Paths of Glory - wyjaśnienia autora dot. wariantu hist.

[Comandante]

Cytuję tutaj dla chętnych wyjaśnienia Roba Hassarda dotyczące jego wariantu historycznego:

Before I get into why I think the independent WS favors the AP more than the CP and not the other way around, I'd like to just give some background first as to why the change to independent exists in the historical variant in the first place.

In standard PoG, a clever AP player who sees that the CP is trying to knock out Russia will stop playing WS cards once at TW with the likely exceptions being IAF and Allenby. If the AP WS is 13 or less, that means that the CP needs to do most of the work to get the combined WS up to 30. This lopsided CP WS effort was, IMO, one of the main causes for deterring the CP from trying the Russia sequence. Then to add insult to injury, after the CP player finally gets the combined WS high enough to play FotT, the AP gets to plop down Zimmerman thanks to his efforts. CP does all the WS work, AP gets a good part of the reward.

In the official historical scenario, we see this WS manipulation in reverse. In this official scenario, the AP must bring in Yank armies or suffer a VP penalty so now the onus is on them to get the WS up to 30 and doing it quickly so that they have time to bring on the armies. Here a clever CP player will get to TW and then sit on his hands with respect to WS (possible exception being French Mutiny). This means that it is up to the AP to play event after event conceivably having to bring his WS up to 19 just to get the combined WS to 30. Then once the AP has done that, the CP can play FotT on the cheap. Again, the combined WS requirement has been manipulated by one side to the detriment of the other.

In the historical variant, by making the WS requirement independent for the American/Russia sequences, neither side controls the fate of the other and each side has complete control over his Russia/America sequence.

Now here is why I think the elimination of the combined WS requirement favors the AP and not the CP. This is a little tricky to explain but if the combined WS requirement remained alongside the indepent one, a smart CP player is would stop playing WS once he has reach 15. This would imply that there is little benefit to the AP by keeping the old combined WS requirement. On the otherhand, the CP would reap a major benefit by keeping the combined option because the AP WS leaps to 17 on play of Zimmerman meaning the CP only needs 13 WS for FotT. By eliminating the combined WS option entirely, the CP loses its potential 'free ride'...