DAR: Moscow Region - Page 3

RERomine · #21 June 19th, 2009, 06:25 PM

These battles have been part of a campaign so the enemy forces gets larger as my force grows in experience.

There are a few of things that have made these easy. The first is the Russians have not had any air power, fixed wing or rotary during my first three battles. Nothing I set to happen. It's just been the luck of the draw.

Another thing is the technology is close enough that tactics really make a difference. The AI is pretty vanilla when it comes to tactics. In that first battle, the AI came with one mech infantry company with recon before I was even set. Had they followed up with something, tanks, more infantry, anything, life would have been very difficult.

The final thing making these battles easy is visibility. I'm getting the impression that Russia in June is the land of eternal darkness. Counting the battle I haven't started yet, visibility has been 10, 15, 5 and 16. IMO, this give the defending side an advantage if they have ample TI. They all have been "meeting engagements", but I've generally taken up a defensive posture.

Overall, I do agree with you. These have been way too easy. I use to do this on the WinSPWW2 site. During WW2, there tended to be a pretty wide disparity in technology. If I had the edge and usually did (played as the Germans), the AI could blot out the sun with artillery shells and cover the map with it's vast hordes of units. The masses of artillery and the screaming hordes made those battles difficult. I always had ammo problems. Here, I tried to put myself at something of a disadvantage by taking National Guard units with their -10 point hit on experience. Obviously, that hasn't mattered much. I am thinking about changing the percentages some to make the Russian forces stronger across the board. I won't change the "experience" percent, however. Their troops will be more experienced, but their units will just cost more. It kind of balances out.

The main reason I tried the 2009 time period was that thread about how to beat Russia with the US. I expected much more of a challenge than this turned out to be.

Skirmisher · #22 June 19th, 2009, 07:01 PM

Try giving the russians 50-100% more points next time.

That should make it tougher.

RERomine · #23 June 19th, 2009, 08:32 PM

Not sure I can do that with a generated campaign. What the AI takes is based on the cost of my core plus support units. In this case, I used about 22,000 points, so I suspect the AI did the same. The ratio for a "meeting engagement" is 1:1. It varies with other mission types.

Imp · #24 June 19th, 2009, 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RERomine

Not sure I can do that with a generated campaign. What the AI takes is based on the cost of my core plus support units. In this case, I used about 22,000 points, so I suspect the AI did the same. The ratio for a "meeting engagement" is 1:1. It varies with other mission types.

You will have to restart for it to take effect but edit your ini, if you cant find the post with a search I can tell you the line to add. set AI to 130-150% & see how it goes.
Applies to both battles & campaigns vs the AI but if choose 150% keep an eye on your force size to let it have that when its assaulting. You should manage both figures & still remain intact with a few moments of exitment.

The other thing as helos are in your core keep an eye on your airstrikes if not allowed fly them straight off the map they make supporting areas easy

RERomine · #25 June 20th, 2009, 12:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imp

You will have to restart for it to take effect but edit your ini, if you cant find the post with a search I can tell you the line to add. set AI to 130-150% & see how it goes.
Applies to both battles & campaigns vs the AI but if choose 150% keep an eye on your force size to let it have that when its assaulting. You should manage both figures & still remain intact with a few moments of exitment.

The other thing as helos are in your core keep an eye on your airstrikes if not allowed fly them straight off the map they make supporting areas easy

Thanks John!! I wouldn't have known to look if you hadn't mentioned it, but I did find it. To start out, I'm setting mine to 150%. Giving the AI an extra 50% might make being on the defending side a bit more challenging, but I've done defends at much worse odd than that. I tried one where the AI out numbered my defending force 6 to 1, but that was WinSPWW2. Came very close to getting a marginal victory out of it. It ended up a draw. I should be able to handle it in WinSPMBT, but I did have a better handle on the equipment in WW2. With MBT, there are just too many years and too many nations to really know it all inside out.

I'm not big on air strikes or helos, but in the three campaign battles I've fought, I always took two gunships in support. More than anything, I use them as a highly mobile method to support hot spots. In those three battles, they only scored a hand full of kills on APCs. I respect the capability of both helos and fixed wing aircraft, however. My air defense isn't neglected.

Thanks again for the information!

Imp · #26 June 20th, 2009, 12:54 AM

No worries if it does not prove exiting enough once summers over which aint long here could do a PBEM with DAR covering if you fancy. Think we are even enough for some carnage to occur. Type it to word or something & paste to forum 2 turns after so no giveaways.

RERomine · #27 June 20th, 2009, 04:48 AM

Works for me. Just let me know when the mood strikes you. In the meantime, I'm going to take another cut at my campaign with it set at 150%. Considering how light my casualties were in my first battles, I'm thinking giving the AI 50% more points will just mean I will have more to kill.

Do you happen to know if the program in MBT is oriented towards night battles? I've got another low visibility battle. It's 10 this time. I'm seeing an average visibility in the last five battles as just over 11.

Imp · #28 June 20th, 2009, 10:36 AM

I think it depends, last campaign I did first 3 battles were low vis as well 6-20 range I think then high 30s -60+. Perhaps assumes it kicks off at dawn or try changing start date mine started in the winter so made some sense.
Okay should make for a more exiting report will wait a couple of months till the suns gone & playing regular so keeps the pace up.
If someone wants to knock up some maps in the meantime go ahead, nothing special needed just place a few villages or other suitable things as objectives on a generated map.

RERomine · #29 June 20th, 2009, 01:11 PM

The first battle in my restarted campaign won't be impacted too much by the low visibility because the location is "Russian Forest". For the most part, it's not possible to find a location were more than a few hexes can be seen at once, much less a distance of 10. I'm chewing on a plan right now. With so many trees, it might take just allowing the forces to blunder into each other.

As before, I've got a couple of gunships, so I could poke around some before the major shooting starts. The AI hasn't been taking area SAMs (might change with more points to spend) and the infantry SAMs have been loaded into APCs until we start shooting.

Imp · #30 June 22nd, 2009, 02:40 PM

I just had a play vision came out at 32 & took 2 helos. If you buy 60 vis Apache with high EW to its a cake walk.
Risked seeing what fired at for first 2 goes & hit with arty the only thing that was remotly dangerous. By turn 3 they had given me a complete picture of the enemy advance so I could move in confidence to meet it. Pulled them back after that as dont want a lucky shot hitting one but they have done the job no nead for them to even fire the ground forces now know exactly what to do so they just remained on scout duty.
Woods jungle mind a few helos are always rather handy but the 60 TI makes it easy vs the AI as it cant use its 50-60 TI stuff that way.