old Potzblitz thread (discontinued)

[Robotron]

@nehi: you neither provided a logfile of your game for me to look into nor comments about how your game went nor comments about how the mod could be improved for singleplayers.
What exactly is the point you are trying to make?

[nehi]

just i didnt met any problem with german morale, even i went eastern way first today

but i met some new events, something like big fish or just question, if im still enjoying the game

logs didnt survive checking mp lobby

[majpalmer]

To all.

I haven't lost interest in this Mod. I'm off to Vegas for a few days.

I'll actually miss it.

Mike

[Moreau]

Still enjoying this mod

[Robotron]

Had a few more testgames that left me with several pages full of notes I''ll try to implement into 2.7, including all the requests from you guys as far as I can manage to script them in.
I'll also try to fit in a somewhat "crazy" chain of events after a quick surrender of France in 1914/15 after seeing nehi had managed to do so. These might lead to stuff like a desperate British invasion in Flanders/the Netherlands or even Admiral Fisher's nutjob "Baltic Project" among other things.
V2.7 will also hopefully include the long-promised PDF detailing the events.

Also fellow forum member satchel has kindly agreed to let me include his fine roundels and unit markers into further Potzblitz updates. A triple hoorray for him!

Cheers!

[majpalmer]

Super!

[Zombo]

2.7! 2.7!

now I'm drooling

[Zombo]

oh, btw...

due you intend to deliver that 2.7 anytime soon or is it just a project

(translation: should I wait for it before embarking on a big multiplayer campaign or should I stick to the current version for a while?)

[Robotron]

Zombo, I'll try to do my best to get this done within the next few days.

[Zombo]

Hey, I don't mean to pressure you or anything

I was just asking

[Robotron]

@all:
I'm pondering on whether it would be good to reduce small garrisons to a maximum unit strength of 5. The notion behind the idea is that in my opinion small garrisons in fortifications/entrenchments need an inordinate amount of force to get destroyed and for reasons unknown almost never retreat. I tried reducing the stats for base defense but that did not work as intended.

What do you guys think about the idea? Is there anyone who relies on his small garrisons for defense (no, stupid AI, I'm not talking to you!)?

[cwaters23]

Robo, I think the reduction in small garrison strength is a great idea for exactly the reasons you noted. As it is now, they are way too effective as frontline stopgaps because of the non-retreating issue, and the free replenishment with no impact on national manpower makes them even more valuable when they are deployed in fortresses or high-level entrenchments in positions where they only have one hexside of contact with the enemy.

As a caveat, though, some areas may become too easy to overrun at the outset of hostilities with a strength of only 5. Cetinje, Lötzen, Czernowitz, and Verdun come to mind. Reducing SG strength to just 5 might require the addition of a few extra SGs as frontier buffers in spots, kind of like how you had added the one just north of Lötzen as a means of toning down the impact of the initial Russian advance into East Prussia. Definitely worth testing with 5, but maybe consider either bumping it up a few points, or add in a few extra SGs as frontier guards around key weak points just to slow down initial advances by one or two attacks.

[nehi]

i would let germans at least small garrisons, now they are forced just to hold russians, whats the point of making it even more tough?

[cwaters23]

Just thought of something... isn't there a variable that can be set for the amount that can be repaired per unit type per turn? If I recall, dreadnoughts can only repair one point per turn, though everything else seems to be three if stationary. If there's a way to make the Small Garrison unit type only reparable at the dreadnought rate, that would be a way to make sure they eventually get worn down and probably don't last much into 1915.

[Zombo]

I don't mind the small garrisons being used as defense ( they're not very strong) but I do mind the fact that they are replenished for free

[TripleCP]

Definitely worth testing 5 strength Small Garrisons, which as I understand them were intended as little more than as a home guard force. Re: nehi's concerns, the Germans should probably start with standard Garrisons in Posen and their other towns, as there was a Landwehr Corps deployed there which was strong enough to advance to Radom to cover the Austrian left flank during their advance into Poland at the start of the war and took part in German offensive operations later in the war. Likewise, Cetinje ought to start with a full garrison (basically the Montenegrin Army).

