Topics created by Flashman

I very much like the overall idea. I think you’re doling out too many infantry in too many different places, and the effect will be disruptive to players’ strategies and will require a lot of bookkeeping. I would cut the bonuses roughly in half, and apply them to only a handful of specific countries that are relatively easier to remember. I would also limit the bonus to territories that start the game in enemy hands, so you don’t get weird see-saw effects as ownership changes hands. I like the idea of having Paris yield bonus units rather than ‘re-igniting’ the French economy. JAPAN India – 5 infantry French Indo-China – 1 infantry Western US – 1 infantry GERMANY Ukraine – 2 infantry Baltic States – 1 infantry ITALY Egypt – 2 infantry USSR Yugoslavia – 2 infantry Romania – 1 infantry Manchuria – 1 infantry UK Poland – 2 infantry Norway – 1 infantry Holland/Belgium – 1 infantry USA Paris – 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter Southern Italy – 2 infantry Okinawa – 1 infantry

@Flashman: Anyone else here have Aspergers? Yes, I just had some for breakfast

Considering different values for infantry depending on power: Germany 2-2 Russia 2-1, cost 2 (1914 1-1) Italy 1-1 (1914 1-2) Japan 1-2 Austria (1914 1-1) France 1-1 (1914 1-2) Britain 1-1 (1914 2-1) USA 2-1 China 0-1

I thoroughly enjoy all of the Academy Games series tbh and 878 Vikings is one of the better ones. 1812: Invasion of Canada and 1775: Rebellion are high on the list of must try imo.

Is this game coming out?

Well I bought the game and played till 4.40 this morning. I can just about deal with the crafting to get all the other stuff. Contrary to my expectations naming stars, planets and animals is rather fun; I found one ugly big misshapen beast on my home planet and named it Imperious Leader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f5t-xjKwjM

@Narvik: That myth could have fooled me. I always believed that Hitler attacked Russia because he had promised to do so in his book Mein Kampf, written in 1920, long before Stalin was even remotely able to make plans about invading Germany You will recall that Hitler was a soldier, who later became a politician. Like other democratically elected politicians, Hitler promised good things to his constituents. As a general rule, democratically elected politicians make many promises, but seldom deliver on those promises. (At least that’s been the pattern in my country, the United States.) The Soviet Union was the most evil major regime in human history. Hitler’s pledge to bring that criminal regime to justice was a very lofty promise. Ridding the world of Soviet evil would have helped the world more than a cure for cancer. Unless you or someone you know was the victim of Soviet crimes against humanity, it’s hard to fully appreciate the full magnitude of the promise to rid the world of Soviet evil. However, when a politician pledges to make the world a better place in some way, there is a good chance he’s being insincere. Was Hitler’s promise to make the world better (by destroying the evil of communism) just another hollow campaign promise from another democratically-elected politician? My sense is that Hitler’s promise to destroy communism was made sincerely, and that he really did intend to follow through on the commitment he’d made. In 1940, Hitler thought he had the luxury of putting off that invasion until a later time. Sure, he would have invaded eventually. But in the meantime, his trade agreement with the Soviet Union was helping Germany wage war against Britain. So why not clean up the mess in the west now (for example by conquering Britain itself, or at least a good share of the British Empire), while putting off the invasion of the U.S.S.R. until some other time? But the Soviet Union undertook a number of measures which, collectively, convinced Hitler he no longer had the time he’d once thought. A few months after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed, the U.S.S.R. invaded Finland. Finland’s Mannerheim Line was probably the best-defended terrain on the surface of the Earth. While the Germans found a way to go around the Maginot Line, the terrain left the Soviet invasion force with no choice but to plow straight through the Mannerheim Line. Such a feat was widely considered impossible, but the Soviets achieved it in only a few months’ time. After having conquered Finland’s defenses, Stalin allowed Finland to retain the bulk of its land. The Soviet government announced the Red Army had fought poorly in that war, and Hitler naively believed those propaganda claims. (Hitler was not normally one to gullibly accept communist lies. In this case, however, Soviet propaganda dovetailed with poor Russian performance in WWI, and with Hitler’s racial beliefs about Slavic inferiority.) Shortly after his success against Finland, Stalin demanded a slice of Romania. The Romanians had no choice but to acquiesce to that demand, because their nation was far less well-defended than Finland had been. Germany was utterly dependent on Swedish iron ore, and on Romanian oil. With the Mannerheim Line conquered, Stalin was excellently positioned to take the rest of Finland, and to cut Germany off from its Swedish iron ore. With the Soviets having helped themselves to a large slice of Romanian land, and with them strongly hinting at a desire for another slice, the Romanian oilfields were also in jeopardy. During 1940 it had become increasingly clear that the primary focus of Soviet expansionism was westward, and not (as Stalin had claimed) southward. Hitler began his preparations to invade the Soviet Union several months after the U.S.S.R. had begun gearing up to invade Germany. However, Germany proved quicker on its feet than the U.S.S.R. Partly that was because Germany had a better road and rail network than the Soviets. That was also partly because the Germans had fewer men and machines to ship; and needed to ship them over a much shorter distance than was the case for Soviet men and machines. Finally, Germany had the best-run military of any major participant in WWII. The competence gap between the Germans and Soviets was much larger than Soviet prewar planning had suggested. Germany invaded on June 22nd; whereas the Soviet troop movement to the front had been scheduled for completion on July 10th, 1941.

