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Welcome, gaiasabre11! Yes, it's always difficult. I've won before, with a change in doctrines and sliders (via the Freedom cheat) and early conquests of Spain and Italy...but never tried straight-up human-waves before.

Enewald: Hey, it's almost like you've read this story before!

Hello there, Laurwin! I know militia are pretty poor on their own, but I don't plan on having them lead attacks. I'll attack with my best units and have htem join an hour later so they get dinged with the command penalties instead of my INFs. Hopefully that'll hold the Gerries back!

Chamboozer: Yeah, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to hold Germany back once the war begins. The AI hardly ever attacks lvl-10 forts, especially ones that are manned by a half-decent number of troops. As this is Normal/Normal, I don't expect much action on the Line. It'll be the border with Belgium that gets soaked in blood!

Welcome aboard, demokratickid! I'll be watching that line up close and personal in a few days!

belgium rules: Actually I've decided to let Belgium itself fall and try my luck holding out on the border. Sorry! And welcome!

I certainly hope so too, Olaus Petrus! Welcome, and thanks for reading!

Update to follow...
 
The Storm Breaks​

We roll into Spring 1939 with some potentially gamey tactics on my end—I GoI Denmark, the Baltic States, Russia, Albania, Greece...just about every-frickin'-body. Why, you ask? Other than the free Interventionism and free DoW...no reason, really. Just had a couple-hundred bucks burning a hole in my collective pocket.

This strategy begins paying off almost immediately—Italy DoW's Albania at the end of March, a scant ten days after my GoI, and I breath a sigh of relief. That one action takes my Interventionism within one move of maxing-out.

AlbGambit.jpg

Yay! Free slider movers!

Now we're heading into crunch-time. I'm considering the idea of cancelling all my upgrades and starting another run of INT/MIL just for a few extra by the time Fall Gelb comes a-knockin'. I also notice after this that I've somehow become a Paternal Autocrat, which suits me just fine, in all actuality. It'll help ease the transition to New France once Germany's been (hopefully) defeated.

At the end of May, I experiment with a new tactic: trading divisions. For a paltry few blueprints (in Britain's case) and the same plus a few useless old ships (for Canada), I get three brand-spanking-new 1939 INF divisions. It's a steal! Unfortunately the rest of the Allies are either puppets or too pig-headed to give into my reasonable request that they send their young men to shed blood for a pseudo-fascist France. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Since I don't really care about my navy, and I won't for quite some time, I'm going to beggar even more of it for some of those sweet, sweet Canadian divisions. I get a few more, which will certainly help.

On August 24th, I get yet another gearing bonus and this makes me incredibly happy. The Hitler-Stalin Pact goes off without a hitch, and I get precious, precious IC's to defeat the Nazis with. It means Poland's screwed, of course, but that was kind of a given anyway. So now we hunker down and eat lots of beans, prepating to fard in the Gerries' general direction through the winter. Right on schedule, Hitler declares war on Poland on August 30th, and that means WAR! WAR!! WAR!!!

Status of the Front Line as of 6 September:

FrontStatus1.jpg

Bombing the Ruhr

As you can see, I've got a pretty hefty defense built up along the border with Belgium. The Maginot Line is manned by pure MIL, which currently outnumber their opponents, and should be able to repel any attack owing to their heavy fortifications. Everywhere else is a mix of INF and MIL, and I'll be breaking down the superstacks into pure MIL and INF stacks with proper leaders as soon as I can.

I've ordered my pitiable airforce to begin bombing the crap out of Hitler's industry, but I don't think we'll have too much impact. We'll have to see come June. Also by September 6th, the Poles are already on the brink of collapse, in what is predictably a hot Messer* through some creamy pochlebstwo**.

PolishFront1.jpg

Warsaw is now a Frontline City

*German for knife
**Polish for butter

Once I have my Army organized (small stacks of MIL, large stacks of everything else), now I just have to wait for my obsolete units to upgrade and keep on churning out Panzerfodder. Looks like now I've got more total Army units than the rest of the Allies combined, which suits me just fine...though I believe I'm still outnumbered by the Gerries.

Guess what happened on September 25th. Betcha can't!

bybypoland.jpg

We hardly knew ye...

And you know what that means...SITZKRIEG!

While I'm sitting twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the German AI to kick into Fall Gelb (which is German for “Gobble France,” I do believe) mode, I do notice something rather interesting...the Germans are investing quite big stacks along the Maginot Line.

GermanInvestment.jpg

Ohhh, scary! ...not

According to my tooltip, there are about 15 divisions in Saarbrucken, under von Kuchler; 11 divisions in Stuttgart under List; and 15 divisions in Freiburg under von Manstein. This means that three of Germany's best generals are tied down with 41 of Germany's troops, versus 16 of my own. Even if every single one of those divisions were Panzers, they couldn't hope to beat back my troops, given the intense fortifications and the penalty for crossing the Rhine.

