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Hi, so I played one and a half games of hotseat in 1919 Russian Civil War campaign Both topic and scale are nice, very interesting scenario to play and much attention to recreating sides, but at least for me it played out a bit weird. Whites are quite strong, but then they just surrender, due to scripts. Reds did not 'beat' them in gameplay terms, they just threw in the towel. So, for example, this was southern front in mid-1920:


And this is even as Reds throw their main forces at the southern theater, as you can see by HQs and commited forces (this was the case from the very beginning). The rest of the map was +/- static holding + skirmishes, well except the far north I guess. And even though Reds commited heavily, they could not really smash soutern Whites; they were bleeding their morale, but not taking territory. Then, morale events triggered, UK left and then all Whites left one after the other. Despite being in pretty good position, southern Whites started to desert, and they surrendered (only Whites-Whites, all the minors were left in the fight for a long time). And thus, from very bad mid-1920, where Reds conquered nothing at all up to this midpoint of the campaign, they moved to take Grozny, all Urals, Lwow, Helsinki, Lithuania, closing on Tallin/Warsaw and having 10k MPPs in the bank at the end of 1921. Riiight.

Not sure what are others experiences. But maybe Whites could have less MPPs, even 30-40% less, but do not lose (that much) morale and strength through scripted events. It felt like it was not me (on Reds) who is fighting and winning, but well, the timed magic scripts While if they had less resources, they could be beaten in a more engaging manner (except in Ural, where no one can move through mountains at all...).

Some other notes; obviously things would unpredictably change too much to judge by adressing all this stuff, but anyway:
-Artillery was rather worthless; entrenchment levels are low, one can de-entrench with infantry no problem. Art could have easily 2x times higher value of demoralization.
-East/Urals is the ultimate definition of stalemate. Unit entrenched in mountains is unmovable. There is not much room for maneuver and supply is pretty bad. No one can achieve anything. I mean, anything, why even try. Just waiting for scripts, and Whites cannot orchestrate an offensive even with massive preparations. By mechanics of SC, I have no clue how this theater could be made more interesting, but at the moment it is snoozefest.
-Fights could be a bit more dynamic, like -0.5 def bonus for trenches and +0.5 attacks value on units, but with infantry weapons capped at level 1? Anyway, having sooo impactful infantry weapon lvl 2 research in such short scenario sucks. There is no justification, after years of Great War? This is clearly slowing things down artificially.
-Tech could be a bit cheaper for smaller guys? Not sure why every army pays the same for passive upgrades etc.
-Cav was terrible, why it would be a Soft target, ayy. Cav division is >2x cost of regular division, but takes 1 dmg more? I doubt these are lancers, rather mounted mobile infantry, come on... It can cost more (why that much, though), but being also weaker, eh, no use.
-Resource distribution is weird. Whole Moscow region is 36 base MPPs. East Ukraine is ~120 MPPs. I really doubt this was the case for Bolsheviks? Also, towns having 0 MPPs are sad, it makes smaller advances totally not meaningful (and on the other hand, one can abandond lots of territory without any real loss).
-In December 1920, I have built last available land Bolshevik units Then started acuumulating thousands of MPPs. It is a bit standard for SC series, but well... we could easily have -75 permanent MPPs/turn malus for each of main Whites and UK surrendering, for the sake of small demobilisation/exhaustion, or whatever. Otherwise, there is an absurd imbalance of forces in 1921.

Also, I encountered pretty strange buggy situation, so:

Here territory is occupied by UK, which in fact surrendered, so stuff was occupied by its still-fighting Baltics minors. But. Polish units cannot enter this occupied territory, these two forest-road hexes next to Brest, as you should be able to see by highlighted possible hexes. I guess because UK surrendered? This was silly

Additionally, DE406 description in the manual says that 'YES: The Makhnovists will surrender and be annexed by the Bolsheviks.', but this definitely did not happen xD They become hostile and spawn quite a lot of (weak) units.


Again, great map and obviously very hard to simulate all the factions, but just wanted to say it could be more dynamic and less artificial/scripted, just maybe

Hi Beriand
In MP testing the Whites (pre-release) I had several quite different experiences with them. For example I saw a static front in the SE just like you portrayed, and completely different situations in other matches. Some of the fronts, like the Baltic, got locked down, and other times the whole area was fluid. Same in the east in the Urals and the area around Kharkov-Huilopol. Each match different.

The Whites though have a kind of doomsday clock running regarding FS, especially after the UK withdraws. The task is to try to get White faction units at least within 12 hexes of Moscow, and hold it there if they can't advance on that front. Then if possible, try to press forward on another front. Voronezh and Orel are key...but even the Penza RR line through the forest maybe a secondary avenue. There still will be a FS loss, but its not as bad as not having anything at all. This needs to be done by early to mid 1920..a difficult task for sure.

