Part I : Presentation

So I decided to make a Let's Play / After Action Report about Rise of Prussia, a game that should cater for most of the GOG crowd : it is not full of flashy animations (it doesn’t have any actually), but it is a complex game where patience and planning is necessary. No instant gratification, just bad news staking on more bad news. It is unfortunately fairly unknown – even though it is relatively accessible for a wargame.
I believe but I can be wrong it will be the first AAR on GOG.
The AI of the game is outstanding, but I am going to do a PBEM. So the other player will not post here, but rest assured he will play as meanly as he can.

For the picture, I will just post links, since there is no better solution. I will explain the game concept as they come.
I will play the 1757 Grand Campaign (longest game possible), with Historical Attrition, Historical Stats for Leaders, No redeployment, Normal Activation Rules, Long Delayed Commitment in Battle, so in one word, as realistic as possible.

Here is the link to the Front Screen of the game
I will take Prussia and its coalition, my opponent will take Austria and its coalition (there is only “one” player by side, playing all countries involved – which does not mean that “nationalities” of units have no impact – far from it). It is quite fitting, because having played 3 games against that opponent (2 at Birth of America, 1 at Revolution Under Siege), I know he is a master of defense, but too careful and slow in attack - which is pretty historical for the Austrians. I believe I am a more balanced player, even though not quite as aggressive as the real Frederick was.

Anyway, what is the situation in 1757 ? Well :
Here it is.
Long story short : during the First Silesian War (1740-1742), Frederick used the fact that Austria had its hands full in the War of Austrian Succession to quickly seize Silesia, uniting the two parts of his Kingdom, then peaced out of the war – the War of Austrian Succession would last until 1748. This angered both its enemy (Austria) and its allies (France and Russia).
In 1757, Austria is building an alliance to take Silesia back from Prussia. Prussia has not a chance against a Austria-Saxony-Russian-French-Swedish coalition. But Frederick has a plan : if he strikes fast and hard, he can kick Saxony and even Austria out of the war. Without Austria, France and Russia would have no reason to carry on fighting, and Sweden is not strong enough on its own. Thus started the 7 years war, with a massive offensive on Saxony, to destroy it before it mobilizes. Saxony is annihilated, its cities seized, and the moderately big army it could assemble is sieged at the Pirna Camp.
Which is exactly when the campaign starts

[The assault on Saxony itself is a “tutorial” campaign]

Edit : Pirna from a bit closer (disregard the minor army organisation)



Part II : Objectives

What are my objectives for this campaign ?

This book explains them all.

To win the war, I only need to take an handful of cities. I put a red cross in front of them on the following map
Objectives are on the left page, cities on the right page are just nice to have
Yes, you are right. Only a few days of walking between my objectives. Why is the map so large, then ? No, new objectives won’t appear, but new fronts will – except if I crush Austria quickly enough. You will see that going from Pirna to Vienna will be a daunting task.
Let’s have a quick glance at the rest of my kingdom (Black crosses mark objectives I must protect)

Central and South Prussia (and Saxony)
Northern Prussia
East Prussia
To prevent questions, I should add that :
Yes – Sweden had territories in Northern Germany back then. Remains of the famed Gustavian “Swedish Empire”.
Hannover is a greyed out objective because it is neutral for now – quickly enough it will become my strongest ally.
Poland is neutral, and everyone can walk through it. The Poles know why, but they don’t like to talk about it.

The game looks nice.
I hope we'll see some action soon !

Part III - Forces in presence


At the beginning of the campaign, there is only one front : the Austrian-Prussian Front.
The Prussians have great general, one of them being the badass Frederick the Great himself, who led his troops in battle himself. He is not my absolutely best general, but he is close enough, which means I don’t want to pay the political cost to replace him as the Commander-in-Chief of my armies – because there is such a cost.
Prussian soldiers are Elite. Many of them are Grenadiers, which is basically the “elite” force of the game, but even the regular are good enough. I have a significant cavalry, but not a huge one.
On the other side, Austrians have horrible generals “leading” generals, with the exception of General Daun, the master of Defense, I am probably going to talk a lot (basically – I probably won’t attack wherever Daun, except if I am massively superior). Their troops are only average.
So how can Austria hope to win ? Well, it cannot hope to win at the beginning. But time plays for them : as more battles occur, their poor generals are going to be demoted and once they have hacked through the dead wood, they have good generals. As more battle occurs, my Grenadiers will die and I will have to recruit troops who are no better than them. But more than everything else, time plays for them because they are in defense... They will quickly have an army twice or three times my size, and their allies will come help them, increasing this ratio even more (we are speaking of Russia and France, there). So if Austria can defend one or two years, it will be able to take initiative again.
Here is a quick review of my main column (I have already modified a bit compared to the beginning of the game, in order not to have to say the same thing twice. I’d like to get over with the presentation ASAP to jump into action.

