Time of Fury beta version Barbarossa solo AAR

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:44 pm

One might note from the situation maps that I have lots of air power. Yeah. I built a good number of fighter and bomber units. They have succeeded in clearing the Russian skies, but right now I need infantry!!! Next time I play this scenario, I will more judiciously budget my production. It's a critical aspect of this game.

Anraz · Post by **Anraz** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 5:23 pm

I wonder why you just didn’t withdraw form Moscow area in the middle of the winter? I recall similar situation in my Grand Camping where I wasn’t able to hold salient directed into Moscow so I withdrew to a new front line near Smolensk in order to reinforce and prepare my forces for another offensive, I mean in the summer of 42.

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:29 pm

Leave Moscow!?

Perhaps I should have, but there was continuing value to holding it, as for several months I got a 20% morale bonus. That has now gone away.

I think I could have held almost everywhere if I had bought more corps and less air power.

Also when the event occured that had me lose either

1) 500 PP for a one time 20 social unrest penalty
or
2) refuse to spend those PPs to quell unrest, and accept further problems later

I chose option 1. That was a huge hit, as it forced me to borrow money essentially, making me lose 2 whole turns of production.

I made lots of mistakes, but then that's one of the things that makes this game so good - lots of options, so many areas of decisions to make.

Another big mistake - leaving my armor on the front line to hold everything ... so I guess you're right, I should have fallen back.

Yet another big mistake - I have a tendency in all these games to maximize research immediately. so I spent umpteen gillions of marks on research, that should have gone into producing units.

Razz1 · Post by **Razz1** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:35 pm

ahh... Luke is learning from Master Yoda. (Winter)

Very hard to withdraw. I lost units, counter attacked to save some, lost others.

Just, unable to move the panzers through the mud. Troops boots keep getting stuck in it too!

We don't get intimidated very easily by the howling wind and rain. Then we over extend. Now, we pay the price.

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:56 pm

I've decided to shut down this AAR now. I have been soundly defeated by the AI - which is a good thing! Next time I play this scenario, I want to manage the Fall and Winter such that I could have a '42 campaign, to take the Caucasus.

Speaking of that, I'm planning an AAR next on ... ta-da ... the Clash of Titans scenario, which starts in June '42, with the Wermacht poised to make a big push in the south.

The revisions of the game code have outpaced this AAR. I think the programmers have learned a bit from it, and I know I have. Throughout my game play I had zero (that's 0) software glitches or CTDs. The game is very stable. And it was a blast.

cpdeyoung · Post by **cpdeyoung** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:30 pm

Thanks for the trip, Gary. I am already looking forward to getting my Barbarossa going, and I will share as I get closer.

Chuck

Tomokatu · Post by **Tomokatu** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:49 pm

Hearty appplause!
As usual, a well-written, entertaining and well-documented AAR.

For the Wastelands team: Congratulations on what appears to be a truly FEARSOME AI opponent.
Gary's AAR is the best form of advertising I have yet seen for your game and I'm impressed with the reported stability of the product, too.

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:28 pm

Tomokatu wrote:Hearty appplause!

For the Wastelands team: Congratulations on what appears to be a truly FEARSOME AI opponent.
.

Fearsome is the word. My virtual Guderian somehow made it back to Poland in mid-December, looking over villas he had a hankering to confiscate. He had decided that sitting in a ground car on a frozen road, being driven backwards by the wind and Soviet rifles, was a less rewarding occupation than driving forward against no resistance.

[historical note: Guderian did indeed do that. Most of the German generals were scoundrels when it came right down to it.]

Razz1 · Post by **Razz1** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:42 pm

You mean he drove backwards while running from the Russians?

Was that to prevent him from being shot by the SS?

NotaPacifist · Post by **NotaPacifist** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 7:33 pm

gwgardner wrote:Dec 8

Things have been going fairly well for the German war machine, but hidden beneath all the reports of victories has been one nagging realization: the Soviets Union is not going to surrender, and indeed soldiers at the front are sending back letters filled with their weariness and concern that the enemy is fighting back ever harder. They're also sending back stories of friends frozen in the Russian winter.

One such story made it into a newspaper in Koln. Along with an editorial declaiming against the war. The editor was arrested and the newspaper shutdown, but not before a protest riot broke out. The unrest then spread to other cities throughout the Reich, with labor protests, work stoppages, marches in the streets.

The internal security apparatus of the Reich was mobilized, and the demonstrations were crushed, but unrest is seething beneath the surface still.

The whole series of incidents on the home front has cost the Reich dearly, it completely disrupted war production - and of course the news has made its way to the front, lowering morale there.

[players note: I just got the War Weariness event, in which I had the choice of doing nothing, with the threat of continued unrest and lowering of morale, and of using every effort to quell the unrest, costing 500 PPs. I took the latter. End result, I get a one-time (hopefully) -20 Social Unrest penalty, and the loss of all those PPs. Social Unrest is a major factor involved in calculating PPs per turn.]

