View Full Version : How would a WW1 naval campaign work?
Given all the different theatres of operation you might think that there would almost have to be a global naval campaign, many orders of magnitude more complex than 1904/5.
But I have a feeling that it is only going to be possible to model the North Sea, Eastern Atlantic and maybe the Med as a unified campaign.
This would be a shame since some of the more interesting action took place in the South Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans - but perfectly understandable since the disproportionate scale of the numbers of ships involved compared to the vastness of the ocean, would make simulating it nigh on impractical (not to mention that this all happened very early in the war - after the German 'raiders' had been mopped up there was no real naval action outside the North Atlantic).
It could also be that some of the action outside of the main theatre would be just plain boring. All the drama is in the cat and mouse chase which would be the most abstract part of the simulation (especially from the Allied side). The engagements themselves would in all probablity be lopsided affairs with a foregone conclusion (just like real life).
But having said this, even the North Sea campaign could be quite boring. Players would inevitably act far more aggressively than their historical counterparts - I'd bet most campaigns would be over by Xmas 1914 as players would rush to a decisive fleet battle as soon as possible.
What do the rest of you think?
Well we could have a realtime zoomable planetary map like in X-Com ;-)
Also, a virtual reality interface and self-aware AI subordinates :smoke:
I'm curious as to how submarines are going to be implemented. Are they going to be more like minefields (you send a sub out to patrol and ships passing through have a certain chance of being hit) or just like regular ships (if subs encounter something you go to the battle screen)? And, during WWI will the political restrictions the Germans faced be implemented somehow?
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But having said this, even the North Sea campaign could be quite boring. Players would inevitably act far more aggressively than their historical counterparts - I'd bet most campaigns would be over by Xmas 1914 as players would rush to a decisive fleet battle as soon as possible.
What do the rest of you think?
That's a problem with any wargame. There's simply no way to make players feel the responsibility for millions of dollars (or pounds, deustchmarks, pounds, rubles or whatever), thousands of lives, and their own career. It does, however make it much more interesting and opens up some historical what ifs when using an engine as good as DG. What if the Russian player in DG: RJW was constrained by poor leadership somehow? The game certainly wouldn't be very much fun then.
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Seems to me the Med/Black Sea offers a rich set of scenarios and campaigns, given all the navies and possible missions (e.g., shore bombardment) involved. You could also throw in some pre-WWI Balkan War battles as well. Russians, Italians, British, French, Austro-Hungarians, Germans, Turks, I can only imagine the fascinating collection of ships it would include. :p
...some board games have (what I call a )"political track" where you move a "marker' to track (and model) morale, well-being and politics of the events and decisions that the leader makes (you as the gamer). These fluctuations in the political track occur via events, such as cards, and player events (invading this country or asking for reinforcements, etc). Examples such as Victory Game's "The Civil War" and and GMT's "For the People" had those type of abstractions that prevented or permitted you to do certain events based on where you were currently situated on the "track".
Maybe something like this could be done on the PC in large naval campaigns, allowing you to accumulate "prestige points" which could expand your abilities to conduct operations, or losses and public sentiment which ,if turned against you, would shut you down. ALso an events engine which randomly interjects various events which influence the operations...sounding sort of like Paradox's games (EU2, in particular) here ...LOL
Just a thought...
Bullethead
20 Aug 06, 11:24
What do the rest of you think?
For many years I helped a guy named Paul Shaffer make a game called "Raider Operations", but finally had to leave the project due to real life. Shortly thereafter, he tried to sell it as subscription-based online thing (under a different name, too), and apparently went out of business fairly quickly. I haven't heard from him since. Too bad, because it was an excellent game, although the graphics were painfully bad by post-1980 standards (I should know--I made a lot of them :D ).
Anyway, Paul's original idea, as the name suggests, was a campaign based on the German surface raiders at the start of WW1. The scope of this campaign was the whole world EXCEPT the North Sea and the Med. It had all the bases, colonies, ports, and ships all over the world. As the Entente, your objectives were a) to get the various Canadian, Indian, and ANZAC convoys to their destinations safely, b) to destroy von Spee's ships, and c) to capture the German colonies. As the Germans, your objective was to raise as much Hell as possible by capturing merchants, shooting up Entente bases, and intercepting the troop convoys. If you could get your ships safely home to Germany, too, so much the better.
