Sorry but it will be the same again for me - I'm not normally getting home before 7 pm UK time nowadays.Colonel Warden said:
Andrew
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Andrew
I don't mind moving session start from 19 to 20 CEST, but I'd prefer to know it ahead of time. Can we agree on it? From now on starting one hour later than we did to date?Colonel Warden said:
BTW around 7 pm HoI2 vnet channel seemed to be down. If it persists, let's gather in HoI or common channel.
Lord Ederon said:
We can finalize this when we're together in one hour, but it makes sense to move the starting time to 20:00 CEST. It's a shame to lose this one hour, but if Andrew can't start earlier, he can't start earlier.
Indeed he can't. What I'm addressing is not his inability to play from 19:00, but the time he decided to inform us about it. I need about an hour to end up in work and set up for a game. In the middle of that I get information we are postponing. It is lost time for me then.Herodotos said:
Session of September 12th
From now on we play on Monday(s) starting at 20:00 CEST.
Tonite we were:
Wishing Well - USA
Andrew - UK
Herodotos - Germany
Lord Ederon - Italy
We ended up somewhere in late October 1946. And it is being damn hot in some places already...
It was late July when today's session started. Allies launched big scale offensive in Africa Axis were waiting for for some time already. With no hope to hold there for longer time, Italy and its allies had to slowly withdraw from their positions. Frontline was becoming too long and exhausted Axis powers couldn't keep it.
Suddenly, to date calm fornt line in Suez was to become place of terrible event. Nobody of Suez garrison was excited about Allied planes already, air raids were just too common there. But one sunny August day it was something different. US bombers droped weapon of unmatched power to Suez. Bomb that wiped out all of defending forces. Roads, communication infrastructere and almost everything in the aread of impact was completely annihilated. It was too large shock for Axis and Allies took advantage of it.They swiftly took Suez and begun to flow into Egypt as a storm.
Axis high command had to reconsider their plans and focus on new goal: stop Allies from taking over Eastern Mediterranean. Troops from Central, South and East Africa were continuously moved to then front in Northern Africa. Threat of cut-off was very close though.
On the other side of Mediterranean, where Germany started offensive against US and UK north of Gibraltar, was situation similar. When strong offensive forced Allied troops to retreat to Gibraltar, almost 90 divisions were concentrated there. With no place to go, their only hope was to attempt breakthrough or sail away. Mighty fortresses provided them enough confidence. It would be enough in the past, but nuclear age already begun. Gibraltar, western bottleneck of Mediterranean sea with impenetrable fortresses (level 10, just as Suez have), was second place where nuclear bomb was used. What Allies gained in the East, they lost in the West. Complicated situation was again managable by Axis.
Despite getting Gibraltar, Axis were in very bad situation. Egypt was quickly falling into American hands. Even redeployed units from other parts of Afirca couldn't stop US from getting Alexandria, important port and key to the Africa. Opposed by Axis in El Alamein, Alexandria was being filled by many US divisions. But that was yet not the worse for Axis. After losing battle for Alexandria, German and Italian commanders made terrible mistake. They've chosen retreat path to place of no return, Quattara Depression. This terrible mistake cost Axis another loss. Many elite troops, panzer divisions and highly experienced commanders were lost in this wasteland.
Allies flew into Egypt and threathened Axis troops south of Egypt even more. To enable their rescue and bring new hope for decimated troops, Axis high command prepared ambitious plan. Intelligence reported Allied troops moving from Arabia. Few weak spots were discovered and plan was quickly forged. Italians loaded onto the ships and sailed to Suez. Few concurrent landings were made. In el-Arish, Gaza and finally Suez. Poorly defended Suez was captured, but fights on the beaches were heavy and many lives were lost there. Soon after Italians retook Suez, US armoured forces made counterattack from Port Said. Just in time, short before will of old-new Suez defenders would be broken, Italian battleships entered the channel and repulsed US attakers. Soon after Axis transports brought many divisions from southern parts of Africa. Few small pockets of Chinese troops were captured and new front-line established in Eliat, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
However nightmare Axis yet weren't fully recovered from had shown up again. Dongala, province of new Egyptian Gate defence line, was hit by nuke again. Manned by almost 30 Italian divisions, mostly elite mountain infantry hardened by long fights in jungles of Africa, were completely annihilated. Another hit for Axis, this time with different taste.
