Death on the Danube: 1936 Hungary

eqqman · Jun 6, 2011

[size=+2]Death on the Danube: Hungary AAR
[/size]

Hello!

I’m going to take a crack at writing my first AAR with my country of choice being Hungary. My actions will have the hindsight benefit from having run through several games already trying different things.

The storytelling will be kept to a minimum… usually, when I read an AAR I am looking for guidance on how I might play a country myself. Practical discussions frequently get lost when I have to tease them out from paragraphs describing how unhappy various ministers are. I’ve seen a lot of great fiction written in these forums, but you won’t find it here... however, don't take that to mean I won't try to make this an interesting read.

The game is Semper Fi with the 2.04d patch. My goal as Hungary is to get continental Europe under the hammer and sickle. If that goes well enough, then I would also make a play for the UK. Doing extremely well, the US would be another good target. So far I’ve failed every time. Frequently, it is because the Allies won’t stop influencing me so it becomes impossible to join the Comintern. When this happens, the USSR ends up twiddling its thumbs and never goes to war with the Allies. If the USSR can’t be brought into the fight, then I don’t know how I might be able to win since the odds are low I can take out Germany, France, and Italy all alone.

For army development, I’ve usually been going the Motorized Infantry + Artillery route for the bulk of my troops. However, I’ve been finding out that these troops can’t stop German or Allied Armor. I’ve also been getting manhandled by enemy air. In my last game, Nationalist Spain alone had enough bombers to put a huge crimp in my plans to annex them. I’ve also been buying a lot of Garrison troops to place them on AI control for partisan hunting. This time I will skip that and try to make some troops that I can leave on the border to defend while my spearheads advance. For research, I will focus on getting myself Medium Armor and CAS to give myself punch, and use Militia + Self-Propelled Artillery and/or Engineers for defense and partisan mop-up. I will also go for nukes so that when I end up at war with a major power, I have some chance at getting things over quickly since I am sure to lose an extended conflict. I did get the bomb in my last game and had some fun bombing the French, but I didn’t have enough divisions to hold the line and keep my own VPs out of French hands. As I general rule I’ve been finding it quite easy to conquer an extended empire, but I never get enough divisions produced to defend the extended borders. This time, I will do less annexing and more puppet creation so that I can get somebody else to defend part of the border. I won’t enjoy the loss of leadership, but we’ll see if the trade-off is worth it.

Starting out in 1936, my first goal will be to go to war against Czechoslovakia and Austria. I’ve seen that keeping these areas out of German hands greatly increases French survivability. However this nerf to Germany hasn’t proved to be enough that I can take them on solo… This time, I will also see what happens to Poland. Usually by the end of 1938 I’m in Turkey, but this time I will keep an eye open for some action against the Poles.

[size=+1]Table of Contents
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Chapter One: 1936 - Road to War (this post, continue reading)
[post=12476667]Chapter Two: 1937 Spring/Summer - Operation Czechmate[/post]
[post=12480593]Chapter Three: 1937 Fall/Winter - Vienna Coffee[/post]
[post=12485068]Chapter Four: 1938 - Operation Clean Sweep[/post]
[post=12488865]Chapter Five: 1939 - Final Preparations[/post]
[post=12492790]Chapter Six: 1939 Fall/1940 Fall - Not-so-Phony War[/post]
[post=12498937]Chapter Seven: 1940 Winter/1943 - My Only Friend, The End[/post]

Setup, 1 Jan 1936:
On the political front, Kalman Kanya is out and Gustav Henneyey is in as Foreign Minister since I don’t want any extra drift towards the Axis. I have no idea why anybody would assign Francois Deak to the role. Miklos Kozma keeps his job for now since the KDNP has almost no organization, but he will be out once partisans become a danger. Rezso Andorka goes to Intelligence since the Political Intel bonus is of little value at the moment. Ferenc Szombathelyi moves to the Army job since I plan on having Militia in my future. Everyone else keeps their job. Luckily my laws are also as good as I could do without being at war, so that is a bonus. I would consider dropping Specialist Training since at the moment getting troops out quickly is my main concern, but for some reason I can’t change it (interface says ‘We cannot afford the associated cost of changing this law’).

On the tech front, I have the bulk of my leadership going to spies. I still have some small trickle going into diplomacy since during this beginning period I still need to be able to try and make some deals to fix my resource shortages. This is far less of a problem than it was in the original game: in the original version other countries would only make offers to buy your supplies, in Semper Fi, they will also offer to sell you resources, so you need less diplomacy overall. The tech queue has the starting techs to get Industry going as well as the research-improving ones. I also dumped in the Light Tank and Basic Air techs. You may notice that I have far more things in there than I could possibly research. I like to do that so that I don’t forget what I was supposed to be going after. When I get more leadership, then the longer list allows me to cycle through things naturally. Generally I have 3x more techs in my queue than I can actively research at any one time, how efficient this is overall is up to debate.

On the intelligence front, I will keep generating spies until I have 10 at home plus 10 in Austria and Czechoslovakia. I should be able to attack the Czechs in April 1937. Austria I will be able to attack in Fall 1937 which will give me a very small window to annex them before the Anschluss event. Luckily they usually fold within a week after being attacked. I believe I read that in For the Motherland neutrality will be fixed, which will make this opening move impossible. I’m not sure why they would do that as it just makes single-player games less enjoyable since minors get less and less fun to play. I also have to make sure and set the Spy priority to zero for every other country so I’m not wasting Spies before I’m ready.

On the production front I have some Light Armor, Artillery, and Militia queued up. All are set to be reserves to lower the IC cost (manpower is not a concern to start with). The tool tip says that my Armor practical reduces time and IC cost by 50%, however, my Technology tab just gives a dash where the practical value should be displayed. I also can’t help but notice it will be 9 months before I even see my first tank. My build here is my standard for Hungary except I have replaced the usual Garrison units with Militia. The airbases are there so I can get a trickle of Construction practical in ahead of my ability to produce Industry. Notice that I have 13 convoys for free. Since I have no port, I don’t know where they are hiding. The military pie chart shows me with 37 land brigades of various types. The Poles start with 147 in 1936, so I doubt I can come close to matching them by the start of 1939. What I might do is launch an attack when they go to war with Germany and try to seize the Krakow – Lwow line, if they get annexed by Germany I would then be able to get a small slice of their territory. If Germany makes them a puppet however, I’ll lose it all. Typically Germany goes for the annexation so it seems like a good gamble. One last word on my production, for some reason I have tons of units that apparently need upgrades, but since I won’t be at war for 2 years there is plenty of time to let them trickle in, so 1 IC on that is more than enough to get the job done.

On the military front, the Hungarian OOB is quite simple and I don’t feel the command structure needs to be altered. There are 14 Infantry divisions of 2 brigades each, with 1 Interceptor and 1 TAC. I plan to make 7 of these units into 2 Infantry + 2 Light Armor for the combined arms bonus and the others will be 2 Infantry + 1 Artillery, and maybe possibly an Engineer as well. Once I near 1938 these men will get moved to the Czech border. In the original version of the game, this would cause the Czechs to flood their side of the border with their own army, but in Semper Fi they seem to prefer to keep facing off with the Germans even though you are about to attack. I won’t try to persuade them to do any differently…

With everything set, I’m about to start the clock!