In general, the Russians are too strong and the Central Powers are too weak on the Eastern at the start. Austria had three and a half field armies (and could have had four if Conrad hadn't kept changing his mind about whether to deploy the Second Army to Serbia or Galicia at the outset), plus a strong corps sized force covering Krakow. The Russians had very few forces west of Warsaw, with the four field armies designated for the Galician front spread out from Lublin to Vinnitsa. Also, the Russian advantage vs the germans in East Prussia was more on the order of 3 to 2 rather than 2 to 1 or 3 or 1 as is often implied, because the Germans bolstered their field army forces with reservists and heavy artillery from their fortresses while the Russians actually sent most of there reservist forces to reinforce fortresses such as Kovno, Grodno, etc. and hoarded nearly all of their heavy guns there (where they were captured in 1915). In fairness to the senior Russian generals, their reservists were considered much lower quality than the German reservists (who were considered nearly the equal of front-line troops) and sending them into East Prussia would have only further complicated the Russian Army's supply problems. Even though Rennenkampf technically won the Battle of Gumbinnen, for example, his subordinate generals actually advised him to withdraw for reasons of supply.

Russia often winds up with the best kill ratio in both my Entente and Central Powers games, which seems off. As the Entente, I'm able to mobilize large armies while also investing in labs and ammo expansion. The Russian staff general turned historian Nikolai Golovin estimated that Russia could only field one division per 1.5 million citizens, whereas in Germany and France the ratio was one division for every 500,000 citizens. Only the Supply Crisis slows Russia down at all.

Some possible suggestions:
1. Replace or augment the three Small Garrisons of Posen, Breslau, and Kattowitz with full Garrisons to represent the Landwehr Corps.
2. Add the German fortress of Thorn two hexes NE of Posen.
3. Make Lemberg a fortress town (as it is in Strategic Command: WWI)
4. Reduce Russian forces in Novo-Gregorievsk and Radom to Small Garrisons.
5. Weaken the Russian forces around Rennenkampf and Samsonov to represent the fact their armies (neither of which had their rear services in place when they advanced) were further depleted to garrison fortresses and the Baltic coast. Samsonov ought to lose at least one Garrison and Rennenkampf should only have one full Infantry unit rather than two. Maybe have a low-chance event whereby neither is required to provide garrisons for fortresses and keeps their current strength.
6. Revove the garrison from Lublin and place the westernmost Russian Infantry (representing the Russian Fourth Army) there instead. Spread out three more Russian Infantry units between it and Vinnitsa (representing the Russian Eighth Army (Brusilov)). If Infantry unit = field army, Russia has one too many on the Galician Front while Austria has one too few.
7. Increase starting Austrian Infantry units in Galicia to three and add Generals Dankl and/or Auffenberg for the Austrians so that their starting forces are more viable.
8. Add Austrian General Kusmanek to whichever unit is garrisoning Przemysl when it is attacked/besieged. Should have high defensive stats to allow Przemysl to withstand a prolonged siege (as historically).
9. Excepting "Russian Surprise Attack" event, give the Central Powers the initiative in the East if possible. Historically, the Austrians struck first in Galicia and the Germans (General von Francois) advanced to meet the Russians at the border.
10. Place a German Fortress NE of Konigsberg, which was a heavily fortified city (or change Konigsberg to a high PP Fortress). German contingency plans for evacuating East Prussia (which Prittwitz considered implementing) were based on the justified that the Konigsberg fortifications could withstand a prolonged siege (especially with sea resupply).

General/Western Front issues:
Germany may need a Western capital. I've had a couple Entente games where it seems like both they and Austria just decide to migrate East once the CP loses Brussels. The Anglo-French forces basically walked into Berlin and Vienna while the CP was pushing hard in the Balkans.
Have you ever tried placing a neutral strip of land on the Franco-Italian border to stop the French Army from taking an Alpine vacation once Italy declares war? Maybe have a French and/or British expeditionary force spawn in Italy once they join the Entente or the "German Boots in Italy" takes place, but otherwise it seems like sealing the border could do more good for gameplay than harm (unless they all just get on boats and head to Italy anyway).
Garrisons seems a little too mobile and offensively capable to me. They currently have more movement points than Infantry, which I guess is due to fewer heavy weapons. At the same time, though, reservists generally could not march and fight like front-line troops. Dennis Showalter's book on Tannenberg makes the case that the German reservists gave such a good account of themselves in East Prussia precisely because they were given more rest time and were commanded by less aggressively oriented officers.
Fighters probably ought to have their efficiency reducing attacks removed until very late game and/or ground units ought to have their base AA increased considerably. Pilots flying low enough to strafe ground troops are low enough to get peppered with rifle fire.
Overall, playing as Central Powers seems like a grind even when I'm doing well. Challenging, I guess, but it sometimes seems more depressing than fun to be honest. I find myself having to try stuff like gaming the AI by leaving a hole in my lines and keeping Brussels uncovered to try to lure excess French forces into an encirclement in order to keep pace, and that's after capturing Paris.

