Hey guys,

Been thinking of ways to make naval warfare more enticing in AA1914.

I think it is an opportunity to give something unique to both sides, so here’s what I was thinking.

For the Entente (Allies) : Freighters. You can build 1 per 8 land IPC you command, costs 3 IPC, 2 movement speed. Every time it ends its turn either next to a neutral country worth 2 IPCs or more or in the naval base of one of your allies (not your own), you gain 2 IPCs.

For the CPs (Axis):

1. Restricted Sub Warfare : Active from the game’s onset, on the British turn, every CP sub in sea zones 2, 7 and 8 roll and on a 3 or less, 1 IPC is deduced from the UK’s income.
2. Unrestricted Sub Warfare : Active when declared by Germany. Same as above except that it applies to the UK and the US’ turns and every sub in those areas are automatic hits and 1 IPC is deduced. The Entente may remove one roll for every surface warship in those zones.
3. Merchant Raiders : 3 IPCs, movement speed of 2. They are stealthy and can therefore sail past blockading enemies like subs do. Every turn they end up adjacent to an enemy territory, that enemy loses 1 IPC. If the territory is worth 2 IPCs or more, the lost IPC is instead transferred to the raider’s owner. Only 1 IPC per raider may be deducted and gained this way. To sink the raider, the Entente must send ships in that area to find it. Instead of normal combat, the Entente declares which ships is on “raider” duty. He gets 1 point per ship sent and then rolls a die. If the number rolled is equal to or less than the number of ships sent, the raider is found and destroyed (so if 3 ships are sent on patrol, a roll of 3 or less destroys the ship). He gets only one roll per turn. The CPs may only have one raider per 6 land IPCs they own.

I think this could make naval combat more fun and significant in the game, especially for the CPs who could see value in trying to take command of the seas or force the Allies to chase them around. On the Entente side, it would give some countries (Italy, USA particularly) a shot at boosting their IPCs and decide if they play the long economic game at the risk of lacking armies.

Let me know what you think !

I’m late to the game on this post, but since I have played many many games of AA1914 over the last couple years (and it’s my favorite AA game), I’d like to share on how my group’s thoughts have evolved about tanks.

The first few games, we barely made any, thinking they were not worth sacrificing 2 infantry units for the same cost. We lowered the IPC cost to 5, and within 2 games, tanks were on every battlefield. We figured we probably underestimated them, so we returned to the original cost.

Now, they are always on the game board for some powers, namely Germany, France and the UK. Other countries may field them based on whether or not they are clearly in the attack mode. Our games will never last less than 10 turns, usually more like 14 or 15 before we call a winner.

It’s important to remember that AA1914 is about weapons having synergies with each other, which means you need to figure out their niche for each and everyone of them, and they DO exist.

What we found out about tanks is that, once they start protecting a high percentage of your per-turn production (say 25% or higher), they give you tremendous staying power on the offensive. For the main powers, this means that 3 tanks or more will have an impact. For small powers like Italy, a single tank may make a difference if they are on the offensive.

When you play the usual rules, it takes time to bring reinforcements to the front (we use trucks as land transport equivalents so it is a bit faster) and therefore you want your offensive power to not erode as quickly, especially since the defender will have faster reinforcements. Many AA games were lost because the attacker made it to the enemy capital only to completely run out of steam, which meant a large scale retreat was needed.

While it’s true that tanks alone will lose a fight, their role is to skew the results of a offensive battle in your favor. Since their effect is guaranteed compared to rolling dice, you know you will cut your losses. This turns a relatively equal fight into an advantage, or an unlucky roll into a salvageable situation. Their effect will show over 2 or 3 turns, eating into your enemy’s kills and allowing your units to actually be there to defend when he would choose to counterattack.

Tanks alone are not worth it. But a few of them on a battlefield progressively eat away at your enemy’s army by forcing him to accept subpar kill ratios. Yes, more infantry MIGHT be good… if they were alive to defend for the counterattack. Tanks insure you will have a better attrition rate than your enemy, but the trick is you have to have a meaningful number of them compared to your IPC rate for them to make a difference. So, you either build enough of them to be worth it, or none at all.

