Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:39 am Post subject: Who's getting their butts whooped?
I'm still in a daze after the ass-whooping I've been taking as the Germans on the first two maps of the first campaign. I cannot believe how badly I'm getting mauled. Not that I'm complaining -- I've been kicking ass for so long against the AI that I'm just in complete shock and awe.
First map, my infantry is struggling across the mud, getting chewed up by a T-34 dug in, out of line of sight of my stugs, between two banks of a valley. One of my stugs was knocked out in the first minute by another T-34 to the south. The mud and cliffs prevented me from getting my stugs into any good firing positions so I ended up losing about 70% of my infantry trying to scale the cliffs on the far side unsupported.
I still ended up with a major victory -- not the total victories I'm used to.
Second map is a complete disaster -- one T-34 annihilates two squads, a stug, and my PAK 41 within a span of 5 minutes. I ended up wiping out about 40% of their infantry with the two squads who successfully flanked to south.
These squads took some key objectives before being beaten back by a flame tank and a t-34 who took turns grinding them to a pulp in a small farm house.
Ended up with a russian minor victory and grim prospects for the next turn.
Anybody else want to share some of their war stories with this mod?
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:36 am Post subject: now
use only 10 units, but AI on 0%(see enemy, obay orders etc, you on 100%, enemy on recruite, you on elite, with "TACK" rules,"no more then 1 type of any unit" eg
1 stug
1 mk4(any a to j model, including flaks,flamers,norshams etc)
1 shreck
1 morter
1 mg 42
1 command (co)
1 platoon leader
etc....
now see how much ass whoopin you do
in utah 1.4 as germans with these exact setings on day 3 im stoll holding the beaches, and kicked all paras into the sea
I'm playing the 2nd Stalingrad campaign as the Germans. Tho I couldn't find exact info on what the difference is, was under the impression the 2nd one gives the Russians more armor at the beginning.
I'm playing with AI having max settings and me having minimum... this does make it more challenging, but it also does some silly things to gameplay. For example, with unlimited visibility for the computer Russian tanks are able to sight and fire at any exposed troops. So it's impossible to ambush armor. Instead, I have to have my AT teams wait inside buildings until the AI stupidly, inexplicably drives a tank by, or on occasion right up to the wall to sit there for a while. Although the visibility setting makes it harder (Russian tanks are able to control large swaths of territory until they do something stupid), essentially you're just exploiting another AI flaw.
Occasionally the computer seems to luck out and actually place its units in clever locations, seemingly drawing me into ambushes with well-placed guns and AT teams. But it's just luck, the craftiness is an illusion... they're more apt to charge an entrenched mg across open ground, or venture into terrain where my panzers have already blasted 2 full squads.
I've had some fun hard-fought battles against the AI, but they're in part due to intentionally careless play. Why oh why couldn't they improve the AI just a little bit??
But... this is an awesome mod. Wish I had enough spare time to play it H2H!
I'm on day four of the second Grand campaign, playing H2H. What a great campaign....I read on here a few weeks ago someone saying that he was 'exhausted' after finishing the campaign - I know what he means!
Strategically, I am taking my painstaking time, I have been whipped by Russian tank brigades on a couple of occasions and have yet to encounter the KV-1s (which I'm terrified about) but 24 Pz has performed effectively.
14 Pz entering the fray now but I'm keeping them in reserve as best I can.
Out of many classic battles already fought, and much blood already shed, one battle particularly springs to mind: entering a map a motorised regt of 24 Pz was badly beaten up so next go, hanging on to one VL and with my line split I picked 13 pionere units to storm three points at once....the blood!
It worked, but I endured massive casualties as I had planned for the first 30 seconds of the fight, but not the remaining 14 minutes!
Playing against the AI is merely practicing for the real thing. Nothing beats H2H. It can be quite a thrill if you're up against a worthy opponent. The Stalingrad mod makers have made it explicitely clear that the Stalingrad mod is made for H2H.
CC2 and some mods for CC3 can be reasonably challenging even against the AI. For some reason the AI in CC5 is just too, well, lazy. Perhaps it's got something to do with the many victory locations. The AI, of course, would want to take VLs, but apparently only settles for a few and does not demonstrate much interest in the remaining. I have often thought that to put the AI to work, a mod maker could perhaps one day make a campaign where each map only has two VLs - in first battle each side would hold only one VL so to take the other single VL, the AI would be forced to move forward and attack. If only I knew how to modify CCV...
