Slitherine

If I am reading the file correctly--CommanderThe Great War, Data, Scripts, Game, game_events--to trigger the February Revolution in Russia the date has to be greater than 1916 and National Morale less than 80. The February Revolution, if triggered, lowers Russian National Morale by 30. If the date is greater than 1916 and National Morale is less than 40, then you get the October Revolution and Russian National Morale drops another 35 points.

This means that you have to knock down Russian morale by other means by 25 points, since the two revolutions will cost the Russians 75 points.

Destroying the battle fleet costs the Russians 10 points.

Capturing Warsaw gets you another 10 points.

I cannot find a file indicating what exactly the loss of cities costs, but I think it is 1 for cities, and 2 for fortified cities, although I could be wrong.

Casualties also cause a loss of National Morale, but I have yet to be able to determine how exactly that works, although I think you lose 1 NM point for the loss of 50-100 casualties.

So if you destroy the Russian battle fleet (-10), captures Warsaw (-10), and take Brest (2), Kovno (2), and Vilna (1), that should ensure a Revoution and ultimate Russian collapse in 1917.

Nevertheless, in my last CP game playing against a priviliged AI, I did all of that, also took Riga, Minsk, Kiev, and Sevastopol, inflicted over 1000 casualties, and the Russians didn't surrender until 1918, after Paris and Rome fell. I assume that playing with a higher AI level modifies the triggers.

Still looking.

u sure that warsaw is -10?

That's how I read it.

majpalmer wrote:If I am reading the file correctly--CommanderThe Great War, Data, Scripts, Game, game_events--to trigger the February Revolution in Russia the date has to be greater than 1916 and National Morale less than 80. The February Revolution, if triggered, lowers Russian National Morale by 30. If the date is greater than 1916 and National Morale is less than 40, then you get the October Revolution and Russian National Morale drops another 35 points.

Ah, I was wondering about that today. My Russians were doing quite well (I thought) and then the October revolution occurred and Russia surrendered quite suddenly. I think probably there needs to be some more obvious signs of distress in an army - in the way that the French army has mutinies, for example - so that players understand what is happening. My Russians were winning decisively in Turkey and holding their position elsewhere so to lose them was a bit of a shock considering, in relative terms anyway, they were doing OK.

I am not sure about this idea of jumping straight to the October revolution really. I think it might be better that Russia always has her February revolution first (whenever it may occur) and then further deterioration leads to the second revolution led by the Bolsheviks (urban workers) and Left Social Revolutionaries (poorer peasants).

History is always history.

stockwellpete wrote:I am not sure about this idea of jumping straight to the October revolution really. I think it might be better that Russia always has her February revolution first (whenever it may occur) and then further deterioration leads to the second revolution led by the Bolsheviks (urban workers) and Left Social Revolutionaries (poorer peasants).

Just to develop this point a bit more. I actually think it is inconceivable that Russia could have undergone a Bolshevik-led revolution in October 1917 without their first having been a revolution in February 1917 to overthrow the Tsar. The theoretical position of the socialist movement in Russia at the beginning of 1917 (both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks) was that Russia was entering its "capitalist stage of development" and that old feudal relics like the Tsar and the land-owning nobility needed to be overthrown. Russia was to become a modernising liberal democracy and the role of socialists was to provide a radical opposition in the Duma (Parliament) to the pro-capitalist parties. One of the few Bolsheviks to take a different view was Lenin, and after he was transported back into Russia by the German authorities he proclaimed his "April Theses" calling for a second revolution and the construction of a socialist society.

So a key "what-if" here has to be the German decision to get Lenin back into Russia. What if they hadn't made this decision, or what if it had been delayed? What if Lenin had spent the rest of the war in a west European jail? And then you have to consider the balance of forces in the short-lived Kerensky regime. What if the pro-war elements had not been able to successfully push for a new offensive? What if Russian military forces had remained in the field but only on a defensive footing? Another plausible what-if might be developed around that idea, I feel.

So, personally, I would not have the October revolution event happening without an earlier February revolution event. And I think that after the February event you could have mutinies and soldiers just abandoning the front (units decreasing in strength from 10 to, say, 8 and efficiency dropping too) if the Russian leaders try to resume offensive operations. And then, at a certain point, if offensive operations were persisted with then the October revolution could be triggered.

Good point about Lenin and his role. Until his return, even the Bolsheviks wanted to keep the war going.

But I have to note that in my latest effort as the Central Powers, with a balanced AI, the Russians did not revolt when I thought they would have. I did take Warsaw. I did sink their battle fleet. I had taken Riga, Kovno, Brest and more.

NOTHING!!!!!

Finally, in June 1917, after I took Petrograd they collapsed and then offered peace the very next turn.

Either I am misreading the file or there is some randomizer element involved.

Or both.

Update!

Apparently my reading of the file was wrong, or there are some other randomizing factors at work. In my latest CP game Russia surrendered in January 1916!

The event occurred the turn after the surrenders of France and Italy.