Ted Raicer - 08:06am Jul 14, 1998 PST (#1441 of 1447)

    >Ted, could you give me a thumbnail sketch of Paths of Glory (scale,
    complexity, map size, fronts covered), <<

Paths of Glory uses a single map with point to point movement to portray
all of WWI in Europe and the Near East from August 1914 to the winter of
1918-19. The Europe and Near East portions are at different scales, to
allow more detail in Europe. To give an idea of scale, the German west
front at the start of August 1914 consists of the 1st Army in the Aachen
box (actually circle on my map, TAHGC may go with boxes, don't know),
the 2nd and 3rd Armies in the Koblenz box, the 4th and 5th Armies in the
Metz box, the 6th Army in the Strasbourg box, and a reduced 7th Army in
the Mulhouse box.

Facing them is the Liege space with its fort (the Belgian Army sets up
in Antwerp, and the BEF in the "Brussels" box-which actually represents
all of central Belgium including Mons), the Sedan space with the French
5th Army, Verdun with a fort and French 4th and 3rd Armies, the Nancy
space with a fort and 1st and 2nd Armies, and the Belfort space with a
fort and two corps. A German Schlieffen Plan attack would follow the
route Liege-Brussels-Cambrai-Amiens-Paris on the PoG map. Hope that
gives some sense of the map.

Except for August and September 1914, each of which is a turn, the turns
are seasonal, for a total of 20 turns if the game goes the distance.
There is an introductory scenario covering the 1914 campaigns, a short
campaign version covering 1914-16.

Units are armies and corps. There is a fire type CRT (actually two-one
for armies and one for corps alone). All units are two steps, but when
an army is eliminated it is replaced by a two step corps from the force
pool, if available. If it isn't available, that army is permanently
eliminated, so balancing the need for corps on the map and corps in your
force pool is an important element of play.

Play is card driven ala We the People, but with significant differences.
Each side (Allied and CP) has its own deck. Or rather decks:
Mobilization, Limited War, Total War. A player gets his LW and TW cards
added to his hands when he performs certain actions, and it is possible
for one player to be at LW while the other is at TW for instance.

Each card is rated for OPS points used to activate spaces for movement
or attack (not both!), Strategic Redeployment (movement of corps-and to
a limited extent armies-across the map and to and from the force pools),
Replacements, and Events (from tactical innovations to the entry of
minor powers to reinforcements). Though each card has 4 possible uses,
the player may choose only one per card play (there are 6 plays per turn
for each side) and many Events will remove the card from the deck. Since
the "better" events tend to be the better OPS cards this is often not an
easy decision.

There are rules for flank attacks, entrenching (with counters, two
levels), and investing forts. There is also a rule for making peace
offers. If you are ahead instead of a card play you can make a peace
offer. If the other player accepts it the game ends in a draw, if he
refuses you roll with a 1/3 chance of gaining a VP (vs. a 1/6 chance
your offer was so bad world opinion gives the other side a VP). It can
be a cheap way to pick up a victory point, but you have to judge whether
you are so far ahead your opponent willl take the draw!

Because of the nature of the war as wll as the multiple uses for each
card PoG (unlike WtP) is very playable solo by the way.

Ted