Posts made by GeneralHandGrenade

Hmm I had wondered about that. So clearly you can’t attack an airbase with only transports when there is a fighter(s) that can be scrambled. I will have to make sure I keep enough German fighters on Normandy and Western Germany.

What if there were no warships? Would the fighter still be able to scramble and wipe out all of the transports and their cargo without rolling a dice?

No but you’re close. You can’t move troops and then load them on a transport. You have to wait until next turn to load them onto the transport. You can move a transport, load troops, and then complete your move with the transport and drop off the troops. You can load one troop, move the transport, load another troop, then complete your transport movement, then unload both troops but they have to unload in the same territory. You just can’t move troops to get to a transport or move troops after you unload them.

I have to be honest I’m not a big fan of the political/economic collapse rule. I play with little army men so I can kill other little army men. If you want to play something else why not go to your sister’s room and play Monopoly with her and her friends. She has some nice friends and Monopoly is a fine game I’m sure it will be fun.

So on the second turn Jim’s out of the game because he has suffered political collapse due to an Ottoman first strategy employed by the allies. He’s still got lots of little army men to play with but instead he has to remove them and leave the game. Who here thinks that Jim is going to volunteer to serve us all drinks and appies and be the banker for the rest of the night? More likely he is going to play Monopoly in the other room.

It’s only a short 10 hour drive north on highway 97 from the lower mainland to my bunker in Prince George. I will buy the beer if you buy the gas.

Canada hasn’t lost a hockey game since the preliminary round of the 2010 Olympics. It seems this generation of players don’t know how to lose a game. I hope the Europe team can take a game from them in the finals because that would be good for the game in the 8 countries that are represented on that team and for hockey in general. I wouldn’t bet any money on that happening though.

This is all getting really complicated when it doesn’t need to be. Just lower the price of capital ships and be done with it.
Battleship- 17 IPC
Aircraft Carrier- 13 IPC

I won’t bother listing what I think that all ships should cost because there is already a thread that debates ship costs and I don’t want to hijack this one. I only wanted to make the point that it would be much simpler and cleaner just to lower the cost instead.

They do have those VC as well for sale but they aren’t the same as the capital cities. I had looked at buying the VC’s instead but as you say they were incomplete so I didn’t bother.

I don’t know if anyone has come across and posted these yet because I haven’t been here that long and wasn’t going to search forever. I was looking for something to use for industrial complexes but I wanted to get something different than the standard complexes. I also thought about getting pieces to mark capital cities as well. I found these bad boys at Shapeways and figured that I would use them for both purposes. There is a different shape for each capital in G40 and an extra one for France ( they have 2 shapes- the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower). I painted the complexes that I already have black for major and red for minor to differentiate, an idea that I got from Young Grasshopper in one of his videos. So when I get these new ones I will paint them black because they are all major complexes. The extra French piece I will paint red so that I can change it as soon as Germany makes France it’s b���� in the first round…er, I mean conquers it and takes their money. You can also buy these as singles too so I got an extra Capital Building for America so I can paint it red for when they haven’t entered the war yet. You can also get smaller sets for other A&A games. http://www.shapeways.com/product/9T9KAYHUD/capital-set-all-nations?optionId=40394236&li=marketplace is a link to them;

I really like Der Kuenstler’s idea of creating Tankograd and improving Russia’s chances of defending themselves against a German invasion, but I don’t think it would improve the game if the scales were tipped too far. In order for the axis to have a chance of winning the game they have to be able to conquer Russia. The point of Tankograd is to add an element of history into the game which would also have the benefit of giving Russia at least a fighting chance of fending them off. Removing the complex in Stalingrad would be a penalty to Germany because that is one less complex that they can take to pile tanks of their own on in the pursuit of Russia, the Middle East, and India.

That’s not a bad idea though, Wild Bill. My original thought was to use the Stalingrad complex for this purpose until I searched where it was actually located. I liked the idea of Samara better though because it puts it out of reach of the Germans until they take out Moscow and it entices the Japanese to maybe take a shot at it. Just one more small element to the game to make it a little more interesting.