To mention other parts than Mediterranean and Africa, Soviet Union is on its decline. Uncompetent commanders of once defeated Red Army are leading its troops to death. Chinese troops are already threatening Turkey and Germany from the east.
I'm sure we'll see another nukes next session, and I'm almost sure it won't be just one. With this new weapon on the stage, everybody has to be careful more than ever before. Being in large stack is danger on its own. What used to be highly secure before now turned into most dangerous tactic. Anyhow it is, we are approaching last year of HoI2 era. Can't wait to celebrate Silvester 1946
From now on we play on Monday(s) starting at 20:00 CEST.
Tonite we were:
Wishing Well - USA
Andrew - UK
Herodotos - Germany
Lord Ederon - Italy
We ended up somewhere in late October 1946. And it is being damn hot in some places already...
It was late July when today's session started. Allies launched big scale offensive in Africa Axis were waiting for for some time already. With no hope to hold there for longer time, Italy and its allies had to slowly withdraw from their positions. Frontline was becoming too long and exhausted Axis powers couldn't keep it.
Suddenly, to date calm fornt line in Suez was to become place of terrible event. Nobody of Suez garrison was excited about Allied planes already, air raids were just too common there. But one sunny August day it was something different. US bombers droped weapon of unmatched power to Suez. Bomb that wiped out all of defending forces. Roads, communication infrastructere and almost everything in the aread of impact was completely annihilated. It was too large shock for Axis and Allies took advantage of it.They swiftly took Suez and begun to flow into Egypt as a storm.
Axis high command had to reconsider their plans and focus on new goal: stop Allies from taking over Eastern Mediterranean. Troops from Central, South and East Africa were continuously moved to then front in Northern Africa. Threat of cut-off was very close though.
On the other side of Mediterranean, where Germany started offensive against US and UK north of Gibraltar, was situation similar. When strong offensive forced Allied troops to retreat to Gibraltar, almost 90 divisions were concentrated there. With no place to go, their only hope was to attempt breakthrough or sail away. Mighty fortresses provided them enough confidence. It would be enough in the past, but nuclear age already begun. Gibraltar, western bottleneck of Mediterranean sea with impenetrable fortresses (level 10, just as Suez have), was second place where nuclear bomb was used. What Allies gained in the East, they lost in the West. Complicated situation was again managable by Axis.
Despite getting Gibraltar, Axis were in very bad situation. Egypt was quickly falling into American hands. Even redeployed units from other parts of Afirca couldn't stop US from getting Alexandria, important port and key to the Africa. Opposed by Axis in El Alamein, Alexandria was being filled by many US divisions. But that was yet not the worse for Axis. After losing battle for Alexandria, German and Italian commanders made terrible mistake. They've chosen retreat path to place of no return, Quattara Depression. This terrible mistake cost Axis another loss. Many elite troops, panzer divisions and highly experienced commanders were lost in this wasteland.
Allies flew into Egypt and threathened Axis troops south of Egypt even more. To enable their rescue and bring new hope for decimated troops, Axis high command prepared ambitious plan. Intelligence reported Allied troops moving from Arabia. Few weak spots were discovered and plan was quickly forged. Italians loaded onto the ships and sailed to Suez. Few concurrent landings were made. In el-Arish, Gaza and finally Suez. Poorly defended Suez was captured, but fights on the beaches were heavy and many lives were lost there. Soon after Italians retook Suez, US armoured forces made counterattack from Port Said. Just in time, short before will of old-new Suez defenders would be broken, Italian battleships entered the channel and repulsed US attakers. Soon after Axis transports brought many divisions from southern parts of Africa. Few small pockets of Chinese troops were captured and new front-line established in Eliat, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
However nightmare Axis yet weren't fully recovered from had shown up again. Dongala, province of new Egyptian Gate defence line, was hit by nuke again. Manned by almost 30 Italian divisions, mostly elite mountain infantry hardened by long fights in jungles of Africa, were completely annihilated. Another hit for Axis, this time with different taste.