Frederick commands the force with his brother Wilhem.
At the beginning of the game, Wilhem is in command of a column, but he is by far my poorest grand general, and since he has a lot of seniority (he is supposed to command the force he is in), I put him with Frederic, who obviously still outrank him.
In red, you can see the column commanded by Frederic. As long as those columns are not too far from Frederic, he gives them various bonus I might get into later.

Keith Column, with 25 000 men, 13 000 horses and 144 canons, is led by Keith (duh!), by far my best general – so I have him my most powerful column (even though I can change the composition of columns in a click.

Ferdinand (von Brunswick) column, with 15 000 men, 7 000 horses and 96 canons, is my second largest army. Ferdinand is a great general, and is especially good in leading extremely large army thanks to his special capacity.

With only 11 000 men, 2 600 horses and 96 canons, Moritz's (von Anhalt-Dessau) column is the smallest one. Moritz himself is ok as a general, but as the special malus “reckless”, so I ll keep him in reserve more often than not. Having fresh troops ready can save your armies in this game.

Johann von Wedell's column is on the east, with a little more troops than Moritz’s. Von Wedell is not really a good general, and I am planning to replace him as commander of his column as soon as possible.

Finally, von Schwerin has an army on his own (=it is not part of Frederic’s columns), and a large one (20 000 men, 3 000 horses, 96 canons). Schwerin has somewhat poor stats (still better than what the Austrians have) but two great special capacities : Brave (Keith has that as well), which means his troops are more cohesive – more resilient in battle - and Admired Commander – which means his troops recover their already increased cohesion faster. This makes him a good general. Not outstanding, though.
I won’t show all the other units I have : most of them on this front are cavalry units (Zieten’s in Leipzig, Württenberg’s in Dresden with Frederic and co, Gessler’s in Breslau). They are independent force.

Rule of the thumb : you can see the size of a force by the number of dots (here : Green) at the bottom left part of the leader face. Only one is small, five is huge. The color indicates how exhausted and ready to fight the unit is. It is all green for now.


Now, let's get into action !

Part IV : First orders Early September 1756

Here is my master plan.

The objective is to march directly on Prag from Leipzig, just letting as few units (i.e. Moritz column, with no more supply than what the soldiers can carry) as possible sieging the Pirna camp. It is October, and it would be great to control Prague before the Winter (which stops all military operations).

At the same time, Wedell will go west and support von Schwerin, who will attack Troppau. Troppau is not an objective, but taking it will close of the main passage to Breslau (enemy armies will have to go East of the Oder river).

If Troppau is taken in due time, Olmutz might be attacked, depending on where the enemy is. Frederick’s columns will winter in Prag in any case, except failure of taking it. Next year, the objective will be Koeniggratz. Maybe.

This strategy let the Austrian have a passage to the center of Prussia (North of Prag, between the Elbe and the Oder), but I don’t think they would use it as it would let Prag defenseless. Moreover, I know my opponent is defensive.

Of course, I will send 3 cavalry groups to scout the map and se where the Austrian regroup. Probably in Prag, in which case my attack on Prag may be called off (crossing a river in attack is tough).

I will keep a mobile reserve of 10 000 horsemen in Kosel on the Oder, just in case von Schwerin needs back up.

I did some minor moves at the back of the front. Won’t show them as they are not interesting.

This is how the orders translate in term of game (the upper part is a mistake I did when I copied / pasted). Yah… complex… it will be much easier later to understand, but as the armies are grouped now and I do some reorganization, it is quite bizarre. Each line belongs to one “stack”.
A turn lasts 15 days. My opponent and I give the orders… and then… 15 days pass without us being able to interfere.
Note that I have a force trying to occupy the access Pirna back from the South. This is due to the “scripted event” of Pirna : if I can hold all the access for 1 to 3 turns, it will surrender. This is to be sure that even if my main troops cannot pass Pirna (has a fort often blocks the way), the other access is cut… except if my opponent send troops himself.

That’s the orders I sent, I am now waiting for his order to play next turn.




Not much success for this thread. I suppose I ll stop there, then.