The Montenegro Gambit

[Bavre]

Edit: There have been some big changes in patch 1.05, so some of the stuff I'm exploiting here won't (thankfully) work any more!

Based on Chernobyls very popular and thought provoking thread
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4956763
OldCrowBalthazor and I have decided to give it a human vs human try and document the steps from both sides.

So here is the situation at turn 1:



4 German veteran Corps have been railed in to support AH, while the AH troops focused an weakening the Serbs.
The Serb Corps at Uzice and south of Belgrade both lost 2 points, the Valjevo Detachment was killed.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Well, Bavre opened up the war with a strong Russia First operation...and even a thrust towards Vinnitsa, disrupting Russia's deployments in western Ukraine. The Germans have operated an army group to Dalmatia for an assault on Cetinje, Montenegro, and the Serbs have had to retreat to the Pec-Nish Line once it was clear that AH's 2nd Army deployed for Serbia.

Cetinje has to hold out till Albania gets in the war. The Western Entente has contingency plans for the possibility that Centinje falls and Albania stays neutral however.

Britain is neutral at the moment...but the Royal Navy is active. There no reports of German naval activity in the Baltic, which is deemed by some of the old codgers at the Admiralty as 'highly suspicious'.

This is going to be good fun!

[shri]

So, if i understand right - -
1. Bavre let go of Schlieffen to pull this coup?
2. He seems to have pulled cavalry also to Serbia, so who is covering Galicia? Doesn't the steamroller go BRR...

[BillRunacre]

Great stuff, hopefully this will be both fun and enlightening!

[Chernobyl]

That serbian corps you railed to Cetinje is going to die. That alone is too big of a blow for Serbia. You need that corps.

On the main front I think that unentrenched 8 str corps should be the target. The serbs failed to occupy the mountain hex south of Uzice so there's no zone of control slowing you down coming from the west/Sarajevo. The Austrians committed 2 cavalry which both could in theory attack that unentrenched unit next turn. However it will probably retreat before it comes to that. Still, severely damaging that corps does blow a hole open in the Serbian lines, which they don't have time to fully occupy. Their corps are in need of repair. Not to mention their best corps went to Cetinje, where it should die (usually I send an Austrian cavalry down there to make sure of this)

You could also potentially place that str 5 detachment you rushed down into the hex northeast of Novi Sad. This will cause a corps to spawn one hex further south, which might be a slight improvement on initial unit placement (you could place that cavalry where the detachment currently is, which places it closer to the enemy)

[Chernobyl]

I will also mention it doesn't appear your austrian corps southeast of belgrade entrenched. I believe in some cases this gives Serbia a decent chance to get a nice counterattack on that unit, usually forcing it to retreat.

[Bavre]

Gentlemen, here's the next round:



OldCrows gamble of operating the Serbian Corps to Cetinje played out exactly as Chernobyl predicted. Interestingly enough the combat odds were 100% identical to those I would have gotten vs the str 10 ground cover 3 detachment.
Even despite somewhat bad rng Cetinje fell easyly with room to spare.
On the bright side (not shown in picture), one of the Montenegro detachments made its 20% role and will bravely fight on.
The Serb situation as a whole however is lucking VERY bad. Seeing the Serbs had only left their last detachment in Belgrade to fight a brave but hopeless rearguard action, the CP decided to sacrifice their prepared attacks on Belgrade and instead opted to run down the retreating Serbs. The results were devastating: all that is left of the Serbian army are 4 Corps, 3 of which have <= 3 str left and the Pec-Nish line is broken.
Belgrade also fell by surrounding it with 6 units. 2 of them were just token str 5 detachments, but the ring nevertheless negated Belgrade City bonus, making the defenders easy prey.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Well, seems Montenegro is kaput. So will be Serbia soon. There is nothing that the Entente can do on the first turn to stop this. I was hoping to get a French unit to Cetinje on turn 2. Hmmm...I never have been rolled like this down here. Now Albania is going to be neutral. No back door for Serbia and no chance for Western Entente intervention. Yikes!

[Bavre]

ORIGINAL: shri

So, if i understand right - -
1. Bavre let go of Schlieffen to pull this coup?
2. He seems to have pulled cavalry also to Serbia, so who is covering Galicia? Doesn't the steamroller go BRR...

I'm going all east, steamroller has a Hindenburg sized problem elsewhere.

