No Good Options - Ukraine 1918

[Kami888]

I just finished a rather interesting game as Ukraine in 1918 and I thought it turned out pretty fun so I decided to record it for the future generations should they somehow stumble upon these forums. This is not going to be a roleplay AAR but heavily gameplay and battle centric one.

I was running a somewhat modded version of DH as Ukraine for the first time and had to fix a few things as I went along such as certain events not firing or having strange effects but without giving myself any extra bonuses or penalties which weren't originally planned. I was running normal difficulty, and given the difficulties i ended up facing, i don't even want to think what the game on hard difficulty would be like. Oh also I will be playing with nofog because otherwise I won't be able to appreciate the full extent of the chaos happening around me.

Anyway, here's what I was hoping to ultimately achieve:

Spoiler - it didn't work. I will try again at some point though with a different strategy.

Let me first jump right in and start with the overview of the situation, then I will explain my strategy for this game.

Here's essentially my starting point in late 1917, immediately upon independence. The Bolsheviks just took power in Russia, the Russian Imperial Army has disintegrated. Green countries are Entente/Allies. Reds are Central Powers. "Greenish Grey", such as myself, are also at war with the Central Powers, but we are not members of the Entente. Of course this isn't quite the historical situation during that time, but it's pretty close overall. So, on to Ukraine itself, let's see what's happening on the ground.

The former Russian Imperial Army on the western front, rather what is left of it after the revolution, is now further divided up into two main parts. The "Bolshevized" part, and the "Ukrainianized" part. Mostly for game reasons, the pro-Ukrainian units start out encamped in a defensible area of Mozyr and this will also be our temporary capital. The first order of business is of course to march south to Kiev and reinforce the city where the Central Rada is seated. While I am at war with Germany, I am well aware that I won't be able to stop them from taking over, so I have absolutely no interest in even trying to fight against them. The Bolsheviks, however, have already set up a parallel "Soviet Ukrainian" government in Kharkov and are preparing to attack me with a few days tops. They have units not just on my borders but within my territory as well..

Didn't take very long - less than two weeks later the Bolsheviks declared the Central Rada to be illegitimate and are advancing on me from all directions. Meanwhile the "Bolshevized" units of the former Imperial Army are attacking Korosten, just north of Kiev. Skoropadsky is leading the defense of Korosten against the Reds, he will become a notable figure soon enough. Now, obviously the goal here is to try to make peace with Germany as soon as possible. However, the conditions for surrender to become possible are that I either have to lose Kiev or I have to hold less than 6 provinces in Ukraine region overall.

I've decided that Now I don't really want to lose Kiev particularly because there is industry there that will take some time to recover if it's taken and retaken but i'm close to being below 6 provinces so i just have to wait and preserve my army until conditions are met. Meanwhile the Soviet attack on Korosten is stronger than I expected, or my army is weaker than I thought, or Skoropadsky is just a shitty general, but the defense is not going well.

The Bolsheviks are continuing their rapid and largely unopposed advance from the East, Germany and its allies from the West, with my forces sandwiched in the center. Germany also starts launching probing attacks on my troops in Mozyr. Luckily, Mozyr is a fairly defensible area so their initial attempt at frontal assault across the river ultimately goes nowhere. However, thanks to the Bolshevik bullshit in Korosten, my troops are getting close to encirclement so i'm trying to reestablish some kind of front line.

I've noticed that the Bolsheviks had withdrawn some troops from Korosten to cover other sections of the front so I'm taking this opportunity kick them out for good.

The Germans, however, obviously don't get my genius strategy and treacherously attack me from the rear, forcing some of my troops back to Kiev.

Korosten is recovered, but Uman is lost, as well as Vinnitsa and Mogilev. Zhitomir and Novograd are about to be overrun by the Germans, and the German attacks on Mozyr are becoming more determined and threatening. It is in this situation that our "negotiations with Germany" are finally getting somewhere

Womp womp! And so, predictably, ends the first part of the Grand Ukrainian Saga of 1918. To be continued shortly.
But all is going according to my plan so far.

 

[Kami888]

On to the next chapter in the Ukrainian story - the German sattelite state.

Some overview of the strategic situation in the immediate aftermath of my surrender to Germany:

Not much change yet on either the French or Italian fronts, apparently. However you can see from the screenshot that Germany's internal dissent must be pretty decent, given that their effective IC is considerably lower than base IC and that they have revolt risk in their own core territory.

In the Caucasus, the Ottomans are advancing into Armenian Kars. The Georgians and Musavite Azeris are formally at war with the Ottomans but aren't taking any meaningful actions. Meanwhile, the pro-Soviet "Baku Commune" forces are attempting to break out of their encirclement by attacking southern Daghestan.

The Germans handed the control of most of the occupied territory back to me, I even have temporary control of Bessarabia, although that probably won't last.

By the way, you will have probably noticed that my dissent immediately went up by +10 per the surrender to Germany event. That's nothing. I am now what is known as a "weak puppet", which is the also the default type of puppet state in the game, and among other things, it means that my minimum dissent is actually fixed at 35%. If i try to bring it lower than 35 by any means, an event will fire that will just increase it until it is over 35 again. So in the next few screenshots you will see my dissent gradually climbing until it reaches 35 or likely closer to 40. It is also a good time to mention that in this version, dissent has a devastating effect on the combat performance of military units. Being at close to 40 dissent on its own will make my army next to useless, but if that wasn't enough i'll be getting a couple more events called "morale collapses" which will temporarily reduce my military effectiveness even further. Long story short, while I am a puppet state of Germany, my army can't really fight worth a shit and you will see exactly what I mean by that.

This is what one of those "morale collapses" events looks like. They are written in a generic fashion because i'm not the only country getting those events, luckily, and while on its own each one of these events is not very devastating, this is actually the fourth "morale collapses" event that i'm getting. The first three fired immediately upon independence, and the fourth one is triggered by the "Skoropadskyi becomes the Hetman" event shown above. Combine that with the 35+ dissent and you can imagine how shit my military performance is going to be for the next few months at least.

Anyhow, now might be a good time to show off my new government. So yeah, Skoropadsky is my leader now. Oh I also have a fancy new flag / coat of arms.

