Won National Will victory on Turn 25

[infinity]

I barely unlocked anything in the tech tree. I saw tanks in my final two battles. I just avoided the big stack battles, won lots of smaller battles with superior supply early on. Just use light artillery to fix the enemy, especially mgs, then plough units in. Works every time. I loaded the save back up to play with one of the things I did unlock. I cleared the whole map with light artillery and a few flame throwers. Just bombard constantly, walk up, flame thrower everyone in the trenches.

In the campaign, Germany didn't really attack me, I think because they had no money after all the unit replacements. I almost encircled half the map and but it was GG before I could cap the last hex.

I'd love to say it felt good, but it was actually just a shame. I was praying for a 'continue playing' button. Nope.

Other feedback: The maps are all pretty samey.

Edit: Standard difficulty.

[MechanicalTurk]

I had a similar experience. Cut off like 22 corps and they surrendered. Didn't use half the tech as it was just easier and cheaper to use the standard stuff. I did have tanks which ANNIHILATED everything.

[LtZebulonPike]

I had a similar experience. 29 turns, barely tapped into the tech tree. Only two territories were taken.

What sense does this make to be able to drain their tickets so early on?

[Hexagoros]

The campaign is just too short, and there's no reason for it.

The gameplay is good, now if only the devs would actually let us play.

[Buster Scruggs]

I managed to win on turn 22 as Allies on second playthrough and Im pretty sure that I can win even faster than that. The AI doesnt seem to react when you cut off their troops on Islands, when It should be throwing all of its resources into saving the surrounded troops. I wish we could get the old prelaunch AI back

[Leflair]

The problem is a combo of early great-victories being way too easy, as a result of both OP light artillery and very expensive MGs for the defender (and needing to plow techs into getting basic stuff like barbed wire, that also cost a lot of supply to place) - and the enemy then losing hundreds in national will by 1915.

+Things like too easy encirclements and poor strategic map prioritization by the AI - leaving understacked hexes for the player to get easy victories from.

The AI doesn't have some rubberband ability to recover from losing that national will, so the game is basically won. Maybe the Americans/eastern front German divisions showing up could greatly boost (to a bigger extent than for the player) the AI national will.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by Leflair:

The problem is a combo of early great-victories being way too easy, as a result of both OP light artillery and very expensive MGs for the defender (and needing to plow techs into getting basic stuff like barbed wire, that also cost a lot of supply to place) - and the enemy then losing hundreds in national will by 1915.

+Things like too easy encirclements and poor strategic map prioritization by the AI - leaving understacked hexes for the player to get easy victories from.

The AI doesn't have some rubberband ability to recover from losing that national will, so the game is basically won. Maybe the Americans/eastern front German divisions showing up could greatly boost (to a bigger extent than for the player) the AI national will.

This.

Won my first campaign in the first 8 hours or so, already, with at least 1 of those hours being mostly checking what units do, what the techs are, etc.

Early great victories come out of nowhere. I go to start a battle I expect will be a tough-fought win for me, and auto-resolve says it's a great victory. Or I grimly hold on in a defensive battle with inferior forces but knock out a couple of enemy tanks that YOLO into my still relatively healthy line at the end.

And right, part of it is also wildly under-manned hexes. There will be a doom stack in one part of the map, and then I get 3-4 easy great victories against spots that have a single unit in them.

I like that the CPU doesn't have a rubber-banding cheat or bonus for National Will... it would turn the CPU opponent into a bullet sponge and a huge grind if it just got magic National Will every turn.

But the balance is the problem, I think, because suppression is the same for every arty strike it looks like. After I discovered this, I just spammed light arty in tactical battles and suppressed whole trench lines.

Light Arty is ridiculously OP in this... it completely shuts-down any ranged attack from any unit other than tanks. If it did less suppression, it would drastically change things up, but suppression looks to be all-or-nothing in this, meaning that Light Arty, with its wider AoE and cheaper cost, actually is way better than Heavy Arty in almost every way (outside of killing MG nests and helping against enemy tanks).