Ivanov

I have nothing against making Trieste and Trento NM objectives. I just don't like the idea of penalizing Italy with the NM drop for not taking any action towards capturing of the cities. I like the point by Patrat about Alsace and Lorraine. Recapturing those provinces from Germany, was the key goal of the French politics ( foregin and domestic ) since the Franco-Prussian war. The French Plan XVII was aimed directly at capturing the provinces and immediately after the war started, the French started an offensive on their Southern flank. In the game, most of the Entente players would be happy enough simply holding the line and transfering the reinforcements to the North. That kind of posture is ahistorical and against the aims of the contemporary French politics. I think players should have a free hand and the game conditions shouldn't limit them too much, if all of us try to change the history and try various possible, alternative scenarios.

Anyway, the discussion had it's conclusion, when Kommendant challenged me to play a game, so we will be able to test our different approaches and strategies on the real Battlefield! The good think is that I was finally forced to upgrade to the 1.03

I like your arguments, especially the part about the goals of the Italian politics and diplomacy during both World Wars;) I have to agree with that. If you want to win as CP in the game, you need to eliminate Serbia first. Obviously Russia is the main objective for A-H, so you should have about 60% of her forces poised against the armies of Tsar. Still, in order to defeat Russians, you would need a "help" of about 3 German armies ( that is round 12-15 corps )... I really get your point about directing the Italian war effort towards capturing of the cities. I would just prefer to give the players a free hand in where and how to deploy best the Italian troops. Anyway I was thinking, that sending troops to France is not such a good idea. If you want your units to be effective, you need to sent them with a supporting HQ unit. There is no point in sending one corps with one HQ, so you'd need sent to France at least 3 Italian corps and one HQ. That would be roughly at least 40% of the whole Italian army. In my opinion it would be a very risky move, leaving Italy very vurnerable to a potential A-H attack form the north or some amphibious assault along her long coastline.

I guess the whole idea came after playing few, difficult campaigns as CP, didn't it? It is really difficult to counter the Entente and even achieving results simmilar to the historical is extremely hard in the game. But I still think, that you could defeat Italy. If you conquer Serbia, then you will be able to send roughly two A-H armies ( around 7-8 corps ) with an arty support against Italy. Usually Austrians are better experinced and their units are on the higher tech level. Italians have quite good HQs', so it's worth replacing your A-H generals before the upcoming offensive

I get the point, but as I stated before, if A-H decides to defend her Southern border seriously, it is quite impossible for the Italians to capture the cities. What really affected Italian morale during the war, was the senseless slaughter on the front, not some nationalistic, empty slogans. Because the Italian NM pool is quite low in the game, the casualties alone can have a serious effect on it.

Nice one

Trento and Trieste are no irrevelant for the current game. A-H refusal to give them up is the reason why Italy enters the war. What happens later, should depend on the overall strategic situation and the Entente player will need to act act accordingly. It just seems wrong to me, that some preset condition should determine the Italian posture during the initial stages of the war. Italy is a key player on the southern flank, so I don't think that we should limit her goals to capture of two strategicaly irrevelant cities. Historicaly, the case of Trento and Trieste were the casus belli for the Italian nationalist, but as we all now the political objectives are always very relative and may change quite often. I can easily imagine a situation, when the treacherous British agents bribe corrupted Italian politicians or generals for the exchange of Italian involvement on the Western Front or against Ottoman Empire:p As if to A-H involvement against Italy, if you manage your forces right, you'll be able to stop your southern enemy in 1915 and then launch a powerful offensive the following year, so the Italian forces will be at least forced to defend their Northern border.

