Game: First World War, The

Thread: Re: Surrender Rule Variant

gamer99 — 2008-06-10T21:37:18+00:00

Dan - It appears to be very close to my variant, and I like it.

Thread: Re: Surrender Rule Variant

TheEye — 2008-06-10T15:01:32+00:00

A simpler version of your varient would be for a faction to roll for surrender if and only if their alliance is losing the war (has fewer victory points than the opposing alliance). Thus if a faction is given one or more surrender points then the alliance can work together to avoid catastrophy by trying to gain victory points for the alliance before the end of the turn.

This would also avoid having both sides surrender at the same time(which I hate).

Any thoughts?

Dan

Thread: Re: Surrender Rule Variant

TheEye — 2008-06-01T22:37:55+00:00

The one I liked best from consimworld is to allow the factions to accumulate surrender points from turn to turn and if someone achieves six points then they surrender.

After playing a few times, you can adjust the magic number of points that causes a loss if you feel it is too many or too few.

Dan

Thread: Re: Surrender Rule Variant

DaveKitcat — 2008-05-20T13:00:05+00:00

I like this variant, although I've only played the game once so I'll need a bit more experience. In that game we went all the way to 1918. My Germans & Austrians were really on the ropes but we survived several surrender rolls. I finally inflicted a surrender roll on the Allies with a last-ditch offensive in Italy & he rolled a 1. That wasn't entirely satisfactory.

I've just read through the Consimworld thread for this game. It's interesting reading. I've seen the arguments for keeping the surrender roll (otherwise you could just ignore strong enemy forces on a particular front) & the suggested alternatives like throwing 2 dice & having to fail on both; or allowing a surrender point inflicted on the enemy to negate one inflicted on you.

This ties in the surrender points with the Victory point level too, which makes sense. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it out.

Have you had much experience with it?

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

moonglum01 — 2008-04-15T21:13:55+00:00

luigi54 wrote:
In my previous message I said "I rolled a 0". Yeah there is no 0, what I rolled it's a S, wich means 0. Just to be precise.

To clarify, a roll of 'S' durring a surrender roll is not a zero. 'S' only counts as zero during combat.

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

luigi54 — 2008-04-15T08:06:14+00:00

In my previous message I said "I rolled a 0". Yeah there is no 0, what I rolled it's a S, wich means 0. Just to be precise.

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

luigi54 — 2008-04-15T08:04:31+00:00

Yesterday I completed another game and used your suggestions!
I won as Central power during 1916.
I had one surrender point and rolled a 0, while my opponent had 2 surrender points and rolled a 2!!!!!!

My surrender point came from front 1, where I did not make any attack, but I could take Paris on front 3, Nancy on front 4 and Verona on front 5. My eastern front was attacked by the Russians, but I only lost Lemburg.

I understood that this war had to be really terrible, big waves of people, big losses...

every attack can be a victory point but could as well be the start of the disaster...

Thanks agains folks
ciao
luigi

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

MindBend — 2008-04-02T12:14:48+00:00

It sounds like bad luck, but then again, perhaps you just shouldn't allow those surrender rolls to happen at all, i.e. make sure fronts do not end up empty. Don't take the early gamble of letting a front empty playing Germans - way too big a risk. You should only do such stuff if you are confident it will allow amove levering the game to you.
You are right that the Germans have few armies to defend their fronts with, but their armies are relatively strong - once you gain terrain with the Germans, it is tough for the Allied player to take it back. As such, the German faction allows for a fairly conservative strategy, slowly trying to advance on the different (western) fronts. This is usually better for them than going for the all-out aggressive attack. You do not need to penetrate the allied fronts early, you just need to push them back one step at a time. Have a good look at the distribution of the recruitment/reinforcement cities on the German/W. Allied part of the map as well, and this should help fitting in a strategy.

As a general idea in this game, I try not to push my luck too much unless it is potentially a game-shifting or -winning move.

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

luigi54 — 2008-04-02T11:12:02+00:00

IN THE FIRST MATCH (AND ALSO LATER...) I THINK I HAD BETTER PROBE SOME OTHER WEST FRONTS WITH ONE ATTACK UNIT ONLY TO CHECK HOW MANY UNITS WERE THERE, INSTEAD OF PUSHING FRONT 1 ONLY...

yeah, not very lucky die rolls!!

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

moonglum01 — 2008-04-01T22:39:16+00:00

Humm, sounds like a streak of awful luck ....

Next time you play you might want to do one of the (many) surrender rules variants found here or at consimworld.

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

luigi54 — 2008-04-01T12:42:41+00:00

thanks for the immediate answer.

1st match : during 1914/2 I had one surrender at front 1 (after a very promising advance through Antwerpen and Calais, I lost all three german units). Die roll 1: game over!

2nd match during 1914/1 I had one surrender point at front 4. I just tought my enemy would not discover ny ghosts aries there! Again my die roll was 1: game over

3rd match: still in 1914/1 I had one surrender point at front 4 and one at front 8. 2 Surrenders and I rolled a two.

