Has Anyone Tried To Make World War I Larry Harris Game?

[CrazyG]

There are a few other WW1 games available that have cavalry and other units included. Frankly I think they are much better than Larry Harris's game

[Tony]

Germany has no way to get down to Africa at all.

[Tony]

Well this game is a start. A two hit tank is kinda cool and you cant buy them till later in the game.

[Cernel]

@crazyg I didn't want to be negative, but I'm also not too impatient of seeing this game in TA. Maybe a reworked custom versions with also the biggest historical blunders reworked (Berlin closer to Moscow than Paris, etc., etc.), yes.

On the other hand, I think supporting this specific thing would be a general great improvement:

Fighters are a land unit to let them stay in conquered/enemy territory and be able to load on transports, so if you want to fly over a Sea Zone or enemy-controlled territory, use edit mode.

Both the ability to land transport air and the ability to stay in conquered, and, possibly, also giving air the ability to conquer.

This way, by the way, cavalry, if added, can be "air" too. Also think about the applications in term of Dragons or Helicopters, etc..

Not terribly impatient for the game itself, but whatever adds options and stuff a mapmaker can re-mash up is sweet. The aborted making of this game has actually already added up a series of additional options, some of them really helpful, like the phase steps, that have found good use in several custom maps.

[Tony]

The game is a start to more it seems. If someone adds a bit more to it maybe it can be a great game. I suggest add units to buy but leave the rest of the game as is unit wise and production etc. Russia can be taken but it seems as though the Allies have to work a lot harder to conquer Germany. It seems France is more superior than the UK is. I can be wrong about this and also the Central powers have no way to take control of Africa or the seas like the rest of the AA Games made.

[Tony]

Germany controlled Moscow but they couldn't produce units there. Interesting!

[CrazyG]

I really don't this map is a good starting point. The only reason this game has any popularity whatsoever in my opinion is that is has the name Larry Harris attached to it. I've played the board game many times and its boring. Once you solve the quesiton of what ratio of infantry/artillery to build its basically just move and roll dice.

The map itself is just awful. The way the territories are drawn deny any kind of a dynamic conflict from happening. Germany and Austria just have an incredible lack of options, the sea zones make naval superiority grossly too strong and flexible compared to land. Even with tons of revisions and house rule ideas tried, the map just doesn't work. Domination, No Man's Land, Great War, or even NWO provide a much better starting point for a WW1 game.

[wc_sumpton]

Fighters are a land unit to let them stay in conquered/enemy territory and be able to load on transports, so if you want to fly over a Sea Zone or enemy-controlled territory, use edit mode.

Been playing around with the "SpecialMoveDelegate". It seem to be able to simulate this so that a "land unit" can fly over Sea Zones and enemy-controlled territories, but still conquer a territory and load onto a transport without using 'Edit Mode'.

Might make a nice WWII glider mechanism, or helicopter control. Problem is the use of a separate 'Move' delegate for this to work.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers...

[RogerCooper]

@tony I believe that Tony was talking about Larry's Harris's rewrite of the AA14 game. This can be found at the Larry Harris Design forum.

This version adds 2 main elements. The first is that every power can collapse by losing some homeland areas. A version of this could be easily implemented, although not Larry's exact rules.

The other major change is that land units can non-combat move 2 areas. There are some workarounds to get this effect, but it would be better if the engine (& AI) supported directly a non-combat move unit property.

There are also some setup changes and Naval bases give extra movement.

When I finish my current conversion project (I am converting all old version scenarios to the current version), I will try implementing something along the line Larry's rules. Instead of the non-combat move of 2, I would allow capitals to boost land moves by 1.

[Tony]

Roger,

I would have to say that this map is pretty good in that you have a lot of land battles that take place around Europe. Germany has no way of getting down to Africa until later in the game. I like the fact that the sea units take hits on the units being carried by transports instead of the whole transport being wiped off the map altogether.
That written, I think the air unit "fighter should not be allowed to go on transports but instead be able to fly over territories and land on them by themselves. I also think that the transports should be able to be fired upon by fighters if unescorted by the ships other than the submarine.

I'd add Calvary units to this game and if you want to add the zeppelin "bomber" then you would need to have scramble of fighters over capitols to be able to have a chance to shoot them down. I don't see a need to add air fields for capitol cities, it should just be a given that the capitol cities have air fields to counter attack the bombers or zeppelins in this scenario.

Italy should be a neutral country on this scenario until later on in the game like it was in real life, they were indecisive with who to join. The game should reflect this.

I love the two hit tanks. I love the amount of ground units and I love the way the fighters fight first to decide air superiority. I think that the lesser countries should be the way they are in this game, less income and less units to produce.

In my opinion I think this game is a great start to a really great game. It could be made a lot better with some tweaks. Maybe it is only because I played on line and not the real board game. The USA is not such a huge force in this game and I think that makes it more balanced.

Thanks.

[General_Zod]

@wc_sumpton That was made for airborne units, an alternative to Paratroopers. But I never tried to load them on transports during the airborne combat move. Unless you mean you make the special move and then can load on transports during normal moves?

[wc_sumpton]

@general_zod
Good question. What I did was

[wc_sumpton]

Sorry hit the wrong key. LOL

What I did was add the special move before the CM. For the tech I made the fighter the airbase (and gave it a movement of 4 for testing). I was able to move the fighter the 4 spaces over water or enemy-occupied territories to land/battle in another territory. I never really tried to 'land' on a transport. But since the unit was defined as a land unit, and it could still move during regular CM if it did not move during the special move, then it could be move to a transport during the CM or NCM move.

Cheers...

[redrum]

@wc_sumpton You should be able to edit your posts I believe by clicking on the 3 dots on the far right side. That way you don't need to double post

[wc_sumpton]

@redrum
Thank you. Didn't check those out.

Back to @General_Zod, just redid the test and no, the fighter can not land on the transport during the special move, but it can during the CM and NCM.

Cheers...

[General_Zod]

@wc_sumpton Ok that sounds normal assuming your fighter is a really a land unit. It's a cool extremely under used feature. I have experimented with it too. I was thinking of using it for depth charges. But it can be used for many other uses too, if you don't mind the extra phase.

[Schulz]

I can't open the map. Even though I have renamed the zip as world_war_i_1914-master.

[Panther]

@schulz
If you want to run the map zipped please see:
https://forums.triplea-game.org/post/10143
It is not enough to rename the zip. The mapname-folder inside the zip needs "-master" as addition, too.

If you want to run the map unzipped please see:
https://forums.triplea-game.org/post/10139

[Schulz]

I have tried it as "world_war_i_1914-master.zip" But I have got this one;

[Panther]

@schulz
As I said, the mapname-folder inside the zip needs "-master" as addition, too.
So you can doubleclick on the zip file. Then you see the mapname-folder. Edit the mapname-folder by adding "-master" to it.

This is how it should look after the edit. (GUI might differ depending on what you are using for ZIPs)