Gen. Monkey-Bear
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Fri Feb 07, 2014 2:41 am

are you planning to "enrich" the Russian events? Although the Czar is not in a losing war to have a crisis, it would be so cool to have some kind of Communist revolution taking indeed over (as in real life, abstracted with its own flag in game) and having them thrown into the thick of it. I see your F10 screen, so much military power wasted...

(I will definitely do this in my Game of Thrones!)


Actually, scripting in a Russian Revolution is not so far-fetched. After all, they had one after the lightning defeat in 1905 by Japan (in real life), why should they not have one here, after a crushing blow from their bitter rivals to the West? And with Austria-Hungary defeated, don't you expect to see some Eastern European turmoil anyway?

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loki100
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Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:38 pm

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Attention my African Brothers! The European imperialists wish only for our help in allowing them to dominate our homelands and humiliate our people. Though they look to us as temporary allies, their true intentions are to conquer and exploit. I beg you, do not join their armies of sadists! I implore you, think of what is best for your children and their children! And I appeal to your sense of manhood and your infinite resolve as African men, join the armies of liberation in fighting against all European armies! The time for African Revolution has come!

The handbook distributed to every African Revolutionary: http://books.google.com/books?id=-XGKFJq4eccC&dq=the+wretched+of+the+earth&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Okay, so it's not historical, but it's plausible, right?

The Zimmerwald conference. See what I mean?

You best be careful, or else you may have a major revolution globally :mdr:


Domestically dissent scarcely moves – rather unrealistic I feel given the length and intensity of the war. But in Africa, I've noticed far more native revolts (against a range of powers). Its partly as you lose diplomatic relations if in war and once your relations with one of the African factions is <0 then they are likely to revolt. But each revolt is against only an individual European power. In places like modern day Nigeria and the Congo the result is chaos as no European power is dominant.

Kensai wrote:loki100,

are you planning to "enrich" the Russian events? Although the Czar is not in a losing war to have a crisis, it would be so cool to have some kind of Communist revolution taking indeed over (as in real life, abstracted with its own flag in game) and having them thrown into the thick of it. I see your F10 screen, so much military power wasted... :p

(I will definitely do this in my Game of Thrones!)


The key to the revolution is Russia being at war in 1917. I'll let this take its own way and see what happens. IMHO, it took a combination of social democratic agitation in the army, a largely peasant army believing if it deserted it could grab (and hold) land and the impact of war to completely discredit Tsarism to make even the February Revolution possible. So I'll let things take their natural (game event driven) way ...

Dewirix wrote:I can't help but think the war with Germany has ended on something of anti-climax, but given Russia flounced out pretty much on day one I can't say I blame Italy for removing the one enemy it has pretty much nothing to gain from fighting. It may not be the most exciting decision from a dramatic standpoint, but it's certainly pragmatic.

I suspect Director will do a better job of thinking through the ramifications of Germany's defeat, but in essence it's had an accelerated but surprisingly accurate World War I, at least on the macro-scale: Russia defeated, but collapse on the Western Front and Austria-Hungary more of a burden than an asset. If you're able to liberate Czechoslovakia then there will be a German irredenta for nationalists to exploit, in the future too. If Russia collapses into civil war (which I accept isn't a given), the Germans might chance their arm again in the future.


Without Russia and with France making peace I couldn't do much against both Austria and Germany. To do any real damage I'd need to push my warscore up to 100 or more and that would mean capturing a lot of South Germany – doable, but very much a long haul. So yes, Germany got off quite lightly (though it is in for one big shock in 1916).

I think independent, Italian backed Czech and Croatian Republics are not going to lead to peace and calm either in the Balkans or Central Europe. In this time line, I can't see a conventional Soviet revolution in Russia (at least not in the game time frame) as Tsarism is battered but pretty much intact. So that might make Germany think very carefully before trying for revenge.

Stuyvesant wrote:Germany got off pretty lightly, considering the French managed to capture Berlin twice and you had started a trend of beating up their armies (although the victory in Olmutz severely damaged your army there). Just losing the African colonies was a small price to pay, considering there were no territorial transfers in either West or East (Poland really is out of luck in this timeline: no destroyed Germany, no Russia in turmoil - looks like we won't be seeing Poland anytime soon).

Britain made its suicidal leap (are they also at war with the French? That would be truly stupid) and we get to enjoy the consequences. I expect British Africa to go up in flames, the 'Grand' Fleet to be sunk by eager Italian dreadnoughts, and any British invasion of the continent to end in abject failure, making our Gallipoli look like a Dieppe raid by comparison. Oh, and depending on how eager you are on kicking down the Brits some more, I suspect more British industry in India will make an intimate acquaintance with Italian matches...

Will we see more Italian gentleman officers forced to endure the horrors of Wales (and subsequently retire en masse)?

I'm interested to see which other countries decided (after approximately 10 million casualties) that industrial warfare is what the cool kids are doing right now. :)


I guess with France, as I had, there is not much you can really demand in a peace treaty if you have no valid territorial claims. I've not seen the AI use the 'release nation' option (but have seen it offer it), but it maybe the French didn't have enough to break up Germany.

