10-day Solo Speedrun | Ukraine in Clash of Nations

Claudio NVKP wrote:

Grozny to Lisbon in 10 days.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

Nah, I feel like doing a full play through - if I get too busy or don’t feel like it anymore then I will stop putting so much detail in. I don’t mind if no one reads it as long as it’s a record of what I’ve done! That being said, I would like this 10-day speedrun to become a popular thing - although it’s true I’m doubtful it will, sadly.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

If I have to sacrifice units, I will - I need to expand fast.

_Pyth0n_ wrote:

Claudio NVKP wrote:

Grozny to Lisbon in 10 days.

It shall be done, Lord Sidious.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

Nah, I feel like doing a full play through - if I get too busy or don’t feel like it anymore then I will stop putting so much detail in. I don’t mind if no one reads it as long as it’s a record of what I’ve done! That being said, I would like this 10-day speedrun to become a popular thing - although it’s true I’m doubtful it will, sadly.

Yes, unfortunately it prolly won't be more than a passion project for the both of us, at least for a while. Still, if it means it will improve my horrible stats and better my knowledge of the game, then I will continue testing this theory.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

If I have to sacrifice units, I will - I need to expand fast.

You make a good point. I am hesitant to adopt this mentality, but it makes sense. I do terribly dislike the wasted resources it represents tho.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

_Pyth0n_ wrote:

Claudio NVKP wrote:

Grozny to Lisbon in 10 days.

It shall be done, Lord Sidious.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

Nah, I feel like doing a full play through - if I get too busy or don’t feel like it anymore then I will stop putting so much detail in. I don’t mind if no one reads it as long as it’s a record of what I’ve done! That being said, I would like this 10-day speedrun to become a popular thing - although it’s true I’m doubtful it will, sadly.

Yes, unfortunately it prolly won't be more than a passion project for the both of us, at least for a while. Still, if it means it will improve my horrible stats and better my knowledge of the game, then I will continue testing this theory.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

If I have to sacrifice units, I will - I need to expand fast.

You make a good point. I am hesitant to adopt this mentality, but it makes sense. I do terribly dislike the wasted resources it represents tho.

Tbh there’s no other way to play - we can’t play safe or long-term so we have to take some level of risk.

Nah, speed and quickly invading people is more important than waiting and planning things out. You saw how well Germany did in ww2! Especially the USSR! They didn’t even need to plan for logistics or anything!

Carking the 6th wrote:

Nah, speed and quickly invading people is more important than waiting and planning things out. You saw how well Germany did in ww2! Especially the USSR! They didn’t even need to plan for logistics or anything!

Okay, time for day 3. I don’t expect it to need as much detail, but again we’ll see!

———————————————————————————————————————

I am now first, even including the coalition of Italy, Turkey, and Germany. No one else apart from the players seen in this screenshot has over 50 victory points.

As you can see, I am progressing slightly slower than yesterday, with my VPs only increasing by 40 compared to yesterday’s 50. I expect this trend to continue - I am only set to take 2 or 3 cities by day 4 I think. Here is an overview of my land so far:

As you can see, I’ve taken almost all of Caucasus by now. The only province Caucasus has left is occupied by a stack of one medium tank and two infantry. I am at the moment compiling a stack which should be able to kill it and take the province. When it’s stacked it should look like this: (the only units you can’t see are two armoured cars at approx 80% health)

As for Romania, things are going well - I found their medium tank, stacked along with 2 infantry. The stack I used to deal with it was made up of one infantry level 2; one motorised infantry level 2; three light tanks level 1; four armoured cars level 1. That stack is now continuing through Romania to take Debrecen, Budapest, and come round to just north of the Yugoslav capital of Belgrad.

In Bulgaria, a singular infantry unit took back Sofia, so I’m sending back my original 10-stack to deal with it. That 10-stack lost some units, and it is now made up of fewer low-level infantry. This is expected - we will see whether the economic boost was worth it to essentially sacrifice these units.

Talking of my economy, it’s doing much better than I had originally expected! I can’t provide a screenshot of the full economy, as I’m on mobile at the moment, but here is the full report as it is approx 4 hours into day 3. If you’re not @_Pyth0n_, feel free to skip the economy and building reports - this is mostly so we can look at this speedrun and see what is viable in terms of economy for Ukraine specifically, and so we can compare different speedruns. Python, sorry for making you read this - you did ask for detailed economy reports! If you don’t wanna read it you don’t have to.

-Money | 2,389/hour; 59,077/day (current stock: 7.1k)

-Food | 514/hour; 13,229/day (current stock: 1.7k)

-Goods | 329/hour; 8,723/day (current stock: 2.0k)

-Manpower | 456/hour; 12,643/day (current stock: 620)

-Metal | 558/hour; 13,817/day (current stock: 8.1k)

-Oil | 496/hour; 12,398/day (current stock: 4.5k)

-Rare materials | 391/hour; 9,542/day (current stock: 6.3k)

This is absolutely fantastic - I predicted that I would primarily be short of food, manpower, oil, and goods. So far I haven’t encountered too many problems with my relative lack of goods, although I intend to build some industry in my core goods city just in case. My abundance of food is unexpected and welcome - my industry paid off. Manpower will always be low - I am building a few recruiting stations to hopefully replenish my troops. Metal production is fantastic, and rare production is fine because I always have too many rares.

