AA14 - Let's make it happen!

[Brain Damaged]

Okay so it sounds like anti-aircraft is definitely out and you feel that the game should include escort/interceptor rules. I could live with that.

Maybe we could include anti-aircraft as a tech piece, it seems that they were very close to making them effective towards the end of the war.

Should we create a new topic called designing a WWI game?

[Adlertag]

Yes, tanks, AA-guns and carriers must be tech's

[Brain Damaged]

I like the new topic name. I am with you lets make it happen.

[Variable]

My input here will remain simple.

For the map:
Lets do Europe with a special section for the western front. If we change the scale for the front, it eliminates the need for special trenching rules unless that's what everyone wants. Then we need North Africa and the Middle East. Obviously, we need to include all of Turkey and the rest of the Ottoman empire that borders Russia. Lets skip the US and Pacific, as I don't feel its necessary for game play. We can put a generic box on the map for US involvement or have transports show up on turn X. Think AAEurope map expanded out a bit further to the East and South.

For the pieces, here's what we have so far. I changed the colors to match A&A because you never know what other variants we will want to make. Also, we can use current A&A pieces for techs. Remember, think simple, think budget:
Entente:
UK - tan
Russia - maroon
France - blue
Italy - brown

Centrals:
Germany - grey
Austria - olive green
Ottoman Empire- orange


Units:
Infantry
Cavalry
Tanks
Artillery

Bi-planes
Zepplins

Dreadnoughts( this term refers to both battleships and battlecrusiers)
Light Cruisers
Destroyers
Trannies
subs
Sea Mines( AA guns were not a very important part of WW1, but perhaps sea mines which were an important part could be added and work in a simailr way)

[Brain Damaged]

We could come up with a simple set of rules based on Triple A

Okay I looked at the TripleA site and this is what they had:

Infantry    1-2-1-3
Cavalry     1-1-2-4
Artillery     2-2-1-4
Fighter      3-3-3-8
Zeppelin    1-1-6-10
Transport   0-1-2-12
Submarine  2-2-2-7
Destroyer   2-2-2-6
Cruiser       3-3-2-9
BattleCruiser 4-4-2-12
Battleship   4-4-2-18
AAGun       0-0-1-5
Factory     0-0-0-12

We could start with these numbers and make modifications after some debating, as well as discuss each pieces individual characteristics.

There is no mention of sea mines or tanks.

I think tanks,aircraft carriers, and AA guns should be tech.

I am not sure about orange for the Ottoman Empire what does their control marker look like, I guess we would need a national control marker for them as well as Ausria.

[Emperor_Taiki]

We could come up with a simple set of rules based on Triple A

Okay I looked at the TripleA site and this is what they had:

Infantry    1-2-1-3
Cavalry     1-1-2-4
Artillery     2-2-1-4
Fighter      3-3-3-8
Zeppelin    1-1-6-10
Transport   0-1-2-12
Submarine  2-2-2-7
Destroyer   2-2-2-6
Cruiser       3-3-2-9
BattleCruiser 4-4-2-12
Battleship   4-4-2-18
AAGun       0-0-1-5
Factory     0-0-0-12

We could start with these numbers and make modifications after some debating, as well as discuss each pieces individual characteristics.

There is no mention of sea mines or tanks.

I think tanks,aircraft carriers, and AA guns should be tech.

I am not sure about orange for the Ottoman Empire what does their control marker look like, I guess we would need a national control marker for them as well as Ausria.

No one is going to buy cavalry if they cost 4. they should cost 3.
Artillery should become really important weapons. They should cost 5 and  attack and defend like subs with pre-combat attack roles.
Fighters, i think either there attack or defence should be reduced to 2, just to show how they were not that decisive early on. The movement should be interesting. THey should have a spoting ability for artillery
 Zepplins had huge range, i would say increase it to eight. THey should also have a spoting ability for ships
Subs and trans should be as per AA50, except make transports cost 10 too show how hard amphibious assualt were.

