Stalingrad

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logan5
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Stalingrad

Unread postby logan5 » Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:41 pm

Stalingrad in 8 turns?

Anyone beat the stalingrad level yet? and how many turns did it take? Played it about 3 times and can't take it in 25 turns, army usually completely destroyed by 15 turns.. there must be a some sort of tactical error i am making because 8 turns seems impossible.
Last edited by 2xPelin on Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Changed topic to scenario name.

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2xPelin
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby 2xPelin » Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:27 am

Can you tell your strategy?

You can post screenshots or save game file.

Imperial Dane
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby Imperial Dane » Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:13 am

Beat Stalingrad two times now, one was a regular victory, second one was very close to a brilliant victory, only one turn away from it infact.

It's a bit of a tricky thing. But once you get the gist of it, it does get easier.
The North.
First off you have to get the most of your armour and other mobile units unentagnled from the mess in the centre, use their attacks, clear out the clump caught inbetween your troops. Then begin pulling out the armour and towards the northern river. The bridge there is a good place to aim for. You want to make a breakthrough there with your armour and motor units, not the Italian ones, you have a different purpose for them. Once you've shattered the northern soviet lines and begin pushing your armour towards the northern flank of stalingrad, you send the Italian motor division towards the rail lines and cut them off there.

The Centre: While events in the north and the south (we'll come to that later) are taking place, you should hopefully see the soviets pulling away troops from to reinforce the northern and souther positions, thus giving you the opportunity to push in the centre, which is quite important since the centre will be the main supply line for the northern push as well. Failure to keep it up in the centre could result in the northern push falling apart. Plus it also helps tie up some soviets from bogging down your northern push.

The South: This one is the least impressive looking, mostly romanians with a few Infantry, a panzer and a schützen unit. But it serves an important purpose. It's going to act as a distraction to your opponent, drawing in forces as you keep threatening with an attack from the south, mind you, don't reinforce the souther supply point, always pull back to supply areas or use a supply drop if needed. Because it's going to be a ruse to draw in valuable armour or infantry away from the northern push which is the important one. But, you're also going to be sending that Motor division towards the southern supply point. Thus, strangling the soviets as you also cut the northern one.

Final effort. With the northern and southern points cut, and the centre giving you your own supplies. The Soviet army should be slowly withering becoming easy targets allowing you to get to stalingrad and handle the defenders there.

That's the basic gist of it :) Hope that helps.

logan5
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby logan5 » Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:46 am

Very helpful, I was able to finally take stalingrad using your method at turn 17.. what puzzled me was the hex below stalingrad has 8 supply so i figured the supply would go 8 hexs from there.. that is not the case. Once the top and bottom of the maps supply was cut 2 turns and all russians completely out of supply, only the 2 in the city had supply left

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Spooner
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby Spooner » Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:57 pm

This battle used to be a lot easier before Soviet tanks got buffed (during the beta), but it is still very possible to do well early on and take a brilliant victory. In fact, you either have to win an early rush victory, before the bulk of reinforcements arrive, or you have to slog it out in the long haul.

It is very hard to establish a bridgehead in the centre and I actually find that it is easier to push from the South, moving one or two units around from the centre and adding reinforcements to the forces in the south. Still, you can threaten in the centre, but it isn't your main push. Your priority is always to cripple the Soviet tanks, which are really the only things slowing your advance.

The need to keep the German supply routes open in the North and the ever-present worry of the Russians waiting for an opening is quite stressful, but adds a lot to the scenario tension.

This is quite an interesting scenario to play in multiplayer, though as always I recommend playing it twice, alternating ends, and declaring the winner whoever gets into Stalingrad earlier. That said, I have managed to crush the Nazi offensive a couple of times, playing as the Soviets, so it is reasonably well balanced.

EDIT: Just replayed it now and got the Stalingrad hexes in turns 8 and 9 (so only just not brilliant :( Does require a lot of shuffling to keep everyone in supply though; remember that the courage to stay always one turn out of supply will pay dividends :D)

Imperial Dane
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby Imperial Dane » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:18 pm

Well the centre isn't the main effort as far as i am concerned, it's just there to ensure that the northern push gets supplied :) Otherwise it will run dry since there's a huge swamp :P And well, i just go for crushing the soviet tanks at every opportunity, thus making it easer to push onwards. But generally, cut the supplies and the rest of the soviet army will wither away.

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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby ZyZ » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:22 pm

logan5 wrote:Very helpful, I was able to finally take stalingrad using your method at turn 17.. what puzzled me was the hex below stalingrad has 8 supply so i figured the supply would go 8 hexs from there.. that is not the case. Once the top and bottom of the maps supply was cut 2 turns and all russians completely out of supply, only the 2 in the city had supply left


Attach please find my saves. Stalingrad was actually the easiest scenario for me because you start with experienced troops. I leveled up infrantry, then build some supplies and finally rushed to stalingrad which is only 2-3 turns from your starting position.
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Easy
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby Easy » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:01 pm

Wow this is my first playthrough and I never thought I'd finish Stalingrad. Finally managed it on the last turn (note to devs: well done on balancing. You obviously had players like me in mind when you set the turn limit, it seems to be a recurrent theme for me, that last turn :lol: ). But I had to spend so much prestige on the way that that effectively marked the end of my axis campaign.

Will start again and hopefully do better. I need a good victory from the beginning to get some prestige points.
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logan5
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby logan5 » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:30 pm

nice job, the one thing, if you do better on case blue it will unlock a different path

logan5
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Re: Stalingrad

Unread postby logan5 » Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:30 pm

Was able to beat the scenario in 10 turns, one thing i did notice is that the AI does not recapture supply points.. Also I have to agree with the previous poster about the southern marshes, it is a lot easier to back off in the center and let the AI go on the offensive, then cut them off while you push the south. The AI will try and cut your supply with its cavalry, but it will end up overextending itself and being out of supply itself.. A little disapointed that a brilliant victory is required to unlock both paths... I think I will just keep playing my campaign and do that last scenario on its own.