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Commander: The Great War This is one of my favorite 'I am bored' wargames. It models the First World War and lets you play with trench warfare and running the production priorities and plans for the Great Powers of Europe. The game is not perfect as a simulation but it does have one thing most wargames lack: a decent AI. It makes mistakes but it can also pull off decent encirclements, takes advantage of gaps, and runs a reasonably effective campaign. So what is this? It is a hex based strategy game. A good entry level game. The unit diversity is pretty low to start and the game never grows exceptionally complex. The strategy sometimes can be though but most turns only take a few minutes. What is the game scale? Each hex is probably around 20-25 km would be my guess. Infantry units are army sized. The smaller half-strength units are probably a corps. Every unit has 10 steps of damage and has an efficiency rating modeling how exhausted or battered they are. Artillery and air attacks hit this hard as do regular attacks and things like running around in winter. Doesn't World War I make for a boring game? The static nature of the war means that small gains are often hard-won. I enjoy the fact that I just created a big plan to take a piece of mostly worthless land so that I can take the mostly worthless land behind it. The game is about coordinating your ground units and using your artillery and air units to grind the enemy down and break their morale. Eventually the weakening of a nation's manpower reserves or a general collapse of the front can result in a nation falling. Does it model the navies? Yes, but while I enjoy this part of the game the AI often does odd things. Sometimes it is competent, sometimes not. Wasn't there an LP of this game already? Yes, but the only one I know of was was a much earlier version of the game. It has been improved with new units and rebalanced quite a bit. Will there be audience participation? Yes, first we will choose a side and then I will let you come up with strategic emphases and throw down decisions when there is a real decision. I will not ask for advice on every front every turn. I will also let you advise on production priorities and yes, you can name the units so we do that when we get going. What will be the time scale? I plan to do an in-game month every update to start. So: First Choices  I will be giving the AI Privileged Status giving it some bonuses. Central Powers - This gives us control of Austria-Hungary at first and then we quickly add Germany. Eventually we get the Ottomans and probably the Bulgarians. The Central Powers have more diversity in their strategic emphasis and can most easily switch troops between fronts. They are the underdog in the naval war and have to snipe away if they want to win it. The Germans start with a tech advantage on the ground and with a lot of their naval units. They also have more progress at start in advancing to armed fighter planes. They start as the aggressors but that can end quickly when the trenches get dug. Entente Allies - Start with the Serbians and quickly gain the French, British, and Russians. Eventually gain the Romanians and Portuguese and sometimes the USA depending on how aggressive the German sub war is. Normally they get Italy too but I find the AI has a harder time playing the Central Powers so if we choose the Entente I will declare war on Italy (representing the Italians honoring their original alliance) to keep the game challenging and more interesting. The British have a naval tech edge but French, British, and Russian ground troops fight at a disadvantage. They need to defend their convoy lines and start out on the strategic defensive on most fronts. Both are entertaining in different ways. Also, I cannot promise I will win. I probably will but I have also lost before. Plus if you give me terrible instructions who knows? So, do we defend Serbia from decadent Austro-Hungarians or do we cross the mountains and teach those upstart Serbians not to shoot at our nobility? Also:  Pretty Pictures of Units?  Maximum Wargamer? Will start the game tomorrow afternoon and will close the voting when I am ready to start on the update. Xenocides fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 01:48
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Reserved
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Oct 24, 2016 01:50
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I am not very good at this but SERBIAN CLAY
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Oct 24, 2016 03:09
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Smashing the Hun is always in style, and I can't pass the chance to show up Haig. Entente
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Oct 24, 2016 03:12
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Let's play the Entente, it's probably going to be more challenging this way.
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Oct 24, 2016 03:46
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I'll counter with a vote for The Central Powers. Especially if the AI can't handle them well to begin with.
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Oct 24, 2016 03:54
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Central Powers, because the world would probably be a better place if they'd won.
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Oct 24, 2016 04:21
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Central Powers!
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Oct 24, 2016 04:26
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Central Powers, the AI is terrible with them - I have encircled the entire western front by October 1914 before and been in Berlin by 1915. Also voting for counters over sprites.
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Oct 24, 2016 07:19
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Central Powers and pretty soldiers please.
