Contested Territory Question

No.

As the Attacker you may only take casualties from the active Power. As a defender, with multinational forces, all defending units fight and can be taken as casualties.

From the 1914 Rulebook (page 17)
Phase 3: Conduct Combat
Combat occurs when your units share the same space with units belonging to one or more opposing powers and you decide to commit your units to an attack. Only enemy units may be attacked. When attacking, all units in the space belonging to your power must attack. You are required to attack only in territories that have become contested this turn due to your movement of units into them. Attacks in territories that were already contested at the beginning of the turn and in sea zones are always optional, even if you have moved units into them this turn.

Only one power can attack while in a sea zone or contested territory, but all enemy forces that may be present in such a territory must defend together (see “Multinational Forces”, page 22). Players must always defend with all units in the space if attacked.

Page 22
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@krieghund

Thank you a lot!

@the_good_captain Yes, that’s correct.

Good deal. Thanks

It’s in the errata/FAQ.

There is no such thing as a contested sea zone.

Personally, I don’t think this should even occur. One round of sea combat only; if the defender survives the attacker must retreat (and can still do so even after a victory).

I can understand the logic behind a land force not being allowed to retreat after a victory - they have to consolidate their hold over the conquered tt.

But why would ships remain behind in an empty sea zone, especially if they can retreat back into a friendly port for repairs and/or reinforcements from newly launched ships? Unless they wish to launch amphibious assault or enact USW why should they be obliged to remain behind and quite possibly become sitting ducks for enemy fleets? A case of being punished for success?

The anomaly occurs when a player places new ships into a sea zone occupied by enemy fleet. Should a battle immediately occur? Or should the new ships only be “launched” in his next movement/combat cycle?

In my experience the game is only playable by replacing ALL land and air units with chips bar the single infantry atop each stack. Even then it can still get crowded with units of 4 or 5 nations sometimes piling into a small tt.

So for me a future version needs a few more infantry each and drop all the other land unit minis; and a big pile of extra chips, a different colour for each unit type.

More likely a second edition will feature something along the lines of task force cards & markers; AH is not going to admit to the redundancy of plastic minis. Blow up boxes are a no-no.

Remember that also, for this reason, planes cannot participate in naval battles.