Commander: The Great War AAR

[Lord Zimoa]

Note: This AAR is taken from a Beta version of Commander: The Great War.

Wilkommen!

With the permission of the Lordz, it's time to share with the wargaming public some of the fun that the beta testers have been having. In this AAR, I will introduce you all to the basics of playing CTGW, and take you with me on my quest to tackle the AI on the hardest difficulty level, privileged. I should note that I've decided not to use HUGE pics, as it would require people reading this AAR on small monitors or laptops to have to scroll a lot to see the entire picture. Sorry guys with big monitors. I'll have the action zoomed in most of the time, so the pics should show up well once we get into the action.

Alright, alright. Let's start up the game and select our display settings. It's important to note one thing, here. If you choose to play at your monitor's native resolution, you must put a check mark in the "Fullscreen" box. If you try to play CTGW in windowed mode at your monitor's native resolution, it will not work correctly. My monitor's native resolution is 1920x1200, but since I want to play in windowed mode, I select 1680x1050 resolution.

To emphasize the point, if I had chosen to play at 1920x1200 resolution, I would have had to put a check box in the "Fullscreen" box. But since I chose 1680x1050, I'm good with playing in windowed mode.







After selecting the display resolution, I now have a choice to select a single player game or a multi-player game. Since I've chosen a single-player game against the AI, I'm presented with the screen below. In here, you can see that I've selected the 1914 campaign -the entire "Great War"- fighting as the Central Powers against the "Privileged" AI, the most difficult setting. As you can see, there are campaigns starting out on each year of WWI. On this screen I can read a historical briefing of the campaign, or choose the "video" button to get ...you guessed it...a video presentation of the campaign.

In this screen, I may also select to enable tutorial messages, which provide valuable help on how to play the game. Since I'm helping you with that in this AAR, this will not be necessary.






Alright, after reading the briefing or watching the video, let's click on the LAUNCH button to start the campaign!

Now we see the main campaign screen, where we will play the game. From this screen, we can read and listen to the campaign briefing. To advance to the next screen, click on the red carrot that I've surrounded in yellow. After you've read and listened to all four pages, you may click the START GAME button.





And here's the beginning of the 1914 campaign, starting on 7/23/1914. This is turn one out of a possible 118 turns. I don't intend to let the war drag on that long, however. The glorious Central Powers must prevail and bend the Entente alliance to our will!



Notice that the counters are in attractive sprites. Nice, but I'm a more traditional wargamer, so I'd rather play with counters using NATO symbols. So, in order to accomplish this, I click on the MENU button, and select DISPLAY OPTIONS, where I select ENABLE UNIT COUNTERS. To add greater visibility, I also select to ENABLE HEX GRID and ENABLE UNIT GLOW, which makes units stand out more from the background. I will explain the other display settings as we progress through the game.





Now that we've got the display settings to our liking, let's select the CLOSE button and head back to the game screen. My next post will describe more of the user interface.

Before we do any real fighting, let's talk a little about the main user interface, shown below.

PP- Production Points are the currency and lifeblood of CTGW. You will use PP for building units, producing more ammo, building more research labs, etc. To do almost anything in CTGW, it costs PP.
MP- Manpower is your pool of men available to recruit for service in your armies. Building units uses up MP, and you must be careful not to deplete your MP too far. The magic number to stay above is 70% of the original level.
AM- Ammo is influenced by your ammo production. You can spend PP to increase your ammo production. Ammo is used up by Artillery units firing barrages and by Battleships when they bombard land units.
RC- Railroad Capacity is used to transport units rapidly across vast ranges of the map. The number of units you can move via RC is limited per turn, however. You can expand RC by using PP(I see a recurring theme here!).
TC- Transport Capacity is used to transport units via naval transports to any non-neutral hex. TC is limited and may be increased by expending PP. This is WWI afterall, so don't expect to perform any huge "Overlord" type of landings.
NM- National Morale represents how your people feel about the general progress of the war. If the enemy captures your cities or sinks your Battleship units(what would the King say!), your country's NM will suffer accordingly. If it reaches zero, your country surrenders. Don't let this happen, it's bad for morale.

