Eliminating Montenegro on turn 2

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: Bavre

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor
Like I said before, I like The Montenegro Gambit...but the rewards are so great for the CP in the early game and equally devastating to the Entente. Its going to become a normal play...and not a risky gambit.

Absolutely seconded!
Right now it's no gambit, it's the Montenegro "I win button". The overall strategy doesn't even matter. Being able to order Chaptermaster Hindenburg and the Kaisers Spacemarines into the fray by turn 3 will give you an immense advantage that will only get worse through snowballing.
And then there's the possibility to repeat it twice over easily, thanks to the headway the Montenegro effect gives.

I'm in fact already brainstorming ideas for mods/houserules with my next opponent as we speak.

Btw, just was toying with another idea: time the simultanious death of Greece and Albania with an all out invasion of Italy. Since after the M-gambit and Serbias death you have a great deal of control over the point of time Greece and Albania kick the bucket and you can simply anticipate Italys entry via its percentage, it should be doable.
Considering how weak Italy initially is, you're probably in Rome by the time your boost wears off.

There's a discussion developing in the Mod forum. I would like to try Chernobyl's suggestion of making Pec an alternate capital and new convoy scripts. mdsmall just posted how to do the alternate capital edit...but I don't know how to script new convoy lines. If someone can but up a quick mod I would be happy to test this from the Entente P.o.V.

stockwellpete had questions about the railroads down there also...and I found a RR map from 1912 that shows that the RR link from Sarajevo to the Adriatic coast is a tertiary branch, a single line railroad that winds through the mountains of Bosnia. Its not a primary trunk line, or even a secondary regular line. This may be an additional elegant solution..anyway..I will post that on the Mod forum as a partial consideration.

(btw..will finish turn 4 on our test in the War Room for a final and conclusion...got busy for some reason lol)

We need an EMERGENCY patch to fix this to everybody's satisfaction before the tournament. The tourney registration came up, but I didn't sign in because of the M-Gambit. And...all I do is MP's....except to learn a game and test strategy and tactics...

[Dazo]

Another possible deployment for the MT gambit is to send two german corps with 1 xp star and a lvl 5 HQ to Cetinje.
Then you upgrade the HQ to 8 just before the attack on turn 2 and you have a good chance to kill the MT detachment with the help of the AH corps.
Not certain though.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Austro-Hungarian Railway Network 1912. The railway from Sarajevo to the Adriatic is a single track 'branch".

There is a 'Regular' line segment on the coast that is short..the single track branch connects it to the main network of AH. The question is could this 'branch' rail handle huge military traffic as featured as operational movement in SC-WW1?

Also..this single line transits Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was Ottoman until annexed in 1908...so this could be an old Turkish railway. No matter really...it is a single line mentioned from other sources I have to find again.

Note: I posted this on the mod forum...its possible that a simple snip-snip of the segment of rail line from Sarajevo to the coast might do the trick + Pec as second capital. It would be still possible to do the Montenegro Gambit..but not on a two turn quasi-exploit. You send 100 to 150 thousand Germans down there operationally, well they need to stage in Sarajevo and march down if the CP player wishes to pursue this stratagem.

Its an idea that stockwellpete brought up..and I'm pursuing the data to support this proposal. Like to hear feedback on this possibility

[mdsmall]

Eliminating that rail line to Sarajevo would probably stop the Montenegro Gambit stone cold, since it is all about deploying overwhelming force against a high value target in the first couple of moves of the game. If the CP player has to walk the attacking force over low supply, hilly terrain to surround Cetinje, they will probably focus on the main Serbian front instead, leaving the task of capturing Cetinje to later. If you eliminated that rail line, I would suggest it be paired with a modification to the French-Serbia convoy script that requires Serbia to control all the hexes of the rail line between Cetinje and say Pristina, so that the CP player would have other ways of stopping the convoy, by cutting the rail connection from Cetinje to Serbia. (I mentioned this thought in my post in response to yours on the Mod forum).

Looking at the map you have posted, it looks like the whole Dalmatian coast is "under-served" by the A-H rail system, not just the link from Sarajevo to Cetinje, and the same argument could be made about the capacity of the rail connections to the various ports along that coast-line. But I am inclined to leave that sleeping dog lie for now.

