At Norway

dks · Post by **dks** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 12:19 pm

howdy all and many thanks to Rudankort and company for Panzer Corps!

played the tutorial and up thru Norway in the 39 camp and just had to give my thanks to all concerned with the game. playing blind going into each scn with no sneak peaks and hey, playing at colonel level and trying to get the decisive at Norway was a REAL NAIL BITER

did it on first try and was surprised by the old AI sneak behind me trick at Trondheim. you know the one where if you leave your VH open the AI takes it back trick

it was taking all my assets that landed near Trondheim along with all my Luftwaffe to finally take Namsos wayyyyy up north and Rudankort took advantage of me at Trondheim by taking back the open city. not fair Rudankort

oh, did the dumb commit your Fallshirmjager to southern objectives and could not get them to an airfield quick enough to help my northern assets. oh well, that happens when you did tooo good at the tutorial sns and you think Norway will be a cake walk

mass attacks: this feature really makes it easy to take objectives if planned well and with a little patience I found out. was very very happy to have it at Namsos when exactly as planned, the weather always goes (sour) on me for my Luftwaffe just when I NEAD IT FOR THE FINAL PUSH!!!! Panzer Corps must have got the inside story on how I love my Luftwaffe and timed bad weather just for me

the main lesson I forgot was, always block the the enemy cities from reinforcements if you are open to rear attack.

again, many thanks guys......

ElIndio · Post by **ElIndio** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:52 pm

I'm currently on Norway, after earning a 'decisive victory' in Poland (also playing on Colonel difficulty 39-45 Campaign), I was expecting it to be a similar "easier battle", but how wrong can you be.

I'm making decent progress on land securing most of the Southern areas, albeit I am getting slightly bogged down fighting for Oslo. The big problem for me has been the Royal Navy has absolutely obliterated my surface fleet, I have about 2 battlehips and one light cruiser left, I tried to go toe to toe with them to get full control of the sea, but they tore me a new one so to speak...

I will now have to take the North via a major push on land and using the paratroopers (Fallshirmjager), which will no doubt be bloody and a costly victory. The RN has closed down all hope of further amphibious assaults in the North, thus limiting my options.

From the start I concentrated all ground combat power in the South with the objective of quickly overwhelming the defence (which has worked) and then thinking I'll load a sizeable force back onto Transports and ship them all North while pushing a supporting force forward on land. However, the RN has well and truly put paid to that idea.

I'm really enjoying the campaign though and will play the battles out win or lose fair and square to determine how the campaign turns out. There is always the temptation to rectify your mistakes and replay battles to try and get the perfect victories all the time but it is far more fun and realistic to suffer your mistakes...

patriot14 · Post by **patriot14** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:49 pm

Norway gave me a good opportunity to learn the art of strategic bombers (as it did in PG). Buy one and get it up North ASAP, with fighter support. Utilize the 3 open spaces in the North with hard units as the ships will tear through soft targets. Don’t waste time with using your navy in the South. Get them to the North as well. You will encounter a fight to the West with some destroyers and Cruisers. Choose to move your sub north or south, but avoid destroyers. The RN has no subs, so destroyers are good for scouting and clean-up work. I use them as bait. Seems like the RN is afraid of them and wants them gone, so I oblige. Their distraction should give you enough time to get your bombers and other ships to the north. Once you start giving damage to their ships, they will retreat to the north and eventually become easy prey for your cruisers and battleships, if they survive. Take out their destroyers and your sub can gut their big ships. Also, use your paras wisely by dropping them on airfields and then getting them back in the airand on the move. They are great to drop in the north just as you need them in time to get the decisive. If all goes right (and the weather holds) you should have plenty of ships in the north to suppress the enemy and capture the objective.

dks · Post by **dks** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 3:59 pm

hello patriot14 and ElIndio,

trying to post before I forget stuff. Norway was more of a don't worry about the fort at Oslo. just take the objective and make sure no enemy can infiltrate back in from surrounding allied cities. I used my paras badly. as ElIndio said(edit: oops ment patriot14), I should have flown them quickly to the north after taking the airfields to the south. not knowing where the RN was I decided early just to be willing to lose some if not all of my navy. I pretty much used my Kriegsmarine to open the doors to Stavenger and Bergen to the south. I went for the Trondheim airfield asap with the 3 unit slots available to land near there and was willing to sacrifice the Kriegsmarine near there to achieve it. flew my Luftwaffe with no chance of refueling fighters to Trondheim to help take the airfield. do or die for my fighters. purchased a He 111H2 right away at Poland. would like to of been able to afford a second but fighters and artillery are always my first choice.

not knowing the maps makes for a real nervous affair I might add

no scenario peaking is paying off for the AI. I had no idea if my northern force would survive. if the RN had not chosen to defend Stavenger against my Kriegsmarine, I think I would have lost them. speed of the attack on Trondheim airfield saved the day for me.

