AAR - Poland 1792 Scenario - Simple Economy

[Joram]

Planning Feb 93.

The new year has not been good to me. January had my enemies ganging up on me and I know Britain's entrance into the war is imminent. Russia still has troops in Podolia but since the weather is so bad, I don't expect much of a threat from them for a couple months. However, it appears the Austrian army is home and I expect to fight a big battle this month in Vienna from this zoomed out view of the situation.

I almost certainly have to win that battle and force Austria to surrender quickly in order to have much hope here. I have a few months before Prussia arrives assuming they force France to capitulate which seems increasingly likely and I have a few months thanks to the bad weather before Russia is a serious threat. Britain will probably not be a threat other than blockading my ports but we'll see.

I tell my army in Vienna to stop firing at the walls as I don't want to lose anymore precious troops right before the big battle. Capturing the city would be useful in forcing Austria to surrender but even just occupying the province is hugely demoralizing so that will have to do until I've beaten Austria's returning army.

Finally, I rebuild my depot as I don't want to go into this battle without good supplies.

[Joram]

And that seems like a good place to take a break.  It's lunchtime and footie is going to start soon!  I'll try to do the impending battle later today using the new brigade-level detail rules. Again, if there are specific things you want to see, or have questions, please ask.

[cdbeck]

Man... this looks so great! I always had a little trouble starting a game in the original CoG, with the massive economy and the huge forces already on the board. This scenario looks like a great starter one, especially with the simple economy! The map looks fantastic, and I like the addition of Poland to the mix (I always attempted to learn the game using Sweden, so it is nice to have another side that is a bit more simple than France or GB). 

[Lützow]

This game looks like a winner and considerable better than Paradox or AGEOD's titles, covering napoleonic era. It's a shame that it won't get translated to other languages and hit vendor shelves.

No questions from my side by now. Just keep up the AAR.

[tgb]

I was on the fence on this, but am now convinced - I'm in.

[Joram]

Thanks for the kind words and glad I can help you make your decisions.

A couple more screens before we get started in the potential battle (I haven't hit the button yet, so who knows). I wanted to see how likely it would be to make Austria surrender since I have the whole world crashing down on me. As you can see their national morale is -612. This is pretty poor and assuming I can maintain pressure on Vienna, they will capitulate in the next two or three months. Nothing is for certain of course but it becomes increasingly likely as their national morale dips. Also note France is in the red (-798 at the time). They may surrender even if they do kick Prussia out of their capital so I'm not counting on any help from them. I guess the revolution is coming to an early end!

[Joram]

And one last desperate Hail Mary from me is to see if I can get a mutual defense pact going with France and Spain. Now, I'm not particular good at diplomacy generally but I thought this was a particularly shrewd move by me. First, notice the dates don't even start till June and last for a year afterwards. Assuming France surrenders, their period of enforced peace will be over before the end of my treaty and thus while not exactly helping me now, would be significant if I were somehow still fighting then. Otherwise I run the risk of completely wasting the treaty if they have an enforced peace against Austria/Prussia which would likely stop them from moving through to help me against Russia as well.

This is all of course based on them first accepting the treaty which is not likely (according to the advisor though I know he's not always right). Then this is assuming I'm even in a position to take advantage of the treaty at that later date. Who knows but again, it pays to think ahead.

[Joram]

Movement phase Feb 1793

Well, no big surprise here. Austria moved it's army home and outnumbers me a good 50%. Since they own the province too I am not going to be able to just sit back either but will be forced on the offensive. This may be tough but don't rule me out, my forces are small but highly trained plus I have nearly 20k cav I can call in for reinforcements. Assuming they arrive in time. I am going to choose Brigade-Level combat to show you the new feature.

[Joram]

First thing that happens is that since I apparently have the superior general in Pontiaswki, I get to choose an advantage. Since I now I will be on the attack, I choose to start in the morning. The reason being is the attacker gets a will-to-fight (WTF) penalty every day so I want to be sure I get a full day at maximum WTF. Otherwise I may only have a few turns before nightfall.

[Joram]

Here's the setup. I also failed to consider we will be fighting in snow. This is bad for two reasons. Unless you have the right training upgrades (which I don't), not only will my maneuver be constrained as it takes more effort to slog through the snow, all units also take extra casualties fighting in the winter. So this can be bad. Here's a zoomed out view.

I don't really see the enemy but do know generally where he is. Every battle you will have to decide whether you want to concentrate on getting the victory point spots (which then gives the defender a WTF penalty) or just maneuver and attack the enemy army. Since I don't really have units to spare to garrison the vp spots, I'm going to just attack the enemy.