The one caveat I would have is if you and your enemies have a tendency to stack ungodly large armies on a single region and wait for that epic clash of arms. In my experience, you should avoid this situation at all costs and force engagements when armies have more than 25 infantry divisions, otherwise it becomes a stacking game, and those are typically slow with a predictable outcome (the losing side just hopes something will happen to turn the tides, while the winning side simply keeps increasing its leverage while waiting for the inevitable). Go on the offensive, move that front, make it as fluid as you can !

All in all, if you feel you are going to be on the attack for a while, build tanks and watch your enemy lose more and more units for less and less of yours. Your staying power will be greatly enhanced and they will turn the tide of war in your favor.

I find it odd that a single unit can be used to stop an army of 50 divisions. Given that a single turn can make the difference because your enemy can stop you cold with a lone infantry, I was wondering if a small tweak would be interesting.

The tweak would be that units contesting a territory can only “hold up” 3 times as many units on the enemy side, allowing said enemy to move “through” and continue the attack in other areas.

For example, if the attacking side has 20 land divisions and the defense has 3, the attacker could choose to move “through” with up to 11 units (being forced to leave 3*3 = 9 divisions to fight) and attack an area behind the enemy lines or to the side. To do this, the attacker would be forced to commit to an assault on the 3 divisions; it can’t just move through without fighting them.

The number could be tweaked and there’s probably a ton of ramifications I haven’t thought about, so feel free to point out pros and cons. I just feel that stopping gigantic armies with minimal forces is very advantageous for the defender, which is usually the Allies. Giving the opportunity to move troops around would make for more aggressive and interesting plays. It would force the defender to choose to either sacrifice more armies for the delaying actions or just plain retreat and give that space entirely.

Let me know how you would implement this !

Been trying to think of rules that have an interesting effect without becoming convoluted. One thing that came to mind was the idea of “Artillery Duels”. Basically, in a contested territory, instead of making a full attack, you could elect to use your artillery to bombard the enemy position with just your artillery.

You would select the number of guns you want to use, attack with a -1 penalty (so hits are on a 2 or less instead of a 3). You can choose to launch your fighters to gain air superiority and hit on a 3. The defender then chooses whether or not he will reply and with how many guns and if he sends fighters to challenge your air superiority.

The catch would be that artillery units and fighters used this way may not defend or attack for the rest of this turn. This basically means you are trading mobility and moves for a turn in order to try to soften up your opponent before a battle or maybe slow his buildup of forces.

Any thoughts on it ?

@MasterMark26

A couple of rules that we use that make the game fun :

1. Cruiser cost reduced to 7
2. Submarine cost reduced to 5
3. Addition of trucks as land-based transports. Moves 2 Inf, 1 Inf+ 1 Art or 1 Tank 2 squares, cost of 5 IPCs. Can be left alone in an area without Inf but are defenseless.
4. Playing with statistical losses instead of dice-rolling (see my thread https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/34182/aa1914-playing-with-statistical-losses)

This has so far produced very fun games with more flexibility navy-wise. Trucks give you limited but quite useful mobility, which can become a strategy in and of itself.

We tried reducing tank cost to 5 but it gives it far too much value so we removed that.

I’m thinking some other rules may be fun as well, such as making Switzerland impassable. It’s been attacked every time in the last 3 games and although it makes for fun battles, it just feels completely wrong and rarely ever ends up being good for the CPs.

@SS-GEN said in AA1914 - Playing with Statistical Losses:

Ok. Low luck with a twist right ?
So how does the -10/+10 roll work ? say
A
6 inf = 15
3 art = 6
Total = 21 points
Then div 6 into 21 = 3.3
3 hits plus a 3 left or half hit.
How does the rest of this work ?

Hello!

If using the 1914 values ( 2 for Inf, 3 for Artillery and supported Inf), it gives this :

• 3 Inf x 2 = 6
• 3 Supported Inf x 3 = 9
• 3 Art x 3 = 9

(9+9+6) = 24
24 / 6 = 4 hits.
Roll for +/- 10%. We typically call for a minimum variance of one, so you would end up with between 3 and 5 kills.

We round the number before rolling, so in your case, 21 hit points divided by 6 gives 3.5, so we count 4 kills before rolling for +/-.

This makes for low luck games but that +/- 1 or 10% can be the difference sometimes between changing your strategy or staying with it without killing you on one bad roll.

