Chevalier Plays AGEOD Let's Play/AAR

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Ugh. Forum ate my January update.

Italy is joining the war in 3 turns. The USA will join in between 30 weeks to 45 weeks at the outside. Austria blundered badly by giving up the Tyrol and Istria to Italy, compromising his defensive positions, all in order to merely delay Italian entry by a few months.

Mud and snow over the front. Little operational movement.

[Cyneheard]

At least it's a January update that got eaten.

What kind of a force will Italy have?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Italy will join with probably something like 5-6 armies and a gaggle of loose corps. Overall quality is somewhat less than the French and British, but probably on par with the Belgians and Portuguese. More significantly, the Italian Navy assures permanent naval supremacy in the Med and so he's not breaking the blockade there, ever. That's a ticking time bomb to the fall of the Ottomans and the Austrians quite apart from anything I manage to accomplish on the battlefield.

Since I don't have to go through the Isonzo Valley (Austria gifted Italy Trieste already) nor do I need to beat my head on Alpine redoubts (the Tyrol), I might be able to accomplish more with the Italian army than historically. Istria is also a good candidate for the BEF in 1917 assuming 1916 is consumed by knocking out the Ottoman Empire.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Late January 1916

The Kaiser's morale is low. In intercepted telegrams (god bless the British intelligence service), we have him quoted as:

No worries yw lol I’ll fight this one to the end! :saluting_face: all I need to do is keep Germany and Austria alive and hope for a draw. Although that does seem unlikely. This is my worst played game ever as the CP.  That British invasion of Anatolia was well planned and timed. That might be a backbreaker for the OE. And the best Russian play I’ve seen in quite a while combined with the Western Entente not making suicide attacks on the front, you guys have been great. Nice work! Now finish me off lol

So, we can probably expect increasing desperation ploys, as the blockade + the fall of Anatolia this season + the intervention of Italy and the USA + potentially our offensives on the main two fronts should lead to Centrals collapse this year! 

In a first, the KuK Marine sallies out of its port in Istria, in the last weeks before the Italian fleet joins. In a bit of an embarrassment, the entire sentry fleet of French submarines - 12 boats - are sunk in the largest naval "battle" of the war to date:


Huh. Guess I thought the subs would do better, and be more survivable. Oh, well. 

Anyway, I have the French and Japanese navies abroad in the Mediterranean, and can probably expect activity in the North Sea soon, as well. I don't mind either sinking or bottling up this navy, so I play it cautious and make sure the blockade is firm.

In Anatolia we walk into an unoccupied Bursa and find the Ottoman army a few miles beyond, at Izmit. 


I halt the march and begin to dig in - we'll bring up more of our army and once again turn him out of this position, driving him all the way back to the Bosporus step by step. I also transfer one army back towards Smyrna - the rail net seems to be up and running now, greatly easing communications in western Anatolia. I will board ship there and transfer to Gallipolli, then march on Constantinople. With any luck by summer's end the Ottomans will sue for peace.

Western front is quiet. Snow falls on the trenches, no offensives possible yet. Maybe one more month of waiting, then I plan to attempt an invasion of Germany itself.

[Cyneheard]

Late January 1916

The Kaiser's morale is low. In intercepted telegrams (god bless the British intelligence service), we have him quoted as:

No worries yw lol I’ll fight this one to the end! :saluting_face: all I need to do is keep Germany and Austria alive and hope for a draw. Although that does seem unlikely. This is my worst played game ever as the CP.  That British invasion of Anatolia was well planned and timed. That might be a backbreaker for the OE. And the best Russian play I’ve seen in quite a while combined with the Western Entente not making suicide attacks on the front, you guys have been great. Nice work! Now finish me off lol

I would think "the Western Entente not making suicide attacks" would be a relatively obvious play? Don't fight the last war especially applies to a strategy game where it IS the last war!

[thestick]

Is that 'intercepted telegram' an ingame mechanic?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Nah, just a message from the game's Slack channel.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Three weeks' delay by the Centrals - ie, longer than real time! - brings February, 1916.

Major points:

1)Early tank brigades are finishing and are moving to their assembly areas. Tentative start date for my attack is fixed on April 1, 1916.

2)Cohesion levels are still wretched all through Anatolia, and the enemy is digging in. However, an army and a supporting corps are dispatched to land on the European side of the Dardanelles, capture the forts at Gallipolli, and move on Constantinople - how hard could it possibly be? 

3)Italy will join the war next week! It opens a large new front in the Alps, and most importantly the Italian fleet will join the blockade, effectively securing the Mediterranean once and for all.

[Cyneheard]

However, an army and a supporting corps are dispatched to land on the European side of the Dardanelles, capture the forts at Gallipolli, and move on Constantinople - how hard could it possibly be? 

General Sir Ian Hamilton, reporting for duty! They won't know how to fight!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

However, an army and a supporting corps are dispatched to land on the European side of the Dardanelles, capture the forts at Gallipolli, and move on Constantinople - how hard could it possibly be? 

General Sir Ian Hamilton, reporting for duty! They won't know how to fight!

It's a shame, really. When I was living in South Africa I visited Spion Kop and researched and wrote extensively about the Boer War. Hamilton, Kitchener, John French, Haig all served in South Africa and every man made his reputation on those fields - when you compare their records and accomplishments in those years with the men who came before them (even poor Redvers Buller, a man I think was treated very unfairly) they really shine, and you can see why Britain put its war effort into the hands of men like that. Only for them to prove totally unable to solve the immense problems the Great War presented to them. :/ Had it never come, they'd be remembered as brilliant colonial fighters most likely, instead of butchers, the sheep leading the lions.