I can't see Poland being free in this game, the only real change is now that Austria rules in Warsaw, not the Russians.

It'll take a while for the war with Britain to move from colonial skirmishes to something serious – not least I need my armies to finish off Austria. It would be good if they chose to invade Italy but I end up having to go and find them instead (and yes, Wales is involved). No invasion of India this time though, we're going for Perfidious Albion itself/

War does indeed catch on, but you'll have to wait till 1916 rolls around to find out who else decides that industrial scale slaughter of your young male population is the thing to do these days.

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Actually, scripting in a Russian Revolution is not so far-fetched. After all, they had one after the lightning defeat in 1905 by Japan (in real life), why should they not have one here, after a crushing blow from their bitter rivals to the West? And with Austria-Hungary defeated, don't you expect to see some Eastern European turmoil anyway?


I'm not so convinced. My view is that the February Revolution depended on the Tsarist state being so weakened by defeat that it had no choice but to accept radical change. The October Revolution was a combination of the army really just melting away (with peasant soldiers attracted by the promise of land seizures) and continued German pressure. It wasn't inevitable, as Gramsci put it – both 1789 and 1917 were 'out of time'. By that he meant the classic revolutionary seizure of the capital could only work when first the old state was moribund, but more important was centralised enough that the capital gave you de facto control of the country but not so advanced that multiple centres of power and influence existed (so in 1871 the French state, despite being badly weakened, could survive the loss of Paris).
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loki100
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1915, April - September, Austria surrenders, Gibralter captured

Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:47 pm

By April, Germany was out of the war but the struggle with Austria continued. Until the war in Europe was resolved, the campaign against Britain had to take second place.

In South Africa, Durban was under siege and blockaded and the British force quickly surrendered

Image

In Europe, Italy's captured the final Austrian port.

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In addition, Italian armies gradually occupied Bohemia, the bulk of Hungary and pushed towards Krakow.

By early May, the campaign in Nigeria was a stalemate but Italy was making steady progress in South Africa

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Given a series of minor victories in Austria, one army was released and quickly captured Malta.

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A long running, and rather chaotic war in Vietnam, took a new turn with the arrival of Russian advisers in Hanoi.

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One of the final Austrian field armies was brought to battle at Debrecen

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But by late June an Austrian army managed to recapture Castelnuovo.

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However, it was to prove the last action of the war. With their capital in Italian hands and most of their industrial centres occupied, the Austrians had little choice but to accept Italy's generous peace terms.

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The final butcher's bill for their folly in invading Serbia was:

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The first European phase of the war was over. The Franco-Italian alliance had lost 3.5m million and their Germanic opponents some 7 million. Russia was estimated to have lost 250,000 during in the latter part of 1912 before its early surrender.

As a result the map of central Europe now looked different. The independence of both Croatia and Czechoslavakia was guarenteed by both Italy and France.

Image

Image

[1]

With Malta secure and Austria on the verge of surrender, more Italian units were available for operations against the British. The first step was to secure Gibralter.

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However while Italy was improving its strategic position in the Mediterranean and gaining ground in S Africa, the British were winning the campaign in Nigeria driving in exposed Italian forces.

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This defeat cost me my northern provinces in the region. Since almost everything is 'influenced' ownership shifts very easily in a war as relative levels of military control vary.

[1] – I mean what can go wrong? The Balkans with another state, Serbia very annoyed (and still occupied by various Germans) and an isolated Czech Republic fully supported by France and Italy. Definitely a recipe for a long term peace in Europe.
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Jim-NC
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Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:35 pm

Did you have to script in the Croat and Czech territories, or did the form completely upon liberation? Also, did you have to give them an army and starting resources as well?

Is Austria now completely land locked?

And why are French troops roaming around controlling part of Sebia? or maybe Croatia? or some other country (can't see the city due to the french troops being in the region.

Yes, I can see that there will be a long peace with this deal!
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Kensai
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Mon Feb 10, 2014 7:18 pm

To me you need a challenge. Can't believe that the USA or Russia wouldn't profit from the current situation. If you have humor, you should script a joint war declaration by both the USA (to help Britain) and Russia* (to secure let's say SOI in the Slavic populations) and fight it out until the time runs out (1920). You have won already, after all. :thumbsup:

*Russia might need passage/supply rights from Austria and the rest of nations that border to Italy
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loki100
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Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:11 pm

Jim-NC wrote:Did you have to script in the Croat and Czech territories, or did the form completely upon liberation? Also, did you have to give them an army and starting resources as well?

Is Austria now completely land locked?

And why are French troops roaming around controlling part of Sebia? or maybe Croatia? or some other country (can't see the city due to the french troops being in the region.

Yes, I can see that there will be a long peace with this deal!


Yes, the peace deal just yields the usual capital only. So I added in a realistic block of provinces, a 3 corps army (& gave the Czechs some planes as they inherited all of Austria's aircraft factories), some resources and scripted in defensive treaties with Italy and France. I've put the Czech script here as it can work as a basic template for anyone else sorting this out. They'll need to amend the unit types and provinces and so on, but I know the basic framework works as intended. As ever with scripting, I find that the challenge, the details usually being pretty easy.

