Xin Yu's Red Front 1.4 Strategy
Discuss | E-Mail Author | Download Scenario

Author: Captain Nemo
Strategic Comment: Xin Yu
Date Submitted: 4/23/00

I. Introduction

This strategy has two parts: 'Tactics' and 'Tricks'. Tactics do not abuse the loopholes of the scenario; tricks do.

The tactics and tricks worked fine during the period from summer 1941 to winter 1942-43. The author had never played the scenario beyond that. New, stronger units would be available in later periods, especially for the German side.

II. Tactics

II.1 General Tactic

II.1.1 Research Path

At the beginning you are given 1200 science bulbs towards your research of 'Propellants' (the tech for Katyusha). Your next tech target should be 'Mobile Warfare II' (the tech for KV-1 tank). The KV-1 tank is the strongest defense unit and can be moved to the front pretty fast (a/d/m/h/f=10/9/3/3/2). Your front relies on it to hold out!

After ‘Mobile Warfare II’, slow down tech research and maximize tax so that you can rush build KV-1s, AA Batteries, Katyushas and Cruisers. Just give yourself enough science to get 'advanced flight II', then 'advanced flight III' (the tech for IL-2 Shturmovik) before Summer 1942. The IL-2 Shturmovik plane is the strongest attack unit (a/d/m/h/f=12/6/14/3/3), however it can only be used during summer time. In the winter season its attack factor is zero.

There is no need for other techs since you can beat the scenario using KV-1s, AA Batteries, Katyushas, IL-2s, Partisans, and Cruisers only. If you have more science to spare, research ‘Mobile warfare III’ (the tech for T34-85) before 'advanced flight II'. T34-85 is the fastest tank and also very well balanced in attack and defense. You can use it as your reserve in case any part of your front needs reinforcement, or use it to hunt down enemy units out in the open.

Certain ‘wonder techs’ are also high in priority since the wonders can save you money.

II.1.2 Build what?

In Summer 1941, all your cities should work for the front. Do not try to build a unit in the Fareast and use 10 turns to move it to the front!

All cities east of Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad line should not rush build anything unless you can get them to the front in one turn. You should try to squeeze more money and science from them by hiring specialists or putting workers on trade squares. Exceptions are Sverdlovsk, Gorkiy, Archangelsk, Tobolsk, and Yarensk. Sverdlovsk and Gorkiy have airbases so they can rush build units and airlift them to the front; Archangelsk should build an airbase (to make a safe airlift if Murmansk is threatened by enemy fighters) and a freighters unit (to ferry units back and forth from the Finland front); Tobolsk and Yarensk need to rush build airbases to airlift the labor brigades to the Caucasus region.

The three Caucasus cities (Baku, Maikop and Groznyy) need to rush build airbases so that labor brigades can be airlifted there to build roads (roads on oilfields add 10 trade per square, more on oil refinery squares). Disband some units inside the cities will save you money.

UK needs to rush build oil refinery and airbase for more trading bonus. Murmansk should rush build freights and cruisers to help the UK supply convoys.

In June 1941 all your cities west of Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad and having river/ocean access should rush build freighters for ferrying units to the front.

Front (include the Finland front) cities which you decide to hold should rush build barracks, then units.

After you can hold the front, switch to build refugees for later use.

II.1.3 Maximize science during June/July 1941

In June 1941, set science to 80%, tax to 10%, luxury to 10%.

For all cities with size 5 and up (except the 3 Caucasus cities with a lot of 'oil fields' terrain), change ALL of your available citizens to scientists or tax collectors. Here "available" stands for that your cities will not go to famine or have to disband units the next turn. It is OK to have food deficit as far as you have at least one food reserve left in your food box. The criterion for choosing between scientists and tax collectors is: If a city has a university, scientists; if a city has a library but does not have a bank, scientists; if the city has neither library nor marketplaces, do not hire specialists (does not worth it); in all other cases, hire tax collectors.

For the 3 Caucasus cities, do not hire specialists (they provide more science if working on oilfield). Rush build airbases (disband units inside the cities will suffice) so that you can airlift labor brigades there to build roads on oil fields (especially on oil refinery terrain!), and have the cities celebrate 'We Love the Comrade Day' (for more trade output).

You need a total of 4500 science in the first two turns to guarantee that you can build KV-1 in August 1941. It is a matter of life and death so you must have enough scientists hired all over your country!

II.1.4 Maximize tax after July 1941

On August 1941, set science to 10%, tax to 80%, luxury to 10%. There is no immediate need for another tech and you need money for rush building KV-1s. Change scientists to tax collectors or put them back to work. Disband useless units to get you KV-1s.

II.1.5 Trade!

