You gotta respect the time that he puts into these videos. Great script and great editing, lots interesting and insightful information here. Probably the best a&a content on theis webisite. I dont think I've felt this way about an axis and allies channel since i found corporal clegg's videos
Another great series on Axis & Allies. Learned a lot from it - thank you. Just picked up my first copy and have played only 1 game so far, but both my son and I really enjoyed it and look forward to our next one. - Great shout outs to the Community as well.
And yet another Axis & Allies 'brain puzzle' solved. This was a great series. The thing about WW1 1914, is that even if both sides play the optimal strategy every time, the game doesn't become boring. The tactical depth in this game adds so much, which makes it very engaging and tense. It would be cool if Renegade Games listened to your video and implemented the balancing changes in the reprint you mentioned!
I feel like the Gen Con tournament rules are much better then the rules you showed in this video. Atm we find that a bid of 12 to the CP balances it fairly way. Great video mate!
I haven't even played the game yet but I have listened to your amendments carefully and even without experience, I think you have really understood the game and made some excellent changes to balance the game up. Well done.
I just set this game up today. Ive never played, so Im looking for videos exactly like this! Thanks. I know many of the A&A games are not balanced, and Im glad there is a large community of players like you.
I’ve watched the whole series and this culmination video. Awesome job on the entire effort. There is a dearth of in-depth strategy content for 1914 on RUclips so thank you for filling the gap! We have taken your recommended balancing rules after playing normal out-of-the-box rules for our first game. The second game with the balancing was somewhat one sided in favor of the Central Powers but I think that was mainly due to ridiculous luck that knocked out Russia on turn 4 and a massive culling of French forces in the West. Additionally, the German navy survived into turn 4 parked in the English Channel (bad die rolls for the Entente) and basically delayed Great Britain being able to land the BEF in Europe until turn 5. Finally, overall inexperience of all players lent to the somewhat one-sided nature of the game. I played as Germany and my friend played as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire after having watched your entire 1914 series. I think this gave us a leg up out of the gate while the Entente players suffered from plain old bad luck and tentative play all around. For instance, Great Britain made no move against the Turks until turn 3, giving the Ottoman player a surprising defensive wall next to Persia by the time the British forces attempted to break through there. All in all, I really like your balancing recommendations, but the Entente players were salty so we’re going to try out-of-the-box rules again and see how that goes now that we know the game a bit better. Funnily enough, the American/Italian player was most salty about the rule that shuts down IPC production in a contested territory. Being an original rule, I thought it funny he had issue with that one. I think the abstraction of the grinding nature of fully industrialized warfare manifested in the one round combat combined with no IPC production is a great example of why this version of A&A is fantastic. Can’t wait for your next series. I know a lot of folks have asked for you to consider looking at the 1914 tournament rules. I would ask that, if you have access to the game (understandable if not), you consider providing a breakdown of Larry Harris’s War Room. The mechanics that game features are very deep and satisfying while being presented in a relatively easily digestible ruleset. I think your mind applied to that game’s puzzle would be endlessly fascinating. Regardless, I look forward to your future videos, whatever the topic. Great job and thank you!
I think this is my overall favorite comment on the channel to date. Really glad to hear you pulled a CP win - its tough to do, even with those balances. As of this date, when I square up against better players of 1914, we use all the balances in addition to removing six Russian artillery and its still a tough slog for the CP. If you or especially your opponents would like a friendly game with all the balances up to and including removing six Russian artillery, I will happily play a game(s) as either side over TripleA. I'm always playing. My next series will be on D-Day and then I cannot make any promises as I'm having a baby in June (our first). I'll always be rolling dice and scripting videos its just that it may take longer to do after that. Thanks for the comment. I read it three times and it made my day.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 I’m so glad I was able to make your day, Good Captain! That’s great to hear. I am glad we pulled the win as well, I just wish the Entente players thought it legitimate but I don’t think they did based on the rants they went on about the lack of balance, the rules, etc. 🤣 Again, I can taste the salt! Early congratulations on your child! My wife and I welcomed our first in 2022, she is just over a year now. What a wonderful thing it is to be a father. Beautiful memories and experiences await! As you can imagine and might soon experience, my time for hobbies has been pretty limited over the course of the last year. It has gotten better as my daughter has gotten older, but my wife and I live far, far away from both of our families because of my job. As a result, it’s just us two and we don’t really have grandparent or aunt/uncle help. If we did, I imagine I would be able to play Axis and Allies and work on my truck more than I currently do haha. Anyway, all that to say I am definitely wanting to play Triple A and I imagine a couple of my pals would want to as well, will have to let you know when I have some time. Family is coming into town to visit this coming week but I imagine I’ll have time between Christmas and the first week of January. I will respond back to this comment thread when I find some time, which I surely hope to do. I think it would be a blast. Again, congrats on being a future dad and happy holidays, Captain, take care and be safe. Best wishes to you and your family.
@@Gibsonrick81 all that was very nice to read. Thank you and of course you can respond back here anytime or you can email me at ryanvoz(at)yahoo(dot)com. Consider it a friendly and open invitation. =)
Hi again Good Captain, I was trying to test out the 1914 map on Triple A in the hopes of eventually getting a game going between us, but I keep getting the following error when I try to load the 1914 map: "java.lang.IllegalStateException: Error in resource loading. Unable to load expected resource: polygons.txt, the error is that either we did not find the correct path to load. Check the resource loader to make sure the map zip or dir was added. Failing that, the path in this error message should be available relative to the map folder, or relative to the root of the map zip" Have you received this error before? I tried searching the forums but have only found folks reporting the error but no solutions. I checked the files in my programs, and the zip drive is added, I even unzipped it and tried again. Any help you can lend, if you have seen this error before, would be greatly appreciated. Have a great day.
Great series man! Cant wait to see what you jave in store next! Hilltop is a real gentleman, i got the pleasure to play with him once because i won a contest, had a great tike even though i got absolutely smoked. He said he do a rematch sometime i just havent found the time yet.
A well done conclusion to this series. My friends and I look forward to playing the game with your recommendations for rebalance. In addition we would look forward to your analysis of playing the game with tournament rules. In the mean time, we will also play the tournament rules game and applying your recommendations for rebalance.
The tournament rules are so different than out of box rules, that playing that variant may in fact already be a balanced game. All the same, thanks for the kind words.
Note on the sea zone 17 and 18 change: This change makes the Austro-Hungarian-Ottoman naval moves into sea zone 17 sightly less effective, as the Italian transport in sea zone 17 can move into sea zone 18 and take an infantry from Tuscany or Venice and activate Albania (assuming it risks the mine, of course).
Thanks for the video. I've actually been putting together a summary of the rules for 1914, and was wondering if I could include your balancing rules with credit? I've posted the doc in the game's BGG forum.
A five star series! Truly well done and likely the best resource for any players of A&A1914. The layout, the depth, the sound and video quality. Congratulations on a truly exceptional set of videos!
I appreciate this very much. So much time is spent on everything you mention being dialed in just right. This video, for example, took the better part of two weekends. So thank you my friend.
@thegoodcaptain1217 Oh I can imagine! It takes a hell of a time to do anything with this level of smoothness. The video cuts, the visual aids, the ease of the script. I actually listened to your video first, and I didn't realize until I watched it later that you have cuts in your shots! In regards to audio I couldn't tell at all. You maintain the same tone and energy and its very smoothly done. Do you use a script or do you wing it? I tend to do the intros to my videos 20 times until i get it right, and then just wing it the rest of the way. Anyways! Great stuff! I look forward to more videos, and if you ever fancy a game, hook me up!
Another idea for the neutrals is the g40 rule about attacking neutrals. If the opposite side attacks a strict neutral then they will join the side that did not attack them.
The G40 rule is that ALL strict neutrals align with the opposing side. Since the UK essentially MUST attack Persia, that means Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Greece would likely all fall in with the CP. Its an ahistorical mess but ...yeah that would help with balance. My recommendations were more aimed at fixing route causes.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 With this G40 rule, nobody in his mind would attack a neutral ever, because having ALL neutrals against one would give the enemy a huge advantage. I like the neutral rule as it is: You may attack one neutral power, but this neutral will instantly join the opposite site, giving them some free units. Just Switzerland needs an higher IPC value and in result more defending units to be a higher thread and for historical accurations.
Necessary to balance the game and to comply with historical rigor is that Italy enter the war in 1915 (second turn). With this addition, it is not necessary to postpone the entry of the United States into the war until 1918, but to leave it as it historically was in 1917. I agree with the need for the United States not to acquire IPC until its entry into the war, the same thing that should happen with Italy
once again, thanks for the link on the TripleA map, I've tried it (playing vs myself, to see the game mech etc), and I can say it's a REALLY hard game! And yes, it is Allied favored, I agree. I've even had quite a strong Axis opening, excellent fleet dice which postponed any Allied fleet engagements (even having some German fleet in port threatening northern Allied lines), Axis managed to take Moscow eventually without too many losses (still a 3-4 round battle) and Ottomans managed to defend in Mesopotamia for a long long time, then even repulsed the British in Constantinople (with taking AU casualties on the initial British attacks), AU has a massive stack in Trieste, even pushed Germans midgame through Switzerland to take out Rome (which Italy expedition I now believe was a strategic mistake, they eventually lost it to US and thus lots of the best troops gone, Switzerland was fine though).... Still France outpaces Germany in production (twas AU's task to take out Russia so it reaped the IPC benefits). So Germans are on defense all the time, with some German territories contested continually (at least not Ruhr). But I definitely agree that the possibility that UK builds as many as they wish in India, outpacing anything the Ottomans can produce at a huge margin, and the involvement of the US pretty early is a major problem for the Axis. This even as I had to sacrifice a round of US produce to make 4 more transports in order to contest immediately the Germans in Italy (well payed off in the long run since they did get wiped by US infantry numbers). Another thing with taking Russia as Axis: yes it pays off, but again the UK can always land troops in Karelia via the north passage and recreate Russia in 2 rounds. So, AU must keep a number of defensive troops all the time there. Also AU had to sacrifice a huge amount of troops to save Constantinople (again, vs a great Ottoman early to mid game) and now it's Russian possessions are under threat fro India too... Hard to take and hard to keep Russia, as UK always has a 2-3 rounds attack on Moscow from any factory, while Axis can buy troops only in their own capitols (and are constantly fed towards the West or Albania)... Had I mentioned the Allied didn't even have the time to take Greece?!? Geez
14:25 Thanks for sharing this. I never knew about this rule! I am sure I have done this wrong several times in my games lol. Thanks a lot for doing this series. A&A 1914 is a special game and feels very different compared to other A&A games. It's very interesting to see what your thoughts are on this version. I am glad that I took part in this, and I enjoyed our games a lot. I feel like when I play the Entente, the Americans are not fast enough to bolster the frontline. What then happens is that the CP units outnumber my troops and start slowly pushing back, often causing problems. At some point, they break through Switzerland or Burgundy, and then I have a hard time defending all territories. I feel the same in our ongoing game (sorry for just leaving that game, I was getting very busy at the time and the game was becoming so complex, that I had to spend a lot of time on my moves. I wanted to take every possibility into consideration, and didn't dare to make a move, because it maybe could lose the game). I also feel that this might happen in my game with Ragnell too. In the middle and late stages of the game, I always find the scariest, because one bad move and the CP might break through and pose serious problems. You mentioned that the game is more balanced if you make USA weaker by removing their starting money and allowing them to join on turn 5. In that case, there must be a better way to defend the Western Front, because even without the debuff I am having trouble lol :) My strategy is to just build lots of infantry, and keep building and building, hoping that the economic difference will eventually pay itself off, but even with OOB rules, I find it hard. Maybe it has to do with making absolutely sure that Switzerland doesn't fall, but I always fear that Northern France is then susceptible to attacks. Anyway, if you feel like continuing our game, I'd be happy to pick it up again. If you prefer, we could start a new one as well. P.S. If you want to dive into Anniversary 1942 at some point, I would love to play a game of that with you. I've been playing a couple of games against opponents online, and I really like the 1942 setup. I think it's a very interesting game and also a very different experience compared to 1941.
