Fatherland - Deutschland über alles

[Pwnzerfaust]

Sweet, I get to be a ship. What kind? CV?

 

[unmerged(83789)]

Midge I've named some CAS but I don't think you are likely to ever notice them.

If possible can you also name some Strategic Bombers MIDGES DEVILS

 

[blue emu]

blue emu @ Let me get this straight, you mean, if I have full standing army (and thus a standard 20+ XP gain), this experience isn't "given" to only my new built division but also increases (if the units XP level is below 20) the experience of a reinforcing division?

Correct... or decreases their Experience if the damaged unit is already above EXP 20.

Whoa, Carrier with 40+ kills has less expirience than carrier with 11 kills?

Probably because... being at or near the top of the list... I lost some of my earned EXP to damage and reinforcements.

 

[Kanitatlan]

There will be no comments about the additional game editing and the hints may be few and far between. I don’t expect anything dramatic to occur for months (real time). I have made a brief appraisal of how long this AAR is going to take to finish and I am afraid to say I suspect we are heading into the middle of 2009 for the grand finale although I do hope we can get a bit faster than that. In case you are interesting there have been two previous statements in this AAR which sort of give the game away if you can find them.

Also, thank you everyone for the positive comments. I am finding it difficult to keep up with the comments (at the best of times) and tend to only really respond to questions. However, it is always nice to know that the AAR is appreciated.

Edzako The lack of randomness in the naval battle engine is slightly worrying at times and when I can be bothered I cycle the lead ship around to give someone else a chance but I haven’t remembered to do this for a while as the fighting has been a little too intense. See below for an appraisal of the Chinese campaign.

Foxbat, Mangudai, Kasakka, Manziel, Bafflegab etc. Experience is measured by hours of combat and is independent of losses or damage inflicted. I have had fun in the past with armour versus militia in mountains and impossible landings experiments which seem to be good ways to acquire free experience. Also long overstacked naval battles are quite good. The ships present at the battle of Scapa Flow did quite well out of it.

Mangudai The defences of the Philippines are pitiful which kind of suggests a lack of US presence. I don’t know why they are so uninterested in this game configuration but there it is.

LIFO I’m not convinced about the use of the Fallschirmjägers is Australia. Distances are large and I don’t imagine any great need for such florid manoeuvres. Also, most important of all, I don’t see any spare air base space for the org build up.

Bafflegab And lo the report on Canada

November Canada 1942​

I don’t know where all the Canadians have gone but awful lot seem to have gone somewhere.

Manziel The Petal Throne has VPs all over and confining their forces whilst taking all the VPs is more than a little implausible I’m afraid. I will basically have to destroy 99% of them and capture almost everything across Asia and the western Pacific.

4th Dimension I have seen some Petal Throne islands through naval air patrols from new Guinea and they all have single garrison divisions so I suspect at least must of them will be easy to deal with (from the land forces point of view).

SEG-CISR Now that you mention it I suspect the ship reports are from 1st December rather than 1st November which would explain the CAG loss. This was mentioned in the industrial report and will crop up again. Basically by the end of November I am short 6 CAGs and damaged carriers have their CAGs stripped of during repair (and you are at 86% strength).

Currently there is no leader SEG-CISR but can I suggest a navy position as the land leader roster is kind of full.

Zeekater Pessimist. Everyone will get kills, or else.

WhisperingDeath Another pessimist. I eat 10:1 odds for breakfast so don’t worry so. Things will look much worse when we get there.

Creslin Glad to be of service

Dan Cook see C.N., C.N. quite so, along with Thailand and Tibet.

PrawnStar see intro

Wolfhound Good picture identification, it always reminds of the film “1941”

Blue Emu Except repaired ships do not lose experience (do they?). Also, what is the loss of experience dependent on. Presumably the wounded soldiers suddenly revert to 20 experience and the experience of the division is reduced in proportion to the new manpower or is it in proportion to the damage repaired. Oooh, doesn’t it get complicated. All I know is it is really annoying for my airforce.

TeutonBurger The answer to your question is a simple Yes.

Pwnzerfaust Is a model IV CV.

