Yes, I have 2 stages:
1. Disorder, the main effect of which is that units might mutiny (refuse to attack), and production of weapons may suffer.
2. Revolution; not impossible to recover from, but units will no longer operate outside their own borders - in my version you place Red units and a full scale civil war breaks out.
I think collapses should also be possible in Britain, Italy and even America. The outbreak of World War probably averted a civil war in Ireland, Italy was on the verge of collapse before France and Britain sent troops to the Austrian frontier to stiffen Italian resolve, and support for the war in America was by no means universal. It seems only fair.
I share the concern about a scripted Russian Revolution; we’ve already discussed the possibility of the Russians laying siege to Berlin, only to disappear into thin air because the revolution is due. And why should Germany attack in the east when the know the Russians will vanish in a couple of turns anyway?
I would say that it pays to attack all of your enemies. The idea is that everyone’s morale will inexorably decline as the war goes on, its really a case of who can keep their men fighting the longest. Therefore, if you concentrate 90% against Russia, the French morale is likely to go so high that you’ll never knock them down. Ideally you want to push both into disorder before going for the KO against one of them.
There’s a thread below about Italian entry; my guess is that the official game will have mandatory Italian entry on the Allied side on turn 2. Not how I’d do it…
I’d link Bulgarian entry to a CP invasion of Serbia; Romania to either a Russian attack on Austria, or a CP invasion of Ukraine. Romania wanted territory from both of these Empires.
@bofinger:
The collapses you need to handle are Russia, France, Turkey, Austria, Germany. It’s a tough problem.
All of them led to powers surrendering, except France which only lost the ability to attack for a while. Russia is arguably two collapses, with the first being a bit like France’s collapse, and the second a proper collapse. Probably there are two collapse thresholds for each power, at the first they lose the ability to attack, at the second they go bottom-up.
If you make e.g. the Russian Revolution happen on a timetable then you discourage the Germans from attacking Russia. Don’t want that.
But if you base collapse on casualties then you encourage the Germans to go all out against one of their enemies. That isn’t quite what happened historically - they attacked some in the west, even after 1914 - but it’s closer to reality.
Historically loss of territory (e.g. Syria and Palestine for the Turks) seems to have mattered. And the ignominy of losing a battle to Italy seems to have depressed the Austrians. :-)
US entry time could be affected by use of U-boats.
You need rules for Italian entry too? Plus Bulgaria, Romania, etc…
Germany may not have collapsed. Maybe the player just said, “OK, you win, let’s try the WW3-in-1946 scenario next.”