Its just very repetitive, which is a shame because the framework for a great game is there.

The persistent battlefield is currently a total joke, because unless you take all of the objectives in a map, the next time you attack you have to start from scratch all over again. This is compounded by the fact that to take over a hex you have to attack and take all of the points at least twice, with most regions needing 3 successful attacks and some historical regions like Verdun 4 or 5! Anything less than taking all the points only has an effect on national will, a game mechanic that lets you win without taking over the capitals. The idea of paying a heavy toll to take a single point and progress from there, fighting a battle in inches like the game promotes all the time is non existent in-game.

Something important to mention is most units in this game cannot be created or destroyed. Infantry and Artillery losses cost money to replenish at the end of every battle, but are done so instantly. Wipe out a massive army in one battle but it will still be there at full strength afterwards even on the same turn! This isn't really bad though because it encourages you to throw away men for any possible gain without fear, and makes up for any lack in enemy AI.

Which brings up the difficulty, within a few hours you should be able to figure out how to win with all points every time, which is an incredibly repetitive task, doubled by the amount of times you need to do it to progress, tripled by the lack of maps. Push one objective to the very back of the map, flank the other positions, win. The enemy defending AI doesn't reposition its units, however it will sometimes call in units to counter attack, which is totally ineffective with how little artillery the defending AI has. The attacking AI is decent in that at great cost it will push past your defences, however either it doesn't have the fortitude to take all of the points or its expended too much of its supply to continue to take all of the points to even start taking over regions. The Campaign AI is good in that it positions its men to counter your attacks and pressure weaker areas, but this means very little when the battle AI can't seem to do anything with this. The auto resolve is useless because it will never achieve a "great victory" which is how you take over regions and it almost always costs national will to both sides, while in reality its very easy in most battles to gain national will playing them out yourself.

To sum my first and perhaps only campaign, which I did enjoy of a lot:

Central Powers 1914 start, on soldier difficulty which has no buffs or debuffs . Focused on cutting off Calais, by 1916 had figured out the ropes and took Calais, then cut off and took Verdun. The AI made a few attacks east of Verdun every couple of turns for the whole campaign, maybe 6 attacks in total. By the time I had taken Calais and Verdun I had 1000 National Will to the Allies 300. I was too tired of the game at this point to play any more battles and auto resolved random attacks, lower both sides National Will until the allies lost. I found the trench upgrades to be completely worthless like most of the machine gun nests and mortar pits, they cost too much and have too little an effect.

Its so easy to see how the simple change of real battlefield persistence and more maps could change this into an amazing game. If it was harder to take points, but managing to take even a single one would let you continue from that point then then the grind of the game would no longer be repetitive. Likewise, the AI would have an advantage in that its bloody assaults could have an impact. I really can't overstate how stupid it is currently to have a massive and bloody battle mean absolutely nothing because one point was still standing in the end. Additionally the game desperately needs more maps. In the beginning there were some very interesting ones, but later on it felt not matter where I was attacking from it was the exact same battle over and over.

Its just very repetitive, which is a shame because the framework for a great game is there. The persistent battlefield is currently a total joke, because unless you take all of the objectives in a map, the next time you attack you have to start from scratch all over again. This is compounded by the fact that to take over a hex you have to attack and take all of the points at least twice, with most regions needing 3 successful attacks and some historical regions like Verdun 4 or 5! Anything less than taking all the points only has an effect on national will, a game mechanic that lets you win without taking over the capitals. The idea of paying a heavy toll to take a single point and progress from there, fighting a battle in inches like the game promotes all the time is non existent in-game. Something important to mention is most units in this game cannot be created or destroyed. Infantry and Artillery losses cost money to replenish at the end of every battle, but are done so instantly. Wipe out a massive army in one battle but it will still be there at full strength afterwards even on the same turn! This isn't really bad though because it encourages you to throw away men for any possible gain without fear, and makes up for any lack in enemy AI. Which brings up the difficulty, within a few hours you should be able to figure out how to win with all points every time, which is an incredibly repetitive task, doubled by the amount of times you need to do it to progress, tripled by the lack of maps. Push one objective to the very back of the map, flank the other positions, win. The enemy defending AI doesn't reposition its units, however it will sometimes call in units to counter attack, which is totally ineffective with how little artillery the defending AI has. The attacking AI is decent in that at great cost it will push past your defences, however either it doesn't have the fortitude to take all of the points or its expended too much of its supply to continue to take all of the points to even start taking over regions. The Campaign AI is good in that it positions its men to counter your attacks and pressure weaker areas, but this means very little when the battle AI can't seem to do anything with this. The auto resolve is useless because it will never achieve a "great victory" which is how you take over regions and it almost always costs national will to both sides, while in reality its very easy in most battles to gain national will playing them out yourself. To sum my first and perhaps only campaign, which I did enjoy of a lot: Central Powers 1914 start, on soldier difficulty which has no buffs or debuffs . Focused on cutting off Calais, by 1916 had figured out the ropes and took Calais, then cut off and took Verdun. The AI made a few attacks east of Verdun every couple of turns for the whole campaign, maybe 6 attacks in total. By the time I had taken Calais and Verdun I had 1000 National Will to the Allies 300. I was too tired of the game at this point to play any more battles and auto resolved random attacks, lower both sides National Will until the allies lost. I found the trench upgrades to be completely worthless like most of the machine gun nests and mortar pits, they cost too much and have too little an effect. Its so easy to see how the simple change of real battlefield persistence and more maps could change this into an amazing game. If it was harder to take points, but managing to take even a single one would let you continue from that point then then the grind of the game would no longer be repetitive. Likewise, the AI would have an advantage in that its bloody assaults could have an impact. I really can't overstate how stupid it is currently to have a massive and bloody battle mean absolutely nothing because one point was still standing in the end. Additionally the game desperately needs more maps. In the beginning there were some very interesting ones, but later on it felt not matter where I was attacking from it was the exact same battle over and over.