[Game 4] TGC (CP) v DoManMacgee (Entente) -oob, no bid, RR

[The_Good_Captain]

@domanmacgee when you get a chance, I would really like to know what it was like being on the Entente. What stood out? Do you feel there were any blunders on either side? And of course, would you like to play again - perhaps after a brief rest?

Either way, just know that I’m very thankful for you taking the time to stack games of this with me. It has been invaluable.

[DoManMacgee]

@the_good_captain I need about a day to analyze where this one went off the rails, actually. Will probably have something relatively thorough ready in a few hours/later tonight.

[DoManMacgee]

@The_Good_Captain alright, here goes. Will give you the mercy of a short summary first before I dive into my play-by-play and giant rant.

Basically, in this game I did not handle/respect your fleet moves with the CP properly. I was not 100% familiar/comfortable with this game’s unique mechanic (being able to refusing battle in contested SZs for the sole purpose of denying the enemy use of Transports). This caused massive bottlenecks/tie-ups in several key factors that ultimately made me too slow to save Russia and later Rome. Specifically:

1. Not building UK fleet meant your Germany fleet was able to move around and harass on other parts of the map, leading to…

2. France and Italy had to build varying sizes of fleets to defend themselves in the Mediterranean, which cut a turn for each of them (which stymied their respective progress against AH and Germany, ultimately making them unable to break out of Venice/Alsace later in the game).

3. Germany parking its fleet remnants on top of America’s fleet (but not engaging) forced USA to not only build fleet, but also waste a turn killing off said German fleet. This, combined with a bad early build on my part, ultimately heavily disrupted the American logistics to the point where the Canadians had to make up a round of Transport shucks just to get the situation back under control.

This was one factor that proved disastrous in the late game, where reinforcements couldn’t get to Rome fast enough to prevent its fall. Of course, there were several minor mistakes/bad die rolls that also led to this point, but the main cause was the bad logistics, not unlike a normal A&A game where the Allied player could effectively transport troops to mainland Europe to make significant progress before the USSR dies.

The other main factor was that I did not discover the idea of building UK Transports and shucking troops into Karelia fast enough to prevent disaster in Russia. Once I had the chain going in rounds 4/5 it put in good work at forestalling the end but had they arrived faster (or I pulled the Russians out of Ukraine faster, probably after 1-2 turns of combat instead of the 3 I spent there getting attrition’d to death), they might have been able to save the day (key word being “might”).

And yes, this is the SHORT version. The LONG version is next. The play-by-play probably won’t be as helpful to your research as the rant I’m going to drop before said play-by-play.

[DoManMacgee]

@The_Good_Captain

General Theory Post (most of these are random observations about 1914 that I jotted down during/after the game. You may not agree with everything I say here) :

• Once Air Superiority is lost and/or economic superiority is getting narrower it may be a good idea to abandon FTR building in exchange for heavier INF.

  • FTRs still have great utility for their 2 move though.
  • Basically the same role as G40 Tanks (movement speed is extremely helpful on larger maps).

• Containing/squashing Germany’s African presence ASAP should probably be done just to help slow down their economy/negate their gains from taking Russian IPCs.

• Britain should probably take the main role in fleet building/cleaning up Germany’s initial navy, as the other Entente members can’t make offensive progress if they waste money on fleet.

  • Russia needs to spend 100% on land to survive
  • France needs to spend 100% fighting Germany
  • Italy needs to spend 100% fighting AH

• Overall, the Entente game plan should revolve around maintaining the IPC lead:

  • Start:

    • CP - 77
      • AH - 26
      • G - 35
      • O - 16
    • E - 93
      • R - 25
      • F - 24
      • B - 30
      • I - 14
        USA not listed as they don’t join until turn 4 (and don’t make it to the front lines until turn 6)

  • End of turn 1:

    • CP - 97
      • AH - 31 (+Romania +Serbia)
      • G - 44 (+Poland +Belgium +Africa territories)
      • O - 22 (+Sevastopol +Bulgaria)
    • E - 95
      • R - 19 (-Poland -Sevastopol)
      • F - 27 (+Portugal +Spanish Morocco)
      • B - 33 (+Persia +Arabia)
      • I - 16 (+Albania in a normal game)

  • So as early as round 2, Entente is actually effectively BEHIND on income, but this potentially gets worse as CP advance in Russia

  • General game state, post USA joining

    • CP - 106
      • AH - 33 (+Romania +Serbia +Albania)
      • G - 48 (+Poland +Belgium +Africa territories +Belorussia +Livonia) (Ukraine contested)
      • O - 25 (+Sevastopol +Bulgaria +Arabia +Persia)
    • E - 112
      • R - 12 (-Poland -Sevastopol -Ukraine -Belorussia -Livonia)
      • F - 29 (+Portugal +Spanish Morocco +Belgium)
      • B - 37 (+all Neutral/German African territories)
      • I - 14 (base territories)
      • A - 20 (base territories)

  • Basically, Entente needs to hold this basic position for long enough to make the TUV difference add up.

