• Hi,

    years ago, long before the official Axis and Allies 1914, i started my own WW1 Axis and Allies, called “Entente und Mittelmächte - Europa 1914” (Entente and Central Powers - Europa 1914).
    I hope my English is not too bad and you have fun reading it.

    Here is the map:

    As you can see, 14 Nations are playable, some are destined to die like Serbia, Belgium and Romania.
    The Central Powers consist of Germany, Austria-Hungary, The Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Not all nations start the game at war, some join later like the USA in turn 6.
    I also added a new type of territory: resource field (the shaded territories). These are usually oil or ore fields like the Ploiesti oil fields in Romania. They produce a lot of ipc s but no harbour, factory or airfields are allowd in them. This makes the Caucasus worth 14 IPC with almost no production capacities.

    Here are some pics of my last game:

    This is the start setting of central Europe.

    This is the Ottoman Empire with british, french and greek forces advancing…

    A fiew from the north… You can see my space holders.

    And the whole map. It measures ca. 240 x 180 cm. in the front you can see my tech chart. i added a third tech collumn to the game, so i have now an army, navy and air force tech collumn.

    New to the game are my playing cards for each nation. The cards are divided into five categories: Kampf, Verstärkung, Einkommen, Forschung and Spezialaktion (battle, reinforcement, income, research and special operations). each category is colour coded.

    The battle cards gives you a bonus in attacking or defending and are again divided into four categories: Commanding officers like Sir Douglas Haig, Gen. Pershing, Hindenburg etc. Officers like Erwin Rommel, Manfred von Richthofen, Billy Bishop etc. Equipment like tanks (A7V, Ft-17, Mark V etc.) aircraft, guns, shells, etc. and strategy like box barrage, creeping barrage, fire and movement, trench raiding etc. In each battle, only one commanding officer, officer, equipment and strategy card can be played.

    The reinforcement cards gives a discount on units, a Battleship for example costs with a card 12 IPC instead of 20. They allow also the purchasing of units that are usually not available to the nations like tanks for Austria- Hungary and Italy or Bomber and Battleships for the Ottoman Empire. These cards also allow the purchase of artillery units, the strongest unit in the game.

    the income cards givs a bonus on the income (what a surprise) by giving extra IPC or IPC rolls.

    the research cards gives some tech tokens. These cards present new technologies like the Haber proces, the Austrian PKZ-2 helicopter, the German Siemens-Schuckert aerial torpedo (a predecessor of the modern cruise missile) and its US counterpart, the Kettering bug, scientists and military engeneers like Antony Fokker, Mihajlo Pupin, Nikola Tesla, Edmund Rumpler and Wladimir Fjodorow.

    the special operation cards cant be generalisized becaus each card gives you a special operation like stealing an enemy destroyer or technology, capturing enemy units after a successful battle, or receiving extra units. this are the most annoying cards in the game because they can be played anytime during the game ;).

    cards of the central powers…

    cards of the entente (the Romanian and US cards erent finished yet)…

    so far i designed ca. 770 differend cards (no doubles) all (but one) based on historical facts. the cards includes ca. 190 generals, officers, rulers and scientists of the great war, all tanks and armoured cars used, 70 differend artillerey and field guns ranging from small mountain guns to the enormous Paris gun, dozends of planes like the most common fighters, bombers and ground attack fighters, warships and even shells, grenades, gas masks, bunkers, trenches, barbed wires, helmets, rifles and so on.

    The fictional card depicts Henry Walton Jones Jr. fighting for Belgium. Most of you should know him ;).

    These cards add a fog of war to the game.

    Here are the cards of Italy.

    I also changed the gameplay and unit ballance drastically. The importance of the airforce has been reduced drastically, while i strengthened the Navy. Artillery and Fieldguns are now two differend units and belong to the most multifunctional units in the game. Fighters cannot scramble anymore but the artillery and fieldguns can now defend the Navy as coastal artillery.