To mention other parts than Mediterranean and Africa, Soviet Union is on its decline. Uncompetent commanders of once defeated Red Army are leading its troops to death. Chinese troops are already threatening Turkey and Germany from the east.
I'm sure we'll see another nukes next session, and I'm almost sure it won't be just one. With this new weapon on the stage, everybody has to be careful more than ever before. Being in large stack is danger on its own. What used to be highly secure before now turned into most dangerous tactic. Anyhow it is, we are approaching last year of HoI2 era. Can't wait to celebrate Silvester 1946
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I have changed the thread title to a start time of 20:00 CET. Ok?Lord Ederon said:
Andrew
The Soviet AI doing ok - it surrounded and destroyed one Chinese army in Central Asia. The Chinese AI doesn't do much and so British military advisors have to spend a lot of time telling them what to do. But I'm glad that British diplomacy opened up the Persian front in good time to allow the enormous Chinese army in Kurdistan to disperse. I was most concerned that a nuke might destroy those 180 divisions at one fell swoop.Lord Ederon said:
It's good that Africa is being brought back into the British Empire now. I'll have to figure out some way of getting Vichy France into the war too - their stubborn neutrality is getting to be quite annoying.
The nuclear war is quite interesting - I've not seen them used in HoI 2 before. I'll take the issue of the installation raids on the US reactors back into beta-testing though it's reasonable that it shouldn't have made much difference as discovering the location of those reactors was some sort of glitch too, I suppose. Might have been some little known intelligence feature though - who knows ...?
Andrew
Yes, it is definitely interesting change. Everybody has to adapt his strategy and tactics to it. That's the most interesting thing on it for meColonel Warden said:
Colonel Warden said:
I don't remember the exact date anymore, but once the SU was at war with the Allies my single biggest fear in this game was that you would bring Persia in and have a chance to spread out the front by taking that SU Caucasus territory, which is exactly what happened in the end. After so much time had passed I thought you had either not realized that the possibility was there or that it was not possible to bring Persia into your alliance for some reason. We had a chance to drop a nuke on 192 Chinese divisions, but we decided to go for the Gibraltar option. That's not something I regret, since we got rid of one important front, closed one side of the Mediterranean and we destroyed 88 Allied divisions (according to my intelligence), nearly 30 of them armor.
It would make perfect sense to me that it's not possible to disrupt the development of a nuclear bomb with the use of ICBM's, but in that case it might be better that it's simply not possible to damage the enemy's nuclear reactor with rockets or planes. I don't want make it sound as if I'm whining and I fully accept in good spirit that it's part of our game that you got nuclear bombs without us expecting them, but it might be better for clarity that nuclear installations cannot be damaged by installation strikes. What's the purpose of having the possibility if it has no effect whatsoever? I agree with you that the discovery of the US plant is probably a glitch and that the way things turned out is reasonable given the way we "discovered" the US nulear plant, but we were confused, because we were convinced that you would not get a nuclear bomb as a result of the continuous bombing of the reactor. Actually before we located it, we thought you were close to one and we had guessed that the first target would be Suez. We had already started to spread our forces, to minimize losses and to try to make sure you would not be able to take Port Said after nuking Suez. We took those forces from Port Said after we thought that you would not get a nuclear bomb.
USA have had a nuclear weapon for some time, but their president was reluctant to use it until allied armed forces were left without alternatives.
( I had a nuke in store before you started bombing my installation. Your repeating bombings prevented me from having much more. Once you stopped your bombings it took a short time for a second nuke to be available.)
( I had a nuke in store before you started bombing my installation. Your repeating bombings prevented me from having much more. Once you stopped your bombings it took a short time for a second nuke to be available.)
Wishing_Well said:
Ah, that changes things a lot and my arguments and points above aren't all correct anymore. In that case you produce them a lot quicker than I thought and I sort of confused myself because of that. I assumed you would produce them with a 20% advantage from the Free Market, but it seems your advantage is much bigger then. I estimate in that case that it takes you only about 3 months, where it takes me more than double that time. I have all the techs and my reactor is size 8. This leads to another point. Production time of a nuke was shortened as soon as level 7 and 8 of the reactor were finished. The completion of a tech did not have any influence on my bomb, contrary to what you said in-game about yours.