Here is also a full report of buildings in my core provinces: (cities in bold, provinces with no buildings not mentioned)

Odessa (rares

-Level 1 barracks

-Level 1 industry

Kiev (oil

-Level 1 tank plant

-Level 2 recruiting station

-Capital

Dnepropetrovsk (oil

-Level 2 local industry

Kharkov (metal

-Level 1 aircraft factory

-Level 1 industry

-Level 1 recruiting station

Kursk (metal

-Level 3 industry

Poltava (goods

-Level 2 tank plant

-Level 3 recruiting station

Voroshilovgrad (food

-Level 2 barracks

-Level 2 industry

Sumy (food

-Level 3 local industry

Mariupol (manpower

-Level 1 airstrip

I could’ve also done a list of how much industry I’ve built etc, how much it all cost, and whatever - but I won’t. Python if you want to you can do that yourself! Maybe we can do it sometime BEFORE another speedrun attempt so we can get in as much preparation as possible.

Okay, onto diplomacy! If you’ve skipped the economy bits and want to keep reading about the game, start again here…

Germany finally responded to my request to split Poland between us. He says that he will, but I’ll have to wait until he and Italy invade Yugoslavia. So far they haven’t touched Yugoslavia - I have no idea how long they’ll take to do this. If they don’t invade by the time I’ve cleaned up Romania, then I’ll go for the Yugoslav capital myself, and maybe the rest of it too. It’s got brilliant geography for my purpose - lots of plains, especially on the border with the Romani, and a few hills and forests. Only two mountainous provinces, both bordering the sea.

Germany, Italy, and Yugoslavia:

A zoom in of Yugoslavia’s terrain: (i have selected the army I may use to take Belgrad)

Finland messaged me - he wanted me to join his coalition. I respectfully declined, citing my reasons - I claimed I wanted to wait a few days to see how things stand on the map and players before I make a decision. In reality, of course, I won’t be joining any coalition - I’ll crush them all under my iron fist! All shall bow before Ukraine!

I messaged Turkey yesterday just to check in, as I had just taken the Caucasian land bordering Turkey. He hasn’t responded after 24 hours, so I’m not too worried about him.

My current research: (I have also researched level 2 interceptor, but not upgraded any units, everything else not shown is level 1)

I have upgraded some of my units - I believe most of them I’ve already shown. If I remember, I’ll edit this post and include a list of all my armies. For now I’ve got to run to eat so rushing this finish.

As always, I appreciate everyone’s input.

Good job with balancing the economy! Hard task indeed.

Alright, you have convinced me: Ukraine is definitely the better choice for the speedrun attempts. Sweden's terrain is just too much of a detriment, altho my third attempt is doing quite well (mostly because Finland is inactive ). I will compile the necessary data for Ukraine to see how optimal the gameplay can be mad, but so far, no major mistakes have been made by Sam, so his playthru may be sufficient as a guide for those who attempt the run.

Also Sam, your food production is off-the-charts! How did you manage to pull that off? The level 3 rural industry and level 2 city factory have proven their worth, but from where did you get all the metal and oil from? AC level 2 research is sorta cheap, but producing LTs and ACs is pretty expensive in terms of those resources. Not to mention ints taking some of the oil.

Also, you might want to stop producing units and focus on upgrading now. MPs gonna be your weak spot, as you are awash in resources (I'm still baffled), so a couple recruiting stations might go a long way on day 1 in further testing.

@_Pyth0n_ not on PC so can’t quote bits of text, will just respond here.

For your first paragraph - appreciate it, although I know I haven’t played perfectly. And yes - Sweden could possibly be good if they had more countries to invade, but they’re only bordered by Finland, and then they’re limited by the Baltic nations. I do hope this play through can become a guide for future speedrun attempts!

To be honest, yeah, I was so surprised about my food! I’ll always be a little low in it, as it is needed for motorised infantry as well as recruiting stations. I think it’s basically because I had an excess of oil, metal, and rares - so I could actually afford to build industry/local industry in my core province. I was also helped by taking two food cities relatively early.

As for my metal and oil? I think that local industry is underrated. I already had two rural metal core provinces, plus my city, which is already good - that plus industry being built AND conquering cities has proved a potent combination. I also suspect my lack of manpower affects this though - if I had unlimited manpower I could’ve spammed so many LTs! I have got 4 ints btw, but only level 1. They’ve been sorta useful… idk if I’m gonna scrap them in favour of attack bombers in future attempts, that way I can kill newbies’ medium tanks more easily. I may even be able to produce attack bombers and ints! We’ll see. It’s a learning experience.

Agreed about recruiting stations - in another attempt I think I’ll focus on industry in food and oil provinces, as my metal and rare materials will be okay for the first couple of days without industry. That way, I’ll increase my food production, meaning I can build more recruiting stations earlier. Whatever I do, MP will be the limiting factor.

