French Arab EvenSteven- A test of the Golden Horde Doctrine

[springer]

Pre-ramble:
It is clear that ATG is a game that contributes to environmental awareness. As almost every ATG player has come to grief learning, the game does not allow infinite purchases at the fuel pump. The allotment of fuel and resources requires much careful planning. In addition, the use of all those tanks and planes clearly contribute to global warming: what good is it conquering the enemy homeland when it will be under water in a couple of rounds?


Clearly, ATG calls for a more earth-friendly mobile war doctrine that reduces dependence on fossil fuels. So, I asked the Supreme High Command of Environmentally Friendly Warfare (SHCEFW), to put their heads together and provide recommendations. Here is a picture of the command consulting and meditating on their primary doctrinal text before they came up with suggestions. It's obvious this is a crack(ed) staff.

[Jeffrey H.]

Heh, crack staff. I wondered what the guy at the top was smoking. Hippies.....BAH !

[springer]

After appropriate meditation, the SHCEFW came up with the "Golden Horde Doctrine", the epitome of Earth-Friendly Offensive Warfare. The rules of the "Golden Horde Doctrine" are simple.

1. Build no items that burn fossil fuels.
2. As much as possible, build only cavalry when combat infantry is needed.
Calvary is a highly mobile, low-fuel alternative to all that armor, and it leaves a relatively low ecological footprint (at the cost of a slightly greater hoofprint.)

To test this doctrine, the French-Arab EvenSteven was used. The EvenStevens appear to be great tool for testing out the pros and cons of experiments in warfare. This particular scenario was chosen because the desert is a relatively tank friendly-horse unfriendly place where the doctrine would be put to a hard test.

To push the green aspect of this doctrine further, the SHCEFW insisted urban sprawl and industrialization must be kept to a minimum. Thus, no factories could be built and no resources improved.

[springer]

Jeffrey H.

I found the photo on Wikipedia (sans Sun Tzu, of course), I thought it was pretty funny...

The chief of staff's behavior had me worried as well. He assured me that he was only using the highest quality Turkish tobacco to stimulate his precise, highly trained military mind. I'm sure he wouldn't mislead me, after all I'm depending on his staff's advice for executing this superb military doctrine.

[springer]

Turn 0:
Here is the standard start situation for the EvenSteven. The French will be the human player, and will implement the Golden Horde doctrine. The Arabs were left at AI, and let us know that they would produce whatever suited them to achieve victory over a bunch of heathen tree-huggers fighting over a desert.

Two games were actually played. The first one was spent figuring out the doctrine, the second implementing it with lessons learned.
In terms of testing the doctrine, the game was played until Eden and Basra (circled in red below) were taken. The game has a nice balance, so it is only a matter of time before the Arab forces fall after those two towns are taken. Using these towns as objectives also has the advantage of making the games easy to compare because the length of the endgame can be compounded by a large number of factors.

[springer]

Turn 1 (both French and Arabs have moved):

The SHCEFW advised me to immediately disband the armored cars as they violated the entire green philosophy. I managed to dissuade them by arguing that if we disbanded them, we'd have to put them in a landfill or junkyard, which would only make more waste. However, if they were destroyed in combat, they could be used as beautiful victory sculptures after the conflict was over. The idea of artistic recycling kept the command assuaged, and allowed the French to defend their territory as production for the Golden Horde doctrine geared up.

For now,
Two Headquarters (North Command and Center Command Were formed) and the staff from administration central was used to fill them out.
PP are expended to send the army up to Infantry III. Since Cavalry (CAV) is doing all the heavy lifting in this scenario, it should get some buffed up hitpoints and a touch of anti-tank. (I didn't look at the stats to see if they did get an anti-tank boost.

In addition, PPs are expended on flak. (A bad idea in retrospect, though it seemed reasonable at the time given that the Golden Horde doctrine does not allow for aircraft.)

The 4 regiments (2 Armor Car (AC) and 2 Infantry(INF) ) for the Northern Command are put into two combined AC/INF defensive positions.
The same for the 4 regiments of the Central Command. The Arab forces advance and launch a failed reconnaissance in force on one of the Central Command positions.
The 2 INF Regiments in the south take up defensive positions to await what may come.

(Intended attacks on the next turn are blue arrows)

[springer]

Turn 2 (French and Arab Turn)

Game remains standard. The initial units are doing most of the fighting and the situation for the next few turns is no different than any other initial moves by a middle-of-the road (or worse) player.

For all intents and purposes, the initial AC and INF regiments are involved in aggressive holding actions until the CAV regiments form up.

This turn, production consisted of 120 CAV, 16 trains, 40 Staff (In retrospect, I'm not sure the trains were a good investment. They were built to allow for the creation of a central reserve that could be deployed anywhere in case of an emergency.)

[springer]

One of the ironies of this AAR is that the images focus on the Northern and Central Commands, but the Southern Command was where the Golden Horde Doctrine really shined.

Because I was only recording demonstration game casually, I took only one screenshort per turn. I didn't save images of the South because there were substantially less resources devoted to the fighting.

However, whereas the Northern/Central fronts have a more WWI flavor (with some maneuver), the southern front actually was more of a battle of maneuver, where the Horde isolated and destroyed whatever came their way.

