Slitherine

after playing more than 12 game against human player I think it will be fine to have than optional realistic rules.

at least some point
1st - train have nothing to do in a ww1 game, but that really minor as there are not efficiency.

2nd - do not allow landing again port or capital

3rd - perhaps the more important; change the surrender rules. those for Russia are very good, it will be fine to have the same for France, Turkey and Austria. That will also shorten some game

Historically armored trains were very important during the Russian Civil War in the battle for control of the Trans Siberian Railroad. I think the Czechoslovak Legion basically fought its way across the entire length of that railroad using armored trains. I think the most unrealistic thing about them is that they can do amphibious invasions as long as the target hex has a railroad. At first I thought that even allowing them to be moved by sea may be unrealistic, but I found out that some merchant ships of the era did exist that could carry locomotives without disassembling them.

is not a game on the russian revolution but on the 1ww. you could not compare effect on brigade with effect again an army

I have got 5 or 6 games coming to a conclusion now, some of which I started before Xmas. My general feeling is that the game loses quite a bit of "atmosphere" the longer that it goes on. Things that might help would be to make it more of an event when countries like Serbia and Rumania surrender - there ought to be some sort of diplomacy event and a corresponding territorial settlement, I feel. I don't think countries like France and Turkey would fight to the last city either. They would sue for peace long before then. The politicians are not represented in the game at all. Maybe they should be. There were several peace initiatives during the war and America did try to mediate.

It definitely needs something anyway to increase replayability. At the moment I feel the Entente should win as they can have more artillery pieces than the Central Powers in the second half of the war. I am not sure how many more games I would want to play given that basic situation prevails.

surrender based on moral would be the easiest. for esemple between 50 to 40% major must surrender

40-50% is too high for even mutiny. If they're only slightly upset it shouldn't take them long to get happy again.

I agree with guillaume on all three points plus:

1) fixes to the air/naval warfare and russian ports.

2) Russia should have 1 rail transport but less ammunition production.

3) Russia and AH should be further behind in tech. (in my eyes historically, but probably too risky for the balancing of the game).

only for major country, perhaps surrender rules must take care of several points.
- how long is war
- how many cities are hold by enemy.
- is it the first country to surrender


in this case basic surrender level could be 10
+ 5 if any city is occupy
+ 5 for each capital
+ 5 for each year after 1915
+ 5 if an other major as already surrender.

that would mean for example ;
- france would surrender with a moral of 20 if paris is occupy in 1914 or 1915
- russia would surrender with a moral of 25 in 1917
- turkey would surrender with a moral of 35 in 1918 if bagdad is occupy
- germany would surrender with a moral of 30 in 1918 if either turkey or Austria would have previously surrender

I would like to try a game with those house rule.

by the way doesn't make sense for Romania to enter the war if she is surrounded by enemy

Some nice points in this thread.
About armoured trains - they are weak, but very mobile units. Sometimes they are important to quickly protect exposed city (often it is eastern front).
About surrender that also makes sence - current conditions are not very good. There is nice NM feature, but it is mostly formal, MN reaches 0 when country have 1-2 cities (none of them capital) and is 1 step away from total defeat anyway.
And yes, I had noticed, that if Russia surrendered before 1916, Portugal does not join war at all. Why Romania does? It is pointless war for them, place will be conquered within 2 turns.

guillaume wrote:after playing more than 12 game against human player I think it will be fine to have than optional realistic rules.

at least some point
1st - train have nothing to do in a ww1 game, but that really minor as there are not efficiency.

2nd - do not allow landing again port or capital

3rd - perhaps the more important; change the surrender rules. those for Russia are very good, it will be fine to have the same for France, Turkey and Austria. That will also shorten some game

1. Is minor. I don't find the impact of armoured trains on the game big enough to worry about - their impact is mostly in the east after the Russian front is broken, at which point they're going to lose anyway.

2. Maybe for MP this is a big game-play issue, but I'm not a big MP player so I don't care. Realistically, though, there's no reason to ban landings against ports and capitals because, in reality, they were quite possible.