I hope this helps you out. Enjoy!

Hello everyone.

I am in the process of making minor tweaks to AA1914 and I wondered if anone tried something similar so far.

We’re looking to correct one major flaw of the game and another minor one. The major one is the fact that the Cental Powers’ fleets get destroyed and the seas are left totally open to the Entente by round 3 max. This is not at all accurate with real events, since U-Boats managed to deal tremendous damage in the Atlantic Ocean and in the North and Mediterranean seas. So we were thinking to change that.

I was also looking at ways to use ground units a bit more strategically instead of massive slugfests that inevitably grind down the Axis Powers every game.

So here’s what I thought about :

1. Adjust ship costs : 6/9/12 IPCs for ships is just way too much money for the Central Powers to invest in without losing their land momentum. Also, it’s not that accurate in terms of costs when comparing giant armies of men. So I would drastically change the costs of Subs, Cruisers and Battleships to 3, 5 and 9, respectively. Transports would cost 4. This makes the change fair because both sides benefit and it allows the Central Powers to at least mount a semi-effective fleet for proper harassment.
2. Submarine rules : Attacking submarines could decide which target they are attacking in order to inflict strategic losses by siking key ships like the transports. Each enemy Cruiser would negate one Sub’s ability to choose (I pick Cruisers to not have to add more units into the game). The attacker could negate the defense bonus of one Cruiser for every surface ship he sends on the attack. Gameplay wise, if the Allies feel their transports are constantly threatened, they would have to spend more money into the sea before actually commiting to large land battles. Disproportionate allocation of naval resources was a great benefit of the U-Boats.
3. Restricted and Unrestricted Sub Warfare : From the outset of the game, Restricted Warfare would make it so that every Sub that is on a sea tile that is adjacent to the islands of Great Britain or Ireland would reduce the British IPC count by 1. When Unrestricted Warfare is declared, add areas 2, 7 and 8 which will now also count. The USA loses 1 IPC per Sub in those three areas. This makes it a LOT more dangerous and will force the Entente to chase submarines relentlessly.
4. Defensive Dive : When submarines are attacked, they can roll a die to try and die before their enemy can attack them. On 4 or less, they succeed and cannot be attacked. On a miss, the enemy has 1 round to hit before they submerge as per the rules. The roll decreases for every surface ship the attacker brings in excess of Sub count (For example, if there are 2 Subs and 3 surface ships, the dive die is reduced to 3). This represents the actual difficulty of sinking submarines.
5. Aircraft Combat : Aircraft battles now last only for one turn. Whoever has more plans than the enemy has Air Superiority, whereby half his artillery is promoted. If the enemy has no more planes, then he has Air Supremacy and all artillery are promoted. Plane battles in this game are problematic because once one side gains the upper hand, it’s impossible to challenge the air since it’s a fight to the death. Comebacks should be possible, and only downing the whole of the enemy’s air force should give a large advantage. This should theoretically help the Axis a bit more, but not much. It also protects some of the investment in airplanes.
6. Artillery Neutralization : On the attack, artillery can choose to suppress defenders instead of killing them. On a successful suppression roll, 2 units (1 Art, 1 Inf, or 2 Inf if there are no more guns) are suppressed and cannot roll for defense. This could allow large armies to fight each other through attrition, and allow the attacker to take better kill ratios with tanks in smaller battles to avoid the giant clash we always fear.

I think this goes some way into dealing with a few issues we’ve encountered with the game. I still think it’s the best A&A by a mile, but this might make it that much better.

FYI, we play with 2 house rules currently : Subs/Cruisers/BBs cost 5/7/12 respectively, and we have Trucks (5 IPCs) that can carry 2 land units or 1 tank across 2 areas (no blitz). Trucks have been typically better for Central Powers but it’s not game breaking and the Entente can make great use of them as well.

So let me know what you think, if you foresee issues, and how you would tweak such rules.

Thank you !

Hello fellow gamers.

I just built a small website for tweakers and to share some of my own thoughts on how games can be modified and to help people out with their own experience.

https://worldwargaming.org/

It’s simple and I want to keep it that way so people get the content right away.

I will add to it periodically as I put out more new stuff to add to AA games and others.

Enjoy !

