Slitherine

Today I finally overcame one of the hardest mission I've ever undertaken in all of PC (including DLC) being the attack on Gazala line in AK which ended in a DV on turn ~29 (i didn't keep track of the end turn, btw is there anyway to view past battles in replay?) whilst on the hardest difficulty.

So I wanted to know from the community which was their own greatest personal victory(ies) and how did you achieve it? Which battle do you consider the most difficult in the entire game?

Some of the ones in 43 East are pretty challenging. I'm just starting 44East and have had my first encounter with an IS2 so I am expecting trouble in future.

I am now wishing I had developed more of my 37mm Paks in 39 and 40, so I could have a few more Elefants - a few extra Stug IV (to use as 2 range armoured artillery) would also be most welcome. Just goes to show you should listen to your own good advice!

I would say proving it possible to win Mons18.

How... that shall remain secret.

- BNC

Just looking at the briefing for Mons 18 caused me to surrender!

How about achieving a Total Victory in the Battlefield: Europe mod on General (or any higher) difficulty level?

McGuba wrote:How about achieving a Total Victory in the Battlefield: Europe mod on General (or any higher) difficulty level?

Mons18 is harder, but you have a point there. The France scenario in that scared me off though (maybe just the amount of units to be thinking about)

- BNC (Luckily, even if you do prove Battlefield to be harder than Mons, GC'18 has an even worse scenario coming - Mezieres18. If that will be able to be beaten in difficulty, then (I plan 300+ enemy units, to a very small amount of core forces and a large wad of barbed wire))

I think my most satisfying personal victory was saving 22 of 24 Italian units in the Husky Landings scenario of GC 42\43. Some of it was sheer luck when the combat variables bounced my way with lots of 1 and 2 strength units straggling in, but I was able to bring pretty much an entire Italian Corps off the map and be able to be deployed for later scenarios.

As a benefit of those scenarios, the leftover Italians were auxiliaries with which I could do a one-time deployment into later scenarios. I upgraded them into Panthers and Brumbars and saved them for the tough spots in Berlin.

The hardest for me are the defensive scenarios that you have to defend a 360 perimeter - the ones such as Stalingrad Ruins and the Berlins come to mind. You have to keep a microscopic eye on all of the angles, including the ammo counts on the exposed corner units and the ranges of known but "out of sight" AA batteries, shuttling fighters from usually the one airfield you own to all parts of the map as CAP. And usually one misstep will lead to a breach in the lines. You have to save pretty much every turn so as to go back to head off mistakes, and those scenarios are usually a little more intense for my tastes to be fun - satisfying to complete, yes, but not fun. I've played them through to say that I have but probably won't do so again for some time. I'm at Budapest45 on GC 45 East right (a personal favourite) now but won't play Berlin, but go back and explore the other scenario branches from other campaigns.

I've managed to save 16 Italians at least once and maybe up to 18 or 19, but 22 is impressive even if you did need a bit of luck on your side. Saving an Italian Corps quite rightly sounds like a something to be pleased about.

Thanks! It was the only time I seriously considered posting an AAR but I didn't document the battle properly. And truth be told it would have been full of the commentary "how did that not get destroyed!?"

Now that I think about it, operation Bagration (in PC vanilla) was the hardest battle I ever faced having all my core units wiped out except for 1 ground attack aircraft...(needless to say it was an udder defeat, hopefully I'll be able to beat it on the 2nd play through and make it into a great victory)

ExiledZebra wrote:Now that I think about it, operation Bagration (in PC vanilla) was the hardest battle I ever faced having all my core units wiped out except for 1 ground attack aircraft...(needless to say it was an udder defeat, hopefully I'll be able to beat it on the 2nd play through and make it into a great victory)

My approach to Bagration was to hide all my forces in the corner of the map and snipe a bit at anything that came nearby. Considering what you are up against i don't think its possible to get anything other than a defeat - so you may as well retain your forces strength for Berlin.

My greatest personal victory is having the self control not to reload a previous save when one of my experienced units dies (especially my beautiful SE Panzer IV - may he rest in peace). I play using the full random dice, so sometimes there are rather unexpected outcomes. This can lead to highly experienced units suffering a disproportionate amount of damage on occasion. So far i've avoided the temptation to just reload. I'm only at the middle of '42 though, so i may reevaluate come '43...

JimmyC wrote:My greatest personal victory is having the self control not to reload a previous save when one of my experienced units dies (especially my beautiful SE Panzer IV - may he rest in peace). I play using the full random dice, so sometimes there are rather unexpected outcomes. This can lead to highly experienced units suffering a disproportionate amount of damage on occasion. So far i've avoided the temptation to just reload. I'm only at the middle of '42 though, so i may reevaluate come '43...

You did slightly worse there - I had this wonderful Stuka from Poznan39, with over 500 kills, 30 dead units, <40 losses, and had been renamed "Goering" (simply because he was my lead air unit, and Goering was in charge of the Luftwaffe) - and in 1 shot, a Soviet knocked him out completely! (Fighter with no experience taking on a Stuka with 3 stars and 3 overstrength) This occured in the 2nd scenario of GC43, which caused me to abandon GC43 completely for a month, and then my computer broke, so I lost him for another month. Somehow I remembered the structure of my core force and was able to cheat code it into the game so I could continue my progress.

Seriously, GC43 is murderous.

- BNC

I do repeate my greatest personal victory on every day playing PC: I stop playing when it becomes too late at night This is realy hard, because usually I say to myself:
"it is just one turn, I will save and go to bed after it..."
and after this turn
"it is just one turn, I will save and go to bed after it..."
...
"it is just one turn, I will save and go to bed after it..."
...
"it is just one turn, I will save and go to bed after it..."

BiteNibbleChomp wrote:

JimmyC wrote:My greatest personal victory is having the self control not to reload a previous save when one of my experienced units dies (especially my beautiful SE Panzer IV - may he rest in peace). I play using the full random dice, so sometimes there are rather unexpected outcomes. This can lead to highly experienced units suffering a disproportionate amount of damage on occasion. So far i've avoided the temptation to just reload. I'm only at the middle of '42 though, so i may reevaluate come '43...

You did slightly worse there - I had this wonderful Stuka from Poznan39, with over 500 kills, 30 dead units, <40 losses, and had been renamed "Goering" (simply because he was my lead air unit, and Goering was in charge of the Luftwaffe) - and in 1 shot, a Soviet knocked him out completely! (Fighter with no experience taking on a Stuka with 3 stars and 3 overstrength) This occured in the 2nd scenario of GC43, which caused me to abandon GC43 completely for a month, and then my computer broke, so I lost him for another month. Somehow I remembered the structure of my core force and was able to cheat code it into the game so I could continue my progress.

Seriously, GC43 is murderous.

- BNC

Oh man I never made it that far in GC after redownloading the entire game and having to start a new, the furthest I went was France in GC(1941? not sure) but after reading your post I really want to try and make it all the way to the end

However, I've got too much content to get through before fully committing to the grand campaigns (and the mods I've downloaded recently are also keeping me tide up atm...mainly yours BNC )