Who Wins

I’d allies mostly to always. It takes some serious allied screwup a for the CP to have a chance

Allies always.
I play a lot of A and A against a friend of mine and I have never lost a game to him. Ever. I usually use different strategies just for fun, because I am way more experienced then him.

But with 1914 I have lost two times of him with me playing as the CP. And I didnt have loads of bad luck or something. My Turks kept standing strong sgainst India, I had the RR, but still I lost. By that tme there are just way too many allies landing in western europe. Its too much.

In my own experience, it’s Entente 2, CP 1.

BUT!!!  IMO, it’s still way too early to be making these kinds of calls.  This is such a different beast than the other A&A games that it’s going to take awhile before people approach any kind of level of optimal play.  I already know, from my three games, that both sides made significant mistakes throughout. Those mistakes and others will be slowly corrected, and eventually we’ll reach a point where enough people know how to maximize their chances on both sides.  Until such time, I am very hesitant to reach any conclusion as to whether the game is unbalanced or not.

Only played one full game, but I don’t see what else the Central Powers could have done to win.

Maybe buy more tanks as soon as they’re available; perhaps buy more navy to counter the Allied transport advantage.

But whatever new strategy they come up with, its always easy for the Allies to see it coming and make an effective counter move.

I think the problem is clear, when you see all the talk about Indian builds. Britain has the luxury to build twenty IPC in India every turn without France getting in trouble in the slightest. I played against the allies where Britain never build a thing in London and still there was no chance for me winning the western front.

Britain and France not only not lose any income, but they gain it! Portugal, Persia, German colonies, Spanish Morocco, Arabia, etc are all easy to get while apart from Bulgaria every territory needs to be fought over hard to gain income. So any gain you make in Russia is just as easily gained by the western allies, so you dont really get the advantage.

They really need to buff the german subs (USW), lower the starting units for France, make German tts have more IPC and/or make neutrals impassable for the democratic countries, or something.

Played one game with the outcome in favor of the CP. I ran out of pieces so the game had to stop at turn 14. Solution bought more pieces and more chips. Waiting for arrival.

Once france obtains Portugal, morroco, Spain, and a couple African tts; they alone can go toe-toe with Germany with no fear of losing Paris. Germany has to take russia out ASAP and this leaves France to soak up neutrals And mass infantry.
Uk can then spend almost all it’s income in India, effectivly containing the Turks to just a few tts.
USA will land all it’s troops in Italy to help vs AH.

Honestly the cp are screwed.
Limiting India production to 4-6 would really help with balance.

I have played 5 games of 1914

I was surprised to see that I am the only one thus far to vote for the CPs.  I am dealing with an extremely small sample size though (4 games).  We were questioning on how the allies even have a chance until the allies won the last game.

I said allies mostly, because we haven’t finished all the games. We’ve played 6-7 games and the allies have pretty much dominate them all. I think the allies have too much of a sea advantage, and can move units too freely. The French fleet is over sized, and needs to be cut back some. UK spends in India is out of control, and needs to be limited. I agree the way that the French can ratchet up their income even though they have lost 1/2 their European lands is very unsettling (and the UK can get a healthy income boost when it spends in India).

We have done some good things with the CP though, and will be looking to see the next game through to the end. I think we may be pulling the plug a bit early, and maybe the CP can get its second wind after the allies go on the offensive for a while and have trouble with thier own supply lines (although the allied navies will most likely fix that).

The CP put Russia into a 5th turn revolution in our first game, but the cost was to severe as both the Austrian/German armies were wiped out doing it, and the western allies were approaching Berlin in force. It would have taken them at least 4 rounds to take it, but the CP income was plummeting.

In another game we had the Germans go 90% Paris (10% aid to the Russian front), and the Austrians did the opposite, 85% dig in to defend against the Russians, and 15% follow Germany to the west. The Austrian army hit Venice A1 with all 16 units (13 survived), but bailed on me and headed back to Austria when Italy bought a couple transports and made multiple landings in the Balkans (with some help from the French). The Austrians were stretched in the beginning, but they eventually over came the Russians. As it turned out the French can mount a hell of a defense by themselves too (all inf buys, and pull back to Paris). The UK went hard India the first 3 turns, then started making some landings on the French coast. My Germans attacked Paris, but it would have taken 3 rounds to drop it, and the UK/Italy were there to either move in to defend Paris after my first assault, or liberate it if I did get it (so it was pointless).

I think the Germans going hard France, and the Austrians going hard Russia might work, but you should have a small 12 unit ally force with you to head off trouble, or back you up, and the Germans need to keep a steady supply chain going, or attempt to stop UK landings. I think we focused a bit too much on def against the Russians, because the Austrians were eventually able to over power them, and push them back, but the Germans were pretty much out of steam in the west by then.

In our next game we are probably going to change the French sz 15 naval set up to just a cruiser (swap BB for cruiser, and remove the transport).

We are also house ruling a production limit of 8 units in India (2X its IPC value). It’s not much of a change but in one game the UK spent all income there for 3 turns (30+ units). 8 per turn would at least cut it down to 24 units over the 3 turns (we’ll see how it goes).

whoops I accidentally clicked on CPs always cause I was thinking CP never.  I meant to click on Allies laways win.  My vote it the lone outlier, sorry about that

@WILD:

I agree the way that the French can ratchet up their income even though they have lost 1/2 their European lands is very unsettling (and the UK can get a healthy income boost when it spends in India).

Can you further elaborate on this?  I don’t follow how the French are increasing their income while losing territories or how the UK boosts their income by building in India.

French border territories in Europe are only worth about 2 IPCs. France can easily scoop up Portugal, Spanish Morocco, and using their Portugal transports they can claim Togoland and Kamerun in Africa. Even with Germany knocking down their European IPCs they still make about the same IPC as they start the game with. We’ve been doing an F2 Spain hit with air superiority and the round 1 Portugal units and it has been very successful. You can afford to pull back units from Paris to set this up and the additional 4 IPC makes it very difficult for Germany to make a dent in France’s IPCs. They make almost 40 IPCs a turn some rounds.

Britain gets an income boost because they end up easily taking Persia, Afghanistan, Mesopotamia, Trans-Jordan, and more times Arabia. They have no real fear of losing Egypt at that point and their transports in India are invulnerable because of the Suez canal.

CP has to take some unnecessary risks early to have a chance. If 2/3 of them don’t pan out, you are screwed.

@zanetheinsane:

French border territories in Europe are only worth about 2 IPCs. France can easily scoop up Portugal, Spanish Morocco, and using their Portugal transports they can claim Togoland and Kamerun in Africa. Even with Germany knocking down their European IPCs they still make about the same IPC as they start the game with. We’ve been doing an F2 Spain hit with air superiority and the round 1 Portugal units and it has been very successful. You can afford to pull back units from Paris to set this up and the additional 4 IPC makes it very difficult for Germany to make a dent in France’s IPCs. They make almost 40 IPCs a turn some rounds.

Britain gets an income boost because they end up easily taking Persia, Afghanistan, Mesopotamia, Trans-Jordan, and more times Arabia. They have no real fear of losing Egypt at that point and their transports in India are invulnerable because of the Suez canal.

I have never seen France top 30 per turn, much less 40.  With the pick ups you mentioned above adds up to 33, where are the other 7+?

I haven’t seen the British being that successful in the Middle East either.  If they are spending that much in India, how are they fending off Germany?  What are the Ottomans typically doing to get overrun like that?

@Texas:

I have never seen France top 30 per turn, much less 40.  With the pick ups you mentioned above adds up to 33, where are the other 7+?

I haven’t seen the British being that successful in the Middle East either.  If they are spending that much in India, how are they fending off Germany?  What are the Ottomans typically doing to get overrun like that?

Spain, Portugal, Spanish Morocco, Togoland, Kamerun are +9 and are all but guaranteed. More often than not you can send French forces to pick up SW Africa and Angola for another +2. Now France is making +11 for around 35 IPCs. If at any point France ever picks up any German border territory like Alsace or takes back Belgium they can easily get close or over.

All the UK needs to do is buy 1 plane for India to get air superiority. If the Ottomans buy 1 then just buy a second one. The Ottomans barely make enough money to produce infantry, much less planes. Once the UK can buy a handful of tanks in India, those tanks can pretty much negate the impact of every turn worth of Ottoman units. Ottoman supply lines are much longer than India’s.

That still doesn’t answer how the UK defends against Germany if they are spending that much in India.  If the UK is spending that much in India, Germany is being played very poorly.

@rjpeters70:

Batman.

No way. Iron Man.

I’ve only played one game so far but it was a CP win. We did not use the Russian Revolution rules because they seem to dang complicated. Also, we left all neutrals alone, which may make a difference.
The Allies pretty much dominated the sea, but could not make progress in Europe. The CP was able to hold off the Western Allies and kind of ganged up on Russia. Once Russia was out, the CP started making progress on the Western Front. Austria was able to pound Italy pretty well while Germany handled UK and France. UK spent a fair amount dealing with the Ottomans so they weren’t a huge help in Europe.
One thing that probably made a big difference was Austria making a surprise amphibious assault on Rome and taking the Italian capital round 2. Italy got it back, but never seemed to really recover from it. The US tried backing them up but couldn’t keep a continuous supply of troops. Austria ended up going through Northern Italy and attacking France while Germany hit France through Northern France and Belgium.
It took 13 or 14 rounds, but eventually Germany took Paris.
Looking back, it kind of reminded me of an Axis win in Global 40. The Axis would hit the Allies hard and the Allies kept reacting to Axis advances rather than having a real plan of their own. It seemed like the Allies did the same thing in this game, so the CP was able to take advantage of it.
Another thing, I still think the Russian Revolution helps the Allies more than the CP. For one thing, if you declare the RR, there is no capturing Moscow for the CP and thus no plundering of their treasury. Plus the movement restrictions for both sides still seems complicated to me.

How was Rome captured turn two?  What was bought on the first turn?  I would think an Austrian transport purchase would give it away.