Russian Civil War game balance

[mdsmall]

I think the Russian Civil War game, released as part of the DLC two years ago for SC WW1, is terrific scenario and complements very well the main World War One game. I find it fascinating to have two sides fighting over the entire territory of Russia on the game map, but coming at each other from different angles than one is used to from World War One or World War two games where Germany is invading Russia from the west. The multiple factions and powers which Ryan has built into the game, plus all the historical detail, is a great plus.

All that said, my understanding from players who have played it more than I have in MP mode, is that it is very hard for the Bolsheviks to win. Which is especially odd, since they won a Major Victory (using the game definitions) in reality. I have found it easy to win as Bolsheviks playing against the AI (even at higher difficulty levels), but MP mode is always a very different game.

I am considering developing a small mod to the Russian Civil War in order to have a more balanced game in MP mode, in which each side has roughly similar chances of victory. Before starting work on that, I would be interested in hearing from other players what you would like to see in such a mod.

Cheers,

Michael (designer of the Icarus mod for SC WW1)

[OldCrowBalthazor]

This is from CradleoftheGael (one of my subscribers who said he has had trouble getting on the Matrix site here):

I will start off with a few general observations and recommendations, and then I will get in-to the faction-specific items. Most of these points will revolve a-round the weakening of the various White factions for both multi-player, as well as for single players who want a greater and a more complex challenge.



1. Break off the three Caucasian countries from the Southern Whites so that they are their own sub-faction, perhaps with Georgia as the major and Armenia and Azerbaijan as minors. It would be more ideal to have each of them be their own separate countries, but if that rule was applied to the rest of the Russian Civil War, there would be a truly gargantuan number of completely in-dependent nations. Now, these three countries all actively fought each other in the actual Russian Civil War, but this can be represented much as the Polish-Lithuanian conflict is currently represented in game, where if the units of each respective country get close to each other, there is chance that they will begin to fight each other and suffer damage as a result. This will also prevent the Southern Whites from getting the decent MPP gain from crushing the pro-Bolshevik revolt in Poti, with it either going to the British or the Georgians. As a further House Rule, each Caucasian country may only keep their units in their own respective country, and also, the Caucasians should be non-co-operating Allies with the Southern Whites so as to represent the border skirmishes be-tween the White Russians and the Georgians from O.T.L..



2. The "Southern Whites" should really just be General Denikin's Armed Forces of Southern Russia, it should absolutely not also include General Petliura's Ukrainians, who should be a minor of the Poles in order to represent the agreement be-tween the two from late April of 1920, especially considering that there was an actual war be-tween Generals Denikin and Petliura in O.T.L.. If there could be a mechanic for the Ukrainians to be-come a co-operating Allies of the Poles following the result of a decision in an event that fires once they have been driven back to a certain point (the "Ukrainian Death Tri-Angle) then that would be even better, if not, no worries. With regards some small flavour, a decision for the Southern Whites to create a Ukrainian Galician Infantry Division for we'll say 50 MPPs X number of turns after Poland conquers Galicia would be nice, in order to represent the O.T.L. agreement be-tween the Southern White Russians and the Ukrainian Galicians from November of 1919. With regards the Tokmakovists / Green Army in the Tambov Revolt, they should probably only realistically only be able to fire if all of the White Russians have been de-feated and the Bolsheviks are still at war with the Poles, Caucasians, Germany, etc, as historically they waited until the White Russians were de-feated due to their refusal to make concessions on land re-form. You could make a decision regarding this, but in my opinion the most pressing political questions in Russia of the day are be-yod the scope of this scenario.



3. Lithuania and Latvia should also be a minor of the Poles as opposed to General Yudenich's North-Western Whites (or even a separate, Baltic major as with the Caucasians, with the Estonians in the lead), who should realistically only have the Estonians under them (even though it was very much the other way a-round for much of the Russian Civil War) and it is also of course especially odd that Finland be-comes a minor of General Yudenich, considering that General Mannerheim had roughly 80,000-100,000 men in October of 1919, where as General Yudenich only had ~ 25,000. To try to find some way to also include the ~ 55,000 strong Western Russian Volunteer Army would also be good, though it'd be a tricky one, but it might be a good way to try and involve Germany in the conflict more often that they are currently with regards to General Von Der Goltz. A separate peace with each Baltic country after specific pre-requisites have been met as you mentioned in this series would also be great to see, I suppose that you could extend this to the Caucasians as well.