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing VF is talking about the out of box rule regarding movement out of a contested zone, not the optional rule I recommend for balance.
The Entente just don't need to move past Venice for Italy or Alsace for France when playing with out of box rules. The Americans don't need to shuck past Spain. The British are the only ones that need to push into/through Constantinople - everyone else just needs to hold. To do otherwise is good news for the CP. This is non-intuitive for most Entente players imo. I can't start any new games at the moment but reach out in a month if you'd like to play a game. I should be freed up quite a bit by then. Hope you are well my friend.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 I'm unsure who misunderstood who. Anyhow, I thought Victory First was talking about how he thinks it's hard to defend and mentioned Switzerland as being a burden to defend and a pain when the Central Powers break through. I was thinking that with your rule this wouldn't be a problem and wrote taht.
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing I mentioned both things in my comment, so you are both correct. Yes, you are right about when Switzerland is impassable, it will be easier for the Entente to hold the line. Then the US debuff would be a way to balance it all out. @thegoodcaptain1217 Thanks for the explanation. I'm looking forward to playing another game with you.
Nice series, one question though about the AAA 1914 games you mentioned you played: which map are you playing on?!? I can't find this map and rules applicaple on the download tab of AAA, thus I ask. Thanks in advance! EDIT about the proposed changes for balance: 1. US should enter later anyway, even historically better 2. I understand from the playability point of view, still I strongly disagree due to the historical importance of Greece, namely the Thessaloniki (or southern) front being one very important front in Europe, with UK, French, Serbian and even Italian troops fighting AU, German and Bulgarian troops very hard until it got broken by Entente in late 1918. Maybe another way of dealing with the added IPC gain that Entente gets from these invasions could be reducing the IPC value of these territories along adding defensive troops in them, so the punishment vs the gains would make Entente much more reluctant to take these neutrals, especially if mainly planning on getting IPC advantage (but would still be able to for strategic purposes, while actually losing lots of IPC value in troops for it) 3. The Sea of Marmara was and always will be dependent on the owner of Constantinople / Istanbul. There is no historical way of getting anything through if one does not control the land around the Straits, so totally historically correct along being a welcome change of balance 4. Same with the SZ 18 border: the AU navy spent its time as a fleet in being, at Kotor / Cattaro, and it's mere presence completely prevented Entente's navy entrance through Otranto (the strait between Italy and Albania) that is the entrance into the Adriatic (the new proposed line btw). Any Entente landings in Albania or core AU territories would have been completely broken by an exiting AU navy, thus they weren't even planned. The proposed expanded SZ 18 is the Adriatic sea and it is by definition it's own body of water connected to the Med and always was strategically a whole, since it is rather small and in reality can be traversed in its length by a navy in cca a full day of sailing under steam, and across in less than a night. Meanwhile the SZ 17 as original is a much larger body of sea in the Med and has a choke point towards the Adriatic, and this should be addressed. 5. The Italian Isonzo front opened in 1915. historically never moved an inch towards Austria, in fact 10 offensives got completely broken and then the AU (with German help, again...) did their one and only offensive, broke through the Italian defenses and took 150km of territory and nearly walked into Venice, where they were finally stopped on the banks of the Piave river. Even more important, the Italian front was a "sidefront" for the AU since they had extremely good defensive positions and didn't really have to spend lots of troops and supplies (comparing to East and South fronts) to hold, so it is very historically inaccurate to have Italy as a gigachad nation that can break at will AU defenses and waltz into Tyrol or Trieste. So, again, definitely yes :)
Answering your question: www.mediafire.com/file/6l8ni5rzkruakro/world_war_i_1914.zip/file download this file and here are the instructions to get it on your TripleA: You have to move the unzipped map to the downloadedMaps folder in the folder where you installed Triplea. Reboot the game and look for 1914. On your very detailed critique of the optional rules suggested: First, well lettered. You clearly know your WWI history. However, I notice that most of your agrees/disagrees have to do with a historical basis. I caution against holding Axis and Allies games to this level of scrutiny. Given its scope and complexity level (very low compared to hex based wargames), I feel strongly that axis and allies as a game system should not have its historical 'feet held to the fire'. I feel that axis and allies is far closer in complexity to Risk than hex based, high complexity wargames that encompass the depth of historical accuracy you are quoting. A large degree of extrapolation is what makes these games so attractive to a wider audience. Another supporting argument I have and just to take your disagreement on the 'no neutrals' rule as a case in point: If you disallow neutrals but make Greece fair game, then let me say from my many games of experience what is mostly likely to happen here. The USA can (and perhaps should) invade this country and cause the immediate collapses of the Ottoman fronts to it's east and south as they rush back to defend their capital (since Greece is adjacent). And so how historical is that? I grant that there was some interesting fighting in Greece during the actual war but in the scope of this game and given its low complexity, I feel that this aspect of the war is best extrapolated by leaving Greece neutral and uninvadable. Whatever happened in real life is still happening there, it just has no affect on the game you're playing in the context of Axis and Allies 1914.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 thanks for the link, I did download it but alas to no avail. Doesn't work for me :( Gives an error window as soon as I start the game... True about the agree/disagree, I enjoyed that most of your playability driven proposals actually do coincide :) About the Thesalloniki front and Greece situation overall: thinking a bit more about it from a historical point of view, the existence of that front was just too much for AU and Germany to handle. TBH the Central powers nearly won the war in Europe (Russia out of it, 1918 France offensive broke through but couldn't capitalize, Isonzo front broken and Italy in retreat asking help from Allies...). The one front where they never managed to really break it was exactly Greece. Since Centrals, in reality, couldn't win the war, and this IS a boardgame that should allow a Central player to win, missing that one front might allow the Centrals to carry, you are correct :) EDIT: found how to make the map work, it HAS to be unzipped and this I didn't do (the other maps are zipped and work, this one not...) my bad for not reading clearly your instructions :)
I have the J1 video up on this channel so I have touched on G40 for Japan at least. So much of the axis and allies community plays that particular version that I don't feel it needs my help. I would rather throw daylight on all these other great games. Additionally, the allied strategy is a mystery to me and would require me to stack 20-30 games with them just to get the basics down. I hate to say this but I haven't seen anything that approaches a coherent allied strategy for that version. Anyway, I'm not saying 'never' but I have to say 'not right now'.
My thoughts on tanks are a bit more negative. I thought at first it was the best unit in the game, but I wanted to find out for sure so I did a bunch of tests with the battle calculator. I set a number of 105 IPCs and bought several different types of armies from it, ranging from 35 infantry, 14 inf + 14 art + fighter, 17 tanks and one infantry, a balanced army, and so on, up to a number of six armies in total. I then put all six armies against each other and used the TripleA battle calculator to calculate the TUV swing, both for an attack as well as a potential counter-attack by the defending army, to find out which combination of units was the best. It turns out, that the army of 17 tanks is the only one that has a positive TUV swing when attacking 35 infantry. That sounds good, but when the remainder of the infantry counter-attacks the tank force, the TUV swing starts swinging heavily in favor of the infantry. This is because defending tanks are so extremely bad, and are quite expensive compared to the other units. In the end, the tank army performed worse than most other armies. The army that performed the best was the 14 inf + 14 art + fighter army. That one was almost on par with attacking the 35 infantry and only pulled off victories against the other armies. So what I think is the best army composition, is an army containing a more or less equal amount of infantry and artillery (preferably a bit more infantry than artillery to soak up hits so that the artillery won't get killed in battle), and as many air units possible because the air supremacy is very important. I think tanks are only better if you attack someone with an inferior army. That way, the tanks will be able to absorb all the hits when attacking and the enemy won't be able to inflict as much damage when defending. However, if you are attacking an army that is almost as strong as yours, the tanks will fight like paper during the counter-attack, and in the long run you will become at a disadvantage just because the numbers aren't in your favor.
I 100% agree with your stats but feel they might not be capturing the complete picture. I think the tanks true power pays out and is more visible after multiple battles, not ever a single battle. I've played enough to see opponents over invest in "core" units and yes I've seen the bizarre tank spam where the ratio is not ideal (which I still believe is 1 tank for every 8 -10 infantry). These armies are 'anemic' and are VERY vulnerable to counterattack as you identify. What I feel might be missing from your valuations is projections turn over turn and battle after battle. I think that tanks are an economic weapon more than anything else - they pay the owner back in IPC not lost - while your opponent on the defense just bleeds. With that as a foundation, imo an ideal German army on the hunt against france would looks something like 70 infantry 20 artillery and 6-8 tanks as the head of snake of units that traces all the way back to Berlin. This is what I call the "supply train" and should consist of 95% infantry at least (to replace losses at the front after battles). Anyway, I think multiple rounds of offensive combat far away from the production center are when the tanks show their value and as of this writing, I feel they are a necessity in this case. I would also make the same argument for the UK smashing through the Ottomans. Or the Austrians on the Italian front....
I found the 1914 Calculator. Knowing the typical odds certainly makes a difference. This is a game of infantry, artillery, and fighters. The attacker needs a force of 2:1 Infantry to Artillery and at least 1.5x as much as the defender overall. Once the attacker has sufficient artillery they need infantry to soak up battle casualties so there is no point in purchasing additional artillery unless creating new spearheads. The aggressor should maintain air superiority on all attacks. The defender needs less artillery, about 2/3 as much (3:1), but enough to make a difference should the defender achieve air superiority. The defender should continually try to wrest air superiority from the attacker to blunt their offensive. Tanks are useful only on offense and should not be purchased before attacker air superiority becomes unshakable.
@@thegoodcaptain1217I have a "house rule" that limits each powers Air units to 8 (due to logistics). Otherwise powers just keep building air units and nobody attacks.
