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"The Mightiest Empires Fall": An Austrian RoP PBEM

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You're really hammering home your advantage with Daun - that's another 103 :)o) Prussian elements lost to Austria's seven. To put it another way, the first battle of this update saw the Prussian's fielding 369 elements. One third of that force has ceased to exist, and it's a fair bet that the rest is looking pretty battered.

It's looking bright for the Austrians right now. I know you've said you're worried about the rest of the Prussian forces consolidating, but it would risk allowing the French and Russians to move up in support, so it's a big risk. That said, looks like Prussia's going to have to gamble if it wants to win.
 
germanpeon said:
Solid progress on the Northern and Western fronts. It does seem to be the case that your Russians are blocked, as you indicated. If Narwhal attacks, your Russians would be in solid defensive terrain, however the frontage limitations might favor Narwhal's qualitatively superior units. I'm not sure it'd be wise for Narwhal to attack, however, and not just because he might not win. If his units facing the Russians take a battering, or even lose, they'd be hard pressed to stop the French, who seem unopposed by a serious force and as such constitute the main threat to the Prussian heartland. I don't believe Narwhal will just park his forces there and let them stare at the Russians, as he can't afford for them to not be doing anything. I'll wager, then, that Narwhal will swing some of them back down to Saxony, as you fear, or that he'll try to stop the French with them, which seems less likely as I'm sure he wants to extract Freddy from the Austrian army.

Narwhal can't ship all those units from outside Stettin to Saxony as he'd be leaving Berlin wide open, however. I think he'll leave whatever he can spare to hold the Russians back while the rest attempt to free Freddy. It seems his best option, then (for certainly there is a best option even if none are good options), would be to attempt to stop one of your armies. The French are quite strong right now and still have a few stops left on the road to Berlin, so I believe they're out. The Austrians will need some time to rest, reorganize, and replace, but Narwhal might see the potential to eliminate elements there. The Russians, however, are by nature the weakest and so always present an easy target. I think therefore that he is most likely to go for your Austrians or your Russians.

In your position, I'd let the Russians sit and remain a threat, limiting his offensive capability on other fronts, while you continue your aggression with the French and let the Austrians rest before doing the same with them. If he moves against the Austrians, Strike with the Russians but realize that out in the open they are asking to be beaten.

Whoo, that wasn't supposed to be so long. I guess I got pretty excited by the tenuous position Narwhal is in and the offensive options you have right now! :happy:
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Dewirix said:
You're really hammering home your advantage with Daun - that's another 103 :)o) Prussian elements lost to Austria's seven. To put it another way, the first battle of this update saw the Prussian's fielding 369 elements. One third of that force has ceased to exist, and it's a fair bet that the rest is looking pretty battered.

It's looking bright for the Austrians right now. I know you've said you're worried about the rest of the Prussian forces consolidating, but it would risk allowing the French and Russians to move up in support, so it's a big risk. That said, looks like Prussia's going to have to gamble if it wants to win.
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I'll answer both these together (not least I'm off sea kayaking for the next 5 days ... paddling in the rain is not TOO bad). The dilemna is that Prussia has 4 corps that are pretty much untouched so far. Add those to Frederick's leadership and the remnants of his main army and Daun is very much at risk. Dewirix is right, that so the loss in elements has favoured me, but that is going to end very soon as the Austrians are at the end of their tether so limited losses will feed into lost elements from now on. The only fresh force in Bohemia/Saxony is that weak French corps I moved across in mid-57 and its badly out of position due to my earlier blunder at Freiberg.

France is blocked for the moment, as Magdeburg is their gateway to Saxony and its a level 3 fort. I can't bring much down past it due to logistic and supply problems. As germanpoen correctly says, the Russians are incredibly fragile one major battle and they will be badly weakened, so I can't put them in the way of too much risk. But then in my overall strategy they are in effect a huge artillery force protected by a few infantry battalions and their target is fortresses not battle.

Narwhal can comment for his own plans, but my instinct was the current stalemate at Stettin suited me, and I was prepared just to sit, back and wait He needs to save Frederick much more than any city (including Berlin), & I can't sustain battering Frederick with the Austrians indefinitely but want to break off leaving him with a supply headache as Chemnitz is not a depot so he can't take on replacements if stuck there ... neither is Leipzig {I think}, and I've worked hard on the side to take out key parts of his road net with the Hussars and Cossacks.