In fact, the victory check was a surprise to me during the 3rd match. I MEAN THE RULE 3. VICTORY CHECK. All armies are flipped over to their front side . If ay faction has armies on a Front with an actual (not just dommy) armies of the opposing Alliance present, that faction immediately captures ibe victory point if possible, If this is not possible, (i.e. all victory cities already have been captured) the faction wiwhout an army receives one surrender point.

What for me is still difficult is to grasp how the German can with only 9 units cover 6 fronts...

Thread: Re: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

moonglum01 — 2008-04-01T11:16:25+00:00

luigi54 wrote:

Example: the German attacks with 2 units with a strenght of 3 each, so 2 units with totally 6 strenght points.
The allied defends with three units with a strenght of 1 each, so 3 units with totally 3 strenght points.
Who gets the +1?

Thanks for your help
cheers
luigi

It's units, not factors. Also remember that you only count the combat factors of your lead unit, not the other units in the stack. So in the above example Germany would have 3 combat factors vs. 2 combat factors for the Entente: lead unit 1 factor + more armies (1 factor) = 2.

I am curious, how in the world did you lose all those games in 1914 as the Central Powers? I'm thinking perhaps there was something else, like surrender rules, you migh not have been playing correctly. Could you post how you tallied your surrender point roll for one of those games?

Thread: +1 for more armies counters or more streght points?

luigi54 — 2008-04-01T10:50:54+00:00

Hi
I just played three times THE FIRST WOLRD WAR and... lost all of them as German during 1914/1 or /2.
So I tought, I did not properly understand some rule!

After reading again and again the rule book, I have the following question:

RESOLVING COMBAT 6.1
“3. If there are more attacking (it does not matter how many more) than defending armies (excluding all dummy armies) the attacker adds 1 to the combat value of his lead army. If there are more defending ... the defender adds 1 ...”

What “more” is meaning?
More strenght points or more counters of armies?

Example: the German attacks with 2 units with a strenght of 3 each, so 2 units with totally 6 strenght points.
The allied defends with three units with a strenght of 1 each, so 3 units with totally 3 strenght points.
Who gets the +1?

Thanks for your help
cheers
luigi

Thread: Re: FRONT 11 - what happens when...

Biker1999 — 2008-02-28T20:18:00+00:00

The whole Front 11 thing is loaded with confusion. For me, this is particularly true when it comes to the Treaty. I have read through the discussion on Consimworld but it really doesn't address the Treaty clearly. First off, it sounds like you DO need to have 3 AH units in Front 9 in order to offer the Treaty even though the rules seem to avoid saying that. Once the Treaty is offered, what the heck happens in Front 11?!? Do the Central Powers continue to try and pound the southern base? I'm assuming they cannot attack the eastern base since the defenses would be Russian/Romainian. What if there are no defending units? I'm not optimistic that this will be read and answered but I thought I would try. Thanks!

Thread: Re: Surrendered Base - Counterattacks

moonglum01 — 2008-02-22T21:10:39+00:00

It's confusing about the distinction between cities and bases. Cities are captured (if available) see page 6 of the rules under combat. Cities are squares and circles. BASES (hexagon shaped) can not be captured ~ I think of 'bases' as an abstract representation of a fighting into the interior of a country. If you are in a situation where a player wins a combat and the only space in that attack track left is a base, the attacker inflicts 1 surrender point on the defender INSTEAD OF moving onto the base hexagon. - page 7 rule 6.5

Also remember surrender points on a front are not cumulative, it's only 1 max per front.

for the second part of the question, yes the defender is required to reinforce that front if a real unit is available (4.2 Minimum Garrison rule - page 4).

----

to claify a bit more:

the rules state:
6.5 Bases and Surrender Points
Bases, unlike cities, do not count for victory points and never
change hands (and thus have no marker).
However, if a player wins a combat and could - in theory - advance
on a base, he inflicts one Surrender point.

So what this means is that the last spot in each front can never be lost by the power that owns it. SO for example Germany can never 'lose' the Front 8 base, even if the Russians capture Breslaw and Berlin and attack and destroy the front 8 base defender. Russia can not 'claim' the front 8 hexagon box (the base). If Germany survived it could put reinforcements in the front 8 box in some future turn and start a counter-attack and could retake her lost front 8 cities.

Thread: Re: Surrendered Base - Counterattacks

Biker1999 — 2008-02-14T01:36:08+00:00

Well OK, it looks like nobody comes here to answer questions pertaining to this game. Too bad really that a game has so little support!

Image

Festivus — 2008-02-08T00:52:49+00:00

The First World War Player Aid Card

Image

Festivus — 2008-02-08T00:51:06+00:00

The First World War Manual (Front Cover)

Thread: Surrendered Base - Counterattacks

Biker1999 — 2008-02-05T04:33:09+00:00

Assume that Player A initiates and wins a combat for the right to claim a base from Player B, thus inflicting a surrender point on Player B. Is that front lost for good for the remainder of the game or can Player B leave any remaining armies that were located at that front and counterattack in a future round? Can Player B continue to reinforce the previously surrendered front (in fact, must Player B reinforce the surrendered front if the minimum garrison rule requires it)? Thanks for the help!

