Gunboat diplomacy: A UK tutorial HOD AAR (3.02)

Beagá said:

If you can then use it, Cut Down to size is the most devastating CB on the long term for any country apart from Free Country (no wonder it´s so expensive in infamy). Humiliate is funny and cheap but barely useless.

Also, are you using a house rule or are you creating huge stacks of indians and sending them to Europe? I think using colonials as anything else than militia is ahistorical and cheesy.

Click to expand...

Forster said:

So what if ahistorical. They could have been trained better. Of course, that could also lead to a much better trained rebellion.

Click to expand...

Beagá said:

Yeah, the problem is that the obvious consequence of well trained and big colonial armies (that is, rebellion and guerilla) doesn´t happen. And thus it´s gamey to create masses of colonials and send them to fight. Mods usually change the system so that colonials can only be common infantry or militia, never regulars or other potent units.

Click to expand...

If you check the OP, I'm not letting troops leave roughly their continental area.

1856

I sprang into action; no Russians sneaking into Canterbury this time!



Unfortunately, I forgot about the Channel Islands. However, I did cut the French off as soon as they landed there. A French fleet was quickly destroyed, nothing new there. My overall strategic goal is, initially, "let the Russians and Prussians do the heavy lifting, while I blockade and send expeditionary forces." I swore to myself that's what I'd do. So of course, I didn't. But more on that later. By September, the Ottomans, Greece, Belgium, Russia, and France have mobilized. Only Austria, Prussia, and I haven't yet. I decide to forever cripple France... I am sure they will surrender!



The Continent is quite busy.



I want to help in some small way, so I send the Mediterranean fleet out to Corsica, eventually planning to land troops there. Just a scouting mission for now, though.



I also get antsy (it's my greatest flaw in these games, sometimes). I want to contribute in Europe too, and it looks like France is busy with Belgium. My plan is simple: use Hugh Windsor's army to take Dunkirk. That's step 1.



I intercept a French fleet and make them pay in October.



In November, step 1 is complete. Now, we have step 2.



French (no pun intended) is a +5 defensive general. I'd use him to anchor Dunkirk, and proceed south to Paris. Now, here's what you don't realize: this strategy is a big waste of time. Why?

You can't make separate peace in a crisis war. I forgot that. You shouldn't.

My little Mediterranean scouting mission hits just the slightest snag.



But the French plan seems to be working thus far, as Amiens fell. I decide to try out the little army I showed you last update. I go through my leaders and found a suitable one.



Let's see. I've given command of a largely cavalry army to a guy named Cardigan in the 1850s. That can't help but go well! His task is to expand the beachhead. Pondicherry falls in December. France is nearly at my mercy! I only meet resistance in mid-December.



We have two roughly equal armies with roughly equal commanders, the difference being I have lots of artillery and he doesn't. (Techs are a slight French advantage). How to break the stalemate? Why, get a vastly superior general involved, of course! Grant to the rescue (he of the +5 attack)!



Capable leaders need an army, of course, and I decide to mobilize. (Prussia and Austria had earlier). The day after Christmas, I discover that the French have somehow escaped the Channel Islands! (Maybe they disbanded?) Cardigan is rerouted to recover English soil.

---

1857

Sure enough, Grant is victorious.



I finish Army Professionalism (which will help even up the odds) and move onto Iron Muzzle-Loaded Artillery. Please know that tactics, as a whole, have nerfed somewhat in HOD. They still matter, but the improvements aren't quite as dramatic. At this point in the war, the overall score is a -1. Cut Down to Size does not include ticking war score, though (which can be a double edged sword), whereas giving Greece Macedonia does have ticking war score, which creates some urgency. If only I hadn't lost my Mediterranean fleet, I could be helping with that. Oh well. I'll just build up some easy war score off the French! Another battle with Grant proves my point.



Some minor skirmishes ensue, neither side getting much of an advantage. The French start taking my provinces in South America. Beauvais falls, leaving me agonizingly close to Paris. Then, the French decide to start reoccupying Amiens. I grab the handiest stack and move it forward. Of course, there's a problem -- that stack belongs to French. Remember? The guy with a +5 to defense? I completely shoot my own strategy in the foot. However, there's still a chance. Cardigan is finished with reoccupying the islands, so I move him on to Caen.



