Potzblitz V26.01 OCT 26th 2025

[Unwichtig]

I'd very much appreciate some kind of general info about what is actually going on in multiplayer games as this is the kind of stuff that keeps my motivation up for modding this thing.
Seems the only ones playing are onpp & Trulster?

I ll be back soon. Was pretty inactive for 2 months now but I return to uk in few days with time to play.

I addition I know a few players, not many, that are waiting for the update as well.

I know that the players bolt, damient and me are waiting for it. So at least 3 more players will play it.
That's not a lot I know. I will write another first impression report on steam about it if you wish. That's done quickly just to advertise it a little more.

[Robotron]

Aha, thx for the breakdown. Then maybe these numbers should be halved? Also, how does unit recovery work, is it enough to have say one fighter attack to stop a unit from recovering effectiveness? That may be equally problematic, fighters can keep significant parts of the front line red.

Another thing, the Murmansk convoys are abstract right? There are no actual convoys sailing that can be attacked?

I'll leave the numbers but reduce the possible maximum of fighters instead.

About recovery being affected by fighter attacks: I could not yet find it in the scripts.

Murmansk convoys are abstract, because Murmansk is not on the map, but Britain's supply level will be reduced by 1 for the duration of the Russian supply Crisis.

[bastiaanbolt]

Keep it up! I Love the game! I dont do multiplayer that often, but it is a great experience as most players are more treacherous than the computer.

Baz

I'd very much appreciate some kind of general info about what is actually going on in multiplayer games as this is the kind of stuff that keeps my motivation up for modding this thing.
Seems the only ones playing are onpp & Trulster?

[trulster]

Thanks a lot for your efforts, looks as if the next update will be an amazing experience!

[LepetitKipetchi]

Hi everybody,

Sorry, I was pretty busy these last times...
I cannot react on all these new changes, they are too many but it looks awesome !
I really enjoy this idea to develop naval battles and to reduce the "air power". When you compare the power and the number of the air force with the infantry it was not so real and the map could be full of planes.
I would also be interested to test the multiplayer with the new version of the game : do you have an idea about when it could be ready ?
The ideas of Unwichtig to develop more "fantasy events" are pretty interesting : they are just an option so if you don't like, you can choose a historic way for your game and they can multiply the possibilities and even you play a lot, there is always a new opportunity that you have never tried and makes you play a new game (even if it is pretty late in the night haha).

I will try to participate more to your debates to improve this marvelous game next weeks.

Cheers

[Unwichtig]

Potzblitz is the best ww1 strategy game on the market.
I have no doubt about that.

It's a pitty it does not have a larger fan base.

The only reason I can think about why this is the case is the difficulty level. I have to say the game is indeed very hard. It does take time to master it. I don't care about this, I am very interested in history and have the patience and time to keep trying. I like the challenge finding solution to a problem that does not seem to have one.
(still could not win with Rupprecht plan after many many hours of Potzblitz experience. Did anyone ever do it?)

I think new players need an easy kick start experience, with some rewarding moments. At the moment many things a player learns are based on trial and error experiences. I actually like it as its realistic - one mistake has an impact on the entire war and cannot be undone. That's actually what I like about the game. An early mistake is hard to correct. But still the war takes many years and hours. Many players then give up and restart instead of getting the full Potzblitz experience with all the hundreds of brilliant events.

I am sure an "easy" single player mode could fascinate more players. Just an easy thing to allow new players to have an easy access with no frustration.

It would be boring for experience players but why not making it simple like:
1. +50 PP income for single players against AI. (automatically, every turn, allowing new players to build bigger armies to deal with the flood offensives)
2. Research cost -50% (lab cost does not increase)
3.+5 Diplo points per Turn starting from Turn 1.(allowing players to choose a few more events at start, this advantage will become less important in the endgame)

The game mechanics stay untouched. Everything stays the same. The 3 aspects just allow an easy access and prevent new players being invaded on turn 10 already.

