Fastest White Victory?

[John Sedgwick]

I've only played the Southern Whites so far, and I get the impression they are the easiest faction to play, so to challenge myself I wanted to see how fast I could topple the Reds - unfortunately my campaign was ended by CTDs, but not before I had encircled and destroyed one red army and was putting the finishing touches on a second near Liski, having besieged Petrograd and Moscow by mid-summer, 1919 - and all without building any new units (didn't realize until now how to bring up the building interface - guess I should've read the manual).

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else wanted to share their earliest white victories (Southern or Siberian), and their strategies for achieving them. Mine was pretty simple: destroy the red army in the field, win the battle for hearts and minds with land reforms, sieze the railways and make a beeline for Moscow.

Related question: what's the most challenging faction to play (in the GC and/or any of the other scenarios)?

[Narwhal]

Red in Finnish Civil War is Hell.

Rest is quite easy. Try the King's Last Years mod.

[Baris]

Actually southern whites depends heavily on alliances that they can't build many troops(with limited requisitions options)/ and no need to build much troops anyway . From my games Reds in 1.3a didn't surrender after I have captured Petrograd and Moscow, That they field a large army and win battles even with 10-15 NM, But generally Red AI concentrates on southern whites than Siberians. As Siberians with much requisition options and less complicated fronts I have found the game much easier. I didn't play much with 1.04 though. In the patch notes it is mentioned that 'AI improved (more offensive if affordable)' There can be some good improvements. But AI was definetely much better than any older Ageod game in 1.3a.
But I highly advise you try Fatal years if you want to play single player campaign. In the mod it is very common that Fitskhelaurov division in northern Don get encircled and destroyed by Red AI in the early turns. Apart from more balanced alliances for southern whites.

For other scenarios for challenging game play:
Drang- playing as Reds (can be way too challenging in Pbem)
Fin civil war- As playing Reds as Narwhal said.
Polish war- As playing Poland

[John Sedgwick]

Thanks for the replies, guys! I will definitely try Fatal Years, assuming it's compatible with 1.04, otherwise I'll wait for the next update of the mod - Clovis seems to update it quite frequently.

Took a look at the Finnish scenario - looks promising, I'll be sure to give it a go when I have time. I'm not very interested in the alternate history Drang Nach Osten, but it sounds like it could be fun, too. Definitely very interested in playing Poland, though - I've always thought that was a very interesting campaign.

@Baris: you're right, the Southern Whites' starting army is good enough on its own without building new units. I wasn't sure if taking Moscow and Petrograd would trigger a victory, but I expected them to fight on for a bit. My main issue with the Red AI is that it isn't very good at breaking out of encirclements or relieving sieges, so it's easy to bag lots of commies early on - but I guess there's a lot more where they came from, too.

Anyway, I consider singleplayer games as training for PBEM

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

My experience with vanilla RUS is that the AI sometimes does a poor job of managing it's armies. Sometimes they can put up a decent fight, but sometimes I barely even see any Red armies. I'm not sure if I've ever been able to do 1919 as the southerns, but 1920 isn't too hard. Fatal Years improves the difficulty significantly. I lose occasionally as the southerns and have yet to win a GC though this is mainly do to not finishing my games.

BTW, as an AACW veteran, I also played my first game without building new units. The build interface is a bit different and I don't read electronic manuals. I was playing Siberians though.

[John Sedgwick]

Sometimes they can put up a decent fight, but sometimes I barely even see any Red armies. I'm not sure if I've ever been able to do 1919 as the southerns, but 1920 isn't too hard.

Now might be a good time to mention that I cheated by reloading the previous turn twice - I was trying to see how fast I could do it if nothing went seriously wrong, and even then it's doubtful whether I could've met my 1919 deadline, since I stopped playing after some CTDs. They put up a good fight once and relieved my initial encirclement of the Don Front, but after reloading I used that to my advantage to lure out the Tsaritsyn garrison and destroy it, too. So far I've seen a lot of Red armies, but they haven't been putting up much of a fight - mostly getting themselves besieged or surrounded and wiped off the field. Even when evacuating regions after securing 100% military control, the AI usually sits there eating its supplies, waiting for the end to come.

BTW, as an AACW veteran, I also played my first game without building new units. The build interface is a bit different and I don't read electronic manuals.

Haha, yup, AACW was my intro to AGE games, so silly ol' me, when I didn't see any units in any of the F# tabs, I figured they mustn't exist. You'd think the "units under production" part of the F2 screen might've clued me in...

But trial and error is all part of the fun Next challenge is to win in 1919 with the Southern Whites, playing Fatal Years without cheating! If I can do that I might write an AAR about it. I am trying to perfect my tactics in preparation for a potential PBEM campaign - I imagine it will be much more difficult to pull off against a human opponent who knows what I'm up to