• Customizer

    @Clyde85:

    IF we were going to be 100% honest with ourselves about it, American involvement in World War 1 was, at best, decisive but more anecdotal than anything else. The main reason the US is included in this game, and (IMHO) has to be included in they way they are, is because the game is being made by an American company for a largely American audience.

    This is a widely accepted belief, but one that has been challenged by recent historians. The truth is that, for most of the war, the Allies were out of their depth in terms of weapons technology and tactical innovation, and by 1918 were in danger of being overwhelmed by German forces returning from the newly pacified Eastern Front.

    It can be debated that without the U.S.‘s intervention, the Allies on the Western Front would have been overrun.
    I challenge all those European elitists who seem so intent on ignoring the United States’ influence to try playing the game without them as a power, and see how many times they win as the Allies.

    P.S. I’ll go ahead and call it: “But Larry Harris is American, so of course he designed the U.S. to be central to victory!”  :roll: Again, I cite this book: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Great-War-Military-History/dp/0060084332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362495407&sr=1-1&keywords=myth+of+the+great+war


  • I agree that you wouldn’t have 8 players.  I probably would never play this with more than 3 per side.  I could see the game taking an hour per turn though.  You don’t think it takes at least ten minutes per power?  Sometimes it takes me ten minutes to just plan my attacks.

    As Germany for example… gotta calculate how many troops I need in a west front territory to hold it from successive allies counter attacks, sometimes two-three turns in advance.  How many troops will I get Austria to use against Italy? Russia?  Will the Ottomans need help from Austria?  If yes then maybe Germany needs to help Austria- how much do I send south or east with the Austrians?  ugh.  There are tons of things to think about in this game.

    Another country that would take some time to think through is Britain… How and where to reinforce- France? Russia? Italy? Africa? India?  I would agonize over that decision.

    If you guys can get 8 country turns in under an hour, then either you aren’t thinking that far ahead or you guys are much faster than me


  • @ossel:

    This is a widely accepted belief, but one that has been challenged by recent historians. The truth is that, for most of the war, the Allies were out of their depth in terms of weapons technology and tactical innovation, and by 1918 were in danger of being overwhelmed by German forces returning from the newly pacified Eastern Front.

    It can be debated that without the U.S.‘s intervention, the Allies on the Western Front would have been overrun.
    I challenge all those European elitists who seem so intent on ignoring the United States’ influence to try playing the game without them as a power, and see how many times they win as the Allies.

    P.S. I’ll go ahead and call it: "But Larry Harris is American, so of course he designed the U.S. to be central to victory!"� :roll: Again, I cite this book: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Great-War-Military-History/dp/0060084332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362495407&sr=1-1&keywords=myth+of+the+great+war

    No I agree with you, that’s why I said the US involvement was “decisive but anecdotal”. We played such a small part in the greater conflict but the part the US played was important, just in a more indirect way than a direct combat sorta way. To be honest I think that Germany’s defeat had more to do with Germany’s own strategic mistakes then anything done by the Allies (minus the blockade of course). The final Spring Offensive by the Germans, I feel, was more of a desperate last throw of the dice, that could have succeed (whether or not the US was involved) had the Germans not made several strategic mistakes in their planning (and had some oversight on what that dope Ludendorff was doing).


  • @BJCard:

    If you guys can get 8 country turns in under an hour, then either you aren’t thinking that far ahead or you guys are much faster than me

    I think that’s the crux of the matter right there. We do think many turns ahead, but were doing it during the other players turns so that when our turn comes around we can just go. Also, I don’t know about you, but I usually have a battle plan mapped out before I go into a game based on my prior analysis of all possible moves, and reactions to possible enemy counter moves.


  • @Clyde85:

    @BJCard:

    If you guys can get 8 country turns in under an hour, then either you aren’t thinking that far ahead or you guys are much faster than me

    I think that’s the crux of the matter right there. We do think many turns ahead, but were doing it during the other players turns so that when our turn comes around we can just go. Also, I don’t know about you, but I usually have a battle plan mapped out before I go into a game based on my prior analysis of all possible moves, and reactions to possible enemy counter moves.

    I agree with you on principle, especially if it is 1v1, but when you go to 2v2 or 3v3 games, things change fairly suddenly- you may have planned on that British Incursion to the Med, but after Germany got great dice or France decided to buy fleet instead of infantry, you may have to rethink.  A lot of times side conversations start to happen during someone else’s turn (you are waiting a while for your turn to come up after all), prolonging the game as well.  Even if you know you plan before your turn, it takes some time to move units, roll dice, and place units.  I suppose you could be fairly efficient at that and be under ten minutes, but not much- especially if there are more than one attack.

