DEFEAT! My First AAR

[Fallshcirmjaeger]

Well...it wasnt a total defeat...but Moscow was poised to fall in June 1942 so I thought it best to concede. I dont know if this would have been fatal or not, especially since the Western Allies were gearing up steadily to open the Second Front. What I do know is that such loss would have been a major blow to the old ego, and probably rendered the Russians near useless. Oh well! Try again!

Kudos to Ivan66 who was my Axis opponent in this head-to-head TCPIP matchup. Great game! I think the advantage shifted to him sometime in early 1942, after the Winter, or roughly around 2am...lol. Where are the Cossacks when ye need them?

Lessons learned:
1 - The Great Patriotic War - it sure would be nice to be able to at least move the Soviet units that I constructed and placed. Also, the limitation on placements really makes you think hard. Only one unit per city can be placed....this is a tough restriction since the Soviets literally itch everywhere. The same for rail moves...cannot rail 2 units to the same city. Spent most of Stalin's money on Corps and Garrisons, with Labs focused on Infacntry. Gonna have to do some deep thinking on the Russian defense.

2 - Battle of the Atlantic - no need to get excited here with the Royal Navy. The Kriegsmarine cannot hit all of the convoys so some will make it through. Spend that money wisely, and take your shots carefully. Strat and Tac bombers are nice to help protect the approaches. The French Navy was useful here. I also used the US PPs to build destroyers since it made no sense to spend the money elsewhere except Research.

3 - The Mediterranean - Axis Southern Yearnings - in retrospect there was A LOT more I could have done here with the Royal and French Navies, but to give credit to Ivan66, he was pretty smart in not getting too frisky with the Italians early. He made an invasion feint towards Egypt with the Italian Navy but that was about all. It was enough for me to keep the British Desert Rats close to home. I saw no reason to run the Med gauntlet with reinforcements so instead used the West Africa route, which is safer and faster. I simply could not take my eyes off Athens and spent many minutes musing the value of a Greek adventure with an eye towards airbases in range of Ploesti... Needless to say, because of my inexperienced and inept play, by Summer '42 Cairo and Port Said were teetering anyway.

4 - Toyed briefly with the idea of a Norwegain invasion, but decided it wasnt worth the risk. Yes, I am sure that if successful, it would have caused some minor pain to the German High Command, but not likely enough to alter their plans. And it would have just tied down some valuable units that Her Majesty simply could not yet afford.

5 - RAF - Saviors of the Empire - I chose to focus my UK Labs here. It seemed the logical thing to do. Having Strat and Tac bombers with greater ranges to help protect the convoys was a real boon, and the better and more numerous they became would eventually pay off after the US showed up. My plan was to use US ground forces in the early stages of Second Front, supported by enhanced RAF, since they would be cheaper while waiting for the US economy to really ratchet up, and the UK basically has nothing but time after the fall of France so they can build air.

* * * * *
Overall the whole shooting match was a complete blast! I am sure that both Ivan66 and myself are ruined for solo play, except for testing and explorational purposes. Our turns did stretch out a little bit due to inexperience and ignorance, but, for the most part, we jammed through pretty steady. Two or three turns per hour after Barbarossa began. I am sure this will speed up as we become more familiar with the systems and potentials.

The stability was pretty solid for TCPIP. I think we only had to reload the autosave three or four times, and we discovered that the sound was the culprit. After turning off all sound we never had another problem. One reload was due to a horrific blunder on my part when I accidentally placed Zhukov into the Odessa Garrison! Oooops! I guess it wasnt fatal, as Odessa did hold one more turn...but still...*whew* what a blunder! Ivan66 let me off the hook on that one!

If I have to offer up a gripe, it would be this: the fact that the Russian can literally do nothing beyond their initial placement of units is really frustrating. I know I'm having to unlearn some things from my 3R/A3R days...but jeez...gimme some flexibility before the onslaught! I know I will have to study the Russian defense pretty thoroughly if I hope to ever have a chance with them.

Other than that...did I already say what a great game this is? I dont remember the last time I had this much fun playing a grand strategy game since the days of yore! Luv it!

Standing by for a rematch!


~ "We shall NEVER SURRENDER!"

[Redpossum]

Alright, a fun read!

I feel your pain as far as the Russians. I've never figured out what to do with them either, in terms of Pre-Barbarossa deployment.

It almost seems as if, given an Axis opponent of equal skill, Moscow is very difficult to impossible to hold. Unlike every other east front game ever made, CEAW doesn't give the russians any winter reinforcements from Siberia. (No, I don't want to re-hash that debate, no!)

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Playing Russia is not easy, but Happycat and I have found a good way of surviving the first difficult 2 years with Russia. I think the big mistake most Russian players do is that they try to defend too far to the west. That means they lose some units every turn and will always be weaker than the Germans. This is how we play.

1. Research. Buy as many labs as you can in infantry, armor, air and general. Put focus on dogfight for air and industry for general. It's a big mistake to only buy infantry labs and little else. Buying general labs is particularly important because you need new industry levels to get more production and also organization levels. Air is important because with better dogfight you can challenge the Germans in the air later in the war. Armor levels are important for the future Russian offensives.