  • If RR fires then the IPC count goes to CP 106/E 100, which is CP-favored (and thus catastrophic) unless Entente can make corresponding progress elsewhere on the board.

  • Thus, the main objective would be to not let Russia die unless 12 IPC of value can be made up elsewhere on the map. Likely candidates include:

    • TJ - 1
    • Persia - 2
    • Alsace - 3
    • Switzerland - 1 (not CP-aligned but counts towards Entente-IPC total)
    • Retaking one of the Russian border territories - 2
    • Mesopotamia or Sevastopol - 3

  • If this can happen, Entente can recover even if RR fires.

  • If RR is refused and CP try for a Moscow takedown this becomes much tougher, as Russia will either need help from Britain to not die or for France/Italy (probably France) to manage a critical breakthrough against Germany (breaking into Rhur+Alsace+Munich)

Overall, the game is Entente-favored, but skilled play is needed to keep/maintain the Entente’s IPC lead against a good opponent who is going all-in after Russia.

[DoManMacgee]

@The_Good_Captain And finally, the play-by-play, which will probably need multiple posts because of character limits:

(1/???)

NOTE: Sanitizing this a bit compared to what’s actually on my PC due to language
1914 - OOB - RR On

*NOTE #2: More random thoughts about gameplans, etc. are in here

Round 1:
AH - boats to SZ17, dive on Romania (to deny it to Russia). Stack Galacia. Standard stuff
R - All to Ukraine. Standard stuff. Rammed O Fleet (lost badly). Probably should have went to SZ17 and denied combat just to get all Entente boats in one place.

• Possibility - Ram R GG into G fleet on R1 to gamble on 1 cruiser hit. Theory is this would make G odds worse Vs. B in SZ9. Probably a bad idea.

G - Sent 2 SUB to Canada, rest to ram B fleet. Good dice. Standard (but heavy R) otherwise but 5 INF/ART went to Tyrolia.

• NOTE: Kiel stack walked to Berlin (to go East).

F - Standard. Rammed the AH fleet with the F Med Fleet. Battle was drawn (expected outcome).
B - Rammed Egypt into TJ (dice went SUPER BAD), rammed India into Persia (dice went well, got the OTK). Put 100% of build into India.

• NOTE: Possible mistake here?
• Was it worth going 100% all-in against Persia when it would have probably been smarter to bring critical mass to TJ
  • (Remember that Ottomans have a 6 INF/2 ART stack in Smyrna that can respond to the attack immediately, so any win there needs to be significant and not just minor).
  • Overall gameplan with UK Vs. a competent Ottoman player may be off. Might be smart to slowly mass TTs and shuck into TJ in an attempt to draw Ottoman troops south (and away from Russia).
• Also might be necessary to spend B1 building fleet to clean up the German fleet.
  • Using France to do it like I did in this game takes too much away from the western front, which stopped France from being able to effectively punish Germany for sending ~80% to Russia.

O - Activated Bulgaria but largely did nothing except sneak into Sevastopol and try to punish TJ (largely successful). Standard stuff. Moved fleet into SZ17 (no combat) to stop Italy from activating Albania I1.

I - Killed leftover AH TT. Built a SUB to eventually kill off O fleet. Otherwise standard movements.

• Buying fleet with Italy might be a bad idea. Should probably use B to handle all fleet buying in early rounds until Americans show up.

USA - Normal stuff. Only note is:

• “Who should get Spanish Morocco”

  • USA @ 20 income = 4 INF/2 ART (3 TT)

  • USA @ 21 income = 3 INF/3 ART (still 3 TT).

  • F @ 26 income (assuming Portugal) = 6 INF/2 ART

  • F @ 27 income = 9 INF (or 5 INF/3 ART or whatever.)