game tactics: I'm having to adjust my thinking along the lines of PGII. that is I have to be willing to fight with under strength units. no immediate replacements on the next turn. this is a drastic change from PG. I'm at LC and getting some real punishment to my core going into turn 8.

made several mistakes due to forgetting the rules that artillery and AD can move 1 and attack. cost me dearly to my Luftwaffe by the the AI AD. also cost me prestige to make replacements. oh well, that's the fun of learning new tricks for an old dog of PG

SardaukarCRO · Post by **SardaukarCRO** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:25 pm

it's imperative to have at least one strategic bomber in norway, they can do real damage to royal navy battleships and cruisers which are far better than german counterparts....

my strategy was to bomb their ships with my strat bomber while my ships are "holding the line" -> waiting for my heavy ships to catch up and then u can first finish their destroyers (and leave your submarine intact), and then all out attack on their battleships and cruisers - with little luck all your battleships and cruiser will survive. and then u can just bomb those northern cities with air units and naval units ....

don't try to save battleship and destroyers in the north, they'll all die, just try to take at least one cruiser with them (battleships are too strong).

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:44 pm

Go for the JU88 best naval attack plane you can get for Norway. 1 is all you need park it over the battle ships and heavy cruisers and sink them. Your surface ships can deal with the destroyers, they wont shoot back from range. I normally use 1 para to take the airfield way off to the lower left, land on it and use them with infantry support from amphib landing to take that city, then pack them off and head north with them. The others will fly up to the airfield at center map and take that objective. That is your best bet for getting your airpower further north as its central and in range of the northern airfield. I will send my transports into vacant ports then offload them into the city and capture them on turn 2, its easy prestige.
Use your destroyers as bait for the RN if they see those they will gladly fire on them ignoring your bigger ships, although you might need one of them or the schnellboot to take out the brit sub that should be lurking around their fleet.
IF you let the JU take out the capital ships you should have some Kriegsmarine left to hammer the northern objective, but keep an eye out the RN will usually keep a light cruiser and a destroyer up there to hammer your troops
Good luck

dks · Post by **dks** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 10:48 pm

well I just finished LC and got a marginal(mumble mumble mumble). took all cities/airfields for revenge

was fun and still using my original panzers. got a couple of awards for my units too.

the Stuka I built at Poland appears to be a magnet for enemy fighters. almost lost it to combined atttacks by enemy fighters. was reduced to 4 strength. thinking seriously of upgrading to a BF110D. the Stuka is at 248 points and has a Iron Cross 2nd class. would probably serve better with the tac/fighter combo as well. my Pioniere I upgraded at Norway is a magnet also. the allied armor loves to go after it at LC. must remember that in France.

was awarded the 23rd SE Gerbirsjager at deployment turn. hmmm, must upgrade my other Gerbirsjager to a Bruckenpionere maybe?

prestige: I really like the no free elite replacements going to the next scn. makes taking non objectives much more valuable.

most of my core is now at 2 stars +. 200 points +. my two 10.5 cm leFH 18's arty are at 3 stars+ now. the 15 cm sFH 18 I built at LC is at 146 points all earned in one scn. arty seems to gain experience quickly or I am a hog for arty use

it seems that experience can be gained quickly in PanzerCorps. must exploit this in the comming scenarios at every possibility. new built units can gain at least a star per scenario. my LC built SdKfz 232 8Rad recon gained two stars for a total of 210 points. not bad dude. recons are great!!!!

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:59 am

The first two stars are gained at a fairly quick rate. In the past however, Panzer General games were plagued by full cores of 15 strength 5 star units. Our solution was to create a system of diminishing returns on experience.

Your first 100 experience takes 100 experience worth of battles to get.
Your next 100 experience takes 200 experience worth of battles to get.
Your next 100 experience takes 300 experience worth of battles to get.

So 3 stars has actually taken 600 experience to acquire.

Working a green unit up to regular isn't that hard, but turning your regular into an elite or a super elite is a protracted undertaking.

ElIndio · Post by **ElIndio** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:53 pm

Well I finished the Norwegian Campaign this afternoon, managed to take Oslo and push north on land but yeah mistakes were made in this campaign, you do need to send some forces north from the off (As said I based all mine in the South).

Scraped home with a marginal victory after about 21 turns, so I didn't take the last Northern city (the name escapes me).

However, onto May 1940 now and the invasion of the low countries...

