The Churchill plan

[ulver]

ORIGINAL: CLEVELAND

Holy jesus. Do you have to use transports to ship them or do they arrive in France?

They start of in the US and needs to be transported. Even so I confidently expect them to pretty much win the war all by themselves

[James Ward]

ORIGINAL: ulver

ORIGINAL: CLEVELAND

Holy jesus. Do you have to use transports to ship them or do they arrive in France?

The start of in the US and needs to be transported. Even so I confidently expect them to pretty much win the war all by themselves

Apparently that many corps as reinforcements is a mistake. You should do the honorable thing and only deploy 1 or 2 of them [:)]

[ulver]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

oops, I'm going to have to fix that. That didn't happen in 1.0, its only in 1.1 that that happens.

So how many are they supposed to receive? I’ll rather do the honourably thing and only deploy as many as intended.

[FrankHunter]

Its supposed to be 2 corps per turn. 

[ulver]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Its supposed to be 2 corps per turn.

Makes a lot more sense. Of course since the US entered in the autumn of 1916 that still means the mother of all offensives in the summer of 1917 with the US army. Stay tuned for the march to Berlin

PS: Glad to see people are reading this AAR – I was beginning to worry.

[ulver]

I have, it seems to me, reached to point where I can no longer lose the war but now find I have focused so much on not losing that I have no idea how to win, how to actually force the Central Powers to an armistice.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted with my progress in many ways. The joint allied-Rumanian Balkan offensive was a smashing success; knocking out Bulgaria, turning the war into an 8 vs. 2 nations contest. Apart from the satisfaction of knocking out my second Central Power foe it allowed me to finally re-take Constantinople and link up with Rumania insuring that the fall of Russia doesn’t doom the newest plucky little Entente member.

However the impending fall of Russia will release vast reserves to the Central Powers to pug his holes with, and my Western Front “pulverise anything with artillery before moving forward” strategy have run into a snag with my opponent once again refusing to play to my schedule and showing a lot of initiative with a dynamic defensive.





Jan/Feb 1917 Strategic phase. To quote an email from my opponent: Your offensive in Greece/Bulgaria took me completly unbalanced, a strike of genius. I didn't thought you had such a reserve of fresh troops, very well done !

In truth I was rather proud of my diplomacy influencing Rumania to enter at precisely the moment in the war where she was most useful to my cause. Time to partition Bulgaria between Serbia and Rumania.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: ulver

ORIGINAL: CLEVELAND

Holy jesus. Do you have to use transports to ship them or do they arrive in France?

They start of in the US and needs to be transported. Even so I confidently expect them to pretty much win the war all by themselves

Mmm, I dunnno. Thats a lot of troops but experience suggests they will get used up pretty quickly. A loaded gun ready to be shot, to be sure, but after a few turns of a damn good thrashing from CP artillery (which by now is presumably R&Ded up a bit) they won't be at strength 40 anymore.

And then you got that 10 industry to refit them. Uh uh.


Not to say that a mass of uber-divisions is a bad thing of course. Just saying, its not necessarily in the bag yet.

[ulver]

Meanwhile the Italians have perfected the art of Trench Digging. Notice the straightness of the line. War is so much more orderly when no one is shooting at each other or messing with the General Staff planning by moving into your country. The Italians feel the least they can do is reprociate by staying put on their side of the border.

Actually Trenches in this game often turn out to be most useful in static inactive fronts - in this case allowing me to transfer more then half the Italian Army overseas to the Balkans or to help out in France.

[EUBanana]

I must say I was surprised to see italians in all sorts of places in your game, I find shipping stuff around to be an inordinately expensive pain in the ass.  Hence why no Gallipoli or Greek campaign in any of my games.

[ulver]

In early 1917 his counter strategy on the west front is revealed. Intermittently he will counterattack my light held artillery firing line forcing my cavalry and single corps defenders back and destroying my trench build up on the front line only to promptly to retreat.

Giving me the unpalatable choice to advance into his artillery killing ground and engage in artillery duels with his no doubt heavily entrenched artillery in prepared defensive position while mine stand around in the clear or, even worse, advance with huge infantry stacks – thereby really getting shot up in clear terrain - before charging his trenches

Sure, eventually I’ll no doubt break his line by superior weight of metal only to be compelled to begin again on his next line of level 4 fortifications.

At this rate I’ll get to Berlin all right: In 1922 after 20 million causalities.




Mar/Apr 1917 strategic phase. Mainstein would be proud - this pretty much recreates his proposed “backhand blow” strategy for the East front in 1943.