Below the mini-map and above the MENU button, you'll find three buttons:

Repair Mode- You will use this button a lot. Like WWI, CTGW is very bloody, and casualties are high. As your units' strength is reduced through combat, you can repair them by activating this mode. It will cost you in PP and MP, of course.
Upgrade Mode- After your research labs have completed researching a particular tech(Chlorine Gas, for instance), you may upgrade units by activating this mode. Basically, upgrading units gives them combat bonuses and better stats.
Disband Mode- If your Production Points(PP) balance is in the red, or you can't sustain the upkeep costs of all those units, you may choose to disband some units. You will gain back some(or all) of the PP and MP is cost to originally produce the unit. Disbanding can also come in handy if you're rolling in PP and you'd like to trade in your boring Garrison units for that shiny new Tank that just rolled off the assembly line. It's all up to you, Commander.

End Turn - This button - Surprise! - ends your turn and begins the AI's turn. You should probably save your game before clicking this button.







Now, let's check out the SELECTION tab more closely. In the pic below, I've selected one of my Austro-Hungarian Infantry units. As you can see, there is a lot of information in this SELECTION tab. On the left is the Unit panel, where we can see that this unit is an Infantry unit, it's of Austro-Hungarian nationality and it's a level one unit. No surprise there, since we're at the beginning of the game. Notice in the upper-right hand corner of the unit panel is a button that opens up a more detailed unit information panel when clicked. We'll do that shortly in order to look more closely at the unit's stats.

To the right of the unit panel is the Stats panel, where the unit's combat stats are located. These stats are used to determine the combat results when attacking or defending against enemy units. We will look at these stats in detail once we open up the unit info panel.

Next up is the Hex Terrain panel. This shows what type of terrain is in the selected hex. As you can see, this hex has a terrain type of "Rough". Notice that this panel also has an info button on the upper-right corner of it. We'll soon be visiting this panel to get a closer look at this hex's stats. For now, Let's talk about the two spheres on the bottom of this panel. The one on the left indicates the current owner of the hex. The one on the right indicates the original owner of the hex. This particular hex is currently owned and was originally owned by Austria. As my game progresses, I intend to see a lot of hexes which have the German, Austro-Hungarian or Turkish flags on the left, and the French, Serbian, Russian or British flags on the right.







Alright, I've clicked on the "Open Unit Info" button on the Unit panel, and here we get more detailed information about the unit. The attributes are the same that appeared next to the unit panel in the previous pic, but there is additional information at the very bottom.

Top Row, from left to right:

Base Defense- Defensive value used when in combat with another unit of the same type(e.g. Infantry vs. Infantry)
High Defense- Defensive value used when in combat with a unit of a different type(e.g. Infantry vs. Fighter)
Quality- Initially, all units produced at the beginning of the game are at quality 10. But if your MP dips to below 70%, units produced after than happens will be of quality 8. Since a unit's max efficiency value is equal to its quality value, this is extremely important. Units with a quality level of 8 are going to fight poorly. In case this hasn't sunk in yet... don't let your MP drop below 70% of its original value!. Or at the very least, try to postpone that from happening for as long as possible. Try to get the most out of the fewest units. There is also another level of quality, level 6, which is reached when your MP dips below 30% of the original value. Units with a quality of 6 are going to be poor fighters, indeed.

Second Row, from left to right:

Ground Attack- Attack value used when attacking ground units.
Air Attack- Used when attacking air units, including dirigibles.
Naval Attack- Used when attacking naval units.
Armor Piercing- An attack bonus added to a unit's ground attack when fighting armored units.
Movement Points- The distance a unit can move per turn. The actual number of hexes a unit can move through depends on the terrain of each hex, and enemy zone-of-control(ZOC).

Third Row, from left to right:

Shock- Damage enemy efficiency when attacking(e.g. value of 2= 2 points of damage to the enemy unit's efficiency value).
Assault- Negates enemy entrenchment value during attack calculation.
Ammo- Amount of ammunition required to execute an attack.
Strategic Attack- Amount of damage done to city production.
Line of Sight- Determines the size of the area revealed in the Fog of War(FoW) around a unit.

The bottom row(with a lovely cyan box around it) contains very important information:

PP needed to build the unit.
MP needed to build the unit.
PP upkeep cost(per turn).
Turns to complete.





If you click on the "Information" tab on this screen, you can read some useful information on how each unit may be used within the game.





