German Empire, not quite an AAR...

[HerrDan]

So it looks like the AI is building a navy (slowly, but is), and I didn't use any event yet. I think it's a very interesting discovery. This really made my day.

[HerrDan]

Well after taking another look at the unit, I noticed it wasn't being built but rather damaged, but I remember I checked all italian ports before and I only saw torpedo boats, so I'm almost sure they built that stell battleship in game, but still I'm not 100% sure, so from now on, I'll be checking if they are building any ship, at least while we're still allies I can see it. I'll let you know what I find out with screenshots.

[Kensai]

They build ships, do not worry. Nonetheless, the AI is much slower.

[HerrDan]

They build ships, do not worry. Nonetheless, the AI is much slower.

Oh really? Oh my, I really thought they didn't because Jim told me so and everybody seemed to confirm it, so I was rather confused. Thank you for telling me that, it's much better not to have to force they to build ships.

[loki100]

They build ships, do not worry. Nonetheless, the AI is much slower.

are you sure about this?

I know that Christophe generated a set of scripts that provoked naval builds but in the base game I'm really not sure that this happens at all.

[Kensai]

Well, in my other AARs they were building a unit here and there, and definitely not only transports and merchant ships. Never quantified them, to be honest, by why should the naval building be broken? I can understand it being slow, but broken?
I am talking about the major nations here, not the small ones that have extra help from the shipbuilding events.

[HerrDan]

Well, in my other AARs they were building a unit here and there, and definitely not only transports and merchant ships. Never quantified them, to be honest, by why should the naval building be broken? I can understand it being slow, but broken?
I am talking about the major nations here, not the small ones that have extra help from the shipbuilding events.

It's great to read that. What about deffensive treaties? Do the AI answer it in case someone declares war on me?

[HerrDan]

It seems like the United States and Great Britain are in a really bad diplomatic moment, what is specially good for us as we're also having problems with both, so it's good to know that they're not uniting forces.

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My colony in Lome is growing with increased immigration and population growth and a new city was established there. We can now begin to explore further its resources.

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[HerrDan]

I feel that our relation with Russia is continously deteriorating since we broke our alliance with them, although we still have a cordial relantionship with the russian crown I think it's rather suspicious that they held more than 3 meetings with the french representatives this year, I'm afraid they (France and Russia) are plotting to make a coordinated move agains the German Empire. My advisors think that we should be prepared for a war on two fronts in any moment. So after some meetings we have discussed the possibility of making a preemptive attack on Russia before they get ready to attack us. We only need to get a valid casus beli against Russia, so that we can proceed with this plan, my friend Maschall Colmar von Der Goltz just arrived from Turkey, where he was helping to reorganize the Ottoman army, and told me that the Ottomans are really aprehensive about the russian expansionism and that they fear the mood in the balkans could quickly degerate to a war at any moment and that they would support us if we would take such a move against Russia.

We are therefore preparing our armies for the next move...

[loki100]

you are having a lot of diplomatic crises in the game, should lead to a war sooner or later as some states are going to have very poor relations to each other

do I detect a plan to invade Russia with Turkish support ... this is going to get very messy very quickly

[Q-Kee]

If you find a comfortable way of giving the AI ships, let me know - it so sucks to be the greatest naval power and nobody opposes you

[Kensai]

Q-Kee, if you talk about your alternate reality, well, that is a special situation and you know it.

Otherwise, be my guest and start a 1850 conquer-the-world game with Belgium and entertain us all while you declare war to GBR!

[HerrDan]

If you find a comfortable way of giving the AI ships, let me know - it so sucks to be the greatest naval power and nobody opposes you

It's simple to create an event to give the AI naval power, I tested it a little time ago, and gave Austria and Italy some ships (2 battleships and about 3 torpedo boats for each if I remember right), I gave to them first because they're my allies so that I can see their units and I needed to confirm if the event worked as intended and it did.
Now that I'm sure it worked I'll use it to give the other powers naval powers as well, although I'm almost sure that Italy built some battleships themselves, but I wanted to give them more power and, specially I want to give my "beloved" Perfidious Albion a huge navy, so and so now that I know how to make this kind of events I'll give all the powers a sizeable navy before WW1. If you need help I can script an event for you to give them a good navy, just tell me what you want etc (that could be through pm if you prefer).

