Strategic Command World War I - Central Power - 10 - The Chalon Squeeze (1/2)

[@coolio1028]

Logistics will definitely be useful when you knock out a major front since you will have to operate a lot of units and any savings can be invested elsewhere.

[@TortugaPower]

I'm seeing that mostly with A-H, which sadly has no points in the technology (whereas Germany starts with 2).

[@trippfields279]

I like that the war will probably be over before Tanks even come into effect. And that Cavalry actually stayed useful since the western front has only been short term trench engagements rather than static warfare. The Ostfront actually seems to be way more static in a role reversal. Although once the French fold i don't see Russia long surviving. Fuck have you even used Gas yet?

[@BlazeInjun]

No gas use or research into it.

[@jevinliu4658]

Well, the Germans only started picking up Eastern territory during the Gorlice-Tarnow offensive, but now the Germans are next to Warsaw...

[@TortugaPower]

"Gorlice-Tarnow" that's the word I forgot! (Either this video, the previous one, or the next one, I forgot the name of this battle.) Anyway, I am actually a little sad we won't get to use tanks, but it makes sense if we never up in a static entrenched war.

[@TheMouseMasterYT]

At this point, you can start calling it the "MagiNoLonger" line.

[@TortugaPower]

The cleverness never ends!

[@TheMouseMasterYT]

@@TortugaPower I'll take "compliments I've never received before for $400, Alex"

[@gohibniugoh1668]

Was eagerly awaiting your..calvarly charge! ;-)

[@TortugaPower]

To their deaths! I'll try to keep our boys alive.

[@timmietimmins3780]

Are you sure the diminishing marginal returns aren't just rounding errors? Gven you are directly contradicting the manual, I opened a save and played to turn 2 (well, I hit end turn once and tabbed out). From what I can make out on turn 2, the game is giving you 2.5-7.5 points per chit, rounded up. Which is just "an average of 5 points per chit (as stated in the manual)", with some really harsh rounding. Have you noticed that the F(friendly) +E(enemy) * S&I (spying and intelligence) bonuses are not getting multiplied)? I am curious, but I really don't want to play with fog of war off for 5 turns just to see what happens when the AI researches a level of tech or I finish my spying and intelligence research, and I am absolutley not going to turn fog of war off for an actual playthrough. The naval game would become even sillier, for one. I will note, blimps in Paris are an excellent idea. If an air unit is not attached to a HQ, it cannot get supply from that HQ (unlike any ground unit which doesn't care at all). And there is absolutely no need to have a HQ IN paris, as just outside of paris to the south would still give you max supply. There is also almost no reason to attach blimps to a forward HQ (as they are basically a recon unit, from what I have made out. I have used them for strategic bombing, but even 2 level 1 blimps don't seem to outpace the natural regen of a tile, even ignoring weather) HQ's only need 6 base supply on the tile they sit on to boost that tile to 10 supply. Putting them in valuable 8+ supply paved road tiles is a giant waste.

[@trippfields279]

Are airships actually worth it in this game as opposed to just researching better planes and artillery?

[@timmietimmins3780]

@@trippfields279 Absolutely as germany, but you can't really invest in them. Maintenance is free, you start with 1 research chit in improved airships, and your entire force limit in airships prepurchased and in your production queue. The only choice you have is "do you push for 2 and 3 points in improved airships"? I personally wouldn't. 1 point improved airships, stationed in boulogne, can already scout basically the entire french front line if it's straight enough, and the entire english channel if there were actually boats there (england, in my experience, mostly keeps it's fleet up in scotland where the trade routes are). Overall, the game in general has incredibly hard build limits on everything, so you really have limited choices on what to build at all. you can't build tanks, even once you can build tanks, your entire force limit in tanks is like one third of one turn of income, and planes are about the same. Even once aerial warfare is maxed, your force limit is ONE ground attack bomber, ONE heavy bomber, and ONE aircraft carrier. It's kind of odd how getting bulgaria into the war basically doubles the size of your airforce.

[@TortugaPower]

Hi timmie, thanks again for the detailed comment. I don't know what I was looking at, and I think rounding error could have been an answer, except that I saw one research field which increased by TWO less points in both the min & max range, so that is beyond just rounding. I still need to read the manual before I can speak definitively on anything, but that was my experience with the game. Again, I do appreciate your comments, and the HQ comment was _extremely_ helpful! Cheers.

[@jevinliu4658]

Tortuga, the Italian front is not well defended at all, and clearly the Italians would enter the war within the next few turns. There's really only four options here: finish off the Serbians as fast as possible, get the Bulgarians to do it for you, withdraw entirely, or buy a few detachments and entrench them. As none of the first three look promising, I'd spend extra MP on troops primarily. Also, it may be time to reinforce your ships...

