Apologies for the delay everyone, have been sick for the last couple days. In all due honesty I still am, but I figure I might as well.
@Robotron
Thank you kindly for your reply, it is enlightening.
Robotron wrote:Original hex ownership:
Every non-water hex has a hard-coded original owner for each scenario whose flag will be shown in the lower right of the hex terrain picture. This original owner can not be changed (non-editable mapfile) but you can change the current owner. Thing is: the moment the current owner surrenders, every hex not occupied by troops will switch back to its original owner, so for example you would see parts of a neutral AH re-appear the moment Hungary surrenders.
Well, that's unfortunate. And damn unpleasant. However, if it can't be worked around, it can't be worked around. However, I do have a question on that, especially since "Hungary" in this mod would probably be using the A-H tag, with territory where the Allies are mostly
A: When Hungary surrenders, would that mean it recovers all the territory not occupied by the Allies in the entire former empire- even those otherwise occupied currently- reverts to the Hungarians, even places like, say, Vienna?
B: Would it mean that the territory in the rump Hungarian state outside of those held by occupying troops would revert there, without necessarily disrupting the rest?
and
C: If you moved the troops out afterwards, would it mean the territory they were holding goes back?
Robotron wrote:Also you would see AHs flag all the time in the lower right corner of every hex owned by newly created nations, in this case Hungary which will be created out of hexes originally owned by AH. This is irritating to say the least.
I can imagine, though since the route I would consider would be A-H using the Hungary tag, I am not sure it would apply to that specifically. But I imagine the former German and Russian Empires are going to be a mess...
Though that said, the vanilla flag of their pre war owner might be helpful in some ways; given how this was still very much an era after the fall of the great Absolutist Empires shattering what came before but before the formal peaces at Versailles etc. al. hammering out what came after on an official basis, I imagine they could serve as helpful reminders. After all, the pre war world is the canvas that this is being adjusted from.
In addition, it might help do something I would hope to, by highlight the fragility of the newly independent states of Europe in the face of such a threat. Though still, I don't know the finer details.
I guess in this case, it might be easiest to start with a sort of "Apocalypse hypothetical" scenario, where the Bolsheviks have broken through Warsaw's defenses and overrun most of the new nations (while threatening to do the same to Romania) and Soviets with their paramilitaries have started to pop up (again?) in Germany and elsewhere. Leading the Western Allies proper to have to fight back a spirited invasion of Central/Western Europe proper without having to rely on their allies.
I imagine it would play far more similarly to vanilla Commander than the other starts, and given how I imagine the penalties for draw downs would be massively reduced or removed in light of the great threat, it would mean it could get hammered out without having to worry about at least a couple of the scripts and events that would be important for the "proper" scenarios.
Robotron wrote:Commanders:
In fact modding commanders is a breeze compared to other stuff (events, new nations). You can add or remove as many commanders as you like. Every commander requires three pictures in varying sizes for display purposes. There are blank pictures to be found in the data/graphics/commanders folder to experiment with. The corresponding file is commanders.lua.
Indeed? well, good to know. Though I imagine the work itself will be a pita.
Part of the reason I figured it would be simpler/better to use the pre-existing Central Powers is not just their pre existing color scheme (red, right down to the red stars of the commanders...), but also because it would simplify the editing to some degree. For instance, I imagine that most of the officers of the Turkish Nationalists Kemal led would already be present in the Vanilla Turkish OOB. So I can just use them.
A bigger issue is dealing with Russian officers, especially those who went over to the Bolsheviks (of which there were many), since that might require making shadow versions of themselves. And on top of the dozens of mooks I'd need to make from scratch for the new nations.
But at least I know the overall process is fairly simple.
Robotron wrote:Flags:
Like with commanders several sizes for each flag must be provided for different display purposes as well as unit roundels. Take a look into data/graphics/flags to get a glimpse of how many (quite a lot) are required for every new nation.
Indeed, and I can imagine it. In fact, I think I have just a couple ideas...
Robotron wrote:Units:
Modding units is even easier than commanders IF you are willing to use what is provided. Creating new kinds of unit types will require you to create unit graphics from scratch which is a quite a chore if you are not skilled at pixeling. The corresponding file is units.lua.
Interesting, and I can imagine. Well, I imagine I suck at pixelling, but I figure the vast majority of units would fit for vanilla.
