Where it all went wrong: France failures :(

[marxianTJ]

So I recently decided to relive some of my ARMA days and try and backdoor the Germans while they're taking Poland.

Try #1 110 1939 infantry divisions + those random cavs and 2 light tanks. They never achieved a breakthrough, ever. Not stacking 110 against the 6 they were trying to fight, not absolutely concentrating fire under command limit (use a field marshal + HQ to get the maximal effective attackers) and attacking from two provinces (utilizing only brigaded divisions for attacks AT/art) while instigating diversionary attacks against the other 2 accessible locations on the siegfried line (to prevent reserves from heading into the province I was attacking). Not even wasting my entire air force against them lol (they are mostly shot down after 2 fly overs).

Not to mention that Poland drops almost immediately so even the one time I did manage to achieve a breakthrough I gained one province and then got roflpwned by the entire German army lol.

I had 1939 infantry, a rather deep digression into standing army, and even a nice 1940 land doctrine to get some extra org.

Is it safe to say the Polish gambit is completely impossible in AoD? I don't see how I could more effectively brigade units (since, if I'm correct in my thinking that initial attack only really needs 24 brigaded units to be at its maximum effectiveness). There's also no chance to really utilize that numerical superiority since I only have 2 weeks to start running through Germany before the army turns around and comes for me lol. Are medium tanks really invincible even against AT infantry?

 

[marxianTJ]

Just a slight update, I decided to test out how well tanks perform (even as relatively IC strapped democratic France) we achieved a breakthrough much more easily, but it still seems like a Pyrrhic victory and those brave sons of France that undertook the diversionary attacks took exceedingly heavy casualties as I concentrated all of my armor on one attack. Unless somebody sheds some light on the situation (or I'm just a late comer) I'm going to say the Polish gambit is downright impossible now.

Even if I can continually push the Germans around a province at a time, it won't be enough to drive to any major targets in time. I may experiment with diversifying my armor placement (I managed to pump out 9 39' light tanks). See if we can't take advantage of the new combat system discouraging super-attacker stacks by achieving larger breakthroughs. Combat is definitely a totally different animal from DD/ARMA

 

[unmerged(44060)]

I've defeated Germany with the Polish gambit recently. But it was rather funny.

In the beginning, I tried the same thing with the same result, actually even worse. I couldn't even get a single province. I attacked into German lines with everyting I got, they pushed me back ofc. but interestingly my attack provoked (or aggroed=) the entire German army and immidiately after Poland they charged into the Maginot Line like lunatics.

And by lunatics I do mean it. They did not take a break for 1 sec, throwing everything they got. I barely held the line thx to the lvl 10 forts (which were turned into rubble after 1-2 week of intense fight). Anyway somehow my 80-90 divs held against 200+ for a couple months on the maginot line.
Finally the Germans got Strasbourg but then again charged into the walls of Metz and failed.

There was a cost ofc, for attacking the maginot line for months. Manpower! =) to my loss of 300.000, Germans lost more than 1.200.000... I saved the game and loaded with germany to see the result and they had 0 manpower and needed 500 plus to fully reinforce.

Anyway I continued the game to see the German divs lose their strenght, and thus their attacking power. In spring 1940 they launched Fall Gelb ofc but by then we had equal strenght. I managed to save entire Belguim and Eindhoven and dug in. They still had the numerical superiority but with weak divisions. So whenever an attack came my mobile defence force(tanks) pushed them back.

By the time I had 500.000 loss, they lost more than 2.000.000... Republican Spain joined in with the allies and sent aid.(Actually I took their mil control, I've had sent hell of a support in their civil war, so I deserve it)

I kept the stalemate for a year, (with provoking Germans for suicidal attacks from time to time), I was waiting my 1942 doctrines for an offensive but then I got bored and attacked in 1941, steamrolling to berlin.

Soviets declared war on Germany in the last minutes, but entire Germany was mine. I even sent an exp force to capture Greece and Bulgaria and puppeted them. Then Italy fell. Then came the japanese. I kicked the japs out of indochina in a long and bloody fight.

When I last looked it was 1948, I was fighting in the Philippines desperetely trying to get an airfield close to japan, in order to NUKE Tokyo. But japs sank my entire navy and no further operations were possible. Then I had to wait 2 more years to build a new fleet, since USA is stupidly waiting in faraway pasific islands.

So I left it there..

-why not nuke from china or korea?
Well yeah but China became a...well a big fat part of the USSR.

 

[Denniss]

Sounds like someone needs to tell the AI not to attack those high-level forts by implementing the largefort variable in some of the AI settings. At least Tegethoff has done this for Core to prevent exactly this situation.

 

[marxianTJ]

Yeah I'm too simple minded to say "haha, let's retreat behind The Maginot line now that they've diverted all of those divisions from Poland." Once I've made up my mind to attack, I have a hard time letting go lol. I loaded up the game as Germany, and indeed - all of the units that weren't actively engaged in combat maneuvers in Poland were redirected to the French Boarder. With an AI reaction like that it's totally impossible for a Polish gambit to work in the old way - that is steam roll to Berlin while the army stays tied up in Poland (used to be able to surround Berlin in a matter of weeks maybe 1-2 months max). It's a bit unhistorical, as, at Nuremberg, it was more or less admitted that had the French army attacked the Siegfried line Germany would have been totally helpless. Unless of course, one assumes this was only said to suck up to the victors .

 

[Count of Reval]

Sounds like someone needs to tell the AI not to attack those high-level forts by implementing the largefort variable in some of the AI settings. At least Tegethoff has done this for Core to prevent exactly this situation.

As I understand, AoD is based on HoI2:Armageddon version 1.2, but according to HOI2 Wiki, in that version largefort parameter became outdated and no longer had any effect. Is that correct? And if yes, then has this been changed back to work in AoD?

If the parameter largefort is currently functioning, how is it used exactly? One source says that it "modifies the odds-strength for defender, for forts above level 6" and that it has a default value 1 (HOI2 Wiki), other that it "increases odds the AI deems necessary to overcome 1 level of fort" and that its default value is 0 (ai_file_doc.txt). What does it all mean? Taken into account how important forts can be - like described above -, why was the parameter discarded then or is ignored now? AI needs any help it can have.

 

[Denniss]

AFAIR the dev comments regarding the largefort variable it was either just a placeholder or never worked. It has been brought to life with 1.06 I believe.
I assume it works like "do not attack if landfort value is greater than x".