EA Heldenkaiser (Allies) vs. Telumar (Axis)

ogar

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Re: Allied Turn 128 / 7th December 1941

Tangiers -- is part of Spain c 1940's, ( see the Alec Guinness film Captain's Paradise for Gib vs Tangiers) but I'm no EA expert, so it may be slightly different in the game.

And FWIW, I thank Heldenkaiser for continuing to play and to post his AAR. Even to a non-EA-er -- this struggle is interesting, and occasionally entertaining. I also encourage you to keep at this as long as you find it worthwhile -- it certainly cannot be buckets of fun to deal with some of the setbacks you've encountered. Still, I found that getting thrashed by Telumar was at least educational -- I am a somewhat better player because of that, but sometimes opening that pbl was not fun.
Again, I know zero about EA and others can inform you better of how much worse things might be - from this bystander, it does look like a loooooooooooooooooooooong climb up, but I think you might be able to pull it off. Good luck.
 

L`zard

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Re: Allied Turn 128 / 7th December 1941

Spanish............oh well, LOL!
 

ogar

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Re: Allied Turn 128 / 7th December 1941

L`zard's chuckle prompted me to check my memory vs sources -- Spain did assume control at the fall of France and held control through the surrender of Japan in 1945. I am embarrassed to write that I had forgotten who really controlled Tangiers, as it lay in The InterZone ! (Burroughs, W. The Naked Lunch as one reference.) Perhaps it is just as well that Held skipped over this one.
 

Heldenkaiser

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Re: Allied Turn 128 / 7th December 1941

Good luck.
Thank you! I can need it. Stefan's latest email says that he took back Algiers and anyway its fall had failed to trigger the surrender of the Vichy forces. Actually I never believed it would; I know my luck. He also sunk half my fleet. What a waste of good manpower and vessels. Probably the Dieppe raid with other means, the best I could do, as Mark suggested earlier. Well, it was a long shot, but it just MIGHT have worked.
 

Heldenkaiser

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Allied Turn 129 / 14th December 1941

Indeed. Vicious Luftwaffe attacks sink or badly damage my fleet off Algiers, then a German corps assaults from sea and pushes my defenders out into the open. Unable to re-embark, they have no choice but to counterattack, but to no avail. I'll lose them all. Elsewhere, only bridge-blowing and bridge-repairing.
 

Mark Stevens

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Re: Allied Turn 129 / 14th December 1941

I actually think you're doing well for a first game. It's December 1941, winter and the US WILL arrive shortly, the Axis is nowhere near causing the collapse of the USSR, deep within the Soviet Union peasants are being conscripted and turned into riflemen, relocated factories are churning out equipment, Britain hasn't been Sealioned and is sending supplies via Murmansk + Archangel, and that was an imaginative strike at Algiers. If the Axis now has to stick regular German units in every North African port it'll weaken its position everywhere else, that may allow a direct assault on mainland Italy, Sicily or France.

This is a long scenario, we'll still read on page 130 how Rifleman Georgi Kupov has raised the Red Banner over the ruins of the Reichstag.
 

medck

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Re: Allied Turn 129 / 14th December 1941

I, too, think you're doing well. The Soviets are holding firm and you have the winter and the shock bonuses to round out your position -- you still have the Baltics and the center and have a stable line in the Caucasuses. The US will be in shortly and you'll be able to land in Africa or turn the tide in Iraq, which could open a route into the Caucasuses for the western allies. And as Mark Stevens pointed out, the Germans are going to have to start dumping troops into North Africa to keep you out and every unit sent there isn't on the Eastern front.
 

Heldenkaiser

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Re: Allied Turn 129 / 14th December 1941

And as Mark Stevens pointed out, the Germans are going to have to start dumping troops into North Africa to keep you out and every unit sent there isn't on the Eastern front.
That was part of my thinking. Of course, actually pushing Vichy out of the war would have been much better in terms of forcing the Germans to divert troops to the Med.