Robotron wrote:Techs:
Modding techs is comparable to units: new stuff needs new graphic first, modding the stats is no problem at all. The corresponding file is technology.lua.
Question: do I have to replace a new tech with an old one's place? Or can I just stack new ones onto it? Given the scenario being post-WWI, I imagine most of the powers have at least climbed the vanilla tech tree to some degree, and in the case of Western Allies like Britain, France, Italy, and perhaps even Belgium and Greece have either climbed it all the way or come very close.
Though that said, I imagine some new thing to factor in the propaganda and spy wars (as well as financing from occupied territories or the former Central Powers), and maybe something to recruit proxy or volunteer units (like the Spartakists, Freikorps, or other militias) would help. As well as maybe some new techs on the whole to reflect military advances after 1919.
Robotron wrote:Cities/fortresses/ports etc.
No problem. The corresponding file is constructions.lua.
Understandable, and good to know.
Robotron wrote:Nations:
This is a diligent but routine piece of work for you have to make sure to edit half a dozen scripts for every new nation.
So it's drudgery, but routine drudgery. Got it.
Robotron wrote:Events:
Standard events require a 414x348 picture in .png24 format. And are reasonable easy to mod if you just want to have some picture displayed for flavour reasons (like the 1914 Christmas Truce event). If you want to include events with several possible outcomes or trigger events at variable dates things get more techy.
I can imagine. Still, that will be a pita..
Robotron wrote:Learning LUA scripting:
The web is full of beginner-level instructions concerning this and if you have at least a rough understanding of basic stuff like dealing with variables, arrays and logical operators you should be able to come up with some results.
Thanks for the information. I can't imagine it will end well for me, especially since I don't have the game (so I figure I'll hold off before even making the first disastrous attempts). But well, who wants to live forever?
@TripleCP Thank you kindly for your thoughts, and I''m glad you find the alliance handling more probable.
TripleCP wrote:Interesting ideas. There was a mod announced a while back that was based on the historical Russian Civil War, but it apparently was abandoned. That would have been tricky given the hard-coded alliances, and Bolsheviks versus the world would have been closest to the mark
Indeed,and that's what I figured. Entente Allies (including most of the WWI members sans Russia, plus most of the new independents like Finland and whoever gets dragged in) versus the Bolsheviks (of various nations) and assorted allies/cobelligerents (like Kemal's Turkish nationalists, who were fighting the Western Allies during the crucial months of 1920 and so on). It may be a bit of a rough fit, but it strikes me as it.
TripleCP wrote:(the Whites, Cossacks, nationalists (Poles, Ukrainians, etc.), Germans, and Entente interventionists were far from allies but never really fought each other).
While I agree they were far less of an existential threat to each other (and in several cases- like between the Entente and the Whites or Cossacks) conflict was all but nonexistent, I can't agree with this on the whole.
Most relevantly to this mod, the newly independent nationalists in continental Eastern Europe (primarily the Baltics and Poland) and their Allies fought not just the Bolsheviks, but also the Reich's wayward troops. Not only did Wielkopolska saw a full scale Polish uprising in the dying weeks of the war (though that could be handwaved as taking place before the start of the scenarios proper), but the two sides clashed quite bitterly in a series of on and off conflicts in Silesia.
And while the Baltic Freikorps were at first sponsored (slash tolerated) by the Allies as well as their own government after it became clear they were trying to seize power over the former territories outright bloodshed broke out with the nationalists and their allied supporters. While the vast vast vast majority of the fighting was done by Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian infantry, the Western Allied fleets provided both naval transport and artillery support (which I understand was quite the massive factor on the Baltic front, both against the Bolsheviks and the Germans).
I got much of my specific knowledge about those conflicts from here, as well as looking over what scant pickings are available in English elsewhere and somewhat less scant pickings from some Google autotranslate.
http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/history/la ... intro.html
And then there are things like the Ukrainian cauldron. Out West Ukrainians fought Poles and Romanians in what is often called the "Last Civilized Conflict" and in the cauldron proper there was the long and bloody three way between the nationalists, the Whites, and the Reds (including some shifting alliances, like when Ukrainian nationalists joined forces with the Reds to overwhelm the government troops in Kyiv). While I agree that the Reds were a more pressing problem to both the white Russians and Ukrainian Nationalists than each other, my understanding is that there was still some truly massive clashes.