EDIT: to feed my curiosity I ran a little test in SP, a 41 scenario with the sole purpose of making a nuclear bomb as the US. The results were very similar to what I'm experiencing as Germany now. So no nuke developed in 3 months and it's the level of the reactor that shortens the development, not the techs themselves. This can mean one of several things:
1) the data I can see about the US nuclear reactor in Pittsburgh is either incorrect and/or delayed.
2) the development of US nukes is bugged in MP or at least in our game one way or another.
3) the installation strikes distort the development of the bomb somehow, but do not actually delay it.
4) I completely miss something
I suppose we'll find out what happened after we finish the game. To solve it now, you or me might have to give too much sensitive data.
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September 29th Session
As usual, we were:
Wishing Well - USA (host)
Andrew - UK
Herodotos - Germany
Lord Ederon - Italy
We started on October 24th, 1946. Session ended on January 18th of the last year we are going to play, 1947.
Last session Axis managed to retake Suez and Palestine. However, there were not many troops which could be sent there, so both Italy and Germany realized it is not for a long time. After virtual inactivity of Allied bombers in Red Sea and Suez channel during last session, they concentrated loads of bombers there this time. No ship could survive passage through Red Sea and many Axis vessels were sank there. It also ment no more soldiers could be saved from Wadi Haifa. Italians and Germans tried to flee on their own, Romanians were condemned to imprisonment.
Allies quickly continued to conquer virtually undefended territory of Africa, previously held by Italy and its puppet allies. East African Union, Somalia, Ethiopia and Cameroon one by one got annexed by United Kingdom or USA.
Meanwhile, Allied troops were in bad troubles in Egypt. After Suez fell into Axis hadns again, they couldn't supply their units there sufficiently. Ports on the coast of Red Sea were too small to handle such a big amounts of cargo. However, they managed to disguise this crisis so Axis didn't realize it is so serious. Otherwise Allies in Egypt could end badly.
When US attacked Eliat on their way to retook Suez, Italians with few supporting Germans were already outnumbered. Evacuation of Palestine begun. All but 4 divisions of Italian soldiers were evecuated safely. US retook Suez and opened the passage to Alexandria for their supply convoys.
Soon after Allies regained control over Suez, they started their operations in Mediterranean. First target was Cyprus. Amphibious invasion was made there by 9 Mexican/US divisions. Defending 3 Italian divisions were holding as long as they could, hoping Italian navy with support of Geman carrier group and naval bombers can intercept invaders and attacke them from the sea. However, none of above mentioned could ever locate Allied invasion fleet. It was literally invisible to Axis sea wolfs. The result was clear. Cyprus is now occupied by US.
On the eastern border of Germany was situation getting stabilized. Germans managed to make front between Black Sea and Caspian Sea, another on the eastern border of Kurdistan and Persia and last western of Caspian. Italian war reporters have no more information about this front. Just that US have now their troops there too.
At the end of the session one major naval battle was fought. US and UK fleets on the one side fighting German and Italian on the other side. German and UK fleets later left the fight and it was then just between US carrier group and remnants of Italian submarine fleet. As a result, Italy lost all but one submarine squadron. However, US losts were not small either. Only few US ships survived the battle. Some of them were troop transports. It was last major battle of Italian navy, but also the one to be long remembered.
Well, we had not nuclear attack this session. Both sides are just waiting for the right time to use it. Allies probably hope to use it on their way to mainland Europe. Anyway, there are yet 11 months to the final end, but winner is already known. By what margin we shall see.
As usual, we were:
Wishing Well - USA (host)
Andrew - UK
Herodotos - Germany
Lord Ederon - Italy
We started on October 24th, 1946. Session ended on January 18th of the last year we are going to play, 1947.
Last session Axis managed to retake Suez and Palestine. However, there were not many troops which could be sent there, so both Italy and Germany realized it is not for a long time. After virtual inactivity of Allied bombers in Red Sea and Suez channel during last session, they concentrated loads of bombers there this time. No ship could survive passage through Red Sea and many Axis vessels were sank there. It also ment no more soldiers could be saved from Wadi Haifa. Italians and Germans tried to flee on their own, Romanians were condemned to imprisonment.