4. As a whole, the formations most often represented in the scenario, divisions and corps, are much too large for what was actually present in the Russian Civil War, which saw the vast majority of units being vastly under-strength. I see that another user has already totalled the White forces on the board and just how large of a dis-parity there is, so that speaks for it-self, and I won't re-tread old ground. The solution here would be a decrease in force size a-cross the board and the intro-duction of regiments and brigades, with divisions and corps being much more expensive and rare, especially the latter. The build limits for both sides should be reduced drastically, but especially for the anti-Bolsheviks.



5. With regards the economies, I would recommend a de-crease in Southern White MPPs by 25% (though note that this is in consideration of the Ukraine and the Caucasians already being removed from being under the Southern White umbrella), an in-crease of Eastern White MPP by 25%, and an in-crease of Bolshevik MPP by 25%-50%. Admiral Kolchak's economy is extremely small for some reason in this scenario, with him being out-earned and out-spent by General Yudenich, even though Admiral Kolchak had a much, much larger economy, industry and army under him than General Yudenich ever did (the random collapse of so much of his economy after the Americans leave in June of 1919 in the scenario is very odd). The creation of British convoy lanes to the Southerners, Northerners and Easterners could be considered to try and off-set this to small degree, though the former two already benefit from 30 MPP per turn while the British are in the war.



6. With regards the map in general, it's a bit of a travesty that it only goes so far as Yekaterinburg in the Western Urals, as historically Admiral Kolchak's Easterners did not really "lose" until they had to em-bark up-on the Great Siberian Ice March after the fall of Omsk, which is not modelled in game, depriving the player of the chance to try and re-create General Diterikhs's counter-attack on the Tobol river in September and October of 1919, which almost succeeded. Obviously a map that extends all the way to Vladi-Vostok is un-realistic and would horrifically alter the map, but even just as far as Omsk, or ideally even Irkutsk, would be a massive improvement, as well as including much of Central Asia and Turkestan. Is it really necessary to have so many non-belligerent countries, such as Germany, Sweden, Italy, the entire Balkans and so on taking up so much of the map? I think that the removal of the possibility of war with Germany as the the Bolsheviks would be a more than fair price to implement these much-needed changes.



7. Just for pure flavour, some extra National Morale objectives for all sides wouldn't go a-stray, especially if the player managed to achieve greater gains than the side did historically speaking. Just as example, have Kazan be a National Morale objective for the Easterners (General Kappel managed to capture it in 1918, but Admiral Kolchak could not re-peat this in 1919), have Nyandoma & Petro-Zavodsk be ones for the Northerners (General Miller was never able to capture them), have Pskov and a few of the other cities in North-Western Russia be ones for General Yudenich, add some cities for the Bolsheviks to represent their significant OTL victories, and so on. These don't have to be massive gains, even just a few percentage points to make them matter in a neck-and-neck swing game would be good.



8. With regards Unit morale, a system for Cossack units to suffer an X % readiness and morale de-buff out-side of their respective host would be a great feature, this could also be applied to the Ukrainians be-yond the Dnieper and vice-versa for the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, or some-thing to that effect. On a side note, the Poles and their new minors should be non-co-operating Allies with all of the other White factions (i.e., the Russians).

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Part 2 of 2. (by CradleoftheGael)

With that concluded, buckle in, be-cause we're not done yet, on-to the House Rules! So, obviously a lot of what I've suggested may not be able to be implemented in the game engine, or else the developers may not have time to get a-round to implementing it, or perhaps they will dis-agree with the changes, as is their right, it's their scenario, after all. With that in mind, here's a few House Rules that honourable and balance-conscious players may use in order to spice things up and make things more challenging, again focusing on a weakening of the Whites here.



1. With regards the Caucasians, they should not be allowed to fight the Reds un-less the Reds are invading the Caucasus, the idea of the Georgians being able to march to Moscow with-out a penalty when the fought General Denikin's A.F.S.R. in O.T.L. is very silly. Caucasian units must stay in Caucasian countries, ideally in their own respective countries, seeing as how they skirmished with each other in O.T.L.. At absolute maximum they could be allowed to garrison the many potential up-risings in the Northern Caucasus and Southern Russia, either waiting out-side of the cities in order to supress the revolts immediately, or more harshly, deliberately sitting on the cities so that they revolts can not fire, denying the Southerners a substantial amount of plunder and a colossal amount of MPP gain per turn at full supply strength. An even harsher variant of this House Rule would be that the Southerners must use their own units to either suppress or garrison these locations (again, most harshly, garrison, so as to prevent the plunder and the MPP gain at all), and that the Caucasians may not be used at all.



