"How the heck do you play this game?!" A simple tutorial AAR

[jonlucero]

Nice job. I've been playing for a year, I didn't know you could right click on a flag at the start to choose from all the countries! :rofl:

I hope someone will talk about modding someday.. I'd really like to learn how to make simple events..

 

[Lord Strange]

Good, i will one day start a new game and follow your advice,

 

[Ironhead 5]

It is time to attack the Soviet Union. Before we get started though, let's talk about our strategy.

As I mentioned in the last lesson, we need to destroy as much of the Soviet army as possible through encirclements. If we can cut off a province, or a series of provinces, from the enemy capital, those provinces will be out of supply. When units are out of supply, they fight with a -20% combat penalty, and they do not regain org at all. This makes them very easy to defeat. If a single province is surrounded and the enemy units inside are defeated, those units are destroyed completely (simulating the wholesale surrender and capture of those units).

Our goal then, is to conduct several large encirclements early in this war. The Soviets have positioned the bulk of their military on the front line (just as they did historically). If we can destroy most of these units, the Soviets will be forced to disperse the rest of their units to form a thin, weak front line - or else consoldiate their units in certain key provinces (such as Moscow) and allow us to take the rest of the country unopposed.

Sounds easy, right? But there is one significant hurdle to this. Our org starts out much higher than the Soviets, but weeks of continuous fighting and marching will reduce that org precipitously. Couple that with the reduced Effective Supply Efficiency (ESE) we will have from the low infrastructure of captured Soviet provinces and sky-high TC we will have, and our offensive will start to slow before we can reach our objectives. Those few Soviet units we do see after the initial encirclements will recover their org much faster than us (due to their higher morale), and so they will still be able to put up some resistance.

Historically, Hitler's plan for the invasion of the Soviet Union assumed that the Soviets would collapse fairly quickly in the face of the German onslaught, and so only identified three objectives: Leningrad, Moscow, and the Donetz Basin in the Ukraine. After these were taken, Hitler assumed the Soviets would be incapable of resistance, and the Third Reich could occupy European Russia from Astrakhan to Arkhangelsk. We know now that Hitler greatly underestimated Soviet tenacity. However, in this game we will have five objectives. If we reach those five objectives, an event will eventually be triggered that will force the Soviets to surrender.

Our first objective is Leningrad, up north near the Finnish border. This will probably be the first to fall. Our second objective is Moscow, southeast of Leningrad near a lake in central Russia. Our third objective is Stalingrad, past the Don River, on the Volga, deep in southern Russia (note that these first three objectives all have urban terrain; anticipate fierce fighting if Soviet units are still defending them when we arrive). The fourth objective is Baku, on the Caspian Sea on the Iranian border. The fifth objective is Sverdlovsk, deep in central Russia, in the Ural mountains (to find Sverdlovsk, type the '\' button to bring up the province finder, type in Sverdlovsk, and hit enter). However, in the event that we are allied with Japan (which we are in this game), if Japan takes Vladivostok (way off in the east, near Korea), then we will not have to take Sverdlovsk.

Once those five provinces are taken (Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Baku, and either Sverdlovsk or Vladivostok), an event known as the "Bitter Peace" will fire.

Too easy, right? There are several strategies to approach this. One strategy is, right after the declaration of war, to send panzers deep into the enemy territory to create huge encirclements (and sending a few INFs to shore up the defenses of the 'arms' of the encirclement, so that the panzers don't get cut off themselves). As soon as an encirclement (or "pocket") has been created, send the rest of the INFs to reduce those pockets while TACs bomb the units inside. As the INFs are reducing the pockets, we could send our panzers forward against very minimal resistance to seize as much territory as possible, and quite possibly they could capture Stalingrad, Baku, and Moscow before the Soviets can mount a defense. Meanwhile, the masses of INF we have in Memel and Konigsberg could smash their way into Leningrad, with help from those MTNs we have in Finland. Once the first four objectives have fallen, we could send a couple of panzers racing forward to seize Sverdlovsk.

