Intermission
Gameplay notes
Gameplay notes
I want to write this AAR as a purely narrative one, so I don't want to explain gameplay stuff in the chapters themselves, but there are some questions, so I decided to make an informative update every now and then, to explain what I did and why. Currently I'm not looking for advice. I may be later on, but right now I have a rather good idea of what I want to do and how. (I don't want to play too far ahead, I'm currently at October, 1939, and the AAR is finally catching up. )
- I know a lot about the inner workings of this game, still, I don't consider myself an expert player. Thing is, I usually know what I should do, but that doesn't always turn out how I wanted it to. Kinda like drawing. I know what I want to draw, but when I start to do it, the result is not exactly how I imagined. That may be because I don't calculate everything to the last digit. And I feel good Creating the perfect Division, the perfect OOB, the perfect tech build would not be fun for me. So, I might have made mistakes already, and will probably do even more.
- With that said, I believe the twelve days it took me to take Poland was not that long, compared to the average. There can be multiple reasons for that of course. One of them is that Poland never actually mobilized, and another is probably that I started Fall Weiss in June. Then again, weather in Poland shouldn't really be a problem in September either, so I guess my tactic was good enough for normal vanilla
- It was asked why I did amphibious invasions and attacked cities with armoured divisions. Well, there are two reasons for that. First, because I could. None of my invasions were actual battles, in all cases, I landed in empty provinces and secured the ports later on. And second, I want my armoured divisions, along with their leaders to have as much experience as possible. Leading them into battles that won't hurt them but will take relatively long (like attacking an Urban province) will help with that. My Panzers weren't really in danger of suffering too much casualties because of their armour (my enemy had very little Hard Attack), and I didn't really have to hurry.
- I used my numerical superiority to my advantage in all of the Northern wars. In Poland, the enemy could fill the entire front, but that was not the case for the rest. Denmark, for whatever reason, only garrisoned one province on the front, even though they had more than one division, and I had units on both of my front provinces. Sweden never could form a front either, not to mention Norway.
- Sweden actually moved out the division from Malmö. I was rather surprised by that, and felt kinda ditry for using this to my advantage, but hey. If the AI is stupid, that's not really my fault, is it? I used the 'movement of enemy troops on our border' escuse to declare war on them. Before that opportunity presented itself, I wasn't even sure I want to attack Sweden... On the other hand, if I did want to attack, I would probably have made two separate landings, one near Malmö, and the other where it actually was made. But that could have been more costly, because te Swedish Navy is actually quite strong compared to mine at the moment. (That will change soon, though! Ohm... Actually, it already did change, because I annexed Sweden, so their Navy disappeared from the game Whatever.)
- That brings us to Norway. You might be wandering, what the heck just happened there. I'm playing vanilla, so there's no Operation Wilfred or coups or stuff like that, so what happened? I tell you. I declared war on Norway on August 30, won in three days, and decided that this shouldn't be represented as an actual war. I think the story was pretty neat, if I may say so myself Now, I was really a dirty rotten bastard with this one. As preparations, I positioned a Panzerarmeekorps near Oslo, and started to move another towards Narvik in the north. Those divisions were pretty slow (infrastructure is relatively bad there, and so is terrain), so I decided to deploy my two shiny new Divisions right on the Norwegian border. Guess what? There were no troops in Narvik either! Nor in Oslo... Probably my annexation of Sweden threw the Norwegians off guard, and they started to reshuffle their troops to garrison our common borders (which is like 50 provinces long...) with their five or so divisions. It didn't work.
- Soooo, after beating Norway, they surrendered too, like Sweden, and I annexed them. Then, I released them again as a puppet. I did this to avoid all possible complications with puppeting an enemy directly. This also gave them five new divisions (one for every IC-containing province). Then I went to the save file and edited their Ruling Party and cabinet to more reflect mine. They now have a fascistic party and the proper ministers.
- There's one difference from what you might expect, and that is the Head of State. I decided that it fits the story better to turn them into a Republic with a President, having dictator-like powers, so Quisling became their Head of State. He didn't have any traits for that, and I thought the 'Barking Buffon' would be the most suitable for him in that position.
- I already hinted at this before: my new puppet is not involved in the war, unless I call them in manually. That is an important aspect, because this practically made me an inpenetrable shield for me on my Northern flank, and I can even use their bases normally! I don't need transit rights through my puppet, and they are directly connected to my supply chain, so there shouldn't be any problems with supplies/fuel either.
- So far, the nation that lasted the longest against the might of the Reich was Sweden, with 25 days. Denmark and Poland were both 12 days, Norway was 3. I guess, this Blitzkrieg thing does work In game terms, I guess you could call it a Blitzkrieg if you breach the enemy lines and go right for the Victory Points, so they surrender ASAP. I'm dreading the day when I will start Barbarossa, because I still intend to lead all my troops manually...
- The next step is the Baltic States. (I guess this is no surprise, because I already said they would be on the list...) That will most likely be only one chapter. Then there will be a relatively long waiting period for good weather next year. During that time, I will strengthen my forces, finish my Fleet Carriers, build up my Luftwaffe (currently it is capable of defending my homeland, but I still don't have any fighters for my Eastern Front!) and build up the strength of my Heer as well.
- I never talked about Victory Conditions. I didn't change them from the default ones, so I have 8 'Control this city' type, with most of them relatively decent choices, and some stupid ones like have Vichy, Portugal, Turkey or Spain in the Axis. From these, Spain is already Allied, Vichy doesn't even exist yet, and if they form, they will be pushed towards the Allies anyway. Torkey and Portugal may be possible to invite, but I wouldn't really count on them. The AI can be very picky sometimes. By the time they would join, they are of no use to me any longer anyway... So, I considered changing these by editing the save, but they are not that bad actually. They can stay.
- Strategic Effects. I have the Polish Corridor, the Pact of Steel and Öresund. Mostly bonuses for Supplies, which is nice. I also want to achieve the Gulf of Finland, which would give +10% Leadership and +20% Resources. Neat! I won't let myself turned down by them being completely unrealistic and random bonuses, they are still useful.
- What else?... Well, I can't think of anything I would want to share with you right now, so that's it for now. I will be back in a few updates with more interesting in-game info!
Index
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