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Oct 24, 2016 07:24
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We will Haig together as the Entente or we will Hague apart. Anachronistic jokes aside I think I prefer the wargame look.
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Oct 24, 2016 09:09
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Central Powers. We have the far superior headgear with our awesome pickelhaubes! We shall strike terror into the hearts of the belligerent Entente! Feel like the CP get more fun - we have a two front war, the dead men of Europe as our allies, and have th eworld against us.
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Oct 24, 2016 11:38
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Central Wargamers, I must vote for them as Deutschbag.
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Oct 24, 2016 12:18
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Xenocides posted:Commander: The Great War Missing a sentence here. Also, Central Powers and Pretty Pictures. It's not so hard to distinguish between the units in this game, and it fits far better combined with the rest of the visual presentation.
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Oct 24, 2016 13:38
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Central powers because I hear if you can keep Germany viable for 20 years you get to start occult research. Also, pictures of units, these are digital fathers, brothers, and sons with digital parents, wives, and children who digitally care for them, not merely digital numbers on a digital map
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Oct 24, 2016 13:58
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Central Powers
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Oct 24, 2016 14:25
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Central Powers and pretty sprites please
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Oct 24, 2016 14:41
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Central Powers with Pretty Pictures.
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Oct 24, 2016 14:41
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If the counters were true bah-gawd decent looking NATO counters, I would say counters. But they're really unattractive. Pretty Pictures and Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser.
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Oct 24, 2016 15:16
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Nuramor posted:Missing a sentence here. Thanks, removed.
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Oct 24, 2016 15:21
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Central Powers with Pretty Sprites
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Oct 24, 2016 16:21
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I'd say Entente because we've already seen the Central Powers. But definitely go Pretty pictures, because they're actually more informative than the icons.
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Oct 24, 2016 17:40
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Okay, looks like the Central Powers win as do pretty sprites. So put on your pith helmets. First short update coming and then we can set some war plans. Xenocides fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 23:01
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Xenocides thanks for doing this LP. I have never won at this game ever. It is almost certainly because I am bad at it and likely not aggressive enough but as you are playing as the Central Powers who I usually play as it will be nice to see what you do. Also just to show how bad I am I have never even beaten Serbia with AH.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:50
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I don't really care who we play as, but I would like to see some Pretty Pictures. I really enjoyed that last lp of this game on SA, so I hope this one will be fun as well.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:29
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Turn 1: As the game begins it gives a brief intro in four parts: The Serbian enemy is ill-equipped but battle-hardened from the Balkan Wars and has taken up positions in mountainous terrain. While our Austrian army has numberic superiority, reinforcements will soon be needed in the east to meet the threat of a Russian invasion. Germany is expected to begin an attack on France very soon. Both nations are gathering forces near their mutual border but the Germans intend to bypass enemy positions by sweeping through Belgium. The Russian Empire has access to huge manpower reserves but its mobilization is expected to be slow. Even so, fresh German and Austrian armies will soon be required on the Eastern Front. The Central Powers are thus aiming for a quick victory in Serbia and France, so that they can turn their attention to Russia: Paris for lunch, with dinner in St. Petersburg. Okay, we have three infantry armies poised to hit the Serbians and garrisons in Cattaro and Sarajevo.  You can tell the difference by the number of men in the sprite. Five are infantry and three means it is a garrison. Garrisons take half as long to build and half as much in build cost and maintenance and are about half as effective on offense and defense. I tend to disband a lot of them and replace them with infantry. The one man units you see are small garrisons. You cannot build more of these. They are very weak and their only real use is slowing a lone enemy unit running behind your lines and grabbing a city alone. They can also beat up on out of supply units. Other then that I basically never use them to attack. If you have not played the game in a long time and do not recognize them they were a unit added in later.  