At this stage France (& Belgium) were still at war with Austria (which maybe one reason why France made an early peace with Britain). I decided to let it run for a while to see if anything came out of it and then imposed a series of white peaces to bring all the rather pointless wars to an end (this included stopping the Serbian-German war too).

Croatia got all the Austrian Adriatic coast, so yep, Admiral Horthy is reduced to playing with boats on Lake Balaton. Actually writing that reminds of a great, very early, HOI3 AAR, very funny and worth the read, about the great man and his obsession with steamship weekly ... and trashing the Greek navy.

Kensai wrote:To me you need a challenge. Can't believe that the USA or Russia wouldn't profit from the current situation. If you have humor, you should script a joint war declaration by both the USA (to help Britain) and Russia* (to secure let's say SOI in the Slavic populations) and fight it out until the time runs out (1920). You have won already, after all. :thumbsup:

*Russia might need passage/supply rights from Austria and the rest of nations that border to Italy


Actually, there are now enough nations in Europe that really, seriously, hate each other that the game has become *ahem* rather dynamic. I've had 60 years of near complete peace (apart from Italy's antics) and now the AI is off on a war mongering surge to rival the Napoleonic period.

Other problem is I am increasingly encountering problems with loading the files. Its usually Russia that causes the hang up. I've solved a couple by going back a few turns and re-running a sequence, but have hit another for early 1917. Depending, I may not quite be able to nurse this to 1920. I suspect its size of order file vs the computer processing and not much to be done. Hopefully I can ease it pass the latest block but it means I am minded to keeping the end sequence as simple as I can (or as the game will let me)
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Gen. Monkey-Bear
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Tue Feb 11, 2014 2:58 am

Actually, there are now enough nations in Europe that really, seriously, hate each other that the game has become *ahem* rather dynamic. I've had 60 years of near complete peace (apart from Italy's antics) and now the AI is off on a war mongering surge to rival the Napoleonic period.


Let me guess: the next wars include Japan, Bulgaria, or Turkey? I mean, I don't think anyone else is left, besides a resurgent Russia.

Of course! The United States will intervene! It all makes sense now.

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Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne
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Tue Feb 11, 2014 5:07 am

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Let me guess: the next wars include Japan, Bulgaria, or Turkey? I mean, I don't think anyone else is left, besides a resurgent Russia.

Of course! The United States will intervene! It all makes sense now.


The US has to watch it's back. I hear Brazil is getting all uppity.

I fell behind over the holidays and just caught up in one big binge. Practically, I'm assuming the socialists and leftists were complaining about the 4 million war casualties from the previous 50 years. I think they'll be howling after adding another 2+ million. But with the victories the far right is probably throwing nationalism around like crazy too. I imagine the political situation would be... interesting.

Just for perspective:
Italy population in 1861 - ~22 million
Italy Population in 1910 - ~36 million

I suppose you've captured a fair number of new citizens and even more for the good ole foreign legion though.

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Wed Feb 12, 2014 4:18 am

loki100 wrote:[1] – I mean what can go wrong? The Balkans with another state, Serbia very annoyed (and still occupied by various Germans) and an isolated Czech Republic fully supported by France and Italy. Definitely a recipe for a long term peace in Europe.


Egads! You really took the beating heart of the Austro-Hungarian economy and ripped it right out of the still-twitching corpse. And then wiggled the bloody mass in its face, so it could have a good look at it while the life drained out of it. Losing the Czech lands is going to hurt. Oh, and you released Croatia. I think that's more akin to removing an appendix. But still, more losses in territory, population and (presumably) industry. So Austria is done for.

I wouldn't want to be that Czech Republic though: right next to a militant and mostly unbowed Germany, and guaranteed by two countries that are both separated from the Czechs by the very same Germany. Europe's future stability would be in doubt, even if you hadn't said this:

loki100 wrote:Actually, there are now enough nations in Europe that really, seriously, hate each other that the game has become *ahem* rather dynamic. I've had 60 years of near complete peace (apart from Italy's antics) and now the AI is off on a war mongering surge to rival the Napoleonic period.


Goody! I get this image of a comedy western saloon fight in my head. You know the type: Person A tries to slug Person B, Person B ducks, blameless Person C gets it in the face, misdirected retaliation ensues and before you know it 100 extras are brawling all over the place. :)

Sorry to hear the game engine is once again starting to sputter. I hope you can gently guide it down the home stretch, but I'll take however much is left. It's been a thrilling ride.

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Wed Feb 12, 2014 6:51 am

Egads! You really took the beating heart of the Austro-Hungarian economy and ripped it right out of the still-twitching corpse. And then wiggled the bloody mass in its face, so it could have a good look at it while the life drained out of it. Losing the Czech lands is going to hurt. Oh, and you released Croatia. I think that's more akin to removing an appendix. But still, more losses in territory, population and (presumably) industry. So Austria is done for.


Maybe Egads will be my new phrase. Better than my current one, "Gonads!". But really, aren't they the same thing?

