Just want to point out (since you didn't mention it) that you can set the underground resistance to automatically spread/start an uprising, so you don't need to babysit them constantly.
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Thank you. It was very enjoyable.
Japan, eh? Well, the point is not to cover all the majors (haven't done Italy either, or the Soviets), but to plug the holes between FTM and TFH. Basically, Japan starts out as Germany, overrunning China, and then turns into the USA, spreading out across the globe using naval power.
As for Cardiff, oops. As a Doctor Who-fan, I should know better, shouldn't I?
You can set them to automatic? I had no idea. See, guys? Nobody knows everything. How do you do that?
edited to add: I just checked the map. Would be very interesting to see a fleet carrier try to get into Birmingham
You click the little red circle with the pause symbol on it, it circles between Pause, Revolt & Spread so it'll do those things automatically, although really only setting it to automatically spread is that useful and it's a bit inconsistent what state the new underground resistance will come out as (Paused/AutoSpread)
I have finally launched my first Barbarossa and I am two weeks into the offensive. I have been able to make 1 encirclement around the forces of Brest-Litovsk. As I had set up a level 10 radar just behind my northern border with Russia, I was able to see were most of the Russian forces were.
I have only really broken through the center of the Russian line, but that was were most of my panzer and motor corps were positioned. With the center completely opened up, I am starting to go around the big swamp and routing some a sizable number of Russian divisions and HQs into it. From the center I have also been able to launch a pincer movement towards the south where I aim to trap a large portion of the southern Russian army, that I took care of not pushing back, against the Romanian border. My northern army has also pushed through, but there were no concentrations of Russian troops that I was able to encircle.
I will try to follow the guidelines from this AAR and destroy as many divisions as possible and try to finish the war before the winter arrives. Having started on the 1st of June, I think I might be ok. Now the painful part is that I will have to wait until the new year to continue my offensive.
I did not build enough garrison troops for France and the Atlantic wall and now the British have just landed marine divisions in the Netherlands, hopefully my militia and cavalry units can push them back before it is too late.
I have only really broken through the center of the Russian line, but that was were most of my panzer and motor corps were positioned. With the center completely opened up, I am starting to go around the big swamp and routing some a sizable number of Russian divisions and HQs into it. From the center I have also been able to launch a pincer movement towards the south where I aim to trap a large portion of the southern Russian army, that I took care of not pushing back, against the Romanian border. My northern army has also pushed through, but there were no concentrations of Russian troops that I was able to encircle.
I will try to follow the guidelines from this AAR and destroy as many divisions as possible and try to finish the war before the winter arrives. Having started on the 1st of June, I think I might be ok. Now the painful part is that I will have to wait until the new year to continue my offensive.
I did not build enough garrison troops for France and the Atlantic wall and now the British have just landed marine divisions in the Netherlands, hopefully my militia and cavalry units can push them back before it is too late.
In Take Two, I once got a question why I always keep so many men in France and the Low Countries. This is why. I hope you have a couple of tanks to throw agains those Marines, who have a rather limited Hard Attack and Piercing. If not, try using airstrikes against them to soften them up. Log strike the port province to trap them and their supplies.
Great idea about the logistic strikes as I have committed all my panzers to the eastern front. I had only realized after the fall of France that I would still need more panzers, motorized, a fifth brigade for all my divisions, and about 280 IC needed in upgrades by winter of '41. Safe to say that only about a third of my infantry divisions got an extra artillery, but all my panzer and motorized corps have a 5 brigade compliment.
Ah, you went for Superior Firepower, did you? It is, of course, very powerful. The choice between more, smaller units or less but more powerful. If you have any of those extra brigades coming off the line in the coming days or so, why not add them to the militia and/or cavs instead, since that is where the potential threat lies right now. It would mean SR'ing them east afterwards and manually attaching them to the proper divisions, but it would give you some extra firepower.
No new brigades, but plenty of millitia and cavalry in line for the occupation. I called the Italians into the war and set an objective and their motorised troops have just arrived and should be able to push them back. The British are not sending more troops in and do not seem to have that much left, also the Italians are racing accross northen Africa since I called them in.
It is the 1st of July in my game now I have been fighting for about a month. I have broken through thr middle and I am carrolling as many Russians into the big swampy area, Minsk is mine, I am SDing some infantry to closeit off from the north and the south is aldo closing it off. As the road to Moscow is clear, love that lvl 10 radar btw, I was wondering if I should capture it at the moment or suround it and starve out the whole of Russia.
