Rise of Prussia, patch 1.01g (public beta)
Scenario: Invasion of Saxony (1756 - 1757)
Imperial side: Jarkko
Prussian side: AI
In the Invasion of Saxony -scenario the goal for Prussia is to invade and conquer Saxony. Anybody with half an experience in strategy games will succeed, because Saxony absolutely has no chance. However, for some weird reason that has made me try this scenario a few times the past couple days, as the Imperial side. This AAR is about my fourth attempt at defending Saxony, and all the previous attempts had failed miserably.
The goal of Prussia is to take all the objectives before Early January 1757. The Imperial goal is the same, but it is not even physically possible to move an army to Berlin in time (because of supply reasons) even if all the Prussians tried to avoid engaging an attacking army. As per the scenario background, if Prussia doesn't win, then that can be seen as a victory for Saxony. Also enough strategic towns have to be held, so one can not simply go for objectives and disregard the overall strategic situation.
With that in mind my intention is rather "gamey". I intend to do my best to hold on to one objective (Pirna camp in this case), and to hoot with the rest of Saxony. Imperial side needs just three (3) strategic cities, so that is much easier to fulfill (but it means I actually have to defend Prague and Koniggratz, else I'll be burned).
My strategy is to make a valiant last stand in Alamo... errr... Camp Pirna. If I get the Saxony main forces there in time, they might be able to fend off the first Prussian attack with the aid of the terrain (and I am praying hard to see some rain to slow down the Prussian), and then the Austrian reinforcements should start arriving. I'll mercilessly sacrifice the Saxon cavalry on harassing attacks, their only task will be to buy time with blood; I won't be defending Chemnitz with anything else but the cavalry, and I hope that will be enough to see snow start falling and make the area between Chemnitz and Pirna impossible to move through (and I hope the Prussians won't push on to Karlsbad and set up a depot there before winter, or else I am screwed).
Even with numerical superiority, favouring terrain and entrenchments the battles will be hard. The Imperial commanders are mediocore at best (and there are only a couple such commanders on the Imperial side), while the Prussian commanders are demi-gods on roller-skates. Commanders are in RoP, just like the other AGE games, very very very important.
TURN 1, Late August 1756
During the first turn Saxonian and Austrian troops are locked. This means one can only decide wether to have armies sitting inside city walls, or camp outside, but no movement is allowed. Torgau is the main target on first turn, and there is absolutely nothing one can do to help Torgau, but the longer Torgay garrison holds out, the better. Still, I split off one of the two garrison battallions to stand outside the gates, with orders to immediatly retreat if possible; my idea and hope was that they would avoid combat and withdraw towards Leipzig, where I wanted to set them as a garrison (Leipzig has no garrison, just the standing Saxonian army, and I definitivelt do not want to detach combat regiments to garrison duty).
The other thing Austrian side can move is the river-flotillas. The other flotilla is on the Danube, and is useless in this scenario. The other is on Elbe, in Prague at start, and is needed for one very game tactics. The Austrian advanced guard sits in the town of Lobositz on the border of Saxony and Austria. Due to some design oversight this elite force starts with only two turns worth of supplies, but they are locked for three turns (and thus can not move before turn four); thus the guard starves and is useless in this scenario because there is no Austrians who could move in supplies. Except Saxony has in Dresden two supplywagons. However, trying to move the supplywagons over land (on turn two, because on turn 1 they can't move yet) sees the Prussian cavalry rush for it and capture the wagons and thus the flotilla from Prague has to dash on first turn to Dresden, pick up the other supply-wagon, dash back to Pragu, unload the wagons and send them marching towards Lobositz. Supply is checked at the end of the turn, and the wagons will arrive just in time to prevent the advanced guard from starving to death.