Looking for Tips HELP

[Yogi the Great]

Similar to Over & Out I'm having difficulty with the Surrenders in the game play. I'm playing new patch 1.30 against AI balanced play as Entente (France, England, Italy, Serbia) seems I can't get Romania or even Portugal into the war on the new patch.

Anyway no matter what I try Russia and then England surrenders. First Russia as early as January 1916. If I fight with Russia early they get crushed because they don't have the strength to do it. If I fight defensively they quit apparently giving up too much ground. If I try half way even when I am holding lines a causing lots of central casualties they still get to around 50% support and of course revolution and surrender.

On the western front England & France, I can build research as much as I am able but no way to keep up apparently. Germany somehow is able to create multiple artillery and very strong Infantry from the games beginning while I struggle to get any into the game early. Whether I fight defensively successfully holding everywhere or even if I fight offensively successfully clearly taking ground and cities back or a balance of the two, England will surrender a few turns after Russia because of low Morale. One time I had several tanks (central none) took back Belgium and had entered German territory with the clear upper hand and England surrendered anyway. By the way Central AI morale in the game must be something special as it seems no matter how many losses they suffer they can just keep going on and on. I enjoy the game play but you would think the historical victors must have a way to win some of the time.

I guess my main question is what do I have to do in order to do one or both of the following:

A) Prevent or delay the Russian Surrender
B) Maintain enough national morale to keep England fighting.

Thanks for any tips you can give.

[Jonathan Pollard]

One way to prevent your problems is to use the previous official patch, 1.1.4. All countries are much less likely to surrender in the previous version.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

I guess my main question is what do I have to do in order to do one or both of the following:

A) Prevent or delay the Russian Surrender
B) Maintain enough national morale to keep England fighting.

Thanks for any tips you can give.

A) I think this is a very good question for the developers now. I am not sure how you are meant to keep Russia in the game at all. While I think that it is good that countries no longer "fight to the last city", Russia was not one of the countries that it was a problem with. In fact, I think that the enormous size of Russia was a big advantage for them (e.g. Napoleon in 1812, Nazis between 1941-5) so this should be reflected in the game.

In my solo game with 1.30 I opted to retreat all the Russian forces back to the Kovno-Minsk line straight away, thereby evacuating Poland which I felt was not defensible (the Russians did actually have a war plan in 1914 that would have taken this option). So by the time Russia surrendered in the game in 1916 I had only lost 7% of my manpower reserves and my position was quite stable. The only thing that had gone wrong was that my national morale had gone down to 53% because I had lost all my Polish and Ukrainian cities (plus two cities in the Caucasus). Without the developers re-balancing the game I am not sure what you can do really.

Some things that I would consider are . . .

i) should Russia lose 10% NM when Warsaw is captured? It is a Polish city, after all.
ii) the geography of the area needs to be reconsidered e.g. the Masurian Lakes were spread over a wide area and would have slowed down movement on the eastern front. They are not represented at the moment
iii) the Pripet marshes should give a greater advantage to defending troops and only infantry should be able enter swamp hexes
iv) the Russians should have more troops at the outset (consider making many of them efficiency level 8 instead of 10) and the proportion of "proper" infantry units to "garrison" infantry units should be increased. Warsaw did not actually fall until 1915 so it should initially be defensible.

B) I didn't have a problem with NM for Great Britain in my game. It dropped by about 20% when Russia surrendered and by the end of the game was down to 16% because I was rushing new stuff to the front and kept getting "the insufficient funds to pay message" at the start of the turn. I built mainly artillery, fighters and bombers to support the French, Belgian and Portuguese infantry.

[vonRocko]

"In my solo game with 1.30 I opted to retreat all the Russian forces back to the Kovno-Minsk line straight away, thereby evacuating Poland which I felt was not defensible (the Russians did actually have a war plan in 1914 that would have taken this option). So by the time Russia surrendered in the game in 1916 I had only lost 7% of my manpower reserves and my position was quite stable. The only thing that had gone wrong was that my national morale had gone down to 53% because I had lost all my Polish and Ukrainian cities (plus two cities in the Caucasus). Without the developers re-balancing the game I am not sure what you can do really. "
Why would you abandon all that territory? No re balance is needed. I have never lost Russia against the AI.(not even Warsaw), even on the hardest level. In fact the AI is to easy in this game.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: vonRocko

Why would you abandon all that territory? No re balance is needed. I have never lost Russia against the AI.(not even Warsaw), even on the hardest level. In fact the AI is to easy in this game.

I was trying out the Russian war plan, Plan G (Danilov)

• Plan G predicted that Germany would fully mobilize in a war against them
• Plan G allowed Germany to trespass into Russian territory
• Willing to give up territory and large casualties—thought Russia would be able to bear it as they completed their mobilization
• Once they mobilized they would push Germany out without trouble
• Thought the geographic challenges of Russia would make Germans fail

The other plan was Plan 19 and the last time I tried that I lost a lot of soldiers trying to defend Warsaw. Eventually my Russian army was surrounded and destroyed.

[vonRocko]

I see. Very interesting strategy.

[stockwellpete]

Usually I would follow the other main Russian war plan, Plan 19. This involves a major attack on eastern Prussia combined with a defence of Warsaw. Sometimes the Russians can capture Danzig and Koenigsberg and also threaten Posen and Stettin. Warsaw can usually be defended until well into 1915. But the problem is that this strategy forces the Russians to "mix it" with the superior German army so losses are high. Also, if the Austro-Hungarians can drive north from Lemburg to Brest-Litovsk in strength then the defenders of Warsaw can be surrounded and destroyed. Building a second defence line to protect both Riga and Moscow is then very difficult.

Yogi asked for some tips. I think Plan 19 is better than Plan G. Try not to over-attack with it though. Use a Russian artillery unit to bombard Koenigsberg so you make sure you capture it. Other things to consider are - i) build garrison units to protect Ukrainian towns so there are no easy pickings for Austro-Hungarians (do the same in the Caucasus to deter the Turks) ii) build submarine unit to attack Swedish convoy and keep the Russian battleship safe iii) build extra research lab for Russian infantry so they can start to close the technology gap on the Germans.

[Yogi the Great]

Thanks for the comments and tips so far. Seems every time I try a "Russian Offensive" the Central units swarm all over with each one inflicting twice the losses or more against my units. Falling back and counter strikes work a bit but the swarm comes quickly and losses can be very high, plus giving up territory leads to revolution quickly. Until Italy joins and removes some pressure Russia can't seem to do much or even hold.

Maybe the next patch will help a bit in the mean time keep the tips coming.

[stockwellpete]

Yes, I think the game has gone out of balance with this new patch. I think the Russians will get knocked out of the game by revolution in 1916 whatever you do. The main task now is to keep Russian morale as high as you can to stop the revolution - it wasn't like this before. Keeping the Russian battleship safe is one way and defending Warsaw is another way - there is a 10% NM loss for each of these. But as soon as the German swarm comes then Russian losses shoot up and NM also goes down quickly. So I am not sure how to keep the Russians in the game now.

There are other issues with this patch (see my "Over and Out" thread) but some of the new things are good e.g. cities recovering more quickly, port hexes for Russia, use of bombers and airships more expensive ammunition-wise etc.