Allied: Advance to Elbe

[uran21]

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

[caca]

Может быть в условиях победы заменит Советы на Ивана или русского Ивана. Он же цвета Оси...
Как-то так
Maybe in conditions for the victory the Soviets to replace Ivan or Ivan the Russian. It is the same color axes.
somehow it

IDS_SCEN_ALLIED_CAM_OBJECTIVES <i>Triumph:</i><br/>Capture all objectives and avoid conflict with Ivans.<br/><br/><i>Victory:</i><br/>Capture at least 3 objectives.

[ThvN]

I put up some briefing suggestions in the 'text error' thread, but nothing seems to have changed yet. Uran21, would you like me to post any text error in the scenario threads or in the 'text error' thread?

Advance to Elbe

IDS_SCEN_NAME “Advance to Elbe” = Advance to the Elbe

IDS_SCEN_DESCRIPTION
“Western Allies are cutting through Germany heading to meet Soviets at Elbe.”
Western Allies cut through Germany to meet the Soviets at the Elbe River.

IDS_SCEN_ALLIED_CAM_OBJECTIVES
“Capture all objectives and avoid conflict with Soviets.”
Capture all objectives and avoid conflict with the Soviets.
OR:
Capture all objectives and avoid conflicts with Soviets

IDS_STRING35 Weissentels=Weissenfels

IDS_STRING39 Nordhousen=Nordhausen

[dthomas561]

Great scenario, however I think it would be great to try out a Patton type of scenario and push the Russians. I mean make it possible for the western allies to cross the Elbe and pick a fight with the Russians. I think that maybe have units cross the Elbe and when they do the Russians attack first or even have a victory location on the Russian side and if you can capture the location with out causing an attack from the Russians you can change history.
Of course this would open up a whole new set of scenarios(even a whole new game - WW3 maybe?) anyway why bother with stating all the anger and disappointment and caution about the Russians at the start if there's no real chance of anything happening? I just thought it would be fun.
Finally if Slitherine should want to create a WW3 type of game from this and I wasn't selected to be a Beta tester I would be very unhappy Also this WW3 idea/game would be a very unique chance to capture a rare and open niche. I played the old GDW World War 3 table top games and would love to see something like that in this style.

[produit]

Beta 3, Triump 14/18, FM, Chess mode, Ending prestige 395.

This map is OK (still difficult, enemy Tiger II with a strength and exp. superior to my tanks is still awful to see), but enemy air power is too much.
1 He162 (500 exp., OS 15), 1 Ta152 (500 exp., OS 15), a Me262 (no sure of exp. and strength, but superior to my units) and a M163. That is really too much for my airplanes (3 Meteors, 300 exp, OS 13 at the start of the scenario). I had to replay each turn I was got attacked by such a furry and replay the turn until I was able to lure the enemy fighter to a surprise contact or a surprise defense of one of my bomber.

I lost my M26 to a Tiger II / Panther G, nearly lost 2 other tanks. Hopefully this map is the last one.

Compared to Axis campaigns or DLC, Allied Corps is really much more difficult. At the end of Axis DLC, I could handle some OS 15 units with my Tiger II tanks, but here, my tanks cannot have the upper hand against enemy tanks. The only surviving unit is the Tortoise, which can sustain quite a lot of damage.

Thank you for this hard campaign that made me think a lot and put my ability to the edges...

[deducter]

Beta 3, Triump 14/18, FM, Chess mode, Ending prestige 395.

This map is OK (still difficult, enemy Tiger II with a strength and exp. superior to my tanks is still awful to see), but enemy air power is too much.
1 He162 (500 exp., OS 15), 1 Ta152 (500 exp., OS 15), a Me262 (no sure of exp. and strength, but superior to my units) and a M163. That is really too much for my airplanes (3 Meteors, 300 exp, OS 13 at the start of the scenario). I had to replay each turn I was got attacked by such a furry and replay the turn until I was able to lure the enemy fighter to a surprise contact or a surprise defense of one of my bomber.