• So F taking Spanish Morocco may be more ideal, since USA is likely going to be put into a defensive roll wherever they land. The extra F income allows a transition to offensive orientation Vs. Germany instead of defensive.

• Overall shuck path should be:

  • 3 TT SZ1 (USA)
  • 3 TT SZ14 (Africa)
  • 3-6 TT spread across the Mediterranean. Probably should just be 3 in SZ17

• So buy order before USA4 should be:

1. USA1 = 3 TT (18, save 2, 22 total)
2. USA2 = 3 TT (18, save 4, 24 total)
3. USA3 = 3 TT/1 ART (22, save 2, 22 total)
   USA4 means USA can move
   total before being allowed to move = 6 INF/3 ART/BB/CR/9 TT
4. USA4 = whatever you want but at least 3 land units.
   NOTE: Navy can be mixed in here but not too much. You need 9 TT in full rotation by end of USA5

[DoManMacgee]

@domanmacgee
(2/???)

Round 2:
AH - Main CP stacks are Trieste (medium)/Silesia/Poland
R - Moved stack to Belorussia (idea is to dead-zone Ukraine/Livonia).

• Was it possible to suicide Russia into Ottomans (or at least feint it)?

• Main issue here is the G -> AH can-opener to force a stack into Russia at basically any point after turn 2.

  • The only benefit is that neither stack on its own can challenge a larger Russian stack unless Russia attacks into the combined stack

    • (which is different from G40, where the Germany-Italy ratio is ~85-15 in Germany’s favor. Here it’s about 60-40).

  • However, attacking into the stack while it’s combined is problematic, as AH can soak R’s hits and Germany can then 1v1 Russia afterwards.

    • Ex. Start: R = 100%, G = 60%, AH = 30%
    • Russia attacks, AH takes all hits.
    • R = 100%, G = 60%, AH = 0%
    • Defenders fire, R (obviously) takes all hits.
    • R = 70%, G = 60%
    • Germany can now start moving troops into this meat grinder and, with the bigger economy, eventually win. This is more or less what happened in this game.

  • Thus, to survive, Russia needs to deny battle for as long as possible and get outside assistance from B.

• To avoid RR, 3 of Karelia/Livonia/Belorussia/Ukraine/Tartarstan need to be either Russia-owned or contested.

  1. Karelia is easy is UK shucks troops there.
  2. Of the remaining 4, Livonia (as UK can cover it from Karelia) and Tartarstan (farthest away from Berlin/Vienna) are the most reasonable to hold.

G - Ignored dead-zone and walked into Ukraine (see above notes). Ratio is 12 East, 2 West. Left Tyrolia except for 2 INF, which went to Trieste.

• Dived 2 SUB/2 CR Vs. French/British fleet off Spain. Got good dice.
  • This is a direct consequence of UK not building fleet B1. Might have to take a general A&A strategy of building up UK Atlantic Fleet before making moves on other parts of the map.
• Stacked Alsace (backed out of Belgium).

F - Main stack to Belgium. Fleet build to cover lack of UK fleet. This might have been the critical error, as only 1 INF was deployed to Western Front this turn, which eventually gutted all momentum in that part of the board.

• In response to Germany/Austria going after Russia aggressively, the only counter is to make up for the lost income somehow.
  -3 from Poland
  -3 from Ukraine
  -2 from Livonia
  Total: -8

  Requirement is:
  +3 from Alsace
  +6 from Rhur
  Total: +9

  They don’t even have to fall, just be contested to deny Germany a >40 income. If F can actually take and hold these and threaten Munich CP will likely die extremely quickly.

B - Walked into Sevastopol (to bolster Russia and try to bait German/Austrian stack away), continued stacking India.

• On this turn UK should have scouted the G Fleet scattering and used it as a chance to start building navy (to eventually start shucking units up to Karelia with the aim of holding the Livonia area/forcing the CP to guard the Poland/Belorussia area).

O - Stacked Mesopotamia and finished off TJ. Made 1 CR leave SZ17 to keep the lockdown going for another turn.

• Maybe have Italians leave Libya when faced with this type of strategy? No sense in having them sit around and wait when they can be fighting Ottomans in the Middle East.

I - Kept stacking Venice.
USA - TTs. One thing that was done here was using America’s navy to transport the Canadians across the sea.

• Again, sucking it up and building a UK fleet would have probably been smarter, as this severely disrupted the early American shuck during a critical juncture.

