Meh - in SP3 for S&Gs I defended by laying out a minefield that went up and down the map several times, making a single entry point and exit point of a snaking maze that went up and down the map 3 or 4 times.
The AI horde predictably went for the gap and then promenaded up and down the alleyways, which I pounded with arty (gold spots plotted, old SSI code that where you adjusted was what it fell on without any target movement allowed).
Carnage for him - since in SP3 a "track hit"
eliminated one of the several vehicles in a "platoon" icon as there was no way to leave sub-wrecks behind - so 60mm mortars were probably
the most cost-effective anti-tank weapon in that game - Tiger 2 or M1A1 were equally dead to them
!
Just did that the once, though. SP3 did not last long on my hard drive post the closing of the SSI beta test team (which I was on). I did get a free boxed version of it post release - gave it away to someone's kid as I recall.
The other "killer gamey" tactic for SP3 was that you soon figured out that the AI in the attack laid its predictable phalanx exactly 1-2 hexes behind its deployment line, somewhere in the centre of the map - so a pre-game bombardment on that area was always extremely effective.
It always left its flanks undefended as well, so running scout cars down the unguarded flanks soon dealt with its arty park and flak batteries.
Also, it stuffed any captured objectives with leg grunts, in order to "defend" these - so applying arty to flipped objectives was a standard operating procedure.
SP3 was really
not the best version of SP that SSI produced. Though
perhaps a conversion of it to WW
1 would have made more sense as it really was an arty is the king of the battlefield sort of game.
Andy