Topics created by Flashman

@WILD:

So I was thinking, instead of mandating naval battles only go one round, why not just give both parties a retreat option (TBD). In many cases this would self restrict naval battles to one round.

Yes, but when you retreat, the other is not allowed to chase you. In real naval battles it is common to chase each other, but in a game that kind of behavior violates the turn order.

I think time is an issue. A game turn is considered to be like 6 months, while a real life naval battle usually took less than a day. On top of that, our ships seems to be stuck in their little seazone. In the real world a ship could easily sail around the world in 6 months, as is the length of a game turn. Now imagine that in a game, a ship with unlimited movement.

I think in order to make a game that behave as close to the real world as possible, we must analyze every naval battles from 1904 to 1945, and then we will see that WiF is the game that come close, and that Axis and Allies has a long way to go.

Summary of my proposals regarding aircraft:

There is only one round of air to air combat.

The side with the most surviving aircraft wins air superiority.

Every power gets a fighter in their capital to begin with; France gets a 2nd in Lorraine and Germany a 2nd in Munich (or a Zeppelin).

Fighters starting on the board are rated only 1* for combat. Thereafter newly purchased units go up to 2, 3 & 4 on each successive turn. Price is the same, old units remain at their original level.

Generally level equals combat rating and movement, though all planes can move 2 spaces minimum.

Since planes are likely to survive longer, consider increasing price to 8 IPC.

Planes can now conduct SBR against enemy production centres; i.e. the eight power capitals plus India & Munich.

To conduct SBR, a plane must take off from and land in the same tt. This can be contested.

My preference is for bombing to effect enemy morale, but it could be adapted to simply reduce enemy IPCs.

Enemy planes based in the target region can intercept and force air to air combat with the bomber(s) under the same rules as standard dogfights.

Thus, in the early war bombing is not feasible; but it comes into its own when  level 4 machines become available.

This also emphasizes the importance of certain intermediate tts; note the position of Alsace (between Paris and Munich), Venice (2 spaces from Rome, Vienna & Munich), Poland (Berlin-Vienna-Moscow), Romania (Vienna-Constantinople-Moscow) & Mesopotamia (Constantinople-Bombay). The importance of Belgium as a base for bombing London is obvious.

It could even be considered that starting units have a rating of 0, since these represent unarmed scouts. They would still count for air supremacy but without making a combat roll.

Cavalry should attack on a 1, defend on a 1, and move at a 2. They could be combined with other units to up their abilities. For example, they could defend on a 2 if paired with infantry. THey could attack on a 2 if attacking with infantry. They should cost 3 IPCs.

The real role of cavalry should be to harass the enemy. If cavalry are in a battle, the other units cannot retreat nor engage another contested territory until the Cavalry are cleared out of that territory. In effect the unit is stuck there. This would simulate cavalry cutting supply lines and communications etc.

Also, cavalry could disrupt IPCs by entering into a vacant territory and in effect scorching the earth. The territory would lose 1 IPC for every Cavalry performing this task in that territory. A marker could be used to denote the territories new value. Cavalry themselves could not conquer a territory by themselves. They would need to be paired with an infantry.

On the map, all the territories on the Western front are occupied so this tactic would not really be used. However on the Eastern Front there are a couple of open territories mainly in Russia where it could be used.  Also, The middle east and Africa are more wide open. This rule conjures up images of Lawrence of Arabia!

Lets suppose that units generated by the mobilization of minor ally nations can visually be distinguished rather than simply merge into the armies of the controlling power.

This might just mean, for example, a yellow stripe on a French infantry to mark it as Belgian. With all the new pieces available if you contact WOTC this becomes practical.

What differences might these units have?

+1 in combat when defending their homeland; -1 elsewhere, or if their homeland is under enemy occupation?

e.g. - If Poland is under German occupation, will Polish units in the Russian army be less effective fighting for Russia, unless it means fighting over Poland itself?

option to place a new unit in the respective homeland each turn (with a sensible total limit - probably the original starting number; i.e. you can never have more than 3 & 1 Belgian inf and art).

One might extend the principle to colonies, e.g. marking some UK units as Canadian, South African, Indian, Anzac etc.

Would separate Bavarian units be representative of German political divisions?

Polish corps in the Russian army?

Austria-Hungary might have a real problem…

Crusader 1
Baron 0

Delaying Italian entry by a round denies it a turn of income. I’m intending to play a game with PTR when my extra bits arrive, then a game with various house rules intended to balance.

I still feel Germany and Austria should have unlimited non-combat movement within their own tts; also a release of POWs if Russia collapses.

….or…we could just make a house rule and keep Larry out of the loop ?

@Flashman:

Purely an arbitrary number, would need testing.

Too many, and it has little effect; too few and the war’s over in 1916.

Just throw all casualties into a bowl; it’s the responsibility of the enemy players to see when the’res ten of a colour to trade in for a -1 morale.

It probably isn’t a bad number. If infantry represent, roughly, a corps, that’s about 30,000 soldiers. Of course, this would equal a Bulgarian or American division. So 10 would represent some very serious losses, assumnig you play with a turn representing a year. Personally, I feel a turn is probably closer to six months or better represented as six months.

