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Verdun all over again

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unmerged(87410)

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Nov 17, 2007
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  • Darkest Hour
I've been playing as Germany on Normal/Normal, and it's May 1940. I have to admit that this is by far the hardest mod i've ever played. Poland actually gave me a hard time - the AI is startlingly aggressive. I've had incessant amphibious attacks on the Baltic coast from the UK, and France regularly launches 50+ divisions at Freiburg. I've played TRP, so the lengthened combat times didn't come as so much of a shock, however, I do think that the allies are somewhat overpowered.
A sneak peek behind the fog of war reveals that UK has over 100 divisions, including 10 medium armour - that's bigger than the Wehrmacht. France has 130+, Belgium another 35. In short, I can't see the invasion of France ending happily. God help us when it's time for Barbarossa (if I ever get that far.) I've taken Denmark, but Norway is out of the question. I have 108 divisions, including 8 armour, and it's just not enough. I'm having to keep 40 divisions on the Siegfried line just to hold off the French, which doesn't really allow me enough to make the Ardennes operation work.
The German industrial base just seems too small:(. Am i doing something wrong, or am i just generally crap?? :rolleyes:
 
Another thing that also occurs to me - when I finally attacked Belgium, I hit Antwerp from 3 different directions, with 43 divisions, including all my armour and motorised, hoping to break all the way through to Valenciennes (sp?) The Belgians had 8 divisions of infantry defending, in open countryside, and they fought me to a standstill - not only did I make no headway, but my units lost most of their org and on average about 1/3 of their strength. The Belgians just sat there with their org at almost zero, and wouldn't budge - this went on for several days. I had von Runstedt commanding with 2 HQs in support. It should have been a walkover. Instead I crippled 40 of my divisions. Something wrong there I think.
Oh, and I had 2 full wings of tac bombing them at the same time. Amazing chaps, these Belgians.
I think this Mod is brilliant, despite the carping - I want things to be made hard. I just don't want them to be made absurd.
 
My bad - I never noticed that the fort in Antwerp was lvl 5. (After playing through vanilla so many times, it never even occurred to me - a bit like finding Wilhelmshaven now has an invadeable shoreline - that was a shock!)In fact all of Belgium is just one big fortress - you really want to make people go through Bastogne, don't you?
 
I owe you an abject apology. I relocated my armour, attacked through Bastogne/Arlon while attacking all along the line with infantry at the same time, and broke through to the open country beyond before the French had even pulled their boots on. It was beautiful.
 
It's quite a learning curve. I pocketed the Belgians (25 div) and was about ready to take Paris when the French finally woke up and began rushing armour and motorised north. They have maybe 12 mot and 6 med arm that I've counted. They stalled me in front of Paris. Stalemate, in a word. I really like this mod, but even now that I'm getting a handle on it I still think the allies are overpowered 1939/40. France had - what - 2 armoured divisions in 1940, and they were used as infantry backup more than anything else. Same with the brits - they had 1 armoured division. I'm facing numerous armoured/motorised corps. It makes for an incredibly challenging game, but I want to be challenged in Russia, not France! ;)
 
I have optimized french and british productions schemes so that they are able to give the German player a challenge.
Most wargames make Fall Gelb a real piece of cake, which is certainly was IRL. But my approach is different to the general wargame approach. In fact, it is inspired by World in Flames boardgame approach (which is why I named this mod WIF). In this boardgame, Fall Gelb is really hard, given how lucky and well executed was the german invasion. In other words, the odds that a historical Fall Gelb (aka piece of cake) occurs should be very low. Most wargames make it the standard, I made it the exception. Don't know if you understand what I mean.

And yes, you will be challenged in Russia... :p
 
In every previous game I've ever played with HOI, and every Mod (with the partial exception of TRP), I've always found that, playing as Germany, all campaigns pre Barbarossa are pretty much just an exercise. With this Mod, you get the feeling that every campaign is a real, bloody, difficult war.
Which, let's face it, is as it should be. So even though I've had to jump away from the PC and shout at the wall several times with this Mod, I have to say it really is pretty damned good.
It won't stop me whining though!
Thanks for the quick relies - I appreciate you taking the time.
Now it's back to attempt No. 2 at France.
 
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You should launch secondary attacks to prevent the ennemy from reinforcing your main attack. It'll fix its units while you'll break through the lines and make encirclements.
 
When possible, use infantry divisions (with whatever artillery you have) to create the initial breakthrough. Save your armored divisions org for racing into the breach and attacking 2nd line defenses.
 
Downloaded your mod yesterday and it really looks good ;)
However, I had pretty much the same problems, playing with Germany.

Building up I build a reasonably big airforce (3 Tra, 15 Int, 9 tac, 9 CAS) before the war. I also invested in submarines, though mosly after researching the 1940 tech, apart from that I build the Graf Zeppelin, Scharnhorst and the Bismarck, and naval brigades for all ships. I know it won't really do me much good, but I always did this in HoI, to roleplay a bit and increase the challenge. I guess this mod is challenging enough already ;)

Land forces: build almost no new infantry. Purely concentrated on Mot and Arm, and brigades for all units, might be a mistake there?

Now, Poland was no problem. Did have some problems with the French breaking through the 3x3 divisions on the Siegfried line the first time ofcours, but reloaded and garrisoned the line better.
Norway worked fine too. I really like the way you improved the Norwegian campaign. It took me till may 28 to capture all VP's, pretty close to history. But once again, though it kept some divisions in Norway for a while (invaded with 9 divisions total) it wasn't too hard too win.
I quite confidently went to Fall Gelb. Focussing the large majority of my forces on Bastogne and Luxembourg, just defending at Siegfried line and Northern Belgium, and attacking with smaller forces in the Netherlands. However, after initial successes the French moved in sufficient forces and the front got into a stalemate.

