Spy Activity and the Red Horde!

[StarscreamSWE]

1. There doesn't seem to be any AI-Intelligence (spy) activity at all!
How come?

2. How do you stop Soviet Union as Germany?
I went with IC/TP tactic and baiscally spent the two first years building factories.
Allied with both Spain and Portugal. Took military controll of both. Put troops on the Azores and The Cape Verde islands to halt a future USA military involvement. Reinforced northwest Africa with both spainish and german troop for quick action later on against the france and brittish forces stationed in
Africa. Basically let the portugese colonies in southern go and left them unguarded.
Got lucky and split Czechoslovakia with Hungary without any problems. Thereby allying myself with them.
Took military controll of Hungary.
Invasion of Poland, France, Norway and Sweden went accordingly.
Italy Dow Greece.
Allied with Italy and took military controll.
Invasion of Yugoloslavia and Greece followed and went.
Splitted Yugoslavia and created Crotia.
Italy got the Yugoslavian coast and some more provinces as always without really contributing (annoying).
They actually deserved to have Greece tho.
Sent Rommel and the boys to North Africa where he shut down the Allied presence in the mediterian and was about to chase the allied forces southward.
It was now October 1940 and too late for an early invasion of Russia and I decided to wait until next spring or summer for Barbarossa.
In April the Turks DoW me and I saw a golden ticket to Baku oilfields. Only the Soviet Union Dow me some days later. It was almost as SU pulled a CIV IV stunt and urged or pressured the poor Turks to start the attack. Which was kind of cool...
The Soviet Union stood now 357 divisions strong. I had about 200 div. give or take Axis forces who were available at the eastern front. I hadn't even researched 41 Inf. yet, but the Soviet had. Needless to say the Soviet steamrolled over me and I started slowly to loose ground in the north and middle of the front. Any couterattack were futile. Somehow SU had less troops in at southern part of the front. They had approximately 20 div. per province in the north middle section of the front and about 5-10 in the southern parts. The worthless HUN, BUL, ROM forces in the south made slow process if any.
I managed to get the japanese to join the axis forces to open up a second front, but this seemed not to have any really effect on the red horde. Instead they struck back at Japanese hard and unforgiving.
This was a lost cause and I decided to end the session. I contemplated to continue a defensive war, but decided not to.

Where did I go wrong?

Should I have spent money on delaying SU techteams and production?
I know I should have researched the inf. and armor earlier.
Also the Luftwaffe was almost none present as I spend alot of IC on the Kriegsmarine. Should probally have gone for sealion instead.
Any suggestions?

I'm using HoI 2 DD + DAIM + SMEP 5.0
and SKIF as well

Cheers!

 

[e-stab]

The DAIM AIs are set to defend themselves against spies, but not to act in foreign territory. The reasoning behind that is that it would be nothing but a waste of money because at best the AI will be a tiny nuisance to the player. The AI simply isn't capable of directing a serious espionage campaign against other countries, its actions always stay kind of random.

Regarding your game, well, most people don't have much of problem winning against the Soviets on Normal. You may have had not enough divisions although 200 isn't that bad. Perhaps you didn't focus enough on land both in production and research, that's were games against the AI are usually decided, especially against the Soviets.

 

[unmerged(93067)]

1. There doesn't seem to be any AI-Intelligence (spy) activity at all!
How come?

2. How do you stop Soviet Union as Germany?
I went with IC/TP tactic and baiscally spent the two first years building factories.
Allied with both Spain and Portugal. Took military controll of both. Put troops on the Azores and The Cape Verde islands to halt a future USA military involvement. Reinforced northwest Africa with both spainish and german troop for quick action later on against the france and brittish forces stationed in
Africa. Basically let the portugese colonies in southern go and left them unguarded.
Got lucky and split Czechoslovakia with Hungary without any problems. Thereby allying myself with them.
Took military controll of Hungary.
Invasion of Poland, France, Norway and Sweden went accordingly.
Italy Dow Greece.
Allied with Italy and took military controll.
Invasion of Yugoloslavia and Greece followed and went.
Splitted Yugoslavia and created Crotia.
Italy got the Yugoslavian coast and some more provinces as always without really contributing (annoying).
They actually deserved to have Greece tho.
Sent Rommel and the boys to North Africa where he shut down the Allied presence in the mediterian and was about to chase the allied forces southward.
It was now October 1940 and too late for an early invasion of Russia and I decided to wait until next spring or summer for Barbarossa.
In April the Turks DoW me and I saw a golden ticket to Baku oilfields. Only the Soviet Union Dow me some days later. It was almost as SU pulled a CIV IV stunt and urged or pressured the poor Turks to start the attack. Which was kind of cool...
The Soviet Union stood now 357 divisions strong. I had about 200 div. give or take Axis forces who were available at the eastern front. I hadn't even researched 41 Inf. yet, but the Soviet had. Needless to say the Soviet steamrolled over me and I started slowly to loose ground in the north and middle of the front. Any couterattack were futile. Somehow SU had less troops in at southern part of the front. They had approximately 20 div. per province in the north middle section of the front and about 5-10 in the southern parts. The worthless HUN, BUL, ROM forces in the south made slow process if any.
I managed to get the japanese to join the axis forces to open up a second front, but this seemed not to have any really effect on the red horde. Instead they struck back at Japanese hard and unforgiving.
This was a lost cause and I decided to end the session. I contemplated to continue a defensive war, but decided not to.

