Aryaman

I would like the supply system be harsher. There are 2 problems I see with the system. 1) It doesn´t take fully account of the importance of supply lines. An example. In a PBEM game I am advancing a german army, some corps with a HQ, towards St Petersbourg. I have taken already the town of Luga, and from there I can supply all the units with my HQ, and it makes little difference if I have a supply line of continuous friendly tiles back to Berlin or not. Even if cut off Luga will get to supply 3 and the HQ to supply 8. In fact I could keep supplied the entire German army from Luga as long as I have a HQ there, and the same can be said from any Oasis in the desert. My proposal is not to allow cut off cities to recover to level 3, only to level 1, so that it can barely supply a unit, and if you get a HQ still you can´t move it from the city to kept your adjacent units supplied. That way supply lines would become really important as they were historically. 2) Units wandering the desert at 0 supply. And I dont mean Arab partizans, but the British detachment in Basra, even if cut off the detachment wanders the desert until fdinding a suitable Oasis to get resupplied. My suggestion is that at 0 supply units should get 1 strength point loss every turn they don´t get supply.

If an enemy land unit in a town is bombarded can I select to bomabrd only the unit instead of the town?

Well, historically they didn´t take the city. Medina was held by the Hejaz Expeditionary Force, commanded by Fahreddin Pascha and composed by 1st Camel Regiment (1 nci Hecinsüvar Alayı) 1st Volunteer Arab Cavalry Regiment (1 nci Akıncı Alayı) 3 Field artillery batteries 2 Signal companies Medical and logistical support elements This force only surrendered in January 1919, 2 months after the war had ended!

That is not correct, what forced the Ottoman government to ask for the armistice of Moudros was the collapse of the Bulgarian army in the Salonnika front. When that happened there was no Ottoman force left to stop the advance of the British on Constantinople, so Enver Pasha fled to Berlin and the government asked for an armistice.

That was another question, in the game my opponent blocked my advance in Serbia so that I couldn´t link with the Turks, that was a big strategic failure on my part. Probably that is why my opponent so outnumbered my Turks in the East so that he could filter units anywhere. Also patroling the Black Sea coasts was difficult as the Russianfleet achieved superirity there, he selected the Black Sea for the battleships he was getting along the game. In all probably my poor managament was probably the main cause that allowed my oppponent to exploit that tactic.

We are already very advanced in the game and Turkey is already going down quickly, but I will give you an example, he sends one garrison unit around Trebizond in the Black Sea coast, that unit goes along the coast and I send another garrison unit to chase it down,easily done as it moves slowly, but then I can´t destroy it, even at minimum morale and supply my garrison still can´t make any damgae on it, and I can´t spare a single corps from the front line to that purposse. The enemy unit keeps moving, joined by another, and another one, and they always find an empty city to take and resupply. I can´t garrison them all in time. In general, my opponent send raiding units whenever he see any chance. In Europe the Austrians and Germans usually had units to spare and they are destroyed quickly, but in Turkey that is not the case. Maybe a more experie3nced player could deal with this to his advantage, but to me it is killing my Turks.

Units in ports tiles are very exposed to infantry attacks. I understand units inside a port are indeed exposed, but what about units sailing to nearabouts of the ports to provide fire support? there are plenty of examples of the late, and the port tile is preventing from doing that in that particular tile usually closed to a city. I have a suggestion, if possible, make available one alternative by which any naval unit in a port tile can select to be inside the port (and have the increased naval defense) or outside the port.

We are playing with scorched earth settings, but as my opponent has many more units than I do he is able to sneak units through the front line and I don´t have enough units to keep the front and patrol/garrison the rear areas. Maybe a good idea would be to have some sort of militia landsturm unit in any city acting as garrison when the city is approached by the enemy, to avoid those sneaky tactics.

I think that is rather unrealistic, any unit that filters through the enemy front andreaches the safety of a city not only receive supply (that in WW1 would be a great deal of ammo) but also replacements. In a game I am playing my opponent is overwhelming my Ottomans just by throwsing all around those raiding units, it looks very unlike WW1. I would like to consider if possible for a patch that cut off cities doesn´t provide supply, or at least the supply is so low as to make impossible replacements.

If a HQ is located close to a city that is cut off, the HQ is still in supply? Can still provide supply to nearby units?

BTW Thinking about the scenario, one thing that must be difficult to reprepresent is the huge garrison of Paris, that at one time had a paper strenght of around 400.000 As for the Victory Conditions, I imagine Paris must be taken fby the Germans to take a major victory, but what about the French? What would be reasonable Victory Conditions?

Still, the French muzzled loading guns had half the rate of fire of the German breechloading guns.

