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sbaxter1 -> RE: Serbia never surrendering? (1/2/2011 2:57:44 AM)
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I play CP a lot and the Serbs are a nasty bunch. They do surrender but in my last game I had destroyed all of their units and overrun the entire country (I checked and, yes, every hex belonged to a CP country, mostly Austrian, some Bulgarian and some Turkish) but they still had not surrendered. France had already surrendered, Britain was wavering (thanks to aggressive U-Boats, I guess) and Russia folded the next turn, ending the game, so I have no idea what the deal was with Serbia in that one game.
While I am on the subject of the Serbs, I must complain that AI stacks the deck in its favor when it plays Serbia. If I am TE, the Serbs have a grand total of two HQ, one with 2 offensives and one with one. There are no trenches but the Serbs have one economic point which can buy them two trenches in 8/14 and available in 9-10/14. No other TE power can transfer points to Serbia until 9/14, assuming that CP does not take the port of Scutari in August. AI, however, gets two HQs with 4 (four! can you imagine?!) offensives each in 8/14 and I saw it entrench in five hexes in 9/14. I wanted to concentrate on stemming the Russian horde and figured on merely protecting Sarajevo and Ragusa, but no, those Serbs were on their way to Budapest before I realized what was going on. Fresh infantry, right out of boot camp, were sent to blocking positions until I could muster HQ to launch a counteroffensive. I have also seen AI send French and Russian infantry taking MY territory without the benefit of HQ or cav. Oh, well.
So when is there going to be a usable users manual? All I can find is for V 1.21 and it is, at best, lacking in many respects. It refers to sending units for assault training, if you get to that level, but does not tell how to do it. [during the strategic phase, find the unit, click on it and get the box listing "Refit, Assault Training, Diband"} There is no mention in the manual that you can disband a unit and I cannot yet tell what the rules must be for doing it. I can disband some, but not others and cannot tell what makes the difference.Ditto for assault training. Some units can be sent, others cannot. Oh, and there is the important aspect that units completing the assault training are upgraded in quality. I don't see any sense in sending an A unit to assault training.
The manual says that it takes one naval asset point to repair one damage point but I see that one point will repair two damage points. So British cargo ships with two damage points from my U-Boats will be out this turn but could be back in action next turn if TE has the bucks to repair them.
The manual mentions amphibious assaults but fails to point out some key items, like the presence of a Dreadnaught in the port to be assaulted will keep that port from being attacked or that you can only send one corps and it needs to be activated for the assualt. As an exception to the rule of Cav taking cities, it can take a port but any enemy units present certainly guarantee the destruction of the Cav unit. Oh, and the very critical sea supply for any unit conducting an amphibious assault, unless you mean to simply raid the port and then evacuate the next turn. Then there is the critical point of control of the seas. Trade can take place through enemy controlled waters (assuming your cargo ships are not damaged or sunk), but there are no amphibious movements, even from one friendly port to another if the route goes through waters controlled or contested by the enemy.
I had hoped to take out the Royal Navy by having Turks take Alexandria, a long and arduous task involving the use of cav and no direct attacks on British forces until we got next to the port. Sadly, the fleet there merely rebased to India and still controlled the Eastern Med. OTOH, if there are NO other ports for a rebase, the fleet in port will be scuttled. Ships out on a mission will be unaffected.
I learned the hard way about protecting your supply lines, something the manual does not tell you. Worse, I found out that an HQ with offensives left cannot activate anything if it is in a hex with no supply. You cannot fight your way out when surrounded and have no supplies. Pray for a relief column or have cav with infantry to go through enemy controlled but unoccupied hexes. Good luck with that!
Then there are transfers. Serbia can only receive finished goods. It does not need and cannot use food or raw materials. The sending country spends strategic movement points which costs Austria when it sends its excess raw materials and food to Germany, which really, really needs them. I am not yet convinced that the manual is correct when it states that strategic movement costs the country controlling the hexes and not the country the unit belongs to. I will try to pay attention to this some time.
India, I learned, is a port of the Eastern Med. British units formed there can be moved by ship or walk through Mesopotamia.
Economic points are not all the same. One point buys eight arms in Britain and France, seven in Russia and Austria, nine in Germany and two in Serbia.
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