(Click)

[size=+1]1936 – Road to War[/size]

Right off I begin to align to the Comintern. Under the original game, this would wear off after 3 months and I would have to waste a point of diplomacy to renew. Making alignment permanent is a huge improvement.

10 January: Spanish Civil War starts, Germany intervenes.

13 January: I attempt to trade with USSR to cover part of my Energy and Rare Materials shortages. They refuse. Until I can start to sell supplies, I won’t have a lot of money to play around with on this stuff. My Spy report says that the USSR is doing ‘Hostile Action’ on me, what that means in practice I have no idea.

3 February: I get 10 domestic Spies, when I have 5 free Spies I will send them to Austria. I will have to keep an eye on their counterintelligence. I will have to put up with it a little, since if I keep changing my mission there from ‘Raise Threat’ too much I will miss my deadline of beating the Anschluss. Generally I don’t change my mission until I see there are at least 2 enemy spies on counterintelligence.

24 February: The ‘Illegal Printing’ event comes up. Before I even make this choice, which might give me extra dissent, I notice that I already have 1.76 dissent. Why this happened, I don’t know, since I have been overproducing consumer goods by +0.01 since the start of January. I spent the money to track down the troublemakers and apparently succeed, as there is no further increase to dissent. I also have 5 free Spies, so they get dumped into Austria.

6 March: I get the ‘Major Worker Strike’ event. I decide not to arrest the workers. Out of gratitude they allow my first Militia division to come off the line (Militia brigade x2).

10 March: I sell some supplies to France and deploy the second Militia division. I have to wait for diplomacy buildup before I can try and buy more energy.

19 March: Italy makes a puppet of Ethiopia. I have 10 Spies in Austria raising threat, so now I start my buildup for the Czechs. I notice that I forgot to have my own Spies on ‘Lower Neutrality’, which is a huge blunder. We’ll have to see if this means I miss Anschluss.

24 March: The USSR graciously sells me some Rare Materials. I’m down to zero diplomacy.

5 April: I have another 5 Spies, so they go to the Czechs.

19 April: I now have 10 Spies in each of my two first victims, so I start diverting leadership to research projects. I still continue to produce Spies, since I can’t afford to take losses at this point or I risk not getting threat where I need it in 1937.

14 May: Two more Militia divisions deployed. At this stage I’ve had enough countries approach me with offers that I am not longer in the red on resources, but I don’t have enough diplomacy of my own yet to try and negotiate decent surpluses.

5 June: My first Artillery brigade finishes. Dissent is now at 1.03 and I am overproducing consumer goods by +0.2 to reduce it. Luckily my total ICs are so low that this dissent isn’t costing me anything production-wise. Austria must be finally doing counter-espionage since my Spies dropped down to 9, but I still see ‘zero’ in their report.

18 June: I notice that I am not producing enough supply now that I have extra divisions in place, so I have to tweak my sliders to compensate. Since there isn’t enough to go around at this point it means I am under producing my new troops just a little.

23 July: Two more Militia divisions deployed. I start to collect them under Army Group HQs, usually, I have been attaching these types of troops directly to Budapest HQ, but this time I figure the extra 1,000 men in each Army Group HQ might help discourage a Czech assault. Previously the Czechs were leaving my Garrison divisions alone, I don’t know if they will do the same for the slightly weaker Militia. Speaking of the Czechs, our shared border is almost completely empty, where they went, I don’t know. Maybe Adolf is already scaring them. Two months to go before my first Light Armor brigade shows up.

3 August: ‘Government Nationalizes Private Sector’ pops up. Bad for me since I really can’t afford to divert production to reduce the extra dissent this causes.

24 August: The extra consumer good demand from the prior event finally goes away.

24 September: My first tech is researched, Agriculture.

5 October: Another two Militia divisions down, plus my first two Airbases and my first Light Armor brigade is done. I’m definitely seeing a difference in choosing Militia over Garrison, as I already have as many divisions deployed in October 1936 as I would in April 1937. Practicals are up high enough that I am able again to fully fund new troop production, but sadly I am another 9 months away from seeing my second Light Armor brigade. I deploy the existing Light Armor brigade and indulge in a slight moment of whimsy.

1 November: I complete some more technology, E & M Engineering and Construction Engineering. Census Tabulation Machine now goes to the top of the queue. While it is tempting to start building Industry, I will wait until after my 1937 wars are done since I need to get more men on the ground.

7 November: Another Artillery brigade finished. I am back to being deficient in supply and must tweak the sliders.

7 December: Two more Militia divisions down.

8 December: Nationalist Spain is victorious in the Spanish Civil War. And with this I bring 1936 to a close.

My threat gap with the Czechs is 10%, so I will be able to war with them in time to beat Adolf to the Sudetenland, but my 25% gap with Austria worries me. I may be cutting it close on that one. Tune in again for the wars of 1937.

[post=12476667]Forward to next Update[/post]

eqqman · Jun 6, 2011

Note: I had been taking screenshots with the F11 key, and although the game indicated a picture was saved, my Screenshots folder is empty! So unless I solve that problem this AAR will be a little less interesting visually than it should do.

I'd also thought there was a thread here giving a tutorial on posting images in the forum, but I can't find it now...

EDIT:
I'm running the game on Windows 7 and I made two changes- I gave the users group Modify permission to the Screenshots folder and I put the hoi3.exe application into the Admin group. One or the other of these things did the trick, so I should be able to start getting some pictures in here once I get the Image Shack thing figured out.

Hilarious thing about Windws Vista/7 - you have to personally approve even letting the tool to adjust permissions run.

unmerged(149861) · Jun 6, 2011

Try using Fraps, and uploading to Photobucket. Both are free.

eqqman · Jun 7, 2011

MajorMayhem said:
Try using Fraps, and uploading to Photobucket. Both are free.

Thanks!

Any tips on how to get the smaller pictures centered in the post?

EDIT: Never mind, I got it!

EDIT: Alright, I think I have the image and formatting issues worked out... back to world domination.

eqqman · Jun 7, 2011

[size=+1]1937 – Operation Czechmate[/size]

1 January: To review, I’m waiting for my neutrality to go down and the threat against the Czechs to go up high enough that I can declare war. Every so often I lose a Spy in Prague and Vienna, even though my rivals always have zero reported counterespionage. Are the Spies dying of old age?

8 February: Two more Militia divisions are down. I decide to drop my leadership spent on research from 4 to 2 to start increasing my officer pool.

