Russia

[Demetrios]

Originally posted by czaralex
Even with Japan, a decent Russian AI will want to expend in the easiest places. So instead of the Balkans and the Caucases it will first go after the far east. And Russia would trounce, whip, massacre, etc Japan in 1840ish.

No, far easier than the Far East would be where Russian historically expanded into - the decaying khanates of Central Asia. Logistically, the Far East would be a nightmare (even with the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Russia couldn't get enough troops to the area during the Russo-Japanese War). Central Asia is much closer and easier to conquer than the far-off lands of the Far East...

 

[unmerged(11089)]

Originally posted by Demetrios
No, far easier than the Far East would be where Russian historically expanded into - the decaying khanates of Central Asia. Logistically, the Far East would be a nightmare (even with the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Russia couldn't get enough troops to the area during the Russo-Japanese War). Central Asia is much closer and easier to conquer than the far-off lands of the Far East...

Not with Brittain, which will beat Afghanistan 99.99999999% of the time going for the same area.
And Russia would not need thousands upon thousands of troops to conquer China at this time, Historically they needed the treat of a few thousand cossacks to force the Chineese to basically hand over Manchuria and outer Mongolia

 

[Demetrios]

Britian will have to deal with Panjab and Sind (neither of which had been conquered by the British in 1835, and Panjab moreover was a very large state ruled by very militant Sikhs) first before even thinking about dealing with Afghanistan. And if the game is going to be historical, Afghanistan will have to be very tough indeed for the British to hold. Russia, on the other hand, directly borders upon the Central Asian Khanates and can go right on in if they want directly and quickly by land - unlike Britian, from which Central Asia is a long trip by sea via the Cape and India...

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by czaralex
Even with Japan, a decent Russian AI will want to expend in the easiest places. So instead of the Balkans and the Caucases it will first go after the far east. And Russia would trounce, whip, massacre, etc Japan in 1840ish.

How is Russia supposed to get enough troops to Japan in the 1840s to have a chance at conquering it? Russia didn't even obtain the coast north of Korea until 1860 and Sakhalin until 1875.

Originally posted by czaralex
(even with the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Russia couldn't get enough troops to the area during the Russo-Japanese War)

And the Trans-Siberian railroad wasn't completely finished even in 1904.

 

[Demetrios]

Originally posted by Dark Knight
And the Trans-Siberian railroad wasn't completely finished even in 1904.

I thought it was complete with the exception of the portion going around Lake Baykal at that point - they could still ferry soldiers over the lake. IIRC they acutally built a connection on the ice covering the lake during the winter of 1905, which subsequently became the world's deepest railroad when spring came...

 

[Zagys]

Originally posted by czaralex
In your average game, Prussia and Japan SHOULD NOT have much of a chance to be come dominant powers.

I disagree. There should be more to the countries than their starting size and economic power. The Prussian culture of militarism and efficiency was in place long before 1835.

You seem to want everyone's potential to be based primarily on starting geographical size. Hmmm, I wonder why *cough* Russia *cough*.

 

[HolisticGod]

Czaralex,

China was in better relative shape before the Tai-Ping Rebellion and the subsequent Ci Xi Self-Strengthening Movement than it was in the thirties and forties. If Japan, better organized, better equipped, ethnically, geographically and culturally closer and sporting millions of troops with mechanized units and naval support couldn't manage to subdue more than the coastal and river cities in the Southeast, how the hell could a few thousand Cossacks conquer and occupy the entire country?

As for EB's idea, ditto. British, French and German intelligence drafted maps of adjusted sea lanes and zones of control for the Pacific post-Russian annexation of Japan. Common thinking on these matters had often been entirely off the mark.

The ideal way to model this, I think, would be an intelligence service, funded and organized by the player, that constructs reports and even the map with percentile margins of error.

The most practical way to model this, though, is as suggested-skewed figures in the ledger and a sliding fog of war.

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by Demetrios
I thought it was complete with the exception of the portion going around Lake Baykal at that point - they could still ferry soldiers over the lake. IIRC they acutally built a connection on the ice covering the lake during the winter of 1905, which subsequently became the world's deepest railroad when spring came...

Right, I just thought that it was worth mentioning that even by 1904 there was stlll a missing link.

 

[unmerged(11089)]

Originally posted by Demetrios
Britian will have to deal with Panjab and Sind (neither of which had been conquered by the British in 1835, and Panjab moreover was a very large state ruled by very militant Sikhs) first before even thinking about dealing with Afghanistan. And if the game is going to be historical, Afghanistan will have to be very tough indeed for the British to hold. Russia, on the other hand, directly borders upon the Central Asian Khanates and can go right on in if they want directly and quickly by land - unlike Britian, from which Central Asia is a long trip by sea via the Cape and India...

I was basing my comment on the game Imperialism, where Brittain is able to conquer every non-great power within the first 15 years. If this will be the case in Vicky, Kabul will fall before the Cossack will reach Alma-ta or Stalinbad.