2. With regards the Poles, they may not, under any circum-stances, move be-yond the Berezina River, even with the NM loss and attrition being considered, they must remain be-hind it at all times, and also may not exploit the grey zone where the malus should work but currently does not. Further-more, the Poles may not move be-yond their annexed territories in Galicia until the first turn of May of 1920, in order to represent the Kiev Expedition and the afore-mentioned agreement be-tween Generals Pilsudski and Petliura, and even then, Poland may only advance to the Dnieper river, ideally there would be some sort of NM loss and unit attrition system for going be-yond this line as well. Perhaps some kind of agreement could be drawn up where Poland could advance to the Russo-Ukrainian border only if all of the White Russians have surrendered, or perhaps, more leniently, just the Southerners (or more leniently again, if they have been driven back to their final capital (i.e., General Wrangel's Sevastopol in Crimea), or some other system of pre-requisites). Additionally, Poland may not move units in-to Lithuania or any other Baltic country (meaning no border-hopping in-to Latvia to strike units and then fall back so as not to suffer the malus).



3. With regards to the Ukrainians, they may not advance be-yond the Dnieper river (again, there could be a gentle-men's agreement here that they may be allowed to if the White Russians are in full re-treat or some either kind of terrible situation) with the exception of capturing Chernigov to Kiev's North (and perhaps also Gomel). More harshly, they should also re-strict their movement in right-bank Ukraine to the Kiev-Cherkassy-Oleksandria-Yelizavetgrad-Uman Axis, and the rest of right-bank and left-bank Ukraine must be captured by General Denikin's A.F.S.R. (the Southerners). Perhaps there could even be an annexation system here like there is for Poland and Galicia? A system where the Ukrainians and the Russians fight each other in the various border cities if they have x number of units x number of hexes close to each other like there currently is for the Poles and the Lithuanians would also be impressive.



4. For my final house rule and my final point in general, let's look at the Baltics. There was generally more co-operation here than there was in other areas of the Russian Civil War, so allowing the respective Baltic units to operate in each others countries is perfectly acceptable, though of course, if you wanted to be harsher here, you could absolutely re-strict them here in such a manner. My main recommendation here is that the Balts should be non-co-operating Allies with the Poles, and that each Baltic country should only be allowed to advance one city deep in-to Russian, corresponding to geo-graphy, e.g. Pskov for Estonia, Ostrov for Latvia and Polotsk for Lithuania, with NM loss and attrition losses if they should advance be-yond these lines. Of course, if you wanted to be harsher again, they should not be allowed to advance in-to Russia again.



Well, this has been a decent little write up for me. I hope that you, the reader, have en-joyed it and that it will be of some use to you in your war-gaming in this scenario, or perhaps even of some use to the developers. I'll try and get this message up on-to the board to-morrow. Thanks!

[OldCrowBalthazor]

I would consider this as really important (maybe covered above by CradleoftheGael in parts 1 and 2), is my own simpler take.

Poland:
Polish NM Loss and defections have to be ratcheted up way more then even the revised version when they cross the policy lines set as they are now.
Also I would amend the area that the line is now, restricting Poland to the line of Kiev and points west in Ukraine, and keeping the rest as is.

MPPs: Increase Bolsheviks to at least 100 MPPs and keep Whites as they are
or
Restrict Southern White MPPs.

Another idea:
Budyonny's Horse Army. No cost. Arrival date the same.

My basic recommendation :
Keep total White money as is and keep all forces for both side as are in the current version.
Increase core Bolshevik MPPs (Moscow area extending out to start positions to something circa 400 MMPs per turn.
(Core area does not include the mines in Ukraine btw).
Adapt severe Polish NM and desertion mechanics and area as described above.

[mdsmall]

Whoa! A lot to chew on there. Old Crow your suggestions will be relatively easy to mod. Cradle of the Gael's ideas will be harder and would entail more complex modifications. But some of his suggestions seem doable as well. I would still be interested in reading opinions from other players, though I won't be able to start work on this until next month.

Cheers,

Michael

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Whoa! A lot to chew on there. Old Crow your suggestions will be relatively easy to mod. Cradle of the Gael's ideas will be harder and would entail more complex modifications. But some of his suggestions seem doable as well. I would still be interested in reading opinions from other players, though I won't be able to start work on this until next month.

