World At War. Cossack AARmageddon

[Zardnaar]

This is my latest attempt at an AAR. I haven't seen to many Armageddon AARs here.

Don River

Armageddon 1.3
Normal Difficulty
Cossacks Armageddon scenario.

I haven't really played the Armgeddon scenario before so I don't really know what it will be like. I'll be at war with all my neighbours right from the start of the game. I have played about half an hour with the Cossacks before which was long enough to have a look at their tech teams and play 3-4 months. I have no grand strategy. In addition to being surrounded the Cossacks have resource shortages. To make that worse you can't really trade with any of your allies as the trade is about 3-5% effective. The goals

1. Survive
2. Link up with Allies
3. Crush an AI team
4. Have fun

Odds are this will not be a world conques game I will probably get to a point where I have the game won but it will take hours to finish it up.

In addition since I ave no grand strategy I'm very recptive to any ideas and suggestions if you have any. No promises I'll carry them out but I'll at least ry if its not a suicidal idea and I can spare some forces.

1st impressions and thoughts. Sincie I have only played for half an hour as the Cossacks (didn't save that game) here are some basic thoughts.

Advantages.
1. Good borders on your empire. You have the Volga, Danube and Dnieper rivers to defend. in the south you have the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains
2. Good location for attacking Europe
3. The game starts in January 36 and its winter in the north. I'll more or less defend until it thaws out.

Disadvantages
1. Resource shortages
2. Cut of from allies
3. Surrounded by the Ottomans, Roma, Persia, Prussia and Russia and I'm at war with all of them.
4. Nice flat country for invaders.
5. More than a few mountains to fight through if I want to expand.

The Cossacks seem to have reasonable tech teams in relation to everyone else in the game (I checked most of the others teams tech teams). Not as good as the best ones, but alot better than most countries in a normal HoI2 game.

Also all the teams seem to have 1918 equipment and no doctrines researched. I expect at the start more than a few fights are going to be very back and forth and slow. I plan to defend my borders very aggressively. Since I'm the cossacks I'll have to build cavalry as its mandatory. I'll defend my way to victory or death. The Dniepr-Volga Ukraine area is the heartland of the Empire. I'll try to hold it or fall back to the Don if I must. Rather than cover every fight I'll probably show pictures of important campaigns. IE Capture Moscow, defend Kiev or whatever. I'll try and post the more important ones of victories/defeats. I won't cover every battle and will probably miss weeks or months at a time espicially early on.

 

[Zardnaar]

The mighty empire. Surrounded on all sides

Some excelent teams there.

The only spare infantry not defending the borders somewhere.

Resource shortages once production is started. I would like to change ministers to +25% manpower and -15% supplies but need the construction speed bonus and +15% def bonus ATM.

Krushev orders X20 militia, X10 INf, X6 Cav to defend the empire.

 

[midget_roxx]

Hey this looks interesting. I too have never seen an Armegeddon AAR. From experience though expect Prussia to collapse within the year, Russia will be beaten back, Ottomans and Roma will give you a hard time and Iran varies.

Just hold and spam INF xD

 

[Mico94]

wow, you make AARs like mad, sir!
good luck

 

[volksmarschall]

Looks interesting so far, I shall follow!

Good luck!

 

[unmerged(129995)]

Tip: use your ARM to hack through Prussia ASAP and get to Sweden, once you've linked up with an ally things get a LOT easier.

 

[unmerged(174159)]

Yeah, I saw that map and thought 'right thats the 3 prov corridor you need to run with.'

 

[Zardnaar]

Thanx everyone for showing up and posting.

great_chairman thats the plan but it may have to wait a few months. I may actually run out of resoures befopre my armor can even get near the front line and I don't have the techs to strat redeploy anything.

The Russian front. Frozen up tight.

 

[Zardnaar]

Weeks had passed and the Cossack nation was holding its own. A Russian assault across the Volga had been repulsed and hastily formed militia units had taken postion along the rivers great banks and reinforced those forces in the Balkens. The great freeze still had northen Europe in its grip which suited the Cossacks fine. Some limited skirmishing against the Russian had taken place and some border provinces had been lost and retaken a few times.

In the South where it was warm the Cossacks had advanced into the lands of the Ottomans. Varna and Istanbul energy sources had help out, while attacks threw back the forces of the Turks and Roma.