Its here my Oder gambit suddenly becomes very useful. Without that, I could take Berlin and Magdeburg and still be in no position to force a victory. As it is Breslau is under siege and Glogau will be next. So I've created a useful dilemna, without that threat, its easy to think of abandoning Berlin for now and go to Saxony, with that threat, there is a danger that even a recovery in Saxony could lead to a loss if I take out all the VP cities.

From our emails, I think Narwhal didn't fully appreciate this threat, as on the Prussian side Kessel is a VP city (replaced by Glogau for me), as AGEOD games often have non-symmetric victory conditions. So he passed up the option of pulling back into Silesia (for good reasons, he likes to kill the field army rather than fuss about fortresses) which may have given him a good position to take out some of my weaker threats.
 
I am rather astonished at this course of events. Why did Narwhal keep attacking in Saxony? He didn't have the numbers and after the first failure he should have known better than to repeat the same mistake over and over again with increasingly fragile units.
Also, I don't understand why he chose to attack at Wurzen? He could have unified Friedrich with Wilhelm's corps at Leipzig without going through this contested region. As long as Friedrich was at Chemnitz, Wurzen could have been by-passed. Instead he attacked south thus really putting Friedrich in a trap. That was a bad decision on a scale I have never seen in one of Narwhal's AARs. No offense to Narwhal, whom I greatly admire as a creative player. :)
Besides, when a good player suddenly looks bad in multiplayer game, it is usually because his opponent played a smart game.

Last question: was it a bluff when you hinted about a catastrophic defeat in Saxony? To me it's starting to look as if you could actually afford such losses at this point and still win.
 
OK, now a long point - I am not going to waste any surprises now. [There are still a couple left, I believe].

After the total fiasco with the surrender of Saxony event, I decided to change my "usual" strategy in three ways :

1. No creation of "megaarmies", but instead armies on each front. As you might remember, I usually play in the two previous RoP AAR with one front completely without defense, one front with all my troops to maximise my inner line advantage. I thought that this strategy was sustainable, because up to that game Loki100 was extremely conservative, and would not attack except with crushingly more numbers. Also, this was an attempt to "answer" to a Loki100 comment in mail on whether Prussia could win with a more "balanced" strategy

2. A more laid back approach, i.e. no attack. You might remember that I was an extremely aggressive player ; in this game I decided to be more reactive. I had noticed that in many of my games, my attacks were numerous but not so successful ; I was much better in counter-attacks - when trying to cut the enemy supply line especially. This was also due to the fact that I know there were a awful lot of Austrians out there, since I killed none in the opening months of the game.

3. No attempt to stop the Prussian at Königsberg, instead bringing these troops in main Prussia. Which was stupid, since I was not planning to attack there anyway.

This was a complete fiasco, as you can see.

1. Loki100 had decided to be much more aggresive itself, and while my "new" strategy would have worked in an earlier game, it did not anymore. Thus, insteand of being 1:1 on one front, I was 1:2 on both fronts, not good. At all.

2. I let Loki100 seize the initiative, and also attack in good ordders. While my attacks were not so efficient in the previous games, I believe unbalanced my opponent and also made his later attack less efficient (as his organisation was weakened due to the need to answer to "contagencies" earlier). In this game, Loki100 had all the time in the world to organise the "perfect attack".
Moreover, Loki100 did something completely new to me : instead of concentrating all his forces in the same province, he spreads out his corps in 2 or 3 neighbouring region. While it makes battle slightly more risky for him, it also means that I could not do anymore one of my personal favorites : going BEHIND the enemy line, by passing one region away from the enemy, to cut his supplies by taking a city "behind" him, ideally just before - or during winter. As you can see, that's what I did a lot of time in my WiA or ROP game - see how I destroyed Dearborn's force next to Montréal in the War of 1812 (June/July 1813) for the latest and "purest" instances, but also my attack on Trois-Rivières in the French and Indian War, or well, my method against Baris in Learning from Prussia to take back Saxony, or lift the siege of Kassel,or to destroy the Swedes. While it is not in the AAR, during "The First Global War" game, I anniliated the complete French army (albeit with a significant manpower bonus due to the bug) by going around Hannover which was under French control in the beginning of winter, and taking Minden (with supplies from Bremen) and then just sit there while the French in Hannover starved. In the same game, I chased the Austrians from Saxony which was under their control by taking Dresden "behind" them. I also did that in a few other game versus Loki100 that were not AARed, so Loki100 had to find a counter.
With Loki100's supporting corp strategy, this method, while not dead, is not the "I-Win-Button" anymore.