MP vs Hotseat is different of course, because the human vs Another human dynamic is quite different depending on the opposing players strategy, so maybe that's why I experienced different situations.

Regarding the Makhnovist deal you reported. That's odd. When that event happened, that area reverted to Bolshevik control in a hot-seat match as the Reds I did. That wasn't the release version though. That needs to be looked at.
Same with the post UK withdraw. I never saw that situation you described, though what I had left for UK minors (After the UK withdrawal) were Estonians hunkered down in Estonia, and a lone Persian division way up in the Urals somewhere holding a lonely RR junction haha.
So I never noticed that anomaly you screen-shot. Definitely something to check-up on.

OldCrowBalthazor wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:04 am Some of the fronts, like the Baltic, got locked down, and other times the whole area was fluid. Same in the east in the Urals and the area around Kharkov

Yes, naturally stuff is different depending on players and strategies Got some different outcomes even by myself. But! Urals? How can one possibly achieve anything in Urals? Which side going for which city, Orel maybe? Because for me, ~2 corps + HQ can stop everything, even stopping 4 corps + artillery + HQ + 2 trains, and holding without much sweat. No breaking out from Perm. With units stats and terrain/trench bonuses it was hard to deal damage (to non-cav units), actually for me advances happened mostly by outflanking with numerical superiority, or maybe sometimes at the point when good general god 3.0 experience and could finally smash enemy in mediocre supply a bit.
And in general, is it not quite easy to block advances? Were you able to reliably kill, in one turn, entrenched infantry, in many places? I could not really achieve that.

The task is to try to get White faction units at least within 12 hexes of Moscow, and hold it there if they can't advance on that front.

Eh, we know it is never going to happen The Whites will not get close to Moscow, and then they will magically wither down regardless of their map situation. Which I guess is 'historically logical', at least regarding Northern and Eastern guys (some former military on rather empty territories without Western support, why and how would they fight?), but makes for not so satisfying gameplay.

I find these automatic losses and surrenders very anticlimactic.. I pushed hard as Reds and suddenly they all surrendered, because scripts... all in 1920

Beriand wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:30 am
Eh, we know it is never going to happen The Whites will not get close to Moscow, and then they will magically wither down regardless of their map situation. Which I guess is 'historically logical', at least regarding Northern and Eastern guys (some former military on rather empty territories without Western support, why and how would they fight?), but makes for not so satisfying gameplay.

It actually can happen, with the Southern and Ural Whites, especially if the Reds focus in the West early.
Thing is even as the UK finally withdraws, and the Northern Whites wither, collectively the Whites can generate more MPPs then the Reds if they play thier cards in the right tech choices and battlefield success early on.
It's difficult to play the Whites I admit. The cards were stacked against them, but it's possible to turn the worm, at least in my experience.

A lot of good points here!

It's interesting - I did wonder as I was designing this if it was a bit too "slow", and that being after I made some changes from the SC2 version to get things moving more. I haven't played a lot of the base WWI game (it came out about the time I started work on ACW, and naturally that became my focus), but a lot of the unit stats &c were pulled straight from there - given WWI seems to be the most popular SC entry it can't be too far off the mark? I did also try to be quite sparing with changes precisely for this reason - as a DLC for WWI, the new campaigns need to have the same overall feel as the base WWI game to a certain degree, otherwise it's just going to feel out of place.

But there's also room for changes too.

Beriand wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:04 pm And this is even as Reds throw their main forces at the southern theater, as you can see by HQs and commited forces (this was the case from the very beginning). The rest of the map was +/- static holding + skirmishes, well except the far north I guess. And even though Reds commited heavily, they could not really smash soutern Whites; they were bleeding their morale, but not taking territory. Then, morale events triggered, UK left and then all Whites left one after the other. Despite being in pretty good position, southern Whites started to desert, and they surrendered (only Whites-Whites, all the minors were left in the fight for a long time). And thus, from very bad mid-1920, where Reds conquered nothing at all up to this midpoint of the campaign, they moved to take Grozny, all Urals, Lwow, Helsinki, Lithuania, closing on Tallin/Warsaw and having 10k MPPs in the bank at the end of 1921. Riiight.

The FS collapse did happen historically - this mechanic was in SC2 and I kept it largely on that basis. The Bolsheviks did take Rostov in 1920, but the Cossacks (to use an example) more or less just gave up on the war and fell away as time went on. North and Ural were both smashed by early 1920 historically and their capitals taken (though the Northern Army was pretty pathetic once the Allies left).

One thing I have thought about doing here is tying the event to "after the UK has quit" (likely mid-late 1920) rather than January 1920, which would delay the time that this kicks in and give more room for either side to win by right of conquest. But after the British left, I don't really see how the Whites could have realistically fought on a lot longer...