Next, we take a look at the terrain values for each hex. This is very important information. The combat prognosis and results in CTGW are heavily influenced by the terrain values. Woe to the Commander who neglects to study the terrain when choosing where to fight.

Combat Effects:

Attacker Defense Bonus- Bonus awarded to the attacker for fighting in this hex.
Defender Defense Bonus- Bonus awarded to the defender when fighting in this hex.
Terrain Entrenchment Level- The higher the better for the defender. If you are the attacker, you want to see a low number here. If you see a high number, don't be surprised if the combat prognosis for your attack is poor.

Movement Costs:

Movement costs to foot, mounted, wheeled, tracked and rail units.




Finally, if we click the information tab, we can read useful information about terrain and its use in CTGW.




Alright, that's enough education on the interface for now, let's get this campaign rolling. It's time to kick some Entente butt!


As Commander of the Central Powers, I will start the war with Austria-Hungary trying to subdue the impudent Serbs. As time goes on, the other powers will get dragged into the war. In the pic below, I'm faced with a real dilemma. Most of my units are in southern Austria, near the Serbian border. In the north, I have a single lonely garrison unit fortified in the once great citadel of Przemysl. As much as I'd like to, I can't leave that single unit alone on the Russo-Austrian border for long. The Russian bear is going to join the war as an enemy, and that bear is going to be hungry.

That being said, I'm going to try to focus on knocking Serbia out of the war as soon as possible. The Serbian terrain is going to make this difficult, as are the tough Serbian defenders. I'm going to want to produce an Artillery unit as soon as feasible in order to help crack the Serbian nut. But right now, all I have is my Infantry and Garrison units, so it's time to start moving them to the Serbian border.

When I left-click on my Garrison unit in Budapest, you can see that the white hexes with the dot inside them represent where my unit may move to in this turn, using regular movement. The White hexes with the train symbol represents where my unit may move to if I choose to expend a rail point for this turn. My RC, or Rail Capacity, is a whopping one point, so I can only move one unit per turn. I also cannot save points to use during the next turn. If I don't use it each turn, I lose it. I'm gonna use it!

Also note that Budapest is a Capital city, denoted by a Star symbol on the map, and the capital picture in the terrain hex panel on the user interface. Capital cities are extremely important for a couple of reasons. First, you have to have at least one capital city in order to produce units. Second, the capital cities usually contain the greatest PP value. If the enemy captures my capital cities, I'm going to be out a large amount of PP, and my National Morale(NM) is going to plummet. Not good!





If I press the spacebar, the units disappear and I can see what each of my cities' PP value is. Pretty neat! Even better, I can also see what my enemy's cities are worth. If I capture an enemy city, I gain 50% of their PP value, and the enemy loses 100% of it.






The pic below shows where my land units ended up after movement. I used the hot pink dotted line to show how my Garrison unit was railed from Budapest down to just NW of Cattaro. I used a cyan dotted line to show that my Cruiser unit has steamed down the Adriatic to block the entrance to it. If any Entente ships plan on playing in the Adriatic, they're going to have to defeat my Cruiser unit, first.

What I really wanted to point out in this pic are those green dots on the water. Those represent my "home waters", and my ships fight with a bonus in these hexes. There are three colors of dots for water hexes:

Green- My ships fight with a bonus
White- My ships fight with no bonuses or penalties
Red- My ships fight with a penalty. Not recommended!






This snapshot shows my Battleship after I've moved it down to the hex just west of Cetinje. Since I can attack after moving(but not the other way around!)I want to bombard the Serbian Garrison unit there with my Battleship. So with my Battleship unit selected, I placed my mouse cursor over the enemy unit. Ah nuts! I can't attack because I'm short of ammo. See that red -6? That means it takes 6 ammo to attack, and my ammo supply is only 5. Bummer, it'll have to wait until next turn.






The final screenshot of my turn is devoted to those small spheres that are attached to the unit counters. The sphere will either be not shaded, half-shaded, or fully-shaded:

Not shaded- The unit still has all its movement points, and may move or attack(or both!) this turn.
Half-shaded- The unit has already moved, but can still perform an attack during this turn.
Fully-shaded- The unit is out of movement points. It has either moved via rail(as is the case here), or moved then attacked, or simply attacked another unit.