Also note the WTF is very close with Austria having a slight lead. For those unfamiliar with the system, the goal is to 'break' the enemy by forcing their WTF to zero (though sometimes you don't quite have to go that far). The main reason their WTF is higher than mine is because of the 'defender' bonus of 6. My superior training and higher national morale has helped me as well.

[Joram]

So here's my general plan. I'm sending a couple brigades to contain the cav on the right flank (from Polands perspective, that's the upper part of the map). I won't be able to do a good job if he really wanted to get around me but that is also why you see 4 brigades in reserve.

I am sending two of my light brigades in skirmish move on top of the hill near the frozen lake (I could cross if I wanted to risk the extra casualties). I put them in skirmish mode which drastically reduces the casualties they take and indeed for light troops, increases their damage output slightly. But being uphill from the enemy, gives me another bonus. In fact, normally i'd be quite afraid of that artillery piece but with all these advantages, it's not so bad. I am going to pepper it with shot to try to fatigue it at least.

The main effort will be on my left flank where I don't think the enemy has a lot of units. I have an artillery unit which will help anchor the connection between my center and left flank. And hopefully my infantry brigades will be able to start turning the flank.

[Joram]

And of course I call in my reinforcements. It will take awhile for them to get here but since I started the battle early, they should be able to participate in most of the day's battle. Just a note on the rule, if I had multiple armies I could only call one at a time. There is a reinforcement 'timer' for lack of a better word and once it is up, I could call another army if available.

[Joram]

40 minutes later (2 turns), the situation is slowly developing. If it hadn't had snow on the ground, it would be quicker but it is what it is. I'm having some difficulty getting my troops into the proper formation and advancing in line is painfully slow since I don't have the proper training doctrines to speed them up. So I'm definitely going to need all day!

On the center-right, my two skirmishing units are just peppering the artillery piece and doing quite well against it given all my advantages.

[Hard Sarge]

ahhh

you should of paid more attention while sitting at the Masters knee, Grasshopper



you needed to distrack Russian while you had the chance, get a war with Turkey going with them, that confuses them

you can defeat Prussia or the Ossites, Russia is going to be your bear (hehe, get it, get it ?) early on, there Ground forces are going to be a tuff nut to crack

England for a while you don't have to worry about, unless Denmark goes for them, you may need to slap Prussia, but they will back off and the war should lapse

keep kicking, I want to see how you pull your neck out of the noose on this one


{in case you havn't figured it out from his posts so far, Poland is a tuff one to play)

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

This game looks like a winner and considerable better than Paradox or AGEOD's titles, covering napoleonic era. It's a shame that it won't get translated to other languages and hit vendor shelves.

Well, for reasons I won't go into, making available translated versions is a rather complicated matter. But when the game comes out if people in Europe clamor for it and sales have been strong there's a chance it could happen.

[Joram]

It's now 10:40 and my plan is starting to take affect. His cav has been very quiet no doubt due to the incredible difficulty for them to operate in the snow. A good thing because my cav hasn't even arrived yet. There must have been a tavern on the way damn them.

But the situation is developing well anyway. I've pinned the troops on the center right and my left flank is swinging around their flank.

[Joram]

My artillery has nearly obliterated an Austrian brigade and this shows the true power of artillery. So it really is a feat that the Austrian artillery hasn't been able to do the same to me. With one shot, I have routed the brigade. Notice the 1484 in the middle of the screen. Also notice the red dot in the upper left too.

[Joram]

For people who don't like to see just the summary, there is a battle report that shows how it is all calculated. Though this one is of a different attack, whoops. This was my light infantry attacking one of his brigades on my center right. Note, the skirmishing bonuses/penalties and the weather (I'll correct the previous posts for those who already read the comment, got confused).

[Joram]

It's now 11:20 and I've now routed the Austrian artillery piece as well. This is huge and could signal the beginning of the end for them. But I'm an optimist. Did it by keeping up fire from my two light infantry brigades that are skirmishing. The Austrians realized too late that they were brittle there and just now started advancing some infantry there.

It's hard to say how well this is really going though as my flanking maneuver has been only moderately successful. The Austrians are actually defending in depth and I really haven't been able to get around their flank. I'm going to continue my plan but have decided to commit two of my four brigades in reserve to try to attack a perceived kink in their lines.

[Joram]

But I think the fatal flaw in the Austrian's plan is that their morale is just not good enough. They've been careless in the opening moves and here is an example of what happens when you rout a unit.