Cheers,

Michael

There was plenty of input from viewers during my two matchs (Mirror) with StrategyWolfGames. He and others came to similar conclusions.
We also both did AARs on our channels with the last episodes.
One thing that was mentioned by others and us was some kind of mechanics or house-rule needs to be in place is keep out Poles from eastern Ukraine.
Kiev and maybe a little east would be the policy line in Ukraine.
A game edit would be way preferable to a house-rule of course.

[mdsmall]

One thing that was mentioned by others and us was some kind of mechanics or house-rule needs to be in place is keep out Poles from eastern Ukraine. Kiev and maybe a little east would be the policy line in Ukraine. A game edit would be way preferable to a house-rule of course.

One of the oddities about the way that Strength scripts work is that they fire if a unit is within a certain specified range of a given hex, rather than if a unit is beyond a specified range of a given hex. I have often wanted to be able to write Strength scripts that kick in if a unit gets too far from its home capital (in this case Warsaw). That does not mean it is impossible: but a mod would have to pick several objective points in Russia beyond the policy line for Polish advances, and then measure if Polish units were within distance of those hexes. Fortunately, the devs added a feature a couple of patches back where Strength scripts can be set to completely eliminate a unit if the conditions are met. So that could be used to enforce a maximum limit for Polish units to advance into Russia.

[BillRunacre]

One of the oddities about the way that Strength scripts work is that they fire if a unit is within a certain specified range of a given hex, rather than if a unit is beyond a specified range of a given hex. I have often wanted to be able to write Strength scripts that kick in if a unit gets too far from its home capital (in this case Warsaw). That does not mean it is impossible: but a mod would have to pick several objective points in Russia beyond the policy line for Polish advances, and then measure if Polish units were within distance of those hexes. Fortunately, the devs added a feature a couple of patches back where Strength scripts can be set to completely eliminate a unit if the conditions are met. So that could be used to enforce a maximum limit for Polish units to advance into Russia.

Perhaps a LOOP script to remove them/send them home might be more correct?

[OldCrowBalthazor]

One of the oddities about the way that Strength scripts work is that they fire if a unit is within a certain specified range of a given hex, rather than if a unit is beyond a specified range of a given hex. I have often wanted to be able to write Strength scripts that kick in if a unit gets too far from its home capital (in this case Warsaw). That does not mean it is impossible: but a mod would have to pick several objective points in Russia beyond the policy line for Polish advances, and then measure if Polish units were within distance of those hexes. Fortunately, the devs added a feature a couple of patches back where Strength scripts can be set to completely eliminate a unit if the conditions are met. So that could be used to enforce a maximum limit for Polish units to advance into Russia.

Perhaps a LOOP script to remove them/send them home might be more correct?

Haha yeah. Send them packing!

[Icesnowstorm]

I obviously do not have access to any detailed overall game results, but from my experience with MP Russian Civil War matches, the scenario is rather easy for the Bolsheviks to win.

Usually the bolshevik player just clubs down one white faction after the other. The only white faction with long term potential is the southern whites one.

The north-western whites suffer from being too ez to overrun in the baltics, given there proximity to Lenningrad.

The northern whites suffer from internal strife regarding the brits and us presence and there overall bad supply situation. The reds can ez keep them in check with minimal efforts.

The eastern whites have a lot of strong formations early on but lack MPP income sources aswell as viable supply chains.

The Poles are strong but cant efficently invade any major bolshevik areas. If the bolshevik player decides to accept the peace deal they gain at least a minor victory ensured.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

I obviously do not have access to any detailed overall game results, but from my experience with MP Russian Civil War matches, the scenario is rather easy for the Bolsheviks to win.

Usually the bolshevik player just clubs down one white faction after the other. The only white faction with long term potential is the southern whites one.

The north-western whites suffer from being too ez to overrun in the baltics, given there proximity to Lenningrad.

The northern whites suffer from internal strife regarding the brits and us presence and there overall bad supply situation. The reds can ez keep them in check with minimal efforts.

The eastern whites have a lot of strong formations early on but lack MPP income sources aswell as viable supply chains.

The Poles are strong but cant efficently invade any major bolshevik areas. If the bolshevik player decides to accept the peace deal they gain at least a minor victory ensured.

Thats a general assessment without any knowledge of any detailed game results so your only partially right with the meta strategy.
There's a lot more under the hood thats going on that we wanted fixed based on many other MP players including me have had with past experiences of this latest version of this great scenario.

mdsmall and I were involved in the pre-release beta and subsequent post-release tests that lead to the latest version.

Also numerous MP matches (including mirror) were done by other parties and we all came to the conclusions listed above.
mdsmall is considering a mod to address some of the shortfalls we have identified.