10 February: Education level one finishes. Down to a 7 point threat gap with the Czechs.

20 March: More Militia is ready. The amount of Militia divisions I have now compared to what I would have had with Garrisons is pretty dramatic. I decide to mobilize the army and redeploy along the border since I’m at a 4 point gap. It’s also time to take a quick check of the leaders to see if I want to reassign anybody. My low-skill, logistics leaders are at the Theatre and Army Group levels. My 2. Hadtest command has defensive leaders, and my corps with the light armor has the river attack bonus. I will use 1. Hadtest as my spearhead to Prague while 2. Hadtest guards the supply line back. The Militia will watch the border and hold the Hungary – Debrecen line. In olden days I would make a play for the VP in Kosice, but it isn’t necessary to force surrender and it just strings out my forces.

24 March: My deployments are complete. There is still no sign of the opposing forces that pulled out in ’36. I expect them to make a rapid return once hostilities commence, however.

Before sending in the troops Adm. Horthy invites Prime Minister Chamberlain over to discuss the situation. It seems clear that the German, Czech, and Slovak peoples across the border would be far happier living under the Hungarian banner, but it doesn’t hurt to get approval from a major power or two. It’s easy to convince him that a larger Hungary can be a powerful ally and a counterbalance to a rising Germany.

The Treaty of Budapest is signed and Chamberlain returns home proclaiming “Peace in Our Time”. Future generations are likely to have a different spin on things though.

"Pffft- Chamberlain. You could flush his head in the toilet and he’d still give you half of Europe" – George Costanza

6 April: Census Tabulation Machine is complete. This will come in handy to make sure I know which Hungarians are eligible for the draft when the time comes to summon more troops. I also get my first level of Industrial Production Advance. Mechanical Computing Machine and Atomic Research are now at the top of the queue for the only 2 points I feel I can spare for research at the moment.

18 April: More Militia and my third Artillery are down. Threat gap is <2.

12 May: The day finally comes to unleash the Hungarian hordes. Forgetting to start lowering neutrality in January 1936 has set me back about 6 weeks in my plan. But the day has finally come…

I can also now bump my laws up to Service by Requirement and Total Economic Mobilization. And speaking of mobilization, I also notice that I forgot to increase my ICs in reinforcements after I mobilized… I suppose writing and playing at the same time can get distracting.

My opening moves are to try and slip into some of these empty forts before their garrisons arrive. One corps is off to attack this HQ that is hanging around by itself. Two corps are off to Nove Zamky as the tip of my spearhead to Prague. Yugoslavia starts trying to offer me military access. This happens a lot when I start to war with my neighbors, the others get nervous.

14 May: The HQ is quickly routed, and the enemy abandons Bratislava on its own. This is fairly unusual, as I frequently have to totally encircle it before they pull out. I decide to launch a general advance… and my men are apparently too fast, as my troops crossing the river from Sopron pin down the Bratislava garrison and a fight ensues. At this stage I realize that I forgot to get my air units into the action. This situation is quickly rectified. I also pop over to adjust my Spies. Once I’m at war with a country, my preference would be to recall all my Spies so I could redeploy them. Failing that, I’m seldom sure what to do with them. Disrupting national unity sounds great in theory but the process is too slow to make much of a difference if you wanted a quick war. I opt for disrupting production under the hope it can have some immediate effects. My threat gap with Austria is at 16%, I should be able to eliminate this by the end of the year.

19 May: I take Bratislava. Enemy troops have now appeared all over, but they seem to be afraid to make any probes into Hungary proper. Notice the big difference in the movement penalties between forests and plains, all my three main attack corps started from Tatabanya, the ones staying in the plains have moved three provinces while the other has moved only one and is now stuck on the forest. My troops now anticipate getting bogged down in the woods surrounding Brno.

24 May: Enemy troops finally make a play for eastern Hungary, while my spearhead continues its slow advance north from Bratislava. I abandon the forest province of Nitra so I can strategically move that corps into Bratislava and get them closer to the Prague spearhead.

2 June: I’m outside the gates of Brno. Usually I bypass it to the south, and then swing my army up north to cut the country in half before going for Prague. Since I seem to be doing extremely well I will try an attack on it now, since that would make cutting off Slovakia that much quicker. Speaking of which, the enemy troops there still haven’t taken all the empty provinces I left them.

13 June: My advance on Brno is stalling out due to counterattacks, but I notice that they have no manpower so I keep up my assault instead of switching to my usual bypass operation.

15 June: The plan pays off and I take Brno. Now I sprint some men to Pardubice to cut the country in half. I will also use strategic movement to pull out some Militia divisions to guard places like Brno since they don’t appear to be need in the east.

26 June: The last Light Armor Brigade I had queued is finished, so I use up that freed up IC to start an industrial complex. The attack on Pardubice is a wash since I don’t want to divert too many troops from the Prague spearhead to attack it properly. I may do a probe on Hradec Kralove instead.

2 July: Japan declares war on Shanxi. I think this is the first war started by a major in this game. I’ve launched an attack on Prague, but I don’t have the troops there to make a serious investment of the city. More men are on the way though.

3 July: Japan enters the Axis. Continuing to pull up more men for the assault on Prague.

8 July: Hradec Kralove is briefly left undefended as my opponent shuffles troops around, so I manage to slip a division in there and have now cut off Slovakia.

22 July: The enemy cuts a hole in my lines at Jihlava, so now my own forces at Prague are cut off. I scramble to plug the gap.

30 July: I link up all my troops again, but then a new hole is made. I may have moved too fast, I will call off the Prague assault and focus on firming up my lines so that the Slovaks stay isolated.

10 August: I’ve stabilized the region between Prague and Brno and can now focus on surrounding Prague. I no longer have to spend any ICs on upgrades as that has finally finished. I also have my officer ratio at 140% so the sliders get changed to research 4 projects. On the 17th I get an Economic Boost event.

19 August: I get the Victorious Battle of Debrecen event, so I elect to go with the extra manpower. My lines splitting the country are now 2 provinces thick, so it will be much harder to break through in the future. Although to be clear, my lines from Brno – Bratislava are only 1 province thick, but that area is forts and forest so it is easier to garrison. Attack on Prague is at 68%, the attack on Vlasim below is at 54%, I’m hitting here to open a third front on Prague. I keep getting flooded with attack messages since the Slovak troops keep launching attacks on my eastern Militia and then calling them off immediately.

1 September: Shanxi surrenders and is annexed by Japan. The Slovak troops have made a far more serious assault on Debrecen that requires me to shuffle troops around to deal with it. Prague is at 82%. I can’t lose Debrecen or else they won’t surrender when the capital falls.

6 September: 10am, I take Prague. The Czechs (and the Slovaks) are annexed the following morning. I have a 6% threat gap left on Austria.

As it is now after midnight, I will take a break to the sounds of the bells ringing at St. Matthew’s and the cheers of the throngs outside the Parliament building.

[post=12480593]Forward to next Update[/post]
[post=12473136]Back to previous Update[/post]

eqqman · Jun 8, 2011

[size=+1]September 1937 – Vienna Coffee[/size]

With my neighbor to the north firmly under my control, I take stock of things before moving on. I plan to wrap up 1937 getting my hands on Austria and Switzerland. Switzerland I will go after just to keep it out of Allied hands. Usually I annex it, but it creates an annoying bulge in my lines right between Italy and Germany that becomes a problem to defend. If I let the Swiss maintain their own army that might prove more of a distraction for the Axis powers when I end up at war with them.