3. The experience of the previous interrupted game told me it was OK to abandon Königsberg (the siege took 18 months, and Kolberg had changed hands 2 turns before we stopped that game), but Loki100 had also prepared a new strategy in this regard, and my fortress went bust at an alarming rate.

So basically, instead of fighting a fairly defensive player with a massive army but easy to cut from supply, I fought a aggressive and methodical player with a brand new strategy that looked like a cuirass from me - and a menacing horde from the East coming to me at an alarming rate. Loki100 now has a good balance between offense and defense and is in my opinion not a "newbie" anymore - as he was in his very first WiA game against me on AAR.

In addition to this, I was unlucky a couple times :

- the siege of Stralsund (which was rational in my opinion, as we buffed up the Swedes by taking out the "bugged" Northerner trait) failed due to bad luck - first time a minor bug that happens from time to time (an hidden unit sitting OUTSIDE a fortress under siege when the opponent is in defensive posture will cancel the siege), the second time before I had typhus the very turn I was going to assault !

- the Austrian siege of Torgau, over in one turn, which ruined my only occasion to use my "traditionnal" method and attack Dresden.

- Loki100 attack on my forces of Leipzig at the very turn I decided to change my strategy and thus was switching my commanders...

More detail on individual questions or remarks in the following post.
 
Bornego said:
Last question: was it a bluff when you hinted about a catastrophic defeat in Saxony? To me it's starting to look as if you could actually afford such losses at this point and still win.
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It was not :)
 
Loki100 said:
This is the real gem that is the AGEOD approach. We've obviously all got somewhat different ideas that we have found to work to a greater or lesser extent. Mine is partly driven by playing against Narwhal. He has a habit of creating a very large Prussian force and hitting either the French or the Austrians very hard. This can be fatal as you can lose one or both completely. So my solution in this game was to match that, or at least build core armies so large that they might lose a battle but would have the strength to avoid being too badly damaged. This is why, both with the French and Austrians I am building up and keeping the formations so they are mutually supporting. Lose 1 column and at a later stage, I may be badly overwhelmed on a critical sector.
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I confirm this is my habit - but not something I have done in this game.

Stuyvesant said:
The one drawback from this AAR format (told purely from loki's perspective), is that the Prussians seem very passive - which I know can't be the case, with Narwhal in control. It reads as if Austria is pretty much in the driver's seat, slowly tightening the noose around Prussia's neck.

On the bright side, this means that whenever Narwhal starts to throws his weight around, it'll be as unexpected to us (or rather, given the general level of AGEOD competency in this thread versus my own, to me) as it was to loki while he was playing through the turns. :)
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Well seen, Stuyvesant ; I was actually VERY passive. And before I started to change my strategy and could concentrate my forces, Loki100 attacked !

Dewirix said:
I take it there's absolutely no downside to not bribing Danzig if the Prussian player opts to bribe them too? In that case, I can't fault your decision here as it's hard for you to come out ahead otherwise.
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Not bribing is the best solution for the Austrian : the Prussian player has more cash than he can uses and for this reason will (should) always bribe. No real bluff here, unfortunately. I would have like an higher cost for the Prussian (like a 2-star leaders taken out for "negotiation" purposes) ?

No disrespect loki, but this is simply not true. Before leader boni apply, Prussian units have exactly the same combat stats as those of other nations - with two notable exceptions:
•their infantry and artillery moves 15% faster
•many of their infantry units have an increased rate of fire (this applies to British infantry as well, but not to Prussia's other allies)
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Actually, it depends not so much of the stats of the elements that on the number of elements in one unit. For infantry - most Prussian (and Hannoverian) units have 5 or 6 elements, while most Austrian units have between 2 (Grenadiers) and 4 elements, the Imperial and Royal Regimental being exceptions, with 5 elements (but very rare units).
French infantry go from 5 to 7 elements, while Russian infantry go from 2 to... 8 elements.

Minor subfactions have some surprises : Saxony and its 7 elements LeibGrenadier unit for instance.

So, for a given number of CP and even without taking into account the superior Prussian strenght, a Prussian stack will have more power than an Austrian one, but less than a French.
 