Remember, you may move a unit, then still perform an attack. But you cannot move a unit after it performs an attack.


Coming up next post, is the AI turn...

I forgot to finish my turn the last time, so before I let the AI have its fun, I'm going to show you how to produce units. It's very easy. Before I took this pic below, I simply clicked on the PRODUCTION tab on the user interface.

In the production panel, every unit that's displayed on the right is available for construction...assuming that I have enough Production Points(PP) and Manpower Points(MP). I can click on units that interest me, and they will pop up in the panel on the left, where I can study them and see whether I can afford them. Since we're at the beginning of the war, I need boots on the ground. I've decided on an Infantry unit and have clicked on it. In the panel on the left, you can see that I have the familiar Stats and Info tabs, which contain information that helps me decide upon purchase.

The important fields on this screen are up at the top, which I've surrounded in yellow. On the left, in white, we see that I have 30 PP, 1200 MP and 5 Ammo(AM). Just to the right, in green, we see that I'm making a surplus of +46 of PP per turn and my ammo production is +4 per turn. Notice that Manpower is neither in green(surplus) or red(deficit). That's because Manpower generally never increases. It almost always decreases continually as you produce units.

Right, so we think we're in fat city because we have +46 surplus in PPs. Let me warn you that you should always keep an eye on this, because it can go down in a hurry.

The other thing I wanted to point out is the stats section that I've surrounded in cyan at the bottom. It's the same information found in the detailed unit info panel.

I'm now going to click on the PURCHASE button, because I definitely want to start building my Infantry unit. Since I have 30 PP and the Infantry unit costs 20 PP, I can afford to buy it.






And now, as shown below, my purchase Infantry unit has arrived in the production queue, which I've surrounded in hot pink. The 3 on the bottom right of the counter means that this unit will be available for deployment in 3 turns. Notice the part in yellow, which shows that my PP has been reduced 20 to 10 PP, and my +46 surplus per turn has been reduced to +42. That's because the upkeep per turn is 4 PP. The part surrounded in cyan shows that I can't afford to buy another Infantry unit. Since I only have 10 PP, I'm going to have to wait until next turn. The text turns orange to remind me that I don't have the necessary funds buy another Infantry unit.

Take a look at the RailRoad Gun, which is encircled in red. The reason it has a lock symbol is because before I can build one, the required technologies have to be researched first. Alas, maybe someday I will be able to rain terror on the Entente from my railroads!


Alright, that's all I can do this turn, so let's hit the END TURN button and see what the AI does!

The AI attacks my Garrison unit in Sarajevo, and inflicts -1 damage to my garrison. Notice the smoke billowing up from Sarajevo, and the solid red arrow that shows us which direction the attack came from. I had to be quick on the keyboard to grab this screenshot, which was accomplished by the keystrokes ctl-p.





After the AI was done, we see this screen, which will become very familiar to you. It's the turn report screen. It shows you any important events that occurred during that turn, any technological achievements and any units that completed production. We had a boring turn 1, if you can call the start of the First World War boring. :wink:





My Infantry unit North of Belgrade can reach that capital city this turn, but the city itself it in the dark shaded part of the map. This is called the Fog-of-War(FoW). I don't know if there's an enemy unit defending Belgrade, but those 8 juicy PP points that Serbia would lose if I captured it, is too tempting to pass up. So, I click on Belgrade and send my Infantry unit in their quest to capture it.





Gah! There was a Serbian Infantry unit protecting Belgrade after all. My infantry unit can move and attack in its turn, but if I attack after moving, I attack at reduced effectiveness. It's not a huge difference, but it can make the difference between victory and defeat in battle.





With my Infantry unit selected, I can hover my mouse over that Serbian Infantry unit in Belgrade. This will show the "Combat Prognosis", which is an estimate of what will happen if I decide to actually perform the attack. Let's study this in more detail. At the bottom of the pic, the area surrounded in yellow shows all we need to know. We see that we have a level 1 Austro-Hungarian Infantry unit attacking a level 1 Serbian Infantry unit. The area surrounded in cyan shows the actual prognosis. Since I selected the option to show casualties instead of kills in the display options, the number in red represents what damage may occur to my unit if I attack. The number in green represents the estimate of the casualties I'll cause to the enemy.

