mdsmall
Posts: 461
Joined: 4/28/2020
From: Vancouver, BC
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Hi - I am coming to this thread after a week of playing a game against Bavre as the Central Powers, which he opened with same intensive East First strategy against the Russians in Poland. The results may be of interest to others.
On my first turn, I could see that he must have cashed in all of his tech chits as there 5-6 German corps around Lemberg and two AH corps beside Lutsk. In the north, he made a very strong push from East Prussia towards Brest-Litovsk which annihilated the detachment in Grodno and the garrison in Bialystock and he had units only two hexes from Brest-Litovsk. My assessment was that I could not possibly hold on to Lutsk against that a strong combined German-AH force, and that in the north, the only units I could get to Brest-Litovsk would be via operational moves or forced marching and which would certainly be killed in the next two turns. Plus the rail line running from Brrest-Litovsk to Minsk just north of the marshes is very easy to cut and very difficult for the Russians to defend.
Faced with this pincer move, it looked almost certain that the Russian army would get cut off in Poland before the rest of the Russian army could mobilize. I made the decision to evacuate Poland almost completely on the first turn, on the theory it was better to try to save as much as my army as possible. I cashed in all of my Russian tech chits, operationally moved six infantry corps out of Poland to safer locations to the south and east and forced marched two corps towards the marshes. The cavalry were able to get to safety by moving just south of Brest Litovsk and headed to Minsk. The only forces I left in Poland were the two detachments that start there, plus the couple of corps that mobilized there in later turns which I could do nothing about. The CP quickly killed the detachments and General Samsonov who mobilized two turns later in Poland. General Everts and the experienced Guards corps that mobilizes with him never showed up. The remaining couple of corps in Poland dug into the two fortresses there, but he was easily able to surround and slowly reduce and finally kill them.
My defensive strategy worked in the short run, I was able to form one line in front of Vilna and Minsk in the north and another south of the marshes in western Ukraine. But the Germans in particular had superior morale and generals from the start and the morale/ readiness gap between the Germans and subsequently the Austrians versus the Russians only widened as first Luxembourg, then Montenegro, Serbia and finally Albania surrendered. He was able to surf a wave of surrender- induced morale buffs which enabled him to kill 2 -4 Russian corps a turn. The loss of all of the NM positions in Poland plus the defeat of Serbia reduced the Russian national morale below 75%. Once the infantry losses were factored in, by the spring of 1915, Russian national morale fell below 50% while German and Austro-Hungarian national morale were at 110%. At that point, even though in theory the morale buffs due to the surrenders had worn off, the national morale gap between the two sides was so great that it translated into a 35% unit morale gap. Researching Infantry Warfare 1 made no material difference to the Russians ability to overcome these odds. Even though the Russians were able to research trench warfare up to level 3, the Germans and Austrians were able to research their artillery equally quickly. So the Russian lines quickly collapsed over the summer of 1915 as the CP attacks backed up by artillery became over-powering.
In Serbia, we agreed that he would not attack Cetinje until turn 4 (allowing the Montenegro general and Sanjak corps to deploy). Instead, he used the same number of railed-in German forces he would have used for the M-Gambit to supplement the Austrians and had 13 corps attacking Serbia from the start. Serbia was never able to bring its 4 front-line corps up to full strength, was constantly retreating and surrendered after 6 CP moves in late October, 1914. Their collapse was so fast, there would have been no point to transporting any French or British corps there to stiffen their resistance.
Combat in the eastern Med between the UK and the Ottomans proceeded on pretty predictable lines. The UK were slowly able to push towards Gaza. But because the CP were able to bring in Bulgaria by late October 1914 (as soon as Nish fell), the Ottomans could rail in CP reinforcements if they ever got into trouble. I used the enhanced amphibious capacity for the UK and France in the latest patch to do a raid with two Marine units against the Ottoman railroad near Antalya, where it runs along the coast. This worked to cut supply and reinforcements to Palestine for a couple of turns, but I could not hold this beachhead against several attacking Ottoman corps and I had to withdraw.
On the Western Front, the CP remained in place, only occupying Luxembourg and then entrenching. Once the whole French army had mobilized and I received General Foch, I decided to attack Belgium. That went fairly smoothly and it lengthened the German front a bit. But the French were attacking with reduced morale, due to the defeats in the Balkans and they took some heavy casualties. More importantly, the NM hits against France and especially the UK for declaring war against Belgium were crippling: 3000 and 8000 respectively. Ironically, UK public opinion does not seem troubled by France DOW’ing Belgium if it happens before they enter the war. In this game, France attacked on the turn that Britain entered the war and as a result, UK National Morale immediately dropped from 100% to 84%. France was able to hold its line against Germany and built up its artillery, benefitting from the extra MPPs from capturing Belgium. But once both sides got artillery 1, they were able to trade blows and do an equal amount of damage on the Western Front, while the main German army was busy demolishing Russia in the East. Once Russia withdrew from the war in September 1915, the writing was on the wall for the Entente in the West and I conceded.
My conclusions are that an all-out attack in the East by the CP on the opening turn - if pursued with the focus that Bavre brought to the job - is devastating for the Entente, especially if it is combined with an equal push against Serbia. These two campaigns feed-off each other through the morale impact of surrenders by minor powers. Just fixing the Montenegro gambit will not change that, as I argued at the end of that long thread. If the CP wants to take out Serbia and Russia, they can do so AT THE SAME TIME, while leaving enough of a force to block any French and British attacks in the West.
Others should test out this opening by the Central Powers to see if a different defence strategy, and/or more skillful tactical moves by the Entente, would have changed anything fundamental. Personally, I doubt it. In terms of the adjustments to the game settings to slow down this assault in the interests of giving the Entente enough of a chance to hold on, there are some minor tweaks and two more major ones that I would recommend.
The minor tweaks are the following:
- giving Russia other safer locations for their units to mobilize, if the hexes in Poland have been captured and/or Poland has been cut-off;
- fixing the glitch which prevents two Russian corps from mobilizing in the Caucasus if Brest-Litovsk has been captured;
- making a few more enhancements in Montenegro to reduce the M-Gambit, such as making Centinje a Fortified Town, increasing their two Montenegro detachments from 7 to 10; and adding an alternate capital in Pec;
- and perhaps strengthening Serbias starting positions e.g. by making some or all their front-line corps and their initial HQ start at full strength;
The two bigger adjustments that I recommend are:
- reducing the unit morale impact of minor units surrender, by reducing the % swing; or restricting it to the controlling Major and the Major that forced the surrender; or perhaps eliminating this feature entirely for minor powers.
- prohibiting both sides from selling their tech chits on turn one (only).
The goal of these changes would be to enable both Serbia and Russia not be overwhelmed in the opening couple of moves. They would slow down a concerted CP attack in the Balkans enough to make it plausible for the Entente to try to double down and defend Serbia by sending in a couple of French or British corps. And they would give Russia enough of a chance to mobilize and perhaps even counter-attack a bit either in East Prussia or Galicia as the Central Powers rail in more forces. I don’t think it would invalidate the East-first strategy (at least I hope not). But I think these changes would prevent the game from being settled in the opening four months of the war.
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RE: The Montenegro Gambit Test 2 - 
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