Thank you so much!
National Objectives
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Paris was declared an open city on June 10th by the French government to prevent its destruction in battle, but they did attempt to defend the approaches to the city. The government had already relocated prior to its capture by the German’s, and the French prime minister did not want to surrender, but resigned due to lack of support in his cabinet. Petain became the new prime minister with promises of suing for an armistice.
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Even if I conceed this one, it still means that in both World Wars there are only 2 examples of a major country surrendering as a consequence of losing its capital, the above example being dubious indeed.
And, in fact, it was Hitler’s suicide rather than the loss of Berlin that counted in the other example.
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I am not saying they could fall by other means. Only that if the capital falls, its a sure and universal way of dealing with a game ending scenario in a light wargame. It is consistent and makes sense in a light wargame like AA14.
To me a defeated nation would be one that lost their last factory ( which simulated industrial base), but capital makes alot of sense too.
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I would go with the last factory option, but while mentioning that I prefer every industrialized region to have a factory capability.
However, for a WWI game I still think a mechanism should be in place whereby a nation that is anywhere near losing its last factory area will have collapsed internally before this, like Germany in 1918 when it still had all the European tt it held in 1914 plus a large area of Western Russia. Otherwise, if the game is a realistic simulation of the war, it is unlikely ever to be fought to a conclusion, even given a limited number of turns and secondary winning conditions.
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Well that brings back the “national morale” index, where a nation falls at any time when the support of the people are so far against it that they just collapse. I know public opinion means nothing to some people here, but in this war that reality was the result in at least two cases.
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@Imperious:
Well that brings back the “national morale” index, where a nation falls at any time when the support of the people are so far against it that they just collapse. I know public opinion means nothing to some people here, but in this war that reality was the result in at least two cases.
:roll:
Just because I showed that public opinion was not the most important factor in determining when the USA went to war does not give you license to hypergeneralize that to make it look like I said that unrest in a country is irrelevant in determing a full-blown uprising.
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Just because I showed that public opinion was not the most important factor in determining when the USA went to war does not give you license to hypergeneralize that to make it look like I said that unrest in a country is irrelevant in determing a full-blown uprising.
You still here? You didn’t show anything, public opinion gives the politicians the support to do or not do. Don’t be naive. Public opinion brought down Imperial Russia and Germany. Translation: mutiny and revolution.
Incredible.
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Pouting now that your troll thread was deleted?
When you mock me like that (soon you will claim that when you were referring to those to whom public opinion does not matter, you were somehow not referring to me. :roll:)
We have seen your true colors. They include misdirection, poor/misleading/nonexistent sourcing, childish repeat-till-it’s-true argumentation, employing of a second account to agree with you, and encouraging violence and death to your debate opponents.
The real question should be why are YOU still here? Is there no one else with an elementary school education able to remove spam?
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You sound like that guy who didn’t get Sanford and Son season 4.
I hope you don’t infect the other threads like this one since they took playground from baby.
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New poster, but long time gamer.
In terms of National Objectives, I believe they are too restrictive and create a gaming experience that is heavily scripted.
what I’ve done in the past with other A&A titles and similar grand strategic war games is create a National Morale or Will Track.
For WWI, I would establish a 3 Theater Track - Western Theater, Eastern Theater, and Mediteranean Theater. Each starts at ‘0’ and moves in favor of Entente or Central Powers on a set critera, such as IPC’s gained or lost on a single turn in one of the theaters for example. Then set a prescribed turn to end the game on (say 10 turns). If no one has reached ‘immediate’ victory by gaining a certain number on each of the theater tracks) then the game ends and whichever side is ahead on 2 of the 3 theater tracks wins a conditional victory.
I’ve found that this creates a lot of tension and opens up strategies with many options and many different paths to victory. Obviously some conditions would be considered heavily on the tracks, such as the loss of Paris or Berlin, or the High Seas Fleet controlling the channel. Additionally, the game can be played out in 2 to 2.5 hours a big plus for me.
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I’m in favour of a national morale tracker, but to decide when a power collapses into disorder and revolution.
I’ve suggested NOs for fear of the game getting bogged down with the defensive dominating and nobody prepared to launch attacks.
A further development of this is that the NOs actually become the victory conditions. Say you have 9 NOs per side; if at any time one side holds an agreed number of NOs at the end of a turn it wins. I agree this can seem scripted, but the NOs I’ve listed correspond with the actual pre-war goals of the major powers (or could be easily adjusted to do so), so I don’t think this is artificial.
Something else I’ve been thinking about is mandatory attacks. Larry has already fixed an (unhistorical) Austrian invasion of Serbia as mandatory on turn 1. I’m guessing that a German turn 1 attack on Belgium may follow the same pattern. So, in order to keep the meat-grinder turning, and stop everyone turning turtle, perhaps every player turn MUST involve at least one attack with a minimum number of units, or a battle involving a minimum number in total.
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The NO’s then would give a VP to players rather than IPC.
That would feed the morale tracker up or down.
And probably each turn a nation would reduce the NM by X
Keeping NO’s raises a nations “resolve” above water
sort of like being in the red or black in business. and each nation with a different starting point ( e.g. a different ‘breaking point’)
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Yes, one of the reasons I never really liked NOs is that artificial IPC income. Here it can be points towards victory conditions, and/or moving national morale levels up or down.
