Posts made by Suvorov

Okay, guys.  You play whatever crazy alternative reality game you want to.  You can even roll for wormholes, through which AA1940 units can enter the game in a nod to The Final Countdown.  I’m going to play the game with the rules as written, in which Italy is a member of the Allied powers, because no other alternative is plausible.  Anyone arguing the contrary either lacks enough understanding of the political situation (despite the best efforts of many here to educate them) or is wilfully ignoring history.

I love the way everyone talks about the Italians as though their government was not totally subservient to an Italian electorate that was clamoring for war.  Even if Salandra had somehow decided to commit political suicide and sign an agreement with the Central Powers, his government would have faced, and almost certainly lost, a confidence vote, the government would have fallen, and whatever followed (new government, dictatorship, temporary assumption of power by the King) would have reflected a very overwhelmingly anti-Austrian public opinion.  Imagine what would happen if Obama tried to convince Congress to declare war on Israel in alliance with Hezbollah and Iran.

But they don’t.  If Germany pushes to Moscow through Poland and Belarus only, and Austria is limited to Ukraine, then you don’t trigger the Revolution.  It’s possible to seize Moscow and then occupy the rest of Russia.  However, the CPs can also push Russia into revolution rather than conquer it.

I agree.  Knocking Russia out of the game is an important step to victory, whether or not the CPs get to check off a little box that they have one of two capitals needed.

@ch0senfktard:

I don’t see why many are so against having Italy be a Central Power due to historical reasons…

We’re talking about an alternate history scenario here. The slightest possibility makes anything possible, and well, Italy was an official ally of Austria and Germany… So why can’t we just play it and say “What if?”

Well, if you’re going to do that just treat the whole thing like Diplomacy and let anyone ally with anyone they want to.  You’re free to make up any game you want to.  Just don’t think it has anything to do with the historical conflict of World War I.

Let me state a few things here:

1. I provided you with extensive quotes from a book of recognized quality that covers nothing but Italy during World War I, and all you could counter with was the same old tired arguments.  I could continue to argue, but at this point it reminds me of the old quote about how arguing on the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics.  The entire point was to show you that what you are talking about is historically implausible, but you just don’t want to admit it.

2. If France had fallen in 1914 the other Allied Powers would almost certainly have entered negotiations for a peace settlement immediately, and given the way the Central Powers thought (certainly nothing like the Nazis in World War II), they probably would have gotten it.  Willy didn’t want to see Nicky killed along with his whole family; he just wanted colonies at the expense of Great Britain and France, and a fleet that would rival Britain’s.  Austria just wanted expansion in the Balkans.  It would have been 1870 all over again, not 1940.

Montanelli is very clear about it.  Italy needed time before it could join the war:

Ma sopratutto bisognava rimediare alle gravi lacune della nostra preparazione militare.  Del milione e trecentomila uomini che lo Stato Maggiore riteneva indispensabile per la difesa delle nostre frontiere, non ne avevamo sotto le arme che quattrocentomila.  E Salandra, dopo aver dichiarato alla Camera ch’eravamo in grado di equipaggiarne tre volti tanti, scopr� che i magazzini, svuotati dalla guerra di Libia, non erano stati riforniti.  Se l’Austria - scrisse pi� tardi Cadorna - ci avesse attaccato, ci saremmo trovati alla sua merc�.

San Giuliano tranquillizz� il Generale scrivendogli alla fine di agosto che l’Italia non sarebbe entrata nel conflitto senza un novantanove per cento di probabilit� di vittoria perch� una campagna come quella del 1866 avrebbe significato la fine della monarchia, e ribad� ufficialmente la neutralit�.  - p. 146, L’Italia di Giolitti, 1974, Rizzoli Editore, Milano, reprinted 2010 RCS Libri S.p.A., Milano.

_But above all it was necessary to remedy the serious gaps in our military preparedness. Of the one million and three hundred thousand men that the General Staff considered indispensable for the defense of our borders, we did not have more than four hundred thousand under arms. And Salandra, having declared in the House that we were able to equip as many as three times that much, discovered that the warehouses, emptied by the war in Libya, had not been replenished. If Austria - later wrote Cadorna - had attacked us, we would be at its mercy.

