Posts made by Flashman

Super is a comic book movie worth seeing, mainly because it sends up the entire genre.

There’s really only one way to do this - move Paris to the “Burgundy” tt.

It’s standard for Germany to sink the UK fleet R1, and for the UK to rebuild a fleet straight away, with protection from the French navy.

Thereafter the UK should be able to feed enough units into France to prevent Paris falling,

My addition to the fighter race is that each year (round) newly built planes improve by 1 (in terms of combat value) to reflect competing aircraft technologies.

Starting fighters have a 0 combat value but can still observe; you simply count the highest number of planes.

Fighters built on round one are worth 1 in combat and so on up till 4 rated aircraft on round four. The cost is the same, it just represents improved construction and weapons technology.

So, a player who builds a large air force in round 1 might gain early supremacy but his squadron will soon become obsolete if he doesn’t keep investing in new models.

Later models will be more effective versus ground units, but the rate of attrition in air combat will be higher (assuming a limit of 1 or 2 rounds per battle.)

To keep track just use a marker to tag the value of each fighter piece.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I#The_dawn_of_air_combat

I’ve never believed land units should have different movements. They all moved at the rate of their transport i.e. trains.

So for all ground units one space only into combat, unlimited rail movement in non-combat.

The blitz ability I listed is actually “breakthrough”, i.e. a 2nd move after a successful normal combat. This would mean players keeping mixed tank forces rather than all heavies.

Of course it makes mech inf redundant, though you can use the pieces for “light armour”.

Suggestion: 3 weights of tank:

Light: 2-2-1 (blitz)

Medium 3-3-1 (blitz)

Heavy 4-4-1 (absorb/deflect 1 enemy tank hit)

Each power would start at a certain level and be able to pay to upgraded one level:

Heavy: USSR, France

Medium: Germany, USA, UK?

Light: Italy, Japan, Anzac, some neutrals; Sweden?

None: China

The importance of upgrading tanks depends on the power; Germany will need heavies to counter the Soviet armour, USA may prefer to mass produce mediums, Italy can scarcely afford to upgrade, while Japan may not feel the need for more than light tanks if it’s mainly fighting unarmoured Chinese.

Ostruppen:

To counter Soviet conscripts, the Germans may recruit 1112 anti-Soviet infantry units in occupied Russia.

One unit per OS territory under German control. Place each unit in the earning tt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Liberation_Army

USSR should start with heavy tank technology (KV1).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliment_Voroshilov_tank

Possibly also France.

Have you considered anything along the lines of 1914 tank rules for heavies?

Correct the Bulgaria-Greece border (Greece did not have a border with Turkey in 1914).

Have more tts in Hungry e.g. add Banat & Transylvania so Budapest does not border Russia.

East Prussia should border Livonia; Poland should not have a coastline.

Move SZ18 border south to intersect Albania-Greece.

Extend Rome east to have an Adriatic coastline.

Place a production city in Munich.

Albania should be neutral.

Give Lorraine-Marseille a border and move Paris to the “Burgundy” tt.

Rename tts so that only those containing an actual city are so named; otherwise give them tt names. The map is too obviously based on Diplomacy.

The game should never stalemate - once the Americans start coming over the Allies should have an easy victory.

The CPs therefore only have a small window of opportunity to get their victory targets, and really they only have a realistic chance if the Allies play badly. It really depends on which Russian Revolution rules you’re using. Only this seems to give the CPs a chance, and even then the UK should be able to prevent it by reinforcing Northern Russia by sea and northwards from India.

Even with TR, the Allies greater movement by sea means they should always be able to out manoeuvre the enemy and get troops to where they’re needed more quickly.

Or how Bush and Blair were forced to invade Iraq to prevent Saddam’s planned attack on the west with WMDs.

Problem is, can they find an actor dumb enough to play Bush or one slimy enough to accurately portray Blair?

I’d like to see:

A movie showing the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of German civilians and “collaborators” from other nationalities that took place after the war, including the extent to which the western Allies helped the Soviets carry them out.

A movie showing Polish resistance to Soviet occupation which went on into the 1950s ignored by the West (which went to war in 1939 to “guarantee” Polish sovereignty, remember?)

A movie about the Germans who were executed after the Nuremburg trials for carrying out the Katyn massacre which everyone knew was really committed by the Soviets.

Shouldn’t this be in the thread about delayed Italian entry?