By October your convoy will arrive to give you trade bonus. Before your convoys leave UK, set the home city to UK. Also rush build Oil Refinery and Airbase in UK, and let the city celebrate ‘WLTKD’ to maximize trade bonus. After your convoys arrive in Murmansk, airlift them to Baku and get around 2000 bucks per convoy. As for the Iranian convoys (come later), airlift them to Baku, set their home cities to it and trade with Maikop and Groznyy. Although the instant bonus is smaller, you’ll get more long-term benefits. (If you can capture Romania, trade between Caucasus and Romania will give you the highest reward).

Send your empty freighters to north from UK, forming a freighter chain (protected by cruisers, which should be one square ahead of the freighters). Have at least 3 freighters waiting at the rivermine north to Murmansk (if you are lucky you may be able to build a freighter from the city west of Murmansk before lost it so that you can add a vet cruiser to the stack). On August 1941 the UK freighter should be on (9,1). On September, have your cruisers clear the way if U-boats are obstacles, and do the chain-transportation to get 3 convoys to Russia. The first freighters from Murmansk can go west for 7 squares then back 2, the second freighters can go west for 5 then back 4, then the third will carry the convoys to home. If you have an airbase in Archangelsk (this city is safe from intercept) and built a freighters unit there earlier, you may be able to airlift two convoys to the Caucasus the same turn.

Your freighters’ moving points drop after the first summer, but the above setting still works (with slight modifications) after you build the ‘convoy system’ wonder. This time the convoys need to walk from the UK ship to the Murmansk ship to cover the distance.

II.1.6 Defense

Concentrate your forces.

Use at least 4 vet KV-1s and 4 vet AA Batteries FORTIFIED in a front city to setup the defense, along with a couple of vet Katyushas or vet cruisers, and some cheap units. Every turn add at least one KV-1 or AA Battery to it. All cities should have barracks and anti-tanks. All cities should be able to get reinforcement of at least 2 KV-1s or AA batteries per turn.

Minsk cannot be held since it is difficult to send reinforcements. Kiev and other cities on the Dnieper river have a chance since your freighters can ferry reinforcements there very quickly.

Watch for German units starts with a number ‘105’ or ‘15’. They are strong in attack and ignore anti-tanks. Take them out before they strike. Also take out SS stormtroopers if you can (they are strong, can walk 9 squares and ignore zone of control).

II.2 terrain

Oil fields: They provide huge trade. Build road on them to maximize the benefit. Plains: Good shield productivity after being mined (industry). Grassland: Gives good food support after building farmland for a city with 'Kollective farm'.

Minefield: Provides the highest moving cost and worst defense. Do not have units wait next to them because the AI may use bombers to attack you and at the same time protect the units on the minefields. Use high-moving units to move and attack then retreat. Or, if the minefield is next to water, use vet cruisers. Labor brigades can change grassland, plains, and tundra into minefields. Labor brigades can also change minefields into grasslands, so the minefield can serve as a media for transforming plains into grassland.

Marsh: Same as Minefield, but it is natural so cannot be transformed. There are several places on the map can be used to trap the German and slaughter them. For example, the minefields west to Moscow, the marshes southwest of Leningrad, and the marsh/minefields north to Sevastopol.

Spruce, Forrest: High defense bonus. Occupy these places to delay the enemy advance.

II.3 Transportation

During summer time, roads gives 1/3 moving costs, plain/grass 1, forrest/spruce 3, marshes/mountains 6, minefield 8. During wintertime, roads gives 1, plain/grass 2, marshes 3, forrest 4, spruce 6, mountains/minefields 8.

There is no railroads to use (except some suburb squares next to large cities), but your freighters (transports) move pretty fast: 9 during Summer 1941, 6 afterwards, and if you build the convoy system wonder, add 2 to movements for a total of 8. You should set up a transport system for instantly moving your units to the front using the rivers. Using chain-transportation also allows you to transport supply convoys from UK to Murmansk safely (send out empty freighters in a chain-link pattern until you can safely reach the target city).

Airlifting is also very important, especially when you try to move a unit from eastern cities to the front.

II.4 Unit

II.4.1 Attack units

IL-2 Shturmovik: a/d/m/h/f=12/6/14/3/3 (Summer). Strongest attacking unit during Summer time unless the enemy has x2 vs. air flag. Can be used as patrol unit during winter.

Katyusha Rockets: a/d/m/h/f=12/2/4/2/3 (Summer), 12/2/5/2/3 (Winter). Ignore city walls. Take out or severely damage most enemy units.

T34/85 tank: Same attack as Katyusha, stronger defense, much higher moving points. Take out enemy units in the open. Not useful if attack cities.