Is that hard to create?
No idea. If it is, don't worry. This is not for me I don't need this change. Just thought about others. I often got feed back that the game is too hard.

[Robotron]

I'm sorry but there won't be a beginner mode. Players need to learn the basic skills like artillery preparation and cutting supply from the vanilla game first and when they are reasonably able to beat the AI they can try out Potzblitz and choose CP with war plan "Aufmarsch Ost" which is pretty moderate in difficulty just to get a hang of things.

Now some bad news: the Russian Civil War is temporarily canceled due to ongoing problems with integrating new nations that are not represented in the original map file.
The map file contains data for which hex originally belongs to which nation and what kind of terrain and roads/railroads are built into that hex. This map file can't be edited to allow for new "full fledged" nations which would be needed for the planned scenario. I tried to script around that problem to "trick" the map file into accepting new original owners for hexes but it all fell apart after a few turns for reasons unknown. It's the same old issue with the unmodifiable map that has plagued the game since the beginning all over again.
Quite frankly, I'm quite fed up right now because I thought I had solved the problem and already prepared a heck of a lot content for the new scenario that now can't be used.
I need a rest to think about this and a general pause from the game too.

So you'll get V12 without the Russian Civil War the next weekend with the following changes:

1. Single player mode: before players were only able to choose CP (german) warplan when playing Entente. In V12 this will also be available when playing CP. In multiplayer the war plan must still be played via event.

2. German Schlieffen-Plan event will always succeed if chosen either at the start of the game in singleplayer or during the game in multiplayer. Had small chance of failing up to now.

3. Choosing "historical modified Schlieffen plan" in singleplayer will give the Central Powers +2 diplomatic points.

4. All major nation get +200 manpower because manpower tends to get used up too fast

5. Troop quality loss caused by manpower loss will kick in at "yellow" stage, reducing troop quality to 9. Before quality loss started at "orange" state, reducing troop quality to 8.

6. added two impassable hexes in the Alps to restrict the combat taking place there and represent the fighting for important mountain passes. Before the Alps got overrun too fast.

Clipboard02.jpg (43.56 KiB) Viewed 2019 times

7. British ability to produce Army Corps might come earlier or be delayed a bit: Instead Britain now have to play the "Pals Battalions" event before Britain is able to produce Army Corps.
That "Pals Battalions" will be put into the Entente event pool if either:
"Industrial Warfare" tech is researched
or "Canadian Corps" was played
or "Australian Newzealand Corps" was played.
It may also trigger randomly on its own with rising chance if either one of the prerequisites is met.

8. US starting techs are toned down

9. The Arab port of Yanbu is moved a bit away from the Muslim holy city of Medina to discourage early British amphibious landings that would make the later Arabian Revolt event superfluous.

10. Ottomans get more PP so they don't go broke right after joining the war

11. Italy gets more PP from 2 new cities: Bari (4PP) & Ancona(3PP). There is a new event for the Austrian fleet to bombard the Italian Adriatic coast within a short time after Italian DOW.

12. Germany will have a lowered chance to go starving in 1915 with help of "Pig Murder" event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweinemord

13. Finland may revolt against Russia: this event was already present but is now more worked out and easier to trigger, especially after the February Revolution

14. Britain gets a bit more production in V12: new cities of Manchester (7PP) & Sheffield (6PP), removed Leeds

15. If the Entente player missed playing the "North Sea Blockade" event early in the game, it has a rising chance to trigger automatically from 1915 on

16. to make "Rupprecht" plan more viable, France will now lose morale for every German unit on French hexes

17. new method to trigger Gallipoli Landing in singleplayer as Entente or in PBEM: player must gather as many ships as possible near Anzak Beach

18. Austria won't suffer a collapse point and morale loss but also no bonus PP anymore for choosing "Request German help for Austria", instead the event just prevents Hötzendorf's meddling and any chance for a Russian surprise attack

19 added Stanislav: new AH city west of Czernowitz

20. moved Lemberg 1 hex NE closer to the border

21. repositioned AH units a bit

22. added the French city of Lille, just south of Ypres with a PP value of 10, representing a major area of French heavy industry.
PP were deducted from all other French cities to compensate.

