Thoughts on Russian Defeat

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Dear Readers,

this post is to reflect some of my thoughts on behalf Russia. When playing The Great War, usually the Central Powers defeat Russia in 1916 or 1917. In history there was a longer peace talk that ended in March 1918 which left Russia crippled and drained of their ressources. But these month of ongoing peace talks brought France the time it needed to survive until the American troops came to France in large numbers and turned the tide. Germany seized control of the Baltic states and the Ukraine, and Finnland worked together with Germany. But Germany had to leave a lot of troops in former Russia to prevent Anarchy and Bolschewism to spread. In my eyes these facts are not fully represented in TGW. The "teleport" of the german troops happens immediately after the Russian Ambassador deliver the proposal, and this is way too quick.

The usual way for most players will be to accept a russian Armistice offer. German and Austrian units will "teleport" back to their home countries while the three Baltic States and Ukraine get independent. Germany has a very good diplomatic relation to these new states, gets food deliveries from Ukraine and Poland is under german government. Any free troops can be used on other theatres, and that will most likely be France. In my eyes this effect is quite strong, esp. when you divert the biggest part of your troops to Russia early in the war and then transport them back in 1916.

But there is a second option: you neglect the russian inquiry and wait until their NM drops to zero so they will surrender. The allover effect is basically the same, but your NM gets a small boost. In general I would say that forcing a russian surrender is not worth the effort, because it takes longer and your troops get infected with bolschewism. It is an option if you need a boost in your NM.

Yesterday I discovered a third way: in October 1916 I conquered Petrograd and Moscow in the same turn, and after one additional turn Russia surrendered completely. All former russian territory became german, and any ressource was under german control. All bolschewiks disappeared, and a heavenly silence (=christmas) laid itself over russia. No partisans popped up, no garrisons required, all ressources produce steadily.. my income per turn as Germany was well above 1.000 MPP. No baltic states, no independent Ukraine.. just Finnland which delivered MPPs to Germany. In a Human vs Human game this would be a game cracker.. unlimited ressources for Germany, more troops than free tiles in Northern France.. that means Game Over.

In my eyes the russian defeat is not very well modeled at the moment. I suggest a kind of mechanism that represents the turmoil in Russia after the bolschewik revolution. One solution could be that the 3 baltic states and Ukraine need some kind of garrison, or they will immediately fall back to Russia. This would prevent Germany from moving all troops to the west. Let`s look at it realistically: as Germany had to pull their troops out of Poland after the war, the Sowjet Union and Poland hat a quick war.. Russia wanted the old territory back. So it would make sense that Germany has to garrison these states to prevent Russia from taking them back.

A possible way to do that is to treat those 4 countries a "occupied by Germany" with a massive partisan popup facility in case they are not garrisoned (the partisan popup represents the bolschewik threat).

At the moment the game has one major path you need to follow: defeat Russia quickly, and you win.. if it takes you to long, you will loose.

[lettowvorbeck]

Are any units kept aside as garrisons when the armies teleport back to their homeland after the Russians are knocked out of the war? I don't recall how many divisions Germany left in the east, but it was a lot.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

In history a lot of units remained in former Russia.. in TGW no single unit remains there at all in case of an Armistice or a surrender due to NM.. they all teleport back. When Russia surrenders due to loosing their Capitals, all units remain where they are. Recently conquered cities have to recover their supply values, all others come in at supply value 5. That makes it fairly easy to operate all your units to France quickly.

[Bill101]

Thanks for this feedback, I'll try to squeeze some improvements into the patch.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Dear Bill,

I understand that this game is a really big task. Pls do not regard my writing as a negative critic, my target is to make a very good game even better :-)

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Yesterday I finished the game mentioned above where Russia decided to produce for Germany.. ended in late 1917.. Germany´s NM was at 275.

[Bill101]

Hi

Please can you send me a saved turn or two so that I can take a look at this?

Email it to bill.runacre@furysoftware.com

Thanks

Bill

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

Will do... should be in your mailbox tomorrow.

[Rabelesius]

This is an interesting thread. Was there ever any change in that from 1.0? I think the requirement to garrison the East with large forces as historically is a good suggestion. I think the Central Powers kept over a million soldiers in the East until the eventual end of the war.

[Bill101]

Not in the sense of forcing the Central Powers to hold units in the east, but it has been made that any Central Powers' aggression towards the new countries formed will be penalised by Russian mobilization, and the Ukraine now provides grain supplies to Germany. Thus the Ukraine can be a potential target for Entente diplomacy.

[Rabelesius]

Hi Bill, I do not quite understand the answer. Why should Germany be aggressive against the new countries? Historically, the Germans kept large forces in the East. Wouldn't it be possible to force the German to have troops in the Ukraine to keep the grain supplies, i.e. a garrison requirement which, if not met, leads to loss of supplies?

[Rabelesius]

I have a suggestion for this. Can't you implement a script whereby the occupation of certain hexes in the East is mandatory to avoid NM loss? This would force Germany and Austria-Hungary to keep forces there.

[Bill101]

Hi Bill, I do not quite understand the answer. Why should Germany be aggressive against the new countries?

Hi

I think people have attacked them because they could, particularly in games against the AI when they felt confident that conquering the new countries would provide a quick buck. Hence the penalties introduced to discourage this.