There's not a lot to add to the above, so some general oversights. Narwhal had perfected a Prussian strategy (see Learning from Prussia and also our abortive AAR and a few test sequences), based around not contesting one front, and a robust defense of Koenigsberg. I came up with to me what seemed a good solution. In our last game, I'd set up Koenigsberg in a way that gained my not just the city but also wiped out a small corps. This time Narwhal just fell back (which is what the AI tends to do), but I'd worked out how to optimise a Russian siege corps, and that has chewed its way west with the only delay being the time it takes to march to the next fortress. It also has a lot of supply wagons so I've been less fussed about my supply lines (the gamble is I could take my target, and thus the new supply stock, before my wagons emptied). The other bit was to keep the Austrian-HRE and the French armies very concentrated, but to spread out in mutually supporting corps, so that they were hard to beat and hard for Narwhal to flank.

The bonus was the Saxons. Rutowski has meant a lot more HRE units are in play (effectively) than normal. Equally if you look at the losses in the 'range' phases, they are very even (contrast to the reports in the First Global War where I lost that phase badly), and that is largely down to the 3-4 Saxon batteries I have to hand. I suspect, without the Saxon bonus and with some early battles in Bohemia, Narwhal's localised defense would be more effective in slowing me and maybe grabbing the initiative on one front.

For what its worth, I think the effort put into destroying the Swedes was a waste. They only have 1 supply wagon at the start (you get one more with the 25 EP reinforcements), so its near impossible to offer a sustained threat with them outside the coastal cities on the Baltic. On the other hand, 2 strong corps would probably have been enough to fight the Russians to a standstill before Kolberg.
 
"Can you stir the awful rivet": August 1758

Saxony

I'm torn between wanting to finish Frederick off and the state of my own army. Most of the problems are with low organisation, but even with a lot of reorganising I am going to start losing elements soon.





Anyway, the only clash is brief, neither of us really being in a position to sustain much combat.



The rest of August sees no more fighting (too exhausted) and Frederick retreats with no combat but into the mountains



As that screenshot hints (its not very well composed), I have a new problem as Torgau is now under siege. I'd moved a collection of units to Torgau to protect my rear (especially when, as below, I found the Prussians had abandoned Berlin). Even attacking across a river, the fresh Prussian force pushes me out the way. As you can see my losses are now feeding into lost elements.



The North

This is probably the last turn when splitting up the map into sectors will make any sense at all.

Well the Russians wake up on 1 August and find the Prussians are all gone. Even worse, they seem to have moved to the one gap in my scouting network.



I decide to push forward in an arc of corps to just north of Berlin. I want to protect Stettin and I am afraid that Narwhal would retreat towards Frankfurt an der Oder, where it would be very hard to dislodge him.

Anyway, some Hussars find the main Prussian army – clearly to the south of Berlin



So I move onto Berlin, but again try also to cut the route back to the Oder



and the Cossack formation is sent to Torgau in case, as I suspect, the Prussians are heading to join up with Frederick.



However, they are caught on the march and suffer quite a beating



Hannover

With the French siege at Braunschweig well established, I decide to push some forces onto Magdeburg. Its a gamble, but I need to push the pace given the events in Saxony



And the last of the forces unlocks back in Paris. Well off they march to the front, where I suspect I am going to need every unit I can muster.



Braunschweig falls in mid-August



And I have the first breach at Magdeburg (I need 3)



Overall

Overall, this is from mid-August, using the control/supply map mode. Shows how little is under Narwhal's control and, hopefully, how little of his produced supply is able to move to his field armies.



So its in my favour, but also very tense. That fresh Prussian army is a real threat to the battered Austrian forces. The French won't take Magdeburg till the end of September (at the best), and it will take time for the Russians to clear Berlin.
 
Looks Like you've reached the Point where Victory is looking highly likely but not Certain. If the Prussians can seriously defeat the Austrians with out losing too many men of there own then they may be able to turn the Tide in the north But if He takes Heavy losses or the French and Russians link up his situation would look almost hopeless.
 
Crafty move with that Russian corps south of Berlin. :)

I couldn't tell from the screenies, did you move your Swedes into the environs of Berlin with the Russians?
 
Thanks for the long explanation, Narwhal. It answers many questions. Especially what you are writing about the power of counter-attacks is very smart. From my experience, enemy forces are never more vulnerable than after a failed attack.

