Slitherine

Title says it all. Very first game played my German opponent elected not to DOW Poland and moved his entire army to attack west leaving Poland as a buffer. It appears that since Poland is a potential allied nation the allies nor Russia can declare war on it leaving this huge unplayable area in the east. Was this intentional by the mod team or is the German player required to DOW Poland at start?

Speaking as one of the developer's, I can tell you that the intention was to enhance the enjoyment and replayablity of CEAW. If your opponent chooses not to attack Poland, none of us from the development and testing team of GS can take responsibility for his decision and its consequences.

Presumably he could also have chosen to instead attack Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland simultaneously too. If someone decides that performing unrealistic and ahistorical variations make for an entertaining game, far be it from me to dissuade them. It's a free country (at least mine is ).

While your opponent has made an astute move in pure gamesmanship terms, I would hardly categorize the game you are now embarking on as being an exploration of alternative WW2 historical possibilities. Hitler had no quarrel with France particularly, and admired the British. Starting a game with this type of "what if" is not based on any historical reality that I know of. Hitler hated what he termed the "Slavs" of eastern Europe and Russia, desired more room for Germany in the east, and was surprised and dismayed when France and Britain went to war over what he viewed as the inconsequential issue of Poland's sovereignty.

So to answer your question directly: no, the Axis player is not required to attack Poland on turn one

Interesting tactic, I guess he sees knocking out France early as quite valuable! There should be a mechanism that sees the Polish army upgraded if they are not DOWed when 1940 comes around, for sure Poland would arm if Hitler is rolling over Benelux++. Maybe add a MechInf etc. Another option is Poland becoming an Allied country at some point, maybe a variable based on May 1940.

In any case at some point Germany must take on the Poles to get to Russia... yeah, and let us know how this no-Poland tactic turns out:)

I never meant to suggest that the developer team was responsible for my opponents actions. LOL Thats why I asked if it was working as designed or if the German player was required to attack Poland in his first turn.

I have no issue's with that opening strategy however, as far as playability goes it appears that you now have an entire area of the map technically unplayable if the German's never DOW the Pols. At least it appears that way, the allies and I assume the Russians can't DOW the Pols and it appears that the Russians can't enter Poland so now you have this huge buffer zone between the russians and the Germans. I think that if Germany does not attack the Pols by say fall of 41 the Russians should have the option to.

Happycat wrote: Hitler had no quarrel with France particularly

Huh?

Clark wrote:

Happycat wrote: Hitler had no quarrel with France particularly

Huh?

Huh what? What don't you understand?

EDIT: To expand upon my earlier, and what I thought was fairly straightforward comment about Hitler's position vis a vis France: as those who have read in detail about Hitler's mindset will know, he was bitter about the outcome of World War One. However, he blamed the German high command, the Jews and the politicians of Germany for the lost war. He was not a fan of France, but he feared its army, and was amazed that he got away with his gamble when he reoccupied the Rhineland. It is well known that Hitler did not believe that France and England would go to war over Poland, and I cannot imagine a scenario where he would have considered that attacking France in 1939 would be a good idea.

In CEAW and CEAW-GS, the bulk of the German Army is in the east. For most players, that would be an invitation to play turn one in an historical manner. But if someone wants to try something different, that's fine. It doesn't appeal to me, but then it doesn't have to, does it?

Happycat wrote:

Clark wrote:

Happycat wrote: Hitler had no quarrel with France particularly

Huh?

Huh what? What part of that don't you understand?

I'm baffled by this assertion. I just don't think it's true.

Kuz wrote:I never meant to suggest that the developer team was responsible for my opponents actions. LOL Thats why I asked if it was working as designed or if the German player was required to attack Poland in his first turn.

I have no issue's with that opening strategy however, as far as playability goes it appears that you now have an entire area of the map technically unplayable if the German's never DOW the Pols. At least it appears that way, the allies and I assume the Russians can't DOW the Pols and it appears that the Russians can't enter Poland so now you have this huge buffer zone between the russians and the Germans. I think that if Germany does not attack the Pols by say fall of 41 the Russians should have the option to.

Your ideas are interesting, and might be something to be incorporated in the next round of changes. For now, I don't see it as an issue. If for some bizarre, unknown to me reason, Hitler had decided to attack France in 1939 instead of Poland, I think we can assume that the Poles would have sat back and watched. Stalin's head would be spinning a 360, after which he might think that (1) Hitler was out of his mind and (2) now might be a good time to attack Germany. However, Poland would be in the way. For the 1939 Russian army, I don't think an attack west was an option.

So a situation such as you have now, with everything in the east being dormant, is probably realistic.

Clark wrote:

Happycat wrote:

Clark wrote: Huh?

Huh what? What part of that don't you understand?

I'm baffled by this assertion. I just don't think it's true.