Much more important is that ports should give full supply - otherwise forces in Ireland/Sicily/Algeria are at half supply even though they're on home ground.

3. Surrender needs to be made much more possible - you can trash Germany completely but they won't surrender, same for Austria-Hungary and Turkey, but historically they quit without being conquered.

FOARP wrote: Surrender needs to be made much more possible - you can trash Germany completely but they won't surrender, same for Austria-Hungary and Turkey, but historically they quit without being conquered.

Yes. I don't see that it is necessary for the war to continue into 1918 each time - that is just boring really. If countries surrendered more realistically then maybe the war would sometimes end in 1916 or 1917? I have played about ten games in multi-player now and I am not sure if I will start anymore - I am finding the game increasingly tedious. There is just no diplomatic interaction between the powers, and no sense either that the home front was an important part of the war effort of all the participants. All the game really consists of is blasting away at your opponent until they collapse (the "fog of war" means you have no idea when this will acually be). Usually, the Russians will go in 1917 if you bash them hard enough; and the Turks will collapse if the British take artillery to Palestine. But it is all rather repetitive, I'm afraid.

After the naval patch is done the next important issue to address wll be "re-playability". The game is not scoring very highly in this respect at the moment, in my opinion.

stockwellpete wrote:

FOARP wrote: Surrender needs to be made much more possible - you can trash Germany completely but they won't surrender, same for Austria-Hungary and Turkey, but historically they quit without being conquered.

Yes. I don't see that it is necessary for the war to continue into 1918 each time - that is just boring really. If countries surrendered more realistically then maybe the war would sometimes end in 1916 or 1917? I have played about ten games in multi-player now and I am not sure if I will start anymore - I am finding the game increasingly tedious. There is just no diplomatic interaction between the powers, and no sense either that the home front was an important part of the war effort of all the participants. All the game really consists of is blasting away at your opponent until they collapse (the "fog of war" means you have no idea when this will acually be). Usually, the Russians will go in 1917 if you bash them hard enough; and the Turks will collapse if the British take artillery to Palestine. But it is all rather repetitive, I'm afraid.

After the naval patch is done the next important issue to address wll be "re-playability". The game is not scoring very highly in this respect at the moment, in my opinion.

Sad to say this, but you do have a point. I've played through a few times from the 1914 start and, now that I'm used to the game, pretty much every time it's possible as the Entente to over-whelm the CP from both East and West, and for the CP to defend in the East whilst over-running France/Italy and then totally smash Russia with an invasion through Romania. The 1918 scenario goes pretty much the same way - actually I was surprised by how easy it was to over-run France as the CP. the 1915, 1916, and 1917 scenarios as the CP seem to be a case of smashing Russia in the East and then going west, but the result is pretty much the same.

More diplomatic options and events are needed to keep the game fresh. I've found invading Spain to be a great way of keeping the game lively after defeating France as the CP, for example. Historically the allies planned an invasion of Norway/Denmark to outflank the Germans - something that would definitely add spice to the game. Same goes for plans to include Holland in the Schlieffen plan. Support for independence movements should also add something to the game - historically the Ukraine, Ireland, Finland, the Baltics, the Caucasus, Belarus all played a role in this, but this isn't really depicted in-game. Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain - all could have ended up fighting on either side, but in the game as it stands they are fixed to join only one side or stay neutral.

Supply mechanics in the game also make alternate-history theatres of war disatisfactory. If, for example, I decide to launch an amphibious invasion of French North Africa, for example, your forces will be permanently at half supply unless a warship is present since there are no capitals - but in reality they would be supplied through the ports. Not being able satisfactorily to fight over territories in which there is no capital reduces the re-playability of the game. The obvious solution is to make ports deliver full supply - in fact I don't know why this isn't already the case.

The lack of certain map details also reduce replayability. Firstly Iceland is an obvious target for invasion if you want to strangle the British, since from Reyklavik submarines can range far into the Atlantic, however it's not possible to do this since there is no Reyklavik in-game. Same goes for Bermuda, the Faroes, the Azores, Godthab - not included in-game.