The Veteran played with you? I'm playing a Global 1940 house rule variant with him on TripleA. Am surprised that he played so much with you. Unfortunately he hasn't responded in a month, I hope he's doing okay. Glad to learn more about Ragnel804. Very cool that you played with him. I assume me and Tamer of Beasts were one of those 11 opponents? Shout out to me, SuperbattleshipYamato, and Tamer of Beasts (if that sounded weird, I'll just say I guess I was doing the shouting out for him, because, as he mentioned, he didn't have the time).
Hey bud : TheVeteran here : yea I’ve been on a break from TripleA for over a month now - sorry about not responding .also TheGoosCaptain and I have completed 12 games against each other and the record is 6-6. We have game 13 on pause but I’m gonna start it again.
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing Ty the games I beat him in I feel were his very first games as CP and it was his learning curve period. Entente have the advantage when the CP player isn’t experienced. I have not won a single game with the CP against him or ragnell.
@@TheGlobalWarVeteran Oh. That's why. Still impressive. As he mentioned, The Good Captain is unbeatable as the Allies. Do you still think you can beat him as the Allies? thank you!
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing possibly : our current game is on the end of round 5 and I think it’s going alright. This game has no house rules. Also : there is no “Allie’s” faction in WW1. They’re called the entente powers 😁
I'm surprised you mentioned Greece when talking about neutrals. What is the significance of the territory, why should you invade it, and why did you not mention it at all in your videos? Thank you!
Similar to Albania. Easy to access with the added pressure of being adjacent to Constantinople. More IPC for the Entente that they just don’t need. I didn’t address it mostly bc the argument would have been repetitive and also bc in 52 games, I only saw it used twice by the Entente. In both games it causes the near instant collapse of the ottoman positions in the east against the British as the Turks now have to spend units on capital defense.
To clarify on the Dardanelles balance rule: A sea combat unit (say, a battleship) in sea zone 17 or 19 can engage an opponent's ships in sea zone 20, even if the opponent controls Constantinople? So on Turn 1 the British cruiser can attack the Ottoman starting ships? Thank you!
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Thank you! On a related note, I assume the Dardanelles work the other way? So the Russian cruisers in sea zone 21 can't move into the Mediterrean even if there aren't any Central Powers naval units blocking them?
Would it make sense to change Persia from a strict neutral into an Ottoman aligned neutral instead of exempting it from the strict neutrals proposition?
Imo it changes the game dynamics in that area of the board far too much. The UK is already ill advised to attack Persia on UK1 which means the Ottomans will have an opportunity to stack up in Persia on O1 in order to deter a UK2 attack. This would extend the time it takes to sink the Ottomans which was already in the turn 9-11 range. In order to prevent the stack up, the Russians might be encouraged to attack Meso or Persia on their first turn instead. There are other knock on affects that can come up as well. Since I don't believe the imbalance in the game comes from this area of the board and for the above reasons, I decided to advertise it as an exception. Awesome question btw.
I agree that it's much harder to win as the Central Powers to win than the Allies using out of box rules. When playing against myself, while it doesn't require that much work for the Allies to win, it takes quite a lot of major Allied mistakes to allow a Central Powers victory.
I'm well into my first game and I have a number of proposed house rules. I don't know if anyone will like them but here they are. Britain's navy is ridiculously underpowered on Turn 1. It is unlikely the German navy could so easily have sunk the British home fleet in the opening days of the war. With these changes you are more likely to get the intense land war the designers intended. 1) Switzerland is impassible. 2) The power that owns Constantinople controls passage through the Dardanelles Straight. 3) Britain gets an additional Battleship in Sea Zone 9 on setup. Germany gets 4 extra infantry in Berlin. 4) When playing the Russian Revolution, it can only be triggered when Moscow is contested at the end of the Russia turn. Moscow counts as an allied capital taken should The Revolution come.
Not in the near future, no. It takes about a year to stack the games needed to discuss the different versions in detail and I prefer to throw some light on the less popular versions of this games system. Global and 1942 SE have huge followings and don’t need my help at all but thank you for your vote of confidence.
I just picked up this game and got my first game in. I had the advantage of watching your series and took the central powers to victory. Is there anyone out there that makes a larger version of the game board?
Congratulations on your win as the CP! Here is a link to a high resolution map file. Take it down to fedex Kinkos and have it blown up to whatever size you want and print it on banner material. Just tell them "don't change the aspect ratio". Cost is dependent on what material you print on. www.mediafire.com/file/16smmk4e62zqslv/AA1914_map_with_harbours.png/file
Unless I'm forgetful, I think you have never explained why you decided to go with the out-of-the-box rules instead of the tournament ones, I'm wondering. Do you intend eventually to play with those as well?
I find it especially surprising giving the fact that those rules are also meant to rebalance the game, thus likely needing less unofficial rebalancing rules if any (since you apparently strive to keep close to official rules-sets in general).
It’s not explicitly stated in any video, but the banner on my homepage reads, “Playing and evaluating Axis and Allies games with the rule sets designed for their use.” My experience with the wider community (and with what I feel is an over saturation of house rules) is why I start with out-of-box rules. I am planning on playing tournament rules sometime in the future, yes. Reading through those rules, it sounds like an almost entirely different game.
Great series I just finished! I’m no where near as experienced but I do have a few questions. 1 is focusing india as the central powers impossible? Britain has a good economy but they can’t hold off the ottomans and Austria in the mid game by themselves right? And the multi national mostly infantry army on the western front seems horrible for putting up enough pressure to stop them. Faking it should at least make the French make offensive units right? It’s definitely pretty far out of the way and maybe I’m misjudging Germanys ability to hold France and Italy back. 2 have you ever tried alt history set ups? Me and my group do these every now and then and it definitely keeps it interesting. Germany France the ottomans USA vs Britain Austria Russia Italy and other sorts of mix up keep the map always interesting to us. (Also we get to be less competitive for a game lol). How would you rank each nation in which order you would pick them if you were picking for a alt history. Basically what’s your nation tier list. Thanks so much for the series I’ll definitely recommend it for new players getting into WW1! And feel free to ignore my goofy questions.
Glad you enjoyed the series. And I love to talk shop so as regards India - I have seen the CP win out against India but only against an inexperienced opponent. Between players of equal experience its basically not possible. Part of the reason why is that the UK has the strongest board economy and can spam an oversized Army into India relatively quickly. The Austrians and especially the Ottomans have weaker economies and multinational forces lose a lot of their power on the attack. E.g. the Ottomans and Austrians will be forced to attack piecemeal resulting in an unacceptable kill/loss ratio. Still, I wouldn't throw it out completely. The only way this game or any other like it advances is for players to try bold strategies to experiment with. If you think you've got something, I say give it a try. As for the west front, I will just say that this is my third series on Axis and Allies. The previous two were for Anniversary and Classic. In this context, 1914 is by far the most shockingly imbalanced. The Entente are incredibly overpowered so much so that I find it shocking that it "passed" playtesting in this configuration. The French and Italians can make easy work of the Germans if they decide to stand alone on the west front. I'm more confident of this than the UK being able to defend India from a combined Austrian/Ottoman attack. As for your second point, I just stick with the out-of-box rules for these games and only apply house rules in a minimalist manner and only for balance purposes. Thanks again! And thanks for the comment.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 that makes a lot of sense with trying to attack india. I’ll probably give it a swing next game if the opportunity presents itself!
Very informative series of videos, I played the original AandA back in the early 90s, I have not played in years but would like to get the 1914 game but how do you find people to pay with ?
Well, I'll always play with you (email is ryanvoz(at)yahoo.com) or there's the .org website. Specifically this link might help. Its the "player locator" part of the forum: www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/11/player-locator
I’ve always wanted to try bringing in the 1940 global neutral rule. Where if one of them is invaded the rest become alined to the other power. Not sure how much that would help but it seems to me like it would really disincentives attacking them yet still make it viable.
That would be fine except that the UK has to attack Persia at some point to get after the ottomans. Unless an exception is made, I see all neutrals being pro CP on turn 2 or 3.
@@thegoodcaptain1217Britain having to go around them would probably balance the game pretty heavily and be more historically accurate but I could definitely see it as not being as fun if you can’t have the March across the Middle East.
How many times have you placed tested your solution? And what would you have the Americans do now that you’ve taken away in your house rule the one thing you have the Americans doing?
At the time of this post, I have played at least 15 games against five different opponents in my recommended configuration. The game appears to work much better and opponents seem quite happy with how it plays out. I still accept any and all challenges. The game appears to still favor the Entente and I now recommend removing six to eight Russian artillery as well. The American strategy is the same. Getting “over there” involves a mild re-routing of forces.
Hey, I'm thinking of buying another A&A in addition to my Anniversary Version. I'm wavering between Europe 2nd and 1914, which game would you recommend? How are the playing times for both? Thanks for your reply.
Europe 2nd would be an easier transition as the ruleset is very, very similar to that of Anniversary. All three mentioned in this post have roughly the same playing times. 1914 will play longer the first few games since it is a wholly different game with very different dynamics. 1914 will have "culture shock", Europe 1940 will not. I also feel that Europe 40 is pretty well balanced - 1914 is not in my strong opinion. I would advise you give Europe 40 2nd edition your time/attention coming out of anniversary.
@@herrmatash3116 I think the Anniversary can fall heavily in favor of the Axis with the optional rules misaligned, namely the national objectives and even still, leans significantly in favor of the Axis. I feel the Europe 40 by itself is one of the best balanced versions in all AnA.
I really like the intention of the rule to have an option to slow down the enemys economy. But it should have much more impact. What do you think about making it similar to strategic bombing attack in the WW2-games? You roll a dice and the enemy loses as many IPCs the dice says. When you control all 3 zones that could result in a loss of 18! IPC for the Entente in the worst case. I think this would make the rule much more useful, also in mind that the Germans risk the USA entering the war earlier..
I'd be interested to see you give the LHTR a whirl, as they're rather elaborate and effectively create a completely different game from OOB due the huge number of mechanics changes (which is unheard of for patches authored by Larry, which usually just boil down to messing with the starting setup or lightly modifying some mechanics like AA Guns). Unfortunately there's no good way to actually play it at the moment without seriously torturing yourself on the already shoddy TripleA setup for this map. That aside, good series as always. It's amusing to me that when you started this trek you barely had any games in on this version but at this point you have ~3X the number of games played that I do. I can't really argue against any of your points although I was surprised to see you recommend physical changes to the game board (revision #4) as you typically stray away from that sort of thing. Personally speaking, I'd keep USA at 20 IPCs + letting them join on turn 4, but I would just have them 100% skip their first 3 turns. It achieves a similar goal to what you're proposing but is ever-so-slightly harsh on them as they don't "start" with 60 IPCs of value to slam into the Central Powers from the second they join the game. Might also incentivize naval play for Central Powers but I highly doubt they can actually manage anything against long-term.
RE: the map correction. I was surprised too and only made the recommendation after making sure it made sense in theory. Then of course I played it out against some in the opponent pool to ensure it didn't mess with other aspects of the game. I regret that such a wonderful game engine came out so poorly balanced.
