AAR - Poland 1792 Scenario - Simple Economy

[Joram]

Ok, so I thought I'd do an AAR on one of the new scenario's. In fact, it's one I haven't really looked at much personally so don't expect any dazzling generalship!

Here's the rules:

Simple Economy where all I have to worry about is money and labor. The only province improvements in Simple Economy deal with Walls/Guns/Barracks and Docks.

Standard Victory conditions however I will give myself a 100 Glory Point (which I may often refer to as 'gp's) advantage because, well, because I can.

Combat and Strategic AI is set to 'normal'.

No idea how far I'll get as I have to balance life, work, and testing but will do my best to show off some of the new features. I won't however get into naval combat for the very simple reason that Poland has no navy. Plus Gil did an excellent one.

Feel free to suggest courses of action and I will try to accomodate the requests but will also go at my own pace. I'll probably spend an inordinate time on the setup to show the initial conditions but then well skip whole turns as I wait for things to happen that may be interesting.

So without further ado (or is it adieu?) here's the setup screen. In these special scenario's, it's Sweden that is replaced so by picking Sweden as the player, you actually become the nation in the scenario, in this case Poland.

[Joram]

Oh one more comment, I am fairly familiar with Napoleonic history from 1805 onward but very unfamiliar with 1792 so I don't really know what to expect from the situation! We'll see what happens.

Here's the initial overview. No large armies, save Turkey, are built yet as the nations haven't fully mobilized like they had in later years. So Poland (the light blue) has a small but experienced army at it's capital. Russia is sitting in my southern territories. Lots of large 'minor' nation armies about as well.

[Joram]

Here's my beginning army having beer and kielbasa down in Krakow. It's small with all my units under 50% strength but it is also highly experienced with one of my units having a morale of 6.50 which is very high, especially for a non-guard unit. I have two lancers as well which are deadly on the charge and even deadlier in the pursuit phase.
I also have leaders with high morale bonuses which is important for rallying. Though obviously with my superior generalship you will probably never see that ever being needed! [:D]

Will also use this screen to point out some changes from CoG. First, if you look at the bottom you see the GUI is new and improved. Since I'm on simple economy you only see money and labor being kept track of for the economy. But you also see the National Morale being displayed, land and naval experience, mobilization limits have been introduced and more.

We were all very sad to see the little advisor heads go but they had to go in order to make space for the new overview, provinces, units, and upgrades buttons. Finally, you will notice a bar (partially obscured) just below the main map which is the 'relationship' bar. Here you can tell at a glance what they think of you instead of going all the way into the diplomacy advisor as before.

On the right side above the mini-map you see the plus/minus for zooming in and out, the 'r' which toggles the relationship bar, and the 'm' which toggles different map overlays (production,attitude).

[Joram]

And here's the look at my southern regions (no snickering!) where the Russians have apparently decided to share pierogi recipes. Except if you look closely at the relationship bar it must not be going very well as they do not like me in the least. Is war soon afoot?

[Joram]

So there's three things you always should check first off when you are starting a scenario with the first being a survey of your forces, the next being your relationship with the other nations, and finally, getting your economy going.

Since I prefer to focus on the military aspect of the game, my personal preference is to not have to deal with commodities so that is the main reason why I play on the simple economy. Others like the more detailed economy of the original CoG which I can assure you has been kept in and improved and is now known as the 'advanced' economy.

So for the simple economy, the economy screen is very simple to use. Naturally. My main economic levers on this screen are military readiness and draft size. Both of those directly affect my income.

Now for those unfamiliar with the game, military readiness affects the maximum size an individual division can be. The basic unit of strength, the division is normally 10k men for inf/cav and 3k for artillery. If I set military readiness down to 90%, well then my divisions can only be filled to 9k and 2700 artillery. Makes them weaker but saves you money!

Draft size is fairly self explanatory though the exact mechanics are a bit more difficult to explain. Suffice it to say, each draft point adds a certain number of men to the draft pool and costs 15 money.

Other items that affect income in the simple economy is upkeep (your primary expense by a large margin usually), treaty income or expense, and merchants. Oh and colonial income but Poland doesn't have any colonies.

Ok, so that got a little long-winded there but this is a beginners AAR. My moves on this screen were to leave readiness at 100% and increase my draft size to 4. With these changes I expect to get 73 profit next turn (this isn't exact for a number of reasons).

[Joram]

This is also where you can look at the new and improved training report. Poland only has a few of these upgrades but they are good ones. Nationalism helps keep your national morale up which helps you stay in wars longer and I believe can give you other combat morale bonuses. Also, Patriotism is a great one for defending one's own territory.

You also see your current level of land and naval experience. This is gained by fighting battles (you don't necessarily have to win!) and also by the number of barrack and dock levels you have. This shot is actually from a later turn so I've actually spent a lot of my initial experience pts on unit upgrades rather than saving it for a training upgrade.

[Joram]

I'm sure you're itching me to get moving but as I said, I'm going to spend a lot of time upfront showing the different concepts! So here is the province management. No sliders to worry about in simple economy, simply these province upgrades. Here you can see i have the 'barracks' highlighted which shows how barracks are required for certain units as well and the price of the next level. I'm aiming to get at least one region to level 5 so I can build corps but warning, province upgrades take a long time so you really need to plan ahead.

While not shown, I went around and bought barracks whereever I could, and other than my capital which will contain my high-level barracks, I focused on provinces with low-level barracks to improve. That way I can get more bang for my buck for the experience bonus that barracks provide every few months. Also, I choose to make my capital the one with the highest barracks even though there's another province with higher barracks level to start with because should I lose a war, the capital is the only province I know will remain safe from being taken away via surrender treaty!

