Hi,
years ago, long before the official Axis and Allies 1914, i started my own WW1 Axis and Allies, called “Entente und Mittelmächte - Europa 1914” (Entente and Central Powers - Europa 1914).
I hope my English is not too bad and you have fun reading it.
Here is the map:
As you can see, 14 Nations are playable, some are destined to die like Serbia, Belgium and Romania.
The Central Powers consist of Germany, Austria-Hungary, The Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Not all nations start the game at war, some join later like the USA in turn 6.
I also added a new type of territory: resource field (the shaded territories). These are usually oil or ore fields like the Ploiesti oil fields in Romania. They produce a lot of ipc s but no harbour, factory or airfields are allowd in them. This makes the Caucasus worth 14 IPC with almost no production capacities.
Here are some pics of my last game:
This is the start setting of central Europe.
This is the Ottoman Empire with british, french and greek forces advancing…
A fiew from the north… You can see my space holders.
And the whole map. It measures ca. 240 x 180 cm. in the front you can see my tech chart. i added a third tech collumn to the game, so i have now an army, navy and air force tech collumn.
New to the game are my playing cards for each nation. The cards are divided into five categories: Kampf, Verstärkung, Einkommen, Forschung and Spezialaktion (battle, reinforcement, income, research and special operations). each category is colour coded.
The battle cards gives you a bonus in attacking or defending and are again divided into four categories: Commanding officers like Sir Douglas Haig, Gen. Pershing, Hindenburg etc. Officers like Erwin Rommel, Manfred von Richthofen, Billy Bishop etc. Equipment like tanks (A7V, Ft-17, Mark V etc.) aircraft, guns, shells, etc. and strategy like box barrage, creeping barrage, fire and movement, trench raiding etc. In each battle, only one commanding officer, officer, equipment and strategy card can be played.
The reinforcement cards gives a discount on units, a Battleship for example costs with a card 12 IPC instead of 20. They allow also the purchasing of units that are usually not available to the nations like tanks for Austria- Hungary and Italy or Bomber and Battleships for the Ottoman Empire. These cards also allow the purchase of artillery units, the strongest unit in the game.
the income cards givs a bonus on the income (what a surprise) by giving extra IPC or IPC rolls.
the research cards gives some tech tokens. These cards present new technologies like the Haber proces, the Austrian PKZ-2 helicopter, the German Siemens-Schuckert aerial torpedo (a predecessor of the modern cruise missile) and its US counterpart, the Kettering bug, scientists and military engeneers like Antony Fokker, Mihajlo Pupin, Nikola Tesla, Edmund Rumpler and Wladimir Fjodorow.
the special operation cards cant be generalisized becaus each card gives you a special operation like stealing an enemy destroyer or technology, capturing enemy units after a successful battle, or receiving extra units. this are the most annoying cards in the game because they can be played anytime during the game ;).
cards of the central powers…
cards of the entente (the Romanian and US cards erent finished yet)…
so far i designed ca. 770 differend cards (no doubles) all (but one) based on historical facts. the cards includes ca. 190 generals, officers, rulers and scientists of the great war, all tanks and armoured cars used, 70 differend artillerey and field guns ranging from small mountain guns to the enormous Paris gun, dozends of planes like the most common fighters, bombers and ground attack fighters, warships and even shells, grenades, gas masks, bunkers, trenches, barbed wires, helmets, rifles and so on.
The fictional card depicts Henry Walton Jones Jr. fighting for Belgium. Most of you should know him ;).
These cards add a fog of war to the game.
Here are the cards of Italy.
I also changed the gameplay and unit ballance drastically. The importance of the airforce has been reduced drastically, while i strengthened the Navy. Artillery and Fieldguns are now two differend units and belong to the most multifunctional units in the game. Fighters cannot scramble anymore but the artillery and fieldguns can now defend the Navy as coastal artillery.
The navy (battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers) gives now artillery support in both attacking and defending for as long the battle lasts.
fighters and tacticals cannot attack ships anymore (but there are cards like the British “Short Admiralty Type 184” fighter making an exception for this rule), and bombers attack ships only on 2.
The Artillery unit is new to the game. it costs 8 IPC and can support infantry units fighting up to 2 territorys away, so its a long range weapon. If the gun supports an Infantry in an adjacent territory, it supports on 5. If the infantry figths 2 territories away, it supports on 4. They support in attack and defence. If the territory containing an artillery unit is attacked it cannot defend itself. Artillery units can be captured by the enemy by rolling on 3 after the battle is won. As i mentioned above, the artillery units are not on the free market, you can only buy them with a reinforcement card. So the number of these units is limited.
I reduced the movement of a tank to 1 but it can support two infantry units.
I also added a new unit: Stormtrooper. This units attacks on 2 and defends on 1, has a movement of 2 and costs 4 IPC. But it has a special ability: Breakthrough. If you won the battle, your stormtrooper can exploit the victory by attacking a second territory if it has movement left. This second battle cannot be supported by other units except for the airforce. Because the Stormtroopers are exhausted, they attack on 1. This adds a lot of new options to the game.
So in all, infantry can call in artillery support from the navy, fieldguns and artillery in offence and defence, making battles to artillery duels of the two sides (and the poor infantry guys are the bereaved).
Units available in my game:
Infantry
Fieldgun
Stormtrooper
Tanks
Artillery
Fighter
Tactical
Bomber
Sub
Destroyer
Cruiser
Battlecruiser
Battleship
Carrier (much weaker than in global, so almost never build)
Transport
Harbour
Airfield
Small factory (can only produce infantry, stormtroopers, fieldguns, fighters, subs, Destroyers, cruisers and transports).
Large factory (can produce all units but can only be build in the home territory without colonies).
Minefield
We are still using the Axis and Allies WW2 units because i have no clue where to get WW1 playing pieces. I even thought on designing my own pieces and have them 3D printed (but expensive) or cast my own units with resin. Any ideas?
some more Pictures:
Setup chart (on the back) of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire with a list of the available units, bonuses and national objectives and national advantage.
National Advantages: Russia can produce one infantry in each territory worth 1 IPC (like China in global), Germany is highly industrialized and has a factory in every territory and gets a bonus on research, Austria can squeeze out an occupied territory twice per turn and gets a infantry for free, France receives two colonial troops, Britain one and has a 50-50 chance for a free destroyer, the US has a larger income and so on.
The rulebook. As you can see, we are still working out typing errors and bugs. The final version will be in colour.
A closeup of Germany, France, Belgium and Austria. As you can see, Austria-Hungary has two capitals.
And finally my boxart for the game (Based on the A&A Europe boxart):
Since we have this game, we never played a Global game again because everyone has more fun with WW1 now. The rulebook has 40 pages so i only presented my major changes here. I hope you enjoyed reading my proposals as much as i had creating and photoshopping it.
Greetings from Germany,
Christian
PS: Right now, im working on a WW2 Axis and Allies focussing on the eastern front. This game will include Germany and some of its smaller allies like Finland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Italy with British supported Russia as the main opponent. The working title is “Barbarossa”.
