Posts made by ossel

@wove100:

Ossel, will you be using your Fortress America board to simulate Harry Turtledove’s North American Front of WWI?

SOMEONE BESIDES ME IS AWARE OF THESE BOOKS???  :-D :-D

Well, I wasn’t aware of this map, but it looks like it might work. I was actually going to design my own map once this game came out, but yes, I will be doing this variant (Brits for Confederates and I guess U.S. for Yankees).

Might even make a world map with the American Front included, that way the whole conflict can be simulated.

For those who aren’t aware, Harry Turtledove writes alternate history books, and the work we’re referring to is the saga (like, 10 books) he created based on if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War. There are three books on WW1, 3 books on interwar period, and 4 books on WW2. My forum avatar is from one of the WW2 covers.

That sucks. Well, tanks are going to get hit with the ‘tweak-hammer’ for sure in the next edition.

@Flashman:

Thats why I suggest Austria and Germany both put units into Switzerland. Bypass Lorraine; you don’t need it.

Yes, but if you bypass Lorraine, the Frenchies will contest Alsace, depriving you of 3 IPC’s.

I have to admit, I’m taking a sort of an evil delight in reading all these grand plans, like ‘Being in Rome on AH4,’ or ‘Sweeping through Switzerland into Italy,’ all the while knowing that all you pre-WW1 strategists are going to get a rude awakening when the realities of the war of attrition sink in :evil:.

Remember, you only get one combat round, so I think you’ll be lucky if you’re out of Venice by AH4. This is going to be a much slower game, and I’ve pointed out before that it’s going to be less about grand sweeping strategies and more about feeding the meat grinder so the enemy doesn’t get one step closer to your capital. WHICH IS AWESOME!!! :lol: :evil:

I was going to post this elsewhere, but since we’re on the subject, I thought I’d share my idea…

It would basically be a combination of the wonderful-sounding (but no one that I know plays in my part of the U.S.) game Kriegsspiel and A&A 1914. Here’s the website if anyone is interested (http://79.170.44.85/kriegsspiel.inuk.co/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)), it’s basically a wargame invented by the Germans before the Franco-Prussian war that simulates the fog of war in tactical combat.

In a nutshell, you have 3 maps in 3 different rooms:

• A map for what Player 1 (or Alliance 1) can see
• A map for what Player 2 (or Alliance 2) can see
• A map for the omniscient umpire, who dictates what Players 1 and 2 can see.

Orders are given and reports are received that let players flesh out their maps with where they think the enemy is.

Ok, for the application in this game:

You’d have 3 boards, as outlined above. The Entente places all their units, with no visibility of where the Central Powers’ units are (likewise for the CP’s). Orders are given to each side’s units, the umpire moves the units and reports back what they see. I’d have to figure out the best way to process combat.

Certain visibility rules would have to be put into place, and enforced by the umpire.  My first stab:

-You can see units by default in contested tt’s.
-If you have a fighter in a tt, you can see units in all adjacent tt’s.
-Each nation will get spies, able to be secretly placed in enemy territory, that report (or possibly mis-report) enemy strengths in the tt they are in.

The end effect of this would be a fairly realistic fog of war…you’d have some glimpses here and there of where the enemy was moving troops, but in the end it’s the player with the best reconnaissance that will have the upper hand.

Of course, detractors will point out the difficulties: Having three games, time constraints, getting people who actually want to play this way, but I think it may be an interesting thing to try.

@Flashman:

Perhaps the best was of balancing up tanks would be to allow each artillery to promote 1 infantry and 1 tank. That would definately change my attitude to armour, and it doesn’t require changing any of the components.

Have we confirmed that this is not the case?

Can’t attacking Switzerland come back and bite the CP’s in the ass? Remember, in addition to opening up a new route into France and Italy, you’ve opened up a new route for France and Italy to counterattack… I think that the number of border territories (read: contested territories) you have open to attack is going to be critical in this game, and I’m not sure opening up a new one to have to garrison and protect is going to be such a good idea. Guess we’ll have to playtest and see.

@oztea:

MORE IMPORTANTLY WE SHOULD SORT OUT

A) 6 TECHS

B) 12 TECHS (air/naval chart) (land/economic chart)

C) 12 TECHS (CP favorable techs) (Allied favorable techs)

---

X) 5 IPCs per tech roll

Y) 5 IPCs per tech token

Z) SOMETHING ELSE

1. Free tech every 4th turn
2. 1 IPC per roll, 4 more to buy one of what you rolled
3. 3 IPC tech tokens
4. 5 IPC tech tokens but keep half of them when you get a breakthrough (if you had 4 tokens, keep 2 for next turn)

I like C…the tactics varied by the alliances, so this makes sense, although we need to tweak a few of them.

I think as far as acquiring them, it should be free or as close to free as possible. As BJCard pointed out, there’s not going to be a lot of cash flowing around. Maybe make it a random die roll as to whether you acquire one, then a random as to which one you get. It also needs to be more often than every 4th turn.

@Flashman:

No, but what I can do is use a prod chart from another game.

@BJCard:

Flashman, can’t you just look at the map, know what territories were taken/lost, and how much money you have?  Who actually argues about the production chart?

I actually quite like the new one. It keeps you from having a 3ft x 3ft piece of cardboard, or (worse) not enough numbers.

What I don’t get is why they put tick marks at ‘half’ units…might be a little confusing.

@wove100:

Instead of Advanced Aeronautics:

Strategic Bombing - Fighters within 2 spaces of an enemy capital may perform a strategic bombing raid (Thus Germany can hit Paris or London from Belgium) instead of engaging in combat. Each fighter in the raid rolls one die, deducting 1 IPC from the attacked power�s treasury for each 1 or 2 rolled (the airborne version of USW).

