Video AAR for my mod

[Altaris]

I'm setting up a video AAR on YouTube, this is a game using a mod I am working on, and I am playing both sides. Thought it might be fun to do a video AAR in the process. Hope you enjoy!

Link to Channel (all AAR entries will go here):

Turn 1:

Turn 2:

Turn 3:

Mod Notes:

This mod aims to reduce some of the super destructiveness found in vanilla and create a more static, grueling slog-fest that WW1 actually was. A fair number of changes have been made.

The most obvious one is that Germany/French/British infantry are no longer inherently superior to Russian/Austrian/French (Ottomans are still slightly inferior in attack, but not defense). All infantry are 4/3 (with exception of Germans, who are 4/4 to represent their better defensive formations with machine guns early on, and artillery positioning later, and the Ottomans, who are 3/3). 4/3 seems to represent a pretty good damage dealing equation - I've removed the infantry improvement techs, as even a 5/4 vs a 5/4 does a lot more damage than I like. Instead, other techs such as artillery, tanks, and air will be necessary for eventually breaking the gridlock that the Western Front gradually forms into.

The other most obvious change is with artillery. I have capped their shells to 6 (and rail guns to 4). I added one level of tech to artillery so that eventually they get detrenchment of 2 and will become similar to how they are in early game now.

Trenches start at lvl 0 everywhere now, except cities (which have initial cap of 1) and fortresses (initial cap of 7). Research of tech is required to start throwing trenches up everywhere.

To keep Russia from becoming too powerful, they have a lowered cap of 30 Corps, 8 cavalry, and 12 detachments. Detachments have had their defensive value raised from 1 to 2 (attack is still 1) so that they are actually useful on defense. Ultimately what this means for Russia is it can't field a giant army of standard corps. This lets Russia have a decent army in 1914, but trouble keeping pace with the Centrals in building capability.

Russia, Ottomans, and Italy all have reduced teching chances and max caps, so they will usually lag a little behind the other powers in tech.

There is a "normalization" period of 10 days added too. This means for the off-cycle turns that are 2 or 4 weeks, the income for sides are increased. This makes winter particularly important for planning and building out the next year's offensives.

[Altaris]

BTW, I know the sound was a little splotchy in parts, I'll adjust my mic going forward.

[Altaris]

Turn 4 is up (for some reason I can't edit the main post):

Turn 4: August 22, 1914 (Central Powers)

[Strategiclayabout]

Hi Altaris ,

- You can only edit your post for an hour or something after making it so you'll just ahve to add new posts.

- I like the game as it is though it's true taking Lemberg as historical is nearly impossible without upgraded artillery.

- Nice move to put an AAR video, gives a different feeling to see all those corps move "by themselves" .

- Between that and your mod should have taken some work, so thanks for your efforts doing all of that !

[Altaris]

Yeah, I'm not knocking vanilla by any means, it has it's own balance to it. I'm just a big WW1 history buff, so it bugs me seeing things like Lemberg being impossible to take in 1914 (this mod makes Lemberg a city instead of a fortress, btw), and trenches going up all over the French-German border on the first week of the war. I also find it gets a little gamey at times in vanilla that the Germans can just appear anywhere on the Russian or Italian fronts and simply beat the snot out of them due to nothing more than the 5/4 vs 4/3 setup. Russians, apart from Tannenberg, really put up a good fight in 1914 - in 1915 they really only went down so hard b/c the Centrals had a high superiority of artillery and concentrated their whole effort on that front. This mod was an attempt to make some minor corrections along these lines to give as realistic result as possible.

I like the video AAR format too, and it's really pretty easy. I downloaded a free software called ActivePresenter, I just plug my headset up, put desktop capture on, and simply record the replay and give a little commentary. Much easier than photoshopping a bunch of static images.

[Sapare]

The AAR is a bit slow to watch(it is a nice idea though, just makes me wish for a replay feature even more(here is hoping for SC3!)), but if you ever get to uploading the mod I would give it a play and give some input, baring that I can find someone to play it with.