This strategy is risky, because the panzers will quickly outrun their infantry support, and so there is a terrible danger that the panzers could be cutoff deep behind enemy lines with no one nearby to save them. That said, with some careful management this could be executed, and in fact, many advanced players prefer sending their panzers much deeper than their infantry.

However, we are going to do a slightly slower, much safer strategy. We are going to conduct this invasion in phases. The first phase will be to the Dniepr River in the Ukraine region (the river that the province of Kiev is on, that flows into the Black Sea), to Smolensk in central Russia, and to the Dagauva River in the Baltic Region (the river that Riga is on, that flows into the Baltic Sea). We will use our panzers to create a huge encirclement in the Pripet Marshes, and a small encirclement in the Bessarabia region on the Romanian border, while our infantry simulataneously attack on all these fronts. We will then hold up our panzers at the Dniepr River to rest and regain some org while our INF catch up. Our scheme of maneuver will look like this, where the green line represents the limit of advance for this first phase, the blue arrows represent our panzer thrusts, and the yellow arrows represent infantry attacks:

There are so many different variables that could happen, that it is impossible to predict what will happen in your game. What I lay out here is a general outline of what I did in my game, based on how the Soviet AI responded. Your game may be different; it is important to be proactive, yet responsive to changes in the battlefield, and remember these key points:

• Watch your command limits. Early on, we will attack with Field Marshals and HQs, so we can safely attack with 24 divisions from a single province. As we advance, those Field Marshals and HQ get dispersed, so you may have to limit your attacks to only a single corps per province.
• Bring your HQs forward. In the early attacks, our HQs won't participate, so we will have to click on them after the battle is over and push them forward to the front lines. Don't forget them and leave them several provinces behind! Later, as our forces get dispersed across an ever-widening front, you can even use the HQs in an attack - they are useless for inflicting damage on the enemy, but they can absorb some of the enemy's punishment and allow your INFs to retain some extra org.
• Keep tabs on when each corps mandatory 24 hour recovery period is up. Remember that after a battle, each unit needs 24 hours to recover. We have pop-ups to remind us when units arrive at a province, but we don't have pop-ups reminding us when that 24 hours rest period is up. Don't forget about some unit that is sitting idle in a province, when it could be advancing!
• Don't let your panzers get cut off! As panzers advance, they will leave a swath of unguarded conquered provinces in their rear. Continually send in INFs to plug up those provinces and protect them from counterattack.
• Don't forget to continually re-issue orders to your air units, and rebase them as necessary, as you advance. Beware though, that conquered provinces will automatically have partisan levels around 30%. If you rebase your air units in a conquered province that does not have any ground units in it, and a rebellion breaks out, all those air units will be destroyed and lost forever. Only rebase them to provinces that have a ground unit present.
• As you push your dozens of INF corps forward, spread them out evenly along the front to provide for a solid, linear defense. It is easy to fall in the habit of sending everyone through the easy provinces, and suddenly finding that your front has two or three provinces that are defended by scores of divisions and a couple of Field Marshals, while other provinces on the front have only a single INF corps (or are completely undefended). At the same time, you may find that all the HQs are clumped together in the north, with no HQs in the south; or that you have a province with ten or fifteen INF corps, but no Field Marshal to command them all at the same time.

By the way, as we discover techs during this initial phase of the invasion, assign the following research teams to work on the following techs, in this order:

• Kriegsmarinewerft to work on Advanced Battleship
• Konrad Zuse to work on Advanced Encryption Device

At this point, while the game is still paused, let's give orders to our units.

