My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Adanac's Strategic level World War I grand campaign game designed by Frank Hunter

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jscott991
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by jscott991 »

Those AAR's still show a continuous Russian front. I'm not sure what the point was.



And, I mean, seriously, look at this. Can you imagine this happening in the real First World War? This happens every time in GoA, even if I have one Austrian corps per alpine hex. Here I even had German corps! This is just dumb. How a designer of a WWI game can see this happen and still do nothing to code it out is beyond me.



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EdinHouston
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by EdinHouston »

I havent played GoA in a while, but I wanted to provide some positive comments in this thread.

First of all, I think GoA is an outstanding game. Yes the interface takes a bit of getting used to, and yes as in any game there are some things you can nitpick, but overall its a great game, and I really enjoyed playing.

I played many games versus the AI, and then half a dozen games against human opponents, and I totally disagree with many of the OP's points. As the CP, I usually used a France-first strategy... and it never failed. Not once. Not against the AI and not against human opponents. True, it can take until 1915 or even early 1916 to knock out France, but usually France is the walking dead by the end of 1914 once the Germans have broken out of Belgium and extended the front, and then attacking in overwhelming force with plenty of artillery against selected hexes to continue the offensive. Basically, you bleed them dry, and kill units faster than they can be replaced, and this only accelerates as the disparity in forces gets greater. When the British arrive in mid 1915, it evens things out a lot, but like I said, by then France is almost finished and its really hard to stop the Germans from taking the final cities necessary to force a surrender. True, you will never see a Sept 1914 knock out of France, but then again, no human opponent if going to be stupid enough to attack fortified German positions in the south and bleed itself dry while the German right hook is coming north thru Belgium.

About Russia, yes they have a lot of units, but their lack of airpower means that they are usually fighting blind. They cant spot for their artillery, and they cant tell where your forces are. Also when they advance into the open (especially their cavalry), they are vulnerable to artillery. But the biggest advantage you have against Russia is their lack of HQ points. If they make a lot of attacks early, they will be short of HQ points later. If they conserve HQ points, they risk not hurting the CP enough to hinder the German offensive in the west. Its not enough for Russia just to take some cities and gain some ground; they have to cripple the CP and cause them to divert units from the west (not just the reinforcements, but units initially deployed against France).

About Italy, well I am not sure what happened in the game based on your screenshot, but if the Italians are forcing Austrians out of the mountains, then the Austrians are either 1) doing something very wrong, or 2) dont have enough force deployed against Italy. Although as the CP I wasnt one to attack Italy (I focused on France and then Russia), many players try to knock out Italy as soon as they enter the war, and it can be pretty effective.

I will say, in a game like this, the defender has a big advantage until the attacker gets the knack of the HQ/offensive system, and how to attack and advance. Once you do that, IMO, if anything attacking is too easy in GoA, not too hard... but it takes a decent amount of play to get to that point. Also, a system like this isnt for everyone. It came to me pretty easy, whereas in some tactical games I have a terrible time getting the knack of playing compared to others.
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jscott991
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by jscott991 »

Most of your points don't rebut a lot of what I was pointing out.
 
1. The CP cannot duplicate their September 1914 successes because corps in GoA move too slow.  Therefore, GoA takes the position that the Schlieffen Plan could not possibly have been successful.  It presents that position as axiomatic.  I understand that the Western Front was more fluid in the first months than at any other point, but prepared defensive positions and the power of defense should slow offensives, not a hard-coded movement limitation.
 
2. Russia has far too many troops at the start of the war and Russian territory is far too well supplied.  The Russians, historically, could not maintain a continuous front from East Prussia, through Silesia and Galicia, to Bukovina.  Historically, the Russians could not supply troops adequately to contemplate an offensive against Silesia and Bukovina, and their failure to extend their front to Rumania is a major factor in that country's collapse.  In GoA, Russia has troops to spare, whether they can attack or not (and I've yet to see it amply demonstrated that Russia's HQ limitations adequately simulate the complete collapse of Russia's supply system in late 1914 that led to the CP's relatively easy offensive gains in 1915).i
 
3. Italy routinely invades Bavaria through the Alps.  As for me being understrength on that front, I ALWAYS have at least one corps per hex on the Italian front and two corps in Trieste.  You can see that I was using GERMAN troops above and Italy still broke through.  The Alps were NOT passable in the areas shown above where Italy has achieved a breakthrough.  Almost every tabletop wargame I have ever played has represented this fact.  In GoA, Italy can breakthrough the Alps and then trace supply through them to invade Bavaria.  This is ridiculous.  Italy could have taken Trieste in the war.  It could never have taken Munich (arguably even if NO CP forces are in the Tyrol). 
 