23. to encourage Russian units to move onto CP hexes, the chance for diplo point bonus for each Russian unit on German/Austrian hexes is raised from 33% to 50%.
Cavalry units will always generate bonus diplo. Also all Russian units in East Prussia will contribute to swing Italy toward joining Entente.

24. Reserve Corps can't use Assault Tactics and Submachine Guns

25. made Armoured Trains slightly tougher and cheaper but also set a unit-per-tech-limit on them just like with Zeppelins, Bombers and Tanks.

26. fighter planes are also now limited by researched techs

27. Air aces will come into play later and will require "air kills" to unlock. If you wonder why "air kills" are suddenly required it's because they now work correctly.

28. Zeppelins won't consume ammo anymore

29. Submarines will suffer attack penalties vs Light Cruisers starting with "Depth Charge" tech and for each anti-sub tech researched thereafter

30. Submarine ambushes (moving a naval unit into a hex with an invisible submarine) will require a failed D1000 check vs the affected enemy naval unit's experience value to be successful

31. Battlecruisers cost 45PP and Dreadnoughts cost 60PP

32. unit commanders may not be removed if a unit has already performed an attack on the current turn

33. The city of Trento is now a fortress to represent the mountaineous terrain.

34. new event: Tirpitz plan: get a german BC for free or a BB for 15PP at game turn#9

35. new event: Commission Norwegian supplies: activates the Narvik convoy. Must be played before the North Sea Blockade is completed.

36. new event: Cran, elan & la Baionette: French units get attack bonus at the cost of 1D6 manpower per attack. Also delays the dreaded "Attaque a Outrance". Can be played by spending diplo or by moving a French unit on a German hex

37. new event: Battle of the Yser: either spawns a damaged Belgian Army Corps NE of Calais or damages any German unit on that hex

38. new events "Panic in East Prussia" and "East Prussia devastated" that can trigger if Germany is unable for several turns to manage "Victory at Tannenberg" with the danger for Germany of suffering 1 collapse point. Also Tannenberg battle now can only happen in East Prussia not anywhere along the Eastern front as was before.

39. reworked "Race to the Sea" event: after the "Moltke sacked" event or if Ypres or Lille or Antwerp are captured by Germany, the impassable Belgian coastal hexes (only in "Modified Schlieffen" scenario) may randomly unlock when moving units in that area. The "Race to the Sea" will be won by being the first to actually move a unit on either coastal hex. Winning the Race will result in the enemy's diplomatic points being reduced by 50%.

40. "Sudden Death" for nations at 10+ collapse points is now automatic if the nation-specific conditions are met.

41. on the other hand I removed quite a bit of situations or lowered probabilities for when nations could suffer collapse points so matches should last quite a bit longer

42. 20+ new leader pics and thoroughly updated the PDF manual and all ingame choice-event descriptions to reflect the actual effects as set up in the game scripts. Been about time too.


At least something, I guess.

[trulster]

Excellent work, looking forward to it.

[Unwichtig]

Wow thats impressive. Lots of new things, amazing. Well done.

Cant wait to test it.

Dont worry about the civil war issues, maybe one day it will work and if not - the rest of the game is good enough.
Sad that you put so much work into it already but okay...never mind.

I ll write a report when i finish the first testplay.

