Why is Italy an allied power?

Proposal A: delay Italys entry into the war by one turn

But that’s what i said before. turn 2

Ok, so you want the game to be about what “actually happened”?  So, the British Empire must try to force an amphibious landing at Gallipoli, because that’s what actually happened?  Why make it possible to invade Holland and Switzerland then, since that did not happen?  How about every opening German move being a mandatory watered down Schlieffen Plan?  I mean, if we’re being historically accurate above all else…

NO. The game should have the basic foundations of what happened and be designed around that. This means the Martians and Godzilla are not involved, nor the Roman Empire. Nor the influenza of 1917, or this and that. The game if based lightly on the war should contain the basic fundamentals of who is at war and with whom. This is not Parker brothers Risk where you can fight anybody at anytime. The game is not about fantasy.

The game allows attack on the Swiss and it does not allow Italy to flip flop.

Look, make Italy choose which side it joins no later than Turn 2, that’s fine.  My point is, it adds a complexity to the game that is fun, not that difficult to grasp, and forces the Central Powers in particular to think long and hard about their grand strategy, as well as force posture.

It does not add complexity. It adds an unbalanced game because you just took 25% of the allies and padded 25% more units to the central powers. Great job.

If Italy went to the Central Powers France would fall in 2 or 3 turns. Russia would be destroyed in 4. It would completely ruin the balance of the game.

I am telling you something you should have figured out by now. You can’t just take a balanced game and switch one nation to now fight on the other side. It does not make the game more balanced. You should find no satisfaction in your own proposal without me prompting you. Think it out.

To which I answer, so what?

Because the Central powers will win every time.

Let me help you.

Lets have Italy go central. Now take off all the allied pieces except for one infantry in Paris. Then throw the game in the trash because you will never play it past that point. It won’t be balanced.

How about having the US have the same option?

Let them decide which side to join. There was seniment in the US at the time to support Germany before she started using un-restricted submarine warfare.

Got any problem with that?

Kim

I think you overstate things.  There was no alliance with the Central Powers, as there was with Italy.  And while there was some sentiment for joining the German side, it was pretty minor.

But you said before this:

Ok, so you want the game to be about what “actually happened”?  So, the British Empire must try to force an amphibious landing at Gallipoli, because that’s what actually happened?  Why make it possible to invade Holland and Switzerland then, since that did not happen?  How about every opening German move being a mandatory watered down Schlieffen Plan?  I mean, if we’re being historically accurate above all else…

So what is good for the Goose is good for the Gander. On the one case, you argue why shouldn’t the game allow things that didn’t happen, then when faced with your own argument, now side for what actually happened. Excellent use of the same argument to prove any side could be right. :mrgreen:

It’s just a harder job for them

Right, like having to roll 1-2 in every battle…it’s possible so keep it in your new “balanced vision of Italy joining the central powers”

It was never a 50-50 decision which side the United States would join, as it was with Italy.

Find any source that puts Italy into a 50-50 decision. Any published author that says " Italy could not decide anything so they drew straws like gentlemen"  or as if they just flipped a coin in 1915?

Before proposing any more crazy ideas, play a game and see if your idea is balanced and report back?

To coin a phrase: “You’re making a huge assumption about the balance of the game, without testing the theory.”

Italy was never going to join the Central Powers.  Austria was Italy’s primary enemy in Europe; they had gone to war in 1848, 1859 and 1866 with Austria.  The Triple Alliance was entered into primarily because Italy saw Bismarck as an ally following the defeat of Italy’s prior protector (Napoleon III), and Germany as a force to restrain Austrian ambitions in the Balkans (the House of Savoy being connected by marriage to the royal family of Montenegro).  Italy even signed an agreement with France in 1902 that effectively moved Italy back to its natural position of alliance with France.

Salandra’s government was being pushed by the nationalist press to join the war against Austria so as to get Tyrol, Fiume, Zara, and the Dalmatian coastline.  The only way Italy could ever have entered the war was on the Allied side.  A good reference is L’Italia di Giolitti, by Indro Montanelli, which covers the period for anyone who reads Italian.

Having said that, the way I would handle it in the game is simple: Italy cannot attack any CP territories on Turn 1 unless it has been attacked by any CP.  It can occupy Albania or attack a neutral, but it can’t attack the CPs directly on Turn 1 unless it has been attacked.  Period.  Simple.  Easy.

Exactly. The reasoning defiles any cursory reading on the topic.

Italy and AH hated each other.

The only plausible Historical idea is not allowing UK to enter war till Belgium is attacked, but that will unbalance the game.

I’ve never advocated for doing absolutely what actually happened. � You are the one who keeps saying “but, it didn’t happen like that!”, to which I responded with the reducto ad absurdum argument, of saying “ok, by that standard, let’s just force the UK to invade Gallipoli; or change the rules so as to ensure that the Central Powers lose every time” etc.

