The Great War 1914-1918: Clash of Empires

My picture analysis (and the implied qestions) fit better on this thread, so I’m adding it to this thread… Also in hopes of an answer from IL…

So, IL… do you know what ships are pictured in the preview images you’ve shared so far?  The resolution is uneven on my screen and given two angles of the shot, I can’t quite be sure, but this is what I think I’m seeing…

1. Top: German Kaiser-class BB (the diagonal layout of the midships turret seems to make this a natural guess; the Brits also did some diagonal layouts, but the turret shape says “German” to me on this one, but I can’t quite be sure…)

2. Middle BB: One of the three British 13.5" “super-dreadnought” classes (i.e., Orion, KGV, Iron Duke.  Can’t quite tell which as the stack/mast layout is obscured.  If I’m wrong about the turret shapes, though, and the above is the British one, than this must surely be the German Konig-class, the only German all-centerline class with a single mid-ships turret.)

3. Lower BB: Must surely be the French Courbet class, the only class I can think of with 2 wing turrets together with two sets of fore-and-aft superfiring ones.

4. Upper Cruiser: I’m thinking French Gambetta class ACR, with its four stacks, obvious tumblehome and 8 turrets in a hexagonal (or would that be octagonal?) layout.

5. Lower Cruiser: Omaha-class CL, with its obvious 4 stacks and 2 twin turrets (an unusual feather for CL’s back then) which might be a bit of an odd choice since they didn’t make it into the war at all, but I’m not bothered, as I think they’d look like a good fit together with the US 4-piper destroyers.

6. Upper Destroyer: One of the British Admiraly classes; can’t tell which…

7. Middle Destroyer: One of the US 4-piper, “flush-decker” designs, not sure which…

8. Lower Destroyer: One of the German Grosse Torpedoboots (again, I can’t tell which…)

If Dreadnought sculpts are indeed SMS Kaiser, HMS Iron Duke and Courbet it would be top spot!
Well, of course Austrian-Hungary’s ought to be Viribus Unitis! 8-)

@Imperious:

In a lot of ways this map is superior to A&A 1914. Especially the colors. The red for the Ottomans is so much better then the turquoise. I also like how Bulgaria is controlled by Germany over the Ottomans. More territories to maneuver in too. How large will the map be?

5 feet by 4 feet hardbound map, so it’s huge

Is there some connection with this game and Pegasus Hobbies? Are they making the the pieces?

They produced the game

I do like how Larry’s map feels more global though. A few suggestions I would have for the map is maybe consider creating a new image for the forts. I had to really zoom in just to tell what it was. Maybe get rid of one of the US convoys and make it Canadian also. Shouldn’t the Russian capitol be in Petrograd? Spaces like Gallipoli seem way too small. Over all though I really dig it.

The Russian capital is St. Pertersburg, not Moscow. Gallipoli is small because it is small. When you have too many pieces you just use one of the numbers and place it in the area, and the pieces go off board with that number ( note the numbered boxes bottom left).

The fort is based on Verdun at an angle looking above head on. The detail just couldn’t be done ( it was revised a number of times)

that’s what i’m talking about!

@Imperious:

I guarantee this version is more like AA than 1914. It just a tad more complex than Global and features standard and advanced rules as well as optional rules.

dude, i can’t wait for this game, brother.

Thanks for being willing to share some of the “inside baseball” info w/ us IL.  It looks to me like they pretty much went with your recomendations for bb’s and cruisers, IL (and that I was wrong about the lower cruiser being an oddly anachronistic Omaha) now that I was thinking of the Magdeburg as a possibility for it: it didn’t have twin turrets (unheard-of for ww1 CL’s) but rather 2 paired sets of single turrets front-and-back… and then there’s those fluted stacks… when viewed that way the picture almost sort of comes into focus mentally, without having to on the page…

I’ll have to take another look at the DD’s in light of the new info…

I do like the 3-option piece set idea you’re working with, IL; I think it would have gone well with using soft hats for Brit-Fr-Am regular infantry (looks like you already did for everyone else) and you could have shock troop with stalhelm for CP, Brodie for Brit-Am, and Adrian for Fr-Rus-It; slightly ahistorical, I know, since helmets weren’t an elite thing per se, but would have been a convenient way to give everybody a second Inf type while having to do only 3 more sculpts…

But I quibble.  Infantry options abound anyway…

Weird that you can’t sail from England to Archangel - this is a major Allied supply route in 1914.

IL: Yep, as I suspected, after a second look, that top destroyer looks like a Bouclier class to me (though it does seem to be missing a stack, but maybe the picture’s resolution obscures it, which means that they likely pretty much went with your suggestions for all three ship types.  Given that all of the various types of “Admiralty”-type destroyers and most of the German grossetorpedoboots had a similar look, that’s a solid choice for those two.  France was pretty weak in destroyers, so the Bouclier might be a tad more controversial of a choice, but it does make sense to stay consistent with the 3-option paradigm and give a complete set of French equipment (I don’t know that either the Russians or Italians were that much better off naval-wise anyway.)

