First of all, we never changed the setup from the OOB setup.  All we changed were the land movement rules to allow two moves into a friendly or already contested space as the second space, and the extended 3-move sea movement from friendly sea bases.  And we added in the economic and political collapse rules.

What that led to was a series of games where one side would engage in cheap moves, like dropping one Italian guy in Smyrna to help push the Ottomans into collapse.  It was making the game stupid so we altered the rules to have the effects of political collapse kick in at the end of the turn, and if out of economic collapse the country could collect money.  This in turn unbalanced the game the other way, by creating situations where Germany was in economic collapse at the beginning of every turn but out at the end of every turn, and so it kept collecting money and had something like 110 IPCs when it got lucky and started its turn able to buy about 3 rounds later.

It also led to situations where countries were in political collapse for three or four turns and then managed to turn things around by getting out before the end of that country’s turn each round of game play.

As a result, we think we hit on the right balance: (1) at the beginning of a country’s turn, before purchasing, it must check for collapse.  If it is in economic collapse, it loses all its money.  If it is also in political collapse, it may only conduct moves that are into spaces that would allow it to stop that collapse in addition to losing all its money.  Then check again at the end of the turn.  If it is still in political collapse, it is out of the game.  If it is still in economic collapse, it collects no money.  If it is out of both, it collects money.  (2) In the event that a country starts its own turn in political collapse twice in a row, it immediately, at the beginning of its turn, is out of the game.

These changes to the rules, based on our playtesting, seem to fix the crazy/“cheap” moves and balance the game better.

An absolute OOB change is canning the Russian Revolution rules.  Not only does it make the game formulaic, but it also ignores everything that happened in a political sense in World War I in other countries.  The collapse rules are better but they need to be modified a bit because not letting a nation try to retake its capital on its own turn (or enough points to avoid not getting money) leads to crazy suicide attacks where only one guy needs to survive to sink, say, Italy or the Ottoman Empire.

I also think a limit on builds in India would make a LOT of sense.  That and also perhaps limited ability to build in Africa.  Add the 2-movement options from the tournament rules and you’re there.

It should at least be restricted to “non-combat movement” - moving two spaces into combat, even if it’s a previously contested space, seems a bit excessive for World War I.

Also, as I mentioned in my post on our game using Tournament Rules, the power in question should get to check at the end of the turn, rather than the beginning, to determine if that country is out of the game.  Otherwise there are all sorts of ridiculous moves made with no goal other than to push a country into collapse.

I think it’s pretty clear that you have to trash the Russian Revolution optional rule in its entirety if you don’t want the game to get formulaic.  To play with the Russian Revolution optional rule is not only stupid (all the great powers had serious issues that could have become revolutions due to war fatigue), but it also ensures that the CP strategy will be to knock Russia out of the game as quickly as possible.  This means each game will start to look like the ones before, which makes the whole game become boring.

The far better alternative is to use the political and economic collapse tournament rules, with some modifications.  The way that my group thinks the rule should work is to check at the beginning of the turn, but then give the nation threatened with the collapse the opportunity to try to reverse it on its own turn.

That might make sense.  Either that, or have contesting the capital as a precondition to checking for them.  However, in all three cases, the situation was caused by sneaky moves of troops to places just big enough to cause them to be contested, which is why I suggested giving the country the entirety of its turn to try to correct the situation (like in WWII games of A&A when a capital is captured).  As it was, we sent armies on suicide missions right before the turn of the country in question just to trigger the collapse, even though the moves would otherwise NEVER have been made (like sacrificing a considerable army just to have 1-2 units survive, thereby contesting a territory).

We prefer the collapse rules because the Russian Revolution wasn’t some preordained event, and other countries had similar issues.  The British had serious issues over Irish home rule and Labour, the French had their mutiny, Germany and Austria both came close to collapse, the Turks were close several times, and so we prefer to have the collapse rules over the terrible Russian Revolution optional rule.  Having it only apply to Russia also is a terrible idea because it makes the game a predictable and repeating one, where the only strategy is an Eastern one.  The collapse rules make a Western strategy better, which equals more variety.