(I promise these will get shorter as we move away from the openings and into the grindier part of the game).

[DoManMacgee]

@The_Good_Captain
(3/???)

Round 3:
AH - Dive Albania, cap-open into Ukraine. Evacuate Tyrolia/Trieste (1 G INF each). 1 INF -> Livonia
(2/3 Russian territories gone)

R - Dive Ukraine (60 Vs. 53). This is the game-losing move. All AH units died, then G moved in to put R on a permanent back-foot until Russia eventually died.
(1/3 Russian territories gone)

G - Stack Ukraine (no combat) + 1 INF -> Belorussia
(2/3 Russian territories gone).

• Again, if UK had their stack in Karelia ready here, they could have started fighting back in Livonia to delay the risk of RR.

• Germany not pressing combat might have actually given me a chance to evacuate (leaving 1 INF behind on purpose to stall, which would have turned the mistake above into a net positive outcome, as CP would no longer have the can-opener advantage in the area).

• Shoved their fleet on top of America’s fleet in SZ1.

• Ratio is 7 East/5 West

F - Held the line. Needed to put more pressure on Germany to save Russia. Even a small stack into Rhur would have forced a response.

B - Reinforced Ukraine (really should have just went to Tartarstan instead to continue to slow the CP advance. This also convinced me to keep Russia in Ukraine, which ultimately cost me the game in the long-term.

• Once again didn’t see the idea to buy the transports in UK yet. Doing it here may still have been enough to save Russia combined with Russia leaving Ukraine on R4.

O - Stacked Mesopotamia, continued the stall in SZ17.
I - Dove on Tyrolia with everything. Idea was to either go into Munich or force AH to turn around (instead of streaming more guying into Russia), probably.

• (apparently not accounting for the possibility of AH just diving on Tyrolia and forcing a attrition battle that Italy can’t afford to fight on its small income).
  • A better move here would have probably been to gobble up Switzerland, Tyrolia and Trieste with small groups just to inconvenience AH and make them clean up the mess (and just use that time to rebuild the Venice stack later).

USA - Had to build fleet to counter Germany’s fleet. This is bad because it ruined the timing of getting the shuck set up

• This had disastrous repercussions long-term, as America was never quite able to make a positive contribution anywhere on the map other than stemming the tide of the Ottoman advance in Egypt.

Round 4:
AH - Attacks Tyrolia and the battle goes badly (but is still attrition). The Italian attack accomplished its secondary objective of forcing 100% of AH forces to go into Tyrolia instead of heading into Russia.

R - Stays put in Ukraine. Should have left to prevent more attrition from Germany.
G - More attrition from Germany. Ratio is 8 East/6 West. Stacked Rhur (left Alsace).
F - Should have moved main stack into Alsace instead of staying in Belgium.
B - Finally had the idea of dropping a fleet in UK to shuck into Russia. Ultimately it was too little too late, but the idea was solid and kept Russia alive a fair bit longer than it had any right surviving. Made progress cleaning up Africa.

• As a desperation move, moved everything from Persia -> Sevastopol with the ultimate aim of moving into Ukraine to prop up Russia.
• Dove on TJ with a TT to try slowing down Ottomans. This was more or less successful but no major impact on game.
• The attempt here was to offer India to the Ottomans as an exchange of sorts, but ultimately this failed because of Ottoman’s next move…

O - Dove Mesopotamia on Sevastopol. Super swingy fight in O’s favor (all O FTRs survived, all B FTRs died, 11 offensive hits Vs. 7 defensive hits).

• Had this round of combat gone differently it may have stopped Ottomans from snowballing their income out of control, which may have forced the CP to take the RR instead of directly occupying Moscow
  • (meaning Entente would have maintained their economic edge in the late game).
• Ottomans start making progress in Africa against the Entente (a long-term consequence of the bad UK opener where they dove on TJ with not enough force).

I - Takes Albania, leaves Tyrolia (still making good progress in forcing AH to respect Italy instead of running after Russia). Cleaned up German boats that aren’t sitting on USA.

USA - Forced to sit and clean up German fleet in SZ1. Moveout delayed a turn (this is also a long-term consequence of the poor UK opening where they left the fleet building to the other Entente members.)

