Catacol Highlander

Well - still no major plan from me, as I am feeling out the ground... but I am slipping into the ebb and flow of this attritional scenario. In essence I want to keep Michal unbalanced with local counter attacks where I can manage them, and also probably conduct a tactical retreat away from the fixed front line so that German units advancing end up in open ground in front of dug in Entente defenders. That will take a little bit of organising. So... Firstly an opportunity to stun the Hun in the north around Ypres a little more, and 2 more German corps fell to local counter attacks by British and Belgian forces. The Belgians even managed a local advance. Further south the fighting in the Somme sector is fierce. The German corps in Baupaume was destroyed and British units slipped backwards in a tactical retreat away from most of the German artillery in the area. I expect casualties in this area to remain high as michal is pushing hard, but I have othe units inbound to assist... As British units push north up the line to help reinforce areas under pressure US units appear. I have decided to deploy the Amis in the sector between the French and British. This will allow me to shorten my British line and, eventually, produce the power needed on the southern axis of Michael's advance to counter attack... I hope. This assumes sufficient numbers of US units and having not played this before I hope I am not barking up the wrong tree!! And finally on the northern edge of the Verdun salient another local French counter attack with the German line breached and an artillery unit damaged: Not an many units destroyed as Michal did to me, but then I suspect this is supposed to be the case for a while yet. Meantime I need to hatch a plan to win the scenario once I have hopefully held on successfully in these early stages. Still mulling that over - but it wont take me long to hatch something. Weather has turned fine for Michael - that wasnt a happy sight to finish the turn with. :-(

OK - all fixed. Here we go. Weather was muddy... probably about right for March, but having done nothing turn 1 to allow a bit of artillery shell gathering I could not sit back and be totally passive any longer. Zhukov revealed at Stalingrad how best to disrupy your enemy - and this is my strategy here for a few more turns at least. Michael is hitting me around Amiens, so I chose to hit him further south in an attempt to distract. Verdun was the battlefield, and 3 German divisions were destroyed. Graphic here: I do not know how great German reserves are beyond turn 3, but this will at least force a bit of redeployment. Further north I also countered around Michael's chosen area of operations - directly east of Amiens. British reserves arrived and local counter attacks did some damage - final graphic here showing hexes where German units once were: However my overall plan for the win is still being formulated. Tactical attempts to keep Michael off balance are a must... but I am waiting to see how big my US army might become, where to deploy it and also decide where to gather and launch my own counter offensive. I believe Haig was happy around August 9th 1918... I guess I'll aim for something similar here...!

Doh... slight delay. On holiday in Cornwall UK and brought my laptop with me but have forgotten to install the beta Breakthrough on it! Hopefully will have this sorted in a few hours...

Hello all - good to be back in the AAR hotseat again. Marc is busy doing a huge amount of beta playtesting, so a new opponent for me and one I have never taken on before. Should be fun! One thing to make clear before we start... while I always play to win the priority here in this AAR is to allow you (the audience) the chance to see how the game and scenario works, and to have a window into my thinking. Therefore there will be minimal secrecy and lots of open discussion. Winning is not the be all and end all here. Now... this Ludendorff Scenario. No graphic from me on turn 1... but here are my early observations. Key to starting is to have an overall strategy and to do this you need to know your game. I have never played the scenario before, so thought I had better at least spend 5 mins giving it a lookover. Playing a hotseat game against myself for 3 turns I noticed a few things: 1. Entente economy would appear to be higher than CP. Therefore I can afford to absorb more casualties than Michael in the long run. 2. Shell production is capped for all nations at 1 and all nations start with at least trench level 3. This makes it pretty clear that the advantage is with the defender with artillery slow to resupply and units well dug in from the beginning of the game. 3. Victory conditions are pretty much divided into 3: hold out across the line, advance with the Brits in the north or advance with the French in the far south. 4. A pop up window early on reveals that the Germans need to get close to Paris by mid summer, or suffer a morale hit. Having never played the scenario before this sounds like NOT a good thing for the German player... 5. ... but the French line at the start of the game is clearly weakest directly in front of Paris. So... what to do? As I didnt start the game I had the luxury of seeing first what my opponent did - and to my great surprise he attacked the British with his main force of upgunned and newly deployed artillery (the Germans get a few units of these to deploy on turn 1.) Hmmm - odd. The British are clearly the strongest element of the Entente force - at least to my eye. Attack me where I am strongest? The French line in front of Paris is much weaker and would have been fairly easily penetrated with sustained artillery fire on turn 1. Either this means that Michael has something cunning up his sleeve and perhaps knows this scenario better than I, or it offers me the chance to wear him down badly and come back strong later in the scenario. Either way - my strategy for a while is to do nothing more than hold. With such high trench values and poor ammo resupply a sustained offensive here is not possible. It will require a big mass of artillery and lots of units to exploit a break. I have none of these at present so must simply dig in, plug the holes and wait for mpps, new units and some better tech to come. Of high priority is the need to get my own shell production tech up to level 1 as for the Entente it starts on level 0, so I did a bit about that in this early turn and invested... but otherwise quiet. I also moved a few reserve brigade and divisional units up closer to the front line to get trench digging. So - I'll put some screenshots up on turn 2, but leave you for now with Michael's images and the knowledge that I am going to play a waiting game to start, and pick my moment to attack when good and ready.

