Indeed, send Stalin in against the volunteers with only a militia brigade for a laugh.
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Indeed, send Stalin in against the volunteers with only a militia brigade for a laugh.
For all of Stalin's inactivation, that's taking it a little extreme. Stalin is actually one of the Red's better generals.
While I can sympathize with the desire to see a bloody end for Unky Joe (I'm always baying for his blood in White campaigns), I fear this might be one self-imposed handicap too many for the Red cause. I mean, for the sake of consistency, we should then see all future Soviet-Bastards-To-Be finished off (Trotsky, Voroshilov, Kamenev... etc. etc.) - and that won't leave many (any?) generals available to lead the Red Army... 
Anyway, Stalin the Real-Life person = bad. Stalin, the in-game general = necessary tool. That's my two cents.
Anyway, Stalin the Real-Life person = bad. Stalin, the in-game general = necessary tool. That's my two cents.
Equally, he has excellent defensive traits, not to be lightly thrown away. One of the many delights of RuS is the dilemnas it throws up for the player.
His good defensive traits mean he'll likely be thrown into many defensive battles and each one has a chance of killing him surely. Therefore if you throw him into enough defensive battles eventually the Whites will get him but in the process he'll have brought valuable time for the red army to be built up to resist the White forces.
Sorry to do the moderator thing, but, I think we can halt the Stalin debate at this point. The game creates a nice dilemna around him, lets acknowledge that and carry on enjoying the AAR
@ Fadi_Efendi: Playing the Reds is a delicate balancing act: during the first turns, you have to save as many units as possible while limiting the territorial losses.
Excellent idea (issues new orders)!
I couldn't agree more. It's a trait that has quickly endeared this forum to me. I think a lot of this is due to people like loki or yourself setting a good tone.
I am also constantly amazed how knowledgable many people are about history. I really enjoyed getting confronted with a different point of view on Lenin.
The Tzar can't be saved in RUS. If Ekaterinburg falls he gets executed.
A few words on the whole "kill Stalin" debate (Loki I hope this isn't against the rules.)
As you can imagine from our discussion about Lenin, I have little love lost for the historical person. But in this game Stalin is indeed too valuable to simply sacrifice him on a whim. His stats are 3-1-2, which is pretty good - at least for a Red general.
Besides, I have grown very fond of the game-version of Stalin. In another PBEM, the men recently gained me 14 points of NM in a single battle while killing 70.000 enemies. How could I send him on a suicide mission after such a victory?
Excellent idea (issues new orders)!
Ah, another reminder why I love these forums: even when a topic as fraught with opinion an emotion as Lenin is brought up, people stay civilized and can agree to disagree.
I couldn't agree more. It's a trait that has quickly endeared this forum to me. I think a lot of this is due to people like loki or yourself setting a good tone.
I am also constantly amazed how knowledgable many people are about history. I really enjoyed getting confronted with a different point of view on Lenin.
The Tzar can't be saved in RUS. If Ekaterinburg falls he gets executed.
A few words on the whole "kill Stalin" debate (Loki I hope this isn't against the rules.
)As you can imagine from our discussion about Lenin, I have little love lost for the historical person. But in this game Stalin is indeed too valuable to simply sacrifice him on a whim. His stats are 3-1-2, which is pretty good - at least for a Red general.
Besides, I have grown very fond of the game-version of Stalin. In another PBEM, the men recently gained me 14 points of NM in a single battle while killing 70.000 enemies. How could I send him on a suicide mission after such a victory?
Chapter 4 - Savage Guns: Siberian front, September 1918
Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters — then we are for it!
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Lenin
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Lenin
By the end of the summer of 1918, the Siberian advance had come to a halt. The Red Army had reinforced its positions at Simbirsk and Kazan. Now Red and White soldiers were staring at each other across their trenches. The Siberian lines were shaped like a crescent that bend around Frunze's and Trotzky's forces.
Numerically the Siberian Whites still held the edge but their forces were spread out.* The main force - two corps under Cecek and Pepeliaev - was assembled south-west of Simbirsk. Smaller forces guarded the Eastern bank of the Volga, Samara and Syzran. Additionally Zinevich's corps was advancing on Kazan along the Perm-Kazan railroad.
The Siberian leaders had planned their offensive carefully: cavalry had disrupted the railway line out of Kazan - thus any Red reinforcements to Simbirsk would be slowed down. On September 19th, Pepeliaev's and Cecek's corps attacked. Martynov's Orenburg Army was ordered to assist from the Eastern bank of the Volga.
But the three White generals would soon realize that they had underestimated the strength of the Red Army. Frunze's 1st Red Army** consisted of three powerful formations: the 2nd Corps under Frunze's personal command, the 4th Corps under Berzin and Ghai-Khan's Iron Division. In fact the Iron division with its 24.000 men was considerably stronger than the two so-called corps. Moreover these weren't the undisciplined Red Guards the Whites had encountered in previous battles but well trained regular troops sitting in carefully prepared trenches.
Had the Siberian Army concentrated their units properly, they could nevertheless have broken Frunze's position. But too many of their divisions lagged behind and were still at Syzran and Samara. As a result the Red Army outnumbered their White foes on the battlefield. Even worse: Cecek and Pepeliaev didn't coordinate their movements properly. Thus Cecek ordered his men to assault while Pepeliaev's corps was still deploying.*** It might have been incompetence, but more likely overconfidence was to blame. After all, Cecek's corps contained the crack troops of the Siberian armies: Kappel's Volga Shock Division and Svec's 1st Czech ('Hussite') Division as well as a several other Czech infantry regiments, armoured trains and cars.