 

[Kanitatlan]

An analysis of the Invasion of China.​

Edzako’s comment has made me think about this a bit and from my perspective it is easy to see the pattern of the attack and where the AI went wrong. When I attacked it was clear that there was a significant body of troops along the Chinese coast, significant forces along the Mongolian frontier and a major concentration in Manchuria. The forces on the Mongol border were quite interesting as they seemed to be a continuous flow across the front heading for western China.

When I attacked I quickly disrupted the border defences and then headed through the “gap” past Beiping to the coast. This path had limited defences and since I was quickly able to engage the Manchurian mountains I was able to establish a solid flank guard against the Manchurian concentration. Operations in Inner Mongolia resulted in most of the PT forces located there being overrun and destroyed either by ground action or air support. HQs rushed south and rapidly occupied territory denying it as deployment ground to the enemy.

I am guessing that the defenders of the South China coast were put into strategic redeployment which was disrupted by my constant rapid progress and hence these troops bounced to Tokyo due to their target provinces being captured. Troops along the eastern coast marched north and my operations in the open areas of China then resulted in their destruction as well.

The side effect of this was to leave southern China badly exposed to further HQ exploitation as the troops moving to defend it all appeared to be marching across country from SE Asia.

The conclusion has to be that the continuous rapid movement led to the unbalancing and disruption of the AI’s ability to form a new defence line. The AI is well known for sending troops to positions that are too far forward such that a rapidly moving offensive is merely harassed rather than stopped. This is comparable to events in Russia except that Tokyo – the bounce destination – is well outside the current area of operations.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Now we go straight into the new month and off we go

01:00 1st November 1942​

On reloading the convoy war gets off to an excellent start. I have 83 u-boat flotillas sitting astride the obvious convoy route to the Petal Throne supply dump in Kra (the province with the marine division). Immediate convoy attack success is a normal thing straight after a reload although I tend to assume this is simply a time of day thing there may be more advantage than that. However, getting three successful attacks sinking 55 convoys is pretty impressive. Since saving again I have tried reloading this save game and received exactly the same convoy attacks on about 5 successive reloads suggesting it isn’t just luck of the load but implicit in the save game.

As an experiment I have demonstrated that if you load, save and then load the new save something different happens but you still get more successful convoy attacks. It looks like I could sink all their convoys by spending an hour or two loading and saving. Let’s not dwell on that rather nasty exploit.

More to the point is that the convoy AI will immediately react by rerouting the convoy and assigning it a massive escort. Personally I don’t know why the AI doesn’t assign all convoy escorts by default rather than keeping them in reserve as there is no benefit in not assigning them. Still, the lazy AI effect has given me this immediate boost. Now I will have to find how the convoy is rerouted and push through what may be hundreds of escorts.

Kra is rather an awkward target as it has two coasts and borders onto three separate sea zones. Given the size of the convoy going there it can also be rerouted as far out into the Pacific and Indian ocean as the AI sees fit. Fortunately it will initially displace fairly locally but from Blue Emu’s experience I am going to have problems if there is a single free path to the destination.

This means the situation is a little awkward. I have a number of facts to work from and this dictates policy. The convoy is known to be big and will have a lot of escorts which I know are available. Given the size of the supply depot and the rate the supplies disappear (only checked very briefly) I know that the convoy only needs to run every few days. Because of the level of escort I know the u-boats will have to stay in large stacks. To prevent simple evasion by the convoy router I will need to quickly move to covering all three sea zones. This will easily absorb all the u-boats currently available so I do not have to worry about another layer of u-boats. This is lucky because the routing options will expand very rapidly as you move away from Kra. This means that despite the good start I know this is going to take quite a long-time to achieving anything really useful.

One of many u-boats catching convoy ships on the first day

05:00 1st November 1942​

Another great success as the US bombers are intercepted and punished. This shows the effects of two hours of combat and there was definitely a third but of course you don’t get to see that. The bombers will be grounded for a good while to come and it looks like over 100 shot down. Currently my interceptors are one tech level ahead of the bombers (and presumably the escorts) and this seems to be enough for a 1:1 battle to go strongly in my favour. Interceptor losses are not trivial (well you can see the bar has moved) but also far fewer than the bombers.

13:00 1st November 1942​

The Petal Throne has launched a massive counter-attack relating to the Bose – Wenshan operation which is unfortunate. I absolutely have to hold Bose since that is where the Fallschirmjägers in Wenshan are retreating. Oddly this isn’t going to be a huge problem as massive interdiction support is going to arrive at dawn and teach this lot a bit more respect for their betters.