Beriand wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:04 pm Some other notes; obviously things would unpredictably change too much to judge by adressing all this stuff, but anyway:
-Artillery was rather worthless; entrenchment levels are low, one can de-entrench with infantry no problem. Art could have easily 2x times higher value of demoralization.
-East/Urals is the ultimate definition of stalemate. Unit entrenched in mountains is unmovable. There is not much room for maneuver and supply is pretty bad. No one can achieve anything. I mean, anything, why even try. Just waiting for scripts, and Whites cannot orchestrate an offensive even with massive preparations. By mechanics of SC, I have no clue how this theater could be made more interesting, but at the moment it is snoozefest.
-Fights could be a bit more dynamic, like -0.5 def bonus for trenches and +0.5 attacks value on units, but with infantry weapons capped at level 1? Anyway, having sooo impactful infantry weapon lvl 2 research in such short scenario sucks. There is no justification, after years of Great War? This is clearly slowing things down artificially.
-Tech could be a bit cheaper for smaller guys? Not sure why every army pays the same for passive upgrades etc.
-Cav was terrible, why it would be a Soft target, ayy. Cav division is >2x cost of regular division, but takes 1 dmg more? I doubt these are lancers, rather mounted mobile infantry, come on... It can cost more (why that much, though), but being also weaker, eh, no use.
-Resource distribution is weird. Whole Moscow region is 36 base MPPs. East Ukraine is ~120 MPPs. I really doubt this was the case for Bolsheviks? Also, towns having 0 MPPs are sad, it makes smaller advances totally not meaningful (and on the other hand, one can abandond lots of territory without any real loss).
-In December 1920, I have built last available land Bolshevik units Then started acuumulating thousands of MPPs. It is a bit standard for SC series, but well... we could easily have -75 permanent MPPs/turn malus for each of main Whites and UK surrendering, for the sake of small demobilisation/exhaustion, or whatever. Otherwise, there is an absurd imbalance of forces in 1921.

Artillery has the same stats as base WWI except for an extra AP, and it didn't play as much of a role in the RCW as in WWI historically (there's no week-long bombardments here).
Cav stats I'll look at. Soft target is an engine limitation - nothing I can do there.
Tech... ehh I think it makes sense that the factions with better industry (Bolshevik, Southern Whites) have an easier time getting the upgrades than the smaller powers (Northern Whites particularly). I'll consider it.

Urals as you say is something there's not a lot of room for (at least without radical changes to how the game works), but one thing I will be trying out is simply turning up the amount of damage all units do to each other (I increased it a little bit over SC2, but there's certainly room to go further - currently corps are attack/defend 4/3, in base WWI these are 5/4 and in ACW I have them at 6/5). Maybe increase movement slightly too. But I'd have to test this quite a bit before adding it - lots of potential for unintended consequences there.

Beriand wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:04 pm Here territory is occupied by UK, which in fact surrendered, so stuff was occupied by its still-fighting Baltics minors. But. Polish units cannot enter this occupied territory, these two forest-road hexes next to Brest, as you should be able to see by highlighted possible hexes. I guess because UK surrendered? This was silly

That is silly Not sure what the fix is, but we'll work something out.

- BNC

BiteNibbleChomp wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 9:33 pm It's interesting - I did wonder as I was designing this if it was a bit too "slow", and that being after I made some changes from the SC2 version to get things moving more. I haven't played a lot of the base WWI game (it came out about the time I started work on ACW, and naturally that became my focus), but a lot of the unit stats &c were pulled straight from there - given WWI seems to be the most popular SC entry it can't be too far off the mark? I did also try to be quite sparing with changes precisely for this reason - as a DLC for WWI, the new campaigns need to have the same overall feel as the base WWI game to a certain degree, otherwise it's just going to feel out of place.

Thanks for the answer Well, as for WW1. In the main campaign, you get techs 2 in ~1916, on both arty and infantry, so then have time to use increased damage. Here, not really. Moreover, on Eastern Fronts/Middle East/somewhere, there often is a big disparity in leaders ratings + infantry morale tech, thus one side can punch pretty heavy. And on Western Front, you kind of accept things as trench stalemate, with like 10k people for each kilometer of frontline, which I doubt was the case in RCW in most places.

The FS collapse did happen historically - this mechanic was in SC2 and I kept it largely on that basis. The Bolsheviks did take Rostov in 1920, but the Cossacks (to use an example) more or less just gave up on the war and fell away as time went on. North and Ural were both smashed by early 1920 historically and their capitals taken (though the Northern Army was pretty pathetic once the Allies left).

