Bill101

So, it’s May 1917 and the enemy’s big attack has finally begun! But they won’t have everything their own way, especially not at Neu Langenburg where yet another British unit bites the dust. It looks as though the situation will be tough on the banks of Lake Tanganyika, so we bring up an Askari Detachment onto the flank of the enemy’s advance at Usinge. Could it be a sign of more units to come? Major Kraut is withdrawing at Morogoro, so hopefully the enemy will be advancing here again soon. The sooner the enemy get out of supply, the quicker we can kill them. Meanwhile, we’d better reinforce our positions facing the Portuguese as even they are joining in the grand offensive. Will it go the same way as Nivelle’s offensive in France just last month?

Hi Mike I don't know whether or not your name can be changed, and it may be that it isn't possible, but I would suggest submitting a ticket at the Helpdesk: http://www.battlefront.com/helpdesk/ That way the support team will be able to give you a definitive answer either way.

Revenge at Belfort as one German division is destroyed and another badly mauled! Meanwhile, a great withdrawal has begun, as our forces march to the west to escape the clutches of the brutal Hun. We’ll see how long the Kaiser can keep up his attack once he’s run out of supplies west of the Vosges… and Ivanov has clearly not highlighted in his post above just how knackered some of his units in this area are!

It’s time to take a little risk, and so, rather than wait for the enemy’s offensive at Neu Langenburg, we launch a little one of our own. Bang goes an enemy regiment! At the same time, we are busy collecting troops to form a new field force. This will be in addition to those we currently have at Neu Langenburg, Ujiji and Morogoro. The enemy will be attempting a push shortly, and we must be prepared to give them a few surprises. Von Lettow-Vorbeck has a few ideas, but he’s not letting on yet.

Thanks Omegaman1, I'll get this corrected and it's great to know how much you're enjoying playing the game! Please spread the word...

We smash the African Levies defending Handeni but don’t follow this up, preferring instead to remain concentrated near Morogoro, as our soldiers are really going to need a rest before the next campaign. It looks as though Dar-es-Salaam is safe for the moment, but things don’t feel quite so rosy elsewhere. Especially not on Lake Victoria, despite our artillery superiority here! We end the turn with some good news, as a blockade runner has just sailed into Dar-es-Salaam and is offloading military supplies at this very moment. The fatherland hasn’t forgotten us!

Hi Rankorian Glad you're enjoying it, and it's a lot of fun playing it. I am really not sure at the moment how much extra pressure Ivanov is going to be able to put on me in the coming turns, so the battle could easily move from the Meuse to elsewhere! It's most likely to be the capture of objectives which will determine the result, unless one side or the other fares really badly in which case National Morale would lead to a collapse. So, for instance if the Germans are able to smash a lot of French units and advance to capture a good number of French cities, then French National Morale will fall quite considerably. At the moment, my French have suffered considerable casualties but haven't lost many locations. Let's hope that doesn't change!

Hi Mike Welcome to the forum and I'm glad you're enjoying the game! SC2 Blitzkrieg and its expansion packs (Weapons and Warfare and Patton Drives East) as well as SC Pacific all use larger scale maps than in Global Conflict. So these will give you a more in depth game for each theater. The zoom feature exists in our WWI and Global releases, but not in the previous ones I'm afraid. But pressing enter on your keyboard brings up the War Map which does help considerably in assessing the situation. Bill

We took a bit of a risk last turn and nearly lost a Detachment. But it survived, and rather than withdraw, let’s see if we can keep up the pressure around Morogoro for a bit longer. The enemy’s Indian 130th Baluchis regiment takes the brunt of an attack from both the west and south on the Nguru Mountains. Ouch! In the North West, General Tombeur’s decision to place some Levies in the front line was not his best, as these are destroyed very easily! The only other fighting takes place at Neu Langenburg where we launch some probing attacks to test the enemy’s defences and hopefully disrupt their offensive preparations.

