OneRing

I am looking for a casual game for the Breakthrough campaign 1914 - Ostaufmarsch. I like to play CP for now. I am a bloody beginner and only played the Ostaufmarsch campaign sofar against the AI. If you are interested in an easy prey contact me via pm.

I do not want an immediate success, just the 25 % chance the CP get when they try it before the US enters the war. Or are you arguing that the CP should not get a chance to send the Zimmermann telegram at all? To reiterate: Before the US entered the war, they had not given out any unsecured loans. All British and French debt was backed up by collateral. Only in early 1917 the UK was running out of collateral and thus had to rely on unsecured loans which the US was very reluctant to give before the war entry changed everything. Therefore British debt to US banks and industialists was due to collateral a non-issue and the threat of a British default was not a reason to enter the war. You can argue that the US had an economical reason to enter the war, namely that their economy was dependent on the exports to the UK (and France). And without the ability to give the UK unsecured loans (which would not be an option as long as the US was unable to secure the UK's ability to repay those by entering the war itself) the US economy would lose most of those export. That leaves only two options: force the UK to allow trade with the CP or else enter the war on the entente side. When I look at what Strachan has written on the subject I think that a US entry was not a given. There were certainly those who favoured it, but there was also significant resistance against unsecured loans for Britain and a US entry into the war.

What I am talking about was that if the CP have never sent the Zimmermann telegram (decided against it before the US war entry) that they get a second chance to do so for the first time after the US entered the war. After all the UK also gets another way of bringing the US into the war,, if the CP do not engage in USW.

It is in the strategic advice you get in game after the Ukraine is established.

It really depends also on how much historical accuracy you want. Unrestricted submarine warfare was not very effective in reality. German submarines were more successful just using prize rules. The biggest game changer was the number of u-boats used, not unrestricted sumarine warfare, which was in the end a rather stupid move because it pretty much ensured US entrance on the side of an almost broken entente. Therefore the effects on the British MPP production are somewhat exaggerated or to be more precise the effects of normal u-boat raids are rather underestimated. NM boosts are, of course, on par with the historical development. I do not like the use of unrestricted sumarinbe warfare for historical reasons. In my Ostaufmarsch Solo-Campaign I did not use it until the USA entered the war. Now it does indeed help to stop the freefall of the German morale and enlarges the gap between the UK and Germany again. I think it would also be nice to get another chance for sending the Zimmermann telegram after the US entered the war. After all the UK gets another opportunity to get the USa involved in the war with the Preparedness Movement.

I do not think that the US woud have entered the war because of the debt issue. Until 1917 all British and french debt was backed up with collateral. If Britain and france had lost the war up until then the US could have liquidated those assets and would have lost nothing. Only after they entered the war they gave credit without collateral. Before entering the war the decision-makers seemed to be inclined not to give Britain credit without any collateral of which the UK was running out. So there is some evidence that the US entry really saved the UK from bankruptcy, too. One could also argue, the the US might have thought about entering the war to keep their economy rolling, because their trade and economic boom was closely related to the entente war effort. Nonetheless I think that the Us not entering the war is more likely. I think Hew Strachan discuss some of these points in To Arms. This part was also published seperately under the title Financing the First World War.

OK, thanks. That clears up a lot! Thank you again for all the indepth advice!

I trimmed it down in height to what is absolutely necessary (strangely enough the much larger x-axis was never a problem though) and the ideal source image size would have been 6400 x 4737 pixels. But I am now using a smaller version of 5421 x 4000 pixels which seems more or less to translate to the 128 tiles on y - axis. It is not that bad. I will work with that and see how it all works out. If I want to do it on an even larger scale, I can always try it by hand. But I have a couple of other questions (I hope I do not annoy you with them): - I have seen that Metz seems to be a fortified town. How can -i make something similar? Just superimpose a fortress over a town-ressource, or the other way around, or have I to do someting entirely else? The former does not seem to work. - Can I somehow modify individual ressources, that is their supply and MPP value, or is that a fixed value for all the ressources? I know I can modify the value for all ressources of a certain type, but it would have been nice, if for ex more important ports would have a higher value than less important ports. - Is it possible to have minors have and build units wothout them owing territory? Thanks again for all your help!

Ok, then it is the MapGen.exe which can only produce a maximum tile of 128 on the y axis. Is there a way around that?

Thank you for the hint, I look into it, but I am not such a huge fan of ww2. But I have another question: Can it be that the engine is limited to 128 tiles on the y row?

Thank you again for the quick reply. I will then just make my own flags and use only them. I need flags for a Spanish Civil War Scenario, which will be confined to Spain. Thanks for clearing up the country list.

Thank you again for your nice reply! Great to see, how you uys care for the community!