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Wed Feb 12, 2014 7:37 am

Goody! I get this image of a comedy western saloon fight in my head. You know the type: Person A tries to slug Person B, Person B ducks, blameless Person C gets it in the face, misdirected retaliation ensues and before you know it 100 extras are brawling all over the place.


I couldn't find any good youtube clips of this, though I know what you are talking about. The first person here to find a hilarious video of a Western saloon brawl out of control gets 20 Colombian Rupees. They're about as real as the government, I swear.

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Kensai
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Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:29 am

Loki, how big are the save files (and .hst) in the end stages of the game? I can confirm that already by 1884 they are quite big which makes me wonder if I can ever manage to reach the 20th century at that pace, before they slow down completely the engine. This may be one of the reasons I should have to abandon my own advanced game and restart from 1880. :(
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Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:43 am

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Let me guess: the next wars include Japan, Bulgaria, or Turkey? I mean, I don't think anyone else is left, besides a resurgent Russia.

Of course! The United States will intervene! It all makes sense now.


Nope, all wrong, well apart from Russia who do indeed decide to return to war ... fortunately not with Italy though.

Short of listing all of Europe, I doubt you'd guess, it certainly rather surprised me.

Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote:The US has to watch it's back. I hear Brazil is getting all uppity.

I fell behind over the holidays and just caught up in one big binge. Practically, I'm assuming the socialists and leftists were complaining about the 4 million war casualties from the previous 50 years. I think they'll be howling after adding another 2+ million. But with the victories the far right is probably throwing nationalism around like crazy too. I imagine the political situation would be... interesting.

Just for perspective:
Italy population in 1861 - ~22 million
Italy Population in 1910 - ~36 million

I suppose you've captured a fair number of new citizens and even more for the good ole foreign legion though.


Yes, I fear there is ample scope for post-game nastiness. Germany and Austria are not going to be happy and I doubt my revised central Europe is a recipe for stability.

Its obviously not easy to work out but I think I have a population of around 60 million (working age) in mainland Italy, not least as I have been playing the population increasing cards on a very regular basis. However, its clear it is far too easy to absorb heavy losses – even with all that has happened my replacement pool is around 3500-4000.

Add on, despite now entering the fourth year of major operations, I'm still happily selling supply and ammunition as I have a huge surplus,

Stuyvesant wrote:Egads! You really took the beating heart of the Austro-Hungarian economy and ripped it right out of the still-twitching corpse. And then wiggled the bloody mass in its face, so it could have a good look at it while the life drained out of it. Losing the Czech lands is going to hurt. Oh, and you released Croatia. I think that's more akin to removing an appendix. But still, more losses in territory, population and (presumably) industry. So Austria is done for.

I wouldn't want to be that Czech Republic though: right next to a militant and mostly unbowed Germany, and guaranteed by two countries that are both separated from the Czechs by the very same Germany. Europe's future stability would be in doubt, even if you hadn't said this:

Goody! I get this image of a comedy western saloon fight in my head. You know the type: Person A tries to slug Person B, Person B ducks, blameless Person C gets it in the face, misdirected retaliation ensues and before you know it 100 extras are brawling all over the place. :)

Sorry to hear the game engine is once again starting to sputter. I hope you can gently guide it down the home stretch, but I'll take however much is left. It's been a thrilling ride.


presume you mean something like this:
Image

More or less sums up the next phase. Certainly not an elegantly staged classic Leone end of film scene:

Image

I think Czechoslavakia has done the most damage. That is almost all their coal and a lot of their industry gone. Croatia is more symbolic (no port etc) than seriously damaging. Still if they annoy me again, I've still got Hungary to 'liberate'.

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Maybe Egads will be my new phrase. Better than my current one, "Gonads!". But really, aren't they the same thing?


Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:I couldn't find any good youtube clips of this, though I know what you are talking about. The first person here to find a hilarious video of a Western saloon brawl out of control gets 20 Colombian Rupees. They're about as real as the government, I swear.


this is pretty good - big fight

Kensai wrote:Loki, how big are the save files (and .hst) in the end stages of the game? I can confirm that already by 1884 they are quite big which makes me wonder if I can ever manage to reach the 20th century at that pace, before they slow down completely the engine. This may be one of the reasons I should have to abandon my own advanced game and restart from 1880. :(


The .hst file is 32,243kb, the .trn file is 21,538kb and the Italy.ord file is 1,703kb.

It of course makes sense with so many structures and armies now built across the globe. For some reason, Russia seems to be the problem (but that may just how it appears in the turn processing screen). I'm going to go back a turn or so and see if I can get over this block (this has worked before).
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1915, September - December, Defeat at Bristol, London is captured

Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:50 am

The new Czechoslavakia is a recipient of Italian inward investment when I spot there are still some slots for coal mines to be built.

Image

In the main, my economy is holding up relatively well, but I have a lot of non-essential plants shut down to ensure that things like manufactured goods (essential for replacements) are readily available. In any case, more coal is always welcome.

In South Africa, my armies make steady progress towards Cape Town.