Partisans: Ignore city walls. Terrific unit to take out 0-attack units like the hedgehogs, the pantoon bridge, and the AA battery. Partisans is the only unit which gets the bonus when attacking 0-attack units. One partisan can kill one hedgehogs; five partisans can kill a pantoon bridge.

Cruiser: High attack factor and HP. Coastal bombardment using veteran cruisers is devastating against most enemy land units. Put them in the rivers and inside cities to pick up enemies on the road, or use them to do coastal bombardment to occupy enemy cities. Especially useful against 'super units' like the Karl 60mm Mortar (one cruiser can kill a Karl on marshes/minefields, two can kill a Karl on grass/plains).

II.4.2 Defense units

Fortified position/fortified artillery: Enemy units won't attack them due to their high defense values. In rare occasions German tanks may attack a fortified position continuously and eventually destroy it, but most of the time they won’t try.

KV-1 heavy tank: defense=9. With hp=2 and fp=3, it is the strongest defense unit in early days against land attack.

AA Battery: defense double (actually X3) against air raid. Paired with KV-1 will make your cities impregnable.

II.4.3 Settling units

Refugees will become laborers in Winter 1941. Build as many as you can during Summer 1941 since your population does not drop when building refugees and they are so cheap! Labor brigades can transform terrain and work faster than the laborers.

II.5 Support

You have 6 support-free unit per city, so your shield support should not be a problem. Food, however, will become a problem during winters since you have so many laborers (former refugees) to support. Build cities using the laborers and disband them by building labor brigades (NONE and works faster). Since the moving cost of winter is larger, it is better for you to build roads all over the places before winter using your existing labor brigades. Put 3 labor brigades in a group, and they can give you 3 road plains/grasslands squares each turn as you move towards Southeast.

II.6 Money

You need a lot of money to rush build units. Sell your Sewing Systems, waterworks, Politbureaus, Cathedrals, Orthodox Churches, Universities and libraries to save money. Build marketplaces, banks, railroad terminals, and hire tax collectors to get more money. As far as you set luxury rate at 10%, you can live without building any happiness improvements. If your city can celebrate ‘WLTKD’ then you should build oil refinery; otherwise you should not build it (if you already have it, sell it).

II.7 Happiness

In July 1941 most likely you will lose a happy wonder in Minsk. This should now cost revolt in your cities since most of your citizens are scientists/tax collectors. Just be careful when you put them back to work. In Winter 1941 you are going to build new cities. You can have them up to size 7 without having happiness problems (using 3 red army units for martial law).

The 3 Caucasus cities can easily celebrate 'WLTKD' with 10% luxury rate due to their high trade.

II.8 Other

II.8.1 What to sell in a city which is about to lose

Airbase, coastal fortress, and then the most expensive one. Selling airbases is crucial since you don't want German stukas recover in one turn and kill a dozen of you infantries the next turn. Selling the coastal fortress will give you an opportunity to retake the city from the sea/river.

II.8.2 What to be built in new cities

You need Kollective farm and all shield production improvements. You need barracks. Maybe you also need airbase to airlift units or produce vet airplanes. You don't need big cities. Size 7 cities won't have happiness problems and with 5 industrialized plains and 3 farmlanded grasslands (one of them is the city square) you should be able to produce most units in one turn. You can also build size one cities (both city square and working square are industrialized plains) to provide red armies for martial laws. Also you can disband the red armies to add to the production of other cities so that you can build 100-shield units in one turn as well.

II.8.3 Where to hold the line during Summer 1941

Any city where you can get 5 AA batteries and 15 other units in July 1941 will have a chance to hold out. Concentrate your forces to the city and give up the others. Your KV-1's will be available in September, and the German can only go that far in two months.

On the North when facing the Fins you can put your units on good defense positions to gain advantage.

Southern front: if you decide to hold Kiev, then you must also hold key cities along the Dnieper river so that you can send reinforcement to Kiev each turn. This is the most difficult part and you need some luck to accomplish it (unless you use the moving 0-move unit trick). I found that some German stukas may avoid attacking Kiev if it has 6 AA batteries. Using chain-transportation you can send 4 AA batteries to Kiev in July 1941. Kiev supports a fortified position west of Kursk and that helps. You should try to hold Odessa (ferry Sevastopol’s units there) to delay the German advance and buy you enough time to setup the defense along the Dnieper river.

Northern front: you can try to hold Tallinn (or Riga if you use the trick of moving 0-move units).