I like the stats for destroyers and crusiers, though  the crusier peice should have its named changed to light crusier.
Get rid of the battleship and battlecrusier piece. Replace it with the Dreadnaught unit which is exactly like a regular battleship, except it costs 18.


I dont like the AAgun, and factories should be printed on the map.

Sea mines should cost 6 and can be placed on the border of a sea zone by a destroyer, if enemy ships cross it it, the sea mine works like an defends like an AA gun normally would. an enemy destroyer can disable sea mines on a roll of 1.

I also dont like the idea of the western front blow up box, its problamatic to have different scales with the same rules governing them. Like AA50 enlarges Europe, the western front should just be enlarged in this game. I think each turn is going to represent 6+ months, so the western front blowup box in tripleA is too detailed.


Tanks should attack at 4, defened at 1, and have 1 movement, cost 5.

Aircraft carries should just be an tech upgrade for light crusiers.

We also need rules for Chemical Warfare, storm troopers, and really all the other tech developments.

[Brain Damaged]

Emperor_Taiki you made some good points there.

I think we need to discuss this game project one aspect at a time or else we will be all over the place and will not get things accomplished as fast as if we do it in a more organized fashion.

Since the actual forces(game pieces) are what seems to be on everybody's mind, let's start with those.

And to further narrow down the discussion, let's start with land pieces:

Infantry 1-2-1-3 and behaves basically like any other AA game.
Cavalry  1-1-2-4 and has blitzing capabilities. I know that you disagree with the cost but I think with the blitzing capability and faster movement other people, at least I would, will be willing to pay the extra cost.
Artillery 2-2-1-4, makes infantry more powerful like AA, I think if we raise the cost to 5, then tanks would have to cost 6
Tanks   4-1-1-5 do we want this to be a tech or a regular unit.
AAGun  0-0-1-5 this could be a tech roll, or we could eliminate it, if it is eliminatedwe will definitely need an intercept/escort rule in my opinion.

We can discuss air and naval pieces after we get these issues hammered out.

We need to get as many opinions on this as possible because we are trying to design a game that most people will enjoy not just a few of us. Notice I said most because we wont be able to please everyone all the time not even ourselves.

[Variable]

Infantry  1-2-1-3
Cavalry   1-1-2-4 - Lets take out the blitz, but still have 2mp. I would like to promote a balanced force. Have them attack at a 2 for the first  round to simulate a charge. 1 after that.
Artillery   2-2-1-5 - Lets go with Emperor Taiki's idea of 5IPC. They should get special opening fire (no return fire), but normal on 2nd round etc.
Fighter    3-3-3-8 - Lets keep this and eliminate "spotting". The higher att/def values should simply reflect this. Keep it simple.
Zeppelin  1-1-6-10- 8 seems too far for the scale.

[Brain Damaged]

If we take away the blitz property and yet still allow a movement of 2. Are you saying that the cavalry can move through 2 friendly territories, but cannot move through 2 unoccupied enemy territories and would instead have to stop to occupy the first territory even though there are no enemy forces present?

[Bardoly]

Interesting thread.
An Axis and Allies-style "Dr. Pepper and Dorritos" World War I game would be great!
The key thing to remember, as was mentioned before, is to keep the game simple and not too time-consuming.

I have 2 proposed land/air units charts for consideration.

Chart 1 - a little cheaper IPC cost

Infantry  1-1-1-2 - Infantry troops were the main units of the war, I believe even more so than in World War II, so this justifies their reduced cost.  The infantry were not extremely effective though, so I dropped their defense to 1.

Cavalry   1-1-2-3 - No blitzing and no special attack rules for simplicity's sake.

Artillery   2-2-1-4 - Use the "Surprise Strike" rule from AA50, they get preemptive shots every round, but this can be nullified by the enemy having a fighter in the battle.  They do not increase infantry units attack.

Fighter    2-2-3-6 - No special rules other than that they nullify the artillery's preemptive shot.  After a map is made up, then we can decide if 3 movement is too little.