In the context of an all east strategy the M-gambit is even more beneficial/necessary. There is now no pressure on France and GB, making them loose canons with the ability to intervene massively on the balkans. If only they had a harbor

[OldCrowBalthazor]

You know...now that I know Cetinje was certain to fall...I would of turtled Serbia and considered something really drastic..like the Bulgarian Gambit on a suicide run with the Serbs...at least I would have a place to run haha!

Maybe a second test would be warranted to see if I could pull that off...oh well..off to the next turn to see how bad the Ententes NM is with Montenegro liquidated

o7

btw, the combat odds you described for the Serb corp I operated to Cetinje being the same as just entrenching the Montenegrin detachment could be because operating any unit causes its readiness and morale to go down significantly and then recovers later. I almost never operate a unit next to an enemy unit, but I wanted to see if it would at least survive to 1 pt...and then I'd push another unit in there. I have a French corp in Marseille ready to sail to at least Tirana...if not Cetinje the turn after.

well...I'll pull my turn and record this total defeat. [8D]

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Yep...should of just left a token resistance in Cetinje with the Montenegrin detachment....and turtled in the south. With Albania neutral, there would be no way for the Serbs to escape...but the CP would have to dig the survivors out all the way to Uskub. Still..with no MMP's coming in....rump Serbia wouldn't last long. It probably all be over before the snows fell.

What a disaster!

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: Bavre

In the context of an all east strategy the M-gambit is even more beneficial/necessary. There is now no pressure on France and GB, making them loose canons with the ability to intervene massively on the balkans. If only they had a harbor

Yep....no harbors, no intervening in the Balkans.

[stockwellpete]

I am fairly convinced that terrain changes to the 2 hexes north and west of Cetinje would help a lot here. The mountainous hexes are often far too benign in this game.

[shri]

To put some numbers into perspective, Serbs + Monte + Albania together had some 400-450k troops in 1914 and Austria had about the same. (Considering only 5th Army). i.e. Historically. [The Austrian 5th and 6th armies in the Balkans together had troops equivalent to 1 army]. Of course these are raw numbers and the sword tip (the numbers you get in game) is usually about 30% (assuming teeth to tail ratio of 1:2+). Clerks, typists, messengers, administrators, cooks, cleaners, workers, nurses, baggage trains/logistics etc. is all abstracted.
So, 150k means roughly 4/5 corps, this is close to what you start as Austria, you get 2 additional corps due to 2nd army + its HQ and then rail in 2 detachments or something, thus making it about a million troops (slightly lesser) in the area of your own, add Germans and it balloons.


If you send 2nd Army into Serbia that doubles, add Germans and it is like throwing over 1.2 million men. That makes it a 2:1 or even 3:1 superiority and thus the fall of Serbia or Monte shouldn't be surprising.

Only issue is Albania should mobilise faster, Greece should provide some allied supply and either the French or the BEF should be positioned into Balkans if you want to save them. Maybe even pull troops from that detachment in Cyprus or even Egypt etc.

[Bavre]

So now that we've had the appetizer, it's time for the main dish.

Ze Kaiser proudly presents:

How to weaponize the Montenegro gambit for the main theater of your choice.

(Imho doesn't really matter if east or Schlieffen. Maybe we could get Dazo to try a M-gambit Schlieffen hybrid as
addon in his thread, the results would probably be absolutely hillarious)

Anyway I digress, so here we go:

The key effect is the powerfull but temporary unit buff all units of one side get, every time a country of the
other side kicks the bucket. Note that this effect is something different than the usual NM effects, in fact those
two appear to be fully cumulative. Btw are those unit effects different, depending on the country that surrenders?
If so someone probably typed in a 0 to much for Montenegro, because the effect that tiny country causes is ridiculously
over the top. To reap it

1. Go all in on the Ententes "little ones", M-gambit currently seemes the best way to do so

2. Have your other lads stand ready to pounce on some juicy (and heavily defended) target as soon as the first
surrender effect kicks in

3. WAAAAAAAAAGH!

The second time around (here the end of Serbia) you can hit even harder. If you are very fast, the effect from
Montenegro might not even be fully gone by the time the Serbian one kicks in. You now have

- the unit effect from Serbias end
- the considerable NM effects from Serbias end
- the NM effects from everything you achieved with the boost from Montenegro
- a solid XP advantage in your HQs aquired during the first round

Your Austrians should now basically be Germans and your Germans ... well just ask Gefreiter Fritz:


FOR THE KAISER!