Ah Bill - I was brought up on table top stuff... 1:300 lead tanks with cotton wool aged 10 until by 16 years old I had over 100 1:72 scale tanks with hundreds of infantry figures, all painted and played on a 6ft by 6ft table of 1ft square pieces that could be moved around like a jigsaw to create a new battlefield every time. Happy days. I cant make this day - and I am really disappointed. My job here at school is 7 day a week (dont let anyone ever tell you that the independent sector has it easy - having worked in both maintained and independent I know what differs and one thing that the independent sector has to do is put in WAY more hours...) and I cant get away. I'm sure you will have great fun. :-)

What impresses me most is the number of turns you and your opponent are getting in! Fast pace. :-)

OK - I think the game is entering the final quarter... In France I maintained the pressure, destroying another 2 French corps and damaging a detachment. The image below shows the French line fracturing: winter will stop me eventually, and this will give Marc time to rebuild, but by then the NM gap will be so big that 1917 will see the end of the French Republic. The pressure is extended by the collapse to the Entente front in Italy. One more Italian corps fell, and Austrian troops moved through the gaps. Out East the Russians are coming out to play. I destroyed another cruiser in port and locally countered a number of Russian corps. The final image is below: my front here is not as strong as it could be, but I suspect it is strong enough with the ability to move more corps to the area and taking into account that 2 Russian artillery units are in the Caucasus: In Turkey I juggled and moved a bit. My position here is not great, but Turkish NM is still on 55 and not in crisis, and I have more units every turn entering the area. So Sept 1916 and Germany and her allies hold all the cards. Germany has stabilised on 85NM and Austria is up to 119NM. These are winning numbers with the Russians tumbling and France getting close to 50NM.

If I read this right then, the tactic of hitting France hard early doors has come unstuck. This tends to be what happens.

Oops - that last image was the wrong one from photobucket and the time to delete my last post has expired. Sorry about that. My position after retreat in Turkey is here:

(... wouldnt let me have 6 images - here is the situation in Turkey. Good guys under pressure...)

OK - this turn felt as though Entente resistance noticeably creaked, and the dam threatened to break. Lots of CP attacks and ground gained. In the West the Germans destroyed one French corps on the flank of their main attack and otherwise flooded through the gap vacated by Marc's retreating units. Besancon captured = more NM. Final graphic here: In Italy too a breach was made and Austrian units flooded through. I want to take Venice with my Germans - no detachment was available and I was 1 turn behind in my thinking, so I had to move a corps from the west and will take the city next turn with it. Graphic here: In the East I increased the pressure on Russia via attack on her navy. One cruiser sunk and as you can see several other vessels under siege: In the East my forces in Palestine grew bored of waiting around and went onto the offensive destroying a unit of British marines: ... and in the East Austrian forces maintained pressure in the south of Russia, seizing another town. Large scale graphic here: Only in mainland Turkey am I scrabbling to regain position, and I chose to withdraw a little while starting to rush units to the area. So very happy all in all. Apologies for the speedy update as I am in a real time hurry... but I think you get the gist of where this game is going. NM continues to be my focus, and it continues to swing in my favour. :-)