Thread: Surrender Rule Variant

gamer99 — 2007-11-07T08:02:56+00:00

There are two alliances, the Allies and the Central Powers. Each alliance contains two factions, the Western Allies along with the Eastern Allies, and Germany along with the German Allies.

In order for a Faction to surrender, that Faction must have:

a. LESS Victory Points than it's Counterpart, which would then
result in a die roll for the Difference Between your Surrender
Points and the Surrender Points of your Counterpart
(the counterpart being between Germany and the Western Allies,
or between the German Allies and the Eastern Allies).

Note: Both alliances, the Allies and the Central Powers, CANNOT
Surrender simultaneously. Roll for the LOSING Alliance (Allies
or Central Powers) first.

b. If a Surrender was NOT forthcoming, continue the game or, in the
case of the completion of the 1918 turn, compare the total Victory
Points of the Allies (Western and Eastern Allies) to the Victory
Point total of the Central Powers (Germany plus the German Allies)

Thread: Re: FRONT 11 - what happens when...

moonglum01 — 2007-10-27T00:09:21+00:00

Consimworld discussion of front 11 http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?7@391.9xDtdVkOrWe.6@.1dcfcc...

Thread: FRONT 11 - what happens when...

hismhs — 2007-10-21T12:19:55+00:00

See this map for locations:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/151918?size=original

Let's say that, when Front 11 comes into play in 1916 (turn 4), the 'Austrian' player successfully attacks, destroys a 'Russian/Rumanian' army and gains control of BUCHAREST.

In his next phase, he may attack ODESSA; but he may not attack the MEF/OR base (according to the rules, the attacker may NOT attack an enemy base IF there is an alternative enemy city that he could attack instead). Let's say that this second attack succeeds, and the 'Austrian' player destroys another 'Russian/Rumanian' army and gains control of ODESSA too.

However, let's say that the 'Eastern Allies' player responds by using his MEF/OR armies to attack northwards in Front 11. They win the combat, destroying the lead 'Austrian' army and capturing a city. The city in question MUST be BUCHAREST.

What, then, happens to ODESSA? At first glance, it would appear to have been 'cut off' by the MEF/OR advance, which might appear to have driven the 'Austrian' armies back to HERMANNSTADT. However, that doesn't seem to be the way the game works. Presumably, the 'Austrian' player keeps control of ODESSA unless the Russian/Rumanian armies successively attack from their base area.

Is this correct? (Thanks in advance for any assistance).

Thread: A game all the way to 1918!

monkeyrobot — 2007-08-22T14:18:26+00:00

My friend Guille came all the way from Spain to visit me yesterday. After having dinner (in case you care we had some awesome Carne Asada at Rio Grande Café in Bethesda, Maryland), I imagined he would be up for a game, since he is a big gamer. What caught me off my guard was the game he picked from my collection: The First World War, by Ted Raicer and published by Phalanx Games.
Why off my guard? Well, Guille has never been a wargamer. He loves almost any good eurogame and he had refused to play wargames with me in the past… So I was surprised, but nevertheless happy to play this game for the third time.

After explaining the rules and setting up the game, which took us about 15 minutes, I randomly picked the central powers as my side.
The first 1914 turn did not go very well for me, especially with the germans. My attacks in front 1 (Flanders) made me advance only one space while the Austro Hungarian hanged on surprisingly well. What really hurt me was a succesful Russian attack in front 8 on the last round, which denied me two reinforcement spaces for the upcoming turn (one taken in the attack and the next one during the victory check phase due to my absence of troops on that front)
Pretty much that determined how the rest of the game was going to be, for I would never be up to my four reinforcement spaces with the german… and that’s pretty tough.

The second 1914 turn started with me taking back some ground in front 8 (West), only to see the western allies take Metz away from me. The AH still managed to hang on while transferring troops from fronts 5 and 6 into the eastern theater of operations. In the last round, I also managed to successfully attack in front 4 and Guille forgot to place some real troops there afterwards, which meant he had to face a surrender point later on.

My casualties with the german were not being totally replaced and that was becoming a huge problem. From the next turn on I tried taking Metz back with all my available troops and failed all the die rolls. It was pretty frustrating. Even worse, the allies managed to attack in front 2 and ended up taking Aachen, another reinforcement spot. On the other side of the board, the Austro-Hungarian Empire began facing real trouble when the Italians and Russians attacked simultaneously. At some point, I think in 1916 the Austro Hungarian had three surrender points. I must say, though, that while my die rolls during battles were terrible, my surrender rolls were always good.