Now the French are here in force. All three provinces I have in France are being retaken. I take a stack of infantry and move them into Dunkirk. Grant has been going into the interior toward Paris -- and he gets intercepted. (I took him out of the way to avoid French troops). Dunkirk holds, thankfully, but Grant is being pushed west. I need to extract his army -- it's down to 8000 men, but Cardigan got caught at Caen, and he's getting decimated. There is literally no way out. Cardigan is wiped out.



French (the General) wins at Amiens, but with horrendous casualties.



Now desperate, I make a mad dash for Paris. Things don't look that bad, overall -- I have enough warscore to get West Macedonia now, but Austria won't give in. They will take a white peace, though! I decline, thinking that when France leaves the war (which, remember, it can't) Austria will be like putty in my hands. All I need to do is take P--



Oh crap. I've got a purely defensive general facing almost 2:1 odds and crossing a river. This will not end well.

---

How will it end? Well, the next update is coming early next week! You'll find out then.

SirkTheMonkey said:

Crisis wars are so limiting to get into. There's pretty much nothing to gain if you're not the war leader because you cannot make a separate peace. If you're on the winning side any war goals you add on will get ignored and if you're losing you can bet that any goals added against you will be enforced. With regard to the cliffhanger, I reckon you'll get lucky with the dice rolls and barely scrape a win. Surely those guys in Dunkirk could move south and reinforce while the Navy controls the strait.

Click to expand...

Well, I am the war leader, but yeah, this has been a tumultuous war so far.

Beagá said:

Ouch won´t end up well indeed And WTH was that defeat... to the mighty and traditional Austrian navy? Nelson must be rolling in his grave!

Small ships now are critical in combat, a force purely of dreadnaughts escorting transports also fares very poorly. You had 6 men of war to 1 frigate and lots of transports and paid for it. As a matter of fact any fleet with transports on it WILL have transport casualties, they not only position poorly but are vulnerable.

I don´t think it´s that ahistorical to not get stuff in big crisis wars. Think Italy in WW1.

Click to expand...

Did somebody say that was ahistorical? If it was me, I apologize. Agree 100% about screening ships.

Ricardo Rolo said:

Hum, since this is a explanatory AAR, may I point your eyes to the part of the warscore overlay that shows that controling the disputed areas is a huge boost to it in the crisis wars? Following that logic, why the hell your army is in France and not in Greece ? There is literally no point in ( trying ) to march to Paris before getting West Macedonia, since that, even if you add a casus belli on France now, the war leader on your side will surely acept peace for West macedonia far before you can rack enough warscore to steal anything from France.

Anyway, now that you're neck deep in French mud, I sincerily hope you can get out of there

Click to expand...

I will show a screenshot of that very concept in the next update.

SirkTheMonkey said:

There's a warscore overlay? I need to pay more attention to the mapmodes!
I added the content in the braces for clarity.

Click to expand...

Yeah, despite the five or ten HOD games I've played, I still forget stuff.

Juan_de_Marco said:

Slow! Slower! Brits should never rush, let that blockade work for you, and wait until the French are elsewhere occupied.

Click to expand...

I think we've achieved consensus on that point.

Forster said:

That was a "shoot self in foot" move. :glare:
Seriously, you didn't think the French didn't have enough troops around to kick your army's butt? You need other countries attacking France on multiple fronts before your expeditionary forces could land. I think you would have done better to be taking French colonies away from her as well as blockading.

Click to expand...

I honestly didn't know where the French troops were.

Surt said:

Do all those small forts help in battle or only in province defence or in anything else?

Click to expand...

They are supposed to reduce casualties for the defender, if my memory is correct. It's kind of nebulous. It does slow down occupation unless you have siege units as well.

Davout said:

You need to think more like William Pitt and less like William of Orange.

Click to expand...

Very pithy but very correct.

Lord Durham said:

Don't feel bad. This happened all the time in real life. Just look at some of the major goof-ups during WWI.

Click to expand...

