German Colonies.

[stormbringer3]

I transported a 2 star general to a colony. Instead of the usual 24 without a penalty he only had 12 just like the 1 star generals already there. WAD?
Thanks.

[Kensai]

Probably, no idea, but if WAD a good call. Non-European regions should be difficult to handle. Otherwise gamey situations may arise.

[Wallensteinwojtek]

Is it worth to fight in colonies?

[PhilThib]

German colonies bring VP to Germany/CP, so the longer they hold, the better it is for the Centrals (and conversely bad for Entente)

[DrPostman]

It's possible to take South Africa, but just barely. I send all my raiding forces to act
as transports to pick up the troops in SE Africa and invade South Africa. Don't try
this against a human opponent though.

[caranorn]

It's possible to take South Africa, but just barely. I send all my raiding forces to act
as transports to pick up the troops in SE Africa and invade South Africa. Don't try
this against a human opponent though.

It shouldn't work though, unless a much more serious Boer revolt took place. Right now South African Military forces are quite underrepresented in the game. Historically there were the equivalent of 8 Mounted Horse and 9 Infantry Brigades formed in South Africa in August 1914 (in EAW terms that woud be 5 Cavalry, 6 Infantry and 1 Artillery unit minimum, the Boer revolt of 1914 ammounted to maximum 1-2 EAW style units). Of course other African troops are also massively understated in EAW (though at least British Regulars in Africa are overestimated).

One problem is of course the huge regions adopted for Africa, while South Africa should be almost impossible to conquer for Germany (without regular troops from Germany), conquering German South-East and South-West Africa should not be easy either (after all South West Africa held out for the war despite large South African, Indian and Belgian contingents committed there).

[bob.]

Don't forget that he is talking about the AI here. Any half-competent player can simply leave and or ship enough troops to South Africa.
I suppose the starting garrison there may be defeated by Lettow-Vorbeck, but just barely. But you can just ship some troops there and it will be 100 % safe. Or recruit some additional troops in South Africa directly.

[Kensai]

If you feel we should improve the colonial starting powers for a better abstraction, please post a formal request and historical source. Philippe takes these things seriously!

[caranorn]

If you feel we should improve the colonial starting powers for a better abstraction, please post a formal request and historical source. Philippe takes these things seriously!

I'm working on far more than just the Colonial setup, will contact the two Phils when I'm ready :-) .

I have a pretty good setup for the Brits in Africa right now (just finished West and East Africa), but nothing yet for German Africa etc. And no point in changeing the setup for one while leaving the others be. Will also have to research force pools first (West and East Africa is pretty straightforward)...

[bob.]

Will historical forces lead to a historical campaign though? I mean, the German East Africa garrison was always less than 20000 soldiers. At the outbreak of the war, less than 3000. In game, Lettow-Vorbeck starts with 26000 (and can't recruit more, so it's really quite abstracted)!
And even now, eventually German East Africa will fall, propably a lot sooner than historically because the Germans can not fight a guerilla war.

If the British have more troops in South Africa, what hinders them from crushing the Germans 1914 and then happily shipping everything to another front?

[Kensai]

I think it can be a challenge to balance, but yes, it can be done.

A very small German colonial force (perhaps with some changes to its constituent models) could actually benefit from the situation. It could easily have a high hiding value (thus it won't give battle each turn) and perhaps we could give especially low frontage to certain African regions (beyond their natural terrain) to make possible for guerrilla warfare with few casualties. I repeat, it will be hard to balance, but eventually with some changes it could be done.

[bob.]

If the Germans have a high hide value, can't the Britains simply take the East Africa city and the Germans will not get any more supplies? Or does a hidden force block taking cities?

[H Gilmer3]

I'm just talking here, just throwing out some ideas. It would probably take a lot of work, so probably not feasible, but if you could use the PoN map for Africa and have actually areas to fight in. Oh man, that would be the ultimate.