[HerrDan]

Our diplomats started the process of provoking the russians, we're pressuring them over their constants visits to France and the moviment of russian armies along our borders...

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[HerrDan]

After much deliberation we finally came to the conclusion that only a war can resolve our differences, we shall not wait for them to take the iniciative in league with the french trying to catch us off guard, we therefore decided to declare war on The Russian Empire to defend the german people from the perfidious enemies that are trying to overwhelm us. We have warned the french that our armies are mobilized and that France SHALL NOT try to intervene, unless they want our troops to march over Paris once more.

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[HerrDan]

The russian forces retreat from their positions in Wilna and our troops advance through Poland, but no major battle occurred. Our naval fleet comanded by Tirpitz bombarded the port of Riga and began blockading the region, but still no confrontation at the sea either.

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[HerrDan]

In january our 2nd Army continued to advance through Poland under a harsh cold winter and a major battle occured at Warsaw with the russians trying to counterattack and check our advance. But our General von Blumenthal managed hold the siege of Warsaw and inflict severe losses on the poorly commanded russian forces.

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At the sea a russian fleet was completelly annihilated trying to end the blockade of Riga, Koester performed brilliantly and managed to suffer no relevant losses in the battle!

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So this is how the front is at the end of January.

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[HerrDan]

February started good for us with the fall of Lodz and Tarnow to our forces in Poland commanded by Blumenthal, and the 1st army commanded by Alfred Graf von Waldersee began the battle of Wilna with a good advantage inflicting heavy losses on the russians while suffering far fewer losses, but then the russians counterattacked in force with a huge force commanded by Alexander III (wtf!? I thought he should be already dead by now...) and forced the 1st army to retreat to Masuren, the 1st army managed to inflict severe losses on the russians while retreating, but still we lost the good position of Vilnius (Wilna) to the russian army.
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This is the front by the end of the month of February

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(this is what a call "stack of doom", is it possible to defeat a stack this strong!? Really I need some help here, I'm afraid of that stack )

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[HerrDan]

I've been thinking about using Loki's event for naval builds at this moment, I only hope the russians won't get a navy way too much stronger than mine, but from what I've seen in the event, you didn't give the russians any dreadnoughts or super dreadnoughts to them, right Loki? Just another question, I've never dealt with a stack so huge in PON, that russian one is really scary do you have any tips about how to defeat it, if it's actually possible? My game is still at this point in late february as I didn't have time to play further yet, I think I'll resume playing later and as I defeated completelly two of their fleets that I battled with, I think they need a hand so I'll use Loki's event next turn in game. I hope you're enjoying so far

[loki100]

I've been thinking about using Loki's event for naval builds at this moment, I only hope the russians won't get a navy way too much stronger than mine, but from what I've seen in the event, you didn't give the russians any dreadnoughts or super dreadnoughts to them, right Loki? Just another question, I've never dealt with a stack so huge in PON, that russian one is really scary do you have any tips about how to defeat it, if it's actually possible? My game is still at this point in late february as I didn't have time to play further yet, I think I'll resume playing later and as I defeated completelly two of their fleets that I battled with, I think they need a hand so I'll use Loki's event next turn in game. I hope you're enjoying so far

I think I only gave them late 1890s battleships as that seemed realistic, but all I was really doing was pulling examples out of the 1914 OOB.

Dealing with a big stack is hard. My approach is to get into poor terrain (hills are great) which reduce frontage but leave enough to do real damage (so avoid mountains - not an option I suspect in this case). What you need is enough yourself to fill the frontage and have spares for rotation. You may also want to opt for an 'inefficient' stack build (ie put everything in one stack regardless of CP), as the goal here is an attritional defense not a victory (so even -35% is safer than risking the stack targetting routing suddenly allowing one of your formations to be overwhelmed). What will happen is, as the Russians are on the offensive, they will not be able to recover cohesion or supply.

At that stage you should be able to win and push them back (so they'll take losses on the retreat). Decide if you can press the advantage with your own attack as they will now have low cohesion. Its all rather high stakes, as they will win some rounds (just by random luck) and it takes a lot of discipline, but you are basically using defensive bonus+frontage rules to your advantage.

I managed to beat Austria and fight Prussia to a stalemate using this (but of course with Italy you are blessed with lots of poor terrain and narrow attack options on your Northern and North Eastern border.

