Battle of Ebro WTF

[Flakmagnet]

Well 2nd time playing the battle. First I was a bit spread out and tried to hold some of the points in the south. My mistake. I lasted till turn 19. I reloaded and tried again focusing in the north as the breifing suggested, mainly around the northern 4 points and I set up a defensive line of mobile units in the middle, north to south by some mountains for when the enemy breaks trough in the south and starts to head north. Had a bunch of AA, anit tank and artilitry. This time only lasted till around turn 23 or 24 before I lost one of my last three objectives. Reviewing the battlefield just around one point the last one to fall the enemy had over 30+ units surrounding it. Another point that had not fell yet probably had the same. Then addtional enemy units scattered around the map at other points and areas. How does the enemy be able to field upwards of a 100+ units not slots units slots would be more, when I only can field 60 slots at most. Is the only way to work this map is to do a suicide attack agignst their base of spawn points and not play it as a defensive mission, as it was probably designed as. The missions sucks.

[Black_Hole]

Well, I have beaten that mission every time I played it, which was 3 or 4 times. But it was quite rough every single time and not in a good way. The mission still feels over the top and a bit out of place, compared to the other missions of the SCW DLC, which are most excellent, though.

[RivvenDarke]

I disagree. They already nerfed the mission and as a result of the constant whining the whole AO1939 is ridiculously easy even on the highest difficulty level. Old Ebro was the only not-blindfolded-autowin mission and now both DLC are just boring. Only because some people are to lazy to use their brains or try another strategy.
How to Ebro:
- Set allied units to "attack"
- Stay on your side of the Ebro and prevent the enemy from crossing
- Try to kill as many enemy artillery as possible. Enemy has almost no AA so its not that hard with bombers / arty
- Use your best 4-5 units in the far north and slowly slaughter your way down the map on the east side of the Ebro
- done

[Black_Hole]

I agree in the point that the Devs ought to put in more options to customize the difficulty of each mission, just like in PC1 (general unit strength, experience, prestige.. .).

Besides your arrogant BS statement, ever tried to raise the difficulty up to the max, so +5 enemy unit strength, no prestige income and so on!?

[RivvenDarke]

All Im sayin is that novadays many people aren't willing to put any effort in anything. All things that dont work out immediately have to be changed to suit them.
I'm not saying that I'm the super strategist that needs it for his ego to beat the game at the maximum difficulty with all negative traits aso. I still play for fun.
Still its just too easy on Generallissimus and the AO1939 is a total joke because so many people were whining about Ebro. Thats my opinion and ofc everyone else can feel free to have their own.

[Magni]

Ebro is the hardest scenario in the SCW campaign. Max out the Italians for this one. Also, try to use your tanks and recon to encircle and kill off the waves as they come in, so you don't have multiple waves coalescing into a huge mass of units. This also allows you to kill off some of the republican artillery on the other side of the river.

Other than that, it's mostly about holding the bridges and assorted chokepoints and enjoying (to paraphrase Hexaboo) your first real glimpse into the abyss of total war.

[Flakmagnet]

I did employ different strategies so far. If I didn't use the right strategy yet, well that's my fault. My point is how many units the enemy can field at one time during the battle. It seems to be an insane amount compared to what my side can. Even during the later part of the mission when historicly supplies where running scarce for them. Historicly the Nationalists fielded a larger army then the Republican force. I just feel that the mission could be based a bit more in reality. Not so much easier but more realistic and strategic, not so unrealistic. I'm sure if I kept plugging away at it I'd probably win at some point trying different things, but grinding through a 30 turn mission to loose to unrealistic situations with a hand full of turns left is draining. If I loose due to a strategic mistake that's fine and I accept that and I'd retry it again with a different strategy. That's the point of strategy games, but when you loose after a long battle do to completely unrealistic or unhistoric factors that's another thing.

There are also other factors here as well too. Compare to all the Panzercorps rockstars out there that say things are so easy already. Not everybody may have built up the same amount of prestige or quality of units or heroes by the start of the mission as others and it puts different people in different starting positions too.

[Green Knight]

Originally posted by Flakmagnet:

Well 2nd time playing the battle. First I was a bit spread out and tried to hold some of the points in the south. My mistake. I lasted till turn 19. I reloaded and tried again focusing in the north as the breifing suggested, mainly around the northern 4 points and I set up a defensive line of mobile units in the middle, north to south by some mountains for when the enemy breaks trough in the south and starts to head north. Had a bunch of AA, anit tank and artilitry. This time only lasted till around turn 23 or 24 before I lost one of my last three objectives. Reviewing the battlefield just around one point the last one to fall the enemy had over 30+ units surrounding it. Another point that had not fell yet probably had the same. Then addtional enemy units scattered around the map at other points and areas. How does the enemy be able to field upwards of a 100+ units not slots units slots would be more, when I only can field 60 slots at most. Is the only way to work this map is to do a suicide attack agignst their base of spawn points and not play it as a defensive mission, as it was probably designed as. The missions sucks.