@superbattleshipyamato123

Hello. Thanks for the reply !

I’m surprised to hear about your game and the Central Powers winning the sea. I’ll have to think about it.

Regarding your answers, here’s a few items for thought :

1. Adjusting ship costs : From the little information I found online, arming one division of men was the approximate cost of building a medium cruiser. Submarines were 5-6x cheaper and battleships 6-8x more expensive. It’s going to be hard to have an accurate depiction of this without changing the rules a lot. That being said, I think the costs should be closer to something that makes sense around the cruiser level and adjust a bit for the rest. True that unit tokens are scarce in the game, which is why I bought extras from Historical BoardGaming.

2. Submarine Rules : I agree that Destroyers should be the logical unit. The problem is the challenge of fitting a new unit in the game that doesn’t displace another entirely, which is why I thought of the Cruiser to keep it simple. It’s a personal choice, so I respect that you disagree on it. It makes me cringe a bit too.

3. Sub Warfare : You are quite right about the Mediterranean. It was a very active territory for submarine commanders. Thank you !

4. Defensive Dive : See #2 basically. Your idea of not being able to roll is interesting as well !

5. Aircraft Combat : Well from our games, usually the main army ends up with 3-4 Fighters and then one clash occurs and if it goes poorly, nobody ever challenges the air. Last game was a 5v4 and ended in a 4-0 lead for the French. We couldn’t afford to put that much money into planes again without stalling our ground advantage. In real combat you wouldn’t keep sending out your planes until they died if things turned bad.

6. Artillery : Great ! Thank you !

Here is the truck print I use : https://www.shapeways.com/product/RK9QJAH6V/wwi-truck-x12?optionId=128058468&li=shops
They paint well and blend well with the other units.

Thanks for the link !

Happy gaming !

Hello everyone.

I am in the process of making minor tweaks to AA1914 and I wondered if anone tried something similar so far.

We’re looking to correct one major flaw of the game and another minor one. The major one is the fact that the Cental Powers’ fleets get destroyed and the seas are left totally open to the Entente by round 3 max. This is not at all accurate with real events, since U-Boats managed to deal tremendous damage in the Atlantic Ocean and in the North and Mediterranean seas. So we were thinking to change that.

I was also looking at ways to use ground units a bit more strategically instead of massive slugfests that inevitably grind down the Axis Powers every game.

So here’s what I thought about :

1. Adjust ship costs : 6/9/12 IPCs for ships is just way too much money for the Central Powers to invest in without losing their land momentum. Also, it’s not that accurate in terms of costs when comparing giant armies of men. So I would drastically change the costs of Subs, Cruisers and Battleships to 3, 5 and 9, respectively. Transports would cost 4. This makes the change fair because both sides benefit and it allows the Central Powers to at least mount a semi-effective fleet for proper harassment.
2. Submarine rules : Attacking submarines could decide which target they are attacking in order to inflict strategic losses by siking key ships like the transports. Each enemy Cruiser would negate one Sub’s ability to choose (I pick Cruisers to not have to add more units into the game). The attacker could negate the defense bonus of one Cruiser for every surface ship he sends on the attack. Gameplay wise, if the Allies feel their transports are constantly threatened, they would have to spend more money into the sea before actually commiting to large land battles. Disproportionate allocation of naval resources was a great benefit of the U-Boats.
3. Restricted and Unrestricted Sub Warfare : From the outset of the game, Restricted Warfare would make it so that every Sub that is on a sea tile that is adjacent to the islands of Great Britain or Ireland would reduce the British IPC count by 1. When Unrestricted Warfare is declared, add areas 2, 7 and 8 which will now also count. The USA loses 1 IPC per Sub in those three areas. This makes it a LOT more dangerous and will force the Entente to chase submarines relentlessly.
4. Defensive Dive : When submarines are attacked, they can roll a die to try and die before their enemy can attack them. On 4 or less, they succeed and cannot be attacked. On a miss, the enemy has 1 round to hit before they submerge as per the rules. The roll decreases for every surface ship the attacker brings in excess of Sub count (For example, if there are 2 Subs and 3 surface ships, the dive die is reduced to 3). This represents the actual difficulty of sinking submarines.
5. Aircraft Combat : Aircraft battles now last only for one turn. Whoever has more plans than the enemy has Air Superiority, whereby half his artillery is promoted. If the enemy has no more planes, then he has Air Supremacy and all artillery are promoted. Plane battles in this game are problematic because once one side gains the upper hand, it’s impossible to challenge the air since it’s a fight to the death. Comebacks should be possible, and only downing the whole of the enemy’s air force should give a large advantage. This should theoretically help the Axis a bit more, but not much. It also protects some of the investment in airplanes.
6. Artillery Neutralization : On the attack, artillery can choose to suppress defenders instead of killing them. On a successful suppression roll, 2 units (1 Art, 1 Inf, or 2 Inf if there are no more guns) are suppressed and cannot roll for defense. This could allow large armies to fight each other through attrition, and allow the attacker to take better kill ratios with tanks in smaller battles to avoid the giant clash we always fear.