Zeppelin  1-1-6-10- No special rules.  Actually I don't know a lot about Zeppelins, so I bow to y'alls knowledge in this area.


Chart 2 - a more comparable to regular Axis and Allies IPC cost

Infantry  1-2-1-3 - No special rules.

Cavalry   2-1-2-4 - No blitzing and no special attack rules for simplicity's sake.

Artillery   2-2-1-5 - Use the "Surprise Strike" rule from AA50, they get preemptive shots every round, but this can be nullified by the enemy having a fighter in the battle.  They do not increase infantry units attack.

Fighter    3-3-3-8 - No special rules other than that they nullify the artillery's preemptive shot.  After a map is made up, then we can decide if 3 movement is too little.

Zeppelin  1-1-6-10- No special rules.  Actually I don't know a lot about Zeppelins, so I bow to y'alls knowledge in this area.


For aa and tanks, I agree with the majority that they should both be technological advances.

[Variable]

If we take away the blitz property and yet still allow a movement of 2. Are you saying that the cavalry can move through 2 friendly territories, but cannot move through 2 unoccupied enemy territories and would instead have to stop to occupy the first territory even though there are no enemy forces present?

Correct. Simulates mobility but keeps them cheap.

[Variable]

Interesting thread.
An Axis and Allies-style "Dr. Pepper and Dorritos" World War I game would be great!
The key thing to remember, as was mentioned before, is to keep the game simple and not too time-consuming.

I have 2 proposed land/air units charts for consideration.

Chart 1 - a little cheaper IPC cost

Infantry  1-1-1-2 - Infantry troops were the main units of the war, I believe even more so than in World War II, so this justifies their reduced cost.  The infantry were not extremely effective though, so I dropped their defense to 1.

Cavalry   1-1-2-3 - No blitzing and no special attack rules for simplicity's sake.

Artillery   2-2-1-4 - Use the "Surprise Strike" rule from AA50, they get preemptive shots every round, but this can be nullified by the enemy having a fighter in the battle.  They do not increase infantry units attack.

Fighter    2-2-3-6 - No special rules other than that they nullify the artillery's preemptive shot.  After a map is made up, then we can decide if 3 movement is too little.

Zeppelin  1-1-6-10- No special rules.  Actually I don't know a lot about Zeppelins, so I bow to y'alls knowledge in this area.


Chart 2 - a more comparable to regular Axis and Allies IPC cost

Infantry  1-2-1-3 - No special rules.

Cavalry   2-1-2-4 - No blitzing and no special attack rules for simplicity's sake.

Artillery   2-2-1-5 - Use the "Surprise Strike" rule from AA50, they get preemptive shots every round, but this can be nullified by the enemy having a fighter in the battle.  They do not increase infantry units attack.

Fighter    3-3-3-8 - No special rules other than that they nullify the artillery's preemptive shot.  After a map is made up, then we can decide if 3 movement is too little.

Zeppelin  1-1-6-10- No special rules.  Actually I don't know a lot about Zeppelins, so I bow to y'alls knowledge in this area.


For aa and tanks, I agree with the majority that they should both be technological advances.

WOW! You've made it really hard to choose... I think I actually like the cheaper version so we can have bigger battles. Maybe limit battles to two rounds simulating bog down? We can discuss specific combat rules later.

On the cheaper chart, I think we should still go 4-1-1-6 for tanks as they were expensive to produce even after the tech was achieved.

[Brain Damaged]

I believe Zeppelins were used for bombing and spotting, thus the zeppelin could take on the strategic bombing role and perhaps if we ant a spotting rule they could increase the comat value of artillery  or AAguns if they are used.

[Imperious Leader]

http://www.mediafire.com/?ttny4vzydyl

[Brain Damaged]

WOW Imperious Leader that looks like a great game. I think it was mentioned earlier that somebody wanted something even more simple. What does the board look like? And where can I get the pieces to play it. Has this game been extensively play tested?