WITE Campaign Game, ver 1.09

[Currahee]

Looking at the threads, there are several who are more experienced than I, I've just finished my first long campaign as German against the Soviet AI.  Thought I'd just share a couple of "strategic" observations, since it seems it's fairly uncommon for someone to complete the entire campaign.

Until about June of '44 I though surely I'd get a major victory; I never thought I'd get a decisive victory.  Sometime between June '44 and the Spring of '45 it became clear I'd do well to hold onto a minor victory.  In the event, I dropped to 126 points by game end, resulting in a draw.  On move 250, Soviets were moving forward inexorably, but weren't within striking distance of Berlin; had just taken Budapest, Rumania and Hungary were out of the war, but Koenigsberg and other German cities were well protected.  Eventually, Ivan would have cleared the map, but when?  Maybe 1946...

The early game was fun, I could have done a lot better, but finally took Moscow and Leningrad, sometime in '42 I think....never got close to Stalingrad, but took Rostov, and launched slightly down into the Caucasus just to shake up the AI.  Couldn't take the Crimea, though.  So basically I cleared out Finland, past Moscow for maybe 50 or 100 miles, and down past Rostov.  As mid '44 approached I was feeling pretty smug.  Then things started to unravel.

The Soviet force buildup was surprisingly strong in '44, considering they'd lost their major cities.  I haven't played from the Russian side, so don't know exactly what happened, but I awoke after a few turns with huge portions of my armies surrounded/isolated.  A few very limited air supply/rescues worked, but for the most part, it was hopeless.  I lost a LOT more divisions captured and destroyed, than the Russians, and still managed to draw.  I kept feeding new units into the line, and dropping back.....sometime in early '45 I finally got the hang of reading the signals of an imminent Kessel, and began to drop back in time....this made all the difference, and allowed me to put up resistance in most places, but not before Rumania and Hungary dropped out.  Rumania's departure caught me by surprise, I read the applicable rules after it happened; should have read them before it happened!  On the bright side, my AF had a small degree of air superiority until the end. Love those late-war ME 262's! 

Based on this, I should easily beat the Soviet AI if I play it again....don't know that I will, though, the time investment was huge, I am hankering now for a human opponent.  But first I'll play against the German AI, at least a bit, as the Russian.