And you're playing the nerfed version

Here is on GM difficulty, the original version:

https://youtu.be/C9euC0JXtmQ

[Green Knight]

Originally posted by Flakmagnet:

I did employ different strategies so far. If I didn't use the right strategy yet, well that's my fault. My point is how many units the enemy can field at one time during the battle. It seems to be an insane amount compared to what my side can. Even during the later part of the mission when historicly supplies where running scarce for them. Historicly the Nationalists fielded a larger army then the Republican force. I just feel that the mission could be based a bit more in reality. Not so much easier but more realistic and strategic, not so unrealistic. I'm sure if I kept plugging away at it I'd probably win at some point trying different things, but grinding through a 30 turn mission to loose to unrealistic situations with a hand full of turns left is draining. If I loose due to a strategic mistake that's fine and I accept that and I'd retry it again with a different strategy. That's the point of strategy games, but when you loose after a long battle do to completely unrealistic or unhistoric factors that's another thing.

There are also other factors here as well too. Compare to all the Panzercorps rockstars out there that say things are so easy already. Not everybody may have built up the same amount of prestige or quality of units or heroes by the start of the mission as others and it puts different people in different starting positions too.

It's not an easy scenario. Easily the hardest. It's designed that way as a climax - what comes after is just an epilogue. So yeah, it's a bit over the top, but not unbeatable.

[Flakmagnet]

I never said it was unbeatable, just unrealistic and not historic. Poor design. It could still be tough and challenging mission but just needs to be better designed.

[bylandt11]

I ignore the south and attack with 2/3 of my forces in the north, making a clockwise conquest of the whole map. But it's still very hard because new forces come in from the northeast and southeast.

The easiest way to beat it is to conquer the only enemy held objective on turn one. It's doable if you have the right heroes attached to a tac bomber, a tank and a recon. The only thing you have to do after that is hold 3 objectives. Bring enough 2cm AA.

[Accolon]

Originally posted by RivvenDarke:

I disagree. They already nerfed the mission and as a result of the constant whining the whole

They nerfed it? Sheez...lucky me I did that mission 3 Times as it was worth playing it....

I have really no problem when a singleplayer mission is hard. If you have to spend hours and several tries to make it. This was the way the Games were in my Time. I am 48 and this "make everything casusl" attitude sux balls.

Especially if you add "bonus" objectives...they should be really hard to obtain and still "win" the main objectives.

Thats my wish for 1943-1945! Thank you

[Altair1243]

Originally posted by Accolon:

Originally posted by RivvenDarke:

I disagree. They already nerfed the mission and as a result of the constant whining the whole

They nerfed it? Sheez...lucky me I did that mission 3 Times as it was worth playing it....

I have really no problem when a singleplayer mission is hard. If you have to spend hours and several tries to make it. This was the way the Games were in my Time. I am 48 and this "make everything casusl" attitude sux balls.

Especially if you add "bonus" objectives...they should be really hard to obtain and still "win" the main objectives.

Thats my wish for 1943-1945! Thank you

You are insane, man. This entire mission is just a slog of hell. Sure, let me fight droves of T-26's with anything except another T-26, a BT-5, or the Verdeja-2 being effectively useless AND the only real way to kill them quickly is to use my evelopment hero Verdeja along with Arty to quickly suppress and force them to retreat. ALSO this whole time I'm being bombarded with so much artillery that they could probably have reduced the area to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crater in the span with which we're fighting WW1-style.

[joel_schuster]

Putting your units under enemy artillery fire is a good way to burn lots of prestige. So do not do it :) Fall back to well defendable positions instead. Use artillery, anti-tank and air cover. Let them come. Kill them. If you killed enough enemies, you can advance again and then take out those artillery positions, finally occupying them yourself.

[Legionary Guard]

Holy necromancer Batman! That man who made it to 48 and didn't know how to spell is now 52 and probably still can't spell! That being said, I agree with the complaints against Ebro. SCW in general is pretty weirdly difficult, thanks to the Condor Legion equipment being made of paper-maché, having to pay for new controllable infantry per mission, and your AI allies honestly just kinda sucking. Your tanks suck, your infantry is both auxiliary and sucks, the Spanish AI sucks, and your air force sucks for most of the campaign. Mass-capturing T-26s and BT-5s is basically mandatory if you don't want to rock around with Panzer Is for most of the DLC, and your air force is so woefully inadequate for most of it that the Italian biplanes are better.

[joel_schuster]

The enemy equipment in SCW is no better actually. So it is a fair fight where you can learn alot about tactical positioning being very important. Anybody can roll over his opponent with superior numbers or equipment. If you master SCW, you'll do much better on higher difficulties and suffer less casualties in the later campaign.