Preparing The Field

Okay, after messing around with a few sample battles, I have picked my map. Check out Langres :

A quaint little French town that will be blown to fuck

Click that bad boy to see it full sized. It’s a fairly large map for a 2 player map, actually (though overall, that only scores as a Medium sized map). In case it wasn’t readily apparent where the river is, I marked it with that blue squiggle. All bridges, which will be HUGE in this game, are circled in red. Those 3 narrow ones along the bottom-left are rail and foot bridges…foot soldiers can cross, MAYBE a German motorbike or a Jeep, but that’s it. My base, as the Germans, is the big blue area in the top corner (basically, the darker blue building in the very corner is my base. That lighter blue area is my ‘base build area’…the only places I can construct base structures. That blank area in the right corner is where the Brits will be.

My reasons for picking this map…it should be a good length battle, so I might be able to squeeze 3 or 4 posts from this thing. Urban combat typically results in a LOT of fun carnage, and there’s a lot of houses North of that river. Also, holding the VPs isn’t going to be easy. That one in the south is pretty much theirs…not much I can do to capture that AND defend my territory. And that central one is right on the biggest bridge on the map, meaning it’s going to be a bastard for either side to hold on to. Hell, even the one in the West, though certainly within my ‘zone’, is close to those foot bridges, and troops on the other side of the river could easily lay some pretty serious fire down on it from across the water.

Oh, here’s a shot of that central VP (that pic is black and white because I haven’t had troops there, so it’s unknown)

The strategy for how to fight this bastard is going to be interesting. Infantry in large numbers are going to be big. Anti tank guns and machine guns too. I’d love to get an assault gun near one of those big bridges as well (don’t worry if you don’t know what the Hell I’m talking about. I’ll explain as I go). Establishing a forward Barracks in town is going to be essential, otherwise I have to drop my squads all the way back to the top if they need to reinforce (a halftrack or two could help with that, too). And this looks like a potentially VERY fun map for snipers…

I’m torn as to what Command Tree to go with. I normally go with the one that gives me Storm Grenadiers and the heavy assault guns…however, having access to some kind of artillery or rocket bombardment on this sucker could be a distinct advantage, too.

I also plan to lay a LOT of mines and barbed wire, especially around those foot bridges. I want to take that strip of land across the river to the West, then make it incredibly costly for him to come in and take it back…maybe even station a machine gun team over there somewhere if/when I can spare them.

Two quick things I forgot to explain in the initial post. First off, there is one very distinct difference in how the Brits operate than every other faction in the game. Everybody else builds base structures of different types…the Brits use Command Trucks. It’s basically a mobile base structure. So yeah, they can pick up and move them whenever they feel like…but while it’s in transit, it can’t build anything.

Second…Veterancy. Really, that’s just a fancy way of describing Experience, which works exactly the same way as it does in any other game ever made that uses it…experienced troops operate better. In this case, they gain toughness and accuracy bonuses. Now, for my side, there is actually a structure I can build at my base. Once built, I can then, for a cost, upgrade the Veterancy levels of my Infantry, Support troops, Tanks and Other Vehicles through several levels…Veteran, Crack and Elite (not sure about the order of the last 2). Once it’s bought and researched, that vet level IMMEDIATELY applies to every single troop I currently have and ever have of that type…it gets pricy, though.

For the Brits, it’s going to be much simpler…battles. The more battles they get in to (and survive), the quicker that unit’s vet level goes up. Even if 4 of the 5 guys from a rifle squad get shot to shit, if that 5th guy gets back to reinforce, the whole squad maintains that vet level. Operating with an Officer (the Brits have several ranks of these) can also add a veterancy gain bonus to a Brit unit…they don’t get any immediate improvement, but their vet level will rise faster within the command radius of an officer than it will without him there.

And…that’s all that I can think of. So, I plan to hopefully get this game in tomorrow. That SHOULD let me start posting the early portion results of it by, say…Saturday? After that it should be daily until I’m through the replay. I’m not going to show everything, especially early on when we’re both just capping points and not even close to each other, but I’ll show the big stuff. At the beginning and end of every post I’ll put up a picture of the tactical map at that time so you can get an idea of how the situation is unfolding. Whenever I order a unit for the first time or anything likie that, I’ll put in a short explanation of what that unit is and what it does. And…yeah. That’s all for now!