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Battle of Darmstadt Demo

Danubians x Elbians
Complexity: 1.07 Map: 20x20
Dates: 7/23/1877-10/1/1877
The Danubians have declared war with the Elbians!

Elbians PO

Blue-Gray: Danubians
Red: Elbians

Through a ton of political wheeling and dealing, the Elbians were diplomatically isolated from Europe by the Danubians. The Danubian army is crossing over Frankfurt. Surprise allies of the Elbians in Poland-Lithuania and the Ottomans were tied down with Danubia calling in Russia, Danubia is set almost exclusively with the task to take on the Elbian Confederation.

In a previous major European war, Burgundy and the Danubians invaded took land off the Elbian Confederation. The Burgundians are thus satisfied for the moment. They are poised to aid the Elbians to curb Danubian aggression, however, they are relegated to an alliance-treaty that expires in October. Italy also has interests supporting the Danubians, who have repeatedly helped them fight against the Aragonese. Spain is a wildcard, but does not want to fight the Dual Monarchy, and thus is alligned with the Western Alliance. Aragon, once proud, is being partitioned by Spain and Italy, and has no relavence in this war.

The Dual Monarchy, a longtime Danubian ally, has declared neutrality in this war, but may join if Burgundy declares. Unbeknownst to Europe, the major powers in Asia are stirring, and may take an interest in this war....

Danubia has set up a token defense on the Hungarian border with the Ottoman Turks. They hope to win a lightning war against Elbia before Burgundy or the Ottomans can mobilize.

The battle lines are drawn, and the first move goes to the attacking Danubians, who are set to invade at Darmstadt. One field army is invading Darmstadt, while the rest of the front is quiet.

AUTHOR NOTES:

This is a scenario I made to represent a brigade level battle on the frontlines of a major fictional European war. It's based on an MP Victoria II campaign I saw by Spudgun. I basically wanted to see how Victoria II armies would work in TOAW IV. I decided instead of making a mega campaign, I could crank out an army sized engagement relatively quickly.

That being said there are a few things to note:
Victoria II models things at the brigade level, and has 3000 men per brigade. I chose to format things accurately at 10 men per squad. This includes artillery. There are 300 size artillery brigades. This is WAD. I used very bad artillery so things are not unbalanced.

I didn't know what tech level either side had at this point, so I just made everything equal.

The armies are based on a battle in the game I mentioned. Armies are accurate to their values at full strength. Main thing is Danubians have more infantry, Elbians have vastly more artillery. Elbians don't have cavalry, and Danubians barely have any. The players don't like cavalry I guess.

There are currently no pontoons. The game is thus theoretically unwinnable if you or someone breaks bridges. Because this is a demo, I do not care. Just play until someone has clearly lost. I'll make sudden death rules later.

There are no forts. I don't know what everyone did for forts, so I'm not worrying about it. Also forts would break the idea of a maneuver war.

Be aware, urban sprawl is a thing. Like most of my maps, I try to have it be accurate, and have a lot of towns. I got the towns off google maps. This was not a big concern of mine when I played against Elmer. At least, when I broke through, it became irrelevant.

I also did not worry too much about troop replenishment. 2% was used. There is no respawn point. Don't lose your troops, I guess.

STUFF I FORGOT TO MENTION IN THE GAME:

The game lasts 2 months at 1 day per month speed. I decided this was best to represent the nature of this kind of modern war. I've found campaigning earlier than the telegraph would've been 3 days or a week per turn depending on the distance, but after the telegraph, it drops to 1 day per turn almost certainly. I chose 2 months as the time limit, because that's roughly how long the real battle in Victoria II lasted. There are no reinforcements.

In the game, as far as I believe, this was an engagement to tie down the Elbian army. It was an offensive by Danubia into Elbia. There were neighboring provinces. This is intended to represent one battle in Victoria 2.

I expect it to take about a week to accomplish a complete game IRL, but you can definitely finish it in one sitting against the AI, I've done ~40 turns in testing in one sitting where I completed the game.

This is a DEMO. That being said, it is more or less feature complete. Play the game, tell me if you like it or not. I have a bunch of these mini-campaigns for demonstration purposes of different things. I'm just sitting on them because they're not complete, so if you are interested in more, let me know. Otherwise, it's back to the history mines to get more information on stuff like demi-brigades.

If anyone does multiplayer, do tell me how it goes. It should be interesting, I think. I'd love to see an AAR, but I doubt anyone will care.

I do not know where the actual battle took place, but it wasn't Darmstadt. I just picked a reasonable province to make, because I did not care to try and look at the Victoria II map from YouTube.

Finally, I know for some reason nobody plays my scenarios on the forum, but I am interested in feedback. This one I made rather quickly, so any suggestions or commentary is welcome.