In keeping with my on-going WWI theme, I've launched a grand campaign of Supreme Commander- World War I: Breakthrough! I'm playing as the Central Powers. SC- WWI is an easy game to play, and a decent representation of WWI strategic warfare at a somewhat abstracted level.
Here's the situation as of August 15th, 1914:
As happened historically, I've opened the war with an Austro-Hungarian advance on Belgrade. Four Corps assault the city, and one more advances from Sarajevo on the Serbian town of Uzice.
I've decided to deploy the AH Second Army to the Galician Front rather than Serbia. I'm concerned that the Russian attack there will be too heavy for my northern army group to stop. That's left me with forces on the Serbian Front that aren't appreciably stronger than the Serbian Army.
On the Western Front I've deployed the German II Army historically as part of the the Schlieffen Plan, rather than using them to reinforce Prussia. My initial attacks have overrun Luxembourg and Liege, mostly encircled Brussels and are threatening Antwerp, Verdun, Mons, and Maubeuge. The French have declined to launch any offensives against Metz and Strasbourg as actually happened in 1914. I've kept the armies on my left on the defensive, but it may be worth launching an assault on Belfort to try and wear down French National Morale.
I'm seeing substantial Russian forces concentrating on the Galician Front. The Russians are advancing along two paths; one from the east through the Galician Oilfields and one from the north, both moving toward the fortress of Lemberg. Lemberg, along with Przemysl are the Austro-Hungarian National Morale objectives on this front. I plan on using newly mobilized AH forces along with the 2nd Army to firm up the defensive line from Stanislaw to Tarnow and hopefully hold on to the fortresses.
In East Prussia, the Russian First Army has moved on Gumbinnen and been stopped by three Korps of the German 8th Army. An event has let me bring von Hindenburg out of retirement and pair him with Lundendorf. I've dug in a fourth Korps south of Konigsburg to help repel any Russian drive on the city as I wait for reserve Korps to be activated to reinforce my position. It also looks like a Russian attack is shaping on Memel. I expect to lose the town if attacked there; I don't have the strength at this point to stop the Russians.
I'm also going to play the Grand Campaign in AGEOD's World War One Gold to contrast the two approaches to simulating WWI on the Grand Strategic scale. Both are enjoyable games, but very different in how they play. It's great to have so many interesting WWI games available now. For a long time wargamers have seen this conflict as static and boring, particularly after the initial movement phase of 1914. These games prove that on the strategic scale WWI can be an interesting conflict to simulate.
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