Loss of Army Titles & Other Thoughts

[Stauffenberg]

Some initial observations in playing out CP vs AI for a month now:

--Army titles are constantly lost with the army reverting to the generic tag; e.g. 11.Armee at the beginning of a turn ends up as "Armee (Ger)" for various reasons at the end, the most likely reason seems to be absorbing other corps stacks or units. Worse than this I have had two locked armies move to the same region and have them both unlocked and merged into one stack at the end of the term. Army GOs can also lose their command rating and have to move back into range of their GHQ to get it back.

--GHQ range should be doubled in western Europe given superior communication and transport links.

--As has been noted elsewhere, offensives against massively dug-in lines on the West front have far too high a success rate. A 2-1 or even 3-1 odds attack against a solid defense (entrench level 5-8, good generals, excellent artillery and supply) should routinely produce nothing more than heavy attrition, but far too often the AI is able to smash through and cause complete retreats.

--Related to the above, gas attacks appear to be handled pretty well, as are Stosstruppen, but another key feature in any huge push was the use of dedicated engineers and of course not just sappers. Laying out assault trenches, constructing ad hoc tracks to push ahead with--these were key elements and should be included here rather than just "dig-in" army engineers. My grandfather (noted below) was in one of these engineer btns and their work was key in the Canadian success at Vimy. A special "assault engineer/sapper" Option could be created, but rather than instantly in effect requiring a lead time after the costs paid, and with a % chance that the other side will be alerted. When used, a suitable attack bonus.

--That great looking mod for multi-player addresses the turn scale and a campaign season 1-week frame, and one month in winter, is really needed in my view. With better-tuned cohesion costs for RR movement the current "RR & Bash" situation could be made far more realistic; e.g. with a one week frame units on RR can load, move, and unload but would have a special 1-turn high cohesion penalty--removed the following week.

Finally, this is my own bias as a scenario designer, but I would very much have wished to see at least the German Sudwest and Ostafrika campaigns done in detail, along with the Senussi uprising in Libya (with a Zep option to deliver guns and ammo to the Senussi tribesmen there of course!).

Overall, brilliant historical research and I look forward to seeing this evolve.

[Stelteck]

Carefull when proposing more defensive bonus, because it is a game and players have more insight than WW1 Generals.

If offensive is impossible, unlike WW1 generals, players will not attack. In this case, it will lead to very boring western front. (And the russian will have to face all german armies the whole game....).

In an historical point of view, i wonder also if WW1 offensive failed because creating a breakthought was impossible, or if WW1 offensive really failed because even in case of a successfull breakthought, it was not possible to exploit them due to the very slow speed of armies (at least in offense without the rail network).

It is not so bad simulated in game, with especially the "traffic limit" penalty of movement that is a very interesting settings to slow the massive offensive as they should.

[Stauffenberg]

I proposed defensive reality given WWI trench warfare in France, yes, but I also suggested offensive perks too. Also historical. Intentional attrition is entirely part of a game dynamic, as well as historical.

Traffic congestion is a great feature to have.

[elysium]

I've been lurking since I purchased the game last summer, but this seemed as good a topic as any to jump in. Regarding the defensive situation, I wonder to what extent the AI chooses the "Hold at all Costs" ROE? Without a lot of detailed research or testing, the casualty levels in my battles seems plausible, but the battles are often over very quickly (2 rounds is typical). The armies on the losing side seem to retreat as soon as things start to go south, a reasonable choice given the losses sustained but not consistent with both sides' refusal to concede an inch of ground even when the first line of defense was basically wiped out. Could the results be improved by making the AI much more likely to select (or even default to) "Hold at all Costs" and giving the player a similar incentive through more morale hits if territory changes hands?