Entente Turn 38 February 24, 1917
I continued my winter struggles in Romania by launching a carefully prepared attack against the Ottoman corps entrenched in the Bulgarian fortified town of Rustchuk on the lower Danube. Despite having the corps surrounded on all six sides and shelling it with 14 heavy artillery shells from two batteries, it took seven attacks to finally wipe out the last defender. Attacking in winter, across a major river, from marsh, is brutal. But it was worth it as it opens a direct road and rail route south from Bucharest into Bulgaria and ultimately to Constantinople. A bit further west, I took on an Austro-Hungarian corps entrenched at the edge Transylvania. Taking this out was less essential but it still frees up my ability to move down the road I have now cleared to Serbia. The land convoy from Russia that was supplying Serbia is now back up again. Next to Varna, I surrounded one Ottoman detachment so it will hit zero supply next turn. To the west, I moved up my UK corps into Bulgaria and evicted one unentrenched Bulgarian corps that was sitting on Plovdiv. I also strengthened my line facing the Austro-Hungarians in Serbia with UK corps that have now reached Infantry Weapons 2.
Egypt was quiet this turn. I sent my two marine units back to replace the two corps holding the line, so they could be upgraded. One Senussi continues to pretend to maraud around Upper Egypt. In Arabia, I finally reinforced the remaining Arab partisan in the desert.
Mesopotamia was a positioning turn. I wanted to upgrade all my British corps but most were not in supply 5 range, so I moved up General Maude. My cavalry took up advanced positions in *front of the Ottoman corps holed up in [ ] and could see the Ottoman general in retreat behind. To my surprise, he evacuated Mosul, so I occupied it with my Russian cavalry and sent the further corps forward to the new juncture settlement on the railroad to Aleppo. With some misgivings, I decided to keep the Russian general I had sent to this theatre (Evert) so he can supply and reinforce these three cavalry corps.
No movements in Russia, apart from positioning my second artillery unit to put Warsaw and Lodz in its sights, for the spring. My Russian subs returned to port again to be upgraded to Advanced Subs One.
In Italy, I reinforced units to get ready for a spring attack towards Klagenfurt.
In France, I had one more quiet turn to finish upgrading all my corps and slightly repositioning my heavy artillery towards the Somme line. It is good to see French defence in depth - corps three rows deep along the main front. I finally remembered to fire off surplus heavy artillery shells at several of his front-line corps. It will be interesting to see if he starts to attack again in the spring on this front as he did for most of 1916. This time though, I now have four British corps deployed in France and two more coming shortly plus a tank unit, so France this year will have some help pressing forward despite heavy casualties.
No naval action in the North Sea, or in the Mediterranean. The UK finished reinforcing two more damaged light cruisers and send them into action.
At the beginning of the turn, the UK received a DE giving them the option of having one Japanese destroyer hunt down German commerce raiders in the Indian Ocean, versus showing up with full research turn-up in Gibraltar. I usually choose the latter but this time, since my ASW situation is fairly strong and I already was risking industrial action due to conscription, I chose to have the Japanese fleet operate in the Indian Ocean and reduce the economic losses from German raiders.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested chits in Tank Development (for 1) and Motorization (for 1), plus buying a Maritime Bomber
- France invested one chit in Ground Attack Weapons (for 1), Tank Development (for 1) and Production Technology (for 3)
- Italy invested almost all its MPPs in one chit on Gas/Shell Development (for 1)
- Serbia saved its MPPs for next turn, in order to build up a buffer against future losses
- the USA saved its MPPs to start buying units next turn
- Russia invested in one chit for Advanced Submarines (for 2) and Armoured Warfare (for 3). Russia bought its first Tank Corps and the second Romanian HQ.
At the end of the turn, the Russian Foreign Minister reported that the USA had swung 9% towards the Entente - so our initiative to invest diplomatic chits in the major power is beginning to pay off.
Most importantly, at the end of my turn, the Bulgarians finally surrendered after surviving four previous surrender checks after I captured their last capital on turn 36. This completely changes the strategic picture in the Balkans.
In tech:
- the UK reached Trench Warfare 5
- France reached ASW 3
- the USA reached ASW 2
- Russia reached Infantry Weapons 2, Mobility 1 and Aerial Warfare 1
Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 39 April 7, 1917
Winter is over and it is the start of a new game year - so this is a good time to give a brief overview of how the game looks from my side. With the surrender of Bulgaria, German National Morale close to 50% and both Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans well below that, I think it is certain that he cannot win and that an Entente victory is assured in 1918. The only real question is how long it will take. My plan is to focus on knocking out the Ottomans first by taking Constantinople and not accepting a cease-fire. With three Entente armies in the Balkans (Serbian, British and Russian, plus Romanian, and Greek allies), this should not be difficult, but it will probably take at least ten turns to get my Russian forces into position and to eliminate every defender he puts in the way. At this point, Mesopotamia and Egypt are side-shows. I will keep my forces there to pin down Ottoman defenders but capturing Constantinople will be the sure route to victory. My intention is to use Russians and Romanians for this task, supported by the smaller Greek army (three corps, one artillery and a general). I will concentrate the British and Serbian forces on attacking the Austro-Hungarian line in Serbia and gradually reconquering Serbia and ultimately pushing into the open terrain north of Belgrade. Italy is in a good position to put significant pressure on the Austro-Hungarians too by driving forward slowly to take Trieste and then the Pola peninsula which will cost him most of his ports and will leave their navy exposed to destruction by the Italian, British and French fleets. On the Eastern front, the very large Russian army will not have much hitting power as long as the heavy artillery is concentrated against the Ottomans. But the two artillery units there will be sufficient to enable me to recapture Warsaw in a couple of turns and then Novo-Georgievsk. This should raise Russian NM morale to over 110% and reduce the Germans below 40% which will increase their combat effectiveness. On the Western Front, it will continue to be a grind, but I hope the combined French and British armies deployed there, reinforced with two tank corps (one each), will start to make a dent. Later in the year, my recent tech investments in aircraft technology should start to pay-off and should increase my ability to launch combined arms attacks. In the Baltic, the Russians will keep building and upgrading submarines as fast as they can, so they can raid German naval units if they venture outside their home ports. In the North Sea and the Atlantic, I now have covered all of the near blockade line and most of the distant one - which in 1917 now incurs 50% greater NM hit per hex per turn in this mod. He will send his subs and perhaps his rebuilt destroyers out for one more major sally, but I am confident that I can destroy them. Finally, in terms of the diplomatic picture, he is clearly trying to diplo the Netherlands into the game on his side. In my view, that is a good thing - once the Netherlands joins, he loses a net 30 MPPs due to the end of food imports from the neutral Netherlands, plus there is an additional 50 NM hit each turn. So, I plan to help that out by pulling out the three British diplo chits I have kept in the Netherlands and switching them to Sweden, which I hope to swing eventually to 20% to the Entente side, thus triggering the Swedish convoy going to the UK. Finally, I will keep up the Russian diplo investments in the USA and should be able to bring them in on the Entente side buy summer 1917 - pending his decisions and mine around the Zimmerman telegram.
Executing this plan got off to a slow start this turn - in part due to mud everywhere but more due to the fact that the Russian just reached Infantry Weapons 2 this turn (earlier than I expected) and the British still have some upgrading to do. The Russians also achieved Mobility tech - which offers further upgrading options; but given the expense, I decided only to upgrade with mobility only a few elite corps for now (basically the Russian mountain corps and any corps that has one experience point). In the Balkans, I upgraded rather than moved as many Russian and Romanian units as I could, thus leaving the Ottomans free to regroup and rebuild their land line of defence around Adrianople. I started to separate the British, Serbian, and Greek forces - which had been fighting on two fronts until Bulgaria surrendered, sending the Greeks east towards Constantinople and the British north towards Austria-Hungary. The Serbs at this point will play a supporting role in the liberation of their own country, as they will be stuck at Infantry Weapons 1 for most of this year.
In Mesopotamia, I used the Russian cavalry to probe forward to spot the Ottoman point defences in northern Syria and Anatolia. I realize these cavalry units will not have enough combat power to de-entrench any entrench Ottoman units, so I reversed course and decided to send General Evert walking back to the railhead at Tabriz, so he can rejoin the main Eastern front. The British slowly moved around the Ottoman corps dug in at Ramadi on the western bank of the Euphrates. They were limited in their ability to attack or upgrade until I could move General Maude onto Baghdad, thus increasing their supply.
In Poland, I used my field artillery to destroy another German corps two hexes south of Warsaw, thus rolling up my line closer to that main target. In the Baltic, the Russian navy upgraded its four subs to level 1.
In Italy, the Italians scored a success by capturing the NM hex of Klagenfurt. This bends the Austro-Hungarian line and will enable the Italians to continue to put pressure on attacking to capture Trieste. The Italian airship spotted two Austro-Hungarian ships outside of ports in the northern Adriatic, including his second DN which he has finally brought in as a reinforcement, so I moved my British sub and my surface ships in the southern Adriatic a bit northward so I could try to pick one or two of these off next turn.
On the Western Front, the French attacked and killed a sacrificial German corps next to Amiens, thus rolling up much of the line beyond the Somme (which they completely controlled at the start of 1916). It will be slow work to recapture Boulogne, but once I do, I can start to roll back the German line defending Brussels.
There was no movement at all in the North Sea or the Atlantic - I have now upgraded all of my ASW capability and have all my units in place - a forward line of destroyers about seven hexes north of his two North Sea ports, then a back-up line of destroyers about four hexes south of the blockade line, then the blockade line, supported by my capital ships around Scapa Flow.
In terms of investments:
- the UK spent 5 diplomacy chits on Sweden, plus 1 chit on Tank Development (for 2), 1 chit on Naval Warfare (for 2), 1 on Airship Development (for 1) and 1 on Armoured Warfare (for 3)
- France invested 1 chit on Tank Development (for 2), 3 on Long-Range Aircraft (for 3), 1 on Ground Attack Weapons (for 2), 1 on Armoured Warfare (for 3) and 1, and 2 on Aerial Warfare (for 3)
- Italy invested one chit in Naval Weapons (for 1)
- Serbia invested one chit on Infantry Weapons
- the USA invested 1 chit on ASW (for 2), 1 chit on Long-Range Aircraft (for 2) and bought its first unit - a Ground Attack Bomber with level 1 tech on Range, Ground Attack Weapons and Naval Weapons.
- Russia spent most of its MPPs upgrading units but was still able to invest one chit in diplomacy with the USA (for 5).
At the end of the turn, Sweden swung 8% towards the Entente, leaving it at only 1% for the Central Powers.
In tech:
- the UK reached Gas/Shell tech 2
- the USA reached Fighter Development 3, Long Range Aircraft 2 and Trench Warfare 2
Winter is over and it is the start of a new game year - so this is a good time to give a brief overview of how the game looks from my side. With the surrender of Bulgaria, German National Morale close to 50% and both Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans well below that, I think it is certain that he cannot win and that an Entente victory is assured in 1918. The only real question is how long it will take. My plan is to focus on knocking out the Ottomans first by taking Constantinople and not accepting a cease-fire. With three Entente armies in the Balkans (Serbian, British and Russian, plus Romanian, and Greek allies), this should not be difficult, but it will probably take at least ten turns to get my Russian forces into position and to eliminate every defender he puts in the way. At this point, Mesopotamia and Egypt are side-shows. I will keep my forces there to pin down Ottoman defenders but capturing Constantinople will be the sure route to victory. My intention is to use Russians and Romanians for this task, supported by the smaller Greek army (three corps, one artillery and a general). I will concentrate the British and Serbian forces on attacking the Austro-Hungarian line in Serbia and gradually reconquering Serbia and ultimately pushing into the open terrain north of Belgrade. Italy is in a good position to put significant pressure on the Austro-Hungarians too by driving forward slowly to take Trieste and then the Pola peninsula which will cost him most of his ports and will leave their navy exposed to destruction by the Italian, British and French fleets. On the Eastern front, the very large Russian army will not have much hitting power as long as the heavy artillery is concentrated against the Ottomans. But the two artillery units there will be sufficient to enable me to recapture Warsaw in a couple of turns and then Novo-Georgievsk. This should raise Russian NM morale to over 110% and reduce the Germans below 40% which will increase their combat effectiveness. On the Western Front, it will continue to be a grind, but I hope the combined French and British armies deployed there, reinforced with two tank corps (one each), will start to make a dent. Later in the year, my recent tech investments in aircraft technology should start to pay-off and should increase my ability to launch combined arms attacks. In the Baltic, the Russians will keep building and upgrading submarines as fast as they can, so they can raid German naval units if they venture outside their home ports. In the North Sea and the Atlantic, I now have covered all of the near blockade line and most of the distant one - which in 1917 now incurs 50% greater NM hit per hex per turn in this mod. He will send his subs and perhaps his rebuilt destroyers out for one more major sally, but I am confident that I can destroy them. Finally, in terms of the diplomatic picture, he is clearly trying to diplo the Netherlands into the game on his side. In my view, that is a good thing - once the Netherlands joins, he loses a net 30 MPPs due to the end of food imports from the neutral Netherlands, plus there is an additional 50 NM hit each turn. So, I plan to help that out by pulling out the three British diplo chits I have kept in the Netherlands and switching them to Sweden, which I hope to swing eventually to 20% to the Entente side, thus triggering the Swedish convoy going to the UK. Finally, I will keep up the Russian diplo investments in the USA and should be able to bring them in on the Entente side buy summer 1917 - pending his decisions and mine around the Zimmerman telegram.
Executing this plan got off to a slow start this turn - in part due to mud everywhere but more due to the fact that the Russian just reached Infantry Weapons 2 this turn (earlier than I expected) and the British still have some upgrading to do. The Russians also achieved Mobility tech - which offers further upgrading options; but given the expense, I decided only to upgrade with mobility only a few elite corps for now (basically the Russian mountain corps and any corps that has one experience point). In the Balkans, I upgraded rather than moved as many Russian and Romanian units as I could, thus leaving the Ottomans free to regroup and rebuild their land line of defence around Adrianople. I started to separate the British, Serbian, and Greek forces - which had been fighting on two fronts until Bulgaria surrendered, sending the Greeks east towards Constantinople and the British north towards Austria-Hungary. The Serbs at this point will play a supporting role in the liberation of their own country, as they will be stuck at Infantry Weapons 1 for most of this year.
In Mesopotamia, I used the Russian cavalry to probe forward to spot the Ottoman point defences in northern Syria and Anatolia. I realize these cavalry units will not have enough combat power to de-entrench any entrench Ottoman units, so I reversed course and decided to send General Evert walking back to the railhead at Tabriz, so he can rejoin the main Eastern front. The British slowly moved around the Ottoman corps dug in at Ramadi on the western bank of the Euphrates. They were limited in their ability to attack or upgrade until I could move General Maude onto Baghdad, thus increasing their supply.
In Poland, I used my field artillery to destroy another German corps two hexes south of Warsaw, thus rolling up my line closer to that main target. In the Baltic, the Russian navy upgraded its four subs to level 1.
In Italy, the Italians scored a success by capturing the NM hex of Klagenfurt. This bends the Austro-Hungarian line and will enable the Italians to continue to put pressure on attacking to capture Trieste. The Italian airship spotted two Austro-Hungarian ships outside of ports in the northern Adriatic, including his second DN which he has finally brought in as a reinforcement, so I moved my British sub and my surface ships in the southern Adriatic a bit northward so I could try to pick one or two of these off next turn.
