Is this Normal for Normal Difficulty?

[parnis]

I admit that I am a noob compared to many posters here when it comes to Darkest Hour, and even HOI2 in general, so I apologize if this question has been asked and answered many times:

When playing Germany (in the 1936 scenario) I have never been able to defeat the Soviet Union. This time, I was doing better than ever - I had defeated France by late fall in 1939, I spent 1940 building up, and I invaded the USSR in the spring of 1941. All went well for a while (compared to my past disasters), but by early fall I began to grind to a halt. I knew I was not pulling off encirclements like I should, but I thought I was doing OK. But by the beginning of winter, I was being pushed back, and by the end of winter, I was being submerged in a Red sea.

I saved the game, then re-entered as the USSR. I felt a lot better about how I did when I found they had 560 divisions, and were building many, many more infantry, militia, and mot...at a cost of .1 IC each. (I let the game progress a few days to make sure it wasn't some kind of first-day thing.)

My question is, is this normal for the Normal Difficulty? And you experienced folks can really win against that anyway? If so, my hat's off to you. I am not complaining. I realize the AI needs help, I am just startled by the magnitude of the help it gets.

(This was 1.03 RC3, and I had the game set at Furious aggressiveness, if that affects the case.)

 

[Beryl]

This one should make in the FAQ ;-)
Yes, some experienced folks can really win against that (I am not one of them).

Search for Great Patriotic War event in Darkest Hour\Mods\Darkest Hour Full\events\USSR.txt
Search for this line

action = { trigger = { NOT = { ai = GER } ai = yes difficulty = 2 }

and change difficulty to 3 instead of 2 (normal)
Or you can let it at 2 and change build costs and amazing terrain bonus to what you think is right, so the AI as still some bonus.

 

[parnis]

Thanks, Beryl! I don't think I will try changing the file, but I am glad to know my game was not glitched somehow. And I'm glad to know others are in the same boat!

 

[Vorondil]

I'm experiencing the same probleme, and changing the code doesn"t solve anything.
I even tried to Barbarossa in June 1940 after defeating easily France and Poland in 1939.

The first week of Barbarossa, I manage to make a huge encirclement in the swamp of pinsk, trap there around 50 soviet divisions. Then, while reducing the pocket with infantry (ing brig for bad terrain), I perform an other encirclement in ukraine, traping around 70 div.

But, reducing those pocket take some time, and infantry needs to catch, and the summer ends (we are about september).
Then, I see huge stacks of unites (INF, MOT ans ARM) attacking my positions, and those units are 1942 models (even if I am in mid-1940!) with T34... I'm not speaking about the epic strenght of those unit, I'm easily bogged down then submerged before the winter by a infinite flow of modern units.

Reloading the game with SOV, I confirm they didn't have the techs for INF 1942 and for ARM 1942 (but have a lot of those units!). But it's like huge stacks of modern units are poping around Moscou.

I"m aware that hard-core gamer should manage to crush them before this situation happened, but for average player like me, it's not even interesting.

I'm playing 1.03 with WIFII mod (so I play in easy because easy WIF = normal vanilla).

Do you think it's a common situation, or it's just the mod?

 

[Polykrates]

Usually you are faster if you go for smaller encirclements. If you have encircled a single province and defeat the units in it, they vanish; in a larger encirclement they move to the next province usually regaining some org.

 

[claudefrog]

you need to beat the ussr before the 1st winter otherwise youll probs be screwed. to do this build alot of tank divisions. speed is how you win as germany.

 

[Vorondil]

Yeah, I think smaller encirclement have to be faster, thank for the advice

but what about the AI cheating? The problem is not the winter (I ragequited long before this), but the modern unit (1942) poping in summer!

I thought that in 1940 URSS was not ready at all for a german offensive, and I had more than 220 units (with around 20 Panzerarmeekorps) + a lot of interceptors to support my CAS. But he always screw my Luftwaffe and when mid-july/august arrive, I can't advance anymore...
When IA is GER and Barbarossa 1940, URSS is dead in 3 week!

 

[Polykrates]

There are cheat events in WIF that give the Russians free units, all or at least most of which are very modern. Look in the 'cheats.txt' file in the events folder of WIF for details. IIRC the first one fires after three or four weeks and the two other such events also three or four weeks after the preceding one.
That means that you absulutely must destroy the Russian army and advance in equal strides, although a quick push for Moscow might lead to an early bitter peace if Stalin chooses to stay in Moscow IIRC.