My war to the north gives me food for thought. I took one month to go from Bratislava to Brno, and then two months from Brno to Prague. The difference is that my spearhead had to be diluted to cover my supply lines. Typically I have been trying to make every unit I have as high quality as possible, but this time I will produce far more militia than normal. I may also create a few divisions of Artillery and/or Engineers to strategically move to hotspots.

"The man with the rifle shoots, when the man with the rifle gets killed, the man with the bullets picks it up" - Commissar, Enemy at the Gates

With the slight increase in leadership I adjust my research projects. I will prioritize getting Self-Propelled Artillery before switching to Motorized. My production queue is a little more of a challenge. I’ve started my first industrial complex to get that process started. It is not clear to me if I should continue to produce tanks to maintain the practicals or get started on some air units since I said I wanted an Air Force. After some agonizing I go with starting the Air Force.

13 September: My last Artillery brigade that I queued in 1936 is finished. I’m not sure how to reuse those ICs, so I decide to start a queue of the Artillery divisions I will use for extra defense. This costs more ICs than I have available, so it won’t be running at 100% until I get my hands on Austria at least. I’m still at about a 6% threat gap with them. My troops are in position for the blitz… I only need to take Vienna though. I’ve got the warning up about being mobilized during peacetime, but I don’t think it will be worth it to demobilize when I hope to be at war in a month.

11 November: Communist China surrenders to Japan and is annexed. Since I’m so focused on troops I haven’t been making a huge supply surplus, ergo I have no money surplus and ergo I haven’t been making enough deals to get a nice resource surplus. I’ll have to change this situation once I get Austria.

24 November: Italy joins the Axis. I shall watch these developments closely.

1 December: Finally-

7 December: I accept military access from Germany. I hope they remember their place.

16 December: I take Vienna and annex Austria. Time to reposition for the Swiss.

2 January 1938: My troops are in position so I declare war on the Swiss. Italy offers me military access which I accept. I hope they remember their place.

Over the course of the war, I quickly take Zurich and then focus on slipping troops along the plains to the north so I can attack Bern from the far side. Having the stacks of Militia is certainly helping since I can discourage attacks in the areas where I don’t want to dedicate my real fighters.

14 February: I get Economic Boost.

21 February: I take Bern and the Swiss become my willing puppets. Now my men will finally get some decent chocolate. After eating my fill I stop for the night. I do take time to notice that the Yugoslavs are massing their troops at the border… they may suspect that their turn is coming next, and they would be right.

[post=12485068]Forward to next Update[/post]
[post=12476667]Back to previous Update[/post]

eqqman · Jun 9, 2011

[size=+1]April 1938 – Operation Clean Sweep[/size]

With the chocolate factories safely in my hands, I will spend the rest of 1938 trying to get Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, and Turkey under my control. All are due for annexation. With the Yugoslav ports in my hands I can start to make lucrative trade deals with the US and get my resource shortage under control.

In preparation I keep my production maintained with airbases, an industrial complex, the Interceptors to round out my existing wing, two Militia divisions and the Artillery support division. Once I’m at war again and don’t need the extra points in consumer goods I will need to get a more serious combat division in the pipeline. Also, as promised, Miklos Kozma gets fired from his security job so I can stick Szell in there.

I give the Swiss objectives in Bern and Zurich since I don’t want them wasting their time shuffling troops back and forth across the Alps to try and help me. By the 8th of April I am ready to strike. I lost a couple of weeks beforehand since I realized that some of my troops weren’t where I wanted them to be; when you do too much strategic movement through choke point provinces some units can get stuck and will stop moving. The delay gives my first Interceptor time to roll off the production line. My men are now ready and the attack begins!

The goal for 2. Hadtest is to take Zagreb and then push down to Split. Concurrently 1. Hadtest will sweep through the central plains to reach Beograd before turning south to Skopje.

12 April: Things are going well, but once again I notice troops getting stuck in trees. Why can’t I get one of these as a production license from the Russians?

15 April: I have Zagreb and initiate a sweep to Ljubljana, the other victory point in the region. I have Militia divisions pinning down enemy troops in the northwest, which is preventing them from being sent to more important places. Not only that, the Militia are actually winning these battles. The Swiss offer me military access, which I find odd since they’re my puppet at the moment.

16 April: Romania mobilizes. Nationalist China surrenders and is annexed by Japan. Poland is trying to offer me military access. The Yuogslavs are trying to race troops around my lines to cover Beograd.

28 April: I’m closing in on Split.

28 April: And nearly at the gates of Beograd…

15 May: Beograd & Split are in my hands, Yugoslavia falls. I made the discovery a bit earlier that I don’t have the manpower to queue up a nicer fighting division, so I decided to get going on more TAC instead. Hopefully this will be a problem that goes away soon. Now that I have a port I sell supplies to the US and then buy some much needed materials from the USSR. Hopefully from this point on, it means I will stay green up there. I start redeploying my troops south to take on the Greeks, who, no fools they, coincidentally mobilize a few days later. Albania mobilizes on the 23rd, but since they only have an HQ as far as I know, I’m not sure what good that does them.

30 May: My hordes are basically in position, so I declare war on both Greece and Albania.

5 June: Sinkiang enters the Comintern. Lucky devils, I’m still at 115 score so can't get in yet. The same day I march into Tirane and annex Albania. Now I have a much needed airfield to use against the Greeks.

13 June: Persia is accepted into the Axis. This is somewhat bad news, as they are usually on my list of targets. Now I’ll have to make a token defense of Turkey after I take it, when I end up at war with the Axis.

26 June: Things aren’t going as well as I would like against the Greeks, the mountains are proving a tough obstacle. On the 30th I finally get a breakthrough and can try to beat the Greek defenders down to Athens.

6 July: I’m starting to close on Athens from two directions.

”It’s a classic pincers movement- can’t fail to work against a 10-year old” – Herman

11 July: Xibei San Ma surrenders to Japan and is annexed.

1 August: I fail to reach Athens before the bulk of the Greek army.

However, it doesn’t seem to matter much…

…but it turns out it does, since the Greek AI is doing a masterful job of swapping out its units to keep the defense up. I wait for two months for the Greeks to run out of manpower, but they don’t seem to want to do that. Therefore I have to accept a temporary Greek victory; this is the first time this has happened to me. I will now be forced to wait until I can get some Transports and attack Athens from behind.
However, I do get some good news:

The downside of this is that I have to wait until I get the rest of my neighbors into my clutches, or else the USSR will get lands that I badly need. I’ll just have to hope they still want me when I am ready to join them.

27 October: I let the AI handle the attack on Bulgaria. On the 11th of November I get Veteran Army.

6 December: Germany starts to influence me to join the Axis. I will desperately need to get at least Romania before I can join the Comintern… and then I breathe a sign of relief when they stop the influence the next day on the 7th.