On the Western Front, the French attacked and killed a sacrificial German corps next to Amiens, thus rolling up much of the line beyond the Somme (which they completely controlled at the start of 1916). It will be slow work to recapture Boulogne, but once I do, I can start to roll back the German line defending Brussels.
There was no movement at all in the North Sea or the Atlantic - I have now upgraded all of my ASW capability and have all my units in place - a forward line of destroyers about seven hexes north of his two North Sea ports, then a back-up line of destroyers about four hexes south of the blockade line, then the blockade line, supported by my capital ships around Scapa Flow.
In terms of investments:
- the UK spent 5 diplomacy chits on Sweden, plus 1 chit on Tank Development (for 2), 1 chit on Naval Warfare (for 2), 1 on Airship Development (for 1) and 1 on Armoured Warfare (for 3)
- France invested 1 chit on Tank Development (for 2), 3 on Long-Range Aircraft (for 3), 1 on Ground Attack Weapons (for 2), 1 on Armoured Warfare (for 3) and 1, and 2 on Aerial Warfare (for 3)
- Italy invested one chit in Naval Weapons (for 1)
- Serbia invested one chit on Infantry Weapons
- the USA invested 1 chit on ASW (for 2), 1 chit on Long-Range Aircraft (for 2) and bought its first unit - a Ground Attack Bomber with level 1 tech on Range, Ground Attack Weapons and Naval Weapons.
- Russia spent most of its MPPs upgrading units but was still able to invest one chit in diplomacy with the USA (for 5).
At the end of the turn, Sweden swung 8% towards the Entente, leaving it at only 1% for the Central Powers.
In tech:
- the UK reached Gas/Shell tech 2
- the USA reached Fighter Development 3, Long Range Aircraft 2 and Trench Warfare 2
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 40 May 5, 1917
In his last turn, Old Crow got his wish and the Netherlands swung to 99% for the Central Powers. I could see from the replay that he has moved both Austro-Hungarian heavy artillery to the Western Front - giving him a clear edge in artillery over me - 6 heavy units, plus one or two regular artillery, versus four Entente heavy artillery and one regular artillery. When combined with the four new Dutch corps, he will be a very tough nut to crack - and later moves should make for an interesting test of late game technologies on the Western Front.
I had a good turn myself on this front: given that all my units were rebuilt over winter and French army strength is at its maximum, plus this turn there was clear weather, I decided to launch three attacks. I attacked one German corps in clear terrain due west of Lille and an entrenched cavalry unit one hex east of Lille and managed to kill both. After scouting with a French airship based in Britain, I could see that his second line did not cover every hex - confirming (in my mind) that he has not been able to rebuild all his losses. I decided to occupy both hexes, with the expectation that the losses from his counterattacks will hurt him at least as much as they will hurt me. I also took a flyer and used my one regular artillery to shell a German corps due south of Metz. I retreated into the open hex of Woevre, so I decided to kill it and moved into that hex, thus leaving no open spaces in the line. The only weak point on this front for me is that his fighters are ahead in Fighter Tech and he has moved three of them to this front, so my French fighters and airships are taking significant losses each turn that they fly.
In Italy, I carried on my attacks and destroyed an Austro-Hungarian marine unit in the mountain hex north of Trieste. Unfortunately, I did not have the movement points to move into this hex but if he moves in a reinforcement, it should not be able to entrench, so this was still a useful move. My Italian airship once again scouted the Austro-Hungarian navy and revealed the same cruise and pre-dreadnought outside of port near Pola. So, I used my British sub and the Italian DN I put into port at Rimini last turn to sink the weaker heavy cruiser.
In the Balkans, the British scored an unexpected tactical victory by killing an Austro-Hungarian corps on the main line facing Nish and moving into the gap with the I Anzacs. I moved up other British units in place to reinforce my small breakthrough. In Romania, I upgraded a few more corps and moved Russian and Romanian units south to contact the Ottoman line defending Adrianople. Since neither the Ottomans nor it seems the Austro-Hungarians have the units for a second line, they have not been able to upgrade to Infantry Weapons 2, giving me a significant advantage. I could only move one Russian heavy artillery into position to shell the Ottomans next turn, and I decided to keep the other one in place to attack against his line in Transylvania. This is not a very strategic front, but I would like to push him back from the town of Pitesti, so I can rebuild the resource strength of the RR that runs through here and eventually have a fully functioning rail connection that runs from Salonika through Nish, Pitesti, and Bucharest and on into Russia.
In Egypt, I decided to attack without artillery against one of his two Ottoman corps facing mine which seems to have not been entrenched. In Mesopotamia, I was able to destroy his corps defending Ramadi on the Euphrates, but did not push fully forward yet, in order to be able to upgrade more cavalry units from the hexes in full supply near Baghdad.
In Poland, I attacked the German corps one hex south of Warsaw. Surprisingly, it retreated so I sent an upgraded corps in to attack it and kill it. I can now attack Warsaw from three hexes next turn and have fully upgraded corps in place. Elsewhere along the line, I continued to upgrade my infantry wherever I had replacements to Infantry Weapons 2.
In the Baltic, I scouted with my subs and found that he has retreated back close to his main ports in Germany, so I established a picket line of three subs due west of Danzig. In the North Sea and the Atlantic, I kept my lines in place and simply did a little reinforcing of a couple of remaining units that have been damaged for more than a year.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested 3 chits in Aerial Warfare (for 2), 1 on Tank Development (for 3) and 1 on Gas/Shell tech (which I overlooked for several turns)
- France invested 1 chit on Ground Attack Weapons (for 3), 1 chit on Tank Development (for 3) and they bought a Ground Attack Bomber (in the expectation that I will have reached Ground Attack level 1 by the time it arrives).
- Italy invested 1 chit on Industrial Tech (for 3)
- Serbia invested 1 chit on Artillery Weapons since they had few competing uses for 125 MPPs and they might as well start making the investments to make it worthwhile eventually building their one artillery unit.
- The USA spent all of its MPPs buying a Fighter with level 3 fighter tech and level 1 range. I reduced the US convoy to the UK to zero this turn to give them more resources to start building up their strength.
- Russia invested 1 chit on Tank Development (for 3), 1 on Advanced Subs (for 3), 1 one *Armoured Warfare (for 2) and 1 on Aerial Warfare (for 2).
At the end of the turn, I was delighted that Britain scored a diplomatic breakthrough with Sweden, moving it 21% towards the Entente - which is exactly the amount I needed to get it to 20% for the Entente. This will terminate the Swedish convoy to Germany (costing him 750 NM points) and should trigger the start of the new Swedish convoy to the UK through the Norwegian port of Narvik (a new feature I added to this mod). However, there were no swings with the USA even though the 5 Russian diplomatic chits gives me a 40% chance. With Sweden in the bag, I may even invest a British or French diplo chit with the USA in future turns.
In his last turn, Old Crow got his wish and the Netherlands swung to 99% for the Central Powers. I could see from the replay that he has moved both Austro-Hungarian heavy artillery to the Western Front - giving him a clear edge in artillery over me - 6 heavy units, plus one or two regular artillery, versus four Entente heavy artillery and one regular artillery. When combined with the four new Dutch corps, he will be a very tough nut to crack - and later moves should make for an interesting test of late game technologies on the Western Front.
I had a good turn myself on this front: given that all my units were rebuilt over winter and French army strength is at its maximum, plus this turn there was clear weather, I decided to launch three attacks. I attacked one German corps in clear terrain due west of Lille and an entrenched cavalry unit one hex east of Lille and managed to kill both. After scouting with a French airship based in Britain, I could see that his second line did not cover every hex - confirming (in my mind) that he has not been able to rebuild all his losses. I decided to occupy both hexes, with the expectation that the losses from his counterattacks will hurt him at least as much as they will hurt me. I also took a flyer and used my one regular artillery to shell a German corps due south of Metz. I retreated into the open hex of Woevre, so I decided to kill it and moved into that hex, thus leaving no open spaces in the line. The only weak point on this front for me is that his fighters are ahead in Fighter Tech and he has moved three of them to this front, so my French fighters and airships are taking significant losses each turn that they fly.
In Italy, I carried on my attacks and destroyed an Austro-Hungarian marine unit in the mountain hex north of Trieste. Unfortunately, I did not have the movement points to move into this hex but if he moves in a reinforcement, it should not be able to entrench, so this was still a useful move. My Italian airship once again scouted the Austro-Hungarian navy and revealed the same cruise and pre-dreadnought outside of port near Pola. So, I used my British sub and the Italian DN I put into port at Rimini last turn to sink the weaker heavy cruiser.
In the Balkans, the British scored an unexpected tactical victory by killing an Austro-Hungarian corps on the main line facing Nish and moving into the gap with the I Anzacs. I moved up other British units in place to reinforce my small breakthrough. In Romania, I upgraded a few more corps and moved Russian and Romanian units south to contact the Ottoman line defending Adrianople. Since neither the Ottomans nor it seems the Austro-Hungarians have the units for a second line, they have not been able to upgrade to Infantry Weapons 2, giving me a significant advantage. I could only move one Russian heavy artillery into position to shell the Ottomans next turn, and I decided to keep the other one in place to attack against his line in Transylvania. This is not a very strategic front, but I would like to push him back from the town of Pitesti, so I can rebuild the resource strength of the RR that runs through here and eventually have a fully functioning rail connection that runs from Salonika through Nish, Pitesti, and Bucharest and on into Russia.
In Egypt, I decided to attack without artillery against one of his two Ottoman corps facing mine which seems to have not been entrenched. In Mesopotamia, I was able to destroy his corps defending Ramadi on the Euphrates, but did not push fully forward yet, in order to be able to upgrade more cavalry units from the hexes in full supply near Baghdad.
In Poland, I attacked the German corps one hex south of Warsaw. Surprisingly, it retreated so I sent an upgraded corps in to attack it and kill it. I can now attack Warsaw from three hexes next turn and have fully upgraded corps in place. Elsewhere along the line, I continued to upgrade my infantry wherever I had replacements to Infantry Weapons 2.
In the Baltic, I scouted with my subs and found that he has retreated back close to his main ports in Germany, so I established a picket line of three subs due west of Danzig. In the North Sea and the Atlantic, I kept my lines in place and simply did a little reinforcing of a couple of remaining units that have been damaged for more than a year.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested 3 chits in Aerial Warfare (for 2), 1 on Tank Development (for 3) and 1 on Gas/Shell tech (which I overlooked for several turns)
- France invested 1 chit on Ground Attack Weapons (for 3), 1 chit on Tank Development (for 3) and they bought a Ground Attack Bomber (in the expectation that I will have reached Ground Attack level 1 by the time it arrives).
- Italy invested 1 chit on Industrial Tech (for 3)
- Serbia invested 1 chit on Artillery Weapons since they had few competing uses for 125 MPPs and they might as well start making the investments to make it worthwhile eventually building their one artillery unit.
- The USA spent all of its MPPs buying a Fighter with level 3 fighter tech and level 1 range. I reduced the US convoy to the UK to zero this turn to give them more resources to start building up their strength.
- Russia invested 1 chit on Tank Development (for 3), 1 on Advanced Subs (for 3), 1 one *Armoured Warfare (for 2) and 1 on Aerial Warfare (for 2).
At the end of the turn, I was delighted that Britain scored a diplomatic breakthrough with Sweden, moving it 21% towards the Entente - which is exactly the amount I needed to get it to 20% for the Entente. This will terminate the Swedish convoy to Germany (costing him 750 NM points) and should trigger the start of the new Swedish convoy to the UK through the Norwegian port of Narvik (a new feature I added to this mod). However, there were no swings with the USA even though the 5 Russian diplomatic chits gives me a 40% chance. With Sweden in the bag, I may even invest a British or French diplo chit with the USA in future turns.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 41 June 2, 1917
Old Crow had his most successful offensive of the game last turn with his Operation Necromancer on the Western Front - no less than four French corps killed. I expected to lose about two corps but not four, plus several others badly mauled. In addition to six heavy artillery, he must have been using a couple of fresh units and/or he has a very high Infantry Warfare tech, as he was able to score 5 or even 6 strength points per attack with no losses once my front-line units were de-entrenched. I will be interested to watch this turn on his YT channel once he posts it.
Fortunately, unlike 1916, this time the French have six British corps on the continent to backfill their losses, plus two tank corps. I made a stretch play to try to take Boulogne and start turning the corner of his line, even though the German unit faced only one friendly hex (with a single British corps). After one 3-3 combat result (after reducing its entrenchment to zero), the surviving German corps had one experience point and I reckoned I could not kill it in a town by moving up units one at a time. So, I settled for demolishing a weakened corps next to Boulogne on open ground using my French tank to get to 2-7 combat result and I brought up the British tank to attack next turn. I pulled back my British and French heavy artillery one hex to avoid being sniped and to give more space for second line corps to attack. Finally, in the Vosges, I decided to try attacking one of his corps in the woods south of Metz. Attacking odds after de-entrenchment were only 3-3 and after forgetting to assign a commander for a second attack, I concluded it was better to stand down and just reinforce my remaining units. Overall, a pretty weak response to "Necromancer" but I hope to be able to try again for Boulogne next turn, this time with more full-strength corps and two tanks nearby.
On the Italian front, it was easy to destroy the anti-air gun he clearly railed into the hex north of Trieste as a stop-gap measure. As a calculated risk, I moved one Italian corps into the empty hex, even though it could not entrench and is adjacent to three Austro-Hungarian corps. If the Italian unit can survive with just a couple of strength points, then I can swap it next turn and entrench in this key hex. I also used the Italian airship to scout the Adriatic and spotted the remaining Austro-Hungarian pre-dreadnought sitting outside of port. So, I attacked it with my submarine and then finished it off with an Italian and French dreadnought - giving France a valuable 560 MPP boost. I was able to move both DNs safely into port.
I had a good turn in the Balkans. In Serbia, I moved up the British to maintain contact with the retreating Austro-Hungarians and they are now in much more open terrain which will make attacking much easier. In Transylvania, I demolished the German marine division that was keeping two zones of control on the town of Pitesti, so it can now start to recover and will enable operational movement along this rail line once it returns to a strength of 5. Two Serbian corps eliminated the surrounded Ottoman corps in the fortress of Plevna, thus cleaning up the remnants of his defence in this area. The Russians attacked the Ottoman line defending the approaches to Constantinople and captured the town of Burgas. More importantly, they were able to bring more Romanian and Russian units to occupy the line, including two artillery pieces. I re-organized the Greek army by railing their General to the town of Plovdiv in central Bulgaria, thus properly supplying my new front line in this resource poor region. The Greek artillery unit shelled the Ottoman corps south of Adrianople and after one attack, it retreated. By next turn, the all-important rail line south from Bucharest into Bulgaria and Greece will be open, enabling me to move my second Russian heavy artillery into place for the summer push to Constantinople. I also moved my Russian heavy bomber unit into a 10-supply hex in Romania in range of the Ottoman capital, so I can start reducing the supply from there to his front-line troops.
