Bill101

Hi Pretty much! An end date has to be set but it doesn't have to be the one that was set by the designer. The campaign will need to have its End Dates and Victory Conditions modified first in the editor. If you open up the editor, select Campaign and then Edit Campaign Data. Here you can edit the game's end date. You will now need to edit the Victory scripts. To do this click on Campaign; Edit Event Scripts. Choose the Victory ones and then change the dates in every script to a somewhat later date. You'll then need to hit Save As and rename the campaign so as not to alter the original (which if its a default campaign is protected anyway). Then you'll be ready to play for even longer!

Overall the HQ allotments are based on the historical OOBs, but it's not an exact match because we've not wanted to flood the map with lots of HQs. So you will see plenty of historical commanders like Rupprecht and the Crown Prince, but not quite all so as to save you from having to move more units around than are really necessary for gameplay purposes!

It certainly does, it disappears if left empty at the end of the turn. This prevents the map from being cluttered up with lots of empty entrenchments.

Hi U8led I'm glad you enjoyed reading the manual, and as you'll discover, playing the game is significantly far more fun! In answer to your questions: 1) National Morale of all Majors is known. This makes the game far more interesting because often when some of your Majors are starting to get low, so are some of your opponents, so both sides can direct their strategies accordingly. If it wasn't known, players could probably tell anyway from reports of strikes and other disturbances, so it's much easier to just make it visible to both sides. Plus this way the person who reads the scripts doesn't gain any great advantage from doing so. 2) Not at this moment in time. 3) As well as designing I also play it, and I think diplomacy is more important in this game than it was in some of our WWII games in the past. Obviously I can't speak for all the beta team, and knowing the campaign as well as I do probably gives me a sneaky advantage here, but investing in diplomacy should almost certainly form a part of most players' strategies. 4) You are correct, they bomb the target tile and spot enemy units in the adjacent tiles. 5) A Heavy Artillery unit can fire up to 10 times in a turn, but all the shells do have to either be fired at once, or saved for use as defensive fire or for the following turn. This represents your preliminary bombardment before the troops go into the attack and hopefully take the enemy's positions. If you haven't got a good level of research into Gas/Shell Production then it will take a long time to save up 10 shells, so this isn't something that you'll see often, especially not during the first year or two of the war when many countries may well suffer from a shell shortage. The retreating units can be very exciting indeed, and National Morale really is the icing on the cake!

Not exactly, because not only does the Trench remain but the new unit moving in immediately receives 50% of maximum entrenchment value, and this goes up by 1 at the end of the turn. This should provide it with a fairly decent level of protection before the enemy start attacking it in the next turn, and the new unit will almost certainly be able to defend itself better than the beaten up unit you've just pulled out of the line.

Hi Didz The Decision Event Logs contained in the Global's Manual (starting at page 177) should also help when making such decisions. Though it's good to see that it's spurring you into doing some research yourself too! Bill

No, not all of the Alps will need to be held, but even so it requires a few units, especially near Trieste. Not all fortresses that were so in reality are fortresses on the map for a number of reasons. Some are tough nuts even without the fortress status, while some fortresses turned out to be easy captures in real life. So you will notice a few other places that may appear as though they warrant being fortresses, but they've not been made as such. Lille is a prime example, because it changed hands a few times in 1914 and barely figured at all. I was a bit disappointed with the book you mention, The White War. It's not that it was bad at all, but it just left me wanting to read a proper military history of the campaign.

I think the key here is the coordination between all arms, and one thing that can be very useful is to pound the target resources in the turn before you land, using naval and aerial bombardment. This will probably stop the enemy from reinforcing the target location, and it also means that when you land in your next turn the units you will be attacking should be on very low supply. If using mainly airpower, target enemy HQs first, not their AA. Targeting the latter before the former can be very painful indeed (I tested this out a bit to resolve a discussion during a game once). The above applies if landing on islands. A landing on the mainland of Japan or the coast of China follows generally the same principles, except that it will be harder to reduce the target location's supply, and easier for the enemy to reinforce.

Bashing away at the Austro-Hungarians, having taken Trieste. But German forces are advancing from the west into Italy and have captured Turin... and now I'm having to divert forces to face the Germans to stop them advancing any further. This might save the Emperor from defeat, but it's going to be close either way.