I too saw that this game is kinda unbalanced. I noticed that German force in Africa where outnumbered, therefore I evened both sides and eliminated allied transports at the start in the Mediterranean. Now Germany has a chance to conqueror Africa or at least get more territories there. What do you think?
That would certain make things drag out in Africa. Most of my recommendations were as close a look at the root causes of the imbalance and minimalist corrections. I always felt Africa was fine at it is. But don't let me stop you. If you or your play group wanna give it a whirl, go for it. The CP absolutely need a lot of help in this game.
A major historical problem with inaccessible neutrals is that the Allied push from Greece into (Bulgarian controlled) Serbia (more specifically, Vardar Macedonia), knocking Bulgaria out of the war (under the Armistice of Thessalonica), was of relatively major significance. All that Balkan part of the war (already hardly visualizable at all in the current game) would be just ahistorically erased under the assumption of a permanently inaccessible Greece. Again, I concede that whatever historically based argument is inherently very weak when it comes to any Axis&Allies game, and I'm not saying that the game-play would go anywhere like that anyway, but taking Greece out of the playable map would make such matters even worse in principle. Would you consider remaking the present video excepting both Persia and Greece in your second custom rule?
No. I feel very strongly that Greece is part of the problem with regards to balance. And I think you hit the nail on the head with regards to historical arguments being very weak in relation to this game system.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Maybe the Kaiser felt something like that too when he wrote "Disgraceful! 62,000 Serbs decided the war!" (pasting from Wikipedia). Those Serbs crossed into Serbia from Greece (and made Bulgaria surrender).
Perhaps a way to do it is to balance it in some other way. If there's any part of the board where the Allies are ahistorically strong, remove the pieces there.
Perhaps Italy can be neutral for a turn under the same conditions the US is under (including no IPCs). It would allow the Austro-Hungarians to sink the British ships in the sea zone off of Egypt (forgot the number). It leaves Britain with one transport when it comes to their turn.
How have you been playing the physical versions of axis and Allies so much? Do you have a bunch of friends who also happen to have a lot of experience? Or is there some kind of game convention you go to?
@@Yash-lx5xr no. That’s the terrible version available on steam. All self respecting and serious players play on TripleA. Kinda kidding but not really.
…so let me know when you want to play a friendly game(s). Maybe you know something no one else figured out. I’ll take Entente with the out of box rules? We can play as many as you like via email so it’s not public. My email is ryanvoz(at)yahoo.com. If I’m wrong, I’ll issue a video correction and give you the credit. If you’re wrong, no harm, no foul - you’ll leave a better player.
@thegoodcaptain1217 Well, I have a strategy,The Central powers go defense against Russia.Germany and Austria attack lots elsewhere while the Ottomans try to hold off the British(my brother that i play with hasn't played axis and allies much so maybe it's just that.🤷♂️)
I think its "imbalanced" by design. The Central powers arent meant or likely to win long term wars. The same way that WW2 A&A dont have the same stakes and does have some points of no return too - so it is so with WW1 1914 A&A. In your analysis, i struggle to quantify the IPC/or state of the game. Is it like in your map in which Russia is conquered and the Ottoman almost out? The allies do have to deal with other realities that this IPC difference that you mention isnt really that relevant for some time. As for the neutral countries part: It should be *similar* to the rules in 1940 global: if you invade a neutral country, all the other ones joins the opposite faction ( with troops equal to the IPC value) Balance isnt just based on IPC amount, like the start of the game - not everything is "balanced" from numerical standpoints - there are trade offs. The question is, do the CP have enough forces early to compensate or enough turns before the US joins or Russia leaves? Thats all part of overall balance and not simply "at this point int time, its imba because the IPC is different" Thats not a good way to judge balance in a game.
In descending order: 1) I totally disagree with this for multiple reason. I recently playtested AnA Africa for Renegade and balance was a very high concern of L. Harris and the design team. Further, AnA games have a strong history of errata being released with balance provisions for the "weaker" side (Anniversary, Pacific '41 are clearest examples). Finally, in a game that is barely more complex than Risk, I see no reason to nearly guarantee that one side wins over the other in a game of domination. 2) I've now played nearly 70 games of 1914 in the past two years against 16 different opponents and yes, that is a very reliable game state by turn 10 even with newer players in my experience - that's why I resumed myself at the top of the video and executed that segment of the video. I don't know what your referencing in the second sentence. 3) That's ...a way of doing it, sure. 4) To make this comment, I feel like you didn't watch the entire video or at least missed the comments I make starting at 4:04. I think this is an unfair criticism.
Instead of banning invasion of unaligned neutrals could you simply say that the Entente powers cannot collect IPCs from controlled unaligned neutrals? That gives more options, has fewer exceptions, and still helps the income disparity.
In my experience, it gives the Entente a disproportionate number of options. Greece, Spain, Spanish Morocco (and arguably Switzerland) are of great strategic help to a clever Entente player.
I think that the British should not b able to build only infantry in India, there were no factorys or machine tools to produce anything else , plus Belgium should be allied to the British !!!! as the invasion by Germany was the reason , excuse to join the fighting .there's some cards for this game which should spice things up as well , plus on a diplomatic front Turkey wanted to join on the other side!!! but obviously england didn't want a victoris turk in their area !!! which means italy would have joined central powers as Turkey is their no 1 enemy , very interesting options to explore,
I don't see how the Allies can possibly win with the OOB rules. Once Russia and the Balkans are conquered, the Ottomans take Bulgaria and Sebastopol, and Austria takes Italy, the Central Powers have a 40 point lead in IPCs. Paris is toast. It seems to me Austria is overpowered and the US, Britain, and France are underpowered. Also the British Atlantic Fleet is significantly understrength at the beginning of the game.
I feel like you didn’t watch the video but… this is likely the most imbalanced version of Axis and Allies of the entire series of games. If you feel strongly otherwise, consider this an open invitation for a friendly game. I will take Entente oob.
The funny thing about what you say happens arround the 12th turn is nothing else than a clear depiction of historical reality. WW1 was not "balanced", the central Powers never had any fighting chance, and most of their victories and initial conquests were, to tell the truth, the result of the fact that many Entente leaders were even less competent than the Austro-Hungarians ones, which should have been a technical impossibility. If the game shows this reality... then... it is a very accurate historical simulation. The only way to make it more fun is to polay it unhistorically - e.g. italy does not join the Entente, the US does not enter war ... etc
If you're coming to any version of Axis and Allies seeking an accurate historical simulator, you will be sorely disappointed. These games are barely more complicated than Risk.
Its good to use these rules and implement them with the larry harris modifications? Also after playing a while against other players as almost always CP , i came to the solution that ottomans should start with 1 battleship with 2 cruisers as usual, and remove russia navy, russia is already pretty strong, giving them a free navy is pointless,and make no sense , overall great video👍👍
Ottoman's should at least start with 2-3 more icp in my strong opinion I get maybe it's supposed to be scripted but not very fun to play something scripted and ottomans are one of thee most unique factions in game and in history so it seems dishonest to me to portrait them as very weak as occurred in game
Played well, they can be lethal. As regards your comment about history and the game portraying them dishonestly... I don't quite follow that logic. They were very weak and were referred to as the "sick man" of Europe.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 thanks for the reply and perhaps but I have to assume against people who may not know how to fight England but they were weak to a degree but if they were so weak how'd they hold 3 front war between Arabia Russia and England???
@@jacobcathcart5091 and played well they can hold until between rounds 10-12 at least. Seems right to me. I feel the game designers nailed that part of the game. With that said, if you or your play group wanted to give them the aforementioned bump, I don’t think that would foul with things too much down there and would extend the life of that power by another turn or two.
Congrats on your effort but permit me to disagree. 1) The unbalance is an essential element of the game and shouldn't be seen as a negative: the game is a race against time for the Central Power (or Axis in WW2). 2) Instead of messing up with the game with ever crazier house rules, hyper-experienced players should consider retiring from A&A and explore other games or hobbies.
I would caution against saying “…I’ve never seen this or that side win.” I’ve heard this a lot and now interpret this to essentially be a declaration of inexperience by the person saying it. If you’d ever like to play a friendly, out of box game, I have no problem taking the CP. I feel strongly you’ll be surprised.
I have not seen it whoudl be silly to say sothing else. The out of box game is like a non final game to me, fun but extremly scripted with buggy features. I am in the European CET timezone but thees echnages listed here all seem very sound. Whould not hesitate to try them out (if our day-night ...schdule is compatible). I will try these thinsg listed here (except maybye weakining Italys starting army) for sure next time around. @@thegoodcaptain1217
![YoungBoy Never Broke Again - Sneaking [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ILUps2zDFU/mqdefault.jpg)
I like the "Switzerland is impassable" rule.
🗿
You gotta respect the time that he puts into these videos. Great script and great editing, lots interesting and insightful information here. Probably the best a&a content on theis webisite. I dont think I've felt this way about an axis and allies channel since i found corporal clegg's videos
I appreciate that! The Corporal is the only other AnA RUclipsr who I will stop to watch so that comment is high praise to me.
Another great series on Axis & Allies. Learned a lot from it - thank you. Just picked up my first copy and have played only 1 game so far, but both my son and I really enjoyed it and look forward to our next one.
- Great shout outs to the Community as well.
Awesome comment! Happy gaming!
And yet another Axis & Allies 'brain puzzle' solved. This was a great series. The thing about WW1 1914, is that even if both sides play the optimal strategy every time, the game doesn't become boring. The tactical depth in this game adds so much, which makes it very engaging and tense.
It would be cool if Renegade Games listened to your video and implemented the balancing changes in the reprint you mentioned!
Thank you for your kind words my friend. And thank you again for keeping this game alive on TripleA.
I feel like the Gen Con tournament rules are much better then the rules you showed in this video. Atm we find that a bid of 12 to the CP balances it fairly way.
Great video mate!
I haven't even played the game yet but I have listened to your amendments carefully and even without experience, I think you have really understood the game and made some excellent changes to balance the game up. Well done.
Much appreciated.
I just set this game up today. Ive never played, so Im looking for videos exactly like this! Thanks. I know many of the A&A games are not balanced, and Im glad there is a large community of players like you.
Im in round 11 of a solo game and the board looks almost exactly what you predicted. Aye aye Captain!
I’ve watched the whole series and this culmination video. Awesome job on the entire effort. There is a dearth of in-depth strategy content for 1914 on RUclips so thank you for filling the gap!
We have taken your recommended balancing rules after playing normal out-of-the-box rules for our first game. The second game with the balancing was somewhat one sided in favor of the Central Powers but I think that was mainly due to ridiculous luck that knocked out Russia on turn 4 and a massive culling of French forces in the West. Additionally, the German navy survived into turn 4 parked in the English Channel (bad die rolls for the Entente) and basically delayed Great Britain being able to land the BEF in Europe until turn 5. Finally, overall inexperience of all players lent to the somewhat one-sided nature of the game. I played as Germany and my friend played as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire after having watched your entire 1914 series. I think this gave us a leg up out of the gate while the Entente players suffered from plain old bad luck and tentative play all around.