Not gamey in my opinion, and as an afterthought every game I have played of CtoA where the German player goes hard at France in 1914 has resulted in ultimate German defeat. Food for thought. All opponents of a decent level of course, and not beginners (myself included. :-) )

Interesting posts here. Russian NM is down to 28 now, and though Trabzon boosts it by 25 Briansk fell last turn countering that by 12. It is indeed a bit of a chess match, but the Russian position is not good. Turkish NM is on 61. It is not yet in crisis. Anyway - back on task. Let's begin this time with my main thrusts. First to France where 3 more French corps fell, 1 was reduced to strength 1 and an artillery unit was damaged from 10 down to 4. Graphic here: There really isnt any fancy stuff going on here: I am just using a sledgehammer to gradually crack the nut which is the French southern front, and it is reducing French NM slowly but surely. Besancon and Dijon are my minimum targets to reach before winter comes. Elsewhere the Italians are struggling. Here is the final graphic: Venice will probably fall soon now, and the more open ground in northern Italy will soon be reached also. Austria is on NM 115 and looking very strong. The Turkish front is interesting. Credit where it is due - I had not expected Trabzon to fall that turn, and it has caught me exactly 1 turn behind where I wanted to be in my defence in the area. I'll say no more than that in terms of my defensive strategy, but the final front position is here: It is quite an unusual front to attack on because it is so easy to defend, but the danger for the CP player is that complacency regarding the ease of the defence catches him out as rail links are poor and it takes time to get reinforcements to this sector. Marc is strong here, but my overall assessment is that Russia will not survive long enough to ensure that conquests here are critical. On the more usual Turkish front down in Palestine the final image is thus: As expected Marc took out one of my defensive units in return for the loss last turn of his cavalry, but I have fast moved some detachments to the area to get building trenches, and this is still a tough ask for Entente forces to make a big thrust here. I am much happier seeing British units here than massing on the Western Front in large numbers. And as mentioned in my opening paragraph Austrian cavalry were surprised but pleased to find Briansk unoccupied. Near Minsk I chose a tactical withdrawal to better supply: Marc destroyed a corps there last turn though his own losses in doing so were high: units only 2 hexes from their HQ had dropped to supply 5 and that is not good, so it seemed wise to search for a better position. I must admit that, at times, I still find supply tough to calculate and work out. But.... I actually LIKE this. It adds uncertainty to all situations and I think gives the game a more realistic feel. What commander in the field has EVER been totally sure of full supply? Good to have to adapt to conditions. As a postscript I have just begun to crank up the naval part of my game. In the adriatic German and Austrian ships destroyed a British and French cruiser, and in the Baltic subs reduced a Russian cruiser to strength 1. Actually I have been rather lazy in the Baltic: I could and should have hit the Russian navy a lot earlier. Sinking some Russian tonnage over the next few turns should help speed the Tsar's exit.

Cry havoc! ... and the CP juggernaut continues. Marc threw forces into the fray last turn in an attempt to turn the tide, but I dont think it will succeed. First the Eastern Front: Russian forces poured out of the Minsk area and approached the prepared German line. Battle zone here: My lines here are not as strong as they might be, but I had expected a thrust in this area and left one artillery unit in support. This proved useful as the Russian spearhead was blunted, one corps destroyed and one damaged. Marc may well be able to hit hard enough next turn to destroy a corps in return, but note my forces further to the North West: these are in better supply and are able to move to threaten Marc's flank. Could be interesting... we will see just how many Russian units have been massed here. In Palestine British troops finally moved forward out of Jerusalem. Battlefield graphic here: A couple of my units are in strange positions here: this is because for the 3rd time I had to sally Turkish units out of their bases and hit irritating partisans that pop up in the hills, but otherwise you can see where a British cavalry unit was counter attacked and destroyed and the lines prepared to defend. As with Minsk Marc should be able to bombard and destroy a corps from this position, but it isnt a quick operation advancing through this desert territory where supply is tough, and I can easily move forces down to assist Turks and Bulgars together if needs be. Marc also moved in the Balkans. Here I have only a skeleton defence, but unless he has supporting artillery (which is possible as the Greeks are able to purchase a single unit) he is unlikely to get very far, and Greek units are expensive to reinforce. You can see my detachment screen defence here: Finally to the centres of my main operations: the west. In the Alps as I expected would happen British troops were stripped from France and sent to Venice. Another Italian corps fell this turn and as you can see below, once I stop for 1 turn to reinforce and redeploy, I am close to breaking out into more open territory. Graphic here: Note also the sneaky landing of a corps on the Italian mainland, popping a few more NM points for Austria. Her NM is now screaming upwards: 113 at last count, and with big economic resources too she is able to conduct major operations without difficulty. Finally France. More attrition; more bloodshed. I am wearing Marc down as you can see here by the visual arrival of detachments behind his lines busily preparing trenches. I destroyed 2 corps and nearly got a 3rd; I dont think the French can sustain this for too many more turns, and before summer is out the front will crack and break. Graphic here: German reinforcements are coming thick and fast; Brits are going to have to go to Italy. It is a hard French defence from here, and the NM gap is now 87 to 61. Elsewhere? A bit of naval scouting in the Baltic to search out a Russian ship or two (when the revolution comes Finland will declare independence and Russian vessels will find themselves in open water and easy meat...) and around Basra Turkey seized back the oil and will try and reduce the British garrison over the next few turns. So overall happy with the progress of the 1916 grinder...