I found both Mosier's and Winter's books interesting, though I wasn't totally convinced by the conclusions of the former, and the latter just made me think that I'd better check out some more books with different opinions before making my mind up about Haig. I have very much enjoyed Robin Neillands' numerous books on the British army's campaigns during the war, especially his The Death of Glory: The Western Front 1915 which is a counterblast against the "butchers and bunglers" viewpoint that Alan Clark put forward in his book The Donkeys many years ago. Neillands is very good at explaining the situation, the problems at hand, and the possibilities for success. I didn't like Clark's The Donkeys at all because it felt like a rant without any clear and concise commentary, but Neillands work is very readable and it really shows you the difficulties the generals faced, and why they attempted the solutions they did.

Thanks for mentioning this, I'll take a look and consider it. My Russians are currently invading Austria-Hungary down this very pass in one game, hoping to march on Vienna before a German advance further north causes Russia to collapse. It's a race against time as France has surrendered! I've seen the book advertised and I'd be interested to know what you think of it.

That's true, but the difference here is that crossing points between islands require more APs to cross than normal land tiles.

Hi I think with the problem you encountered in the Solomons the only solution would have been to land another HQ nearby because if MacArthur's supply could be brought up from 5 to 8 then he should be able to move. The weather is almost certainly to blame for the example from Midway as it's in a weather zone with a very small chance of mud. Bill

I've always attacked Thailand on turn one, as it's an easy capture. Are you going for Malaya instead? Only I think it's possible to do a bit of both. The Communist Chinese will join if Japanese units approach their territory, so it may be that this was the trigger? As for the Victory conditions, it's a race against time to capture Japan before time runs out. Obviously in the long run the result was a foregone conclusion, but the time limit is there to keep the pace up and encourage your troops to take those vital locations before the time is up.

We've got all the big names, Hindenburg, Petain, Foch, Haig, Allenby, Mustafa Kemal, Brusilov, von Mackensen, Plumer, Byng... the list could go on and on! Of course, some are better than others but HQs do play an important role in the game.

And this new option is great because I estimate it has saved me hours and hours of time when designing the WWI campaigns!

Hi Flu I'm not too sure about the first one, but what I can say is it is definitely worth researching as it will make enemy air attacks on your units occupying resources much more expensive. In answer to the second question, I'm pretty sure that it is the case that the Italians would benefit if occupying a German resource. Bill

One great problem for the Germans carrying out the Schlieffen Plan is the speed of their advance. Too fast, and they run out of supply; too slow, and the Entente have time to build up their forces to defend Paris, so getting the right speed balance is very important. There is also the question of what their forces in Alsace-Lorraine are doing. In one game I currently have the Germans hammering away at the gate of Paris and my French are really struggling to turn them away. I've recaptured Tours and Orleans, but Paris remains under significant threat. But it's my fault, because although I deployed the BEF in France, I then sent all further British units to Egypt and Mesopotamia, along with the ANZACs and both Indian Corps. They are doing well there, but France could really have benefited from their help!

Hi Tiresias It's not a dumb question at all! You can play as either the Central Powers or the Entente, controlling the armed forces of either side. Bill

Nearly forgot to mention, glad to see you all like what you've seen of the map!

The Central Powers certainly get to choose whether or not to use unrestricted naval warfare, and they can stop using it should the US reaction get too strong. Not using unrestricted is therefore safer, but it won't have quite the same dramatic effect on the UK economy.

Naval mines had been discussed but admittedly the more we've implemented all the other changes to make this a truly WWI game, and the more we've played, the less and less we've seen the need for them. It's not that we didn't think it would be great to include them, but having had a long list of changes for this release, some items just naturally don't make the cut.

Hi Thanks for the map feedback and it is always possible that there will be a few minor changes here and there before release. You may be right in thinking that a little more marsh would be appropriate, but the Masurian Lakes do act as a good barrier, causing the Russian armies to divide if they advance into East Prussia, just like what happened in 1914. It makes Russian decision making just that little bit more problematical! Bill

And you'll probably want to follow this guide too: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=90847

That would be a little premature, especially given that at the moment 100% of my attention is on making a fun, historical and playable WWI game.