Weird, I didn't realize before that lines of interlocking corps were rarely used in your prior AARs. I take it you never played AGEOD's American Civil War game? The key to that game (at least in multiplayer) is excactly the same strategy. In RoP and RUS, it is slightly less effective since the maps have a larger scale (flanking such a line is therefore easier) nevertheless it is a very powerful tactic.
Currently I am witnessing a rather extreme example myself: in my second RUS PBEM, Reds and Siberians have been facing off outside Moscow along a seven region frontline for a year. The Red player has forced me into a painfully slow advance. It very much looks like WW I trench warfare.

But most importantly, my respect! I have no idea how you managed to salvage that awful situation in Saxony and turn it into a victory but I am very much looking forward to finding out. :)

In the bigger picture it won't matter, though. Fom my experience, Prussia is pretty much screwed once its territorial base is as small as Narwhal's in this game. If I am not mistaken the surviving Prussian forces will be starving very soon.

Loki100, my compliments! You have played Austria as well as possible. You exploited every mistake Narwhal made and attacked hard without being reckless.
Granted, Austrian holds the advantage from the start, but it takes skill to translate this advantage into a fine victory like you have!
 
Thandros said:
Looks Like you've reached the Point where Victory is looking highly likely but not Certain. If the Prussians can seriously defeat the Austrians with out losing too many men of there own then they may be able to turn the Tide in the north But if He takes Heavy losses or the French and Russians link up his situation would look almost hopeless.
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Well as with the next update, I now want 2 things - to keep Dresden at all costs and to keep the Prussians locked up in Saxony and I don't really care about my losses in doing so, while the Russian 3rd division goes off to clean up the rest of the Oder. Even Narwhal's 'fresh' army is actually quite battered and the Franco-Russian armies have seen almost no real combat all game.

germanpeon said:
Crafty move with that Russian corps south of Berlin. :)

I couldn't tell from the screenies, did you move your Swedes into the environs of Berlin with the Russians?
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The Swedes sat back that turn, as they are not part of the Russian command structure, they could have been very vulnerable if Narwhal had hit them, I move them down next turn as the artillery is useful for the remaining siege tasks

Yes, I was quite pleased at the way I spread out, I actually came within one day of trapping Moritz's cavalry but they just slipped past in time. By this stage of the game I was putting together quite ambitious manouvers (not always sucessfully)

Bornego said:
Thanks for the long explanation, Narwhal. It answers many questions. Especially what you are writing about the power of counter-attacks is very smart. From my experience, enemy forces are never more vulnerable than after a failed attack.

Weird, I didn't realize before that lines of interlocking corps were rarely used in your prior AARs. I take it you never played AGEOD's American Civil War game? The key to that game (at least in multiplayer) is excactly the same strategy. In RoP and RUS, it is slightly less effective since the maps have a larger scale (flanking such a line is therefore easier) nevertheless it is a very powerful tactic.
Currently I am witnessing a rather extreme example myself: in my second RUS PBEM, Reds and Siberians have been facing off outside Moscow along a seven region frontline for a year. The Red player has forced me into a painfully slow advance. It very much looks like WW I trench warfare.

But most importantly, my respect! I have no idea how you managed to salvage that awful situation in Saxony and turn it into a victory but I am very much looking forward to finding out. :)

In the bigger picture it won't matter, though. Fom my experience, Prussia is pretty much screwed once its territorial base is as small as Narwhal's in this game. If I am not mistaken the surviving Prussian forces will be starving very soon.

Loki100, my compliments! You have played Austria as well as possible. You exploited every mistake Narwhal made and attacked hard without being reckless.
Granted, Austrian holds the advantage from the start, but it takes skill to translate this advantage into a fine victory like you have!
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I don't think either of us have played AACW, but I took the confidence for the basic tactic from your RUS AAR (esp the DNO one) where it seemed to work very well to deny the enemy space (which has been one major problem in beating Narwhal)

As to skill, not so sure. I think the Saxons were a huge gift (I did offer to replay those turns) that has tilted this game a lot. Beyond that I've played to the strengths and as Narwhal said, had time to build almost perfect offensives. Some of that came from my mindse that I couldn't win the war in 1757 but I could lose it, so I was quite prepared to sit and wait, or chip away as with the French arond Munster.
 
"Day - got tired of me": September 1758

With all the drama in Prussia and Saxony, Field Marshall Apraskin's unexpected [1] demise went largely unnoticed



The start of the month saw the Swedes join the Russians in siege of Berlin, while the rest of the Russian army moved on to secure Brandenburg.



