22-04-2000 09:28									#31
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What do you guys think, are the "fortified batteris" the same value as the "fortified positions? I think the latter has a health meter, whilst the other doesn't or at least you don't see it. I'm thinking theat the batteries (the concrete ones) are more powerful defenders. BTW- I'm not bothering to look in the rules.txt or whatever it is...
I started RF again, this time on Colonel level. I'm trying to move the fortified positions around. Have you guys been able to get any into Moscow? Since they can't be 'activated' for a move, there is no way to airlift one there. Also the river isn't wide enogh for a freighter to steam one up.
Surprisingly, the Germans are giving me a hard time at Moscow! They usually are more interested in the south, but with
"fortified positions" in Sevastopol, Kerch and Rostov they are focusing up at Da Kapital! I managed to get a "fortified battery" into Leningrad, but by an embarrasing turn of events, I wasn't able to get the second one there, and it was stuck on a freighter in the lake just North of Leningrad. So I put it up in Kitalea(sp?) to hold down against the Finns. This is kinda a waste of the unit, but I can't get it to the town just East of Leningrad (because the Germans just captured it!). That town would have been a better place for itinstead of Kitalea. I'm holding Leningrad fine, but the Germans are moving a little south, and are have taken Cherepovits, and are threatening to break out into the Urals at several points.
I wasn't able to set up the first turn for full fortified position movement. I hadn't decided if I was going to do it or not. I could have scouped up a few more of them. Some of them I built a city on, but kept them there, building anti-tanks defenses and keeping the Germans from breaking into the backcountry. I've got some KV1's going...starting to hold my ground now. I think they will get into the east and take some cities. It's the first snowfall, so I'll be moving lots of Siberian units into the backcountry to hold down the fort. I'm definately finding the difficulty level increase to be effecting my game.
I'm getting my airforce going soon. Exclusively Il-2's, they will ease much preasure off of the front. Those bad boys can take out close to 20 units per turn!!!
Just got my guard units, I haven't checked for the tanks, but many infantry have been promoted so far.
Unfortunately, the last turn befor the winter the Germans captured Kiev. I shed a tear as the capital of my ancestral homeland fell, vowing to return with avengance.
I had some more questions too...I can'rt remember them now. I'll think of them soon.
I'll keep y'all posted on my progress...

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

	23-04-2000 15:08									#32
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Something to consider for all scenarios:

Even when special ressource terrain has different movecost and/or defense bonus than the regular terrain of the same type, Civ II ignores it...

I just found this out by testing significantly different defensive values and verified that the game uses the basic terrain movecost and defense x for all slots of that type. Only the food, shield and arrow production numbers are affected by the special ressource flag.

This nullifies the Sawmill, Izba and Kollektiv defense strategy in RedFront.

	24-04-2000 09:19									#34
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Captain - thanks for catching that one... I thought I was just having bad luck. It does make sense now that I think about it, but from a strategy standpoint it really is too bad. I may still try to hold the two central front special cities (kollectiv north and ibza south) that I am building since they are on rivers and good geographically, but maybe I will just fortify them. The Ibza will at least have its 50% bonus...

(I am just in July on my second time through the summer of 41, and I swear I spend more time thinking about what to do than actually moving units)

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Has anyone delivered a UK caravan to the US to get the immediate trade bonus instead of trying to get it to Murmansk/Archangel?? It isn't historically good to do and theoretically it should mess up some event somewhere, but I wonder if it helps to get an early advance quicker. Probably not, I don't think you could get 4 in the first three turns, prior to getting the refineries roaded in september.

	24-04-2000 00:02									#35
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Thanks Captain Nemo for pointing out the defense bonus thing. I'll still recommend building a city on the kollective square west of Moscow since that square is on river and strategically very important.

Sten Sture: If Odessa and Nikolaev is safe, the German troops cannot get to Kherson easily. You must have evacuated the fortress square next to Kherson so German units can generate there from events. Do not leave any square which has a fortress, a fortified position, or a village unoccupied.

	24-04-2000 00:38									#36
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My Strategy:

Run away. Run all the way to the Don. Then kill. Kill! KILL! ONWARDS COMRADES!! KILLLL!!!!!!