As for focusing on upgrading, as you said, I’m awash in resources! For now, I’ll focus on production of LTs and ACs due to my excess metal and oil. In a day or two I will pause production to allow a mass upgrade, but I am losing a few of my original infantry stacks - went down from a peak of 40 units to 34 at the moment.

Appreciate the input as always.

SamPGS_17 wrote:

They’ve been sorta useful… idk if I’m gonna scrap them in favour of attack bombers in future attempts, that way I can kill newbies’ medium tanks more easily. I may even be able to produce attack bombers and ints! We’ll see. It’s a learning experience.

As for the rest of your points, no further discussion is necessary as it would just be restating the same point, and since I agree will all of the points anyways.

Damn, this is making me want to jump in again!

Sorry all who’s following this, I’m super tired plus I had something on this evening so no daily update. A quick summary is that I’ve taken most of Yugoslavia, and since it’s day 4 the military reports show me and Germany both have 6% armies, Germany is 1st and I’m 2nd. I’m on 170 victory points. I have also invaded Poland with the help of Finland. My economy is doing fine, manpower production is up!

Will hopefully post one of the usual detailed reports tomorrow. Apologies again!

Damn Germany!

Carking the 6th wrote:

Damn Germany!

Okay, so it's time for another report! Apologies for the lateness of this one, I appreciate it's been a while.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I won't include the military report since I did that in a short message earlier in this thread. It's now Day 6, and things have been chundering along quite nicely. Here is the leaderboard:

As you can see, I'm doing fine, and certainly ahead of the coalition. However, I need to pick up the pace a bit - I need an average of 7 or 8 cities taken per day if I want to get to 626 victory points by the end of day 10.

Just to make things clear - I'm counting 10 days as how many VPs I have at the start of day 11. This is because at that point I will have played for a full 10 days - if I counted the victory points at the beginning of day 10, I will have only played for a full 9 days.

Okay, so in the last couple of days I have taken almost all of Communist Russia, except for two rural provinces near the border of Finland which I'll leave alone and hope he conquers soon. I am on very good terms with Finland - I was just about to invade Communist Russia, when he asked me to 'save him'. So I told him, like a good ally, I would take Communist Russia - they were at war with each other. It must be noted that Communist Russia was AI, so I took all its cities pretty much within a day. At the same time, I was able to finish off Yugoslavia and Poland (with the help of Germany and Italy), and I even managed to sneak in a cheeky Blitzkrieg of Albania! Here is the map as it stands:

I'm relatively happy with the position of my armies. My only concern is how long it'll take to conquer Eastern Europe, Finland, and Sweden (possibly Norway too), and then get back in time to conquer Turkey, Germany, and possibly Egypt and Italy (not sure how many VPs I'll require) before the end of day 10. I'm considering utilising infrastructure - it's either that or forced march, which I would hate to have to do because it decreases my armies health and damage capabilities more than they already are. However, I'm also low in goods! This is quite a dilemma.

I have just commenced the invasion of the Russian Empire - it should be over, bar a couple of huge northern rural provinces, in under 24 hours. This will advance me 50 VPs further towards victory!

I am also preparing for the invasion of the Cossack Republic, which I've put off until now because I'd hoped either Caucasus or the Russian Empire would invade it. Unfortunate - it is Axis, but it stands in my way. I'm hoping that some units involved in the invasion of the Russian Empire will switch to come down south, and invade into the north of the Cossack Republic. Here is my invasion preparation: (with my main army highlighted)

Argh, I have to eat! Okay, so I'll just leave you with some images of the newspaper economy reports, my economy as it stands, and all my units currently. I didn't take a screenshot of research, because my screenshot of all my armies covers everything I've researched. Everything except interceptors - those I've researched to level 3, just not upgraded mine yet.

As always, I welcome and value everyone's input.

Probably beat you take out the coalition ASAP. The thing about them is that they have large countries, and that if you take say the core part of Germany, the rest will probably be empty and easy to take. It’s also best to take them out before their greater resource production catches up to you. You should be able to quickly wipe Germany and Italy out in one fell swoop, and then take Iberia after.

My advice: don't bother tryna conquer Turkey. In the map it seems they are inactive (are they?) and even if they aren't, the mountains and Black Sea are big hinderances to conquering fast. I would've suggested you skip invading Russia with your main force, blitz Germany and Italy with your main forces, told Finland to attack Russia, backstabbed them with a secondary force you either split from the main force (if you can spare them) or make new ones. Adding up all the VPs that is 230 VP, meaning you'd only need 80 VP, which you can prolly salvage from Finland in time (the math was done mentally, so it might be inaccurate lol).

Taking out Spain as well during that should hell make things easier.

Carking the 6th wrote:

Taking out Spain as well during that should hell make things easier.

It’s not like those armies will have any other use. He might as well storm it after and grab those cities, while the other half of his army goes ahead and takes over Finland and the east. You might not gain enough in the even harder terrain in the north, and Turkey would take crossing a sea. S(pain) may be somewhat hard, but it’s a good option to secure points just in case. Either that or you naval invade Sweden after taking Germany or something lol.