Matrix Games Forums

Am thoroughly enjoying the Eastern Front Scenario. If you like playing the Central Powers, I think you're going to like this one.

I'm wondering what other kind of mods are possible. Has anyone here ever played Diplomacy? It started as a board game in 1959, for 2 to 7 players. The map is similar to CTGW, though the combat model is incredibly simple. I wonder if it would be possible to create a mod similar to that game, only instead of armies and navies bouncing off each other like the board game the CTGW units can fight it out? Just a suggestion - I have no idea if it is possible or if there would be interest.

Kirk, now you're modding WitP-AE? Why is it every game I'm into or considering getting into you end up making better?!

Hi Rob,Glad to hear you are enjoying the Eastern Front Scenario,my modding for WITP-AE is now delayed,as I'm working on a bug fixing patch for CTGW.[;)]

Okay. Just finished playing as CP. Game went full term with a CP "Significant Victory". Britain and Turkey were left standing on the Entente side. The US never got in the war. Enjoyable scenario. Here are some comments/observations.

1. Tactically, the game is much the same. Mass fires and ground units on a salient and pound it out. Operationally and strategically it did change in two respects. First, I (finally) noticed that Helsinki is Russian-controlled, as well as a couple of hexes nearby. This means you can amphib into "Finland" and get a land route to Petrograd. Helsinki itself is worth 5 PP, so it makes sense to take it and at least make the Russians commit forces to that front.

Secondly, after the AH army finished off the Serbs, I took the entire AH army (didn't have to worry about Italy) and crushed the Russian southern flank by invading Romania and getting on their flank and rear. Great opportunity for cavalry. Not sure this would work in a standard scenario, but what a difference here. I had a small AH force doing a holding action on the Romanians while the rest did a Chancellorsville-like roll up of the Russian Army, supported by artillery-heavy frontal assaults on the same piece of the line by the Germans. The Russians couldn't shift forces fast enough and they got ground up piecemeal as they were moved to the south. The collapse was spectacular.

Sadly, the Bulgarians (who historically would have jumped on the CP bandwagon as soon as Romania as invaded) never moved. They really should have. I still remain of the opinion that CP and Entente minors should enter the war about plus or minus 10 turns from when they historically did, with the variation being driven by battlefield actions.

2. About turn 67 the Arabs revolted, despite the fact Turkey was neutral. This does not make sense. Turkey should have been in the game by then. It also meant there was no way to conquer the Arabs (as the CP player) without declaring war on Turkey to gain access to them. So at least one Entente member was practically guaranteed to still be in the game when time ran out. Either bring Turkey into the game on schedule or change the Arab entry condition i.e. if Turkey is not part of the CP, Arabs don't revolt. Alternatively, have Turkey join the CP when the Arabs revolt, since historically the Arab revolt was instigated by the British, which annoyed the Turks no end.

3. I think a better entry sequence would be AH and Serbia on Turn 1, Germany and France on Turn 2 (France honors its obligations) and Russia on Turn 4, unless attacked by the CP before then. Belgium remains neutral until attacked by somebody and Britain stays neutral until the CP attacks Belgium/Holland or Russia surrenders and the CP advances 4 hexes into France (I pulled 4 out of my .... hat). IMHO this would represent a more likely path of involvement had Germany decided to take on Russia first.

4. In the current scenario, since France and Britain remain idle until attacked, they get no convoy PP and no research labs/technological development. It took me until 1917 to finish off Russia, consequently when I turned west and invaded Belgium, the Entente troops were hopelessly outclassed as well as outnumbered. I'm not sure how realistic that is (it would be definitely different if the France entered the war earlier as I suggest in #3), but the gameplay effect is that the CP advance is hindered more by time and distance than enemy resistance (hey, that rhymes!). I will note that in the current set up, France and Britain both remained neutral when I attacked Belgium, greatly simplifying the job of taking out France with an almost unopposed right hook. Britain even remained neutral when I attacked France. Might want to change some of that.

5. I may have been reading it wrong, but I thought that the victory conditions showed "stars" for taking out Britain and France before I attacked them, which meant I could have won a much "larger" game victory by simply ending each turn after I took out Russia until time ran out ... except for the @#$%^&* Arabs sitting in the lower right corner of the map (see #2). Something not right about that.

6. Naval war was pretty simple ... crush the Russians, French and British navies in turn. Only the last was very difficult, but was aided tremendously by the dirigibles and bombers the CP was able to range all along the English Channel. I had total domination of the air because of the number of air units I had built. This was possible because of my convoys traveling from the South Atlantic and Noray completely unopposed for the first couple years of the war. Add in the Baltic convoys following the destruction of Russian sea power and Germany got a massive increase of PP over the course of the game. I would propose that would not be the case if France enters the war on Turn 2. It at least becomes more challenging for the CP.

I'll call it quits there. And before someone points out the obvious, I know I could have enacted a lot of the changes I request by simply declaring war on France on Turn 2. I'm thinking more of the situation where I would play the Entente and sit there watching the British and French do nothing for the whole game.

Bottom line ... even in the current configuration lots of fun (for the CP) and interesting strategic/operational choices for the CP in this scenario. Some changes would even make it better.