	24-04-2000 01:21									#38
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FMK: They'll still appear but will be far west of the positions. The events gave, say, 6 positions for a unit to be generated. The last in order would be a german controled square. So if they couldn't be generated in Russia they would be in Germany.

	24-04-2000 01:29									#39
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Ok, ok,
Nice. That could buy you quite alot of time. But doesn't the AI hold these places in high regard? He will probably fight like the dickens to get there. This only works if you have the excess resources to pump units into fortresses.
So let's compile a list of these sites, I imagine that 1 of the 2 fortresses next to Kiev would be possible "generation location".

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

	24-04-2000 02:11									#40
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What I meant was that you should not remove soldiers from an occupied fortress within your territory.

	25-04-2000 09:51									#41
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But wont you need them in the cities?
Is this a worthwhile trade off?
If they capture cities what good is where the units are generated?

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I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!

	24-04-2000 23:17									#42
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Xin, I must have left that fortress open or just Red Army guarded, I can't remember. It is one of the few fortresses on a river, so I hope I didn't leave it completely vacant, which would have been really dumb. IIRC I was thinking that troops would be stopped by the ZOC around Nikolayev, until after the fact, when I noticed that they had the ignore ZOC flag...

grrrrr - a three day weekend and I only got one turn in...

	25-04-2000 10:41									#44
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FMK: there are too many German tanks for you to hold a fortress square. You should try to hold the cities instead.

Here are possible good tactics using the Caucasus calvary unit:
a) use your cavalry to pillage enemy industrial squares. A Cavalry has move 2 and all as road. If you have a fighter leads its way it can go 5 squares into the enemy territory and pillage the squares.
b) use cavalries to occupy and fortify on forrests and spruces in the first Summer to delay enemy advance in the north-central front.
c) If you lost Rostov and enemy units were all over the Caucasus, you can send the calvaries to occupy and pillage the working squares of Rostov thus the city cannot support that many units. They will automatically be disbanded.

	25-04-2000 17:56									#45
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My first turn took me an hour and a half to plan everything and move it. I'll tell you it really paid off all four years.

	26-04-2000 07:41									#46
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Ok, I just finished my RedFront 1.4 game in October of 1944 with 90% of Germany in my hands. I got a little tired of managing the 100 or so new units I was getting a turn and I figured it was all over already.

Here's what I did to win:

I liked Xin's tech strat. I took a spin on it though and in all cities west of the Don, set all workers in some cities and just those not producing enough shields for refugees.

I made sure I had SHITLOADS of refugees (140 is a good number by November). I would build them in every city I could. Red Army units are worthless and even dangerous in the first part, DO NOT BUILD THEM. I would find sites with lots of plains and preferably a few grassland or kollektiv squares in the vacinity. I would usually set 6 refugees to a site for a city. I built around 5 cities near Stalingrad, and a few back in the Urals and beefed up other Ural cities. I'd bump up Ural cities with Steel mills to 8 in some cases. I'd make sure all the candidate cities got Grain Elevators ASAP.

The other part of the summer was that I would disband ANY red army that I couldn't rescue that the Germans had a CHANCE of Killing. I rescued all of the Fortified Positions possible with cities of my own and escorted them out. The one southeast of Moscow I left the city stay there. The germans lost about 80 units attacking that.

When Karl appeared, my cruisers were all there to say hi. I sent mass infantry to Kerch from Sevestapol to keep my forts up.

The spot between Narva and Leningrad was changed to a minefield and all areas with permanent forts got fortifications.

Then winter came. Muahahahaha! I was beginning to produce my first Il-2 squadrons. These would be funny next year. The puny Germans tried their luck outside Moscow, but ran into some minefields. I was having problems along the Don where I had pulled up some fortified positions, and the germans were flying by into the rear areas. Some T-34s cleared that up though.

A KEY THING I noted during the winter was what Airports could do. I already knew they would become railroads (which I used later BTW) when strung together. BUT in winter, when they are on the plains, they act LIKE INDUSTRY, and in the summer, they act like FARMLAND, so I put airports on all my industry squares next summer to get shields, trade, and mass shields from the square. I would airport first during the winter to get shields.

