Allied: Crete

[uran21]

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

[Kamerer]

9) Crete – beta 1

Level: Field Marshal
Prestige: Begin: 2,625 (after purchase). End: 2,500. Net: -125.
Result: DV 15/18 (game played an extra turn)
Replacement policy: Sent air, arty, tanks out at 12.

Core Changes:
Disbanded: None
Purchased: 1x Matilda
Upgraded: None

Problems:

• • Though toggled to do so, game did not show Axis moves on first turn.
  • Having a glider over a unit prevents full resupply. Should not do that like a tactical aircraft would.
  • Destroyed last enemy unit on turn 15. Game played another turn doing nothing before declaring a DV at 16. Weird.

General impressions/comments:

• • Scenario was challenging and fun, the most exciting so far
  • The sub made a difficult time, did not finally sink it until turn 13. The axis has too strong a naval force, another destroyer or two would help, or perhaps 1x DD and 1x CL.
  • Other than tweaking the naval a bit, I think it’s good to go.

[omegabet]

Is the italian aircraft carrier at [2,25] part of a secret object?

In Creta [38,12] i could retreat ships and other units to the next mission. After disbanding them [ships & units & flak] in Crusader, i got over 5000 extra prestige.

[nikivdd]

Colonel level
Upgrades: 3 fighters to Spitfire VB, 2 recons to Humber
Purchases: none
I didnt overstrength units

Another shooting gallery mission, this time against maintly air units and sea transports. This is another very easy mission especially if the airassets can engage the airtransports and then those units have very little strength left when they land. The three spitfires and two beaufighters really made a difference and the stirling bomber sank half the naval transports before they could make it ashore. After turn 12 i just had to click end turn until the victory screen appeared at turn 16. The german fighters and bombers are too weak and were easy pickings for the AA units and fighters. I suppose that the first encounter with the germans should be somewhat more challenging. At turn 14 i retreated the ships, perhaps i will be able to use them again.

Losses: 2 aux units, DV 16/18, 5171PP

[LostAgain]

Playing FM. The briefing states that "Skafia and a LOCUS near Heraklion..." Obviously an error but what exactly is that intended to convey? This was another fairly challenging scenario as the Germans kept popping up in widely diverse locations. Tried to position my air units centrally but this was impossible as I was always defensive. I like this scenario but would like to see more German units. Also, the spaces marked for withdrawing units from the game were confusing as I assumed that I'd have to use them at some point but they were redundant in the end. Achieved another DV without too much effort, but I am starting to warm to these scenarios!

[Razz1]

General
start
end 3306
By turn 14 it was a clear victory. On turn 16 I killed the last unit. Game Over
Triumph

I forgot to use my Elite Spitfire until about halfway through the game. Then on turn 12 I deployed my last reserve, 16" artillery.

The Germans are one tough army. My units loose allot of strength points.

Looks like I will have to upgrade tanks.

[billmv44]

Beta 1. General. Starting prestige 4790, ending 1682. Triumph on 16/18. Upgraded fighters to Spitfire VBs.
No losses, but casualties were fairly high. I had to re-strengthen units a couple of times. Used up a lot of prestige that way. Fighters were key in this scenario.
I was able to whittle down or destroy outright much of the German air landing force. The AI did successfully land armor near Maleme, but I had concentrated much of my forces in that area so I was able to fight them off. The Germans did manage to take Herakleion briefly, but not the adjacent airfield. That was a very close run battle. If the AI had just one more unit in that area he might have taken the airfield.

This was the most challenging scenario yet. The Germans are a tough bunch.

[Ballacraine]

Crusader AA becoming available surely has to be too early.

Normally it was older tanks that were modified to mobile AA use.

Crusader tanks will be 'new' models & have not been even made available yet.

Balla.

[Longasc]

Crete

Level: General
Start Prestige: 3470 + SE Commandos, my first SE.
End Prestige: 1252
Result: Triumph, 16/18
Bought/Upgraded/Losses: Lost two destroyers, nothing bought, Commandos overstrengthened to 15. Upgraded to Hurricane II, almost as good as Spit V and cheaper.


I liked the flow of the enemy attacks, but it was TOO EASY. It shouldn't be THAT easy to totally demolish an operation which the enemy historically won despite heavy losses.
At the moment the Germans have barely a chance of only turning it into a minor allied victory.

