Experienced Players: What am I doing wrong here?

[unmerged(184590)]

After dominating the AI's arse forever in vanilla, I upgraded to DD Armageddon. I had never had a problem winning before. Now, what was my standard strategy is no longer working. As Germany, I can barely beat Poland and am out of steam by France. This is on normal difficulty. My hunch is that I'm combining my forces improperly. Any ideas?

Land Forces: 17 Armies of '39 Infantry--6 divisions in each, approx 60% with basic SPA. 6 Panzerarmees of Improved MEDIUM Tanks, 6 tanks each. Have researched Blitzkrieg. Like I said, by the end of Poland, they're all half way out of steam, and then can't make it through France. This is all on Normal Difficulty.

Navy: Currently: 1 SAG, Raeder commanding. 2 Improved CVs and respective CAGs. 4 Basic CVLs. 6 Super Heavy BBs. 10 Improved DDs. All naval doctrines researched except Subsidiary CV Role. I can't get close enough for my BBs to open up. They're sitting ducks for the Brits' carriers. With all the techs the Brits can research, their carriers' performance is simply superior. I lose everything but the DDs. It seems Germany is technologically incapable of winning at sea, although I know other people have had great success with this combination.

Air: The interceptors and tac bombers Germany starts out with but researched to 'Improved.'

What's up with this?

Thanks much!

 

[Cyprian]

well first off with regards to the navy I would go with Naval bombers rather than AC at least to beat the brits. If you are intending on invading the brits use the italian navy but soften them up first with lots of Naval air. All U need is about 2-3 days of 1 clear naval zone. With regards to land, it sounds as if you may be neglecting some techs. Look at your docs and make sure you have tactical air support. Also what are your stats? Meaning what is your IC at time of attack? And I think you need lots more troops, and I would go with ART attachments as well. CVL's are useless to you at that point as are carriers. Start doing some of the reasearch for them but hold off building them till after you have europe and Britain under your total control.

 

[Pal]

Not the right forum here, you might want to post this in the HoI2 Doomsday Expansion Discussion Forum (as you apparantly already did with the naval part of this question).

Land Forces: 17 Armies of '39 Infantry--6 divisions in each, approx 60% with basic SPA. 6 Panzerarmees of Improved MEDIUM Tanks, 6 tanks each.

Navy: Currently: 1 SAG, Raeder commanding. 2 Improved CVs and respective CAGs. 4 Basic CVLs. 6 Super Heavy BBs. 10 Improved DDs.

Air: The interceptors and tac bombers Germany starts out with but researched to 'Improved.'

The number of your armed forces is alright, just the makeup of the armies is strange. I'd bet you are massively overstacking, i.e. not having enough command capacity for all your divisions. Despite the name, you might find the Beginner's Guide to Army Management at the HoI2Wiki interesting as it explains one possible army setup which works great in Armageddon.

Your navy, as has been suggested in the other thread you've opened, is badly composed in that it mixes only 2CVs with 6 BBs. The game engine makes your whole fleet try to stay at CV range, thus your BBs will never fire a single shot. But because you only have 2 CVs and the totally wrong doctrines for them your navy will be butchered by the Brits.

Not building many more interceptors and neglecting the power of bombers is your last "error". Three groups of 4 int each will be enough to kill all Allied aircraft, while 12+ CAS or Tac will make most enemies retreat from battle very quickly and then wipe out any retreating division they can hit.