That is somewhat encouraging, I suppose. Update should come tonight, I'm thinking.

spiller68 said:

question why didnt you just land your troops in begium or is the war between them and france a diffrent war. i mean wouldent have made more sense to aid your smaller ally fight back the french then re group so that with prussia help you could stamp on france. plus i cant belive you lost a naval battle to austria i was laughting my head off sorry

Click to expand...

I didn't intend for this to be a comedy AAR, but sure, whatever works.

Landing in Belgium was something I'd considered, but the benefit of landing at Dunkirk is I can take advantage of the strait while still leaving it blockaded. Otherwise, I'd have to send transports, which I haven't been doing a great job of building. This will become much easier when I finish the Suez Canal.

I do so enjoy being your punch bag.

Update is on the way!

1857

Yeah, the Battle of Paris was something of a disaster.



It's not end of the world terrible, but it was a disappointment. It did wipe out the entire stack for some reason. I'm still trying to get a handle on the retreat system in HOD. I think you can't retreat into hostile territory at all. (It'd be good to have somebody confirm this). In any case, I didn't know that at the time. Here's the situation immediately afterwards:



The stack in Dunkirk is marked for elimination too. It's pretty much entirely a retreat at this point. I try to evacuate my last two stacks in western France via the Channel Islands. (Overall, I had far fewer transports than I should have.) One of them makes it.



The other...



This obviously prompts some pretty major army construction. 14 brigades, to be exact. Overall war score is still positive, though. +10. France takes Trinidad.

Here's the TWS tooltip referred to in the comments to the last update:



This means that absent a change in the war, France is assured victory. The White Peace offer, understandably, is off the table. I still have about a year before the lack of West Macedonia starts costing us warscore. Here's how things are going for Austria:



And Greece:



If I fought this war again, knowing what I do now, I would have poured my effort into Greece. (Especially since there's no strait that connects the Channel Islands to England -- again, I didn't know this at the time.) Still, Austria is in pretty bad shape, and they're the war leader. In fact, there's a large Prussian army right next to Vienna! I finish Iron Muzzle-Loaded Artillery in September and move on to Army Decision Making. I find out from the newspaper that Japan has undergone revolution and is, for the moment at least, no longer in my sphere. The Ottomans use October to invade Canada. I catch their fleet and a French one with some Canadian commerce raiders, winning some war score and preventing resupply.



Anarcho-Liberals pop up in Prussia in November. Fortunately, Vienna has already fallen. To show you what War Exhaustion does now, here's a shot:



Weirdly, this doesn't include the effect on MIL as well -- I will try to remember to grab a shot for another update (it's visible when you see what particular POPs have concerns about, MIL wise). I take a small group of Commerce Raiders and try to seal off the Baltic. Granted, it won't matter much, but it should at least keep the Scandinavians on their toes.

---

1858
Meanwhile, the French and Ottomans continue to eat away at Canada. I have exactly 9000 troops, and I can't add more thanks to my restrictions.



I do redress a glaring weakness and add some more transports in Europe -- 15, to be exact. Remember, it doesn't pay to go overboard on transports, since they take up supply but don't produce CPs. Greece is increasingly muddled:



I decide to help one of the cheapest (in manpower) ways I can:



I'm not sure how much it helps, but at least I feel like I'm doing something. I decide to try a raid on Dunkirk -- hit hard and get out. Grant has 57,000 troops; it should go well, I hope.



Or... the French could have been hiding troops farther south. My quick raid turns into a giant commitment of troops and equipment. I've never felt more like Douglas Haig, and that isn't a good thing. Here are the gruesome results:



Horribly, the AI sends one of my stacks farther into France. That stack is wiped out. In a lighthearted (??) segue, I shift a bureaucrat NF to encouraging capitalists near Glasgow (i.e. Lowlands region). Canada gets worse, but somehow Russia, of all countries, comes to my rescue.



Here's the warscore so far:



Yet there is one ray of hope. Despite my bungling, I've still managed to distract the French from the real danger -- Austria. Greece is very contentious, still, but Austria, increasingly, is being overrun.

---

How will this war end? Find out in the conclusion to this thrilling war, scheduled for Wednesday!