Ok, that is a good explanation

Hi The use of squares instead of hexes in combination with the lack of strong ZOCs IMO have some problems. When you are able to deploy your units in a front of squares the front is impregnable, the enemy is forced to blow a path destroying at least one unit of your front, but when you deploy your front in losange then the front is full of holes through which your enemy can infiltrate. I think that is not desirable, and makes for some gamey tactics possible. IMO that could be corrected with the use of strong ZOCs, like in other wargames, in which any unit entering an enemy ZOC must stop, and once in a ZOC the unit has to pay some action points to leave it, and even more to leave it in order to enter another enemy ZOC. That woul make all sort of continuous front a real wall no matter what is the disposition of the squares. Coupled with that I have another suggestion. Units could have a front, side and rear, with attacks on the side haviong a bonus and on the rear a double bonus. That will make flank attacks, like the one deviced in Plan Schlieffen, a real possibility in the game. The designers were not alien to that concept, it is present in the entrenchement system, that allows you to entrench only to the front. Finally, having the units have a front side could also be applied to movement, so that units making a movement in which they have tu turn and change front will pay additional APs, this way the complexity of moving large bodies of troops with their long supply columns through the roads could somehow be represented.

Those are excellent news. I am myself just reading through Michael Howard classical and Wawro recent accounts of the war. It would be very important to represent the French advantage in infantry weapons (chassepot rifle) and the counter of the German artillery superiority. One thing I pondered when considering the chance of an scenario is the unit level. As you probably know French Army Corps were larger than German ones, but divisions were about the same size in both armies. What is the scale you have in mind?

That looks counterintuitive, if I beat the German fleet it should be easier to block directly the German ports, maybe that could be considered for a future patch

Hi 1) If you place naval units in both lines of blockade do they add the total of NM hits? 2) If, for instance, the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet and is able to close on the German ports in the North Sea, does this increment blockade? or you still need to keep naval units in the lines of blockade marked on the map?

Excellent!

I was wondering if a FrancoPrussian war scenario is still within the range of the game possibilities. Armies were already very large, and given the right scale artillery could be used as well, any thoughts?

I see that sometimes units have 4 action points and other units have 3 (4), what is the key to get to full action points for any unit?

If we are going for historical detail, in WW1 an infantry Corps should have a heavier increase in attack statistics, beacuse of the extra artillery batteries attached. Bill said slightly more than double CP, but I think it would be considerably more than that, is not only the extra assets, it is also the combined effect of those assets. In WW1 the Infantry Corps was the operational unit, divisions were too short of logistical support units to be really effective.

BTW In the game the Greeks receive by event a unit of Italian Garibaldini volunteers, in fact that unit was very small, it comprised just 2 Battalions and it hardly merit a proper unit in the game

And here some notes on the armies of the Balkan League ARMIES OF THE BALKAN LEAGUE Greece In 1912, under the supervision of a French military mission, the Greeks reorganized their army along the lines of the Ottoman Army by moving organizationally to the triangular infantry division. As in the Ottoman Army, this created a surplus of regiments, which, in late summer 1912, remained unorganized into infantry divisions. Upon mobilization, the Greek General Staff formed additional infantry divisions from the surplus regiments for a mobilized total of 7 infantry divisions. There was no structure of Army Corps, however in Game terms the force of the Greek Army was about 3 Army Corps, but they were all deployed in the Army of Thessaly under Prince Constantine, in Epirus there were just a number of battalions that were consolidated in the new 8th Division, in game terms the 3 Corps would be in Thessaly, the Corps in Epirus would be a division and there would be no additional HQ unit nor Division garrison at Athens. Serbia Serbian Divisions, at 4 regiments each, were larger than Greek and Ottoman Divisions. The 1st Army, with 5 Inf Divisions and 1 Cavalry Division, had the strength of 3 Army Corps, in game terms they would be deployed around the deployment of the I1st Army Corps unit, the rest of the units being about right) Montenegro The overall strength of the Montenegrin Army in 1912 was 44,500 men, armed with about 36,000 rifles, 44 machine guns, and 118 pieces of artillery, I think it is adequately represented in the game. Bulgaria The Bulgarian Army employed a unique infantry division comprised of three brigades, each of two infantry regiments, with each regiment containing 4 infantry battalions. This configuration gave full-strength Bulgarian infantry divisions a grand total of 24 infantry battalions. Additionally these divisions contained two artillery regiments, a cavalry regiment, and an engineer battalion. At full strength, Bulgarian infantry divisions could contain as many as thirty thousand soldiers, making them nearly the equivalent of a single new 1910 Turkish army corps. The Bulgarian field army counted for nine infantry divisions, one cavalry division and 1,116 artillery units. In game terms 5 Corps size units and a cavalry Division would be deployed around Burgas, ready to strike to the Ottoman Western Army, 2 other Corps would be close to Adrianople to blockade the fortress, 1 Corps would be where the 1st army cops is now in the scenario and the final one would be close to Nish to collaborate with the Serbs. The army was massed in Eastern Thrace for swift attack on the main Ottoman concentration, and the hope to reach Constantinople. In the game the armies of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria have each one a heavy artillery unit, but in reality they had a very small number of heavy pieces, and during the siege of Adrianople the Bulgarians resorted to infantry attacks to force the surrender of the Ottoman garrison. IMO those Heavy artillery units should not be in the game.

