One more CG game, this time with beta 1.08K. CP with WEGO again. Slight variation on my favourite "what-if" war plans: Moltke/diplo poker/munitions for Germany with Prinz/Ultimatum Accepted/Munitions for Austria. I "won" (stopped game for being unchallenging) in August 16.
I am much happier with the diplomatic AI this time. It got Britain in first, then Romania, while I was getting Turkey and Bulgaria (Italy I got on my side again through the diplo poker ploy). I took advantage of the ambiguous Greek diplomatic stance when I suddenly realised in early 15 that their diplo level was 7 (!) and pushed them over to my side with a couple of well-placed diplomatic missions. The AI fought me very well on the blockade neutrals front by targeting Sweden and Holland repeatedly, while getting in a couple of missions to Spain as well. My only complaint remanis that in all my Gold games (all patch versions) the AI makes no effort whatsoever towards Japan which stays neutral in 100% of cases. Compare that with the vanilla where Japan was always number 1 priority. I suggest a slight change in the algorithm to ensure the Entente AI to target Japan after Britain, Italy and the Balkan minors. Oh, and perhaps try to get a right of passage through Belgium (I'm not sure on the rules there) to extend the front there (since I always go East, Belgian neutrality is a very nice way to keep my few Western forces concentrated, and an elongated front would cause me many problems).
Strategically, it was a decent showing by the AI on the West Front, keeping a nice tight line in the South once the first Italian rush was spent. In fact, clearing the French out of the Savoy fortresses took me all the way to 1916. On the main Franco-German border, I resisted the first onslaught in 1914 by the skin of my teeth and then it settled down to a continuous front, more or less. Some problems remain:
-Occasionally it still leaves the edge hexes of the front (Briey, Belfort) unoccupied.
-It never launches a concentrated GO during the trench period, with lots of guns and troops, but goes for penny-packet efforts all over the line and obviously gets slaughtered. It would be much more proper from a WW1 simulation perspective if it remains on the defensive everywhere apart from the main offensive sector which it should pack with troops
-All my Grand Offensives on the other hand always succeed. Perhaps I am good in concentrating strength and picking the right spot, but I wouldn't mind getting slaughtered and frustrated just once. It's WW1 after all, slaughter and frustration is supposed to be the whole point! As it was I broke through Belfort and then steadily through Burgundy and got all the way to Lons while I rolled up the French line in Nancy and isolated the troops at Epinal and the Vosges hex. Nice, but a bit WW2-ish. I want more hard slogs, not sweeping encirclements in 1916!
On the main East front the AI went for the main East Prussia effort (Czar plan?) and again got badly isolated in deep penetrations. It fought well, but too many troops were lost to isolations and eventually Russia revolted and capitulated in two successive rounds in summer 1916 with my troops outside Vitebsk and inside Dvinsk.
I was really happy with the AI on the Serbian front. I got my 3 Austrian army noses repeatedly bloodied (the Serb troops are really tough) and it was only through the Bulgarian and (eventually) Greek backstabs that I killed them off. Perfect WW1 simulation here.
Similarly, the Romanians were also accurately useless. With a bit of help from the Turkish 1st Army (I risked leaving the Straits uncovered as Britain seemed to be massively commited in Mesopotamia and Armenia (more on this below), plus I have NEVER, EVER, EVER seen the AI go for a Gallipoli gambit) I killed them off by 1916. Accurate again.
Britain really made my life tough against Turkey. My forces in the Sinai were even nicely encircled by a push up from the Red Sea (I got careless) and most of my IV Army got isolated and destroyed
. In Mesopotamia I thought I had bottled them up North of Basra, using those lakes or whatever they are to keep the line short, but the marvellous AI went through Persia (which was on my side along with Afganintan) and over in Armenia! Oops. It was even advancing there when I finally beat Russia and rushed over the Turkish 2nd and 3rd armies along with German and Austrian expeditionary forces to stem the flow when Britain capitulated! (see below)
General occurences and apparent bugs:
-Technology goes a bit fast. I ran out of advances in mid-1916. Granted, I had three majors on my side researching 5 advances at a time.
-On the other hand, doctrine advances are infuriatingly slow. I only got gas, and that was in 1916. Since there is a limit of 2 per year anyway, perhaps increase the probability of success? The "Country X failed in adopting the following doctrine:" message gets infuriating, particularly as ALL my GOs (even the Turkish ones) succeeded.
-Whenever my fleets venture out to sea, even seas controlled by me (e.g. the Italians in W. Med, or the Turks just outside Bosporus in the Black seas) they immediately get wounded (usually the best ships too). I may be missing something in the rules about enemy subs/mines (although there were no enemy minefields in view), but it is annoying even in that case since there is no message of enemy activity causing the damage, it's as if my fleets magically fall sick when they get out of port
-The AI makes the silly mistake during the redeployment phases of sending troops to isolated but controlled hexes. With all the deep penetrations the Russians did, and the subsequent getting cut off by me, there were always lots of enemy hexes at the back of my front that my cavalry did not have the time to convert back. Well, every redeployment phase these isolated hexes got filled with troops again, which were promptly isolated and died. Perhaps put a rule, that a stack can't move to a hex which will be out of supply/isolated immediately.
-Isolations and poor supply are a problem even for prudent advances sometimes. In all Turkish fronts supply is awful. Fair enough, but the British AI in particular loses so many stacks through isolation when it is doing even historical things like trying to get up to Bagdad methodically, one hex at a time.
-National Morale and Parliament movements are completely bizarre. I would call them a random walk: there seems to be some causal drift due to the fortunes of the war but the variance is tremendous. France, with the South, Savoy and Burgundy lost, with Russia out of the war and with oodles upon oodles of losses was still Sacred Union/20-odd morale in 1916. Ok, let's put that down to tough Frenchmen wanting to get Alsace-Lorraine back so much they absorb punishment without demurr. OK, so the Austrians and Italians get disillusioned amazingly quickly despite costly victories in the front - that's also fine. Britain on the other hand was manhandling the Turks as above, plus kicking my butt every time the HS Fleet ventured out (I was exchanging capital ships 1-1 but lost so many cruisers and destroyers it wasn't even funny). OK, so my subs got 90 and 110 points out of their economy on the 2 phases I ran them (restricted), but I would say Britain was doing rather well overall. Well, Parliament went defeatist around the end of 1915 and morale around -7 by summer 16. It didn't ever try to form a new govt (only France did, once, it seems the AI doesn't like the option in gold as much as it did in vanilla) and promptly capitulated!
-Bizarre messages when it comes to capitulations remain. Romania capitulated first (got the message), declared war to me again (!) in the same sequence and ended up with Right of Passage to Entente diplomatic level. The same happened with Afganistan (I said the Brits were doing well): surrender, war, surrender, war in one sequence. Russia capitulated properly, Britain however went through the same bizarre cycle.
-After Russia surrendered, in the next interphase I got a series of messages (the yellowy-paper type, not the white-newspapary sort) for each of my countries (Germany included) that "Due to the capitulation of major power GERMANY (or Austria, or Italy etc) the morale of Germany (Austria, Italy etc) has been affected by +x points." Despite my horror, I had obviously NOT surrendered and all the morale bumps were positive so I suspect this had something to do with the capitulation of Russia.
-Peace treaty messages still have this ugly "none was ceded to the winning powers, none was ceded to the winning powers, none was ceded to the winning powers, none was ceded to the winning powers, none was ceded to the winning powers" message.
OK, I know this was a long post but this game for me is so fascinating in its potential, that I really want it to be as perfect as possible. I can provide save games for every month of this game if it is required to help locate the bugs.