11 December: South Africa joins the Allies.

17 December: Bulgaria gets annexed. Troops immediately start to position for an attack on Romania. Normally I would get Turkey first, but since in this game the USSR is ready for me to join them, I need to secure Romania beforehand since that is that last piece of really valuable land I have access to. As it is once again after midnight and nearly at the end of 1938, it’s a good time to stop.

An aide-de-camp slips me the latest paper from Athens. Naturally the bulk of it describes their victory over our forces. I think I can hear laughter from Rome…

This situation isn’t likely to change any time soon, but shipwrights in Split are already hard at work on the answer to this problem.

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Cybvep · Jun 9, 2011

Nice conquests, although it's sad to see that the AI doesn't react to your warmongering. I mean, you took Austria and Czechoslovakia - the two countries which Germany considered to be in their sphere of influence. No reaction. You also took Yugoslavia and share a common border with Italy and again - no reaction

Khazorath · Jun 9, 2011

Cybvep said:
Nice conquests, although it's sad to see that the AI doesn't react to your warmongering. I mean, you took Austria and Czechoslovakia - the two countries which Germany considered to be in their sphere of influence. No reaction. You also took Yugoslavia and share a common border with Italy and again - no reaction

I think in about 2-3 annexations more in the balkans, they will take notice.

eqqman · Jun 9, 2011

Khazorath said:
I think in about 2-3 annexations more in the balkans, they will take notice.

Hello to you both!

It is always a question mark what the German AI will do once I start messing with its stock warplans. I am sure that in 1939 I will reach the limit of what I can do without having to war against a major power. Something I haven't tried in the past but I may attempt this game is to try and increase the threat of France so that Germany still goes after them regardless of the eventual situation in Poland. I'll certainly want to make sure they get committed to fighting the Allies before I try and tussle with them. I hadn't mentioned it, but I have been using all of my available troops in the Balkans, so the Germano-Italo border is actually completely empty at the moment. I had thought I'd read that having troops on a border raises your threat to them, but then someplace else the comment was that it is your total amount of troops that matter, and where they are at the moment makes no difference in your threat to your neighbors.

KyrionMyrthar · Jun 9, 2011

Nice strategy here -- I'm getting ideas for my own campaigns. Thanks!

eqqman · Jun 9, 2011

KyrionMyrthar said:
Nice strategy here -- I'm getting ideas for my own campaigns. Thanks!

You're welcome! Keep in mind though, that I am still in the easy stages. Once I run out of weak neighbors things will get far more challenging.

eqqman · Jun 10, 2011

[size=+1]1939 – Final Preparations[/size]

When last we left our Hungarian heroes, they were getting laughed out of Athens and took out their frustrations on the hapless Bulgarians. If anybody takes a lesson out of this, it should be to pay attention to terrain. If you review my map where I have Militia trying to cut off the retreating Greek armies at Amfissa, you will see that I decided to pass through the hills of Gardiki instead of the plains of Mesolongi, even though it is a 1-province trip each way. I hadn’t thought about it but Gardiki just “looked” like the route to take since it has such a large border with Amfissa. But afterward the Hungarian general staff will always be wondering if we could have won in Greece by skipping those hills.

I’ve reviewed the diplomacy screen and I see that I still have the option of joining the Comintern and my drift is holding at +15. If this continues to hold out I will probably go after both Romania and Turkey before signing up for the glorious people’s revolution.

I visit the tech screen and make a temporary shift to producing all Spies. I am going to try my scheme of raising the threat of France to try and encourage the Axis to go after them.

I also visit the production screen and do some twiddling. I want to continue to build up industry since my manpower is pretty low. I was going to queue up a Mountain division but since my manpower is low, I add more Transports to the queue so I can get my revenge on the Greeks that much sooner. Since I have the rest of 1939 to fix that problem I’m not too worried at the moment.

I also take a look to see if I have any new ministers available, and I do. This is another area where I usually forget to keep checking in. I decide to pop Lajos Remenyi-Schneller in as Armament Minister. I have enough ICs now that the 10% bonus he gives should be noticeable, and I don’t think I need the 20% supply bonus as much.

With all these changes I’m ready to proceed and let my men get into position for the assault on Romania. I let the AI deploy my troops, and am disappointed. Even though I assigned Bucharest as its only objective, it's making that area the weakest point in the line! I fix this problem personally and then start the attack on December 31st. Turkey immediately mobilizes.

2 January: Lithuania cedes Memel to Germany.

20 January: The war goes well, although I wish the AI would use more troops over here.

7 February: The AI still doesn’t want to seal the deal.

25 February: I realize I have more than enough Spies in France, and I need to go back and stop overproducing them. I change it up to spend most of my points in research and just a trickle for everything else. Maybe the Romanians will fold soon.

6 March: I annex Romania. Time to send everybody to Turkey. I declare war on the 10th.

Admiral Horthy gets a grand parade as he personally claims the last of the lands that were stolen from us at Trianon.

Time to get some Hungarians in charge around here and reap the rewards of increased Leadership.

”Without me, Transylvania will be as exciting as… Bucharest, on a Monday night” – Count Vladimir Dracula

12 March: I finish Rocket Tests and start a rocket research complex in Budapest.

25 March: Germany attempts to influence us again. My first Interceptor wing is now complete. And once again Germany gives up its influence the next day.

27 March: I get Economic Boost.

17 April: I decide to get two Mountain divisions into the production queue.

21 April: Turkey surrenders and gets annexed. This same day I join the Comintern. I also take a minute to convince Stalin that the Finns are his deadliest enemies. I’d rather have him get the entire country than settle for less via the Winter War. I also convince Stalin that he is just dying to give me free stuff.

It’s also time to redeploy my forces for the war with Poland. I decided to go for it.

22 April: I lose the neutrality bonus effect.

7 May: The US joins the Allies. Here’s a map of the revived Austro-Hungarian Empire with the “Austro” an extremely minor part of the operation. And here’s a map of the growing Japanese power in Asia.

9 May: Despite my efforts, the Finns end the Winter War anyway. Rats! I thought that by skipping the scripted start of the war I could skip the scripted ending. I now have a truce with the Finns, and since I can’t see how to cancel it at the moment, I decide to convince Stalin that the Baltic States are his new worst enemy. The big problem with this truce is that now my Uncle Joe is blocked from getting to the rest of Scandinavia.

15 May: New Zealand joins the Allies.

2 June: Estonia is annexed by the USSR. Finland mobilizes their army.

8 June: Latvia is annexed.

21 June: Lithuania becomes a Soviet puppet. I send Admiral Horthy off to Berlin to have a chat with a certain Austrian corporal to get his views on Poland. Horthy has a bit of an embarrassment when he realizes the 3 x 5 cards I gave him are full of fluff about securing Poland as a bulwark against Bolshevism- notes that would now be patent lies. After getting a 3am phone call from the Admiral I tell him to cross out all references to “Communism” and write in “Capitalism”. We’ll see if that is enough. "Life" magazine is there, I hope this plays well in the US.