I just started reading about this game a couple of days ago. HOw could you have prevented this? How could it happen in a totalitarian state Like Nazi Germany in WWII? I'm burning with curiosity.

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 2:18 am

The game has many events that occur by random throw of the dice, and in a solo game one gets to choose options for the event. I chose to address the unrest head on and spend a ton of PPs to propogandize and beef up internal security.

Not sure about this particular event, but it may not occur at all in some games - Wastelands will have to confirm that.

I'm not a big fan of lots of events, myself, but this one is certainly plausible. Germany was totalitarian, in terms of being a command society and having a huge internal security apparatus, but it did have to contend with sagging morale once it became obvious to everyone that Russia was not going to cave in. This event within the game poses a what if - what if morale suddenly reached the point of unrest.

When this event triggered, I should have chosen the lesser hit in PPs, with greater hit in morale over the long term. The huge hit in PPs that I chose pretty well stalled my war production for several months.

NotaPacifist · Post by **NotaPacifist** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 2:27 am

Thanks for your response. But was there something less drastic you could have done prior to the morale crash and the strikes? I mean, despite all the bad things that happened to both the Soviet Union Germany, by the very nature of their let's call it hyper-controlling governments, neither nation had anything like strikes or political unrest. Both nations had their share of fanatics, those who were afraid of what would happen if they did say something out of line, and the central mass of those who just go along because that's what most ppl do.

Are there settings for your police apparatus, control of the local populations, or anything like that to which you can apply some of your war effort to keep the masses distinctly in their place?

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 2:01 pm

Can't really answer those questions, because I haven't looked at the event files. I'd rather be surprised as I play. That's one great feature of the game - replayability. However, I hope Wastelands is taking note of this discussion, because I agree with you that such a catastrophic unrest event should not occur in every game, or even often.

There is no feature in the game for player control of internal security, other than through event options.

Such elements as 'starting unrest' or 'war level' are easily moddable. If for instance, you want to 'what if' France had a higher morale level in '40.

Partisans are a big factor in the game, and there the player does have to simulate an internal security/occupation investment in production, maintenance, and logistics.

Tomokatu · Post by **Tomokatu** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 1:02 am

I have a sneaking suspicion that maintaining a military presence in the rear areas will reduce the possibilities of unrest. It's certainly a great idea,anyway, in order to respond rapidly to any partisan events. Those units need to be quashed as soon as they appear because (again I suspect) that the longer they exist, the more unrest they will encourage and the stronger they will grow.

But that's just general common sense, rather than being based on any knowledge of the game mechanics.

NotaPacifist · Post by **NotaPacifist** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 5:15 am

The biggest thing about such events is the fact that I can't think of any that happened. Except for two coup de' tat (Italy-Mussolini) and (Jugoslavia-Prince Paul), nothing like that ever happened no matter how bad things got. If seeing trainload after trainload of wounded, your cities being bombed to rubble, and the continual advance of your enemies despite 'heroic resistance' couldn't do it in a time of ardent nationalism, I don't think much else would. Certainly not a single letter which got past the censors.

The Russian revolution was one thing...but how many years of Tsarist oppression did that take to generate?

gwgardner · Post by **gwgardner** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:22 pm

Even having such an event is easily moddable. If for instance you can't countenance that event, you would simply save the event file off to a safe place, then edit the event file with notepad or other text editor, to comment out or delete the event. Anyone who can use notepad can mod tons of stuff in this game. I for instance have modded convoy attack probabilities in the Med.

With regard to such an real life event never having occured in Germany in WWII, how would you feel about the event that allows the German player to choose an occupation policy in Russia, from mild, to stern, to harsh?

NotaPacifist · Post by **NotaPacifist** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:49 pm

gwgardner wrote:Even having such an event is easily moddable. If for instance you can't countenance that event, you would simply save the event file off to a safe place, then edit the event file with notepad or other text editor, to comment out or delete the event. Anyone who can use notepad can mod tons of stuff in this game. I for instance have modded convoy attack probabilities in the Med.

With regard to such an real life event never having occured in Germany in WWII, how would you feel about the event that allows the German player to choose an occupation policy in Russia, from mild, to stern, to harsh?

I believe Hitler's policy toward the occupied Soviet republics was probably his second greatest blunder. Setting them up as republics (free nations, not to be confused with soviet republics which aren't really republics at all) with minimal German interference would have greatly alleviated the partisan problem as well as given him needed Allies. So, yeah I like the idea. I noticed that in one AAR.

Rasputitsa · Post by **Rasputitsa** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:31 pm

Sorry, bit late, been lurking and only just got to the AARs. Thanks very much, this gives a good indication of how good this title should be. You did a great job on running and explaining the AAR, looking forward to the release date.

anguille · Post by **anguille** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:48 pm

That was a great AAR. I am currentely learning Storm over the Pacific and look forward to buy that one too..

Cheers

doomtrader · Post by **doomtrader** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:34 pm

gwgardner is an experienced player and has done a great job with this AAR.