The (Soviet) Russians annexed Crimea. There was Tatar-backed separatist government there that was supported by a small local militia that the Soviets easily overpowered. Meanwhile I try not to be useless and join in the German attack on Cherkassy, while my dissent levels are still semi-manageable.

Change in the Caucasus since the last screenshot - the Commies took over southern Daghestan and are now trying to clean up Chechnya. The Ottomans are still attacking Kars. The Georgians are still just chilling.

Woah woah there Trotsky. All of a sudden hordes of Soviet infantry launch an attack on Korosten defended by the now-practically-useless Ukrainian garrisons and almost overpower them. Luckily, the Germans and Austrians take notice and quickly rush in reinforcements from the north and south respectively, narrowly averting disaster. The Soviet military is also in a very bad shape overall, but mine is still worse by comparison, and they can still overwhelm me with sheer numbers.

Meanwhile in the north, Germany is now advancing into Estonia which is almost undefended. There are, however, a few hardcore Latvian pro-Soviet divisions that are putting up a serious fight. In early war, the Latvian Bolshevik units are actually some of the most reliable and battle-ready units available to the Reds. Long story short, you don't want to see the Latvian Bolsheviks on your doorstep.

Having secured Cherkassy and averted disaster at Korosten, I join in the German attack on Kirovograd (yes I know the city wasn't actually called that at the time, oh well). Note the combat penalty that my troops get just from 32 dissent. The only reason I'm joining in the German attacks at all is that I want to speed up the liberation of my industry - every day counts for that, but i'm not sure how much difference my troops are actually making. I hope they are not dying for nothing.

My dissent has reached 37% and will hopefully hover around that number, although other events can still push it up higher.
Meanwhile in the North, the Germans are approaching Narva, and in Finland they launch their first attack on Tampere together with the White Finns.

In the Caucasus - Armenia finally lost Kars. Meanwhile, both Azerbaijan and Georgia decided to submit without a fight, with Azerbaijan becoming a puppet of the Ottomans and Georgia a puppet of the Germans respectively, leaving Armenia and the Soviet Baku Commune governments as the only two forces still standing in the way of the Central Powers. They are, however, at war with each other as well lol. Speaking of the Soviets, they had kicked the Muslim separatists out of Chechnya who are now hanging out in Tbilisi also under the Ottoman protection.

Meanwhile, on February 10th, as I was observing the events in the Caucasus, apparently Russia had surrendered! One of the possible conditions for the Brest-Litovsk treaty is that the Germans hold Kiev, Minsk, and Narva. The presence of the Germans in Narva in particular makes the Soviets panic that Petrograd is about to be lost so they finally sue for peace as a result. This is also why they move the capital to Moscow. But as you can see, Germany's job in the East is not done quite yet. While the Russian troops are withdrawing, the local pro-Bolshevik forces will fight on with Moscow's poorly-concealed blessing and support. Germany and its allies, myself included, will first need to clean up those pro-Soviet puppets before moving on elsewhere.

Again, not much strategy available here for me just yet, as my only real strategic options are essentially whether to help the Germans or not help them. Helping seems to make sense as long as it hopefully speeds up the liberation of my lands.

 

[RustyHunter]

Long story short, while I am a puppet state of Germany, my army can't really fight worth a shit and you will see exactly what I mean by that.

Wow, that is really harsh! I suppose it makes sense though, there's really no way a new country would be extremely effective.

It looks like the start date has captured the chaos caused by the Russian Revolution very well, especially with all the small independent states, Whites, and Reds.

Are you basically waiting for the Allies to win in the west, freeing you from your puppet status? I'm really interested to see how the game handles the end of WWI and start of the Russian Civil War, especially since Ukraine has the potential to decide the Civil War.

 

[Kami888]

>Are you basically waiting for the Allies to win in the west, freeing you from your puppet status?

Yes. Well, there is a generic mechanic actually where there is a random chance every once in a while that a puppet state can break free from its overlord and have to fight a war to defend its freedom, but i have that disabled for now in order to make the game more predictable. So yeah I will only cease being a puppet when Germany loses the war, which it is well on its way towards anyway. But there is one important question here that needs to be answered - is it in my interest that Germany loses the war as soon as possible, or the other way, would I want it to last for as long as possible?

Not that I can really make much difference either way, but I could at least try to help Germany survive longer, if that was in my interest.

So here's my thinking - there are pros and cons to helping Germany.
The upside is that while Germany fights on, my external security is guaranteed, so I can try to build up my military "in peace" little by little and prepare myself for the inevitable showdown that will come afterwards.
The downside is that, well, first of all, i'm stuck at over 35% dissent which means among other things that my industry is severely hampered and i might not even be able to send much reinforcement to Germany due to the need to contain internal revolts. On top of that, I won't be the only one getting stronger. The neighbors to my East are also getting stronger, Reds and Whites alike, and as they have a larger industry than I do and as they are not constricted by 35% dissent penalty, it is quite likely that they are getting stronger faster than I am. Should Germany take too long to surrender, I will be faced with much stronger enemies. Or worse - the civil war won't last forever, either Reds or Whites will probably emerge victorious within a couple of years and then I won't be able to use their contradictions against each other and instead I will be faced with a single united enemy.

So, keeping that in mind, I came to the conclusion that all things considered, having Germany lose the war as soon as possible is generally in my interest more than the other way around. Although given that I ended up being fucked over in the end anyway, it is possible that this was the wrong decision to make.

 

[Kami888]

Alright, for the next update, this should be mostly a "cleanup" step for me, but surprises are always possible.

The first German assault on Tampere must have gone nowhere because it's been several weeks and they are still assaulting it. I see them bringing more reinforcements from the north though.

The Russians are leaving Ukraine but the "Soviet Ukrainians" continue to be a minor nuisance. Meanwhile there are anti-Soviet revolts in Rostov and nearby regions that the Russians are busy trying to suppress.

Oooh, a "United Baltic Duchy", sounds very fancy! Unlike myself and most other German puppets in the east, this one is actually a "strong puppet" which means it is less penalized than others, but on the flip side, it only has cores on Riga and Jelgava as it basically relies on the support of the local Baltic German nobility only.