[stockwellpete]

Another map here showing the main railway lines in Europe in 1914 . . .

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4625763/WWOne02.gif



Interesting transcription of a talk here on the railways in 1914, mainly concentrating on western Europe . . .

https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/i ... r-in-1914/



Only 3 quid!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Railways-Befor ... oks&sr=1-1

[OldCrowBalthazor]

I just founded out the rail line from Sarajevo to the Adriatic is a narrow gauge railway. The short line that goes along the coast also is.

I have images and data of the trains themselves (they are small)..the gradients and other information. Those rail lines are not even like the main trunks. On top of that...I have contemporaneous accounts of the these railroads at the time...with the words "steep', 'torturous','curvy', 'slow', and the like.

There is even a name for this unique gauge, and it's called 'Bosnian Gauge'.
I have every thing and I will post it on the mod forum tomorrow. I may just rename the thread on that forum since there are so many ideas to fix this thing.

My conclusion is that those 2 short rail lines don't belong on the SC-WW1 map. There isn't even the right rolling stock on those lines to handle large formations of troops!

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

I just founded out the rail line from Sarajevo to the Adriatic is a narrow gauge railway. The short line that goes along the coast also is.

I have images and data of the trains themselves (they are small)..the gradients and other information. Those rail lines are not even like the main trunks. On top of that...I have contemporaneous accounts of the these railroads at the time...with the words "steep','torturous','curvy', 'slow', and the like.

There is even a name for this unique gauge, and it's called 'Bosnian Gauge'.
I have every thing and I will post it on the mod forum tomorrow. I may just rename that since there are so many ideas to fix this thing.

My conclusion is that those 2 short rail lines don't belong on the SC-WW1 map. There isn't even the right rolling stock on those lines to handle large formations of troops!

Fascinating stuff, OCB. So now we know why the Austrians attacked at the "Belgrade end" rather than the "Cetinje end".[:)]

[Espejo]

I ahve to admit being on the receiving end of the gambit is not fun at all as you can do zip to counter it.

As the game does a great job to simulate the decisions of the first world war I would love to see an option as suggested to limit the number of units which can be railed in down the Adria. I think it would have been rather impossible at this time to rail in 500k sodiers in weeks over one puny railroad. Perhaps there is an option to limit the number of units allowed to be railed in to 1. Allowing of careful build up of forces butnot warping in up to 7 units within 2 turns

[Dazo]

There is another possibility: eliminate the buy back feature from research.
You would still be able to terminate ongoing chits but it won't give you back half of the cost.
That way, no more railing on turn 1. MTN and Serbia would both have 1 turn without german units around.
AH could still forcfemarch some units in the area but that's it.

The 2nd AH army event could also be made so it's more interesting to deploy it in Galicia (units arriving earlier maybe).
That way it won't be a no brainer to deploy those units in Serbia whatever the circumstances.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Dazo

There is another possibility: eliminate the buy back feature from reasearch.
You would still be able to terminate ongoing chits but it won't give you back half of the cost.
That way, no more railing on turn 1. MTN and Serbia would both have 1 turn without german units around.
AH could still forcfemarch some units in the area but that's it.

The 2nd AH army event could also be made so it's more interesting to deploy it in Galicia (units arriving earlier maybe).
That way it won't be a no brainer to deploy those units in Serbia whatever the circumstances.

I agree almost all of the best players do this at game start and it creates too many issues in my opinion...

[Chernobyl]

ORIGINAL: Dazo
eliminate the buy back feature from reasearch

And prevent your France from railing 4 corps into Belgium on their first turn?

I am pretty sure all players sell their German airships tech and Russian heavy bombers techs on turn 1. The Germans kind of need to rail at least one corps to the east to defend forts and provide ZOC to slow down Russian cavalry incursions. Else you'll have to defend so many NM objectives on your second turn that you'll waste unit-time. The Russians might even surround a fort early if there's no ZOC to slow them down.