  • Customizer

    @BJCard:

    @Clyde85:

    @BJCard:

    If you guys can get 8 country turns in under an hour, then either you aren’t thinking that far ahead or you guys are much faster than me

    I think that’s the crux of the matter right there. We do think many turns ahead, but were doing it during the other players turns so that when our turn comes around we can just go. Also, I don’t know about you, but I usually have a battle plan mapped out before I go into a game based on my prior analysis of all possible moves, and reactions to possible enemy counter moves.

    I agree with you on principle, especially if it is 1v1, but when you go to 2v2 or 3v3 games, things change fairly suddenly- you may have planned on that British Incursion to the Med, but after Germany got great dice or France decided to buy fleet instead of infantry, you may have to rethink.  A lot of times side conversations start to happen during someone else’s turn (you are waiting a while for your turn to come up after all), prolonging the game as well.  Even if you know you plan before your turn, it takes some time to move units, roll dice, and place units.  I suppose you could be fairly efficient at that and be under ten minutes, but not much- especially if there are more than one attack.

    I think, all planning and sidebars aside, the fact that there’s only one movement phase, only one round per combat, and dice on the battleboard instead of moving units, is going to shorten things dramatically. I don’t see it taking much longer than 10-20 mins per player turn.


  • Hi, I typically participate at the Forumini boards, but I decided to register here because I am very excited about the expansion of Axis & Allies into World War I territory.

    To my mind, the biggest flaws that I can see with the game as written right now are the way that the US enters (it seems far too soon and far too arbitrary, and for those who talk about playing the game with seven people, hats off to you - I think the most people I’ve ever gathered for a strategy game has been 4, and that’s rare) and the so-called “Russian Revolution” rules.

    The first flaw (US entry) could be tied to the damage done to England (as Tuchman pointed out in The Proud Tower, everyone referred to the country as England before the war) by German submarines.  Essentially, let the Germans declare Unrestricted Submarine Warfare whenever they want to without the US entering (which is historically accurate), but be prepared that once a certain level of damage is reached the US enters.  If that doesn’t happen, have the US come in on Turn 6.  (I am thinking of each turn as half a year, so Turn 1 - 1914, Turns 2 and 3 - 1915, Turns 4 and 5 - 1916, Turns 6-7 - 1917, etc.).  What the IPC damage should be is hard to say.

    The Russian Revolution rules should be completely and totally scrapped, however.  They are FUBAR.  The Russian Revolution didn’t take Russia out of the war.  It continued to fight until after the Bolshevik coup (later re-named the “Great October Socialist Revolution” in 1928, even the Bolsheviks didn’t call it a revolution for ten years).  However, Russia wasn’t the only country that worried about a revolution.  England saw the Easter Uprising in Ireland and was nervous about a Labour uprising closer to home.  There was a widescale mutiny in the French army (the French Mutiny), and the Austrians were hanging on by their fingernails after 1916.  The Germans were close to revolution when they surrendered.

    As a result, the way to incorporate the massive unrest caused by sustained war would be to implement a system that substitutes the Russian Revolution rules with universal rules applicable to everyone.  Mark Stability Points (SP) at 20 for each country at the start of the game.  Then add a new step at the beginning of every turn.  First roll two dice.  If the result is less than the current SP of the nation, continue to the turn as normal.  If you roll the SP of the country by exact count, the country loses a turn due to political instability (February Revolution, French Mutiny, or similar event).  If you roll greater than the current SP of the nation, the country is out of the game (use the existing Russian Revolution rules for how to deal with the effect of this).  Then reduce the nation’s SP by one if it is at war (i.e., the US doesn’t lose SP each turn while it is neutral).  The SP can never be higher than 20 minus the number of turns the nation has been at war.

    Then, on the purchase units step, you add two options: 1 - add 1 SP for 5 IPCs (to the maximum SP), 2 - spend 5 IPCs to reduce another nation’s SP by 1 (only one enemy reduction is allowed per country per full round of play, so each Central Power can’t spend to destabilize Russia, but Germany could destabilize Russia, Austria could destabilize Italy and the Ottoman Empire could destabilize England).

    Then, when combat results are tallied, for each 5 infantry lost, the country losing the troops suffers a loss of 1 SP.  Fractions are rounded down and do not carry over from turn to turn.

    Finally, at the end of the turn, for each two territories of your original territory that are occupied at the end of your turn, lose 1 SP (fractions rounded down).

  • Customizer

    I’ve had something along these lines in mind all along, though somewhat simpler. I don’t particularly like being able to buy your way out of instability; things should start to get out of control.

    Why just infantry losses?  I have a -1 to morale (or stability if you prefer) for every 10 units destroyed, of every type.

    I agree that every power should be vulnerable to revolution, though there are good reasons why Russia was particularly at risk.

    You don’t say what you’d do in the event of revolution: do you have Reds vs Whites “Civil War” rules such as those I’ve described elsewhere?


