Paths of Glory (board game)

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Paths of Glory
The First World War, 1914-1918
Designer Ted Raicer
Illustrator Mark Simonitch
Publisher GMT Games
Players Two
Playing time 7 hours
Random chance Some (card drawing, and die rolls for combat)
Skills required Strategy
Card management

BoardGameGeek entry

Paths of Glory: The First World War, 1914-1918 is a strategy board wargame, designed in 1999 by the six-time Charles S. Roberts Awards winner Ted Raicer and published by GMT Games. It covers the World War I from its outbreak to the 1918 Armistice, with a map of Europe and the Middle East as the game board.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

Unlike many other wargames with hex maps, this game uses a point-to-point system, with all spaces costing one movement point to move between. Counters represent corps and armies, counters for the latter being physically larger and attacking on a more favourable table to represent artillery support. Corps may be deployed on the map as needed, or kept in the off-map "reserve box". Armies which take losses are also replaced by corps from the reserve box, or are permanently eliminated if no such corps is available, so a player must be careful to keep enough corps in reserve. Most minor countries (except the Serbs and Belgians) have only corps-sized counters.

An attacker attacking from multiple spaces may attempt a "flank attack". If successful, the attacker attacks first, only after which can the now weakened defender fire back - the opposite is the case if the flank attack fails. This tends to be a key tactic on the more mobile Eastern Front. Stringent supply restrictions - units out of supply may not be activated for movement or combat, and are permanently eliminated if supply is not restored - force players to try to keep continuous lines.

Players may dig "trenches" under their counters, which besides weakening the attacker, strengthening the defender and making the defender immune from flank attacks, also allow defeated forces to avoid retreat at the cost of extra casualties, thus potentially making a densely-packed Western Front as immobile as it was in reality. Certain other forms of terrain (eg. mountains) also have similar powers to trenches. The map also contains numerous printed fortresses (eg. Liege, Antwerp, Verdun, Pryzmysl, Riga), which may be destroyed in combat or besieged.

The game also features an innovative card-driven system where each card may be used for one of four distinct actions: operations (movement or major offensives), strategic redeployment, replacement points (rebuilding units after combat losses) or special events such as the raising of fresh armies, the entry of neutral countries or the descent of Russia by stages to revolution, Bolshevism and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. American entry is also determined by the play of event cards, is only possible after Russia has become a democracy (hence historically in the spring of 1917) and does not always occur.

If a card is played for its special event, it is removed from the game, so the pack of available cards gradually diminishes as the game progresses. A player may also automatically make a single activation without the need to play a card, which may be necessary if he has played most of the cards out of his hand (eg. through playing too many combat cards). Cards with key events are also likely to have high values for Operations and Replacement points, requiring a player to make critical choices each turn in managing his hand of cards.[1]

Other special event cards include particular key offensives, such as the Russian Brusilov or Kerensky Offensives, the German Verdun, Michael and Blucher Offensives or the Allied Gallipoli and Salonika landings. Other events include the sortie of the German High Seas Fleet (which may be defeated by play of the British "Grand Fleet" Card - statistically roughly a one in three chance of the Allies holding that card at the time) and German Unrestricted U-Boat Warfare, which prevents deployment of US or British reinforcements until defeated by play of the Allied "Convoy" Card.

Other cards may be used to affect the outcome of combat rolls. These include able generals such as Kemal, von Below or Putnik, or new weapons such as poison gas, mine attacks, tanks or flamethrowers. Each side has an "air superiority" combat card, which may appear at various times during the game, reflecting fluctuations in air superiority.

Each turn each player draws a hand of seven cards, and must take six actions, one of which must be a randomly-determined "Mandated Offensive" (eg. a British or French offensive on the Western Front, a Turkish offensive or an Austro-Hungarian offensive against Italy), representing political pressure to make an attack which he might otherwise not have chosen, and which might even be quite inadvisable. After the German player has played the "French Mutiny" Event, French units are instead unable to attack (unless stacked with a US unit) on turns in which a French mandated offensive is rolled. The Central Powers are less likely to have to make Mandatory Offensives as the game progresses and Hindenburg and Ludendorff (and Hoffman in the East) are deemed, via play of the relevant card, to have taken control of Germany's war effort.

Victory is determined by control of objective spaces. If the game follows historical lines, the Germans will gain objectives in Russia and Rumania, while the Allies will gain objectives in Turkish-held Palestine and Mesopotamia. The Allies will also gain a few victory points from their blockade of Germany and from events such as the Lusitania Sinking, but will still need to recapture some German-held objectives in Belgium if they are to reach their historical victory level. However the rules also suggest that in competitive play players bid to pay the highest victory point handicap for the privilege of playing the Allies, suggesting that the Central Powers, who have to juggle multiple fronts with limited resources, are in fact the harder side to play.

[edit] Awards

The game has won the 1999 Charles S. Roberts Awards for Best Pre-World War II Boardgame, the 2000 International Gamers Award,[1] and the Games 100 Best Historical Simulation Game in 2001.[2]

[edit] Expansions and related games

In 2001 GMT released the add-on Paths of Glory Player's Guide, which is a 48-page booklet containing articles with tips, tactics, strategies and game variants. In addition it includes 20 new cards and a 1/4 sheet of additional counters.[3]

The GMT game Barbarossa to Berlin by Ted Raicer covers the Second World War in Europe, 1941-5, with a very similar game system. The game "Pursuit of Glory" by Brad Stock, covering the First World War against the Ottoman Empire in greater detail, is due for printing by GMT Games.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Paths of Glory. BoardGameGeek. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
  2. ^ GMT GAMES: Paths of Glory. GMT Games. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
  3. ^ Paths of Glory Player's Guide. BoardGameGeek. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.

[edit] External links