I'm a long-time Supremacy 1914 player and Frontline Pioneer who has returned after technical difficulties resulted in nearly a year absence. I have since lost my Frontline Pioneer status as a result, but boy - the game sure has changed. New map, new units. New people. My rank is half of what it was when I was forced to stop playing. It's not all bad, though. It's renewed my interest in the game again, and thus, we have this blog designed to showcase Supremacy 1914 and my love of the game. To start off with, I'd like to begin a discussion on one particular game of mine, in which I am personally involved and which also details a lot of the common strategies/mistakes new players make in the game.
For those of you who are new to the game, I'll take my time and try to explain things as I go along. For those of you who are experienced Supremacy players reading this blog for lulz, please be patient during the explaining bits. I'll try to make them as painless as possible.
Without further ado, I shall begin:
This is a 10-Player Map of Europe much as it was c. 1914. Hence the name of the game - Supremacy 1914. In this map you can control one of ten nations - Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, Spain, The Ottoman Empire, Sweden, and Morocco. In this case, as suggested by the image, I am Morocco this time around. To win, you must accrue a Daily European score of at least 1,000 points. The Daily European is an in-game newspaper that details all of the events in any given round of Supremacy 1914 - but I'll save the in-depth explanation on that for later when it becomes necessary.
Obviously, as Morocco my objective is to get to 1,000 DE points in whatever way I see fit. War, diplomacy - whatever you desire you can do. In this case, Morocco is poor in just about everything except for Oil, so my first objective is to find sources of food and building materials - quickly. For those who don't know, those icons you see in the image tell you what type of resources a province is producing - Grain represented by a stalk of wheat, Fish by a fish icon, Iron by little I-beams, Wood by stacks of lumber, Oil by oil drums, and Gas by little red cans. Luckily for me - I share a border with Portugal and they have Lumber!
Of course, I could ask them nicely to share their wealth with me... but hey, this is a game. I don't get paid by being nice to people. So, it's off to WAR! Wa-hoo! But of course, rash declarations can get you killed in this game pretty quick, so I've learned the value in tightly organized attacks using overwhelming force wherever possible. The decision to make Portugal my little bish made, my first task was to build Recruitment Centers in every province. To recruit the most basic military unit in Supremacy (Infantry soldiers) you have to have a Recruitment Center in every province you want to raise troops. You always start out with around 100 Infantry Brigades as your starting army, and with my Recruitment Centers in place even more men were being trained to fight.
I spent the next three days gathering troops on the borders, waiting for my opportune moment to strike. The movement pattern being shown in the image below:
Here the goal was to overwhelm Portugal's valiant defenders with overwhelming force. Striking them in three provinces at one time with at least 3-to-1 odds in my favor. Naturally, right now with only double their Infantry production capacity this was an impossible goal so I had to live with 2-to-1 odds this time. I took my time in assembling 40 Infantry Brigades each in Constantine and Bone - with 70 or so gathered in Tangiers. Then I set off on my Portugese expedition. Observant readers will note Portugal's territory is divided in two between Africa and Europe so I'd have to cross an ocean to get there.
That was exactly my plan - far be it for some silly puddle to stand between me and my visions of empire!
Of course, there to steal my imperialistic thunder was none other than my northeastern neighbor, Italy. By Day 3, he'd gone in search of his own Lumber and chosen to take it from his northern neighbor Belgium!
Bastard Italian. Oh, believe me, I was mad as could be at the time. I thought I was clever, building up my forces patiently - waiting for the opportune moment to reveal my true nature to the world... but nnnnoooo. Here comes the Italians to take the glory all for themselves. Plus, it also showed that Italy wasn't afraid of an early war. Didn't bode particularly well for my future plans for expansion. But was I deterred? God no. My people desired Lumber to build themselves slightly more fancy huts to dwell in and the fear of their mobbish wrath was far more imposing then some two-bit Italian nation.
Next day, I got to show what I could do to an unsuspecting country:
The battle was far more costly than I'd wanted, but the main goal was achieved - in Supremacy AI players will automatically attempt to reinforce the first province you attack with additional troops pulled from other nearby territories. That's exactly what I wanted to stop, and so using the delayed attack command I ordered my Infantry Divisions to attack Tunis and Kairwan at the same time. Both fell in short order, but the Fortress in Tunis drove up my casualties a lot higher than I had wanted. Further north in Lagos the city fell to Moroccan arms while to the east a surprise had appeared.