Image

By early October, my armies have recovered from the final stages of the Austrian campaign and I'm ready to invade Perfidious Albion. Given the success last time, I decide to go for Wales again (but unfortunately failed to spot that last time someone [1] had destroyed the port).

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4 armies and the entire fleet move to support the invasion. The final army is allowed to cross France on the rails. They will be moved to Britain fairly soon so had better enjoy the food while they can.

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As is traditional, Wales surrenders fairly quickly

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I also take Bristol (this will give me the port that I need for reinforcements)

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Much less traditionally, I lose Wales when a large British army arrives [2].

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This was a bit of a shock, I mean last time they had virtually no army at home, this time its a pretty formidable force. I decide the best solution is to keep three out of my five armies concentrated on the defense at Bristol. One can take the southern ports and the other try to capture London. This way they can mostly support each other.

London it seems was pretty much undefended.

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One goal to this war was to see if it provokes any naval clashes. So far, the only naval action has been commerce raiding, with this a fairly typical example:

Image
[3]

Southampton follows soon after

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But the whole invasion goes very wrong at Bristol.

Image

This is the flip side of my triumph at Udine and is related to the stack selection rules for combat. A single large enemy stack picks one target, at best all my stacks then join in and I win. Here only 2 of my 5 armies actually engaged. The only good news is I still hold the province and the British took much heavier losses but I have just had one complete army wiped out.

Worth also noting that is the very first battle where both sides had tanks. These are shown as a square with no symbol so I had 48 elements and the British 4 engaged in the battle.

Total losses (hard to see) were 250,000 British and 190,000 Italians.

Image

Overall losses

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Prestige

Image

In prestige terms, Italy remains roughly 80,000 ahead of the USA. Italy has gained 10,500 (from 321,316 to 331,983) and the USA 12,500 (from 237,896 to 250,260). Of the other main states, Russia is up 5,000, France 1,000 and Britain 4,500. So really cannot see any significant changes of order in the final part of the game.


[1] – no idea who, I mean yes my armies were in occupation and all that, but ...
[2] – I'd left one army with the standard defend orders, since it was so badly outnumbered it wisely retreated without combat – one of the times when not using all out commitment can save you from a bad defeat.
[3] – this is the only way combat in the trade boxes is shown. Makes sense when it is classic convoy raiding but this was actually a battle between two combat fleets.
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Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:54 am

loki100 wrote:The .hst file is 32,243kb, the .trn file is 21,538kb and the Italy.ord file is 1,703kb.

It of course makes sense with so many structures and armies now built across the globe. For some reason, Russia seems to be the problem (but that may just how it appears in the turn processing screen). I'm going to go back a turn or so and see if I can get over this block (this has worked before).

Well, I already have 22-25K files (each .hst and .trn) by 1884. This is not a good sign. It's not only the greater infrastructure and armies around the map, it's also the accumulation of past interventions (scripts) which we overdid in the PBEM. It's remarkably slow by the 80s already, I crunch a turn at 3-4x the time needed for a fresh 1880 game (which is supposed to have similar army arrangements).

Sometimes I wish the AGE engine was built in a swift C++ infrastructure. Delphi is kind of slow for PON.

---

To your game: what will the USA do? Won't they interfere in the British woes?
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Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:16 am

loki100 wrote:[1] – no idea who, I mean yes my armies were in occupation and all that, but ...


I'm completely sure that your troops and their loose matches had nothing to do with the port "disappearing" from the British. My question is what "accidentally" caught fire this time?
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Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:08 am

I'm not sure how large a factor it was, but it seems that your armies in Bristol were also set to offensive posture. Maybe this worsened the defeat? I know you like your offense.

Either way, I think this war really should end soon. What can Italy gain except some African colonies? Yup, I'm officially anti-war here [ducks as a chair is thrown which narrowly misses, and background comments are heard shouting "go back to Russia!" and "take a bath, Hippie!"].

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loki100
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Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:29 am

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:I'm not sure how large a factor it was, but it seems that your armies in Bristol were also set to offensive posture. Maybe this worsened the defeat? I know you like your offense.


do proper feedback later, but this is where the battle reports are very misleading. If you look at the Southampton battle it could be read as if the entire Italian army (all 658,000) were there. What is shown in the top box is everything that might have been eligible to join in - so the 4 stacks in Bristol, the one in London and the one attacking Southampton. In the Southampton battle the stack there was in attack mode, everybody else was defending. When the Bristol battle is shown, again the top row shows all who could have been eligible. From the battle log, one stack fought for the first 2 rounds on its own and then one of the others joined in for a couple of rounds. Since, in theory, the Southampton stack was eligible, for some reason it shows as if I was in offense mode - but I suspect that force was not at all engaged.

