i am playing bytro games for 10 years. I started with supremacy 1924, than Call of wars and now tried this one as well. I am playing not too many maps, but i do it hard if i join to a new game. In COW i played many team games, so i have experience in cooperative maps as well.
i joined Flandel front. I selected central powers and the Random gave me the 3rd Imperial Marines division (nothest german division). I joined a bit late around 12 hours after it has started.
It took almost a day till all open slot is gone! So first note: as game starts at creation early comers can build such an advantage, that late comers cannot manage. So i would either suggest start when full or better a peace period at the beggining.
The biggest problem was the cooplayers skill and activity! As in most bytro games many player joins, but do nothing which ruins the game specially a team game! I suggest to allow to join Only to limited nr. Of games and make divisions (Based on win rate, kill rate). Which will solve the issue of many inconpetent players.
so i started.... i know, that expansion hits my moral. So i have built fortress in front provinces - later i have seen, that it makes limited sense as those provinces can be walk around by the roads.... to build lvl1 fortress is almost nothing, but to build lvl4-5 fortress in every province is to demanding. So i think no fortress is needed, so it will be more a ww2 style game with running units instead of stabil frontlines.
i have built baracks, factory and heavy industry in coming 3 provinces ( i had 3 fortress). I do not upgraded these buildings, as i had no high lvl unit, so building time was not too long.
and i started to build propaganda offices... i conquered 4 provinces at the first day so my moral dropped down a bit.... around 47 %.... propaganda office has no effect till it has been finished. In later on i had built propaganda offices in all original provinces. On day 5 i upgraded them to lvl3... so almost all ressorce were spent on these buildings.....
infrastructure..... almost useless i built only one as my moral was about 80 in a double resource province, other way payback period is too long....
about research
I planed to share the research tree as it is a team game.... from 9 cooplayers only one was communicative and agreed to feed him with oil and i do not research air units, do not build airports, etc... in late game i felt, that i would been better to build my own airforce, to have the aircover and it would be really cheap from day 3....
So i selected infantry (anti air units, very good defensive value, high HP), cavalry ( quick, very strong in attack at the beggining everything is full with conscripts, but nothing else), armored car (not infantry type, good in defensive, quick), and from special weapons i selected flametrower ( third type and strong vs infantry).
i researched lvl2 from all these, as it is managable in time and with mones. Lvl2 units are much better and producing time and price is still OK, pls remember the 10 unit cap in damage!
i could break through in day2 with these units, without any bigger losses. Of course the expansion penalty hit me hard....
so i changed strategy, researched artillery as biggest range unit and can be used vs non infantry units, wich is a problem for cavalry. I started to bombard out enemy units from distance, avoiding to taking provinces. With an other stack i run through the backland and get some HQ, so pump up my moral about 80, wich is always went down because expansion penalty. I let some enemy units to take back those provinces. Pls note that it seemed that loosing HQ has no negative effect for loosing party!!! So very important take only limited nr of provinces! HQ for moral, double ressource province of the enemy to ruin its ecenomy.
best way is using only air units and clear everything on the enemy side without moral penalty and at the end get empthy provinces on the last day!
I get about 5 HQ on day 3-4.... on the 5 days i destroyed the two remaining enemy army and collected VPs..... and ended.....
Market is useless as mones is the bottleneck ressorce in most of the times, so everything has low value and you can buy compuer (?) offers or allies offers...
based on above this game is very simple:
hold the lines with infantries and AC
Have airsuperiority and clear every units in the range.
Go through along the roads with artillries
Ruin enemy economy, if can
take some HQ to increase moral.
Build propaganda offices
everybody can do so, but the winner is, who is in most time online... during a six hours sleep i can loose a lot....
Definetely some tweak is required! Extension penalty is the most annoying, beside inactive players and roads which cannot be blocked effectively. And it is funny that a ww1 game succes on air-force and on fast moving units....
i am curious which is the avarage game time in this map.... but funny, that many research are not available and game is ended...