Italy was gathering troops outside of Tunis. I'd heard nothing from him at this time, and not wanting a war with Italy, I attempted to play nice and negotiate. After all, everyone responds to efforts to be nice - right?
Well, Italy wasn't in a friendly mood. While my army slogged its way up through Portugal, taking the capital in short order the Italians moved while I was sleeping into position. Briefly I pondered intercepting the enemy forces while they were disembarking (Infantry only have half strength while embarking or disembarking from the sea) but by the time I noticed them it was too late. Before my garrisons could engage them the Italians would be done disembarking - and I was badly outnumbered. So I withdrew my Infantry back to my territory and their prepared defenses since all along I had suspected invasion and I arrogantly thought I could catch the Italians on the coast.
Sadly, the bastard got lucky, and now I had a problem. Italy's army was bigger, because he took fewer losses against Belgium than I had taken against Portugal. As if that wasn't bad enough the better half of my army was still in Europe playing whack-a-mole with the Portugese. So, I split off what I felt I could reasonably spare from the Army in Portugal and began moving it southeast to bolster my defenses against Italy.
Luckily by this time, my Fortresses in the border provinces were both lvl. 2's - so the Italian bastard could not see his advantage (Fortresses above lvl. 2 conceal the strength of the garrison within them.) And so he did not press on, which was wise, because as he later discovered fighting me over prepared defenses would give the advantage to me at last. At this point though I still didn't know if Spain would attack me, so I hesitated to commit myself to a counter-offensive and leave myself defenseless against a third party. And while I hesitated - Italy prepared for his next move.
However, as you will learn in time, dear reader, this gamer hesitates not out of fear - but out of a need to establish a new long-term plan. While Italy began moving to prepare for a grand amphibious assault - I began to prepare for a static defensive war designed to hold the line until I could build up my economy to out-produce Italy's Armor production. And so, I used spies to reveal the position of Italy's entire army and gain some insight to his likely plan. Now knowing that he was considering an invasion across multiple provinces much like I had done to Portugal a few days ago, I prepared my defense as shown by the movement arrows in the image below:
It is worth noting that many small skirmishes were fought on the border as he tried to get scouts to keep an eye on my movements and so did I try to get eyes on his. Many a man was killed in this effort until finally he gave up and concentrated his full attention on his larger goals. But in so doing, towards the end of the day I decided to gather up a Division (10 Brigades worth of Infantry is a Division) and launch an assault on his virtually unguarded northern provinces. The hope was to hurt his energy production and slow down his economic growth. But even more importantly - the reinforcements from Portugal had finally returned to Africa! Bolstered by this, I made my final push on the Portugese so I could focus my full attention on Italy.
Additionally, by this time I had begun establishing a bare-bones railway network in order to facilitate a rapid transfer of troops across my territory when the time for the inevitable attack came. Later on, this would prove to be a crucial advantage. But for now, buying materials on the Stock Market was bankrupting my treasury (already burdened trying to buy enough resources to keep my population happy and productive) which at the time made me fear that I was going to run out of resources.
But of course, the following day came good news: Portugal was now a Moroccan administrative district.
This was followed the next day by the decisive confrontation of the entire war - Italy came knocking by sea. And this time I caught his ass on the beaches. The red dots in the image below indicates where battles were fought as I ruthlessly cut down his men as they struggled ashore.
Need proof that machine guns mow down Infantry just fine? This next image shows the casualties Italy sustained as a result of this offensive:
My casualties: 6,000 men.
His: 38,000 men.
Simply. Beautiful.
Overnight I went from underdog to military equal - this loss erased Italy's Infantry advantage and even better my first Factories had come online. However, taking a gander at the map I noticed little chimney's sprouting from the white dots that represented his cities - Italy was bringing Factories online just like I was. But whereas I was focused on building only two Factories the crazy Italian was building five. Once again I turned to my spies to tell me if the situation was really as bad as I feared:
So yeah, it was as bad as I feared. In my wildest daydreams I had imagined Italy kicking two or three Factories out the door - but not five. That would leave me outnumbered in Artillery batteries 2-to-1! My head swam at the implications of this, which led to the decision as my Infantry Division made landfall in Genoa - Italy's Factories had to go. It was time to unleash my spies on the sonofabish. But first I enjoyed brief success with the capture of the Italian city of Genoa. Italian counterattacked forced me to quickly flee, but the mission had been accomplished, hindering Italy's energy production for the rest of the war.
