Past 1920: An AAR midway - on

[Lynxyonok]

This is an AAR from the midgame and on. Everyone has got to play turn 1; not everyone has lasted until the end, whatever the reason, but maybe they wanted to?

This is the story for them.

Preface:

- Full 1918 grand campaign as Soviets
- The concept was to only produce elite Soviet troops (i.e., those who could be trained) even if it meant abandoning more towns

Notes:

- The game is played with every order set backed up; when a game crashes due to a bug, a previous order file is replaced in main directory of the game

[Lynxyonok]

Siberia remains under Eastern White control. A Soviet Army was able to break through as far as Omsk in 1920, but logistics have become a nightmare. An extensive loyalty-building campaign has not succeeded in triggering any partisans besides those scripted; Eastern Whites triggered Omsk directorate event very late as well, destroying Soviet HQ in Omsk in the process and capturing a level 4 depot that Soviets had built.

[Lynxyonok]

Polish troops had attacked in April of 1920 as expected; 200,000 Soviet troops were waiting for them in Smolensk. The red slug is steadily advancing westward.

[Lynxyonok]

Southern Russia remains a mess, unfortunately; Ekaterinodar had been lost, twice in fact, and the whole region has been tit-for-tat for a while. The timeline to stabilize it though is by December; otherwise Turks would take over the three potentially Soviet Caucasian republics.

[Lynxyonok]

Central Asian front has proven to be a stalemate, as it typically happens in my games. None of the Southern White reinforcements made it past Tashkent, yet even the best Red raids eventually ended up squashed. The strategy of throwing all possible initial Red troops in Orsk worked, although by now those priceless raider partisans have mostly died.

[Lynxyonok]

Rumania is currently fully under Soviet control; two French stacks (433 and 31) did make it to Ukraine after Bucharest and Wallachia fell, so they would need to be dealt with. This has been one of my downfalls yet again - breaking through the main defense lines of the enemy with my best troops, only to end up with dozens of stray / straggle raiders in the back. That's why even two years into the game the country looks like a checkerboard.

P.S. Once Bucharest falls, two Red Hungarian stacks appear on the board - one of them mobile. Just don't give up Transylvania - that's a 15 recruit income each turn.

[Lynxyonok]

Overall, Reds are on the winning path, with time and distance being the only constraints.
Vladivostok is likely unreachable; Irkutsk is a question as well, ever since Eastern White Omsk Directory decision triggered, knocking out my HQ there and killing the supply chain. Either Finland or Caucasian states will have to be attacked - soon. My presence around Caucasus is rather weak, though.

[Lynxyonok]

Soviets finally almost establish a link from Volga with Central Asian troops - almost, as rogue White forces are still roaming around.

[Lynxyonok]

Soviets finally attempt a venture into Finland.

[Lynxyonok]

Soviets appear to control the main roads / railways; there are significant (>1,000) White detachments hiding nearby, though.

[Lynxyonok]

Perm remains an unstable region late into 1920; while main cities are controlled by Soviets, there are multiple significant (strength 800+) white stacks all around.

[Lynxyonok]

Warsaw falls - but there are many Polish stacks to clean up. Kork, the hero of Rumania and Poland, nearly fills up all of his experience stars. No wonder - he's leading both Red Latvian divisions through campaigns in Ukraine, Wallachia, and now Masovia!

[Lynxyonok]

As seen, I'm concentrating heavily on improving loyalty in hostile provinces. 1918-1919 effort was mainly on Far East and Siberia; eventually, as those regions started to reach 90%+ loyalty with no partisan rebellions, I have switched to supporting Caucasus, Poland, Karelia, and even Finland. Now that engagement points are excessively available, I keep doing this just in case, in spirit of history.

[Lynxyonok]

A mistake I had made was to rely on Baltic Fleet as is without augmenting it with Raskolnikov's Volga Squadron. I couldn't fathom that ocean-going destroyers (irreplaceable, mind you) are actually weaker than fluvial ones that can be built at will. Consider the two below, a 2-star veteran ocean DD versus a newly-built fluvial. This mistake cost me BB Petropavlovsk.

[Lynxyonok]

The victory is still very far away - I may be holding most of the major cities, but there are numerous White stacks running through my rearguard. I swear this to myself every campaign: full-blooded divisions head the front, light infantry brigade stacks with a MP unit clean up the back. Yet every game those light infantry fill up the front ranks, as they only use 1 CP. As a result, even in late 1920 Volga region looks very much white.

[deguerra]

Just a quick post to say I haven't been commenting but have been reading your posts with great pleasure. Pictures and stories, especially from later in the game are very interesting.

Was it a challenge or did you gain momentum quite early? What were the major conflict areas?

Thanks and keep us posted!
-deguerra

[Lynxyonok]

Just a quick post to say I haven't been commenting but have been reading your posts with great pleasure. Pictures and stories, especially from later in the game are very interesting.

