Slitherine

Installed and is playing fine. Sure does look good. Nice sounds and effects. Gods know what to actually DO, but it does look interesting.

Invade Belgium.

Slowly getting there. Can beat up on the Serbians now. Can take the Belgian cities and Calais. Still get slaughtered horribly by the Russians in the east. But it has been interesting!

You gota watch your back on the Eastern Front, take a slower approach on Serbia, get some Austrian Artillery while keeping the Russians off your back.

After a few hours of playing I can't help feeling that the game is biased in favour of the allies. The Serbians seem much too strong and the Russians already have a huge army in 1914 - leaving just two corps in East Prussia would lead to the Russians arriving in Berlin before Christmas 1914.

Other than that, it's a really well though out game. I prefer the game system to Europe at War.

Another issue is the fact that you cannot do anything to reduce the number of enemies as there isn't an active diplomatic function.

Have you tried playing as the Allies yet - I think you'll find they are as stretched or more so in the early stages. I think its part of learning the game!

I've only done a couple of hours of play - I'm sure (and hope) I'll improve as I learn more.

First of all I like the game! Better say Im not new to the concept, played all other Commander titles. Never mp only sp so far.

Now some notes from the front: I restarted my first campain after only a couple of turns after getting some things totally wrong. In my second attempt I again chose middle difficulty and the Central powers. I had outlined my strategy in my head before the start, basically an all or nothing assault on France with Germany and killing Serbia quickly with Austria.

Killing Serbia fast did not work very well, but the assault on France was another matter. ASAP 2 extra cav units were bought for germany and the infantry corps from the eastern theatre along with the fighter were railed in. In a ruthless Schlieffen and canal port take over assault the Belgians were overwhelmed and the French and the BEF could not withstand when turning south.

With only a couple of German garrisons on the east front and allmost all Austrians going for Serbia I knew something had to give and I lost Danzig (the russian did not take Königsberg only passed it by) and some eastern Austrian cities to the Russians but then managed to contain them by new builds and transporting over a unit here and there from the west front when victory was assured there.

About the same time when France surrendered with only Nice(?) left the Italians declared war on me. First I felt some panick because now I had planned for quick transport to the Eastern front, and I also thought that my capture of France might get Italy to side with me, anyways with the bulk of my German forces allready close to the Southwestern border of Italy and one contingent going from Munich over the Alps and a few Austrians holding the east border of Italy in check the Italians were quickly overwhelmed.

The Russians were still contained with still only the losses described above but of course I brought in additional troops whenever I could, there was some nervousness here at times but the Russians failed to use their numerical advantage until it was to late.

The French and Belgium ports garrisoned with garrisons, so far no new attempts of British landings.

No naval actions have happend apart from my Austrian navy getting a whippin from the French early on.

With Italy gone more and more troops sent to balkans and eastern Germany.

Turkey has managed to wrestle Egypt from England.

Serbia finally knocked out by joint efforts with Bulgarians and Austrians and Germans.

Prepared these samed joint troops, now also with some Turks and declared war on Rumania instead of waiting for them to declare. Took the capital(?) closest to Bulgaria on the turn of declaring thanks to the good buildup with art support.

After this the Russian gains in eastern Europe were retaken along with Warzaw. When Warzaw fell the Ruskies very quickly surrendered. Dont think it was on the same turn, hade to take a bit more I think in Northwestern Russia but then they surrendered, geographically almost intact but apparantly morally devestated and also in the end militarally thrashed.

Game is not over though since the British is still alive and probably the Americans will declare on me sooner or later but Im feeling confident in ending the game with a clear victory for the central powers. But perhaps the ruskies can declare on me again? Since they are almost intact geographically they should be able to rebuild their army but don´t know if the game allows them to declare again after they have surrendered once.

I think the key to the matter was the extra cav units I bought to support the attack on Belgium/France, they are offensive, quick and packs a great punch, at least in the early game, great for mopping up units that have been softened once or twice by inf and/or art.

Also I think in MP this would not have worked. The russians would be all over both Germany and Austria. In difficult setting I dont know.