It is the 1st of July in my game now I have been fighting for about a month. I have broken through thr middle and I am carrolling as many Russians into the big swampy area, Minsk is mine, I am SDing some infantry to closeit off from the north and the south is aldo closing it off. As the road to Moscow is clear, love that lvl 10 radar btw, I was wondering if I should capture it at the moment or suround it and starve out the whole of Russia.
If you can, you should definitively capture Moscow. This will give them enough trouble and the VPs are too good to pass up.
And actually the sooner you attack in Italy in Naf the better. If you attack as soon as they joint the war, 3 2Mot/1AC do the job and they do it quickly. They don't have the amount of troops on the ground that the snaps of Misterbean show here.
What's the rush? Why not wait with invading Italy proper until 75% of the Wehrmacht is busy with the Soviets?
something strange happened in my present UK game. got to march '39, absorption of Czechoslovakia, they declared war!!
I don't recall that ever happening to me before. At Munich '38, yes, the Czech's have fought but this?
Then something even stranger happened. Germany declared war on Luxembourg on April 4th. As Britain has guaranteed Lux, WWII started in April '39. As you can imagine this surprised the hell out of me. And again, to my knowledge, this has never happened before. All my builds, my plans for shipping troops, I hadn't even sorted out my OOB yet. no one had any commanders, not troops, not planes, not my ships.
It was BRILLIANT!! completely unexpected, threw me off my game. I had to scramble to try and sort things out. I haven't enjoyed a game so much in years. It's now August '40 and I've just captured Tripoli and kicked Italy out of Africa (North and East) but they captured Crete so Greece has been conquered. Germany has just snuck past the Home fleet to land in Trondheim so I've sent some troops to help out, but I notice Sweden has given Germany Military access and there's a couple of divisions of heavy Armour steaming north to link up. They cant attack from Sweden but if they move into captured territory they become 'active' is that correct? clever thinking from the AI.
Should I try and close the border or just accept Norway is gone and pull my troops out while I can? I've only got 5 Inf div's with art. not going to stop Heavy Armour. The saying with discretion and valour in seems appropriate yes?
I don't recall that ever happening to me before. At Munich '38, yes, the Czech's have fought but this?
Then something even stranger happened. Germany declared war on Luxembourg on April 4th. As Britain has guaranteed Lux, WWII started in April '39. As you can imagine this surprised the hell out of me. And again, to my knowledge, this has never happened before. All my builds, my plans for shipping troops, I hadn't even sorted out my OOB yet. no one had any commanders, not troops, not planes, not my ships.
It was BRILLIANT!! completely unexpected, threw me off my game. I had to scramble to try and sort things out. I haven't enjoyed a game so much in years. It's now August '40 and I've just captured Tripoli and kicked Italy out of Africa (North and East) but they captured Crete so Greece has been conquered. Germany has just snuck past the Home fleet to land in Trondheim so I've sent some troops to help out, but I notice Sweden has given Germany Military access and there's a couple of divisions of heavy Armour steaming north to link up. They cant attack from Sweden but if they move into captured territory they become 'active' is that correct? clever thinking from the AI.
Should I try and close the border or just accept Norway is gone and pull my troops out while I can? I've only got 5 Inf div's with art. not going to stop Heavy Armour. The saying with discretion and valour in seems appropriate yes?
Well you could try to hold Norway by messing around and using your naval superiority to quickly take back Norwegian ports, this should stop the tanks but since you couldn't hold up in a sustained fire-fight all you could really do was delay things until you got your own Tanks and Anti-tank up there. I'd just accept Norway as lost. A shame, since keeping Norway alive lets you pretty much bomb German ports at will.
And i've never seen the AI go off script on its own.
And i've never seen the AI go off script on its own.
I am talking about invading North Africa. Never saw the Wehrmacht there. As said, the advantage of attacking early is less resistance and faster progress.
I agree that you probably won't be able to hold them off without any serious piercing.
Ah, my bad. I thought you went straight ahead with the invasion of Italy proper. In that case, you make an excellent point.
Last report on my Barbarossa, it started on the 1st Juin and it ended on the 17th of August (normal difficulty). I had charged on Moscow with 1 arm, 1 mot, and 1 waffen SS division and captured it with minimal resistance in the middle of July. The capture of Moscow made the Russians pull out most of the troops that were guarding the Finnish border and Leningrad which allowed me to charge my a couple of mobile units up there fast. While this was happening I did an couple of encirclements in the swamp south of Minsk and the southern force by Odessa. I had a to use some of my panzer divisions to patrol and keep open the supply line towards Moscow as a new front was being created to its south. Stalingrad was captured by the motorised division that took Moscow, but I detached the tank destroyer brigade so that it could race down faster, it meet minimal resistance.