[Joram]

And with that I'm hitting the sack as it's getting on towards midnight.  Feel free to ask questions and I or others will do our best to answer them later.  If there's something particular you want to see, like me rushing Austria while it's at war with France, let me know.  My initial thoughts on a plan of action though is to build up my troops for awhile and maybe kick Russia out of my house.  But we'll see. 

[Gil R.]

So without further ado (or is it adieu?)

It's "ado." As in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing."

[Missouri Rebel]

Those screenshots really show off the map, which is excellent btw.

How does one gain experience and does it carry over through the turns or is excess wasted?

Is there a set starting amount?

Do some nations get more/less?

Thanks again Joram.

mo reb

[balto]

How does bayonet practice carry over to Quick Combat?
 
Thanks.

[moose1999]

This is very informative.
Looking forward to the rest!

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

So without further ado (or is it adieu?)

It's "ado." As in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing."

Thanks Gil! I never was very good in English! Err, at English. Whatever!

ORIGINAL: balto

How does bayonet practice carry over to Quick Combat?

Thanks.

That's a great question Balto and while I know all upgrades give you a benefit it Quick Combat, since the manual is not quite all in one place yet I can't find exactly how it contributes. Maybe Gil or Eric can help elucidate.

ORIGINAL: Missouri Rebel

Those screenshots really show off the map, which is excellent btw.

How does one gain experience and does it carry over through the turns or is excess wasted?

Is there a set starting amount?

Do some nations get more/less?

Thanks again Joram.

mo reb

Nations do have a set amount of initial experience which can vary by Nation and scenario. But after that, experience is generated via the total number of barracks (or docks for naval experience) or via combat (win or lose). In fact, here's a screenshot of the military advisor. Notice at the bottom where it shows how many experience points I get per quarter, 7 land, 1 naval. My barracks spending spree that I mentioned before will help this but it will be awhile before I see the fruits of this. 7 pts is not a lot as even basic training upgrades cost 60+ pts (which also can vary by nation). Individual unit upgrades, which you can see several in this shot however can be purchased for as low as 4 pts or cost as much as 15.

[Joram]

And here is a partial list of unit upgrades. This list actually varies by morale and I chose my lowest morale unit because I didn't want to spoil all the fun! As you see, the majority of upgrades cost 7, with an occasional 4 and the highlighted one is 15. Which in fact I can't afford and would be grayed out if I hadn't highlighted it.

Higher morale units get a list that is over twice as big. And navy have their own set of improvements.

[Joram]

Ok, so the last thing I did was try to get a loan from Austria which I don't really need but if they accept it, it may just help our relationship which is a bit rocky. So I hit the end-turn button and here is part of the event report for that turn.

Notice my gps are now at 113. 100 for the starting bonus I had plus 13 more for achieving certain 'political goals'. Which in Poland's case is simply controlling provinces they already control but in many cases for other nations it is necessary to control enemy territories.

Turkey declared war on Montenegro which cost it some glory for picking on the little guys.

[Joram]

It's now July 1792 and during the interphase I had several warning come up because of Russia's buildup and transgression of my territory. (This actually happens while the AI is working and before the event report so sorry this is slightly out of order)

Here's one of those messages and the options I have. I choose to ignore this as I don't think I'm quite ready to take on the Russian army. Plus, I'm trying to see if news filters to me on the progress of the war between France and the Austria/Prussia coalition.

[Joram]

Ok, so now the AI ends and I look at the event report to see not much has happened. I'm going to focus a little bit more on knowing my nation so here is the supply/upkeep report. Notice replacements flowing to my units and also notice that cavalry (as well as artillery and guard units) get replacements at a slower rate than infantry.

But also notice the supply costs for the two lancer units (and cav in general really). Ouch! Those may be good units but is costing me an arm and a leg to keep them. I decide to let the good citizens feed them and put them inside Krakow which lowers their upkeep costs by approx. half. This is a good practice to utilize while you are waiting for things to happen. Units in fortress are automatically supplied and receive reinforcements too so I could theoretically spread my units around my various cities and not need the depot I built.

Since i hadn't mentioned it yet, depots are free to build/destroy but are they cost money to leave up from turn to turn. However, depots are necessary for your units to be considered 'in supply' for combat purposes as well as the only way to have more troops than the forage value of the province allows without having a significant attrition penalty. Which you can see for Vienna which I just happened to have highlighted, is about 50k troops.

[Joram]

Looking at the production report, I see that Plotsk is an important province. Looking on the map I see that it's just south of East Prussia which is part of the major nation, Prussia. Who doesn't like me right now. Advanced economy of course would show all the commidities.

If I were to fight a war and lose, that province is in danger of being taken away from me so I better stay nice with Prussia. Indeed, Poland is in a precarious and somewhat unique position of having nearly every province adjacent to a major nation.

The significance of that is you can only ask for or lose provinces adjacent provinces so for instance, if I happened to go to war with Spain and win, I couldn't ask for Granada. Islands are an exception to this rule though so I could ask for Majorca. Suffice it to say, I need to choose my enemies and allies with particular care.

[Joram]

Not much else is going on so the last thing I do this turn is purchase a merchant. Merchants can be a decent source of income. The risk here is that I have absolutely no fleet to protect it so if I go to war with someone with a decent fleet, it can be sunk and I've wasted my money. Note that it takes awhile to build ships, any ships, so again it pays to think ahead.

[Joram]

Turn ends and I still getting transgressions from Russia and I'm still choosing to ignore them. Spain declared war on the Italian city-state of Genoa. France won a couple naval battles, one against Austria and one against Prussia. No reports of land battles though.

Austria apparently didn't want to loan me the money. No idea though if it is because they don't like me or maybe just didn't have it. I can see there's a loan request between Prussia and Spain. France added the Skirmisher training doctrine to their repertoire.