Evening all There is nothing unpredictable about my 1916 strategy now - I have laid it out for you all to see. No discussion of the East or Palestine needed here: I am sitting tight and waiting for Russia to fall apart on its own, and my lines in Palestine are simply waiting for some British action. Everything is in the west as I try and break the French in 1916. My offensive rolled on this turn, destroying 2 corps and a french artillery also. This is a problem for Marc now: if he defends with artillery up close then that artillery is going to be under attack very quickly. Final graphic here, showing 2 German corps penetrating the French front line and a gap where French artillery used to be: And further pressure was maintained on Italy with the loss of yet another corps. Italy cannot sustain losses like this for long... and I am expecting to see French or British corps diverted here soon. Final graphic: So I am uncertain how long it will take to break the entente in the west with these tactics, but break they eventually will. The NM gap between Germany and France was widened by one more point that turn, and Germany took a 12NM French town too. German cavalry in the East look likely to sneak yet another 12NM town next turn in Russia.

While Marc takes his next turn, and some are talking of bubbles, let me post something to anyone following this thread that has not actually taken the plunge and bought this game yet. What is it that makes it special? Big clues are within this AAR. The key to it all is NM. National Morale. Why does this make the game so great? Because it allows victory or defeat in such a wide variety of ways. In a conventional wargame territory is everything; capture the capital and the country surrenders. This happens in Global Conflict, another great game. But in my opinion SCww1 surpasses it. I have never seen Germany defeated by the capture of Berlin. It just doesnt happen. I have never seen Britain knocked out by the capture of London. Actually - for all her inherent combat weakness, I have never seen Russia lose St Petersburg either, though I have seen German troops adjacent and trying to take it. What this means is that the strategy to win is all about addressing NM. Territory of course is a big part of that - every town, city, resource and port hold NM value. But casualties are a huge factor too, as every unit that is damaged sees the NM of that country fall. Attack and attack and lose soldier after soldier and your morale will fall. Ignore the smaller outposts of your empire that contain NM points and suddenly you can be in trouble. EVERY PART of the SCWW1 map is important because it affects morale in positive or negative ways. And every player must not ignore mpps - purchase points, the nuts and bolts of reinforcing the line. A complex planning process. So to defeat Germany forget about taking Berlin; instead plan to cause the fall of the Kaiser by reducing NM to 0. That can be speeded up by attacking the German fleet with subs in the Baltic, or landing Marines in Denmark, or attacking key NM centres (labelled on the map) such as Metz or Konigsberg. Actually the options are massively varied. Has Marc's strategy been valid? Of course - yes. He put his stall in hitting the NM objectives in Palestine and knocking Turkey out the war. This can be done and I have seen it done to great effect. It does a lot of damage in turn to Austrian morale, and if Russia is still in the war this gives the Tsar a huge boost himself. The problem Marc has in this game is that I took out Serbia very quickly and so opened up a rail route to the area. This, in effect, made his strategy difficult and it has been uphill for the Entente ever since. Pulling all this together... this game rarely replays the same way twice. I have gone for France in a big way this game now in 1916, but in the recent tournament I was beaten as Entente by a player who set about wiping out my Royal Navy and in the process effectively destroyed the UK as a combatant. German NM soared to a massive 130 as the population celebrated the ending of the blockade and the sinking of the Entente fleet almost to its last ship. A totally different strategy - and all done while initially Entente land forces were comfortable. I admired the courage of such a strategy and cursed myself for lacking the flexibility in my planning to deal with it. Wonderful stuff. The Final of that tournament I happen to know was won and lost on a decision by the German player to throw his weight into an all out early attack on Italy. If Italy falls then French NM takes a big hit, and the 25 - 30 towns and cities of Italy give Germany an enormous morale boost every turn. Could have led to early victory... actually led to Germany being stretched and sudden collapse and defeat as the campaign failed, the Russians charged into East Germany and morale plummeted. Entente armies never got close to Berlin before this happened. Overall Paris is the most vulnerable of all the grand nation capitals, but France can fall without losing Paris if casualties and resources fall elsewhere. All this makes SCWW1 a BRILLIANT game because the seemingly predictable battlefield of WW1 can actually be approached from all sorts of angles. I have a Germany to France NM lead of 24 or so over Marc now and that is a lead that really should be game winning from here. But who knows - a sudden collapse from the Turks, or NM losses in the East to sudden Russian success could turn it around. Every town is important; nothing can be surrendered without careful thought as to impact on NM. Go out and buy this game. It is unique, challenging and utterly replayable time after time. And I am only talking about 1 scenario. Last count there were 30...