[DoManMacgee]

@The_Good_Captain
(4/5)

Round 5:
AH - Wipes Albania and Tyrolia. Only 4 INF were able to head East.
R - Doubled down on Ukraine (making the bad situation worse).
G - More meat grinder action in Ukarine. 9 West/2 East (which makes sense, since the poor Russian play ground the Russian army into nothing by this point). Alsace goes German (stack is still in Rhur).

F - 100% into Alsace. Good move but needed to happen the previous turn.
B - Forced to evacuate Sevastopol (except for 1 blocker). Finally started the shuck into Karelia (success, but too late as discussed above). Cleanup of Africa is nearly complete.

• In future games, UK might want to prioritize cleaning Africa sooner to get the extra G IPCs off the board. This helps counteract some of their insane IPC growth from taking Russian territories.

O - 100% into Sevastopol. This move is the ultimate consequence of the bad dice from Round 4, which dooms Moscow to being captured (or making the RR inevitable, if that was the choice instead).

I - More stacking.
USA - Fleet finally moved out and took Spanish Morocco (see earlier note, France probably should have taken the territory).

Round 6:
AH - Stack moved to Trieste to cover all of Tyrolia/Trieste/Albania. Russia was so weak at this point that the frail AH remnants in Russia were able to press combat and almost completely wipe the Russian stack.

R - Left Ukraine, but this needed to happen several rounds ago when Russia was still viable.
G - Continues to stack Rhur, lightly takes Belgium. 8 West, 2 East. Wiped Ukraine. Arranged things to Belorussia and Ukraine were evenly stacked (with the idea that the Ottomans will complete the trap and doom Russia to RR).

• This, again, is a consequence of Britain not arriving until it was too late. Had the British been ~two turns earlier, they may have had enough force in the area to contest one of the territories and keep Russia afloat.
  • Similarly, had Russia withdrawn from Ukraine earlier they would have still had enough force to prevent this exact situation from playing out.
    • And to conclude here, had the Ottomans not had their major breakthrough in the south, the CP would have been forced to just settle for forcing the RR rather than being able to actually punch through Moscow as actually happened. Still might have been a loss long-term though due to how the Italy fight ended up playing out.

F - Went light into Munich, Tyrolia and Belgium (main stack stayed in Alsace).
B - Got Livonia back, pushed into Mesopotamia.

• Should have suicided the B stack into Sevastopol. As long as the army didn’t 100% die, Russia could have survived. Even if they WERE 100% wiped, Ottomans might not have had enough power to force the RR/capture Moscow.

O - Locks in the 3 territories for CP (Belorussia/Ukraine/Tartarstan). Mesopotamia was left alone because that was never the point to begin with.

I - Dive on Albania. At this point Italy is about to get his by 100% of AH strength.
USA - Blew out Egypt (stopping the Ottoman advance in the region). Built more TTs to make up for the lost tempo from earlier rounds (allowing the Canadians to use them).

Round 7:
AH - Albania/Tyrolia cleaned up.
R - I got mindgamed here. Used Moscow to desperation-dive on Belorussia with the hope of avoiding the RR. This failed, and encouraged the CP to DENY the RR and press on to Moscow.

• Allowing Russia to just RR (and continue just stacking Moscow in the meantime) may have been better here, if only to deny income to the CP and allow UK to not need to waste time/resources fighting over the last few Russian territories (Karelia and Finland).

G - Dives on Rhur and Alsace and Moscow. Both fights go badly but Moscow is not beat up enough to allow a Ottoman take down later in the round.

F - Fights on in Rhur to exploit the German mistake. Also dives on TJ to continue pushing Ottomans out of Africa.

B - Tried reinforcing Moscow (in vain) and also ran troops into Sevastopol in an attempt to get the Ottomans to turn around.

O - Seizes Moscow and takes Mesopotamia (which was empty).
I - Dives on Tyrolia (a mistake which dooms the overall game, as the Italians are left way out of position and are easily killable by the main Austrian army from Trieste and Vienna).

USA - Dives on Albania (an attempt to divert the Austrians away from Tyrolia at least partially).

Round 8:
AH - Dives 100% on Tyrolia and pulls out of Albania. This crushes the Italian Army and sets off the series of turns that ultimately ends the game.
R - Dead
G - Pulls out of Alsace. Squashes the British remnants in Russia (Karelia).
F - Takes Alsace.
B - Moves troops that were meant for Russia into Belgium, since Russia is now gone (the TTs remain in-place to eventually try returning to Russia in the event that Germany tries to leave).

