good game !

[romainpek]

I’m having a very good time playing CTGW as the Central Powers (Single Player, balanced AI)

At the beginning in 1914, I decided to go mostly for a Western Strategy with the German, leaving a minimum of troops on the Eastern borders. The Austrian likewise decided to go full blast against the Serbs and only raised a few garrison to hold Galicia against the soon to come Russian hordes.

This saw partial successes: Belgium was swallowed quickly but France held. The Serbs lost rather quickly Belgrade but took a while to be subdued. On the Eastern front, the Russian surrounded Koenigsberg and took Danzig and Posen.

The solution was to push against the Serbs relentlessly to free the Austrian army where it was most needed: north against the Russians!

Eventually, the Serbs surrendered in 1915, but after one or two turns, before the Austrian army could be moved to push back Russia, the Italian joined the allies ! The German already started to pour men on the Russia fire, hence the western front started to calm down.

The Russian started to roll back but Trieste was lost in the opening moves of the South Front. The Italian started to push North trying to take Trento that a few German garrison held. In the Near East, the British attacked Turkey that just joined the CP. The Turks quickly lost Gaza and Aqaba and tried to hold Jerusalem. In the Caucasus, they managed to grab a few Russian towns.

1916 was terrible for the CP. No progress on the Western Front, no success at all in the Submarine warfare, ground lost in terrible fights in the Alps where the allied pushed relentlessly, helped by artillery, airplanes and blimps (flying machines that the CP up to that point thought to be decorative more than useful). Also, the Turks only then realized that they did not fund any research lab in Infantry science, that could explain why the Brits were slowly conquering Palestine. The only ray of sunshine was that the Russian were really losing ground (Warsaw, Brest, Kovno, Vilna...). Bulgaria’s help was great to help patch holes in the Italian front and to try slowing down the Brits in the Near East, but Romania’s entry on the Entente side meant that most of their troops had to wait for that new front to open.

1917 started bleakly for the CP. Trento was taken in the Alps. Zagreb was shelled. The Russian lost Riga, Pskov, Vitebsk but still did not give up the fight. The Bulgarian and the Austrian started to kill Romanians, but Bucharest, even completely surrounded had no supply problems (it is a capital city).

In the Near East, The Brits took Beirut, Damascus and attacked my feeble Turkish defenses in Aleppo. The Arab troops that you saw in “Lawrence of Arabia” were roaming the desert in armored cars, the Russian even sent troops to the Caucasus to try to get me out of there.

Losses were staggering, National morale of CP countries sank to between 45 and 55, the only exception being Bulgaria that did not lose enough troops yet to wonder if it had been a good idea to join the war.

The Western front saw renewed action because I had most of my good German troops there while many of the French and British corps were busy fighting in Italy or the Middle East. So we took Calais, and even approached Paris with one infantry and a cavalry and tried a half-hearted attack against the French garrison that was barricaded in it but without artillery support. We decided to pull them back one hex to the East where we could shorten the frontline and benefit from the extensive network of trenches that were already dug.

That’s when the AI clearly made a mistake: seeing us pulling back, it replaced the French garrison that was still at 8 or so with a Portuguese one worth 4 and red colored (meaning that their efficiency was terribly low). The German army took it as an insult, turned back and took Paris, only to be left isolated around the Eiffel Tower as vigorous counterattacks destroyed the accompanying German troops on the wings.

Then, 3 things happened at the same time:

-One, Russia surrendered. In April 1917, I heard of a revolution going on there, in May, they asked for a cease-fire which I was only too glad to accept. Romania kept on fighting but would soon be swarmed. Hurrah ! I just have to move my few survivors from the Eastern Front up to Italy, the Middle East and the Western Front !

-Two, The allied trounced me in the west with 2 tank divisions. TANKS! These could blow-up a full unit every turn.

-Three, The Italian front started to collapse, with Allied troops going North and taking Trento and even Stuttgart.

Would I be able to save the Western, Southern and Middle-Eastern fronts with the disappearance of my Russian foes ?

A tense race went on, with Eastern CP troops rushing to help my crumbling lines everywhere. In Belgium, I lost Antwerp. In France, I lost Calais and Paris that was surrounded. In Germany, Italian troops jumped from Stuttgart to grab Frankfurt (!!?). In Turkey, a mix of Turkish and Bulgarian troops started to lay trenches in front of Adana.

And then the tide changed completely. I stabilized the Italian front, liberated Frankfurt and Stuttgart in Germany, fought back in the west and took back Antwerp and Calais. Verdun was conquered, as well as Dijon.

