Strategy for WiF '36 scenario

[PrussianPrince]

Poland takes me -a month- to conquer... So yes, that is quite a lot. By that time UK, South Africa, Canada and Australia conquer a lot of my territory and I don't have enough forces to stop that from happening. Then, France stacks up on the Maginot Line and breaks through there quite easily.

Poland used to take me 4-5 days in vanilla 1.3 beta 2... And France what, around a month (October-November)

If anyone could share tips in here, how to defend the beaches against possible invasions, and etc.

Also, please state if you use MOT and then later upgrade to MEC, or just stick to LARM and ARM.

It would be great if you could say if you build IC and what serials, or not at all and just use the IC conquered from other nations.

Which do you use: INT or FTR? If you use FTR, do you disband the INT.

How do you build your INF? Do you buid ART brigaded INF at all?

Thanks in advance.

 

[unmerged(17675)]

Build 4 Carriers and upgrade them by developing your naval bombers. Use them to chase off any attempts to land troops. Just put one infantry in each place you have a province they can land in. Use your fleet to stop or at least slow the UK from getting into the Baltic sea. Use about 12 to 15 divisions along with the 6 garrisons to defend against France. That should do it.

 

[Lascars]

Poland takes me -a month- to conquer... So yes, that is quite a lot. By that time UK, South Africa, Canada and Australia conquer a lot of my territory and I don't have enough forces to stop that from happening. Then, France stacks up on the Maginot Line and breaks through there quite easily.

Poland used to take me 4-5 days in vanilla 1.3 beta 2... And France what, around a month (October-November)

If anyone could share tips in here, how to defend the beaches against possible invasions, and etc.

With infantry divisions, 1 per province, AA brigade (after Poland upgraded through event in an effective AT weapon) commanded by defensive leaders. Interceptors against bombers, sometimes their strikes are coordinated with the amphibious assault.

Also, please state if you use MOT and then later upgrade to MEC, or just stick to LARM and ARM.

Of course some MOT are needed for both Poland and France, MEC's are of some use in Russia and especially later- India, Africa.

It would be great if you could say if you build IC and what serials, or not at all and just use the IC conquered from other nations.

Yes, 2 or 3 serials, to be finished by Munich but with this version production of ARM's must begin earlier, so less IC whoring. Building an ARM takes more than a year in 36-37.

Which do you use: INT or FTR? If you use FTR, do you disband the INT.

Both. No. I try to have 12 INT, 6 FTR before France.

How do you build your INF? Do you buid ART brigaded INF at all?

Research '39 model sometime in advance. Yes some ART, some AA- for the event, some ENG.

jatutt:

Build 4 Carriers and upgrade them by developing your naval bombers. Use them to chase off any attempts to land troops. Just put one infantry in each place you have a province they can land in. Use your fleet to stop or at least slow the UK from getting into the Baltic sea. Use about 12 to 15 divisions along with the 6 garrisons to defend against France. That should do it.

It seems to me a lot of investment, those carriers, against a small annoyance. Their invasion fleets are easy to chase, just with the Stuka and the Recon. plain, to be sure that no British battle fleets are in the area, and then send the Kriegsmarine. Then sail to port, and repeat the operation whenever needed. If a battle fleet enters the area, then send your TAC's over it, it should retreat with some losses.
It is more important to finish Poland earlier than building CV's.
Agree about the defence of the border with France. Avoid to put brigades on the fixed garrisons.

 

[unmerged(136398)]

For me it has also been hard to win fast in WiF, due to an inability to produce enough troops fast enough. In my present game I'm doing better, though. It did take me a full month to beat Poland, mostly because their army stacked in Warsaw, but I also defeated France in just a month.

Anyways, what I did was to only build one serial of industry, until January 1937. I also started researching Motorized 1938 and Interceptor 1937 immediately, and produced 4 x 3 of MOT with ENG (to be used good for Blitzkrieg) and 2 x 3 INT starting immediately as my industry run was complete. By 1937, I started researching Infantry '39 immediately, since I planned to start produce those the next years, with 4 x 8 INF if I recall.