O - Leaves Moscow to kill the British troops that were still in the south of Russia.
I - Leaves Tyrolia. Attempted to dive on Albania to clean up the spare AH INF (and give USA freedom of movement to push further into Austria), but the die rolls don’t work out.

USA - Takes Albania. The Candaians are still in Spanish Morocco because moving “International Forces” is rough stuff.

[DoManMacgee]

@domanmacgee
(5/5)
Round 9:
AH - Takes Tyrolia/stacks Trieste again.
R - Dead.
G - Takes Finland, starts leaving Russia with main army.
F - Stacking.
B - Helps F with stacking but also goes into Karelia and Finland, albeit unsuccessfully (only got a contest off but the move is still enough to force the German ART to turn around).

O - Ottoman stacks get closer to India, also are back with small forces in North Africa.
I - Takes back Libya from Ottomans, took Serbia, also takes Switzerland as a desperation move (should have probably just retreated to Piedmont, although the situation was already pretty grim).

USA - Move into Serbia alongside Italians (more trying to get AH to stop sending reinforcements towards Rome).

Round 10:
AH - Dive on Venice, dive on Serbia.
R - Dead.
G - Stacking/trading Belgium. Cleaned up Karelia.
F - Stacking/trading Belgium. Take TJ to get Ottomans out of Africa again.
B - Hit Munich, stack India. Idea is to get Germany to back up to deal with disturbance in Munich.
O - All stacks converged in Persia.
I - Into Munich. Probably should have went to Piedmont in an attempt to draw the Austrians away from Rome (and if they didn’t take the bait, the FTRs could have at least escaped to Rome to get there before the main AH army). Germany was already going to go for Munich anyway and Rome needed to stay alive for the game to continue.

• Tried Smyrna too to get some extra income for the Rome defense but battle was a tie.

USA - Walked into Smyrna, continued reinforcing Albania/Serbia (to divert AH reinforcements away from Rome)

Round 11:
AH - Finished Serbia, walked into Piedmont, main stack to Tuscany.
R - Dead.
G - Main stack to Munich (left Rhur). This caught me off guard ultimately, as I was hoping for a partial moveout (so F can start an attrition fight in Ruhr while the stack was split). Walked into Switzerland.

F - Main stack to Rhur. This was a gamble but if it held Germany’s income lead over France would have been gone, meaning Entente would have eventually won via attrition.

B - British into Rhur also (see above). More stacking in India. Odds were leaning towards India holding via UK spamming INF into the meat grinder for as long as it would take to wear down the Ottoman stack.

• Canadians finally made it to the front lines. They landed in Rome.

O - All-in in India. 1st round of combat was more-or-less as expected. Cleaned up Smyrna (but at this point TJ and Arabia were in Entente hands).

I - Sneaked 2 INF out of Rome/into Piedmont. Hope was, again, to draw the Austrians away from Rome to buy time.

USA - Hit Smyrna (by pulling out of Albania) but also reinforced Rome with 4 INF.

• Probably should have ignored Smyrna and threw everything into Rome to hold the line.

Round 12:
AH - Dove on Rome. Initial battle actually goes pretty poorly for AH.
R - Dead.
G - Main stack rammed into Rhur. Very favorable dice to CP to the point where F was forced out of the territory. Tried to leave Russia again. Spare units went into Alsace and Lorraine.

F - Pulled out of Rhur. Retook Switzerland/Alsace/Lorraine.
B - Hit Karelia again to force Germany to stay. Dodged combat and stacked in India to continue the attrition.

O - Freshly spawning Ottoman units are trapped cleaning up the drops in Smyrna. Attrition continues in India but the O stack is barely over 20 at this point (started at ~39 units).

I - The last mistake. Tried attacking in Rome to wear down the attacking stack (idea was for USA to dive into Tuscany to cut off reinforcements) but AH got just enough of a favorable roll to put the full Entente stack in danger of dying.

USA - Followed the plan and hit Tuscany. I goofed and thought doing this would also cut off the FTRs coming in.

Round 13:
AH - AH takes Italy (FTRs sneaked through from Venice, as FTRs ignore contested territories). GG.

On a review the game ended up being a lot closer than it felt like it was while actually playing. I think that highlights the main issue with 1914’s balance though (I made a HUGE number of questionable and outright awful moves and still only barely lost the income lead, and ultimately the game). If I hadn’t blundered things completely in Rome it’s entirely feasible that:

1. The Entente could have held Rome for a bit longer since USA’s shuck was setup effectively setup (although Italy had lost so much ground at this point that eventually AH would have started getting 11+ INF stacks into Rome against only 6-9 land units per turn from the combined Italy/US buys).