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. :)
 

Heldenkaiser

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Allied Turn 130 / 21st December 1941

The diversion seems to be working ... of a replay of 650 pulses, the first 450 were German units moving WEST from the East Front towards the western Med. Of course that's only a miniscule fraction of the total Axis strength in the East, but every unit less is a spark of hope for the Russians! - Nothing much happening in the East. The luckless defenders of Algiers are being pushed further towards Oran and cut off on the coast by an Italian marine regiment, which is however valiantly counterattacked and defeated by the Malta, RM and Cdo Bdes (the only ones with MP left). I do doubt they'll ever make it to Oran though, where, in any case, I'd have to take the place with further reinforcements from the UK before they can re-embark. A costly extraction operation which would violate the first military principle of never reinforcing failure. What was the second one again ... ah, yes. Never march on Moscow. Naturally though the Germans aren't. They're headed for Maikop. Probably in an effort to liberate Kazakhstan.
 

Heldenkaiser

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Allied Turn 131 / 28th December 1941

Winter shock for the Axis, but they haven't been fighting in the East for several turns now, and I sure as hell won't start it. Bridge blowing continues, and this turn my engineers seem all to be having their x-mas hangover, or at least 5 out of 6 repair attempts fail, and one crucial bridge east of Rostov doesn't get repaired even though not one, but two bloody engineer units try. - Axis units still moving west, mostly Italians. It seems Stefan's garrisoning most important objectives in the western Med against an increasingly unlikely Vichy surrender, or an even more unlikely second invasion from the UK. - The valiant conquerors of Algiers are surrendering somewhere in the Atlas Mountains.
 

ogar

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Re: Allied Turn 131 / 28th December 1941

Sounds like the pseudo-random number calculated (to contrast vs the engineers repair ability) was high. From my sad luck with rebuilding, I've tried the following -- no guarantee, but it feels to me like I have a better chance with it than whiffing 5 of 6. I usually do my repairs at the beginning of a turn due to max MPs remaining. If I start a turn with 6 possible re-builds and the first two fail; I stop and go on with other first round stuff, resolve battles and onto the 2nd round, then I try re-building again, if successful, continue, else, hold off, finish round 2... etc. I usually have a sal somewhere in there as well. And of course this depends on getting more than 1 round out of the turn. There is the reduced MPs in the later round, of course, but if the trend indicated repair attempts were failing, it might be worth it.

I 'think' - or magically suspect that - the pseudo-random number might be recalculated each round; or it might be recalculated with reloading a new sal. The first 2 failures usually indicate no bridges get repaired if I continue, so the delay does not look to worsen my odds -- it looked like I was going to fail anyway. And since I try for several rounds, and have to save during the turn anyway, I don't think of this as gamy. Might be worth a try, or not.
 

Heldenkaiser

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Re: Allied Turn 131 / 28th December 1941

Sounds like the pseudo-random number calculated (to contrast vs the engineers repair ability) was high. [...]
What you say seems to make sense. The turn before that, I had practically all engineers succeed in their repair attempts.

Of course, with the Russians there is never more than one combat round ... :(
 

Heldenkaiser

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Allied Turn 132 / 4th January 1942

The new year opens with reinforcements for the Soviets (8 infantry corps) which however cannot reach the trouble spots for the moment due to one crucial bridge over the Don not getting repaired. In the Caucasus, the building of a fallback position for the eastern part of the front behind the Terek is nearly completed; I am not sure I ever mentioned that. It will reduce the 200 km from Grozny to Derbent to just 100 km from Grozny to the sea, and with a marshy river in front rather than on an open plain with the Axis troops on the mountains in front.
View attachment 34192
In Algeria the last British troops surrender.
 

Heldenkaiser

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Allied Turn 133 / 11th January 1942

Not much going on. Bridges bombed and repaired, reinforcements railed to the Kuban and Caucasus fronts; maybe I'll not lose the South afterall. New expeditionary forces to Gibraltar for another attempt at disturbing the Pax Germanica in the Med. Some bridge-blowing of my own ... important rail bridges at Brest-Litowsk, Lvov, Krakow, Kiev, Cherkasy, those leading onto the Crimea and three behind the Axis Caucasus front destroyed. I am surprised. Maybe the winter shock is impairing their air defence?
 

L`zard

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Re: Allied Turn 133 / 11th January 1942

Well, winter shock should yield 80% for the Axis...........that should do something, eh?
 

Heldenkaiser

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Cease Fire

Your war correspondent will be on vacation in Burgundy for the next couple of weeks, so there will be no news from the front before the end of September. Stay tuned! :)
 
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