Of course these numbers aren't set in stone, and I'll still be walking quite the tightrope, given that my spies tell me they have 84 Infantry divisions and 6 Armoured divisions...but hopefully that takes some pressure off my Northern flank.

As of January, my Air Force has been all but decimated by the Luftwaffe, and my IC ranges from 98-100 as a result of German bombing. I've started a few more runs of INF to help keep up with my MIL runs, and I'm slowly reorganizing my non-MIL stacks into an effective assault/defense force, spreading my HQ's around so they'll be more effective on the front, etc. Still waiting for the German assault.

On March 3rd, Germany went ahead with Fall Weserubung. Whether this is good or bad I have no idea, so I remain hunkered down.

On May 2nd, we're at the End of the Beginning.

FallGelb.jpg

OH SHI—
 
Oh no! ...I want to see how this turns out. Plz, update soon. :)
 
The Gambit Fails​

Here we go, folks. Mano-ee-mano...where we separate the men from the boys (sorry NAMBLA), the men from the girls (for legal reasons in accordance with Megan's Law, a full fifty-odd years early), and the Krauts from the Sauer! Let's get this show on the road!

ArmyCompare3.jpg

I'm sure the Gerries are quaking in their boots

As you can see, I've managed a half-decent buildup of land forces, accounting for 177 out of a total 370 units, which makes ~0.48 French units per Allied unit, even accounting for the BeNeLux. This is unheard of in AI terms. Hopefully it is enough. Almost immediately after I unpause at the start of the game, I get spammed with Expeditionary Forces. Seeing as these forces will only get cut off and destroyed or pushed into France anyhow, I strategically redeploy Holland's troops behind my lins in France and reorganize the Belgian defences as best I can for a fighting retreat.

CoveringMyAss.jpg

Fall back!

This will (hopefully) inconvenience the Gerries and drain up some of their manpower while allowing me to reconquer the BeNeLux in the name of a Greater France. The plan goes well at the outset...I chase the Gerries out of Luxembourg on the 5th, but don't follow-up on the victory. I'm looking to drain their manpower while conserving my own as much as possible, which might take a good five or six months of bleeding them white in Belgium before their divisions begin collapsing.

At May's end, I've successfully halted Hitler's advance. He's concentrating his forces in Wallonia, leaving much of my army that faces Flanders facing single units. I'm waiting for the Low Countries surrender events, if they're coming, before I begin advancing at all. It looks like that event lasted until I lost control of the lent troops, which means I can start advancing. There's only one problem with that. Remember that concentration problem Hitler had in the East? Yeah, he fixed that up.

Ghentstack.jpg

Ouch

Even attacking it with everything I have available is insufficient to move the force in Ghent. This does not bode well, gentlemen. On the first of June, I taste my first defeat of the war, in Rheims. We'll see if I can survive the retreat. It goes back and forth for a while, but the Germans bring too much force to bear...which isn't helped by the Italian entry into the war. By mid-June, the entire front has collapsed, and I'm just holding out for as long as possible at this point.

Spanked.jpg

Getting spanked

I hold off for as long as I can, but it's a steady retreat. I do make some progress in Italy, oddly enough, if only because the Italians have no resistance in Northern Italy. I get over forty troups encircled in Compiegne and almost as many in Calais. On July 7th, the Maginot Line has officially been flanked, and I lose my troops there as well. As of the 11th, the front is as follows:

NewFrontLines.jpg

The next day, Vichy fires. I accept, being historically-minded, and nominate De Gaulle for the new leadership of Free France.

Which brings this AAR to a rather abrupt but expected lull. Final analysis:

My mediocre skills and poor planning are likely the culprits of this failure. I've read of successes in the past with this tactic, but given my normal playing style, I didn't really expect success.

That being said, I would like to continue this AAR, possibly as a history-book style instead of pure gameplay. So I leave it to you, my dear readers, the future of this effort. I'll set up three separate scenarios.

1: I continue on from the other end, as Germany. It's been done to death before, and much better than I could do.

2: I try my hand as Russia, to see if I can survive Barbarossa.

3: I follow the Arsenal of Democracy and play as the United States of America, as historically as possible. This is actually my favored route, as I've never played a historical USA before.
 
I vote for 3 too ;)
 
Fight from the colonies! Fight from the seas! Don't give up and see it thru to the bitter end. No Vichy France!
 
What have the North American Marlon Brando Look-alikes have to do with this? :D
 
2. Take control of the mighty Soviet Union, and liberate France and the whole Europe! :D
 
Why everyone wants to abandon the French cause? After Vichy it's still possible to continue fighting in African colonies against the Italians and it's possible to liberate Paris once the USA has entered to the war.