I would define the term strict neutrality to include:

1. Not being able to collect money (i.e. assign national income to a military budget);

2. Spend any present funds on new units;

3. Mobilise the military (i.e. move units)

A neutral county therefore does not in fact have a turn until at war. It cannot buy units or deploy existing forces into defensive/offensive formations.

Personally I’d incline towards Turkey and Italy being considered neutral until their first turns, so this really only means they cannot be attacked before this. There’s even a case for Turkey being “activated” by the movement of G/A units.

There’s a whole new ball game in there somewhere with a “turn 0” in which all countries mobilize from start positions where units are in peacetime stations rather than concentrated on front lines.

With USA I’d also say they cannot collect/buy until at war, balancing the game by giving the CPs a bigger window of opportunity before the Yanks start landing in Italy.

@aequitas:

Enemy of the Gates

Jobs?

Most obviously inaccurate was the Enigma film that replaced British with Americans.

The Great Escape also added Americans to an all British POW camp.

Watch out for the new Dunkirk film giving credit to anyone but Hitler for allowing the British army to escape.

Worst of all, a new Dam Busters film intends to rename Guy Gisbourne’s dog Nigger as “Digger”.

A few of my balancing ideas:

The number of UK units mobilized in India can never be more than half the number placed in UK.

If Russia is knocked out, the CPs get a number of free units to represent freed prisoners of war. This could be extended to any power being eliminated, but applies more usually here.

USA does not collect money or buy units until it is at war. One first turn at war it gets a “draught bonus” and can but infantry at 2 for that turn only.

To represent the central European rail system, the CPs can transport units up to 3 areas within their original European territories.

As above, Munich is a production centre, but losing Berlin, Munich or Vienna results in an instant CP defeat.

CPs can create red “Bolshevik” infantry units in occupied Russia. These will fight “White” Russians and any other Allied units in original Russian tt.

What I would like is a package of poker chips (compatible with existing A&A versions) to use with 1914. I find that there simply isn’t room on the board for all the different stacks for each army, especially on the crowded western front.

So I just give each nation a single stack of chips with the required infantry unit on top.

The system I use is:

grey/white = infantry
red = artillery
green - tanks
blue = fighters

Additional colours might be reserved for new units vis:

black = bombers
yellow = cavalry

A nice touch would be for each colour to be embossed with the appropriate unit type.

Equivalent pieces for ships aren’t as important but maybe double sided chips for naval units?

The order to stop 3 miles short of Dunkirk was definitely given by Hitler. Von Kleist was “astonished” and decided to ignore the order. He actually ordered the armour to advance but then received another directive from Hitler to withdraw and was kept there for 3 days.

Historian Basil Liddel-Hart concluded that the escape was largely down to Hitler’s personal order to Halt the armoured divisions. Hitler wanted the war in the west to end and he thought that destroying the British army would hinder the chances of making peace.

Hess had a big row with Hitler over this, believing that the best way to end the war was to smash the British while they had the chance.

Wonder if Dunkirk will portray a “heroic” escape or go with Hitler deliberately allowing the British army to go because he wanted to make peace.

Official history or truth?

What I object to is making race the most important thing about people; the sole basis for a person’s identity. It’s simply inverted fascism. Divide people into separate races and you divide families.

I’m outwardly European but have a dash of Asian ancestry (Indian, Chinese, whatever); it doesn’t effect who I am.

If it’s the Eagle Games version you have then Larry is behind the “Classic” version, not the “Euro” game version included in the box.

We’re all of African descent if you look far enough back.

Very few “African” Americans are of purely recent African ancestry; but is fashionable for them to ignore their European antecedents; similarly many more supposedly “White” Americans have a dash of African blood than realise it.

Personally, I find any system or practice that arbitrarily divides people into neatly segregated “races” to be offensive, unhelpful and just plain inaccurate.

Having separate “Black” and therefore presumably “White” history is among the most ridiculous examples.

How motivated to fight for either side were Italians after 1943? I’d guess they all just wanted the war to end. They’d seen the back of Mussolini, but did they want to die for the King?

My preference is for a general rule that all liberated former factory sites can be used to build infantry only (captured factories removed remember). This works fine for France. Some places could be used by either side (Romania, Finland?)

What happens if northern Italy has a mix of German and Italian units; do the Germans “disarm” the Italians?

If Italy becomes Allied does it get bonus infantry to represent returning POWs (I use something similar in 1914 after Russian revolution).

What about Italians on leave in Tokyo?