Well, Hitler's not around to ask, but there are countless books pertaining to the topic, and I have read most of them. Since I don't consider it my role to convince you of something you don't agree with, believe what you will. Either you have not read the same books as me, or you have come to a completely different conclusion. I'm fine with that either way. But when someone responds to a post with a one word "question" such as "huh?", don't be surprised if that is perceived as being a little bit rude and/or condescending.

Kuz wrote:I think that if Germany does not attack the Pols by say fall of 41 the Russians should have the option to.

Kuz, I have thought about this a bit further, and I absolutely agree with this. Otherwise, Poland becomes a barrier to the Russians being able to attack Germany in the event that Germany has not, by then, attacked the USSR.

Although I still think your opponent is playing out something that Germany would never, ever have done in 1939, I have now changed my mind, and I do think it needs to be addressed. There needs to be a consequence to the decision to attack France first.

It sets me to wondering what the American reaction would have been to such an event. Poland was easy for the isolationists in America to dismiss. And the subsequent declarations of war by France and England were also easily dismissed.

But it would have been harder for the isolationists to dismiss an apparently unprovoked attack on France in 1939, and there was then still an affection for France in America (can we call it the Lafayette syndrome? LOL).

Happycat wrote:

Clark wrote:

Happycat wrote: Huh what? What part of that don't you understand?

I'm baffled by this assertion. I just don't think it's true.

Well, Hitler's not around to ask, but there are countless books pertaining to the topic, and I have read most of them. Since I don't consider it my role to convince you of something you don't agree with, believe what you will. Either you have not read the same books as me, or you have come to a completely different conclusion. I'm fine with that either way. But when someone responds to a post with a one word "question" such as "huh?", don't be surprised if that is perceived as being a little bit rude and/or condescending.

Apologies - I did not mean to be rude or call you stupid or ignorant or any such thing. Sorry if I came off that way!

I'm well aware that Hitler hated and was obsessed with the Slavs and Communist Russia, but I had never even heard it asserted that Hitler didn't particularly care about France before, and I've read quite a bit about the Nazi period. Could you share your sources?

We have to consider what was the prelude to the start of the scenario. Germany has just made a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union dividing eastern Europe between them. Part of the pact was the trade agreement where Russia sent to Germany raw-materials (oil etc.) and received goods in return.

France and Britain went to war because they had promised to come to Poland's aid. So what would have happened if Germany had not attacked Poland. I don't think the Soviet Union was ready to attack Germany in 1939 and they couldn't have started a war against Poland by themselves. So Poland would be a buffer between Germany and Russia. It's also likely that Stalin would let the western Allies fight the Germans alone for a long time until the Red Army was prepared for offensive warfare.

The western Allies would never have attacked their ally Poland, but Stalin might have done it late in the war. The Polish army was quite big and it would not have been easy for Stalin's armies to crush Poland, especially if Germany would come to Poland's aid.

It's not unlikely that Russia would decide to attack Germany via Romania and Hungary in order to knock out the Axis minor powers.

If we're afraid of Poland becoming neutral permanently in the game then we can change the settings for Poland so Poland will join the Allies at a set date, e. g. October 1941 (same time as USSR will join the Allies if Germany doesn't attack first). This way the Germans will face the Polish army in addition to the Russian army in 1941 and it would be suicide to let Poland be for so long.

This change can easily be implemented. I don't have to change any game code. All I need to do is to change the 1939 scenario and the Polish join date. Should I do this? Ronnie can then offer the updated 1939.scn file for all of you to download. It won't affect existing games where Polandhasbeen conquered.

For the next version we could consider halting the Russo-German trade agreement if Poland remains neutral.

No problem, perhaps I'm too quick to take offense too

As to sources, here are just a very few:

Hitler's War (Irving)
Inside the Third Reich (Speer)
Making Friends With Hitler (Kershaw)

There are of course, so many others, but I like these three in particular when trying to get glimpses of the labyrinth that was Hitler's mind. As you undoubtedly know, there are some who consider Irving an apologist for the Nazis, others who (correctly in my view) believe that in his book, Speer attempted to sanitize his own image, and the book by Kershaw (which is primarily about Lord Londonderry) is considered controversial. But these widely disparate authors provide such similar "takes" on Hitler that it is hard not to be swayed.

Clearly, he disliked the French because of Versailles, yet when we read the writing of those who knew Hitler, we don't hear of the rabid outbursts that were directed at other nationalities. In Speer's book and in Kershaw's, we read of his respect for (and initially, fear of) the French Army, and his amazement that they would go to war over "non-Aryans". In his warped world, French, Germans, English and many others were of "acceptable" racial stock. (scroll down)

Clark wrote: Apologies - I did not mean to be rude or call you stupid or ignorant or any such thing. Sorry if I came off that way!