  • To address each of your points:

    1. My thinking was that infantry losses reflected a loss of large numbers of people, as opposed to losing a tank, where you’re talking effectively about losing 10-20 vehicles, or a plane, where you’re losing a few vehicles at most.  It was the horrific human cost of the war that led to revolution, mutiny and disorder.  That’s why I thought the infantry should be the standard.

    2. As for “buying your way out”, it’s still a difficult prospect, because if you divert 5-10 IPCs every turn to staving off revolution (which could be done, of course - improving the lives of civilians would divert them from the war, but only by diverting needed supplies at the front) you’re neglecting your military goals.  It’s a balancing act - spend just enough to stay out of revolution without depleting the Front completely.

    3. Regarding Russia being particularly at risk, I think that the “occupation of home territories” component of political instability is something that will hit Russia disproportionately hard, based on what we know about the game setup and the fact that Russia is sort of cut off from the other Allies.

    4. The Russian Civil War really started to take contours in 1919, so I think that it would generally be outside the scope of the game.  There was no strategic advantage gained by the Allies in their limited intervention in the Civil War, which is why it ended.  For purposes of the larger war, the idea is that any nation that drops out is just out of the war.  That’s not to say I wouldn’t start looking at creating a fun mini-game using the pieces from this one (but you’d have to add in cavalry).


  • Also, if you can spend 5 IPCs to destabilize another country, you’ve just essentially added a game mechanic for letting the Germans send Lenin back to Russia…


  • @ossel:

    @BJCard:

    @Clyde85:

    @BJCard:

    If you guys can get 8 country turns in under an hour, then either you aren’t thinking that far ahead or you guys are much faster than me

    I think that’s the crux of the matter right there. We do think many turns ahead, but were doing it during the other players turns so that when our turn comes around we can just go. Also, I don’t know about you, but I usually have a battle plan mapped out before I go into a game based on my prior analysis of all possible moves, and reactions to possible enemy counter moves.

    I agree with you on principle, especially if it is 1v1, but when you go to 2v2 or 3v3 games, things change fairly suddenly- you may have planned on that British Incursion to the Med, but after Germany got great dice or France decided to buy fleet instead of infantry, you may have to rethink.  A lot of times side conversations start to happen during someone else’s turn (you are waiting a while for your turn to come up after all), prolonging the game as well.  Even if you know you plan before your turn, it takes some time to move units, roll dice, and place units.  I suppose you could be fairly efficient at that and be under ten minutes, but not much- especially if there are more than one attack.

    I think, all planning and sidebars aside, the fact that there’s only one movement phase, only one round per combat, and dice on the battleboard instead of moving units, is going to shorten things dramatically. I don’t see it taking much longer than 10-20 mins per player turn.

    I agree- 10-20 min per player turn.  There is potential for EIGHT player turns… looking at an hour per game ‘round,’ therefore US entry in the FOURTH hour of gameplay.  Granted, after the first round, many rounds will be much shorter, but not a whole lot.

    One round of combat will take longer than other A&A games (at least for a while until we get proficient at them), gotta match dice up in their boxes and units have special abilities not known before- tanks, planes, etc.


  • There was massiv Desertion late in this war. To simulate that you should be allowed to buy propaganda flyer (maybe after turn 4) for 5 IPC and take 1 enemyinfantry away from the frontzone were you dropped your flyers via plane in representation of the desertion.


  • @Chacmool:

    There was massiv Desertion late in this war. To simulate that you should be allowed to buy propaganda flyer (maybe after turn 4) for 5 IPC and take 1 enemyinfantry away from the frontzone were you dropped your flyers via plane in representation of the desertion.

    5 IPCs seem like a heck of a lot for the enemy to only lose one infantry unit.


  • @Suvorov:

    Also, if you can spend 5 IPCs to destabilize another country, you’ve just essentially added a game mechanic for letting the Germans send Lenin back to Russia…

    In 1914 Lenin was in Suisse so you should start sending him within first round because without rails he will be in Petrograd in the mid 20s  :lol:


  • @BJCard:

    @Chacmool:

    There was massiv Desertion late in this war. To simulate that you should be allowed to buy propaganda flyer (maybe after turn 4) for 5 IPC and take 1 enemyinfantry away from the frontzone were you dropped your flyers via plane in representation of the desertion.

    5 IPCs seem like a heck of a lot for the enemy to only lose one infantry unit.Â

    I don´t know how much it should finally cost to do that. Have to try it in game first.
    Just think about to weak the enemyfront where you want it is a strong might.
    But you shouldn´t be allowed to buy more than one “propaganda” per turn otherwise spending 25 ipcs on it could
    get you an full conquerd zone without fighting.


  • You probably shouldn’t be able to take out the last unit in a territory by propoganda…

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