I don't think most of these conflicts will be able to be done justice in actual combat given the hard coding and overlying conflict of Reds vs. Rest, and I guess in the largely somewhat better than historical situation the Reds have... I imagine the other sides have more incentive to put the knives away in the face of utter annihilation. (Of course, they faced that historically and didn't quite, so...). At most I imagine it would work by events.
TripleCP wrote:In my view, the most plausible scenario for Soviet Russia to be in a position to export revolution would have been if Germany had not demanded so much territory in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
A good point. However, I'm less bothered by it for a couple points. Because the Bolsheviks did make an effort (and often successful ones) to export the revolution ITTL, even given the massive issues (and in many cases they were massive, like Red Army organization). After all, there's a reason why they still held the majority of the Tsar's former empire when the overt warfare stopped. And what I find more intriguing is that they came *perilously close* to having that much more success.
Warsaw may not have been this all important turning point where a Polish/Entente defeat would result in a Communist world for ever or ever, but it would have pretty solidly spelled the end of the Second Polish Republic in any war worthy state, and would have spilled Tukhachevsky's troops into Germany with effects we can only begin to imagine. Historically Germany's communists were beaten by an uneasy alliance between the Imperial military and the new Republic and were unable to get any traction elsewhere, but I imagine that is going to be a lot easier if they have the RKKA around to more or less elevate them on their bayonets to power.
Especially when we factor in things like the rather staggering sizes things like the Ruhr Red Army achieved even in isolation.
Certainly, not having the 1917 and early 1918 offensives on the East or as demanding a Brest-Litovsk would have helped empower Lenin and the others, given them more room to build, and saved them a LOT Of headaches. But I don't think they really need it to be a continental threat, just a vastly more potent one.
(Though it might be an interesting alt starting scenario, for a stronger Red beginning...).
TripleCP wrote:Naturally, both the German General Staff and the Bolsheviks believe that the peace is temporary and that the other is destined to collapse. The Bolshevik Red Guards had seized power in Kiev and much of the Ukraine in the winter of 1917-1918 and were only expelled by the arrival of the Germans. This in turn facilitated the Cossacks being able to hold or retake the Don River basin, which is where the principal "White" force, the Russian Volunteer Army, was able to rally. The civil war in south Russia might have been more or less over before it began without German intervention.
I'm less certain, if only because I think that those events were less closely related than that (though both clearly benefited from the weakening the Reds suffered at the hands of the CP advance). Especially since the Germans mostly propped up the Ukrainian nationalists/non-Bolsheviks, while the Don Basic rising was White Russian at heart. And from my understanding it had already begun to some degree due to clashes between Red and Cossack paramilitaries and Drozdovsky's marching his unit to support them. The Germans not taking Kyiv would likely kneecap the reds by taking Kyiv it might have spelled the end for the Ukrainian nationalists, or at least the end of them in a recognizable, organized form prior to some kind of resurgance, but I don't think it would have put a stop to the Don Host's rising or the attempts by the nascent White Volunteers to form.
Now, I think it is quite likely that with a Bolshevik Kyiv those forces just get pulverized by wave after wave of Red reinforcements. Especially since the Cossacks and other Whites would be facing one united enemy all along their border rather than one major enemy, one sponsor in the CP, and one minor enemy like the Ukrainian nationalists on their West Flank. And because being ground down is kind of what happened anyway. is kind of what happened historically in the end), but it wouldn't be something Lenin could do without a fight at all.
TripleCP wrote:The same is true for the Baltics. The Red Army, the Latvian Riflemen, and local Red Guards easily took control of the region as the German Army withdrew at the end of 1918,
In Latvia and Lithuania that's certainly true, but from my understanding they never really came close to conquering Northern Estonia, between Yudenich, th somewhat better organized and earlier formed Estonian troops, and the protection of having a sea with lots of Allied vessels with big guns to their back. IIRC, that meant that the Reds petered out far earlier than they did elsewhere in the Baltic in 1919 without the German commitment being as important, and the Estonians started counterattacking while being buoyed by the Allied naval forces and volunteers from Scandinavia and Latvia.
TripleCP wrote:but the Entente actually compelled the Germans to stop the demobilization of the Eastern Front armies in order to prevent the spread of Bolshevism.
Indeed, and it was actually a term in the ceasefire. Though I would argue it wasn't a particularly hard sell to make, given how the Reds (true to form) stated they intended to carry the flame of revolution to East Prussia and Germany proper, and it seems like more and more the Germans just stopped retreating and started trying to dig in to stop that.