[nehi]

still could not win with Rupprecht plan after many many hours of Potzblitz experience. Did anyone ever do it?

almost decided rupprecht in saved file (V11.2)...

at the end of this turn it crashed (without autosave)

i dont see much difference in rupprecht and other scenarios except shlieffen, which is the easiest i guess

[Unwichtig]

still could not win with Rupprecht plan after many many hours of Potzblitz experience. Did anyone ever do it?

almost decided rupprecht in saved file (V11.2)...

at the end of this turn it crashed (without autosave)

i dont see much difference in rupprecht and other scenarios except shlieffen, which is the easiest i guess

Good morning nehi,

okay well done, i ll check your file now.
We had many discussions about rupprecht plan on page 79-81 in this forum including some screenshots about the execution.
robotron and I were discussing it and uploaded some pictures as well previously.

Aufmarsch ost is the easiest plan, schlieffen is also managable and often leads to success, no issues with them.
I found the rupprecht plan the most difficult for some reasons tbh.

I managed many times to initially make it look good and invade france with some promissing results. but in the endgame my frontline always collapsed.
So you might need to play a little longer?!

a) Attacking via switzerland leads to much quicker war entry of italy. Once italy joins they easily attacked my french frontline from the south which always overstretched it. so i had to withdraw.
b) attacking via tha alpine regions trying to breach the many french fortresses takes a few extra turns compared to schlieffen. The execution is much slower and therefore the french and later even the british had time to get a strong footprint in france. I got 1 hex close to paris, but could not take it as i was facing fresh british army corps
c) german army corps are always exhausted when they arrive at the coast - fighting with ´red´ labled armies against fresh french and UK troops was insane, attacking not an option.
d) the rupprecht plan does not add any additional ports to germany. this makes the submarine warfare against the entente convoys more difficult - subs need to cross the channel all the time to go back to wilhelmshaven for resupply. this takes too much time. in the endgame rupprecht leads to disadvantages in the naval game as well.

these 4 reasons make is harder compared to the schlieffenplan, i think.

But then again some pro playes seem to make it work so i ll just keep trying.
I ll check the file now.

[uzbek2012]

Why can't your mod be installed using JSGME !?






It is strange that it is not immediately possible to understand what your version is )

[nehi]

Aufmarsch ost is the easiest plan, schlieffen is also managable and often leads to success, no issues with them.

shlieffen is the easiest, because france get 1 collapse point and paris can be taken in 1914 or early 1915

ruprecht went quite smoothly, except verdun, italy joined my side, but france surrendered just few turns later

its slower, but britain is out of war, so no real resistance near paris (at such point is france out of production, too many armies, too long front)

aufmarsch ost is maybe easy, but very slow, i prefer ruprecht more, but it needs better micromanagement (schlieffen too), armies as iron fist, corps to fill gaps

i tried it twice (just to make sure, it wasnt about luck for the first time), first time i got some verdun event (what are the conditions to make it available?), so i took it

second time verdun was unbreakable, so i went further and took all french ports in la manche

better than sinking convoys is to sink whole british surface fleet, which is breaking their necks (ai has priority to defend convoys and transports at all costs)

the best option is to block transports (or convoys) to attract surface fleet and sink them all (it takes some time and all subs available, of course)

[Unwichtig]

@Nehi:

Thanks, i ll try again

1. Italy never joined me on Rupprecht...I guess my performance in the east was not good enough then.
I was always facing Italy and france together. I ll try again. Must be my bad performance in the east then.

2. UK in Rupprecht - Thats true, fair point, as Belgium neutrality is not violated, they usually join france later.
When I reached Paris, i had to fight a fresh UK army corps with redlabled german troops, no chance.

3. I think I am wasting too much artillery on getting all the fortesses. Thats just too slow. I ll try again and choose speeding towards Paris instead.
I tried taking Verdun etc as this also leads to collapse point for france.

4. Verdun has a few special events - The entente player can play "The Sacred road" event first, and then the "fortify verdun" event. If played, verdun becomes impossible to be taken unless it is cut off supply. I dont know the details by heart, check the manual. But under any condition verdun should be encicled and isolated.
If not, the city has a huge defense bonus.

I ll try it again once the new mod12 has arrived. at the moment i dont start new games as i am worried i would not complete them by then.