At the end of the fourth turn I offered the Brest-Litovsk treaty (as soon as I could!) and launched a massive attack in front 1 on the next turn. It went well, to the point of giving the western allies a surrender point, which they passed without any problem. They kept hammering the AH, but the Empire would just not fall!

Finally, 1918 arrived and I was in pretty bad shape. I realized my only chance was trying to give the western allies as many surrender points as possible. I would try to do so in fronts 1 (Flanders) and 5 (Isonzo), where the allies had not placed many troops and I had sneaked in a german army. Why those two fronts? Well, they were the places where the surrender points were at reach!
The german attack in front 1 was a disaster, even though I had more troops. I kept rolling very poorly. Front 5 was a success, though. The AH got a couple of surrender points in fronts 10 (Balkan) and 11, but at this point, who cared!

So after a lot of suffering we came to the victory check phase and both the german and the AH passed their rolls. The western allies, however did not swallow well losing Verona and failed their roll. The central powers had miraculously, strangely and surprisingly won!

We had a good time, as usual. The game took us two hours and Guille thought it was a nice game, so I might get lucky and play this again before he goes back to Spain.

To finish… Any lessons learned? As the german, you better garrison front 8 at the start. As the AH, you better roll lots of fours. And for both players, never give up. Desperatly try to give your opponent a surrender point. You could be a roll away from victory even if all your fronts are falling apart!

Thread: Re: Counting VP

Walt Mulder — 2007-08-21T05:05:30+00:00

Well, the general course of play is pretty specific in section 3 that a victory point check is accomplished every game turn. I think it's more important to make sure you take a surrender marker if all the cities on a front are gone and you take a base.

You are correct that you can't go below zero victory points so I would agree that yes, you could end up with a case where the final board doesn't match VP's. That's why the VP's are calculated each turn.

Thread: Counting VP

qzhdad — 2007-08-21T03:02:00+00:00

The rule book specifies that players should adjust the VP as cities are gained and lost and also stresses that the VP cannot go below zero.

At Gencon, we had a (an almost heated) discussion about this topic. My opponent contended that it didn't matter and players could simply count occupied and lost cities at the end. I am pretty confident that this count will not necessarily be correct.

As an example, suppose Russia is sitting with 1 VP due to losing a net 5. If Russia loses two more the VP marker is at 0, even after losing seven cities. If Russia then gains a city, the VP will be 1, even though six cities have been lost.

So a strict reading of the rules means that players must track the VP gains and losses as they occur and that could lead to some cases where the final board position doesn't necessarily match the VP.

Am I understanding correctly?

Thread: Re: First World War Rules Q&A

moonglum01 — 2007-08-16T04:08:15+00:00

Seems like the 8.1 must contain a typo. The German Allied player is correct about control of the lent German Army - clearly the problem is that ANY German units sent to area 9 are property of the Austrians until they are sent back to a German area. -

5.1 German Armies under the control of the German Allied faction
German armies which start any round in Fronts 5-6 or 9-11, are
controlled for all purposes by the German Allied faction, and
operate during the German Allied rounds (only)

On the flip side, the Germans could never offer the treaty as the text currently stands because they will never 'control' a German unit in area 9.

In my opinion I'd change the text to remove the requirement of a German unit in area 9. Only the 3 German Allies need be there.

Thread: Re: First World War Rules Q&A

hposner — 2007-08-10T01:02:33+00:00

Can you help us?
Our gaming group been playing Ted Raicer's THE FIRST WORLD WAR fairly heavily for the past 6 months (I posted a review entitled 'Hidden gem' on Boardgamegeek).
My group of 4 grognard gamers all love it, but we hit a wall last night and for the first time in about ten years were unable to satisfactorily come to a mutual agreement about a rules issue in a game. We are all long time gamers, and have wrestled with ASL and Air War as well as most stuff since so we are fairly experienced rules interpreters. We log our games of FWW, and this was number 26, so we have covered most possible suituations in The First World War.
This one threw us,with massively different consequences depending on which interpretation we used and we are trying to see if Ted Raicer(or someone else in the design team)can give us a definitive asnwer.

Here is the problem:

Victory Check Phase 1916.
There is 1 German army in area 7 and 1 German army in area 8.
There are 3 Austro-Hungarian armies and 1 German army under Austro-Hungarian control in area 9.

Germany offers Brest Litovsk and Russia accepts.
The German player says " I don’t need to put any more German armies in the east to fulfil Brest-Litovsk, I use the German army under Austro-Hungarian control in Area 9. It must stay in area 9 as Brest Litovsk says I have to have an army there so the Austro-Hungarian can no longer move it from there or use it."
"Hang on", the Austro-Hungarian player says, "I have control of that army not you. I must leave my 3 Austro-Hungarian armies in Area 9 to satisfy my Brest Litovsk obligations but I can move the German army I control to the Italian front next turn when I can. You can sort out your own Brest Litovsk obligations"

Who is right? Is the German army under Austro-Hungarian control in area 9 frozen once the German player says it is to be used to satisfy German Brest Litovsk obligations, or is it still under German allied control and therefore able to be moved out by the Austro-Hungarian in their next turn, which would mean the German would have to put another German army into front 9?

