Technology

Did Gas kill off entire divisions in WWI? or did it affect their ‘combat effectiveness’?  I still think a set number of enemy troops (maybe by rolling a die) can only defend at a 1 or 2 if they are gassed.  Or they are unable to make a combat movement on their turn… something like that.

I know my techs aren’t set in stone, or wholeheartedly accepted by the community as of yet, but “Observation Balloons” is already an artillery boost.

Observation Balloons - In battles where no aircraft are present, one of your artillery counts as having air support.

Gas has to be….nasty. Because it was. It can only kill in territories you are attacking, so realistically what its doing is weakening the enemy so much that in all the fighting its as if you got 1-3 more hits than you really did.
I guess a decision could be made that gassed units are merely “hit” already and get to shoot back to make the effect more mild.
But if a techs impact becomes too mild, then whats the point?

Would gas be better if it was?:
V (this is something I could wholeheartedly accept) V

Chemical Warfare - Choose one territory and roll a die: “1-4 that many enemy units may not roll defensively”; “5-6: no effect”. A power who also has the chemical warfare breakthrough may ask that the die be rerolled.

There has to be a reason to only use it in big battles, so that it isn’t just an automatic hit you can use in Africa. I don’t want to see the 4 germans down their gas their way across the continent.

@oztea:

The IL proposal of “one extra artillery shot” is practically nothing.

Don’t see the problem with this, actually. It was basically an artillery effectiveness booster. If you’re going to remove 4 infantry from a single front, you’re basically simulating a nuke, not an artillery-delivered gas attack. Yes, gas was nasty, but so were machine guns, artillery, barbed wire, and all the other ‘nasty’ things that killed people in WW1.

Let’s take a step back and look at historical impact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I

The killing capacity of gas, however, was limited – only four percent of combat deaths were caused by gas.

Keeping with this statistic, I don’t think we should be seeing more than one or two deaths per round, per front, as a result of gas.

@oztea:

Would gas be better if it was:

Choose one territory and roll a die
1-4: that many enemy units may not roll defensively during this combat.
5-6: no effect

Or a variation:

1-4: that many enemy units may not roll defensively during this combat.
5: no effect
6: wind shift; the gas affects your troops instead of the enemy

Well Ossel, under a gas rule that generates casualties the effect would be 1-3 dead or 50% of the time none dead

However, I am being convinced that the gas shouldn’t generate casualties, but instead make X units just not able to shoot back.
Wrap gas masks in by allowing other powers with the same tech to have the random die be rerolled (to simulate their masks working well or not)
1-4 infantry unable to shoot back is a big deal actually, because they are the kings of defense in this game at ‘3’

As an artillery boost, some other tech can do that.
Gas is our chance to make something special and unique. Observation balloons could logically boost artillery, and fills out another slot on the tech chart.
The chart cant just be:

Gas
Gas masks
Better planes
Better boats

Thats boring. we need the whole tech tree fleshed out. 3 each of land, air, sea and economic advances (for a total of 12) is how Larry likes to do it.

I’m glad that SOMEONE is finally agreeing with my suggestion that Infantry have lower effectiveness in some way vice outright death.  I like the not being able to defend, but able to soak up a hit on defense.

Yeah, if you’re going to simulate it all, making the defenders unable to fire back is probably the most palatable. It’s also the most practical: just remove defender dice from the battle board.

Ok, so lets get the ball rolling on a consensus here: Are any other techs acceptable in their current form by most of us participating in this thread?
I wish there was an easier way to do this….

Air/Naval Techs
1. Undersea Warfare - Your Cruisers prevent enemy subs from submerging at a 1:1 ratio and your Subs may submerge before the first round of combat.
2. Advanced Aeronautics - Your aircraft become 3/3/3 (up from 2/2/2)
3. Mine Sweeping - Roll a die before your ships attack into a minefield: That many of your ships are immune to enemy mines (your choice).
4. Observation Balloons - In battles where no aircraft are present, one of your artillery counts as having air support.
5. Advanced Mines - Your Naval mines strike enemy ships on ‘2’ or less.
6. Naval Aviation - Your Battleships may serve as a landing space for one of your own aircraft. Battleships attack and defend at 5 with naval air superiority.

Land/Economic Techs
1. Tank Pioneer - You may build tanks before turn 4, after turn 4 you can buy tanks for 5 IPCs.
2. War Bonds - At the end of your turn roll two dice, collect the higher number as IPCs
3. Chemical Warfare - In one attack, roll a die; 1-4: that many infantry do not roll defensively; 5-6: No effect. If the defender also has the Chemical Warfare Breakthrough he may have the die rerolled.
4. Conscription - For each 4 Infantry you purchase, receive a 5th for free.
5. Radio Communications - During combats where friendly forces are also in the contested zone, roll a die. That many friendly artillery may also participate in the attack
6. Advanced Transportation - Four of your infantry may move 4 territories this turn (amongst friendly territories worth 2 IPCs or more)

@oztea:

4. Conscription - For each 4 Infantry you purchase, receive a 5th for free.

I think that many countries involved in WWI already had conscription before the war started; as I recall, only Britain and the US (of the eight player countries in the game) had all-volunteer armies (at least initially).  So this tech might not apply to everyone.