[DrPostman]

Don't forget that he is talking about the AI here. Any half-competent player can simply leave and or ship enough troops to South Africa.
I suppose the starting garrison there may be defeated by Lettow-Vorbeck, but just barely. But you can just ship some troops there and it will be 100 % safe. Or recruit some additional troops in South Africa directly.

I did it while the South African troops were busy in South-West Africa.

[Kensai]

If the Germans have a high hide value, can't the Britains simply take the East Africa city and the Germans will not get any more supplies? Or does a hidden force block taking cities?

Yes they could, as it historically happened. The Germans could still be in the region, I believe. A cut off stack can still live off the land through foraging. The smaller it is, the most probable it will be without pillaging the land.

[caranorn]

Hopefully supply would be a serious issue (though unlikely due to naval resupply possibility :-( ) for the Entente. For instance the South African Mounted Brigades in GSWA had to be pulled back repeatedly as they could find neither sufficient forage nor water. A Royal Navy Armoured Car Squadron had to be brought in to replace the mounted troops for recon and infantry had to march through the desert.

Currently we also seem to lack the need for keeping garrisons which could be a problem (India is relatively easy right now, just leave most of the forces locked (7 out of 10 prewar Indian Divisions stayed there (minus much of the cavalry and 2 brigades of infantry) through the war, 3 British Territorial Divisions were shipped there to release regular Battalions (in game terms the Territorials could start locked in India), but how about the UK? 2 regular Divisions are in Ireland and Great Britain in August 1914 out of fear of a German invasion, even after the Territorials were mobilised a number of large units stayed in the UK on garrison duties throughout the war (in Ireland that included actual fighting)).

These are more reasons why there is little use to unload my current order of battle research on the Phils. If this were to make it into the game there would have to be renewed testing, possibly adding/changeing code. So nothing for right now. I briefly considered asking to be added to the beta team now, but that would take away time from my research (I'd test things out, spend much more time here on the forums etc.) and risk taking away testers' time from other topics more urgent right now. I expect EAW will still be alive and well in a few months when hopefully I will have something ready to be used and tested...

[ringhloth]

One of the biggest problems is how easy it is to move around in Africa. The connections for off-map regions are absurdly small. So small, that the biggest benefit the Suez Canal gets is a way into the Mediterranean. It takes 13 days to round Africa and get to Port Said, where as if you went through the Mediterranean route... well, much, much longer.

[bob.]

Yes, it also takes a very short time. I hope the whole sea zones will be reworked in the next patch or at least at some point. Right now the naval game does not feel quite finished. There's also the minesweepers which do simply nothing.

Also, while talking about sea zones, wouldn't it make sense to turn all the huge ocean zones into something like blockade boxes? I don't mean that you could blockade anything but right now it is very easy to destroy single German raiders and stuff in the oceans as far as I can tell.

[GlobalExplorer]

100% agree, more worldwide sea regions would do this game good.
Remember that the RN chased german cruisers to Falklands and Chile, it would be great if that could be simulated.

I also mentioned in some other thread problems with the Baltic shipping box:
>Russia has no ability to build or make use of merchant ships
>German AI leaves merchants in Baltic completely undefended, and it is too easy to destroy / capture them
>after the capture the units are useless

as well as with mines
>minesweepers not doing anything
>no possiblity to lay new sea mines or remove mines from captured region
the way the mines appear magically in the 2nd turn and then can never be removed feels kind of canned

[Kensai]

I don't expect more sea zones, that could be a lot of work, but an upgraded mechanism could be nice, especially for raiding in remote seas. Less attrition, etc.

[Shri]

German Colonies have huge forces to simulate the 'PITA' they were to the BRITISH, esp. East Africa where the British with 10:1 Superiority could not win.