We argued the point for an hour and a half last night and only succeeded in finding arguments for and against both interpretations.

It looks from the FAQ that the German army has to be in place prior to the treaty being offered which would imply that once offered and accepted it is frozen, but we are still not sure. it is the only ambiguity we have found.

Can you help us?

Thanks, Howard Posner

(On behalf of himself, John Posner, Carl Sonson and Paul Gilbert).

Image

Me 262 Schwalbe — 2007-08-08T18:23:56+00:00

The Italian front

Thread: Re: First World War Rules Q&A

Tsaar — 2007-05-30T18:49:59+00:00

rlfix wrote:
Regarding dummies, can you re-deploy ALL dummies each turn, or only those "eliminated" by being revealed during the turn?

At the end of every turn all counters are turned face-up and dummies removed, for the surrender-check.
So all dummies will be redeployed.

Thread: Re: First World War Rules Q&A

rlfix — 2007-05-30T16:21:43+00:00

Regarding dummies, can you re-deploy ALL dummies each turn, or only those "eliminated" by being revealed during the turn?

Thread: Re: First World War Rules Q&A

Tsaar — 2007-05-30T15:34:16+00:00

moonglum01 wrote:

--------------
Q. 2. Units are only ever flipped face down at the start of a turn, not at the end of combat, correct?

A. Correct.
------------

Incorrect:
After combat is resolved, all armies present are turned face-down. (6.0 Combat)

Haven't read the discussion on CSW though, so please correct me again if that rule has been changed by Ted Raicer.

Thread: Contraction by abstraction

jbuergel — 2007-05-13T05:52:29+00:00

I've been meaning to try The First World War for a while. There's a lot to admire about Paths of Glory, and I was curious how Ted Raicer would distill that game into something much shorter. As it turns out, it's really, really abstracted, to the point where you really need to come up with some convoluted rationalizations to relate it back to the war. But that's getting ahead of myself.

I wound up with the Central Powers and my friend Justin took the Allies. We used the historical setup, which was nice and allowed us to just jump right in. At which point we realized we had no idea what we were doing. Luckily we were using the Schlieffen Plan optional rule, which restricted the options for my Germans on turn one. So, off I went, attacking in front 1. For those who don't know about the game, there are only 11 fronts in the game, and they're (almost entirely) linear - you make progress along a straight line, and when you get to the end, you can get a chance to cause a surrender. Anyway, in front 1 (the northernmost front on the western front), there's only one defending unit, so I concentrated there.

After a win, Justin shifted a couple units north, and left front 2 open. So I hammered away there instead. By the time the dust settled, I'd gained three victory points on the western front. But then things got odd. In turn 2, the dummies got placed, and it became a lot less clear what was going on on the board. Which is good, I guess, but I really felt like I had no idea what I was doing much of the time.

Eventually, on turn 4 (1916), the Austria-Hungary faction blew a 1 in 6 surrender roll, and I lost. This, despite my being +3 victory points at the time, which was odd. The surrender point was gained by Justin on the Italy front. Justin and agreed that the game was fun, if odd. Everything is abstracted to a huge degree, and there are few enough units on the board as well as little enough maneuver that it feels like you're doing something other than playing a wargame. That said, there are pieces that make you think of WWI - the attritional nature of combat, the back and forth stalemates, the feel that the Central Powers has too many things to do and not enough troops to do everything, the initial German race for the sea. And it shows many of the same overall ideas that Paths of Glory does, with the importance of Italy, the replacement points concept and a few other design touches. It's a pretty unique game, and I look forward to trying it again.

Thread: Re: First World War Rules Q&A

monkeyrobot — 2007-04-13T19:21:51+00:00

Thanks for posting this here!

Thread: Re: WWI in a couple of hours?... That's a deal!

monkeyrobot — 2007-03-22T15:48:45+00:00

I tried to open it today and it worked, thanks a lot for the tip!

Thread: Re: WWI in a couple of hours?... That's a deal!

monkeyrobot — 2007-03-17T03:20:47+00:00

hoop wrote:
FYI, rules are available online as indicated in a post in the rules section:

http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@240.xDJrbrGyLge.62@.1dc...

I tried to open that link but it doesn't work. Anyway thanks for trying

My friend Karsten was kind enough to photocopy the rules for me, so I'm ok (although I still would like to have the original ones!)

Thread: Re: WWI in a couple of hours?... That's a deal!

hoop — 2007-03-17T01:56:04+00:00

FYI, rules are available online as indicated in a post in the rules section:

http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@240.xDJrbrGyLge.62@.1dc...

Thread: Re: WWI in a couple of hours?... That's a deal!

karstenengelmann — 2007-03-16T21:50:19+00:00

Actually, the surrender roll was not a problem. To me the concern was the Treaty - which how would it go into place if the Russians were winning the war?