In summary, if you want a good battle in CC5, join Game Spy!
Yikes, 24 Pz is getting worked over. I'm down to a couple 88 trucks, my PzIIIE leader, and two PzIIDs. Those 88 trucks -- fairly useless for some reason. Perhaps its the only way to balance out the gameplay but from 200 yards, I'd like to see a T-34 that can take 4 high-velocity 88 shells broadside. I find that my 'damaged' tanks almost always lose their main guns while the AI's happily pound away at my armor with one capable crewman left. Such is life with 10 year-old AI.
I haven't played H2H since MS Game Zone days with CC2 and wasn't too impressed; there was tons of idiots in those gamerooms back then. I had no idea you could play campaigns H2H -- whats the best way to get going with this?
Ideally, I'd like to find someone who'd be interested in playing one or two maps a night, on the same campaign.
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:23 pm Post subject: Gameplay Comments-Mid game AAR....Long
I’ve been in the middle of the first Grand Campaign playing H2H for a few weeks now. Playing slowly, only a few games a week, and currently am in the middle of day 3 or 4, not far I realize, but enough to make some comments I think. Overall, I think the gameplay is among the best I’ve seen in any CC. I’m playing as the Russians and I feel I’m doing well, taking my shots, and giving it back when possible, and I’m satisfied to date. My opponent however, another CC IV/V vet, while enjoying the game, has been very quick to comment that he feels the Germans are starting off the game understrength and underpowered, at least for the crack divisions he was expecting.
His biggest compliant probably revolves around the ubiquitous Russian anti-tank guns. I long ago, in the CCIII days, grew accustomed to using the various Russian guns as the overall best defensive weapons in the game, and they were so effective in CCIII that one of my oldest most experienced opponents basically gave up the game because he felt the Germans couldn’t win enough battles to grow their forces for endgame, he declared the game unplayable as the Germans when pitted against this defense.
Which brings me to their role in this mod. I feel that they still constitute one of the most powerful defensive units in the game, although they can no longer hide openly on naked hilltops (as they did in CCIII), they provide a number of strong benefits. First, they fire very quickly, and if set up right, often get multiple shots off in the first few seconds, hopefully smoking any STUGs that were left in the open. I still think that guns are harder to kill than my opponent would like, although they certainly can be defeated once they can be located and targeted. However, placing them in houses whenever possible seems to provide added protection, and keeps them hidden until they open fire, and if done correctly should be able to ambush German armor moving up to support infantry. I’m not really sure of their overall place in the battle, because I haven’t played far enough along, but I feel they are and should be the critical defense units for a human Russian player. They can knock off infantry at all ranges including self defense, and do a fair job of resisting MG and small arms fire, operating under suppression for some time before usually abandoning the gun. Usually it takes a main tank weapon to knock them out with any speed. If placed correctly, other units should be used to lure in the German attacker and attempt to get side or rear shots when possible, and this often takes the punch right out of a German attack. In these instances even the lowly 37-45mm guns can be useful and deadly.
My AT threat to him is so high right now that my opponent spends most of his setup scouring the map for locations where he can hide his armor for a safe start. This reduces their effectiveness in infantry support and allows me to mow down German squads in the open inflicting good casualties with my Russian defenders. Thus far he has made some progress on the various maps, taking 60% or so of multiple maps, but I believe that the terrain favors the Russian defender, as I’ve been able to stop him in instances where he has to cross empty fields, etc, common on the first couple maps. I’ve even managed to disband two of his battlegroups, once where he pressed the attack too hard, and again where I defeated his tanks and actually had a T-34 available to go on the attack and take the final victory square. Those units have been replaced with different units, so I’m anxious to see what’s going to replace them.
Beyond that it would appear that the Germans do have an advantage over Russian squads in a fair fight, as they should, and so I do my best to ensure that this rarely happens. Keeping leaders well spread out and covering the worst troops really does seem to make fragile squads become mildly useful, and I do that whenever possible. I also tried to get overlapping fields of fire as most Russian units aren’t strong enough to hold objectives singly.