For instance, Great Britain made no move against the Turks until turn 3, giving the Ottoman player a surprising defensive wall next to Persia by the time the British forces attempted to break through there.
All in all, I really like your balancing recommendations, but the Entente players were salty so we’re going to try out-of-the-box rules again and see how that goes now that we know the game a bit better.
Funnily enough, the American/Italian player was most salty about the rule that shuts down IPC production in a contested territory. Being an original rule, I thought it funny he had issue with that one. I think the abstraction of the grinding nature of fully industrialized warfare manifested in the one round combat combined with no IPC production is a great example of why this version of A&A is fantastic.
Can’t wait for your next series. I know a lot of folks have asked for you to consider looking at the 1914 tournament rules. I would ask that, if you have access to the game (understandable if not), you consider providing a breakdown of Larry Harris’s War Room. The mechanics that game features are very deep and satisfying while being presented in a relatively easily digestible ruleset. I think your mind applied to that game’s puzzle would be endlessly fascinating.
Regardless, I look forward to your future videos, whatever the topic. Great job and thank you!
I think this is my overall favorite comment on the channel to date. Really glad to hear you pulled a CP win - its tough to do, even with those balances. As of this date, when I square up against better players of 1914, we use all the balances in addition to removing six Russian artillery and its still a tough slog for the CP. If you or especially your opponents would like a friendly game with all the balances up to and including removing six Russian artillery, I will happily play a game(s) as either side over TripleA. I'm always playing. My next series will be on D-Day and then I cannot make any promises as I'm having a baby in June (our first). I'll always be rolling dice and scripting videos its just that it may take longer to do after that. Thanks for the comment. I read it three times and it made my day.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 I’m so glad I was able to make your day, Good Captain! That’s great to hear.
I am glad we pulled the win as well, I just wish the Entente players thought it legitimate but I don’t think they did based on the rants they went on about the lack of balance, the rules, etc. 🤣 Again, I can taste the salt!
Early congratulations on your child! My wife and I welcomed our first in 2022, she is just over a year now. What a wonderful thing it is to be a father. Beautiful memories and experiences await! As you can imagine and might soon experience, my time for hobbies has been pretty limited over the course of the last year. It has gotten better as my daughter has gotten older, but my wife and I live far, far away from both of our families because of my job. As a result, it’s just us two and we don’t really have grandparent or aunt/uncle help. If we did, I imagine I would be able to play Axis and Allies and work on my truck more than I currently do haha.
Anyway, all that to say I am definitely wanting to play Triple A and I imagine a couple of my pals would want to as well, will have to let you know when I have some time. Family is coming into town to visit this coming week but I imagine I’ll have time between Christmas and the first week of January.
I will respond back to this comment thread when I find some time, which I surely hope to do. I think it would be a blast. Again, congrats on being a future dad and happy holidays, Captain, take care and be safe. Best wishes to you and your family.
@@Gibsonrick81 all that was very nice to read. Thank you and of course you can respond back here anytime or you can email me at ryanvoz(at)yahoo(dot)com. Consider it a friendly and open invitation. =)
Hi again Good Captain, I was trying to test out the 1914 map on Triple A in the hopes of eventually getting a game going between us, but I keep getting the following error when I try to load the 1914 map:
"java.lang.IllegalStateException: Error in resource loading. Unable to load expected resource: polygons.txt, the error is that either we did not find the correct path to load. Check the resource loader to make sure the map zip or dir was added. Failing that, the path in this error message should be available relative to the map folder, or relative to the root of the map zip"
Have you received this error before? I tried searching the forums but have only found folks reporting the error but no solutions. I checked the files in my programs, and the zip drive is added, I even unzipped it and tried again. Any help you can lend, if you have seen this error before, would be greatly appreciated. Have a great day.
@@thegoodcaptain1217Aye, aye, Captain! I will be sure to reach out. Happy new year to you and your family :)
Great series man! Cant wait to see what you jave in store next! Hilltop is a real gentleman, i got the pleasure to play with him once because i won a contest, had a great tike even though i got absolutely smoked. He said he do a rematch sometime i just havent found the time yet.
A well done conclusion to this series. My friends and I look forward to playing the game with your recommendations for rebalance. In addition we would look forward to your analysis of playing the game with tournament rules. In the mean time, we will also play the tournament rules game and applying your recommendations for rebalance.
The tournament rules are so different than out of box rules, that playing that variant may in fact already be a balanced game. All the same, thanks for the kind words.
Thanks CAPTAIN
Note on the sea zone 17 and 18 change:
This change makes the Austro-Hungarian-Ottoman naval moves into sea zone 17 sightly less effective, as the Italian transport in sea zone 17 can move into sea zone 18 and take an infantry from Tuscany or Venice and activate Albania (assuming it risks the mine, of course).
Thanks for the video. I've actually been putting together a summary of the rules for 1914, and was wondering if I could include your balancing rules with credit? I've posted the doc in the game's BGG forum.
@@wm1pyro604 of course, no problem at all.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Great thanks! Also any specific regions you'd recommend removing the 6-8 Russian artillery from?
A five star series! Truly well done and likely the best resource for any players of A&A1914.
The layout, the depth, the sound and video quality. Congratulations on a truly exceptional set of videos!
I appreciate this very much. So much time is spent on everything you mention being dialed in just right. This video, for example, took the better part of two weekends. So thank you my friend.
@thegoodcaptain1217
Oh I can imagine!
It takes a hell of a time to do anything with this level of smoothness. The video cuts, the visual aids, the ease of the script.
I actually listened to your video first, and I didn't realize until I watched it later that you have cuts in your shots! In regards to audio I couldn't tell at all. You maintain the same tone and energy and its very smoothly done.
Do you use a script or do you wing it?
I tend to do the intros to my videos 20 times until i get it right, and then just wing it the rest of the way.
Anyways! Great stuff!
I look forward to more videos, and if you ever fancy a game, hook me up!
Another idea for the neutrals is the g40 rule about attacking neutrals. If the opposite side attacks a strict neutral then they will join the side that did not attack them.
The G40 rule is that ALL strict neutrals align with the opposing side. Since the UK essentially MUST attack Persia, that means Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Greece would likely all fall in with the CP. Its an ahistorical mess but ...yeah that would help with balance. My recommendations were more aimed at fixing route causes.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 With this G40 rule, nobody in his mind would attack a neutral ever, because having ALL neutrals against one would give the enemy a huge advantage.
I like the neutral rule as it is: You may attack one neutral power, but this neutral will instantly join the opposite site, giving them some free units. Just Switzerland needs an higher IPC value and in result more defending units to be a higher thread and for historical accurations.
@@MrSnaetch as stated (and fleshed out) in the video, the oob neutral rule rather easily makes the imbalanced economic situation even more so.
Great insight
Just playtested a game. You're right, it's definitely much easier for the Central Powers to win and it barely affects the game.
I really enjoyed the series
Necessary to balance the game and to comply with historical rigor is that Italy enter the war in 1915 (second turn). With this addition, it is not necessary to postpone the entry of the United States into the war until 1918, but to leave it as it historically was in 1917. I agree with the need for the United States not to acquire IPC until its entry into the war, the same thing that should happen with Italy
The fundamental issue with this comment is that time is intentionally extrapolated in every economy based version of Axis and Allies.
once again, thanks for the link on the TripleA map, I've tried it (playing vs myself, to see the game mech etc), and I can say it's a REALLY hard game! And yes, it is Allied favored, I agree.
I've even had quite a strong Axis opening, excellent fleet dice which postponed any Allied fleet engagements (even having some German fleet in port threatening northern Allied lines), Axis managed to take Moscow eventually without too many losses (still a 3-4 round battle) and Ottomans managed to defend in Mesopotamia for a long long time, then even repulsed the British in Constantinople (with taking AU casualties on the initial British attacks), AU has a massive stack in Trieste, even pushed Germans midgame through Switzerland to take out Rome (which Italy expedition I now believe was a strategic mistake, they eventually lost it to US and thus lots of the best troops gone, Switzerland was fine though)....
Still France outpaces Germany in production (twas AU's task to take out Russia so it reaped the IPC benefits). So Germans are on defense all the time, with some German territories contested continually (at least not Ruhr).
But I definitely agree that the possibility that UK builds as many as they wish in India, outpacing anything the Ottomans can produce at a huge margin, and the involvement of the US pretty early is a major problem for the Axis. This even as I had to sacrifice a round of US produce to make 4 more transports in order to contest immediately the Germans in Italy (well payed off in the long run since they did get wiped by US infantry numbers).
Another thing with taking Russia as Axis: yes it pays off, but again the UK can always land troops in Karelia via the north passage and recreate Russia in 2 rounds. So, AU must keep a number of defensive troops all the time there. Also AU had to sacrifice a huge amount of troops to save Constantinople (again, vs a great Ottoman early to mid game) and now it's Russian possessions are under threat fro India too... Hard to take and hard to keep Russia, as UK always has a 2-3 rounds attack on Moscow from any factory, while Axis can buy troops only in their own capitols (and are constantly fed towards the West or Albania)...
Had I mentioned the Allied didn't even have the time to take Greece?!? Geez
14:25 Thanks for sharing this. I never knew about this rule! I am sure I have done this wrong several times in my games lol.
Thanks a lot for doing this series. A&A 1914 is a special game and feels very different compared to other A&A games. It's very interesting to see what your thoughts are on this version. I am glad that I took part in this, and I enjoyed our games a lot.
I feel like when I play the Entente, the Americans are not fast enough to bolster the frontline. What then happens is that the CP units outnumber my troops and start slowly pushing back, often causing problems. At some point, they break through Switzerland or Burgundy, and then I have a hard time defending all territories.
I feel the same in our ongoing game (sorry for just leaving that game, I was getting very busy at the time and the game was becoming so complex, that I had to spend a lot of time on my moves. I wanted to take every possibility into consideration, and didn't dare to make a move, because it maybe could lose the game). I also feel that this might happen in my game with Ragnell too. In the middle and late stages of the game, I always find the scariest, because one bad move and the CP might break through and pose serious problems.
You mentioned that the game is more balanced if you make USA weaker by removing their starting money and allowing them to join on turn 5. In that case, there must be a better way to defend the Western Front, because even without the debuff I am having trouble lol :) My strategy is to just build lots of infantry, and keep building and building, hoping that the economic difference will eventually pay itself off, but even with OOB rules, I find it hard. Maybe it has to do with making absolutely sure that Switzerland doesn't fall, but I always fear that Northern France is then susceptible to attacks.
Anyway, if you feel like continuing our game, I'd be happy to pick it up again. If you prefer, we could start a new one as well.