In Egypt, I reinforced the two corps that took casualties last turn. In Mesopotamia, I did a big upgrade and reinforcement round and concluded there was no further point in trying to advance across the Syrian desert to attack Palestine, when I am threatening Constantinople in the north. So, I started to move back the British artillery unit towards Basra and other units, including General Maude will follow, leaving a small force to defend the approaches to Baghdad.
In Poland, my set-piece operation to recapture Warsaw worked like a charm. I spent the rest of the move, upgrading more units on the line - it will take another 2- 3 turns to complete. I upgraded a couple more corps with mobility, as that will be helpful if I can achieve a breakthrough. I also noticed that I have one mountain corps still in Poland and another in a quiet sector in the Caucasus, so I will replace both of them with regular corps, so they can be sent to fight in mountainous Transylvania.
In the Baltic, I moved my subs forward to scout and encountered - not surprisingly - a screen of two destroyers. I brought up one forward placed Russian destroyer and laid a mine along his Baltic coast - which I hope he does not see and runs into if he advances to attack my screen. There will likely be a scramble to sink my sub, but it is not far from port, and I have the funds to rebuild it easily, even if it is damaged or lost. I also noticed that one of his destroyers has Naval Weapons level 1 - which the UK has yet to achieve - a good thing to know if he decides to try to advance with the IGN into the North Sea.
All quiet again in the North Sea - I even did some scouting with my destroyers and found no German subs. As Holland is now enemy territory, he may well use the port of Rotterdam to try sending subs down the channel, or even to try a spoiler amphibious invasion of East Anglia. So, I moved a little-used airship from Scotland down to Norwich so I can scout the North Sea coast of Holland and Germany.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested one chit in Long Range Aircraft (for 3) and Mobility (for 2)
- France bought back a killed corps and used the rest of its MPPs in reinforcing damaged corps
- Italy invested 1 chit in Command and Control (for 1)
- Serbia saved its MPPs
- the USA bought a second fighter, with level 3 fighter tech and level 2 range. It also invested 1 chit in Fighter Development
- Russia bought a new corps and a sub (for a fleet of six in total)
At the end of the turn, the Russian Foreign Minister reported that the USA had swung 6% towards the Entente, reaching 70%. In terms of tech:
- the UK reached Naval Warfare 1 and Armoured Warfare 3
- France reached Production Tech 4 and Aerial Warfare 3
- Italy reached Mobility 1
- Serbia reached Infantry Warfare 2
- Russia reached Gas/Shell Level 2, Command and Control 3 and Armoured Warfare 3
Old Crow had his most successful offensive of the game last turn with his Operation Necromancer on the Western Front - no less than four French corps killed. I expected to lose about two corps but not four, plus several others badly mauled. In addition to six heavy artillery, he must have been using a couple of fresh units and/or he has a very high Infantry Warfare tech, as he was able to score 5 or even 6 strength points per attack with no losses once my front-line units were de-entrenched. I will be interested to watch this turn on his YT channel once he posts it.
Fortunately, unlike 1916, this time the French have six British corps on the continent to backfill their losses, plus two tank corps. I made a stretch play to try to take Boulogne and start turning the corner of his line, even though the German unit faced only one friendly hex (with a single British corps). After one 3-3 combat result (after reducing its entrenchment to zero), the surviving German corps had one experience point and I reckoned I could not kill it in a town by moving up units one at a time. So, I settled for demolishing a weakened corps next to Boulogne on open ground using my French tank to get to 2-7 combat result and I brought up the British tank to attack next turn. I pulled back my British and French heavy artillery one hex to avoid being sniped and to give more space for second line corps to attack. Finally, in the Vosges, I decided to try attacking one of his corps in the woods south of Metz. Attacking odds after de-entrenchment were only 3-3 and after forgetting to assign a commander for a second attack, I concluded it was better to stand down and just reinforce my remaining units. Overall, a pretty weak response to "Necromancer" but I hope to be able to try again for Boulogne next turn, this time with more full-strength corps and two tanks nearby.
On the Italian front, it was easy to destroy the anti-air gun he clearly railed into the hex north of Trieste as a stop-gap measure. As a calculated risk, I moved one Italian corps into the empty hex, even though it could not entrench and is adjacent to three Austro-Hungarian corps. If the Italian unit can survive with just a couple of strength points, then I can swap it next turn and entrench in this key hex. I also used the Italian airship to scout the Adriatic and spotted the remaining Austro-Hungarian pre-dreadnought sitting outside of port. So, I attacked it with my submarine and then finished it off with an Italian and French dreadnought - giving France a valuable 560 MPP boost. I was able to move both DNs safely into port.
I had a good turn in the Balkans. In Serbia, I moved up the British to maintain contact with the retreating Austro-Hungarians and they are now in much more open terrain which will make attacking much easier. In Transylvania, I demolished the German marine division that was keeping two zones of control on the town of Pitesti, so it can now start to recover and will enable operational movement along this rail line once it returns to a strength of 5. Two Serbian corps eliminated the surrounded Ottoman corps in the fortress of Plevna, thus cleaning up the remnants of his defence in this area. The Russians attacked the Ottoman line defending the approaches to Constantinople and captured the town of Burgas. More importantly, they were able to bring more Romanian and Russian units to occupy the line, including two artillery pieces. I re-organized the Greek army by railing their General to the town of Plovdiv in central Bulgaria, thus properly supplying my new front line in this resource poor region. The Greek artillery unit shelled the Ottoman corps south of Adrianople and after one attack, it retreated. By next turn, the all-important rail line south from Bucharest into Bulgaria and Greece will be open, enabling me to move my second Russian heavy artillery into place for the summer push to Constantinople. I also moved my Russian heavy bomber unit into a 10-supply hex in Romania in range of the Ottoman capital, so I can start reducing the supply from there to his front-line troops.
In Egypt, I reinforced the two corps that took casualties last turn. In Mesopotamia, I did a big upgrade and reinforcement round and concluded there was no further point in trying to advance across the Syrian desert to attack Palestine, when I am threatening Constantinople in the north. So, I started to move back the British artillery unit towards Basra and other units, including General Maude will follow, leaving a small force to defend the approaches to Baghdad.
In Poland, my set-piece operation to recapture Warsaw worked like a charm. I spent the rest of the move, upgrading more units on the line - it will take another 2- 3 turns to complete. I upgraded a couple more corps with mobility, as that will be helpful if I can achieve a breakthrough. I also noticed that I have one mountain corps still in Poland and another in a quiet sector in the Caucasus, so I will replace both of them with regular corps, so they can be sent to fight in mountainous Transylvania.
In the Baltic, I moved my subs forward to scout and encountered - not surprisingly - a screen of two destroyers. I brought up one forward placed Russian destroyer and laid a mine along his Baltic coast - which I hope he does not see and runs into if he advances to attack my screen. There will likely be a scramble to sink my sub, but it is not far from port, and I have the funds to rebuild it easily, even if it is damaged or lost. I also noticed that one of his destroyers has Naval Weapons level 1 - which the UK has yet to achieve - a good thing to know if he decides to try to advance with the IGN into the North Sea.
All quiet again in the North Sea - I even did some scouting with my destroyers and found no German subs. As Holland is now enemy territory, he may well use the port of Rotterdam to try sending subs down the channel, or even to try a spoiler amphibious invasion of East Anglia. So, I moved a little-used airship from Scotland down to Norwich so I can scout the North Sea coast of Holland and Germany.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested one chit in Long Range Aircraft (for 3) and Mobility (for 2)
- France bought back a killed corps and used the rest of its MPPs in reinforcing damaged corps
- Italy invested 1 chit in Command and Control (for 1)
- Serbia saved its MPPs
- the USA bought a second fighter, with level 3 fighter tech and level 2 range. It also invested 1 chit in Fighter Development
- Russia bought a new corps and a sub (for a fleet of six in total)
At the end of the turn, the Russian Foreign Minister reported that the USA had swung 6% towards the Entente, reaching 70%. In terms of tech:
- the UK reached Naval Warfare 1 and Armoured Warfare 3
- France reached Production Tech 4 and Aerial Warfare 3
- Italy reached Mobility 1
- Serbia reached Infantry Warfare 2
- Russia reached Gas/Shell Level 2, Command and Control 3 and Armoured Warfare 3
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 42 June 30, 1917
I started this turn in the Balkans where I am pursuing two offensives - one against the Ottomans driving towards Constantinople and the other towards Belgrade and beyond against Austria-Hungary. In the first, I managed to destroy three Ottoman detachments which were helping to hold the line, using the Greek Army plus the Russians and Romanians and I ended the turn with Adrianople hemmed in on three sides. I had planned to rail the second heavy artillery unit to this sector, now that the rail line south of Bucharest is operational; but instead, I found I could virtually cut off the two Austro-Hungarian corps still facing towards Bucharest by moving a
Russian corps upgraded with mobility in front of Hermannstadt. By my calculations, these two units should sink to a Supply level of 1 each, making them attractive to kill next turn. To secure the deal, I sent my Russian Heavy Bomber unit to bomb the town of Kronstadt (still held by the one of the defending corps) to zero supply. This is the first time I have seen this unit used and I find it can be very effective in rough terrain areas which rely on single towns and/or just one rail line for supply. On the Serbian front, the British corps easily destroyed an Austro-Hungarian defender and pierced the line just below Kragujevac. Curiously, I find I do not have much use for the Serbian units at the moment as they are stuck with Infantry Weapons 1, so I have started to use them for rear-guard operations, like attacking the rogue Austro-Hungarian cavalry corps that Old Crow sent behind my lines in southern Ukraine. I also transported one Serbian detachment to southern Italy to guard against the small possibility of an amphibious invasion across the Adriatic.
Things are wrapping up in Egypt as the Ottomans retreated to Gaza. I sent both marine units to the port of Suez for relocation next turn. In Mesopotamia, I marched and forced marched most of General Maude's force towards Basra, so they could be redeployed to the Balkans. I reckon I can hold onto Baghdad with merely the Indian cavalry corps and couple of detachments, plus the Russian cavalry in the north. The Russian general that had reached Mosul made it back to Tabriz last turn and I was able to rail him to the Ukraine to help command the rear areas.
In Galicia, after Old Crow sent his Austro-Hungarian cavalry corps on a walk-about across the steppe, I decided to seal the line behind it and ensure that it remained out of supply. It was easy to round up some rear area units to occupy any of the town this unit might have tried to capture.
In Poland, I considered lunging to capture Novo-Georgievsk which Old Crow left defended by only a German cavalry corps, but in the end decided to do the more normal approach of rolling up the next hex in the line running northwards, so that I could start next turn with two corps adjacent to that fortress. I am glad that I did as the next corps on the line took three Russian units to kill rather than two, in part due to attacks over a river line but also suggesting that Germany may have moved up a better general to help defend this sector.
In the Baltic, I had fun when I retreated the most forward of my subs and found that the German dreadnought (the Rhineland) which sank my Russian destroyer was in fact still behind my line of subs. So, I attacked it with four subs and a maritime bomber and succeeded in sinking it making it the first dreadnought lost by either side in this game.
In Italy, I was unpleasantly surprised last turn by the Austro-Hungarians turning one of their heavy artillery to attack towards Bruneck which they just missed recapturing after the defending Italian corps retreated. Fortunately, I had a reserve corps of Czech volunteers (from a DE in 1916) which I could rail in to fill the gap left when I re-occupied Bruneck with an adjacent corps. I decided to press my main line of attack towards Trieste despite the fact that the Austro-Hungarian corps defending it had Infantry Weapons 2 versus the Italians level 1. After four shells, it proved easy to eliminate with only two attacks - probably due to the Italian general Brusati having two points of experience now, plus very high unit morale on the Italian side (over 120% NM). Losing Trieste will be heavy blow for the Austro-Hungarians.
In the Mediterranean, the Turkish navy made a surprise foray last turn to sink a Greek destroyer. I was able to spot all of them with the British airship that I have kept in northern Greece. However, my capital ships in the Adriatic were a little too far away to reach the Turkish ships, so I moved them back to the mouth of the Adriatic, where they can reach the Aegean next turn, while still blocking any Austro-Hungarian surface ships treating to reach the Mediterranean.
In the North Sea and the Atlantic, there was no action again, so I moved my dreadnoughts into port to start upgrading them to Naval Weapons 1.
Finally, on the Western Front, I launched a renewed assault on Boulogne, this time aided by the fact that he had no unit in the open terrain next to the town. I was able to capture the city this time quite easily using my British Tank Corps for the first time, and then I entrenched in these newly captured positions. If I can hold onto them, it will be critical as it will allow me to attack along the corner of the German line to recapture Lille and ultimately Brussels. Less well thought through was a return attack on the forest hex south of Metz. I succeeded this time in destroying the German unit defending there but I lost 14 infantry strength points and 3 cavalry, so it was a pyrrhic victory. We will see if choses to attack next turn against my weakened defenders.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested one diplo chit with the USA, built one destroyer, plus one chit on Gas/Shell tech, one chit on Armoured Warfare (for 3), and two chits on Airship Tech (for 3)
- France bought back three killed corps and invested 1 chit in Armoured Warfare (for 3)
- Italy reinforced damaged units
- Serbia invested one chit in Artillery Weapons (for 2)
- the USA bought its first Tank Corps, upgraded with Tank Development 1
- Russia invested one diplo chit with the USA, one tech chit on Heavy Bombers (for 1), one chit on Armoured Warfare (for 3) and one chit on Gas/Shell tech.
At the end of the turn, Sweden swung a further 26% towards the Entente (due to the remaining UK diplomacy chits invested there). I was hoping the USA would swing again, given that with six chits invested my odds are now 48% per turn. However, as of this turn, there is now a 50% chance every turn (on both sides) of the USA swinging 1-2% for the Entente - thus ensuring that they will eventually enter the war.
I started this turn in the Balkans where I am pursuing two offensives - one against the Ottomans driving towards Constantinople and the other towards Belgrade and beyond against Austria-Hungary. In the first, I managed to destroy three Ottoman detachments which were helping to hold the line, using the Greek Army plus the Russians and Romanians and I ended the turn with Adrianople hemmed in on three sides. I had planned to rail the second heavy artillery unit to this sector, now that the rail line south of Bucharest is operational; but instead, I found I could virtually cut off the two Austro-Hungarian corps still facing towards Bucharest by moving a
Russian corps upgraded with mobility in front of Hermannstadt. By my calculations, these two units should sink to a Supply level of 1 each, making them attractive to kill next turn. To secure the deal, I sent my Russian Heavy Bomber unit to bomb the town of Kronstadt (still held by the one of the defending corps) to zero supply. This is the first time I have seen this unit used and I find it can be very effective in rough terrain areas which rely on single towns and/or just one rail line for supply. On the Serbian front, the British corps easily destroyed an Austro-Hungarian defender and pierced the line just below Kragujevac. Curiously, I find I do not have much use for the Serbian units at the moment as they are stuck with Infantry Weapons 1, so I have started to use them for rear-guard operations, like attacking the rogue Austro-Hungarian cavalry corps that Old Crow sent behind my lines in southern Ukraine. I also transported one Serbian detachment to southern Italy to guard against the small possibility of an amphibious invasion across the Adriatic.
