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My wife and I have played Richard Karpusiewicz’s “Great War” rules for AAE a couple times and thoroughly enjoyed it. We’ve thought of some rule changes that seem to enhance it, and I’ve put together a nice-looking manual for the whole thing (including new marker tokens for the WWI nations). The revised and reformatted rules are available as a PDF; I can’t post links yet, but you can get it here:

docs.google.com/open?id=0B4OjxFZJoutMQmMxOGJ3VzJBYUE

The end of the PDF summarizes most of the changes I’ve made to the rules. I’ve also laid out the new marker tokens for the Avery 4x6" circle labels, product number 5408; the PDF for that is here:

docs.google.com/open?id=0B4OjxFZJoutMX1p5ZTNDNEM2alk

I’ll eventually publish the LibreOffice source documents, SVG files and whatnot as well, in case others want to make further changes. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find Richard’s original rules online anymore. I haven’t played this scenario enough times yet to know whether it’s balanced; our first couple of games seemed to tilt slightly in favor of the Allies, which is partly why I shortened the number of turns until the Russian Revolution, and also added a probability of France having mutinies.

I hope my enhancements help to keep this great scenario alive, and I would love to hear feedback from anyone who plays it (either Richard’s original version, or my modified version).

Yeah, I don’t think I’d go so sub-crazy now, knowing that my blockade idea is illegitimate. In our next game, I played Germany again, and allowed the Atlantic to fall to the Allies pretty early. I spent the rest of the game attempting to rebuild my fleet, and at one point I even had a couple of aircraft carriers. I actually took Moscow pretty early on, but it was quickly reclaimed (by one stinking British tank, would you believe), and I never got it back. From there, it became a huge naval arms race that turned out to be Germany’s downfall. After about 8 turns, Germany was still very much alive, but spread thin and poorly positioned; the British and U.S. fleets killed most of my navy, Russia was growing stronger and Moscow was totally out of the question. Aside from an occasional skirmish into Leningrad, it was pretty hopeless. I resigned, saying that this was the point where Hitler locked himself in a bunker and ate a bullet.

I’d have to agree that Germany needs to focus on the USSR in order to be really effective. I’ve read a lot of stuff on this forum since then about the tank-stacking strategy that supposedly really does make Germany nigh-unbeatable, but that doesn’t interest me. Guaranteed-to-win strategies are no fun at all. I like to try something new in every A&A game I play; one of my favorite things about the series is that no two games are ever the same. Win or lose, I am in it to see something I’ve never seen before.

We’ve done a few games of Guadalcanal and Battle of the Bulge since then, but my wife and I agree that Europe is our favorite so far. Can’t wait to try it again, and I think I want to be the Allies next time. I’d like to see if it’s possible for the U.S. to build a permanent outpost in France… Or maybe Russia could build a navy…