It looks like von Moltke is pursuing his ambition to outflank our line along the Meuse, by advancing to our south through the Vosges. It will be hard to prevent, but on the positive side, German supply won’t be good in this area. To deal with this situation, de Castelnau’s right flank is retiring, even giving up Neufchâteau without a fight. Further north on the Meuse, de Langle de Cary orders a counterattack which destroys two German divisions and badly mauls two more. The British government is now making serious preparations for war. The country’s mobilization level has risen to 85%, so it won’t be long now before the world’s greatest Empire joins our struggle! More good news is that our income has increased now that mobilization is over. With the imminent British entrance into the war, a good chance of Belgium being invaded, and our increasing income, the Kaiser will soon realise that he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Will von Moltke be able to stand the strain?

Hi SeaMonkey If that is the HQ's only source of supply, then it's bad news for the HQ. But it does take quite a few turns for the resource to reduce to zero from the presence of the 4 enemy units alone (one turn per strength point) so hopefully there should be time for a withdrawal or counter in the meantime. Thanks for the comments too. It's come along way over the years, with more to come!

Hi Clausewitz If you open up a campaign in the editor, go to Campaign -> Edit Country Data and then select the country in question that you want to look at. In the bottom half of the screen you'll see a list of Cities*, Capitals, Industrial Centers and Supply Centers. *This list actually includes towns as well. Edit: I didn't see that Hubert had already replied!!

Ok, thanks, I'll have to go through those scripts again and see if I can spot it.

Hi Mike I've taken a look and there is a script for the Allied AI to declare war with the USSR on Japan if Soviet units get to within 3 tiles of Berlin, i.e. for a situation where Germany should be in trouble. The conditions are that the USA, USSR and China are all Allied, and the USA is at war with Japan. Could this condition have been met during the game?

It’s the 23rd August 1914 and we are resting our troops for the most part, as we sense that the enemy are building up for some important moves. Our cavalry near Mirecourt withdraw, and fresh infantry units arrive in support. Our forces in this area are serving under the command of General de Castelnau, a veteran of many years service, starting with the war of 1870. Nicknamed the “Fighting Friar” for his piety, the Boche will struggle to get the better of him General de Castelnau The enemy’s build up in Luxembourg for a possible move into Belgium is continuing. Perhaps von Moltke has realised that von Schlieffen’s plan had the advantage of providing some room for manoeuvre, something which the current German strategy of attempting to cross the Meuse is sorely lacking in.

Probably divisional, but the scale of the map will determine it. I've used both Michael Howard's and Geoffrey Wawro's books, and also Douglas Fermer's two volume set on the war, and another two volume set I'm currently in the process of finishing is by Quintin Barry. All of them are worthwhile and complement each other in different ways as they contain a lot of information. The good thing about Barry's second volume is that he provides a lot of in depth coverage of the war after the fall of Napoleon. One impression I keep getting is how similar a lot of the tactical situations were to WWI, i.e. an artillery bombardment precedes an attack which frequently fails to reach its objective due to defensive fire. An interesting point about the French artillery is that their use of it improved as the war went on, as they became bolder in its use and stopped using the fuses that could only be set to a limited number of ranges. The change wasn't massive, but as their infantry quality decreased it's noteworthy that this arm improved. As of course did their generalship!

The merchantmen that were being stopped in the North Atlantic or North Sea weren't necessarily sailing to German ports, they could be heading for neutrals, especially Holland, from where the goods would be transported overland to Germany. Hence the blockade locations have the potential to stop more imports to Germany than a close blockade of Germany's ports. I'm not saying that a close blockade would necessarily be wrong, but this keeps it simple and it also favours the Entente, because ships positioned between Scotland and Norway are much closer to home than they would be if they were stationed off the German coast.