Things are wrapping up in Egypt as the Ottomans retreated to Gaza. I sent both marine units to the port of Suez for relocation next turn. In Mesopotamia, I marched and forced marched most of General Maude's force towards Basra, so they could be redeployed to the Balkans. I reckon I can hold onto Baghdad with merely the Indian cavalry corps and couple of detachments, plus the Russian cavalry in the north. The Russian general that had reached Mosul made it back to Tabriz last turn and I was able to rail him to the Ukraine to help command the rear areas.
In Galicia, after Old Crow sent his Austro-Hungarian cavalry corps on a walk-about across the steppe, I decided to seal the line behind it and ensure that it remained out of supply. It was easy to round up some rear area units to occupy any of the town this unit might have tried to capture.
In Poland, I considered lunging to capture Novo-Georgievsk which Old Crow left defended by only a German cavalry corps, but in the end decided to do the more normal approach of rolling up the next hex in the line running northwards, so that I could start next turn with two corps adjacent to that fortress. I am glad that I did as the next corps on the line took three Russian units to kill rather than two, in part due to attacks over a river line but also suggesting that Germany may have moved up a better general to help defend this sector.
In the Baltic, I had fun when I retreated the most forward of my subs and found that the German dreadnought (the Rhineland) which sank my Russian destroyer was in fact still behind my line of subs. So, I attacked it with four subs and a maritime bomber and succeeded in sinking it making it the first dreadnought lost by either side in this game.
In Italy, I was unpleasantly surprised last turn by the Austro-Hungarians turning one of their heavy artillery to attack towards Bruneck which they just missed recapturing after the defending Italian corps retreated. Fortunately, I had a reserve corps of Czech volunteers (from a DE in 1916) which I could rail in to fill the gap left when I re-occupied Bruneck with an adjacent corps. I decided to press my main line of attack towards Trieste despite the fact that the Austro-Hungarian corps defending it had Infantry Weapons 2 versus the Italians level 1. After four shells, it proved easy to eliminate with only two attacks - probably due to the Italian general Brusati having two points of experience now, plus very high unit morale on the Italian side (over 120% NM). Losing Trieste will be heavy blow for the Austro-Hungarians.
In the Mediterranean, the Turkish navy made a surprise foray last turn to sink a Greek destroyer. I was able to spot all of them with the British airship that I have kept in northern Greece. However, my capital ships in the Adriatic were a little too far away to reach the Turkish ships, so I moved them back to the mouth of the Adriatic, where they can reach the Aegean next turn, while still blocking any Austro-Hungarian surface ships treating to reach the Mediterranean.
In the North Sea and the Atlantic, there was no action again, so I moved my dreadnoughts into port to start upgrading them to Naval Weapons 1.
Finally, on the Western Front, I launched a renewed assault on Boulogne, this time aided by the fact that he had no unit in the open terrain next to the town. I was able to capture the city this time quite easily using my British Tank Corps for the first time, and then I entrenched in these newly captured positions. If I can hold onto them, it will be critical as it will allow me to attack along the corner of the German line to recapture Lille and ultimately Brussels. Less well thought through was a return attack on the forest hex south of Metz. I succeeded this time in destroying the German unit defending there but I lost 14 infantry strength points and 3 cavalry, so it was a pyrrhic victory. We will see if choses to attack next turn against my weakened defenders.
In terms of investments:
- the UK invested one diplo chit with the USA, built one destroyer, plus one chit on Gas/Shell tech, one chit on Armoured Warfare (for 3), and two chits on Airship Tech (for 3)
- France bought back three killed corps and invested 1 chit in Armoured Warfare (for 3)
- Italy reinforced damaged units
- Serbia invested one chit in Artillery Weapons (for 2)
- the USA bought its first Tank Corps, upgraded with Tank Development 1
- Russia invested one diplo chit with the USA, one tech chit on Heavy Bombers (for 1), one chit on Armoured Warfare (for 3) and one chit on Gas/Shell tech.
At the end of the turn, Sweden swung a further 26% towards the Entente (due to the remaining UK diplomacy chits invested there). I was hoping the USA would swing again, given that with six chits invested my odds are now 48% per turn. However, as of this turn, there is now a 50% chance every turn (on both sides) of the USA swinging 1-2% for the Entente - thus ensuring that they will eventually enter the war.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 43 July 14, 1917
Old Crow's Operation Necromancer delivered a bang on the Western Front - four more French corps killed, and Verdun retaken. However, at this point, I am untroubled by this - his position in the east is falling fast and my advances to take Boulogne and position myself to retake Lille remain intact. Since Verdun has already been captured once (and retaken by me) there are no further NM losses from losing it again. The NM losses if he takes Nancy or Toul can be offset if I liberate Belgium by retaking Ypres. I did not try to retake Verdun again in my move, since I did not have the shells left in the one heavy artillery in reach. Instead, I reinforced the French as much as possible, moved their artillery over to keep Verdun in range for next turn and concentrated my attacks in Flanders, using the British more than the French and make great use of both Tank Corps - which take few to no casualties and are great at killing enemy corps in a second or third attack from behind the line. I occupied the empty hex next to Boulogne and then destroyed the adjacent units on Lille and the hex east of it, so I have a new front line in the West that will be harder for him to defend.
Old Crow also made a very bold move by sending all of his German subs into the English Channel where I can see them. He may be trying to disrupt further British transports bringing troops to France but there is only one British corps in the UK at the moment. As he suspected, all of my destroyers are north screening the northern blockade line. But using naval cruise, I sent three of them to ports around the channel and tucked another one plus a seaplane carrier into The Wash where they will remain unseen. The remainder, I sent around Scotland and down to the Bristol Channel, if he decides to rush the UK NM hexes there again. I also brought back a British airship from the Balkans and placed it in Cornwall in order to scout this area next turn. Finally, I anticipate he may try to make a rush with his capital ships to sink British surface ships on the blockade line. But most of my DNs and BCs are being upgraded to Naval Weapons 1 and I will reduce their exposure until I have a better read on his naval tactics.
In Italy, I managed to push the Austro-Hungarian detachment defending the approach to Pola out of the way and advanced next to the fort defending his ports. However, after sending almost all of the Austro-Hungarian navy on a "Leyte Gulf" attack towards the southern Adriatic, there is little at risk left here - just one pre-dreadnought which I spotted with the Italian airship. I reinforced my remaining Italian corps and am waiting to see if he tries to attack Bruneck again.
In Serbia, I considered attacking again, but settled for bringing all of my British corps up to the new front and putting my British artillery in place for a systematic attack next turn. In Transylvania, I was able to destroy both the Austro-Hungarian that corps I cut off last turn with direct infantry attacks without using the heavy artillery battery I kept behind for this purpose. Facing the Ottomans, I took Adrianople easily and moved units into the top of the Gallipoli peninsula, thus opening up the second strait hex. Looking at the Ottomans National Morale - down to under 3% at the end of my turn - they may not survive until next turn. At the opening of the turn, I was given the DE to opt for an armistice with the Ottomans. Since the NM hit (7500 points) on Austria-Hungary and Germany is the same between the Ottomans signing an armistice or surrendering, I opted for the former. It would have been fun to try to take Constantinople - but I calculated that would take another 5-6 turns, assuming I had to fight for every hex to reach the gates of the city. An armistice is much faster.
In the Mediterranean, we had a genuine turkey shoot. By scraping up every ship I had around the Med, I managed to sink the entire Ottoman navy and most of the remaining Austro-Hungarian navy, apart from one destroyer that I bumped into with my French sub and his last submarine. I am not sure what he was trying to accomplish with these moves - perhaps it was just a desire to bring down as many Entente ships as he could before both the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians surrender. In fact, I did not lose a single ship last turn or this one, though I took some substantial hits.
In the Middle East, I continued the British evacuation towards Basra. No significant moves in Egypt (I meant to transport out the two marine corps but forgot to move them before ending the turn).
In Poland, I attacked and seized the fortress of Novo-Georgievsk. Although I did not get an NM bonus for this (since due to a glitch, I did not lose any NM when he took it in 1915), by taking a strong point in the centre of his line, it should greatly weaken his ability to hold a coherent line in the future. I railed back to this sector both of the heavy artillery units that have been in Romania and Bulgaria since the beginning of the year. By deploying my new Russian tank corps just in front of Warsaw, I should be able to launch a major offensive here next turn. I also railed my Russian marine unit that had been sitting on the Black Sea coast to Memel in the Baltic, so I can attempt a small coastal amphibious invasion behind his lines in a future turn.
There were no new moves in the Baltic, so I reinforced one sub and deployed a new one.
In terms of investments:
- the UK made none, as I pressed the end turn button instead of the save turn button by accident! The same thing happened to my planned USA investments
- France reinforced its units and bought back one corps
- Italy invested one chit in Command and Control for 2
- Serbia saved its MPPs
- Russia invested two chits in Naval Weapons (for 2) [ Heavy Bombers?] and bought another sub
At the end of the turn, Sweden swung another 21% towards the Entente (through no initiative of mine). Annoyingly, the USA did not move an inch. But there was a big round of tech results:
- the UK reached Aerial Warfare 1
- France reached Fighter Development 2 and Ground Attack Weapons 1
- the USA reached Aerial Warfare 4
- Russia reached Advanced Subs 2, Infantry Warfare 3, Aerial Warfare 2 and Industrial Warfare 5
Old Crow's Operation Necromancer delivered a bang on the Western Front - four more French corps killed, and Verdun retaken. However, at this point, I am untroubled by this - his position in the east is falling fast and my advances to take Boulogne and position myself to retake Lille remain intact. Since Verdun has already been captured once (and retaken by me) there are no further NM losses from losing it again. The NM losses if he takes Nancy or Toul can be offset if I liberate Belgium by retaking Ypres. I did not try to retake Verdun again in my move, since I did not have the shells left in the one heavy artillery in reach. Instead, I reinforced the French as much as possible, moved their artillery over to keep Verdun in range for next turn and concentrated my attacks in Flanders, using the British more than the French and make great use of both Tank Corps - which take few to no casualties and are great at killing enemy corps in a second or third attack from behind the line. I occupied the empty hex next to Boulogne and then destroyed the adjacent units on Lille and the hex east of it, so I have a new front line in the West that will be harder for him to defend.
Old Crow also made a very bold move by sending all of his German subs into the English Channel where I can see them. He may be trying to disrupt further British transports bringing troops to France but there is only one British corps in the UK at the moment. As he suspected, all of my destroyers are north screening the northern blockade line. But using naval cruise, I sent three of them to ports around the channel and tucked another one plus a seaplane carrier into The Wash where they will remain unseen. The remainder, I sent around Scotland and down to the Bristol Channel, if he decides to rush the UK NM hexes there again. I also brought back a British airship from the Balkans and placed it in Cornwall in order to scout this area next turn. Finally, I anticipate he may try to make a rush with his capital ships to sink British surface ships on the blockade line. But most of my DNs and BCs are being upgraded to Naval Weapons 1 and I will reduce their exposure until I have a better read on his naval tactics.
In Italy, I managed to push the Austro-Hungarian detachment defending the approach to Pola out of the way and advanced next to the fort defending his ports. However, after sending almost all of the Austro-Hungarian navy on a "Leyte Gulf" attack towards the southern Adriatic, there is little at risk left here - just one pre-dreadnought which I spotted with the Italian airship. I reinforced my remaining Italian corps and am waiting to see if he tries to attack Bruneck again.
In Serbia, I considered attacking again, but settled for bringing all of my British corps up to the new front and putting my British artillery in place for a systematic attack next turn. In Transylvania, I was able to destroy both the Austro-Hungarian that corps I cut off last turn with direct infantry attacks without using the heavy artillery battery I kept behind for this purpose. Facing the Ottomans, I took Adrianople easily and moved units into the top of the Gallipoli peninsula, thus opening up the second strait hex. Looking at the Ottomans National Morale - down to under 3% at the end of my turn - they may not survive until next turn. At the opening of the turn, I was given the DE to opt for an armistice with the Ottomans. Since the NM hit (7500 points) on Austria-Hungary and Germany is the same between the Ottomans signing an armistice or surrendering, I opted for the former. It would have been fun to try to take Constantinople - but I calculated that would take another 5-6 turns, assuming I had to fight for every hex to reach the gates of the city. An armistice is much faster.
In the Mediterranean, we had a genuine turkey shoot. By scraping up every ship I had around the Med, I managed to sink the entire Ottoman navy and most of the remaining Austro-Hungarian navy, apart from one destroyer that I bumped into with my French sub and his last submarine. I am not sure what he was trying to accomplish with these moves - perhaps it was just a desire to bring down as many Entente ships as he could before both the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians surrender. In fact, I did not lose a single ship last turn or this one, though I took some substantial hits.
In the Middle East, I continued the British evacuation towards Basra. No significant moves in Egypt (I meant to transport out the two marine corps but forgot to move them before ending the turn).
In Poland, I attacked and seized the fortress of Novo-Georgievsk. Although I did not get an NM bonus for this (since due to a glitch, I did not lose any NM when he took it in 1915), by taking a strong point in the centre of his line, it should greatly weaken his ability to hold a coherent line in the future. I railed back to this sector both of the heavy artillery units that have been in Romania and Bulgaria since the beginning of the year. By deploying my new Russian tank corps just in front of Warsaw, I should be able to launch a major offensive here next turn. I also railed my Russian marine unit that had been sitting on the Black Sea coast to Memel in the Baltic, so I can attempt a small coastal amphibious invasion behind his lines in a future turn.
There were no new moves in the Baltic, so I reinforced one sub and deployed a new one.
In terms of investments:
- the UK made none, as I pressed the end turn button instead of the save turn button by accident! The same thing happened to my planned USA investments
- France reinforced its units and bought back one corps
- Italy invested one chit in Command and Control for 2
- Serbia saved its MPPs
- Russia invested two chits in Naval Weapons (for 2) [ Heavy Bombers?] and bought another sub
At the end of the turn, Sweden swung another 21% towards the Entente (through no initiative of mine). Annoyingly, the USA did not move an inch. But there was a big round of tech results:
- the UK reached Aerial Warfare 1
- France reached Fighter Development 2 and Ground Attack Weapons 1
- the USA reached Aerial Warfare 4
- Russia reached Advanced Subs 2, Infantry Warfare 3, Aerial Warfare 2 and Industrial Warfare 5
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 44 July 28, 1917
At the point in the game, it seems all over but the shouting for the Ottomans and by extension the Austro-Hungarians. The Ottomans started their turn with NM under 500 points or 2%. Once they go to zero, they will sign an armistice with the Entente and that will cost the Austro-Hungarians 7500 NM point - which should send them to zero as well (they started the turn with less than 4000 NM points). That will leave only the German Empire standing.
So, to bring these results about, I first concentrated on attacking the Ottoman corps defending Gallipoli. Ottoman unit morale drops if two or more Entente corps are within two hexes of Gallipoli, so with the aid of my Greek artillery, I de-entrenched it and then destroyed it with two attacks. This allowed my Russian cavalry to occupy the town of Gallipoli, which in turn converted the first straits hex into friendly held territory. That allowed me to send a British through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara. In the vanilla game, taking Gallipoli costs the Ottomans 2500 NM points; in this mod, I changed the trigger to getting an Entente naval unit into the Sea of Marmara. Fortunately, I achieved that - and this started the dominos falling.