Not only would this ease any Russian intervention in Saxony, but it would hinder any Prussian attempt to retake Berlin.

In Saxony, some of the Austrian-HRE army fell back on Dresden expecting Torgau to delay Keith's army and in any case there was a desparate need to regain supplies and reorganise [2]. Given the Franco-Russian gains elsewhere, protecting Dresden became more important that destroying the remnants of Frederick's army.



Berlin fell to the usual highly efficient Russian siege tactics [3]



In Saxony Nadasdy managed to take the wrong road to Dresden [4], tangling with the new Prussian army. Despite his defeat, he managed to inflict substantial damage



However, his persistance forced the Prussians to raise the siege and retire to Leipzig



Thus the road to Saxony was clear for the French and Russians.

A major tax was levied on Berlin by the victorious Russians [5]



By mid-September, another barrier was cleared as Magdeburg fell to the French



And some progress was made on the Oder



Despite the concentration of both armies in Saxony, it seemed the war would be decided in Silesia



So it is all going to come down to a set of battles in Saxony. In effect, all I need do is not to lose too badly while the Russians clean up along the Oder. Critical, more than anything else is to hold onto Dresden.


[1] – Nah, not a surprise really
[2] – whatever else I do, I need a break to regain organization, as with the last battle with Frederick only about 25% of my formations can actually fight
[3] – point numerous very big guns at it and fire ...
[4] – probably the one time in the game I really messed up my orders. I'd originaly decided to contest Torgau, then decided to retire to Dresden. I'm not sure if I forgot to change these orders or forgot the check the route chosen by the default move algorithm. In outcome I wasn't that upset at the result, it indicates that even the fresh Prussian force is pretty battered.
[5] – which all went on a emergency production of depot battalions for the Austrian and HRE armies.

 
"You - are not so fair - Midnight": October 1757

By the start of October, the Austrian Army is a complete mess. Dresden is full of officers recovering from their wounds and many corps have few if any brigadiers. At least I've recovered Organisation in most units so this is as good as it will get for some time.



I also decide with the Austrians despite the mess they are in to set up a spread of formations to protect Dresden, deploying back to Wurzen, some units to Oschatz and 1 corp to Dobeln (in case Narwhal tried to lunge directly at Dresden). In addition Nadasdy deployed to Torgau so as to trigger a response by Daun if the Prussians managed to attack Torgau directly.



In an attempt to shore up my position the bulk of the French army races for Torgau and a smaller group move to Halle (as much as anything I am trying to deny Narwhal access to supplies)



Over on the Oder, Niesse at last falls, so all my siege force can come to bear on Breslau



And the French take Halle, destroying an ad-hoc force that was obviously sheltering there.



Wurzen sees fierce fighting, but my plan to secure Dresden by a forward defense pays off in terms of protecting Dresden, unfortunately the real target was Torgau



Where, in the end, the Prussians force me back from Torgau



& Nadasdy was wounded, even worse his entire corps collapsed so Frederick gained the artillery and the supply trains.

Now these two battles are rather complex and inter-connected. Its also the first time this game that 'march to the sound of the guns' failed me. Now what I think happened is:

  1. Day 4 – Daun stumbled onto Frederick heading for Torgau as he moved via Wurzen. I lost as I was on the offensive.
  2. Day 7 – Frederick hits Soubise with part of the French army at Torgau and was fended off
  3. Day 9 – this is the one that confuses me, but for some reason Frederick is back at Wurzen where he is attacked by Nadasdy (who should have been at Torgau), clearly in this case the rest of the Austrian army opted out (I guess were too low on organisation after the first battle)
  4. Day 10 – Frederick is now at Torgau where Nadasdy turns up and attacks again – a spectacular disaster follows;
  5. Day 12 - Contades with the bulk of the French army arrives, if I recall in a defend-retire stance (I wasn't really expecting to fight) and takes a beating

In consequence, as opposed to defending, in 4/5 battles I was on the offensive (for which I am ill-suited) and that sort of turn makes me fear for my ability to actually finish off the Prussians.

So the snows of winter find my armies separated



So I decide to concentrate the Austrians at Oschalz and build a depot there. While the French deploy from Halle (leaving a minimal garrison) to join their formations to the north of Torgau (where I also build an emergency depot).



