First impressions from first game

[Tavenier]

Yesterday I played my first game of 1914 (against someone else, I already tried a solitary game to see what options there are).
CP won a victory by crushing the Russians and keeping the western allies at bay. The latter was easily done, because the allied player made some mistakes and my cruisers could kill off a couple of transports.

Pros:
-A really great looking game (map and mini’s)
-System with one round of combat and contested areas is refreshing
-Every power (except USA) has enough to do. Unlike the AA 1940 Chinese or French.
-Spaces on map makes it hard to conquer Paris, which represents the difficult struggle there
-The way neutrals work
-Loads of dice

Cons:
-Some sea zones are too close. From the USA and Canada you can go to western med in one turn, even further with cruisers.
-Tanks are too weak for their cost
-Its hard to keep track of IP with the contested areas. I often switched an IP number at both sides after a space gets conquered. While before that I already deducted the amount of IPs from the first owner. Just needs getting use to I guess, but some sort of reminder in the form of a contested zone marker would have been great. That way you actively need to remove that marker which reminds you automatically that you only need to adjust one country’s IP track.
-Switzerland. It should be strictly neutral/impassable. If conquered by whatever side it makes the fronts really ahistorical and less fun. You can move from Munich to Switzerland to Burgundy, or Northern Italy. Or the other way around.
-Some countries have a desperate lack of minis (German subs, British inf for example)
-No paper money
-Confusing IP tracking
Edit: Ottoman and Austrian army colors are way too similar. Confusing when both attacking Russia.

All in all a very good and refreshing game. And Global wasn’t finally finished after loads of Alpha set ups, so let alone a complete new era of warfare with new game mechanics. I guess there will be something like that for this game as well. After that Larry can work on a Imperialism game or even Napoleonic! ;-)

[Texas Holders]

Tanks are pretty devastating and resolve the CP supply issues.  Any particular reason you feel they are too weak.  I almost feel that they could attack and defend at zero and still be worth it.

[Tavenier]

Well, two inf can at least fight at 2 x 2. They are worth two hits. They are available from the beginning. Etc.

Tanks seem to come too late. Especially because they also move at only one space per turn. So if the Germans build them in turn 4, they can fight in, say, Loraaine on turn 7! By that time they won’t make too much of a difference anyway and I think two inf are a better investment then anyway. Two dice are rolled then, for the same 6 IPC.

[Texas Holders]

Tanks pay for themselves after two turns through and continue to basically generate a unit every turn you attack with them.  For example, after 4 turns, one tank has created 4 infantry and you still have the tank, that’s worth a lot more than just 2 infantry that likely died a few turns earlier.

[Tavenier]

Ok, but then German tanks pay themselves back in about turn 8 or 9.
I will most certainly buy them on my next game on saturday, so then my opinion can be different.

[WILD BILL]

Tanks could be pretty useful if you are taking out neutrals, but again this is late in games, and remember they can’t take a hit from first strike art fire.

[KimRYoung]

The tanks don’t really get rolling like you said until turns 7-9, but that is when you are going to need them. Our last game the CP won was around 16 turns, so got lots of use of the tanks.

Kim