Speaking of WWI Miniatures Games…

@KimRYoung: even if 50+ brits are coming through sebastopol? and by then the french are also making a lot of IPC, from spain and such. 50+ Brits?? Never seen that many units on the board ever in the Mid-east. Not saying in your games that didn’t happen (unless your just talking theorectical), but if the UK sends NOTHING into France early on, then Germany and Austria can usually push on to Paris and if not capture it, severly weaken the Allies while increasing their IPC count enough to fight on two fronts. We have found that the once the Turks and Austrians secure the Balkans, the Turks can either press into Egypt and or towards India. Britain can’t get enough troops into Egypt quick enough do to lack of transports in the Indian ocean and the Turks can push into Africa gaining vital IPC’s if things go well. Enough to pin down UK troops in India. Don’t get me wrong, the CP has a tough road to victory in this game, but if the IPC count goes their way early on and Russia can be knocked out (revolution or capture) then the UK MUST send resources to France to assist (along with the US) or the French will get overwhelmed. Have you tried the Tournament rules? Kim and IPC balance in france, even with entire western front taken that’s still like 8 IPC. important yes, but not life threatening. and it’s probably round 4 at least till you reach that.

Regarding opening setup: Should the opening setup reflect the situation on August 4th 1914? In this case, Germany will have the equivalent of 7 armies massed in the West, with just 1 to hold tt in the East. This effectively commits Germany to the Schleiffen plan; just about practical if rail movement is used, suicidal if it is not. However, I would suggest a non-combat “Mobilization” round before any combat rounds, following these steps: 1. All starting units are placed in their Army Corps district headquarters/depots (land) and Home Station (ships). That is, each county’s units begin on their Peacetime settings. 2. Each player will simultaneously write down his mobilization orders in secret (don’t worry its one turn only). They are then revealed and units given their Mobe orders. 3. Referring to MOs, land and air units are moved as ordered, restricted of course to moving anywhere in home tt. Ships can be moved to any friendly port, or ordered to sea. This may result in rival fleets passing through the same sea zones, or ending up in the same zone. This is not a problem, as there is no combat in this round. 4. Nations may call up their national reserves, placing such units in their appropriate depots. Any new units purchased are also placed at this time. Players may, Diplomacy style, confer in secret with Allies before writing orders. Depending on politics at set up: The Mobilization round may involve just Germany, Austria, France & Russia; perhaps Serbia as Russian ally. Britain can only mobilize after G or A attacks a neutral. Turkey mobilizes at the start of Round two; Italy mobilizes in May 1915; USA under conditions agreed as per rules. Newly mobilizing nations do not collect income before their Mob turn. Effectively they don’t take a turn before this. Any country coming under attack before it is mobed automatically activates. Its units can defend themselves, and attack next turn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization#Mobilization_in_World_War_I Edit: An alternative system is for each power to Mobe in turn order, so that Player Two can Mobe in response to Player One’s Mobe moves and so forth.

AH softening France’s air force up to open the way for Germany to have air supremacy: this will henceforth be known as the “Happy Artillery” strategy.  Thanks for making my day, WB. @WILD: Yep, makes sense for the CP to have Germany go full tilt in one front, and Austria the other. We have seen Germany push France back to the brink, and Austria start off defending against Russia (and those damn Italians) then actually gaining the upper hand on their front as well with an aggressive Russia (they will need some inf from Germany, and the Turks). It is also helpful to have say a 10 unit friendly force with you to take out smaller adversaries, or grab more land so you don’t splinter off your main force. This can also help you to gain air superiority for the larger partner. Like Austria sacrifices a few inf and ftrs into a French stack just to force a dog fight and kill off a couple allied ftrs. Then Germany goes in full force, finishes off the air, and has very happy artillery.

@Auztria: Yes. If they truly had a historically accurate setup, Russia would have almost as many troops at start as Germany and Austria-Hungary combined. The Ottoman Empire would have no fleet, Germany would have extra cruisers in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, Britain would have just 1 infantry, and Africa would be even more barren. Of course they can’t do that, simply for gameplay reasons. If Russia could conquer Galicia and East Prussia effortlessly every game, people would quickly grow bored. But you see… I went to school to be a historian! I will have to do a little bit of experimenting with the Russian infantry bordering Galicia and East Prussia. Naturally, it raises my hackles that the Russians can’t do much more than poke the CPs on this front. The Russian TTs containing six infantry probably ought to have eight (on the western border). Any attack they make in Prussia or Galicia is going to be bulldozed by a massive A-H or German attack with at least 12 infantry in each case to throw at the hapless Russians. I have a soft spot for those intrepid Bulgarians c. 1915. This has led to some experimenting on my end to make them a playable country in lieu of a country in the direct Ottoman pale. Instead of collecting income, they would do something like China does in A&A:Pacific 1.0–crank out people or arty (no planes, tanks or ships). I even thought about allowing the Germans to give them a subsidy (1 IPC or something along those lines). Australia is often talked about for its commitment to the war (and justly so), but I was blown away when I read the Bulgarian stats. 1,200,000 mobilized out of about 5 million people!!  If Italy is in this game, surely Bulgars can’t hurt…

The way Larry described it ALL countries are the same - new units come into play in the capital. Ships are built in naval bases. For that reason, I do not see the large NBs at Oran, Alexandria or Tripoli being represented. Either that, or overseas tts are not considered as “home”. It would be the silliest thing ever in A&A if Britain was able to build battleships in Egypt, but not be able to build tanks or recruit infantry in northern England. Also, if Austria has only one Naval Base, can it build only one ship per turn, or as many as it can afford? Canada is an odd one out, in that it may be possible to build ships there, but then again to transport what? Doesn’t look like Anzacs will be represented at all, while India just gets its starting units. Anyhoo, I’m beginning to think about a completely different system for bringing infantry units into play, based on an ordered draft of units at regular stages. They still have to be payed for (training and equipment), but only so many are available and only on certain turns and in certain tts. Its on a use 'em or lose 'em basis - if you pass on a scheduled draft (to buy a dreadnought for example) you miss out on the units permanently. Eventually the numbers available will decline, as indeed the number of new recruits inevitably did in the war. It also ensures that you recruit units from all over your empire, and from each reasonably well populated tt. The UK is slightly different in having no conscription. It will have to reply on volunteers at first. But passing the Conscription Bill will rope in the slackers, at the coast of a few morale points… The USA is similar in having no initial conscription. However (assuming America goes to war in c1917) numbers available when the draft is introduced will be high through lack of early war attrition.

That’s always been my problem. It isn’t too hard to get your troops outside the capitol, bit you have to make sure you’ve brought enough to get the job done. If you only contest the territory the defender can reinforce during the battle and you can’t. So if you don’t take the capitol quickly you’re screwed.  Sounds like an entertaining game.

Well they could have mixed some in. My biggest gripe is the lack of artillery sculpts. Just swap them all around. Like give France the Italian sculpt from 1940, and give Russia the Japanese sculpt, etc. Just recolor the old molds. Better than one cookie cutter artillery.

The website itself was taken down. You can look on the Internet Wayback Machine, but there’s no guarantee that his thread will have been picked up. -M_R