Victory was determined by "prestige points". The Germans steadily built prestige at a low rate by merely surviving, but got bonuses for destructive exploits. The Entente got prestige for getting convoys through, killing German ships, and capturing German colonies. If the Germans got far enough ahead of the Entente, or lived long enough, it had political consequences in that the Brits would detach more and more units from the Grand Fleet to help hunt the Germans.
Anyway, this was a very cool campaign. It was all cat-and-mouse for both sides, and things always got progressively harder for the Germans as more and more stuff was coming after them and they had fewer and fewer places to coal in secret. You'd think that just having 2 ACs and 6 PCs on 1 side, and much of the world on the other wouldn't make much of a game, but it was extremely fun and replayable.
When I left the project, Paul was working on a Black Sea campaign. The Black Sea would have been rather like DG's campaign, with the Turks trying to stop the Russian land advance (which involved a lot of amphibious operations) around the rim of the Black Sea. We'd gotten to the point of having the map and the ships in the game, and a lot of the campaign-related stuff, and things were looking well. I suspect this would make a very good WW1 campaign for the DG engine and be very familiar in feel to DG vets.
We also did a North Sea campaign. Of course, this included making a scenario for Jutland with every stinkin' ship in it down to the last DD. This was a lot of fun and we played it many times with up to 6 players :D. We also had all the other historical battles and some hypotheticals such as a 1918 German sortie meeting the US BBs serving with the RN. All that was just fine.
However, we quickly discovered that the North Sea is pretty lousy campaign fodder. This is because there are really no identifiable strategic objectives to drive operations toward tactical battles in the first place, or to give the tactical results meaningful import in the overall campaign. There are no land operations going on along the coasts around the North Sea that will be impacted directly by anything that happens in the North Sea. The Brits can win simply by staying in port and continuing to exist. And even if the Germans manage to destroy the Grand Fleet, the effects of this will be played out in other parts of the world, not the campaign area.
Thus, to make a campaign of the North Sea, you have to construct some totally artificial victory conditions based on the North Sea area itself. And about the only candidate for that is political pressure measured in some sort of dissatisfaction rating that builds up over time as the enemy fleet continues to exist. In the end, the side with the least dissatisfied government wins. However, this would have to be totally unrealistic, because we all know the Brits could have won by doing nothing; forcing them to sea anyway is silly.
I'm curious as to how submarines are going to be implemented. Are they going to be more like minefields (you send a sub out to patrol and ships passing through have a certain chance of being hit) or just like regular ships (if subs encounter something you go to the battle screen)? And, during WWI will the political restrictions the Germans faced be implemented somehow?
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I would say that they would work along the lines of how they did in Harpoon. You could give them orders and let the ship commanders do the rest. I do not think it would be very hard to add them into the game. But as more comes out for this game and as the years go forward it will be exciting that is for sure.
I also posted about a add-on for a Civil war era add-on for this game. I think it would be a great as this one, getting to use the first Iron or armored ships and mixed in with the old wooden ship of the line that where at the end of there time. Thats what I like about this game there is really no end to what can be done with it.
So from the Civil War on to Now there is no end to what can be done. But I think we are in for some real good Naval wargaming as we go forward with this game.:D
Perhaps the strategic game could be a tad more abstract to account for the greater number of ships... instead of detailed plotting for TF's you could assign patrol zones etc to various forces... eg. a cruiser division on raider duty in a specified area... it would then automatically send ships home for resupply and refit when needed.
Also, the criteria for starting a tactical battle could be tightened up a lot and combined with a set of standing orders for each TF (engage, evade etc). ...
This way a battle would only be generated when it's clear that one side won't just run away before a shot is fired.
Given all the different theatres of operation you might think that there would almost have to be a global naval campaign, many orders of magnitude more complex than 1904/5.
But I have a feeling that it is only going to be possible to model the North Sea, Eastern Atlantic and maybe the Med as a unified campaign.