The Kaiser has read his reports from the front... and is happy. In the West Belfort fell without loss. I brought forward the rest of my artillery ready for another round of attritional unit swapping soon... but the point is that German NM has stabilised on 90 for now (and Belfort will certainly help that) while France is down to 66 according to end of turn stats. That gap is crucial - and I intend to widen it further. Elsewhere Austrian NM rose to 110. A quick image to show you why: You can see just about from this zoomed out shot that the Austrians have been merrily advancing all over southern Russia. In one respect this is not good - it takes good corps out of rail move range and prevents them causing mischief on the main battle fronts, but on the other it is a crippling process to Russian NM which fell to 40 that turn, and the more towns I take the faster this will continue to fall. The far south eastern tip of my advance on that shot captured a town and port at a combined gain for AH of 24 per turn and loss to Russia of 24 per turn. Russia is teetering on the brink. Elsewhere? Marc continues to push in Palestine. It will take him a few turns to seize Maan and Medina if this is where he wants to go: I think shortly I will be forced to send an extra army group down to the region to try and stabilise what is going on, but I can afford Turkish morale to drop a bit more yet before panic stations hit. Austria has such depth of resource now that I may use them to bolster the front, remembering that I didnt send any Austrians to Prussia and instead stabilised that front with spare German corps. In the Alps another Italian corps went down - little point showing you a graphic as it looks much like the last one, but in summer it takes a long time in raw turns to replace a corps, and Italy is going to need help very soon. Greece? Not a concern right now. It takes a lot of effort to drive through the mountains down to Athens, and I dont need to waste time and resource doing it. Should Marc try to use it as a staging post for an attack I think it would suck up a lot of British mpps at a time when the western front is going to need Haig at his best. We will see... but it is easy to fast move stuff to the region and I have it currently boxed in with entrenched detachments, so happy to sit and wait. All going fine... some big battles in the west to come yet though!