I have also started a campain as the entente. Basically I wanted to try the same thing. Some kind of hard fast knock out blow stretching the resources of the Central powers to the limit from the get go. That did not work. I dont know from where or how the central powers so quickly had so many troops on all fronts and also the ability to pay for upgrades and upkeep and repair. Now, a couple or almost 3 years in to the conflict the front lines of the central powers are finally starting to fall apart so I think im winning but it was a tough fight where on some occasions I thought I was in deep trouble. Before I relised the morale of the british was sinking fast because I did not make enough pp to support them, it was down to 25 before i finally understood that this probably was serious, before I could rectify it was on 19 but now it stays on 19 and it seems enough to keep them fighting.

I also parked my russian baltic fleet in the middle of the baltic intercepting the Swedish convoy every time (apart from the times when I forgot about it). This should really make the Germans send their navy against my Russian navy but it never happened. Bit cheesy move on my part to stay there with my navy but why did not the Germans come?

In both of these games not a single new navy unit was purchased so far, at least not by my side in the conflict. When playing the entente I also scrapped all the british cruisers and the sub and at least so far it has not been bad since the German navy does not show its face anywhere.

Investment in research ive kept very low. Added maybe one or two labs for the strongest economic powers.

Other infrastructure investment I limited to expanding the ammunition capacity of the britsh in my entente campain and for the germans in the central powers campain.

Next game I will try difficult and hopefully be forced to go for a more slow and cautios war.

Again, I like this game very much and the series (perhaps not so much Napoleon). There are some matters regarding the AI that could be a bit diffrent though. Killing the Russian navy for instance and, if possible better exploiting of a player who pretty much neglects one front. Then again, maybe I played my neglected front so darn good the AI just could not beat it

Before I relised the morale of the british was sinking fast because I did not make enough pp to support them, it was down to 25 before i finally understood that this probably was serious, before I could rectify it was on 19 but now it stays on 19 and it seems enough to keep them fighting.

The dynamic of the British economy is quite different from the other Entente nations. They rely much more heavily on convoys, so their income comes in irregular bursts. This means that (unlike for France or Russia) you can't just spend all your disposable income. You need to keep some of it back to support your army during the turns that convoys don't arrive. It makes the British a little more interesting to play.

Made it up to about June of 1915. Serbia finally surrendered after almost all Austrian resources devoted to it. Germany built infantry to man the eastern lines all the way down to around Warsaw. The western lines simply held in place.

Problem now is that production is almost non-existent. Costs of all that infantry and labs are so high, there is no production left for new infantry. France has pounded down and broken a hole in the west. Austrians will take forever to redeploy (Is there any way to increase rail capacity above 1 unit per turn?).

I thought of using garrison units instead of infantry, to save on upkeep costs, but will they be able to hold the Russian line?

Turkey was a farce. The Brits roll up, take Aqaba without effort, and then line up below Jerusalem and hex by hex outflank the Turks and then start artillery bombardment of the city and eventually take it because Turkish production is sitting at something like 2 a turn!

You can upgrade your rail capacity (and also sea transport capacity and ammo production) on the Management tab

Egil_Skallagrimsson wrote:First of all I like the game! Better say Im not new to the concept, played all other Commander titles. Never mp only sp so far.

Now some notes from the front: I restarted my first campain after only a couple of turns after getting some things totally wrong. In my second attempt I again chose middle difficulty and the Central powers. I had outlined my strategy in my head before the start, basically an all or nothing assault on France with Germany and killing Serbia quickly with Austria.

Killing Serbia fast did not work very well, but the assault on France was another matter. ASAP 2 extra cav units were bought for germany and the infantry corps from the eastern theatre along with the fighter were railed in. In a ruthless Schlieffen and canal port take over assault the Belgians were overwhelmed and the French and the BEF could not withstand when turning south.

With only a couple of German garrisons on the east front and allmost all Austrians going for Serbia I knew something had to give and I lost Danzig (the russian did not take Königsberg only passed it by) and some eastern Austrian cities to the Russians but then managed to contain them by new builds and transporting over a unit here and there from the west front when victory was assured there.

About the same time when France surrendered with only Nice(?) left the Italians declared war on me. First I felt some panick because now I had planned for quick transport to the Eastern front, and I also thought that my capture of France might get Italy to side with me, anyways with the bulk of my German forces allready close to the Southwestern border of Italy and one contingent going from Munich over the Alps and a few Austrians holding the east border of Italy in check the Italians were quickly overwhelmed.

