What to do next? (CORE)

[unmerged(5869)]

Hi,
I play as germany, it's now July 1942. I got the Bitter peace event, Vichy, allied with Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Syria, Lebanon, Siam; conquered Norway, Yugoslawia, Denmark and the Benelux, Italians took Egypt, Syria took Transjordan. I'm at war with UK (+Commenwealth), Free France, US and Iraq. Japan is at war with China and the allies too, but not my ally. USA joined the Allies about 6 month ago, they expelled Vichy from all african possesions and march towards Lybia. My IC is about 850.

So what should i do next? Screening the british coastline with Sub's, there are nearly no land units over there, but I guess that I can't maintain a sea connection for supply reasons towards the british isle. Shall I airdop my 6 Paras onto London and a beach-head anyhow, trying to capture the british illes despite the americans? Do I have to expect an SU DoW on me even after a Bitter Peace that put my borders into the Ural? Or shall I start digging in within Fortress Europe awaiting american offensives?

It's CORE, playing on normal difficulty.

Thanks

Ralph

 

[cthulhu]

I have never received a Soviet DOW after the bitter peace. I would smash the UK. The AI is unfortunately not very able to defend the British Isles. Use the paratroopers and make sure that you protect the convoy to the beach head with the entire Kriegesmarine and as much air power you can spare. Also send some German divisions and join the Italians to expel the allies from Africa. Good Luck!

 

[ComradeOm]

Not sure about CORE but in your position I'd usually stage an invasion of the UK. If you've smashed the USSR this should be no real trouble. After that I'd drive through Turkey and into the oil rich paradise that is Iraq

 

[pmac]

Usually, after taking the British Isles, you can get them puppeted to you and on your side.
Doesn't take out the rest of the Allies, but helps alot.

 

[unmerged(5869)]

hhm, so you think that the presence of some 10 american land corps in NA and hordes of american ships hunting down my SUBs in the atlantic does not indicate that every german corps sent to the british isle will be isolated and destroyed due to lack of supply?
okidoki, I'll give it a try this evening.


Ralph

 

[cthulhu]

You will easily defeat the Americans in North Africa (with German troops). In the UK, use the Luftwaffe to even out your naval weakness. Best thing of course is to have naval bombers.

 

[ComradeOm]

hhm, so you think that the presence of some 10 american land corps in NA and hordes of american ships hunting down my SUBs in the atlantic does not indicate that every german corps sent to the british isle will be isolated and destroyed due to lack of supply?
okidoki, I'll give it a try this evening.

Forget the subs in the Atlantic. Put your entire navy in the English Channel to support your invasion. I don't know if CORE is different but I've never had any UK invasion problems on vanilla.

 

[unmerged(23663)]

Hi,
I play as germany, it's now July 1942. I got the Bitter peace event, Vichy, allied with Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Syria, Lebanon, Siam; conquered Norway, Yugoslawia, Denmark and the Benelux, Italians took Egypt, Syria took Transjordan. I'm at war with UK (+Commenwealth), Free France, US and Iraq. Japan is at war with China and the allies too, but not my ally. USA joined the Allies about 6 month ago, they expelled Vichy from all african possesions and march towards Lybia. My IC is about 850.

So what should i do next? Screening the british coastline with Sub's, there are nearly no land units over there, but I guess that I can't maintain a sea connection for supply reasons towards the british isle. Shall I airdop my 6 Paras onto London and a beach-head anyhow, trying to capture the british illes despite the americans? Do I have to expect an SU DoW on me even after a Bitter Peace that put my borders into the Ural? Or shall I start digging in within Fortress Europe awaiting american offensives?

It's CORE, playing on normal difficulty.

Thanks

Ralph

Goodonya!

As an inveterate CORE player I usually take out the UK before dealing with the SU, so I can not advise you on the risks of SU reopening the war in the east.

However, having invaded the UK many times I can assure you that in CORE it is very easy provided you have some navy to control a sea zone and have destroyed the RAF. A group of +20 naval units with 2 or more Bismarck class BBs and a few cruisers backed by a +6 stack of improved tac or medium bombers, should be enough to occupy one sea zone and see of any challenge from the RN. You should get a few attacks on your fleet by RN stacks of 40 or so units. Make sure that any nearby CAGs are destroyed before setting out (naval bomb the RN in port in Portsmouth & Plymouth) as these really slow down your attacks on naval forces by land based bombers.

I normaly invade via Coventry and then secure the Eastern English Channel to protect the supply and reinforcement convoys. After you take the main island the RN will blunder aimlessly around the place making the invasion of Northern Ireland quite dangerous. So stay alert to +100 stacks of ships off Scotland & Ireland.