[Bill101]

Hi Altaris

Great idea, and I can edit your first post to add the extra links if you like?

Just let me know, and if you'd like me to, email me at bill.runacre@furysoftware.com with the details as and when they are ready, and I'll add them in.

[Altaris]

To install the mod, follow these instructions:

1) Download the zip file from the following location: Mod Files from MediaFire

2) Extract the contents of the zip file into your \Battlefront\Strategic Command WWI Breakthrough\Campaigns folder

3) Go into the \Battlefront\Strategic Command WWI Breakthrough\Campaigns\_1914 Call To Arms folder and copy the Bitmaps and Media folders

4) Paste the two folders copied in #3 into the \Battlefront\Strategic Command WWI Breakthrough\Campaigns\_MOD 1914 WW1 folder

5) Start up a new game, you should see MOD 1914 WW1 listed as a selectable scenario at the bottom of the list of scenarios, if it was installed correctly

New turns up on the AAR:

Turn 5:

Turn 6:

Turn 7:

[Altaris]

Turns 8-12 posted. Seems to be working pretty well thus far. Western Front settled along pretty historical lines. Eastern Front saw Russia stomp Austria in Galicia, but now the Germans are starting to press in on Poland and both Germany and Austria have gotten Trench lvl 1 now.

[Altaris]

A quick summary of events thus far.

1914 is coming to a close, with no decisive outcomes on either front. All sides have taken heavy losses and will be looking to rebuilt their armies during the relative calm of winter. In addition, they will be working on increasing their technical advantages and building forces for the 1915 offensives.

On the Western Front, the Germans stalled around Arras in September, and rather than burning up troops driving on the French, instead tried to consolidate their gains and finish off Belgium once and for all, with a secondary goal of pushing the British back to Calais or further. Unfortunately, this didn't pan out either (though one of the British corps was wiped out), and the Belgians still hold onto Ypres (albeit tentatively). We did make a special effort to take out Antwerp in late September, the reason for this being two-fold: firstly, if the British were to send a corps here, it would be more costly to take, and secondly, this mod makes taking fortresses very difficult to do without artillery, and I wanted to free up the artillery unit for operations on the Eastern Front. As the year ends, German trenches have started showing up all along the front - the sitzkrieg appears to have begun.

On the Eastern Front, Russia has had great success against the Austrians, though they've suffered slightly higher losses than their enemy. The Austrians have been pushed back into the Carpathians, Lemberg being overrun in the process. Przemysl still stands, though with only a tenuous link left open. Krakow is also under dire threat. The Germans, unable to afford further procrastination on this front, have two armies lining up against the Russians, one under Hindenburg, defending and counter-attacking where it can in East Prussia, and the other under Mackensen, who has launched an invasion into Russian Poland against Lodz and Warsaw. Neither are likely to make huge advances in the coming months, but they will tie up Russian reinforcements from reaching Galicia and give Austria a much needed breathing period. The Austrians are busy digging into trenches in the Carpathian passes - if they can complete this task the interior of the Hapsburg territory should be safe for the time being.

On the Serbian Front, things began looking very bleak for the Austrians in October. The Serbs threatened to break through deep into Hungarian lands, and the Austrians, tired after months of campaigning in this rough terrain, had to call desperately for aid from Germany. Germany responded by sending it's artillery (freshly relieved after the fall of Antwerp) and 4 Corps under von Kluck, where they have been tasked by the Kaiser with taking out the Serbs with all haste. The intent is to have this front secured by spring, so that the Austrians here can be freed to contain any potential threat from Italy, and the Germans can join in the counter-attack planned against the Russians. The Bulgarians will likely join our cause as well once the Serbs are sent reeling.

The Ottoman Empire joined the war in November, adding to the British Empire's troubles. They won't be of much danger, but they will tie up key British units from interfering in other areas (particularly Serbia). Their entry also gave Germany and Austria-Hungary much-needed morale boosts.

