The Great War 1914-1916

 

As promised here is the update no one is waiting for on the progress of our Paths of Glory WW1 grand strategy game.  We've been progressing slowly... a turn seems to take us over an hour and I usually have a headache from juggling all the possibilities and limited resources (It's a bit like being at work!) so we've been playing a round or so on occasional days and leaving the game set up.  

We've now reached the beginning of 1916.  1915 was a busy year...

Early in 1915 Callum's combined German and Austro-Hungarian armies managed to encircle several Russian armies, placing them out of supply.  One of these was down to me overextending my lines and the other due to not paying attention (too much vodka and caviar!).  I desperately tried to break through to relieve them but couldn't do it and they were all permanently destroyed...disaster!  Luckily although the Russians are a bit rubbish, they get lots of reinforcements...just as well really!

The Bulgarians and the Serbs decide to ignore the war and each other

Next Bulgaria and Italy entered the the war.  I'm not sure this really helped either of us as it just meant more rather weedy troops to try and mobilise with the same number of Ops Points.  So far little has happened on the Italian front

Northern Italy

I managed to deploy the Russian Caucuses army into the Middle East although neither  of us could see the point of trying to fight in that theatre... there seems little to be gained for a lot of effort and it could become a distracting sideshow (but this may have been a mistake).

The Germans redeployed some of their armies from the East to the West and to guard the Italian border.  Mata Hari had used her fiendish Dutch wiles on someone from Allied High Command to reveal my hand of cards and so Callum knew Italy was due to enter the war soon.

By the end of 1915 Italy was proving a minor sideshow with little happening.  Still nothing happening at all in the Middle East.  

On the Western Front it certainly wasn't all quiet as a series of pointless attacks caused heavy casualties on both sides, made no progress and then had reinforcements being fed into the mincer so we could do it all again... just like the real thing! 

I had the option to bring Romania into the war but didn't really see the point... they only have a few Corps to deploy and keeping them neutral protects Russia's southern flank.

At this point we both ran out of steam.  Neither of us were really enthused to carry on and after leaving it for a couple of days we've decided to declare a cessation of hostilities.  The game was interesting and works well in recreating the frustrations of the static western front and the fluid, mobile east.  The problem was that it was all becoming a bit repetitive:  build-up, attack, losers retreat and attackers decline to follow up (we learned early on that salients are bad places to find yourself in), reinforce , and repeat....

With hindsight we might have done a few things differently.  We both found ourselves getting drawn into turns where we just reacted to each other's moves rather than pursuing any kind of grand strategy (ha!... as if I actually had a strategy!!).  We'd also ignored the 'sideshow theatres of the Middle East and Italy and, although these may not contribute much strategically, they do increase the general war effort which allows new cards to be brought into play.  For the Allies this could mean the  USA entering the war and could enable the Central Powers to force Russia to withdraw due to revolution, both potentially game changers.  

I think we'll play it again at some point but for now it's packed up and we'll try something less demanding in time and brainpower instead.