Hello,
While waiting for the new patch, I decided to try to handle the Spanish civil war as the republican side for my last game before WoT release. I thought it would be OK because I've already made several games with no problem, but it appeared to be surprisingly hard! Actually I won, but that's mainly because of the mistakes of the AI, temporarily abandoning some provinces, allowing me to take them, cross rivers with no combat, and make some encirclements. But versus a human player (even a not very good one) I wouldn't have had any chance, so i'm in a look for some advice in terms of strategy.
In my game, the war broke out very soon, in february 1936. Here are the decisions I took:
- With my first political points, I hired a high commander, and then a military chief for their bonus on attack and defense. Then I hired a theorist, to boost the land doctrine research. After that, my manpower was bleeding so much that I had no other choice to focus on conscription laws to allow some reinforcements.
- National focus tree: I first chose "Political effort" for the 120 PP, and then mainly focused on getting the bonus on land doctrine research, and grabbing those military factories
- research: I started the first researches on electronics and industrial trees as usual, and then focused on infantry weapons, artillery, and land doctrines. As my strategy would be mainly defensive, I chose the Grand battleplan tree (not sure that was the most appropriate though... but hey, I had to choose one!).
- construction: I first built a civil factoy, and then military factories only
- industry: I dedicated one factory to artillery, one to support equipment, the rest to rifles. I could never have enough rifles though. Because steel was lacking so much, I sacrificied two civil factories to import some.
- division designer: I didn't do much there, I just added an arty battalion to my infantry template. I hadn't enough in my stocks but that still may have helped. I didn't train any troops, as I never had enough weapons I considered that was useless.
On the terrain: I first tried to attack towards that small piece of land in the north, in order to prevent the loss of the four divisions there. I failed. The situation became very difficult, instead of attacking, I chose to defend, using the rivers and mountains to my advantage as much as possible, and trying to lose as few provinces as possible. I hardly managed to prevent Catalonia to be cut off the rest of my armies, and I tried to hold on enough time for my industry to produce more guns, hoping my divisions would gain some veterancy during this time. That worked, but I had to be very patient, and I finally could make something because the AI occasionally abandoned some provinces with stupid moves. I managed to take the ports in the south, and to push towards Portugal in the center, so the army in the south was isolated. Once eliminated, managing the rest of the army in the north was relatively easy, as I had much more troops.
Finally! But what a pain!!! What should I change in my strategy to make this easier? I would really appreciate any advice! Thank you in advance!
While waiting for the new patch, I decided to try to handle the Spanish civil war as the republican side for my last game before WoT release. I thought it would be OK because I've already made several games with no problem, but it appeared to be surprisingly hard! Actually I won, but that's mainly because of the mistakes of the AI, temporarily abandoning some provinces, allowing me to take them, cross rivers with no combat, and make some encirclements. But versus a human player (even a not very good one) I wouldn't have had any chance, so i'm in a look for some advice in terms of strategy.
In my game, the war broke out very soon, in february 1936. Here are the decisions I took:
- With my first political points, I hired a high commander, and then a military chief for their bonus on attack and defense. Then I hired a theorist, to boost the land doctrine research. After that, my manpower was bleeding so much that I had no other choice to focus on conscription laws to allow some reinforcements.
- National focus tree: I first chose "Political effort" for the 120 PP, and then mainly focused on getting the bonus on land doctrine research, and grabbing those military factories
- research: I started the first researches on electronics and industrial trees as usual, and then focused on infantry weapons, artillery, and land doctrines. As my strategy would be mainly defensive, I chose the Grand battleplan tree (not sure that was the most appropriate though... but hey, I had to choose one!).
- construction: I first built a civil factoy, and then military factories only
- industry: I dedicated one factory to artillery, one to support equipment, the rest to rifles. I could never have enough rifles though. Because steel was lacking so much, I sacrificied two civil factories to import some.
- division designer: I didn't do much there, I just added an arty battalion to my infantry template. I hadn't enough in my stocks but that still may have helped. I didn't train any troops, as I never had enough weapons I considered that was useless.
On the terrain: I first tried to attack towards that small piece of land in the north, in order to prevent the loss of the four divisions there. I failed. The situation became very difficult, instead of attacking, I chose to defend, using the rivers and mountains to my advantage as much as possible, and trying to lose as few provinces as possible. I hardly managed to prevent Catalonia to be cut off the rest of my armies, and I tried to hold on enough time for my industry to produce more guns, hoping my divisions would gain some veterancy during this time. That worked, but I had to be very patient, and I finally could make something because the AI occasionally abandoned some provinces with stupid moves. I managed to take the ports in the south, and to push towards Portugal in the center, so the army in the south was isolated. Once eliminated, managing the rest of the army in the north was relatively easy, as I had much more troops.
Finally! But what a pain!!! What should I change in my strategy to make this easier? I would really appreciate any advice! Thank you in advance!