[size=-1]Copyright LIFE magazine[/size]

23 June: The Comintern (hey, I’m willing to share credit) declares war on Poland. Polish forces are stretched very thin trying to cover their borders. I will cross my fingers that I can get to Danzig, as with a port there, I could be in a position to attack the Scandinavian countries without Uncle Joe’s help.

I happen to notice that my threat with Germany is over 300, so I doubt trying to make France seem even worse will do any good. Since the Spies are already there, however, no reason not to allow them to continue. More leaflets go out.

6 July: Going well so far. The Russians don’t actually appear to be fighting yet. I guess that’s okay if it means the Poles will still keep their troops there at the border. I notice the Swiss are starting to arrive.

10 July: I take Krakow. The Russians are moving down from the north but not the east.

19 July: Greece is accepted into the Allies.

6 August: Still trying to get to Danzig. Russians are coming from the north and east.

26 August: Germany mobilizes its troops. I reached Danzig, but the Poles reinforce it. Since they have no other ports, they won’t be able to keep that garrison supplied. Problem is, I can’t supply my forces there either.

8 September: I was really hoping to avoid this…

Notice the German Motorized division already heading for Danzig. It looks like my only war goal won’t be achievable. If I get lucky and Uncle Joe decides to make a puppet of Poland, then that city can stay out of German hands, although that means I lose everything I gained in the south. Later that same day, it looks like the Winter War still gets triggered.

And the Soviet Union is again at war with the Finns… so it looks like a scripting bug. I hope this means that Uncle Joe will finish the job since the triggered ending to this war has already happened. Something odd I notice is that even though I am devoting 0 ICs to producing supplies, I am still at maximum in my stockpiles.

9 September: The Netherlands mobilizes. The UK declares war on Germany. Awesome! Australia is also accepted into the Allies.

10 September: Luxembourg mobilizes. Since Italy is now at war with Greece, I have to try and finish the job in Athens before Italian Marines arrive. In an incredible stroke of luck, the Germans send the Luftwaffe over Danzig to support their own attacks, but they forget to send the Motorized infantry in. I send my own troops in and Danzig is mine! I also get this nifty Polish Corridor strategic effect:

13 September: Denmark mobilizes. Poland shouldn’t last much longer. I’ll cross my fingers that Uncle Joe decides to annex and allow me to keep Danzig. I notice some Sinkiang soldiers are here in the thick of things.

14 September: Canada joins the Allies.

19 September: Belgium mobilizes.

27 September: Getting near the end?

29 September: The Poles finally surrender. The Russians decide to annex them, so I get to keep Danzig. Champagne flows freely in Budapest as we toast Hungary getting everything it wanted from the Polish war… actually, we’d better re-cork some of those bottles, since champagne may be hard to come by in the near future when we end up at war with France! And with that, I bring this chapter to a close.

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KyrionMyrthar · Jun 10, 2011

Very sweet. Having a port on the Baltic is huge.

eqqman · Jun 10, 2011

KyrionMyrthar said:
Very sweet. Having a port on the Baltic is huge.

It sure is! I was expecting to pass 1940 without much happening, but this changes things.

eqqman · Jun 11, 2011

[size=+1]Fall 1939 through Fall 1940 – Not-so-Phony War[/size]

First order of business is to do some much-needed celebrating and the awarding of awards:

I’ve also created a new theatre up there. My original thoughts were that I would have to stop at this point and be ready to face off with Germany the minute the tide turned in any direction on their front with France. Now, I will try to get as much of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as I can before the Germans do. In particular I have to move on Denmark quickly since it is ripe for a German attack. This will mean I have to cancel my countermoves in Greece since I have to divert ships to the Baltic. I happen to notice that I am still spending zero ICs only on supply and still have +45 coming into the warehouses every day.

Note that things haven’t changed much in Greece, except now I also get some inadvertent coverage from the Regia Marina.

I decide to send a little more leadership to research, since I have more than enough officers for the moment.

In the short-term I will move the bulk of my troops over to start covering my extended border with the Germans, while I divert some of my forces over to the coming Nordic campaign. Luckily for me I still have transit rights through German territory from when they were scared of me back in ’37. I will also start to build up an airfield in Baykan (near the Persian & Iraqi borders) so I have something to start with when I need to campaign in the Middle East. I will likely also create a new theatre for that area of operations.

4 October: Germany declares war on Denmark, so that little scheme gets harder. I’m going to have to see if I can sprint over and block them off from the VPs, which means waiting for the right venerable Admiral Horthy himself to sail over there from Greece.

19 October: I’m about to try and make a play to beat the Germans to Copenhagen, but then at the last second I realize that the Danes are now in the Allies and off-limits. So… time to attack Sweden instead!

20 October: Let’s hope I get Malmo faster than I got Athens. Looking eastward, I see that the Russians aren’t doing so hot against the Finns. Sisu conquers all!

23 October: Malmo falls. Now I just need some more men over here…

28 October: Uncle Joe moves past Helsinki. I have a weird problem where my troops in Czechoslovakia don’t want to deploy no matter what objectives or stances I give them. I’ll have to arrange things by hand.

3 November: The puppet government of Ethiopia surrenders to the British, and are annexed. The Swedes seem to be in headlong retreat, but I don’t have enough men up here yet to capitalize on it.

27 November: I’m stalled out in Sweden while I await more men to come by rail through German territory. Finland surrenders to the Soviet Union and is annexed. Now Uncle Joe will probably take some Swedish heat off my back.

3 December: Norway mobilizes their forces, which is a smart move since they are next. Uncle Joe is racing to the rescue.

13 December: My first two Mountain divisions are finished and get deployed to the Italian border.

I use the freed ICs to add some Artillery and Engineer brigades to my production queue. I would call my army a paper tiger, but that gives too much credit to paper! Not only am I unable to cover all the key points of my border, but most of my existing divisions only have 2 brigades each. The ‘best’ of my troops are in Sweden. On the 15th I get an embargo from the USA… this would be pretty bad if I didn't yet have Uncle Joe to shop from. Speaking of which, I get permission to run up a debt, since I will hopefully start using production licenses in a few months. I send some of my extra Spies to Germany so I can eyeball the situation in Berlin.

25 December: The Philippines surrender to Japan. Russian troops are on Swedish soil.

4 January: I decide to strip another group of Militia from my paper-thin border to help out in Sweden. I declare war on Norway to get Soviet forces headed that way.

26 January: The Russians are about to take Narvik, and I use my reinforcements to take the port south of Stockholm by sea to create a distraction for my troops that are now advancing almost unopposed from the south.

1 February: The Swedes suddenly scrape up enough ships to defeat the Soviet naval forces covering my invasion, which also spells the end for Admiral Horthy.

13 February: Germany declares war on Norway. Since I’m blocking the land route via Malmo, I’m not sure how they plan to do anything since I don’t think I’ve ever seen the German AI invade. Persia also surrenders to the UK.