Allies quickly continued to conquer virtually undefended territory of Africa, previously held by Italy and its puppet allies. East African Union, Somalia, Ethiopia and Cameroon one by one got annexed by United Kingdom or USA.
Meanwhile, Allied troops were in bad troubles in Egypt. After Suez fell into Axis hadns again, they couldn't supply their units there sufficiently. Ports on the coast of Red Sea were too small to handle such a big amounts of cargo. However, they managed to disguise this crisis so Axis didn't realize it is so serious. Otherwise Allies in Egypt could end badly.
When US attacked Eliat on their way to retook Suez, Italians with few supporting Germans were already outnumbered. Evacuation of Palestine begun. All but 4 divisions of Italian soldiers were evecuated safely. US retook Suez and opened the passage to Alexandria for their supply convoys.
Soon after Allies regained control over Suez, they started their operations in Mediterranean. First target was Cyprus. Amphibious invasion was made there by 9 Mexican/US divisions. Defending 3 Italian divisions were holding as long as they could, hoping Italian navy with support of Geman carrier group and naval bombers can intercept invaders and attacke them from the sea. However, none of above mentioned could ever locate Allied invasion fleet. It was literally invisible to Axis sea wolfs. The result was clear. Cyprus is now occupied by US.
On the eastern border of Germany was situation getting stabilized. Germans managed to make front between Black Sea and Caspian Sea, another on the eastern border of Kurdistan and Persia and last western of Caspian. Italian war reporters have no more information about this front. Just that US have now their troops there too.
At the end of the session one major naval battle was fought. US and UK fleets on the one side fighting German and Italian on the other side. German and UK fleets later left the fight and it was then just between US carrier group and remnants of Italian submarine fleet. As a result, Italy lost all but one submarine squadron. However, US losts were not small either. Only few US ships survived the battle. Some of them were troop transports. It was last major battle of Italian navy, but also the one to be long remembered.
Well, we had not nuclear attack this session. Both sides are just waiting for the right time to use it. Allies probably hope to use it on their way to mainland Europe. Anyway, there are yet 11 months to the final end, but winner is already known. By what margin we shall see.
As I was examining Italian situation, I found out that problem I had with technology is still there. I'm not able to build fighters despite I have few tech levels above basic fighter already researched. I would like to have it edited so the game "knows" about my inventions too
Lord Ederon said:As I was examining Italian situation, I found out that problem I had with technology is still there. I'm not able to build fighters despite I have few tech levels above basic fighter already researched. I would like to have it edited so the game "knows" about my inventions too
This changes things a little. I agree with you about editing it in. I hope WW and Andrew voice their opinion on this matter as well.
I've spoken to Wishing Well yesterday and he was not unwilling to edit it in. I still hope to hear Andrew's respected opinion. What would help is that Ederon posts which tech he's talking about, because I didn't remember the correct one exactly. While we were on the subject of editing, Wishing Well expressed that he was not totally happy with my bombing of his nuclear plant, because I probably found it through a glitch. I wished he had said it a little earlier, but I have some understanding for his point of view. As a matter of fact I had discussed whether this would be gamey or not with Ederon before starting with it because I had my doubts as well. The reason why I decided to go on is that, suspecting its existence, I had already decided to scout for it with my ICBM's. The US has only 10-15 provinces with 100% infrastructure. It's almost inevitable that the US decided to build in one of those, so I don't think it would have taken very long to find it. An idea Wishing Well dropped is moving it, while the save is going to be edited anyway. I would be in favor of that if it would work, so I would have to scout for it as originally intended. I'm afraid it won't work though, since I, but also Ederon, can see any installation which should be hidden by the fog of war, like radar stations and obviously nuclear plants. I hope we can discuss the situation either in this thread or otherwise before the game starts tomorrow.
If we agree on editing, I'd like to edit said tech myself. Not that it matters too much, but it would disclose some rather important things. I'll edit it myslef and we can conclude decision whether to go with edits or not tomorrow, right before session start.