Summer of '42 came and so did Stalingrad. I had already evacuated that worthless city south of Stalingrad next to the german garbage barge on the river. The Il-2s tore everything up, and Rostov was quite safe thanks to a Fortified Position.

La la la, by January of 1943, I had about 80 T-34s ready for the Germans thanks to my happy happy Ural production (140 refugees are amazing!) Guess where they went? Oh yeah Stalingrad baby. Shoo! Bad Germans!

I tried a limited attack up near Moscow, but that got derailed because the Germans tore up Kaluga's anti-tank defenses (WTF?) and I lost 11 Units. Ouch. Well that's alright, I had a little present welling up near Kalinn and down near Voronezh (sp?). On the scale of another 20 T-34s in each area. Of course I had backed all these up with Katyushas from Stalingrad, Moscow, and that one city in the Urals with the 3 supersquares in the mountains.

The Summer of 1943 was Hillarious. This is so considering by August, I was in control of the Ploesti oil fields. There was a massacre of about 200 German infantry and armor units near Perekop thanks to about 100 T-34s, 20 Katyushas, and 15 Il-2s. By now I had a near infinite suplly of T-34/85s (thanks to the 35 a turn I was building).

Army group North had also made good progress, and the whole of the Front looked like a Giant pincer as South and North closed the gap around Minsk and the Pripyat. Kiev held out until next year... But I was ready for a huge breakout come next summer at Voronezh, because I was waiting for Kursk to end. Nothing like 50 T-34s for a Breakout.

The winter of '43-'44 saw little but the capture and surrender of Romania and the fall of Riga and Kaliningrad, Talinn, and Narva.

Haha summertime!

Let's just say Berlin fell in August of 1944.

It got a little hairy when I was producing 40 Motorized Infantry (those are cool!), 20 JS-2, 40 T-34/85, 20 Katyusha, 5 Yak-9, 15 Il-2, and 10 JSU-152 a turn. The fact that I had a straight line of airports from Chelybalinsk to Warsaw made resupply of the Red Front simple (oh yeah, except for moving 200 friggin units a turn to replace the 70 or so I lost )

The Americans didn't do much but Multiply in Southern Italy.

I tell you now, mass refugees and airports are the key to production in this game.

Also, when rush-building ANYTHING, always buy a Red Army first, the 50,000 you pay helps defer the cost of the first few shields of any project, which is always HALF the cost of the item (even in diety, which I play on)

For example, a 1200 Gold ammunition plant will only cost about 500 Gold after you spend 50 gold on Red Army and switch it over.

I can also not stress the importance of getting convoys to Baku (3000 Gold and beakers is not to be turned up.)

	27-04-2000 02:09									#47
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So far I have the following impression:

Disbanding red army units in Summer 1941: surprisingly successful. It delays German advance remarkably.

Moving fortified positions and fortified battery: not as successful as expected since German units can infiltrate using their 'ignore ZOC' flag. In one occation a city with fortified position was destroyed.

Research: nobody claimed getting KV-1 in September 1941, hence no information on how it helps to hold the front.

Kill the Karl: There is one report that vet cruisers can cancel the Karl without difficulty.

Trade: seems trading from UK to Baku is better than trading from Baku to itself.

Airport: although the scenario does not allow building railroads, airports work the same way, and even better (free farm+mining), just as in ordinary civ2 games.

I'll play the scenario again to figure out how to place cities along the Dnieper river with fortified positions to keep German troops from infiltration. Also I'll try to maximize the frequency for supply convoys to reach Baku. Trade is my favourate thing.

Captain Nemo should think about disable the labor brigades' ability to build airports in the next version.

	27-04-2000 02:36									#48
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You gave Xin **** for recommending shipping out the fortified positions, and you do that AND build airfields inside city radii and along trunk routes to get free movement without railroads?!?!!!!

I am curious why you build graneries ASAP... I just micromanage my cities to avoid going into winter with low food supplies. Of course that might be why it takes me 4-6 hours to play a turn...

	30-04-2000 08:52									#49
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I have a new strategy under testing. The outline:

In July 1941 move fortified positions to Odessa, Nikolaev, Kiev, and Riga. Then in August move more fortified positions to Dnepr, Kherson, and Tallin.

