It had been a while since Richard and I had last played this game. The first game saw the war over by Christmas, but the second ragged on with a Russian Revolution and a very late US entry. Richard was the Central Powers in both games.
Germans spend Christmas in Paris.
US isolationists caused a critical delay.
Richard has provided the following (with a few edits from me)
The final scores for the second game were as follows:
Central Powers Points earned:
- Russia defeated: 4
- Serbia: 1
- Romania: 1
Entente Points earned:
- East Africa: 1
For a net of 5. The Central Powers need 7 to win.
The game was lost for the Central Powers when the Entente got back the Somme early in the game (1915). There was no real coming back from this as the Russians had built up so much that the Germans couldn't even spare a single army for the Western Front if they were going to make any progress against the Russians. The Russians had also made that extremely difficult by leaving armies behind to threaten the German flanks and Baltic supply line tying up two of their armies needed at the front.
The Russian fast build up was also made easier by super early Italian entry (fewer Austrian-Hungarian units used against Russia) and particularly no Gallipoli campaign (this might have been the first game where there was no Gallipoli). That was a critical factor which freed up a British army at a critical
time. The British seemed to always have more than enough production points throughout the game as the maximum U Boat attrition was only two which still leaves the British five.
The High Seas Fleet put in a good account after technology improvements, causing the British to expend production to repair their fleet, but it was too late by then. The Germans pushed their luck with an extremely skimpy defence in the Rhine, but it failed at a critical moment and cost them a permanent army lost, which really hurts the Germans as everything is needed in the final turns. One more army
would have meant saving Belgium and another VP. With the late US entry, although a long shot, it was all still up for grabs, which is great as you never feel it's over until it is.
We did have a few mistakes over production points and fleet usage as well as forgetting to use poison gas, although the latter is understandable.