San Giuliano reassured the General writing to him at the end of August that Italy would not have entered into the conflict without a ninety-nine percent chance of winning because a campaign like the one in 1866 would have meant the end of the monarchy, and officially reaffirmed the policy of neutrality._

As to which side to join, Montanelli two sentences later explains that the first overtures were made to the British.  However, the government of Salandra was weak.  Popular forces, particularly the irredentists, were making waves.  Montanelli notes that the group “Secolo” had formed, that Peppino Garibaldi had already formed a volunteer legion, and others like Marinetti coined mottos such as “marciare, non marcire” (to march, not to rot), advocating an active role to support France.  Giuriati also advocated fiercely for a pro-French, anti-Austrian point.  The socialists, under Filippo Corridoni, supported by Michele Bianchi, Edmondo Rossoni, Alceste De Ambris and Giuseppe Giulietti, had all gone to the banner of irredentism and advocated attacking Austria.  Of course, it was when the editors of “Avanti” didn’t like the anti-Austrian writings of Benito Mussolini that he founded a new paper, “Il Popolo d’Italia”, to advocate for intervention.  His exact phrase was “O guerra, o rivoluzione”.  Of the major newspapers, “Giornale d’Italia”, “La Tribuna”, “L’Idea Nazionale”, “Il Secolo” and “Corriere della Sera” all advocated intervention against Austria, with only “La Stampa” from Turin advocating neutrality.

No one advocated for intervention on the side of the Central Powers outside the government, and hardly anyone inside had.  One of the only Italians in government in favor of the Central Powers was Sonnino, who replaced San Giuliano as Foreign Minister in October 1914 (San Giuliano died).  However, Sonnino had taken that position only when the Germans were advancing quickly, and he rebuffed the Austrian offers, just as Giolitti rebuffed von B�low when the two met face to face.

In short, in 376 pages there is ample evidence to refute any allegation that Italy was seriously considering joining the Central Powers.  Italy had to play for time, however, because it was not ready in 1914 to declare war, and so of course the various ministers and ambassadors met to discuss theoretical alliances.

It’s laughable because it just wasn’t going to happen.  This is NOT just another example of seeing the historical outcome as the only possible outcome.  There were a lot of points in history where things could have played out either way.  Italy joining the Central Powers just wasn’t one of them.  You guys can protest the facts all you want, but the overwhelming verdict of scholars on the war who have studied the issue much more carefully than gamers at a fansite is that Italy would either have stayed out of the war or (as it did) joined on the side that was fighting Austria.

Also, while I’m not here to defend Italy or its fighting skills (von Blomberg reported, after watching Italian war games and asked what he thought, “The side that wins the next war will be whatever side doesn’t have Italy for an ally”), it should be noted that Italy kept fighting even after the disaster at Caporetto and went on to win a victory at Vittorio Veneto.  Italy didn’t “change sides” in the war - from 1902 it was allied with France and it stayed on the Allied side despite calamitous setbacks.

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

Once again, we need to think realistically. If the CP dangled colonial gains out in front of Italy after success in France, it’s not hard to imagine what Italy would do.

But they did.  Italy still refused.  Again, Italy never seriously considered joining the Central Powers.  If Germany had won in 90 days, Italy would have just stayed out of the war because it would have been over quickly.

Why Tsaritsyn?  It was a small provincial town with a population of fewer than 100,000.  It was only after Stalin won a victory there in the Civil War that it was renamed Stalingrad and then became a powerhouse of the Soviet industrialization drive.

Any notion that Italy was serious about potentially joining the Central Powers is completely misguided.  Salandra’s government was actually worried that the Austrians might provide major concessions to Italy because the press was already so anti-Austrian and whipping the middle class into a frenzy demanding war against Austria, and Italy had already made serious promises to France and Britain.  The military may have had plans for all sorts of eventualities, the same way that I’d bet the Pentagon has some dusty old plan for invading Mexico that no one would ever seriously use as evidence of aggressive intent, but it was clear from the beginning who the enemy was going to be.