I lost my M26 to a Tiger II / Panther G, nearly lost 2 other tanks. Hopefully this map is the last one.

Compared to Axis campaigns or DLC, Allied Corps is really much more difficult. At the end of Axis DLC, I could handle some OS 15 units with my Tiger II tanks, but here, my tanks cannot have the upper hand against enemy tanks. The only surviving unit is the Tortoise, which can sustain quite a lot of damage.

Thank you for this hard campaign that made me think a lot and put my ability to the edges...

I agree that the number of elite strong German units is too high towards the end, at least for historical accuracy. But if the scenarios are historically accurate, then pretty much everything should be a complete cakewalk at this point, which would not be that fun.

It is almost certainly too late to change things a lot, but maybe the campaign can offer two paths: one the historical path, which ends here, and should be pretty easy, with the player finishing off the German army that consists of mostly green units with a couple elite units thrown in. And the ahistorical path V-sites -> Berlin West, where the Germans are still pretty weak, but ends with 3 scenarios vs the Soviets, who will field masses upon masses of 3 star+ OS units. Those ahistorical scenarios can be core-destroying and not unlike the last 3 USA scenarios in the vanilla campaign.

[Warlord075]

Diff. - Sergeant

If you kill the Soviet unit, the game does not go to the Victory screen when the turn ends. I had to click through the remaining turns to get there. I saved the game before this action, and when I replayed and did not kill the Soviet unit, the game went immediately to the Triumph page when the turn ended. I also would like to see different end messages depending on your actions. Right now the the same message is shown whether you obey orders or not in regard to the Soviets

[monkspider]

Advance to the Elbe

I couldn't even bring myself to finish this one. The amount of "Wunderwaffen" seen in this battle started to reach comical proportions. Being the last scenario on the historical path, I expected a leisurely battle against pockets of inexperienced "Volksturm" type units and maybe an occassional understrength enemy Panzer. Instead I get wave, upon waves of overstrength jets that shoot down literally all of my fighter units. Hordes of experienced, overstrength heavy armor units, and even waves of Luftwaffe bombers (since Germany had virtually no fuel, maybe they are running on kegs of Munchen beer?}. I had to literally laugh at loud at certain points during this battle. I can understand making this battle a bit harder than was historically the case, but this battle goes so far into the absurd, that I saw no point to finish it.

The thing is, I feel this game did such a good job of presenting Germany as a totally unique opponent compared to past game early on. I actually commented earlier on how well you captured the spirit of the Wehrmacht within the context of the game. They had fewer units, and the units that they did have were often understrength. But the units they did have were often superior to yours, and more experienced to boot. It made for an interesting contrast, from a gameplay perspective.

The last two scenarios are the only ones that I thought had serious problems. Here are my recommendations:
1. Have a lot more inexperienced, low quality, entrenched Volksturm type units. Have stuff like 7.5 artillery guns, ideally pulled by horse transport if possible. Maybe have some Soumas in there, or other foreign units to represent the equipment they were having to resort to using. It would be nice if the Volksturm were a weak 15 strength unit like Soviet conscripts.
2. Have WAAAAAY less heavy armor and have some of them understrength.
3. The Jet units should be understrength if anything, and absolutely not overstrength and there should be less of them.

I think the Battle of the Bulge should be the toughest scenario, and Crossing the Rhine and then Advance to the Elbe should be each decreasing in difficulty.

The ahistorical path can of course be tougher, since you could argue that maybe Germany was pulling units off of the Eastern front to try to protect Berlin. But the historical path should at least be somewhat historical.

[uran21]

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. Decision was made that Crossing the Rhine and Advance to the Elbe become more easier scenarios while alternate part ending with Allied Dispute being more challenging. Quality of enemy units trough experience and their strength was reduced. Air units saw some changes in unit types as well. Just to keep airforce busy. Thanks as well on the scripting bug report, if Soviet unit is killed and all objectives captured before time runs out, game will now end. Play tested both last scenarios with my core from D-Day and I didn't lose any unit nor did I felt overwhelmed.