Fierce resistance in Konotop forces the Central Powers to commit some 10 divisions to the fight plus 5 of mine to overwhelm their defense.

Meanwhile back in the Caucasus, Armenia also surrendered and became a puppet of the Ottomans. Now the Ottomans, Musavite Azeris, and Caucasian Muslims are launching a joint attack on Baku which is lightly defended by just 1 Soviet division. Looks like things are moving much faster than they were historically. The historic battle of Baku did not take place until late July/August 1918.

Wasting no time, the Germans have forced their way into Crimea and are also attacking Kharkov, the seat of the "Soviet Ukrainian" government.

The Germans finally took Tampere in Finland, and they've also proclaimed the independence of Belarus. Which, incidentally, is a gross violation of the German-Soviet treaty of Brest-Litovsk because according to that treaty, Belarus was supposed to stay with Russia. However, many provisions of that treaty were actually disregarded by both sides who viewed it as more of a ceasefire than an actual peace treaty, and Belarus was one of many such cases. Oh yeah also it's a bit hard to see but it appears that the Italians have recovered some territory since the last time I looked at their front.

I try not to miss out and deploy my forces to support the Crimean operation.
On April 20th you can see the last Soviet forces in Crimea are about to be destroyed. If you are wondering, no that is not young Stalin leading the defense here lol, that is some other dude. I also thought it could be Stalin at first.

Once again wasting no time, the Central Powers are trying to cross the Kerch strait and invade Kuban, i can barely even catch up with them. A bit further north, cleanup operations in the Donbass have started.

Meanwhile, the Ottomans took Baku and moved the seat of their puppet government there, but they are not stopping and instead continuing their advance north. All of this is another huge violation of the Brest-Litovsk treaty by the way, but who's going to stop them eh? By the terms of the treaty, the Ottomans were only supposed to take Kars and not move an inch further than that.

A bit further south, the Brits and their allies are slowly making their way north in Jordan and Mesopotamia. Currently they are attempting to clear Basra.

Whops! Despite my participation in the liberation of Crimea, the Germans obviously have other plans for the peninsula and instead of giving it to me, they've installed a separate puppet government there. Kind of strange - you'd think that a strong Ukraine should be in Germany's interest as bulwark against Russia, but the Germans must obviously think otherwise. Yes, giving Crimea over to Ukraine would have been yet another violation of the Brest-Litovsk treaty and yada yada but why would the Germans suddenly care about the treaty only in this particular case and not in others? Presumably, the Germans have their own designs on Crimea and are afraid that a strong Ukraine might simply be too difficult to control. At least that could be one of the reasons why they did that historically. In the game, this is simply Germany's default choice.

Btw somehow i managed to run out of supplies, not sure how that happened since the supply slider was set to automatic.

Meanwhile, civil war breaks out in the Russian Siberia. There are four main anti-Soviet factions operating in Siberia at the start of the revolt:
-The Siberian Republic, which is a right-liberal leaning regime of Pyotr Vologodsky
-The Komuch, which is a more left-leaning government of the Socialist-Revolutionaries led by Vladimir Volskii
-The Transbaikal (originally Green Ukraine), which is a right-wing Cossack regime in the far east led by Grigory Semyonov and is effectively a puppet of the Japanese Empire
-And the Czechoslovak Legion, which doesn't actually have any territory of its own, but it has a significant armed presense in Siberia, and its units are actually some of the best fighting units available to the Whites in early war

There's the Green Ukraine, by the way. It is kind of a placeholder currently as the reality of the clusterfuck situation in the Eastern Siberia at the time is too hard to translate into the game. Anyway, it would be awesome to actually have a long-term ally on the other side of Russia, but it is currently not really an achievable outcome in the game. Historically, Semyonov did not show a significant interest in the "Green Ukraine" project specifically, and neither did the Japanese, and that more or less doomed the whole concept. According to the wiki, Semyonov, himself part Cossack part Buryat by nationality, was at most entertaining the idea of a Ukrainian autonomy within the limits of a united Far Eastern/Transbaikal state of Cossacks, Buryats, and Ukrainians. So what happens in the game is typically within a few months the country is simply renamed to "Transbaikal" and the flag is changed accordingly.

The Germans have occupied Rostov and are continuing to advance further. The Austrians have landed in Kuban. The Ottomans and Georgians are also attacking Kuban but from the south.

Suddenly, the guns fall silent. The Don and Kuban Cossack armies seemingly disappear off the face of the earth. The Germans also stop their advance and even evacuate from Novorossiysk. Obviously, the Germans must have reached some kind of agreement with the Don and Kuban Cossack leaders. We all know what is about to happen.

June 16th: a major Cossack anti-Soviet revolt breaks out in southern Russia, centered around the Don, Kuban, and Terek river regions. The governments of the Don and Kuban in particular have separatist tendencies and are very close to Germany, from which they recieve generous support. The Volunteer Army (not yet pictured) spawns a few days later and like the Czech legion it initially starts with no real territory of its own, but that changes quickly.

On this note ends another chapter in the Ukrainian saga. Most of the Ukrainian territory has been liberated, if you don't count the German occupation of course. It is now time to strategize and make plans for the future.

 

[RustyHunter]

Whops! Despite my participation in the liberation of Crimea, the Germans obviously have other plans for the peninsula and instead of giving it to me, they've installed a separate puppet government there.

Well that's no way to repay a loyal puppet! I'm guessing Crimea will be up for grabs when Germany surrenders to the Allies?

-The Siberian Republic, which is a right-liberal leaning regime of Pyotr Vologodsky
-The Komuch, which is a more left-leaning government of the Socialist-Revolutionaries led by Vladimir Volskii
-The Transbaikal (originally Green Ukraine), which is a right-wing Cossack regime in the far east led by Grigory Semyonov and is effectively a puppet of the Japanese Empire
-And the Czechoslovak Legion, which doesn't actually have any territory of its own, but it has a significant armed presense in Siberia, and its units are actually some of the best fighting units available to the Whites in early war

Very cool to see all the different factions represented, especially since I imagine that keeps the eastern Whites divided and manageable for the Soviets.

was at most entertaining the idea of a Ukrainian autonomy within the limits of a united Far Eastern/Transbaikal state of Cossacks, Buryats, and Ukrainians. So what happens in the game is typically within a few months the country is simply renamed to "Transbaikal" and the flag is changed accordingly.

