AK: Suez Canal

[VPaulus]

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

[Razz1]

Colonel
4423 Prestige
Bought a Strategy bomber. Glad I did at the start.

We can see the AI has not improved in certain area.
In this scenario the AI consistently puts down reinforcements over and over in and around Cairo.

With AT 's AA's and Art you can not penetrate the barrier. The AI still has an air force so you can not break through.
Then there is the Navy which keeps bombarding you.

The AI has too much prestige. After a certain turn you can trigger it to loose some or trigger the loss in prestige through hexes when they are controlled by the Axis.

The AI has at least 2500 PP's too much.

Your whole army get decimated and you are forced to replenish the troops with regulars just to stay in the battle to fight.

We can trigger AI loss in the river hex 27,25, also any troops on the other side of the Nile.

2 troops -500, 4 troops -1000, 5 troops -1000

A loss in this scenario

Almost captured port said on this one. Cairo is out of the question.

It is a meat grinder.

[Razz1]

Sunk the Royal Navy ships! Sunk them all!

needs to be:

Sink the Royal Navy ships! Sink them all!

[monkspider]

Suez Canal
Ending prestige 4400
DV on turn 17/18
General level
No losses

This was a difficult battle but one that I seemed to have better luck with than Herr Razz. My strategy involved crossing the Nile River Delta north of Cairo with my Panzer division and then assaulting Cairo directly at the river crossing with Italian Infantry backed by artillery. The strategy paid off, though the foothold my Italian troops gained in Cairo was precarious for a while, they managed to hang on and eventually take the city. From there I captured the last two objectives without excessive difficulty.

I will say though, I had the same experience Razz did with the AI spamming units. They spammed a truly unreasonable number of Vickers tanks. Although these tiny tanks were no match for my Panzers, they did clog up the map to a comical degree.

I have always seemed to run a smaller air force than most other players but I have found in Afrika Corps that the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica have been making up a much larger portion of my core. I am currently using two 109s, two Italian fighters, a Stuka, an Italian Tac bomber, a Heinkel strategic bomber and an Italian strategic bomber. The large air force certainly came in handy for sinking the Royal Navy, though those Spitfires and Mosquitos are incredibly tough to bring down. I look forward to introducing at least one FW 190 to my core.

I think this was an excellent scenario and I am glad to see scenario design starting to hit it's stride after those problematic scenarios in 1941. The only thing I would change is dramatically reducing the AI's prestige as Razz suggested.

[Razz1]

I retried the scenario a second time and only got a MV.
Every city was captured and all units were killed, except 4 tank units that were spammed.

So I do not know why I didn't get a DV

[uran21]

I do not see prestige as a problem but AI having core slots to purchase. All scenarios from Suez Canal to Persia were considerably updated as we speak.

[produit]

FM, could have DV at turn 8. Waited for last turn for prestige and to clear the map.

FW190A are really a plus to achieve an air superiority.

Nice map. Getting across the Nile is difficult, but can be done with sufficient artillery and careful planning. The essence is time. I think that after some turn, the AI start to spam units without limit. As I had already a foot on the other side of both Nile bridges, it was OK.
In the end, what is strange is that going across the Suez Canal is easier that crossing the Nile. That as no meaning at all. Going across straits is too easy. You don't even have to stay for one turn on the straits with possibilities of counter-attack and easy destruction. Making straits like rivers would make it more "logical".

I also got a Vickers Mk VI spamming for the last 8 turns. To move to Jerusalem, I had to battle against of continuous flow of 6 Vickers Mk VI per turn.
Having units such as Churchill tank would be tactically more interesting, even more if they are standing on the other side of the straits.

Finally, I would reduce the AI income per turn, but buff up the defenses on the east side of the Suez Strait.

[produit]

I did not buy it, but a Bridge Engineer would have been really a plus for this map... It is perhaps the key for people have problem to attack Cairo.

[karlto]

Re-played this in order for the Palestine fix to "take" (hadn't saved at the end of it). Some comments:
- For those finding this scenario difficult, if you use a bridge engineer to get over the Nile south of Cairo, it is pretty straight-forward actually.
- Regarding the comment about the Suez Canal, I checked Wikipedia and the present width (don't know about 1942) is 200 meters; I'm guessing that this is wider than the Nile on average, but I couldn't find any data. Still, calling it a strait is perhaps not accurate. Maybe it should be a wide river (requiring bridge engineers to cross), like some in the East Front campaign? A couple of auxillary bridge engineers would help with the Nile as well.
- The Wickers tank spam from Jerusalem is just silly. I would rather you put some tougher opposition on the east bank of the Suez canal, and challenge the crossings in order to balance having auxillary bridge engineers (if my previous suggestion is implemented).

[Mountaineer]

Sunk the Royal Navy ships! Sunk them all!

Perhaps it is the Bavarian accent!

[Mountaineer]

Seems the map is void on many major landmarks, towns, and cities. You could have a city on the eastern edge of the Sinai as an objective. I think the counter attack to the south of Alexandria is brilliant and keeps you guessing. Perhaps some warning would be nice. I also think the scenario brief should be more obvious about requiring a strategic bomber to kill the Royal Navy.