This would be a shame since some of the more interesting action took place in the South Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans - but perfectly understandable since the disproportionate scale of the numbers of ships involved compared to the vastness of the ocean, would make simulating it nigh on impractical (not to mention that this all happened very early in the war - after the German 'raiders' had been mopped up there was no real naval action outside the North Atlantic).
It could also be that some of the action outside of the main theatre would be just plain boring. All the drama is in the cat and mouse chase which would be the most abstract part of the simulation (especially from the Allied side). The engagements themselves would in all probablity be lopsided affairs with a foregone conclusion (just like real life).
But having said this, even the North Sea campaign could be quite boring. Players would inevitably act far more aggressively than their historical counterparts - I'd bet most campaigns would be over by Xmas 1914 as players would rush to a decisive fleet battle as soon as possible.
What do the rest of you think?
I think and would hope that a campaign covering all of WWI is absolutely impossible. Just doing the Dardanelles right would be a major game in itself.
As for the North Sea, I would think it would have to be done as a series of possibly linked campaigns along with the Baltic. So if you lose Baltic #1 as the Russians and don't get the codes off the Magdeburg, Great Britain does not get the German codes in North Sea #3. Of course the Allies have to win North Sea and Channel #1 by a good margin (get the BEF over and keep the Germans busy in Heligoland up til November 1914) or things get bad for the Russians. And so on. Anyway, I don't think WWI could be considered a single game for naval purposes any more than anyone would want a good Guadalcanal campaign to represent all of WWII.
paulferris1964
26 Aug 06, 07:13
For many years I helped a guy named Paul Shaffer make a game called "Raider Operations", but finally had to leave the project due to real life. Shortly thereafter, he tried to sell it as subscription-based online thing (under a different name, too), and apparently went out of business fairly quickly. I haven't heard from him since. Too bad, because it was an excellent game, although the graphics were painfully bad by post-1980 standards (I should know--I made a lot of them :D ).
.
You mean this one?
http://members.tripod.com/hsr_historicalgames/ro.htm
Looks like it's still running. I bought it a few years ago, but must confess I haven't played it much as I was put off by the graphics :D
Bullethead
26 Aug 06, 13:22
You mean this one?
http://members.tripod.com/hsr_historicalgames/ro.htm
Looks like it's still running. I bought it a few years ago, but must confess I haven't played it much as I was put off by the graphics :D
Yeah, that's it. If you look closely, however, you'll see it's dead and gone. The main page hasn't been updated in years and there are very few posts in the forum for nearly as long.
If you look on the main page at the Replay link (http://members.tripod.com/hsr_historicalgames/ro_replay.htm), you'll see an AAR written by Paul of a Jutland scenario (just the Run to the South) we did multi-player. In it, you'll see mention of a player named "Konteradmiral J. Trowbridge Weller": that's me. I really enjoyed handling the light forces more than the battlelines.
Anyway, this game had a lot of very cool features, and some that seemed strange at first but you quickly found them to be good design choices. One was the interface, which was unlike anything I've ever seen in a wargame. You played this game in windowed mode, for instance, and there were no command menus or hotkeys. Everything was done with mouse clicks, and these were context sensitive, the cursor changing to show what a click would do in a certain place depending on what you had selected at the time. The main game window contained the strategic map and the text box, both of which could be resized, and tactical battles would pop up in new windows of their own as they happened. You could thus have multiple tactical battles going on simultaneously, and also the strategic map available constantly, so you could jump back and forth between them all in real time to intervene everywhere as needed. And of course we'd have ICQ going in its own window for multi-player communications.
As to the graphics, as you can see they were total throwbacks to CGA days. Everything was 2D with very few colors. Ships were just solid profiles with the guns either trained for-and-aft for pointing at/away from you. The game also had something like DG's "I" screen with a plan view of the ship. My contribution to the graphics was to make a lot of the profiles and plan views. Paul did all the water, sky, smoke, and splashes.