    The navy (battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers) gives now artillery support in both attacking and defending for as long the battle lasts.

    fighters and tacticals cannot attack ships anymore (but there are cards like the British “Short Admiralty Type 184” fighter making an exception for this rule), and bombers attack ships only on 2.

    The Artillery unit is new to the game. it costs 8 IPC and can support infantry units fighting up to 2 territorys away, so its a long range weapon. If the gun supports an Infantry in an adjacent territory, it supports on 5. If the infantry figths 2 territories away, it supports on 4. They support in attack and defence. If the territory containing an artillery unit is attacked it cannot defend itself. Artillery units can be captured by the enemy by rolling on 3 after the battle is won. As i mentioned above, the artillery units are not on the free market, you can only buy them with a reinforcement card. So the number of these units is limited.

    I reduced the movement of a tank to 1 but it can support two infantry units.

    I also added a new unit: Stormtrooper. This units attacks on 2 and defends on 1, has a movement of 2 and costs 4 IPC. But it has a special ability: Breakthrough. If you won the battle, your stormtrooper can exploit the victory by attacking a second territory if it has movement left. This second battle cannot be supported by other units except for the airforce. Because the Stormtroopers are exhausted, they attack on 1. This adds a lot of new options to the game.

    So in all, infantry can call in artillery support from the navy, fieldguns and artillery in offence and defence, making battles to artillery duels of the two sides (and the poor infantry guys are the bereaved).

    Units available in my game:

    Infantry
    Fieldgun
    Stormtrooper
    Tanks
    Artillery
    Fighter
    Tactical
    Bomber
    Sub
    Destroyer
    Cruiser
    Battlecruiser
    Battleship
    Carrier (much weaker than in global, so almost never build)
    Transport
    Harbour
    Airfield
    Small factory (can only produce infantry, stormtroopers, fieldguns, fighters, subs, Destroyers, cruisers and transports).
    Large factory (can produce all units but can only be build in the home territory without colonies).
    Minefield

    We are still using the Axis and Allies WW2 units because i have no clue where to get WW1 playing pieces. I even thought on designing my own pieces and have them 3D printed (but expensive) or cast my own units with resin. Any ideas?

    some more Pictures:

    Setup chart (on the back) of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire with a list of the available units, bonuses and national objectives and national advantage.

    National Advantages: Russia can produce one infantry in each territory worth 1 IPC (like China in global), Germany is highly industrialized and has a factory in every territory and gets a bonus on research, Austria can squeeze out an occupied territory twice per turn and gets a infantry for free, France receives two colonial troops, Britain one and has a 50-50 chance for a free destroyer, the US has a larger income and so on.

    The rulebook. As you can see, we are still working out typing errors and bugs. The final version will be in colour.

    A closeup of Germany, France, Belgium and Austria. As you can see, Austria-Hungary has two capitals.

    And finally my boxart for the game (Based on the A&A Europe boxart):

    Since we have this game, we never played a Global game again because everyone has more fun with WW1 now. The rulebook has 40 pages so i only presented my major changes here. I hope you enjoyed reading my proposals as much as i had creating and photoshopping it.

    Greetings from Germany,
    Christian

    PS: Right now, im working on a WW2 Axis and Allies focussing on the eastern front. This game will include Germany and some of its smaller allies like Finland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Italy with British supported Russia as the main opponent. The working title is “Barbarossa”.

  • Sponsor

    This map is sick!!!


  • This is probably one of the most gorgeous maps I’ve seen yet.  I can only imagine the amount of hours you had to put into it.  It looks like it has much potential to be monetized as well, as long as there’s no copyright infringement.  I wonder if WotC would buy it or distrubute it once it’s finished…  Regardless, I’d love to play this!

    As for the pieces, I’m guessing you avoided acquiring A&A 1914 because of the lack of variety and quality.  I would too if I was working with a game like this.  HBG has a very limited selection for WW1; it’s mostly WW2 stuff there.  It looks like you’ve checked out their site already.   The only options I can think of are the ones you already mentioned.

    Awesome work man.

  • Sponsor

    I’m assuming that this game is not available in English… right?