I am also thinking of taking the surrender roll out altogether, and instead, rather than get a surrender point, give like 4 terrain points for taking the hex each turn...and then at the end of 1918 see who has a larger total. Thoughts?

Thread: Re: WWI in a couple of hours?... That's a deal!

dcjackso — 2007-03-07T22:02:49+00:00

Glad you enjoyed the game! I played it for the first time recently and also had a good time (although I lost, as the CP). It's an interesting problem for the Germans: I kicked ass on the Western Front throughout most of the game, and in Italy near the end game, but any gains I made on the Eastern Front were nullified as the Russians kept coming...and coming....and coming. In 1916 the Allied player had to make surrender roll with a 50% chance of losing the game...and he made the roll. After that, it was mostly downhill for me.

I don't mind the surrender roll business--it's really no different than any other wargame/boardgame that comes down to critical die rolls--it's just a little more...dramatic.

Thread: WWI in a couple of hours?... That's a deal!

monkeyrobot — 2007-03-07T19:02:16+00:00

First World War

Once again, gaming day at my friends’… the Engelmanns. So I take the metro, confident in the public transportation system. It wasn’t long before I found myself, once again, stuck at some distant metro stop, thanks to the never ending repairs on the blue line in the Washington DC area. So I took a cab and spent $35 to get my friends’ house.

We had talked about playing Phalanx’s First World War. It does not have very good reviews here on the BGG, but I think it’s an appealing game with some twists and does a surprisingly good job at simulating WWI at a strategic level.

Gaming didn’t start out well. I was refreshing my knowledge of the rules during my commute and ended up leaving them behind. Thus, we didn’t know the historic deployment. Since the rules are not available online, Karsten and I ended up making a trip to the Game Parlor, a nearby game store. Nothing was going to stop us from playing this game!

After we got back and briefly reviewed the rules (about 10 minutes), I ended up with the central powers and Karsten with the allies.

On the first turn, I attacked in Front 1 (Flanders), successfully conquering the first city (Antwerpen), and the Russians attacked in Front 9 (Southwest), taking Lemberg, a replacement center. The Austro-Hungarians (AH), outnumbered, passed for the most of the turn.

On the following turn (still 1914), a couple of German armies showed up in the East to protect replacement centers in Front 8(West), and also to boost attacks in Front 9 (Southwest). However, the AH failed on their attacks and the leading German army was destroyed.

The Western front was stable until I launched an assault in Front 4 (Alsace-Lorraine), which remained uncontested at the end of the turn and allowed me to give the allies a surrender point. The allies took back some ground in Front 1 (Flanders).

In 1915, things got ugly for the AH. Both Western and Eastern allies attacked in Fronts 5 (Isonzo), 9 (Southwest) and 10 (Balkan), destroying many AH armies, and what’s worse, allowing for only 2 reinforcements on the following turn. Germany was in good shape and held Front 4 (Alsace-Lorraine). She advanced in Front 1 (Flanders), taking Calais.

We made surrender rolls, and the war went on. We were in 1916.

The Germans transferred a couple of armies to help the AH get back Lemberg and avoid defeat to the MEF in Front 10. The Central Powers totally abandoned Front 5 (Isonzo)…Hey man! Not enough resources!

Front 1 (Flanders) was again neglected by the Allies, too, who got a flag at the end of the turn.

At the end of 1916, Kaarin, who is downstairs playing Struggle of the Empires shows up and asks how the game’s going. Karsten says, “Alright.” I suddenly have a vision and tell her that even though it’s only one surrender point for AH, I’m gonna roll it and lose the war.

I roll. It’s a one. I lost.

All in all, we had a couple of laughs rolling dice, attacking, bluffing…It was fun! Had the game gone on, I would have used the Brest-Litovsk treaty…no question about it! That way, I think things would have been really smooth for the Central Powers in 1917. Karsten pointed out that it would have been extremely unrealistic due to the fact that Russia was in good shape, and even held a German city in Prussia. He is probably right, but a quick house rule on that could fix it if anyone finds it unfair. Something like: It’s necessary to hold three or four cities in Russia in order to offer the treaty.

What else? Oh yes, the surrender dice rolls…Well I guess you could make it more unlikely to happen, and I think I saw someone commenting that it would be better if you had to roll two dice and both of them be lower than the number of surrender points, or something like that. It could work, I guess.

But as I said before, we still had fun with the game as it is. I think it’s a good game. It took us two hours to play it. Not many games out there where you play WWI in just a couple of hours!

(Thanks to Kaarin Engelmann for valuable editing of this session report)

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dander53 — 2007-03-05T22:12:08+00:00

Screenshot from my Cyberboard gameset.

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monkeyrobot — 2007-03-05T12:39:08+00:00

Thread: First World War Rules Q&A

moonglum01 — 2007-02-13T21:16:19+00:00

These are the rules questions answered by the game designers taken from post 1-709 at the consim forum. I didn't add the post #s, but they are in the order the come up on at that forum.