While the Russians had plenty of armour, I do not think I saw any heavy armour, at least which I noticed. I also did not build any as I preferred to have more mobile force. The landing in Holland was taken care of with an armoured division rushed from the eastern front. If I learned 1 lesson, it is that I could have thinned out my line a bit more to have the infantry ready for encirclements instead of using my mobile troops ( I had spread my infantry evenly). Now the USA has just joined the war and my big ships have just finished building, so Sealion here I come!
While the Russians had plenty of armour, I do not think I saw any heavy armour, at least which I noticed. I also did not build any as I preferred to have more mobile force. The landing in Holland was taken care of with an armoured division rushed from the eastern front. If I learned 1 lesson, it is that I could have thinned out my line a bit more to have the infantry ready for encirclements instead of using my mobile troops ( I had spread my infantry evenly). Now the USA has just joined the war and my big ships have just finished building, so Sealion here I come!
Chapter 44: Out Of Africa.
The German invasion of Yugoslavia has US congress worried enough that they enact the Lend-Lease Act, and I take immediate action. The effect will be minimal, at first, with just 12 IC being shipped over, but let’s face it, 12 IC is the equivalent of constantly building an extra fighter. It won’t win the war for us.
We’ll have to do that ourselves.
Poland too is building Underground Cells, which is about the only thing they can do as a government in exile without any real troops.
The Tactical bombers are there to support the ground operations, but that doesn’t mean I have to let such a nice opportunity for some free turkey shooting pass by. The Italian airforce tries to counter by sending up a single interceptor. Yeah, right. That’s really going to make a difference.
Scratch another bunch of Italian ships.
The tanks will pin the Italians along the coast, while the infantry in the same province will attack the Italians just south of it with support from the other infantry corps.
Tripoli is left undefended, with only a bunch HQs present. HQs always retreat. Eureka!
It is the last port Italy has here. If I can grab it, the rest will have no way out and no way to receive new supplies other than by airdrops. AFAIK, Italy has only 1 transport plane, which will not be enough to supply everyone. As you can see in the screenshot, they have a substantial number of troops in Africa. Once I take Tripoli, they will eventually be driven into a corner with no way out and destroyed.
I can now strike all provinces except one from 2 flanks.
Italy enforces the conquest of Greece on the 20th of July, which is really just a footnote, compared to the loss of North Africa and all those troops there.
Remember what I said about the Japanese obsession with Guam when I was playing US? Well, Italy has an obsession of its own: Malta.
By taking Al Jawash, I can use the tanks as lynchpin, to support any and all other attacks in the area.
Italian paratroopers land on Cyprus and take both provinces before I can react, but they lose another 4 ships in the fight, a destroyer, a heavy cruiser and 2 transports.
Now that’s what I call brazen: trying to raid convoys right next to Scapa Flow, the main base of Home Fleet.
The Italians do keep trying, I’ll give them that. They also keep dying, which suits me just fine.
Almost no way out. Time to end the fighting in Libya.
In desperation, Italy tries to land some troops next to Alexandria, but only end up losing 2 more destroyers, 2 transports (inluding the troops onboard) and a submarine.
Sometimes, an Underground Cell is destroyed by enemy garrisons and Military Police, but if they can hold out until they have expanded, the resistance survives.
The final battle involves practically the entire 4th army against 5 infantry, 2 mountaineers, 2 motorised divisions, 2 Alpini (the Italian unique, enhanced mountaineers), 1 militia and a bunch of HQs. None of these have any Organisation, due to lack of supplies and previous defeats. That’s 11 frontline divisions and 1 blackshirt division that won’t be able to defend Italy later. Game over.
By the 4th of September, all fighting in the North African Theater has ceased. All enemy resistance has been crushed. We are now the masters of North Africa.
Germany has 2 destroyers (who are, conveniently enough for me, both located in Dieppe), 1 sub and 1 transport.
Italy has 1 battleship, 2 heavy cruisers, 5 destroyers, 4 subs and 5 transports.
The Royal Navy reigns supreme!
I have placed additional Underground Cells: one in Belgium, the other one in Verdun. As they grow, they will eventually link up. When I launch D-Day, they will all rise up simultaneously, which will create an extra frontline that any German reinforcements will have to break through. Of course, that’s all in the distant future. For now, let’s bask in the knowledge of a job well done and I’ll see you next time!
Do you expect it to increase? I received between 30 and 150 IC from the US in my game.