Serbia. The Serbians have a garrison unit out in front, unfortified. We will smack it hard. One Serbian disadvantage is that their biggest production city (number in parentheses) is Belgrade which is right on the border. Taking it will hurt them badly. Even attacking a city temporarily lowers its production (and production takes quite a while to heal. Belgrade and Skopje are capitols as shown by being stars. To be in full supply you have to trace supply to a capitol city (friendly or captured) within a large range (100 hexes or something). In most cases just having a path is enough as you are rarely far enough away that distance matters. If you can only trace to a city or fort (friendly or captured) you are at half supply and the unit is weaker. If you cannot trace to anything you are out of supply and will slowly die off and are probably dog meat unless you get supply fast. If you are on the coast and have a friendly ship adjacent to you you can also get full supply. Circles denote cities that give PP (production points). Forts are hexagons instead of circles. They also give PP but also have stronger defenses. Cetinje is a fort and will be a pain to take. May want to screen it and take Skopje first to knock out supply. New units can be placed adjacent to or in any capitol, city, or fort as long as that hex is not adjacent to an enemy unit.  The rest of Austria-Hungary. Here we have cavalry, artillery, and our air force next to Budapest and an array of infantry and garrisons around Vienna and near the Russian border in the unlikely event they decide to intevene. Fighters are currently unarmed so their main role is scouting. You can use them to try to drop efficiency ratings on enemy units but this will be a small drop until we have guns. Once we get guns we can also intercept and shoot enemy fighters.  A high level view of the war. In the bottom left are our current stats by nation (only Austria-Hungary at the moment). The factory icon indicates how many PP we have available. 42, enough for a pair of new infantry units. The number under the little mans shows our manpower reserves. When it gets low enough economic production starts to drop. Eventually it starts impacting unit quality if it falls low enough. The number with the bullets shows our artillery reserves. Each shot take a number of those equal to the strength of the artillery unit. So a full-strength 10 artillery unit will eat up 10 of these each time it fires. After that is the train. We have one strategic move. We can move one unit adjacent to a city along the tracks to another hex adjacent to a friendly city. After that is the anchor. It shows how many ground units can be moved on a transport at a time. We can ship one unit at a time. Not much call for it against Serbia. Finally we have the morale percentage. When this drops low due to losing cities and battleships or manpower depletion the nation may surrender.  In our ports we have our mighty navy. The game has five different naval units and we have one each of four of them. The unit up North is our Dreadnought unit, our strongest unit. We take a serious morale hit if we lose one of these. Down in Split we have our obsolete group of pre-Dreadnoughts. Wannabe battleships. They are not very good but they are better then nothing. In Cattaro we have our armored cruisers. Also decent but nothing to be excited about. Pre-dreadnoughts and armored cruisers cannot be built and have no upgrades while Dreadnoughts and Light Cruisers can get upgrades. This means the older units tend to get less and less useful as the game goes on. At some point we may want to consider disbanding them (not sure if that means scrapping or maybe selling to some nation of suckers). Finally we have our submarine fleet. These function as good scouts and if France or Britain try anything they can give early warning. They can also be used to interdict and scout for Med shipping. Submarines cannot be seen by the enemy. They appear only on a turn after they have attacked and even then can only be attacked by units that started the turn adjacent to the attacking sub.  The production screen. We can build most units. We do not have the tech to build armored cars, tanks, the railroad gun, or bombers. Some nations are restricted in what units they can buy (if you dream of hordes of Ottoman zeppelins or fleets of Bulgarian dreadnoughts then you will be disappointed). Germany, Austro-Hungary, Britain, France, the USA, Italy, and Russia all have access to all units or at least can develop the tech to build all these units.  On the other tab in production we have the available leaders. Leaders can be attached to a unit to give it bonuses. To get our first general we have to inflict and take 5 casualties in ground combat. To get Admiral Haus we have to inflict 5 naval hits with naval units. To get our first ace we have to inflict a lot of air kills with air units (this will be a while).  Research. The game slowly unlocks research. There are five categories. Every nation starts with 1 lab for every category they are allowed to research but do not have to pay upkeep on it until it 'turns on'. Austro-Hungary has a lab each in Infantry tech, artillery tech, naval tech, air tech, and vehicle tech. They unlock on the turn displayed next to the hourglass so on Turn 4 we can start on artillery tech and will get our last lab on Turn 14 when we can start researching vehicles. Right now we have three techs available with various levels . From top to bottom Industrial Warfare, Anti-air defense, and barbed wire. The first upgrades infantry and garrison units with offensive and defensive improvements, the second constantly ups anti-air, and the last increases our maximum level of entrenchment. Units entrench as they stay in one position for a while. The bars show progress. We start with a little research on Industrial Warfare and almost none on the other two. Down below it shows how many turns away each tech is assuming nothing changes. Each lab generates research that is split between all the techs in that category. You cannot shut off a tech. You can choose to focus on a tech which increases the speed of that tech by taking research points from the other techs in the category. There are two unlockable techs at the bottom. These kick in when certain units are used (one is protection from chemical weapons and can't be researched until they are used and the other is for anti-tank weapons which you cannot research until there is a tank attack). You can buy more labs but they get progressively more expensive for each lab built. They also cost 1 PP per turn for each lab in operation.  