So, we see that if I choose to attack, I stand to lose a possible 4 strength to my Infantry unit, while doing only 1 damage to the enemy. Below those numbers, the small numbers next to the battery symbol represents damage done to each unit's efficiency if this combat occurs. Remember, this is only an estimate, and the combat could turn out differently. But in my experience, it's generally an accurate estimate.

Also, notice that the stats next to the combat prognosis are part of the equation used to determine that prognosis. Additionally, the little bridge symbol surrounded in hot pink tells us that the Serbian defender has a defensive bonus because I'm attacking across a river. I don't feel like performing a suicide attack, and to me -4 damage to my Infantry unit is too much to risk. Therefore, I will not attack.




I've moved the rest of my units to the Serbian border, but I choose not to make any attacks at this time. Notice the Garrison unit with the gold strength number of 10. This means that this unit's Efficiency level has dropped to 7 or possibly as low as 4.

Here's a breakdown of what the strength colors mean, with regard to the units Efficiency:

White= 10-8 Efficiency. The unit is in good shape, and should be more or less fit and ready to move or do battle.
Gold= 7-4 Efficiency. The unit is tired and needs a rest. Do not engage in combat or move, unless absolutely necessary.
Red= 3-0 Efficiency. The unit is practically dead on its feet. Very vulnerable to being destroyed, and should be moved out of harm's way and given an extended rest.

Any unit, even at strength 10, is easy pickings in combat if its efficiency is low. So, if you see an enemy unit with a red strength number, attack and kill it! Similarly, if you have a unit whose efficiency is below 3, making its strength number turn red, move that unit out of harm's way immediately or the AI will destroy it in no time flat. The AI is ruthless in destroying weak units left in or near the front line.

The difference between STRENGTH and EFFICIENCY can be confusing. In a nutshell:

STRENGTH = Number of troops.
EFFICIENCY = Their energy, cohesion and fitness for battle.

So, a unit strong in numbers but very weak in efficiency can be easily destroyed in combat.




Sure enough, selecting that unit shows that its efficiency has dropped to 7. This is probably caused by the rail movement, followed immediately by a foot march. Apparently my troops are tired. Poor lads. The good news is that if I don't move or attack with this unit for two turns, it will regain up to 5 Efficiency points back, which will put those boys back in fine fettle, ready for battle. If I choose to continue to move that unit, or attack with it, its Efficiency will drop even further, reducing its effectiveness in combat.




Remember my Garrison unit defending Sarajevo that took -1 damage in the AI's attack? I want to repair it because having your units as close to 10 strength is important. The lower the strength of a unit, the easier it is to damage it in subsequent attacks. So, I click on the REPAIR button or press R on the keyboard. This enables the REPAIR mode. Notice that my cursor has changed to a crescent wrench symbol? Oh, sorry. For you British folks out there, I believe that's what you call an "adjustable spanner".

Also, the units able to be repaired are highlighted with a white oval. So I hover my wrench cursor and I get a display above it, that shows that if I repair this unit, it will gain 1 strength point back, at a cost of 2 PP and 1 MP. This sounds reasonable to me, so I click on the unit to repair it. My unit becomes repaired and is back to full strength.




Before I end my turn, I will go back into the PRODUCTION tab and see what units I want to start building this turn. I had 49 PP this turn, but since I spent 2 PP repairing that Garrison unit, I now have 47 left. I decide to purchase another 2 Infantry Units for 40 PP. You can see that they've already been added to the production queue, and that the first unit I purchased last turn will be available in 2 turns.




That's it for my turn 2. Eventually, we will have enough PP to invest in building some research labs to increase our research output, but for now, every PP I can muster is going to go towards putting AH boots on the ground. I need to plan ahead because the Russians won't stay neutral for long. I'm going to need those units on my Northern border.

Next up: AI Turn 2!

[Lord Zimoa]

If you are interested by the above AAR, please continue reading here:


http://www.slitherine.com/forum/view...?f=131&t=38749



Cheers,

Tim aka LZ

[Lord Zimoa]

Some more good Commander: The Great War After Action Reports (AAR)

We suggest these:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3214219
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/view...?f=131&t=38749
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3213033
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/view...?f=131&t=38894