One thing I have thought about doing here is tying the event to "after the UK has quit" (likely mid-late 1920) rather than January 1920, which would delay the time that this kicks in and give more room for either side to win by right of conquest. But after the British left, I don't really see how the Whites could have realistically fought on a lot longer...

I understand there is a need to adhere to history in some ways, but eh, maybe UK left because Whites in the Urals etc. were smashed? I think there could be some differences between them, anyway. Like, Northern guys could lose NM almost as it is now, because what are they gonna do, hold and live in Murmansk? But if Eastern Whites hold Urals and whole Siberia, they could feel slightly better and get slightly more support from the Western Powers (&Japan). While Southern guys, holding territories with like 10 million people hostile to Reds, could try fighting even bit longer? That is, if purpose of the campaign is to be reasonably fun to play, not recreate history 1:1. Magic script erasing Whites is, as stated mildly below, 'anticlimactic' I still think that if need, it could be less artificial morale loss/desertion, but also less MPPs gained, so the loss (if happens) feels 'right'/natural.

Cav stats I'll look at. Soft target is an engine limitation - nothing I can do there.

Well, units could do the same damage to Soft and Hard targets. Doubt HQs could tank then anyways

Urals as you say is something there's not a lot of room for (at least without radical changes to how the game works), but one thing I will be trying out is simply turning up the amount of damage all units do to each other (I increased it a little bit over SC2, but there's certainly room to go further - currently corps are attack/defend 4/3, in base WWI these are 5/4 and in ACW I have them at 6/5). Maybe increase movement slightly too. But I'd have to test this quite a bit before adding it - lots of potential for unintended consequences there.

Also maybe more towns for better supply on the offensive (defender probably have good supply anyway)? TBH could be also less mountain hexes, more hills, I don't think it is so Alps/Caprathian like on a very wide area, but unsure.

Beriand wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:51 pm I understand there is a need to adhere to history in some ways, but eh, maybe UK left because Whites in the Urals etc. were smashed? I think there could be some differences between them, anyway. Like, Northern guys could lose NM almost as it is now, because what are they gonna do, hold and live in Murmansk? But if Eastern Whites hold Urals and whole Siberia, they could feel slightly better and get slightly more support from the Western Powers (&Japan). While Southern guys, holding territories with like 10 million people hostile to Reds, could try fighting even bit longer? That is, if purpose of the campaign is to be reasonably fun to play, not recreate history 1:1. Magic script erasing Whites is, as stated mildly below, 'anticlimactic' I still think that if need, it could be less artificial morale loss/desertion, but also less MPPs gained, so the loss (if happens) feels 'right'/natural.

The British quit mostly because the intervention was unpopular at home - they stuck around a good year after Kolchak was taken out of the picture.

My other big consideration here is that marching all the way to places like Murmansk is quite tedious just because of the sheer distance, the FS collapse solves that problem quite nicely.

Beriand wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:51 pm Also maybe more towns for better supply on the offensive (defender probably have good supply anyway)? TBH could be also less mountain hexes, more hills, I don't think it is so Alps/Caprathian like on a very wide area, but unsure.

I did add more towns. There's just not a lot of them in that part of the world. Who knew that the edge of Siberia wasn't a very popular place to live?

Whatever the solutions are here, and I've got quite a few ideas on how to go about this, they won't be a quick fix. But I'll be taking a good hard look at all of this

- BNC

French&Greek force in Odesa quit after approaching Bolshevik force. Greeks were promised about western anatolia as they send expeditionary force. Horses were valuable as advertised by Bolsheviks. Village areas don't need partisans as they change sides very quickly and increase hatred (for both sides increasing size of Green army). And Whites needs at least two factions as playable as their common goal is not one.

I'd rather modify Whites surrender events and link them to the loss of their capitals - either Archangelsk or Murmansk in case of Northern, Tallin in case of NW which is technically Estonian, but it's only natural; so it feels more in line with situation on map and actual gameplay.
And FS loss not to arbitrary 12 hexes from Moscow, which is known to Reds (unlike real life), so the Red player will never allow it to happen, but rather to possesion of Tsaritsyn and(or?) Kiev. Control of those cities by Reds means jaws are closing and Whites are in real trouble.

It is possible to try and push Ural, but 2 HQs are required and there is no time for that, unless bringing Cossacks, but the area for units is rather limited anyway, and sieging a town, waiting for the supply to dwindle enough and rotate attacks in bad terrain and weather.... then another one next in line? Only possible if neglected by Reds.

Situation on map and actual gameplay comes first if designer do not have interest in conflict and the company interest in market. Not at least about Irish uprising and political situation in America as events.. If you think about rules of WW'1(Their most sucessfull game) to RCW than obviously no care about product. Which is acceptable during political situation for the devs, but for new devs?