I wanted to start a thread to speculate about which countries or major powers will be represented in this game. Any analysis on this?
I’d like to see some of your opinions, and then I will post my own thoughts.
Eight major nations:
Germany
Russia
Austria-Hungary (known to all as Hungary)
France
Ottoman Empire (known as Turkey)
United Kingdom (known as Britain)
Italy
USA
Japan would be added to a global version (which A&A 1914 won’t be)
Italy should be able to join either side, but will probably be hot-wired into joining the Allies.
If they did WW1 Global, that would be soo cool. They add Japan and China and they have a scattered german surface fleet all over the world.
Granted China did not do a whole lot so I guess not them.
It should be noted that Turkey was a major power in a limited sense, as it had no modern industry. All mechanical weapons were imported from Europe.
Therefore, Turkey should have no factories; it is entirely dependent on modern weapons being sent there by G & A and then converted to Turkish units. It can of course recruit infantry and cavalry at home centres.
Turkey should have no factories; it is entirely dependent on modern weapons being sent there by G & A and then converted to Turkish units. It can of course recruit infantry and cavalry at home centres.
Factories are nothing but centers of population, communication, and industry. No need to change or make special rules.
But Turkey had no industry, therefore no factories. Any more than you can have factories in Congo.
Unless you want to introduce the deadly new flying carpet tech.
But Turkey had no industry, therefore no factories. Any more than you can have factories in Congo.
They had industry and a factory is not necessarily the same level as Germany. The definition is not that strict, it can mean centers of population, government. This is Axis and Allies, not flames of war.
I don’t buy Turkey building anything other than flesh and blood units. You cannot hope to depict the economic aspect of the era accurately if you falsely promote Turkey into a modern nation.
Even Russia and Italy, though backward in European terms, had the capacity to build warships, aircraft and artillery. Turkey did not and should not.
One of the challenges facing the CP player is to consider if Turkey is worth supporting economically. If G & A want it to survive, they have to send it the modern weapons it cannot produce internally.
Another “playable nation” is Bolshevik Russia. If that country is forced into Revolution, the Bolsheviks take over some of Russia and its units; the remainder are still controlled by the Allies.
Germany controls the Bolsheviks, who cannot move outside Russia. Indeed, every country can be split in this way if it suffers continual defeats.
This requires another set of units in red.
I’m toying with the idea of an event card deck. Once such event would be the “Finland Station” card, played by Germany, to push Russia over the edge by sending Lenin to Petrograd.
Here are some of my thoughts on some of the major/minor nations.
A lot of these are drawn from Imp Game’s The Great War, so I will reference that game a lot.
Italy: had a defensive treaty with the Central Powers/Triple Alliance but went over to the Allies/Entente when the CP turned out to be the aggressors in the war. Spent most of the war fighting the Austrians and eventually gained some territory from them. I would like to see Italy as an “Entente†power, possibly with some special rules, and have some optional rules for Italy entering the war on either side.
TGW status: Major Neutral (mostly to preserve the 3v3 setup of the game, IMHO), supporting either Germany or France
USA: tipped the scales of war against the Germans; by that time, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were in collapse, and the outcome was basically a foregone conclusion, despite the Brest-Litovsk Treaty which granted Germany a great deal of territory in the east (later undone by the Treaty of Versailles)
TGW status: Major Neutral, represented only by convoy zones, supporting the UK
Bulgaria: History identifies Bulgaria as the 4th of 4 Central Powers, after Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. In TGW, it is often more tactically useful (so i am told) for the CP to invade Bulgaria, even if they are supporting the CP. Bulgaria and the Ottomans actually fought on opposite sides of several Balkan wars in the 1800s; as I recall, the alliances against the Turks often broke down into self-interests and backstabbing between Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece.
TGW status: Major Neutral, supporting either the Ottoman Empire or Russia
Serbia: historically the fighting between Austria and Serbia went on for a long time; in TGW it is usually over by Turn 1. The rules of TGW state that if attacked and not conquered, Serbia joins Russia; I always thought it should just be a Russian territory from the get-go to avoid the need for this special ruling.
TGW status: Minor Neutral (special)
The Balkans: From my understanding of history, Greece was pro-UK, Montenegro was pro-Serbia, and Romania was pro-Russian (or at least anti-Hungarian).
TGW status: Minor Neutrals; can be influenced by Austria, Ottomans, or Russia (Imperious Leader can probably correct me if I am misremembering this)
Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were neutral in WWI, and were not invaded (unlike WWII where Denmark and Norway were invaded by the Germans, and Sweden supplied Germany with iron ore). Also of note, Finland was under the control of Tsarist Russia during this era. I feel like Sweden and Norway could be left off the map in A&A:1914
TGW status: Minor Neutrals; can be influenced by UK, Germany, or Russia
Western Europe: Since Britain were guarantors of Belgium’s neutrality, their invasion by Germany in WWI during the Schlieffen plan was cited as Britain’s reason for entering the European war. In WWII, the Netherlands were invaded by Germany in order to draw Allied forces further north into Belgium, allowing the main German force to slip past them through the Ardennes, further to the south. I seem to recall reading that Portugal was also a hub for intelligence and espionage during the war.
TGW status: Minor Neutrals, can be influenced by UK, Germany, or France
Spain: I seem to recall in the years between German unification and WWI, that there were overtures made, trying to arrange a royal marriage between the German and Spanish monarchies, thus creating a threat to France from both sides. Spain remained neutral through the First World War, as well as WWII.
TGW status: Major Neutral, supporting either UK or Austria
The Ottomans should only be allowed to buy one non-infantry piece per turn.
(I’m expecting them to only have like 12 IPCs anyway)
Another “playable nation” is Bolshevik Russia. If that country is forced into Revolution, the Bolsheviks take over some of Russia and its units; the remainder are still controlled by the Allies.