[springer]

Turn 3 (French move complete)

For this turn, I only saved the French attack, not the Arab response

Production is still not pure Golden Horde Yet: The staffs are being filled out and trains were still produced.
Here was the production: 170 CAV, 6 Trains, 40 Staff. This is the last turn in which staff and trains were produced, after this production went pure Golden Horde (i.e., all CAV except for some reserve PP.)

The map doesn't show new CAV units. Some are buried under the Cavalry Regiment near central command. The remainder went to the Southern Front.

The Southern Front ended up being fought by Southern HQ, the two original infantry regiments (transferred to Southern HQ) and Four Golden Horde Cavalry Units (30-40 CAV per regiment, when transport allowed). Once the units were formed, the Southern Front received very few reinforcements. They performed their job "as is"

__________________________________________

Below shows the battle. As can be seen, the Northern Front received no reinforcements this turn. The south had a greater need. Central front, however, was building up a Cavalry reserve by its headquarter. Cavalry is beginning to move into position, but the French forces are still fighting an unsustainable war. They are relying too much on the ecologically unsustainable, fossil-fuel of the armored cars to maintain the brunt of the battle.

[springer]

SHCEFW is upset that I continue to use the armor cars. It violates the purity of the conflict.
Our supporting scientists have come up with a low-fuel intermediate measure until they develop the solar-driven armored car:

[springer]

Turn 4 (French move)

The Golden Horde doctrine is beginning to have its effect, though it is only partly implemented.
Relatively raw CAV regiments have surrounded an armor car unit in the desert. The central front is also on the gates of Eden.

I'm also transitioning the initial armor cars and infantry into the new HQ. (I was somewhat careless in this. I did not pull the units far enough out of line, so a number of them will be destroyed when they are attacked before they recovered from the command-change hangover.)

That huge stack of Arab defenders looks somewhat intimidating. The Golden Horde lacks the artillery needed to reduce such defenses. (The Staff agrees that artillery would be OK to produce without violating the green principles of the Golden Horde, as long as no oil (beyond trains) is used to move the weapons around.


However, in the name of sustainable warfare, no artillery was produced by the French in the making of this AAR.

[phatkarp]

This is awesome. 

[henri51]

Nice AAR - good touch of humor too...I like the green armored car.

[springer]

Thanks phatkarp and henri51

Part of the inspiration for this AAR are henri51's AAR for human vs. the computer. I thought that after the discussion elsewhere, we needed to add a couple more human vs. AI AARs to balance out the fine human vs. human AARs. After all, a huge chunk of the gaming community primarily plays one-player games.

Hopefully, it'll show ATG's AI in action, test the impact of cavalry on the game, and even show a couple of (perhaps dubious) lessons that new players can profit from using when pitting themselves against the AI. (Keeping in mind, that strategies that work against the AI often backfire against human opponents.)

[springer]

Turn 4 (Arab move)

The Arabs strike hard at the Golden Horde forces; smashing both the North and the Central Fronts.
The Golden Horde lacks the AT capacity to stop them.

In random games, the lack of AT is less of a problem because the terrain- woods and hills, for example- reduce the armor effects. But here in the desert, there is nowhere for a soldier on a horse to hide!

[springer]

Turn 5 (French Move)

The Golden Horde was stymied in their plans by the amount of armor the Arabs were able to throw together on short notice, but the offensive was not halted.

The mobility of the golden horde allowed for the isolation and destruction of a powerful Arab armor car regiment in the north and the crippling of a second one in the south.

A minor irritant is also disposed of. The Horde finally delivers the coup de grâce and "recycles" the isolated Arab armor car regiment between the two fronts.

So once again, the Horde finds itself outside of the gates of Eden (knock, knocking on heaven's door). This time a desperate attempt storm the gates of Eden while the garrison was light. This attack failed.

The situation ends with the situation more or less back where it was the previous turn.

[springer]

Turn 5 (Arab Move)

The seesaw continues. The Arab forces counterattack again. This time they are even stronger than the previous turn.

The Horde forces take massive casualties. Over 150+ CAV are "converted to natural fertilizers" (as one of the Staff members so euphemistically put it.)

[springer]

Turn 6 (French move only; Arab move not saved)

The seesaw continues as the horde counterattacks again.

Once more the horde uses their superior mobility to surround and destroy another armor car regiment in the central front. An Arab infantry regiment is also damaged as it pushed aside to allow the horde to complete its encirclement.

In the north, a damaged Arab Armor Car unit is destroyed as well.

The horde finds itself on the gates of Eden again, but only with the remnants of one-proud horde regiments. There is no chance of mustering enough troops to attempt a counter attack again. Eden is now heavily garrisoned anyway (check out that machine-gun heavy unit sitting in Eden in the previous posting. The Arabs have given that unit a name, which means roughly "The Angel who Guards the Gates of paradise")

[springer]

Turn 7 (French move only; Arab not saved)

The Arab counterattack rolled up the fragments of the horde around Eden, and it smashed up units on the northern front as well.

Though the horde is dishing out the casualties through their encircling maneuvers, they are losing the battle of attrition.

The remnants of the horde pull back. In the north, the remaining veteran units form a defensive line just off the desert.

To the south, the horde also pulls back to regroup. Fresh, untrained horde units are poured into the fight in the center.

[mgaffn1]

Good AAR. Excellent subformation types too - especially your armored car.