I'm well aware that Hitler hated and was obsessed with the Slavs and Communist Russia, but I had never even heard it asserted that Hitler didn't particularly care about France before, and I've read quite a bit about the Nazi period. Could you share your sources?

(continued from previous post)
In Hitler's warped frame of reference, there was nothing particularly odious about the French, and I see little motivation in 1939 to attack France. At the same time, there was an abundance of motivation to take out Poland: resources, farmland, room for Germany's burgeoning population. Coupling this with his extreme views pertaining to what he considered to be non-Aryan (whatever the hell that was ever supposed to mean) peoples, an invasion of Poland was only a question of when, not if.

In fairness, I am also well aware that in Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote of France as the "inexorable enemy" of Germany. He viewed destruction of France's warmaking capability to be a desirable long term goal, which would end the (in his view) useless and repeated struggle between the two nations. However I'm unconvinced that what he wrote in 1924 had influence on his strategic decisions in 1939. Megalomaniac, yes---stupid, NO. To Hitler it made sense to remove the small player (Poland) first, neutralize Russia (by treaty) and then in due course, attack France. Indeed, some of his diplomatic efforst with Lord Halifax in 1938 and 1939 were designed to try and drive a wedge between France and England. One can assume that he hoped, in due course, to remove France as a threat while avoiding war with England.

Anyway, that's my sources, and my interpretation for what it's worth.

Stauffenberg wrote: If we're afraid of Poland becoming neutral permanently in the game then we can change the settings for Poland so Poland will join the Allies at a set date, e. g. October 1941 (same time as USSR will join the Allies if Germany doesn't attack first). This way the Germans will face the Polish army in addition to the Russian army in 1941 and it would be suicide to let Poland be for so long.

This change can easily be implemented. I don't have to change any game code. All I need to do is to change the 1939 scenario and the Polish join date. Should I do this? Ronnie can then offer the updated 1939.scn file for all of you to download. It won't affect existing games where Polandhasbeen conquered.

For the next version we could consider halting the Russo-German trade agreement if Poland remains neutral.

I LOVE these ideas, and how you propose to implement them!

Stauffenberg wrote: "The western Allies would never have attacked their ally Poland, but Stalin might have done it late in the war. The Polish army was quite big and it would not have been easy for Stalin's armies to crush Poland, especially if Germany would come to Poland's aid. "

I agree 100% with this. But also if Poland isn't attacked on the first turn of the game then the logical conclusion is that Hitler backed down and there would be no war with the west. Can the game be programed to reflect that with a caveat that any agression on the part of the Germans will lead to war with the west?

As to Soviet reaction; I wonder if Stalin would have seen this as a breech of the Non-Agreeesion Pact and stopped the exports to Germany. From what I've read and I think its very conclusive that during this time period Stalin would probably have done just about anything to avoid war with the Germans. I think its just as likely that Stalin would have settled with occupying the rest of East Europe, i.e. Baltic states and part of Rumania, which I believe was also part of the Non-Agression Pact and called it good.

After thinking about all of this more I don't think that Germany should have an option not to attack Poland on the first turn of the game. I think that iif allowed it creates an extreme ahistorical situation with too many variable that I doubt the game engine could account for.

It's certainly possible to have the game implement that if Germany doesn't attack Poland then the western Allies won't go to war and all nations are at peace with each other. But then WHY would anyone play a WAR game if they don't tend to be aggressive and attack something?

If the Germans want to be peaceful in Grand Strategy then the easiest thing to do is to NOT play and declare both sides the winners.

I think you might have missed my point. "caveat that any agression on the part of the Germans will lead to war with the west" allowing the players who wish to take the war in a different direction to do so.

"If we're afraid of Poland becoming neutral permanently in the game then we can change the settings for Poland so Poland will join the Allies at a set date, e. g. October 1941 (same time as USSR will join the Allies if Germany doesn't attack first). This way the Germans will face the Polish army in addition to the Russian army in 1941 and it would be suicide to let Poland be for so long. "

I think that this will solve the problem

I don't think anyone is genuinely worried that Poland will remain neutral throughout the war. It would take a very foolish Axis player to attempt Barbarossa without first taking care of the Poles. The invading forces would be separated by a huge gap, and the complete destruction of the border troops would be much harder.

Maybe if taking out the Soviets is your goal.

But with 15 or so hexes unplayable in the center part of the front, along with the narrow frontage and rough terrain in the south I was thinking more along the lines of something like the old 3R Spanish Gambit move then hold till 45. Granted this is all speculation and I haven't had a chance to think it all through but I've played plenty of games this and others where my opponent(s) have only attacked the Soviets as a spoiling move and went totally defensive in 41, and its a real pain getting through all that before the game ends. Now you can have a shortened front, decent manpower, good oil, nice defensive terrain, I dunno I'm thinking its viable.