Lessons Learned: Alliance match 1,350,858

Recap: Our initial country assignments left much to be desired. All our countries were on the periphery, with only Russia and Turkey sharing a border. We were forced to remain defensive in the beginning, but as their losses mounted we were able to gain the initiative and take the fight to them. Once that occurred they folded rather quickly. I tried to keep a daily update going in the Forum. Kal's updates were of great help to me in keeping the overall picture.

Lessons Learned.
Communication: Initial communication wasn't great but still better than last time. It greatly improved as I realized when people were usually on. By the end we were on the same page. Great back and forth between myself, Kal, Antonio and Ajacs. Never had a good feel when Charles was on but when he was he responded to requests.

Tech: Overall we all kept research going, although I required quite a lot of RM from Kal. This proved beneficial as the opposition seemed to lag on research. I learned to research AT before LTs, didn't know I could.

Production: Kal and I finally convince Antonio of the benefits of upgrading existing ICs vice building new ones. Kal, Ajacs, and I had at least 2 lvl 5 ICs going by the end of the game, I don't think they had one. This explains how we could outproduce them later in the game.

Defense: I learned the effectiveness of AT guns. My primary focus had always been on mobility with the exception of artillery. I found that when forced to defend, infantry supported by AT are the way to go, especially effective defending urban areas. Charles learned the value of maintaining defensive force in the core provinces, even if you are separated from the enemy by an ocean.

Timing and distances: In the beginning I failed to take fully into account travel times, especially regarding US reinforcements to Spain. I should have asked Charles to send all but a few units to Spain immediately, he would have replaced them before they landed in Spain, and been able to expand from there into the rest of America. I also didn't have my full force in the initial battle with Italy/Germany. I was too focused on taking Romania.

Resource management: We did a good job off helping each other out with resources. We managed to keep all our economies humming and building, even mine. Charles lost a lot to unprotected convoys being intercepted, he gradually began to use naval units to escort them. Some patience would have probably gone a long way in his amphibious raids, but they were effective non the less.

Air Power: Superior air power was instrumental to our victory. Ajacs TACs hammered their forces. They deployed interceptors poorly, attacking naval units, vice patrolling the skies. This eliminated any threat they may have been to TACs. I had initially began building an airforce but, with my debacle in Zagreb, that quickly went the way of the Dodo.

Kal, Ajacs, Antonio and Charles please add anything I overlooked.

The ATs were definitely instrumental in my fights against Sweden and Germany, with their LT heavy armies.
Constant IC construction definitely began to tell as the war went on, with increased resources and production speed, we managed to outproduce an enemy with a greater number of ICs and cities.
A definite balance needed to be maintained between the need to advance and the requirements for reinforcements, as well as finding and maintaining defensive lines.

So lessons for next battle is build a couple of ATs, they're cheap and quick to build, and they'll hold your cities till an ally can come help you out.
Commando units became instrumental to my strategy later due to huge manpower deficits and began replacing infantry, its multirole and city-taking capabilities were very useful, and it frees up manpower for artillery and ATs.

In terms of research although there was no explicit need to specialise, we all picked out the best option for our each theatre quite well.

Espionage: not used much, but did grab a few useful bits of info on enemy movements. might consider using it more next battle, but that depends on money. we do have HC users among us, so the shared intelligence option will greatly help with that.

Forgot the specifically mention flexible strategy. As stated before I prefer to produce a highly mobile army. I attempted to do so in this game but could not keep up with the LT production of Germany, much less Germany and Italy together. Therefore I had to switch strategy to an urban defensive strategy, heavy on infantry and AT guns. On the other hand, our opponents hamstrung themselves by not switching strategies and continued to produce only LTs in Italy and Germany, severely compromising their ability to take urban territories. This ensured that I was able to maintain control over all 5 of my urban centers long enough for Turkey and Russia to send forces to relieve me.

This entry is to supplement to Liemannen comments:

Lessons learned : Day 1-7, After being invaded (amphibious landing) twice from France. The key to good defense for the unexpected invasion is to always have a rapid response force (RRF) to protect the core 5 cites. This force should include inf, AT and artillery, ( tanks & AC should never defend a city unless it is an emergency) the amount of each unit is individual preference. With out the RRF, Spain would have fallen on day 8.
Naval: As Spain, I should have made a port city on the West Coast, (Lisbon). I left the city before morale could rise, Lisbon revolted and the IC was destroyed in the retaking of the city. Lisbon would have been a good place to build naval units to possibly prevent an amphibious landing from France, Great Britain and disembarking port for US troops. My two naval ports were in the Med. and travel time to the West Coast of Spain was over 24hrs. Since I did not have the resources to rebuild Lisbon, it was a dead space. Having good port placement can be essential to defending your country and could effect the outcome of the game in the long term. Did we lose the game because Spain did not have Lisbon, NO. Having Lisbon as a Naval port producing units would have made Spain's defense more formidable, Spain's offense would have had an earlier start.

Communication: Has Liemannen stated previously , our team did not have a coherent plan as a group in the beginning of game. The other alliance did have a plan as was orchestrated pretty well.  Make a plan in the first couple of days, communicate the plan to other teammates, then make a Larger Strategy to coordinate as a group. Making a strategy will come will experience as we play with each other more. Making good strategy is a skill as a group we need to do more effectively.

 Noted:The UK player from the other team was remarkable. Great Britain was able to reinforce French and Germany offensive fronts, attacking Yugoslavia and Spain, defending Italy's homeland, while also invading USA and Russia homeland. The UK player exposed two weakness on our side. 1. A good homeland defense (anticipating where a attack could happen). 2. A response to a good strategy. UK was finally surrounded by US and Spanish navies in the final days of the game, cutting off reinforcing to European mainland. UK was never dealt with effectively as Spain concentrate on France and Italy and the US had long logistic route to travel. In the end UK was spread out too much, with no resources for research. All production going to support France, Germany and Italy. The UK player was clearly the MVP of the game and was instrumental in keeping US on the defensive. Good opponents need to be recognized and planned for as to not repeat the same scenarios that occurred in this game.