Ghost of war

SC WW1 on mobile devices is great idea. As far as I remember there was a thread about SC1 on Android but I don't know if it resulted in anything. Though I'm afraid that my addiction to this game would become a problem, as I could play even in the toilet;-).

When I played against AI, I had the same impression, that the Ottos are a little bit too powerful. I doubt the Balkan League can win playing against human opponent. In reality Turkish armies during I Balkan War were numerous, however their morale was much weaker in comparison with the armies of Balkan nations. It was coming from the fact that after hundreds of years of Turkish domination, they hated the Ottos and regarded this war something more than just another common conflict- finally they could pay them back for years of misery and slavery. These negative feelings towards Turkey are still very strong nowadays, for instance in Serbia or Croatia . The other issue I found is the scale of the map. It makes all the forces visible from the very beginning. Due to this, it is impossible to surprise the Ottomans. One of the biggest Bulgarian victories, the 2-days encounter battle of Kirk-Kilisse originated from two factors: the Ottomans didn't know about Bulgarian 3rd Army and their morale was much lower. So Bulgarians' frontal assualt was successful and it caused panic retreat of Sultan's army. In terms of the timeline, I agree with Rabelesius, the game should be shorter, as London Peace Treaty was signed on 30th May 1913. I would make the turns shorter, i.e. couple of days or a week, so that the number of turns would stay the same. EDIT: I forgot to add that I really enjoyed this scenario, again someone (not sure who, cause I don't read credit list- sorry guys:)) did a good job.

Bill, I don't save games when playing against AI, so I don't have any saved turns. Aparently, I haven't destroyed all their units. I bet this was the issue. Thanks for clarifying the situation with surrendering.

In terms of moustache, gen. Yudenich definitely wins against com. Stalin or com. Trotsky .

What's the error message? Sometimes I used to get graphic related errors in older versions of SC WW1 game (i.e. 1.02).

I started playing as the Whites this time and I must say there is much more fun now . Bolsheviks' position as a little bit better, because they have centralised area with quite high MPPs production every turn. They take heavy beating at the beginning but they are able to rebuild their armies. The Whites are actually three different factions. Their MPPs production may be high but divided into three parts is just not enough . Although it is extremely difficult for the Reds to eliminate even one of the factions. Against AI, I managed to eliminate Ural Whites, but I was simply lucky, as AI put a division with 5 strenght in Ekatierinburg. If they placed Kolczak HQ there, it wouldn't be so simple to take the city. Additionally the Brits, French and Americans will finally leave Russia, if the Whites attempt to use them more actively, so in long term they cannot be relied on. Anyway, hats off to Carverrt for the whole concept of the campaign . Playing both sides, I especially liked decision events. Although bolsheviks' ones are better: Cheka, death penalty in the army- these make you feel the atmosphere of the revolution .

Wow, they have nice competitions in Russia . The competitor on the right didn't make it due to low morale and lack of revolutionary vigilance.

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I am glad I'm not the only one who struggled with weather and armored trains . Ivanov, great photo. Do you maybe have a phone number for that lady in heels ? Hey Carverrt, I loved the game. I never played Russian Civil War strategy game before. You guys are real pioneers .

I have just finished playing RCW campaign against AI as Bolsheviks. In my opinion it's one of the best campaigns in SC games ever, I really look forward to playing against human opponents. Although your AAR is still in progress I decided to share couple of things I noticed during my game. 1. Northern Whites- after capturing Archangel their capital is moved to Murmansk and real fun begins . I couldn't defeat them until the very end of game because the land north/north west of Gulf of Onega is frozen all year round, even in summer. Therefore the effectiveness of any attacks is close to zero. I don't know if the weather was set like this for purpose, but as far as I know, in reality they have summer in Murmansk. Well maybe not as pleasant as in St. Tropez, but I bet the ground is not frozen: http://www.accuweather.com/en/ru/murmansk/294076/month/294076?monyr=7/01/2012. I don't have any links to weather forecast in 1920, but I guess it was similar then . So even when I engaged 5 army corps, one heavy art., one armored train and two HQ units, I wasn't able to defeat 3 divisions of Northern Whites, entrenched around Murmansk. And I had pretty good supply between 5 and 7. 2. French political standing- when French troops advanced towards the heart of Mother Russia , their political standing began to drop, as expected. However at some point it stopped (around 5) and they remained in game until the end. I saw their units in the Ukraine, west of Kharkov. Is it possible to stop the decreasing of French political standing even if their units are far from Odessa where they initially land? Or is it more like a bug in my game? 3. My Red Army conquered some smaller states in the east and south, i.e. Kuban Cossacks and Ural Cossacks. They haven’t surrender although I occupied all their cities and destroyed all of their units (in each case only one HQ remained). Ural Cossacks finally surrendered three or four turns later, however Kuban Cossacks technically remained in the game till the end. So again my question is it normal or is it a bug? 4. Armored trains- it is really hard to destroy armored trains in the game. In my game Southern Whites moved one of their trains to the city of Rostov and I must admit I have broken my teeth trying to destroy it. Don’t you think their strength is exaggerated in the game? I know that they were widely used by both sides in Russian Civil War, at some point Red Army had around 100 vehicles of this type. Yet they were not used on the first line of combat, because of large vulnerability to enemy infantry attacks. They were more like artillery support or even served as a mobile HQ. In the game they seem pretty much like an equivalent of heavy tanks. Besides they were not standard weapon as it may seem. Some of them were designed by Russian naval engineers, so they were like cruisers on wheels. But some were created ad hoc during war and had little value in terms of combat support. Here are some great photos of armored trains if anyone fancies: http://strangengines.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/soviet-armored-trains-russian-civil-war/