A less powerful defense than +1 but which gives an higher odds of survival for defender is to allow first strike roll to all ground units in homeland. Up to you to decide if it is only for the first combat round or all combat rounds. That way, Infantry Def 2, MI Def 2, Artillery Def 2, Tank Def 3 get a pre-emptive shot at their defense value.  AAA doesn’t change since its roll is already first strike on planes. It can simulate the advantage of knowing homeland TTy and being able to make all kind of ambushes due to such knowledge. In combat resolution, every succesful hit will diminish the number of attack rolls, hence increase the defender survival.

Thanks, but I already have a copy. Great pieces, but I don’t think I ever fully understood how the rotation of the planets worked! Some ideas from this, Twilight Imperium and Starfarers of Catan could be assimilated. BR has no Aliens, and the exploration of new stars for resources and Alien races is something I think of as essential here; much as the main inspiration COTE needs Barbarians in the new version. The parallels with the Roman Empire (or at least my version of it) are neat, especially the 3 eras divided by the “inflation” events.

Nice idea, but this “elite” or “veteran” Status should not be limited to infantry since all other branches of your forces gain experience too. And there remains one tiny practical problem: how to tell veterans from raw recruits on the game board? (If you dont want to paint your miniatures or place a huge amount of markers on the board.) Greetings, Lars

WWI version in the working - looks a bit railroaded to me. http://compassgames.com/index.php/preorders/the-lamps-are-going-out-world-war-1.html

Richard Borg’s WWI trench warfare game. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/173105/great-war Looks like the figures are too brittle and break easily; I’d replace them anyway as they’re those horrible “big head” figs from PSC. HaT can supply better.

It just scraped into funding. Everyone who stuck with it will get a big and expensive box of ugly, over sized minis with a game thrown in. Nevertheless, I’m still hoping for a worthwhile Axis and Allies style fantasy game. Conquest of Nerath has hardly any theme at all - it could be set in space. What I liked about Warquest was that it was about armies marauding around the map, rather than Kingdom expansion. Shame it became all about getting more and more superfluous unit types. Cough.

Another book along these lines is Eric Norden’s alternate-history novel The Ultimate Solution, which ends with the Nazi-dominated half of the world about to initiate a nuclear exchange with the Japanese-dominated half of the world.

It’s possible that the designers may have intentionally left the door open for such a variation.  I may be reading too much into this, but note that the game is called “A&A WWI: 1914”, not simply “A&A WWI”.  On one level, you could say that the “1914” part is redundant unless it’s a potential way of distinguishing the game from hypothetical versions set in 1915, 1916, or 1917…and even possibly 1918, though I think that one’s too much of a stretch. On the other hand, leaving the door open does not in itself prove that the designers have any actual plans to make use of it.  So who knows.

That line might work on the ladies, but I am not sure you will get many takers here.

the size of tts represents the strength of its national army. Look how far the CPs went in the east compared to the western front. For my own game (look in A&A variants) I am thinking about investing in Strategical Movement of units (cost 2 IPC per unit, max 5 IPC per turn-> 2 units per turn) maybe give Germany an advantage (1IPC per unit-> 5 units per turn) Flash, you are talking about Railmovement in A&A for years, I would like to read your sophisticated rule for my own play. I guess the set up needs to be changed. And where is RM allowed? (Africa,Arabia?)

We’ve had a lot of success with 4 players; ~Germany ~Austria/Turkey ~Britain/US (UK is huge, so the player doesn’t mind waiting through the US turns) ~Russia/France/Italy We might also swap US for Italy in this setup. And I agree, France IS boring, with only 1 real option. Stack the Western front and wait to get bailed out.

@protevangelium: @ossel: @Flashman: Get lost in general house rules. By all means post a 1914 House Rule section. This. That would be very helpful actually. The 1914 threads become hard to follow in the House Rule section. If not a subforum, maybe a sticky would help. I also agree. Seems that 1914 need a lot of little or even bigger fixes. And to be able to follow where it all goes, 1914 House Rules should have a separate Forum section. In addition, this game doesn’t have the same rules mechanics than all others A&A. That’s why I think it should be treated differently. Also, it could help new conscript see clearly the lines between house rules for A&A older versions and Larry’s newborn, and help showing clearly the OOB background rules. Because reading House Rule with 1914 background OOB rules is clearly a world apart from OOB rules from 1941, 1942, G1940 and older ones.