I really think RO could have been a success if it had had real graphics and sound. But it does put the lie to those who say that it's the guts that matter, not the glitz. RO's guts were excellent, even by today's standards, but the glitz was crude even by 1985 standards. Oh well.
saddletank
26 Aug 06, 15:29
WWI is just too big a naval conflict for the DG engine to model it in it's global entirety. I would hope the designers will realise this and issue a basic game (probably the Grand Fleet vs Hochseeflotte in order to get the most sales). I think the simple selling point of that game would be the ability to fight the many 'what if' scenarios. A campaign game would be just icing.
However with that title under their belts SES could (and should) issue add-on campaign and fleet packs which will cover other interesting theatres (surface raiders of 1914, Dardanelles, escape of the Goeben, Austria vs Italy and so on etc etc).
The discreet add-on/expansion packs is the way to go I think, if only to prevent total burn out trying to model a game that includes all the ships :)
WWI is just too big a naval conflict for the DG engine to model it in it's global entirety. I would hope the designers will realise this and issue a basic game (probably the Grand Fleet vs Hochseeflotte in order to get the most sales). I think the simple selling point of that game would be the ability to fight the many 'what if' scenarios. A campaign game would be just icing.
However with that title under their belts SES could (and should) issue add-on campaign and fleet packs which will cover other interesting theatres (surface raiders of 1914, Dardanelles, escape of the Goeben, Austria vs Italy and so on etc etc).
The discreet add-on/expansion packs is the way to go I think, if only to prevent total burn out trying to model a game that includes all the ships :)
I agree , I did not mean the whole WWI Naval Warfare in a all in one package, Just do the main battles and or groups of battles. I can hardly wait till we have news on what is next in line for the game.
it is pity HSR is down
but honestly speaking I expected this project to move this way as sales model could not work well and graphics was ok only for most desperate grognards.
Paul was always difficult to communicate Bullethead unfortunately and I felt it when I was a Beta for a while - sooner or later all betas were decimated as they suggested changes that were not accepted.
I liked interface very much- giving relative command instead of plotting course is best think designed in such games.
Bullethead
26 Aug 06, 22:29
Paul was always difficult to communicate Bullethead unfortunately and I felt it when I was a Beta for a while - sooner or later all betas were decimated as they suggested changes that were not accepted.
Yup, that's the way Paul was. It took me several years of working with him, and me adding a bunch of new ships and scenarios for them on my own hook, before he incorporated any of my suggestions for the actual game design. And I always had to be very careful of how I phrased anything I said to him because he had a strong tendency to take offense at the least bit of perceived criticism of his game or his plans for it.
What finally drove me away was the final realization that the project was doomed because Paul refused to find a publisher/distributer who could supply the needed graphics and sound, and could come up with a realistic way to market the product. Paul was totally obsessive about "his baby" and was absolutely convinced that all publishers/distributers were thieves who'd take his project and give him the shaft. So therefore he'd convinced himself that he could do it all on his own, and that "real naval gamers" would appreciate RO's excellent guts and wouldn't mind its lack of glitz. This became an article of faith to him to the point of paranoia. I tried to hook him up with some companies I worked with on other projects, including Battlefront/BTS, but he always had such unrealistic demands and expectations that nothing ever went beyond the 1st exchange of emails. So I finally said my good-byes and went on to other things like testing Combat Mission :)
Daniel Sturgis
29 Aug 06, 13:49
WWI is just too big a naval conflict for the DG engine to model it in it's global entirety. I would hope the designers will realise this and issue a basic game (probably the Grand Fleet vs Hochseeflotte in order to get the most sales). I think the simple selling point of that game would be the ability to fight the many 'what if' scenarios. A campaign game would be just icing.
Even Grand Fleet vs Hochseeflotte would not work as a single campaign, I don't think.
For example, a interesting way to give the Germans a chance would be to include the Baltic in a early war context. That and a lot of mines (vide th sinking of HMS Audacious...might get the Hochseeflotte close to parity at least "on the surface" (pardon the mangled metaphor). So the Germans should have the option of say, comitting large forces to the Baltic in hopes of sinking a lot of Russians and releasing a lot of ships for the North Sea early on (or vis-versa...letting the mines take care of the Russians and committing a lot to the North Sea.