What you did however was argue that any idea based on what happened Historically, should be liberated based on the most loose interpretation of events. The very idea of Italy being in some 50-50 toss of joining either side is totally bankrupt.

What I’ve always offered is a modicum of historical accuracy: � An Italy for whom it was unclear which side they would join. � Since that was a plausible outcome. � What was not a plausible outcome was either the US or the UK joining forces with Germany. � How is this hard to understand?

I understand. If 3 people in Italy love Germany, that qualifies for “modicum” excellent.

As for history, I don’t have my copy of Keegan in front of me, so I’ll go for the weak man’s argument: wikipedia: � A few days after the outbreak of the war, on 3 August 1914, the government, led by the conservative Antonio Salandra, declared that Italy would not commit its troops, maintaining that the Triple Alliance had only a defensive stance, whereas Austria-Hungary had been the aggressor. In reality, both Salandra and the minister of Foreign Affairs, Sidney Sonnino, started diplomatic activities to probe which side was ready to grant the best reward for Italy’s entrance in the war. Although the majority of the cabinet (including former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti) was firmly contrary to the intervention, numerous intellectuals, including socialists such as Ivanoe Bonomi, Leonida Bissolati, and Benito Mussolini, declared in favour of the intervention, which was then mostly supported by the Nationalist and the Liberal parties. � http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy_in_World_War_I

That sinks you’re own argument. The dissenters are in the minority.

Again, not sure why you keep making ad hominem attacks, calling people’s ideas crazy, just because you don’t like them.

They are crazy, not because i don’t like them but because they just are totally unrealistic and unbalance the game which you admit.

And I’m not positing an assumption about the game’s outcome (you’re the one doing that). � I’m offering a hypothesis of what a variation in rules might look like. � There’s a difference, you know…

Play it out first then report the idea. Do at least that much.

Obviously you’ll need to do more to the game than just change the political situation of the Italian player.

Things that will need to be changed are the set up and perhaps add new rules. There is no way the game will be balanced with the way it is now when you let Italy decide to flip to either alliance.

It sounds like a fun idea though. There’s no need to stomp down on it and say it can’t or shouldn’t be done.

@ch0senfktard:

Obviously you’ll need to do more to the game than just change the political situation of the Italian player.

Things that will need to be changed are the set up and perhaps add new rules. There is no way the game will be balanced with the way it is now when you let Italy decide to flip to either alliance.

It sounds like a fun idea though. There’s no need to stomp down on it and say it can’t or shouldn’t be done.

+1. If anyone in the thread said that they could have italy switch sides, change nothing else, and the game would be fine, it was the minority.

The method we used in my group’s game a long time ago was to essentially bid throughout the game for italy to join your side. There’s a lot of complicated details that I don 't want to type out right now, but that’s the gist.

@Suvorov:

Italy was never going to join the Central Powers.  Austria was Italy’s primary enemy in Europe; they had gone to war in 1848, 1859 and 1866 with Austria.  The Triple Alliance was entered into primarily because Italy saw Bismarck as an ally following the defeat of Italy’s prior protector (Napoleon III), and Germany as a force to restrain Austrian ambitions in the Balkans (the House of Savoy being connected by marriage to the royal family of Montenegro).  Italy even signed an agreement with France in 1902 that effectively moved Italy back to its natural position of alliance with France.

Salandra’s government was being pushed by the nationalist press to join the war against Austria so as to get Tyrol, Fiume, Zara, and the Dalmatian coastline.  The only way Italy could ever have entered the war was on the Allied side.  A good reference is L’Italia di Giolitti, by Indro Montanelli, which covers the period for anyone who reads Italian.

Having said that, the way I would handle it in the game is simple: Italy cannot attack any CP territories on Turn 1 unless it has been attacked by any CP.  It can occupy Albania or attack a neutral, but it can’t attack the CPs directly on Turn 1 unless it has been attacked.  Period.  Simple.  Easy.

The idea isn�t crazy, of course it was possible that Italy joined the CPs in WW1 (if the Germans had more luck with their schlieffen plan).
In my opinion (not only), the game favours the Allies in a way that is a little bit annoying.
We tested several times playing Italy as a CP. All I can say is that these games were the best and closest compared to the “original” ones. We only gave US more IPCs to make their Entry a bit more powerful. Britain couldn`t overrun the turks and had to help France immediantly. The med-sea had some naval battles and even the african campaign was more exciting.
(EDIT: Italy entered in Round 2)
But with Italy as Entente member and the original rules, the CP-Players always lost it after 6-7 rounds.