[Bavre]

If you want you can do it a third time, just do a blitzgreek:





It should be trivial to siege Athens to 0. Best time Greeces end in a way that it coincides with your big all out
1915 spring offensive.
Btw, if Bill or Hubert are reading this: is the "unit boost from country surrender" cumulative with itself?
If so, why not one hit Albania the same round you kill Greece? I mean ain't no kill like overkill, right?
Now you should have

Troop powerlevel: Chuck Norris

next attack target: everything that still somehow stands, but I would recommend roundhouse kicking Verdun

[Bavre]

Now we come to the practical part, Montenegro gambit turn 3. Montenegro is dead and our units are doped, time to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.
Stupid me unfortunatelly messed up the attack on Vilnius with a missclick, but note Brest-Litowsk. (Also unfortunatelly I forgot to take "before" screens, so here's the decription)
I had 5 units to take down a str 10 corps in a fortress: 3 corps, str 10,8,7 and 2 Cav str 10 and 8. Str 10 inf and str 8 cav had adjacency bonus. I did not even need the str 10 cav, so I used its attack to kill the recon bomber
behind the fortress. Did at the time not really pay attention to the number of strength points I lost, but it was ridiculously few.

[Bavre]

Meanwhile a bit further south:
Here I had a mixed AH-German force, the latter commanded by Hindenburg. I attacked full strenght entrenched russian corps of a (staggered!) defense, presumably commanded by Brussilow. On the other hand, since I came, saw, and didn't
trust my own eyes when I noticed the combat predictions, it was probably Ruzky. Gotta ask OldCrow. In any case the result speaks for itself, iirc I did 20+ points of damage for almost no losses in this thrust on a front 2 hexes wide (one forest, one clear) and cut the southern railway line by capturing the town. I even demolished a unit next to my path, because I simply had some superpowered attacks left.
All of Poland is now encirceled, with no native supply above 5. And since I not just interrupted both railway lines but captured the towns, even a successful counterattack against
my steroid filled boys will not immediatly restore the supply, because the towns would need to regenerate first.

[Bavre]

Well and Serbia:
No big surprises here, the corps you can't fully see has 2 or 3 points left.

Oh and while I was at it I also did a successful (but small) attack in France, because why not? (Sorry no picture)

In all of this OldCrow made NO REAL MISTAKE! Under normal circumstances his defenses would have been absolutely adequat to stop each and everything of the above. Though he probably grew a bit suspicious when my unentrenched Cav wiped
the floor with 2 of his str 10 corps that attacked with adjacency bonus during his turn, he simply had no chance to predict that. I mean I expected the boost and geared my whole strategy towards it and yet I almost fell of the chair
when I saw the actual combat odds. And -I kid you not- I actually had overall slightly below average rng this round!

And one last thing:
The turn before OldCrow prepared a massive pincer move against east prussia to cut of my main thrusts supply in return. I purposefully have not made any real countermove. So lets see how my doped (but leaderless) str 8 detachments hold up.

If even that failes, I think we have definitely entered gamebreaking territory here. Remember, of 3 such boosts the CP can easily get, this was the LITTLE one! Not gonna lie, kinda feel like the Spiffing Brit now.

Credits:

APrusty, who brought me on the trail of all this by totally and effortlessly obliterating all my armies.

All my brave lads who were slaughtered before I figured it out. RIP boys.

Chernobyl for the Montenegro gambit, the perfect method to start this avalanche.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

"What daring! What outrageousness! What insolence! What arrogance!
I salute you, Bavre." [:D]

I fear when I pull my turn, and watch your replay...its going to seem like I misclicked into another decapitation video again....which the severing of Russian Poland from the rest of Mother Russia in game terms.

side notes before I pull my turn: I checked the AH units entrenched in front of Lemburg..they had extremely high readiness and morale...and the combat predictor was almost exactly as if I was to assault Lemburg itself with a AH corp entrenched at 3. It was showing at 1*3 for all my units that were ready to do a prepared assault. So I delayed that.

Also, I did two prepared attacks against a German cavalry unit that was not entrenched next to Brestlitovsk on the RR line leading east. Both my corps did prepared attacks under an HQ 4 and suffered a total of 4pts damage to 2 to the hun.

This looked real bad...and Russia is still deploying and operating in units from other parts.
Now from looking at Bavre's posts above...my forces are pocketed, something that I was prepared for..or so I thought. Hmmmm.....well, pocketed Russians are still dangerous, but if Serbia falls in the next few turns as it should...Russia may collapse.

Now...on to my turn.