However, overall I’ve been really having a great time playing the mod. I love the up-gunned artillery, we had a great battle the other day with dueling artillery barrages blanketing an intersection and causing havoc, looks great, sounds great, and deadly to anything moving. Moving by the way seems to be death, as I can keep my squads well hidden so long as they don’t move. My opponent complains that he can’t target me until he’s nearly on top of me. Also, he complains that I have too much air support historically speaking, and that he has not enough. For example on morning of day three I think I had 5 strikes and he had only 2. Given that Germany had air superiority in the Oct timeframe he may have a point, but I would also think this would vary at the spearheads depending on what was happening day to day. My overall guess is that air support was probably factored in as much for gameplay balance as anything else.
My last story comes from a battle this weekend. I had immobilized a STUG in a narrow street between two buildings. This occurred early in the battle, and while I didn’t know it couldn’t move, I went ahead and snuck a tiny SU-45 up behind it and started plinking away with that pop-gun hoping to do some damage or encourage them to abandon the vehicle. The SU-45 proved to be kind of a joke however, and at 100m or so was doing nothing. So it came closer….70m, still nothing, I had to go around a ravine to get closer…the onscreen AT capability showed yellow at 40m, so I got within 40m (worried I was getting within potential infantry range)…by this time I had fired I believe 22 AP rounds or so with no effect at the rear of an immobile STUG, green reticule all the time. At 40m with 5seconds remaining in the game I got off one more shot….and the Stug lived….amusing…but just one example of how entertaining this dated engine can be. To me it really simulates the meat grinder effect of the city, where both sides take losses and thanks to the bigger maps the going is slow...feels like slogging…as it should be. A pleasant change from other CCs which feel more arcade like when you just roll in and wipe someone off the map and move on..makes you actually care about various terrain and VLs….good stuff and as it should be.
One final note is if you aren’t already play H2H running Google talk in the background. We do it, it helps with anticipating crashes, errors, connecting problems, etc and really adds to the gameplay experience, like playing in the same room, worlds better than chat. It seems to run fine underneath CCV, and doesn’t appear to make the game misbehave any more than it usually does….highly recommended.
Nice work sokol688.....geez, your opponent likes a moan, eh?!
I am on day five of H2H GC2 and think that it's just superb. The Russians have had their moments, the Germans theirs, both tactically and strategically.
I know what you mean about Russian AT pieces but the German infantry BGs are generally better equipped than the Russian ones, which are noticeable for their lack of vehicle support.
After five days of campaigning, where and in what situation both armies will be by the the 24th day of the campaign is anyone's guess - which makes for a good campaign.
My motorised units, having just extinguished stubborn Guards Rfiles resistance, have encountered KV-1s in the southern sector, so we'll see what happens there......
Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: Finishing off the KV1 Battlegroup
I've been fighting with the KV1 battlegroup for three turns, all the map locations around it belongs to me and finally it's lack of fuel and KV1s can not move now.
My panzer battlegroup is only with 2 MarderIIs, 1 PanzerIIIs, 1 Sdkfz 232 and without any AT gun. I've lost all PzIV's and PzIII's with stable fire actions against KV1's. But it's completely useless.
At the last battle I've finished off 3 KV1's with MarderIIs and PanzerIII by fighting them with a very mobile attack, stop-fire-move action. KV1's can not even aim their gun in time to respond me.
I had to rearrange my whole front line over a period of 3 turns just to meet that BG with some reasonable panzers...
Is that the one that is comprised almost entirely of KV-1s that comes onto the map in the south about a week into the game or so? Unfortunately, I got caught by that BG with only a Motorized Division unit. Of the units I had that could do anything at all to the KV-1, I found the well-concealed Pak-38 and the Marder II when placed in a good ambush position is your only hope. I actually had one well-placed Pak-38 knock out two Kv-1s from behind and reduce another to one surviving crew member rendering it immobile and ineffective. Unfortunately, the KV-1s have been doing some of their own damage and have just about eliminated any useful anti-tank units I had remaining in that BG. I'm going to have to just keep wearing it down. Does anyone know....How many of these monster BG's are in the Stalingrad mod? I hope not many more. One is enough.
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In August of 2004, Zappi, Homba, Bambam887, RedScorpion and MOOXE all pitched
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