As for the Chinnese being able to fight of Russia in 1835, this is a really funny joke. The same army that just steamrolled the French, that just conquered all of Europe, can conquer all of China in about a year. That is offcourse after it would take it two years to get to Irkutsk.

PS. As it just happens I was just watching the special on the Trans-Siberian Railroad on the history channell. And it was only finished in 1916! It took so long because of the really bad original construction of a large part of the track, and the Japaneesse destroying a part of it.

 

[Alexander Seil]

Stalinabad? Stalin-abad I seriously doubt the city was called that before the revolution. Moreover, I do not think that any army could conquer China (!). The sheer hostility of the population, poor roads, rugged terrain and immense size would prevent that. That's why the European Imperial powers preferred a joint protectorate to a direct colonization.

 

[Demetrios]

Originally posted by czaralex
I was basing my comment on the game Imperialism, where Brittain is able to conquer every non-great power within the first 15 years. If this will be the case in Vicky, Kabul will fall before the Cossack will reach Alma-ta or Stalinbad.

As for the Chinnese being able to fight of Russia in 1835, this is a really funny joke. The same army that just steamrolled the French, that just conquered all of Europe, can conquer all of China in about a year. That is offcourse after it would take it two years to get to Irkutsk.

Well, stop basing your comments on Imperialism - this will obviously be quite a different game!

As far as I know, there was never a "Stalinbad" in Central Asia; there was a Leninbad, but it's back to being Khojand/Chodzand again...

Like other Paradox games, undoubtedly there will be brakes on untoward expansion in distant theaters of action. Central Asia will be so distant from the UK and the Far East from the heart of Russia that it should be hard for them to send massive amounts of troops there. On the other hand, Central Asia is fairly close to the heart of Russia, so it should be somewhat simpler to get armies of fair size there for them (though still somewhat hard). As for the Russian army, despite the fact it had just defeated Napoleon (and this is to ignore the fact that Russia had substantial help from other countries and France had been worn down by 25 years of near-continual war by that point), any attempt to "steamroll" it across Siberia to the Far East should only end in disastrous attrition in this sort of game (until the Trans-Siberian Railroad is built)

 

[unmerged(9509)]

Originally posted by czaralex


As for the Chinnese being able to fight of Russia in 1835, this is a really funny joke. The same army that just steamrolled the French, that just conquered all of Europe, can conquer all of China in about a year.

Funny. I wonder how the Russian army steamrolled a French force it was too scared to directly confront and just let it take everything up to Moscow and left the capital. Oh, I forgot, they did fight at Borodino and Austerlitz--gee, they really creamed the French.

 

[Habbaku]

As far as I can tell, it's never Russian tactics that win out...it's just their perfect strategies.

 

[HolisticGod]

Czaralex,

"The same army that just steamrolled the French, that just conquered all of Europe,"

What LaMotta said...

There's a difference between outmaneuvering an army a long way from home in winter (the best strategy under the circumstances, no question) led by a commander whose hubris has finally surpassed his talent and "steamrolling" it.

And there's a big difference between winning on your own turf and subjugating the largest (with respect to settlement), most populous and geographically diverse country on earth.

And there's a fucking enormous difference between defeating a nation on the battlefield and productively occupying it for any length of time.

"can conquer all of China in about a year."

Uh, this is the nineteenth century.

No army of any significant size could cross China in about a year.

 

[unmerged(11089)]

As for Stalinobad it is the modern Dushenbe in Turkmenistan.

As for steamrolling the French, I stick to my point. The initial parts of a campaign are not the judge of the final solution. Just like it is ok to say that the Red Army STEAMROLLED the Nazis, even though for the first two years, the Germans whooped up on a lot of Russian butts. The point is that Russia, and Russia, alone defeated Napoleon. The only time that the Brits felt "safe" enough to actually face off against Napoleon's armies (I don't count the guerrala warfare in Spain as an actual challenging of the Grande Armee) is after Nappy ran, like a little baby, away fromt the cossacks. And Demetrios, a foreign army parading in one's capital is one being conquered, IMHO.

As for conquering China in one year, I will let the smily face in my original post answer that.

Russia did have significant forces in Manchuria during this period, not nearly enough to conquer every inch of China, but you must remember that during this time, a nation didn't have to conquer every single town in another nation to officialy "conquer" the other nation. I don't remember Nappy taking small towns on the Austro-Serbian border, but he conquered the Austrians. Sovourov never bothered to take every single Polish town, just Krakow, Warsaw, and maybe a few other major cities. Thus an educated guess can be made that Russia was in a position in the early 19th Century to take Bejing, Shanghai, Nanjing and other BIG cities.

As for comparing Vicky to Imperialism, point well made. I certainly hope that in Vicky a nation that conquered all of Continental Europe could not be absolutely bankrupted into submission by Great Britain. Its just not natural.

 

[HolisticGod]

Czaralex,

Er, the British and Prussians defeated Napoleon.

The Russian army never scored a victory-the Russian winter did. Starving his troops and forcing him to march back to Poland in tatters was the right decision-but it wasn't a military tactic in any way applicable to an invasion of China.