My intention is to set up a short video AAR at end of 1914 outlining each sides graphs and intentions for 1915 plans and actions. I may put up some screenshots of key screens at this time too.

[Altaris]

Turns 13-14 up. Part of the Turn 14 recap is a summary of the game state for the Centrals at end of 1914. Will be doing something similar for the Entente on Turn 15 (Jan 2nd, 1915) turn.

[Bill101]

Excellent, and as there are quite a lot of videos, with more to come, the easiest solution is to subscribe to your channel and watch the war unfold!

[Peter Palchinsky]

Altaris, thank you for doing this. I've also desired a mod that is closer to the slogging match rather than WWII-light. But I have to say I was surprised how similar your run down of events for 1914 was to the historical record...that is a sign that your mod is meeting your intent. Looking forward to your strategic picture for 1915. PP

[Altaris]

I played for hours on end last night (still need to go back and do the AAR recordings) but I'm now finishing up August 1915. So far still holding up pretty well. I've gone with mostly historical approaches to offensives, except that Austria landed into trouble with Serbia so I sent a Germany army to assist with taking down the Serbs. Otherwise, pretty much historical approach - Centrals focused on the Eastern Front, France launching some offensives (nearly took Mulhausen), and Great Britain focusing on securing Belgium and facing off against the Ottomans in Palenstine (no Gallipoli attempt for me).

Turned out pretty well I think. The Serbs are nearly crushed, with Bulgaria now in the Central Powers as of mid-August. The Russians got clobbered over the summer in East Prussia, and Hindenburg kept up the pressure to take out Kovno and pushing on Vilna now. The Russians do still hold Galicia and have Warsaw, perhaps for a few more turns, but their front is rapidly collapsing and they have to start pulling back or risk encirclement. Russian losses have been heavy in Poland. The way the mod works, the Russians can't replace all their lost Corps due to cap limits, so they never really recover from a completely destroyed Corps, this is to simulate the problems the Russians had with replacements later in the war. As was the case historically, the key tipping point is the Centrals artillery, it let's them punch holes where needed in the Russian lines.

On the Western Front, Great Britain and France have given the Germans some offensives to worry about, but haven't penetrated the line yet. Each of them did get lvl 1 artillery in early summer, but thus far haven't been able to buy any additional artillery pieces. 1916 will see a change to that, expect 1916 to turn the focus back westward.

Changes seem to be working very well. I try to make changes based on what the historical realities were, and they seem to mirror well in game effects. This is my third version of the mod, my earlier two versions had some issues later game that I've tried to address, mostly with the removal of infantry upgrades and limiting artillery shell caps to 6 instead of 10. I've also made recon bombers have 2 strikes, early on that's not much advantage, but it makes building up Ground Attack important for later war (and Aerial Warfare for defense of it). I think I got the money amounts right this time around too, balancing techs and builds/replacements is a tough juggling act but it works well from what I'm seeing thus far.

[Altaris]

Turns 14-16 posted. Turns 14 and 15 have some commentary on future planning for 1915 from each side's perspective.

[Altaris]

Turns 17-21 posted.

[Altaris]

Turns 22-25 posted.

[Altaris]

Turns 26-28 posted.

[Altaris]

Turns 29-31 posted - the Centrals have delivered some heavy blows to Russia and Serbia in the last few turns! As of August 7th, 1915, Bulgaria has thrown it's lot in with the Centrals, which will probably spell ultimate doom for the Serbs. In Poland, Lodz has fallen and German artillery is lining up to take out Warsaw. Meanwhile, Hindenburg has taken Kovno and is threatening to cut off Russian Poland from the Baltic. Will Russia regain it's footing, or is this the first nail in its coffin?

[Altaris]

Turns 32-34 posted. August 1915 comes to an end. Serbs almost crushed, down to two towns in the far south. Greece has entered war on side of Entente. Russians on the run now in Poland, though they are putting up delay defenses at Warsaw and Brest-Litovsk. Hindenburg moving in on Vilna. On the Western Front, Entente has won it's first major battle against the Germans at Arras, though at heavy cost.