AAR - Kaiser Mike

[SMK-at-work]

I've finally gotten around to getting some pics together for the game where I'm the Central Powers playing ejs.

I've gone for the big knockout blow agaisnt Russia, at the expense of leaving minimum forces facing the French. The Jury is still out.

The french have launched major attacks along the border, have pushed the german defenders out of Metz and are advancing on Strasbourg.

Howver on the other side the Germans have advanced deep into Poland, are threatening to cut it off from Russia and capture Minsk.

It's a race - which side will fall first.....

The Austrians have advanced deep into Serbia, but abandoned Sarajevo to a Serbian advance. Russian units are advancing in southern Galicia, and Astrians are advancing to the north of them into southern Poland.

The Turks have just joined the war too.

I was hoping to embed an animated gif of the game so far but for some reason there's a 200kb limit here - it's 750kb when I do it from work, so that might have to await the end of the weekend sorry.

[Rob Brennan UK]

oh please more more more and screenies ! .. i am so looking forward to a good WW1 game [&o]

[sol_invictus]

And so it begins. After reading the old post about Italian intervention possibilities, I am starting to think a western strategy might be more appealing then going east. I look forward to seeing how the CP does on the eastern front and how well Russia can withstand the hammering. It is ominous that France is making good progress in the west.

[SMK-at-work]

OK - let's see how Imageshack go with an animated gif......cool - it works - OK - I can use this from now on!!

[sol_invictus]

Hmm, I don't like the look of that tongue of blue jutting into the sacred soil of the Reich. The Russians do seem to be under some stress though; as long as the Austrians can keep up their end. If not, maybe the Turks can pick up the slack. Any ideas what the slippery English are up to?

[SMK-at-work]

The Slippery English only have a couple of Corps at this stage - they don't become a major factor on land until early 1915, although they can hold a hex or 2 if things are tough for the French.

That blue tongue of Franch troops isn't into the Reich yet - only into Elsaß-Lothringen, and those traitors don't deserve to bein hte Reich anyway!![8D]

[sol_invictus]

Just reach an early accomodation with the French and give Alsace-Lorraine back to them and call it a day so you can concentrate on the real business at hand in the east against the Hordes of Holy Mother Russia.

[SMK-at-work]

Some more snippets

Firstly the results of some strategic actions - air an naval forces are allocated during the strategic phase - ie once every 2 months. Any land or sea conflicts are also resolved then.

So - first the "air war" - it's no much of a war yet - airpower has low tech and doesn't start inflicting casualties on the otehr side's airforces until it reaches tech 2 IIRC

But here's the results of the CP's allocations - you can see that the CP (me) have allocated all 7 available air points to hte East Front, and as a result have achieved 5 support points - each support point has 2 functions - it allows air reccee of a hex, and greatly increases the effectiveness of artillery fire into that hex.

[SMK-at-work]

Clicking onto an enemy hex during activation phase "targets" it for artillery, and gives a summary of enemy troops in it.

In this case I can see the hex contains a Russian HQ with 1 activation point, 2 infantry corps of 10 and 11 strength points (the Russians get to 18 maximum with infantry) and an unknown corps with 1. It is probably cavalry, which has a maximum strength of 3 regardless of nationality, but it is possibly a very weak infantry corps.

If I shoot into this hex with artillery the effect will be amplified.

[SMK-at-work]

The sea war - this turn there were several sea battles in the Baltic and Nediterranean - the High Seas Fleet demolished the Russian fleet in the baltic, while in the Med the Austrian fleet and the French fleet slugged it out - I'm not sure which side won but there was a lot of damage on both sides, and given the Austrian's rather weak resource base they're unlikely to spend a lot of points repairing their ships! The French might be a bit better off in that respect as they are attacking and have not taken so many casualties.

[SMK-at-work]

And in the Med this was a good result for the Austrians, but there were about 4 actions total and they didn't do well in half of them!

[SMK-at-work]

U-boats were also in action in the North Sea - IIRC it takes 2 hits to sink a transport, so this one is only out of action for 2 strategic turns (ie this one, and the next one when it will be under repair) - a ship can only be repaired 1 point per strategic turn.

[SMK-at-work]

At the end of all naval actions is a summary of the state of control of each of the sea zones, together with how many ships I have left in each:

[SMK-at-work]

Next is a close shot of the current situation in Prussia-Livonia.

The Yellow borders indicate stacks that have been "activated" by spending a HQ point from an adjacent HQ or one stacked with them.

Points to note are some of hte stats on the units - the square boxes are the readiness - 0 is bad - the boys in the 2nd Guard Corps just South-East of Grodno have been doing an awful lot of marching and need a rest!

However on the whole there are enough units with high effectiveness to keep the offensive going.

Here you can also see that I can see some enemy unit stats - these are the hexe's I've recce'd. Warsaw is looking pretty easy to take - it's only held by a cavalry corps and I'll capture it esaily unless he has some troops adjacent that I can't see that he can move in.

[SMK-at-work]

And last a shot of Serbia - you can see that the Serbs have advanced a short distance into AH territory, but they are bing surrounded and the rest of the country taken from them.

In this shot the Austrian HQ Potorek has spent a HQ point to activate his own hex and the 2 occupied hexes adjacent to him.

[sol_invictus]

Great screenshots! This is the kind of detailed action we have been craving for months. The Serbs will pay dearly for their affront to Habsburg dignity.

I assume that as Readiness goes down, Military strength decreases as well in a Corp. About how long would the 2nd Guards have to stay inactive to regain full Readiness and Military strength? Does simply marching decrease Readiness or does a Corp need to fight for Readiness to decrease? Is it a combination of Marching and Fighting? Keep the screenshots flowing! Please![&o]

[Rainbow7]

Just a note that the screenshots above have some colour artifacting going on, and on your screen the maps and counters will look much nicer.

[SMK-at-work]

Yeah sorry about the colour - that's what comes from converting to gif's in MS paint.
 
Readiness decreases come from fighting and from supply (or lack of it) - moving while in low supply can really screw your readiness.  they recover automatically with rest.
 
Strength losses only come from fighting AFAIK, and you have to specifically allocate replacements/reinforcements from your manpower pool to the unit in your strategic phase.
 
The 2nd Guards is likely going to be used only for garrison duties for quite some time!

[sol_invictus]

I'm sure that the Guards deserve a nice rest back in a secure city. I am thinking Warsaw would do nicely.[;)]

[randell765]

Awesome reports, great screenshots, I have a ton of questions please.
 
1)Air Reccee of a hex, I take it that this is air reconosanse?
 
2)Any way to get more strategic action points?
 
3)When you can see into an enemy hex do you want to attack an hq with more activation points? Or does it not make a difference if 1 HQ has 1 and 1 HQ has 2?
 
4)Can you attack or damage an HQ enough that it loses its action point?
 
5)Am I understanding this correctly or not? roughly you can have 6 action turns a year if each turn takes about 2 months?
 
6)For supply can you manage it or the computer?  Or do you have a choice to pick one or the other?
 
7)Can you artillary and then attack with infantry in the same turn?
 
Thanks for any answers you can provide.