As I mentioned earlier, the only reason Italy even entered the Triple Alliance was because after the crushing French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, Italy wanted to have Bismarck on her side, and saw Germany as a valid counterweight to Austria.  Because Bismarck had no interest in the Balkans (cf. his famous quote about them not being worth the bones of a single grenadier), Italy and Germany saw eye to eye while Bismarck was in power.  However, as soon as Bismarck left and German foreign policy changed in a variety of ways (all of which were to prove disastrous for Germany in the end), favoring Austria over Russia and alienating Italy in the process.  From that instant, Italy was looking for ways to graciously bow out of its Triple Alliance.  Giolitti, Salandra - basically, every government of every stripe - all were trying to realign Italy with the traditional ally, France.  The only issue was whether or not Italy would join the war.  The “notabili” seemed to want to stay out, but due to changes in Italian voting laws party politics were beginning to count for more than personalities.

I’m sure there’s some author out there who has tried to make the case that Italy might have stayed out, because of course that’s the nature of academia.  However, I haven’t seen any respected or compelling arguments to that effect.  In addition to Montanelli (his 22-volume history of Italy is truly epic), reading Martin Gilbert’s history of the war, or Hew Strachan, or any of the other noted historians of the war, will quickly impress upon the reader the impossibility that Italy would join the war as an ally of Austria.

Well, if the question is whether or not Russia is weaker in the game than in real life, the answer is of course.  Read Tuchman’s The Guns of August if you want a good analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each side.  Russia had a huge army, but it wasn’t well-equipped because of corruption and bad decisions in the higher ranks of the army.  Russia didn’t have enough artillery, shells, bullets or rifles when the war started.  The other disadvantage Russia had was that it didn’t have enough forces close to the front.  The Schlieffen Plan concept was that by throwing most of Germany’s force to the West and quickly defeating France, Germany could win a victory in the West before the Russians could fully mobilize, and then swing the victorious armies East.  Hindenburg and Ludendorff pulled off a miracle at Tannenberg because the Russian Army advanced before it had reached full strength, and even then it was about twice as big as the German army, and the Germans had to decide whether or not to evacuate East Prussia completely or try to fight a force twice as big as their own.

Italy was never going to join the Central Powers.  Austria was Italy’s primary enemy in Europe; they had gone to war in 1848, 1859 and 1866 with Austria.  The Triple Alliance was entered into primarily because Italy saw Bismarck as an ally following the defeat of Italy’s prior protector (Napoleon III), and Germany as a force to restrain Austrian ambitions in the Balkans (the House of Savoy being connected by marriage to the royal family of Montenegro).  Italy even signed an agreement with France in 1902 that effectively moved Italy back to its natural position of alliance with France.

Salandra’s government was being pushed by the nationalist press to join the war against Austria so as to get Tyrol, Fiume, Zara, and the Dalmatian coastline.  The only way Italy could ever have entered the war was on the Allied side.  A good reference is L’Italia di Giolitti, by Indro Montanelli, which covers the period for anyone who reads Italian.

Having said that, the way I would handle it in the game is simple: Italy cannot attack any CP territories on Turn 1 unless it has been attacked by any CP.  It can occupy Albania or attack a neutral, but it can’t attack the CPs directly on Turn 1 unless it has been attacked.  Period.  Simple.  Easy.

@Siris101:

If you attack any of the beige neutrals like Norway, Denmark, Spain, then they get the opposite alliance to mobilize troops.

If you attack Spain with France then you pick which Central Power nation to represent the mobilized troops.

you mobilize x2 the IPC value (all infantry and 1 artillery). So Germany gets 7 infantry and 1 artillery to use against the attackers.

You have been playing wrong, and this may have been why the Central powers were winning so easy.

I didn’t see him saying anything like that.  He just said that he assumed that attacking one true neutral didn’t make ALL true neutrals hostile, like in AA1940.  He’s right on that point.  Based on what he’s said about attacking neutrals I infer that he’s having them defend.