Where did I go wrong?

Should I have spent money on delaying SU techteams and production?
I know I should have researched the inf. and armor earlier.
Also the Luftwaffe was almost none present as I spend alot of IC on the Kriegsmarine. Should probally have gone for sealion instead.
Any suggestions?

I'm using HoI 2 DD + DAIM + SMEP 5.0
and SKIF as well

Cheers!

if u have a 2nd front, u can win the defensive war. how bad off r the japs. i mean, if the SU is near Hong Kong, well, u got a problem.

simple solution:

u said u got a navy? use it. invade Lenningrad and Archanglisk. also, ally Finland. 3 front war will kill them. put your best troops in the Caucasian mountains and u have 4 fronts and ur only defending 2 of them. use local superiority. concentrate ur troops in area "A" and hope area "B" isnt attacked. take good defensive positions in area "A" and leave good troops there while the rest of ur army goes back to "B". kinda like wut the WW1 Germans did. they only lost cuz of 3 million Americans but thats America.

 

[StarscreamSWE]

if u have a 2nd front, u can win the defensive war. how bad off r the japs. i mean, if the SU is near Hong Kong, well, u got a problem.

simple solution:

u said u got a navy? use it. invade Lenningrad and Archanglisk. also, ally Finland. 3 front war will kill them. put your best troops in the Caucasian mountains and u have 4 fronts and ur only defending 2 of them. use local superiority. concentrate ur troops in area "A" and hope area "B" isnt attacked. take good defensive positions in area "A" and leave good troops there while the rest of ur army goes back to "B". kinda like wut the WW1 Germans did. they only lost cuz of 3 million Americans but thats America.

Forget to mention that the SU declared war on the Finns and they entered the Axis Alliance by default.
Maybe I would have been able to turn tide if had been more patient, but I really made a bad misstake with the inf tech.
The Leningrad through Finland invasion actually crossed my mind. I'll think I'll will use this on my new session.
Also this time I'll make a fortress out of Königsberg and let the soviets smash their bodies against it while open up the southern front

 

[unmerged(87945)]

Nah it is possible even with only 2 fronts and its rather eazy. About a week ago i had exaclty the same problem as you, got rolled over by SU.

I can give u couple of suggestions i figured out myself: First SU ai tends to build SHITLOAD of inf divisions, those 10-20 u see on your border is nothing, ull see at least as many or more behind the main front doing anti partisan duties. Good thing for you is that ai also tends to build only like 5% of all inf divions with any attachment, so thats about 1/3 attack and some defence less for them. What u need to do is play your game as Germany carefuly. Annex Austria, Sudetland and partition CheSlo with Hungary. Invade Poland in august (event aug 30th), annex, give SU its part, then spend winter making inf/mtn divisions. After march of 40 wait for the weather to get better, and as soon as it stops raining in lowlands invade Holland first, then Lux and Belgium, finish off Franchies, create Vichy, by that time youll be out of manpower having about 1-1.20 manpower per day. EVERY single division u make, make without attachment cuz it saves some manpower so can make max number of land divisions (without armor) by the half of 1940. When u run out of manpower, switch to production of tanks (put w/e attachment u prefer). After ure done researching rocket attachment start making them so u can put one on each inf division u have. They add best amount of stats to inf for relatively small supply consumption. Save all oil u can get for armor, so NO! fancy TD, H A/L A for inf! Also put art on mtn. Make Spain, Romania, Italy, Bulgaria join, destory Yugoslavia, Greece, take Gibraltar from Brits, get naavy into mediteranian sea, finish off w/e navy Brits got there, dont take control of Italy, and dont send troops there, bast thing u can do to help Italy is kill the british ships and MAYBE take Suez so u can cut their navy off. Also send all tactical bombers there and kill Brits as they retrear towards El Alamein, and later as they bring divisions from South Africa. After that focus solely on SU. in the north put about 18 inf divs (thats like 3 territories) with 1-2 armor, in the middle about 20 inf + 4-6 armor (like 4 territories) and in the south (around Stryj) as many inf as u can get + what ever is left of your armor, u need most there! Take control of Hung, Bulg and Romania. Bring everything from those 3 into Romania and put it on borders. Also bring about 5 Ger mtn dvis on each of those 2 territories, and have about 30 mtn divs ready to board some troop transports so u can send them to Finland. This is key for your victory. After u place those mtn there Ai will try to match your numbers in Fin by pulling inf from the Ger front, reducing numbers from the lowland territories (where its eazy to beat you) into forsets and mauntains (where its hard to beat you) thus making it eazy for you to advance. In 1941. wait for the weather to get clear in SU, after the muds are finished start invasion but only on the lowland part which around Stryj where u should have most of your troops and armor. After u make into SU with about 1-2 territories, support attack on sides and make your brake tru wider. Whenever u need to split your troops to occupy territory NEVER send less than 12-15 of them or ull get rolled. Use synchronize arrival always, and dont advance into SU from finland after u destroy SU troops along the border of finland which u can eazily encircle. Youll be in moscow in about 3-4 months maybe less.