2. UK could have worn down the Ottoman stack fighting in India and began a large-scale counterattack, meaning the game would have devolved into a race of “can UK liberate Moscow/take Constantinople before Rome or Paris die”?

However, given how badly the Rhur fight went, it’s also possible that Germany would have just pushed France all the way back to Paris and won the game in that way.

That’s about all I got. Sorry I nuked the thread with all this but if I DM’d it to you I would have gotten rate-limited lol.

[The_Good_Captain]

@domanmacgee omfg - this is a gold mine. I have my own notes/experiences but this is amazingly detailed. I have read about half but need to stack some turns against other players right now. Will finish this before bed and comment. Holy cow this is awesome

[The_Good_Captain]

@domanmacgee good read. Couldn’t have asked for a better account, thank you! It’s really interesting to hear the interpretation from the other side. In this situation two cases stand out to me. I was never trying to leave Russia with the German armies up in Karelia. I was trying to get British units to run the minefields and land units up there so those German units could remain active and avoid being “mobility killed”. I was never going to go farther than Poland.

That being said, that concept doesn’t work at all unless the CP is “stretching” the UK economy. This has happened in two other games and sorta happened here. I feel like I am noticing a weird phenomena where the UK’s ability to place units in two areas can become a liability of sorts. This is the third game where I kind of felt like it materialized in a way that felt familiar. On the last German turn, I was tempted to do what I had done in a previous game - max purchase battleships and a single transport.

With what was going on in India and the lack of naval units around the Isles, it seems to kinda suck to have two industrial complexes. Do you spam ships to protect the transport fleet around the UK? Or do you spam infantry to protect India? I went with not building the fleet in this case because I felt certain the UK would just sack its transport fleet and that just didnt seem productive to me as the CP. I would rather keep those UK transports afloat in the hopes they run the mines in the north and play with the German army up there.

And for the Ottomans, I had no illusion about capturing that capital. I would stay as long as the TUV made sense and then pin it with one infantry and head back to Persia or Meso to meet up with fresh troops. I just wanted the UK out of my hair for a few turns and not have to break the bank to make it happen and of course to collect IPC for a bit / freeze UK IPC for a bit.

One thing I would really like to know your mind on - why don’t you have the USA take Spain? Or why not have the USA soften it so that France can pick it up? I feel strongly that USA should take Spain (although my shuck strat is very different than yours too) but my feeling is that you feel strongly they should not take Spain and I would really like to hear that argument if that’s how you feel?

[The_Good_Captain]

@DoManMacgee i say that bit about the UK transports fully acknowledging the oversimplification of the second and third order effects. (Example: I’m aware the transports could displace, I’m aware entente fleet units could be brought to bear, etc - in this case there are further “knock-on” effects for CP and Entente, some unknown)

[DoManMacgee]

@the_good_captain said in [Game 4] TGC (CP) v DoManMacgee (Entente) -oob, no bid, RR:

@domanmacgee I was never trying to leave Russia with the German armies up in Karelia. I was trying to get British units to run the minefields and land units up there so those German units could remain active and avoid being “mobility killed”. I was never going to go farther than Poland.

That’s interesting. I figured that, if left alone, you might have tried walking the stack (or at least part of it) down to the western front to push through the stalemate there. It makes sense that you’d want to keep the stack there to block any attempt at getting Russia back in the game though.

I went with not building the fleet in this case because I felt certain the UK would just sack its transport fleet and that just didnt seem productive to me as the CP.

Correct. Would have just let the boats die, at least until India was secure. If anything one blank turn of Germany buys might have gotten France back in the game and prevented me from surrendering (although with Italy dead I probably would have quit anyway).

One thing I would really like to know your mind on - why don’t you have the USA take Spain? Or why not have the USA soften it so that France can pick it up? I feel strongly that USA should take Spain (although my shuck strat is very different than yours too) but my feeling is that you feel strongly they should not take Spain and I would really like to hear that argument if that’s how you feel?

In a normal game I would have went for it (the second option, having USA soften it and let France get the IPCs) but I felt the crunch to get units into the Mediterranean ASAP (due to the rest of the game going south). I think I forgot to mention that in my notes though (it should have been under the part where I hypothesize what territories the Entente can take to make up for lost Russian IPCs).