Q. After the treaty of B-L can Eastern Allied armies ( Serbian, MN, Greek etc) still provide Combat support for the MEF or OR armies or do they have to attack by themselves.

A. They may provide support.
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Q. If, during an impulse, there are no enemy units in a front and the remaining player is able to move on a base is he able to force a surrender point despite not being able to engage in normal combat due to the lack of opposition or can he only do this following normal combat?

A. I do not quite understand the question as there is no movement per se in a front. If you win a combat, you gain one enemy city along the attack line. So, if you attack an empty front, you immediately gain one city at that front (or the surrender point, if it´s a base hex). So, I imagine your question comes from the following situation: It´s your turn and you want to attack on an empty front towards an enemy base hex. You declare the attack and "advance" (not an advance per se, mind you as there is no movement) the surrender track one point.

You could think about not attacking, as you also get the surrender point in the end of turn phase (can´t remember the exact name of the phase) when unoccupied fronts automatically cause another loss. So, the lesson is, never leave any front unguarded if you are not forced to do so.

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Q. Do dummies get redeployed at the beginning of every year? We know any dummies revealed via combat come back into play whereever the player wishes, but aren't sure about dummies revealed at the end of a game turn.

A. Yes, dummies are redeployed each year/game turn, see 4.2, 1.Deployment.
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Q. 1. Dummies are eliminated when flipped up and redeployed at the start of turns (not right after the combat!), correct?

A. Correct.
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Q. 2. Units are only ever flipped face down at the start of a turn, not at the end of combat, correct?

A. Correct.
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Q. Question: After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk can the German or A-H player leave dummy units to garrison the fronts. I don't think so, but my friend argued the point...

A. No, "ghost garrisons" at the Eastern Front are not possible; must be real armies.
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Q. Also, after the treaty, who builds the Serbian destroyed pieces?

A. This is unchanged...as before.
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Q. Are you confirming that:

if you play with two players Germany and Austria-Hungary have collectively three chits maximum and Eastern and Western Allies have collectively three chits maximum (so there are six chits "around" maximum)

if you play with three players Germany and Austria-Hungary have each three chits maximum and Eastern and Western Allies have collectively three chits maximum (so there are nine chits "around" maximum)

if you play with four players Germany and Austria-Hungary have each three chits maximum and Eastern and Western Allies have each three chits maximum (so there are twelve chits "around" maximum)

A. Although I feel in court ("are you confirming"...), yes, this is correct, see 6.2.1.
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Q. Is the MEF considered a "British" army for chit play?

A. The MEF is considered an Eastern Allied unit for all purposes except replacements (see 7.2)...so it uses Eastern Allied chits.

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Q. If you have a mandatory combat chit for the French, presumably a mixed force can avoid using it as long as they are led by a British army?

A. Rule 6.2 specifically states that combat chits relate to the lead army only, so yes that would apply to the mandatory ones also.
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Q. 1) When the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk occurs, exactly how are the German and German Allied armies redeployed to garrison fronts 7, 8, and 9? May the CP player(s) freely redeploy enough armies to meet the garrison requirement? Or do they have to come from replacements or reinforcements? Or must they be in the appropriate fronts already before the treaty occurs?

A. 1) You cannot offer the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk if you don't have the required garrisons already in place. The rulebook says "must have and maintain" (well, it really says this for the german faction and only "maintain" for the german allied faction, but we think there's no point to make a difference here). This also makes sense if you think that it was the Central Powers (well, German) military presence to enforce the Treaty historically.
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Q. 2) Given the standard player-round sequence, it seems that a German army can transfer to one of the Italian or Balkan fronts, and then be used by the German Allied player in the same turn in an attack. Just wanted to make sure this is legal. This seems OK for the standard player-round sequence, but could be more problematic when using the random sequence optional rule.

A. Legal
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Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

monkeyrobot — 2007-02-13T14:14:35+00:00

Actually, I mailed the designer, Ted Raicer, and I'm hoping he will answer us in this forum... But maybe he's busy or does not check BGG oftenly.

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

moonglum01 — 2007-02-13T06:05:32+00:00

More thoughts - my brain is hurting!

If the Austrian player could use the German chit then some interesting problems would occure.

Normally, in a multiplayer game you can toss out chits that don't apply to your faction after you draw them. If you let AH use the German chits then they would have to hold on to all the chits they draw, both German Allied and German. Seems like they would quickly fill up with unusable German Chits. But what if there were no lent Germans in the German Allied Army, then could they toss the German Chits?

The more I think about it the more sure I am that I'm right - Lent Germans are treated as German Allied in ALL ways, including chits. Lent Germans are much more like the MEF or the OR than say the French/ Brits working together as part of the same faction.

I suspect the answer is at consimworld, but I see there are 700+ posts on the game and I don't feel like plowing through them tonight.

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

monkeyrobot — 2007-02-13T04:01:39+00:00

Then, I guess...Designers advise welcome!!

