American entry

[lettowvorbeck]

All the WW1 games I've every played always underestimate the U.S.'s isolationism when it came to European wars and make it fairly easy for the U.S. to join the Entente as early as 1916, even when the CP player makes even less of an effort to annoy the U.S. than Germany did historically. In my game, the US entered in Sept 16 even though I in no way made unrestricted sub warfare a strategy.

Another thing that is artificially sped up in other WW1 games is the actual deployment of US troops on the battlefield. I will be curious to see how early that happens in my current game.

[Bill101]

Hi

I'd be curious to know how the US has joined this early too if you haven't been using any unrestricted warfare. I would think that your opponent must have invested heavily in diplomacy but it would be good to check.

If you could send me a saved turn to bill.runacre@furysoftware.com it would be great. Thanks!

[lettowvorbeck]

Bill,

The AI is the opponent. I suspected it spent massively on diplomacy. I probably had one sub on one of the unrestricted tiles twice for a single turn. Shouldn't have made much of an impact. I am much past the point now. Will the turn still be useful to you?

BTW, for everyone else, it looks like it takes from 6-7 months for US units to hit France.

[Bill101]

The turn is useful thanks, and I've sent you an email. It looks like your drive on Paris is well underway now!

For the US units, their production time is no faster than anyone else's, so once they join the war this should be borne in mind when deciding what units to field, e.g. infantry units can be on their way to Europe while artillery are still in training.

[lettowvorbeck]

I won the game in Sept 1917 and the only americans on french soil were a pair of air units. I don't know if this was just an AI quirk. Does the US get any units appearing automatically at the outbreak, or do they have to build all land units from scratch (I hope the latter)?

[Bill101]

The latter, apart from a unit of Marines.

[Omegaman1]

I just finished my first campaign as the Central Powers, and the U.S. joined the Entente in Sept. 1916 in my game as well. I did choose to go with unrestricted sub warfare, but it seemed that U.S. reaction to that event was uneven. It went up to about 50% in 1915, then stayed there for several months. Then, in the summer of 1916, it started growing again in leaps and bounds -- even though I had the same number of German subs in UK NM spaces (three) the whole time.

As for U.S. forces, the first American aircraft arrived in December 1916, while a decent force of American units (one HQ, three corps, 1 detachment, 1 SF) appeared in France by fall 1917. The delay "felt" right, as it took about a year for the U.S. to make a real presence on the battlefield. Hope this helps!

Dave

[Bill101]

Thanks for the feedback and I can confirm that the US reaction to unrestricted warfare is slightly unpredictable, so as not to give guaranteed and definite increases in US reaction whenever it's used. Thus there is an element of risk, and you might be lucky and not annoy the US when using it!