  • Just awesome !


  • I agree. A beautiful work of art: well done.
    I hope you finish the Barbarossa one too and feel you can show us, when you have done.


  • Thanks guys.

    Yes it took a really long time to make this. But i really had a lot of fun researching, reading history and thinking about new rules and units to make it unique.

    Right now its only in german. But i think on translating it for you. but this might take some time.
    My friends too said that i should sell it somewhere, but the problemes are copyright infringement and i think the final game would be too expensive.


  • The map and the cards are beautiful.  Congratulations on a superb custom game!  I have a question about one of the map features: if national capitals are identified by a large roundel with the name of the capital printed in red inside it, why is Bordeaux shown to be the capital of France rather than Paris?

  • Sponsor

    Someone is eventually going to ask you this so I might as well be the first… Do you have an editable Adobe file for that map?.. perhaps with just basic land masses without the borders and graphics so it can be converted for a WW2 game?


  • Map is beautiful, although if I had the adobe file, I would change the colours for Austria-Hungary to Green, Italy to Orange, Ottoman Empire to Teal, and Portugal to Purple, to be consistent with the official WWI game. I believe you can sell this, just different box art, since the map is original (HBG made maps too without issues), also don’t sell pieces unless you have original sculpts.

    The WWI pieces could be used for some stuff, with WW2 filling missing pieces, for your personal one at home, just paint for the other 6 powers.

  • '18 '17 '16 '15 Customizer

    Beautiful map, blacky. It is nice to see someone as gifted and talented as you, put your art on here for all of us to enjoy. Your truly talented. :-)

    Cheers,

    John


  • My first version had Paris as capital of France. But the Goverment left Paris at the beginning of the war and fled to Bordeaux, as they did in 1870 and again in 1940.

    Right now im not thinking on selling it because of copyright issues. And i still have no WW1 Figures. I allready made 3D models of most of the figures needed for 3D printing. But this is too expensive right now.


  • @blacky:

    My first version had Paris as capital of France. But the Goverment left Paris at the beginning of the war and fled to Bordeaux, as they did in 1870 and again in 1940.

    During WWI, Bordeaux was the capital of France for only one month, in September 1914, at the time of the First Battle of the Marne.  The rest of the time, the capital was Paris.

    Bordeaux’s status as the capital of France during WWII was also quite short.  The French government left Paris on June 10, 1940, just 12 days before the French surrender of June 22.  It initially operated out of Tours (June 10-13), then out of Bordeaux (June 14-July 1).  The new French regime which replaced the Third Republic established itself in Vichy on July 1st.

  • '17 '16

    This map is gorgeous… I would concur with RetroFuhrer that you might consider changing the colors of counties on the map around to match the 1914 A&A colors, since you (and anyone else) could use the A&A 1914 units with the map, and that would solve the lack of units issue.

    Regardless, that is top-notch professional work on that map!

  • '22 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    The map is gorgeous, I can’t wait to see your Barbarossa map!


  • @Wolfshanze:

    This map is gorgeous… I would concur with RetroFuhrer that you might consider changing the colors of counties on the map around to match the 1914 A&A colors, since you (and anyone else) could use the A&A 1914 units with the map, and that would solve the lack of units issue.

    Regardless, that is top-notch professional work on that map!

    Also, I forgot to mention, but the Control Markers for Russia, Britain, France, and America need to be changed to resemble the official insignias, and yeah, maybe France and perhaps others could have multiple capitals, like Bordeaux and Paris. Surprised Moscow doesn’t function as a secondary capital. These are just suggestions to broaden the use for others if you release the map file.

    The map could legally be sold, there is nothing that should stop you, it’s your creation. Just the box art can’t since it resembles the official WWI release, and obviously not with the pieces you have now, with the exception of those cards you have.


  • Amazing map!  Very well done!

  • '16

    What computer program did you use to make that gorgeous map?


  • Dude this is awesome, when will it be done? Can I buy this, and if so how much is it?


  • awesome map!! Can anybody tell me how I can get this map please!!!

    Thanks!

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