My friend and I played with the new tournament rules and we generally like the new economic and political collapse scenarios.  However, we also found that it was making the game a bit absurd.  Italy, instead of protecting itself more, landed troops in Ankara (the Turkish navy was gone and the French navy was sitting in the territory, and the British and French had both failed in landings due to mines) because it was enough to push the Turks into total collapse on Turn 3.

These sorts of moves became common, too, because nations couldn’t do anything on their own turn to stop the collapses.  Italy and Russia both collapsed on Turn 5, but by then Austria and Germany were almost out of troops and the French had a massive army moving East, and England was a monster collecting 65 IPCs each turn and churning out armies in India to move to the Balkans.  The new strategic movement rules made it easier to shuttle those troops north.

We were unclear on whether the 2-space movement could be used to reinforce contested territories and so we didn’t allow it.  I think if we had the game would have been completely ridiculous.

Anyway, our conclusion was that real strategies were being forfeited in order to force collapses in ways that made a mockery of anything approaching something mildly historic.  In other words, the game was becoming as silly as the old 1983 MB version of A&A could get, with massive stacks in weird places and huge stretches of empty board.

We would propose, after playing with the new rules, the following change to the collapse rules (which are still much better than the Russian Revolution rules in the rulebook): at the beginning of the turn, check for collapse.  An economic collapse or greater means that the nation doesn’t get to spend its money.  It then has its turn to try to avert the crisis.  If it fails, at the end of the turn it suffers the consequences.  Example: Italy has only Naples with Rome contested.  If it relieves Rome, it stays in the game but doesn’t collect money because at the end of the turn it’s still in economic collapse.  If the US liberates Piedmont, on Italy’s next turn it can buy units because it is no longer in any sort of collapse at the beginning of its turn.

This seems to be a better way of making the game more interesting while not letting the collapse rules turn the game into a total farce.

As an aside, I will say that I am glad I bought a second copy of the game because we would have run out of pieces and markers otherwise.

My own thoughts on balancing the game:

1. Use the Tournament Rules WITHOUT the starting setup changes.
2. Added Political Rules: (a) Germany must attack Belgium on Turn 1, (b) Italy is neutral on Turn 1 (no offensive actions, but can move into Albania to mobilize) unless/until attacked, and the US joins on Turn 6, not Turn 4.  Thus, each turn is half of a year (Fall 1914, then Spring 1915, etc. - which also makes tanks at Turn 4 makes sense.
3. Strategic Movement: one or more units in one (1) space of home territory may be moved together to any other space of home territory that is not enemy-occupied or contested which is connected by a line of unoccupied, uncontested home territories from the first.  This may only be used once per turn per country, and is in lieu of other movement that those units could make.

Obviously, those crazy people who actually get 8 living, breathing people together to play the game will not like the US at Turn 6, but they can always find one person to not invite and have the US player also be the Russian player.

I like the rules except for the part that takes all the units out of Africa.  Part of the fun of the game is that it`s a world war, not just a European one.  Sure, the African part tends to end quickly, but it distracts forces from other objectives and that has an effect on the game.

The double move should only be in a nation’s original territories and only if they are not moved into contested territories or hostile territories.  It makes no sense to allow Germans to move from Silesia to Belarus in one turn.  Not only were the roads bad and unfamiliar, but Russia had a completely different gauge rail network (and still does).  By keeping the double move to the original home territories of a nation (and not colonies), it allows the Germans to contemplate a West Front strategy for a change, but it doesn’t radically change the dynamic of the game.

Of course, it still ignores the fact that 9/10 of the German forces were historically on the West Front, and how close the West Front came to collapsing, but it’s better than the way the game is formally set up.