Very interesting, and it's not something I had known about.

June 16th: a major Cossack anti-Soviet revolt breaks out in southern Russia, centered around the Don, Kuban, and Terek river regions. The governments of the Don and Kuban in particular have separatist tendencies and are very close to Germany, from which they recieve generous support. The Volunteer Army (not yet pictured) spawns a few days later and like the Czech legion it initially starts with no real territory of its own, but that changes quickly.

Things are starting to escalate like OTL, but Germany hasn't been forced to surrender yet. It looks like your options will be a bit limited, but I can see your concerns about the Whites or Reds winning before you can get involved. It looks like you will need to count on Germany falling soon.

 

[Kami888]

Well that's no way to repay a loyal puppet! I'm guessing Crimea will be up for grabs when Germany surrenders to the Allies?

Haha both yes and no. It would be up for grabs, but not so much for me. I would love to grab Crimea (and Kuban) before anyone else can, but the reality is that once Germany withdraws its protection I will immediately get attacked from almost every direction including from within, so it will be a while before I can even dream of grabbing anything from anyone.


But now that you mention it, let me try to explain what my strategy was for this game in the first place. It's a bit long but I need to somehow explain my overall strategic situation which limits my options.


Ukraine in late 1918 / early 1919 is in a uniquely horrible position with tons of enemies and basically no allies.


The Poles are to my west - they are an enemy. And they will receive generous support from France, enabling them to quickly build up a very effective army.
The White Russians are to my east and south - they are also an enemy. And they will receive generous support from the UK, at least initially.
The Red Russians are to my north and north-east - they are also an enemy. They don't have any "foreign support" per se aside from the Red Chinese divisions which will occasionally spawn but they have tons of other factors that make up for it, including supporters within Ukraine.
The French and Greeks will attempt a landing in the south. They are, you guessed it, also an enemy.
But most importantly - there will be tons and tons of betrayal and internal revolts. Chief among those is a certain tenacious fellow known as Makhno who will manage to betray everyone at least twice. Here's a little preview of the insane amounts of Zrada (Ukrainian world for betrayal) that I'll be dealing with.

And that's only about... a half of it..

So, as you can see, grabbing Crimea may have to wait a little bit until I improve my overall position somehow.


My main idea here was as follows:

Historically, Ukraine ended up losing to Poland in 1919 and it "resolved" its Polish problem that way for about a year or so, but it gained a ton of other problems in exchange. My genius idea was that I would NOT make peace with Poland, instead I would initially throw everything at Poland and try to establish a defensible frontier in the west. Now you might ask, why on earth would that make things any better for me? Well, my thinking was that as bad as it is to have Poland as my enemy, a defeat to Poland can actually make things worse.


In game terms, peace with Poland comes at a significant cost for Ukraine.

-First is the obvious - the loss of territory, and with it people, resources, and industry. Not that there is a whole lot of industry in western Ukraine at this point but it's enough to be, well, unfortunate.
-Second, defeat to Poland will immediately get me +10 dissent, which will be very hard to get rid of. This represents the fact that the peace treaty was very controversial with both the public and military leadership. Now remembering that in this version dissent has a huge impact on the combat performance of military units, so +10 dissent could make a very significant difference.
-Third, if that wasn't enough, there will be a new "Morale Collapses" event firing in the immediate aftermath of the defeat that will last for the next 6 months from surrender.
-Fourth, and potentially the most substantial, is the "UGA problem". UGA, that is the Ukrainian Galician Army, otherwise known as the Army of the West Ukrainian People's Republic, is by far the most combat-capable force fighting on my behalf in the early war. In case of my defeat to Poland, the UGA will be very upset and will try to defect at the first opportunity. It can defect to either Reds or Whites, depending on which side currently has the upper hand in the war. Its defection CAN in theory be prevented if i can hold on to the key cities such as Kiev and Odessa, but if the UGA defects, as it did historically (first they defected to Denikin in late 1919 and then just a few months later they defected to the Reds), that is as good as game over for me.
-And fifth... It should be remembered that any peace with Poland is temporary. Poland will rapidly gain strength throughout 1919 and eventually I can expect it to gain enough confidence to make me an offer i can't refuse - submit or die. So essentially, making peace with Poland in late 1918/early 1919 will at most grant me about a year to maybe 1.5 years of reprieve on the western front until Poland becomes a problem again.


The question is, of course, is it actually worth it? My thinking was that, perhaps, it is just not worth it. So I decided that I would NOT be making a peace with Poland.


Ok, but what then? Well, i thought, i would maintain a defensible frontier in the west and in the meantime I would gradually build up my forces while using the war between the Reds and Whites to my advantage to slowly push both of them away from my lands. Then, if the war to the East develops in the historical fashion and the Whites eventually lose their support from the UK and go in overall retreat, that would be a perfect time for me to grab Crimea and Kuban from them. This can be done by military means alone but if that turns out too difficult, there is actually an alternative route - a mix of military and diplomatic methods.


The back story is that the Kuban and Crimean leaders had their differences with Denikin from the very beginning and as the war progressed they gradually grew more and more resentful of him and the "White Russian" cause in general. Kuban in particular always had strong Ukrainophile tendencies and a decent chunk of its leadership sought to unite with Ukraine by peaceful means. In the end, in order to prevent Kuban's defection Denikin had to crack down on it by force, he arrested and executed a bunch of Kuban's leaders and installed loyalists in charge. This severely demoralized Kuban's army and most of it ultimately ended up simply abandoning the frontline in disappointment. This was, by the way, one of the huge factors in securing the ultimate Red victory in the war. This is what will happen in the game as well, however, there is actually a way to make both Kuban and Crimea defect to me peacefully. Historically, at the time when Denikin cracked down on Kuban's leadership, Ukraine/UNR was all but destroyed, it had next to no army and controlled no real territory, so of course it didn't really matter what Kuban's leaders wanted or didn't want - a union with Ukraine was simply not feasible as it would only cause problems and not produce any benefits whatsoever. So in order to secure their actual defection in the game, all I have to do is to prove my strength to them and occupy the adjacent regions with enough force that the Crimean and Kuban leaders feel like the Ukrainian army CAN actually help them should they chose to defect.


