Posts made by drsnidely

@Juhlius I haven’t played this game in a long time, but unless something has changed a fighter can’t be the last unit. You always have to have infantry.

I’ve never tried that myself, but my feeling is Germany has enough to worry about without bringing the US into the war early. In the games I’ve played, if the CP aren’t well on their way to eliminating Russia before the Americans show up, the war is lost.

I’m not an expert either, but I disagree that fighters are a luxury. I think they’re absolutely essential, unless you just want to throw infantry into the meat grinder. I agree with most of the rest though.

Welcome wmorgan. Clarification on 2): all units must be accompanied by infantry belonging to that power so this scenario is invalid. However, suppose Germany sends infantry and artillery against a defending force comsisting of French infantry and artillery and British infantry and a British fighter. In this case the defending French artillery would have air supremacy, because all defending forces are considered together and the defenders have the only fighter.

6. you have it right.

Hope you enjoy the game. It isn’t perfect but I love it.

Not that I know of. Even TripleA doesn’t support it.  :-(

Have you tried playing with the SBR rules as written? You should only be losing roughly 1 in 6 bombers to AAA, so I suspect most of your casualties are the result of the scrambling fighters. If you really need fighters for realism, there is an optional fighter escort rule but I’ve never tried it and I don’t believe it’s very popular here.

@taamvan:

Also, as I said, you must deploy the carrier directly under the planes if they survive the turn; if they don’t you can place it anywhere

You can do the same thing when you declare you’re going to bring an existing carrier up in NCM for fighters to land on after a battle is over. If the fighters die, you don’t have to move the carrier. Reference the “Pearl Harbor light” opening for Japan.

It’s a board game, not a historical simulation.

I wouldn’t say I like it better, exactly. It’s just different. Different map, different units, different rules. It’s a good change of pace from the WWII games.

Sorry to hear that, I hope you do too. I really enjoy this game, even though it definitely has its flaws. It’s a completely different game from the WWII editions.

Keep enough on the Western front to hold the line, and send everything else to Russia. Austria should do the same.  Even the Ottomans need to send what they spare. As the CP your only chance is to take out Russia as quickly as possible. If you’re using the Revolution rules then that’s preferable to capturing Moscow, because if you capture Moscow you have to defend it. If Russia still a going concern by round 6 or 7 when the US really gets rolling you might as well concede.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination but this is how most of my games of AA1914 have played out.

Hi Larrie.  There’s no set number of turns. You play until somebody meets the victory conditions. Although realistically I’ve never actually played a game out until the end. Usually it’s obvious when one side is beaten and we just call it at that point.

Hope you enjoy the game.  It isn’t perfect by any stretch but I love it.

@Private:

Subs cannot be hit by planes unless they are accompanied by a destroyer.

Just to clarify, the planes must be accompanied by a destroyer, not the subs.  :-)

Looking at the site just now I think olive drab is what you want if you’re looking to match the 1 current 1942 edition.

Hi and welcome. As strange as it sounds, you aren’t missing pieces. Not all powers have the same number of units, and Japan only gets 4 bombers in the box. If you want more there are places to order pieces online, such as historicalboardgaming.com, though I’m not sure if they ship to every country. I don’t have any issues with running out of pieces in this game though. Hope you enjoy it!

I’ve been playing this game with mostly the same group for a couple of years now and not once have I seen Germany declare USW. The minor hit to the Allies’ income just isn’t worth the risk.

@Whackamatt:

Like any strategy, it will change once you meet the enemy.

May plays on AA14 are low, but I’m intrigued by the Central Powers navy option and have done it a couple of times to success.  It mostly focuses on Austria building a navy.

For Germany, it’s too easy for the UK to counter with naval builds, so I don’t go big navy, just 1-2 pieces supplemental.  If the UK counters in a big way, i don’t both; Germany has too many fronts. If the UK does similar/smaller buys, i continue 1-2 a round.  Any UK money spent on ships helps alleviate some Ottoman pressure.

For Austria, their fleet is pretty well tucked away. Italy starts with some ships, but certainly won’t be spending any on navy. France will rarely do so, and if they do, at the expense of the Germany front. I typically buy one battleship a turn. The benefits as I’ve seen them are thus:

1 ) Protect my coastline! The armies move so slow, and start so far away from a lot of Austria’s money, it helps to have protected transports that can counter an early US dropping of troops. Without it, you have to leave a lot more land units behind to get the same protection.

2 ) It helps me get offensive against Italy. I now threaten his coast instead of reacting to their invasions. I have less units, but I’m more mobile, forcing some of their units away from the stalemate.

3 ) CONDITIONAL: If they don’t combine and contain effectively, my navy can break out and help protect the Ottomans while threatening Egypt/Africa.

Ottomans

They don’t have enough money to even think about it until the game is going very well for the CP.

But again, if France and the UK do naval builds round 1, then it’s not really tenable and I switch to something else.

I would love to find a viable CP naval strategy, but I’m curious. What is Russia doing while you’re building ships for AH instead of artillery?

I like the idea of neutral Italy, and railroad movement is a good change. But I’m generally not a fan of things like convoluted dice modifiers and things that have to be tracked in secret on a separate piece of paper. I think the game is complex enough as it is. And if I were going to redesign the board, I’d scrap Africa entirely rather than add territories to it. My group forgets to move in Africa so often it became a running joke.

Just my opinion. I’m sure others will disagree.

I’m not sure I understand the question. How would you play without victory cities?

Yep. And the same applies to bombardment. If you have a UK battleship present when the UK troops hit the beach then that battleship would get to bombard. Any US ships present would not. I generally find it far more efficient to keep my troops to their own country’s transports.

My understanding is for the purpose of demonstrating a landing spot, you can assume you will win any battles with no casualties.  So in the scenario you describe you can assume your one sub will sink all 10 destroyers, thereby clearing a path for the carrier to move up and pick up the fighters. However, i believe you would then be required to actually fight that battle.