Germany controls the Bolsheviks, who cannot move outside Russia. Indeed, every country can be split in this way if it suffers continual defeats.
Is this actually stated to be in the game or is this just something you’ve come up with? Because I really woldn’t like to see that in a game.
The Playable factions will be:
Russian Empire
German Empire
British Empire
French Third Republic
Kingdom of Italy
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Ottoman Empire
United States of America
these countries represent the major combatants of the war with Honorable mention going to Serbia, however being so small a nation it would be virtually impossible to represent them as a separate faction with in game terms.
Why have the Ottomans playable if your just going to gimp them to all hell?. They were a strong threat to the brits and they gave them a hard time in modern day Iraq, threatened india/suez, and held off an allied force at Gallipoli. I can understand making them weak, but give the allies a good reason to not just ignore them.
Why have the Ottomans playable if your just going to gimp them to all hell?.
I think the best way to represent the Ottomans and their inability to produce modern arms will be to just have them have a really small economy, kinda like Italy in G1940. Flashman is absolutely correct in his appraisal of Ottoman capabilities and their absolute lack of modern industry and infrastructure. In game terms I think it will be represented by a poor economy and alot of poor or no value territories outside of the Turkish heartland. You will probably see a scenario where the Ottoman forces within what we would consider Turkey to be quite robust and powerful, especially on the defensive (think Galipoli), while those in the rest of the Empire will be weak and unsupported (maybe they could pose a threat to allied positions in the region in the beginning rounds but not for long).
Granted China did not do a whole lot so I guess not them.
Yes, that’s right. I think the only Chinese territorial connection to WWI was Japan’s conquest of Germany’s colonial port in Tsingtao, where the Germany’s Asiatic squadron was based.
It should be noted that Turkey was a major power in a limited sense, as it had no modern industry. All mechanical weapons were imported from Europe.
One factor to keep in mind is that, when Austria-Hungary occupied Serbia and when Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, these two events created an overland connection between Austria-Hungary and Turkey. So in one sense, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey had the advantage of being directly connected to each other by land from that point onward – unlike the Allies, who were geographically isolated from each other and whose Mediterranean/Black Sea connection route (which was far from ideal to begin with) was severed by Turkey.
Yes, this is why the Dardanelles was seen as so important - controlling this area allows the Allies to supply Russia by sea (about 90% of Russian imports came through here); while for the CP it allows a continuous rail link from Berlin to Medina.
I’m not suggesting Turkey should be “weak”. It will start off with fully equipped armies from supplies purchased pre-war. As long as A & G can keep a supply route open they can continue to supply Turkey with mechanized units, especially since the Bosporus is considered to have an unbroken rail link from Europe to Asia. They just can’t be BUILT in Turkey.
This also raises the question of turn order: presumably the official game will still have every power playing individual turns one after the other. However if we go to the other extreme and have “All Axis plays; then all Allies play” converting units isn’t even an issue.
Personally I’m in favour of something in the middle for both eras: in WWII I have Japan and USSR as separate factions; Germany and Italy are one; UK, F & USA are one faction as the Western Allies; making 4 blocks, each of which plays all of its members simultaneously.
For WWI I’d suggest Russia and Turkey as separate, but ALL then ALL turn order makes more sense for this game.
Regarding Russia & the Bolsheviks: A reminder that Germany surrendered while occupying about 3 times the tt it had when the war began. Just defaulting to the old “capture 2 capitals” idea will not work if the game is reasonably balanced; the game will likely go on forever. Therefore, there needs to be a mechanism for nations collapsing into disorder and revolution. This can happen to any power, but Russia is the familiar example.
Otherwise, how do you represent a power suddenly just dropping out of the game? The Allies tried to keep Russia going as an anti-German power, Germany supported the Bolsheviks. As the great powers descended into anarchy, civil wars and revolutions were going on all over Europe; if the game just ignores all this its a poor representation of history.
@CWO:
It should be noted that Turkey was a major power in a limited sense, as it had no
modern industry. All mechanical weapons were imported from Europe.One factor to keep in mind is that, when Austria-Hungary occupied Serbia and when Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, these two events created an overland connection between Austria-Hungary and Turkey. So in one sense, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey had the advantage of being directly connected to each other by land from that point onward – unlike the Allies, who were geographically isolated from each other and whose Mediterranean/Black Sea connection route (which was far from ideal to begin with) was severed by Turkey.
Japan, China and these “Bolsheviks” should not be any part of this game. Germany had just a few ships and very meager forces in China and some island groups. It is so marginal to combat on a strategic scale that it does not warrant any consideration. The Great War was mostly a European affair with some action in the middle east. To try to represent and model all these trifle little and meaningless struggles would be to the detriment of any decent Axis and Allies system. Honestly, if two guys fought with knifes in Brazil, somebody would want yet another set of freaking pieces to represent some game changing warfare…all they need is that Wikipedia entry to prove it.
I remember TGW originally had turn order as:
Germany
France
Austria
Russia
Ottoman
UK
The problem was that Russia was quickly "1-2 punch"ed and taken out of the game by Germany and Austria.
The solution was a more “historical” turn order
Austria (attacks Serbia, thus starting the war)
Russia (counters by declaring war on Austria, in support of Serbia)
Germany (declares war on Russia in support of Austria)
France (declares war on Germany because, damnit, they hate Germany)
Ottoman
UK
This seemed to work a lot better, and maintained the original “back-and-forth” of the original turn order. But if the objective is to allow for a bit more team coordination, you could easily switch the Ottoman and UK turns, allowing Austria and Ottoman to collaborate in the Balkans, and the UK and France to coordinate their moves on the western front.