• Memel: Send the single CAV up to seize unguarded Mazirbe. Send Blomberg's corps, as well as 7x additional INF corps, to attack Jelgava at dawn (which should be around 02:00). Send 2x INF corps to attack Siauliau. Keep the other 2x INF corps in Memel with no orders.
• Konigsberg: Send von Leeb's corps, as well as 7x additional INF corps, to attack Siauliau at dawn. Send 2x INF corps to attack Alytus.
• Suwalki: Send von Kluge's corps, as well as 6x additional INF corps and the one panzer corps, to attack Grodno at dawn. Send 2x INF corps to attack Bielsk and 2x INF corps to attack Alytus. Keep the other 2x INF corps in Suwalki with no orders.
• Lomza: Send von Brauchitsch's corps, as well as 7x additional INF corps, to attack Bielsk at dawn.
• Lublin: Send Rundstedt's corps, as well as 7x additional INF corps, to attack Brest Litovsk at dawn. Send 2x INF corps to attack Bielsk and 2x INF corps to attack Kowel.
• Zamosc: Send von Manstein's corps, as well as the other 6x panzer corps and one INF corps, to attack Kowel at dawn. Send 2x INF corps to attack Stryj.
• Przemysl: Send von Reichenau's corps, as well as 7x additional INF corps, to attack Stryj at dawn.

Keep the MTN corps in Finland idle for now. Also, give the Expeditionary Forces in Iasi Support Attack orders for Stryj. Remember also to give your air forces orders as well - send one TAC wing each to bomb the regions of Lithuania, Memel, Grodno, Brest Litovsk, Lvov, Bessarabia, Transnistria, and Kiev. Give your INT wings Air Superiority missions for enemy regions that have airbases in them, such as Brest Litovsk, Lithuania, and Grodno. When you are ready, unpause the game.

These initial battles will be lopsided victories for us. Let the game run until you start to arrive in the provinces you are attacking. When your panzers arrive in Kowel, send one to attack Rowne and the rest to attack Tarnopol (you may have to wait a few hours for them to recover from their previous battle). You can hold shift, and give each panzer corps follow on orders to bring them to Vyshgorod and Priluki (to help pocket the forces in the Pripet Marshes and Kiev), as well as the southern Dniepr River, to help pocket the Soviet forces in Bessarabia. Also, send your HQ from Zamosc into Kowel, and your HQ from Konigsberg to Siauliau when that province falls. When INF forces from Przemysl arrive in Stryj, give them orders to attack Stanislawow, with Support Attack from the Expeditionary Forces in Iasi.

When Jelgava falls, send your idle CAV in Mazirbe and the idle INFs in Memel to Jelgava, then have all forces in Jelgava attack Jekapils, along with two INFs from Siauliau. When your INFs from Suwalki join your panzer corps in Grodno, send them all to attack Lida. When your forces arrive in Bielsk, send them onward to attack Slonim, and when your forces arrive in Brest Litovsk, send them onward to attack Pinsk. Be sure to change your orders for your air units, as you advance, to target the areas that you are attacking.

When the rest of your forces from Konigsberg arrive in Siauliau, send them to attack Kaunas, then shift and right-click Wilno and Swieciany to give them follow on orders for those places as well. Send one INF corps from Alytus to Grodno, to protect our forces from getting cut off in Lida, and send everyone else in Alytus to attack Kaunas. Shift and right-click to have these guys attack Wilno and Molodeczno as well. Make sure you are moving your HQs up to keep pace with your armies as you advance. You should also have 3x INFs arrive in Kowel around this time (one from Zamosc, two from Lublin). Keep one in Kowel to hold it open, and send the other two to Tarnopol, to keep that province open as well. We don't want our panzers getting cut off!

When our panzer corps from Grodno arrives in Lida, send it racing through Bobraisk and into Zhlobin, to complete the encirclement of all the forces in the Pripet Marshes. Send 2x INF corps to attack Molodeczno, keep one INF corps in Lida to hold it open, and send von Kluge with the rest of the INFs to attack Minsk.

Around this time, we should be comnpleting our research of Ship Assembly Line. When we do, immediately start a run of 7x parallel run, 1x serial run of battleships (BB-4) and 7x parallel run, 1x serial run of destroyers (DD-4).

When Blomberg's forces arrive in Jekapils, have the 2x INF corps in Jelgava attack Riga. Have Blomberg's corps and 7x additional INF corps from Jekapils Support Attack Riga. Note that the Dagauva River was supposed to be the limit of our advance for the first phase of our operation; but the Soviets are weak, we're strong, and this is a good time to cross the river before they can put together a defense.

