Posts made by ossel

So I know we’ve all been beating up on this game, even though we know we’ll love it… :roll:

But there’s something that still bothering me:
How is there no Research in this game (as far as we know) when this war saw some of the most dramatic changes in military technology of any war in history?

I mean, at the beginning of the war you have guys standing in lines shooting at each other, cavalry, no helmets, etc. By the end of the war, you have tanks, gas, air-to-air as well as air-to-ground warfare, and guys in helmets taking cover to avoid incoming fire.

I’m not saying all these things should be represented in this game (I’m personally against representing something as localized as gas), but I think there should at least be some form of research. I don’t think things like tanks should be activated at a certain turn, I think they should be researched as they were in history.

Have you posted any rules or samples of the mechanics anywhere? I’m interested to see how ‘Entrenched Infantry’ work.

@Flashman:

Britain and America were completely different from Continental armies. They didn’t have compulsory military service, which meant that not only did they have tiny professional armies before going to war, but that the masses of men they conscripted had no military training (unlike the large trained reserves of European armies).

Understood, I was simply trying to get a baseline understanding in IPC terms of what 2 million men looked like. I based it on known figures for the French army.

@Flashman:

The figure for income then should be based on the cost of the number of infantry they sent over in a turn averaged out over the course of the war from American entry. This is very difficult to calculate given the crazy timeline of the game.

I think my explanation was more than sufficient. The U.S. needs to have 60 IPC’s worth of land units by the time they go to war (on turn 4), and they do with the OOB rules.

@Flashman:

Another process I’ve though about is that of equipping this army with British and French weaponry. When they arrived in France the Americans had nothing more than small arms; virtually all the helmets, trucks, horses, planes, tanks and artillery they used were supplied by the Allies. This did not bother the Allies, who had been running out of manpower, but had by now a well developed weapons industry producing a surplus of equipment.

So, keep American income relatively low, but when the purchased infantry arrive the Allies can pay to equip them, the cost being the difference in unit price from infantry.

In essence: Any American infantry unit in an Allied controlled tt in or adjacent to London, Paris or Rome can be upgraded to a tank, artillery or fighter by paying the difference in price. Any Ally can pay this, the upgrade taking place in the purchase units phase of it’s own turn.

I like it. Adds a bit of complexity, but it makes sense.

@ch0senfktard:

@ossel:

Yeah, I agree that the U.S. shouldn’t be able to do anything before war is declared, but if that’s the case, they should have a much bigger starting land army. Lets not forget that, although they didn’t prepare for the war, they eventually deployed 2 million troops to the Western front, and I think they currently only start with like 6 infantry.

Don’t think I can agree with a larger army.
What they should have is a larger navy.

Alright, let’s do some math.

France had mobilized roughly 4 million troops by the time the war started. In the game, they start with 30 infantry and 8 artillery, or 122 IPC’s worth of land units.

When the U.S. entered the war, they deployed 2 million troops, or half of the French initial mobilization. This implies that by the time they enter the war, they should be able to deploy 61 IPC’s worth of land units. Does that number sound familiar? Yep, 20 IPC’s per turn X 3 turns before the U.S. enters = 60.

This also implies that if you want to deny them the ability to do anything before the war starts, you need to start them with a much larger land army, or give them a lump sum to mobilize with on turn 4.

Yeah, I agree that the U.S. shouldn’t be able to do anything before war is declared, but if that’s the case, they should have a much bigger starting land army. Lets not forget that, although they didn’t prepare for the war, they eventually deployed 2 million troops to the Western front, and I think they currently only start with like 6 infantry.

Eh, usually I’m all for complexity when it makes sense, but maybe just make it so the allies must remove all units from Greater Russia. I have a feeling there will be a lot less movement of non-Russian units to the Eastern Front than you might think…the ‘contested tt’s’ rule means you have to keep a constant flow of troops to your border to keep from being overrun. But if for some reason the Western Allies do try to mount an amphibious expedition to Karelia, this caveat will handle it.

Oh, nice. So Petrograd is actually in Karelia.

Generic sculpts.  :-( It’d be like the sequel to a popular video game franchise going back to Original Nintendo graphics and gameplay…people have come to expect a level of quality from these games, in the form of unique national sculpts.

I like it. I think it’s a good idea to make Livonia (or wherever Petrograd is) a roll to see who it belongs to, and there’s historical basis for it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junker_mutiny)

My only suggestion is to maybe add something to represent the arrival of White troops from Siberia in the east, maybe add a few White troops into Greater Russia every couple of turns or something like that.

@Flashman:

I prefer that they fight Communism.

Determine a method for deciding which surviving Russian units are Reds, and which are Whites.