The main problem is the battles just take too long. Even the single division in Luxembourg sometimes takes my 9 attacking divisions so long the French can move in about 8 divisions as reinforcement. the river crossing from Arlon to Reims proved impossible, as the French quickly moved in between 20 to 30 defending divisions.
Ofcours I send in my airforce to support where I could, but it sustained very heavy damage very quickly and was practically useless within a week.
As a last effort to break the stalemate I broke of the attack on Reims (which had been going on for about 3 weeks I think), moved almost all those forces to Rotterdam in an attempt to break through at Gent instead.
It looked like this could work, my attack reaching 97% and increasing by about 0,1% every few hours (lol). And then, ofcours, the French hordes came to the rescue once again. Actually they just have to move in 1 division as reinforcements and the battle is prolonged for days, allowing the rest to move in.

Well, obviously my tactics didn't work, but what should I change? Is my airforce too big or too small? Do I need to ignore all shipbuilding (including submarines) untill late '39 at least? Should I concentrate less on mobility and just build a large infantry force (speed in battle vs speed in movement), assisted by some motorised and armoured divisions for encirclements?
When attack Bastogne do I need to attack all other Belgian and French border provinces to keep the troops there busy so they can't reinforce?

Btw, is it even possible to occupy Holland in 5 days? It took me atleast 10 to just reach Utrecht and Groningen.
 
Meadhros said:
Downloaded your mod yesterday and it really looks good ;)
However, I had pretty much the same problems, playing with Germany.

Building up I build a reasonably big airforce (3 Tra, 15 Int, 9 tac, 9 CAS) before the war. I also invested in submarines, though mosly after researching the 1940 tech, apart from that I build the Graf Zeppelin, Scharnhorst and the Bismarck, and naval brigades for all ships. I know it won't really do me much good, but I always did this in HoI, to roleplay a bit and increase the challenge. I guess this mod is challenging enough already ;)

Land forces: build almost no new infantry. Purely concentrated on Mot and Arm, and brigades for all units, might be a mistake there?

Now, Poland was no problem. Did have some problems with the French breaking through the 3x3 divisions on the Siegfried line the first time ofcours, but reloaded and garrisoned the line better.
Norway worked fine too. I really like the way you improved the Norwegian campaign. It took me till may 28 to capture all VP's, pretty close to history. But once again, though it kept some divisions in Norway for a while (invaded with 9 divisions total) it wasn't too hard too win.
I quite confidently went to Fall Gelb. Focussing the large majority of my forces on Bastogne and Luxembourg, just defending at Siegfried line and Northern Belgium, and attacking with smaller forces in the Netherlands. However, after initial successes the French moved in sufficient forces and the front got into a stalemate.

The main problem is the battles just take too long. Even the single division in Luxembourg sometimes takes my 9 attacking divisions so long the French can move in about 8 divisions as reinforcement. the river crossing from Arlon to Reims proved impossible, as the French quickly moved in between 20 to 30 defending divisions.
Ofcours I send in my airforce to support where I could, but it sustained very heavy damage very quickly and was practically useless within a week.
As a last effort to break the stalemate I broke of the attack on Reims (which had been going on for about 3 weeks I think), moved almost all those forces to Rotterdam in an attempt to break through at Gent instead.
It looked like this could work, my attack reaching 97% and increasing by about 0,1% every few hours (lol). And then, ofcours, the French hordes came to the rescue once again. Actually they just have to move in 1 division as reinforcements and the battle is prolonged for days, allowing the rest to move in.

Well, obviously my tactics didn't work, but what should I change? Is my airforce too big or too small? Do I need to ignore all shipbuilding (including submarines) untill late '39 at least? Should I concentrate less on mobility and just build a large infantry force (speed in battle vs speed in movement), assisted by some motorised and armoured divisions for encirclements?
When attack Bastogne do I need to attack all other Belgian and French border provinces to keep the troops there busy so they can't reinforce?

Btw, is it even possible to occupy Holland in 5 days? It took me atleast 10 to just reach Utrecht and Groningen.
Click to expand...


Been reading al the "complains" about Fall Gelb, and in all you make a mistake, you must lure the French and British to the Netherlands and North Belgium, so you can penetrate trhough Bastogne and make the race to the sea, so you will have a lot of divisions of the allies in a perilous position. After you kill of all of those divs, everything should be more smooth and calm (well, fast :p)
 
play historical. open up the offensive in holland and northern belgium with infantry and a few tanks but keep ur main force in colonge. annex luxemborg or ignore it. once the line stiffens in belgium, launch ur panzers through bastonge and lux and race to dunkirk. neutralize the pocket and the french shouldnt be able to man the frontline south. any british forces will probably be gone too.
 
Lascars said:
Barbarossa is pretty hard, if you avoid gamey tactics such as encircling the whole european part of SU. ;)
If it's to easy for you try challenge difficulty or harder, with the same home rules.
Click to expand...

Yes i make the normal pockets round the Pripet area, Odessa, and Leningrad.

I plan to play the new WIF with some more restrictions like: no upgrade planes/tanks. Maybe someone else had some nice tips to make it harder.

I already play with the limits unit option, no factory building, no disbanding units and brigades, no ground bombardment (only exception is partisans), building different type of units (mec, arm, INF, MTN, PARA)

Is 30 sept btw the release date?
 
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