Its a problem (or feature - its certainly WAD) of the stack selection routine. I think we see this more in PoN than any other game as PoN uses the simple army building model (add in CPs, use those CPs up on units, no need for the division-corps-army structure of ACW/RoP/RUS) but unlike the other two with the same mechanism (AJE/WIA) we see very large armies in the field. In WiA, in most scenarios I'd never split up an army as CP are not usually the constraint (supply stops you over-concentrating as I found out to my cost in an American Revolt PBEM), similarly in AJE, both sides tend to wander around in a single main army. In PoN as the player, you need to duck the consequences of the 35% malus by deploying multiple stacks. The AI's penalty is capped at 17% (on the setting I'm using) which is quite tolerable. So you have an imbalance with the AI tended to group a lot into a single (for the player very inefficient) stack and my armies spread out over a number of commands.

Most of the time, mutual support works well (Udine being the most recent example) but I've been caught out before. Adrianople in the first Turkish war is one example, there will be another before the British war is over. But then in the coming war with xxxxxx (name redacted for security reasons), we'll see the various stacks mutually support. I sort of like it (ie I cuss at the cats when it goes wrong) as it does reflect the capacity for things to go very wrong and it does sort of give the AI a recognisable bonus. I guess it would be nice if PoN2 used the complex army building routine but I can see why that has been avoided (after all this game does not need more processing demands)
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Stuyvesant
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Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:16 pm

Was Kitchener any good in real life (obviously not a great swimmer, but that's not what I mean - was he a decent military commander)? You certainly got trounced in that round of combat. I wonder if the British are going to keep that wrecking ball of an army (42,000 power? Zat right?) together, or if it disperses.

Nice victory at London. Apparently, concentrating 8 admirals (with 3,400 troops - about 450 soldiers per admiral) does not offset the numerical advantage of having 200,000 troops and 1,100 cannon to throw at the city.

What are your plans for the British? As Gen. Monkey-Bear points out, you can only obtain marginal territorial benefits. And I doubt that you're too concerned about trashing their industry even more, considering that you want to have markets for your Italian goods to stay ahead of the Yankees. Are you just humiliating them (really, really humiliating them) by burning down London so that they'll go away and let you prepare for the next tag-team contender in the war(s) against you?

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Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:41 am

Okay, how about this: the next war nations are Spain and/or Portugal? They haven't had a war for a while. Or the constantly revolting Swiss? No, I've got it, the Scandinavians!

Or maybe Greece? You have some of their territory, after all. Czechoslovakia? Romania? I'm really just guessing any European nation at this point, because Europe is just a mess.

The Andorra-Monaco war of 1916?

enf91
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Fri Feb 14, 2014 5:57 am

Wow. The Czech Republic has 30 million people JUST IN CITIES? TODAY they have 10 million altogether!
I see you've captured the Ashes Formerly Known As London. I guess we can forget about Arsenal and Chelsea dominating, huh?

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Fri Feb 14, 2014 6:08 am

Or France? An alliance turned evil.

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Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne
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Fri Feb 14, 2014 7:50 am

German, British, Turkish, Austrian, Russian, and Brazilian alliance vs Italy, France, Netherlands, and Croatia! Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia join in the end to occupy the rest of a devoid of life Europe...

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loki100
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Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:14 pm

Kensai wrote:Well, I already have 22-25K files (each .hst and .trn) by 1884. This is not a good sign. It's not only the greater infrastructure and armies around the map, it's also the accumulation of past interventions (scripts) which we overdid in the PBEM. It's remarkably slow by the 80s already, I crunch a turn at 3-4x the time needed for a fresh 1880 game (which is supposed to have similar army arrangements).

Sometimes I wish the AGE engine was built in a swift C++ infrastructure. Delphi is kind of slow for PON.

---

To your game: what will the USA do? Won't they interfere in the British woes?


I don't think my problem is old scripts. The majority I put in a file called 'use and delete' and then remove them – mainly as in-game all I'm interested in is making something happen. I think its a combination of a very large Russian army that is badly organised, so every now and then the AI tries to move it around and the processing demand is too much.

May also be related that I started this in 1.02, upgraded with all the 1.03 patches, started using the 1.04 betas, went back to 1.03 with the immortal garrison and the lag on F4, so I suspect my experience is a-typical.

I've solved the problem by a radical prune of the Russian army (by script) and removed some of the pre-conditions for a Russian revolution – think of it as the Tsarist army deserting. Its just this last hang up was 56 turns from the end ... and having got this far, I do rather want to get to the end. Even if its just a couple of largely peaceful years (I'm near the end of 1917 in game play now).

I think the US is content to sit out all this madness and just take on the missed trade and developments. They did go very close to war with GB a while back and it would have been interesting to see the fall out. But a lot of states now have very poor relations, so I suspect there is a real scope for more diplomatic surprises before the end.

Jim-NC wrote:I'm completely sure that your troops and their loose matches had nothing to do with the port "disappearing" from the British. My question is what "accidentally" caught fire this time?


errghhh, shuffles feet, well I might have been ... . This time I have done some vandalism, in particular to destroy things that never come up for sale like automobiles and planes.

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Either way, I think this war really should end soon. What can Italy gain except some African colonies? Yup, I'm officially anti-war here [ducks as a chair is thrown which narrowly misses, and background comments are heard shouting "go back to Russia!" and "take a bath, Hippie!"].