The Allies control the “Whites”, who will include all Russian units outside Russia proper; the CPS control the “Reds”, including those in Moscow (and adjacent tts?). Use WWII Russian units for Reds, who cannot operate outside original Russian tt.

These sides fight each other for control of Russia; only when one has completely eliminated the other is the civil war over and Russia can re-enter as a power in its own right.  Units of other nations are free to intervene. They will each need to manage their own economies.

For the most part, I like this, but it bothers me a little that other powers can participate (by bringing units in), since in actuality Russia basically bowed out of the War before the Civil War started.

I think it’d be better if no non-Russian units were allowed in Russian tt’s until the Civil War is over. Then, Communist Russia can enter the war (if it chooses to) on the side of the CP’s or a resurgent Imperialist Russia can reenter the war on the side of the allies.

However, I fully expect the (Big) War to be over before the Civil War…which is consistent with history.

@Hepps01:

Am I the only one who can’t access the map image?

If someone knows of a good place to host a PDF, I can do that. It’s just in my Google drive right now; it was too big to attach to the post.

http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation?cmpid=INT_Outbrain_HITH_HIS&obref=obnetwork

See #1.

Sure, the central issue of the war was slavery, I never said I was one of those “state’s rights” delusionists. And yes, slavery was horrible.

But we have the benefit of hindsight and modern perspective. Then, it was not only accepted and normal, it was the central pillar of the South’s economy.

And don’t even get me started on Lincoln. He’s been mythologized into some sort of proto-MLK. He wasn’t. He was a racist who used the Emancipation Proclamation as a political tool to cause unrest in areas where he didn’t even have jurisdiction, all while leaving slavery fully intact in areas where he did.

Anyway, I agree with DarthShizNit that this thread has gone a little off topic, mostly due to my ranting. I apologize.

@Croesus:

It wasn’t a country. You are still as integral a part of America as anywhere. Your culture still lives. You don’t need a Country with a history of slavery to have a home. That’s the crap failed states are built on

It wasn’t a country
Had a government, capital, flag, president
Country with a history of slavery
U.S. :wink:

@DarthShizNit:

@ossel:

@Flashman:

http://ia700402.us.archive.org/10/items/CrimesAndMercies/CrimesAndMercies.pdf

History is written by the victors.

It’s the same reason we have tanks named after that b��t��d Sherman and his army of rapists.

You’re just mad Sherman won  :wink:

People from the Northern U.S. (Yankees) always ask me why people are still angry about the Civil War. “That was like 200 years ago, get over it!”
I just ask them, “How would you feel if your country was invaded and occupied?”

@Croesus:

Define victory conditions? Why should you do that? No one knew what their goal was, why should you?

Very good point!  :-D

I was thinking capital capture, which is very hard to accomplish when the enemy can move units down the Ho Chi Minh Trail invisibly…

@Flashman:

http://ia700402.us.archive.org/10/items/CrimesAndMercies/CrimesAndMercies.pdf

History is written by the victors.

It’s the same reason we have tanks named after that bastard Sherman and his army of rapists.

Ok, I like that. There were major propaganda factors at play, and often the casualty statistics were grossly misreported.

I’ve been reading The Myth of the Great War (http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Great-War-Military-History/dp/0060084332), and I was surprised to find that up until the last year of the war, Allied losses on the Western Front were consistently double German losses, but they were reported to the general public (and the civilian government) to be grossly lopsided in the other direction.

In the end, it was a combination of factors that caused the revolutions in Europe, and from what you’ve posted here, it seems like you’ve represented that well.

What is your Revolution/Morale tracker based on Flashman (if you’ve posted it in another thread, feel free to direct me there)? If it’s based purely on casualties, I might have a problem with that…

@Flashman:

The Allies murdered more people in German death camps after the war than the Germans had killed there during it. The western Allies collaborated by sending “undesirables” back to Russian occupied zones knowing they were going to certain death. They chose not to know what happened at Katyn and elsewhere behind the Russian lines.

The biggest example of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century happened after WWII as a result of Churchill and Stalin redrawing the map of Europe and disposing of anyone who didn’t fit the picture, mainly Germans and Poles. Look at the map of Germany and Poland now compared to 1939. The differences represent entire populations being liquidated.

The only mitigation is that, probably, had the Axis won the picture would have been even more radically changed with corresponding human wastage.

:?
Proof?

Tried it; it’s WAAAAY too small (24"x24" I think). You can barely fit two chipped stacks in areas that are supposed to be major fronts. The 36"x36" board in the actual game will be much, much larger, especially since Europe is aligned along the diagonal (sqrt(362 + 362) = 50"). I know it doesn’t seem too big from the pictures we’ve seen, but it’s really rather large.