@CWO:

@oztea:

4. Conscription - For each 4 Infantry you purchase, receive a 5th for free.

I think that many countries involved in WWI already had conscription before the war started; as I recall, only Britain and the US (of the eight player countries in the game) had all-volunteer armies (at least initially).  So this tech might not apply to everyone.

Maybe call it ‘Improved Conscription’?

My vote is we trim this down, not sure if others will agree, but here goes. Green is good, red needs work, strikethrough I think we should cut to get to 6 techs.

Air/Naval Techs
1. Undersea Warfare - Your Cruisers prevent enemy subs from submerging at a 1:1 ratio and your Subs may submerge before the first round of combat.

• Don’t like the ‘early submerge’ thing.
  2. Advanced Aeronautics - Your aircraft become 3/3/3 (up from 2/2/2)
  3. Mine Sweeping - Roll a die before your ships attack into a minefield: That many of your ships are immune to enemy mines (your choice).
  *Why not roll this into #1? Maybe call it ‘Destroyers’ or something.
  4. Observation Balloons - In battles where no aircraft are present, one of your artillery counts as having air support.
• I think it can be assumed that observation balloons are omnipresent - only when aircraft arrive does one side get an advantage.
  5. Advanced Mines - Your Naval mines strike enemy ships on ‘2’ or less.
• Don’t think mines were updated very often (might be wrong) - we can assume that they stayed constant from the beginning of the war.
  6. Naval Aviation - Your Battleships may serve as a landing space for one of your own aircraft. Battleships attack and defend at 5 with naval air superiority.

Land/Economic Techs
1. Tank Pioneer - You may build tanks before turn 4, after turn 4 you can buy tanks for 5 IPCs.
2. War Bonds - At the end of your turn roll two dice, collect the higher number as IPCs

• Everyone’s going to dive for this immediately.
  3. Chemical Warfare - In one attack this turn, roll a die: 1-4 that many infantry do not roll defensively; 5-6: No effect. If the defender also has the Chemical Warfare Breakthrough he may have the die rerolled.
  4. Conscription - For each 4 Infantry you purchase, receive a 5th for free.
• Most (if not all) nations had conscription even before the war.
  5. Radio Communications - During combats where friendly forces are also in the contested zone, roll a die. That many friendly artillery may also participate in the attack
  6. Advanced Transportation - Four of your infantry may move 4 territories this turn (amongst friendly territories worth 2 IPCs or more)
• I’d rather this be a separate rail house rule than a tech. Again, nations had established rail lines to move their troops quickly for decades before the war started.

Since I just shat all over your list, which I’m sure you put a lot of work into, here’s some suggestions of techs that were developed during the war, if you’re dead set on making a 12 item tree. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the effects.

Anti-Aircraft guns
Bombers
Stormtrooper tactics (both sides)
Long-range battleship bombardment
Creeping Barrage
Pill Boxes

Note that I haven’t included things from your original list that I thought were good, like advanced fighters and gas.

Ok, well we are making some progress.

Id like to stick with 12 techs though. 6 is neat, simple, condensed. But 12 has been the standard for games of this scale for 5 years now and counting.
The 6 techs seems like a step backward, just like taking away tech tokens was a step backward.
Perhaps if we have 12 techs we could have 2 charts, one with techs favorable to the allies, some with techs favorable to the CP, you can research either chart, but the UK might not want to risk getting advanced subs.

Now for some counter criticism. ill try to rationalize how I came to these suggestions a little bit and why.
1. Undersea Warfare wrapped advanced subs into it so the Central powers can use the tech too.
2. This is a no brainer tech
3. Wrapping this into #1 would make that tech a paragraph long though perhaps 3 & 5 could merge
4. This was a way of getting better artillery without cutting and pasting the standard “Advanced Artillery” from 1940. Also, this makes it an AIR breakthrough, that planes can neuter.
5. Not necessarily updated mines, but MORE mines, MAGNETIC mines, or DUMMY mines (to make mine clearing take longer) Think of this as similar to the Radar tech in 1940
6. Im surprised you like this one, it has gone through a few incarnations, but this seems to be the most reasonable approach so far.

1. Also surprised you like this, but seeing as 6 IPC is being rumored as too much for tanks, this might be a good tech. OR bumping tanks defense to ‘2’ as an alternative?
2. I ripped this off 1940 to fill up the chart, and its something ECONOMIC. Best of 2 dice makes it not god awful like it is in 1940
3. Chem warfare, as we have discussed seems to have been fleshed out well enough.
4. Conscription is another grasping at straws I made for an ECONOMIC tech, something like Improved Shipyards instead? Or perhaps heavy industry? Artillery are 10 IPCs for 3?
5. Im actually kind of proud of this one. I watched ‘The Lost Battalion’ recently and radio directed artillery was an important development of the war.
6. I want this tech rule set to be STAND ALONE. I know people are going to make rail rules later, so I could ignore rails, but if someone doesn’t use some other rail rule set and only uses these techs I still wanted a movement bonus tech in here somewhere. Perhaps just “your Infantry can move 2 amongst territories you control” but that tech would be trash for the US.