New mlitia had also arrived and moved into postion. They would be invaluable to holding defensive lines in the mountians.

The cabinet was reasonably happy so far

Once the borders were secure Krushchev thought it would be safe to reassing some ministers who while seful to ave now long term they wouldn't be needed as much. On the sacred great plains a mighty host was forming. Come summer the steppes would hear the sound of thunder as the horse men charged the lines. Like the Sythians before them the cavalry would ride to GLORY. The southern ports captured had drastically helped out potential trades in the future but any imports would still be ineffiecient and lose almost half of their value due to naval interception.

 

[son of liberty]

Hints from my arm games. Don't bother with ic techs or ministers until you secure more resources. Cav/art rule in flat lands. Rush Cav III. Spam militia to hold the line(you are doing that ). Limit your builds and hoard resources, build at slightly lower than sustainable levels. Any research minister is first priority here. Slightly higher tech will win the game for you. Germany's tech tree is the army doctrine to use in this game(again you are doing that). Mtn/eng rule until 39/40, by then the game is over. On the oceans, rush sub IV. Until doctrines catch up, they will rule the seas.

 

[Zardnaar]

I was planning on going down the human wave tree as thats what my doctrine research team is good at. Same for sea lane interdictions. Subs III and IV were going to be rushed but I'll have to break out of the Black sea to use them. After the industrial techs are done I was going to aim for artillery, mountaineers and horsies. I think I can probably win anyway so I'm not to concerned about being the most efficient. As a nice change I wouldn't mind a hard game of having to defend the homeland but I'm planning a summer offensive. See what happens. I actually realised later I should have researched 36 mnt over 36 inf but I was paranoid about getting attacked once the snow melts.

 

[Zardnaar]

The thaw was starting. While mud still clogged the roads the Russians were starteing to press attacks against coassack defenses. Occasionally they would break through. In the event they managed to make it across the Volga immediate counterattacks were ordered to keep them in their place.

Meanwhile further south cossack advances had mad deep inroads into the Ottoman lands. Enemy reinforcements eventually brought the advance to a halt. With the thaw coming it is likely the Cossack forces will fall back to the mountains and defend as reinforcements are needed in the north against expected Prusian and Russian attacks. New divisions for the host were expected soon for the summer offensive aimed at linking up with our Swedish Allies.

 

[Zardnaar]

Cossack summer offensive links up with the Swedes. The Balken and Prussian fronts remain more or less stable for now. Assaults on Moscow fail and some Russian counter attacks force some "advances" south.

New technologies are researched. Great War artillery is still being used by "modern" armies.

 

[midget_roxx]

Looks like it's GG already xD. If you really want a hard game I suggest European Soveits or even harder Australisia. Both have massive Manpower problems, especially Australasia.

Russia takes forever to destroy so I say go for Prussia, hold the Straights of Turkey (whatever they're called) and slowly advance into Roma.

 

[Zardnaar]

How is it GG? Managed to survive the first few months? Australasia seems to have the same MP as the Cossacks and they still get to start with 1000

 

[HMAS-Nameless]

I'd love to see the results of an arma game I personally suck at the Abyss and Armaggeddon scenarios/

 

[Khalep]

How is it GG? Managed to survive the first few months? Australasia seems to have the same MP as the Cossacks and they still get to start with 1000

You don't get manpower from overseas territories (overseas from where your capital is located), so these two island states are somewhat limited in this respect.

Also, nice AAR, original.

 

[Zardnaar]

I see. I've been playing games as New Zealand and Lithuania so Australasia and European Fascists gets copious amopunts of men in comparison.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unfortionately for the Cossacks, they weren't the only ones with an idea of a summer offensive. Anticipating the Prussians would be busy on other fronts a stonger than expected assault advances on Kiev. Immediate couter attacks are ordered and new Cossack horsemen units are deployed to the front immediately.

To the east Russian forces don't seem t be putting up much of a fight as our forces advance over the Volga. They even manage to encircle a couple of Russian divisions.

 

[Zardnaar]

Prussian armor doesn't retreat fast enough and gets cut off and encircled.

The Russian capital is surrounded which might have something to do with their troops lacklustre performance. Russian forces manage to break out in the wrong direction, leaving Moscow vulnerable.