Ok I can just keep a list of the capital territories until I have them memorized. Most of them are obvious anyway so it shouldn’t take that long to memorize.
How about enlarging it, can I do that without ruining the quality?

BTW I can’t wait until your game comes out it looks awesome. I spent an hour last night reading the thread about it and I hope I will be able to get one of the limited quantities. I wouldn’t bother with the A&A 1914 game but I already have invested money in purchasing it ( along with the extra pieces that should’ve been there in the first place). I think it has some good qualities and I think that I can fix it to the point where it is balanced. A lot of good suggestions have already been put forth on the 1914 forums so I’m hoping to build on them.

That’s good to know, thanks. I do have a large table, 49"x80", but if it isn’t necessary that’s ok too. It would be easier to take out to my cabin at the lake where my table is only regular size anyway.

What a great idea Der Kuenstler. I was feeling intimidated because I don’t know how to post pics here of what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks since I dusted off my games and brought them out of the closet. I’ve been inspired to customize a room in my house by all the great people on here who have been so passionate about doing their own customizations and it’s been a lot of fun for me at a time when I’m not able to do much else. I’ve still got a little ways to go but so far the Great White Northern Bunker is coming along nicely and there’s lots of time to finish it before the long hard winter and the impending march to Moscow begins…or when I return to work…whatever comes first.

You did a great job with this map Imperious Leader. I like the fact that the changes were subtle because it was already a nice piece of work to begin with. The first game I played I forgot all about the mines that were connected to the harbours but this map would never let me forget that. I also had to keep looking in the rule book for order of play and starting incomes because I hate using an income tracker and prefer to count up my income when it’s time to collect, so doing away with the tracker and adding what you did in the Sahara is perfect. I would be interested in a copy of this but I have a couple of questions though. Can this be printed out to any size or will it ruin the quality if I print it too large? The OOB map is just over 32" by 32", I would like mine to be 42" by 42". Also, is there a way to edit it to increase the size of the emblems on the capital territories? This is important because the rules specify that only a minor capital can be mobilized whereas a minor colony does not. The way these are differentiated on the OOB map is they have larger emblems on them like the Major capitals do. For instance, in Africa only the Empire of Ethiopia would mobilize troops if you entered it. On your map all of the territories have the same size of emblem on them.

I made a list of the territories that should have the larger emblem if you should be inclined to change them yourself;

United States
London
Portugal
Spain
Paris
Rome
Holland
Belgium
Berlin
Switzerland
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Vienna
Moscow
Albania
Serbia
Romania
Bulgaria
Constantinople
Greece
Arabia
Persia
Afghanistan
Ethiopia

I don’t know how to make these changes myself but if you didn’t want to maybe I could find someone else who has the time and the interest. There’s a steak dinner and a bottle of whiskey in it for you if you make the changes but you have to come to northern British Columbia to collect them.  :-)

I looked it up and it was indeed located in Samara on the Global40 map. If you wanted to give the Russians a boost without overdoing it you could give Russia a free minor industrial complex in Samara only upon entering the war against Germany (regardless of which side declares war). That factory would only be able to produce tanks or mechanized infantry at a cost of 1 IPC below normal cost. This would allow them to produce more than just infantry but still force them to have to move them further to the front lines. A minor IPC would only allow 3 units per turn of course which would not upset the balance of power too much in the eastern front. The factory would have to be free though or else it would make no sense for Russia to spend 12 IPC’s that would take them 4 turns to recoup with the lower unit cost. Germany would be able to bend them over by that point. In the event that the axis conquers Samara the factory should be destroyed for the rest of the game. That might draw some attention away from India for the Japanese as they now have a viable choice since steaming towards Moscow from the Pacific coast is too much of a stretch for their supply lines against a fortified capital.

