captainjack wrote:This is great stuff Goose2. All that agonising about which units will actually add something and whether an 88 is more useful than an extra unit. It will be interesting to see how far you get from a combination of careful planning and sheer determination.
I am glad you are enjoying the pain and torture I am subjecting myself to.
I am realizing what I enjoy so much about the early campaign.
Less units, less enemies, quicker more dynamic play.
You are building to something instead of settling for something. So with that said I again busted through Kampinoska Forest last night, all within a night. Fairly straightforward and was able to use units as intended although some counter attacks were a little unexpected and scary.
The reason why I am doing this playthrough/challenge is because I wanted to create something that captured the essence of the difficulty of the war as felt by the people conducting the battle. I often play this game where I reach a point where the games realism loses it's effect.
All of a sudden I find myself in 1944 Eastern Campaign with more prestige than I need fielding an army that Germany never had available facing forces that have no chance against my experienced forces. (Don't get me wrong the scenarios are still hard and playing on Manstein still has a lot of challenges, that make me extremely worried about what I will face in 1945.) But I have 7 SE King Tigers with almost all with 5 stars of experience that still dominate the Battlefield. That never occurred in reality.
So now I have tried to create a Campaign that makes me have to wrestle with problems that the initial game does not create.
Stars of experience are extremely important, especially for your front line grunts. (Firing first and devastatingly so is very, very important.)
I will not be able to afford the best equipment, overstrengthened equipment, or all of the equipment I would like.
Battles are extremely costly and have me considering more thoughts than previously considered, that is why I am enjoying the deep dive into game mechanics going on on the forum, but still leaves me perplexed.
So now I created a Campaign, where I desire to get Decisive Victory's in the first 3 years, at least as much as I am able.
But as the years get into 42-45 I want the idea of getting Decisive, or even Marginal Victories begin to slip through my fingers, making those battles where I have to get at least a Marginal even more challenging/enjoyable.
For example. I am in Guderian Blind playthrough 45 West, the first time I played the 1st mission I played incorrectly lost the scenario and rethought and replayed the battle and garnered a Decisive Victory. (That kind of struggle is very enjoyable to me.) I like being challenged.
Right now I am facing Bastogne Assault feeling extremely trepidatious on how to tackle. Map is so large and so many areas to deploy that it will take a while to attempt a blind through any time soon.
So now I have a series of questions around my new dilemmas that I would like to hear interested parties to share their thoughts on before I attempt Modlin.
That will be my next post.