If I were going to ban tech selling, I would revise the starting MPP for each nation and give Germany and Austria a bit more than zero on turn 1 (kind of like how Entente nations start with some MPP).

[Dazo]

That's the point, it makes Schlieffen more interesting for CP [:D].

But yes, most experienced players kill research chits to get more wiggle room on turn 1.
In a way it introduces more variability but it can also creates some problems like for Montenegro/Serbia.
Well you can also have a gentlemen's agreement not to do that or even just to use autodeploy for CP at start (that one is no fun).

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Something needs doing because as it stands atm the game is flawed by the M-Gambit. All the last fixes were great but heavily favor the CP. I advocated many of these because they were needed.
I proposed a RR snip in Bosnia as a 'possible' solution because it would fix this..but still allow the M-Gambit in a realistic fashion, not as an exploit, which the M-Gambit is as it stands right now.

I think they used the WiE map for a lot of the RR's. here in SC-WW1. There is a precedence to changing the infrastructure in other current SC titles though after player suggestions and complaints:

1) They finally linked Kars to the rest of the Turkish Rail Net in WaW and WiE
2) They added the Kolyma Highway (Highway of Bones) from Magadan to Yakutsk in WaW

Shouldn't be a problem to eliminate a single line narrow gauge railway that goes through Bosnia from Sarajevo to the Adriatic coast.If we don't go for amending a simple RR fix....then the Pec second capital idea plus an HQ is a better than nothing. With that..I don't want to die on this hill with this Bosnia RR proposal..but I am testing it along with a second capital at Pec for Montenegro. Montenegro is famous for being an impenetrable.

On this thread earlier I mentioned that the easy solution was not allowing the sale of research chits on turn one..but also added that this isn't desirable because it takes away the flexibility to operate, or change focus on a new research plan. Bill agreed also that this wouldn't be the best way to go forward...though it would be the easiest to do.

Houserule constraints are possible...but its just a stop gap. Why wouldn't anyone playing CP not WANT TO do the M-Gambit as it stands. Right now..maybe some wouldn't maybe because they know its an eXploit by the very definition of exploit. For the M-Gambit to be by definition a Gambit..e.g. a stratagem..then a game mechanic change of some type that either doesn't allow the operational movement of forces right next to Montenegro (RR fix that still allows chit selling), or second capital of Nish and HQ., or something else entirely...is needed urgently.

A fix was made for Bulgaria...a simple one at that, that still allows The Bulgarian Gambit, but takes away to a major degree the ability to do a one turn alpha strike on Sofia. Fixing that was a huge win for game balance...as The Bulgarian Gambit in the early version of the game an almost certain defeat for the CP.

Anyway..I have a Bosnia RR fix modification in the editor..and I am going to test it out. I'm doing this because I want to play this wonderful game in MP again...but am not going to after experiencing this quasi-exploit in the Montenegrin Gambit test against Bavre.

cheers and beers or tea for the teetotalers [8D]

[Bavre]

Since this has spilled out over 4 threads now, here's a copy from my post in the other one:

Well, half the Russian army got away into the swamp in this one, which was not really satisfying. So I devised a 1.04 Version of the all east M-gambit which should be faaar more deadly than the one I used on OldCrow. Test subject wanted, veteran Entente player prefered!


Btw, I think nerfing this insane surrender bonus is the way to go. Without it railed in German units will be far less deadly the turn afterwards. I'm currently trying a non-M-gambit exploit of it with mdsmall. We will keep you posted!

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: Bavre

Since this has spilled out over 4 threads now, here's a copy from my post in the other one:

Well, half the Russian army got away into the swamp in this one, which was not really satisfying. So I devised a 1.04 Version of the all east M-gambit which should be faaar more deadly than the one I used on OldCrow. Test subject wanted, veteran Entente player prefered!


Btw, I think nerfing this insane surrender bonus is the way to go. Without it railed in German units will be far less deadly the turn afterwards. I'm currently trying a non-M-gambit exploit of it with mdsmall. We will keep you posted!