Since you are never sure till you are sure, I still moved up all of my British corps in Serbia to press the Austro-Hungarian defensive line, which has now retreated to Belgrade. If they are still standing next turn, I should be able to take Belgrade. Elsewhere in Romania and Bulgaria, I took the opportunity to upgrade to elite reinforcements all of the Russian units that I could and moved most of the rest of them onto rail lines, so they can be transferred to Poland next turn, assuming the Austro-Hungarians surrender.
In the Middle East, I transported the British and French marines from Egypt to Salonika, with the intention of railing them to a Russian port in the Baltic for future amphibious operations. I transported the first units from General's Maude's force to the Red Sea and continued to move the rest of the force towards Basra.
In Poland, I mostly moved forward to maintain contact with his line, but I also was able for the first time to use the Russian tank unit I deployed last turn to help kill one German corps. In the north around Konigsberg, I moved my Russian marine unit to the end of the peninsula, so it can move onto amphibious transports next turn. Old Crow may notice this and move to defend Danzig - but I am hoping he will be distracted with other worries and will not notice this division (he can't say what kind of division it is).
In the Baltic, I sent my Russian subs back to port to get upgraded to Advanced Subs 2.
In the Med, I kept a scratch force bottling up his three remaining Austro-Hungarian ships in the Adriatic. In Italy, I tried attacking one detachment due west of Pola, but it retreated. Given the likely Austro-Hungarian surrender, it did not seem worthwhile incurring many casualties attacking this turn. I improved my defensive position behind Bruneck in case he tried attacking there again.
On the Western Front, we had a big turn. I killed three German corps, retook Nancy, and now have corps entrenched next to Brussels (one hex) and Ypres (one hex). My goals it to take at least one of these Belgian capitals, thus liberating Belgium and securing 2000 NM points for the British and French. I came close to retaking Verdun, but hard targets get a 5-point defensive bonus for a major fortress, and it is protected by rivers on two sides from me, so I reduced his defender down to only 3 points. Depending on his attacks next turn, I may be able to retake it. General Haig moved to win his first experience point and the UK corps are proving invaluable. At the far end of the line, I railed the one Portuguese corps that arrives in March 1917 and sent to hold Belfort. I am not sure if French generals can command the Portuguese (even though they are a UK minor - but will find out next turn).
Finally, in the English Channel, Old Crow is making a major submarine push against my NM hexes south of Ireland. I even found a German battlecruiser and a light cruiser in this area, and he may have sent more surface ships here. I tried to kill his Dutch sub without much success. But I now have a strong ASW and surface force positioned in the Bristol Channel and I used the unspent British MPPs from last turn (due to my mistake ending the turn before I could spend the UK MPPs) to upgrade every damaged British capital ship that was sitting in backwater ports in Ireland. I also have an airship and as of this turn, a maritime bomber in Cornwall, so I should be able to inflict some casualties next turn. He also parked two German DNs and a BC off the Belgian coast - I attacked the weakest ship here, the Derrflinger BC with aviation in the UK and two subs and reduced it to 3 strength points. I also brought five DNs down from the north and tucked them along the East Anglia coast. So, if he keeps these capital ships here next turn, we will have a major surface action.
In terms of investments:
- the UK bought 3 diplomatic chits with the USA, making 8 in total for a 72% chance of a swing
- France bought back 3 corps
- Italy invested a chit in Naval Weapons (for 2)
- Serbia saved its MPPs so it can buy an artillery unit
- the USA bought a second ground attack bomber
- Russia bought a ground attack bomber, and recon bomber and a fighter (now that it has Aerial Warfare 2) and invested a chit on Advanced Subs (for 3), one chit on Heavy Bombers (for 2) and one on Infantry Warfare (for 2).
To my great surprise at the end of the turn there was another diplomatic breakthrough with the last chit left on Sweden and it swung past 90% thus bringing Sweden into the war for the Entente. This was never my intent - I just wanted to get it to 20% so that the convoy to the UK would start. But I won't complain - I have never seen Sweden join either side in the game. Meanwhile, to my continuing annoyance, there was still no swing towards the USA.
Regret that at this point I am finishing this blog after the game ended, so I cannot check the tech results for the last four turns.
At the point in the game, it seems all over but the shouting for the Ottomans and by extension the Austro-Hungarians. The Ottomans started their turn with NM under 500 points or 2%. Once they go to zero, they will sign an armistice with the Entente and that will cost the Austro-Hungarians 7500 NM point - which should send them to zero as well (they started the turn with less than 4000 NM points). That will leave only the German Empire standing.
So, to bring these results about, I first concentrated on attacking the Ottoman corps defending Gallipoli. Ottoman unit morale drops if two or more Entente corps are within two hexes of Gallipoli, so with the aid of my Greek artillery, I de-entrenched it and then destroyed it with two attacks. This allowed my Russian cavalry to occupy the town of Gallipoli, which in turn converted the first straits hex into friendly held territory. That allowed me to send a British through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara. In the vanilla game, taking Gallipoli costs the Ottomans 2500 NM points; in this mod, I changed the trigger to getting an Entente naval unit into the Sea of Marmara. Fortunately, I achieved that - and this started the dominos falling.
Since you are never sure till you are sure, I still moved up all of my British corps in Serbia to press the Austro-Hungarian defensive line, which has now retreated to Belgrade. If they are still standing next turn, I should be able to take Belgrade. Elsewhere in Romania and Bulgaria, I took the opportunity to upgrade to elite reinforcements all of the Russian units that I could and moved most of the rest of them onto rail lines, so they can be transferred to Poland next turn, assuming the Austro-Hungarians surrender.
In the Middle East, I transported the British and French marines from Egypt to Salonika, with the intention of railing them to a Russian port in the Baltic for future amphibious operations. I transported the first units from General's Maude's force to the Red Sea and continued to move the rest of the force towards Basra.
In Poland, I mostly moved forward to maintain contact with his line, but I also was able for the first time to use the Russian tank unit I deployed last turn to help kill one German corps. In the north around Konigsberg, I moved my Russian marine unit to the end of the peninsula, so it can move onto amphibious transports next turn. Old Crow may notice this and move to defend Danzig - but I am hoping he will be distracted with other worries and will not notice this division (he can't say what kind of division it is).
In the Baltic, I sent my Russian subs back to port to get upgraded to Advanced Subs 2.
In the Med, I kept a scratch force bottling up his three remaining Austro-Hungarian ships in the Adriatic. In Italy, I tried attacking one detachment due west of Pola, but it retreated. Given the likely Austro-Hungarian surrender, it did not seem worthwhile incurring many casualties attacking this turn. I improved my defensive position behind Bruneck in case he tried attacking there again.
On the Western Front, we had a big turn. I killed three German corps, retook Nancy, and now have corps entrenched next to Brussels (one hex) and Ypres (one hex). My goals it to take at least one of these Belgian capitals, thus liberating Belgium and securing 2000 NM points for the British and French. I came close to retaking Verdun, but hard targets get a 5-point defensive bonus for a major fortress, and it is protected by rivers on two sides from me, so I reduced his defender down to only 3 points. Depending on his attacks next turn, I may be able to retake it. General Haig moved to win his first experience point and the UK corps are proving invaluable. At the far end of the line, I railed the one Portuguese corps that arrives in March 1917 and sent to hold Belfort. I am not sure if French generals can command the Portuguese (even though they are a UK minor - but will find out next turn).
Finally, in the English Channel, Old Crow is making a major submarine push against my NM hexes south of Ireland. I even found a German battlecruiser and a light cruiser in this area, and he may have sent more surface ships here. I tried to kill his Dutch sub without much success. But I now have a strong ASW and surface force positioned in the Bristol Channel and I used the unspent British MPPs from last turn (due to my mistake ending the turn before I could spend the UK MPPs) to upgrade every damaged British capital ship that was sitting in backwater ports in Ireland. I also have an airship and as of this turn, a maritime bomber in Cornwall, so I should be able to inflict some casualties next turn. He also parked two German DNs and a BC off the Belgian coast - I attacked the weakest ship here, the Derrflinger BC with aviation in the UK and two subs and reduced it to 3 strength points. I also brought five DNs down from the north and tucked them along the East Anglia coast. So, if he keeps these capital ships here next turn, we will have a major surface action.
In terms of investments:
- the UK bought 3 diplomatic chits with the USA, making 8 in total for a 72% chance of a swing
- France bought back 3 corps
- Italy invested a chit in Naval Weapons (for 2)
- Serbia saved its MPPs so it can buy an artillery unit
- the USA bought a second ground attack bomber
- Russia bought a ground attack bomber, and recon bomber and a fighter (now that it has Aerial Warfare 2) and invested a chit on Advanced Subs (for 3), one chit on Heavy Bombers (for 2) and one on Infantry Warfare (for 2).
To my great surprise at the end of the turn there was another diplomatic breakthrough with the last chit left on Sweden and it swung past 90% thus bringing Sweden into the war for the Entente. This was never my intent - I just wanted to get it to 20% so that the convoy to the UK would start. But I won't complain - I have never seen Sweden join either side in the game. Meanwhile, to my continuing annoyance, there was still no swing towards the USA.
Regret that at this point I am finishing this blog after the game ended, so I cannot check the tech results for the last four turns.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 45 August 11, 1917
As expected, the Ottomans withdrew from the war during Old Crow's last turn. But I was surprised to see that there was no NM effect on either Austria-Hungary or Germany - I will have to check the scripts. One other curious effect is that the French destroyer that I sent into the Sea of Marmara remains there and is now trapped inside neutral Turkey.
So, the British attacked and captured Belgrade boosting Serbian morale. I moved a Serbian corps in front of Sarajevo, as that is a significant NM objective for both Serbia and Austria-Hungary in this mod. A combination of Russian and British units pushed towards the Iron Gate pass into southern Austria-Hungary. I started railing every Russian unit that I could back to Russia to be ready to attack the Germans but moved more slowly with the Greek forces as the Serbian front already has more units that room to attack. I left the Romanian forces and generals, apart from the artillery unit in Romania to push against the remaining Austro-Hungarian forces in Transylvania.
In Poland, the Russians expanded the gap created last turn in the middle of the German line. Their forward unit, upgraded with mobility, was able to break through and captured the important fortified town and NM objective of Graudenz. As a bonus, the corps that captured it attacked General Hindenburg and reduced his HQ to strength 5. I railed General Kornilov (three stars of experience) from the south up to East Prussia and then attacked in front of Konigsberg. My motorized Russian marine unit - which had been poised to get onto amphibious transports next to Konigsberg - was instead able to move behind the remaining German line. This left three German corps at risk of getting encircled next turn. In the south, I moved a corps west of Krakow, thus besieging it on four sides (which affects the defenders morale) and I railed the Romanian artillery unit into position in Tarnow to be able to attack Krakow next turn.
In the Baltic, the Russians upgraded their three additional subs to Advanced Subs 2.
The British expended significant resources reinforcing a Swedish pre-dreadnought, destroyer and light cruiser to full strength and upgrading the two Swedish corps. In a bold move, I railed the British marines to Malmo in Sweden, so that they can stage an amphibious assault on the north coast of Germany. (I meant to do the same with the French marines this turn but forgot to do so spending all of their MPPs this turn).
I decided the first two British corps from Mesopotamia would be more useful fighting in France, along with General Allenby who had been enjoying a quiet war in Egypt up until now, so I sent all three units on transports into the Med with the aim of landing in southern France next turn.
On the Italian front, I decided to sit tight and waited until they received Infantry Weapons 2.
On Western Front pushed forward into the edge of Belgium and occupied hexes adjacent to both Ypres and Brussels. I tried shelling Verdun with heavy artillery but despite very low defender morale (15%), the projected casualty rates from my French troops were still very high. I decided it was not worth pressing the attack at this point, especially since there would be no NM benefit. Instead, I concentrated on reinforcing the many French units that had been damaged in previous attacks, both mine and the Germans.
In the naval battles around the UK, I used the 5 DNs I sent south to East Anglia to destroy three of the four German ships parked in the North Sea off the coast of Belgium - two destroyers and one pre-dreadnought. In the Irish Sea, I sank one already damaged battlecruiser and one German sub and reduced to 5 a second sub. By the end of the turn, every port on the Irish Sea had a DN or a BC in it, waiting to attack next turn. They are facing an amazing number of German subs in the St. George's Channel, plus an uncertain number of capital ships.
At end of turn, the Russian Foreign Minister finally reported that USA swung another 6%, moving them to 82%.
In terms of investments:
- the UK bought invested 3 diplomatic chits with the USA
- France bought back one corps
- Italy reinforced damaged corps and fleets
- Serbia bought its one artillery unit
- USA bought a maritime bomber
- Russia bought two torpedo boats.
As expected, the Ottomans withdrew from the war during Old Crow's last turn. But I was surprised to see that there was no NM effect on either Austria-Hungary or Germany - I will have to check the scripts. One other curious effect is that the French destroyer that I sent into the Sea of Marmara remains there and is now trapped inside neutral Turkey.
So, the British attacked and captured Belgrade boosting Serbian morale. I moved a Serbian corps in front of Sarajevo, as that is a significant NM objective for both Serbia and Austria-Hungary in this mod. A combination of Russian and British units pushed towards the Iron Gate pass into southern Austria-Hungary. I started railing every Russian unit that I could back to Russia to be ready to attack the Germans but moved more slowly with the Greek forces as the Serbian front already has more units that room to attack. I left the Romanian forces and generals, apart from the artillery unit in Romania to push against the remaining Austro-Hungarian forces in Transylvania.
In Poland, the Russians expanded the gap created last turn in the middle of the German line. Their forward unit, upgraded with mobility, was able to break through and captured the important fortified town and NM objective of Graudenz. As a bonus, the corps that captured it attacked General Hindenburg and reduced his HQ to strength 5. I railed General Kornilov (three stars of experience) from the south up to East Prussia and then attacked in front of Konigsberg. My motorized Russian marine unit - which had been poised to get onto amphibious transports next to Konigsberg - was instead able to move behind the remaining German line. This left three German corps at risk of getting encircled next turn. In the south, I moved a corps west of Krakow, thus besieging it on four sides (which affects the defenders morale) and I railed the Romanian artillery unit into position in Tarnow to be able to attack Krakow next turn.
In the Baltic, the Russians upgraded their three additional subs to Advanced Subs 2.
The British expended significant resources reinforcing a Swedish pre-dreadnought, destroyer and light cruiser to full strength and upgrading the two Swedish corps. In a bold move, I railed the British marines to Malmo in Sweden, so that they can stage an amphibious assault on the north coast of Germany. (I meant to do the same with the French marines this turn but forgot to do so spending all of their MPPs this turn).
I decided the first two British corps from Mesopotamia would be more useful fighting in France, along with General Allenby who had been enjoying a quiet war in Egypt up until now, so I sent all three units on transports into the Med with the aim of landing in southern France next turn.
On the Italian front, I decided to sit tight and waited until they received Infantry Weapons 2.
On Western Front pushed forward into the edge of Belgium and occupied hexes adjacent to both Ypres and Brussels. I tried shelling Verdun with heavy artillery but despite very low defender morale (15%), the projected casualty rates from my French troops were still very high. I decided it was not worth pressing the attack at this point, especially since there would be no NM benefit. Instead, I concentrated on reinforcing the many French units that had been damaged in previous attacks, both mine and the Germans.