The other option may be to fall back behind a big fortress (one you have stuffed with guns and extra units), with some luck the AI will try to take it by storm and lose a lot of men, but again probably harder to set up on the German/Polish border

Also as at Konovski in your last report, even when losing you may well be inflicting very heavy losses

[HerrDan]

I think I only gave them late 1890s battleships as that seemed realistic, but all I was really doing was pulling examples out of the 1914 OOB.

Dealing with a big stack is hard. My approach is to get into poor terrain (hills are great) which reduce frontage but leave enough to do real damage (so avoid mountains - not an option I suspect in this case). What you need is enough yourself to fill the frontage and have spares for rotation. You may also want to opt for an 'inefficient' stack build (ie put everything in one stack regardless of CP), as the goal here is an attritional defense not a victory (so even -35% is safer than risking the stack targetting routing suddenly allowing one of your formations to be overwhelmed). What will happen is, as the Russians are on the offensive, they will not be able to recover cohesion or supply.

At that stage you should be able to win and push them back (so they'll take losses on the retreat). Decide if you can press the advantage with your own attack as they will now have low cohesion. Its all rather high stakes, as they will win some rounds (just by random luck) and it takes a lot of discipline, but you are basically using defensive bonus+frontage rules to your advantage.

I managed to beat Austria and fight Prussia to a stalemate using this (but of course with Italy you are blessed with lots of poor terrain and narrow attack options on your Northern and North Eastern border.

The other option may be to fall back behind a big fortress (one you have stuffed with guns and extra units), with some luck the AI will try to take it by storm and lose a lot of men, but again probably harder to set up on the German/Polish border

Also as at Konovski in your last report, even when losing you may well be inflicting very heavy losses

Thank you for the advice, I didn't know it was a good idea to create big and "inneficient" stacks as a player it's goood to know that it's not that bad, again I'm not that experienced with great wars in PON, I still have a lot to learn to take advantage ot some situations like the ones you mentioned, again the territory we're tighting doesn't help much in regard to take advantage of it against them. Oh and yes, I'm inflicting very heavy losses on them and it's kind of make me feel less scared, the rate of losses is about 1 man to 5 or so in my favor, so if my army continues to perform this good the odds are not that bad for me (again very realistical as this was always more or less the case in real history conflicts between Germany and Russia as well.)

Regarding the naval builds I was looking at the includes files as you mentioned it before, as I think I've already stated I have created some events for Italy and Austria to test creating them so that I can get to know what a BA05 means etc, and that's how I saw that in your event for the russians naval builds you didn't create any dreadnought as their code is BB something and the best that there is in your event is a BB06 (pre-dreadnoughts) I think, and the pre-deadnoughts I have quite a few myself, so I think that event fits perfectly realistical with my current situation in the game.

[Kensai]

What's the current power ratio between you and Russia (F10)? If Russia is done in China, expect them to dedicate their huge manpower against you. If they don't have their hands full in the another front, expect heavy resistance. You might need to blitzkrieg your way to Saint Petersburg but that could pose resupply problems and exposed flanks.

The other option may be to fall back behind a big fortress (one you have stuffed with guns and extra units), with some luck the AI will try to take it by storm and lose a lot of men, but again probably harder to set up on the German/Polish border

I am worried that such a huge power besieging could pose the risk of an instant surrender dice roll. Have seen it happening before when the besieging forces overwhelm the defenders many times over...

[loki100]

Thank you for the advice, I didn't know it was a good idea to create big and "inneficient" stacks as a player it's goood to know that it's not that bad, again I'm not that experienced with great wars in PON, I still have a lot to learn to take advantage ot some situations like the ones you mentioned, again the territory we're tighting doesn't help much in regard to take advantage of it against them. Oh and yes, I'm inflicting very heavy losses on them and it's kind of make me feel less scared, the rate of losses is about 1 man to 5 or so in my favor, so if my army continues to perform this good the odds are not that bad for me (again very realistical as this was always more or less the case in real history conflicts between Germany and Russia as well.)