When our forces from Bielsk arrive in Slonim, have them continue their attack into Baranowicze. Have the forces from Bielsk attack Luniniec. Note that Bialystok is now completely cut off; have the INF corps that you left in Suwalki and Grodno attack Bialystok to reduce this pocket (if you have a couple of INFs that arrive in Bielsk late, you can have them join the attack as well.

We should be seeing a similar encirclement in the south. Once we take Stanislawow, Lvov will be completely cut off. Have the 2x INFs we left in Zamosc, as well as our forces in Tarnopol, reduce this pocket. If they are having trouble, send in a couple of INFs from Stanislawow as well.

A couple of weeks after we launched the invasion, we should see the panzer corps from Suwalki finally arrive, via Grodno, Lida, and Bobraisk, in Zhlobin. Meanwhile, a couple of panzer corps from Zamosc will finally arrive, via Kowel, Tarnopol, and Zhitomir, in Vyshgorod, thus totally encircling the remainder of Soviet forces in the Pripet Marshes.

Meanwhile, in the south, things will be a bit trickier. We have far fewer INFs down there, and while panzers are good at attacking, they can be overwhelmed if forced to defend. Our forces from Stryj and Stanislawow can push on through Beltsy with support from Expeditionary Forces, and our INFs that are reducing the pocket in Lvov will catch up eventually. In the meantime, use the weight of your panzers to capture Odessa or Kherson, and keep it closed until your INFs catch up and can reduce the pocket at Ismail and Chisinev. TACs will be crucial to this mission; don't be afraid to assign multiple TAC wings to hammer Soviet forces in the south. After the pockets in Chisinev and Ismail are reduced, send your panzers and INFs, as well as Expeditionary Forces, onward to the Dniepr, conquering Krivoy Rog, Kherson, and Dnepropetrovsk.

After Riga falls, rebase one INT wing and two TAC wings to Riga. Have Blomberg's forces in Jekapils atack Dagaupulis, with the forces in Riga Support Attacking Dagaupulis and 2x INF from Swieciany attacking as well. Have 2x INF corps from Swieciany attack Orsha, while the rest of the forces from Swieciancy attack Polotsk. Have all the forces from Molodeczno attack Orsha as well. Send 2x INF from Minsk to attack Orsha, while the rest attack Mogilev, with support from any forces that have finished reducing the pockets in the Pripet Marshes and are moving up through Bobraisk.

After Priluki falls, Kiev should be cut off. Send as many nearby INFs to attack Kiev and reduce the pocket there, with nearby panzer corps being used only as support attackers.

As forces arrive in Dagaupulis, Polotsk, Orsha, and Mogilev, give them a few days to recover, and allow straggling INFs to catch up and HQ to re-align themselves. After a short rest, send them on another series of attacks. The Soviets are reeling now, we cannot let up the pressure! Send 2x INF in Riga to attack Parnu and another 2x INF to attack Gulbene. Send 2x INF from Dagaupulis to attack Opochka, while the bulk of Blomberg's forces attack Gulbene. Send 2x INF corps from Polotsk to attack Opochka, 2x INF to attack Vitebsk, and the last INF to attack Nevel. Send 2x INF from Orsha to attack Vitebsk and the rest to attack Smolensk. Send 2x INF from Mogilev to atack tSmolensk, 2x INF to attack Roslavl, and 2x INF to attack Rogachev.

When these provinces fall, push the attack on even further. Rebase the remaining INT and TAC wings at Memel to Vitebsk. Have 2x INF from Gulbene attack Tartu with a support attack from Parnu. Have the rest of the forces in Gulbene attack Voru and push on to Pskov. Have 2x INF from Opochka attack Pskov and the rest attack Novorzhev, with follow-on orders for Staraya Russa. Send the INF in Nevel to Velikiye Luki. Have all forces in Vitebsk attack Toropets and all forces in Smolensk attack Vyazma. Send the CAV up to Pskov, to make a dash for Leningrad if we find it unguarded.

