This game is just great, it's the best and most serious military strategy wargame I've ever seen. I achieved a major victory in Norway, capturing 20 flags, without any troop losses! :brain: Well I lost plenty of ships but they were auxiliary so I don't care. Here's the casualties report for the battle:
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This game actually encourages you to play a battle over again if you didn't get a major victory, that way you learn most, and it doesn't get repetitive. I also achieved major victories in both polish battles. In the first battle I purchased two artillery batteries, and one cheap Panzer I tank. The Panzer I are nearly worthless but good enough to take care of those annoying polish cavalrymen out in the open, and besides the sooner you purchase and start to use a unit, the sooner it'll start to gain experience which it will keep when upgraded. The first battle is really easy if you've read the game manual, and you can easily take all cities except Ozorkow and Brzeziny to maximize your prestige.
For the second battle I upgraded my two Panzer I and my one Panzer II to Panzer 3, and I also upgraded my best motorized infantry to engineers. Engineers are kickass assault troops, they don't even need artillery support, not only they've got better attack and defence, also rugged defence can't be put up against them, and they've got higer initiative --in this game shooting first is a matter of life or death. Pioneers are just like that but engineers can in addition build temporary bridges. Precisely in this battle for Warzaw the best option is crossing the Vistula west of Modlin with a small detachment to kill the artillery deployed just NW of Modlin and place an infantry unit in its place so that the Poles can't recruit from that city. If you attack Modlin from the SE after Warzaw, you'll lose much more time and they'll have crucial artillery support.
The key to capturing Siedice in time for a major victory was sending one tank and one motorized infantry as soon as possible. In this battle the Poles have a crappy fighter and you must purchase air units, I bought two fighters and two bombers. The bombers are the key to take with small detachments distant cities where the artillery can't make it in time, such as Siedice, or Namsos in the following scenario.
Finally for Norway I upgraded my four tanks to Panzer IV and my three artillery batteries. I also bought two more fighters and two more bombers. This battle is a pain in the behind for air superiority, and sea superiority is something the enemy will have, but after some very hard days around Trondheim I finally got air superiority once I sent the fighters north. My strategy was the following. My tanks started to operate independent of my main assault groups, there isn't much useful support they can lend in the beginning anyway. Two of them were deployed in the Norwegian Sea off the shores of Alesund and Molde, and the other two in the Skagerrak (straits between Norway and Denmark) off Kristiansand and Arendal. They can capture that undefended cities during the first turns, and then move on to take other cities like Bergen, Andalsnes and Kongsberg --some air or sea support should be lent since those cities are defended.
There were two main assault groups: one for Oslo and one for Trondheim. I deployed one fighter and one bomber in Stavanger, the same for Trondheim. The only land troops I used to take Stavanger was one artillery that afterwards raced to join the Oslo group, and the two auxiliary paratrooper units. The two main groups along with the tanks were to converge on Lillehammer once their objectives were accomplished, and all the cities west of the Lagen river can be taken easily.
Your naval units in the Norwegian Sea must defeat the enemy ships over there and then sacrifice themlselves --you don't lose anything since they're auxiliary-- putting up a fight against the ones coming from the east. You could retreat them westwards so they could join the rest of your ships to get better chances but that would take forever and if you don't let the enemy ships massacre them, they'll massacre your troops at Trondheim instead and you just can't let that happen. Actually once I took Trondheim and my northern flotilla was no more, the enemy fleet started to pound my units near the coast. I was forced to purchase the cheapest auxiliary troops available (anti-tank) and place them in Trondheim so they pounded it instead as my core units headed south towards Lillehammer. For some stupid reason most of your fleet is where you don't need it and it's too far from the critical area off Trondheim. Also air units are ineffective against ships, contrarily to what I thought they should be, so my plans of gaining sea superiority through air superiority didn't work.
Were it not for this problem you could consider performing an amphibious assault agaisnt the final objective in Namsos, but because of this your sea transports would be blasted by the enemy fleet. So the best option is to embark the paratroopers as soon as they've taken Stavanger and send them against Namsos with proper fighter escort. You need air support to take the city but there's an air defence unit precisely in Namsos. The best option is to disregard casualties now that you're near the end, even if your bombers are damaged it's very important that they lower the garrison infantry's entrenchment level and if possible deal some damage.
And with that, you'll have a major victory in Norway.