I also let trade suffer from the start, and did not trade in oil and rares with supplies in massive amounts as I normally do, to use my industry to its fullest producing troops, and avoided spending anything on intelligence so I wouldn't have to trade in money. I did not pay the 500$ for the Sub. 1940 blueprints either; again, because I didn't want to have to spend any industry on supplies to trade in money. Additionally, I avoided building any tactical bombers, only upgrading the existing ones, and instead relying on close attack support, so I would be able to spend most on ground forces.

Before, I would do two serial runs finishing by 1938, but I only managed to have ~90 divisions at the outbreak of the war that way, of which perhaps ~10 were motorized and 6-9 were armor. With this method, I managed to have ~110, of which 18 were motorized and 9 armor.

For the Siegfried Line, I tend to have ~35 divisions located there at the outbreak of the war. Keep in mind that Freiburg is most likely to be attacked the heaviest, and make sure to move the Czech forts there when you have the option.

Edit: Oh, and note that you for beaches can use garrisons as guards, mixed with a few INF divisions as mobile reinforcements. Garrisons are cheaper in IC than regular INF, and they are good enough to hold out, esp. when it comes to beaches where the attacker has a severe penalty.

 

[Jedrek]

Reached September Campaign so far, normal/normal difficulty, Titanium edition.

Personally, I'd vote for toning down the defenders of Warsaw. I managed to reached the Ribbentrop-Molotov borderline within historical timeframe (failed to capture Lwow, Brest and Zamosc though), but when I turned my attention on Lublin and Warsaw, all my efforts were in vain. With over 40 Polish divisions (more then Poland ever mobilised for 1939 IRL) defending in a supplied urban province, it took over a month of constant assault to overcome them.

I guess that the AI Poland gets additional reinforcements spawned to prevent an easy German victory - which is fine. But AI should be tweaked not to concentrate them all in Warsaw, but rather disperse across the frontline. Now I guess the only reasonable tactic for the German player is to wait until their leave Warsaw and then encircle them - a rather gamey and ahistorical tactic.

Second thing. I've noticed it's impossible to win three-sided battles (for example, my forces attacking from Kielce, Soviets from Brest and Poland defending in Lublin). Even if I manage to overcome enemy forces, I get a "battle won" message repeated every hour, without my forces occupying the province. More, after a day the province got occupied by a Soviet motorised division. Same thing happened after the assault on Warsaw - I got an endless string of "battle won" messages, but no occupation. Worse, the paratrooper division I sent for additional envenlopement bonus got wiped out, as if there was no way to retreat from the province. A bit furious, I decided edit the autosave so that I could annex Poland right after reload. No cheating here - on the 7 XI Polish forces got almost wiped out, and seven days of combat don't seem a big deal compared to a month of assault.

And the third issue - the uber Allied airforce. Basically there's no way to defend my provinces from Allied onslaught, despite most of them being guarded by AA guns and radars. My interceptors can hardly handle the 5-6 TAC stacks of bombers, and every time I seem to stabilise the situation, I get my ass kicked by an uber stack of 5-6 French III INT. To be precise - I try to play historically, without stacking my squadrons and placing them under major generals, 1-2 for every region.

Additionally, would it be possible to prevent the AI from retreating Far East and Indian squadrons? It's kinda... Strange to see TACs from India bombarding Kassel in first days of WWII...

 

[Eugenioso]

its all about personal taste really. as Germany, you need to focus on army and airforce. subs are too detracting, as is a navy. ignore those.

i always start with one serial run of 15 factories. they should be done in a year. then i begin 2 serial runs of ARM. they take so long to build in comparison to other things that i just begin them now. then i build 2 serials of INT or FTR depending on what game i start, 2 of TAC's, 2 of MOT (later MEC), and at least 6 parallel runs of infantry, which i keep increasing as more IC becomes available.

research should focus on land doctrines, Infantry, Armor, Airforce and Airforce dorctrines. dont be afraid to rush the Vehicle Line Assembly by '41 or the other ones.

as Germany, while playing in Unfair AI agressiveness, the UK and France will actively seek to either land on your shores or break through the Sigfried line. dont let them. use 2 inf divs to protect wilhelms and Kiel. if you have spare IC build coastal forts. as for the french front line, man the walls with a total of 36 divs. it seems expensive but dont worry. all the leftover divisions can take out Poland just fine. set one FTR/INT group in Wilhelms to attack aircraft in the north sea, while all the remainder go to the marginot line and attack Lorraine-Alsace from the air. dont take too heavy a beating from the UK/France bombing campaign, which can get seriously damaging.