“History” Channel should be forced to re-brand itself. Its like calling the cartoon network “World News Today”.

The ZDF doc isn’t up on YouTube, however the Quest showing seems to have been truncated. The third episode was promoted as tracing the career development of Hitler and Montgomery, yet they were never even mentioned.

Can’t find it on amazon either.

If you include Airships then replace the German fighter in Munich (suggested new setup) with an airship - it can hit London from there.

But Zeps have to be more vulnerable to fighters; probably only 1 in air combat. Only really viable for SBR in the early turns before fighters power up.

The White Queen - very soapy.

On the anniversary of his death, did anyone else see the C4 documentary giving more theories about him based on analysis of his bones?

Really like to dig up some more kings to put some virtual flesh on them dry bones.

Real story of Bosworth here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnhBAT5OZvE

@Gargantua:

Hmm,

If you stop searching for "how to make BOMBS in your basement."  That might un-censor your google searches.

Okay, I know you love to troll and have a good time, and I hate to feed that, but this really made me chuckle a little!

That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.  :-D

@incitefool:

I want to sign up for Flash fan club.

I think that he is a political laxative.

Some ideas:

As I’ve suggested before, a fighter that scores a kill is promoted to an Ace (rolls @3).

Air combat lasts a maximum of 3 rounds, perhaps only 2. Aircraft had very limited fuel capacities.

If, at the end of this time, both sides have fighters remaining then no side gets air supremacy. All planes must land with their ground units, and cannot strafe.

Fighters can pull out of dogfights after any round of combat, attackers choosing first. Planes simply land with their own troops. They cannot fire in the ground combat, but can be taken as casualties.

Only rolls of 1 actually destroy an enemy aircraft. Rolls of 2 (or 3 from Aces) only “force down” the rival fighter, which must land as per pulling out of a fight.

If there is any dispute over which plane shot down an enemy fighter and gets the promotion, a “kill” takes precedence over a “down”. Otherwise, if the owning players cannot agree, then nobody gets the credit.

Multiple mixed fighters should roll individual dice in combat; its handy to have a few dice of different colours to facilitate this.

Switzerland has to be worth more then 1, 4 sounds good (just wish I could change that on the actual board). My first game I played, I was CP and my friend was Allies and I just managed a victory (He was getting bored and not as focused as he was at the beginning). I did the Russian Rev on turn 3, thank god because of the Americans entering next turn, didn’t really want to face 5 opponents. Italy was the next to fall by the Austrians and it ended up being a three on three game with the Germans and Austrians fighting on the Western Front against the French, British, and Americans who chose to land in Picardy, were backed up by the British as the French dealt with the Germans just to the north in Belgium. Now, he destroyed my German navy with his British fleet which I let get bigger and bigger, i’m an idiot for that one, and he landed in Berlin, can he do this? anyway, I was able to push him out and destroy his fleet and finally take Paris.

@wittmann:

I think paying a token amount to repair a Battleship would be a good idea in any A&A game.

Agreed.  Many times extensive repairs would almost cost the same as it would to build a new ship…  You need supplies, metal (copper, iron, steel), rare earths, manpower, etc.  Not to mention taking up a drydock that otherwise could be used to build a new ship.

@Koningstiger:

I wonder how they handled this during “playtesting”.

I also wonder what the general consensus was on the unrestricted submarine warfare rule as written. Did they really not notice during playtesting that this rule was entirely uselless in this form?

Well i can imagine the playtesters saying “tts in europe too small we need marshaling cards”
And WOC saying “ok…wait that cost more money, F*** that”
WOC also says “Play testing over, we will fix any problems in the 2nd editions while taking every ones money again”

So heres my latest map for A&A 1914. Includes East Prussia and all correct borders, Has some Zones for Askarideployment in Africa.

I kept Albania, neutral Greece and Moscow as Russian Capitol.

1914Balance.png

Native infantry were not supplied with much in the way of heavy equipment such as machine-guns. They were dependent on European leadership, hence they cannot operate or hold tt on their own. Their loyalty to colonial rulers was questionable. I wanted to represent that the war in Africa was on a much smaller scale than in Europe, but give the region more flexibility by having more units. I wanted them to be recruited only in original tts, so that there would be an incentive to defend your own colonies rather than just march around in circles.

If we restrict Askaris to sub-Saharan Africa it balance in that starting armies qualifying would be 4-4 and could be given 2 Askaris ech to begin viz:

Togoland, Kamerun, SWA, GEA

FWA, BEA, Rhodesia, Somaliland.

South Africa did not think much of arming natives…

Bombers caused a profound effect on populations, their morale damage was considered 20 times the material harm they ever did. The large late war planes were a generation on from early war aircraft, the German Gothas had a larger wingspan than any operational Luftwaffe plane of WWII.

By “movable” mines I meant mines that can be built and placed wherever required; assume that each NB has its attached mines to begin, but allow ships to lay mines in other SZs; as mentioned destroyers would have a mine sweeping role…

There is a line on the map dividing Russia as per the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Russian Bolsheviks get the core “Greater Russia” tts; the original CPs annex the rest.