Was it a challenge or did you gain momentum quite early? What were the major conflict areas?

Thanks and keep us posted!
-deguerra

Thank you for your kind feedback. Yes, late AARs are rare, as everyone starts, not everyone finishes. They are weird, as readers are thrown into a mix, and it's not often clear how did it get to that point. I just knew that I had to get through the hurdle of crashes of early 1920; I did.

This game was actually a challenge as I had lost Kuban early on, and by 1919 I was down to only 8 EPs a turn. That's with Mensheviks in play, a risky option that can cripple a red player with good morale. The loss was due to the initial strategy: no militia meat bags at every corner, which meant that Whites had advanced further in and faster. The entire country is still full of roving warbands (which are kept in supply due to the highest AI ratings and extra time). What helped me somehow was that Anarchists did not ally with me, but they did become hostile to the Whites. This allowed me to turn Makhno into a shock troop unit at no cost. Grigoriev, on the other hand, was totally useless.

As for areas of conflict: the whole country has been quite rough, although Riga deserves a separate mention. I built a fortress there and lost it, which had in turn paralyzed several major stacks.

[Lynxyonok]

Skipping Kork (mentioned earlier) and perma-stationed Trotsky, here are some of the best leaders I've had the honor to employ. Yes, I am playing with the highest variability of leaders (which did result in quite a few White leaders with stats of 9 - ouch!).

[Lynxyonok]

An example of how tough this game has been - Moscow has been just besieged by a really high-skilled army.

[Lynxyonok]

The game is genuinely switching into a hot phase: 20% of my total loses happened in the past 3-4 months. It has been quite a clear summer (I don't have free replacements like whites do due to difficulty, only factory-provided ones, so most of the winter time was spent defending), plus clock is clearly ticking. The game did not end upon Red achieving 20 objectives necessary for victory; looks like it's going to be race to the finish (12/31/1921) after all.

[Lynxyonok]

One of the strategies I like to employ is to throw all Orsk and Semipalatinsk forces south to protect Tashkent; most tend to make it, like Blucher's cavalry or the 2 green-red Alash-Orda units. Some, unfortunately, don't necessarily make it, like the poor INF unit below. Still, Central Asia is a more important front (in my humble opinion) than 2 towns on the sidelines.

[Lynxyonok]

Poland remains an opportunity; while Reds hold Warsaw and several other cities, Polish, Ukrainian, and even French forces cut off any connection with the rest of Red Russia, and supply has quickly become a major issue. Despite having maxed out every supply unit, despite aggressive depot building, despite rail capacity in 800s, my front troops have struggled with food the entire game. Fortunately, only a couple of smaller detachments had been lost altogether, mainly due to leaders failing to activate again and again - after all, the price of having a handful of 5-6-7-strong strategic leaders is dozens of those who never pass a roll (there's one that's been stuck for over a year, for example).

P.S. The yellow stack by Warsaw is >1,000 strong.

[Lynxyonok]

If not squashed early, anarchists can become a real issue for any White opponent. They keep multiplying (every other stack in the below map is AI-controlled) and reinforcing. Next White campaign I will ensure I absolutely do not touch them - let the Reds take EP penalty if they wish to activate them!

[Lynxyonok]

Sending the best troops all the way forward has a price: enemy can slide in, sieging a crucial city, and yet all the neighboring army stacks are helpless: they don't have leaders, they only have militia or recruits. And that's how the entire country becomes striped in so many colors. There's an interesting Russian movie clip about it, by the way...

[Lynxyonok]

P.S. Please ignore horrible visual quality, but this is exactly how Civil War took place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzauI8ATRP8

[Lynxyonok]

White forces are by no means defeated: they are still very dangerous.

P.S. Muraviev - the only free-moving Red HQ if one chooses to stay with Reds United - is currently there as well.

[Lynxyonok]

One of the most profound strategies this campaign has been to send any / all partisans to Siberia, as supply woes were expected. Every Ukrainian partisan unit and every surviving Kuban unit were sent there; they fought through Ural, frequently being the first ones to repair and capture railroads, and they are now, the half that have survived, approaching Irkutsk outskirts.

[Lynxyonok]

Galicia - Westernmost Ukraine or Southernmost Poland in a sense - has escaped fighting thus far; after all, this area lays away from the usual Minsk --> Warsaw or Kiev --> Odessa --> Bucuresti routes. As such, short of capture of Lwow, no Reds have have been here so far.

[Lynxyonok]

The way Greens keep spawning in Central Asia is mesmerizing. I will have to keep investing EPs there to improve loyalty - and I definitely have to declare war on Caucasian states now (if I don't, way more Greens will appear in the region).

[Lynxyonok]

Something I've totally forgot is how armored trains carry enough supplies to feed even the largest armies. This brings the importance of building them early on into an entirely new light.

Their downside though, is they can't bypass enemy cities on their own: a column of 15 trains got frozen by a White city without any garrison to speak of.