That would be one campaign, and one the Germans would at least have a chance of winning.
The situation around Jutland would have to be a separate campaign and one in which the Germans win if they can do at least as well as the real Germans...which is going to be very hard if the Brits get the kind of radio intelligence they really had at the time. As always happens in trying to recreate historical situations, the key element, ie that Beatty thought they would not find any Hochseeflotte is impossible to reproduce without removing all the real choices that the participants let slip.
Anyway...I think in gaming terms a Jutland campaign is not going to provide nearly as much entertainment value as more balanced campaigns covering 1914 in the North Sea or the Baltic or linked campaigns covering the North Sea and the Baltic from 1914 to very early 1916.
How about Turkey vs Russia as a First World War campaign?
It could be an interesting match up, with some good and bad ships on both sides. As an option, the Turks could have HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin available (battleships taken by the RN before completion).
For a Russian account, see:
http://www.neva.ru/EXPO96/book/chap11-3.html
Alternatively the Mediteranian might be interesting, particularly if the campaign had an option of the Turkish fleet deploying in the med rather than in the black sea to try to strengthen the central powers.
Hinchinbrooke
29 Aug 06, 18:00
I can see how a WWI North Sea campaign might not be as compelling as other scenarios, but I'd be more than happy to play "what if" missions and decent computer generated actions.
Just to see the "Big Cats" via the DG engine............ now that would be fun.:D
I can see how a WWI North Sea campaign might not be as compelling as other scenarios, but I'd be more than happy to play "what if" missions and decent computer generated actions.
Just to see the "Big Cats" via the DG engine............ now that would be fun.:D
Oh I agree 100%...there's hasn't been a game yet where the Splendid Cats have sprung to the attack with the fearsome agility (and explosive personalities) that they must have had. On the other hand, the historical situation in the North Sea was very very bad for the Hochseeflotte and I foresee the possibility where there is a popular scenario giving the Germans some extra ships and the British better (and less self-destructive) ammo.
However, even with a balancing along such ahistorical lines, the Hochseeflotte is going to be the underdog (I typed 'undergod', but that's another tale or tail) unless they get a few more ahistorical perks...which is fine, but its not the same as Grand Fleet vs Hochseeflotte.
For a more historical flavor, the very early war in the North Sea might be better. Or even hypothetical wars in 1902-1913.
Edited for "hinunterhund"-age
Bullethead
29 Aug 06, 18:32
How about Turkey vs Russia as a First World War campaign?
From my experience with trying to do this in RO, I think this is a fun campaign but it's too small to be a stand-alone product. It would have to be bundled with other campaigns or part of a whole Med/Black Sea show. The Black Sea by itself has all the elements for a good naval campaign driven by and directly impacting land campaigns. It's got mining, commerce raiding, amphibious landings, and even fleet actions from time to time. But the problem is, the Turks just have Goeben and Breslau; all their other things are just slow, highly flammable targets. OTOH, the Russians have a division of late-model predreadnoughts more than capable of giving Goeben a hard time. Plus they've got some older BBs that can still be useful, and they get dreadnoughts near the end. So once the Turks lose Goeben or especially Breslau, it's all over.
Alternatively the Mediteranian might be interesting, particularly if the campaign had an option of the Turkish fleet deploying in the med rather than in the black sea to try to strengthen the central powers.
To have a meaningful Med campaign, you've got to have subs. AND saboutage, definitely. And gunboat diplomacy, at least regarding the Greeks, maybe the Italians to get them to finally join the Entente. But after all of that, the Italians and the Austrians mostly just stared each other down and played with saboutage, while the Brits and French (with some Russian and even Japanese support) did the Gallipoli thing and the Palestine thing. Otherwise it was all about subs. In fact, many of the surface actions in the Med were a result of the Central Powers trying to clear away some Entente ASW forces in the Adriatic. The Turks, meanwhile, had a war on 3 fronts, with the Russians trying to come around both sides of the Black Sea and the Entente coming in at Gallipoli and Palestine. So their navy was pretty much stuck with facing down Russia.