 

[Australiana]

1.03 'Ivan' is a much tougher nut to crack than ever before. I wonder how many experienced players have sauntered merrily into Russia expecting grand pincer movements and the destruction of swathes of Russian divisions followed by a leisurely jaunt towards Moscow and victory only to find themselves bounding hurriedly back towards The Fatherland pursued by hordes of pesky Reds? I know I have. It's brilliant! I'm actually having to think about what I do when I invade! Though it must be said that 1.03 should come with a warning: Barbarossa will eat your soul

 

[parnis]

I'm glad to know it's not just me screwing up. I'm trying again; this time I waited until 1941 to invade, even though I had conquered France by late 1939. It's early October, and already the tide is rising...

 

[CrusherX7]

I'm horrified the AI cheats that much on Normal difficulty. Normal difficulty is supposed to be an even playing field, and hearing that the Soviets can build 0.1 IC land units if I play Germany makes me not want to play as Germany.

 

[Vorondil]

For those who are using WIF2, there are a cheat event located in the mod script (/mod/worl in flames 2/db/event/mod.txt, event 100-106) available in all difficulties if you are playing GER.
This event stacks with the "vanilla" AI cheat and make the mod realy hardcore.
It's composed of 6 huge wawes of moderns units, the first one is a lot of interceptors in order to crush your Luftwaffe (even if IRL the Red aviation was destroyed the first day of the invasion), the other wawes contain a lot of INF 42, MOT 42 and T34, with of course various brigades. An enormous terrain bonus is also added.

Some people said you have to encircle the wawes so fast he can't organize well, some other said it's better to rush Moscou, hopping Stalin surrender (not likely). But is someone realy succed to beat them with both AI cheat activated?

I added a difficulty condition to the WIF2 cheat (like for the vanilla cheat), and a Barbarossa 1940 was a great success (But Stalin sued for peace only when I was halfway to Vladivostock in early January 1941and I managed to invade GB and trigger cold war with USA in 1943). I think an invasion prepared for 1941 should be a little harder.

For the difficulty, I think the best option is to make an event cheat related to difficulty to each difficulty starting easy, but with only smaller wawes and little terrain bonus for lowest difficulties, and impossible mission for harder ones.

 

[parnis]

Thanks, Vorondil, but I am not playing "World In Flames". The events I described took place in the standard 1936 scenaro, call "Road to Another War". Are you saying that WIF2 is tougher, and that it has a switch that can make it to even tougher than that?

And CrusherX7, when playing as France in the 1.03 RC3 1936 Road to Another War, I switched to Germany mid-game, and found that Germany was getting the same kind of benefits - multiple strings of .1 IC units, including armored divisions. I don't object to this - the AI need help to make the game more challenging for the human player. It's just that, when playing as Germany, I found the scale of the help the Soviets were getting so large that I wondered if something was wrong.

Perhaps my relative lack of experience playing Germany is the problem, but it is encouraging to me to see that others find it difficult too.

 

[Australiana]

I'm glad to know it's not just me screwing up. I'm trying again; this time I waited until 1941 to invade, even though I had conquered France by late 1939. It's early October, and already the tide is rising...

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of "screwing up" as you can make all the right moves and do all the right things in the early stages of Barbarossa and yet still unstuck come October. For me, I think the secret is in having a solid consolidation/defensive plan if the tide begins to turn and then exploiting the 'holes' in the Soviet front that will indeed present themselves.

 

[parnis]

On my second attempt as Germany in the 1936 "Road to Another War" scenario, I invaded the Soviet Union in April 1941 after defeating France and Poland by November 1939. It is now February 1943. The Soviets have 633 divisions. About 25% of those (164) are just Militia - but 50 are Armored, and another 20 are motorized! (Twenty are HQs, probably to compensate for the AI's inability to place them properly.)

I took a look at the Soviet production queue. There were about 30 streams of divisions on it, half and half Armor and Infantry. The infantry streams were about half done, either 5 out of 11 or 6 out of 12 already completed. The Armor streams were all 2/3 done, 4 out of 6. But ALL of them cost just 0.1 IC!

That means before they run out of 0.1 IC divisions to build, they will get another 30 Armored and 40-50 Infantry, for a total of about 710, give or take 10. I'm not good enough to win against that, but then I don't claim to be a very good Germany.

The only hope I can see for me in this game is to fall back slowly and hope I get atomic bombs before they get to Berlin. I find it impossible to do encirclements now that they can put 100+ divisions in any province I attack.

(I should have said, this is on Normal difficulty and Furious aggressiveness.)

 

[Australiana]

I'm pretty sure that anybody would struggle against those odds. 710 divisions seems completely ridiculous to me...