Slitherine

Having played Moscow vs AI many times, I've recently gone back to Bulge. It's interesting to compare the 2 games, but one thing in particular stands out.

As I suspect most people have, I have worked out a 90%+ successful method as the Axis playing against Zhukov. Almost always (barring catastrophic battle results in the first couple of turns) I have Moscow surrounded and the left side of the map completely cut off from Soviet supply by the end of clear weather. I can then either take Moscow or try to wipe the remaining Soviet forces off the map (for maximum VP).

One of the frustrating/interesting things is that, the more Soviet reinforcement spawn points the Axis occupies, the better the Soviet player is able to concentrate their forces for defence and counterattack. In particular, if by the end of turn 10 Axis occupies Moscow, Vladimir, Yepifan, and Kursk, then the 3 reinforcement Soviet armor units in turn 11 all arrive together in Voronezh, rather than being spread out.

This is quite a neat gameplay mechanic, as it makes it harder for Axis the better they do, but my 2 observations are:

1) This is different from Bulge, where occupying the reinforcement points delays Allied reinforcements. This for me adds an interesting tactical dilemma on the importance of retaining them (particularly Verviers and Arlon)
2) How realistic is it that the Soviets generate the same amount of replacements and reinforcements whether they hold the entire map or just one reinforcement point?

You're quite right, it's an interesting change.

We also noticed and liked the potential subtelty of having the Axis hold off on capturing spaces, to prevent concentration.

As to "how realistic": arguments could be made both ways. The country is huge, and stuff was being drawn in from all over. So the actual capture of territory wouldn't matter. An argument could be made that rail bottlenecks might be an issue, but I doubt it would hold -- rail capacity was pretty huge. Bottom line is that the designs came in from their respective designers that way - we didn't second guess them as long as the result was fun and plausible.

Thanks for the reply. It certainly leads to some interesting decisions. If I had the chance, I used to exploit an armor unit into Moscow as soon as possible. Now, I tend to hold off until I have captured Vladimir as AI tends to put a replacement in Moscow, leaving Vladimir clear, and it's easier to surround Moscow that way.

Great game by the way.