After our INFs finally catch up and position themselves with the bulk in Priluki and Dnepropetrovsk (and a HQ in these two provinces) and the rest of the INFs spread along the Dniepr River in the south, give them a few days to rest and recover their org. Make sure you have 3x panzer corps in Priluki and Vyshgorod, and 2x in Dnepropetrovsk. After they a couple of days to recover, we can launch the second phase of the operation. In this second phase, our new goal and limit of our advance will be the Don River (just before Stalingrad) in the south, and the capture of Leningrad and Moscow in the north. We are already well into this second phase up north; let's initiate the attacks in the south. Launch attacks from as many different provinces as possible into all enemy provinces we are facing: Melitopol, Zaporozhye, Poltava, Sumy, Konotop, Chernigov, and Gomel. Give the forces in Rogachev, as well as the forces attacking Gomel and Chernigov, follow on orders for Klintsy. Once they arrive in Klintsy, give them Support Attack orders for Kaluga and give the forces in Roslavl orders to attack Kaluga.

Save the game on 1 July 1941. Then zoom out a little bit and take stock of what we have accomplished so far. We are past all of our phase one objectives; we are threatening Moscow and Leningrad; and Soviet defenses are in tatters. Note that we haven't yet attacked with our MTNs in Finland; this is because Leningrad is currently undefended, and if we were to attack, we would actually push Soviet units into Leningrad, which has land fortifications and urban terrain, and would thus be difficult to capture.

However, there is one red flag we should worry about. Look at our TC. As well as we are doing, we still haven't taken any of the five provinces we need to defeat the Soviet Union, and our TC is already overloaded and into the red. Hopefully the Soviets don't scrape together a solid defense, because we could be in trouble if they do.

Next lesson, we will complete phase two of Operation Barbarossa.

 

[Enewald]

Your TC is very low!

And you are advanding rapidly!
A easy victory.

 

[Lord Strange]

Well because he didnt do any IC-whoring he never gained the massive TC. OR a least thats my guess.

 

[sbr]

Very nice start to Operation Barbarossa.

 

[hoover2701]

Another great update!

As you know I follow your AAR step by step in order to learn the game. I am now at the beginning of September '38 and there is one thing that I believe you could optimize in your AAR. It's the deployment of newly produced units. Your approach is chronological and while for the most part this is exactly what is great about this Tutorial-AAR in case of the deployment this leads to frequent backtracking.

If I might suggest that you mention where units will be deployed in advance, i.e. when you start their production. In my case I had problems to know exactly where the CAS and INT should go. "Did I already deploy my INTs at Essen? Yes. So where should the next four INTs go?"

I hope you can understand what I mean... This really is the only gripe I have with your phenomenal AAR.

In addition to that I forgot to produce the TACs. I have to catch up with their production now... Well, that wasn't your fault, it was mine. :wacko:

Anyway, please keep up the great work. I want to see the bear fall!

 

[Ironhead 5]

If I might suggest that you mention where units will be deployed in advance, i.e. when you start their production. In my case I had problems to know exactly where the CAS and INT should go. "Did I already deploy my INTs at Essen? Yes. So where should the next four INTs go?"

Yeah, sure. I'll go back and edit those in. Some things I have left clearly out of chronological order - such as technology research - because it breaks up the flow of the AAR. Techs are researched every month or so, and so I figured it would easier for readers just to go back to the one spot in the post where I list all the technologies that we are prioritizing for research.

 

[hoover2701]

Some things I have left clearly out of chronological order - such as technology research - because it breaks up the flow of the AAR. Techs are researched every month or so, and so I figured it would easier for readers just to go back to the one spot in the post where I list all the technologies that we are prioritizing for research.

As far as technologies are concerned the backtracking is no problem as they can easily be spotted in the Word-document I am using. But to backtrack where newly produced units should be deployed is not that easy. Especially as I seem to have allocated my IC more towards supplies in the beginning whereas you seem to have focused on factories which I did a little later. So by the time you started production of some of the planes I hadn't the necessary IC-reserves to do so. For that reason the deployment of my new units doesn't take place at the same time as yours which is a little confusing sometimes.