@ossel:

6. Naval Aviation - Your Battleships may serve as a landing space for one of your own aircraft. Battleships attack and defend at 5 with naval air superiority.

I assume you’re referring here to HMS Furious, the hybrid carrier/dreadnought, but I’d argue against this upgrade.  First, Furious wasn’t a battleship; she was a one-off (and extreme) battlecruiser design, with the armour of a light cruiser and with outrageously large (18") guns – of which she carried only two, which was completely inadequate for proper salvo firing.  The combination of a light hull with oversized guns resulted in a ship in which sheared rivet heads would fly around inside the vessel every time her main battery went off.  Her ability to function as a capital ship was almost worthless, and she carried nothing like the eight or more main guns (12", 13.5", 14", 15" or 16") of a real battleship.  Second, in order to have an experimental flight deck fitted during construction, she had to sacrifice 50% of her planned main armament, bring her down to a single 18" gun.  So the idea of a battleship gaining a flight deck while losing none of its capabilities doesn’t work: Furious was a battlecruiser conversion, not a battlecruiser tech upgrade.  Third, as I recall, the first attempts to take off and land from Furious (in 1917, I think) were less than stellar: I think the pilot performing these experiments was killed on his second or third try.  Naval aviation at that time was more of an experimental technique than a viable combat method.

Like ossel, I’m for 6 techs, a la A&A Classic.

Instead of a reroll for Chemical warfare, how about the following to simulate gas masks:

If Chemical Warfare is successful against you, halve the number of infantry immobilized, rounded down (4 becomes 2, 3 becomes 1, 2 becomes 1, 1 becomes 0).

For Radio Communication:

For each artillery unit of an ally in the same territory, one infantry or tank is promoted to the with artillery support box. Allied artillery does not participate in battle.

Instead of Advanced Aeronautics:

Strategic Bombing - Fighters within 2 spaces of an enemy capital may perform a strategic bombing raid (Thus Germany can hit Paris or London from Belgium) instead of engaging in combat. Each fighter in the raid rolls one die, deducting 1 IPC from the attacked power’s treasury for each 1 or 2 rolled (the airborne version of USW).

For Undersea Warfare (Anti-Submarine Warfare):

Your Cruisers prevent enemy subs from submerging in battle or moving through a sea zone you occupy at a 1:1 ratio.

Since the first aircraft carrier wasn’t operational until October 1918, change Naval Aviation to:

Your fighters may be assigned to a naval combat in a sea zone adjacent to the territory they occupy. Fighters in naval combat behave in the same way as in land combat: establish air supremacy, strafe enemy ships, boost surface ships’ combat values by 1.

Replace Tanks with AA Guns, which were pretty much born in WWI, although primitive:

AA Guns - If enemy aircraft are present in a battle, roll one die before the battle for air supremacy begins. On a roll of 1, an enemy fighter is destroyed. If an enemy is conducting a strategic bombing raid, roll one die before the enemy fighters roll to determine IPC damage. On a roll of 1, an enemy fighter is destroyed. - Could be changed to roll one die per artillery unit, but getting the altitude right was tough in WWI.

All in all, I’d say that for chemical warfare smoke shell was more important than gas. It was heavily used in the last year of the war; essentially it simulates the effects of fog - cancelling out the defensive advantages of entrenched infantry.
But this would need to be coordinated with a range of weather effects, which in turn means each turn being a specific season.

@oztea:

5. Not necessarily updated mines, but MORE mines, MAGNETIC mines, or DUMMY mines (to make mine clearing take longer) Think of this as similar to the Radar tech in 1940

Magnetic mines were a WWII invention.  They were first used in 1939 by Germany, and they initially baffled Britain until they captured one and figured out how they worked.

For economic, why not consider the old A&A Classic: everything costs one less.

Because I like making rules. Here is some rules I can fire out real quick to reflect these via the game mechanics.
Im not saying Im for throwing all mine out that you don’t like (we need more people to participate in this discussion as you and I are)
But if the consensus is that some need swapped out I am all for that.

Anti-Aircraft guns - During the dogfight phase any number of your artillery may fire at enemy planes, scoring hits on 1. Any artillery that fire in this way may NOT fire in normal combat.
Bombers - your aircraft may attack enemy supplies. When strafing, instead of attacking an enemy unit, roll a die, the enemy must surrender that many IPCs to the bank. The number may not exceed the printed value of the territory ( I really don’t like the bombers tech, there was really no industrial bombing in WWI)
Stormtrooper tactics (both sides) - In one combat on your turn, Roll a die, that many of your infantry attack at 3
Long-range battleship bombardment (Replacement: Cruiser Bombardment) Your Cruisers may fire during offshore bombardment.
Creeping Barrage - Your artillery may fire two shots at 2 instead of their normal shot at 3. With air supremacy they may fire two shots at 3 instead of one shot at 4
Pill Boxes  - You may treat one infantry as if it were a tank (absorbs a hit, defends at 1) in any battle in your original territories.