In the Middle East, a series of counterattacks saw the whole British army collapse around Antioch with helpless artillery and airplanes being destroyed by Turkish Infantry and Cavalry. In a few early 1918 months, the Ottoman Empire took back everything it had lost (except Medina towards which we are advancing) and conquered Cairo and Alexandria.

The same spring, with the help of a few artillery units, Austrian and German troops took back Trieste, then Venice, then overran massed artillery and airplanes units that were laying behind. Florence fell, then Torino, then Rome. Troops are rushing towards southern France aiming for Lyon and other cities.

Higher North, huge fights are going on. Paris was taken a second time by our troops, only to be retaken again by the allied. French troops are seldom seen, I heard of mutinies going on there, the lines are held by a mixture of Brits, Italian and even Portuguese.

My troops quality is falling to appalling levels (6 only ! They can never be “good health white”, they are at best “yellow not so good”).

I have 2 German Artillery and 2 Austrian ones but I chronically lack shells to shoot. I have also 2 German fighters and one German Bomber (quality 6 alas, as I formed this squadron when the best men were all long dead already…). Funny is that I already have an Austrian Ace doing paperwork in the Headquarter, as the Austrian Empire never invested in building an airplane. So he’s not flying.

Regarding the deadly allied tanks, we developed new technologies to fight them and I started investing into designing a German tank myself, but I don’t know if the research will be fast enough for me to launch my own panzers at the enemy before war’s end.

Now it is September 1918, it seems we’re going for victory, but who knows when the French will surrender…

[Myrddraal]

Funny is that I already have an Austrian Ace doing paperwork in the Headquarter, as the Austrian Empire never invested in building an airplane. So he’s not flying.

Hehehe, poor guy must be gutted. Sounds like a thrilling game.

[romainpek]

Alas in Septenber 1918, I saw the clock ticking, I was playing turn 114 out of 118...

So on turn 118 I took a few pictures of the front just in case...

Here is the Northern Western Front. Paris was not taken again by CP, but Lyon fell.

end west.jpg (243.86 KiB) Viewed 3689 times

Here is the South-West. Nice has just fallen, we're closing on Marseille

end south.jpg (162.87 KiB) Viewed 3689 times

The Italian boot has been totally conquered. I guess I should go for Sicily now, but neither the Austrian nor the Bulgarian have any troops transport barges and it is too late to invest in these. The German could go but they are not in the vicinity.

[romainpek]

Globally, here is my territory in pink. You can see how the Ottoman have reconquered the Est Med, including Tobruk and Benghazi.

end global.jpg (201.58 KiB) Viewed 3689 times

I also took a pic of the final reserves in men. See how Germany is depleted...

end figures.jpg (43.01 KiB) Viewed 3689 times

And then I clicked for next turn, knowing there would be no next turn...

[romainpek]

I then got a message saying the French wanted to surrender... I agreed!

No such message from the Italians, despite their territory was mine (while the French still owned most of France).

And the this sign showed up:

end title.jpg (146.11 KiB) Viewed 3688 times

And then nothing more, I was sent back to the game menu. I'll never know how many men did the allied lose, nor what was the national morale of the Brits and the Italians.

Still a very good game, but I wish we could see all the figures in details at the end.

ps: I was still playing the Beta version, maybe it's different in the retail game.

[stockwellpete]

Still a very good game, but I wish we could see all the figures in details at the end.

This is probably a mad idea but I do think players should get much more info at the end of the game. My idea is that once all the turns are played out you go to Versailles Peace Conference screen(s) and the result of all your fighting is translated into a new map of Europe to show gains and losses of territory (using the space bar to bring up the map of Europe in 1914 so we can compare the changes). Also we need some basic stats about personnel mobilised, losses of men and equipment etc. It would give the game a fitting finale and would be much better than the rather abrupt ending we have now.

Easy to say all this, I know. Would it be feasible to program?

[Smirfy]

I agree always love plenty of information at the end.

[Amaranthus]

Agree, since Age of Empires and earlier (anyone remember War of the Lance for the C64?), I've always loved the end-of-game casualty and economic summaries. This would be a great capstone to CTGW.

[romainpek]

Remember the old Civilization endings? We could see the world map changing colors with the timeline, graphs, histograms, showing all kinds of information. We need that also for CTGW

[vonOben]

This is probably a mad idea but I do think players should get much more info at the end of the game. My idea is that once all the turns are played out you go to Versailles Peace Conference screen(s) and the result of all your fighting is translated into a new map of Europe to show gains and losses of territory (using the space bar to bring up the map of Europe in 1914 so we can compare the changes). Also we need some basic stats about personnel mobilised, losses of men and equipment etc. It would give the game a fitting finale and would be much better than the rather abrupt ending we have now.

