• I you want trains make some units move faster….no more plastic, or cardboard, and tailor it to each factions industrial capacity (their capital’s IPC value is a good one)

  • Customizer

    @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.


  • Half of your current IPCs?
    1/4th?

    I’m not going to take a sharpie to my board and draw all over it so we need alternatives. Alternatives that include changing how units that come in the box move.
    If you want rules everyone can use, well….everyone might not have blockhouses or tokens, or copies of AA1942 to plunder for bombers and destroyers.
    Larry didn’t write Alpha +3 and say “well, break open your copy of revised and get some pieces out of that”

    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.

  • Customizer

    @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.

  • Customizer

    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.

  • Customizer

    @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.


  • Limit rail movement to territories only with an IPC value of 2 or more (industrial areas)

    Limit each power to how many units it can move by rail to reflect it’s logistic capabilities.
    However…none of this may be necessary.

  • Customizer

    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.

  • Customizer

    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.

    Axis&Allies1914FlashMap.PNG

  • Customizer

    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.

    Axis&Allies1914FlashMap.PNG

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