So to make it shorter. 18+ divs on parts of your border with SU u dont plan to attack from, 30 mtn divs into finland, 30+ divs on 4-5 territories in the middle (around stryj) and 5 mtn on each territory on Romanian border + Bulg/Hung troops. Dont use their troops to brake front as they sux and it takes a long time for them to get their streinght back, only attack when u can support with Ger armies from sides!

 

[unmerged(93067)]

u gotta research like hell. also, use all that prewar industry. pump out tanks and tanks and tanks and tanks and tanks...

 

[unmerged(87945)]

U cant beat SU if u focus on tanks, mostly because ull run out of oil which means no air support and no navy, and messed up movement speed for all troops that need oil. Not to mention about 3X more IC u need to make tanks, and in retourn u get unit that has about 30% more stats than basic INF + art but less softness. In my honest opinion, its not worth it. You should count whats the max oil u can get from your own territory and you allies and not exceed that in navy/aircrafts and tanks. As Ger i never make Mech Inf or Motorized cuz thats a waste.

In the beggining you have 2 choices. Either make only IC till 1938 or make navy + tanks/HQs. If u go for IC its possible to make up those 2 years by the time war starts BUT ull be heavily dependant on rare matherials from Japan which might not be the best option if they get beaten by China or US. Ull always have option to trade with SU but ull LOSE alot of IC just to make supplys u then trade for same rare matherial that makes industry work lol...

Btw offtopic, does anyone know if DAIM would work with Luxor's Compendium mode, cuz that AI is really pissing me off grrrr stupid Japs cant beat Chiha

 

[StarscreamSWE]

Thanks!
That's really useful Srboljub and all other guys!
One question tho!
I mostly go with build factory/IC/TC-Strategy (I don't upgrade or anything, as I save that for 1938). When should I start building troops and how many should I build? For instance I have now researched 1939 Inf. and this seems as good time to start building. Should put like 20 serial*5 parallel at once?

 

[unmerged(87945)]

Ok. If u wanna focus on having about 350-400 IC before the war this is what you should do: When u start the game as Ger change ministers to what u prefer (ofc put that guy that gives you +10 IC Hjalmar Schnart or something like that and be careful that u dont take his resignation later on in an event cuz ull lose that +10 IC bonus) and then lose the dissent shouldnt take more than a couple of days. Also delete all ships in building queue (u can wait for a couple of them to get finished cuz it takes like 3-4 days but i usually just delete all cuz i dont need those crappy CLs or w/e). When youre ready start building as much IC as u can and thats about it. Do the same thing untill 1938. Also change your policy slider for centralized industry, i think it takes 2 years to get +15 IC bonus which is a must! Keep ordering IC and when estimated compleation time gets over 1st jan 1939 stop making IC and start making INF/mtn. That ofc depends on your style. Like i said above, if ure not gonna do the finland defence u dont need mtn, if u wanna do it like me then make bout 1:3 ratiot mtn:inf basically untill u run out of manpower. When ure out of mp start making tanks untill u hit your max oil income. Also around 1941 start making rocket attachments and ull be fine. Dont send armies overseas, to Italy or w/e, if u wanna make navy start it from 1936 and use certain % of IC for it, i use like 20% for navy. Go to overvieuw and check which kind of ships have most max/min positioning and focus on them.

Also i reccomend Compendium mode if u want some challenge as Germany xD