19:00 1st November 1942​

A second heavy bomber intercept is less interesting (at night in rain equals minimal losses). It is nice to see another bomber group accounted for and clearly non-operational due to low org levels.

01:00 2nd November 1942​

Twenty-four hours into the new month and we get our second convoy strike. The route is slightly different (this sea province isn’t on the shortest path). The losses are much lower partly because of the escorts but also partly because the u-boats are now dispersing to cover all routes. Current air support is assigned to naval bombing to try and suppress any attempts to interfere with the u-boats

02:00 2nd November 1942​

In the Philippines the marines are finally ready to move on and start clearing out some more Filipino divisions. A bit of interdiction support makes sure we suffer minimal losses. This air support is a bit of a nicety but it will reduce losses by at least 50% and even though this is half of a small value these steps do add up. Naval support is the final clincher that makes this offensive nearly free.

08:00 2nd November 1942​

Further north naval support allows the marines to make short work of another enemy division. Following these two attacks all defence has been eliminated from the southern Philippines allowing occupation of relevant territory to be carried out by single divisions will the others concentrate for the next phase of the battle. Note that many corners can be ignored due to the absence of VPs since I will get all provinces soon enough through annexation.

 

[PrawnStar]

I 'know' there are aliens, probably allied with the French, just goes to prove exposing yourself isn't the best of ideas

 

[Edzako]

Thanks for broad reply Kanitatlan, I think you are right about why fall of China was so fast but you can't make AI smarter, can you ? It just can't deal with fast moving fronts, but what if battles would last longer, I as for example in some mods. Would that affect AI ability to reinforce hot spots much, or just slow you down a little ?

 

[unmerged(84739)]

Originally posted by Kanitatlan:
As an experiment I have demonstrated that if you load, save and then load the new save something different happens but you still get more successful convoy attacks. It looks like I could sink all their convoys by spending an hour or two loading and saving. Let’s not dwell on that rather nasty exploit.

Muahahahaha!!!

Originally posted by Kanitatlan:
Mangudai The defences of the Philippines are pitiful which kind of suggests a lack of US presence. I don’t know why they are so uninterested in this game configuration but there it is.

Hmm, maybe the AI is going for a "Fortress America" this time, although their exp. forces in the bushes of Africa prove they have atleast some interest in helping the French rump state hold out.

Btw, what is the skill level and experience of your leaders at this time? You don't have to point out more than a couple of examples.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I 'know' there are aliens, probably allied with the French, just goes to prove exposing yourself isn't the best of ideas

As far as I'm concerned they are all aliens. especially those French chickens (it was chickens wasn't it?)

Thanks for broad reply Kanitatlan, I think you are right about why fall of China was so fast but you can't make AI smarter, can you ? It just can't deal with fast moving fronts, but what if battles would last longer, I as for example in some mods. Would that affect AI ability to reinforce hot spots much, or just slow you down a little ?

I always find this an interesting idea. As a proponent of the overrun attack I like the idea of longer battles as they will improve my overruns. Whilst a battle is going on the attacker is advancing at normal pace but the defender is not moving. This means that when they are finally defeated the attackers position towards an overrun is much better than it would otherwise be. In fact if battle length is extended sufficiently then in areas with short movement time this could easily trigger single depth overrun (ie they never complete their first retreat) which is all but impossible normally.

Longer battles is very much a two-edged sword and the effects on the game are likely very complex and change things in ways that are suprisingly beneficial to an attacker. Bear in mind that the attackers maneouvring is unaffected by longer battles, only the defender is affected. This means that longer battles can easily end up simply being a benefit to the attacker when the intent was the opposite. In fact, even if the defender is successful in reinforcing the defence this may result in defeat in detail effects that still make things worse. I am fairly confident I could have a good stab at exploiting longer combat to make my attacks even more spectacular and overpowering.

Btw, what is the skill level and experience of your leaders at this time? You don't have to point out more than a couple of examples.