And so the bullets keep flying. 1916 is all about France to me... all about grinding down French morale and breaking the French front. My parallel assumption is that Russian morale will continue to slide. So - what's happening? First to the French front. Graphic here: More swapping of strength... and the French defence around Belfort looks almsot ready to crack. As he must do Marc is keeping his artillery close to the front, but it leaves them vulnerable should the front itself crack. That may happen next turn... or it may be the turn after. The destruction of 1 corps and mauling of another led to an error on my part there: I left Nancy unoccupied and that was not intentional. It isnt a problem in terms of a French counter attack, but is an error in terms of keeping frontal pressure across all hexes on the French. Still - with big artillery reserves Belfort is nearly in my sight. When it falls French NM will take a dip as it is an NM objective. I also destroyed the British cavalry in Verdun without loss and retook it. My strategy is also to squeeze Italy as this will, in time, force other entente troops to divert to Italy's aid. Image here: My attack here was particularly successful, destroying 2 corps and getting fairly close to penetrating the Italian front. I expect Marc will end up moving British troops into the area - and that is all good news for the Kaiser as it will stretch the French in the west even further. Elsewhere I have not gone all quiet in the east: still looking to accelerate Russia's decline. Forces around Kiev pushed forward, destroying one Russian corps and mauling another. A 3rd was hit in the south by the Black Sea. Image here: Strategically I chose not to form the Austrian army in Prussia that I had toyed with last turn - instead moving German troops into the area to stiffen the defence. German troops fight better and the Austrians will need all their power to try and cope with the full southern Russia front and Alpine front. Overall summary? 5 Entente corps destroyed and a few others damaged. However it is not about corps now - as stated before it is a game of NM from here on in. German NM remains 20 points ahead of France: 90 to 70. Austrian NM is climbing: up to 107 now, with Russia sliding to 44. I predict further fierce fighting in the west with the eventual fall of Belfort, and at that point a widening of the gap between Germany and France. Russia will continue to slide because she has lost so many towns and continues to lose units. Fighting in the north may well intensify if Marc goes onto a general offensive there, but that will only serve to speed her decline. Italy is now in trouble and will need assistance - as good as destroying units in the west. So - in conclusion - steady as she goes

Aesopo - have faith. :-) Yes - the war of attrition is on. My loss of 2 corps in northern Russia was a little unexpected: I had expected 1 to go, but not the second that I fast moved in under strength. That will teach me... However the slicing and dicing of entente NM continued. In southern Russia Kiev fell and an adjacent Russian corps mauled. Austria is powerful now with NM at 106 and I need to decide now how best to use her power other than in an attack on Italy. Final Kiev battleground graphic here: In the West 2 French corps were destroyed and the Germans inched forward. This is going to take a while... both sides will swap corps for many turns, though French losses are already higher than German equivalents thanks to the NM gap between the 2. Germany is on 93, France on 73 and this is the key to my strategy now. Final western graphic here: Elsewhere zeppelins raided London to decent effect, and another partisan unit in Palestine was destroyed. What next? Well Marc is continuing to squeeze Turkey and I have an eye on that to make sure she does not get into a catastrophic position. The Russians in the north will also move forward I am sure: I may need to move an Austrian army in to the north to face off the Russian advance here - we will wait and see. Marc has artillery in support so my dug in detachments and corps can be gradually taken down - I would very much like to take Italy out of her comfort zone and force entente troops to come to her aid, but this may need to be put to one side to ensure a safe Prussia.

Evening folks OK - the weather all over was rubbish, but as I said last turn I was ready to start my 1916 offensive anyway. I intend to put the war beyond Marc's reach before winter sets in again. First an image of my attack force in France prior to jump off: This is a lot of power. I cant see the French holding this back, and from this position I took Nancy easily immediately after taking the photo shot. Mud and rain meant I waited elsewhere, but the French front here will crack soon once I get going in good weather. Further to the south, in an attempt to stretch the western allies further, my very confident Austrians also began an offensive in the Alps. I destroyed one corps and moved forward - final positions thus: To the East I chose to wait for better weather before assaulting Kiev, though an Austrina corps continued to dance along the north coast of the Black Sea, taking another town and corps and a further 24NM per turn in the process. Marc looks likely to counter in northern Russia shortly. I have made a few adjustments to my reserve positions to take this into account. Around Minsk I am holding tight for now. In Palestine? A strange calm on the front. I smell a transfer of British artillery resources to Basra where my Turks are only slowly getting fully ready for a scrap. As I have said in previous posts - I am quite happy to see British power down in Africa: it is less to have to worry about in the West.