26 February: Stockholm appears to be empty, although there is a large Russian air presence. Maybe they are doing attacks on the ports or the airfields, either way, I’m all for it.

8 March: Sweden surrenders to Uncle Joe, who annexes it. Stockholm did turn out to be empty, so I was able to walk right in. My share of Sweden is decent enough that I am satisfied. Apparently the German AI can invade by sea, since they are moving up southern Norway.

15 April: Norway surrenders and is annexed. I’m thinking I will ignore the Greeks as long as possible since I don’t want to be at peace and have to start making consumer goods in bulk.

17 April: Germany declares war on the Netherlands. I look at my diplomacy screen and see that I’m still at war with Norway, so if they are a Government in Exile, it would be safe to take on the Greeks. German forces are extremely thin, they can’t even cover their border with my Uncle Joe.

29 April: I license some Light Cruisers from Russia. Now that I am embargoed by the Allies, I am losing money since nobody is left to buy my supplies. It is time to go and cancel any deals that are causing me to send money out of the country. I should have done this earlier once I established a good resource flow from the USSR.

2 May: Germany declares war on Belgium. Their progress in the west is slow, which is fine for the Comintern.

25 May: Germany declares war on Luxemburg.

1 June: Luxemburg surrenders and goes into exile. I’m still trying to get more boots on the ground. I hope to pass the rest of 1940 without going to war against the Axis, but if it looks like the French will fold, then I will be forced to attack early. I have to give Uncle Joe every assistance I can, and it won’t do if the Germans only have him to fight.

12 August: I change my laws to Free Press. If I’m reading it right, this means my national unity will start going up on its own, even though the +20% is listed in red. Now that I am in the Comintern, I don’t think I need to care about drift anymore. I’m not happy about the counterespionage malus, but I’d rather have unity going up.

11 September: Mexico joins the Allies.

”Aye Carumba!” – Bart Simpson

17 October: Germans are at the gates of Paris. I may have to declare war whether I’m ready or not to save the French.

That won’t be pretty since I’d like at least another year to build up troops.

18 October: Yunnan joins the Axis.

22 October: My last TAC comes off the assembly line, so I start a wing of CAS.

28 October: The French push the Germans back from Paris! I also notice that the Italians are starting to pull troops off our border.

4 November: The Germans are back outside Paris. I’d actually prefer a lot of back-and-forth to one side clearly beating the other. My Spies tell me both the French and Germans have 0 manpower, who knows how accurate that is.

6 November: The Germans are beginning to surround Paris.

25 November: The Germans have taken Paris. I decide it is time to declare war before the French surrender.

”We don’t even have a word for victory” – Chief Wiggum as French Commander

And with that, I will leave whoever may be following this war in suspense as to what happens next, but I suspect these gentlemen will be involved…

Will France crumble? Will German panzers roll through the streets of Budapest? Will this AAR get over 1,000 views? Tune in to find out!

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eqqman · Jun 13, 2011

[size=+1]Fall 1940 through 1943 – My Only Friend, the End[/size]

It’s the end of November, 1940, and I am about to declare war on Germany in the hopes that I can defeat them before the French surrender. Although, it would be preferable to defeat them the day after they surrender so all their divisions come off the map. As I mentioned before I am far from ready for this kind of engagement. However, I am sure I will win in the end, because I now have so much land that I can fall back slowly as deep as Istanbul if I have to, by the time the Germans can follow me there, the Russians will be in Berlin. In my last game, this is almost what happened. In that alternate timeline, I wasn’t able to join the Comintern so I was going it alone. The Germans had me beat down to Sofia, however, since in that game the French were the ones moving towards the Reichstag, the Italians were weak and I literally moved to Rome and conquered them with three Mountain divisions after a brief fight for Venice. Since the Italians have pulled most of their troops from my border, I am hoping to do a similar move here. Note that I now have 103 base IC, so if it was the case of a war only between me and Italy I would think it a forgone conclusion that I would win.

Here is a review of my forces. Note that the troops under the general headquarters have changed very little since 1936. The Militia army groups are formed of 5 Militia divisions with 2 brigades each, with some having a support division of 1 Garrison + 3 Artillery. Some more good stuff is in the pipeline, but it isn’t anything that will finish quickly.

And now a review of the fronts…

Scandinavia looked thinly defended, it shouldn’t take long to capture. I will let the Russians take the rest of Norway while I focus on keeping the Germans out of Malmo. Should they retreat, I will naturally make a grab at Denmark.

In Poland, the Germans have an inordinate amount of troops to face off with my men in Danzig. On the first day of the war, I will evacuate the theatre HQ to Sweden and let them take the port. Uncle Joe will get it back for me. This area here has the largest amount of German troops that are visible to me, so I expect a lot of heavy fighting in the region.

In Czechoslovakia, I don’t really have the men to garrison these forts properly, so I may end up falling back soon if the Germans don’t feel they need to send these men to Poland.

The Alps are completely devoid of Axis troops at the moment. I don’t know if I will be better served trying to get the Swiss to attack Germany or Italy. Since I think my main goal should be to remove Italy from the war as soon as possible, I will probably try to encourage them to take all those Italian cities to their south.

Contemplating the loss of Budapest gives me pause to think about a topic that I would like to see changed in the near future. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that you apparently keep your entire resource stockpile in your capital. I would rather see a system where what you lose is tied to the VPs you have. So if I have 4 provinces with 1 VP each, losing the first costs me 25% of my stockpile, losing the next costs me 33% of the remainder, the next 50%, etc. In cases where your VPs aren’t distributed equally amongst your provinces, then what you lose is weighed accordingly.

Anyhoo, it is now time to prepare for war. Since I have to lose a couple of days cancelling my transit rights with Germany, I have a couple of days left to do any last minute strategic moves. I’m not sure I can make any arrangements better than what I have, though. I assign the three Italian cities to their south as objectives to the Swiss and I assign Danzig, Prague, and Munich as Soviet objectives. Hopefully this will get Uncle Joe to cover my border quickly and allow me to focus on Italy.

25 November: I’m about to cancel my transit rights and lose a week waiting for another diplomat to get to Berlin, when I realize I can streamline the process by declaring war on Italy instead.

28 November: I take Zadar, but for some reason this gets a French flag on it?

Danzig continues to hold out. I am attacking Trieste.

3 December: Soviet Union decides to transfer Industry to Siberia. Danzig is still holding. I’m also still mostly holding along the line of the Sudeten forts. Russian troops are slowly trickling in through this area. I add a Mountain division to my queue, eventual destination: Italy.

4 December: Danzig folds.

5 December: France surrenders, creating Vichy. Luckily for me this puts Zadar into German hands, allowing me to retake it. Later this same day Vichy surrenders Indochina to the Japanese.

10 December: I finally take Trieste after having been attacking it constantly throughout the war. Russian troops are starting to trickle in on this front.