My forces out of Genoa safely escaped out to sea, where they were promptly rushed right into the Italian Factory at Naples. This attack was easily brushed aside with little damage, but that was hardly the last note of the next day. When the day tick passed, my spies were already bought and placed to hammer away at Italy's Factories, resulting in many reports like this one below:
This x3 meant that three of Italy's five Factories were out of commission - the Artillery they were building indefinitely stalled. Which meant it was down to his two Factories versus mine. However there was a crucial difference: his Factories were all level 1's. Mine were all level 2's - which produced Artillery twice as fast. With my Railway network long since in place, my Factories cranking Artillery as fast as they could, and my first Artillery Brigade now giving my battered Infantry forces some badly-needed ranged firepower - my counter assault began in Tunis:
Note his current casualty numbers as the bombardment of Tunis began - that number will go up dramatically soon. Anyway, the first Artillery Brigade didn't make much progress at first and Italy barely responded to the attack. But then my second Artillery Brigade arrived and finally the Italian bastard began to move, summoning all the reinforcements to he could and fleeing the city of Tunis in favor of the undamaged Fortress in Kairwan. The Italian reinforcements included their Artillery, and while I really wanted to hit his army - if I let those Artillery land I knew I'd be in trouble. So I switched targets, sinking one of his Artillery Brigades at sea before he woke up to the reality of his position.
Then came the fateful moment - for reasons I'll never understand - Italy's Army stopped dead in its tracks right there on the provincial border between Tunis and Kairwan. Utterly exposed and denied the support of its withdrawing reinforcements the Tunis garrison made a beautiful target. I turned my Artillery against his Army - resulting in the Massacre of Tunis:
Italians dying by the thousands, I added a third Artillery Brigade to the mix, ramping up the carnage as the defensive fortifications in Tunis finally dropped to level 1 after almost three days of constant bombardment. When my forth and fifth Artillery finished they were sent to intercept Italy's second attempt at an amphibious assault. Perhaps thinking that it would somehow divert significant amount of my troops away from Tunis - Italy nonetheless calculated wrong and lost another 18,000 men at sea to my Artillery. Meanwhile in Tunis, the Massacre reached its inevitable conclusion while Italy's reinforcements gathered outside Kairwan.
However, by then, the outcome of the Massacre was telling:
Tunis, lost. 80,000 men of the 4th Italian Army responsible for protecting Tunis blown to Hell. The 30,000 man strong garrison at Kairwan under bombardment and flanked by Moroccan Infantry Armies. Another 55,000 Italian troops along with two Italian Artillery Brigades were waiting outside of Kairwan to support it but if they advanced they'd just be massacred on approach just like they had been at Tunis.
Realizing I had won a decisive victory, I proposed non-negotiable terms of surrender for Italy, which were accepted. As spoils of war all surviving Italian forces were allowed to return to Italy, white peace declared, and Italy agreed to surrender Cagliari to me as a war reparation. In exchange for survival, Italy now became my buffer against expanding powers in Russia as well as The Ottoman Empire. Additionally, he has agreed to not interfere in my conquest of Spain and France. Both of which I actually want to posess. Some may debate whether the cost of the war was worth it, but for those people I can only provide the following images comparing the status of both armies after white peace was accepted:
First is the status of my army -
And now, Italy's -
Just over twice the Artillery and Infantry forces remaining. At war's end, I had lost 23,000 men to Italy's 145,000 men after the Massacre in Tunis. I regained all lost territory and even gained Cagliari as repayment for having to fight a war I didn't want. It's hard to say I didn't get the better deal here.
For those of you who have read this blog and have become interested in giving the game a try - for all you newcomers; allow me to illuminate why Italy failed in this war. First - he didn't evaluate the strength of his opponent first. Second - he tried to produce way more Artillery at once then he could possibly support in a reasonable time frame. Third - he stalled his amphibious attack. In this game especially you can not do that. Infantry must land quickly or they risk getting caught on landing. Sure, he got lucky the first time and it worked. But what about the second time when I was online and prepared?
He died, horribly, and the momentum of the war shifted to me. If you're going to succeed in this game, do not emulate his mistakes. Evaluate your enemy's strength and if you are overmatched admit it and retreat. Do not attempt to overwhelm your opponents with raw numbers like Italy did - it's a strategy that can cost you a lot of your enemy is ruthless enough to spy-bomb your infrastructure. Take things slow and easy, and you'll succeed. I'll illustrate the game, and go deeper into its combat mechanics as I understand them, in subsequent blog entries.
Well, everyone - I think that's enough for all. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll give Supremacy a try someday!