If I can achieve that, both Crimea and Kuban will defect to me together with their military units, giving me not just territory but boosting my actual strength to help me fend off the remaining enemies. Then, finally, all that will be left is to... well, defeat the Reds, and the Poles. This can be done by marching on Moscow and Warsaw respectively but even I don't think that's going to be possible for me to win the war this way. A more likely route to victory is to simply outlast them. Russia and Poland will gradually be getting more and more dissent as the war progresses - and so will I of course, but I have an advantage - i'm the defending side. If their dissent gets high enough and they fail to make any progress against me, they will eventually give up and agree to peace on my terms. So all I really need to do at that point is to dig in and defend my gains at all cost.


Well, that's what my plan was anyway.

 

[RustyHunter]

Haha both yes and no. It would be up for grabs, but not so much for me. I would love to grab Crimea (and Kuban) before anyone else can, but the reality is that once Germany withdraws its protection I will immediately get attacked from almost every direction including from within, so it will be a while before I can even dream of grabbing anything from anyone.

Defensive campaigns are really hard, and I'll be curious to see how you handle this terrible situation.

The Poles are to my west - they are an enemy. And they will receive generous support from France, enabling them to quickly build up a very effective army.

That should be rough. Is there any good defensive terrain for you to hold? The marshes are probably a bit too far north, so I'm not sure what's the best.

Here's a little preview of the insane amounts of Zrada (Ukrainian world for betrayal) that I'll be dealing with.

That looks painful! I suppose Makhno will be a major problem since he sabotaged Denikin's advance on Moscow in OTL?

This was, by the way, one of the huge factors in securing the ultimate Red victory in the war.

Very interesting to see how integral Ukraine actually was in the Civil War. All I knew is they fought with Poland, lost, and descended into chaos after that.

So in order to secure their actual defection in the game, all I have to do is to prove my strength to them and occupy the adjacent regions with enough force that the Crimean and Kuban leaders feel like the Ukrainian army CAN actually help them should they chose to defect.

That seems like the most practical goal. Is there any way the Don cossacks will abandon the Whites as well? They didn't really cooperate much after the opening stages of the Civil War.

Overall, this looks like a huge challenge, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things go down!

 

[Kami888]

Meanwhile in Northern Europe...

White Finns and ther German allies practically won the civil war after taking Viipuri, and the remaining Red Finns appear to be withdrawing to Russia.

July 1st: On the Western front, using the newly received divisions transferred from the East, the Germans launched an attack and appear to have made some progress.

Meanwhile in the middle east, change since the last screenshot - the Brits had taken Basra and fully secured Jordan, but also... somehow they lost Cyprus to the Greek separatists lol. Presumably there was a revolt there that they didn't even bother trying to contain.

A three-sided war is going on in Turkestan region between the pro-Soviet government based in Tashkent, the Russian White forces supported by the Czechs, and the Muslim Basmachi separatists.

By July 14th, in Russian south, Tsarytsin appears to have been taken by the Don with a surprise attack, and Kuban was also almost completely overrun. Sorry about the weirdness of the diplomatic mapmode on this one, i should just switch to the regular political map sometimes. However you can see one interesting thing here - while retaining the "ownership" of Rostov, the German army transferred day-to-day administration of the city to the Don Republic, highlighting a very close working relationship between the two.

August 3rd, I finally have my first brand new division. Being a relatively small country, i don't have much room for creativity with my build queue, so I am just building infantry. At the same time, a revolt breaks out in Luban. Let's see whether my forces can handle it. If not, hopefully the Germans will send some assistance.

By the way, I don't have enough troops to cover my entire country, but what I do have, I tried to spread out in such a way as to cover the most important/core areas of the country from possible revolts. Luban was not covered, but Luban is also hardly a strategic area.

Despite several advantages in defensive terrain, technology, weaponry, etc, my infantry division proves incapable of defending Pinsk from the rebels and has to retreat.

August 28th: Denikin and his allies have practically cleared the Caucasus from the Commies, except the the Chechnya and Ingushetia regions, but lost a couple of provinces in northern Don.

And if you are wondering about those red flags in green territory, it's a bit confusing but the Komuch guys actually used the red flag. They considered themselves socialists, and as such, they weren't going to just let the Commies appropriate the red flag from them. As you might imagine, their choice to do so was not without contraversy, confusion, and misunderstandings. I am still not entirely clear as to whether their frontline units, that is, the "People's Army of Komuch" also routinely used the red flag in combat - as that does sound pretty comical. It is more likely that the frontline Komuch units simply used the Russian tricolor as their flag just like the rest of the White movement, but in the game I obviously want to distinguish the various White Armies from each other so for now i will just keep Komuch with the red flag lol.

Having taken Pinsk, the rebels immediately try to advance forward towards Brest-Litovsk, and my infantry is still not able to do anything about it. And the Germans seem to be to busy to lend any assistance.

With the addition of another infantry division to Brest Litovsk and two more infantry divisions coming in from behind under general Bolbochan, we are finally able to turn the tide on that single rebel militia. I had to commit basically all of my infantry divisions for this battle lol.

Meanwhile.... The Ottomans have apparently surrendered. I'm not sure what exactly was the tipping point, but that is one down for the "quadruple alliance".

Current situation on the western fronts - the French/Italians appear to have achieved a breakthrough into central Austria and the Germans lost nearly all their gains in France.

October 13th: Bulgaria also surrendered, but hasn't given up all of the land that they occupy yet. Not much time is left now before Germany gives up.

After losing Kazan, Samara/Kuybishev, and a few other provinces to the Commies, the Komuch and Siberian governments decided to put aside their differences and form a unity government literally called the "Russian State", but popularly also often referred to as the "Ufa Directory" due to the location of its seat of government.

November 23rd: Austria-Hungary is done!