[nehi]

But under any condition verdun should be encicled and isolated.
If not, the city has a huge defense bonus.

in both runs were verdun cut off, defense bonus ok, but instant refilling to 10/10 is just unfair (very early paratroopers, while its cut off and encircled?)\

blitzkrieg matters even in ww1, its better advance as fast as possible and fortresses take just by the way (encircled) later

each hex u dont get in early phase of the war is taking many turns to get later

and dont forget about economy, if u cant take some city or fortress, at least nullify its production

i didnt push on russia, i was only holding east front, as i know once ottomans join cp, russians are not able to hold all fronts, city bombardment in black sea and later push break em quite quickly, when france and serbia are allready down

[Unwichtig]

The reason for what you are experiencing is the "Sacred Way" event played by Entente, representing the continuous flow of reinforcements to Verdun.
More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voie_Sacr%C3%A9e
I've included the event to prevent Verdun from getting captured way too early and without much problems.
As CP you now must play the "Siege of Verdun" event to cancel this effect or ignore Verdun in the meantime.
"Siege of Verdun" will be in CP event pool as early as 1915 if Falkenhayn is unlocked and at least 3 German units are in France and at least 2 German units are adjacent to Verdun.
Cutting off Verdun from supply was the other option to end the "Sacred Way" but it looks like I forgot to included the necessary checks...oh well, there's always V11.2

We have had the Verdun discussion few months ago, i found this old response from the mod owner robotron.
As it stands, the Verdun related events are not yet in the current Mod11 manual as its a little outdated - however, iaw robotrons previous post he has updated the manual for Mod V12 which will be released in the near future. For now this is all i could find. There a a couple of verdun events available, i dont know all of them by heart.

But basically...you must play the "Siege of verdun" with CP event to stop the material flow into verdun.

[Robotron]

The issue with Verdun being resistant to damage even if out of supply is fixed in V12.

Concerning the reported bug: I could not reproduce the crash. If possible a logfile report would be helpful.

[nehi]

Concerning the reported bug: I could not reproduce the crash. If possible a logfile report would be helpful.

unfortunately no log or better save, i didnt make any and autosave failed too (i started game immediately after crash)

i met two another bugs, but i dont know if they r not solved allready

very early in the game this one:
[17:44:04][6276]==============END DODIPLOEVENTS
[17:44:04][6276]EVENT ROLLS WERE: #1:FrenchArmyOfAfrica/ROLL WAS: 2/ HAD TO BE <= THAN:6
[17:44:04][6276]+++ NUMBER OF ENTENTE EVENTS: PLAYED:3
[17:44:04][6276]******************************************************************************************AI PLAYS EVENT:FrenchArmyOfAfrica
[17:44:04][6276]+++++++++++++++++++++++++ event:FrenchArmyOfAfrica
[17:44:04][6276]game/game_diplomacy.lua:5618(global TriggerEvent) game/game_diplomacy.lua:5618: attempt to index global 'hex' (a nil value)

full log in attached archive

next one is that sometimes forecast of fight is showin both red and green numbers at maximum range of integer, if made such attack -> crash

as workaround, not to attack, worked, my laziness stoped me to make any save or log

[Robotron]

Why can't your mod be installed using JSGME !?

I don't know, I don't use that tool. Instead you must copy the DATA folder from the archive and paste/overwrite the DATA folder in the game's main folder, where the ctgw.exe is.

It is strange that it is not immediately possible to understand what your version is )

I did not want to change the credits and publisher info because I'm neither of it.
Look at the filename of the archive. Also the first splash screen will tell you the number, as does the historic briefing info.

[Robotron]

Fixed all remaining issues.

V12 is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17BTT3e ... sp=sharing

This is not just an update, this time the download also contains the data for the main mod, in order to guarantee we all use the same version.

Once you have installed V12 you cannot continue any matches from V11.21, so finish those first if desired.

Have fun and maybe write some AARs about your mighty victories.