 

[darthkommandant]

Dont forget that you can "overrun" retreating units by taking the province they are retreating to.

 

[Ironhead 5]

Dont forget that you can "overrun" retreating units by taking the province they are retreating to.

I'll be sure to include that in my next update, especially since I have all 1941 infantry (speed of 5) and the Soviets appear to have only 1939 infantry (speed of 4).

 

[Nathan Madien]

Wow, what an interesting concept you have going, Ironhead 5.

 

[dublish]

Wow, this AAR has taken off while I lost track of it. First things first...

My (friendly) critique of this plan:

1. If the only forces you have attacking from Lublin are panzerkorps, doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of avoiding the river penalty? The tanks are useless in Warsaw whether you're attacking from Torun or from Lublin, and the only reason we use them is to seize the province earlier than if we waited for the infantry to march in. And the infantry is still attacking from across the river. And, as long as you have a PAR, why not use the PAR to jump into Warsaw (as opposed to Danzig, which could be taken with the CAV), and that way you seize Warsaw as soon as you win the battle there.

2. Why reduce the pocket in Posnan? It isn't a VP province. Just sit a corps in Lodz to defend it (since Lodz is a VP province), and let the 9 or so Polish divisions in Posnan sit there until Cracow and Warsaw have fallen. If you attack Posnan, you're needlessly accruing casualties.

1. I encircle Warsaw before attacking it in order to cut all Polish troops off from the capital- I take Cracow late, so the -20% penalty is worth taking Lublin and Lomza. Lublin is usually undefended (unlike Warsaw, which is why the PAR avoid it like the plague), so the fastest troops go there while the INF fill in behind.

2. All units turn around and march for France once they hit their final objectives. For all the units in Lodz/Bydgoszcz, Poznan is in the way. It's not like the Polish forces drain much in terms of ORG or MP, having been cut off and bombed repeatedly.

It's Poland. Any plan is likely to succeed within a week, whereas offensives like Barbarossa need to be a lot more refined if you want to trigger the BP by 1942.

 

[dublish]

Regarding lesson 3 and building, especially rocket facilities.
Are they really usefull when you have von Braun? (costwise, if you lack scientists with rocketry or they skill is very low they are usefull, but it probably means that you are playing minor and do not have IC for rocket facilities).
Maybe it is my error but playing Germany I never bother with building them.
1st build could be justified since it gives 6 days reduction, however next ones give 2 days reduction (according to the Research page on wiki for tech difficulty 8 and skill 8).
Together (in HoI2) there are about 18 (+2 in 1936 tech) rocketry components +1 in assembly line (unless the time reduction works for other components of rocketry technologies), which gives you for the whole game "gain" of more or less 6*20 research days day for the 1st stage and 2*20 = 40 days for each next.
And von Braun has skill level 9 plus you will have extra modifiers (most probably -20% and more) from Computing technologies thus the actual gain will be smaller than 120 or 40 days.
Rocket facility takes 40 IC by 180 days. Which means that you can have 8 factories instead of 2 rocket sites. Which means that by the end of 1941 you will get 5 years*8=40IC years (about 14.5k IC).

And if you care about research time in rocketry (you do not need with German teams) and want to have say level 2 site, let us see: first important need for rocket technology is about 41 or 42 (unless you need to build V1) when it is time for turbojet planes. Turbojet engine is 1939 tech but you can not use it in 39. So IMHO you could start developing rocketry technologies in 1940 and would lose nothing. Which means that you can build 2 runs of rocket facilities starting in the middle of 1939. Which means that those 8 factories build in 1936 already gave you 16-20 IC years of production, and they are staying giving you IC and TC bonus.

Edit: I have noticed that on your picture rocket site costs only 20IC (in Hoi2 it was 40) so the IC gain would be halved.
EDIT:EDIT(a lot of them): I forgot to take into account those "secret" techs, they have another 20 rocket components doubling any research time gain. So it looks that I might be wrong. Anyway those techs are 42-43 or later techs thus first years could be devoted to IC development and only later (39?,40,41) into rocket sites development.