P.S. If you want to dive into Anniversary 1942 at some point, I would love to play a game of that with you. I've been playing a couple of games against opponents online, and I really like the 1942 setup. I think it's a very interesting game and also a very different experience compared to 1941.
Well the rules also say Switzerland is impassable. Perhaps that will help with your problems.
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing VF is talking about the out of box rule regarding movement out of a contested zone, not the optional rule I recommend for balance.
The Entente just don't need to move past Venice for Italy or Alsace for France when playing with out of box rules. The Americans don't need to shuck past Spain. The British are the only ones that need to push into/through Constantinople - everyone else just needs to hold. To do otherwise is good news for the CP. This is non-intuitive for most Entente players imo. I can't start any new games at the moment but reach out in a month if you'd like to play a game. I should be freed up quite a bit by then. Hope you are well my friend.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 I'm unsure who misunderstood who.
Anyhow, I thought Victory First was talking about how he thinks it's hard to defend and mentioned Switzerland as being a burden to defend and a pain when the Central Powers break through.
I was thinking that with your rule this wouldn't be a problem and wrote taht.
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing
I mentioned both things in my comment, so you are both correct.
Yes, you are right about when Switzerland is impassable, it will be easier for the Entente to hold the line. Then the US debuff would be a way to balance it all out.
@thegoodcaptain1217 Thanks for the explanation. I'm looking forward to playing another game with you.
Nice series, one question though about the AAA 1914 games you mentioned you played: which map are you playing on?!? I can't find this map and rules applicaple on the download tab of AAA, thus I ask. Thanks in advance!
EDIT about the proposed changes for balance:
1. US should enter later anyway, even historically better
2. I understand from the playability point of view, still I strongly disagree due to the historical importance of Greece, namely the Thessaloniki (or southern) front being one very important front in Europe, with UK, French, Serbian and even Italian troops fighting AU, German and Bulgarian troops very hard until it got broken by Entente in late 1918.
Maybe another way of dealing with the added IPC gain that Entente gets from these invasions could be reducing the IPC value of these territories along adding defensive troops in them, so the punishment vs the gains would make Entente much more reluctant to take these neutrals, especially if mainly planning on getting IPC advantage (but would still be able to for strategic purposes, while actually losing lots of IPC value in troops for it)
3. The Sea of Marmara was and always will be dependent on the owner of Constantinople / Istanbul. There is no historical way of getting anything through if one does not control the land around the Straits, so totally historically correct along being a welcome change of balance
4. Same with the SZ 18 border: the AU navy spent its time as a fleet in being, at Kotor / Cattaro, and it's mere presence completely prevented Entente's navy entrance through Otranto (the strait between Italy and Albania) that is the entrance into the Adriatic (the new proposed line btw). Any Entente landings in Albania or core AU territories would have been completely broken by an exiting AU navy, thus they weren't even planned. The proposed expanded SZ 18 is the Adriatic sea and it is by definition it's own body of water connected to the Med and always was strategically a whole, since it is rather small and in reality can be traversed in its length by a navy in cca a full day of sailing under steam, and across in less than a night. Meanwhile the SZ 17 as original is a much larger body of sea in the Med and has a choke point towards the Adriatic, and this should be addressed.
5. The Italian Isonzo front opened in 1915. historically never moved an inch towards Austria, in fact 10 offensives got completely broken and then the AU (with German help, again...) did their one and only offensive, broke through the Italian defenses and took 150km of territory and nearly walked into Venice, where they were finally stopped on the banks of the Piave river. Even more important, the Italian front was a "sidefront" for the AU since they had extremely good defensive positions and didn't really have to spend lots of troops and supplies (comparing to East and South fronts) to hold, so it is very historically inaccurate to have Italy as a gigachad nation that can break at will AU defenses and waltz into Tyrol or Trieste. So, again, definitely yes :)
Answering your question: www.mediafire.com/file/6l8ni5rzkruakro/world_war_i_1914.zip/file download this file and here are the instructions to get it on your TripleA: You have to move the unzipped map to the downloadedMaps folder in the folder where you installed Triplea. Reboot the game and look for 1914.
On your very detailed critique of the optional rules suggested: First, well lettered. You clearly know your WWI history. However, I notice that most of your agrees/disagrees have to do with a historical basis. I caution against holding Axis and Allies games to this level of scrutiny. Given its scope and complexity level (very low compared to hex based wargames), I feel strongly that axis and allies as a game system should not have its historical 'feet held to the fire'. I feel that axis and allies is far closer in complexity to Risk than hex based, high complexity wargames that encompass the depth of historical accuracy you are quoting. A large degree of extrapolation is what makes these games so attractive to a wider audience. Another supporting argument I have and just to take your disagreement on the 'no neutrals' rule as a case in point: If you disallow neutrals but make Greece fair game, then let me say from my many games of experience what is mostly likely to happen here. The USA can (and perhaps should) invade this country and cause the immediate collapses of the Ottoman fronts to it's east and south as they rush back to defend their capital (since Greece is adjacent). And so how historical is that? I grant that there was some interesting fighting in Greece during the actual war but in the scope of this game and given its low complexity, I feel that this aspect of the war is best extrapolated by leaving Greece neutral and uninvadable. Whatever happened in real life is still happening there, it just has no affect on the game you're playing in the context of Axis and Allies 1914.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 thanks for the link, I did download it but alas to no avail. Doesn't work for me :( Gives an error window as soon as I start the game...
True about the agree/disagree, I enjoyed that most of your playability driven proposals actually do coincide :)
About the Thesalloniki front and Greece situation overall: thinking a bit more about it from a historical point of view, the existence of that front was just too much for AU and Germany to handle. TBH the Central powers nearly won the war in Europe (Russia out of it, 1918 France offensive broke through but couldn't capitalize, Isonzo front broken and Italy in retreat asking help from Allies...). The one front where they never managed to really break it was exactly Greece.
Since Centrals, in reality, couldn't win the war, and this IS a boardgame that should allow a Central player to win, missing that one front might allow the Centrals to carry, you are correct :)
EDIT: found how to make the map work, it HAS to be unzipped and this I didn't do (the other maps are zipped and work, this one not...) my bad for not reading clearly your instructions :)
Can you pls make a video series on A&A G-40?
I have the J1 video up on this channel so I have touched on G40 for Japan at least. So much of the axis and allies community plays that particular version that I don't feel it needs my help. I would rather throw daylight on all these other great games. Additionally, the allied strategy is a mystery to me and would require me to stack 20-30 games with them just to get the basics down. I hate to say this but I haven't seen anything that approaches a coherent allied strategy for that version. Anyway, I'm not saying 'never' but I have to say 'not right now'.
I had the same problem with French troops in Albania as early as round 4/5. Really annoying to have to deal with that if you haven't taken Russia.
My thoughts on tanks are a bit more negative. I thought at first it was the best unit in the game, but I wanted to find out for sure so I did a bunch of tests with the battle calculator. I set a number of 105 IPCs and bought several different types of armies from it, ranging from 35 infantry, 14 inf + 14 art + fighter, 17 tanks and one infantry, a balanced army, and so on, up to a number of six armies in total. I then put all six armies against each other and used the TripleA battle calculator to calculate the TUV swing, both for an attack as well as a potential counter-attack by the defending army, to find out which combination of units was the best.
It turns out, that the army of 17 tanks is the only one that has a positive TUV swing when attacking 35 infantry. That sounds good, but when the remainder of the infantry counter-attacks the tank force, the TUV swing starts swinging heavily in favor of the infantry. This is because defending tanks are so extremely bad, and are quite expensive compared to the other units. In the end, the tank army performed worse than most other armies.
The army that performed the best was the 14 inf + 14 art + fighter army. That one was almost on par with attacking the 35 infantry and only pulled off victories against the other armies.
So what I think is the best army composition, is an army containing a more or less equal amount of infantry and artillery (preferably a bit more infantry than artillery to soak up hits so that the artillery won't get killed in battle), and as many air units possible because the air supremacy is very important. I think tanks are only better if you attack someone with an inferior army. That way, the tanks will be able to absorb all the hits when attacking and the enemy won't be able to inflict as much damage when defending. However, if you are attacking an army that is almost as strong as yours, the tanks will fight like paper during the counter-attack, and in the long run you will become at a disadvantage just because the numbers aren't in your favor.
I 100% agree with your stats but feel they might not be capturing the complete picture. I think the tanks true power pays out and is more visible after multiple battles, not ever a single battle. I've played enough to see opponents over invest in "core" units and yes I've seen the bizarre tank spam where the ratio is not ideal (which I still believe is 1 tank for every 8 -10 infantry). These armies are 'anemic' and are VERY vulnerable to counterattack as you identify. What I feel might be missing from your valuations is projections turn over turn and battle after battle. I think that tanks are an economic weapon more than anything else - they pay the owner back in IPC not lost - while your opponent on the defense just bleeds. With that as a foundation, imo an ideal German army on the hunt against france would looks something like 70 infantry 20 artillery and 6-8 tanks as the head of snake of units that traces all the way back to Berlin. This is what I call the "supply train" and should consist of 95% infantry at least (to replace losses at the front after battles). Anyway, I think multiple rounds of offensive combat far away from the production center are when the tanks show their value and as of this writing, I feel they are a necessity in this case. I would also make the same argument for the UK smashing through the Ottomans. Or the Austrians on the Italian front....
I found the 1914 Calculator. Knowing the typical odds certainly makes a difference. This is a game of infantry, artillery, and fighters. The attacker needs a force of 2:1 Infantry to Artillery and at least 1.5x as much as the defender overall. Once the attacker has sufficient artillery they need infantry to soak up battle casualties so there is no point in purchasing additional artillery unless creating new spearheads. The aggressor should maintain air superiority on all attacks. The defender needs less artillery, about 2/3 as much (3:1), but enough to make a difference should the defender achieve air superiority. The defender should continually try to wrest air superiority from the attacker to blunt their offensive. Tanks are useful only on offense and should not be purchased before attacker air superiority becomes unshakable.
For the most part, yes this sounds right. Air superiority sorta goes to the player who has the larger economy in my experience.
@@thegoodcaptain1217I have a "house rule" that limits each powers Air units to 8 (due to logistics). Otherwise powers just keep building air units and nobody attacks.
The Veteran played with you? I'm playing a Global 1940 house rule variant with him on TripleA. Am surprised that he played so much with you.
Unfortunately he hasn't responded in a month, I hope he's doing okay.
Glad to learn more about Ragnel804. Very cool that you played with him.
I assume me and Tamer of Beasts were one of those 11 opponents?
Shout out to me, SuperbattleshipYamato, and Tamer of Beasts (if that sounded weird, I'll just say I guess I was doing the shouting out for him, because, as he mentioned, he didn't have the time).
Hey bud : TheVeteran here : yea I’ve been on a break from TripleA for over a month now - sorry about not responding .also TheGoosCaptain and I have completed 12 games against each other and the record is 6-6. We have game 13 on pause but I’m gonna start it again.
@@TheGlobalWarVeteran Impressive.
