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Hi, I would really appreciate some comments on what I did right and what i did wrong in this game. I felt I played pretty well for my standard and couldn't pinpoint any obvious mistakes but clearly I did something wrong as I lost an early advantage. Thanks in advance.2p_semois.2012-03-20.02-02-07.rec
I was surprised by the quality of your micro - reading the thread, I was expecting to say: "Well you lost unit x here, unit y here...".
You did have a couple of losses that should have been avoided (including one that really mattered - the first sherman), but that's not, predominantly, what killed you.
You gambled quite heavily on high fuel. That OP is too early, in my opinion, and you are lucky your opponent didn't play aggressively, as the potential was there for him to push you off the map. Particularly on Semois, if Wehr gets an MG into the building overlooking the bridge by your base, it's REALLY hard to shift early game, and takes crucial time. Regardless, even this was not the reason you lost - although it will lose you games in future. Get rifles first.
The reason you lost, simply, was that your tactics were not logical. Your unit useage was pretty good, but your idea of where they fitted into the scheme was not. You gambled heavily on high fuel, and it paid off. The Wehr player went heavy infantry, and that was obvious from the early vet. He played a classic defensive game, and with your relatively early cut-off of his fuel, you were way ahead. In this situation, I'd stick with grenades, which you seemed to use quite well, and forget the BARs (the fuel is just too expensive, for too little benefit against double vetted volks/grens). Instead, you should have used that extra fuel from not getting BARs, and avoided the motorpool, going instead straight for a tank depot. That way, you could have had a sherman out only a little after your m8 hit the field, and a sherman is a LOT more difficult to counter. Shreks really dont work against it, if you have any kind of good micro, which you did. As you saw, he needed to bring both shreks and pak into play to kill your first one. After that first one, I'd have spammed shermans. He had two paks, but if you have 3-4 shermans (which is definitely possible), then you can charge them down. You may lose one, but decrewing both paks leaves you in a very strong position (and don't forget attack move to destroy them utterly). If you're worried about mines, try not to turn in areas you think they might be, use odd approach routes, and remember you can buy crab flails. They're not perfect, but they are good, with the added advantage that you can try and use it to gib units if you get close enough.
Your doctrine choice was also poor. You chose tank doctrine (which, with the above tactic, would have worked nicely - if you'd gone field repairs). But arguably, rangers would have had more of an impact against the vetted infantry, the howitzer might have been able to reach his bunker from your base (and constatntly artying a med bunker REALLY messes up defensive play - I know from being on the other side).
Even assuming you'd stuck with tank doctrine, I think LHS is better in this situation. With your munition income you were only realistically going to be able to pop war machine once - and with the limited number of tanks you had on the field at any one time, the benefit for cost would be prohibitive. In contrast, a strong charge by shermans with field repairs can be devestating, and crucially, you can pull it more than once. RHS Calliope was always likely to be out of reach, especially given his positioning in regards to VPs, and also the rate at which you were killing units (i.e. slow), but even if you'd had one, he was well spread out, in a mess of houses, and I struggle to believe that infantry artillery would not have been a better choice.
The other thing to note is your map control was not good. Not losing your fourth rifles would have helped, but after that first cut-off, you pretty much ignored the Wehr fuel. If it had been me, i would have pushed up with m8 to fuel, cut it off again, leaving him with very little fuel (that map is very fuel-lite). This would have slowed the inevitable vetted grens, and leaves you in a strong position to push on his base. If nothing else, it forces him to focus away from defensive bunker.
Another option, which can be devestating with the right micro, is snipers. Back-teching when you first saw the early vet upgrade, and unleashing some snipers, is a brilliant way of countering a med bunker - sniped units dont get healed by medics, and it doesn't matter what vet the grens have, your snipers will still take them down in one shot. Again, very frustrating to counter.
Instead, you rather played into his hands by keeping attacking mined approaches to an inaccessible and well-defended med bunker, all the while getting slaughtered by grens (look at the kills on the grens, below their picture, compared to other units - one unit got 17 kills, compared to the mortar, which usually gets loads, which got 5). For rifles to be a real threat to grens, even with BARs, they need either extreme grenade spam (and even that doesn't work at vet 3), or heavy veterancy. With the way the combats were going at the start, and the early vet, it was obvious you were not going to get that before his troops outclassed yours.
Your AT gun was completely pointless. It should have been obvious at that stage that he was spending his limited fuel on infantry veterancy, and when you consider that those upgrades are 30 + 50 + 70 fuel, his teching couldn't match yours. You could have been far quicker to shermans, even assuming you did build MP. Another rifle squad, to replace the one you lost, and thus aid capping, would also have been good.
I don't think you ever really got near it, but its worth realising that he put his med bunker next to a building. Slipping flame engies in there makes them that much more durable, and increases the chances that you'll do significant damage to his bunker, or even take it down. Used in conjunction with infantry artillery, it becomes even more likely.
I mentioned pushing on his base, and this is another point - don't play into his hands! If you're having trouble with the bunker, ignore it, pull off a quick armoured push at this base - take out the bunker covering the flank, and push on his hq or krieg barracks (don't bother taking out vet building, as it is so cheap to rebuild). If he retreats his units, you can shoot them on the retreat AND with your shermans once they get back, but if he's worried about this, and walks back, you can do all sorts of nasty things to his base. His paks would also be slow to come into play, and the geography of the map means that it's far easier for your shermans to escape back out again without risking being taken down.
His tactic was solidly executed (I didn't see any squad wipes on him, although I wasn't following his units that closely), and it's a tricky one to beat. Your build order was all over the place, you didn't recognise what he was building towards, and as a result you failed to counter it. That's why you lost.
Thanks so much for the EXTREMELY helpful review, I really appreciate the time it must have taken. I'm really pleased you thought my micro was ok, just a few weeks ago there really was nothing at all good about my game. I think you have identified my key weakness right now, which is that I'm not really thinking overall strategy while in game. When I choose doctrine, it's more like 'ok lets try this one and see what happens', its never a reaction to what my opponent is doing. When I saw that he had doubled vetted Grens, I never thought about the fact that it means he won't be building any armour right now and therefore I don't need the AT gun. When I have spare fuel, I'm more along the lines of 'oh I'll get BARS, they're good', not what would best counter what he's got right now.
I very much like your idea of back teching and getting snipers for a situation like I had, I almost never get WSC, dunno why.
Hopefully this review will lead to me thinking more intelligently about my overall strategy, thanks again.
I lied, actually. I hadn't saved the replay I wanted to show you (annoyingly), but I do have a similar(ish) one here, for you to have a look at:
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