Despite VERY strong German Fallschirmjäger and Gebirgsjäger. The only remote chance they had to get ashore or drop successfully was in eastern parts Crete. The new reinforcement rules totally destroyed the troops already weakened from the jump and most already got seriously reduced in the air.
The battle versus the submarine was intense till I could divert my Beaufighter but by then it was already only a "because I nothing else to do anymore" thing.
Nevertheless I took losses and reinforcing units was costly, though I used elite reinforcements for my troops. Seems I am getting overconfident and keeping no reserves, hum.

-> Question, is it intended that it is relatively easy like the Panzer Corps main campaign? I wonder how many of us test with DLC or Afrika Korps level of difficulty in mind!

* Why did the Luftwaffe have only 5 Strength Stukas and Messerschmidts. I had only 2 Hurricanes and Beaufighter, others had even more airforce.
* What is up with the Italian Carrier. Also, there was only one ever existing and not even finished Italian Carrier and some ships could launch single fighter crafts. I find the carrier ahistorical and it doesn't seem to serve any purpose anyways?
* Not sure about this: 15th Wehrmacht Inf didn't leave the Ju52 and didn't move either. But this was maybe because they had nowhere to land.
* CreteA.pzbrf: "Sfakia and a locus near Heraklion" have already been mentioned, "The intelligence is clear:" sounds also quite unusual to me.

[Razz1]

Actually the Italians had forces in the area that could be used.

Perhaps a couple of CR 42's protecting the first wave of German paratroops would help.

I would say this map is NOT easy as one spends allot of prestige for reinforcements and you have to go back and forth between the hot spots.

I think this map will have different feed backs depending upon what a person deploys.

I deployed an AA unit and a mobile AA unit. That gives less fire power on the ground but better air defense.

The German paratroops are strong and not easily killed.

[Ballacraine]

Personally, I just dug in with HW Infantry units supported by artillery & tanks.

Never really felt threatened.

Balla.

[Razz1]

This scenario is tricky with the 50% suppression loss that was introduced a few patches back.

In Panzer General it was different.

I suppose they could look at changing the suppression to 40% or 25%. They may have to move the AI back one or two hexes due to the suppression from landing.
They would have to increase the number of turns by one or two.

Another thing that could help is a MC 202 fighter covering the land invasion.

So with fighter coverage on the first paratroop drop and the first landing AND one slot less for human it may be your cup of tea.

[ThvN]

Crete

General, Triumph 16/18

I broke even in prestige, I had to reinforce a lot, started and ended with about 4200. Finally the aux. cruiser could be deployed, it was quite useful in helping suppress paratroopers! I had been given an SE Spitfire, which was very useful, and the AAA I brought got a bit of a workout as well. Paratroopers were tough, but suppression saved the day. I like the evacuation hexes on the map, but their description in the briefing was puzzling: does 'locus' stand for 'location'?

The ending was strange: there was only the Axis carrier left, but the last few turns I just clicked 'end turn', until suddenly on turn 16 it ends?

And something not really related to the scenario: I had big trouble with the submarine. I wasted two Beaufighter attacks and seven destroyer attacks on it, all but two were evaded, of which four in a row, very frustrating. In fact the submarine took more damage in counterattacks than my own attacks. Maybe it is possible to have the chance to 'evade' attacks decrease if they are more units able to attack, like the mass attack bonus on land.

[uran21]

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. It is planned to make an entry point for year 1941 at this scenario. Without optimal core force and accumulated unit bonuses it could play somehow differently. I would like this scenario to challenge the player more on an interesting rather than difficult way. Various hot spots and lot of casualties without destroyed units seems to do this pretty well. Aircraft carrier for Axis serves as supply base for their air forces. Didn't want lonely airfield hex in corner of the map for it.

Victory conditions were adjusted so you do not need to hit end turn until finish.

[Tarrak]

Scenario: Crete
Outcome: Victory on turn 16/18
Starting Prestige: 5422
End Prestige: 4263 - 5464 (incl. victory reward)
Core: 3 x Infantry, 1 x Engineer, 1 x SE Commando, 3 x Cruiser IV, 1 x RR recon, 2 x 6 inch guns, 1 x Hurricane Mk.IIC, 1 x Spitfire Mk. VB, 1 x Beaufighter Mk.IF, 1 x 40mm SPAA

I got SE Commando units at the start of this scenario. I upgraded the Hurricane to IIC and bought one additional Spitfire VB and 1 x 40mm SPAA.