Hinchinbrooke
29 Aug 06, 21:49
Oh I agree 100%...there's hasn't been a game yet where the Splendid Cats have sprung to the attack with the fearsome agility (and explosive personalities) that they must have had. On the other hand, the historical situation in the North Sea was very very bad for the Hochseeflotte and I foresee the possibility where there is a popular scenario giving the Germans some extra ships and the British better (and less self-destructive) ammo.
However, even with a balancing along such ahistorical lines, the Hochseeflotte is going to be the underdog (I typed 'undergod', but that's another tale or tail) unless they get a few more ahistorical perks...which is fine, but its not the same as Grand Fleet vs Hochseeflotte.
For a more historical flavor, the very early war in the North Sea might be better. Or even hypothetical wars in 1902-1913.
Edited for "hinunterhund"-age
Agreed, the High Seas Fleet was numerically worse off, but then again, if you assumed virtual command of the German fleet, did away with the Kaiser's prevarication and general timidity of the fleet commanders, you might have an interesting fight on your hands.........................
saddletank
30 Aug 06, 05:34
A fictional Mediterranean campaign where the Italians joined with Germany and Austria in alliance in early 1915 would be interesting. The Italians and Austro-Hungarian fleets versus mostly France with whatever older units Britain could spare from the Channel Fleet and various colonial stations. A unit of battlecruisers might be present for a while but removing modern units from the Grand Fleet for any extended period would not be an option. In this political climate I imagine a Dardanelles campaign would be cancelled and there might be a small threat of Turkish sorties into the Aegean so some Franco-British units would need to be based there to face that threat.
It would be fantastic if SES could produce a 'campaign manager and editor' so players could create the above kind of what ifs.
Sorry, got to stop now, need to wipe this dribble of my keyboard :nuts: :yummy:
A fictional Mediterranean campaign where the Italians joined with Germany and Austria in alliance in early 1915 would be interesting. The Italians and Austro-Hungarian fleets versus mostly France with whatever older units Britain could spare from the Channel Fleet and various colonial stations. A unit of battlecruisers might be present for a while but removing modern units from the Grand Fleet for any extended period would not be an option. In this political climate I imagine a Dardanelles campaign would be cancelled and there might be a small threat of Turkish sorties into the Aegean so some Franco-British units would need to be based there to face that threat.
It would be fantastic if SES could produce a 'campaign manager and editor' so players could create the above kind of what ifs.
Sorry, got to stop now, need to wipe this dribble of my keyboard :nuts: :yummy:
Oh man and editor and things. I could only dream of what I could do with those. And a data base full of warships and cargo ships ranging from the 1700,s on. Now I could wast weeks just coming up with battles for that.
Yea , now that would be the utmost in use of this game.
A fictional Mediterranean campaign where the Italians joined with Germany and Austria in alliance in early 1915 would be interesting. The Italians and Austro-Hungarian fleets versus mostly France with whatever older units Britain could spare from the Channel Fleet and various colonial stations. A unit of battlecruisers might be present for a while but removing modern units from the Grand Fleet for any extended period would not be an option. In this political climate I imagine a Dardanelles campaign would be cancelled and there might be a small threat of Turkish sorties into the Aegean so some Franco-British units would need to be based there to face that threat.
It would be fantastic if SES could produce a 'campaign manager and editor' so players could create the above kind of what ifs.
Sorry, got to stop now, need to wipe this dribble of my keyboard :nuts: :yummy:
I think you're completely right. I played boardgame versions of the situation you describe and they are pretty interesting. The last few classes of British pre-dreadnoughts turn out to pack quite a punch and in a world (the hypothetical med) swarming with armored cruisers, a squadron of Invincibles is murder...as the RN well knew at the time. I once had a history professor who was sceptical about brazen RN plans to base Invincibles brazenly at Malta (we had a class project to simulate the diplomatic world of 1912. I played the British Ambassador to Austria-Hungary and had to hint about such a deployment to the unruly friends and enemies of the Triple Entente), but I showed him the telegrams from the time (1912) that showed just such nefarious RN schemes.
Bullethead
30 Aug 06, 14:53
I think you're completely right. I played boardgame versions of the situation you describe and they are pretty interesting.
