Against Entente AI

[Randomizer]

With Compiegne you're a major threat to Paris but winter combat can be costly so good luck with that. I generally prioritize Bulgaria over Romania for diplomatic effort, their army is slightly better quality and once Serbia is gone, it completes the overland route to Turkey.

-C

[Metalist]

The Russians did not have a chance to fortify their position in Königsberg, and the city returns to the Reich.

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Austria-Hungary manages to relieve Krakau.

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The Serbs fail to break out, and their attempt to capture Foca ends in disaster.

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In the West, the 1st Army wrests Compiegne from the Russians (!) and moves one step closer to Paris.

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,

With Compiegne you're a major threat to Paris but winter combat can be costly so good luck with that. I generally prioritize Bulgaria over Romania for diplomatic effort, their army is slightly better quality and once Serbia is gone, it completes the overland route to Turkey.

-C

My aim is just to keep Romania out of war for a little while longer, as Austria-Hungary is already not doing good.

[Metalist]

An Interphase occurs after the normal turn each May, August, and November–December. During this phase, parliament, strategic warfare, and instability tests are conducted; political actions are implemented; and the national budget is calculated.

The parliament mood represents the extent to which the population supports the war effort. As the war drags on, support typically declines, which makes it harder to enact political actions and increases the risk of instability. As seen below, the German parliament is currently at its highest level of fervor. For Germany, I attempt to improve the war economy twice, as the nation can absorb the resulting hit to National Will.

National Will (NW) is a crucial element of the game. It directly affects combat morale. For example, because Germany currently has high NW, the army receives a +1 bonus during morale checks. Heavy casualties and the loss of important cities reduce NW, while victories and conquests increase it. Once NW falls below a certain threshold (20, to be precise), social unrest—strikes, mutinies, revolution, even surrender—begins to pose a serious threat.

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I have to be economical with screenshots since each post is limited to four attachments. So you can't see it here, but I also adopted the submarine warfare political option, which has a high chance of success (75%). Another interesting option is that Germany can send an Expeditionary Force (the XI “Süd” Army) to one of the following fronts: Italy, the Caucasus, the Near East, or the Balkans. Currently, only the Caucasus and Near East are eligible (50% chance each). I’m a bit confused here: Bulgaria grants passage rights thanks to diplomatic efforts, but Serbia is still on the map, so it seems odd that I can send an army to assist the Ottomans. In any case, Germany can send one additional army to one of those fronts, but with a difference: the XI Army transfers immediately upon successful adoption of the political order and may command foreign troops, while the extra army must be moved manually on the map.

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For Austria-Hungary, I choose not to expand the war economy, as its National Will is already low and the empire is more fragile overall. Instead, I take the diplomatic action aimed at Italy, “D’Annunzio,” which provides a diplomatic bonus if successful. If it fails, the Entente then attempts it automatically, and the sides continue rolling until one succeeds. I also attempt to raise National Will. Austria-Hungary can also send an expeditionary army—France and Russia have this option as well. The United Kingdom, however, does not require any political action and may freely deploy its armies across Allied fronts.

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For Turkey, my choices are more limited. I simply attempt to increase National Will, though the chance of success is low.

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[Metalist]

Good news first: Antwerp surrenders. Germany successfully adopts submarine warfare, though this pushes the United States further away. German industry gears more towards the war effort (from 7 to 5). Austria-Hungary succeeds in stirring war fervor in Italy; this will need to be followed by a diplomatic mission in the appropriate game phase. You can also see my reasoning for not adopting a full war economy.

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Now the bad news: France played an event card I had no idea was this powerful. Mutinies erupt across all Austrian-Hungarian armies, the Commander-in-Chief is dismissed (and he was actually a solid general), and National Will suffers a massive 6-point blow. The numbers in the boxes indicate how many corps in each army have shifted into “wounded” status.

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Ever more trouble for Austria-Hungary

[Randomizer]

Fortunately Austria's parliament remains at Sacred Union; that might buy enough time to weather the mutinies without a government collapse. Getting rid of Conrad cannot hurt either. Good Luck!

-C

[Metalist]

I'm afraid I have to put this AAR on hold. The Entente just stopped making any diplomatic missions. They are sending ambassadors, but no missions. This actually happened in my previous game too, I thought maybe it was just a rare occurrence but no. In fact, I found this thread mentioning the same problem, but no solution: http://www.ageod-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... on#p181229

I will try to find a workaround. I was hoping to show that the game is playable, but apparently I did the opposite Of course later scenarios may work fine.