Ok, here is the Ottoman OOB EASTERN ARMY Ferik Abdullah Pascha 1)Manouver Force Deployed between Adrianople and Kirkilisse, from West to East, Independent Cavalry Division, IV Corps, I Corps, II Corps, III Corps. 2)Adrianople Fortified Area: (Aproximately a Corps size garrison, BTW Adrianople should be a fortress in the scenario) 10th Infantry Division 11th Infantry Division Adrianople, Babaeski, Gümülcine Redif Divisions 4th Rifle Regiment 12th Cavalry Regiment Fortress Division and Fortress Artillery 3)Kircaali Detachment: (aproximately equivalent to one full strength regular division) Kircaali Redif Division Kircaali Müstahfiz Division (provisional) 36th Infantry Regiment The detachment’s wartime mission was to keep the Bulgarians away from the vulnerable Constantinople-Salonika railroad that ran through Thessaly. The railroad was generally located about fifty to sixty kilometers south of the Bulgarian frontier. There were two avenues of approach south through the mountains along roads, which the detachment intended to block. The eastern approach connected the town of Kircaali to Gülmülcine (on the railroad), and the western approach connected Paşmakli to Iskece (also on the railroad). It was placed around the tile were the II Corps unit is now placed in the scenario. 4) XV Provisional Corps: (aproximately equivalent to one full strength regular division) Formed by 2 Rediff (reserve) divisions still mobilizing, Ottoman General Staff was very concerned about the vulnerability of the Gallipoli Peninsula to a Greek amphibious assault. On October 15, 1912, the staff gave the XV Corps a revised mission to defend the Gallipoli Peninsula against such an attack, and the corps began to concentrate at the peninsula. 5) XVII Provisional Corps, XVIII Provisional Corps. They were concentrating at Constantinople, incorporating units arriving from Anatolia. They were activated on October 29. Because of the Italian naval threat to Smyrna and the southeastern Anatolian coast, the 6th Infantry Division was ordered to remain at its island and mainland garrisons there. Most of the 1st Infantry Division was deployed in Macedonia to hunt down rebels, as was a part of the 2nd Infantry Division. Indeed, the 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 12th Infantry Divisions (all the regular infantry divisions attached to the four Corps readily available to Eastern Army) all had at least an entire infantry regiment on detached duties in Yemen or Albania. Cumulatively, this meant that the Eastern Army was going to war at about half of its anticipated strength in infantry. WESTERN ARMY Ali Riza Pascha Bulgarian Front Ustruma Corps Nevrekop Detachment (In game terms I would put just 1 Corps unit where the IV Corps is presently at the scenario) Montenegro Front Iskodra Corps (Half the force detached to Ipek) Ipek Detachment Taslica Detachment (2 regiments) (In game terms 1 Detachment at Scutari and 1 Detachment at Pec, and no HQ unit) Greek Front Yaniya Corps VIII Provisional Corps (regular VIII Corps was in Syria, blocked by the Greek Navy) Salonika Division (Garrison) (In game terms I would replace the Salonika Corps by a Division unit, and rename the HQ unit to the name of Ali Riza Pascha) Serbian Front VARDAR ARMY Zeki Pascha V Corps, VI Corps, VII Corps II Provisional Corps (never operational, it was used to fed reinforcements to the active Corps) Firzovik Detachment (Divisional size) Pristine Detachment (In game terms I would represent the 3 regular Corps deployed between Uskup and Monastir, with the HQ of Zeki Pascha in Monastir, and 1 Detachment at Pristina) Forces were very much understrength, In all about 175.000 troops were available. The Second Army Inspectorate was geographically split between the Balkans in Europe and Syria in Asia. The VIII Corps (20 percent of the army’s regular strength) was stationed in Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem. Moreover, the Redif infantry divisions assigned to the Western Army in wartime were spread throughout two Redif Inspectorates in Anatolia, a Redif Inspectorate in Syria and Palestine, and the Second Redif Inspectorate in the Balkans. The mobilization plans for this force were equally complex and varied according to the local geography and demographics.

Hi I am new to the game, started to play a couple of PBEM games and I know I am doing things badly. Playing as Entente my opponent keeps rotating units on the attack and they seems to be always at a high readiness, how do you do that? Is that a typical tactic in the game? Another question, I would need some advice as how to deploy troops in the Italian front, both CP and Entente, what should I expect from Italy?