[Robotron]

Phew, what a comment! This is just great and thanks A LOT for writing such a comprehensive analysis! However I'm not a great fan of following the historic setup as the way the game works just can't lead to the same outcome or even balanced gameplay considering singleplayer is totally different to multiplayer. Since I have no interest (and time!) in doing two versions of my mod for both variants, compromises must be taken.
So, let's check the points you made in duly detail.

1.

the Germans should probably start with standard Garrisons in Posen and their other towns, as there was a Landwehr Corps deployed there which was strong enough to advance to Radom to cover the Austrian left flank during their advance into Poland

Agreed. With the introduction of unit strength 5 small garrisons I will put normal garrisons into Kattowitz, Breslau and Posen.

2.

Cetinje ought to start with a full garrison (basically the Montenegrin Army)

Agreed. Good point.

3.

The Russians had very few forces west of Warsaw

So does my mod (duh!). But I believe I should include the city of Lodz defended by a garrison, especially when there are now three new Landwehr garrisons on the German side.

4.

Austria had (...) a strong corps sized force covering Krakow

Maybe I'll add a second garrison but definitely no infantry as that would make an early assault on Warsaw much too easy.

5.

Replace or augment the three Small Garrisons of Posen, Breslau, and Kattowitz with full Garrisons to represent the Landwehr Corps.

Okay, maybe I'll let them start with less than max strength in case of a Russian Surprise.

6.

Russia often winds up with the best kill ratio in both my Entente and Central Powers games, which seems off

This I can't confirm. In my games Russia usually ends up with a kill/casualities ratio of about 0.7 and almost always less than 1.0. AH and Germany easily fare better with ratios about 1.2 (AH) and 1.8 (Germany).

7.

Add the German fortress of Thorn two hexes NE of Posen.

Good idea, wanted to implement Thorn anyway. A small garrison should suffice here,

8.

Make Lemberg a fortress town (as it is in Strategic Command: WWI)

No way, this would render an invasion of Galicia completely impossible and make Lemberg a second Przemysl.

9.

Reduce Russian forces in Novo-Gregorievsk and Radom to Small Garrisons.

Okay, let's try that out.

10.

Weaken the Russian forces around Rennenkampf and Samsonov to represent the fact their armies (neither of which had their rear services in place when they advanced) were further depleted to garrison fortresses and the Baltic coast
Samsonov ought to lose at least one Garrison and Rennenkampf should only have one full Infantry unit rather than two. Maybe have a low-chance event whereby neither is required to provide garrisons for fortresses and keeps their current strength.

Agree about Samsonov, disagree about Rennenkampf. The First Masurian Lake battle saw Russia with about 300.000 to half a million troops, that should easily represent two infantry.

11.

Revove the garrison from Lublin and place the westernmost Russian Infantry (representing the Russian Fourth Army) there instead. Spread out three more Russian Infantry units between it and Vinnitsa (representing the Russian Eighth Army (Brusilov)). If Infantry unit = field army, Russia has one too many on the Galician Front while Austria has one too few.

Please provide exakt hex coordinates where you think the units of the Russian 8th should be placed (hex coordinates are displayed above turn date).

12.

Increase starting Austrian Infantry units in Galicia to three and add Generals Dankl and/or Auffenberg for the Austrians so that their starting forces are more viable.

Okay, these will have a command radius of 1 and rather average stats. I think delaying the next AH generals will be in order to prevent a deluge of AH generals.

13.

Add Austrian General Kusmanek to whichever unit is garrisoning Przemysl when it is attacked/besieged. Should have high defensive stats to allow Przemysl to withstand a prolonged siege (as historically).

I'll attach him to the unit defending Przemysl once it is cut off. He will be removed from game once Przemysl is conquered by Russia or Galicia is retaken by CP.

14.