Morogoro is liberated! The South Africans defending Morogoro have been destroyed, and the best part is that our Askari who came from Dar-es-Salaam to join in the attack have managed to return to Dar-es-Salaam before the enemy realised that we’d left it empty! Kraut also sends forces to the north, to attack the 1st Cape Corps Regiment. Meanwhile our cavalry return to Dodoma as the enemy are advancing once again on the town, but it looks as though there is only one British unit here so we don’t need to worry too much, yet. Shall we hang on to Morogoro, or retire from it and keep the fighting mobile? At some point soon the fighting is going to get more difficult for us, as no doubt both the British and Portuguese are building up in strength, despite the setbacks the former have suffered. Keeping our forces compact and on the move will help us to retain the initiative, so sacrifices will have to be made and don’t be surprised if we evacuate some places in order to better defend others.

Hi all Just to update you on this, this is something I hope to produce and I've been doing a lot of research into it over the last month or so, and this research is now almost complete. I am yet to settle on the map size, and am leaning strongly towards a larger scale map than we have in the 1914 March on Paris campaign. I do have a map at this larger scale already half complete, so if my tests show that it will work at this scale then I will complete the map and then add in all the units and scripts. If not, then the 1914 March on Paris map will serve as the basis for it. I expect that we're looking at sometime in the middle or late February before a trial version will be ready, depending on how things go. I had originally thought of just representing the initial battles, but the more I've read about them the harder I think it is to disentangle them from the subsequent invasion and siege of Paris. Largely because few French players would repeat the mistakes made by Napoleon III and his commanders. I've also grown more and more interested in the conflict after the initial battles, and the way in which the French mobilized large numbers of poorly trained troops and threw them into battle again and again against their much better trained and experienced opponents. Bill

Hi Aryaman 1) Yes, the more units used the better, and the Northern Blockade from Scapa Flow to Norway is the more effective (i.e. if you don't have enough ships for both, that is a better place to impose a blockade). 2) No, you'll still need to keep the blockade locations covered.

Thanks for reporting this Ancient Demon.

It’s time to give our unit defending Neu Langenburg a rest, as it has been in the front line for sometime now, and the enemy’s attacks are increasing in strength. Near Dar-es-Salaam, Major Kraut goes on the offensive, cutting off the 1st South African Cavalry at Morogoro in a two pronged offensive from both the east and west. Van Deventer stands just to the north, with the 130th Baluchis, but they look shattered from the recent fighting. The Belgians are on the offensive again in the northwest, but their troops look distinctly unhappy, undoubtedly tired after their long marches and then upset at the warm welcome they receive from our artillery! Meanwhile, the Goetzen remains safe in port, awaiting its next set of operational orders…

The German Cavalry Division in Mirecourt has been wiped from the Kaiser’s Order of Battle, and it died so fast we didn’t even manage to take a note of its name! You may be wondering why we have lots of cavalry in the front line whereas the Germans don’t? The answer is simple: it’s because we still have most of our cavalry. The Importance of the Battle of the Meuse Our aircraft discover that the enemy are still massed ready for a crossing of the Meuse, so our brave bonhommes’ stand on the river is holding up almost the whole German army! And what brutality are the Germans preparing for Belgium? Belgian scouts report the presence of German infantry near Bastogne: The UK stands at 79% mobilization. When will the British government tire of sending their polite complaints to Berlin and actually do something useful to help us?

Our reconnaissance flights suggest that von Moltke is going to attempt to outflank the south of our line between Toul and Epinal, so rather than just sit and wait for him to do so, we advance and batter his leading Cavalry division. That’ll teach him! The fighting along the Meuse continues, with a German division occupying Commercy being destroyed. How much longer will the Germans keep up the pressure here? Belgian Cavalry spot the deployment of several German divisions in northern Luxembourg. Could the Kaiser be planning on violating Belgian neutrality after all? It certainly looks possible.

The number of Action Points is influenced by their supply level, so if it less than the maximum such as in your example above, then their supply will be low. Keeping close to resources and/or HQs is the way to keep in good supply, and therefore have the best movement and combat abilities.