Thank you very interesting feedback,I will see what can be done,as per Minor Country activation.Because this is something that the game as a whole needs looked at.[;)]

Well, just finished the new East Front scenario playing as the Entente in SP. Won a Marginal Victory (according to the game) but it was actually much better than that … I’ll get to that in a moment. Here are my comments/observations:

1. Overall a very fun scenario. A typical grind-it-out war of attrition where nothing seems to happen for an endless amount of time, then BOOM. This may not sound like a lot of fun, but it means you have to think up a strategy to win and then stick to it. You can’t keep trying new things in the middle of the game and expect to see them blossom in front of your eyes. Patience and self-confidence are virtues.

2. This isn’t to say that tactically you aren’t active. When the Germans suddenly appeared in force on the Russian southern flank, there was quite a lot of scrambling to do to keep from getting skewered. I thought I had blown it until the offensive lost momentum in the winter months and I was able to recover.

3. Operationally, the scenario was (of course) similar to other scenarios; Mass artillery and infantry on key points and reduce them in order. Remember that it is always better to destroy and enemy unit (even it means extra point losses to you) than to let one limp away to rebuild. Build defenses in depth and keep a reserve force handy in your second line that can “swap up” into the first line to let a unit that has been taking an efficiency beating time to recover. Putting a cavalry unit temporarily into the front lines gives you a quick peek at what the enemy defensive depth looks like and spot the place where a breakthrough is possible. Enough dirigibles can completely eliminate an enemy fixed wing unit and dole out nasty damage to artillery units. Use aircraft to reduce enemy unit efficiencies before starting your ground attacks.

4. With the Serbs I wanted to tie up as many CP forces as possible, and definitely not get beat in the South. This meant a very aggressive defense, holding tight most of the time and launching offensives with limited objectives. Building up shell production capacity was very important to being able to do that. This was a very close run thing. In the fall of 1917 the CP moved almost all of its artillery to face the Serbs. Since the Serbs had no way to build dirigibles, they had no effective way to counter the CP artillery and were getting pounded. I was losing units and pulling back to shorten my line. I even temporarily lost control of Belgrade. I mounted an offensive on the Russian southern front that pushed the lines close enough that I could use Russian dirigibles and bombers to attack the CP artillery east of Belgrade and managed to hang on. A lot of damage had been done, however. By April of 1918, the Serb manpower pool had been reduced to nothing. I mean zero. I remained on the defensive and actually disbanded a couple of Garrison units to scrape up replacements for the front line. One more good push from the CP and the Serbs would have been finished. Then a miracle happened….

5. The heaviest fighting was on the Russian front. This is where my primary strategy was in place … bleed them white. I knew my manpower reserves were way larger than the CP’s, so I attacked and counter-attacked whenever possible. I pounded the German forces facing the Russians and paid particular attention to inflicting losses on AH units, since they had a smaller manpower pool from which to draw for replacements and to do new builds.

6. The CP foolishly tried to escort a Swedish convoy with a single BB, which I immediately pounced on. Then they did it again. By mid-1916 I had complete control of the Baltic. More importantly, by mid-1915 I had built 4 Russian subs. Three I planted squarely in the middle of the convoy routes for Germany. The fourth played free safety, going to relieve one of the others if it took losses from escorts and had to go in for repair. After that, not one German convoy made it through, depriving them of critical PPs that might have tipped the balance.

7. It was back and forth until Fall of 1917, when I noticed the Germans had 4 to 5 armored car units that kept appearing in the front lines on the Russian front. I thought it the AI doing recons, until I noticed something else … my own recon showed there were significant stretches of the line where the CP was only one unit deep and others where the second line units were only Small Garrisons. This coincided with the CP all-out push to crush Serbia mentioned above. By the end of Winter, it was clear what was going on … the CP was running out of manpower and PPs. If they could have gotten Serbia out of the war it would have freed up units needed elsewhere. The armored cars were in the line because they were relatively cheap and fast to build and could get out of trouble in a hurry. Because of the CP difficulties, my Russian offensives were lasting longer and going deeper into CP territory before the CP could blunt them. And then about Turn 105 a miracle happened ….

8. … they simply disappeared. Large gaps appeared in the CP lines facing the Serbs. The seriously weakened Serb units cautiously advanced but found mostly scattered Garrison and SG units blocking the way. In Germany, the northern front collapsed and Russians poured across the North German Plain. Russian amphib landings actually took Settin and Kiel, further stretching the dwindling German resources as they tried to set up blocking positions in Cuxhaven and Hamburg. With Berlin taken, Germany offered surrender on Turn 115. The AH forces couldn’t keep the last few full-strength Serbian units from taking Budapest and Vienna, and AH surrendered on Turn 116. Peace broke out in Europe.

9. So why did the Entente only get a Marginal Victory? The scenario victory conditions for the CP still reflect having France and Britain out of the war, and since they never entered, the CP side got Victory Points for that, enough to offset the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Something that can be fixed.

So there you go. I’ve played SP from both sides and got victories both times. Either side is fun to play and the scenario keeps you engaged. I made some comments about having France enter the war, etc when I played out the CP side, so I won’t repeat them here. When the new game update(s) gets published it will change several dynamics, so I’ll be sure to revisit this scenario then. Maybe a couple of the tweaks I mentioned can get incorporated and make it even better?

Thank you for the feedback,very interesting reading.[;)]