This is one of the first things I noticed when I set up the board to play my first game. My initial response was to make Switzerland an impassable zone but that would not be historically accurate. Hannibal made it through the alps to attack the Roman Empire on it’s home ground in ancient times so why wouldn’t a nation be able to make it through there in the 20th century. He DID lose half his elephants and many of his troops along the way and it took him months to do it BUT he did make it.

There were a few good ideas posted in this thread to make it more difficult to use the Swiss corridor but it seemed to me that they weren’t very accurate at simulating the nature of the problem. Adding a few more infantry to the Swiss army would only prevent movement through the corridor until they were defeated. I’m not sure how that makes it easier to traverse the alps in subsequent turns. Making them a strict neutral would be borrowing a rule from the G40 game and not necessarily appropriate for this game and the nature of the relationship to the rest of the neutral territories in 1914. Allowing only one unit to move through Switzerland per turn seems unrealistic, even Hitler on his worst day wouldn’t give that kind of order to his troops.

My proposed rule change is simply this;
It takes 2 turns to travel through Switzerland.

This would allow a country to attack with whatever number of units it deems necessary for it’s strategy while respecting the true nature of the difficulty in passing through the Swiss corridor. The problem is not troop strength, it’s lack of of a super highway complete with turning lanes. In short, it takes longer to get through the mountains.

Example;
Germany takes Switzerland on turn 2 with 2 infantry and 2 artillery to spare. On turn 3 those units would not be able to move at all. The only thing they can do on turn 3 is defend themselves against an attack from an allied force. On turn 4 those 4 German units can move out of Switzerland one space in any direction with respect to other rules regarding movement. This rule would apply to any force moving into Switzerland for the duration of the game.

The effect of the rule would make Switzerland the major speed bump that it deserves to be without making it an impassible territory which would provide historical accuracy. It would give the opposition time to move their troops into a defensive position which would’ve been the case in 1914 if an army was moving through the Swiss Alps in their direction.

Thanks for your reply I’m really excited to try it. I still have my copy of Fortress America and I always thought that it was a cool concept to have an assault on America since almost all other war games take place on other continents. I did order the Strategic Markers set, V2 rockets, and a nuclear blast marker as well because I thought it would add some complexity to the game. I read through the rules booklet to get a sense of how the game is played and it sure does have differences from the A&A games, although the basic concept of movement, offensive strength, defensive, etc are there which I like. I noticed that they also have a larger map for sale, do you think it would be helpful to have that or is the OOB board sufficient?

At the time that A&A came out there was really nothing like it in the board gaming universe. The other war games used little pieces of cardboard instead of sculpts and many of them had those ridiculous maps that only had hexagons for spaces. Risk was such a popular game at the time that the serious Risk players like me were thrilled when A&A came out. If Risk was like Checkers because every piece was exactly the same, then A&A was Chess with different pieces. It was the best board game of it’s time and it has endured because we all grew up playing it and are familiar with how to play it. Improvements and alternate versions have been released over the years which has kept us from getting bored with the original game.

Plus, the wicked-ass fully loaded carriers make me harder than Chinese algebra.  :-D

Canada is so on top of their game right now that it’s hard to see any team beating them in a best of 3 final series. The only way they will lose this tournament will be if they lose in the semi finals which is one game winner take all. Any team can get lucky and win one game.
The American team are going through a brief period where most of their best players are either too old or too young. Some of the best talent they have is on the under 23 North American team. Torts coached our team in Vancouver recently with disastrous results, we are friends-off with him on the west coast.

My concern with your proposed changes YG is that players would be too leery to engage in naval combat if there was a chance of them losing planes instead of subs or destroyers. That chance would be great if all 3 of those ships had this capability. I do think that aircraft carriers should have some chance of defending themselves so you could use that AAA rule for them. I also like Impervious Leader’s idea of increasing the range of the cruisers by one space ( that would open up a whole new world of possibilities for grouping them and using them as a raiding party against far away small navies). You could increase the worth of battleships simply by lowering the cost to 18 IPC as they are tough enough as it is.