Talk Tech Turkeys (1914)

@oztea:

1. Tanks - You may now build tanks

The point about the game’s supplied tank pieces being viewed as a tech upgrade is a good one, since tanks historically did indeed only start being used about mid-way through the war.  By the same reasoning, however, I wonder if the game’s supplied destroyer pieces should be seen as a tech upgrade too, at least as far as their anti-submarine warfare capabilities are concerned.  Destroyers were originally vessels designed to defend big ships against torpedo boats, and they later became torpedo launchers in their own right…but their ability to function as ASW units only really emerged when the first effective depth charges were deployed for service, which didn’t happen until early 1916.

@Flashman:

I would also allow copying of techs. That is:

After first building a tech, a power may pass the knowledge on to its allies, who can then each pay $5 to get it for themselves.

After first having a tech you don’t possess used against you, you may copy the tech for your own use, after paying the standard $5 fee, then pass it on to your friends after you’ve built one.

Through this system, the advantages of having a tech are reduced to just a couple of turns, after which you’re likely to see the enemy’s own version used against you. This prevents a cheesy “tech victory” against an opponent who was just unlucky never to roll a particularly useful tech.

I like this idea. This is something that isn’t really well reflected in the existing A&A tech systems; as innovations rolled out to the battlefield, they were copied and shared fairly quickly among the powers.

A way you could simplify things is to have a sort of time limit before a tech became common knowledge. For instance, on the first turn the tech is used, only the nation that researched it can use it; on the second turn, their allies can purchase it; on the third turn, it becomes common knowledge and everyone can benefit from it.

Do the CPs get a Unified Command (offensive coordination), or is that in place from the start?

No they can defend together, but attack separately.

How can you have railway guns with no railways?

Because it is assumed that every area has railways, so no need to destroy the map marking them. This is not a “train game”

No, but it should be because it was a train war.

I would have said that the Central Powers (or at any rate Germany and Austria) were at least as well coordinated as the Allies, especially after the Hindenburg-Ludendorff partnership took command.

Au Contraire, Blackadder.

If railroads were taken into account in how everything moves then it would take one turn to move units from the Eastern to the Western front. It took approximately 3 weeks for Germany to move over a million men to the west after the Russian treaty. Under present rules this task takes SEVEN TURNS.

Germany should not have all those units “in transit” for turn after turn. The whole point of why this war was fought in the way it was is down to the fact that railways allowed nations to massively reinforce their fronts before the enemy could exploit any advantage.

@oztea:

Advanced railroads might mean more capacity in cars, or better scheduling or something so you get a bonus. Since how everything moves already takes into account everyone had railroads, the rules already reflect you having them. Just like if “advanced farming” was a tech….we know everyone has farms, its just that yours got slightly better.

@oztea:

Well from a standpoint of railroads, it would be feasible, and SIMPLE to allot each power STRATEGIC REDEPLOYMENT POINTS. Guess how many you have? As many IPCs as your capital is worth.

So lets say berlin is worth 8 IPCs.
8 units can move freely with trains, from the capital, amongst interconnected friendly territory (with an IPC value).

Might be a good compromise. Although I’d like to see the value change, instead of a static number like the capital’s IPC value. Maybe a percentage of your total IPC income, so that as your empire grows, so too do your railroad capabilities.

@oztea:

Half of your current IPCs?
1/4th?

Not sure, probably have to play it and get a feel for what a half or a quarter would feel like.

@oztea:

Frankly, the whole issue of German Divisions going back to France as Russia surrendered could be settled with a NATIONAL ADVANTAGE rather than a rule for everybody.
Or even just a one time special rule.
“if Russia surrenders roll two dice: Germany may move that units from any Russian territories to Berlin each turn”

I guess its time to work on some national advantages……i’ll get cracking.

I disagree. As Flashman pointed out, moving troops by rail was a hallmark of this era. Both sides of the conflict were transporting massive amounts of manpower to the front by rail, and (in Germany’s case) between fronts. In fact, the reason the allies needed to pull off large coordinated assaults is because Germany’s rail system enabled them to shuffle troops between allied attacks and shut them down sequentially.

I liked your idea about giving everyone a chance to move a certain number of their units a certain number of zones; it reflects the fact that rail travel was limited in both capacity and travel distance, while not adding any extra pieces to the game.

For practical purposes, distance should be unlimited. Each turn in the game represents several months, ample time to rail from Bordeaux to Moscow.

The main difficulty is determining which regions do not have rail - clearly the networks in Africa were negligible, hence my preference for rails on the map itself. However a simple rule that rail can only be used in Europe and the Ottoman Empire would be sufficient.

I’ve never proposed that you have plastic train pieces to move units around. As for changing unit movement values, by what criteria do you determine that trains carrying tanks and “mech infantry” move faster than trains carrying infantry or artillery? The units can travel as far as the trains can take them, but not into combat.

@Flashman:

I’ve never proposed that you have plastic train pieces to move units around. As for changing unit movement values, by what criteria do you determine that trains carrying tanks and “mech infantry” move faster than trains carrying infantry or artillery? The units can travel as far as the trains can take them, but not into combat.

This is why I had the caveat in my rule of the maximum number of moves. If you set it at 3, you essentially give infantry and artillery 2 bonus moves and tanks 1 bonus move (assuming tanks can move 2, which may not be a good assumption, considering that WW1 tanks could barely keep pace with walking soldiers, but that’s a discussion for another day).

@Flashman:

For practical purposes, distance should be unlimited. Each turn in the game represents several months, ample time to rail from Bordeaux to Moscow.

I don’t know, maybe this is the case in actuality, but I’m in general opposed to powers warping their units around the board. Take the global game for instance: if the Soviets could move all of their infantry based in Siberia to East Poland in one turn, it would just seem kind of hokey to me.

In my opinion, if you set the rail move bonus to 3 moves max, you’ve accomplished representing the increased mobility that rail travel granted, while not allowing powers to be everywhere at once.

An important thing to remember is that you can never rail units into combat, so the other side will always be able to counter a massive shift of units by rail with a similar move of its own before any combat resultant from it.

The Soviets did move a large army from Siberia to help the defence of Moscow, but only after receiving assurances that Japan would not violate the neutrality pact. Germany had itself moved the bulk of its armed forces from the western front to the east in the Summer of 1941 in preparation for Barbarossa, largely undetected by the Soviets.

So there is nothing unhistorical about such huge redeployments, indeed they are entirely reflective of the nature of industrial warfare. One of the challenges is to disrupt your opponent’s communications to prevent this, and of course to secure your own transport lines to reinforce your front.

Draft of an alternative map intended to use all the official rules plus rail movement of course. And building units in every home tt, obviously.

My preferred colour scheme; (Turkey should be tan, this isn’t on the palette I’m using).

Happy with the new arrangement of Ottoman Empire.

Russia looks something like.

Petrograd now the capital, but Russia can move centre to Moscow under certain conditions.

Didn’t like Lorraine-Burgundy crushing Paris westwards - fixed.

Persia logically reflects Anglo-Russian accord.

Still not satisfied with Med SZs.

America now has its very own colony - hoorah!

And…Ta-da! Return of the Roundels.

Divided Prussia.

Now Berlin is 4 spaces each from Paris & Petrograd, which I think is fair enough. Russia can move capitals to Moscow in an emergency, but Germany can force an armistice without taking it (it has to take Petrograd to defeat Russia).

Added more SZ in the Arctic - Scotland to Russia now 2 turns.

I think African tts when mobilized should be less well defended.

One inf per IPC with no art seems more realistic.