[Bill101]

I have a suggestion for this. Can't you implement a script whereby the occupation of certain hexes in the East is mandatory to avoid NM loss? This would force Germany and Austria-Hungary to keep forces there.

It would be possible to force the Germans to maintain forces at (say) Warsaw, but in my experience from many multiplayer games, it is already hard enough for the Central Powers to win so introducing any penalty here hasn't felt necessary and could be counter productive.

It may be different against the Entente AI, but I would rather have consistent rules in all types of game, as much as possible.

[Glabro]

So even with a Russian defeat / armistice in say 1915 or 1916, the CP will find it hard to win? I find that hard to believe, but we'll see. The point is to balance the fronts: currently it does not even make sense to go west, but instead shift everything east because there are no downsides to knocking Russia out of the war; it doesn't tie down any of your resources. It's quite hard to crack France, on the other hand. Maybe these two fronts need to be balanced as options to attack? Make it more taxing to hold Russia away after Brest-Litovsk, but make it slightly easier to win in the West perhaps?

I bears thinking about.

[Rabelesius]

Glabro, I think it's absolutely necessary to attack in the West as the Entente. Otherwise, the shifting becomes too easy as you say. You need to put pressure on the Germans in the West. That was an often discussed topic at the strategic level during the war.

[Glabro]

You misunderstand. Obviously you have to leave a defensive line from Belgium to the Black Forest, capturing Luxembourg. Whether the Entente is effectively able to assault that straight line (East-West lines are so much easier to defend in this game) until heavy equipment is brought in is an altogether different matter; I think the main effect is that it will ensure the British will ship everything to Egypt.

[Bill101]

Hi Glabro

I'm not convinced that not attacking in the west is really the best move, because passivity in the west will ensure that the French get to retain one or two mines (Briey and Loos) as well as the city of Lille. Between them these provide the French with a sizeable income.

The Germans will be deprived of the economic benefit of these places, as well as of Brussels and the mine at Mons.

In the long run the German economy will suffer a lot as a result, and even if Russia is taken down fairly early (though probably not in 1915 against a good player), not having secured a secure position in France early on while the French are weak will surely make a later advance into France that much harder?

Bill

[Glabro]

We'll see, but the benefits of the defensive line might outweigh all that. Depending on how well the Austrians can hold the Italians at bay, Italy might become the next battlefield instead of France, and it can provide another access route to the Industrially rich French south. Another option is to try and get the Swiss on your side.

But time will tell, I'm not the most experienced player of this game with just one campaign victory under my belt, haven't tried it against the AI yet. Next time I'll be sure to try the all-out Schlieffen plan. In history it might have been the dumbest move possible because of the UK entry into the war because of it, but in this game it understandably doesn't matter if Belgium is invaded or not - wouldn't be much of a game without the UK in it.

[Karhu]

You misunderstand. Obviously you have to leave a defensive line from Belgium to the Black Forest, capturing Luxembourg. Whether the Entente is effectively able to assault that straight line (East-West lines are so much easier to defend in this game) until heavy equipment is brought in is an altogether different matter; I think the main effect is that it will ensure the British will ship everything to Egypt.

I tried this. It all fell to peices when my Entente opponent invaded Germany through Holland.

[Rabelesius]

Ah, you did not attack at all in the West, I see, sorry.

I think it's not viable as the Entente can use other methods and you won't succeed knocking out the Russians fast enough I fear. Historically, it never was an option as we know, so it's a nice what-if.

[Syagrius]

Very good picture, inspirational when playing the Entente and the Russian Empire; I think I saw it in the game?

[Kommandant]

the tatic of not invading belgaum is some what a flaw, because if you leave just a small strip of land to defend, france will have more resouces to spare, as it's relocated insutries still como to play, wich i think is not accurate, also, in time, war can be declared to belgium or holland, as Karhu said, and entente will fall heavy against germany, or against the ottoman, dropping their morale as down as possible by taking it's nacional morale objectives. i don't like his tatic, not at all, the bet one is to invest in trench warfare with germany and make a steady line in northen france and drop the morale of the french army with attriction warfare.

[Bill101]

as it's relocated insutries still como to play, wich i think is not accurate

Good point, I'll take a look at this.

[Glabro]

i don't like his tatic, not at all, the bet one is to invest in trench warfare with germany and make a steady line in northen france and drop the morale of the french army with attriction warfare.

It's not a tactic. It's a strategy. About the economic boost due to a bug, that's not something I can take into account in my planning. And what about the Russians taking over the bordering mines next to Poland? And Breslau? Where do you stop the Russian with non-existent troops? It's realistic to defend against France on the small strip for a time, but against Russia across Poland and East Prussia - how will you manage? Would be interesting to test though. In any case, in both of my games so far, it's worked out pretty well. But I haven't played experienced opponents yet.

Unless you are committed to taking Paris, why attack? The whole point of the Schlieffen plan is a quick victory, and then shifting forces east. This stretching of the line from Strasbourg to Somme takes up a lot more troops, basically giving up any offensive in the east until much later on in the war.

Plus you might even lose. I've seen that happen as I defended France against Schlieffen.

Historically it was a mistake to attack France, even without hindsight. Getting the UK provoked by invading Belgium was the big thing. And without this, there'd been no need to invest huge amounts of resources into the navy.

But...I will test it out, see how it goes. But an attrition plan in France? I don't see the point.