Central front: you can try to hold Smolensk and build a city on the Kollective square west of Moscow (it is on the river by the way). Although the Kollective square does not give extra defense bonus (as Captain Nemo recently found out), the square is strategically important since it is on the way to Moscow. There is a fortress square west of Smolensk which you can set up a bomber-AA battery combo on August 1941 to stop or delay German advance. Bombers need to be rush built from Moscow fly to the position (the first stop should be in a city). Leave the north-central front wide open (just pillage the roads). The German cannot go far from that direction since the tough terrain will help your partisans whenever you lose a city (however this is a two-edged sword since for each partisan you lost, the German got a 105 wespe unit for free. So check the map frequently to identify those units and kill them before they strike). Do not ignore the front between Smolensk and Kiev. German SS stormtroopers can pass the marshes easily.

Do not try to retake cities during Summer 1941. Sometimes German units will be reincarnated within the cities, preventing you from taking them back. Do you leave any square with a fortress unoccupied; German troops may be reincarnated from there, too.

III TricksIII.1 Changing host cities of 0-movement units

Use your labor brigades to build cities on top of fortified positions and fortified artilleries. Then change the host cities for those units and fortify them (they can only be fortified within a city). The units won't be disbanded when their former home cities were lost.

III.2 Moving 0-movement units

If the fortified positions or fortified artilleries are on riverbanks, you can build cities on top if them then use freighters to ferry them to other cities. Most German units won't attack those units, and those who dare to try (Stuka, for example) always lose. You can hold the Southern front (Kiev, Odessa, Nikolaev) and the Northern front (Riga) by ferrying fortified positions there in July 1941 and concentrate your force in the central front.

III.3 Attack Finland

Finland will become tough in Winter 1941. However you can wipe it out during Summer 1941 when it is still weak. After moving fortified positions to Riga, you don’t need to worry about the defense of Leningrad. Build 4 vet cruisers in Leningrad and Narva to bombard Helsinki, then land 8 T34/76 tanks or Katyushas to finish the job. It takes 2-3 turns to finish the Finland. You’ll get about 1,000,000 rubles from that poor country.

III.4 Attack Romania (Prefer during Winter time)

Romania is one of the two most important area (the other is the Caucasus). If you can occupy Romania you will be able to airlift convoys from the Caucasus to there and get huge trade bonus.

Attacking Romania should start in Winter 1941 since during the Summer German can use air superiority to counter-attack. Again you can use vet cruisers to bombard the east most city (Galati) of Romania, then land Katyushas to attack Bucharest. You may also want to land a couple of partisans to deal with the hedgehog in Ploiesti. To take care of the counter-attack, you can move your fortified positions to Ploiesti, or you can build a city on the mountaintop north of it and move a fortified position there before starting the attack.

III.5 Attack Yugoslavia, Albania, and Italy

Those cities are lightly defended. Use Katyusha and attack during the Winter will give you easy victory. Do not develop Yugoslavia cities and fortify KV-1s in them, since they will be attacked by barbarian partisans later. If you choose to attack during Summer time, you can use Il-2 Shturmovik planes.

III.6 Attack Germany (Prefer during Winter time)

You can use the rivers to attack Germany from both North and South. Occupy the east most cities you can reach from the rivers, secure them with fortified positions then start attacking towards west, which are relatively lightly defended. Details are the same as 'Attack Romania' section. There is a small island city named Ronne (north to Danzig) which you can use as the base to launch your attack.

III.7 Attack Sweden

Swedish cities are defended by fortified artilleries. You need approximately 6 partisans for each such unit (9 if the city is on the river). In later seasons whenever your infantry units are killed a partisan will appear. So you can accrue partisans easily.

III.8 Disband units

In Summer 1941 whenever your red army unit is killed, a German unit is produced. So if you cannot retreat your red army units, you can disband them in order to avoid the events. This is a soft cheat.

III.9 Destroy cities

You can sell the anti-tanks of your cities to prevent them from being occupied by the Germans. Some event are triggered by lost of certain cities, and they won't happen if the cities are destroyed. Renaming the cities has the same effect. This is a soft cheat as well.

IV. Conclusion

Using the tactics and tricks, Red Front is no longer a tough scenario. A player should be confident enough to use only the tactics of this strategy and still can beat the scenario.

You should be able to beat the scenario to the extent that the only city that is not yours is the U.S. base.

The key elements for the tactics are:

• Concentrate your forces.
• Use freighters to ferry units to the front instantly.

• Hire specialists for enough science and money so that you can get ‘mobile warfare II’ tech in August 1941 and rush build KV-1s afterwards.
• Optimize UK and Baku for trade bonus, and realize the trade as early as possible (October 1941).
• Take advantages of special rules of the game: Use cruisers to attack German super units (Karl), and use partisans to attack German 0-attack units (hedgehogs).

The key elements for the tricks are:

• Move 0-movement strong units to protect the North and the South so that you can concentrate your force to the central front and hold it.
• Avoid direct confrontation with the majority of German units. Circumvent them and strike German from both flanks via sea and rivers.