He has some good points, too.  Battleships are cheaper, and that is a good option for the CPs.  I also see that he took a different approach on attacking neutrals than we did in our games, and maybe that makes sense, too - in most cases the neutral forces will be wiped out so the CPs can pick up extra IPCs fast.  It’s better than trying to get the IPCs for Belgium, for example.

There is also a very good point about the Russian Revolution.  The US isn’t a powerhouse like in WWII A&A games.  Knocking out Russia will probably leave the CPs in a much better position, IPC-wise, than the Allies.  Germany is likely to have an additional 15 IPCs or so, Austria might be up by 6, and the Ottomans could be up by 5 or so.  In that sort of situation, the CPs are in a good position to first shore up their line with lots of infantry and then start spending on other things.

@BJCard:

A slight variation could be to hit Switzerland as many have prescribed and take Italy out first, but without more play tests, and the rules being in ‘flux’ it is hard to know for sure.

Not on Turn 1.  The French counterattack will have air supremacy as Paris is only 2 spaces away and the Germans can’t get their fighter there fast enough.  I made that mistake.  It was brutal for the Germans.  If Switzerland is a path to victory, it has to be later on.

They probably should have, but they didn’t, so as the rules read right now (and even as they read in the book) there are plenty of situations when the Russian player might voluntarily choose not to counterattack a province because the Revolution is preferable to the capture of Moscow from an Allied standpoint.

At least they fixed the other problems with the Russian Revolution as written in the rulebook.

@Flashman:

I’ll say it again - the Central Powers are crippled by the unhistorically slow movement over land to reinforce their fronts when they get close to Paris and Rome.

If the Allies are clever enough to use a UK transport fleet to shuck troops into Picardy/Belgium and Karelia alternately even Russia shouldn’t fall.

I suspect that the majority of CP victories were resignations by Allied players who did not appreciate how difficult it is for the CPs to press home an advantage and actually take western capitals when the Americans start sending over troops.

That is exactly what I found.  I played the CPs in the first game and tried to be ultra-aggressive to see what I could do to take 2 capitals.  The Austrians took Venice and Romania flat out and only 1 troop was left in Serbia, the Ottomans attacked into Sevastopol, the Germans hit Poland and all along the West Front (including Switzerland) and destroyed the British Navy completely, but we ran out of reinforcements.  Ultimately, the Russians ended up taking Galicia with a huge force of about 20 infantry and 8 artillery and two airplanes, and the Austrians had nothing capable of stopping them, and the French ripped a hole in the German front.

@Gargantua:

You’ve played two games.

I suggest playing a few more before asking the “is it balanced” question.

No, the whole point was to ask other people to get an idea - if you don’t want to answer, that’s fine, but I am going to ask the questions I want to.

We played 2 games.  The first was wholly instructive (as in “Oh crap, this is REALLY not like the WWII A&A games” - we knew it wasn’t theoretically but only after actually playing a game did it sink in), so I won’t count that, but the CPs lost that one ignominiously.  The second game had to end early (time constraints - you can only play for so many hours), but even though Russia fell to revolution, the CPs had achieved it at a terrible cost (Austria had something like 6 pieces left total, including chips, Germany’s front was shattered and the French and British were charging into the heart of Germany, and the Ottomans only held Constantinople of their original territory).  The point is that the CPs lost both games.

This leads me to ask how often they are winning in other games, i.e., is this game balanced?

After having played the game, it makes sense.  Otherwise there is too strong of an incentive to just push East in every game and have all 3 countries gang up on Russia.  This way, the Allies may even incite the Revolution (as happened in my second game) to deny the CPs the capital.  Also, if the attack on Russia is limited to, say, Germany, then it’s possible to push to Moscow and not give Russia the conditions for the Revolution.

Besides, having to get Paris or London makes it almost irrelevant.  If you can knock Russia out fast you can pivot your armies and push hard to the West.  If you get Paris, chances are you can get Rome pretty quickly thereafter.