@rjpeters70
Good thing is that if you own a copy of AA1914, you can play it the way you want to get the most tension out of it. Nobody should call it crazy and unhistorical as long as the same game has a map with Eastprussia belonging to Poland, and “neutral” US that can land in France in 1915…

Ok do a test game. However give France a  extra BB, 2 cruisers in med sea. Give them a lot more units in their home Tt’s. You can’t just switch Italy to the CP’s without giving France more. You would also have to beef up Russia. The Austrians no longer have a 2 front war. This will allow then to ship all their units to wipe out Russia quickly. But wait there is more. Now you have to capture both Paris and London.

So try the game out, but make sure you add units to Russua and France greater than it equal to the initial forces of Italy. This isn’t a horrible idea. However, you need to come up with cobcrete evidence and play testing to make others believe

Historically, Italy didn’t fight with the central powers because they were the aggressors. So, any game that allows Italy to join the CPs is unhistorical because Austria Hungary has to attack Serbia. The best thing is just have Italy be neutral until turn 2 unless attacked before then. The rule about the mandatory Serbian attack could be changed, but then neither side would attack and it would turn into a continued arms race. It would be interesting to play Italy with the Central Powers, but the same way as a British alliance with Germany. Fun to play, but little historical accuracy.

The idea isn�t crazy, of course it was possible that Italy joined the CPs in WW1 (if the Germans had more luck with their schlieffen plan).

If Germany defeated France, the war and game would be over.  Italy in both wars went with the side that could convince them they best chance for Victory. In one war they picked right and in another not.  But jokes aside, they had long running problems with AH and could never join them in anything.

So, any game that allows Italy to join the CPs is unhistorical because Austria Hungary has to attack Serbia. The best thing is just have Italy be neutral until turn 2 unless attacked before then.

Exactly.

Speaking about aggressors actually the first soldiers who crossed boarders in this war were russian cavalarists in East Prussia and french frontierguards in german speaking Alsace. The Italians had no vital interests or cared about its commitmens from the Dreibund, they simply wanted to gain space, although Austria-Hungary, had in an effort to prevent the war, made territory concessions. But Rome did not compromise, it wanted war.

In fact Germany forced Austria to offer Italy its italian speaking terretories including Trentino, Issonzo and free hand over Albania but France and Britain promised Italy in 1915 also nativly german speaking South Tirol which Austria as well as any other nation in the world wouldn�t give up.
In 1914 the king of Italy Viktor Emanuel III. wished his allie the austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. good luck for winning only to switch sides a few months later after the mobile war ended and a victory of the CPs seemed impossible. Although there existed lots of italian military plans about an Invasion of Nice and Marseille and even sending italian divisions to the Rhine to fight the French together with the Germans. But most Italians didnt want to fight in this war. It can not be compared to the Party-Crowd scenarios of Berlin and Paris in August 14\. The situation in Italy 1915 could be compared with Greece which was also half way forced into the war by some bribed politicians.. You can be sure that Italy would have joined the CPs when Paris would have fallen "just to get its part of the cake". And of course war wouldnt be over after the fall of France, there is still Russia in the East! (and Britain, which never gives up by the way)
You are right Italian leaders have been quite often unreliable allies just remember WW2 when Italy switched sides aswell. Take 1940 for example: Mussolini waited till the “Blitzkrieg” against France was successfull untill he ordered his army to attack france in the south just to be on the winners side…

A scenario without the betrayel, but with an King of Italy who keeps his word is not “impossible”. It´s even more possible than invading Switzerland or Holland which is also allowed.
Its alternate history. And thats what we always get to read in the Introwords of Larry Harris-Games: Change History, what would have happen if ?

In AA1914 we payed tribute to the aggressor-argument and played a defensive Germany in the first round against an Russian attack from the East and an French assault from the vosges. It worked all without pimping France more up. Everybody is free to try it once at least…

Nah, Italy doesn’t need to be neutral a turn.  It is already at the very end of the turn order.  One could argue the end of turn 1 is already pushing into 1915 anyway.  The Ottoman Empire goes one turn earlier and they entered the war late 1914.  It makes chronological sense to me.  Romania and Portugal can both be activated in turn one but they didn’t enter the war until 1916.  This a board game based on World War I, not a simulation of World War I.

Let’s get real. If the Italian decisionmakers felt it was more in their interest to join the CP than the Allies, they would have.

There are plenty of things that could happen in the game that did not happen in the war that would influence Italy; plenty have already been posted.

Does that mean that Italy should be allowed to switch sides in the official game? Probably not, IMO. However, it’s not like a WWI game that allowed that would be like it was allowing sharks with laser beams.

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

Let’s get real. If the Italian decisionmakers felt it was more in their interest to join the CP than the Allies, they would have.

There are plenty of things that could happen in the game that did not happen in the war that would influence Italy; plenty have already been posted.

Does that mean that Italy should be allowed to switch sides in the official game? Probably not, IMO. However, it’s not like a WWI game that allowed that would be like it was allowing sharks with laser beams.

You mean if Germany doesnt invade Belgium first round, Britain would still declare war against them? Thats disgusting!