Yeah, great AAR. I printed out the whole thread and I'm preparing my own strategy basing on it. Bill, why did you attack Ukraine so early ? Looks like it wasn't good idea . PS It's really great that the fight between you guys is so complex. You didn't forget about war propaganda in your AAR. More pictures of Trotsky, please.

Anyone feel like playing one of new Breakthrough scenarios? You can pick any, but I'm especially eager for Russian Civil War. PM me or email: szymon dot orzechowski at gmail dot com.

Try installing and running it under Wine: http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/toptip4.shtml You need to configure graphics, sound and all that stuff under Linux first.

Well said Ivanow. Additionally I would like to object to comparing Polish invasion of Zaolzie in 1938 to Russian invasion of Eastern Poland in 1939, which was an outcome of criminal, clandestine pact between two totalitarian countries. Poland was not a totalitarian country and therefore Czech people were never discriminated, nor exterminated. When Soviets "joined in the fun" around 1,5 mln of Poles were evicted to Syberia, many of them didn't survive it. The results of Soviet invasion were also such events as Katyn massacre. We shouldn't forget about that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

What about your computer security? What TCP ports does it keep opened?

I never said I couldn't sleep at night when playing SC2. I could sleep but I was dreaming about the channel invasion all the time .

Mancspartan, you can save the file with any name and later you can change its name in Windows explorer. Looks like everyone is extremely excited with the tournament. Come on guys, it's only computer game, isn't it?

I would like to play mirror games of mini-campaigns (Race to the sea, Gallipoli etc). PM or email: szymon dot orzechowski at gmail dot com.

We should honor the end of the massacre, but we should also remember that the end of Great War gave independence to a bunch of modern Europe countries, including Poland. In my country 11th November is rather cheerful day.

One option is to create table of all the players and start LEAGUE. The disadvantage of this type of tournament is long time as in league each player plays against all the players. The other option are playoffs- we could randomly set pairs of opponents. However there is disadvantage that for some players the tournament will be short if they lose first game. So I suggest that we play something in between, like in European Champions League: there will be couple of small groups (max. 4 players in each) and in first stage players play against each other within their groups. The second stage is play-off of the winners and runner-ups from the groups. The question is should there be just one game or match and rematch? The problem is that the both WW1 campaings are time consuming and in my opinion good tournament mustn't be too long. Another question: will there be a referee (someone who solves the disputes)? In terms of the rules, they are ok, I would only add NO UNDO MOVES options.

Count me in! I would gladly take part .

Instead of firing I would bring him in front of firing squad. HAHA, I AM SO EVIL But seriously, sometimes it makes me crazy too when intelligence shows a report of a unit which is placed 5000 km away from the frontline.

Another thing that came to my mind after taking Ivanov's idea into consideration: the most unrealistic feature of the game (in my opinion) is that you can attack the enemy all the time without any break, even in winter. On operational level in WW I, it would be impossible, mainly because of supply. Fog of war settings that were proposed here could limit this constant offensive, because players wouldn't know from the begining if there is point in attacking. The only drawback of such optional setting is that it would slow down the game a bit.

Comrade Ivanov, that's an excellent idea. Removing battle losses prediction would mean REAL fog of war. Additionally players should still be able to view enemy supply or readiness, because in real battlefield situation these values could have been known by observation or even intelligence actions. On the other hand, there could be an option that readiness, morale or supply of enemy units are visible only after 1-2 turns that your units spent on the field next to them. PS Battlefront team, thanks for great game and, literally, hundreds of hours of fun.