[monkspider]

Glad to hear it, thanks Uran! Please consider my suggestion to make an official Volksturm unit. It can just use the same unit graphics as Wehrmacht Infantry but basically be a conscript clone.

A little known fact is that the year that Germany had the most military casualties was actually 1945, even though fighting only continued five months (source: Germany 1945 by Richard Bessel). A large portion of the troops were Volksturm, or only half-trained Kriegsmarine or Luftwafffe men.

[Kerensky]

Why not just use the Wehr reserve unit, I've certainly used that one quite a bit in the late DLC.

[monkspider]

Why not just use the Wehr reserve unit, I've certainly used that one quite a bit in the late DLC.

That is a good point. The graphics from the Wehr Reserve unit can be recycled and would differentiate it from standard Wehrmacht infantry. It would be nice to see an official Volksturm unit though. I think borrowing the Conscript approach it would make it interesting and would reflect the reality of masses of untrained or barely trained units dying during this time period.

[RobertCL]

Beta 4 (version 1.30)
Standalone scenario
Leutnant difficulty

Excellent scenario.
I lost not any single unit except a Mustang due to my entire fault (I kept using it at a strength of 5 and of course an AD unit I never saw destroyed it)
Germans are in dissaray. They are stronger near Ivan, the more you advance in the scenario the more difficult it becomes, I mean the more counterattacks I have to deal with.

I also think the Volksturm should be an official unit (with an icon like a man with a Panzerfaust + a man with a rifle or submachine gun), it was the case in Allied General remember, and historically this is fully justified. This cannot be compared with the Wehr Reserve because Volksturm has nearly no training at all...

[billmv44]

Beta 4. General. Starting prestige 4611, ending 246. Triumph on 16/18.

Some strong German equipment (Maus, Do-335, etc.) but lacking in experience. Other than the novelty of the new equipment types, this was pretty basic to win. My experienced forces were no match for the green German troops. I'm curious as to the purpose of the exit hexes at 37,19 38,19 and 39,19. I was expecting possibly a message to stop the Germans from escaping south to form a "National Redoubt" but I never got that message. Do they serve an purpose?

[Gompel]

Same comment as billmv44 about the exit hexes (see attached image). Tried it as a scenario too while playing the Germans. German units do disappear to the reserve list when moving on the exit hexes.

[uran21]

Exit zone for Axis have their purpose but trigger is dynamic, sometimes it happens sometimes it does not. Just a small detail for flavour.

[Gompel]

Haha, now you made me curious. I started the scenario again and had all the mobile army to the exit zones. Nothing happened. Can't even redeploy my reserves.
Though, when playing the germans you can play with the 'Ivan' unit. Tried some stuff with this guy. Went to the exit hex and it just became part of my reserves. I went to the allies and he was shot on sight. He can recapture victory locations and even earn prestige for you and not for Stalin! Not sure what Ivan is doing on this map, but I never knew that the germans could mind control Ivan, hahaha.
Can you please give a hint as what this detail for flavour is?

[uran21]

Lets see will anyone notice it first. BTW as any other content in stand alone mode scenarios are optimized to be played from Allied side (for this particular campaign and from Axis side for previous campaigns). Starting stand alone scenario from this content can be even more inconvenient because Axis side is selected by default.

[Gompel]

Fair enough
Yes, I understand it's optimized to be played from Allied side if you play against the AI, but of course you can play it as multiplayer. Although maybe not balanced then, it should be a proper map.
I noticed that when playing the Axis, the Ar234B is a bit hard to discover as it is on the edge of the board and barely visible. Can it be moved just one hex off the edge of the board so it's easy to see?

[uran21]

I noticed that when playing the Axis, the Ar234B is a bit hard to discover as it is on the edge of the board and barely visible. Can it be moved just one hex off the edge of the board so it's easy to see?

It is spawned by a time trigger and placed of map witch is common practice I use for spawning aircrafts. Not an exception in it. Simply a habit not to mix spawning sites on hexes were some other unit could already be.