Excepting "Russian Surprise Attack" event, give the Central Powers the initiative in the East if possible. Historically, the Austrians struck first in Galicia and the Germans (General von Francois) advanced to meet the Russians at the border.

Sadly this is not possible without giving Germany the possibility of taking the initiative too.

15.

Place a German Fortress NE of Konigsberg, which was a heavily fortified city (or change Konigsberg to a high PP Fortress). German contingency plans for evacuating East Prussia (which Prittwitz considered implementing) were based on the justified that the Konigsberg fortifications could withstand a prolonged siege (especially with sea resupply).

I can't make Königsberg a fortress since a fortress should not have a port or else the game might crash. Placing a fortress NW of Königsbergs is better, but I might think about thinnig out German troops in East Prussia to compensate.

16.

Germany may need a Western capital. I've had a couple Entente games where it seems like both they and Austria just decide to migrate East once the CP loses Brussels. The Anglo-French forces basically walked into Berlin and Vienna while the CP was pushing hard in the Balkans.

Let's make Dortmund a "capital" then since its the center of the Ruhrgebiet, the main German industrial zone. However I doubt his will make a great difference to the AIs mad dash for the Balkans. I suspect the AI "has been told" to get to Tirana, the second Serbian capital to force a Serbian surrender. Making Tirana a normal city might solve that problem of too many CP units moving that way. But then again Serbia could build no more units after Belgrade has fallen.

17.

Have you ever tried placing a neutral strip of land on the Franco-Italian border to stop the French Army from taking an Alpine vacation once Italy declares war? Maybe have a French and/or British expeditionary force spawn in Italy once they join the Entente or the "German Boots in Italy" takes place, but otherwise it seems like sealing the border could do more good for gameplay than harm (unless they all just get on boats and head to Italy anyway).

In CTGW there is no possibility to assign a true "neutral" (as in: belonging to nobody) status to hexes. Every hex has to belong to a nation. There is however a class called "impassable" and I will experiment whether this could be put to use. Barring that the only solution I see is to allow a rather unrealistic extension of Switzerland to the Mediterranean Sea, blocking the railway used to transport Entente units into Italy. If I could only find a way to stop the AI cheating with its rail transport capacity (AI can use as many rail moves as it wants!) the whole problem would be solved instantly.


18.

Garrisons seems a little too mobile and offensively capable to me. They currently have more movement points than Infantry

Unsure here, I'll reduce ground attack and movement points by 1 each for testing purposes.

19.

Fighters probably ought to have their efficiency reducing attacks removed until very late game and/or ground units ought to have their base AA increased considerably. Pilots flying low enough to strafe ground troops are low enough to get peppered with rifle fire.

I'll reduce the shock value of starting fighters from 2 to 1 and boost later techs accordingly.

20.

Overall, playing as Central Powers seems like a grind even when I'm doing well. Challenging, I guess, but it sometimes seems more depressing than fun to be honest.

What can I say, this is WW1, not WW2 Blitzkrieg.

21.

I find myself having to try stuff like gaming the AI by leaving a hole in my lines and keeping Brussels uncovered to try to lure excess French forces into an encirclement in order to keep pace, and that's after capturing Paris

So, when do you usually capture Paris?



Again, thanks a bunch for your proposals, you surely gave me a lot to think about!

Cheers!

[nehi]

i still dont see point of making next unit useless

whats wrong when infantry can hold 3 enemies, garrison 2 and sg 1?

sg with 5/10 can be instant killed by infatry, u cant relly on it in any situation = useless

remove/replace them or let em as they are (good point is sg should consume manpower when refilled)

[TripleCP]

Small Garrisons were always problematic because they weren't in the original game but were only added later in response to Cavalry, Armored Cars, etc. capturing unguarded cities, not to stand their ground against one or more armies. I don't know if there's any way to have them cost manpower to replenish without them also having it so that manpower (and production?) is decreased if disbanded, which gives a big advantage to countries like Russia which doesn't really need most of theirs.

Even if they are often instant killed by Infantry, that does use up that units attack for a turn (representing two weeks' or one month's worth of combat operations to overcome something intended to be little more than a glorified police force).

[satchel]

Robotron,

I am having difficulties with the PM system, and I am not confident that the messages I've sent you have gone through.

My answers to all your questions are affirmative, please go ahead and do as you proposed.

Thanks very much for Potzblitz, and for all you've done for the community!