Ninety-nine years ago this August, the most deadly war the world has ever seen, even down to today, began in the Balkans when a failing minor "empire" tried to punish a minor nation because a few agitated radicals in that nation assassinated a visiting imperial duke hardly anyone even liked in the first place.
The resulting diplomatic mishmash spawned a war across the world, so lethal that people thought humanity would surely learn better and would never go to war again. Roughly 65 million people died from the war and its side-effects, not even counting the largest after-effect of the war, a 40 million death toll from a super-flu epidemic.
In memorial of this chilling monument to insane levels of pride, egotism and hostility, and the irreparable damage it can wreak among those who ought to love their neighbors as themselves, I am setting up a four-player match of the most daunting WW1 computer game on the market, AGEOD's World War One Gold.
What could possibly go wrong?! :D
Having now made at least a half-assed attempt at learning to play WW1G (resulting in at least 13 parts of an absolute newbie tutorial posted here at Grogheads (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=6547.0)), I am retitling the thread and making a call out for a final player. Kushan and W8aminute make players 2 and 3.
(We haven't settled on Central Powers / Entente teams, but I have an overly convoluted way of generating teams randomly which will fit the spirit of this game just fine. ;D )
Of course if enough players want to set up a second game, there's nothing stopping anyone except fear itself, and maybe the game, or the lack of it! :D But I can say that working on the tutorials has lessened my fear of the game and I feel reasonably confident about being able to work out the details I haven't explored yet.
We'd do PBEM (for ease of scheduling purposes) and turn on all the turn-based options (to allow PBEM to get as close as possible to the full single-player or LAN/TCIP version). Battles would still be resolved on their proper round without direct influence from players (aside from special subrounds where applicable), but most large-scale strategy games don't use even the minor amount of "on-field" directing WW1G does; and from what I can tell the options on-field boil down to a few choices that the player would make before battle anyway plus some simple tactics to always get the best choice under the circumstances (thus easily mimicked by the combat AI).
Matrix currently has WW1G (and Guns of August) on sale for 60% off this week, with boxed sets at same price as download. http://www.matrixgames.com/news/1107/A.Deal.from.the.Great.War!
Just thought I should mention this, since it might help convince some people to try a turn-based four-player version of the grand campaign. :)
Not sure how I missed this Jason. I'd be interested in a MP game. WW1 Gold is my favorite AGEOD game after AJE/BOR. Its been awhile since I've played, and I have to admit I'm not really all that good at any of the AGEOD games despite how much I enjoy them. With that said, if your looking for an opponent, I'm in.
I can commit to at least a turn a day during the week, and definitely then that on the weekends. Wish I could do more during the week, but my work schedule is going to continue to be really crazy for at least the next few months.
It wouldn't even have to be a turn a day! :)
Let's see if we can get another two players now -- 1 on 1 would be okay with me, too, but I think 2 vs 2 would be easier for new players. (Like for example myself. ;D )
I have started an absolute newbie tutorial (by an absolute noob, me, for absolute noobs, me), the first three parts of which can now be found here at Grogheads:
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=6547.msg159777#msg159777
I now feel significantly more competent and confident about the 0.1333% of the game I've studied thereby! :D Anyone who has some positive experience with the game is exhorted to go there and add/correct information as I go along.
Definitely put me down as a PBEM player. Like Kushan I can commit to a turn a day during the normal work week. Weekends I can fit more turns in and it will vary from 2 to 3 a day depending on how large my honey do do list is.
Cool! -- One more player and I won't have to do any more of those tutorials to seduce convince someone to jump in! :D
(If I have any hope of learning the game I had better continue those tutorials... ;) )
Retitled and re-introduced the thread. Setting up to run on the 99th anniversary seems fitting.
Nice choice for a title. I look forward to this. Spent a little time this weekend with the game. I forgot about the initial warplan phase and the detail behind it. WW1G is a great game!
So, since we're having a hard time coming up with a fourth player, and August is waning away, would someone like to take the Central Powers (on two different pbem accounts I suppose), leaving the other two as France and Russia/Serbia? (Plus whoever each player can pick up along the way?)
I'm tempted to do that but realistically I couldn't devote the proper time to both of those components of the Central Powers. :(