Slitherine

GLC East, Kiev, Nov 1943. Whereas the scenario message promises me bad weather and dropping temperatures, I wait in ambush for a river to freeze over and expecting hordes of Russians to cross, at turn 21 of 22, nothing like that happens.
What does happen is what I call AI stubberness: where the IS1 is trying to cross the Dnieper River, the AI has been trying to do so in the past 15 turns. I only have to 2 or 3 Tigers waiting their turn to butcher any tank trying to cross. Whats more: in half of those turns it attacks and gets ambushed... Further north and south of the river nothing has happened for 15 turns however, the AI spends all of its time and energy in fruitless attempts...

I am confused, are you happy with this or unhappy?

Yeah the AI will do this. And not just in this scenario. You can hold off quite the attacking force with a single unit, although I might recommend a second to rotate in if you run low on ammo or if you wind up with a really bad die roll. An artillery unit can act as back up and you can bombard & counterattack the unit on the bridge during your turn. Lastly, an AA or fighter unit can act as an extra layer of security. IMO the forces you show in the picture may be a bit of overkill and some of them could be used elsewhere.

This is something of a flaw in the AI it seems. Thanks to the bridge defense penalty & the lack of retreat paths, you're virtually guaranteed to be able to milk this bottleneck for prestige, experience & kills through an entire scenario. I guess as a possible remedy, the AI could be given some bridge engineers riding in some of those speedy HT's.

This is still one of my favorite scenarios. Having played it through a few times, I can say that the snow does come and the river does freeze over - sometimes. The AI will indeed cross the river, but in my experience it's been more around Kiev. The snow doesn't always last though.

But is it unrealistic?

goose_2 wrote:I am confused, are you happy with this or unhappy?

Well - Im confused, happy to be able to withstand the Russian hordes that I was surely expecting to rush over the frozen river.
But unhappy about AI insisting to wish to cross this bridge, with at times 4-6 IS1, T34/85 and artillery waiting in the back, doing nothing.
Also not trying to cross at northern or southern crossings...

DeMeza wrote:But is it unrealistic?

Ni shagu nazad! No doubt the game models the NKVD blocking detachments deployed right behind those frontline units.

What tank skins are those?