Slitherine

Help

I am having trouble doing The Hague on Manstein difficulty.
If you lose all 3 Air Force bases to you automatically lose?

Because I want to try pulling back with all of my aux forces and concentrate my forces into a single stroke North to eventually get enough Main Objectives in order to get at least a Marginal Victory, but if pulling back and losing all of my Main Objectives causes me to lose I will need to rethink how I can secure one of those airfields with additional resources so I can at least squeeze out a Marginal Victory that way.

Knowing the answer to my bolded question will greatly assist me in this monumental task.

thanks for your help and this great forum.

(what i do on General and Field marshal difficulties)

pull all your Aux paratroopers back to the Ypenburg airport, it will be an easy defense there with the support of '75mm vz.15 Artillery'
hold on for 3-4 turns until your main army connect with Ypenburg airport, then launch an all attack and using all Aux paratroopers in Kamikaze attacks.

That is not possible on Manstein level. If you do lose when you lose all 3 air bases, I will need to fly in core Fallschimjager to help hold that base, as linking up to Ypenburg in 3 or 4 turns is not possible, and holding with aux units solely is not possible as I have tried it like 3 or 4 times.

Maybe if I cheated, but I am adamant to keep it to a playthrough where I do not reload.

Wow. How bizarre. I've never come close to losing all three air bases. But then I've never played on Manstein level.

I think your idea of flying in more paratroops is a good one. You'll probably need to go with max air support as well. Don't forget that other infantry & light artillery without transport are also air transportable. Gebirgsjager units or base infantry units with 6 ammo might be the best choices to fly in. It may be helpful to land a 75mm or 105mm artillery unit.

Even though the 22nd Div paratroopers start with extra ammo it can go fast. During the first few turns the best thing to do may be to reinforce or to resupply. Or to simply do nothing at all.

The airbase to the north is a write-off. You may want to just go ahead & load the unit on the Valkenburg airfield on a transport on the first turn, fly it out & use it to reinforce one of the airfields to the south.

I'm curious now. If you ever get this puzzle solved, I'd like to see a replay. Good luck!

You will not lose if all the airbases get into enemy hands. Poor paratroopers. Although it is not necessary, maybe an idea would be to use all your forces to go for Rotterdam and nothing else, you might be able to take it within 3 turns? And then you would always have control of a victory hex if this is your concern.

Does AI on Manstein provide sound fight (still dont know what is AI=2)?

Quick update, I found out the answer.

No, you do not lose if you lose all 3 airfields.

I am playing in the scenario where I have lost all 3 and am poised to almost take Rotterdam in round 10 or 11.

Manstein is rough stuff, but I am loving the challenge really makes you have to think about every assault and movement.

I believe I will be able to capture the necessary 3, but I do not see anyway for me to get all of the Main Objectives, before the end of the scenario.

Thanks for the help.

I hope to post an update on my AAR, maybe this weekend.

Musketeer wrote:Does AI on Manstein provide sound fight (still dont know what is AI=2)?

I am not sure anyone can explain the difference between the ai levels of difficulty, and I certainly cannot as I have only played on ai 2

As everyboddy else just knows 2 is moar than 1 .

Does a Loss end the campaign? I think the northern paras are doomed and if you lose the 75mm artillery the south is doomed too. I suggest hedgehogging the southern and central paras and fly in a core para to help complete the ring. The enemy will not break through until the French tanks get down to help and then it will be attrition until you can break through with your main army. Too bad you can't fly in artillery by heavy transport.

Loss does end the Campaign.

I am pretty confident that I will be able to get the needed 3 Objectives, and you will have to watch some of the insanity that I had to go through with accepting the rolls as they were.

I have received some good ones, and some bad ones, Man it is frustrating to show 5 or 6 supposed to be killed when you attack and you only get 1 of theirs. But what are you going to do, that is the fun/frustration of playing normal dice rolls.

I just need to take 3. I am about to finally take Rotterdam, then I will be able to shift to take Ypenburg and Openburg for at least a Marginal Victory.

I will try and post the results this weekend.

How many of your paras survived the initial few turns? At least you still have a positive prestige flow! The longer you keep that going the better, and the battles will get easier in 1941 as your army gets better and you have more overstrength potential to bring you up closer to the the enemy's level.

Rayrard wrote:How many of your paras survived the initial few turns? At least you still have a positive prestige flow! The longer you keep that going the better, and the battles will get easier in 1941 as your army gets better and you have more overstrength potential to bring you up closer to the the enemy's level.

I have 4 aux Fallschimjagers left that I was able to escape from the heat of battle.

Overstrengthening? What is that?

I try to do very little until much later in the war, but I may need to reconsider that as this is insanely hard.

Love it

goose_2 wrote:

Rayrard wrote:How many of your paras survived the initial few turns? At least you still have a positive prestige flow! The longer you keep that going the better, and the battles will get easier in 1941 as your army gets better and you have more overstrength potential to bring you up closer to the the enemy's level.

I have 4 aux Fallschimjagers left that I was able to escape from the heat of battle.

Overstrengthening? What is that?

I try to do very little until much later in the war, but I may need to reconsider that as this is insanely hard.

Love it

That's why you will eventually end your campaign when prestige runs out I played all of GC41 on Manstein and it was a slow grinding battle as opposed to blitzkrieg. Belgrade even was slow and I still got the DV but on the last couple turns. But keeping your units at 12-13 strength allows you to destroy the enemy faster and avoid return fire and 1-2 strength nitpicky hits, that get you to unusable 6-7 strength, and you waste a turn replacing them (and repeat a few times in the scenario) Shell a unit with a 14 strength artillery and hit it with a 12 strength tank and you don't lose any men. The issue becomes the enemy bombers and fighters in Russia which eliminate your overstrength in one attack and cost you hundreds of prestige! But I think it is worth it to keep your more protected units overstrengthed, even if it's not worth it to do tanks and infantry as casualties are unavoidable.

Definitely that tradeoff though. I had played Guderian and Rommel in 39 and 40 and played Manstein in 41 with about 15K prestige and I think I had 20K in 1942. I switched to normal General to try and regain prestige for the later battles. I would not have made it very deep in 44 withsoft cap and only 20K by Stalingrad.

Usually I pull all the FJ around the 75mm gun (including flying in the ones from the northern airfield) and wait it out until the relief forces make it through. At normal levels you can defend almost indefinitely as the gun deters infantry attacks. However, when I tried playing with enemy at +2 strength, the 12 base strength units were much more willing to attack, and at the same time my relief forces took longer to break through because of the stronger units, and I only just made the win. I now know I am not yet ready for tackling Manstein!