[loki100]

thats a real pity, this was an interesting read and I was reconsidering setting up WW1Gold again. I'm convinced that this remains the best simulation of the war available but just got fed up with crashes and the game simply no longer working. If it was just a struggle with an old fashioned UI it'd be worth the effort

[Metalist]

I'm afraid I have to put this AAR on hold. The Entente just stopped making any diplomatic missions. They are sending ambassadors, but no missions. This actually happened in my previous game too, I thought maybe it was just a rare occurrence but no. In fact, I found this thread mentioning the same problem, but no solution: http://www.ageod-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... on#p181229

I will try to find a workaround. I was hoping to show that the game is playable, but apparently I did the opposite Of course later scenarios may work fine.

About the issue, I noticed that all Entente left with was decoy ambassadors, that is, those that have 0 ability. When I edited them to 1 or 2 in the save file, the issue is solved. Hopefully it will keep working as intended.

Onward to victory!!!

[Metalist]

1915 began with pleasant news: Verdun has fallen.

During the diplomacy phase, I pursued Italy, with only limited results, while the Entente brought Romania into the war. Bulgaria automatically joined the Central Powers due to mutual animosity.

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What is more, I noticed that the Greeks are actually on the brink of joining as well. I will definitely carry out my diplomatic mission with them next turn.

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As you can see, Italy still keeps her distance from both sides.

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With Bulgaria in the war, Serbia is in a very difficult position. Despite the winter conditions, I immediately ordered the Bulgarian armies to march. The Serbian campaign should conclude quickly, as Bulgaria can’t hold out against Romania while her forces are divided. A Turkish corps is marching to support the Romanian frontier. In other theaters, there will be no attacks until warm weather sets in, except for a small skirmish against a Belgian corps that remains stuck in Bruges, away from the front lines.

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[Metalist]

The Entente attacked in various regions, but the actions were small in scale, caused little loss on either side, and resulted in no territorial changes. A Romanian corps defeated a Bulgarian one and captured a town; meanwhile, the latter crossed the border and seized Serbian production centers. I decided to bring the entire 1st Turkish Army to support the Bulgarians, risking an undefended Dardanelles for a time.

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With the fall of Bruges, all of Belgium is now under German occupation. The Central Powers have now shifted entirely to the firepower doctrine, and the time for grand offensives is approaching. Note also that the trench level is now one for Germany in Western Front.

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The 3rd Army had to be relocated to the Romanian border, weakening the Russian front. On the bright side, Austria-Hungary has almost completely recovered from the mutinies.

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Germany has begun building stormtroopers, and once the technology is shared with the others, they will follow suit.

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[Metalist]

During the diplomacy phase, both the German and French ambassadors campaigned for Greece. The net result was a +1 shift for the Central Powers, meaning that Greece joins the fight on my side. This alienated Italy a bit, causing their support to fall from +3 to +1.

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The Greeks immediately began marching to capture Monastir from Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian 5th Army will put pressure from the North. The eventual aim is to cause the isolation of the Serbian Army by capturing all supply centers. The Ottoman 1st Army is marching to support Bulgaria until Serbia is dealt with.

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The Greek Army successfully captures Monastir.

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However, the Austro-Hungarian 5th Army is defeated.

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In the rest of the theaters, the Entente launched a few attacks, but they were unsuccessful, so there were no territorial changes.

[Randomizer]

The Balkans is looking pretty messy.

-C

[Metalist]

The deadlock in the West appears to be tightening.

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I played an event that boosts my research on air technologies. Initially, aircraft are very limited and can only be used for recon missions, with no possibility of air combat. As the war progresses, the dogfight values of aircraft increase from 0, making air combat possible. It is a rather automatic process; the only thing the player has to do is pick an air mission, like recon or tactical air support. Battles occur if certain rolls are successful. If the attacking air unit manages to beat the interceptors, it can perform its mission—again, depending on the rolls.

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Both Germany and France went for Italy, with a net +2 drift towards the Central Powers.

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The only CP attacks are, again, directed against Serbia.

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The Balkans is looking pretty messy.

-C

Well, Balkans being Balkans, no?

[Metalist]

Speaking of the air war, a duel did occur, with the Germans emerging victorious. Air squadrons represent 50–100 planes.

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Thanks to some very lucky rolls, Germany managed to drop the Firepower doctrine and move to the Combined doctrine. The latter is actually expected around mid-1917 or later. I still lack the necessary units to make this doctrine fully effective, like stormtroopers and tanks, but at least some degree of movement is back to the battlefield.