I'll do it..pm me the details. I must like torture [8D]

Edit: I pm'd you Bavre. Lets science the s%#t out of this then...and you be the lab rat evil doctor and I play the hapless guinea pig. AAR's included for those that are morbidly interested [:D]

[shri]

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

ORIGINAL: Bavre

Since this has spilled out over 4 threads now, here's a copy from my post in the other one:

Well, half the Russian army got away into the swamp in this one, which was not really satisfying. So I devised a 1.04 Version of the all east M-gambit which should be faaar more deadly than the one I used on OldCrow. Test subject wanted, veteran Entente player prefered!


Btw, I think nerfing this insane surrender bonus is the way to go. Without it railed in German units will be far less deadly the turn afterwards. I'm currently trying a non-M-gambit exploit of it with mdsmall. We will keep you posted!

I'll do it..pm me the details. I must like torture [8D]

Edit: I pm'd you Bavre. Lets science the s%#t out of this then...and you be the lab rat evil doctor and I play the hapless guinea pig. AAR's included for those that are morbidly interested [:D]

So, Bavre is doctor Frankenstein? [:D]

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: shri

So, Bavre is doctor Frankenstein? [:D]

Hmmmm....that, or like Dr Chernobyl's Monster [:D]

[Chernobyl]

Ha I thought this attack on Montenegro was powerful but I didn't realize I would be breaking the game so badly. I got the idea from Dazo who suggested attacking Cetinje early. Taking his suggestion seriously, I thought I wonder if it's possible to just force a capture of the city immediately no matter what the Serbs do and I tested and bam it works really well and there's no way to stop it. But it's also possible players were doing this attack before I posted about it. I'm just the one who mentioned it.

I'm not necessarily against deleting rail lines. How much of the railroad do you propose to delete exactly? Just the last connection to Cetinje, or the whole Dalmatian rail line?

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

I'm not necessarily against deleting rail lines. How much of the railroad do you propose to delete exactly? Just the last connection to Cetinje, or the whole Dalmatian rail line?

My own view is that, first of all, the map shouldn't have anything on it that wasn't there during the war. So if there are railway lines that can be identified that were not built until after 1918 then they should be removed first. Once that is done we then have a trickier judgement to make about whether some of the railway lines on the map were actually capable of facilitating large troop movements. I think OCB is providing strong evidence that the Dalmatian railway (and the line to Sarajevo) probably was not. So in a situation where railway "operation" is unlimited (provided you have sufficient MPP's), I think it makes sense to consider deleting some, or all, of this line. The bare minimum you probably need to do is delete the line between Ragusa and Cetinje. That is just one hex - 183,99. If that is not sufficient then the next deletion would be the lines running from Cetinje to Mostar and to Split.

If you wanted to keep the railway line as it is then an alternative might be to limit the number of "operations" allowed along the line to Cetinje to just 1 per turn. But I think this idea has massive implications for railways right across the game and it might not be desirable. So the easiest solution is to delete the railway line so that the Montenegrin gambit does not break the game.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

I'm not necessarily against deleting rail lines. How much of the railroad do you propose to delete exactly? Just the last connection to Cetinje, or the whole Dalmatian rail line?

Sarajevo to the Dalmatian coast...replace it with a paved road. The paved road would simulate the narrow gauge line..plus the ease of passage to troops on foot (or even by truck with the mobility upgrade) and supply.

Another thing about ease of passage: These rail lines all were built to eliminate steep grades..so troops on foot and supply wagons would have an easier time moving through this mountainous district.

Stockwellpete and I are gathering material to support this idea. We are slowly putting together enough evidence to submit. I have something on the editor...it will be a bit before I test it to see if it's right. We have been adding drops and pieces of data up in the mod forum in two places...

Btw...you wondered if anyone else has been doing this 2 turn take down. Well, I have..but not until early 1915...two times when I had trouble in the lower half of Serbia...and I used Germans and an artillery unit that suddenly descended there from elsewhere. Even then, I thought it was a bit unrealistic knowing personally how rugged this area is. It never crossed my mind to try that on the first turn though...truly diabolical thinking there haha!

So, Dazo gave you the inspiration to take this to a higher level eh? Well now...Two devils when we thought there was only one. [:D]