SardaukarCRO · Post by **SardaukarCRO** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:01 am

it's possible to have a decisive victory in norway if u deploy all your units in the south. i got it, it's just important to save your navy and to take as soon as possible two cities that are the link between north and south (don't know their name, they're north from the city with one bunker in the adjacent hex).

i'm playing on normal difficulty (colonel?), and it's possible. i've finished it in the last turn to make a decisive victory.

don't use your paratroopers to capture the south ports, just fly them to above mentioned cities, and have fighter support for them.

dks · Post by **dks** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:15 pm

So 3 stars has actually taken 600 experience to acquire.

that's very good to know. was wondering about the uber units. I couldn't stand it and have been going back to Poland and trying out all the equipment available for Poland, Norway and LC

will be starting an aar soon with house rules of course

want more of a feal of the tactics of the game for some of those good old house rules. the game reminds me of PG with a PG2 twist. I find myself really looking forward to some of the PG2 add ons as I play. good work guys!

wish me list: MORE EQUIPMENT GUYS, LOTS OF CHOICES PLEASE

more colors for the default equipment icons. let them stand out better on the maps. these two would not make the Rudankort go crazy

LOOKING FORWARD TO ALL THE ADDONS TOOOOOOOO!

@SardaukarCRO, was drooling at that idea of from the south only for Norway. good to know a decisive can be had that way. ELIndio: great work and let us know how LC goes. I'll catch up after I test a few more tactics. finding out after playing up to and thru LC, Paras are a real good asset to have. of course recons are almost a necessity. grats to the developers

ElIndio · Post by **ElIndio** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 8:36 am

You wanted to know how the Low Countries is going....

I'll tell you it is a nightmare, I'm on my 3rd attempt at Colonel level (39 to 45 campaign)

1st attempt I got slaughtered fair and square, 2nd go I did pretty well, after 25 turns I had just Calais and Abbeville to take but the mission ended and I was sent back home to the Fatherland in disgrace. No doubt to a firing squad for ruining Von Manstein's grand design...

The problem I had is my tanks were all still Panzer I's and II's and the Frecnch tanks were killing me and I spent too much time clearing out the Maginot line in the Maastricht and Lille areas to get to the other side of the map within the 25 turns.

Now on the 3rd attempt and I'm trying the more 'historical approach' of going through the Ardennes and I have used all my prestige on upgrading all my Panzers to mark III's but I really need more units, could do with another artillery and recon but I don't have enough prestige. It seems a trade off between upgrading tanks or buying more units on mass. This go might be a close run thing but if I miss out again, I'm going to spend more on 88 guns (as opposed to upgrading all tanks), as they really kick some a$$ and make short work of the Allied armour

SardaukarCRO · Post by **SardaukarCRO** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 9:18 am

how much units do u have?
what kind of units?
i had 6 infantry units - mostly grenadiers
5 tanks all upgraded to the latest models
5 artillery
4-5 fighters
2 stuka bombers
1 strategic bomber

don't concentrate all your units in one area, spread them out, those tanks can be destroyed with bombers, even panzer IVd (or the latest models, i don't remember correctly) can't destroy french/belgium tanks. once you destroy the first line, you'll achieve decisive victory easily

Longasc · Post by **Longasc** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:16 pm

In general: While Stukas are cheap, Ju88 level bombers are a lot more effective in my opinion.

They add a lot more suppression than Ju87 destroy which makes them invaluable for minimizing your own losses while attacking ANYTHING. Heck, I even use them to bomb Matildas as funnily or rather unfunnily Stuka's can't destroy them. But 2x level bomber or artillery support will allow your feeble tanks and infantry to deal with them!

ElIndio · Post by **ElIndio** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:50 am

I finally beat the Low Countries!!!

Did it in 20 turns out of 25 for the marginal victory so on to June 1940 to force the French surrender!

I split my army into two groups, one went North via Masstricht / Maginot Line, the other South via Luxembourg.

As SardaukarCRO said once you clear the first line the resistance does fall away to a large extent but some of those towns do have a lot of well dug in defenses. I sent my 88 gun south, which took out a lot of Allied armour and was invaluable, while I had 3 upgraded Panzer III's that held out in the North, anything below a Panzer III on this map is pretty hopeless against the French armour.

It is still a hard map to clear in the allocated time frame though and to get a decisive within 14 turns must take some doing.

Horseman · Post by **Horseman** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:52 am

ElIndio wrote:I finally beat the Low Countries!!!

Did it in 20 turns out of 25 for the marginal victory so on to June 1940 to force the French surrender!

I split my army into two groups, one went North via Masstricht / Maginot Line, the other South via Luxembourg.

As SardaukarCRO said once you clear the first line the resistance does fall away to a large extent but some of those towns do have a lot of well dug in defenses. I sent my 88 gun south, which took out a lot of Allied armour and was invaluable, while I had 3 upgraded Panzer III's that held out in the North, anything below a Panzer III on this map is pretty hopeless against the French armour.

It is still a hard map to clear in the allocated time frame though and to get a decisive within 14 turns must take some doing.

I didn't find LC too tough...France is easier again, once you're past the initial line of resistence theres practically nothing left to stop you

ElIndio · Post by **ElIndio** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:49 pm

Yep I just steam-rollered through France albeit the last 2 cities at the bottom of the map were very well defended and I squeezed home at the death on turn 22 (of 22) again a big map to get the decisive victory.

Very fun map though, lots of scope for encirclements etc.

Now onto Greece / Balkans in 41, hopefully this one will offer scope for a decisive victory!