Everyone keeps wanting to blame the system for GoA's shortcomings ("once you get a knack for the HQ system, everything is great!".  That isn't GoA's problem.  The problem is that every assumption in-game favors the TE (an ahistorically large Russian army, a one hex movement limit for corps, Italy's ability to use the Alps as a highway to Germany, the power of Liege) and the flow of the war is disjointed and bears little to no detailed resemblance to WWI.
 
As I mentioned above, the problems with GoA are tantamount to a WWII game where Germany fails to conquer Poland in September of 1939 and routinely is unable to conquer France at all.  No one would ever play such a game because there is a great respect for WWII's flow in virtually all WWII strategic simulations (I can't think of any highly rated WWII game where Germany is unable to finish Poland in September and France in 1940).  The lack of respect for the flow of WWI is startling, considering its flow should arguably be more "hard-coded" than WWII's.
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EUBanana
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by EUBanana »

Beating Russia is a case of looking at the resources map, noting which hexes have the food resources in, and bagging as many as you can.  Most of them are quite near to the German border.  You only need advance a little bit, then just dig in.  The Russians won't be able to knock you off those hexes, and as the war grinds on will collapse at, or earlier than, the historical time.

For that matter, look at the resources too.  That resources overlay map is extremely important.  It makes it worth taking all those French forts on the border if only to deny them to the enemy. 

As for Liege, it's a speed bump with siege artillery there.  Whats the problem?  [&:]

The CPs are the underdog though, I agree with you there.  Economically the Ottoman Empire is important to the CPs in this game.  Make sure Serbia is conquered, then soon as Bulgaria enters you can transfer resources from the Ottomans over to Germany (and sometimes finished goods too, quite often the Ottomans are a backwater).  This gives the CP economy a shot in the arm around late 1915 odd which allows their economy to trundle on until about 1917 or so.  But its always touch and go with the German economy, right from the very start.

I like the game because it models attritional warfare quite well I think.  Certainly far better than the systems in AGEODs World War 1, which forces you attack outright or forces you to do it for research purposes (uh?).  There is a definite concept of attacking purely to bleed the enemy.  As ze Germans you have make sure the French and the Russians are both sufficiently bled.  If you try digging in without ever bleeding the enemy, you will lose due to the way the attacker can generally focus several hexes worth of troops into a single target hex, thus gaining a heavy local superiority for a round of combat, no matter how good your trench ratings are. On the other hand a serious offensive into France or Russia in 1914 (or both) should even in the event of failure damage them grievously and keep them off your back for years to come.
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EUBanana
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by EUBanana »

Oh and Italy is probably the bit of the game I like the least.  The way the game models moutain warfare is pretty whacked.  Mountain hexes are actually difficult to defend against sustained offensives, not easier to defend.
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hjaco
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by hjaco »

Yes the game really lacks impassable alpine hexsides like in most other WW1 games.
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by EUBanana »

Oh, and re. the Schlieffen, I don't think GoA allows it to be possible in the time scale of the real Schlieffen Plan due to how fast corps can move, there are just too many hexes to cover.  However, a Schlieffen can work, it just takes a little longer to get the result. 

When it does work its usually right after I get gas attacks, so early 1915, and the gas arrives just to dump a load of chlorine on Paris.  [:D]

The usual result is the Western Front bogging down as it did in reality.  I will say though that in my games, in every single one in fact, that I tried a Schlieffen approach as Germany, the front bogged down with a CP advantage over what they did in reality.  Arras, for example, always falls in my experience, and so does Verdun - Verdun as an afterthought, practically!  