[@philtomd.4397]

Which side is Italy going to join? I think Tortuga is playing Triple Alliance?

[@jevinliu4658]

@@philtomd.4397 Italy's definitely joining Entente if anything. Italian nationalists are agitating for war against Austria-Hungary.

[@TortugaPower]

Yes, I am surely concerned about the Italians! Gerhard, I ended up NOT playing the Triple Alliance, I went with the standard war, so Italy will go Entente.

[@trekaddict]

I actually visited Belfort and Verdun some years ago, and lemme tell you, the region is a lot better off in this world. Hell, France has regions that to this day are no-go areas because of unexploded ammo and all the chemical warfare from WW1. Apparently, there's a lot of duds in those early special shells, and some of the chemicals linger even when they do work...

[@TortugaPower]

That sounds awful. While those areas wouldn't be as destroyed from trench warfare, you'd still have an alternate universe with Germany controlling Europe (so no WW2 or Nazi Germany, at least how we know it, but not sure if this is good or bad).

[@pancakes3250]

Hi. I think you should move artillery to the east. Its useless here. Maybe you can defend with it, where it will be more useful. Maybe give it to turks. Brits should be doing bad things in Mesopotamia even try gallipoli. In this game attacking is not penalized, so gallipoli landings or a true russian push could devastating. Maybe. Your call. You right almost always.

[@jevinliu4658]

Entrenchments, though... they severely hurt these attacks. Just that the Germans keep encircling units on the western front after entrenchments... Nish is a good example on how entrenchments are actually working.

[@trippfields279]

I would suggest shifting the majority of the Bulgarians east if they join the war. Serbia is basically dead and the Ottomans could use some beefing up.

[@jevinliu4658]

@@trippfields279 No, west, to Italy. The rest fights partisans. There's no way they could reach the east before Italy joins the war in like, May.

[@trippfields279]

@@jevinliu4658 that's a fair point. Italy should be dealt with fairly easily if Tortuga can concentrate enough force.

[@timmietimmins3780]

@@trippfields279 It's actually really hard to do that. Bulgaria has reasonable logistics (as they are a German minor and Germany has good logistics), but you still need 5 supply on the unit, and every hex it moves through. Bulgaria's capital at the start has horrible supply, so I am not sure you could move units out of Bulgaria even if you already had rail line through Nish. On the other hand, the Austrian guys on the northern side of Serbia CAN actually operate over to a front line and then use the Existing HQ already there. Beyond that, they are probably the best units to defend their own homeland, and they don't share HQ's with Austro-Hungary, and you probably want to keep the 3 detachments there (for partisan suppression), and so you might as well keep the 3 corps there and fighting under their own HQ, and eventually move over to deal with the italian or romanian threat. But their air force is crazy good, simply because fighters are so cheap in this game but are capped by a hard build limit. Steal that shit and send it to the channel.

[@shahmatsimplex4144]

Curious how a french surrender would play out in this game.

[@timmietimmins3780]

If a country loses every one of it's capitals and alternate capitals, you just surrender check every turn. The chance to beat the check is 3%* the number of FRENCH units France has within it's borders. (3% per unit for majors, 6% for minors). So France, you pretty much have to reach Spain as they have alternates in both Bordeaux and Marseille, on opposite sides of the coutnry, near the Spanish border. Once you reach those, the surrender will be VERY quick, as by that point it's unlikely they can even fit much more than 12 french units in the country, and you will be focusing French units specifically as they will die so easy compared to the British and other Entente units, which will at this point make up the majority of the country. Which means that there is a more than 50% chance for France to surrender, every turn. Interestingly enough, the optimal way to beat France is pretty much just to push to paris, stop there, then push through nancy and down the road south from dijon. It's a paved road the whole way, it's got a ton of the industrial capacity of the nation, it's on the way to both of the capitals, and it's quite defensible as there are no roads to the west between dijon and lyons to be counterattacked from. There's little reason to push past Paris in the north, as there are no cities, no mines, no capitals, and you are in range of English air support. It extends the front line heavily, when France's troop quality is so low they already cannot repulse a dedicated thrust to the cities, which each have quadruple the value of any town, and mines, which each have 12 times the value of any town. And you forfeit the excellent defensive line you can establish on the Marne including Paris.

[@TortugaPower]

I feel like this side of things (the French surrender) are probably not historical, but it might be better for game balance. Based on history, I think it's fair to say that if the Germans occupied the northern half of France, they would surrender.

[@captainloggy140]

What happened to the audio in the end?

[@TortugaPower]

It's coming out of only the left side in stereo outputs. Not actually my intention, just a default setting that I need to change.