Tall Paul: Sorry, this means no US 4-piper.  Here’s the consolation, though: the 4-pipers converted to “green dragons” generally lost a pipe anyway, and so they probably wouldn’t be all that far off from the look of the Admiralty type or the Bouclier, anyway.  (They do have a raised forecastle rather than a flush-deck from the looks of it, but some of the APD classes were made from other destroyer classes; perhaps some of them also had raised forecastles, too, and even if they didn’t, it’s a small difference that only a nerd like me would probably notice…)

The bottom line of the APD concept was to take relatively low-combat-value destroyers by using either old DD or new DE hulls, and rebuild them for the new mission, so the layout specs could be quite variable… and if different ships had been available, different ones would have been used.  The 4-pipers were used mainly because the US had made like, 300 of these things, most of which were finished too late to get into WW1, so alot of them had gone almost straight from the shipbuilders to mothballs… and thus had hulls in relatively good shape for ships that old by ww2, making them available for reuse and experimentation.

Of course!
It is an important aspect if such a big WWI game comes out!

In geek dreamland every power has its own sculpts AND the chosen ones really represent the respective units/classes!

If I can tell a destroyer from a cruiser I’m doing well.

If anything, I actually prefer generic sculpts for ships as it means fewer outlines to have to remember.

Not so for planes, though. I want at least 3 different types of fighter sculpt for each side.

@Flashman:

…
Not so for planes, though. I want at least 3 different types of fighter sculpt for each side.

I assume you have the “Fighter Race” in mind when saying this! ;)

I would even say 4 types as ALL aircraft 1914 was unarmed reconnaissance!

Dr Larson & Others,

@DrLarsen:

Tall Paul: Sorry, this means no US 4-piper.  Here’s the consolation, though: the 4-pipers converted to “green dragons” generally lost a pipe anyway, and so they probably wouldn’t be all that far off from the look of the Admiralty type or the Bouclier, anyway.  (They do have a raised forecastle rather than a flush-deck from the looks of it, but some of the APD classes were made from other destroyer classes; perhaps some of them also had raised forecastles, too, and even if they didn’t, it’s a small difference that only a nerd like me would probably notice…) 
The bottom line of the APD concept was to take relatively low-combat-value destroyers by using either old DD or new DE hulls, and rebuild them for the new mission, so the layout specs could be quite variable… and if different ships had been available, different ones would have been used.  The 4-pipers were used mainly because the US had made like, 300 of these things, most of which were finished too late to get into WW1, so alot of them had gone almost straight from the shipbuilders to mothballs… and thus had hulls in relatively good shape for ships that old by ww2, making them available for reuse and experimentation.

––In adapting the “4-piper DDs” into APDs they took out half of the ‘engineering spaces’, including TWO of the four stacks, and replaced this with berthing spaces for the Marine Raider forces.
----I’m very confident that IL’s sculpt for this unit will be convertible into my APD’s. After all,…I believe SgtWilTan to be so talented that he could make me some APDs out of matchsticks if I asked him. He is ‘THE MAN’ for A&A modifications, no doubt!

----In truth,…This game,…TGW1914-1918COE looks like a DEFINATE must have in and of itself!

“Tall Paul”

Exactly.

Recon planes 1 in combat, move 4 (start)

1st gen fighter 2 in combat move 2 (1915)

2nd gen fighter 3 in combat move 2 (1916)

3rd gen fighter 4 in combat move 2 (1917)

Bomber 1 in combat move 6 has bombing ability (1917)

@xxstefanx:

@Flashman:

…
Not so for planes, though. I want at least 3 different types of fighter sculpt for each side.

I assume you have the “Fighter Race” in mind when saying this! ;)

I would even say 4 types as ALL aircraft 1914 was unarmed reconnaissance!

As I said, ALL aircraft were UNARMED reconnaissance at the start of the war.

THUS

Start: Recon plane A=0; D=0, M=3 (yes, less than the WWII planes!)
-> basic function: Boosting your artillery +1

then Fghters with whatever.

Mmm, I think recons should have a limited ability to fight back. They carried small arms and light machine-guns. Also dropped a few small bombs.

Don’t like the idea of air combat being a walkover.

So how to promote fighters to the next level:

1. By experience; one kill moves a fighter up one level to max 4

2. By game turn; the next model becomes available on turn X

3. By tech; you have to develop planes by investing in research

I also prefer that (in 2 & 3) only new planes are the latest model, you don’t automatically upgrade all your old units.

I like your thinking on your choice of infantry sculpts IL. Love the updates. This might be the game of the year.

@Flashman

Sorry, that I must correct you:
The aircraft at the start of the war 1914 had absolutely no weapons on board! Pure recon planes!
Pilots often even waved at each other as they flew by!

This changed early in the war, but later (1915).

Battles like Marne and Tannenberg were won by observing not fighting aircraft!

This is true as it goes, but they soon remembered to take shotguns with them, and small bombs to drop on ground targets.

Perhaps you’re suggesting that they roll to “outmaneuver” the enemy, and that the defeated pilot simply heads for home?

Or do they both get air superiority?

Should a Fighter vs Recon plane be an automatic shoot-down; it wasn’t always like that.