I'm not sure if that would be such a good idea. First of all, it is very difficult to capture Trento and Trieste if Austro-Hungarians decide to take seriously the italian threat. Usually 5-6 corps and 2 HQs' are sufficient enough to stop the Italian advance completely. If the Italians were to suffer NM penalty for each turn that the cities are not in their possession, we could have a surrealistic situation, that Italy surrenders after some time, just because of that... The Italian NM pool is quite small and could be easily affected. Secondly, I don't see a reason why Italy couldn't sent her troops to the other theatres of war. It was a country with big colonial ambitions, so it's involvement in the Med and North Africa is quite natural. Also, the Italian troops did take part in the fighting on the Western Front in France. A 2nd Italian corps took part in the Second Battle of Marne of 1918 and suffered heavy casualities there. http://www.webmatters.net/france/ww1_chemin_33.htm If Italians decide to deploy their units on the distant fronts, far away from their Northern border, the CP player reaction should be to press them hard there, which could be very dangerous and potentially disastrous for Italy. For every action, there should be a reaction ( especialy in this game )

Obviously you have to be careful on what and how you spend the cash. Just like in the real life It's a bad idea to try to upgrade all your units at once. You should have some money left for reinforcing and buying new units and also for the some further research. It's all about keeping the ballance right. One more point about the artillery. It is priceless if the game degenerates into trench/siege warfare, like it happened in the reality during WWI. Arty however, becomes quite useless in the maneuver warfare. During one of my games as CP on the Eastern front, I operated an arty unit to the theatre and it simply couldn't keep the pace with my advancing units. At the end it didn't have even a single opportunity to fire a salvo and I had to operate it back to the West.

It is a hard choice indeed. When I played as CP, it was the most difficult decision of the entire game. First, I was seriously thinking about handing over the cities to Italy, but finally decided not to do it. If A-H is seriously pressed by Russians on the Galician front, handing over of the cities may cause a defeat, due to the drop of the morale of your frontline units. The key is to eliminate Serbia out of the war before Italy enters, so then you can deploy your Balkan armies against Italy. I attacked Serbia in the spring of 1915 after the Austrians received a free arty unit and Bulgaria had joined the war. The Serbian campaign was over just in time, more or less when Italy was joining the Entente. The right timing is essential here for the CP. You need to eliminate your enemies one by one. Serbia first, then Greece and finally Romania. If you won't manage to achieve that, A-H will be forced to fight on three fronts at the same time, everywhere against numerically superior enemy... If Serbia is still active in your game, I'd probably hand over the cities to the Italians, but then you need to pray, so the Russian stay quiet for some time and your units have sufficient time to recover from their morale loss...

The number one priority is infantry warfare. Most of your units are infantry and they bear the brunt of fighting, so having them on the higher tech level than your opponent should be your main objective. Artillery is very important but if you play as Entente, you start without any arty units. So first invest in the infantry and then artillery.

Remember: “We're paratroopers, we're supposed to be surrounded" And here it goes -

That's excellent! Thank you Bill:)

Hi Bill! Thanks for getting back to me:) I have managed to liberate so far the cities of Brest-Litovsk, Syedlets, Ivanogrod and Radom. I understand, that there are some important cities like Warsaw, still ocupied by the CP and it should have a negative effect on the Russian morale. The thing is, that the Russian success on the front should in my opinion stop the Bolshevik agitation, which is the main killer of the NM morale right now. Russians were equally patriotic as Germans, French or English, so I can imagine that some sudden change of fortunes on the front, would casue them to unite once more behind their Tsar. Also, I think that the skill of a Entente player, who manages to beat the CP on the Eastern Front in this scenario, should be rewarded somehow.

I fly over the Alps few times per year in order to visit the old country and this is how it actually looks like:) Only the lower parts of the mountains are coverd by the snow.

Ps. I regards to the revolutionary weapon systems in the game. Germans can upgrade their fighter force to the absulotely revolutionary Me262 ( 1400 built in total ), and equip their whole fighter force with it. The nebelwerfers and katyushas currently present in the game, were also completly new weapon systems and surely had considerable impact on the battlefield.

Is there any script that predetermines the fall of the Russian morale in this campaign? Anybody? Bill?