So, after my Breakthrough Ostaufmarsch solo campaign is really going well (actually I have already decided to have another go and maybe I can get around to write an AAR) I discovered the editor and fiddled with it around. Thanks to Bill101's great guide to map creation I have come up with a basic map. Actually it was quite easy. But I think I will tweak it a little bit further. I have also worked out some other parts (like the localisation.txt). Now I have two more or less unrelated questions: 1. Is there any tutorial how to create a flag similar or identical to the ones used by the HQ's in the original ww1 campaigns? 2. What reason lies underneath the order if countries in the localisation.txt? For example why is in the Russian Civil War campaign Italy another state, but Denmark is Italy. Has this something to do with the unit sprites? 3. And related to that: How does the engine know how to use which of the unit sprites? Thank your for any advice!

Thank you for the indepth reply. I still think that the message regarding Bessarabia is confusing, because it mentions the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which led me to the wrong conclusion that Romania was awarded the territory by said treaty. I understand your reasoning behind Romania annexing it on their own in the wake of the Russian revolution, but I think that an event message chain like this would make things more clear: Followed by or right away: As I said, Russia went out of the war through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in August 1916. Their morale was in free fall right from the beginning of the war and the losses they incurred were the highest of the whole entente, 100 land units alone. They never occupied the relevant NM objectives in A-H and Serbia was confined to the deep south. Gallipoli never happened, Salonika is under siege. Only Montenegro and Albania still stand unscathed by CP troops so far. It could be a diplomacy chit used by the AI, which indeed would explain the strange behaviour. I thought because of the big leaps Romania made in belligerence that it might have been a trigger by the game. It looked just rather stupid because Romania is surrounded by 12 corps with attached HQs who just returned from the no longer existing Russian front and were crushed in no time. I understand the reasoning for the US being upset. I was just astonished that there was no warning included in the strategic advice and I thought I have done something wrong. Will the US also get upset by raiding the Mediterranean convoys? Thanks again for the reply.

Thanks for explaining the sub-warfare part. Maybe the warning in the strategy section should be expanded to include this detail. As to Bessarabia: Sure, that is a possibility, but through their own initiative and not as part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Event chain should then go: Bessarabia declares independence, and after a few months you get an event which unites Bessarabia with Romania. The way it is now, it makes only sense if they were in the war together with the CP. And if you give them these gains as part of the treaty, then at least lower their belligerence accordingly. After all it is a gift of the CP. And it is still not an explanation why Romania would go to war with the CPs, when Russia is already out of the war - thoroughly beaten (and Serbia, too, btw). They are surrounded by A-H, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. And tey have all troops in the east No longer bound by Russian troops. There is no chance that the Allies, especially the Russians, could alleviate their situation. Instead they would have to face the brunt of the returning forces from the eastern front. Call it suicide. This gives the CP also an unfair advantage in MPPs and NM events.

First of all, thank you for your answer! But that was not my question. 1. I have studied the history of ww1 pretty intensively, including the years leading up to the war, so in know what happened in real life. I was talking about certain game events which makes no or only very limited sense in an alternative timeline where thing develop differently. 2. In my campaign I am playing right now I explicitly refrained from attacking US ships and the USA-UK ship lane. I just concentrated on the UK lanes connecting it with its dominions and the empire. Maybe the game calculates the risk that any submarine activity in the atlantic can cause an accidental attack on a US merchant man. If so, than I understand the game message. But the original advice of the strategy guide suggests that only subs placed at the specific merchant man icons conduct unrestricted submarine warfare and thus could bring the US into the war. So my question still stands, a bug or a feature? If the latter it should be incorporated into the 3. I know what happened historically with Bessarabia. But the campaign should include alternative developments, for example if Russia is defeated before Romania enters the war at all, it is highly unlikely that it will ever enter the war. And it is also unlikely that it will gain Bessarabia, if it was not in the war against Russia together wit the Central Powers. So this is really difficult to explain as a game event.

So, after I fiddled quite a long time with the Strategic Command Demo, I abandoned it, because I thought something like the Ostaufmarsch would not be possible. After Breakthrough came out, I seized the opportunity and bought the bundle. Now I am on my second playthrough (still beginners, to practice) and I have questions and a little bit of criticism: 1. Why does the US protest the sinking of its merchant mans, although I have never sent a U-boat to those places marked with a USA-flag and NM on the map? I even avoided to hunt on the USA-UK convoy lane altogether. I just hunted on the Canada-UK and the Empire-UK lanes and far off from those aforementioned marks. So why get I these protests? 2. In the peace of Brest-Litovsk, Romania received Bessarabia, although they never participated in the war on the side of the Central Powers. Maybe one can argue that there could be such a gain on the diplomatic table, but why the hell is Romania's belligerence even increasing towards the entente after they have received such a massive gain due to the Central Powers victory over Russia?