Among the many countries which emerge from the ruins of the Empire of Habsburg-Lorraine, there is one that is of particular interest to me: The Western Ukrainian People's Republic. Otherwise known as simply, West Ukraine. Oh yeah and if you're wondering about those Volunteer Army regiments in Nowy Sacz, they are supposed to represent yet another rump state - the Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic that enjoyed de-facto independence from 1918 to 1920. A Russophile entity on the whole, its leaders primarily wished to see themselves as part of a united non-Bolshevik Russia. When that proved to be impossible, they petitioned to become an autonomous province of Czechoslovakia, but that didn't happen either because Poland finally lost patience and annexed the area in 1920.

December 1st: The German flag has changed as did the German government. That means Germany is about to surrender probably within the next few days. A new era is about to begin. Am I ready for it? Oh boy, we shall find out soon enough! XD

>That seems like the most practical goal. Is there any way the Don cossacks will abandon the Whites as well? They didn't really cooperate much after the opening stages of the Civil War.

I haven't thought about that possibility yet, it would be cool but I'm honestly not sure under which circumstances the Don Cossack Host would realistically defect to Ukraine. The Don is a weird case. While it had some obvious separatist tendencies at least at certain points in the war, its leadership was never Ukrainophile by any observable measure and in general the Don Cossacks never really adopted the Ukrainian identity like the Zaporozhian Cossacks did. This doesn't mean that they would never want to be part of Ukraine especially if guaranteed some sort of autonomy, but it's much harder to imagine a valid scenario where this could happen peacefully than with Kuban. As for the differences with Denikin, the most differences that the Don leaders had with him I believe was in the early war and the reason behind it was that the Don Army was receiving assitance from Germany while the Volunteer Army was categorically against any alliances with Germany. Once Germany withdrew from the region and the Don army was almost destroyed by the Bolsheviks, that dispute was automatically resolved in favor of the Volunteer Army and it never really came up again to my knowledge.

 

[RustyHunter]

And if you are wondering about those red flags in green territory, it's a bit confusing but the Komuch guys actually used the red flag. They considered themselves socialists, and as such, they weren't going to just let the Commies appropriate the red flag from them.

Very interesting and definitely not something I had heard of.

After losing Kazan, Samara/Kuybishev, and a few other provinces to the Commies, the Komuch and Siberian governments decided to put aside their differences and form a unity government literally called the "Russian State", but popularly also often referred to as the "Ufa Directory" due to the location of its seat of government.

Nice to see your Russian Civil war is largely following history, although Ukraine's time to change things is coming soon.

Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic that enjoyed de-facto independence from 1918 to 1920. A Russophile entity on the whole, its leaders primarily wished to see themselves as part of a united non-Bolshevik Russia. When that proved to be impossible, they petitioned to become an autonomous province of Czechoslovakia, but that didn't happen either because Poland finally lost patience and annexed the area in 1920.

Another interesting bit I'd never heard of.

As for the differences with Denikin, the most differences that the Don leaders had with him I believe was in the early war and the reason behind it was that the Don Army was receiving assitance from Germany while the Volunteer Army was categorically against any alliances with Germany. Once Germany withdrew from the region and the Don army was almost destroyed by the Bolsheviks, that dispute was automatically resolved in favor of the Volunteer Army and it never really came up again to my knowledge.

The other issue I can think of was on the overall strategy. Krasnov was determined to take Tsaritsyn and led the Don host against the city on his own, together with German weapons. Denikin wanted to liberate the Kuban and destroy the Reds in the Caucasus, leaving Krasnov to act on his own. After his failure and ouster as ataman, they basically subordinated themselves to the Volunteer Army as you said.

 

[Kami888]

December 5th, the war is finally over on the Western Front. Very kind of Germany to also announce that it will no longer sink all shipping coming in and out of the UK. As you can see it managed to preserve quite a bit of a navy by the close of war, too bad they won't be allowed to keep practically any of it.

A day later, war is over for me as well. I will now get to enjoy my well deserved roughly.. 2 days of peace.

Meanwhile, encouraged by the end of the war in Europe and the birth of independent Czechoslovakia, the Czech legion stops its participation in the Russian Civil War and starts its long journey home. This immediately gives the Soviets a significant advantage on the frontline.

Oh yeah, with the defeat of Germany, the Skorpoadsky government of Ukraine (also known as "the Hetmanate") is overthrown and replaced with a left-leaning directorate, pictured above. At the head of the new government there are a couple of Volodimirs/Volodymyrs who couldn't even agree on how to spell their first names in english (obviously a joke but IRL these guys did not prove to be the most organized bunch). The anti-Hetmanate revolution in game happens peacefully and by event, although in real life it took as long as a month and a series of armed clashes between supporters and opponents of Skoropadsky.

As the last German troops are leaving Ukraine, I am in the process of redeploying my army for the coming war with Poland as it is my plan is to deal with Poland first. Meanwhile the Soviet armies are staring menacingly at me across the border.

Ah yes, my old friend, the "morale collapses" event. My morale was slowly recovering before the German surrender and the anti-Hetmanate revolution, but now it is collapsing to the absolute gutter again. At least my dissent level is now 20 rather than 40.

And so - comrades, soldiers, friends.. The time of peace here ends! You may ask, why am I even fighting for Chelm? Well, I don't intend to hold on to it in the long run but right now I want to do everything possible to delay the Poles and give myself time to group up and take Lviv.

I decided that since this is probably the last time in some time that I actually have control over all of my territory, if there is a good time to declare General Mobilization, it is now.

Having committed nearly my entire army to the defense of Chelm, I actually score my first victory and Chelm remains mine for the time being. Things are going better than expected thus far.

Angered at my success, Poland launches a new attack on Chelm, better organized than the last and led by none other than Marshal Pilsudski. However... It would appear that the Polish preoccupation with taking Chelm also left them rather exposed in Lviv, which is something that the army of WUPR immediately took advantage of and launched an attack. If you are wondering about the nature of my relationship with the WUPR/UGA at the moment, we have military access and non-aggression pacts with each other but nothing further than that. Formal "unity act" happens after about a month of war.