These VCs could actually be very good for fixing some one problem of the game. “Capture the capitals” is always a terrible victory condition, and because of the slow warfare in this game, the CPs basically have to get an economic advantage to stand a chance (which is virtually impossible). I don’t agree with the non-capitals having production capacity, but I could be convinced if it led to better balance. However, I would change it to 12 VCs after round 4, with one of them having to be an enemy capital, and shared or revolted Russian VCs counting as half a point for both sides. (Perhaps only for the CPs if Russia intentionally revolting itself becomes a problem) Contested VCs are still nothing for either side.

@WILD: So I was thinking, instead of mandating naval battles only go one round, why not just give both parties a retreat option (TBD). In many cases this would self restrict naval battles to one round. Yes, but when you retreat, the other is not allowed to chase you. In real naval battles it is common to chase each other, but in a game that kind of behavior violates the turn order. I think time is an issue. A game turn is considered to be like 6 months, while a real life naval battle usually took less than a day. On top of that, our ships seems to be stuck in their little seazone. In the real world a ship could easily sail around the world in 6 months, as is the length of a game turn. Now imagine that in a game, a ship with unlimited movement. I think in order to make a game that behave as close to the real world as possible, we must analyze every naval battles from 1904 to 1945, and then we will see that WiF is the game that come close, and that Axis and Allies has a long way to go.

Summary of my proposals regarding aircraft: There is only one round of air to air combat. The side with the most surviving aircraft wins air superiority. Every power gets a fighter in their capital to begin with; France gets a 2nd in Lorraine and Germany a 2nd in Munich (or a Zeppelin). Fighters starting on the board are rated only 1* for combat. Thereafter newly purchased units go up to 2, 3 & 4 on each successive turn. Price is the same, old units remain at their original level. Generally level equals combat rating and movement, though all planes can move 2 spaces minimum. Since planes are likely to survive longer, consider increasing price to 8 IPC. Planes can now conduct SBR against enemy production centres; i.e. the eight power capitals plus India & Munich. To conduct SBR, a plane must take off from and land in the same tt. This can be contested. My preference is for bombing to effect enemy morale, but it could be adapted to simply reduce enemy IPCs. Enemy planes based in the target region can intercept and force air to air combat with the bomber(s) under the same rules as standard dogfights. Thus, in the early war bombing is not feasible; but it comes into its own when  level 4 machines become available. This also emphasizes the importance of certain intermediate tts; note the position of Alsace (between Paris and Munich), Venice (2 spaces from Rome, Vienna & Munich), Poland (Berlin-Vienna-Moscow), Romania (Vienna-Constantinople-Moscow) & Mesopotamia (Constantinople-Bombay). The importance of Belgium as a base for bombing London is obvious. It could even be considered that starting units have a rating of 0, since these represent unarmed scouts. They would still count for air supremacy but without making a combat roll.

Cavalry should attack on a 1, defend on a 1, and move at a 2. They could be combined with other units to up their abilities. For example, they could defend on a 2 if paired with infantry. THey could attack on a 2 if attacking with infantry. They should cost 3 IPCs. The real role of cavalry should be to harass the enemy. If cavalry are in a battle, the other units cannot retreat nor engage another contested territory until the Cavalry are cleared out of that territory. In effect the unit is stuck there. This would simulate cavalry cutting supply lines and communications etc. Also, cavalry could disrupt IPCs by entering into a vacant territory and in effect scorching the earth. The territory would lose 1 IPC for every Cavalry performing this task in that territory. A marker could be used to denote the territories new value. Cavalry themselves could not conquer a territory by themselves. They would need to be paired with an infantry. On the map, all the territories on the Western front are occupied so this tactic would not really be used. However on the Eastern Front there are a couple of open territories mainly in Russia where it could be used.  Also, The middle east and Africa are more wide open. This rule conjures up images of Lawrence of Arabia!

Lets suppose that units generated by the mobilization of minor ally nations can visually be distinguished rather than simply merge into the armies of the controlling power. This might just mean, for example, a yellow stripe on a French infantry to mark it as Belgian. With all the new pieces available if you contact WOTC this becomes practical. What differences might these units have? +1 in combat when defending their homeland; -1 elsewhere, or if their homeland is under enemy occupation? e.g. - If Poland is under German occupation, will Polish units in the Russian army be less effective fighting for Russia, unless it means fighting over Poland itself? option to place a new unit in the respective homeland each turn (with a sensible total limit - probably the original starting number; i.e. you can never have more than 3 & 1 Belgian inf and art). One might extend the principle to colonies, e.g. marking some UK units as Canadian, South African, Indian, Anzac etc. Would separate Bavarian units be representative of German political divisions? Polish corps in the Russian army? Austria-Hungary might have a real problem…

Crusader 1 Baron 0