And the Japanese employed this European-style strategy of yours... It worked out just wonderfully-for the resistance. In most countries, the major cities were half or more of the battle.

China's were a quarter or less.

 

[unmerged(11089)]

Originally posted by HolisticGod
Czaralex,

Er, the British and Prussians defeated Napoleon.

The Russian army never scored a victory-the Russian winter did. Starving his troops and forcing him to march back to Poland in tatters was the right decision-but it wasn't a military tactic in any way applicable to an invasion of China.

And the Japanese employed this European-style strategy of yours... It worked out just wonderfully-for the resistance. In most countries, the major cities were half or more of the battle.

China's were a quarter or less.

HolisticGod, you want to tell me that Waterloo was the defeat of Napoleon?
This is like saying the Battle for Berlin was the defeat of Hitler, or that Hirishima and Nagasaki were the defeat of the Japaneese. This is just not right.

Take a look at this:
I get into Mike Tyson's face, and call him a dumbass, he gets very upset. I run away, and hide behind a river( wink...wink... ), lets say Tyson is afraid to challenge me in the water. Then Eveded Holifield beats the living crap out of Tyson, but Tyson is still able to crawl. When I see this, I swim accross the river and knockout Mike Tyson by a luckyshot (like, lets say as lucky as Groushi(sp?) taking a bad guide and arriving when Nappy's main force was already routing). Does this mean that I have just defeatet one of the toughest men in the world?

All this talk about Winter is redicolous in my opinion. I mean, going back to my example above, if I was to fight Mike in the Summer I would get the same result as if I fought in Winter. The reason why the Russians were able to "steamroll" Nappy and Shiklebruner was because of the bravery and patriotism of a great nation, and not because of cold weather. How long did it take the brave defenders of Paris or Warsaw or any other European national capital to come begging the Germans to stop because they surrender? And now how long did it take for the same thing to happen in Leningrad? The Russian winter was made up by the West's propaganda, they had to find some way to calm their populations about having 16 million Russians waiting to attack them at any moment. Credit should be given where it is due! Is it ok to say that the American win over Japan is not really impresive just because America has much more natural resources than Japan?

 

[HolisticGod]

Czaralex,

A culture is not made more impressive by its feats at arms. It is, though, often made less... Whether the cossacks were the mightiest race of conquerers in history and killed a thousand Frenchmen for every one of theirs or the mighty machine of the Czar was the vehicle of Ares himself is meaningless to me. This isn't about the size of your favorite army's privates.

Moreover, I've never even suggested that the Russians aren't capable warriors-to the contrary: Peter, Ivan III, Ivan IV and Stalin were tremendous military leaders. But Paul wasn't-and he didn't steamroll anyone or anything.

"The Russian winter was made up by the West's propaganda,"

I'm hardly a devotee of western propoganda. But history is history-Napoleon lost to the winter, Hitler lost to the winter, Charles XII lost to the winter. The very same way the Germans lost to Britain's island fortress and the crusaders to Saladin's superb desert logistics. Tribes and cities and nations make use of their geography, their resources, their natural advantages, and from time to time those advantages become the overwhelming factor in matters of defeat or victory.

I would even say that had Napoleon managed to resupply and defeat Paul's army again (and he would have, which is why the Russians fled), he wouldn't have been able to hold out against an eastern uprising for long. But, then, that wouldn't aid in an invasion of China either.

 

[Zagys]

Originally posted by czaralex
Take a look at this:
I get into Mike Tyson's face, and call him a dumbass, he gets very upset. I run away, and hide behind a river( wink...wink... ), lets say Tyson is afraid to challenge me in the water. Then Eveded Holifield beats the living crap out of Tyson, but Tyson is still able to crawl. When I see this, I swim accross the river and knockout Mike Tyson by a luckyshot (like, lets say as lucky as Groushi(sp?) taking a bad guide and arriving when Nappy's main force was already routing). Does this mean that I have just defeatet one of the toughest men in the world?

Do you mean Evander Holyfield is the Russian Winter, and you are the Russian Army?

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by czaralex
The point is that Russia, and Russia, alone defeated Napoleon.

Britain, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, and several defectors. The failed campaign in 1812 stopped Napoleon's advances, but the 1813 and 1814 campaigns destroyed his Empire, and these were hardly fought by Russia alone. IIRC, of the three Coalition armies fighting in Germany in 1813, none were led by a Russian.

The only time that the Brits felt "safe" enough to actually face off against Napoleon's armies (I don't count the guerrala warfare in Spain as an actual challenging of the Grande Armee) is after Nappy ran, like a little baby, away fromt the cossacks. And Demetrios, a foreign army parading in one's capital is one being conquered, IMHO.

You might want to pay a bit more attention to the fighting of the British and Portuguese armies against France before 1812, leading to the liberation of Madrid in 1812 when some of the French troops had to be withdrawn because of the Russian invasion and ending in the capture of Toulouse. The British and Portuguese never fought a guerrilla war. Even the Spanish eventually contributed soldiers to the British-Portuguese army.