TripleCP wrote:Some of those German soldiers later opted to stay on and fight as Freikorps in alliance with various White and nationalist forces (incidentally this is where much of the Nazi ideology about driving out the Bolshevik subhumans and colonizing the East had its origins).
Indeed, though I do think they had their precedent, after all half the reason for clawing out so much turf in Brest-Litovsk was an attempt to gain this kind of self sufficient greater German Empire/Hegemony, including colonial "Living Space", as far back as the September Program's early drafts.
TripleCP wrote:If the Germans transfer even more forces to the West than they did historically, then the Entente might have been harder pressed than they were in 1918 and German morale may not have collapsed so suddenly.
Agreed.
TripleCP wrote:If Bolshevik power had seemed more secure in 1918, the Entente likely would not have gone through with its far-fetched attempts to restore a pro-war regime and would instead have put more effort into enticing Lenin's government to re-enter the war (this was actually considered at the time, as well).
If anything, I think it might lead them to go Further with trying to get a hawkish, non-Bolshevik government in power. In part because of simple desperation. Especially when coupled with the next point.
TripleCP wrote:Under these conditions, the Entente evacuates the Czech Legion for service in France rather than using it to secure a foothold in Siberia and never occupies Vladivostok or Arkhangelsk.
This I don't see happening at all, even given the alternative timeline.
Relations between the Legionnaires and the Reds got off to a bad start and after the temporary cooperation at Bakmach only got worse. From the sources I've read, while Lenin and co gave their normal consent to the Legion evacuating from Vladivostok, the local Soviets basically treated the Legion as this moving convenience store that they could hold up for munitions and rolling stock in order to give them permission to let them pass to the next Soviet (which would then do the same.... and so on). Things got incredibly prickly in early 1918, and when one of the local Soviets arrested some Legionnaires in May it all blew up in gunfire. Which only led Trotsky to order the Legion's destruction and the arrest of its' members.
Considering this is what happened in history, I don't see how having the Bolsheviks being even stronger would make relations between them and the Legion more cordial, or assuage the tensions. And without the shared experience of Bakmach I think it is possible fighting might break out even sooner.
And once fighting begins, the Allies suddenly have to do with a unit of the Czechoslovak Army in France- one of their forces- being engaged in conflict with the Reds. And I think that would set off the powder keg even if nothing else had.
I just view the Legion-Red issue as this ticking time bomb that played out mostly off the vanilla map, but which was both almost certain to go off and which both sides' top leadership likely had limited ability to shape.
Though on that note, since I can't really think of anywhere else to mention it but I do think it is worth putting down so I don't forget...
The sources I've read indicates that one of the things the Legion did was intercept boatloads of former CP prisoners of war that the Tsar's armies had picked up over the course of the conflict and sent to Siberia or elsewhere. Since there was only really one main rail running across Siberia, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops would be coming Westward down the lines while the Czechoslovaks and their armored trains would be going East, and when they med the Legion would all but inevitably stop them and force them to go back East.
From what I understand this was one of the major sticking points between the Legion and the Bolsheviks (though less so than the equipment taxing and generally delaying the Legion's exodus to Vladivostok). But it could be quite important.
One of the sources I looked over- Gustav Becvar, former Legionnaire and author of "The Lost Legion- mentioned that large swaths of these (former?) CP troops were Bolshevized and a few even joined the fighting against him. It's certainly possible he conflated and exaggerated that (especially given how this deals with a period where the Legion was running into serious conflicts with the Reds) as well as their number (for the sake of aggrandizement or looking back on a more glorious past for his unit), but these guys clearly would have been within range of the Party's agitators and propagandists. And it is probably safe to say that Lenin's guys would have made a fair number of converts among them.
And even if they didn't, they could still have a significant effect. Kun;'s Hungarian Soviet Army was at least as motivated by ethnonationalism as it was by Communism, so thousands of Hungarian prisoners with military training (even those who haven't signed up for the Workers' Revolution) could be a very potent and natural additive to that army. And might even lead to a very different Red Hungary/Coalition matchup in 1919.