Scenario begin was quite hectic. I lost very early my commandos to some nasty German Fallschirmjägers. Later on manged to lose as well my RR recon. Quite a few units was beaten down a lot so had to spend some prestiges reinforcing them. The U-boat wasn't giving me much trouble but i was very lucky with evades. The first two attacks of my destroyers wasn't evaded and got it down to 5 strength making it quite harmless. I imagine it could be differently if i had bad luck here. Generally the evade mechanism seems a bit dodgy to me ... it relies to heavily on pure luck without any way to influence it.

The mission overall seemed balanced about right. It was challenging without being overwhelming. I guess tho it will be a lot easier on second playthrough without the surprise element. It managed to make the scenario a lot harder for me as i missed the German tanks landing so had them landed with full strength which was not really helpful. The German infantry units are really strong and pose a real threat. The 40mm SPAA proven itself quite worthless. It barely managed to even dent the Ju87s. I probably should have bought another artillery instead.

I only managed to reach a victory as the German tank assault managed to take the airfield. I got it back quite fast but there goes my triumph.

Special remark i already mention in the new unit thread but once again here: The M5 Stuart tank appearing this scenario got 5 close defense which seems way way to high imho.

I really wonder if all the people complaining about this and the previous scenario being way to easy are that much better then me or are they all playing with all their units reinforced to 15?

EDIT: OK i replayed the scenario replacing the SPAA with another 9 inch gun and deploying slightly more armor on the east in expectation of the incoming armor assault. I as well overstrengthed all my units to 15 this time to see the difference. Well i was in for a few surprises:

First as expected having all units at 15 strength is making the game a LOT easier. This time i did not lose any core unit and my strength point losses was almost negligible compared to last time. I admit tho knowing from where the enemy air transports will be coming helped a bit as well here but still the difference was quite noticeable. Second: the German attacks seems to not be scripted static. Instead of attacking with 3 tanks and a Stug near Maleme like last last time, this time the AI attacked with 2 infantry units near Kastelli and with around 3 to 4 on the other side of the island near Heraklion. I was quite positively surprised by this.

I managed a triumph easily this time. Could have won around turn 15 but i delayed deliberately killing of the last enemy unit until i managed to evacuate as may of the auxiliary ships as i could. One never knows when they come in handy.

[deadtorius]

One thing I have found odd in this scenario is that the German aircraft fly over my units but don't attack, just sit there waiting to be shot down by my RAF. Had a 5 strength Stuka that flew to a hex and sat there for two turns till I got a chance to kill it. First turn the German attack there are no animations the units just appear on the ground and thats it. Was fairly easy to beat off the Germans, but the Greeks are useless in combat. Keeping the historical situation in mind it seems odd that you have exit hexes but are never ordered to try and evacuate the island, which is what did happen.
It can be somewhat challenging as you have to move units about to new positions depending on where the Germans land, they captured the far left city but took no other objectives.

[produit]

Triumph 16/18. FM. Chess mode.
With OS 15 for all units, I lost just one strength point of my core units for the whole scenario.

A remark concerning the evacuation point. You can evacuate the fleet and some aux ground units. That will make a lot of free units for future scenarios or a lot of prestige. I evacuated the 3 destroyers, the light cruiser, the AA and two infantry units.

Is there another goal for those evacuation points ?

[Kamerer]

1) Crete, Beta 2 (entered at Crete, skipped tutorial)

Level: Rommel
Begin pp: 1,200. End pp: 1,100. Net -100
Result: Triumph, 18/18

Problems: None noted.

General Impressions/Comments:

• • I entered via Crete. Definitely a much weaker core than from playing the Italian campaign, adding a few good heroes would be nice at each entry point.
  • It felt the same as before and seems good otherwise.
  • I grabbed all the aux units via evac hexes for possibly future use (infantry, aa, and naval).

[Razz1]

Beta 2
Crete
No open slots to buy anything.

start 2400
end

Triumph 16/18

There was no warning that game would end on turn 16. I was unable to retreat the ships I wanted to use.

I did get a destroyer at strength 2 and an AA unit. I wanted to get all the ships off the board.

Map is not that intense as if one would start from the beginning using the tutorial.

I took a chance and lost one engineer unit.

[Tarrak]

Played this scenario again in Beta 2. Not many major changes spotted except may that the German air force seemed to be a bit more active then in beta 1. They actually conducted some bombing. Oh and the submarine this time was REALLY annoying evading everything. Due to knowledge what to except and how to deploy effectively the battle was a lot easier this time.

Not related to the scenario but i think the evade mechanic need looking at. It's just way to random without any possibility to influence it except maybe of sacrificing a small rodent to the gods of RNG.