In the event, both sides take no more offensive actions in the latter part of October.

In a way, more important than the campaign in Saxony, Browne's 3rd Division moves towards Glogau



In truth, for me, its a race to take Breslau and Glogau (3-4 turns depends on the speed of the siege works) before Frederick does serious damage in Saxony. My fear is still the loss of Dresden as that is a large depot and a weak fort. My hope is that even with Nadasdy's supply wagons, Frederick must be low on supply and can't collect reinforcements unless he retires to Leipzig and hands the initiative back to me.
 
The stage looks set for a big showdown in Saxony. I hadn't realised when you started your offensive there it was going to be quite so decisive as it's now looking to be. If you can concentrate your remaining forces I don't think the Prussians stand much of a chance. Freddie's supply situation in particular looks pretty precarious.
 
"As he defeated - dieing": November-December 1758

So November dawns and the snow clears.



Frederick is either (a) surrounded or (b) in a position to rip to pieces one of my armies (for the moment I've lost the ability to mutually support due to the existence of 3 different CinCs in the region


Prussian OOB

Russian OOB

French OOB

Austrian-HRE OOB

In the event I have to attack in stages. First the Austrians and the Russians (this is luck, just reflects the speed of the two stacks), then the French.

First though, Brandenburg falls, which clears the way for another Russian formation to move into Saxony



The Austrian attack is a brutal disaster



but Frederick breaks contact and moves to Wurzen and the French occupy the city with no fighting. I think I've just denied him his last chance to find a decent supply stock.



Even better, Breslau has surrendered, meaning I only need Glogau



By late November, Clemont is on the scene with the last French units to unlock and the German mercenaries. He races for Halle to try and block that off.



To make sure that Frederick has no chance to rest, the French attack at Wurzen, in yet another battle of appalling savagery.



And by the end of November, the Russians have created a breach at Glogau. The Third Division is an awesome siege force. By the start of December, Browne overruns the garrison at Glogau



And although Frederick drives the Franco-Swedish force from Halle.

That, quite simply is that.



I'll do another post in a few days with views and reflections, but compare the losses at the end of 1758 with those up to the end of 1757. At that stage our respective losses were 40,000 Austrians for 30,000 Prussians (here).

All credit to Narwhal for taking this to the end as I offered to end it when I took Magdeburg as after that the French would be able to fight in Saxony. Equally he came damn close to finishing off the Austrians but I think his supply and replacement position must have been dire. Facing the still relatively fresh French and Russians there was no way could he break out and by fighting in Saxony not Silesia he was dependent on taking a city rather than just doing enough to protect them.

In case anyone is interested this is what was left of the Austrian-HRE army that entered Saxony a year ago



If you sort out the Austrian units, they had around 1,500 power left (out of 11,000 a year back).

Now the problem with that end is this would have been great if it was a simulation of the invasion of Germany in 1945. But its meant to be the Seven Years War. And one feature of that was it was the end of a period of military thought when armies disengaged after battle. Either a critical fortress had been protected or left under siege. I'm not an expert but I can't think of a single multi-day battle in the period.

I think its too easy to keep on battering away. Some of it is attitudinal, we as players don't regard an Army as a huge expense that can only be risked in limited circumstances. But I think some of it is the simulation and one idea is to increase ammunition consumption, making multi-day battles so much harder. But equally we have tended to gravitate to a 'big army' manner of playing RoP, so some of this is the natural consequence of our mode of play. To me though, its a pity, you have a very elegant game of feint and manouver than ends more like the Soviet entry into Berlin than the time period of the game.

Still think its a brilliant game though.

Oh, and before I forget, go and vote in the ACAs, here. We're trying out a new voting system and would like to see as many nominations as possible (and of course its always a nice reward for the various writers around AARland)
 
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Quite simply brilliant. I never realized you were so close on Strategic cities. Those two battles made me sure that Narwhal come back with NM so far in his favor.
 
Congratulations to both of you for an excellent game and an excellent AAR! I've learned a whole lot about the game and had a blast all the while. :cool:
 
I have a feeling that the French and Austrians might be a bit annoyed that they've done all the fighting while the Russians have just waltzed across eastern Prussia and taken Berlin for little loss. If nothing else, it would create an interesting post-war political situation.

I'll hold off on wider comments pending your wrap-up post, but those last few battles seemed out of keeping with the more measured pace of the rest of the game.
 
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