In the naval battles around the UK, I used the 5 DNs I sent south to East Anglia to destroy three of the four German ships parked in the North Sea off the coast of Belgium - two destroyers and one pre-dreadnought. In the Irish Sea, I sank one already damaged battlecruiser and one German sub and reduced to 5 a second sub. By the end of the turn, every port on the Irish Sea had a DN or a BC in it, waiting to attack next turn. They are facing an amazing number of German subs in the St. George's Channel, plus an uncertain number of capital ships.
At end of turn, the Russian Foreign Minister finally reported that USA swung another 6%, moving them to 82%.
In terms of investments:
- the UK bought invested 3 diplomatic chits with the USA
- France bought back one corps
- Italy reinforced damaged corps and fleets
- Serbia bought its one artillery unit
- USA bought a maritime bomber
- Russia bought two torpedo boats.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 46 August 25, 1917
At the start of this turn, German NM was around 8% and Austro-Hungarian at 4%, so we are close to the end. I continued to push on in Serbia but found attacking across the major river line next to Belgrade took more casualties than I had come to expect. However, I used two Russian mountain units to maul an unentrenched German corps in the western Carpathians and I used more Russian and Romanian units to push towards Klausenberg. In the east, I worked around a single Austro-Hungarian detachment and captured the Jakobeny mine.
In Galicia, I assaulted Krakow and took it easily and then pushed as many Russian corps as I could into the south-eastern corner of Germany with the aim of ultimately threatening Breslau.
In East Prussia, there was a blood bath: I destroyed four German corps and a detachment and reduced one German artillery unit that had moved up to occupy Danzig to strength 5. Seeing that Old Crow had brought up corps and artillery (no doubt from the west) to re-take Graudenz, I moved out of that hex and entrenched out of artillery range on the east bank of the Oder. The rest of my units rushed forward towards the line of forts between Thorn and Graudenz.
In the Baltic, I sent a Russian sub on a reconnaissance mission and found, to some surprise, that he had units in most of his ports (no doubt for repairs). So, I moved up the Russian fleet and formed a blockade line at the narrow point between Germany and Denmark and then loaded the British marines onto amphibious transports, with the aim of landing at Stettin next turn. A reconnaissance using the Russian seaplane carrier confirmed that it is unoccupied. Since Stettin is a 10-strength port, I reckon it should be useable as soon as I capture it, so I moved the two Swedish corps and the Swedish HQ next to the port of Stockholm to be ready to be transported to the other side of the Baltic.
In Italy, now that they are finally at Infantry Weapons 2, I upgraded every corps behind the front line. For good measure, I attacked and destroyed an Austro-Hungarian detachment in Fiume, next to the fortress at Pola.
On the Western Front, I realized that despite relative success in taking ground last turn in Belgium, I had not moved my British heavy artillery in range to hit Ypres, so I expanded my front by attacking over the Scheldt river to surround Brussels from three hex sides and I pushed one British corps north to flank Ypres on three sides as well. The British units on transports from the Middle East landed in ports in southern France so they could be railed north next turn.
All naval action this turn shifted to the Irish Sea where annoyingly, storms are blowing, thus eliminating my ability to use seaplanes or aircraft. I concentrated on destroying one damaged sub in the English Channel and concentrated my dreadnought attacks in the Irish Sea on destroying one partially damaged German dreadnought. I craftily laid a mine (I thought) at the tip of Cornwall and then manoeuvred all of the light cruisers that were in the Bristol Channel around the menacing German dreadnoughts and then behind a screen of British dreadnoughts which I brought from further up the channel. By the end of the turn, German morale was around 6% and Austro-Hungarian morale less than 4%. A personal goal was to keep French morale from going below 50% - which I managed to do.
At this point in the game, there was not much point in investing in tech or buying new units. However, the Russians replaced the diplomatic chit with the USA that fired last turn and decided for the hell of it to invest two chits each in ASW and Ground Attack Bombers, since everything else was at the max. The other powers reinforced existing units, and the French bought back one more corps. Even though German naval units shut down both ports of Bristol and Liverpool, cancelling three major convoys, the British still had enough MPPs to reinforce and transport all their units, including the Swedes.
At the end of the turn, I received the welcome news that the British Foreign Minister reported another 6% swing for the USA. Along with the effects of German unrestricted submarine warfare on American public opinion, this pushed the USA over the magic 90% threshold.
At the start of this turn, German NM was around 8% and Austro-Hungarian at 4%, so we are close to the end. I continued to push on in Serbia but found attacking across the major river line next to Belgrade took more casualties than I had come to expect. However, I used two Russian mountain units to maul an unentrenched German corps in the western Carpathians and I used more Russian and Romanian units to push towards Klausenberg. In the east, I worked around a single Austro-Hungarian detachment and captured the Jakobeny mine.
In Galicia, I assaulted Krakow and took it easily and then pushed as many Russian corps as I could into the south-eastern corner of Germany with the aim of ultimately threatening Breslau.
In East Prussia, there was a blood bath: I destroyed four German corps and a detachment and reduced one German artillery unit that had moved up to occupy Danzig to strength 5. Seeing that Old Crow had brought up corps and artillery (no doubt from the west) to re-take Graudenz, I moved out of that hex and entrenched out of artillery range on the east bank of the Oder. The rest of my units rushed forward towards the line of forts between Thorn and Graudenz.
In the Baltic, I sent a Russian sub on a reconnaissance mission and found, to some surprise, that he had units in most of his ports (no doubt for repairs). So, I moved up the Russian fleet and formed a blockade line at the narrow point between Germany and Denmark and then loaded the British marines onto amphibious transports, with the aim of landing at Stettin next turn. A reconnaissance using the Russian seaplane carrier confirmed that it is unoccupied. Since Stettin is a 10-strength port, I reckon it should be useable as soon as I capture it, so I moved the two Swedish corps and the Swedish HQ next to the port of Stockholm to be ready to be transported to the other side of the Baltic.
In Italy, now that they are finally at Infantry Weapons 2, I upgraded every corps behind the front line. For good measure, I attacked and destroyed an Austro-Hungarian detachment in Fiume, next to the fortress at Pola.
On the Western Front, I realized that despite relative success in taking ground last turn in Belgium, I had not moved my British heavy artillery in range to hit Ypres, so I expanded my front by attacking over the Scheldt river to surround Brussels from three hex sides and I pushed one British corps north to flank Ypres on three sides as well. The British units on transports from the Middle East landed in ports in southern France so they could be railed north next turn.
All naval action this turn shifted to the Irish Sea where annoyingly, storms are blowing, thus eliminating my ability to use seaplanes or aircraft. I concentrated on destroying one damaged sub in the English Channel and concentrated my dreadnought attacks in the Irish Sea on destroying one partially damaged German dreadnought. I craftily laid a mine (I thought) at the tip of Cornwall and then manoeuvred all of the light cruisers that were in the Bristol Channel around the menacing German dreadnoughts and then behind a screen of British dreadnoughts which I brought from further up the channel. By the end of the turn, German morale was around 6% and Austro-Hungarian morale less than 4%. A personal goal was to keep French morale from going below 50% - which I managed to do.
At this point in the game, there was not much point in investing in tech or buying new units. However, the Russians replaced the diplomatic chit with the USA that fired last turn and decided for the hell of it to invest two chits each in ASW and Ground Attack Bombers, since everything else was at the max. The other powers reinforced existing units, and the French bought back one more corps. Even though German naval units shut down both ports of Bristol and Liverpool, cancelling three major convoys, the British still had enough MPPs to reinforce and transport all their units, including the Swedes.
At the end of the turn, I received the welcome news that the British Foreign Minister reported another 6% swing for the USA. Along with the effects of German unrestricted submarine warfare on American public opinion, this pushed the USA over the magic 90% threshold.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Entente Turn 47 September 8, 1917
It turns out the loss of Krakow and other unit and resource losses were enough to push the Austro-Hungarian morale to zero at the end of their turn, so they collapsed and broke up into four new states throwing all the Russian units in Galicia into Poland and the Italians back into northern Italy. This radically simplified the game for me.
In Germany, I pulled back my two corps in the far south-east that were relying in supply from Tarnow (now part of independent Poland) as they found themselves sitting at supply 1 and 2. In East Prussia, I demolished the one out of supply corps stuck behind my lines and then assaulted the unentrenched unit (no doubt railed in last turn) defending Danzig. I destroyed it and pushed a mobilized corps into the city, capturing this NM hex and destroying the artillery unit now behind Danzig that I had attacked the turn before.
My proudest flourish was my naval assault on Stettin. I used the Russian seaplane carrier to spot that Stettin was still open and then landed the British marine division there. This opened up the port to Entente use, so I transported in two Swedish corps, the Swedish General and for good measure, the Russian marine division, creating a major beachhead on the north coast of Germany just three hexes from Berlin. To top it off, I moved all five Russian subs with backup from the Russian dreadnought and Swedish pre-dreadnought DN into the narrows between Germany and Denmark and thus bottled up all of his units in port so they could not escape.
On the Western Front, I launched carefully planned attacks in which the British took Ypres and the French took Brussels. Brussels required contributions from both the British and French tank corps (which suffer from a high defenders bonus in cities), but it allowed me to move a 10-strength corps onto Brussels. Then a carefully choreographed assault, I took Verdun with five attacks and re-occupied it. It had no NM benefits but was important for French morale nonetheless. Retaking Nancy would have required one or two more full-strength corps.
Just to make a point, I used my newly deployed French ground attack bomber for the first time to soften up the target in Brussels. And I brought over to hexes next to Boulogne the first two USA units to see action in Europe - a fully loaded ground attack bomber and an advanced fighter.
Finally, in the English channel despite the stormy weather again, I used seaplanes and a maritime bomber to reduce a 10-strength DN hiding in the Bristol Channel (where the weather was clear) and then destroyed it with a British DN from a port in Ireland. Two more British DNs destroyed the last remaining German dreadnought that I could see. I sent every destroyer and light cruiser I had to sink one more German sub and reduced it to only 3 strength points, but it managed to escape. Nevertheless, by the end of the naval moves, Germany was down to only 136 NM points which is 0% in the game.
Pressing the end turn, button the engine scrolled through the various NM losses Germany had suffered and finally generated the screen announcing, "Entente Major Victory".
It turns out the loss of Krakow and other unit and resource losses were enough to push the Austro-Hungarian morale to zero at the end of their turn, so they collapsed and broke up into four new states throwing all the Russian units in Galicia into Poland and the Italians back into northern Italy. This radically simplified the game for me.
In Germany, I pulled back my two corps in the far south-east that were relying in supply from Tarnow (now part of independent Poland) as they found themselves sitting at supply 1 and 2. In East Prussia, I demolished the one out of supply corps stuck behind my lines and then assaulted the unentrenched unit (no doubt railed in last turn) defending Danzig. I destroyed it and pushed a mobilized corps into the city, capturing this NM hex and destroying the artillery unit now behind Danzig that I had attacked the turn before.
My proudest flourish was my naval assault on Stettin. I used the Russian seaplane carrier to spot that Stettin was still open and then landed the British marine division there. This opened up the port to Entente use, so I transported in two Swedish corps, the Swedish General and for good measure, the Russian marine division, creating a major beachhead on the north coast of Germany just three hexes from Berlin. To top it off, I moved all five Russian subs with backup from the Russian dreadnought and Swedish pre-dreadnought DN into the narrows between Germany and Denmark and thus bottled up all of his units in port so they could not escape.
On the Western Front, I launched carefully planned attacks in which the British took Ypres and the French took Brussels. Brussels required contributions from both the British and French tank corps (which suffer from a high defenders bonus in cities), but it allowed me to move a 10-strength corps onto Brussels. Then a carefully choreographed assault, I took Verdun with five attacks and re-occupied it. It had no NM benefits but was important for French morale nonetheless. Retaking Nancy would have required one or two more full-strength corps.
Just to make a point, I used my newly deployed French ground attack bomber for the first time to soften up the target in Brussels. And I brought over to hexes next to Boulogne the first two USA units to see action in Europe - a fully loaded ground attack bomber and an advanced fighter.
Finally, in the English channel despite the stormy weather again, I used seaplanes and a maritime bomber to reduce a 10-strength DN hiding in the Bristol Channel (where the weather was clear) and then destroyed it with a British DN from a port in Ireland. Two more British DNs destroyed the last remaining German dreadnought that I could see. I sent every destroyer and light cruiser I had to sink one more German sub and reduced it to only 3 strength points, but it managed to escape. Nevertheless, by the end of the naval moves, Germany was down to only 136 NM points which is 0% in the game.
Pressing the end turn, button the engine scrolled through the various NM losses Germany had suffered and finally generated the screen announcing, "Entente Major Victory".
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
After Action Review
Since I was playing the winning side, there were few surprises by looking at the map and the graphs afterwards. It turns out I sank all but one German DN (the one left was hiding in the Kiel Canal). He still had seven submarines operating in the St. George's channel and had shut down two major ports. His line was thinner in the West but could have held on for many turns longer with the heavy artillery firing defensively. What finished off the Germans was the NM hit from the entry of the USA plus the NM objectives lost in the East, and then the destruction of his capital ships in the Irish Sea. I could not see any German NM hit from the surrender of Austria-Hungary - a similar to the situation with the Ottomans three turns earlier. This will need to be checked out.
The production stats were telling. Over the course of the game, the Central Powers produced only 63% of the MPPs of the Entente (not including the USA). The UK, France and Russia all made major investments in tech; only the Germans did and not as widely based as those three majors. The Austro-Hungarians and Russians made minimal tech investments.
In terms of the game, there were a few turning points. The first was in November 1914 when Old Crow decided to pivot east to take out Warsaw rather than press on to Paris. This gave the French the respite they badly needed to rebuild and even to start retaking some territory beyond the line of the Sommer. If he had pushed on against the French with full force, even in the winter, he might have been able to take Paris by the spring of 1915.
The second turning point was related to the first: by the spring of 1915 after Germany pivoted east, I decided the French could hold on in the west on their own. Instead of sending the first British divisions to attack the Ottomans across the Sinai, I decided to throw everything I could into defending Serbia - reasoning that the best defence of Egypt was to prevent the Ottomans from having a rail connection and convoy route from the other two Central Powers. This decision was crucially enabled by the DE that Old Crow and I designed last year, giving the Entente the chance to sponsor a friendly coup in Greece if southern Serbia is threatened. That happened when he brought in Bulgaria through diplomacy. The DE could have gone the other way, leaving most of Greece in CP hands, with only Salonika as an Entente port. But access to Salonika and the help over time from the Greek army proved critical in stabilizing the defence of Serbia. As it was, it was a very stiff fight and for several turns there were only two hexes of Entente controlled territory running through Nish, between the Austro-Hungarians and the Bulgarians. If he had stiffened this attack with some additional German corps, it might have worked.
The third turning point came in September 1916. After Russia reached level 4 in Industrial Production, their MPPs were almost unlimited. So, I used diplomacy to bring in Romania on my side (earlier Russian successes in Galicia helped, but diplomacy took the Romanians from 49% to 100%). That completely changed the equation in the Balkans - even more when the British were able to capture Sofia from the west and the Russians took Varna from the east, thus triggering the surrender of Bulgaria.