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Here's what manual says about the combined doctrine:
"This doctrine is founded on the use of Arms and Combat Tactics together,
to obtain a breakthrough on the battlefield. This doctrine is usually acquired
around the middle or end of 1917, or (most certainly) at the latest early in
1918.
Advantages:
● The Attacker has +1 on the combat roll during a turn.
● Every attack obliges you to be “in movement”; which allows, in
addition, interception as in Movement Doctrine.
● The player may attack and change region each turn to carry out his
Main battle (during a Grand Offensive).
● The player has a +2 bonus to learn Combat Tactics.
● Flash bombardment becomes more efficient.
● Enemy reinforcements will arrive with more difficulty during battle.

Disadvantages
● In defense, units considered as being “in movement” have their trench
level diminished by -1."

Again, there were very few battles, thanks to trenches and rain. The only territorial changes occurred in Serbia. The bulk of the Serbian army is now isolated, as a combined offensive of the Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian armies managed to capture key production centers.

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[Metalist]

As we are moving towards summer, which will be more active, here is the situation on the other fronts.

The West:

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The German-Russian frontier. Note the bulge that can be a spot for the incoming German grand offensive.

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The Russians now occupy Galicia almost completely.

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They are not really focusing on the Caucasus, though.

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[Metalist]

There was an interphase before the June turn. Germany kept improving its war economy. The public mood of Austria-Hungary and Turkey increased to Sacred Union, and that of Greece to War Mongering.


Submarine warfare has begun to take its toll on Great Britain, this is just the beginning.

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We suffered some losses too (the wording is a bit too pro-British).

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The rest of the Central Powers can now also build stormtroopers (excluding minors such as Bulgaria and Greece, of course.)

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[altipueri]

Thanks for this AAR.

I have had the game for years (including the first version with the odd map angle) but I never played anything much more than the Tannenberg and Palestine scenarios.

I've just installed it on a cheap Windows 11 pc so I must try playing this scenario and follow what you have done.

[Metalist]

Thanks for this AAR.

I have had the game for years (including the first version with the odd map angle) but I never played anything much more than the Tannenberg and Palestine scenarios.

I've just installed it on a cheap Windows 11 pc so I must try playing this scenario and follow what you have done.

I'm glad to hear that, hopefully the AAR will be useful to you. Do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any help. And I'm always open to PBEM.

By the way, an undocumented rule change puzzled me when I first started playing. In some patch railway repairs were made automatic. I think it was something like this: Regions that have a corps in it have their railway automatically repaired at the end of a given turn. And all regions have their railways repaired during an interphase. Practically, I've never needed to repair rails manually.

[Metalist]

The diplomacy phase was rather poor, Germany failed to impress Italy and the latter moved 1 point toward the Entente, while Great Britain just caused 1 point shift in Netherlands.

Germany plans the first grand offensive of the war. Now, during the trench warfare the attacks are limited to 2 and they can't last longer than 7 rounds. This is remedied by the concept of grand offensive. It is rather detailed, and no way I know every aspect of it, so I will just give a little bit of info to make sense what's happening in the context of this AAR. Each major nation has to perform one (and can only one) grand offensive(GO) for a year, or has to defend against one. If this does not occur, there are NW penalty at the end of year and a modified war weariness test if it is 1916 or later. However, there are some exceptions. If Germany decides to perform a GO on the east, then Austria-Hungary is no longer obliged to plan one. Similarly, if French perform one, then Britain does not have to and vice versa. Grand offensives have to occur on three main fronts: French, Italian and Russian. I do not know if they can occur in minor fronts, the planning screen does appear though. A GO is considered successful if the target region is captured in the case of French and Italian fronts, while in Russian it is required to capture 5 regions plus the target region. Nations test certain tactics in GOs, and benefit from them if they successfully acquire them in all other grand offensives. Those tactics cannot be used in standard attacks.

So with that in mind, Germany will attempt to pocket the Russians in the bulge I mentioned before. I'm picking the current turn as the start date of the offensive. This is really the only meaningful thing to do, because picking the date earlier would just limit my options since an offensive can't begin earlier than the picked date. So why do we have to pick a date after all? I've read that it is just a remnant of the board game in which players are required to pick the start of the offensive in the beginning of the year, but in the PC game there is no such requirement. Anyway, so Germany has tasked 9th and 12th Armies for the offensive, but initially only the latter will make the advance as the former is too dispersed while holding the front. In the offensive, the army will try to learn heavy bombardment as it is useful in reducing enemy trenches. The red region is the target, though I will need five more.

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In Balkans, I will make sure Serbian army cannot escape toward Romania.

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In Palestine, the 4th Army took a beating from the superior ANZAC forces, so I had to relocate the 5th Army from Mesopotamia. With newly built forces I hope to prevent the British advancing any further.

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[comte]

Nice AAR!

Do you find the game sluggish on modern hardware?