Stuyvesant wrote:Was Kitchener any good in real life (obviously not a great swimmer, but that's not what I mean - was he a decent military commander)? You certainly got trounced in that round of combat. I wonder if the British are going to keep that wrecking ball of an army (42,000 power? Zat right?) together, or if it disperses.

Nice victory at London. Apparently, concentrating 8 admirals (with 3,400 troops - about 450 soldiers per admiral) does not offset the numerical advantage of having 200,000 troops and 1,100 cannon to throw at the city.

What are your plans for the British? As Gen. Monkey-Bear points out, you can only obtain marginal territorial benefits. And I doubt that you're too concerned about trashing their industry even more, considering that you want to have markets for your Italian goods to stay ahead of the Yankees. Are you just humiliating them (really, really humiliating them) by burning down London so that they'll go away and let you prepare for the next tag-team contender in the war(s) against you?


You're both right about the value of this war. If they had had no decent army in England, then I could have pushed the war score to the point where I could grab a large chunk of South Africa. As it is, I'm in a war of attrition for no realistic gain.

My logic when I set up this possibility was it would add spice to the general European war (I really didn't expect France to conquer Berlin) and I wanted to see if having a decent navy would set off a conventional naval battle. All that has happened is I have caught large chunks of their fleet in the commerce boxes and all I have to show is a message that I've done some damage.

The British stack was about 12,000, so in theory I should have won easily as I have more power, men and morale. But clearly most of the Italian army is on the grappa in an attempt to cope with the British climate.

Having said all that, there is something pleasing at having captured London for the second time.

Not sure about Kitchener in reality. He seemed to do pretty well with his colonial wars, not least he realised the importance of logistics and having a large enough army to guard his supply lines. To his credit, by early 1915 he'd worked out that offensives without sufficient artillery were a total waste of lives. But like a lot of that generation, he couldn't work out any alternative, nor, of course, could he conceive of just making peace. He was probably the main architect of the Gallipoli disaster but he didn't share Haig's enthusiasm for just one more attack. So on balance, I'd say competent, basically decent and utterly out of his depth in the horrors of 1915 style warfare.


Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Okay, how about this: the next war nations are Spain and/or Portugal? They haven't had a war for a while. Or the constantly revolting Swiss? No, I've got it, the Scandinavians!

Or maybe Greece? You have some of their territory, after all. Czechoslovakia? Romania? I'm really just guessing any European nation at this point, because Europe is just a mess.

The Andorra-Monaco war of 1916?


You were half right in the very first sentence, yep, the new secret ingredient is Spain ...

enf91 wrote:Wow. The Czech Republic has 30 million people JUST IN CITIES? TODAY they have 10 million altogether!
I see you've captured the Ashes Formerly Known As London. I guess we can forget about Arsenal and Chelsea dominating, huh?


I think late game, population becomes far too much. The regular development cards (and the AI is good with this) push the population up by around 8-12% per year, plus the regular gains in city size. So my wee creation in the centre of Europe is quite a powerhouse (if it survives)

Aye, I think we'll have to accept that SerieA is the place for European football. The Bundesliga is looking a bit sad, La Ligue is going to lose a lot of prestige soon and Spanish football teams never do well against Italian sides ... Of course, the wonder that is the SPL is pretty well placed.

Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Or France? An alliance turned evil.

Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote:German, British, Turkish, Austrian, Russian, and Brazilian alliance vs Italy, France, Netherlands, and Croatia! Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia join in the end to occupy the rest of a devoid of life Europe...


Fortunately not, as things stand, the next round of wars Italy-Spain; Russia-Germany seem to remove the urge for further mass slaughter (maybe)
AJE The Hero, The Traitor and The Barbarian
PoN Manufacturing Italy; A clear bright sun
RoP The Mightiest Empires Fall
WIA Burning down the Houses; Wars in America; The Tea Wars

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loki100
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1916: January - July, Britain surrenders, Spain starts, Russia and Germany go to war

Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:16 pm

Italy entered its third year of war with Germany and Austria defeated but up to its armpits with a surprisingly large British army. With the start of the third year of war, fresh formations were being raised to fill out the gaps torn by the recent offensives and to improve the chaotic situation in West Africa [1].

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Good news arrived from Australia where a British attack on Melbourne had been defeated

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But the British renewed the fighting around Bristol. Again Italian command and control failed, leaving a single army to bear the brunt of the fighting.

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With Italy focused on the events in Britain, little attention was paid to a crisis with Spain.

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[2]

As Italy formulated its peace terms for Britain.

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Unlike the epic struggle in 1890-3, this time the British war had seemed like a mistake that both powers stumbled into. To Italy, Britain was no longer a serious rival and there was little more that could be realistically gained by continuing the war.

The Italian press saw the whole campaign as a waste of lives. In a reverse of the Roman invasions of Britain, here the first campaign had yielded real gains but the second just a single province in southern Africa.

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Anyway, the conclusion of the British war was fortunate.

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Well at least, war with Spain offered the scope to make gains in West Africa and possibly into the Carribbean.

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The opening phases were low key. The main Italian armies were redeploying from Scotland and recovering from their losses around Bristol. An attempt to make gains in West Africa failed:

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France suffered a loss of prestige for failing to support Italy but at least agreed to let Italian troops move across its soil.