I think this goes some way into dealing with a few issues we’ve encountered with the game. I still think it’s the best A&A by a mile, but this might make it that much better.

FYI, we play with 2 house rules currently : Subs/Cruisers/BBs cost 5/7/12 respectively, and we have Trucks (5 IPCs) that can carry 2 land units or 1 tank across 2 areas (no blitz). Trucks have been typically better for Central Powers but it’s not game breaking and the Entente can make great use of them as well.

So let me know what you think, if you foresee issues, and how you would tweak such rules.

Thank you !

Hey guys,

Been thinking of ways to make naval warfare more enticing in AA1914.

I think it is an opportunity to give something unique to both sides, so here’s what I was thinking.

For the Entente (Allies) : Freighters. You can build 1 per 8 land IPC you command, costs 3 IPC, 2 movement speed. Every time it ends its turn either next to a neutral country worth 2 IPCs or more or in the naval base of one of your allies (not your own), you gain 2 IPCs.

For the CPs (Axis):

1. Restricted Sub Warfare : Active from the game’s onset, on the British turn, every CP sub in sea zones 2, 7 and 8 roll and on a 3 or less, 1 IPC is deduced from the UK’s income.
2. Unrestricted Sub Warfare : Active when declared by Germany. Same as above except that it applies to the UK and the US’ turns and every sub in those areas are automatic hits and 1 IPC is deduced. The Entente may remove one roll for every surface warship in those zones.
3. Merchant Raiders : 3 IPCs, movement speed of 2. They are stealthy and can therefore sail past blockading enemies like subs do. Every turn they end up adjacent to an enemy territory, that enemy loses 1 IPC. If the territory is worth 2 IPCs or more, the lost IPC is instead transferred to the raider’s owner. Only 1 IPC per raider may be deducted and gained this way. To sink the raider, the Entente must send ships in that area to find it. Instead of normal combat, the Entente declares which ships is on “raider” duty. He gets 1 point per ship sent and then rolls a die. If the number rolled is equal to or less than the number of ships sent, the raider is found and destroyed (so if 3 ships are sent on patrol, a roll of 3 or less destroys the ship). He gets only one roll per turn. The CPs may only have one raider per 6 land IPCs they own.

I think this could make naval combat more fun and significant in the game, especially for the CPs who could see value in trying to take command of the seas or force the Allies to chase them around. On the Entente side, it would give some countries (Italy, USA particularly) a shot at boosting their IPCs and decide if they play the long economic game at the risk of lacking armies.

Let me know what you think !

If you guys want to see someone tweak their game and talk about new rules and new units, hit this channel :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-swb0PHMbBHzI0GsMFRh5Q

The guy is amazing in his paintwork and does good shout-outs to the designers who help him with his units.

Enjoy !

@MasterMark26 Glad I could share the ideas !

For the trucks, I 3D-printed some models on Shapeways and added them to my collection after painting them. Here is the link to the model in my shop :

https://www.shapeways.com/product/RK9QJAH6V/wwi-truck-x12?optionId=128058468&li=shop-inventory

You can see the end result on the Plastic Commando’s YT channel once he painted them (and he did a great job) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADQnU6f0gKQ

There’s other options like gun-mounted trucks, which could be a hybrid mobile-artillery / AA battery, armored cars, and more ! So if you want to make things more interesting, feel free to be creative !

