Slitherine

Turkey is next to impossible. Unlike every other surprised nation it gets to rail on turn one. I tried a hotseat simulation and no way can it be anything but a slog. If they couldn't rail first turn then there could be creative solutions that might defeat them in two turns. Can we fix this?

Invading Turkey is pretty suicidal since Stauffenberg changed the rules to mean that this DoWed Russia. Even before that it was of marginal utility. But it can be done. Eg, see this: viewtopic.php?f=78&t=37044&p=348761&hil ... ra#p348761 . Although you need a slice of luck to pull it off. (And if you don't it gets very messy for the Axis.)

Not sure about the rail thing. I got the same when I hot-seated it. And with Spain. Sounds like a bug to me.

it wouldn't be suicidal without the first turn rail, you could just do it with a late barbarrossa - say September - an hit turkey at the same time. Then the possibilities in the middle east and towards baku are delicious

Hmm. I think that you want to try that before you get too excited. It can suck in a lot of Axis units, and it opens up opportunities for the Allies later in the game. And Baku is a long slog over very rough terrain.

GogTheMild wrote:Hmm. I think that you want to try that before you get too excited. It can suck in a lot of Axis units, and it opens up opportunities for the Allies later in the game. And Baku is a long slog over very rough terrain.

plus they generate partisans like you wouldn't believe

The rail thing is not a bug. Countries who can't lose morale from being attacked will not be surprised and lose rail capacity. Some countries had a higher level of alertness and won't be surprised the same way.

If you want to take out Turkey as the Axis you will need a strong naval presence so you can land behind Istanbul. Otherwise you will be stalled forever. Turkey SHOULD be very hard to conquer. Going after Turkey is probably only interesting if you managed to crush the British in Egypt quite early in the game.

GogTheMild wrote:Invading Turkey is pretty suicidal since Stauffenberg changed the rules to mean that this DoWed Russia.

I don't agree with what you write here. Rule changes for each beta version has been discussed and decided in the beta group. Some, like me, suggest changes. Then we discuss if it's a good change or not and vote on the change. So when the rules for Turkey changed it was as a result of quite a few people in the beta group agreeing that it was good. I think one of the beta testers originally suggested the change because he felt it was ahistorical that going after Turkey meant that Russia would be a sitting duck not responding to it. So changes are a team decision. Quite a few of my suggestions have been voted down.

Not being surprised by rail movement for some minor power countries has been in the rules for a long time, maybe even since GS v1.0.

Right now we don't have a beta team running so changes are agreed upon within the alpha team.

BTW what are the requirements for Turkey to join the Axis? The manual says:

8.11.3 Turkish Neutrality
Turkey will join the Axis if Athens, Bucharest, Sofia, Moscow, Baku and Baghdad are all Axis controlled.
It's not enough that a city is neutral.

However, it's possible that it's outdated. IMO it would be more interesting if the requirement was changed from "Baku and Baghdad" to "Baku OR Baghdad". That way you can use Turkey to help you to capture the Caucasus or the Middle East. After all, that's what you want them for! It's very rare to see the Axis player taking Baghdad or Baku and you would still need to capture Moscow, so this won't affect most games at all.