Hi Ludi! Exactly right - I would like to see the V-weapons in the game, just in order to add some historical flavour to it I don't think that if German player could deploy let's say 3 rocket units it would change the balance too much - it would just spice up things a bit-that's all. It would give the Axis player an opportunity to affect for example a little the British industrial production and smart players could use the rocket units tacticaly on the front, in order to reduce the supply of the enemy units. It seems to me more historicaly appropiate if the Axis player used rockets in order to acomplish this, than by deploying of a huge bomber force. It happened during WWII - V weapons were lunched against England and later quite considerable number of them was directed against Antwerp, a port, that was of the primordial importance for the Allied supply in the Western Europe at the end of 1944. In total around 10000 V1s and 3000 V2s were lunched against various targets, so calling them experimental, low series weapon systems, does not seem to be correct. Let's not forget that during the years 1942-45, the German industry managed to produce about 6000 famous Panther tank, which was destined to became the main tank of the German panzer divisions, during the second half of the war. If we compare the 6000 Panthers produced to more than 13000 V1s and V2s, it seems that the former - a tank - was some kind of unique, experimental wunderwaffe... The V weapons luckily proved to be ineffective and did not affect in any way, the final outcome of the war ( however the families of more than 30000, mainly English civilians killed by them, may have a completely diffrent view regarding their effectiveness ). I am far from making the game unrealistic and from giving too many trumps to the Axis ( I agree that the US industrial output is too low ), but I still think that 2-3 rocket units, wouldn't do too much harm to the realism and playability of the game.

I would like to give, at least to the German player, an opportunity to invest in the ballistic missiles, just like in the previous WWII scenarios. It would give the Germans some unique trump in the strategic warfare. Of course it would require heavy investment, but I always liked the rockets, because they were cheaper than the bombers, not affected by wheather and impossible to counter ( sometimes I had to perform tactical parachute assaults in order to destroy their sites ). V1s and V2s didn't play a significant role in WWII, but I can imagine that if they were introduced earlier and in bigger numbers, that could be a completely different story. I think, that it would be a nice "what if" option to explore in the game. The current Katyusha and nebelwerfer units are certainly cool weapon systems, but their cost is 80% of the tank group, so not many players will decide to purchase them anyway.

I have noticed that in the Fate Of Nations campaign, the Russian morale is falling, regardless the performance of the tsarist army. Even you manage to beat the CP armies and recapture the Polish territory, the morale is going down inexorably. Is there any remedy to it, or the scenario is programed so the Russia will be out of the war sooner or later anyway? If the country is always doomed to fall, what's the point in diverting some of the military production to the civilian economy. Just to prolog the agony? I think it would be worth giving the Entente player a chance to rewrite the history. I can imagine that the success on the front, could be a factor that would cause the resurgence of Russian patriotism and stop the Bolshevik agitation.

This is probably the best idea of all. Simple and effective solution. Thumbs up!

Thanks, it works:) Well, I just want to add, that it realy makes the research too predictible:)

After the new research model was introduced, something was said that it would be now possible to control the progress of the research. I still haven't figured out how it can be done. Anybody knows how to monitor the progress of the research, or have I just misinterpreted the statement?

Bastogne survived because it was resuplied from the air and then roughly after 10 days the encircelent was broken by the elements of Patton's 3rd army. So if we think in the SC2 terms, Bastogne was cut off roughly one turn.

There are many cases of Soviet units being cut off on their own territory and suffering terribly due to the lack of the supply. A good example are some units surrounded by the Germans after the winter 1941/42 counteroffensive. To be more specific, we can mention the 2nd Shock Army led by Andrey Vlasov, who later become the most famous or maybe infamous Soviet colaborator with the Germans. If a unit is cut off in a captured enemy town, I don't think that it should have any supply at all. Let's try to imagine again a German unit getting ammunition and fuel out of a captured Russian town... It's a bit absurd. Even if the unit's supply value will drop to zero during the next turn, it does not mean, that it won't be able to defend itself for some time being surrounded. It's readiness and morale will also drop, but it will be able to survive maybe one or two turns, until some kind of rescue attempt will be undretaken by the friendly units. It would be more realistic - the only way a cut off unit would be able to survive should be a rescue attempt. If the later wouldn't be possible due to the general situation on the front, a unit should be condemned to a certain death, just as in the reality. Another point about the supply, that has been mentioned here before, is supplying of the Allied units after the D-Day, but the solution would be if the small towns with ports could be a supply source. Accordingly a fortress should be able to provide supply to the adjacent units.