Russian Swamps are worse than Cossacks

[Gargoyle]

As Prussia, I took a few small countries and took Kiel from Denmark. My land Dominance was 42% and sea 14%. France was Dominant Land, no Dominant Sea (England at 84%). I am not in a Coalition.

I figured that if I can get my Land Dominance to 100%, I might be able to form my only Coalition, maybe get Britian into it. So I invaded Russia just after the French did (I gave them Military movement rights thru Prussia). While they took some northern provinces, I took 2 Land Dominance victory provinces (Konvo, and one starting with a "B"), plus attache a Naval Dominance Port (starts with a "V").

My Land Dominance went to 72%. I have faced and defeated all Russian counterattacks. It is now May of 1809, I have spread my 10armies in Russia to as thin as 4k to 6k per province (using March to the Guns). I am still suffering 7% attrition. I believe this is due to most these province being Marsh (-100%)?

Anyway, my manpower at the start of the war was about 70k, it is now down to 29k and the tooltip say I need 41k to reinforce my armies. WTH, I am going to have to abandon my invason basically because of some misquitoes? Sheesh, this is harsh, not just in winter, but year round.

 

[unmerged(105998)]

Ye, Napoleons army suffered greatly from attrition during their ENTIRE russian campaign, not just during the withdrawal in autumn/winter.

 

[Thanik]

Look what tooltip say about attriction (hover mouse at number), and you will see reason.


Edit: all desert, swamp, mountains and less civilized regions have these same issue: no enough food to forage to troops. And when you add hostile people you have simple formula to disaster

 

[Naveed]

Probably you'll be able to get some sort of peace out of them before long, as long as you've beat their army.

It helps a lot if you assault the smaller towns (the ones with only 1000 garrison no fort). They can be won with few casualties if you use a 15k stack.

 

[Alomoes]

I had a massive army twice as big as the Russians, 800k, but not any more. All because of attrition. We eventually white peaced. The Russians quickly built a really strong army and centralized their forces up north. I split my army up because I did not want the Russians to swoop south and surround my army. I had ended the war with 0/800k manpower left and 200k troops.

 

[Unkles27]

As Prussia, I took a few small countries and took Kiel from Denmark. My land Dominance was 42% and sea 14%. France was Dominant Land, no Dominant Sea (England at 84%). I am not in a Coalition.

I figured that if I can get my Land Dominance to 100%, I might be able to form my only Coalition, maybe get Britian into it. So I invaded Russia just after the French did (I gave them Military movement rights thru Prussia). While they took some northern provinces, I took 2 Land Dominance victory provinces (Konvo, and one starting with a "B"), plus attache a Naval Dominance Port (starts with a "V").

My Land Dominance went to 72%. I have faced and defeated all Russian counterattacks. It is now May of 1809, I have spread my 10armies in Russia to as thin as 4k to 6k per province (using March to the Guns). I am still suffering 7% attrition. I believe this is due to most these province being Marsh (-100%)?

Anyway, my manpower at the start of the war was about 70k, it is now down to 29k and the tooltip say I need 41k to reinforce my armies. WTH, I am going to have to abandon my invason basically because of some misquitoes? Sheesh, this is harsh, not just in winter, but year round.

I was annoyed with this at first, but it I think it is pretty realistic. I was in the same situation as you, the Russians attacked me as Prussia, I destroyed them and then started a counter-invasion thinking I could quickly take some provinces. I was wrong, the Russians still had something like 500,000 manpower and 100% war capacity to my 40% and had no desire to make peace despite my 50% warscore. My troops in Russia were taking a lot of attrition so I pulled back into Prussia. I set up behind the rivers that separate Russia and Prussia and let the Russians retake everything I had gained, then destroyed them again when they tried to cross my border. This time they had no manpower reserves, and their war-weariness skyrocketed and war capacity plummeted, so I invaded a second time, movely quickly and assaulting whenever possible to try and keep attrition limited and managed to get nearly all of my naval and land dominance objectives from them in one go.

Moral of the story, don't try to invade Russia until you have thoroughly crushed their will to fight and they are willing to accept peace. Otherwise you are just exposing yourself to attrition and draining your manpower.

 

[nalivayko]

I've just posted about Russian marshes on Reddit. People tend to think that the greatest Russian ally is "General Winter". Mud and the lack of decent roads defeated the only "recent" conquerors of Russia - the Mongols - on their way to Novgorod. General Winter usually mops up what the General Fall(c) has wrought. Do not underestimate Russian marshes, give them due credit and do not "start a land war in Russia", if you are planning to win the game with Prussia France has a chance, this is only a game, after all.

 

[deadmeat1471]

I need to invade Russia. For the Lulz.