The Russians were still contained with still only the losses described above but of course I brought in additional troops whenever I could, there was some nervousness here at times but the Russians failed to use their numerical advantage until it was to late.

The French and Belgium ports garrisoned with garrisons, so far no new attempts of British landings.

No naval actions have happend apart from my Austrian navy getting a whippin from the French early on.

With Italy gone more and more troops sent to balkans and eastern Germany.

Turkey has managed to wrestle Egypt from England.

Serbia finally knocked out by joint efforts with Bulgarians and Austrians and Germans.

Prepared these samed joint troops, now also with some Turks and declared war on Rumania instead of waiting for them to declare. Took the capital(?) closest to Bulgaria on the turn of declaring thanks to the good buildup with art support.

After this the Russian gains in eastern Europe were retaken along with Warzaw. When Warzaw fell the Ruskies very quickly surrendered. Dont think it was on the same turn, hade to take a bit more I think in Northwestern Russia but then they surrendered, geographically almost intact but apparantly morally devestated and also in the end militarally thrashed.

Game is not over though since the British is still alive and probably the Americans will declare on me sooner or later but Im feeling confident in ending the game with a clear victory for the central powers. But perhaps the ruskies can declare on me again? Since they are almost intact geographically they should be able to rebuild their army but don´t know if the game allows them to declare again after they have surrendered once.

I think the key to the matter was the extra cav units I bought to support the attack on Belgium/France, they are offensive, quick and packs a great punch, at least in the early game, great for mopping up units that have been softened once or twice by inf and/or art.

Also I think in MP this would not have worked. The russians would be all over both Germany and Austria. In difficult setting I dont know.

I have also started a campain as the entente. Basically I wanted to try the same thing. Some kind of hard fast knock out blow stretching the resources of the Central powers to the limit from the get go. That did not work. I dont know from where or how the central powers so quickly had so many troops on all fronts and also the ability to pay for upgrades and upkeep and repair. Now, a couple or almost 3 years in to the conflict the front lines of the central powers are finally starting to fall apart so I think im winning but it was a tough fight where on some occasions I thought I was in deep trouble. Before I relised the morale of the british was sinking fast because I did not make enough pp to support them, it was down to 25 before i finally understood that this probably was serious, before I could rectify it was on 19 but now it stays on 19 and it seems enough to keep them fighting.

I also parked my russian baltic fleet in the middle of the baltic intercepting the Swedish convoy every time (apart from the times when I forgot about it). This should really make the Germans send their navy against my Russian navy but it never happened. Bit cheesy move on my part to stay there with my navy but why did not the Germans come?

In both of these games not a single new navy unit was purchased so far, at least not by my side in the conflict. When playing the entente I also scrapped all the british cruisers and the sub and at least so far it has not been bad since the German navy does not show its face anywhere.

Investment in research ive kept very low. Added maybe one or two labs for the strongest economic powers.

Other infrastructure investment I limited to expanding the ammunition capacity of the britsh in my entente campain and for the germans in the central powers campain.

Next game I will try difficult and hopefully be forced to go for a more slow and cautios war.

Again, I like this game very much and the series (perhaps not so much Napoleon). There are some matters regarding the AI that could be a bit diffrent though. Killing the Russian navy for instance and, if possible better exploiting of a player who pretty much neglects one front. Then again, maybe I played my neglected front so darn good the AI just could not beat it

Wow nice, I am in my 1xth attempt to win as the Central Power, and this one will surely be one another defeat... I did the opposite of you: holding France & Serbia while pushing through Russia. I hold for 2 years, but even after capturing Petrograd & most other cities of White Russia they never surrender...

Does somebody knows how the surrender thing works ?

When national morale for a country reaches 0, that country will offer surrender. The the opponent accepts, they return to neutrality. If the opponent refuses, they get a morale boost and continue fighting (till their morale reaches zero again).

A quick heads up for those of you playing on Handicapped AI, we are investigating an issue which may make Handicapped harder than Balanced. If you're finding the game hard playing on Handicapped, I would advise switching to Balanced. Once we've fixed the issue we'll get a patch to you asap.