2. Initial defense line. Many people try to defend behind the Dvina and Dnepr rivers, but the Germans will reach these rivers too quickly and breach them. Then Russia will have problems. Happycat and I have therefore found that forming the initial defense line just west of the following cities will be ideal, Leningrad, Novgorod, Kalinin (Rhzev in the vanilla game), Moscow, Tula (not in the vanilla game), Voronezh and Rostov. Use the Don river in the south and place your units behind them.

It's possible to form a contiguous straight southeastern defense line from the Gulf of Finland to about Moscow (in the forest hexes) and then a contiguous southern defense line to the Black Sea. Make sure you build a double defense line so the front line units can't retreat. This contiguous defense line can only be attacked from 2 hexsides and will need support from several air units to be destroyed.

3. Use the already existing garrisons in the second line of defense. Armor and motorized units should also be placed in the second line of defense. It's better for Russia to build corps units instead of garrisons because you will be able to form a double defense line in time before the Germans can break it. Start building it from the south since it's clear terrain here.

4. When you see the defense line you appreciate to have many cities just east of the defense line. That means you can place reinforcements very close to the front and replace losses. Your armor units in the second line of defense should be used to counter attack Axis spearheads who destroyed front line units so you don't have a contiguous defense line anymore. Do NOT advance with the armor after combat. Let a corps unit move to the front and reform the contiguous straight defense line. If it's impossible to regain the contiguous straight defense line then you just retreat instead to form it or allow some bulge in the front line. The key is to always form a double defense line so the Axis can't make deep penetrations.

5. The Russian air units should retreat outside the Axis fighter range so they won't be forced to intercept Axis attacks. The Russian fighters are too weak to engage in combat in 1941. That's why it's so important with many air labs and focus in dogfight.

6. During the Winter of 1941 you will notice that the Axis efficiency is very low (especially for the Axis minors). This means you can then counter attack front line Axis minors with your land units.

7. Build a few generals during the late Fall of 1941 and place them behind the front lines so all your front line units are covered. I like to build the best generals so I get the best increase. Each general has a range of 8 and will increase the efficiency of each unit by 2 times it's value. So Zhukov will increase the efficiency of all units within range by 16 since he has a value of 8.

8. I would start building fighters when I know my defense line will hold, not before. New tac bombers should wait until you can afford to engage the Axis in the air (usually late 1942 or 1943). The new fighters should be placed in the reserve and not enter the front lines unless the Germans threaten to make a major breakthrough.

9. Later in the war it will be very smart have 2 strat bombers and base them on the Crimea. These strat bombers should bombard Ploesti and continue to do so every turn so the oil production will remain at 0. I like to have 2 strat bombers so they can alternate with repairs due to Axis fighters. That means they will never be destroyed and always keep the production from Ploesti down. Remember that Ploesti produces 5 oil * 4 = 20 oil per turn in the vanilla game. So keeping the production down to 0 means the Axis receive 20 oil less per turn. That means he will soon be out of oil. So the Axis player will be forced to send several fighters to Romania to try to intercept. Then you just build even more strat bombers since you have good production in 1943+. Germany can never keep up and have to accept to not get Ploesti oil.

The key for the Russians is to make sure the 1941 forces survive as long as possible. Only let the garrisons remain in cities and retreat all the other units asap to the defense line I described above. The Germans won't be able to advance really fast so you will not see the Germans there before late Fall 1941.Then you can hold the line until the Winter.

10. In Happycat's and my module we've given motorized and armor units a movement penalty of 1 in forest and rough terrain. That works very well and means armor and motorized units can't move quickly through the northern Russian forests. It makes life easier for Russia since the armor will be located in the centre and the south. That means the Russians can concentrate their armor here too (behind the lines). So the north will be less active as it was in the real war.

[Fallshcirmjaeger]

Thanks for the feedback, Possum. Glad you enjoyed the read!

Great advice, Stauffenberg! Lotta good stuff there. Thanks!

Given that this was my first try at the game I thought things went well. I probably should not have conceded so quickly at the Fall of Moscow, but the hour was late, my eyes and lower back hurt, and it was a real ego buster! LOL...not too mention the pretzel bowl was scraping bottom.

I should also mention that we were playing v1.04, Oil and Fog ON, no house rules except to hurry up already!

I have no doubt that with some further study and tinkering I can mount a respectable defense of Mother Russia. Part of which is some more savvy play in the West....


~ "Why do you have to die to be a hero?"

[firepowerjohan]

Interesting reading, been looking forward to reading how the offical competition is evolving. Also, do not forget the ladder we have, you can report won/lost games and climb to the top. Keep the competetive spirit up

http://slitherine.com/ladder/ceaw

p.s Playing a lot of TCPIP games myself vs testers, we found that just having the timer there will automatically speed up games. No one wants to be the slow dude around, with 7 minute turns hardly anyone can fail. With some practice 5 minute turns is also very doable. Trick is to play quick in 1939-1940 to save up REALLY valuable time for Barbarossa where there are a lot of combinations to consider...