I can post some proper images later but as a brief run down NONE of our land or naval leaders has achieved an increase in skill level. Some statistics as follows

On land we have

2 x skill 7 with exp 6,12
9 x skill 6 max exp 24 (FM Alexus)
26 x skill 5 max exp 29

these are all starting skill levels and the low experience gain is a reflection of the high starting grades and the way I fight - ie minimised combat, I simply don't have those long battles. Also all the "named" leaders tend to be Generals and Field Marshals

Naval - similar situation

3 x skill 6 max exp 60
5 x skill 5 max exp 67

The large number of minor 4 hour battles has significantly elevated the experience gain here but even so everyone remains at starting skill level.

Air leaders

4 x skill 9
5 x skill 8
8 x skill 7
10 x skill 6
28 x skill 5

High skills achieved for the usual reason of constant repeated air attack.

 

[unmerged(53911)]

Nice to see my alter-ego in a screen shot! My boys are taking down Allied bombers over Nanjing - way to go boys!! If it's not too much trouble I would like to know von Rauschend-Tod's stats.

 

[TheExecuter]

Thanks for broad reply Kanitatlan, I think you are right about why fall of China was so fast but you can't make AI smarter, can you ? It just can't deal with fast moving fronts, but what if battles would last longer, I as for example in some mods. Would that affect AI ability to reinforce hot spots much, or just slow you down a little ?

I would have to agree with Kanitlan on this point. Longer combat ought to 'slow down' the winning of battles, however, in practice the advance would still continue at the same, or faster pace. The key issue here is the AI's tendency to reinforce defeat rather than adapting to it. I.e. Rather than retreat from a losing battle, the AI tries to 'win' it by a stubborn refusal to change. Thus, the human player can either fix the AI on a certain point and exploit the resulting weaknesses; or they can bring overwhelming force to bear and over-run the AI's strongpoints...thus making him weak everywhere.

For example: in the HOI1 Great War mod...you can fix the Russian AI in Poland and exploit his inability to reinforce the Baltic states, thus surrounding the Polish pocket and creating deep penetrating runs into Russian territory. Or, as France, you can over-run the German armies in Belgium despite the massive German tech lead simply by knowing when to attack and grind down the 'no retreat' Germans. All of this is still possible, even when the battles take 'forever' (like weeks) to resolve themselves because the AI insists on reinforcing losing causes rather than attacking at your own weakpoints.

If the AI were to better handle disadvantageous situations, longer battles would slow down our advances. For that to happen, the AI would need to calculate relative force ratios and factor in loss rates...then determine a suitable retreat and regrouping strategy. Unfortunately for us...the vanilla AI lacks this basic skill. As my brother once said..."You don't really know how to fly until you've learned what to do when you're crashing!"

TheExecuter

 

[unmerged(87674)]

Canadians are rather pacifist But from other view point they have third panzer forces in the world

So in 2009 will be great Hall of Fame for forum users, let's imagine all this commanders, ships statistics... I think you can even publish it

Any plans for next AAR (except finishing ming merciless) ? Maybe in 2009 Paradox releases HOI3

 

[unmerged(84739)]

Originally posted by Kanitatlan:
As far as I'm concerned they are all aliens. especially those French chickens (it was chickens wasn't it?)

Uuuh, yes it was chickens I said. Chickens.

 

[unmerged(62857)]

Canadians are rather pacifist

Not in this AAR... We're kickin' butt and takin' names... Or another interpretation is that we and our allies are having our own buttocks severely pasted, but we will fight on valiantly... Or, because the AI is in control... Ineptly.

 

[unmerged(87674)]

Not in this AAR... We're kickin' butt and takin' names... Or another interpretation is that we and our allies are having our own buttocks severely pasted, but we will fight on valiantly... Or, because the AI is in control... Ineptly.

Some of Canadians divisions disappeared. Is this a new camouflage research? Or they choose better life in Petal Thousands of Candians: "We will die for Tokyo" or became POW faster.
Anyway Canada has a big chance to became last stronghold of democracy

 

[unmerged(87674)]

Is Kra the ony supply depot for Petal in SE Asia?
If yes, then capturing it shoul speed up petal starvation. And of course you get some supplies, too

 

[4th Dimension]

No. If he captures it, he will only capture those temporaly suplies stored there. Next day, AI will establish a new convoy, and possibly in some worst place that would need more subs.

 

[unmerged(47937)]

so, the starvation strategy, first time we see you use this and I wonder how it will work.

 

[unmerged(87674)]

I see Kani's brand new flag.
Is this prophecy of more blood or turn to communism?

Waiting for next great updates!!!