 

[Serbon]

For the Siegfried Line, I tend to have ~35 divisions located there at the outbreak of the war. Keep in mind that Freiburg is most likely to be attacked the heaviest, and make sure to move the Czech forts there when you have the option.

You can move forts????

 

[De_Spinoza]

Its an event choise after you annex the Sudetenland.

 

[Fernando Torres]

Yes. You can dismantle Czech forts and use it to either build new forts in the Siegfriend line or convert it to resources.

 

[Eugenioso]

if you rush the production control industry schematic you can just build forts there. if you get lvl 8 forts by 1939 you are good to go.

 

[Keterex]

Poland takes me -a month- to conquer... So yes, that is quite a lot. By that time UK, South Africa, Canada and Australia conquer a lot of my territory and I don't have enough forces to stop that from happening. Then, France stacks up on the Maginot Line and breaks through there quite easily.

Poland used to take me 4-5 days in vanilla 1.3 beta 2... And France what, around a month (October-November)

If anyone could share tips in here, how to defend the beaches against possible invasions, and etc.

Also, please state if you use MOT and then later upgrade to MEC, or just stick to LARM and ARM.

It would be great if you could say if you build IC and what serials, or not at all and just use the IC conquered from other nations.

Which do you use: INT or FTR? If you use FTR, do you disband the INT.

How do you build your INF? Do you buid ART brigaded INF at all?

Thanks in advance.

Firstly some tips I have already posted for what they are worth
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=451827

To answer your questions;

1) I prefer INTs to FTRs - They are cheaper, much better at bomber defense and free up a tech tree.

In the west you won't be invading GB until after you have defeated USSR ( Unless you are ready for an early US entry to the war... very bad). Ints do a capable job of defending the channel ( you can always use a some tacs after a vicious dogfight to then strike at the atm undefended airfields to slow things down and give your INTs time to repair)

In the east the lack of airfields pretty much limits the use of INTs but most the USSR airfields are within easy reach of ground forces. After that you will see gaps in their air coverage that your TACS can work away in peace.

2)IC is up to how comfortable you are attacking poland with pretty much what you start with. I do 2 runs of 6 ( I think...been a while). 1 month seems about right to defeat poland ( Depends on your tactics, how big you make the danzig pocket and how many polish divs you let hole up in warsaw ( they are very hard to destroy there). The quickest way to beat poland is isolating warsaw from their troops as fast as possible ( Large mobile strike from the north and south , Konisberg and opplen I think they are called)

3) Army should be around 75% foot ( most unbrigaded). It would be nice to have more ARM and MEC but you just don't have the TC plus Russia has a huge amount of units ( 400ish) in 41 so you need LOTS of bums on the border ( I think I aimed for around 150ish Divs)

4)Beach defense - I prefer using just solo GAR units with no leaders with a couple motor/cav units every 5 provinces or so. Amphibious invasions take a long time to win. Even with overpowered attacks they can hold out for 1-2 days. This is more risky than using 1 Inf per province but the TC reduction of using GAR lets you have some MOT troops for "free". After you beat GB you can use the GAR for partisans and MOT inf is much more useful than plain foot ( which you will have more than you actually need by russia's end)

You only need to defend ports really anyway as it actual helps to leave some gaps open where you "know" the AI will try attack. They land and you simply push them back into the sea with reserves. AI likes to land north of Holland alot I find ( after you have blocked the demark strait)

5) Mag line - I aim for about 27 defenders. Even then they will be walking from attack to attack alot. You can hold for quite a while with 2 to 1 odds there. leave the province with both rivers a bit weak and let them attack, dribble reserves in to keep it going, by the end they will have got nowhere and will all be disorganized ( safe for a week or two)