[DoManMacgee]

@the_good_captain The only question I have about this game is which exact point did you make up your mind to refuse the RR and go for Moscow? Was it a long-term plan or an opportunistic thing based on how things went in other parts of the board (me staying in Ukraine for too long/Sevastopol going well for you/etc.)?

[The_Good_Captain]

@domanmacgee said in [Game 4] TGC (CP) v DoManMacgee (Entente) -oob, no bid, RR:

The only question I have about this game is which exact point did you make up your mind to refuse the RR and go for Moscow? Was it a long-term plan or an opportunistic thing based on how things went in other parts of the board (me staying in Ukraine for too long/Sevastopol going well for you/etc.)?

It was opportunistic – in my opinion at point, there is a lot to unpack in this game, at least as regards the CP/Russia relationship in the first 6-8 turns. In our earlier game, I had a (imo) fatal misunderstanding of the rules and my own strategy with how to deal with Russia. Your response post game was something to the effect of, “I could see you were going for RR”.
My instinct was that it was “not good” that it was so visible. My next immediate instinct was that “either outcome needs to be okay as the CP and the outcome shouldn’t be forced. I don’t think I will change my mind on this concept going forward. It seems to be panning out well enough in other games. I have had one of each (accept RR, not accept RR) in concurrent games and in either case they seem to be playing out very competitively afterwards. For me, the ideal conditions on when to do one or the other are not crystal clear. However, I feel confident that the conditions on when to accept RR or brush it off will become more clear with more playing.
At this point in time, I feel that control of Sevastopol is/was the main factor. Since CP already controlled a pathway into Russia, might as well get all the IPC I can. I was leaning in that direction but had to think about the UK in the north part of the board. If I accept RR, the UK has to suicide charge out of Russia which I liked. On the other hand, UK transports will definitely sealift the UK army in Karelia out and into France – I felt this was not good. I wanted the CP to eliminate as much British material as I could up there with the forces I had on hand. What I settled on was that it was better to fight the UK in Karelia than to fight them in France or India. I felt that keeping that front open was something Germany could handle better than the UK – and that it would benefit the CP more than the Entente to do so overall. This was a decision made under shades of gray. I wasn’t sure if UK packed those transports and risked a full amphibious landing in Finland that I would be able to fight that entirely effectively or that “something else” would pop up but I was comfortable enough with that risk I guess.

[DoManMacgee]

@the_good_captain said in [Game 4] TGC (CP) v DoManMacgee (Entente) -oob, no bid, RR:

For me, the ideal conditions on when to do one or the other are not crystal clear. However, I feel confident that the conditions on when to accept RR or brush it off will become more clear with more playing.

That’s an interesting point. From my side Russia’s entire gameplan ends up revolving around dealing with the threat of RR firing (whereas in a normal game the plan would just be to fall back to Moscow and wait for the Americans to show up/the Entente to start making progress in other parts of the board). The rule forces Russia to actually deal with the “will they/won’t they” mindgame which is created by the Central Powers’ ability to decline the revolution. At this point, I’d probably say that RR is basically mandatory to give the game any chance of being balanced, not unlike the old “USSR can’t attack R1” rule in Classic.

[The_Good_Captain]

@domanmacgee

I have another short comment as I re-read portions of your analysis.

You seem/are critical of your commitment to Ukraine throughout the game.

This is mildly surprising to me as that caused me quite a bit of pain or perceived pain as the CP. More specifically, it was demoralizing to have to fight so desperately for so long for that high value space. Again, your reflective analysis was a bit of a surprise to me in this way as I felt I might plagiarize that move (or a version of that move) in future games where I control the entente.

[DoManMacgee]

@the_good_captain It might have been different if I was ferrying the UK guys in earlier in the game (either from a boat lift or via Mesopotamia). The issue from my perspective is that Germany was getting the better IPC trades every round after the first battle (~turn 3). It’s probably less about diving on Ukraine in the first place (that was probably fine, since you had AH eat most of the casualties, which made them a non-factor in the area) but trying to 1v1 Germany with Russia with no support for an extended period of time was just asking for trouble IMO.

[The_Good_Captain]

@domanmacgee rack another? I will be hitting Entente with the same opening moves.

[DoManMacgee]

@the_good_captain Sure. Just LMK when you start the game.