[ulver]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

I must say I was surprised to see italians in all sorts of places in your game, I find shipping stuff around to be an inordinately expensive pain in the ass. Hence why no Gallipoli or Greek campaign in any of my games.

Sea power has been the great success story of the Entente war effort in this game. I must have build close to 20 additional transports including a fairly extensive French-Italian shipbuilding program.

Sealift is what has allowed me to hit his open flanks and avoid static attrition fronts or having to charge his trench fortification lines by going ashore somewhere else. It has knocked out the Ottomans and Bulgaria and even been a great help on the West front by letting me go ashore behind his lines in Northern France and Belgium.

It has allowed me to shift forces, including HQ reorganisation and by extensive airpower between fronts at critical moments.

If only my armies had preformed half as well as my navies.

[SteveD64]

That's some industrial might right there, what with the shipbuilding and massive artillery buildup.  I'm the CP in my PBEM game and Johnny Turk is cranking out 1 industrial point every two months.  [:(]

[Raynald]

Makes a lot more sense. Of course since the US entered in the autumn of 1916 that still means the mother of all offensives in the summer of 1917 with the US army. Stay tuned for the march to Berlin

Umh, with a historical entry in april 17, the mother of all offensive
was only to happen in 19.

Also, I don't understand why the American corps are so big ? True, their division were two times bigger than the one of the other countries, but in game term it is completely irrelevant. The US power wasn't more concentrated than anyone else.

The first corps to be deployed could been seen as elite (2nd and 3rd division, with the Marines in the 2nd, or was it the third ?), but certainly not above Anzac or Canadian.

[esteban]

Gotta agree on the U.S. corps being a bit much. Most of them should be 24 or 26 strength "B" quality units. But the idea of the U.S. somehow consistently finding a way to pack 50% more men into a "hex" than the other nationalities is a bit much.

[SMK-at-work]

Also, I don't understand why the American corps are so big ? True, their division were two times bigger than the one of the other countries, but in game term it is completely irrelevant. The US power wasn't more concentrated than anyone else.

In practice a hex can hold vastly more numbers than in GOA - millions of people can fit into cities that are less than 1 hex for example.

So for military purposes it is usually the level of command that matters......the large units of the Canadian, US and Australian Corps are still corps, and are "only" expected to do the job of a Corps....but they will do it much better than other corps because they have more manpower.

Remember that the "A", "B", "C", et are not necesarily the same for each nationality......"A" class troops are the best for that nation......"A" class US troops are the best US troops available, but likely not the same quality as "A" class UK or German ones.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

<snip>

Remember that the "A", "B", "C", et are not necesarily the same for each nationality......"A" class troops are the best for that nation......"A" class US troops are the best US troops available, but likely not the same quality as "A" class UK or German ones.

Is this true? Is a 16 STR A class Russian unit going to perform differently from a 16 STR A class German unit?

[SMK-at-work]

Absolutely...although I believe "A" class russian units are in fact at least close to "A" class German ones....the 1914 Russian regulars performed quite well.....at Gumbinen in 1914 in straight head up 1:1 fights Russian corps beat German ones 2 out of 3 IIRC.....it was the generals and subsequent masses that earned them a poor reputation.
&nbsp;
Turkish "A" troops are nowhere near as good tho...

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Absolutely...although I believe "A" class russian units are in fact at least close to "A" class German ones....the 1914 Russian regulars performed quite well.....at Gumbinen in 1914 in straight head up 1:1 fights Russian corps beat German ones 2 out of 3 IIRC.....it was the generals and subsequent masses that earned them a poor reputation.

Turkish "A" troops are nowhere near as good tho...

Is the list of national modifiers documented anywhere?

[SMK-at-work]

Nope

Which I have no problems with - can you imagine the arguments?

"But the 23 1/2th Ebonian mountain cavalry corps had 2 batteries of 96.7mm gun-howitzers which CLEARLY qualifies them as better grade than their Oxyboslen opponents.....why did you downgrade them??...."[8|][8|]

[pat.casey]

To ask the obvious two follow-up questions:

1) If it's not documented anywhere, how do we know it's even there? Did Frank post about it somewhere or other? There's certainly nothing in the manual's combat section about it (although to be fair, it doesn't discuss quality very well either).

2) What's the benefit of making a "hidden" modifier like this? Unit strength and quality are clearly displayed for friendly units, so it's not as though hidden strength is a necessary gameplay mechanic.

I'm just very uncomfortable that if I look at two units on screen, with the same strength, and same quality, that they both have different actual combat power.