In the end, it was Cecek's third division, a less experienced Komuch force under Stepanov, that spearheaded the assault. Its men ran into a murderous barrage of artillery and machine gun fire. Within minutes Stepanov's division was entirely annihilated; so was the 21st Czech Fusilier Regiment that had charged alongside the Komuch soldiers. But Cecek's other units suffered horribly as well: Svec's Hussite Division lost almost two-thirds of its soldiers, the Volga Shock divisions one-fifth.
Soon the assault had collapsed entirely and the survivors of Cecek's corps stumbled back. Pepeliaev at least had the good sense to turn his men around rather than waste them in another futile assault. Martynov had never even given his men orders to march towards the battlefield.
The White generals would later blame each other for the defeat at Simbirsk: Pepeliaev - so Cecek - had held one third of the army back in a vicious plan designed to decimate Czechs and Komuch. Pepeliaev on the other hand, attributed the fiasco to Cecek's premature attack. Both, Pepeliaev and Cecek, bitterly complained that Martynov had failed to come to their assistance, while Martynov called them both idiots and denounced the whole attack as foolish.
The Battle of Simbirsk had a huge effect on Communist morale. It provided the Red Army with fresh confidence after a long series of ignominious defeats. Moreover, it struck a severe blow to the Siberian fighting power: In total, 13.500 Czech and Komuch soldiers had died as opposed to 5.600 Communists. As a consequence the Siberian Army didn't dare to mount another offensive in the Kazan area until November 1918.
Next update: Communist economics and recruitment - a lesson in exploitation and mass mobilization.
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* The Red Army had a total of 75.000 men at Simbirsk and Kazan. My estimate is that the Siberians had more than 90.000.
** Muraviev a memeber of the Left-SR had been executed. Frunze, freshly promoted for his services in crushing the SR revolt, took command of the 1st Red Army instead.
*** My friend Durk had some bad luck here: His two corps arrived at Simbirsk at the same time but only one of them engaged during the first (and only) round of combat. Thus only two-thirds of the 45.000 White soldiers actually engaged. The reason is that each round the game checks for every corps whether it enters battle or not (this check depends on the strategic rating of the corps commander). With multiple corps it is possible that only some of them engage; or, almost as badly, it can happen that one corps is still involved in long range combat while the other is already at close range.
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looks like, at least on the Volga that a front line is starting to emerge. Useful victories and also more time, which seems to be key for the Soviets in this scenario to get the Red Army built up
That's the truth. The Soviets have a much greater capacity for recruitment, at least early on before they lose any regions, than the Whites. The more regions Bornego can hold, and the longer he can hold them, the more he is going to be able to build up the Red Army. It appears that this will be the topic of the next update...
Also, I'm betting that Frunze's victory at Simbirsk is going to stop the Siberians for a good while. They lost a lot of their most powerful units, some permanently. This might be a good opportunity to focus on the Southern Whites or one of their secondary fronts.
I must admit I'm starting to get confused and conflicted. I saw that screenshot of the Simbirsk situation, noticed Kappel in the Siberian stack and went 'Yay Kappel!', from the last AAR. And then I realized 'Kappel is bad, boo, hiss!'.
That was a huge victory and should buy you valuable time. Well played, and, well, as you yourself said, luck (or rather activation checks) were on your side.
That was a huge victory and should buy you valuable time. Well played, and, well, as you yourself said, luck (or rather activation checks) were on your side.
The man truly is a Man of Steel! I picture Uncle Joe in a Superman getup (albeit in all red, with a hammer and sickle instead of the familiar 'S'), cape flying, bullets bouncing harmlessly of his heroic chest, as well as his pipe and mustache.Bornego said:
The man truly is a Man of Steel! I picture Uncle Joe in a Superman getup (albeit in all red, with a hammer and sickle instead of the familiar 'S'), cape flying, bullets bouncing harmlessly of his heroic chest, as well as his pipe and mustache.
No moustache, though.
The only AGEOD AAR's I read before were Loki and Narwhals WIA ones, I just cant get over looking at the casualties of even a minor battle and thinking "Oh god how can he recover from this he lost his entire army"! Then I realize wait... He has 50,000 soldiers in the army as opposed to 3000 derp.
@Narwhal: Excellent contribution.
No, work had me travel for the last week.
Now that I am back, my friends and me have run into another problem, though: For the second time in this game we have to deal with a corrupted file. The first time we had to revert one turn back. Hopefully we can resolve our current problem as well. As soon as that is done, I will start posting again.
I tried out the demo for Crusader Kings II yesterday. First Paradox game since HoI II and EU II that has instantly enthralled me. Now that I have bought the full version, it may slow down the rate of my posts a bit.
No, work had me travel for the last week.
Now that I am back, my friends and me have run into another problem, though: For the second time in this game we have to deal with a corrupted file. The first time we had to revert one turn back. Hopefully we can resolve our current problem as well. As soon as that is done, I will start posting again.
I tried out the demo for Crusader Kings II yesterday. First Paradox game since HoI II and EU II that has instantly enthralled me. Now that I have bought the full version, it may slow down the rate of my posts a bit.