Even though i am not allied with WUPR, nothing is stopping me from helping them by launching my own attack from the north. Lviv is fortified and Chelm is going to fall any minute so it is important to take Lviv ASAP before the Poles can bring reinforcements and make its capture nearly impossible. Luckily, the elite UGA units such as the famous Sich Riflemen are participating in the assault, so hopefully we should have no problems securing it quickly. Oh yeah uhhh it appears that I forgot to actually sleep/remove Skoropadsky as a general during the anti-Hetman revolution event, so, he will continue to serve me as a military leader lol. Though on the other hand, Ukraine has so few military leaders in DH that if I started to sleep/remove every leader who was either arrested, overthrown, or defected, i would quickly be left with no leaders whatsoever. Unless I start actually creating new leaders, but i'm way too lazy for that.

Meanwhile the Soviets recovered Tsarytsin from the Don Army and are still hanging on in the Caucasus.

December 26th - The Poles did reinforce Lviv after all, while I'm still desperately trying to hold on to Chelm.

The defense of Chelm is broken, but Lviv still stands.. This is a bit frustrating.

The Harbinger of Doom, Makhno, is here.

Makhno's rebellion, although not very significant on its own, signals the start of something bigger.

It has begun!

You didn't think that was all, did you?

 

[Kami888]

I have no defenses at all in the east. Regardless of my strategy versus Poland, I'm pretty certain that East Ukraine is a lost cause, there is no way I could realistically defend it against everyone at the same time. Trying to put up some kind of defense there would only put my army at greater risk of destruction with units defecting and deserting left and right. My strategy is thus to cede East Ukraine without a fight and let the bastards fight each other over it. Reds, Whites, French, Greeks, Makhnoists, Grigorievists, and everyone else is welcome to come and slaughter each other in the East, while I am hoping to set up a defense line from Mozyr to Kiev to Odessa and slowly build up my forces until I am ready to make a comeback.



>Denikin wanted to liberate the Kuban and destroy the Reds in the Caucasus, leaving Krasnov to act on his own.

Yup. I know it's probably not the most historically accurate but for simplicity's sake right now I have all three of them (Don, Kuban, and the Volunteer Army) allied to each other from the start. For the most part, it still seems to produce the historical outcome, most of the time the Soviets don't lose Tsarytsin either - i'm not quite sure what caused them to lose it here but as you see they apparently regained it pretty quickly.

 

[J_Master]

You didn't think that was all, did you?

Anyways, the AAR's looking good (the actual state of Ukraine not that much), what mods are you using exactly, I'd like to play the RCW like this sometime

 

[RustyHunter]

I know it's probably not the most historically accurate but for simplicity's sake right now I have all three of them (Don, Kuban, and the Volunteer Army) allied to each other from the start.

I actually think that is pretty realistic. They were all essentially allies, and this allows the AI to recreate the historical strat of Kuban and Vol. Army going south while the Don push north, or they can actually work together as an alt-history option.

Anyways, the AAR's looking good (the actual state of Ukraine not that much), what mods are you using exactly, I'd like to play the RCW like this sometime

I agree on the mod. This looks like a really great setup for the civil war, and I've been looking for a decent setup for a long time.

 

[Kami888]

People with a weak heart and children under 18 are advised to scroll past this post, as the sheer amount of Zrada (or betrayal/treason) in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet invasion will be flying off the charts.

There is nothing, in my opinion, that the Ukrainian leadership could realistically do to prevent it from happening, the best they could do is to be ready for it. The only good part is that most of these Zradas will somewhat decrease my internal dissent. The logic here is that when dissenters take up arms and defect or break out into an armed conflict, they can no longer really cause "dissent" from within - they become an external enemy instead, hence dissent decreases.

First things first, while I am still fighting for Lviv, a Bolshevik uprising erupts directly in the rear of my army. In Polesia, of all places. Sort of makes sense because there are a lot of Belarussians in that region (today Pinsk is part of Belarus) and Belarussians generally tended to have strong Bolshevik sympathies as evidenced by the Constituent Assembly Election of 1917.

Belarus saw the second best electoral performance of the Bolsheviks after Latvia/Livonia.

Just in time, finally some good news - Lviv is captured. As you can see, WUPR/UGA did the majority of the fighting there, but my participation was still probably decisive in securing victory. With that, not only have I secured a fairly valuable city, but I also finally have somewhat of a defensible frontier in the West.

Since I had the advantage of foreknowledge of the impending Polesian revolt, I already had some garrisons in position and ready for it. Still, the Bolshevik revolt is going a little too well, especially in Pinsk, where the garrison divisions were too disorganized to put up a meaningful fight. Since my army is already in vincinity, before i send it off East to confront the invading armies, I must quash this revolt in Polesia as quickly as possible.

With the addition of trusty General Bolbochan and his forces, hopefully this revolt can be crushed in no time, although the marshy terrain is definitely not too favorable to a quick outcome.

Wait what? Bolbochan, you coward! Once again, btw, I forgot to actually sleep Bolbochan as a leader. So despite the revolt, Bolbochan or rather his clone will continue to serve me as a general lol, please don't mind this historical weirdness. After all, this is the first time I am actually playing as Ukraine.

Luckily by sheer force of numbers the Polesian uprising is suppressed within two weeks and i immediately begin redeploying forces east to contain the invaders, although by this point i've lost a total of 11 provinces. Worth noting that the provinces of Belgorod and Ostrogozhsk were mine before the Soviet invasion, but the Bolsheviks never recognized that particular border and after invading and taking control of those territories, they decided to annex them directly to Soviet Russia rather than giving them over to their puppet Soviet Ukraine.

Also, it seems that the Soviets, seeing how there is absolutely absolutely no resistance facing them on my front have begun shifting some divisions away towards other fronts, thinking that they simply don't need them here. Ha, that's all part of my trick!


Anyway, the first order of business, is to...

Huh.. Well, this may look bad. But to get back on my feet I have to first and foremost...

You don't have to tell me things are bad. They are worse than bad, they are crazy!
Much worse than the loss of territory is the fact that I've also lost about 40% of my standing army including some of my best infantry units which went over to the Soviet side without a fight. On the bright side, my dissent went down somewhat.