Diplomacy is pretty simple in this game. Most nations appear on a schedule though there is some variety in later entries. France, Belgium, and Germany will join in two turns, Britain 3, Russia 4, and the Ottomans and Italy will join later but the exact timing is slightly random. You can also declare war on neutral powers but not in the first five turns of the game. This can throw other powers into joining the war. In theory we could declare war on the US or even the Ottomans on Turn 6. I might use this to bring in other nations if the game is going too well and it needs spicing up.  Finally, the management screen. The finances in top right shows we produce 76 PP a turn and spend 58 PP on unit maintenance and 1 PP on our lab. We can expect 17 PP a turn for spending unless something changes. One thing to note that was added into the game in later builds is 76 is not the full PP total for all our cities. War preparation starts at a percentage of full production and ramps up so production will increase for a short while and quickly get to 100%. This screen also allows you to upgrade ammo production, strategic rail movement, and naval transport. We will probably need to ramp up artillery shell production at some point as it currently takes 2.5 turns to get one full artillery attack. I doubt we will need more trains or naval transport especially since upgrading our trains would cost 120 PP and getting another naval move 90 PP. That is more then an 80 PP dreadnought. So, we are going to hit the Serbians now and start producing more Infantry. Generally you want to wait until after you construct enough infantry for a battle line before building auxiliary units like more air, ships, and artillery. So on to some policy decisions:  Voting1. Research Priorities - What, if any, research should we focus on? A: Industrial Warfare "We need more advanced defensive weapons before we can build better weapons of offensive warfare. This will give us the defensive strength we need to hold the ground we take when blasting our way into Serbia and dealing with the Russians should they intervene." B. Barbed Wire "The Russians are mobilizing. We need to develop better fixed defensive fortifications to form a stable line against them as quickly as possible. Our fortifications need to become impervious to attack before we pursue other priorities. Besides, I am assured this will be the quickest improvement possible." C. Balanced, do not Focus "A balanced approach to developing our army is best. Slow and steady wins the race." And I hate you if you want me to build anti-air tech in an era where no one has armed airplanes and the Serbians do not have any and cannot build any. 2. Strategic Alignment - Focus on attacking the Serbians or on building up on the Russian front? A. Serbia First "They shot the Archduke and we need to hit them hard and fast. A quick defeat or at least general weakening of the Serbians will let us redeploy forces to other fronts and the captured territory will fuel our war effort if the Russians intervene. Put basic defenses on the Russian border and move our best units to the Serbian front immediately." B. Russia First "The great Russian bear waits to the North and the German army is mobilizing to the west and will be slow to aid us. We need to contain the Serbians and build on the Russian border so we can hold well and even attack while waiting for the Germans to come assist us. 3. Army Composition - Disband garrisons to build more full infantry armies or keep them around? A. Disband Garrisons "All non-essential garrison formations should be disbanded. These small formations are unlikely to prove useful on the attack or in holding a good defensive line. Disbanding these units and using their equipment to replace them with full Infantry armies will reaffirm our place as a great power and allow us to defeat our enemies. We need quality troops to break into the mountains of Serbia and across the great expanse of Russia." B. Keep Garrisons "Are you mad? We are at war. Yes, build these armies but that will take time. Send the garrisons to the front. We need everything we can get in order to win. We need quantity as well as quality to overwhelm our enemies." 4. Naval Plans - How adventurous should our fleet be? A. Defend Adriatic "The navy is most useful as a deterrent by maintaining a fleet-in-being. They should patrol the Adriatic and our submarines can sport any adventurism from the western powers looking to send reinforcements to Serbia and we can hit those. Any further action risks the fleet unnecessarily." B. Contest the Med "A purely defensive posture cedes the Med to our enemies allowing them to operate with impunity. We need to take risks and look for any British or French task forces we can hit and sink resources the British sends through Suez. Now, we will not rush headlong into superior numbers but a policy of judicious engagement will keep our enemies off-balance.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:56
