Part 12: Turn 23, Turn 24
Turn 23: April 29th, 1915
New offensive technologies and France is out of the war! We take all production cities we currently hold, the British are kicked off of the continent, and we don't have to deal with the French again unless we declare war.
Here is the production situation. We miss out on some 4 and 5 production cities but we still have quite a few that we will hold now. The red numbers mean the city had production reduced by fighting. These will slowly repair until they hit their maximum.
Production
Two new generals are available. Our battleship squadron is also oh so close.
Fun fleet update. In the new patch now starting fleets are way larger. Instead of 1 battleship and 3 cruisers the Grand Fleet is 3 battleships and 4-5 cruisers. If you want naval warfare the new patch has super buffed that part of the game. We will still get to see some fun but it will be with counters representing larger units than the new changes.
Research
Torpedoes and shells. Shells will help for Russia and the torpedoes will help the coming showdown with the Grand Fleet.
Diplomacy
Excellent. Italy is in red meaning unless something changes (like losing Berlin) meaning they are not going to jump in and their 3-5 turn delay is now frozen. Bulgaria loves this shit and is still going to jump in 10+ turns from now. France is also neutral now and awaits the full end of the war to see what horrible peace treaty we force on them.
Management
Germany has done the brunt of the fighting and it shows. At 90 percent we are very close to the first set of penalties for continuing to dip into available manpower. We aren't quite at ulcer brigades but if Russia makes us pay for every yard we could get there.
Eastern Front
AGN moves into positions to avoid rivers and we assault the fortress city of Kovno. The corps there holds on and takes only one hit to efficiency but they are so outnumbered the with our reserves holding the flanks it shouldn't last very long.
AGC pushes the armored train into Brest-Litovsk and moves up and repairs/upgrades. We can't get favorable odds on the Russians and the salient is risky, but having a weakened unit in a fortress means we may be able to snag it from them. High risk high reward but with the French and Serbian fronts collapsing new units will soon be here to repair our army groups.
AGS hits the Russian artillery and moves to surround and destroy a Russian Army. After being shelled, the men are unfazed and intel advises against a strike. It seems our artillery needs to rest after having been transported from another front. With Italy scared into submission, all Austrian troops will be free to transfer to AGS or AGC and so we should expect a breakthrough here soon.
Von Straussenburg is deployed to AGS and will boost attack and defense by 1.
Serbian Front
Though their morale is high, the defenders of Cetinje are half of their full ToE and we have a battleship ready to shell them next turn. We also upgrade the units that didn't attack this round with handgrenades to ensure that we finish this and ship these men to Russia.
Ottoman Front
Congrats intelligence officers you finally got it fucking right. 1-3 odds and more efficiency drops mean we should finally fix this and get ready to move on to the next one.
The little corps that could is repaired to try and last two more turns and we fix up the rest of our men and let them dig in. With our new technology we should now have trenches and barbed wire once we get a chance to dig in. Hopefully we can hold out even in the face of British artillery long enough for Germany to launch Sea Lion.
Fortress Britannia
France is out but fuck Belgium. The Line Corps are gonna take Antwerp dammit!
By rail and by foot we move to the coast and start getting near ports and repairing. Train travel still kills efficiency so some of the units will be relegated to second and third waves. Only one unit can go in port per turn anyway.
We will discuss our options on timetables after our battleship fleet is ready.
Allied Response
Two down, two to go. Let the Serbians live in shame in their shithole of Cetinje. I'm content to call that the full peace terms. Serbia gets a shamecube for the rest of the world to ridicule. Fuckin' clay, bitches. We got it.
Britain goes all out to destroy our brave meat shield corps. It bought two full turns for the other armies to repair and dig in. If it takes the British another turn to bring up artillery that is quite the sacrifice for one reserve unit.
Russia brings up some green recruits to block our armies and starts to pull their lines back further.
Further retreat and reinforcement.
Turn 24: May 13, 1915
Our first deterioration warning. From here on out every 5% drop will start reducing the quality of our recruits.
Eastern Front
Even cut off, forts are a bitch and 5th Eastern gets a bloody nose. That poor armored train doesn't know when to quit and our flanking corps almost destroy it. Smart people or wussies use artillery on forts but we know with the might of the fatherland we can
We try to pincer a weak reserve and encircle another but we just barely can't pull it off. Holes are plugged, new men and guns are moved up. AGC doesn't look super exciting until...
AGS bumps into Russian artillery and nearly destroys it while being just one hex away from a major encirclement. I don't know how Russia will react, but it will force them to be reactive instead of proactive.
We rail out what we can and begin the long march to Russia. Along the way we refit and upgrade. Multiple armies with grenades should easily tip the balance into our favor.
Ottoman Front
The WWIest fucking thing. If I had the resources I could commit more troops but efficiency will decide this eventually so we slog onward.
Aqaba will be ours next turn and the Damascus Force hits a British Army where it can. Best of all, our main armies have trenches up and have new divisions and higher morale. This front will be challenging with asymmetry in artillery but now we have a shot at holding at least for a while.
Fortress Britannia
We continue preparations for the invasion of Great Britain. We have a lot of units that need to rest and refit but things are falling into place.
Allied Response
Haig's army will unfortunately heal up but the British vacate Aqaba and run for it. We will be happy to have our city back and to have an army and cavalry force in reserve.
Russia tries to sever our pincer and hits a dug-in reserve corps. They should have pulled back and even with a weakened corps hold part of the pincer we can trap both armies next turn.
The train runs for it but there are still no serious attempts to break the siege.
The Russians opposing AGC flee into the Pripyat marshes. They know this will slow us down and prevent any great encirclements. What they don't know is how many seasoned Austrian troops are on their way to blow open their lines in the center and south.
Goon VoteWith the vote to take half of France and leave them at our mercy, the build-up for Sea Lion is underway. We have two major strategies for this depending on how the AI wants to run things. Keep in mind we may or may not be able to get them to bite on either.
A Simultaneous attack. We invade with our first waves while using the High Seas Fleet to block the channel from incursion. If the Grand Fleet appears we engage, if not we hold open our corridor.
B Hunt the Grand Fleet and then invade. This is safer but slower, and the drawback is that we may not be able to draw the Grand Fleet out. If we can, we have an advantage if we can stay in neutral water, but if we have to use a decoy it could go poorly for us.
If you have a valid C, bold it and explain.
When I try this, I usually go simultaneous attack and it can usually buy time for a successful Sea Lion, though it is sometimes at the expense of the High Seas Fleet.
Keep in mind depending on the plan we currently have 3 ports so we can embark 3 units per turn. If we hold off until Antwerp falls that is 4 per turn. We still need to let units rest a turn or two anyway since sea travel will hit 2 or 3 efficiency as it is. Even if we go with A though, we can just delay the whole operation until the land part is ready.
I didn't have us vote on Serbia because it would hold us up after one turn and honestly, I love the thought of Serbia being reduced to one shameful fort.
Next time, we continue to build-up for Sea Lion and stuff happens in Russia!