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Just as Europe's attention fell on the new war in the western Mediterranean, Russia attacked Germany

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By late May, Italian troops had captured Spain's province in North Africa

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And were slowly massing on the border

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In an attempt to break the stalemate, one army was sent to outflank the Spanish defense at Barcelona by capturing Bilboa. The Spanish army easily repelled the Italian invasion (I was deliberately in the weakest of defense stances) as I didn't want to defend against a large army.

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However, distracted, they lost control of Barcelona when the rest of the Italian army crossed the borders, pretending to have nipped over for some duty free booze.

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At the same time I decided to end the stalemate in West Africa. The army that had captured Spain's North African ports was deployed to Warri with the aim of taking key Spanish ports in a series of naval landings.

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Image

[1] – the African units are colonial brigades, about 180 in power and incredibly useful in secondary actions.
[2] – I opted for a fairly low key strategy, I didn't want to add too much to the prestige stash (I'd have to win very big to even come out even) and was not looking for another war
AJE The Hero, The Traitor and The Barbarian
PoN Manufacturing Italy; A clear bright sun
RoP The Mightiest Empires Fall
WIA Burning down the Houses; Wars in America; The Tea Wars

Stuyvesant
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Fri Feb 14, 2014 6:54 pm

You have to admire the British tenacity in hurling themselves against the defenses of Melbourne - to the very last man, horse and cannon. But then, given the large number of surrenders, perhaps they were just anxious to come in? An early wave of unwanted asylum seekers flooding into Australia? How unsporting of them to come over land, where the navy can't intercept them and turn them around. ;)

So far, so Spain... Nice way to gain access to Barcalona and the surrounding beaches (Lloret de Mar, brings back memories of ill-behaved Dutch teenagers in the mid-nineties). You still killed 3 times as many Spaniards as that 1-million-strong mob managed to kill of yours. Perhaps they mostly inflicted friendly fire on themselves?

I see the Spanish General's name is Augustin de Luque y Coca. Perhaps the latter part explains why Cuba costs 1088 war score - the whole island has been turned over to industrial-scale cocaine production?

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Director
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Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:35 pm

Man, I go to Hell for a week - sorry, meant to say Cleveland, a simple mistake that anyone could make - and I come home to three feet of snow and Europe turned upside down!

Gen. Monkey-Bear, the distinction between Egads and Gonads is subtle but ultimately simple: the definition of gonads you can look up for yourself, while Egads are of course their electronic counterparts - the Email of reproduction and pleasure, if you will, readily available in any quantity via the internet. No, no, don't thank me - happy to be of assistance; glad we cleared that up. Right.


Let me see if I have this in proper order. Germany beats Russia but loses to France, Austria goes down swinging against Italy and is mostly dismembered ("No! No! The Czechs we wanted to KEEP. It was the Hungarians we told you to get rid of!"), Britain pulls off a creditable defense despite the failure of the Stuffed Admiral Brigade and now... NOW... Spain wants to give it a go? While Russia, disdaining the possibility of fighting a strong foe when there are actually friends and allies available, is now determined to take on the bruised and vindictive German Army all on its lonesome?

At this point my voice has risen in incredulity to a pitch that only dogs can hear, and only specially-bred, very sensitive dogs at that.

Holy hoppin' Hanna. The only possible response to that, is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690

"Look you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!"
"Yes I have!"
"Look!"
"Just a flesh wound!"

Europe, clearly, is run by the Black Knight.

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Crixdaz
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Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:28 am

The war against Spain has been weird, it's like they've declared war to the Great Britain of France in 1919 :bonk: .

But if they've their remainder empire intact it means that USA is pacifist in this game or the events for the 1898 hasn't been fire. In real history the USA wanted to get rid of the last european colonies in America by 'liberate' Cuba, but in the end they annexed the Phillipines and Puerto Rico. And the cost of keeping the Phillipines was high costly in lives (mostly for the population) because they continued the war of independence against the invaders, spanish or american.

I think that this event is important for the game, because this is the point where the USA started to look outside and to intervene in other nations. Also is interesting because Spain lost his global focus and Japan started to see USA as an rival, because the american possessions in the Pacific (Phillipines, Guam, Wake...)
Excuse my bad english, don't doubt to correct me ;)

Gen. Monkey-Bear
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Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:12 pm

Italy in Spain, sigh, not again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War_and_Foreign_Involvement#Italy

My God, you are at it again. The communists must be having a ball stirring up anti-war sentiment in Europe. [What's that? You mean the population supports these wars?]. To be honest, you have me a little disillusioned with so much bloodshed. I need time to sort it all out . . . I'll go play Pride of Nations meanwhile.

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Jim-NC
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Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:46 am

The Spanish army has 1 million men??????

What do you mean (as you shuffle your feet) that you cooked both the automobile and air-plane factories????

So what Spanish factories do you plan to burn *ahem* "cook pizza for"???

Apparently Russia decided to man up and try to really crush Prussia. Now if they can only get their army out of the capital.
Remember - The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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