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1: B 2: A - Serbia can't be a thorn if we conquer them 3: A - If garrisons don't or can't attack, we can't pioneer the blitzkrieg doctrine two decades early 4: B - Controlling the Mediterranean is the first step to launching a land invasion of the US mercenarynuker fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 03:10
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1: A 2: A 3: B 4: B
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Oct 25, 2016 03:41
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1B 2A 3A 4B While I won't agree with adventurism that far, ceding the Mediterranean without even attempting interdiction seems like a bad idea. Can't give the enemy full control of the flow of battle after all. That said, garrisons seems absolutely useless. Might as well get rid of them in a way that you keep the supplies. Put them to use in a more efficient manner. Zebrin fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 04:35
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A A A B Maximum aggressive posture SIR
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Oct 25, 2016 05:01
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Research Industrial Warfare The Russians will come at us in endless waves, we need to hurt them as hard as they can. Vote for strategic focus on Serbia. They have a veteran army but little ability to replace casualties. If we clear them out it is one less front to have to focus on. The faster we grind down the Serbs, the faster we can put our entire Army on one front and generally have a single line. We're not going to knock the Russians out early, what we can do is make them bleed. Voting for Keep Garrisons. Prefer to replace them in time but not all at once. Vote for putting garrisons along the Russian border to act as speedbumps if the Russians attack. As the war goes on we can switch them for better, but now best to have something fiarly replacable to slow down the Russians if they do hit us hard early rather than focus on replacing them right as we're delaing with an infinite army surging. Prefer slow phasing out of them as we have the ability to and for now focusing them along the Russian border while our main armies sweep through Serbia. Vote for Defend the Adriatic. Our navy, quite frankly, is bad. And will likely not get better. It serve a use as a fleet in being but will be mauled in a serious engagement. For now I think we should use ti to blockade Serbia and if psosible bombard the Serbian units or cities. The only folks we're going to run into early in the Med are the French, or worse the British. And if we face tiehr in a serious engagement we will lose our Navy and our means of defending our coast, which means we have to put more units to defending it with little to gain. So vote for the strategic plan of going on defensive on the Russian front, trying to take out the Serbs as quickly as we can and defending ourselves otherwise and not getting too adventurous.
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Oct 25, 2016 05:18
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AABA Garrisons are actually very useful to hold spaces on the line - particularly on the long Russian front - and can dig fortifications that other units can occupy and hold a section of the front temporarily to let an infantry unit rest. You don't want to be attacking with them often but they are far from worthless when used correctly. Their 2 turn build time also makes them good emergency reinforcements if a front is at risk of collapse. The Austrian navy is hilariously outclassed by the French and British outside of the Adriatic but can get good results with the home waters bonus. We also want to interdict Entente reinforcements shipping to Serbia. Serbia is a huge pain in the rear end that you want to eliminate as soon as possible, especially before Italy joins in 1915. The Austrian section of the Eastern front just needs to hold the line for most of 1914. The Germans are capable of halting the Russian advance and even beginning counterattacks.
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Oct 25, 2016 07:31
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1A 2A 3B 4A Mentally rename garrisons to engineer units.
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Oct 25, 2016 09:47
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I agree with A A A B
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Oct 25, 2016 11:01
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Serbia First. Once they are crushed we can move troops up to handle the Russians. Premissel and Lemburg are not worth defending against the horde until then- focus on Krakow and containment. Keep Garrisons. at least until we truly need to replace losses. Defend Adriatic. Our navy sucks and contesting the Mediterranean will just get it sunk. Where's Albania on the list of neutrals?
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Oct 25, 2016 11:22
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A A B B
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Oct 25, 2016 12:32
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Kavak posted:Where's Albania on the list of neutrals? Look at the screenshots. Serbia annexed them sometime before the war started. Also, AABA.
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Oct 25, 2016 12:57
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I guess they're folding them in as one country. How do supply convoys work without a port?
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Oct 25, 2016 13:05
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A A B A
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Oct 25, 2016 15:20
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A A B B
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Oct 25, 2016 16:17
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