Strategic Command World War I - Central Power - 01 - World at War

[@declanmugford987]

This is different from historical gamer, he hasn’t gone to war with Belgium, he did a reverse Schliffien plan focusing on the east

[@TortugaPower]

Yeah, it's very different than THGs, but I'm watching his series and it's really entertaining!

[@chosu1234]

Sorry to be that guy but there was no maginot line in ww1 just a well defended border

[@TortugaPower]

Yeah, that's correct. I'm adopting that name because it will be an easy reference to make that everyone (or most people) will know what I'm talking about. Cheers.

[@marcroelse9517]

just what i wanted to say

[@jadenlilly6113]

@Aggressive Tubesock meh

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

@Aggressive Tubesock i doubt that is correct.

[@christianlingelbach5327]

@Aggressive Tubesock let me guess you googled if he is correct? Because to me you sound like someone who would say that every person needs perfect knowledge of everything and then is googling the right answers to correct them

[@deeznoots6241]

The advantage to reducing the number of sides of a trench is if it would help an enemy unit that just moved in to fend off counterattacks from your lines the following turn, thats really the only one. Also Russia was actually pretty damn competent in WW1 till late 1916 when their army started breaking down and their homefront was a mess

[@TortugaPower]

That's right! I started using this as a criteria for my trench placement at some point (but not initially)

[@adamant7794]

on top of giving you a hard time, godbless you , i think laurance olivier talking on world at war is something that is accurate , its got everything you godda know.

[@georgebrooks2153]

Thanks for this series. I'm very late to the party because I just bought the game. I enjoy that you seem to not "know everything;" it gives me hope that a new player can enjoy the game. I'll be following along!

[@TortugaPower]

I don't know all too much at the series start, but many helpful comments along the way and I'm getting much better!

[@stephenmiller195]

This looks very good can’t wait for your next turn, thanks for the vid.

[@TortugaPower]

Thanks Stephen! It should be up tomorrow.

[@cookudysu90]

Ummm yeah the Maginot Line didn't exist until after WW1!

[@TortugaPower]

You are correct! Why then, did Tortuga say that? Find out in episode 2!

[@shawnp6653]

Came from "Single Malt Strategy 49" where all 3 Amigos picked this as #1 - I don't need another game atm, so I hope I don't like it ;) lol. Always enjoy your play throughs (and teaching).

[@TortugaPower]

I would like to be an expert from episode 1 of a series, but in this one a lot of learning will happen on-the-fly (lots of good feedback from the comments).

[@timonsolus]

The way this game ought to work (but doesn't) is that Italy should only join the Central Powers if Britain stays neutral initially (i.e. if Germany doesn't violate neutral territory.) It would make no sense whatsoever for Italy to risk war with both France and Britain in 1914, because of their overwhelming naval superiority in the Mediterranean.

[@TortugaPower]

Hi Tim. If you're referring to the Triple Alliance scenario, Italy does not start at war, but are Central Powers-leaning instead of Entente-leaning, similar to the Ottomans. It's an alternate take on history, so I wouldn't judge it too harshly. I'm glad they gave us the option to see what that would be like.

[@adamant7794]

seconded... it was all napoleonic style prussian cavalry charges out of the saarland and when trenches occurred it was all such a big surprise... even if some trenches famously were seen in actions in the civil war over in the use some 50 +odd years earlier

[@TortugaPower]

The poor cavalry wasn't ready for this big change. The stories about the French cavalry and the German Hussars are pretty interesting, at war's start.

[@adamant7794]

@@TortugaPower I loved that on holiday , I got to walk around the hills near to lux and see the french border near saarbrucken?(sp) area... I was trying to date a german lady at the time, I should have perhaps worn a picklehube (?grammer ) and impressed her with my amazing 100 year old fashion senses.

[@pancakes3250]

So far so good. Looks terrifying to me. All your forces focused in the west. If the french can hold, even if they cant, that Russian steamroller is comming. How in hell you will pull of a tannenberg, good luck. I guess don't get your austrians killed off, best bet, maybe.