I'm glad to know you're still here. 👍
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing Ty the games I beat him in I feel were his very first games as CP and it was his learning curve period. Entente have the advantage when the CP player isn’t experienced. I have not won a single game with the CP against him or ragnell.
@@TheGlobalWarVeteran Oh. That's why. Still impressive.
As he mentioned, The Good Captain is unbeatable as the Allies.
Do you still think you can beat him as the Allies? thank you!
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing possibly : our current game is on the end of round 5 and I think it’s going alright. This game has no house rules.
Also : there is no “Allie’s” faction in WW1. They’re called the entente powers 😁
I'm surprised you mentioned Greece when talking about neutrals.
What is the significance of the territory, why should you invade it, and why did you not mention it at all in your videos? Thank you!
Similar to Albania. Easy to access with the added pressure of being adjacent to Constantinople. More IPC for the Entente that they just don’t need. I didn’t address it mostly bc the argument would have been repetitive and also bc in 52 games, I only saw it used twice by the Entente.
In both games it causes the near instant collapse of the ottoman positions in the east against the British as the Turks now have to spend units on capital defense.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Thank you! I'll definitely test it in a game I'm playing against myself.
To clarify on the Dardanelles balance rule:
A sea combat unit (say, a battleship) in sea zone 17 or 19 can engage an opponent's ships in sea zone 20, even if the opponent controls Constantinople?
So on Turn 1 the British cruiser can attack the Ottoman starting ships? Thank you!
Correct.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Thank you!
On a related note, I assume the Dardanelles work the other way? So the Russian cruisers in sea zone 21 can't move into the Mediterrean even if there aren't any Central Powers naval units blocking them?
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing right, it’s blocked to the entente both ways until Constantinople changes ownership
Would it make sense to change Persia from a strict neutral into an Ottoman aligned neutral instead of exempting it from the strict neutrals proposition?
Imo it changes the game dynamics in that area of the board far too much. The UK is already ill advised to attack Persia on UK1 which means the Ottomans will have an opportunity to stack up in Persia on O1 in order to deter a UK2 attack. This would extend the time it takes to sink the Ottomans which was already in the turn 9-11 range. In order to prevent the stack up, the Russians might be encouraged to attack Meso or Persia on their first turn instead. There are other knock on affects that can come up as well. Since I don't believe the imbalance in the game comes from this area of the board and for the above reasons, I decided to advertise it as an exception. Awesome question btw.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 fair enough. Thanks for the reply and review! Will have to try it out :)
I agree that it's much harder to win as the Central Powers to win than the Allies using out of box rules.
When playing against myself, while it doesn't require that much work for the Allies to win, it takes quite a lot of major Allied mistakes to allow a Central Powers victory.
I'm well into my first game and I have a number of proposed house rules. I don't know if anyone will like them but here they are. Britain's navy is ridiculously underpowered on Turn 1. It is unlikely the German navy could so easily have sunk the British home fleet in the opening days of the war. With these changes you are more likely to get the intense land war the designers intended.
1) Switzerland is impassible.
2) The power that owns Constantinople controls passage through the Dardanelles Straight.
3) Britain gets an additional Battleship in Sea Zone 9 on setup. Germany gets 4 extra infantry in Berlin.
4) When playing the Russian Revolution, it can only be triggered when Moscow is contested at the end of the Russia turn. Moscow counts as an allied capital taken should The Revolution come.
Cool! Might give 4-5 infantry to Berlin instead though. Germany could really use more infantry, they already have almost way too much artillery.
Sounds good. Changed.@@AChannelThatDoesNothing
In the real war germany could have won the war in any of these years. 1914, 1915, 1916 and 1917. The game does not show that. Still a great game.
I don't know any version of Axis and Allies that defines how long a turn is. The exception is Africa.
Next will you go over the 1942 second edition strategies?
Not in the near future, no. It takes about a year to stack the games needed to discuss the different versions in detail and I prefer to throw some light on the less popular versions of this games system. Global and 1942 SE have huge followings and don’t need my help at all but thank you for your vote of confidence.
I just picked up this game and got my first game in. I had the advantage of watching your series and took the central powers to victory. Is there anyone out there that makes a larger version of the game board?
Congratulations on your win as the CP! Here is a link to a high resolution map file. Take it down to fedex Kinkos and have it blown up to whatever size you want and print it on banner material. Just tell them "don't change the aspect ratio". Cost is dependent on what material you print on. www.mediafire.com/file/16smmk4e62zqslv/AA1914_map_with_harbours.png/file
Unless I'm forgetful, I think you have never explained why you decided to go with the out-of-the-box rules instead of the tournament ones, I'm wondering. Do you intend eventually to play with those as well?
I find it especially surprising giving the fact that those rules are also meant to rebalance the game, thus likely needing less unofficial rebalancing rules if any (since you apparently strive to keep close to official rules-sets in general).
It’s not explicitly stated in any video, but the banner on my homepage reads, “Playing and evaluating Axis and Allies games with the rule sets designed for their use.”
My experience with the wider community (and with what I feel is an over saturation of house rules) is why I start with out-of-box rules.
I am planning on playing tournament rules sometime in the future, yes. Reading through those rules, it sounds like an almost entirely different game.
@@cernel5799 I don’t feel it should come off as surprising given the history of what I’ve done on this channel.
Great series I just finished! I’m no where near as experienced but I do have a few questions.
1 is focusing india as the central powers impossible? Britain has a good economy but they can’t hold off the ottomans and Austria in the mid game by themselves right? And the multi national mostly infantry army on the western front seems horrible for putting up enough pressure to stop them. Faking it should at least make the French make offensive units right? It’s definitely pretty far out of the way and maybe I’m misjudging Germanys ability to hold France and Italy back.
2 have you ever tried alt history set ups? Me and my group do these every now and then and it definitely keeps it interesting. Germany France the ottomans USA vs Britain Austria Russia Italy and other sorts of mix up keep the map always interesting to us. (Also we get to be less competitive for a game lol). How would you rank each nation in which order you would pick them if you were picking for a alt history. Basically what’s your nation tier list.
Thanks so much for the series I’ll definitely recommend it for new players getting into WW1! And feel free to ignore my goofy questions.
Glad you enjoyed the series. And I love to talk shop so as regards India - I have seen the CP win out against India but only against an inexperienced opponent. Between players of equal experience its basically not possible. Part of the reason why is that the UK has the strongest board economy and can spam an oversized Army into India relatively quickly. The Austrians and especially the Ottomans have weaker economies and multinational forces lose a lot of their power on the attack. E.g. the Ottomans and Austrians will be forced to attack piecemeal resulting in an unacceptable kill/loss ratio. Still, I wouldn't throw it out completely. The only way this game or any other like it advances is for players to try bold strategies to experiment with. If you think you've got something, I say give it a try. As for the west front, I will just say that this is my third series on Axis and Allies. The previous two were for Anniversary and Classic. In this context, 1914 is by far the most shockingly imbalanced. The Entente are incredibly overpowered so much so that I find it shocking that it "passed" playtesting in this configuration. The French and Italians can make easy work of the Germans if they decide to stand alone on the west front. I'm more confident of this than the UK being able to defend India from a combined Austrian/Ottoman attack. As for your second point, I just stick with the out-of-box rules for these games and only apply house rules in a minimalist manner and only for balance purposes. Thanks again! And thanks for the comment.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 that makes a lot of sense with trying to attack india. I’ll probably give it a swing next game if the opportunity presents itself!
@@Gingerbreadley if you or your opponents ever want to play a friendly game, just give me a holler :)
Awesome!
Is the game in background the new one or the old one?
Also, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? Thank you!
I had to go check the box, lol. Its the new one with the little "R" in the bottom right corner. I'm 37.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Thanks for responding! 👍
Very informative series of videos, I played the original AandA back in the early 90s, I have not played in years but would like to get the 1914 game but how do you find people to pay with ?
Well, I'll always play with you (email is ryanvoz(at)yahoo.com) or there's the .org website. Specifically this link might help. Its the "player locator" part of the forum: www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/11/player-locator
I’ve always wanted to try bringing in the 1940 global neutral rule. Where if one of them is invaded the rest become alined to the other power. Not sure how much that would help but it seems to me like it would really disincentives attacking them yet still make it viable.
That would be fine except that the UK has to attack Persia at some point to get after the ottomans. Unless an exception is made, I see all neutrals being pro CP on turn 2 or 3.
@@thegoodcaptain1217Britain having to go around them would probably balance the game pretty heavily and be more historically accurate but I could definitely see it as not being as fun if you can’t have the March across the Middle East.
How many times have you placed tested your solution? And what would you have the Americans do now that you’ve taken away in your house rule the one thing you have the Americans doing?
At the time of this post, I have played at least 15 games against five different opponents in my recommended configuration. The game appears to work much better and opponents seem quite happy with how it plays out. I still accept any and all challenges. The game appears to still favor the Entente and I now recommend removing six to eight Russian artillery as well. The American strategy is the same. Getting “over there” involves a mild re-routing of forces.
Hey,
I'm thinking of buying another A&A in addition to my Anniversary Version. I'm wavering between Europe 2nd and 1914, which game would you recommend? How are the playing times for both? Thanks for your reply.
Europe 2nd would be an easier transition as the ruleset is very, very similar to that of Anniversary. All three mentioned in this post have roughly the same playing times. 1914 will play longer the first few games since it is a wholly different game with very different dynamics. 1914 will have "culture shock", Europe 1940 will not. I also feel that Europe 40 is pretty well balanced - 1914 is not in my strong opinion. I would advise you give Europe 40 2nd edition your time/attention coming out of anniversary.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Thanks for answer! Which one is more balanced, A&A Anniversary or Europe 1940 2nd?
@@herrmatash3116 I think the Anniversary can fall heavily in favor of the Axis with the optional rules misaligned, namely the national objectives and even still, leans significantly in favor of the Axis. I feel the Europe 40 by itself is one of the best balanced versions in all AnA.
By the way, when you rolled that one dice for unrestricted submarine warfare, did you hit or miss? Thank you!
It was a hit actually. My opponent lost a single IPC lol.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Nice. So the one time you did the rule it actually worked. Only 1/3 chance of that happening.
I really like the intention of the rule to have an option to slow down the enemys economy. But it should have much more impact. What do you think about making it similar to strategic bombing attack in the WW2-games? You roll a dice and the enemy loses as many IPCs the dice says. When you control all 3 zones that could result in a loss of 18! IPC for the Entente in the worst case. I think this would make the rule much more useful, also in mind that the Germans risk the USA entering the war earlier..
@@MrSnaetch Good idea!
I'd be interested to see you give the LHTR a whirl, as they're rather elaborate and effectively create a completely different game from OOB due the huge number of mechanics changes (which is unheard of for patches authored by Larry, which usually just boil down to messing with the starting setup or lightly modifying some mechanics like AA Guns). Unfortunately there's no good way to actually play it at the moment without seriously torturing yourself on the already shoddy TripleA setup for this map.