I will basically be spending the rest of the game trying to recover from this deluge of unfortunate circumstances, aka the disaster of 1919.

Oh yeah and I should probably mention that in the midst of all this chaos, Volodymyr Vynnychenko resigned as the as the head of the Directorate and was replaced by Symon Petliura, who was already de-facto the leader due to his position as the head of the UPR armed forces. Although both Vynnychenko and Petliura were members of the same far-left USDLP, Petliura represented its more moderate and nationalist-oriented wing while Vynnychenko was an outright Marxist. From this point onward their fates have parted ways, and Petliura will be the one to lead Ukraine onwards for the duration of the conflict.

 

[Kami888]

what mods are you using exactly, I'd like to play the RCW like this sometime

Just something I was working on myself in my free time, which is why it's so half-assed. I'll probably upload it to github or something at some point for those interested enough to give it a try but as it was something built mostly for my own amusement you may find it a bit bizarre.

 

[RustyHunter]

Just something I was working on myself in my free time, which is why it's so half-assed. I'll probably upload it to github or something at some point for those interested enough to give it a try but as it was something built mostly for my own amusement you may find it a bit bizarre.

It still looks pretty cool, and I haven't seen a better mod for the RCW.

That's painful seeing so many of your divisions defect to the enemy. Luckily, Poland seems to be struggling to break through your lines, but things can only get worse when the other factions reach your lines. Hopefully they'll be distracted fighting each other and leave you alone.

 

[J_Master]

It still looks pretty cool, and I haven't seen a better mod for the RCW.

I certainly agree. The basic setup reminds me somewhat of Peace without Victory, but that starts off just before the February Revolution if I recall correctly or on the 11th of november 1918, and it isn't nearly as detailed with all the different tags, events and cabinets.

 

[Kami888]

At least someone other than the Bolsheviks is is having a relatively good day. After losing support from Germany and getting seriously pushed back in the north such that the Soviets are on the verge of taking Rostov, the leadership of Don, Kuban, and Volunteer Armies, finally agree to put aside their differences and form a single state and a single army under the leadership of General Denikin. The name is simply "Southern Russia" and the army is thus called the "Armed Forces of Southern Russia".

My turn! The option to unite with Galicia finally becomes available. Officially, we are now one country!

However, at this point this just means they become a (strong) puppet state. To actually annex them I will need to fulfill some further conditions. As we all probably know, historically the unification act of UPR and WUPR didn't quite pan out as intended, in fact the leader of WUPR renounced the unification act in less than a year after signing and ended up allying with Denikin instead. Which is, of course, kind of amusing on its own, because nowadays the alliance of Galicians and Russian nationalists would seem unthinkable to most people for whom it's basically an equivalent of Jews allying with Nazis or something along those lines.

The Galician unity event had fired just in time because apparently in my panic to contain the Red flood in the east i had transferred too many divisions away from the Polish front, leaving it so lightly defended that the Poles nearly broke through and slaughtered all the defenders. Luckily, the Galician army volunteered its help and got to Lutsk just in time to prevent disaster. However, realizing how precarious my situation is on the Polish front, I had no choice but to redeploy some divisions back to the West.

Giving me absolutely no time to rest whatsoever, as soon as their attack on Lutsk fails, the Poles immediately launch an attack on Lviv. Note that this is still February 1919 so this should be before Haller's army returns to Poland which should happen some time in May I think. The Haller's army event will give Poland some additional 8 elite divisions with artillery and tanks to play around with. I'm totally looking forward to having to deal with that. Hopefully, many of those divisions will go fight the Soviets instead of me.

A "war" broke out between Poland and Lithuania as the Polish forces started moving in to contested territory, and it ended instantly because Lithuania chose not to fight. Cowards! As they will soon learn, Polish apetites cannot be sated that easily... What that means, however, is that now my forces in Brest-Litovsk can be flanked by the Poles from the north as well, and there is no river or any other kind of defensible frontier there to hold them off. I wish my successful resistance could inspire some bravery in Lithuanians, but they seem to be more preoccupied with trying to defend Vilnius from the Reds. Hmmm...

Meanwhile, the Reds launch a cavalry attack on Kiev from two directions. This is their second attack, the first one didn't go too well for them, but this one... yeah. My militia division there gets easily overwhelmed despite several defensive advantages such as river crossing, urban area, and fortification penalties for the attacking side.

On the same day, to make sure I don't even think about trying to save Kiev, they also attack me in the north at Pinsk while the Poles are relentlessly trying to break through at Brest and in Lviv simultaneously. Something must be done here.

Despite sending in another militia to reinforce Kiev (militia actually has a bonus for fighting in cities too), I could not hold on to Kiev. This is the first sign that things aren't going quite as I hoped, as I was hoping to hold Kiev. Also I decided to withdraw from Brest and Pinsk and consolidate my defenses somewhat.

Meanwhile, the French intervention in the south went nowhere and the French are withdrawing, which is another bad news for me since they constituted kind of a barrier between my own troops and those of the Reds. And the Russians annexed Crimea for the second time.

Poland annexes what's left of Belarus, even though, well, there isn't exactly much left of Belarus at this point. I'm hoping that with the Poles and Soviets meeting each other for the first time in the north I will finally get to see them battling each other instead of me.

Thus far, however, the Poles seem determined to keep attacking me without mercy, the only way I am surviving these assaults is thanks to the elite UGA troops who are in a much better overall shape than my own.

However, as there are nowhere near enough UGA troops to cover the entire Polish front, I have to keep constantly shuffling them back and forth between Lutsk, Lviv, and Strij, to prevent a Polish breakthrough. The UGA troops are almost constantly on the march from one province to another putting out fires so to speak.
Meanwhile... me I'm still unable to do anything to stop the Reds as they are relentlessly moving West along the entire front. At this point I'm not sure if i'm going to be able to hold on to Odessa either as it looks like it is about to be encircled. But not all is lost yet. The Red tide will not last forever and I do have a plan.

 

[Kami888]

>The basic setup reminds me somewhat of Peace without Victory

I've heard of it but i always assumed it was an alt-history mod. Now that you mentioned it I looked it up and it's actually pretty cool, but.. what the hell has been happening in that thread? lol