[@TortugaPower]

Those A-H forces just like to get themselves killed!

[@pancakes3250]

@@TortugaPower You are right.

[@timmietimmins3780]

You actually don't need to hold much territory of austro-hungary at all. All those mountains austria have allow you to very effectively do a defense in depth. If a hex takes 3 base movement to move into, you really don't even need zones of control to shut an offensive down. Just let em stagger through the jabloni(tsa) pass, and similarly, krakow can be given up early on and fought over later. If you think of "austro-hungary" as what it actually is, 6-7 tiles of open ground surrounding lemburg, plus the serbian front, it's not that intimidating. Sure, GERMANY has a huge amount of territory to defend that actually matters, especially , but Austria starts with pretty much a full front line before you even start mobilizing, and it's not much after that to start moving towards a 2 deep formation that can really delay the russians for a long time. Also, the value to be gained in france just massively outweighs anything you could hope to gain early in russia. If you just pushed straight south from konigsberg and north from lemburg (which is insanely unrealistic, that's like 11 hexes and probably 25 russian corps defending it), even if your front lines met on turn 2, you would still have swung far less MPP to your side than if you just manage to take loos and mons, which aren't even defended on turn 1. Neither is lille. That's like "all of western Russia in value". On turn 2, with barely any fighting. I would still deploy your starting HQ in prussia though. It's needed far more over there, and operating HQ units is extremely expensive, and also, unavoidable as they have like 3 movement points and can't force march.

[@TortugaPower]

Thanks for the feedback, Timmie. I like the idea of deploying the starting HQ to the East. It may be a good idea regardless, but do you have enough HQs in the West if you do this after the mobilization ends?

[@timmietimmins3780]

@@TortugaPower No, but it's close enough. I Have the game open, so I am just counting units, and I have 28 units in france and 25 command rating (7,7,6,5). So if I pull just 3 infantry units over to the eastern front, I will have enough command in france. Meanwhile, you have nothing like enough command in the east even if you do dust off bismark. Even if he had the rating, and he does not, you could never cover the width of the front, especially not safely when the enemy can just walk through gaps in your line at the start. And you certainly will need to reinforce the east front with something: there just aren't any starting troops to cover tannenberg, thorn, or posen. Also, I would note that I think you are looking at cavalry wrong. They are not in my opinion for scouting, or grabbing territory: they are for moving into zones of control and entrenching on the same turn. It is typical to attack with every guy adjacent to a "target" hex, so that means when you move into the hex after combat, you need at LEAST 1 MP to move adjacent to the hex, 2 to move in (zone of control), 1 to entrench), and that means if you are 2 hexes away (likely, as you noted, it'a jigsaw puzzle), or there is rough terrain, infantry cannot move in and entrench a hex you just cleared. Cavalry can. That's why they are useful in France and not in Russia. You don't need to run 5 hexes into the Russian wilderness. You wouldn't have supply when you got there anyways, and spoiler alert, even if you could see what was in russian territory, the answer would be "assloads of russians". You need them to move the front line forwards in France, and draw fire off your elite infantry so they can keep their experience and not have to spend all their time reinforcing and be on low morale. I am happy if the french attack my cavalry, and even happier to swap a 10 strength elite infantry unit into prebuilt trenches the next turn so he can attack immediately.

[@Dav1Gv]

1914 aircraft bombing? They couldn't even fly with a machine gun!!!

[@TortugaPower]

Yeah, this is a bit confusing to me. I wonder if it's meant to abstract that an attack against them would be more successful (from a recon standpoint), so they cause damage to the readiness and morale of the unit (which will affect the combat, but don't lower the strength).

[@thorin1045]

@@TortugaPower Its recon "bombers", with no weapons (have zero attack value), it demoralize a bit (think 1914 seeing a flying thing, at best you heard about that thing, at worst this was the first time you ever encountered the concept of flying machines), but help artillery when those units finally arrive.