Yeah, that would be very cool. I think the Brits would have been forced to deploy some dreadnoughts and/or battlecruisers to the Med, because the French didn't have enough to face down both Italy and Austria. And there would have been WW2-like siege of Malta only with subs instead of airplanes. Cut off the coal supply and the gas-guzzling Invincibles would have had to leave there.
The effects on the rest of the war beyond the Med, if Italy had stayed with the Central Powers, would have been huge, however. Italian armies threatening southern France and Austria able to concentrate against Russia instead of having to fight a dozen Battles of the Insonzo. Thus, Germany could have concentrated against the Western Front. And without free passage through the Med, the Brit Empire troops from India would have had to go the long way around, assuming they weren't sent to bolster Egypt. No telling what would have happened on the Western Front or North Sea as a result. I figure Italy sitting out for a while, and then coming in with the Entente instead of being Central Powers from Day 1 was one of the most significant events of the war.
SunScream
30 Aug 06, 16:06
I I played boardgame versions of the situation you describe and they are pretty interesting.
Which boardgame are you using, or is it bespoke?
Tom Hunter
30 Aug 06, 22:24
Based on my experience reading AARs from WitP, and playing the game myself I think a multiplayer campaign for WWI would be eminently doable either global or in the North Sea. Player variablitly is such that it does not really matter which navy is the underdog, because differences in player quality far out weigh differences in the forces.
Vs. AI it would matter, but I suspect that a human would pretty much always beat the AI which ever side the human played. I will admit that I am new to this game and could easily be wrong, but my assertions are based on experience with other games where the assertions I am making have always proved true.
saddletank
31 Aug 06, 06:13
You're probably right about AI vs human. The only games where the AI wins are those with settings that allow the AI to simply do more damage when they hit or have very strong morale (e.g. R:TW), in other words loading the AI so it 'cheats' in order to balance clever gameplay by the human player.
Having said that I think the AI in DG is some of the best I've ever met.
Sunscream -- I don't know if this is the game Roberts was referring to, but Avalanche Press' The Great War at Sea: The Mediterranean covers naval combat 1911-1923. I don't recall if there are scenarios covering hypothetical conflicts, but they would probably be easy to create.
See: http://www.avalanchepress.com/gameGWAS1.php
The ship counters in my avatar are from the Russo-Japanese War game in that same series. Unfortunately, it appears to be out of print.
AP has another game in the series coming out soon called Cone of Fire that covers naval conflict in South America 1901-1940. It has ships from Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, plus the UK and Germany.
See: http://www.avalanchepress.com/gameConeOfFire.php
SunScream
31 Aug 06, 11:56
Thanks Zouave.
In the past I drooled over The Great War At Sea but was without funds at the time (not much better now), so I missed getting it. I recognised your avatar instantly :)
saddletank
31 Aug 06, 12:22
I was just wondering, if 2 people had this board game could you play it by PBEM? And obvoiusly lots of trust (as regards dice rolling)...
SunScream
31 Aug 06, 13:42
Lets face it, nowadays you just point your webcam at the table and your opponent can see you roll a critical hit in real time :)
saddletank
31 Aug 06, 15:47
Rats, so now I have to buy the game AND a webcam!
Sunscream -- I don't know if this is the game Roberts was referring to, but Avalanche Press' The Great War at Sea: The Mediterranean covers naval combat 1911-1923. I don't recall if there are scenarios covering hypothetical conflicts, but they would probably be easy to create.
See: http://www.avalanchepress.com/gameGWAS1.php
The ship counters in my avatar are from the Russo-Japanese War game in that same series. Unfortunately, it appears to be out of print.
AP has another game in the series coming out soon called Cone of Fire that covers naval conflict in South America 1901-1940. It has ships from Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, plus the UK and Germany.
See: http://www.avalanchepress.com/gameConeOfFire.php
I'm sure I played the Avalanche Press game with some invented scenarios. I even went so far as to get Bomb Alley a few months ago. I think there is a second ed of the Med game as well.
PLUS there are some relevent scenarios in Clash of Arms "Fear God and Dreadnought."
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