World War One gamers

[billyboy]

[rstites25]

The bottom looks like Der Weltkrieg, but what is the top?

[billyboy]

The bottom looks like Der Weltkrieg, but what is the top?

1914: Offensive à outrance

[rstites25]

Ah. Don't know what it is about it, but I really like the map.

[usrlocal]

Yep. It's sweet.

[kira1y]

I still have to get to those 1914 games. Was a little turned off by all of the rule updates they were still going on about when the game first came out.

How does it play out of the box, Bill?

[capt_s]

Fun comparison.

Expecting some trouble around Paris I see .....     

[Calandale]

DW enforces that garrison.

[billyboy]

I still have to get to those 1914 games. Was a little turned off by all of the rule updates they were still going on about when the game first came out.

How does it play out of the box, Bill?

I've been playing awhile and we're on turn 6. Still unsure how I feel about it. I definitely have more fun with Der Weltkrieg.

[capt_s]

Sluggo played a fair amount of 1914:TitE a number of months ago. He rolled up his sleeves and really dug into it in an effort to learn a hard game. At the end of the day he was quite happy with it.

Hopefully he will see this discussion and chime in.

[Meisterchow]

I loved the hell out of Twilight in the East, but have completely failed to wrap my brain around OaO.

I've just about completed my DW collection.  I'll probably pick up the West Front and campaign module this fall to finish it off.  Now to play it...

[billyboy]

I loved the hell out of Twilight in the East, but have completely failed to wrap my brain around OaO.

I've just about completed my DW collection.  I'll probably pick up the West Front and campaign module this fall to finish it off.  Now to play it...

Twilight in the East definitely was more enjoyable than OaO

[Sluggonics]

Sluggo played a fair amount of 1914:TitE a number of months ago. He rolled up his sleeves and really dug into it in an effort to learn a hard game. At the end of the day he was quite happy with it.

Hopefully he will see this discussion and chime in.

Yes, greatly enjoyed my experience with TitE.  But I haven't played OaO yet.  I only know what I've read elsewhere - some people didn't like the elimination of strength point losses, though I think Mike Resch provided an option to use strength point markers in the game.  Essentially, his philosophy is that units should not be eliminated, since entire divisions or corps were rarely eliminated.  Everything is tracked by effectiveness - so instead of grinding down strength points, or just wiping out stacks of units (think The Guns of August - yikes!) you're grinding against the same units over and over, chipping away at combat effectiveness, until units start to displace.  Although, these are second-hand observations - I can't really tell you whether this type of philosophy works in practice in OaO.  TitE used a more conventional system in terms of unit strength, but still employed that philosophy of combat effectiveness - if the combat effectiveness of your units started to waver, your line was in real danger of just disintegrating.

[Meisterchow]

When I originally read that combat in OaO was going to streamlined from that in TiTE, I was very interested.  As much I actually like TiTE's combat model, it is a bit involved.  However, I think the pendulum may have swung too far the other way with the implementation in OaO.  While I agree with Resch's reasoning for the changes, the end result just falls flat for me.

[S Trauth]

When I get time I have to do some experimentation with my WWI titles which deal with 1914 (probably just DWK as I can't be bothered with GRD's -even though I have it -[somewhere] the scale seems to broad -plus there were *a lot* of counters, and a lot more -1 +1 modifiers that (iirc) cumulatively applied to nearly every single combat....)

Ok getting off message here... the thing I thought I was reading was basically about how there was nothing at all going on on the (French) left/ German right on their initial push into France (August -early Sept 1914) - that if one side were to weaken their frontage on the inside track so to speak (basically from about Paris to the Swiss frontier in both sides' cases) -that the other side would be able to threaten to push through in those areas - and that was the major consideration at the time. It is the reason why the Germans felt that they had to sweep to the inside of Paris instead of sweeping around it ( lack of troops basically -presumably caused by much higher than anticipated losses. ).  

I have a theory that most guys play out August-September 1914 (maybe it is because most maybe all games ) model this based upon what happened in 1940  - the entire contiguous frontage thing/breakthroughs ... but, I don't actually believe that in the early days of 1914 that either side could actually conceptualise what exactly that meant in reality. I am saying this from the point of view that both sides (well all I guess if you count Russia - which this might even apply more to)- were still fighting the war with a 19th century mindset - where armies were not of a size (nor were the armies' logistics capable of) to actually stretch from one border to another of any moderately sized area. I think that you sort of saw this beginning to evolve to a degree in the American Civil War outside of Richmond Virginia/Petersburg Virginia in 1864-65 - but even then it was not nearly so broad of an area as the 1914 Western Front (basically Switzerland - the Channel coast by way of Belgium).

My point being - I am not so sure that the commanders at the time were really up to conducting operations on that wide of a front - they had no actual practical experience in it (they did get it as things went along - I just don't think that they had it in August or September 1914 - The Russians in East Prussia were still conducting their business like 19th Century armies - basically the 'front' was where the armies were marching -and the Germans there never actually had the manpower to do much more than react to their moves  (and react pretty swiftly too - as they were much more flexible than either Russian army present.). I guess I only brought that part up as a further example of what I was meaning about Aug-Sept 1914.

I haven't a wide experience with different games of this period, but of what I do have - I think Schroeder's comes the closest to being able to replicate that.

What I am seeing in Bill's images are that he has some forces put on his extended flanks for both sides -and I guess what I am saying is that I think in reality neither side, historically, felt that was to their benefit -the initial drive was all about either protecting Paris, and barring that targeting the other sides' army as their objective (particularly on the part of the Germans when they swung to the east of the Paris fortifications.).