In my own AAR and from some unreported testing, I came to the view that fighting a big stack, you have two choices:

a) organise your own army efficiently (Ie multiple stacks, minimum CP malus; or
b) produce your own big stack (even up to -35%)

A) is the win big/lose big strategy. I wiped out the German army in a day in Norther Italy with it when clearly all the commitment rolls went my way and I was able to bring more to bear, more efficiently, than they could. I also lost 3 big battles (Adrianople against the Turks and Bristol - twice- against the British) when the commitment/targetting algorithm meant only one of my armies was committed. In both cases, I held the field due to the other uncommitted forces but each cost me a completely lost army.
B) is the boring attrition strategy. At -35% all sorts of nasty things happen (your rate of fire becomes 1 which is a big loss) so you inflict a lot less losses, but you avoid the risk of your army being beaten piecemeal. But, if your goal is to cost the enemy cohesion and supply (ie make them fight over multiple turns in your province), then it can be effective. Once you are ready to take a more active role again, break your army back into more efficient lumps.

I recall something from Pocus that the AI shouldn't form these huge stacks, but it clearly does and its, for the AI, quite efficient (as their malus is capped by the difficulty level you chose, but always better than -35%).

For the big fort option, I used Trieste very effectively and Koenigsburg should do the same. Its a port so you are unlikely to run out of supply and that is the most likely reason for random loss. You need far more than the auto garrison and lots of fort guns help. Again if its a port, you can move fresh fortress units in to replace losses.

[HerrDan]

What's the current power ratio between you and Russia (F10)? If Russia is done in China, expect them to dedicate their huge manpower against you. If they don't have their hands full in the another front, expect heavy resistance. You might need to blitzkrieg your way to Saint Petersburg but that could pose resupply problems and exposed flanks.

I am worried that such a huge power besieging could pose the risk of an instant surrender dice roll. Have seen it happening before when the besieging forces overwhelm the defenders many times over...

They have about 140 in ratio of power compared to me, the sino-russian war is over long time ago (pay attention to the AAR ) so they have their entire army at their disposal. I don't want to get my armies surrounded in the dead cold russian winter (so no blitzkrieg), so like Clausewitz said, to beat russia we need to force their armies out and crush them far from their supply lines, so it's good to know that they're sending their strongest army to counterattack our forces and I hope they try to invade east Prussia so that I can inflict a Tannenberg like defeat on them

[HerrDan]

In my own AAR and from some unreported testing, I came to the view that fighting a big stack, you have two choices:

a) organise your own army efficiently (Ie multiple stacks, minimum CP malus; or
b) produce your own big stack (even up to -35%)

A) is the win big/lose big strategy. I wiped out the German army in a day in Norther Italy with it when clearly all the commitment rolls went my way and I was able to bring more to bear, more efficiently, than they could. I also lost 3 big battles (Adrianople against the Turks and Bristol - twice- against the British) when the commitment/targetting algorithm meant only one of my armies was committed. In both cases, I held the field due to the other uncommitted forces but each cost me a completely lost army.
B) is the boring attrition strategy. At -35% all sorts of nasty things happen (your rate of fire becomes 1 which is a big loss) so you inflict a lot less losses, but you avoid the risk of your army being beaten piecemeal. But, if your goal is to cost the enemy cohesion and supply (ie make them fight over multiple turns in your province), then it can be effective. Once you are ready to take a more active role again, break your army back into more efficient lumps.

I recall something from Pocus that the AI shouldn't form these huge stacks, but it clearly does and its, for the AI, quite efficient (as their malus is capped by the difficulty level you chose, but always better than -35%).

For the big fort option, I used Trieste very effectively and Koenigsburg should do the same. Its a port so you are unlikely to run out of supply and that is the most likely reason for random loss. You need far more than the auto garrison and lots of fort guns help. Again if its a port, you can move fresh fortress units in to replace losses.

Indeed now I'm hoping they attack Königsberg in force, so that I can crush that huge army of theirs, but what Kensai said about instant surrender worries me...I'm thinking about using a little of both of the strategies you mentioned, I now intend to bring a huge stack from Germany (now if the french attack me I'm fucked :bonk and continue to use my effective stacks too to get good positions so that I can dominate the field of battle by moving fast units around the field.