Diplomacy proved very useful too, in allowing me to move Norway and ultimately Sweden over to the Entente side - thus shifting both convoys from Germany to the UK (the change in Swedish convoy was another feature of this mod). For the first time, I saw players investing in diplomacy to bring the USA into the game (largely Russian chits at first with some British ones at the end). I also used diplomacy to fake out Old Crow in the Netherlands - when I threated his position there, he went all in to defend it and then after I pulled out my chits, they swung to 100% for the Central Powers, which gave him the Dutch army (which he used to good effect) but cost him more MPPs and NM points every turn due to the loss of food imports into the neutral Netherlands. Swinging Sweden to the Entente side was a fluke - I think the last three British chits each generated breakthroughs. But at the very end it was useful in allowing me to launch the invasion of Stettin and the first arrival of Swedish troops on the mainland of Europe in one hundred years.
Old Crow was highly effective in his naval campaign against the British ports in 1915 and he seriously reduced the UK MPP production for most of that year. His repeat performance in 1917 was a swan song. While the subs were highly effective and hard to sink (especially after being upgraded to level 2 in Advanced Subs), his capital ships were floating National Morale targets that hastened Germany's demise by a couple of turns. By 1917, the British economy had reached Industry 5 and with so many other sources of income (Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Persia), I was not disturbed when he ran that play again. I wondered though why he did not try to do so in 1916.
In terms of the Icarus mod, I think overall it worked very well. There were some glitches, but I think they balanced out between each side. The features that worked particularly well in my view were: the different capabilities of the two kinds of artillery; no morale penalties for swapping units; the greater probability of a hit from each diplomacy chit - leading both of us to invest a lot more in diplomacy than normal; the reduced cost for lesser used techs, which certainly encouraged me to invest in production tech and long range aircraft and, for the Russians at the end in heavy bombers; the two armoured warfare chits for France and Britain, which meant that tanks saw use on the Western Front in 1917. In this mod there was a much greater threat posed by the Arab Revolt; even if it was unsuccesful (from my point of view) was much more complex and exciting than the regular game. Giving Russia access to Persian Azerbaijan created a front in northern Mesopotamia centred on Mosul which never existed before. Having Portugal actually join the Entente was a small but fun new feature of the game. The biggest difference from the standard game were the effects of increasing the defensive strength of corps against attacks by other corps thus leading to true battles of attrition especially on the Western Front. Slowing down shell production by giving each major only one chit they could buy for 200 MPPs in Gas/Shell Production also had the desired effect of reducing the tempo of the game.
I expected that the game would run until 1918 and I did not succeed in achieving this desired outcome. But perhaps that has more to do with my playing ability (it is always possible) and my knowledge of the mod. The fact that I was not recording my moves on You Tube, unlike Old Crow, meant I could take far longer than he could to think about how to optimize my moves each turn. Nevertheless, I do think the new features in this mod slightly tilt it towards the Entente and I will look for ways to adjust that in the next edition.
In addition to correcting scripts that did not fire as planned, in the next edition of this mod, I plan to experiment with the following:
- For the Arab Revolt, having the new Arab partisans hexes come online over an 18-month period, rather than all at once. Having empty territory in Arabia transfer to the Entente as the Arab Revolt progresses, so Arab partisans can hide in the desert and make surprise moves without the change in hex ownership giving their positions away. Giving Arab partisans an extra movement bonus in the desert, so they can move 3 hexes a turn there. Writing new scripts for Lawrence and Faisal, so those leaders appear in the game and have a useful role to play in providing supply and command to the Arab partisans.
- Moving the new Ottoman mine near Zonguldak (which I added to give the Ottomans some more income) one hex inland, so Russian capital ships cannot obliterate it with coastal bombardment.
- Writing a new script for German stormtroopers (the game ended on the turn they would have arrived), which gives the Germans the option to invest in building four of them at a reduced cost, amortized over many turns, modelled on the Kitchener's new Army DE for the UK. This is a better way of ensuring that these units appear in the game than giving the Germans two free units.
- Giving Germany one or two more tech chits at the beginning to compensate for the free tech chits the British and French receive for Armoured Warfare. Advanced Subs would be an obvious possibility.
- Perhaps increasing the number of diplomacy chits available to the Central Powers, so they have equal ability to spend on diplomacy as the Entente.
- Reducing the ability of the Russian economy to grow so huge, so fast. This could be done by only allowing the Russians to invest two chits in Industrial Production, rather than three.
- Possibly removing the level 1 on Command and Control that Russia has to start and replacing it with a chit on Command and Control, so the Russian generals are even more hopeless than they already are in 1914. This would put Russia on the same footing as Austria-Hungary at the start of the game.
- Giving the USA two chits on trench warfare to start, so they do not enter the war far behind in this tech. They would have caught up with advances in trench fighting over the first three years of the war simply from military observers in Europe and press coverage of the war.
- Restoring the unit morale bump that the Germans get from capturing Luxemburg on the first turn by writing a new strength script. I am firmly against recreating the cascading effect of minor power surrenders that happens in the standard game. But Germany's offensive in the West might benefit a bit by reinstating this factor.
I am very open to further suggestions from anyone who has followed this playtest through to the bitter end! Just PM me your ideas through the Strategic Command WW1 Forum.
Since I was playing the winning side, there were few surprises by looking at the map and the graphs afterwards. It turns out I sank all but one German DN (the one left was hiding in the Kiel Canal). He still had seven submarines operating in the St. George's channel and had shut down two major ports. His line was thinner in the West but could have held on for many turns longer with the heavy artillery firing defensively. What finished off the Germans was the NM hit from the entry of the USA plus the NM objectives lost in the East, and then the destruction of his capital ships in the Irish Sea. I could not see any German NM hit from the surrender of Austria-Hungary - a similar to the situation with the Ottomans three turns earlier. This will need to be checked out.
The production stats were telling. Over the course of the game, the Central Powers produced only 63% of the MPPs of the Entente (not including the USA). The UK, France and Russia all made major investments in tech; only the Germans did and not as widely based as those three majors. The Austro-Hungarians and Russians made minimal tech investments.
In terms of the game, there were a few turning points. The first was in November 1914 when Old Crow decided to pivot east to take out Warsaw rather than press on to Paris. This gave the French the respite they badly needed to rebuild and even to start retaking some territory beyond the line of the Sommer. If he had pushed on against the French with full force, even in the winter, he might have been able to take Paris by the spring of 1915.
The second turning point was related to the first: by the spring of 1915 after Germany pivoted east, I decided the French could hold on in the west on their own. Instead of sending the first British divisions to attack the Ottomans across the Sinai, I decided to throw everything I could into defending Serbia - reasoning that the best defence of Egypt was to prevent the Ottomans from having a rail connection and convoy route from the other two Central Powers. This decision was crucially enabled by the DE that Old Crow and I designed last year, giving the Entente the chance to sponsor a friendly coup in Greece if southern Serbia is threatened. That happened when he brought in Bulgaria through diplomacy. The DE could have gone the other way, leaving most of Greece in CP hands, with only Salonika as an Entente port. But access to Salonika and the help over time from the Greek army proved critical in stabilizing the defence of Serbia. As it was, it was a very stiff fight and for several turns there were only two hexes of Entente controlled territory running through Nish, between the Austro-Hungarians and the Bulgarians. If he had stiffened this attack with some additional German corps, it might have worked.
The third turning point came in September 1916. After Russia reached level 4 in Industrial Production, their MPPs were almost unlimited. So, I used diplomacy to bring in Romania on my side (earlier Russian successes in Galicia helped, but diplomacy took the Romanians from 49% to 100%). That completely changed the equation in the Balkans - even more when the British were able to capture Sofia from the west and the Russians took Varna from the east, thus triggering the surrender of Bulgaria.
Diplomacy proved very useful too, in allowing me to move Norway and ultimately Sweden over to the Entente side - thus shifting both convoys from Germany to the UK (the change in Swedish convoy was another feature of this mod). For the first time, I saw players investing in diplomacy to bring the USA into the game (largely Russian chits at first with some British ones at the end). I also used diplomacy to fake out Old Crow in the Netherlands - when I threated his position there, he went all in to defend it and then after I pulled out my chits, they swung to 100% for the Central Powers, which gave him the Dutch army (which he used to good effect) but cost him more MPPs and NM points every turn due to the loss of food imports into the neutral Netherlands. Swinging Sweden to the Entente side was a fluke - I think the last three British chits each generated breakthroughs. But at the very end it was useful in allowing me to launch the invasion of Stettin and the first arrival of Swedish troops on the mainland of Europe in one hundred years.
Old Crow was highly effective in his naval campaign against the British ports in 1915 and he seriously reduced the UK MPP production for most of that year. His repeat performance in 1917 was a swan song. While the subs were highly effective and hard to sink (especially after being upgraded to level 2 in Advanced Subs), his capital ships were floating National Morale targets that hastened Germany's demise by a couple of turns. By 1917, the British economy had reached Industry 5 and with so many other sources of income (Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Persia), I was not disturbed when he ran that play again. I wondered though why he did not try to do so in 1916.
In terms of the Icarus mod, I think overall it worked very well. There were some glitches, but I think they balanced out between each side. The features that worked particularly well in my view were: the different capabilities of the two kinds of artillery; no morale penalties for swapping units; the greater probability of a hit from each diplomacy chit - leading both of us to invest a lot more in diplomacy than normal; the reduced cost for lesser used techs, which certainly encouraged me to invest in production tech and long range aircraft and, for the Russians at the end in heavy bombers; the two armoured warfare chits for France and Britain, which meant that tanks saw use on the Western Front in 1917. In this mod there was a much greater threat posed by the Arab Revolt; even if it was unsuccesful (from my point of view) was much more complex and exciting than the regular game. Giving Russia access to Persian Azerbaijan created a front in northern Mesopotamia centred on Mosul which never existed before. Having Portugal actually join the Entente was a small but fun new feature of the game. The biggest difference from the standard game were the effects of increasing the defensive strength of corps against attacks by other corps thus leading to true battles of attrition especially on the Western Front. Slowing down shell production by giving each major only one chit they could buy for 200 MPPs in Gas/Shell Production also had the desired effect of reducing the tempo of the game.
I expected that the game would run until 1918 and I did not succeed in achieving this desired outcome. But perhaps that has more to do with my playing ability (it is always possible) and my knowledge of the mod. The fact that I was not recording my moves on You Tube, unlike Old Crow, meant I could take far longer than he could to think about how to optimize my moves each turn. Nevertheless, I do think the new features in this mod slightly tilt it towards the Entente and I will look for ways to adjust that in the next edition.
In addition to correcting scripts that did not fire as planned, in the next edition of this mod, I plan to experiment with the following:
- For the Arab Revolt, having the new Arab partisans hexes come online over an 18-month period, rather than all at once. Having empty territory in Arabia transfer to the Entente as the Arab Revolt progresses, so Arab partisans can hide in the desert and make surprise moves without the change in hex ownership giving their positions away. Giving Arab partisans an extra movement bonus in the desert, so they can move 3 hexes a turn there. Writing new scripts for Lawrence and Faisal, so those leaders appear in the game and have a useful role to play in providing supply and command to the Arab partisans.
- Moving the new Ottoman mine near Zonguldak (which I added to give the Ottomans some more income) one hex inland, so Russian capital ships cannot obliterate it with coastal bombardment.
- Writing a new script for German stormtroopers (the game ended on the turn they would have arrived), which gives the Germans the option to invest in building four of them at a reduced cost, amortized over many turns, modelled on the Kitchener's new Army DE for the UK. This is a better way of ensuring that these units appear in the game than giving the Germans two free units.
- Giving Germany one or two more tech chits at the beginning to compensate for the free tech chits the British and French receive for Armoured Warfare. Advanced Subs would be an obvious possibility.
- Perhaps increasing the number of diplomacy chits available to the Central Powers, so they have equal ability to spend on diplomacy as the Entente.
- Reducing the ability of the Russian economy to grow so huge, so fast. This could be done by only allowing the Russians to invest two chits in Industrial Production, rather than three.
- Possibly removing the level 1 on Command and Control that Russia has to start and replacing it with a chit on Command and Control, so the Russian generals are even more hopeless than they already are in 1914. This would put Russia on the same footing as Austria-Hungary at the start of the game.
- Giving the USA two chits on trench warfare to start, so they do not enter the war far behind in this tech. They would have caught up with advances in trench fighting over the first three years of the war simply from military observers in Europe and press coverage of the war.
- Restoring the unit morale bump that the Germans get from capturing Luxemburg on the first turn by writing a new strength script. I am firmly against recreating the cascading effect of minor power surrenders that happens in the standard game. But Germany's offensive in the West might benefit a bit by reinstating this factor.
I am very open to further suggestions from anyone who has followed this playtest through to the bitter end! Just PM me your ideas through the Strategic Command WW1 Forum.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
After Action Review
Since I was playing the winning side, there were few surprises by looking at the map and the graphs afterwards. It turns out I sank all but one German DN (the one left was hiding in the Kiel Canal). He still had seven submarines operating in the St. George's channel and had shut down two major ports. His line was thinner in the West but could have held on for many turns longer with the heavy artillery firing defensively. What finished off the Germans was the NM hit from the entry of the USA plus the NM objectives lost in the East, and then the destruction of his capital ships in the Irish Sea. I could not see any German NM hit from the surrender of Austria-Hungary - a similar to the situation with the Ottomans three turns earlier. This will need to be checked out.
The production stats were telling. Over the course of the game, the Central Powers produced only 63% of the MPPs of the Entente (not including the USA). The UK, France and Russia all made major investments in tech; only the Germans did and not as widely based as those three majors. The Austro-Hungarians and Russians made minimal tech investments.
In terms of the game, there were a few turning points. The first was in November 1914 when Old Crow decided to pivot east to take out Warsaw rather than press on to Paris. This gave the French the respite they badly needed to rebuild and even to start retaking some territory beyond the line of the Sommer. If he had pushed on against the French with full force, even in the winter, he might have been able to take Paris by the spring of 1915.
The second turning point was related to the first: by the spring of 1915 after Germany pivoted east, I decided the French could hold on in the west on their own. Instead of sending the first British divisions to attack the Ottomans across the Sinai, I decided to throw everything I could into defending Serbia - reasoning that the best defence of Egypt was to prevent the Ottomans from having a rail connection and convoy route from the other two Central Powers. This decision was crucially enabled by the DE that Old Crow and I designed last year, giving the Entente the chance to sponsor a friendly coup in Greece if southern Serbia is threatened. That happened when he brought in Bulgaria through diplomacy. The DE could have gone the other way, leaving most of Greece in CP hands, with only Salonika as an Entente port. But access to Salonika and the help over time from the Greek army proved critical in stabilizing the defence of Serbia. As it was, it was a very stiff fight and for several turns there were only two hexes of Entente controlled territory running through Nish, between the Austro-Hungarians and the Bulgarians. If he had stiffened this attack with some additional German corps, it might have worked.
The third turning point came in September 1916. After Russia reached level 4 in Industrial Production, their MPPs were almost unlimited. So, I used diplomacy to bring in Romania on my side (earlier Russian successes in Galicia helped, but diplomacy took the Romanians from 49% to 100%). That completely changed the equation in the Balkans - even more when the British were able to capture Sofia from the west and the Russians took Varna from the east, thus triggering the surrender of Bulgaria.