[@stevepirie8130]

Italy bombed targets in a separate war in 1911 despite very basic tech aircraft. First days of the war Germany bombed French cities, one pilot dropped 50 bombs in different raids on Paris slightly damaging the Notre Dame and dropped leaflets demanding surrender. Zeppelins bombed France and then by later 1914 England too. By Oct 1914 a French pilot had mounted an MG on his plane after months of anger of seeing enemy pilots fly past him untouched. All sides had used pistols and rifles by that point. I do get what you mean that their effectiveness was in recon mostly though that first part of the war. Perhaps bombing/air superiority should be locked behind a tech level in the game.

[@ows6337]

@@thorin1045 fly the recon bombers to a target for the artillery and they will "box" the unit and improve the artillery effectiveness and damage potential.

[@haroldlebo2005]

Can you play this game on a tablet S 6

[@MrWattu]

When will you help Finland get his independence?

[@TortugaPower]

We're not working with a Russia-first mentality, so it could be a while...

[@dreuthanasia1]

Do you prefer using sprites instead of counters?

[@timonsolus]

I find the sprites very hard to see in this video.

[@TortugaPower]

Personally, I haven't developed an opinion. I can try using the NATO-like counters for the next video (you can switch between the options at any time).

[@timonsolus]

@@TortugaPower : That would be helpful, thanks!

[@Wilkesy7]

I didn't like that you went into the game with knowledge that you shouldn't know (by looking at enemy units with fog of war off in previous game). but other than that, nice vid

[@TortugaPower]

Yeah, that's generally how it works with wargames. As soon as you play the game for one minute, you already know more than a commander would know. (It's worse because I played as the Entente first, so I knew all the Entente starting positions... but as I said, this is standard affair in wargames.)

[@Bill_Garthright]

You know, I'm not a war-gamer. I just get bored with it, after awhile. I love EU4, because there's so much more to it than war. And I had a blast with the Making History games, but that had little or nothing to do with the warfare. Indeed, I think that they're terrible games, in general. I just loved putzing around, building up my nation's economy and research. :) I keep thinking that I _should_ enjoy a game like this, because I do like the strategy involved. But I'd much prefer strategy that includes economics, research, diplomacy, etc., as well as warfare.

[@TortugaPower]

I think that Supreme Ruler (with the Great War DLC) might be more up your alley.

[@Bill_Garthright]

@@TortugaPower Thanks. I've got that one - you probably recommended it before - but like a lot of games I buy, I haven't even installed it yet. I love computer games, so I keep buying more games than I can possibly have time to play. And I'm retired! :) Supreme Ruler looks like it would take some ambition to learn, and I tend to lack ambition these days. Heh, heh. But mostly, I'm always right in the middle of playing a dozen other games. (I mentioned EU4, because I'm spending most of my time playing that right now. But there are lots of others I'm playing, too.)

[@TortugaPower]

It's a good idea to focus on one game, I think. That's how you get better, firstly, but usually you can extract more enjoyment from one dedicated long playthrough than multiple shorter ones.

[@colmfox1647]

Pbem against historical gamer please?

[@TortugaPower]

That's a possibility, but maybe not while he's still doing his WitP:AE PBEM against XTRG.

[@apleknight411]

hello

[@TortugaPower]

Hello

[@ALEXANDER1318]

The accuracy of that map is horrendous.

[@TortugaPower]

Anything in particular that you found?

[@ALEXANDER1318]

@@TortugaPower Most of the Netherlands, and the coastline in general. It's a consequence of the hexes.

[@byronperry8931]

@@ALEXANDER1318 The Netherlands coastline was very different back then.

[@craigmacintosh6230]

Italy I WW1 wsd a allie

[@lionhead123]

thats probably the worst map of the Netherlands i have ever seen. Holy god.

[@TortugaPower]

Play enough wargames, especially hex based ones, and you'll see some interesting maps.