Maybe one thing can be done is the supplies be drastically cut and ammo reduced to '0'. So no ships in Africa and any stack having more than 10000 will lose heavily to 'attrition' to the extent of 30-40% per 2 turns.
That would then simulate AFRICAN theater well. Now, these over-supply of troops are needed to Stop the BRITISH from conquering whole of Africa in 1914

[DrPostman]

German Colonies have huge forces to simulate the 'PITA' they were to the BRITISH, esp. East Africa where the British with 10:1 Superiority could not win.

Maybe one thing can be done is the supplies be drastically cut and ammo reduced to '0'. So no ships in Africa and any stack having more than 10000 will lose heavily to 'attrition' to the extent of 30-40% per 2 turns.
That would then simulate AFRICAN theater well. Now, these over-supply of troops are needed to Stop the BRITISH from conquering whole of Africa in 1914

But they never did catch von Lettow-Vorbeck, right up to the end of the war. Why
make it easy to end it in 1914 when it ended up tying down over 1 million men (mostly
porters) for most of the war? As it is when I play the WE I take both colonies easily
by the end of 1914 or the first month or two of 1915. That's playing against Athena
and I don't see how a human player would do much better.

[Shri]

But they never did catch von Lettow-Vorbeck, right up to the end of the war. Why
make it easy to end it in 1914 when it ended up tying down over 1 million men (mostly
porters) for most of the war? As it is when I play the WE I take both colonies easily
by the end of 1914 or the first month or two of 1915. That's playing against Athena
and I don't see how a human player would do much better.

I am asking for SUPPLY to be cut so that BRITISH losses increase .. i know VON-LETTOW was never caught or defeated in 4 years.
So the BIG British stacks would be losing so many men while traversing Africa that they will never be able to crush the Germans easily except in South-West Africa, even Cameroon proved a difficult win for the British.

[Kensai]

Shri's interpretation of how it should be abstracted is accurate, in my humble opinion. And I am positive these things can be abstracted somehow: if some regions can have special attrition, supply consumption, hiding, etc parameters. This way we could simulate even better the harsh unforgiving environment of Africa for large army concentrations as well as the ability of Lettow-Vorbeck to stay uncaptured for the entire duration of war.

So the question is: can the East Africa region be "personalized" in order to simulate its unique characteristics (huge, difficult to give battle, ability of small stacks to survive off the land, etc)? I think every "overseas" land box should be unique in its characteristics and not simply take the terrain/civilization of a normal European region.

[DrPostman]

I am asking for SUPPLY to be cut so that BRITISH losses increase .. i know VON-LETTOW was never caught or defeated in 4 years.
So the BIG British stacks would be losing so many men while traversing Africa that they will never be able to crush the Germans easily except in South-West Africa, even Cameroon proved a difficult win for the British.

They needed over 1 million porters and many of them died, so there might be
some way to affect WE supply in just the German colonies.

[ERISS]

"There's no discharge in the war."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMO4JxBDaQs

[Shri]

They needed over 1 million porters and many of them died, so there might be
some way to affect WE supply in just the German colonies.

Ya. Exactly, So when WE's troops move - anywhere in Africa (maybe except South Africa) they lose men each turn, maybe 10% per turn, so in 3-4 turns you have 40% strength loss and 70% cohesion loss, so practically useless offensive and thus you have the historic stalemate.

EE is not in Africa and CP has limited units in Africa. So penalty for WE and balance achieved.

[Kensai]

That's a nice abstraction. I concur!

(we can find such solutions for other regions/areas/theaters as well... just propose!)

[Shri]

Other regions do not need this except perhaps SALONIKA, where you lose about 5% strength and cohesion each turn.

Historically WE lost a lot of men to disease in SALONIKA.

Historicity to be duplicated means some penalties necessary for WE- as otherwise WE is overpowered, RUSSIA is strong but due to lack of WSU cannot make full use of the strength and rightly so. WE is currently overpowered compared to CP, such nerfs in the not-so-important theaters but coupled with mounting losses and forceful nature to maintain troops (Political reasons) will nerf WE slightly and improve Game-play.

[Kensai]

Salonika is my home city, in real life, what do you want to abstract there?