Build 2 bombers in Moscow and move them to the fortress west of Smolensk to stop German advances there.

Move all available fighters and AA batteries to protect Other cities on the front, especially Gomel.

Research IL-2 immediately. The tech should be available in September and the planes in October.

Do not build anything except some freighters for transportation and some airports for vet planes. Existing units can hold the front if concentrated to certain cities.

Selling improvements (even power plants and steel mills if nothing else is available) for big bucks and rush build the IL-2.

Disband all villages and use troops to stand on their positions. Pillage all fortress squares. Disband cities which were built on fortiried positions and put units on them.

When the IL-2s are ready, remove all troops from the villages/fortresses/fortified position. Then use IL-2s to kill the german troops in large amount. They will be reincarnated on the above positions and you kill all of them in one blow. Expecially there are troops on the fortress square north to Kherson. Put a partisan in Kherson and you may be able to kill 100 units each turn

After killing them, move your units back to the positions so in German's turn there's no surprises.

	01-05-2000 00:21									#50
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Other things to sell in cities that are not in immediate danger:

Sewers - rebuild it later if you want growth beyond 12. Not very necessary with the benefits of high production mining.

Waterworks - same as Sewers.

Naval Yards - The Admiralty in Leningrad will give you Vet ships, though not repair ships in one turn.

Railroad Stations - great in a big trade city, superfluous during '41 & '42.

Banks - same as Rail. Probably don't really need them during '41 & early '42.

Grainries - manage your specialists and food production to make sure you have a nearly full food box going into winter.

Powerplants - these will all be replaced with the Electrification wonder anyway.

anything else?

	02-05-2000 09:43									#51
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Sten Sture: I think you should sell everything that is not required to be built in 10 turns. This will give you enough cash to keep high tech rate and buy units instantly. The only things I don't recommend to sell are the Kollective farm and fishing fleets (you need them during the winters, so you have to rebuild them soon). However if I have both I'll only keep one of them.

Of course if your city has many shield specials you need to keep steel mill, power plant, and manufacturing plant. If your city has large population you need to keep marketplace, bank, railroad term, and postpone selling libraries and universities (hence you can put all citizens to tax collectors or scientists for the first several turns). Only two cities (Murmansk, Bryansk) cannot go for 'all specialist' since the terrian will not allow them to survive through the winter.

	09-05-2000 01:41									#52
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Just a little update on where I am in this scenario.

btw - I am micro-managing to the hilt and only playing periodically so it is taking 4+ hours per turn. I have only run through September '41...

I am not moving any fortified positions, building airfields, or disbanding Red Army units in the field.

My research path has been Propellants(Kat)/ MobileII(KV-1)/ AdvResearch(ReLab) /AdvFltII. By using a lot of science specialists I have been getting one adv per turn. I am planning on continuing with AdvFltIII(IL-2) /CivilDef /AirDefCorp(AirDef) / WarProd/ GOELROAgy(Electric).

My rational for initially skiping the Seti wonder with MilResearch is that most of my science is coming from the Caucasus and three research labs will provide most of the benefit that would have accrued with the Seti wonder. I am choosing to try to get IL-2s before AirDef since AirDef won't matter during the winter anyway. By researching AdvRes before heading toward AdvFlt2&3 my IL-2s won't be ready for the November turn... but my scientists can spend some time harvesting grain. oh well.

I built a dozen KV-1s in my midrange cities and continued to move and build A.A. batteries along the front. Minsk and Odessa were mostly evacuated in July and fell in Sept. Kiev and Kirovgrad are nearly vacant and will fall in October. Talinnin is in some danger, but should hold out in Oct. Smolensk will need help to make it through November. Most southern conflict cities have three AA and two KV-1s. Nikolayev has three KV-1s, but just two AA batteries. I-16s took out every Wespe and Stuka I could find.

I am selling something in almost every city every turn, including Power Plants, if the city is on water and can incrementally get to AA batteries by using Freighters and Destroyers. I am not selling Antitank Walls, Barricks, NKVD posts, or Politburos cause it feels wrong.

Instead of developing existing small cities, I am mostly building refugees there, well behind the lines and using their high movement to get them where they need to be. My first priority for "mining" industry squares are city plains with suburbs for the railroad bonus.