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Lets work on this using the idea.
Idea: when a nation drops into negative integers it must sue for peace. Each NO you got on your list increases the resolve by one point per turn.
Each turn subtracts one resolve unit
Other events should also trigger ( not unlike a note) the resolve, like US entering the game, or losing a big battle, etc.
What would they be?
Remember KISS, not world in flames chrome rules.
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I still prefer “collapse into Revolution” to “sue for peace”. Civil wars and such.
How to distinguish between them?
From my post in another thread:
Until we find out the official victory conditions, let me argue for the game being won by collapse in national morale, rather than the capture of specific tts.
This is entirely historical, and avoids the silly old capture the capital rules.
So - a track to record national morale levels in the same manner as IPC incomes.
Ranges from +10 to -20.
-11 to -20 is “Disorder”. A nation in Disorder has limited function; in particular its units may mutiny, and it is more susceptible to negative effect event cards.
below -20 is “Revolution”. A country in Revolution is effectively out of the game, but may be able to recover (but this is unlikely).
A side which has all its major nations in Revolution or defeated has lost. It is possible that both sides may collapse simultaneously, in which case both sides lose!
All nations begin at 0 morale. Although it can be argued that some nations were happy to go to war in order to disguise unrest as home, the assumption is that people at first are caught up in a rush of patriotism. In the end the war collapses as people get sick of the casualties and food shortages, so there is a finite game length: it shouldn’t go on beyond 1919.
At the moment, my list of factors effecting morale is:
Lose capital: minus 5
Lose any other home tt: minus 2
Lose any other tt: minus 1
Lose convoy: minus 1
Lose 10 units in combat*: minus 1
Suffer a bombing raid on your capital (1st time): minus 3
Suffer a bombing raid on your capital: minus 1
Lose a dreadnought: minus 1
End of 1st year of war: minus 1 (all powers)
End of 2nd year: minus 2 (all powers)
End of 3rd year: minus 3 (all powers)
End of 4th year: minus 4 (all powers)
End of 5th year: minus 5 (all powers)Capture an enemy (not minor nations) capital: plus 5
Capture any other enemy tt (not neutral nations): plus 1
Bomb an enemy capital: plus 1
Build a new dreadnought: plus 1Clearly the weight is towards declining morale; it is ultimately a matter of survival.
- I suggest having a “casualties box” for eliminated units. When a nation has 10 units in there, return them to the national unit box and move their morale marker 1 step down.
The CB can also be used to implement certain event cards, such as:
Czech Legion: Russia may take 3 Austrian units from the CB, return them to the supply box, and place 3 Russian infantry in any Russian centre. This represents the recruitment of national minority units from enemy POWs.
Other event cards can effect morale directly, such as Germany sending Lenin to Russia (which must be in disorder).
- I suggest having a “casualties box” for eliminated units. When a nation has 10 units in there, return them to the national unit box and move their morale marker 1 step down.
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no no no. too complicated.
Just take the NO’s you made, use that for the -1 morale cost.
then create starting points for each nation;
For CP, Germany has the most, followed by Austro, then ottoman
For Entente, Russia has the least, then Italy, France, UK, USA.
Example: Germany at +8, Austro +5, Ottoman +3
etc.
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Agreed. Keep it simple. Can’t stress enough the importance of tracks for different Fronts/Theaters. This will keep it interesting and relevant for all players. If the Aust/Hun are getting hammered by the Russians/Italians, the Germans or Turks may have to come to their aid, which in turn takes pressure of the Western Front and opens door for British in Mediteranean, etc. etc…creates a strategic chess match.
Have to see the actual map before I make any definitive judgement, but preliminarily I would say key map areas would gain 2 points, lesser map areas 1 point, elimination of X number of BP’s gains 1 point, failed attacks (losing more BP’s than defender -1 point)….something like that.
If at the end of a game turn either Alliance has enough combined points on all 3 fronts or 2 fronts are past the Alliances Morale Factor limit the game ends immediately. It would be possible and appropriate if one side were to be able to win in 4 or 5 turns. However, the risk of overextending is obvisous, as you encourage both counterattacks, and failed attacks could also cost you negative points.
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Make it like something Larry would make if he was forced too. People identify with something that familiar and uncomplicated.
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Simple: you gain morale points when you successfully take enemy territories or eliminate all enemy units within a territory. If you fail, you risk losing morale points. The rewards are greater if you attack, but not always. This prevents turtling, but also prevents ridiculous attack, attack, attack, without any consequence.
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That simple? Have to sleep on that one.
SWR66: I think its sufficient that the NOs are spread around the theatres.
In fact this can be simplified to a VC for each side in each theatre:
London-Berlin (North Sea)
Paris-Essen (Western Front)
Rome-Vienna (Alpine Front/Adriatic)
Konigsburg-Petrograd (Baltic)
Lemberg-Kiev (Ukraine)
Brazzaville-Dar-es-Salaam (Central Africa)
Cairo-Damascus (Middle East)
Delhi-Baghdad (Mesopotamia)
Tiflis-Constantinople (Caucasus/Black Sea)
New York-Mexico City (Rio Grande Front)But this will have to be revised based on the map. For example if Western Germany is divided north/south we might get
Paris-Stuttgart
Brussels-EssenIf there is no Mexico New York cannot count.
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