[billmv44]

General level. Starting Prestige 7285, ending 4785. Elite replacements used to bring forces to full strength.

This was looking like a breeze until the British counter-attack from the south. I deployed against such an eventuality, but moved my covering forces away in the race for Alexandria. Lost my first core units in quite a while. Fortunately, the Luftwaffe and tanks were able to eliminate the threat. I would add one or two more tanks to that force to really make the German player scramble. I agree with the previous post in that the objective at 35,25 should have a name. Eliminating the Royal Navy was fairly easy since they didn't have air cover (didn't they learn their lesson in 1941 with Prince of Wales and Repulse?). The He-177 just crushes ships. The bridges across the canal were puzzling. I expected to have to use a bridging unit to get across. Wouldn't the British have destroyed them before Rommel arrived?

[Razz1]

BETA 3

This map is considerably easier. It could be a little harder.

Colonel
start 11468
End 6999
DV

[nikivdd]

Beta 3
Colonel.

No upgrades/purchases.

A tiny scenario. I expected a bigger map for a strategic important place as the Suez Canal and the nile delta.
The small scale allied counterattacks out of the desert are well considered but offered no trouble upon my PzIIIL's and StuG's. The continuous flow of allied planes give a hard time, especially to cross the Suez Canal is more dangerous than any allied groundunits i encountered. Also i expected the Americans with a surprise or two. I have two level bombers in my core who dealt swiftly with the british navy. I didn't use the submarine, i prefered to add killpoints to the P.108.
Alexandria was taken in round 3, Cairo in round 9 and the rest fell on turn 13. An incredibly easy scenario, the opening scenario was far more difficult, even on Colonel. Why not give the allied units around Cairo a couple of entrenchment point ?
DV 13/21 7487PP.

[zappel]

Beta3 - Colonel: After the first really hard to handle scenarios this is much easier and more in the style of the "Blitzkrieg"-Scenarios of the standard campaign in PanzerCorps. Now the speed of the gaming is much higher when the static warfare of the first scenarios.
It took some time before I recognize the Suez-Canal can be crossed by units (a anti-tank-gun came across and damaged my uncovered self-propelled-artillery heavy), so the sea transport is not necessarily. To cross the Nile a bridge engineer is recommended. I wonder why have Jerusalem and Haifa no flags, just a accidental slip?

[uran21]

No, you will conquer Jerusalem and Haifa in next scenario. There should be tile markers over canal to show it can be crossed?

[zappel]

No, you will conquer Jerusalem and Haifa in next scenario.

I'll do my very best.

There should be tile markers over canal to show it can be crossed?

The tiles of the Suez-Canal are different and I never see them before but only because of their look I didn't recognize the canal can be cross there. I thought these are fishing-boats.

Suez-Canal

suez.png (139.18 KiB) Viewed 11486 times

A closer look to the mini-map could reveal that the part of the canal nearby Port Said is a little bit different from the rest. Next time I know.

[zappel]

No, you will conquer Jerusalem and Haifa in next scenario.

OK, did you think about to cut the map immediately north of the airfield near the dead sea. So the cities of Jerusalem and Haifa are not displayed without flag.

[ThvN]

I echo cutting the map at Jerusalem, since I rolled into Jerusalem and Haifa and that doesn’t really make sense considering the next scenario is Palestine.

After a tough start is becomes an easy scenario, maybe too easy. Alexendria is well defended, and the southern counterattacks are nice, but I was expecting to meet heavy resistance at the Suez Canal itself. There were plenty of annoying planes, but when I crossed the canal only a few tanks came looking, without support.

Perhaps a counterattack after you capture Port Said. The Royal Navy could be bolstered a little, I had no trouble wiping them out. They have a carrier, so give that a fighter to defend themselves against bombers. Maybe an extra cruiser for the Allied off the coast of Port Said?

Where is the city of Suez itself? Very important I think, should be around (33,26). The victory hex on the opposite side (35,25) is just called ‘Desert’, shouldn’t that be Port Tewfik (Taufiq)?

I also believe there was an airfield with a fortress called ‘El Gamil’ near Port Said.

To help explain, I managed to dig up this simple military map from 1937:



There was an actual war over the Suez canal in 1956, the ‘Suez Crisis’ maybe you can get inspiration from there for strongpoints and troop placements/movements?


Escarpments at (4,26) (11,29) (15,28) have ugly edge, I saw in the beta3 release notes thread that this was not yet overhauled in this map, would you like me to keep giving their locations for other maps?

To be totally overcomplete in my suggestions, maybe have the Allied ship in extra troops they want to land. The player can try to bomb the transports or deal with them once they land. It would make sense to have the Royal Navy escort some ground reinforcements for the Suez Canal. Nevertheless, an interesting ahistorical scenario, a bit of polishing and it would be great.

[Razz1]

Beta 4
General
end 1468 prestige
DV 17/21

I like the Italian 90/53 AA unit. Switch to AT mode and it fires range 3.

I could see 2 as the players would use more Italian units.