Best I can figure, it might depend on some possible event firing in which the Legion and the Reds come to blows, one in which the Reds succeed in breaking the Legion and the other (historically) where the Legion survives. with the latter seeing the Siberian railway (and thus Siberia) falling to the Whites more heavily and the manpower tap coming from the Prisoner camps out there being shut off, while the former gives the Reds dominance of Siberia up to well East of the map and allows them to possibly get boosted by CP prisoners that are sufficiently useful to the Communist cause (either in Russia proper or in Hungary).
In any case, it can't be of much benefit to Petrograd-West relations.
TripleCP wrote:Perhaps London and Paris would have offered to forgive tsarist-era debts and to recognize the Soviet republic's right to claim all previous territory of the Russian Empire if they re-entered the war, giving the Bolsheviks an additional pretext (even if they wait until after the armistice, which they were never a party to, to initiate hostilities).
Even if the Allies did this, and even if Lenin and co were willing to make such a highly unpopular policy U Turn (even if only in private, insincerely), I still think the budding conflicts between the Allied troops and personnel in Russia and the Bolsheviks would scuttle this. In part because the desire the Soviets had for the Allied war stocks in places like Arkanglsk and for what the Czechoslovak Legion had would run headfirst into Allied commitments to protect their own and their stuff. And that's before I talk about such a public betrayal of "Peace, Land, Bread" to reenter the war being a PR and civil order nightmare.
In terms of plausible scenarios, I figure at most Lenin might use the deals to get some nice financial and military deals under the table (and maybe transfer of some of the war material at places in Northern Russia to his command) before the combination of conflicts with groups like the Czechoslovaks plus unwillingness to do a 180 leads him to betraying it.
And on a simple coding note, trying to mod a Bolshevik entry into the war would be a nightmare, since rather than the two hard coded alliances with one having its' identity changed this would make three necessary (the Entente Allies, the CP, and the Bolsheviks).
An "Entente Soviets" AH strikes me as more a separate mod, or maybe some change in vanilla for a Russian re-entry into the war via event or some specific triggers.
TripleCP wrote:There's a few other wild cards that could be thrown in there, too. Many of the future White generals had actually been arrested by the Provisional Government as a result of the attempted Kornilov coup in September 1917, but were freed by sympathetic officers to prevent them from falling into Bolshevik hands. If they stay imprisoned or are killed, there would be even less organized resistance to the Reds.
Quite so, and a brilliant point. This could definitely be a potential event, or couple of events. Much like "Lenin Shot" is a possibility.
TripleCP wrote: The humiliating terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was the most significant factor in causing many of the radical socialists and anarchists who were initially allied with (or at least not actively opposed to) the Bolsheviks to turn against them, which in turn led to the assassination attempt on Lenin, the intensification of Red Terror, etc.
I'm not so sure, if only because a lot- and i mean a LOT- of the Social Dems, Anarchists, and radical Socialists were quite happy to hang on with the Bolsheviks well after Brest-Litovsk. The SRs, for instance- the most popular party as far as votes go in 1917- broke up into pro and anti Bolshevik factions (the "Left" and "Right" SRs, respectively), and didn't do that until well after Brest-Litovsk. While it took even longer for the Politburo to basically neutralize both by fighting the "Rights" to destruction and reducing the "Lefts" into this quisling puppet party that could be easily annexed.
While Makhno and his troops remained allied with the Bolsheviks for much of the Civil War and even reforged the alliance after the Bolsheviks backstabbed him (unsuccessfully).
Certainly, there were a lot of people made very angry by Best-Litovsk, and I do think there was a steady drip drip drip of people affiliated with the Bolsheviks who either became disenchanted with them and defected, or basically became Bolshevik and assimilated. But I don't think B-L was such a watershed in changing the Anarchist or Socialist orientation towards the Bolsheviks.
TripleCP wrote: Likewise, if the Russian Civil War had ended sooner the Bolsheviks would not have had to resort to the policies of "war communism" which alienated many of their initial supporters and provoked a peasant revolt (getting rid of the various "Green" and "Black" movements which would be near impossible to simulate with this engine).
Agreed. I never thought of simulating the Green or Black movements (except maybe those most closely affiliated to one side of the Civil war or the Other, who could be given), except maybe as events hitting both sides by hurting PP production and the like.
TripleCP wrote:Finally, General Brusilov eventually offered his service to the Bolsheviks in May 1920 and persuaded many Russian officers to put aside their political feelings and unite around the new government for the sake of national unity. He made his decision largely as a result of the Polish advances in the Ukraine and his beliefs that the White movement was too reliant on foreign assistance and their goals of restoring the propertied classes was too violently opposed by the majority of the population. Under different circumstances, he might have made this choice in 1918 instead.