The Turk resources are a bit odd - its not really due to the amazing industrial potential of Turkey though, its due to them cranking out resources every turn,and they build up, until Bulgaria enters and you ship them all over.  After that is over Turkey doesnt contribute much.  in fact IMO, the reason why Turkish industry contributes to rather than retards the CP economy is because I've never actually played a game as the CPs when the Entente made any effort at all to hit Turkey hard beyond the never-decisive Caucasus Front (Even a Russian win here is near irrelevant, there aren't many critical resources over that way and the mountains prevent deeper penetration).  Its kinda fiddly to ship the required tools over there, especially as in GoA the Austrian navy is rarely as quiescent as it was in reality. 

I think if Turkey faced a major Entente attack sufficient to endanger its existence, as it did in the real war, you'd see Germany forced to bail Turkey out in terms of resources.

Having been hostomped by the Purple Peril many times I agree Russia is a dangerous foe indeed, their industry cannot support their army though, its too big, so like I said, they need to be bled down and then they are neutralised, as Russia is unable to resupply their troops.  You end up with the Purple Peril having the same offensive power as Italy pretty much.  In reality though Tannenburg was extreme luck and Austria was hammered badly by the Tsar.  You don't generally duplicate the Battle of Midway in WITP either, I put Tannenburg down as the same sort of outlier result.
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hjaco
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by hjaco »

[quote]ORIGINAL: jscott991

1. The CP cannot duplicate their September 1914 successes because corps in GoA move too slow.  Therefore, GoA takes the position that the Schlieffen Plan could not possibly have been successful.[quote]

Well in my humble opinion Germany did not have any September 1914 successes nor had Germany ever the necessary forces to carry out a textbook operational campaign like that.
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EdinHouston
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RE: My Final (?) Thought on GoA

Post by EdinHouston »

well what I have read about WW1 says that the Schlieffen plan probably was not feasible, because of supply problems. It simply wasnt possible to supply all those German corps via the limited rail network, as they moved so quickly through Belgium and France. I think Keegan wrote something like: it was possible for the Germans to reach Paris in a month, and it was possible to keep the army supplied and in fighting shape when they got there, but it was NOT possible to do both at the same time. It was simply too fast and long of a march to keep the army in fighting shape, and impossible to keep the army supplied when it moved that fast.

Now some folks would say: but look at how close the Schlieffen plan came to working! And in response I would say that much of the 'success' of the german advance was due to the idiotic strategy the French chose, to advance in the south and bleed their army dry. If the French had not attacked in the south, and used those additional forces as a reserve, well there is no way that those tired and under-supplied German corps could have reached Paris. And even if they had reached the gates of paris, how would they have possibly taken it? the french would have been throwing fresh, well-supplied troops into a defensive battle against an exhausted, undersupplied force attacking a fortified position.

I would argue that GoA does a good job of modelling an alternative scenario: the Germans dont try to capture Paris in a month, but rather advance more slowly, remain supplied hoping to strike the decisive blow not in a month, but rather in a campaign that lasted the entire fall and into the next spring. Now in the actual war, the Germans didnt think this would work because the Russian juggernaut would roll across eastern Germany. But we know in hindisght that the Russians were much weaker than the germans had thought, and it *was* possible to hold them off from a quick decisive victory, therefore giving the Germans more time in the west to finish off France. I would argue that this is a more realistic scenario for how Germany could have won the war, and therefore I think GoA is pretty realistic in that sense.

But I agree that GoA wont really let you try a one month campaign, simply due to the distances and movement rules. But if you are willing to be a little flexible about the time scale, and if the French did throw most of their forces into the south in a useless attack, well you could find that German corps could be reaching Paris and even attacking in Sept/Oct (although their supply would be low). So even in that sense, GoA isnt too far from reality. But of course no human opponent would be that stupid, to have the French attack the Germans in entrenchments and forts and across rivers no less. So again, even if the game allowed German units to reach paris in 4 moves, it would never happen, because human players would compensate by keeping more french forces in the north to defend and delay the advance.
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