Within the context of your game taking out the UK would be a very good idea before the USA can establish its forces there. That way all you need to do is defend Italy which is easier said than done. I presume that you do not hold Gibralter which limits yours options for getting troops into the Med. Sealing off the Med by taking Gibralter and Suez is quite a good strategy for Germany to persue. Try and save what is left of the Italian navy and reinforce Libya. Ultimately get enough armorand motorised forces down there to retake all of North Africa from Casablanca/Gibralter to the Seuz canal. This will close off the Med to the Allies and combined with taking out the UK will deny the USA any easy means of attacking you.

Good luck.

 

[MAC]

After conquering the world you should try out http://stonyroad.de/ IMHO
I started to play 1.04b and the improvements seem huge to me. Especially to the AI.

 

[unmerged(5869)]

what I did last night:

first I did some airraids to exhaust the RAF, then airdropped during the night 3 PARA on Kent (don't know the exact name right now) where only 1 brit INF was placed, and 3 more PARA on an empty!!! London, moved in a 9 PzWg IVD stack via transports directly into that Kent harbour I airdropped in and placed the left overs of my navy (I didn't build any surface ships, everything went into land forces to strike down russia), some 10 SUBs to protect the Oil and Material convoy.
The tanks pocketed some 7 british and american units in Coventry, while the PARAs in Kent destroyed some additional 4 allied units in Devon and Cornwall. Afterwards I marched north, and again airdropped 3 PARAs in North Ireland and 3 PARAS at Scapa Flow, both empty again. The rest was militia bashing. The fleets in the channel were challenged by some large stacks two or three times, but I could hold on (although now my navy consists of only 4 small ships and 12 SUBs and 9 transporters)

Now it's Winter and I'll prepare to retake North Africa. I fantasise about helping the japanese by pushing through persia and india, as the war in china has become a stalemate, nobody's doing anything. In general, Japan is doing a lousy Job, the engage for about a year now the Philipines and still didn't make it into Manila, left alone any landing in dutch east indies. Ah, and Siam is doing a fine job marching through empty Burma.

 

[cthulhu]

Great news! Just keep an eye on allied designs to free the UK. If you have any naval bombers, release Hell on those fleets.

 

[ComradeOm]

Hmmm I might invest in Paras in my next game

 

[unmerged(5869)]

Yep, they are really helpfull. During my Barbarossa campaign I used them several times to close pockets; also very usefull to take islands, Gibraltar or quickly gain footholds e.g. in Norway

Ralph

 

[MAC]

As I suggested you could try out Historical Stony Road for more chellenge when you finished your game (but you will for sure try to secure that precious resources in Africa [even with the new rules paratroopers are still useful to conquer low infra way faster] and the middle east and annex or puppet the UK by taking india before invading the US). I would not promote HSR if I wasnt that surprised and excited about the AI improvments and new events in the latest release

Dont get me wrong - CORE is a great mod and the great thing about HOI is that there are a few mods around and you have the option to replay every country in several mods - if you had the time

So I hope most new HOI players will try out the mods out there after their first steps in vanilla HOI - the modders do an incredibly good job and the mods will improve your gaming experience A LOT. And I think doing CORE as next step after completing a vanilla game is the right thing to do.

HSR is IMHO only for experienced players and playing on VH game setting and selecting hard in the stony difficulty selection seems to be roughly the difficulty of historical Germany as far as I can tell from my currently running game. This mod has a few anti exploit features though - so forget about invading Norway with paratroopers or a huge transport fleet. If you cant stand this limitations this mod is not for you though - except if you edit and make these units produceable from start.

 

[Casluerj]

I'll use this thread to make my question: I am a totally newbie in this game, i got the bitter peace I demand Urals but the Soviets rejected. Will there be another peace proposion or will I have to annex those damn russians to finally have peace in the east?

Thx for the help

 

[gzav]

You need to annex.

 

[danoh]

Next time take the Bitter Peace. You CAN keep going for the annex, but it is easier to take the Bitter Peace, then conquer everything else around what's left of Russia, most especially China via India, Siam and Vietnam. Then you can attack the East Asian part of the Soviet Union that remains after the Bitter Peace from several directions, and conquer it in a month or two.

 

[Casluerj]

Next time take the Bitter Peace. You CAN keep going for the annex, but it is easier to take the Bitter Peace, then conquer everything else around what's left of Russia, most especially China via India, Siam and Vietnam. Then you can attack the East Asian part of the Soviet Union that remains after the Bitter Peace from several directions, and conquer it in a month or two.

But i wanted the bitter peace... IIRC there were 3 options. I choose the one that demanded more land and they refused Next time I will be more moderate