defenses made it worth working for. Still, it was won with a DV 10 turns early and with several units undeployed. I'm a savvy player, but do not consider myself a "master." Maybe fewer turns or a stiffer defense? but overall, this was a good scenario.

With the well-dug-in first line and the Fireflies, this is a pretty tough scenario from my angle. Still not done with it, it's actually the AK scenario I've had the most trouble with so far.

Road to India
BETA 3
Colonel
start 4629
End

Used most of my prestige to get my forces back to strength.
Kept 1300 in reserve
Had 14 open slots after deployment. The last 3 or 4 scenarios depleted my prestige. The scenario with two dollars signs did not reward mw with prestige as I did not notice the one in the South until too late.
I always keep a mixed core.
2 Tigers
4 PZ IV G
1 Panther
2 FW 190
1 ME 109
1 Strat bomber DO 217
2 88mm
1 mobile Art
25 units total
During the scenario I noticed my force was too weak
Bought strat bomber due to strong Navy, 2 BMW's and 2 Sharaiana's 2 paratroop's
I did not want to due an amphibious assault by looking at the map.
I knew there was going to be trouble. I place 5 units in the East.
The West Amphibious zone I place a couple of units.

Trying to do a landing, I got mauled. 4 Allied tanks!
Then there is the British Navy. Just hopeless going sea route.
I had two sail far East but ran into destroyer.
The Allied Air power that starts on turn 21 is overwhelming.

In the West:
Bang! no where to go Art and AT defense.

Damn near had a DV when...
Counter offense!
The AI goes crazy!

I captured a Firefly but the Icon was British.

No way to win this one.
Perhaps if I had a few more units and prestige.
I was able to recover several captured flags.

I too agree that the Allied tanks are too strong. Seems about right for game balance... but one unit of Shermans standing up to Tigers and Panthers, just doesn't seem right. A Tiger unit Icon should be able to take on 2 Shermans perhaps 3, but the equipment file settings don't allow that.

General level. Starting prestige 6177, ending 2027. Elite replacements for all units.

Plenty of variety on this one. The British were very tough. Those Firefly's are everywhere. I tried an amphibious attack in the south. The Royal Navy shot up some transports but I was able to get a Tiger and Panther unit ashore (the rest retreated to wait for a safer crossing opportunity. As soon as I land, here come the Firefly's (I should have done better recon before blindly landing). Lost an elite, multi-hero Panther. The Tiger survived and was relieved by my Northern force. The RAF is strong. Most of my fighters were fighting at below full strength after the battles. I'm finding my 88s AA guns really help to reduce the air threat. A very nasty surprise when the AI launched the amphibious counter attack on Masqat. I had to divert much air power and re-amphibious assault to retake the city and airfields (I didn't leave anything behind to cover that area). That was a brilliant addition to the game. I did not get a captured unit even though I cleared the board. DV on 20/27.

In Beta 4 amphibious diversionary group should not be ignored anymore because their potential capturing of some hexes will make them objectives.

On Road to India
DV 24/27
Losses: none
Ending prestige 658

The road to victory is finally here, it is time for the Wehrmacht to exceed the conquests of even Alexander himself! This was an excellent scenario, but I had a couple beefs which I will discuss. My basic strategy was to deploy the SS Panzer division "Heimdall" in the north and then the Italian 2nd Armored and 9th Panzer division in the south/center and then to just steamroll forward in classic blitzkrieg style as Kammerer described it.

Things went mostly smoothly but I nearly lost a veteran Panzer IV to a mob of Fireflys. Did they get buffed or something? I don't remember them being this tough. They actually seemed to be unreasonably strong, they were doing 8 damage to 4 star, 14 strength Panzer Ivs and P-40s. I was very lucky to avoid losing any units. My Panzer IV was knocked down to 1 strength. This part of the scenario conjured bad memories of the infinite IS-2 spam of Lake Balaton in the original campaign. I would recommend changing perhaps two of the Fireflys to lesser tanks in the middle part of the map where there are ridiclous numbers of them (and perhaps knock a turn or two off the clock to compensate).

The diversion group was a unique twist and it puts you in a bit of an interesting dilemma: how many troops should I divert to retake Musqat? I ended up sending three units from the Italian 2nd Armored, a P-40, a Bersaglieri '43 and an Italian mobile artillery, which proved to be sufficient.

Speaking of my Italian troops, I upgraded one of my P-40s to a Panther. The Italian Panther is one seriously sweet looking unit. And to top things off, it ended up earning the Order of the Roman Eagle award in this battle. I am so glad that you took my suggestion to implement that. It is possibly the nicest looking medal in the game to boot. So once again, thank you for all of your buffs to the Italians in this most recent update.

I also cleared the map and didn't get any captured fireflys as Razz seemed to have done.

Overall, an excellent scenario. My one suggestion is that those Fireflys get nerfed somehow or reduced in number.