Evening all Snow and ice back for my turn so not too much attacking yet... but I achieved my goal in the west of getting units adjacent to key targets and am ready from next turn to unleash the dogs of war. What have I done specifically? 1. Massed a major force in the Alps to put the Italians under severe pressure. If this goes well it may even force Marc to move other troops into the Alps to save Italy. Here is an image of this force ready to go when the weather turns: 2. Gathered enough force to take Kiev. Whether I can hold it remains to be seen afterwards, but in good weather it will certainly fall. Image here: 3. And of course the big one... Ready to smash the French into miserable oblivion. However I am going to be unkind and hold my graphic back by one turn: too much intel for Marc might make a difference to his deployment so next turn I will reveal all. However I can confirm Marc's sighting of 3 artillery units ready to go, and ranks of confident, often veteran troops. Why am I so confident overall? This has ceased to be a game about anything other than National Morale. My Turks are my low point, sitting on only 67 now... but I am not too worried there: Turkey is peripheral unless she actually falls, and I wont allow that for sure. More important is Russia's next step down - now on 52 - and very importantly the falling French total now sitting on 78. Germany is on 95, 2 points lower thanks to necessary casualties last turn to get my to my attack positions in the West, but very much ready to seize more NM centres in the next 9 or 10 game turns. Austria is sitting pretty on 104. Mpps are plenty for the CP, and the foolish loss of Dutch support is not felt at all now, with Germany earning over 600 per turn and Austria up over 300. This will be enough to sustain my offensive, and with the big NM gap currently French casualties are going to be high. 1916 is about to get very tough if you are Petain or any other French general for that matter...

Evening all Jan 1st 1916... and snow everywhere. One more Russian town fell to the Austrians unopposed in the south, and my artillery gunners chose to do a bit of shooting practice on all 3 fronts, but otherwise it was a turn of more building, more moving and more preparations. My scientists seem to have rather gone to sleep in these winter months, but hopefully that will turn around soon too. I noticed at turn's end that the early winter shows signs of an early end. Ice turned to mud in the east at least, and that might be good for Marc in some local counter attacks with his Russian army next turn. However overall by starting my 1916 preparations so early one thing is for sure - I will be fully ready for the coming spring. I will probably have a graphic or two for you to that end next turn... Russian NM slipped another 2 points to 57 without any CP action. The loss of one more town that turn wont have helped, and I am certain that Marc will counter attack in the spring. Russian NM at that point I hope will fall through the floor... German NM static on 97 for now, and Austria up to 104: reaping rich rewards for multiple conquests in Southern Russia. And the French? They better give out some large extra rations of cognac to the troops, because when the German hammer falls it is going to rip them to shreds if their trenches and guns arent ready!

SCWW1 and soon "Breakthrough" are better. Reason? Essentially the maps are bigger. There is therefore much more room for tactical manouevre - and while GC is great grand strategy there is therefore an additional tough tactical layer to ww1 that is excellent. And dont forget (if you are a ww2 junkie) that there is an excellent ww2 scenario for it. On this page is a ww2 AAR (labelled 1939 Storm Over Europe) we did a while back which will show you how much fun that is, even though the pacific front is not included. Storm over Europe is a scenario included in SCww1.

Yes - thanks for the tourney Lukas. Really enjoyed it. And well done Peter - nothing like being top of the tree: until someone pushes you off it. :-)

The Basra problem was highlighted in bug reports on the beta forum a good while ago. I thought it had been listed for solving already. I do not agree that Basra is a minor problem. If it doesnt fire then the British are denied the opportunity of an overload on the number of arty units (and that can by very significant indeed...), and the mpps over a couple of years from the oil must be quantitively significant. In addition it allows at least 1 otto HQ and up to 3 or 4 units to deploy elsewhere, something they cant do if they are concerned with the fall of Baghdad. So it is a bug that needs fixing. On the subject of Italy an invasion seems very valid to me, but wise? Not sure... does it dilute the CP attack on Serbia and Russia at a time when the CP needs every unit it can muster to make sure it gets ahead? I look foward to play testing the idea or maybe have my opponent try it... Finally I suspect there are players out there who would replay the first turn several times in the expectation of getting that 10% diplo hit. 10% is actually a fairly high probability for a factor that certainly helps the ottomans substantially. The only way to guarantee that people wouldnt even contemplate it in big matches is to ensure that the Basra bug is fixed. That way there is no incentive worth the trouble to spend 90mins at a computer to guarantee that hit.