That is a good idea which I also would like to see implemented in CTGW!

The ending is very abrupt as it is now.

[stockwellpete]

This is probably a mad idea but I do think players should get much more info at the end of the game. My idea is that once all the turns are played out you go to Versailles Peace Conference screen(s) and the result of all your fighting is translated into a new map of Europe to show gains and losses of territory (using the space bar to bring up the map of Europe in 1914 so we can compare the changes). Also we need some basic stats about personnel mobilised, losses of men and equipment etc. It would give the game a fitting finale and would be much better than the rather abrupt ending we have now.

That is a good idea which I also would like to see implemented in CTGW!

The ending is very abrupt as it is now.

Yes, so if you were to take Romainpek's map at the top of the thread - I am not envisaging that in a final map all the red area would just become Greater Germany/Austria Hungary, but that the size of the military gains of the Central Powers would assume great importance in the game's "Versailles Conference" ending phase. So, looking at Romainpek's finishing positions, Russia would lose a lot of territory and so would Romania. Italy might be forced back to its 1914 borders, but it would lose all its imperial possessions in the Balkans/Aegean. France would not regain Alsace-Lorraine. Germany would make territorial gains in the east, but Poland would still emerge as an independent power, so would the Baltic states but they would be in the German sphere of influence. Bulgaria would be expanded. The Austro-Hungarian empire would survive, although Franz Joseph had died in 1916, and his successor, Karl, had plans for greater autonomy of the various nationalities within the Empire . . . and so on.

So the programming for this idea would have to take into consideration the historical war aims of all the contending powers of WW1 and then, depending on their relative success or failure during the game, calculate to what extent these may have been realised at Versailles in 1919. It would need a lot of thought and it might not be practicable at all - but if it was possible, then it would add a fascinating dimension to the game and greatly enhance replayability, I should think.

[romainpek]

The peace talks should be held in Charlottenburg Palace, instead of Versailles

[stockwellpete]

The peace talks should be held in Charlottenburg Palace, instead of Versailles

Just looked it up - yes, if the Central Powers are victorious then it should be where the post-war conference takes place . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottenburg_Palace

[romainpek]

The first (easy?) step to improve the end game would be to fully lift the FOg Of War so we could see wher the armies are on the map and allow the player to check all the data (research, management, etc) for all the countries whether they still fight or already surrendered.

Regarding the above suggestion to show the aftermath from Stockwellpete, it would be a fascinating subject, but maybe open to more discussions...

For my game aftermath, I would not see Poland be allowed to exist as the Germans would simply include its territory into the second reich. Romania would have been partitioned between Bulgaria and Austria. Serbia and Northern Italy would have been swallowed by the same Austria. France would have lost a bit of its eastern territory and Britain would have been more or less ok in the settlement, losing only Egypt to the Ottoman (who would have claimed Lybia as well). For Belgium, I don't know if it would have been allowed to exist, except as a kind of German protectorate.

[marklv]

Beligium would mostly have been annexed by Germany, with maybe the French speaking parts as an autonomous state. Poland would have been split with Austria-Hungary, with the latter taking most of it.

I'm currently playing as the CP in a game stating in 1914. Currently I'm in January 1917 and coping well - Romania has been thumped to death and Italy easily contained by the Austrians. Infact Austria is doing much better than Germany - Serbia conquered with a lot of help from Bulgaria and Romania steamrolled into submission. Western Ukraine has been conquered, including Kiev - I'm hoping Russia will ask for terms soon. Germany is struggling to hold the Western front and is still defensive against Russia - a poor performance. I'm finding that the low ammunition levels of Germany are really hampering artillery usage. I sold off the German navy once the Russian one had been destroyed and the British sub sunk - this helped to buy some emergency units - but the Western allies have an air force and I don't - too expensive. Turkey is completely useless as an ally - their only use is tying down some Brits in the desert. Bulgaria has been very useful in defeating Serbia and Romania but it's not rich or high in population.

My perception is that the game mechanics are good but there is no real reward in conquering a country. I should have received a massive boost in purchasing power once Serbia and Romania fell.

[romainpek]

The thing is that, in the real war, both Serbia and Romania surrendered but it did not improve dramatically the situation of the Central Powers