For your tank idea, I wonder if the increased cost would make them appealing. They sure would boost your offensive power by boosting your infantry, it’s just a question of would you be able to buy enough to make a difference. Let me know how it turns out !

Happy gaming, good sir !

@SS-GEN said in AA1914 - Playing with Statistical Losses:

Ok. Low luck with a twist right ?
So how does the -10/+10 roll work ? say
A
6 inf = 15
3 art = 6
Total = 21 points
Then div 6 into 21 = 3.3
3 hits plus a 3 left or half hit.
How does the rest of this work ?

Hello!

If using the 1914 values ( 2 for Inf, 3 for Artillery and supported Inf), it gives this :

• 3 Inf x 2 = 6
• 3 Supported Inf x 3 = 9
• 3 Art x 3 = 9

(9+9+6) = 24
24 / 6 = 4 hits.
Roll for +/- 10%. We typically call for a minimum variance of one, so you would end up with between 3 and 5 kills.

We round the number before rolling, so in your case, 21 hit points divided by 6 gives 3.5, so we count 4 kills before rolling for +/-.

This makes for low luck games but that +/- 1 or 10% can be the difference sometimes between changing your strategy or staying with it without killing you on one bad roll.

I hope this helps you out. Enjoy!

@MasterMark26

A couple of rules that we use that make the game fun :

1. Cruiser cost reduced to 7
2. Submarine cost reduced to 5
3. Addition of trucks as land-based transports. Moves 2 Inf, 1 Inf+ 1 Art or 1 Tank 2 squares, cost of 5 IPCs. Can be left alone in an area without Inf but are defenseless.
4. Playing with statistical losses instead of dice-rolling (see my thread https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/34182/aa1914-playing-with-statistical-losses)

This has so far produced very fun games with more flexibility navy-wise. Trucks give you limited but quite useful mobility, which can become a strategy in and of itself.

We tried reducing tank cost to 5 but it gives it far too much value so we removed that.

I’m thinking some other rules may be fun as well, such as making Switzerland impassable. It’s been attacked every time in the last 3 games and although it makes for fun battles, it just feels completely wrong and rarely ever ends up being good for the CPs.

If you are interested in trying a new way to play AA1914, my friends and I have been using the math game for a few tries so far and we really like it. It makes it much less about a bad throw of the dice and more about strategy.

Here’s how we play it : for land battles, we add the hit value of units (an attacking infantry is 2 or 3 if supported by artillery, artillery is 3 or 4 if air superiority, etc.). If the combat value is 20 or higher, we then add the points together, divide by 6 (6-sided die) and round that number, which gives us the kill count. We finally roll one die to modify that number by +/-10% depending on the roll (-10% on a 1 or 2, +10% on a 5 or 6, and no change on a 3 or 4). Kills prevented by tanks are then subtracted.

For sea combat, air combat, and land battles where the combat value is less than 20, normal dice rolling applies. This leaves a bit of luck in the game and makes it a strategic decision of whether or not you commit a “statistical” force to an objective or take a risk. Ships and airplanes are just too small in numbers to make it worthwhile.

I can say this approach has many advantages :

1. Fights are done much more quickly, therefore the game moves along a lot more smoothly
2. Much less frustration about losing over a poor roll in a critical battle
3. The +/- 10% still can change the balance of a fight
4. Tanks have an even greater effect as they move the loss ratio away from the means, which is much more significant than say making up for bad rolls.

I’ve been juggling with the idea of making -15/-10/0/0/+10/+15 variations on rolls, but right now this has made an already great game even better for us.

If you want to try it out, let me know how it works out for you !

Been trying to think of rules that have an interesting effect without becoming convoluted. One thing that came to mind was the idea of “Artillery Duels”. Basically, in a contested territory, instead of making a full attack, you could elect to use your artillery to bombard the enemy position with just your artillery.

You would select the number of guns you want to use, attack with a -1 penalty (so hits are on a 2 or less instead of a 3). You can choose to launch your fighters to gain air superiority and hit on a 3. The defender then chooses whether or not he will reply and with how many guns and if he sends fighters to challenge your air superiority.

The catch would be that artillery units and fighters used this way may not defend or attack for the rest of this turn. This basically means you are trading mobility and moves for a turn in order to try to soften up your opponent before a battle or maybe slow his buildup of forces.

Any thoughts on it ?