[HerrDan]

In my own AAR and from some unreported testing, I came to the view that fighting a big stack, you have two choices:

a) organise your own army efficiently (Ie multiple stacks, minimum CP malus; or
b) produce your own big stack (even up to -35%)

A) is the win big/lose big strategy. I wiped out the German army in a day in Norther Italy with it when clearly all the commitment rolls went my way and I was able to bring more to bear, more efficiently, than they could. I also lost 3 big battles (Adrianople against the Turks and Bristol - twice- against the British) when the commitment/targetting algorithm meant only one of my armies was committed. In both cases, I held the field due to the other uncommitted forces but each cost me a completely lost army.
B) is the boring attrition strategy. At -35% all sorts of nasty things happen (your rate of fire becomes 1 which is a big loss) so you inflict a lot less losses, but you avoid the risk of your army being beaten piecemeal. But, if your goal is to cost the enemy cohesion and supply (ie make them fight over multiple turns in your province), then it can be effective. Once you are ready to take a more active role again, break your army back into more efficient lumps.

I recall something from Pocus that the AI shouldn't form these huge stacks, but it clearly does and its, for the AI, quite efficient (as their malus is capped by the difficulty level you chose, but always better than -35%).

For the big fort option, I used Trieste very effectively and Koenigsburg should do the same. Its a port so you are unlikely to run out of supply and that is the most likely reason for random loss. You need far more than the auto garrison and lots of fort guns help. Again if its a port, you can move fresh fortress units in to replace losses.

Indeed now I'm hoping they attack Königsberg in force, so that I can crush that huge army of theirs, but what Kensai said about instant surrender worries me...I'm thinking about using a little of both of the strategies you mentioned, I now intend to bring a huge stack from Germany (now if the french attack me I'm fucked :bonk and continue to use my effective stacks too to get good positions so that I can dominate the field of battle by moving fast units around the field.

[HerrDan]

Our 6th army commanded by von der Goltz continues to advance towards Riga and the russians attack us in Memelland trying to cut the supply lines to the 6th army, we ordered the 6th army to continue its advance towards Riga as we're going to counter attack in Memelland to restablish our lines.

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This is the front at the moment, we're close to summer and we're preparing a summer offensive with our 3rd Armee bringing reforces from the heart of Germany, the army consists of more than 200 hundreds men, but it has a hard mission ahead of it, that is to drive away the more than 1 million men russian forces aproaching East Prussia.

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[HerrDan]

Our 4th army counterattacked the russians at Memelland to restablish the lines of supply for our forces advancing in Riga, and the 4th army commanded by Emil von Albedyll manages to defeat the russian forces and inflict heavy losses on them greatly boosting the morale of our army.

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Our forces continue to advance and we won another battle at Ielgava on the way to Riga.

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The battle in Riga is still undecided, but we already got the upper hand.

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This is the map of the front at the moment, the fight in Masuren continues, but we will bring in more forces to restablish our lines, and in Riga our forces are fighting bravely.

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[loki100]

Our 6th army commanded by von der Goltz continues to advance towards Riga and the russians attack us in Memelland trying to cut the supply lines to the 6th army, we ordered the 6th army to continue its advance towards Riga as we're going to counter attack in Memelland to restablish our lines.

yep, committing the German 6 Army to drive deeper into Russia has usually led to a major victory

At least you are still inflicting losses in all your battles

re: Koenigsberg, I wouldn't worry about a surrender. That only happens if the fort is out of supply and as a port you should be safe as long as it is not blockaded or if you are very badly outnumbered and the auto-garrison to a large fort should be enough for this. Inland forts are generally a bit more vulnerable than ones on the coast, especially if you have some naval control (keeping up a blockade is hard in PoN, so even if you are a bit outnumbered at sea, you can break the blockade for a few turns)

[Kensai]

yep, committing the German 6 Army to drive deeper into Russia has usually led to a major victory

LOL!

re: Koenigsberg, I wouldn't worry about a surrender. That only happens if the fort is out of supply and as a port you should be safe as long as it is not blockaded or if you are very badly outnumbered and the auto-garrison to a large fort should be enough for this. Inland forts are generally a bit more vulnerable than ones on the coast, especially if you have some naval control (keeping up a blockade is hard in PoN, so even if you are a bit outnumbered at sea, you can break the blockade for a few turns)

Dunno if it is a bug, but I am almost certain the "outnumbered" surrender is present in PON regardless if an army has supply carts or an unblockaded port. Have seen it happening more than once with outrageous differences of troop numbers. Am I confusing it with an experimental version of the engine? Probably, I had started a game in the autumn of 2011, many versions have passed since then.

Anyway, be careful HerrDan!