That aside, good series as always. It's amusing to me that when you started this trek you barely had any games in on this version but at this point you have ~3X the number of games played that I do. I can't really argue against any of your points although I was surprised to see you recommend physical changes to the game board (revision #4) as you typically stray away from that sort of thing.
Personally speaking, I'd keep USA at 20 IPCs + letting them join on turn 4, but I would just have them 100% skip their first 3 turns. It achieves a similar goal to what you're proposing but is ever-so-slightly harsh on them as they don't "start" with 60 IPCs of value to slam into the Central Powers from the second they join the game. Might also incentivize naval play for Central Powers but I highly doubt they can actually manage anything against long-term.
RE: the map correction. I was surprised too and only made the recommendation after making sure it made sense in theory. Then of course I played it out against some in the opponent pool to ensure it didn't mess with other aspects of the game. I regret that such a wonderful game engine came out so poorly balanced.
Hit me up when you start a samurai swords or twilight imperium series.
This game really could use an upgraded version. Maybe Renegade could do a revised version with updated rules and an improved map.
I too saw that this game is kinda unbalanced. I noticed that German force in Africa where outnumbered, therefore I evened both sides and eliminated allied transports at the start in the Mediterranean. Now Germany has a chance to conqueror Africa or at least get more territories there. What do you think?
That would certain make things drag out in Africa. Most of my recommendations were as close a look at the root causes of the imbalance and minimalist corrections. I always felt Africa was fine at it is. But don't let me stop you. If you or your play group wanna give it a whirl, go for it. The CP absolutely need a lot of help in this game.
A major historical problem with inaccessible neutrals is that the Allied push from Greece into (Bulgarian controlled) Serbia (more specifically, Vardar Macedonia), knocking Bulgaria out of the war (under the Armistice of Thessalonica), was of relatively major significance. All that Balkan part of the war (already hardly visualizable at all in the current game) would be just ahistorically erased under the assumption of a permanently inaccessible Greece.
Again, I concede that whatever historically based argument is inherently very weak when it comes to any Axis&Allies game, and I'm not saying that the game-play would go anywhere like that anyway, but taking Greece out of the playable map would make such matters even worse in principle.
Would you consider remaking the present video excepting both Persia and Greece in your second custom rule?
No. I feel very strongly that Greece is part of the problem with regards to balance. And I think you hit the nail on the head with regards to historical arguments being very weak in relation to this game system.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Maybe the Kaiser felt something like that too when he wrote "Disgraceful! 62,000 Serbs decided the war!" (pasting from Wikipedia). Those Serbs crossed into Serbia from Greece (and made Bulgaria surrender).
@@cernel5799yep. Why make it worse.
Perhaps a way to do it is to balance it in some other way. If there's any part of the board where the Allies are ahistorically strong, remove the pieces there.
Perhaps Italy can be neutral for a turn under the same conditions the US is under (including no IPCs). It would allow the Austro-Hungarians to sink the British ships in the sea zone off of Egypt (forgot the number). It leaves Britain with one transport when it comes to their turn.
How have you been playing the physical versions of axis and Allies so much? Do you have a bunch of friends who also happen to have a lot of experience? Or is there some kind of game convention you go to?
TripleA. This is detailed in the opening video.
I know aaa is an option but isn’t that only the 1942 version?
@@Yash-lx5xr no. That’s the terrible version available on steam. All self respecting and serious players play on TripleA. Kinda kidding but not really.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 oh thank you for this, my apologies I got a little confused with the versions
I've played 7 games and all of them rhe Central powers won.
I've even checked with friends to make sure im playing it correctly. So...
…so let me know when you want to play a friendly game(s). Maybe you know something no one else figured out. I’ll take Entente with the out of box rules? We can play as many as you like via email so it’s not public. My email is ryanvoz(at)yahoo.com. If I’m wrong, I’ll issue a video correction and give you the credit. If you’re wrong, no harm, no foul - you’ll leave a better player.
@thegoodcaptain1217 Well, I have a strategy,The Central powers go defense against Russia.Germany and Austria attack lots elsewhere while the Ottomans try to hold off the British(my brother that i play with hasn't played axis and allies much so maybe it's just that.🤷♂️)
Am I missing the link to that guy you played? The Veteran?
Try it now. And thanks for the heads up!
I think its "imbalanced" by design. The Central powers arent meant or likely to win long term wars. The same way that WW2 A&A dont have the same stakes and does have some points of no return too - so it is so with WW1 1914 A&A.
In your analysis, i struggle to quantify the IPC/or state of the game. Is it like in your map in which Russia is conquered and the Ottoman almost out? The allies do have to deal with other realities that this IPC difference that you mention isnt really that relevant for some time.
As for the neutral countries part: It should be *similar* to the rules in 1940 global: if you invade a neutral country, all the other ones joins the opposite faction ( with troops equal to the IPC value)
Balance isnt just based on IPC amount, like the start of the game - not everything is "balanced" from numerical standpoints - there are trade offs. The question is, do the CP have enough forces early to compensate or enough turns before the US joins or Russia leaves? Thats all part of overall balance and not simply "at this point int time, its imba because the IPC is different" Thats not a good way to judge balance in a game.
In descending order: 1) I totally disagree with this for multiple reason. I recently playtested AnA Africa for Renegade and balance was a very high concern of L. Harris and the design team. Further, AnA games have a strong history of errata being released with balance provisions for the "weaker" side (Anniversary, Pacific '41 are clearest examples). Finally, in a game that is barely more complex than Risk, I see no reason to nearly guarantee that one side wins over the other in a game of domination.
2) I've now played nearly 70 games of 1914 in the past two years against 16 different opponents and yes, that is a very reliable game state by turn 10 even with newer players in my experience - that's why I resumed myself at the top of the video and executed that segment of the video. I don't know what your referencing in the second sentence.
3) That's ...a way of doing it, sure.
4) To make this comment, I feel like you didn't watch the entire video or at least missed the comments I make starting at 4:04. I think this is an unfair criticism.
Wait, what?
I thought you said it was practically impossible for the Axis to win in Classic using out of box rules.
Without barring the invasion of neutrals, I believe it is nearly impossible to win, yes.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 So Classic is more imbalanced than 1914, slightly contrary to what you said in the video? Thank you!
@@AChannelThatDoesNothing since it takes more to balance 1914, I feel that Classic is not as imbalanced as 1914
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Ahhh, makes sense now. Thank you!
Instead of banning invasion of unaligned neutrals could you simply say that the Entente powers cannot collect IPCs from controlled unaligned neutrals? That gives more options, has fewer exceptions, and still helps the income disparity.
In my experience, it gives the Entente a disproportionate number of options. Greece, Spain, Spanish Morocco (and arguably Switzerland) are of great strategic help to a clever Entente player.
I think that the British should not b able to build only infantry in India, there were no factorys or machine tools to produce anything else , plus Belgium should be allied to the British !!!! as the invasion by Germany was the reason , excuse to join the fighting .there's some cards for this game which should spice things up as well , plus on a diplomatic front Turkey wanted to join on the other side!!! but obviously england didn't want a victoris turk in their area !!! which means italy would have joined central powers as Turkey is their no 1 enemy , very interesting options to explore,
I feel that 1914 is better viewed as more of a 'game' and less of an 'historical simulator'.
I don't see how the Allies can possibly win with the OOB rules. Once Russia and the Balkans are conquered, the Ottomans take Bulgaria and Sebastopol, and Austria takes Italy, the Central Powers have a 40 point lead in IPCs. Paris is toast. It seems to me Austria is overpowered and the US, Britain, and France are underpowered. Also the British Atlantic Fleet is significantly understrength at the beginning of the game.
I feel like you didn’t watch the video but… this is likely the most imbalanced version of Axis and Allies of the entire series of games. If you feel strongly otherwise, consider this an open invitation for a friendly game. I will take Entente oob.
The funny thing about what you say happens arround the 12th turn is nothing else than a clear depiction of historical reality. WW1 was not "balanced", the central Powers never had any fighting chance, and most of their victories and initial conquests were, to tell the truth, the result of the fact that many Entente leaders were even less competent than the Austro-Hungarians ones, which should have been a technical impossibility. If the game shows this reality... then... it is a very accurate historical simulation. The only way to make it more fun is to polay it unhistorically - e.g. italy does not join the Entente, the US does not enter war ... etc
If you're coming to any version of Axis and Allies seeking an accurate historical simulator, you will be sorely disappointed. These games are barely more complicated than Risk.
Its good to use these rules and implement them with the larry harris modifications? Also after playing a while against other players as almost always CP , i came to the solution that ottomans should start with 1 battleship with 2 cruisers as usual, and remove russia navy, russia is already pretty strong, giving them a free navy is pointless,and make no sense , overall great video👍👍
I have yet to play this game with the Larry Harris tournament rules.
Ottoman's should at least start with 2-3 more icp in my strong opinion I get maybe it's supposed to be scripted but not very fun to play something scripted and ottomans are one of thee most unique factions in game and in history so it seems dishonest to me to portrait them as very weak as occurred in game
Played well, they can be lethal. As regards your comment about history and the game portraying them dishonestly... I don't quite follow that logic. They were very weak and were referred to as the "sick man" of Europe.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 thanks for the reply and perhaps but I have to assume against people who may not know how to fight England but they were weak to a degree but if they were so weak how'd they hold 3 front war between Arabia Russia and England???
@@jacobcathcart5091 and played well they can hold until between rounds 10-12 at least. Seems right to me. I feel the game designers nailed that part of the game. With that said, if you or your play group wanted to give them the aforementioned bump, I don’t think that would foul with things too much down there and would extend the life of that power by another turn or two.
Thank you again and fair enough
Those American colors in the Q&A looks weird.
Huh. I coated them in the same color as out-of-box.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 Probably just the lighting then.
Congrats on your effort but permit me to disagree. 1) The unbalance is an essential element of the game and shouldn't be seen as a negative: the game is a race against time for the Central Power (or Axis in WW2). 2) Instead of messing up with the game with ever crazier house rules, hyper-experienced players should consider retiring from A&A and explore other games or hobbies.
A very silly comment.
No it is not.
Enetnte should win as is. I have not seen the CPs win.
I would caution against saying “…I’ve never seen this or that side win.” I’ve heard this a lot and now interpret this to essentially be a declaration of inexperience by the person saying it. If you’d ever like to play a friendly, out of box game, I have no problem taking the CP. I feel strongly you’ll be surprised.
I have not seen it whoudl be silly to say sothing else. The out of box game is like a non final game to me, fun but extremly scripted with buggy features. I am in the European CET timezone but thees echnages listed here all seem very sound. Whould not hesitate to try them out (if our day-night ...schdule is compatible). I will try these thinsg listed here (except maybye weakining Italys starting army) for sure next time around. @@thegoodcaptain1217
First.
Loved you in Revenge of the Sith.
@@thegoodcaptain1217 I think I was best in the clone wars.