Diplomacy proved very useful too, in allowing me to move Norway and ultimately Sweden over to the Entente side - thus shifting both convoys from Germany to the UK (the change in Swedish convoy was another feature of this mod). For the first time, I saw players investing in diplomacy to bring the USA into the game (largely Russian chits at first with some British ones at the end). I also used diplomacy to fake out Old Crow in the Netherlands - when I threated his position there, he went all in to defend it and then after I pulled out my chits, they swung to 100% for the Central Powers, which gave him the Dutch army (which he used to good effect) but cost him more MPPs and NM points every turn due to the loss of food imports into the neutral Netherlands. Swinging Sweden to the Entente side was a fluke - I think the last three British chits each generated breakthroughs. But at the very end it was useful in allowing me to launch the invasion of Stettin and the first arrival of Swedish troops on the mainland of Europe in one hundred years.
Old Crow was highly effective in his naval campaign against the British ports in 1915 and he seriously reduced the UK MPP production for most of that year. His repeat performance in 1917 was a swan song. While the subs were highly effective and hard to sink (especially after being upgraded to level 2 in Advanced Subs), his capital ships were floating National Morale targets that hastened Germany's demise by a couple of turns. By 1917, the British economy had reached Industry 5 and with so many other sources of income (Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Persia), I was not disturbed when he ran that play again. I wondered though why he did not try to do so in 1916.
In terms of the Icarus mod, I think overall it worked very well. There were some glitches, but I think they balanced out between each side. The features that worked particularly well in my view were: the different capabilities of the two kinds of artillery; no morale penalties for swapping units; the greater probability of a hit from each diplomacy chit - leading both of us to invest a lot more in diplomacy than normal; the reduced cost for lesser used techs, which certainly encouraged me to invest in production tech and long range aircraft and, for the Russians at the end in heavy bombers; the two armoured warfare chits for France and Britain, which meant that tanks saw use on the Western Front in 1917. In this mod there was a much greater threat posed by the Arab Revolt; even if it was unsuccesful (from my point of view) was much more complex and exciting than the regular game. Giving Russia access to Persian Azerbaijan created a front in northern Mesopotamia centred on Mosul which never existed before. Having Portugal actually join the Entente was a small but fun new feature of the game. The biggest difference from the standard game were the effects of increasing the defensive strength of corps against attacks by other corps thus leading to true battles of attrition especially on the Western Front. Slowing down shell production by giving each major only one chit they could buy for 200 MPPs in Gas/Shell Production also had the desired effect of reducing the tempo of the game.
I expected that the game would run until 1918 and I did not succeed in achieving this desired outcome. But perhaps that has more to do with my playing ability (it is always possible) and my knowledge of the mod. The fact that I was not recording my moves on You Tube, unlike Old Crow, meant I could take far longer than he could to think about how to optimize my moves each turn. Nevertheless, I do think the new features in this mod slightly tilt it towards the Entente and I will look for ways to adjust that in the next edition.
In addition to correcting scripts that did not fire as planned, in the next edition of this mod, I plan to experiment with the following:
- For the Arab Revolt, having the new Arab partisans hexes come online over an 18-month period, rather than all at once. Having empty territory in Arabia transfer to the Entente as the Arab Revolt progresses, so Arab partisans can hide in the desert and make surprise moves without the change in hex ownership giving their positions away. Giving Arab partisans an extra movement bonus in the desert, so they can move 3 hexes a turn there. Writing new scripts for Lawrence and Faisal, so those leaders appear in the game and have a useful role to play in providing supply and command to the Arab partisans.
- Moving the new Ottoman mine near Zonguldak (which I added to give the Ottomans some more income) one hex inland, so Russian capital ships cannot obliterate it with coastal bombardment.
- Writing a new script for German stormtroopers (the game ended on the turn they would have arrived), which gives the Germans the option to invest in building four of them at a reduced cost, amortized over many turns, modelled on the Kitchener's new Army DE for the UK. This is a better way of ensuring that these units appear in the game than giving the Germans two free units.
- Giving Germany one or two more tech chits at the beginning to compensate for the free tech chits the British and French receive for Armoured Warfare. Advanced Subs would be an obvious possibility.
- Perhaps increasing the number of diplomacy chits available to the Central Powers, so they have equal ability to spend on diplomacy as the Entente.
- Reducing the ability of the Russian economy to grow so huge, so fast. This could be done by only allowing the Russians to invest two chits in Industrial Production, rather than three.
- Possibly removing the level 1 on Command and Control that Russia has to start and replacing it with a chit on Command and Control, so the Russian generals are even more hopeless than they already are in 1914. This would put Russia on the same footing as Austria-Hungary at the start of the game.
- Giving the USA two chits on trench warfare to start, so they do not enter the war far behind in this tech. They would have caught up with advances in trench fighting over the first three years of the war simply from military observers in Europe and press coverage of the war.
- Restoring the unit morale bump that the Germans get from capturing Luxemburg on the first turn by writing a new strength script. I am firmly against recreating the cascading effect of minor power surrenders that happens in the standard game. But Germany's offensive in the West might benefit a bit by reinstating this factor.
I am very open to further suggestions from anyone who has followed this playtest through to the bitter end! Just PM me your ideas through the Strategic Command WW1 Forum.
Since I was playing the winning side, there were few surprises by looking at the map and the graphs afterwards. It turns out I sank all but one German DN (the one left was hiding in the Kiel Canal). He still had seven submarines operating in the St. George's channel and had shut down two major ports. His line was thinner in the West but could have held on for many turns longer with the heavy artillery firing defensively. What finished off the Germans was the NM hit from the entry of the USA plus the NM objectives lost in the East, and then the destruction of his capital ships in the Irish Sea. I could not see any German NM hit from the surrender of Austria-Hungary - a similar to the situation with the Ottomans three turns earlier. This will need to be checked out.
The production stats were telling. Over the course of the game, the Central Powers produced only 63% of the MPPs of the Entente (not including the USA). The UK, France and Russia all made major investments in tech; only the Germans did and not as widely based as those three majors. The Austro-Hungarians and Russians made minimal tech investments.
In terms of the game, there were a few turning points. The first was in November 1914 when Old Crow decided to pivot east to take out Warsaw rather than press on to Paris. This gave the French the respite they badly needed to rebuild and even to start retaking some territory beyond the line of the Sommer. If he had pushed on against the French with full force, even in the winter, he might have been able to take Paris by the spring of 1915.
The second turning point was related to the first: by the spring of 1915 after Germany pivoted east, I decided the French could hold on in the west on their own. Instead of sending the first British divisions to attack the Ottomans across the Sinai, I decided to throw everything I could into defending Serbia - reasoning that the best defence of Egypt was to prevent the Ottomans from having a rail connection and convoy route from the other two Central Powers. This decision was crucially enabled by the DE that Old Crow and I designed last year, giving the Entente the chance to sponsor a friendly coup in Greece if southern Serbia is threatened. That happened when he brought in Bulgaria through diplomacy. The DE could have gone the other way, leaving most of Greece in CP hands, with only Salonika as an Entente port. But access to Salonika and the help over time from the Greek army proved critical in stabilizing the defence of Serbia. As it was, it was a very stiff fight and for several turns there were only two hexes of Entente controlled territory running through Nish, between the Austro-Hungarians and the Bulgarians. If he had stiffened this attack with some additional German corps, it might have worked.
The third turning point came in September 1916. After Russia reached level 4 in Industrial Production, their MPPs were almost unlimited. So, I used diplomacy to bring in Romania on my side (earlier Russian successes in Galicia helped, but diplomacy took the Romanians from 49% to 100%). That completely changed the equation in the Balkans - even more when the British were able to capture Sofia from the west and the Russians took Varna from the east, thus triggering the surrender of Bulgaria.
Diplomacy proved very useful too, in allowing me to move Norway and ultimately Sweden over to the Entente side - thus shifting both convoys from Germany to the UK (the change in Swedish convoy was another feature of this mod). For the first time, I saw players investing in diplomacy to bring the USA into the game (largely Russian chits at first with some British ones at the end). I also used diplomacy to fake out Old Crow in the Netherlands - when I threated his position there, he went all in to defend it and then after I pulled out my chits, they swung to 100% for the Central Powers, which gave him the Dutch army (which he used to good effect) but cost him more MPPs and NM points every turn due to the loss of food imports into the neutral Netherlands. Swinging Sweden to the Entente side was a fluke - I think the last three British chits each generated breakthroughs. But at the very end it was useful in allowing me to launch the invasion of Stettin and the first arrival of Swedish troops on the mainland of Europe in one hundred years.
Old Crow was highly effective in his naval campaign against the British ports in 1915 and he seriously reduced the UK MPP production for most of that year. His repeat performance in 1917 was a swan song. While the subs were highly effective and hard to sink (especially after being upgraded to level 2 in Advanced Subs), his capital ships were floating National Morale targets that hastened Germany's demise by a couple of turns. By 1917, the British economy had reached Industry 5 and with so many other sources of income (Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Persia), I was not disturbed when he ran that play again. I wondered though why he did not try to do so in 1916.
In terms of the Icarus mod, I think overall it worked very well. There were some glitches, but I think they balanced out between each side. The features that worked particularly well in my view were: the different capabilities of the two kinds of artillery; no morale penalties for swapping units; the greater probability of a hit from each diplomacy chit - leading both of us to invest a lot more in diplomacy than normal; the reduced cost for lesser used techs, which certainly encouraged me to invest in production tech and long range aircraft and, for the Russians at the end in heavy bombers; the two armoured warfare chits for France and Britain, which meant that tanks saw use on the Western Front in 1917. In this mod there was a much greater threat posed by the Arab Revolt; even if it was unsuccesful (from my point of view) was much more complex and exciting than the regular game. Giving Russia access to Persian Azerbaijan created a front in northern Mesopotamia centred on Mosul which never existed before. Having Portugal actually join the Entente was a small but fun new feature of the game. The biggest difference from the standard game were the effects of increasing the defensive strength of corps against attacks by other corps thus leading to true battles of attrition especially on the Western Front. Slowing down shell production by giving each major only one chit they could buy for 200 MPPs in Gas/Shell Production also had the desired effect of reducing the tempo of the game.
I expected that the game would run until 1918 and I did not succeed in achieving this desired outcome. But perhaps that has more to do with my playing ability (it is always possible) and my knowledge of the mod. The fact that I was not recording my moves on You Tube, unlike Old Crow, meant I could take far longer than he could to think about how to optimize my moves each turn. Nevertheless, I do think the new features in this mod slightly tilt it towards the Entente and I will look for ways to adjust that in the next edition.
In addition to correcting scripts that did not fire as planned, in the next edition of this mod, I plan to experiment with the following:
- For the Arab Revolt, having the new Arab partisans hexes come online over an 18-month period, rather than all at once. Having empty territory in Arabia transfer to the Entente as the Arab Revolt progresses, so Arab partisans can hide in the desert and make surprise moves without the change in hex ownership giving their positions away. Giving Arab partisans an extra movement bonus in the desert, so they can move 3 hexes a turn there. Writing new scripts for Lawrence and Faisal, so those leaders appear in the game and have a useful role to play in providing supply and command to the Arab partisans.
- Moving the new Ottoman mine near Zonguldak (which I added to give the Ottomans some more income) one hex inland, so Russian capital ships cannot obliterate it with coastal bombardment.
- Writing a new script for German stormtroopers (the game ended on the turn they would have arrived), which gives the Germans the option to invest in building four of them at a reduced cost, amortized over many turns, modelled on the Kitchener's new Army DE for the UK. This is a better way of ensuring that these units appear in the game than giving the Germans two free units.
- Giving Germany one or two more tech chits at the beginning to compensate for the free tech chits the British and French receive for Armoured Warfare. Advanced Subs would be an obvious possibility.
- Perhaps increasing the number of diplomacy chits available to the Central Powers, so they have equal ability to spend on diplomacy as the Entente.
- Reducing the ability of the Russian economy to grow so huge, so fast. This could be done by only allowing the Russians to invest two chits in Industrial Production, rather than three.
- Possibly removing the level 1 on Command and Control that Russia has to start and replacing it with a chit on Command and Control, so the Russian generals are even more hopeless than they already are in 1914. This would put Russia on the same footing as Austria-Hungary at the start of the game.
- Giving the USA two chits on trench warfare to start, so they do not enter the war far behind in this tech. They would have caught up with advances in trench fighting over the first three years of the war simply from military observers in Europe and press coverage of the war.
- Restoring the unit morale bump that the Germans get from capturing Luxemburg on the first turn by writing a new strength script. I am firmly against recreating the cascading effect of minor power surrenders that happens in the standard game. But Germany's offensive in the West might benefit a bit by reinstating this factor.
I am very open to further suggestions from anyone who has followed this playtest through to the bitter end! Just PM me your ideas through the Strategic Command WW1 Forum.
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Hello, newer to posting so I cannot send a direct PM. I would very much like to test this mod out if you would be willing to share.
-
OldCrowBalthazor
- Posts: 2686
- Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2020 12:42 am
- Location: Republic of Cascadia
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Hi
I'll see if I can contact Michael and have him send a file to you.
Btw I think after 5 posts or so you can PM.
Cheers
My YouTube Channel: Balthazor's Strategic Arcana
https://www.youtube.com/c/BalthazorsStrategicArcana
SC-War in the Pacific Beta Tester
SC-ACW Beta Tester
1904 Imperial Sunrise Tester
SC-WW1 Empires in Turmoil DLC Tester
Tester of various SC Mods
https://www.youtube.com/c/BalthazorsStrategicArcana
SC-War in the Pacific Beta Tester
SC-ACW Beta Tester
1904 Imperial Sunrise Tester
SC-WW1 Empires in Turmoil DLC Tester
Tester of various SC Mods
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
Hi 2tonic (and anyone else reading this),
I am happy to send the files for the latests version of the Icarus mod to you directly. Just send me your email address to michael.small.2010@gmail.com
Cheers,
Michael
I am happy to send the files for the latests version of the Icarus mod to you directly. Just send me your email address to michael.small.2010@gmail.com
Cheers,
Michael
Re: Icarus Mod for 1914 Campaign: Play-test AAR
//- Reducing the ability of the Russian economy to grow so huge, so fast. This could be done by only allowing the Russians to invest two chits in Industrial Production, rather than three.//
Perhaps this needs to be reduced to 1 chit at a time in IP, the Russians gain a whooping 125 MPP
or so for every level, even in WW2 till 1943 they never managed to ever outproduce Germany (considering Germany fought on several fronts in both wars) and in WW1 the German army was very well armed and trained (for the tech available) whereas those memetic WW2 hordes were actually in WW1 not WW2 (where in 1941 they actually had a working sub-machine gun).
In WW1 the Russian reserve infantry units often had a battalion or even two without any arms whatsoever, sometimes not even proper uniforms which they would pick from dead and wounded and march into the front lines.
Perhaps this needs to be reduced to 1 chit at a time in IP, the Russians gain a whooping 125 MPP
or so for every level, even in WW2 till 1943 they never managed to ever outproduce Germany (considering Germany fought on several fronts in both wars) and in WW1 the German army was very well armed and trained (for the tech available) whereas those memetic WW2 hordes were actually in WW1 not WW2 (where in 1941 they actually had a working sub-machine gun). In WW1 the Russian reserve infantry units often had a battalion or even two without any arms whatsoever, sometimes not even proper uniforms which they would pick from dead and wounded and march into the front lines.