I actually like this as a placeholder for ‘bombers’ until we get actual sculpts (from WOTC or elsewhere). Maybe have it have a morale or unit damage effect though, instead of economic.

Since I just shat all over your list, which I’m sure you put a lot of work into, here’s some suggestions of techs that were developed during the war, if you’re dead set on making a 12 item tree. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the effects.

Anti-Aircraft guns
Bombers
Stormtrooper tactics (both sides)
Long-range battleship bombardment
Creeping Barrage
Pill Boxes

Note that I haven’t included things from your original list that I thought were good, like advanced fighters and gas.

My vote is we trim this down, not sure if others will agree, but here goes. Green is good, red needs work, strikethrough I think we should cut to get to 6 techs.

Air/Naval Techs
1. Undersea Warfare - Your Cruisers prevent enemy subs from submerging at a 1:1 ratio and your Subs may submerge before the first round of combat.

• Don’t like the ‘early submerge’ thing.
  2. Advanced Aeronautics - Your aircraft become 3/3/3 (up from 2/2/2)
  3. Mine Sweeping - Roll a die before your ships attack into a minefield: That many of your ships are immune to enemy mines (your choice).
  *Why not roll this into #1? Maybe call it ‘Destroyers’ or something.
  4. Observation Balloons - In battles where no aircraft are present, one of your artillery counts as having air support.
• I think it can be assumed that observation balloons are omnipresent - only when aircraft arrive does one side get an advantage.
  5. Advanced Mines - Your Naval mines strike enemy ships on ‘2’ or less.
• Don’t think mines were updated very often (might be wrong) - we can assume that they stayed constant from the beginning of the war.
  6. Naval Aviation - Your Battleships may serve as a landing space for one of your own aircraft. Battleships attack and defend at 5 with naval air superiority.

Land/Economic Techs
1. Tank Pioneer - You may build tanks before turn 4, after turn 4 you can buy tanks for 5 IPCs.
2. War Bonds - At the end of your turn roll two dice, collect the higher number as IPCs

• Everyone’s going to dive for this immediately.
  3. Chemical Warfare - In one attack this turn, roll a die: 1-4 that many infantry do not roll defensively; 5-6: No effect. If the defender also has the Chemical Warfare Breakthrough he may have the die rerolled.
  4. Conscription - For each 4 Infantry you purchase, receive a 5th for free.
• Most (if not all) nations had conscription even before the war.
  5. Radio Communications - During combats where friendly forces are also in the contested zone, roll a die. That many friendly artillery may also participate in the attack
  6. Advanced Transportation - Four of your infantry may move 4 territories this turn (amongst friendly territories worth 2 IPCs or more)
• I’d rather this be a separate rail house rule than a tech. Again, nations had established rail lines to move their troops quickly for decades before the war started.

Yeah, if you’re going to simulate it all, making the defenders unable to fire back is probably the most palatable. It’s also the most practical: just remove defender dice from the battle board.

@oztea:

The IL proposal of “one extra artillery shot” is practically nothing.

Don’t see the problem with this, actually. It was basically an artillery effectiveness booster. If you’re going to remove 4 infantry from a single front, you’re basically simulating a nuke, not an artillery-delivered gas attack. Yes, gas was nasty, but so were machine guns, artillery, barbed wire, and all the other ‘nasty’ things that killed people in WW1.

Let’s take a step back and look at historical impact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I

The killing capacity of gas, however, was limited – only four percent of combat deaths were caused by gas.

Keeping with this statistic, I don’t think we should be seeing more than one or two deaths per round, per front, as a result of gas.

I personally think you should strike gas off the list all together…it’s a very ‘local’ weapon, and simulating at the theater level is a bit silly…just think of it as being incorporated into a standard ‘attack.’

Really not happy with the quality of the dividing line between the two boards; see attached. My 8 year-old niece could do a better job making those match up. Hope this is just a ‘prototype’ board that djensen got a hold of, not the production model.

I don’t mean to be a party pooper here, but wouldn’t it just be easier to have most of these ‘place 1 unit here to represent xx’ be reflected in the initial setup?

I agree that techs should be free, maybe based on a random roll. I think if you make them cost IPC’s, you’ll have to add in income to balance the game. Everyone was doing research during this period, and copying from the enemy as they rolled out new techs. Definitely agree with making a tech common after a turn or so. Maybe put a national marker on a tech that is unique to that nation, then flip the marker when it becomes common.

I think we may not be quite grasping the feel of this game. I keep seeing posts about grand maneuvers like ‘Land a large invasion force in Germany’s backyard.’

I think when it comes down to it, players will be forced to throw any and all available troops at whatever front is most critical, in order to avoid being overrun…you may not have extra men to make sneak attacks on Germany when Fritz is knocking on Paris’ front door.

Also remember that a ‘front’ is not going to be just one or two territories, but possibly all tt’s on one’s border. Feeding the meat grinder is going to be more expensive than I think we realize.

@Flashman:

I won’t tell you what I’ll be using for Zeppelins.

:?

@oztea:

The naval combat is risky to make amphibious invasions into hostile waters suicidal.
There was no D-Day in WWI.
Land at a friendly port, march to the front. No tomfoolery behind enemy lines.
I dont want to see some grand American army sail into SZ 11 and dump 6 loaded transports on Berlin.

I feel like, between the mine rules and the new preemptive strike artillery get during amphibious assaults, Larry has pretty well discouraged that type of move.