The Swiss have been holding and are about to lose Geneva, but luckily that isn’t a VP. With France gone scads of Italian troops are arriving. I’ve made minor concessions in the Sudetenland, but generally I am holding. Russian forces are coming, presumably en route to Munich or Italy.

Russians are making advances toward Prussia.

They are also starting to fill me up with Expeditionary forces…

15 December: I finally take Pola after what seems like an age.

20 December: I’m starting to fold in the west.

The UK is keeping a pocket open in France. Ever since the French folded they have always had some territory still fighting on in the countryside. Hopefully this will keep some Axis troops diverted.

I lose Malmo, allowing German troops to break through into Sweden.

8 January, 1941: Panama joins the Allies. My wing of Interceptors is gone, and I have no idea what happened to them.

12 January: The Swiss are defeated. I’m losing ground in Italy…

The Czech – Polish border is holding, but I wish the Russians would be more vigorous in their attacks here. They seem content to just sit back, even though they should be able to drain off the Germans’ manpower quite easily. They have Medium Armor and Mechanized units, so poor force quality shouldn’t be much of an issue.

Up north, the Germans push up north into Sweden while the Russians push down into Norway.

26 January: I’m not paying attention and my men in Prague get trapped in a pocket. I can probably kiss them goodbye.

2 February: With Russian help I break out of the pocket. Italian air power is leaving me helpless on that front. I pop over to France and see that the British have been booted off the Continent. I’m also out of manpower.

6 February: Japan puts pressure on Siam. They accept.

19 February: I notice the US has invaded Taiwan. Not too helpful at the moment, maybe that will bear fruit later.

17 March: The US has invaded Okinawa. The Italians have punched a hole in my lines down at the coast near Yugoslavia, and I don’t have any forces to plug the leak. Nothing will stop them from fanning out. I basically have no army left to speak of.

”I have no division, sir” – General Pickett

31 March: The Germans are driving us back all along the line, except in Scandinavia. I will have to try and save what I can to make a defense at Istanbul. German troops are already at the gates of Budapest, which I will abandon.

10 April: Not looking good for Budapest.

21 April: The battle of Budapest begins.

25 April: I lose Budapest.

11 May: Uncle Joe finally cleans out the last German pocket in Norway, but it may be too late to redirect these troops to Sweden.

24 May: My first CAS finishes. USA gets Ineffective Bombing of Nagasaki event.

13 June: Italians are coming, so I pull out of Amfissa, no longer able to face off with the Greeks. The Greeks counterattack and prevent me from leaving.

1 July: The Germans politely ask me to surrender.

28 August: Brazil joins the Axis.

24 October: Germany takes Odessa and gets a battle event.

1 January, 1942: Russia continues to hold. Notice that they have been able to keep Lithuania alive. It’s easier to do when you have such a small border (the Lithuanian border, that is). The main problem with playing powerful Minors is that it is very easy to conquer a much larger empire than you can possibly defend.

27 January: UK gets the Norway Debate and chooses Halifax Speaks First. I’m not sure what the implication of this are.

22 February: Costa Rica joins the Allies. I notice that at some point Japan has retaken Okinawa.

14 June: Columbia joins the Allies. It is sort of hard to tell, but the Soviets might be turning the tide.

29 July: Saudi Arabia joins the Axis.

4 October: Argentina joins the Axis.

30 October: Portugal joins the Axis.

4 November: Saudi Arabia loses to the UK and goes into exile.

20 December: Ireland joins the Allies.

15 March, 1943: I discover that the reason Greece has been expanding out so much is that the Allies are loading them up with expeditionary forces. This is going to create a huge problem for me… now that Greece and I are in factions, I cannot end the war that I started while we were both independent. So this means if I get liberated, since I start with no troops at all, the Greeks will just wipe me out 2 seconds later.

21 March: The last German pocket in Turkey is eliminated.

5 May: I notice that the Russians are maintaining a huge force on their border with the Allies. I declare war on the UK to get these troops in motion. It is either that or stop playing right now since I know I’ll just get knocked out again the minute Uncle Joe manages to reach Budapest.

8 July: Mengkukuo defeated by the Soviet Union and sent into exile. The eastern front is going fairly well for “us”.

27 July: Iraq is conquered by the Soviet Union and goes into exile. I decide to quit since by the time I get liberated, it will be too late for me to do anything else and I don’t want to spend any more time watching the AIs fight. I may save this game and load it up once in a while to see what happens through 1950 though…
Some things I take away from this-

I probably would have been well advised not to research my own aircraft techs. I did this since in the past, influence from the Majors has kept me from joining the Comintern well into the mid 40s., therefore, buying aircraft on license was out of the question. So this meant that if I wanted any defense at all against enemy air, I had to provide it myself. In this game, with licenses from the USSR I could have avoided doing this. I could have waited until I saw how the influence was going before adding aircraft techs to my queue.
In the same vein, I could have waited to add planes to my production queues, but again I wanted some air defense and attack capability. If I hadn’t used ICs on air I could have spent them on more Light Armor and Artillery to get my starting Infantry divisions up to speed. If you review my OOB you’ll see that very little of my starting troops got anything helpful in them.
I either should have attacked Germany sooner, or later. Sooner, to keep France in the war and divisions on the west front, later, to give me more units. I didn’t go with later since I can get impatient and nervous when I just spend years quietly building up.
I’m sure many better players than I would have told me to skip trying to get The Bomb. I figured I would need it to help attack the Allies later on, and it’s also cool to have. Sometimes you do things for fun even though you may be well aware it isn’t optimal play.
Nothing I can really do about this, but I don’t know why the USSR didn’t push harder in Prussia. Every time I looked over there, the Germans would have just one division in a territory while the Russians would have two or three. I just don’t understand why the AI didn’t feel more aggressive there, it seems like my plan should have been workable that Uncle Joe could have done better against the Germans.
It would have been very helpful to maintain a high-speed division, even if it was entirely made up of Armored Cars. With something fast to use in blitzes I might have been able to race the Greeks back to Athens or done some encirclements on the Swedes or Yugoslavs.
If I had been keeping track of my lost VPs in relation to my national unity, I might have noticed I was about to surrender and placed all my troops on Russian soil instead of getting ready to try and defend Istanbul.

Thank you all for reading this, and I hope you took away some valuable “don’t do this advice”.

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KyrionMyrthar · Jun 13, 2011

Sorry to see this ending, but still, it was a great ride. Looking forward to your next AAR.

eqqman · Jun 13, 2011

KyrionMyrthar said:
Sorry to see this ending, but still, it was a great ride. Looking forward to your next AAR.

Thanks! I might have one in the near future, the downside is, when you are trying to write and play at the same time, the playing portion seems to consist of less and less time.

Broomstick · Jun 14, 2011

Nice AAR!
I liked reading it, too bad you lost.

I hope you'll make a new AAR once in a while!

Death on the Danube: 1936 Hungary

General

General

Colonel

General

General

General

General

Field Marshal

Major

General

Major

General

General

Major

General

General

General

Major

General

Second Lieutenant