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

moonglum01 — 2007-02-13T00:33:03+00:00

Humm, well now it gets a little more interesting. Even supposing that you decided that the unit was still in effect 'german' for combat chits the question would be, 'can the Austrian player even play a chit that is specifically for the germans. The Allies can't play a chit on Russians and visa-versa, so should the AH's be able to?

I think that if you want to play it with the Central powers being able to share chits, as a house rule you might want to give the MEF and OR armies the same ability if they are the lead attackers.

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

moonglum01 — 2007-02-12T23:18:18+00:00

Ok, I thought it was clear, because we treat the lent Germans the same as the Allied MEF, except that the unit can be given back. So when a German is under AH control it's an AH unit. Rule 5.1 page 5 "German armies....are controlled for ALL purposes by the German Allied Faction and operate during German Allied turn only (we treat it as actually being an Austrian unit - NOT a german unit).

I view the "ALL" as ALL including the use of combat chits, but I can see how it could be viewed the other way.

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

monkeyrobot — 2007-02-12T01:53:47+00:00

moonglum01 wrote:
Treated in every way as A-H including the use of chits.

Are you sure about that? It states in the rules (page 6, second column, line 11) that "A combat chit may only be used when the lead army participating in that combat belongs to the country that may use it."

Which was actually working great in avoiding the use of Kaisertrau when the AH attacked with a german leading army... (Although kaisertrau is not particualrly bad to deal with if the AH player can wait to use it in the fourth game round, provided, of course, that he has not suffered many casualties that turn...)

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

moonglum01 — 2007-02-11T21:42:00+00:00

Yep, 'lending' a unit to Austria is like 'lending' someone a piece of paper. The unit become property of A-H unless the A-H player decides to ship it back. Treated in every way as A-H including the use of chits.

Thread: Re: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

MindBend — 2007-02-10T16:20:38+00:00

All this is perfectly allowed, once a German army is in AH "territory" so to speak, be it by deployment or movement, then is operated on the AH player's turn and as such "part of the AH front army". The German army will continue to operate on the AH turn until it is killed or until the AH player decides to move the German army back into German territory.

Thread: Question regarding attacks in shared fronts

monkeyrobot — 2007-02-10T15:49:08+00:00

Hi all,

I was playing this very interesting game and a question came up.

In fronts where two allied factions can deploy troops (#5, #6, #9, #10, #11), when one of the factions declares an attack, can he "bring" the other allied faction's troops into combat, and even make them the leading army? Example: There are 3 AH armies and one german army in front #5. It's the AH game round, and he declares an attack in that front, and declares the german army not only part of the attacking units, but actually the leading army.

I would say the rules allow this to happen. An obvious use of this would be deploying a german army with AH armies in front #9, and use the German Allied game round to attack using the german army as the leading one... after all, there are no russian armies of 3 value, only 1!

Thanks in advance!

Dan

Thread: Re: ultra simple surrender rules modification

moonglum01 — 2007-02-09T02:41:50+00:00

Play with the official rules a few times. The standard surrender rules are harsh if you play with agressive minded players. I don't think it's as much of an issue for conservative players (games where there aren't as many dramantic swings). I use this one just because ... someday... I'd like to actually have a game actually end in 1918.

Thread: Re: Combat chits question

moonglum01 — 2007-02-09T01:40:12+00:00

No, they are eastern allied units in all ways except for replacement cost.

Thread: Re: Any ideas for solitaire play?

bentlarsen — 2007-01-31T11:36:59+00:00

Thank you; this certainly sounds worth a go.

Thread: Re: Any ideas for solitaire play?

Sunray11 — 2007-01-31T03:12:16+00:00

I've dabbled in this sort of approach:

1. Play to win as the Central Powers. N and S do not use dummy counters.

2. When deploying for E and W, randomly deploy (face down) one actual army to any front that has none. Then mix the remaining armies with the dummies (all face down), and distribute the counters evenly to the active fronts. Place any odd counters on the most threatened front (eg, shortest distance to a Base city).

3. When playing E and W, first priority is to redeploy (without looking at counter values) to protect undefended Base cities. Otherwise, attack where there is an apparent superiority in number of counters, revealing all counters when doing so. Priority should be to the shortest attack lines.

4. Combat Chits do not enter on a roll of "S", and are not accumulated by either side. Instead, before each battle, automatically draw one chit for each side. If it doesn't apply, ignore it; otherwise apply it to the combat in progress. Both chits are returned to their pools after combat, except Mandatory Chits that did fit the combat situation.

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rosso1034 — 2006-10-11T05:15:07+00:00

The map with clear characters.

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Napoleon_the_Worst — 2006-08-02T02:24:15+00:00

Germans, German Allies, and Western Allies (somehow this countersheet was overlooked)

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BattleZone — 2006-07-16T16:36:19+00:00

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BattleZone — 2006-07-16T16:09:51+00:00

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Lawrence Hung — 2006-01-26T16:40:55+00:00