Indeed, and that is one event I had heard of and was considering. Especially since my understanding is that Brusilov is represented in game, making it an easy fix to designate him as a CP and give the Reds a possible trigger for him. Ditto lots of other former Tsarist officers who split between the Whites and Reds.
TripleCP wrote:Tl;dr, I think the only way this scenario is plausible is if Soviet Russia was in much better shape (and the rest of Europe was in worse shape) than was historically the case.
I can appreciate the thoughts, especially given such a thorough and learned consideration. But again, I have to personally disagree, in part because I think it underestimates the power of the mid/late Civil War Bolsheviks and how closely they had come to doing it in OTL.
I don't think they are ever going to defeat the fully mobilized Western Allies or Central Powers of 1918 in a full scale war. But the beauty of it (and what Lenin's theory was) is that they didn't Need to. One would defeat the other and war exhaustion, public demand for peace/demobilization, and the supposedly inevitable Proletarian Revolution would take care of what was left. Especially since I imagine this will feature less unit density than vanilla but a heavier emphasis on politics and events (like seizing cities triggering revolutions and so forth).
TripleCP wrote: Having the Germans move even more of their forces to the Western Front in 1918 accomplishes this, as it also makes it less likely for the Entente to divert any forces for intervention in Russia.
Agreed with the latter, not so sure on the former.
TripleCP wrote: The Russian Civil War would be far more brief and less destructive (which also means that the appeal of communism in Europe would not have been as damaged by the back and forth atrocities of that conflict).
Brief and less destructive certainly helps Lenin (at least assumingthere aren't revolts from below, which I think are likely), but the combination of generally shoddy news coverage in the East (a looot of times there were significant delays and blind spots in the reporting of events in Russia, and more than a few there were pro-Bolshevik) coupled with some pre existing support meant that the appeal wasn't that damaged. There was pretty broad acceptance if not support of the Bolsheviks among the Far Left pretty much everywhere, even the mainstream left was generally antagonistic to a policy that was too anti-Bolshevik or pro-White, and lots of national groups (ironically including Germans and Czechoslovaks) basically launched strikes against the transport of war material Eastwards out of nationalist antipathy towards some of the anti-Red forces (like both nations' conflict with Poland) as well as any support for the Reds.
On top of that there was a lot of hesitation- especially by the US- on intervening against the Bolsheviks . And all of this put together created a real boggy mess that limited support to the anti-Bolshevik factions in the East coming from the West.
So there are some pretty craggy national unity, heavy focus out West on demobbing, the possibility of strikes hammering the logistics line (or god forbid, outright revolts), and the like all adding up to a major problem.
In history I don't think these problems were overwhelming- and certainly not enough to give the Bolsheviks an even playing field in a straight up fight against a fully mobilized WA- but I do think they were crippling, and in a more limited conflict where the emphasis is on trying to get the Eastern Euros to carry the main burden while the West tries to support them and balance dissent Ithink it would help.
TripleCP wrote:This also helps solve the problem of trying to add new countries, as the Reds were able to brush aside the weak local nationalist movements in Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. until the German Army drove them out.
Doesn't work for- at minimum- Poland or Estonia. Two of the most important new nations for this picture-, since again it seems like the Poles benefitted from their own underground traditions, the military experience of fighting on both sides of the war, and a massive nationalist population with a significant industrial base while the Estonians were protected by the guns of the WA navies, Yudenich's troops, and their own recruiting. So those would have to be addressed even if we go for this scenario.
While whether or not it works in Finland (by the time the German Baltic Division landed in April Mannerhiem's Finnish Whites were winding down the ghastly and hugely decisive Battle of Tampere) is kind of academic. Both sides were already mobilized and well defined by the start of 1918, and not determinant on Brest-Litovsk or a resumption of hostilities due to Trotsky walking out, and so would have to be accounted for even if the odds are significantly more pro-Bolshevik in such a situation.
It is an interesting idea for alt history and worth considering, but I do think the main thrust should be considering scenarios that occurred from a more or less historical base (even if that is "Bolsheviks break through Warsaw in 1920").
But in any case, thanks for taking the time to read and reply. I'm glad you find it interesting.