Rocket test sites in general reduce the need for highly skilled rocket tech teams like von Braun. However, nobody in their right mind would have von Braun research 1943 INF (which has a rocketry component) or similar techs, which require more areas of expertise than most of our best rocketry tech teams specialize in.

As for building factories instead of rocket sites from 1936 to 193X, and then building rocket sites starting in 1939... I can think of many things I would rather be building in 1939 than rocket sites. Panzers or bombers will certainly be needed.

See the wiki for some numbers. I'm sure the rocket test sites have been analyzed in some old HoI2 threads, but I'm not going to go looking for them.

 

[dublish]

Apologies for the triple post- I've been replying as I've read through the last 5 pages.

Ironhead- I'm not really surprised you didn't try to get the game to trigger the Yugoslav coup events. I've never gotten those events to fire in any of my games, and in the last GER game I played, I left ~30 divisions on my border with Yugoslavia from March of 1940 until late 1942 waiting for Yugoslavia to leave the Axis and declare war on me.

The problems with giving the Dalmatian coast and Macedonia to Italy and Bulgaria respectively has convinced me that the best way to play the game is to wait until after Yugoslavia is annexed before allying either of those countries. By taking Yugoslavia on your own, you can get a port on the Adriatic and access to Greece, both of which are very handy if you want to get into North Africa without pushing through Spain to Gibraltar. Granted, North Africa is useless for anything other than historical flavor, but it can make the game very fun if you are forced to split your attention between Russia and Egypt.

 

[KLorberau]

This is a great AAR Ironhead....really enjoying it and looking forward to Operation Barbarossa....my favorite part of World War 2 and this game...

KLorberau

 

[KLorberau]

I was not disappointed....great start by "kicking in the front door and watching the whole rotten building coming down" (or whatever Adolf said)....don't forget to start putting Garrison's in key provinces....you mentioned loosing Luftwaffe units in unguarded provinces...I lost 6 one time and cried for days...........

KLorberau

 

[unmerged(44163)]

Dear Ironhead 5

I have some humble questions.
Have you promoted the panzerleaders (Rommel, Guderian) when you battled
Poland?
What kind of hardware are You using and how fast is Your game running on
the fastest setting? By now I have only played the battle scenarios, which run quite fast but the campaign is running too slow on my system, I should upgrade my pc.

Thank You in advance and good luck with continuing this great aar.

 

[Ironhead 5]

Dear Ironhead 5

I have some humble questions.
Have you promoted the panzerleaders (Rommel, Guderian) when you battled
Poland?
What kind of hardware are You using and how fast is Your game running on
the fastest setting? By now I have only played the battle scenarios, which run quite fast but the campaign is running too slow on my system, I should upgrade my pc.

Thank You in advance and good luck with continuing this great aar.

1. I only manually promoted my panzer leaders to Lieutenant General. They were all commanding three divisions corps, so I needed them as Lieutenant Generals. I did not promote them beyond that.

2. I am using a Macintosh MacBook, with the hard drive partitioned and Wondows installed. I'm not too certain on the hardware specifics, but it is a pretty basic MacBook. I keep the speed on Extremely Fast most of the time, and don't usually have any problems. If you are seeing some lag, the first thing you can do is turn on Counters (instead of sprites) from the options menu before you start the game. Other than that, even the fastest systems will see some lag late in the game, when every little nation has maxed out its infantry production and has "ghost" fleets. (a ghost fleet is a bug where the AI will create a fleet, but not put any ships in it, so this imaginary fleet remains active but is impossible to destroy, because it doesn't actually have any ships in it)

 

[unmerged(102359)]

Really enjoying the AAR - finding it invaluable as a new player.

One question. Am following everything you've done, but it all goes wrong after Danzig or War. After Poland refuses and I end up at war with them, the Soviets cancel our non-agression pact a few days later. Have re-loaded and tried this 5 or 6 times, but it happens every time. The Soviets then don't invade eastern Poland (have waited 2 months for that to trigger with no success). I end up taking Grodno and Lvov and annexing Poland, but never get the event to return eastern Poland to the Soviets. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestion?