First Game - Allies in A Rout

This sounds like a good idea. I play with a lot of new players, many of whom are confused by the “units can move 2 spaces, except when they can’t (except for fighters).”

They’ve always had an easier time with 42.2’s NCM.

If Germany sinks the UK fleet move every warship you can (including French) to the SZ off Wales and build a new one. This keeps enough UK units moving into France to stop Paris falling. The CPS simply cannot afford to match you in naval builds and cannot reinforce the western front as quickly as you can. When the enemy offence has ground to a halt build a large tank stack to finish him off.

The UK units in India really need restricting to balance the game; my suggestion is a maximum of 4 units per turn, of which all but one must be infantry.

@Jocher:

1 - Tanks.  Can someone explain tanks to us in detail?  They attack at 2, defend at 1?  They soak up hits?  How?  We didn’t understand tanks at all and haven’t used them yet due to this fact.  Please help if you can.

Tanks attack at 2 (3 when supported by artillery) and defend at 1.  When attacking (not defending), each tank cancels one hit scored by the defender.  However, tanks may not cancel hits scored by pre-emptive artillery strikes while performing an amphibious assault.

@Jocher:

2 - Army Movement.  Example -  I am playing as Germany, and I have let’s say 30Inf/20Art and I move them in to hostile French Territory which houses 30Inf/20Art themselves.  We duke it out for that round (Germany attacks, France defends) and the territory becomes contested.  After the initial attack, both Germany and France go down to, let’s say, 20Inf/10Art each.  Now it’s France’s turn.  #1 - Does France have the choice to NOT defend, and instead retreat all their armies and give the territory to Germany?

France has the option to not attack.  A power is never the defender on its own turn.

It may reinforce the territory with more units, or withdraw some or all of its units.  Any units in the territory may then attack, or they may do nothing.

@Jocher:

Now let’s say France decides to fight.  After France defends, the armies are both split evenly at 10Inf/5Art.  Territory is still contested.  Next turn is Germany’s.  #2 - As Germany, can I move my 10Inf/5Art closer to Paris?  Or must my army stay in the territory until no more hostile units are in it?

When units move out of a contested territory, they must move into a territory that either was controlled by their power or contained units beloning to their power at the beginning of the turn.  Germany may move its units closer to Paris only if those conditions are met.

@Jocher:

4 - If I am Germany and just took Rome, the next round am I allowed to muster units in Rome, or do the Allies/CP ONLY muster units in their capital and NOT in captured capitals?

You may only mobilize land and air units in your own capital (or in India if you’re the British Empire).  You may only mobilize sea units in sea zones that have a naval base located in a territory that you originally controlled (has only your power’s emblem) and was not under enemy control at the beginning of your turn.

@Koningstiger:

When exactly did the Americans enter WW 1? Wasn’t that 1917? In game terms they enter on round 4. War should be almost over by then following the same logic, haha…

Well, in the real war, the Germans looked at their watch, saw it was 4 o’clock in the morning, saw stacks of Brit, French, and US tanks in France, and did what half of the players I read about do….gave up  :-D

I’ve found if one side or another wants to put in the time, turn 4-5 is not late enough to determine the end result of the game, especially if one side (cough, CP, cough) is able to refocus to one front instead of two.

@Auztria:

Yes. If they truly had a historically accurate setup, Russia would have almost as many troops at start as Germany and Austria-Hungary combined. The Ottoman Empire would have no fleet, Germany would have extra cruisers in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, Britain would have just 1 infantry, and Africa would be even more barren. Of course they can’t do that, simply for gameplay reasons. If Russia could conquer Galicia and East Prussia effortlessly every game, people would quickly grow bored.

But you see… I went to school to be a historian! I will have to do a little bit of experimenting with the Russian infantry bordering Galicia and East Prussia. Naturally, it raises my hackles that the Russians can’t do much more than poke the CPs on this front. The Russian TTs containing six infantry probably ought to have eight (on the western border). Any attack they make in Prussia or Galicia is going to be bulldozed by a massive A-H or German attack with at least 12 infantry in each case to throw at the hapless Russians.

I have a soft spot for those intrepid Bulgarians c. 1915. This has led to some experimenting on my end to make them a playable country in lieu of a country in the direct Ottoman pale. Instead of collecting income, they would do something like China does in A&A:Pacific 1.0–crank out people or arty (no planes, tanks or ships). I even thought about allowing the Germans to give them a subsidy (1 IPC or something along those lines). Australia is often talked about for its commitment to the war (and justly so), but I was blown away when I read the Bulgarian stats. 1,200,000 mobilized out of about 5 million people!!  If Italy is in this game, surely Bulgars can’t hurt…

I much prefer to make Switzerland worth 4 IPCs. The non-aligned tts in the game are, essentially, those countries who never became involved in the war as an active power (the one problematical exception is Greece), hence they cannot be assigned an alignment.

I don’t like anticipating history by making them into some fictional alliance of neutrals. Would Switzerland or Sweden really even think about mobilizing because the Russians crossed the Afghan border?

Bulgaria, for example, listened to offers from both sides before joining the Central Powers; largely because they promised it a large slice of its enemy Serbia.

Well they could have mixed some in.
My biggest gripe is the lack of artillery sculpts.
Just swap them all around. Like give France the Italian sculpt from 1940, and give Russia the Japanese sculpt, etc. Just recolor the old molds.
Better than one cookie cutter artillery.

I’ve been playing this game with mostly the same group for a couple of years now and not once have I seen Germany declare USW. The minor hit to the Allies’ income just isn’t worth the risk.