The fundamental cause of World War One was competition among the great powers of Europe for control of the world. This struggle manifested itself in various colonial adventures and intrigues, in bloody little skirmishes around the fringes of Europe (as in the Balkan Wars), in a mounting naval and land arms race, and in a large interlocking set of alliances. Thus, when the Austrian Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian agents, the resulting rush to war was no accident but a perfectly natural and more or less inevitable event. Austria went to war against Serbia (and its ally Montenegro), which prompted Russia to mobilize against Austria, which prompted Germany to begin war against Russia and Russia's ally France and also Belgium (according the the Schlieffen Plan), which prompted Britain to intervene against Germany. So when the war began, it was France, Great Britain, Russia, Serbia, and Montenegro as the Allies against the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary. Other nations eventually joined the Allies, inluding Italy, Rumania, and the US. Bulgaria and Turkey joined the Central Powers. The original game included a small chance for Britain to remain neutral if the Germans chose not to invade Belgium. However, this scenario assumes a Belgian invasion to have occurred; the issue being so clear to the Germans at the time, it seems unrealistic to have a German advance without an intrusion upon Belgian territory. So Britain therefore begins as an Ally.

It is currently fashionable yet wholly wrong to argue that the Great War could have been avoided by skillful diplomacy, wiser statesmen, or more prudent journalists. Frankly, the war came as a surprise to no one. The political and military leaders were eager to expand borders and to crush enemies, the financiers were thrilled at the prospect of boundless war profits, and it must be said too, the ordinary man in the street was absolutely overjoyed. In every national capital of the great European powers, there was mass celebration and patriotic fervor. Poets may love peace, but the masses love blood and war--at least at the beginning of a war. Even the much-celebrated Socialists of Europe could not stop the flood. In fact, even though the leaders of the European Left promised a thousand times that they would act in concert to preserve peace, when the time came, they all acted instead according to the interests of nationalism, voting war credits for all of their respective governments. The great theme of international socialism was shown at the time to be nothing but a big lie, an illusion. A few radical politicians on the Left such as Lenin predicted the war when everyone else said that it was impossible and condemned it when everyone else praised it as a panacea. Ironically, the war was exactly what the radicals needed to be thrown into power, years later and after much bloodshed. The war was labeled "The War to End All Wars" which of course is silly nonsense, pure idiotic utopianism. Many at the time believed it, however, or at least pretended to believe it. The war was natural and inevitable but it solved no problems, except that it utterly destroyed the old world. The world which emerged from the war was quite different, the old liberal ideas of the past increasingly pushed to the side by political extremism of the Right and the Left. The war created Lenin and Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, and dramatically altered the lives of even democratic politicians such as Harry Truman. The redrawing of national boundaries after the war created only further problems of irredentism and suppressed minorities and severely dislocated the world economic system as well. As many historians have rightly argued, the Second World War twenty years later was simply a continuation of the First World War.

To simulate the French offensive doctrine, for the first few turns, all French units which begin a turn adjacent to a German unit must participate in at least one attack that turn. The human player can decide exactly when to suspend operation of this rule. Historically, the French military leader Joffre had figured out by August 24 that technology, geography, and the correlation of forces at the time meant that further offensives in the immediate future would be wasteful. So, as a human player, when you feel that your French units have lost enough steam and gained enough wisdom, then stop attacking. This rule does not apply to the devious programmed opponent.

Names are spelled according to the original game rather than my own preferences, as with "Rumania" rather than "Romania". At start of game, Allied player controls France, Great Britain, Russia, Serbia, and Montenegro, and Central Powers player controls Germany and Austria-Hungary. Other nations may join the conflict later, either through voluntary belligerency or through invasion by the enemy. Potential Allies include Belgium, Netherlands, United States, Italy, Rumania, and Greece. Potential Central Powers include Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, and Greece. The minor nations of Denmark, Switzerland, and Albania are freely passable, though they have no units, no allegiance, and no objectives (except that the little Austrian puppet Albania has one city). Luxembourg begins the game already occupied by German units. I could have blacked out Denmark and Switzerland but it looks ugly, so I chose not to do so.

Submarine warfare, poison gas, tanks, seasonal weather effects, the British draft system, German stosstrupen, the Allied naval blockade, German unrestricted submarine warfare, national surrender, and revolutions are all incorporated.

It will perhaps be noticed that there is a large blacked out portion of the game map at the bottom, but please realize that this is very much intentional, the product of a great deal of testing and experimentation; it now properly reflects the zonal weather effects which I intended.

Some units will appear as reinforcements with only skeletal equipment but lots of room to fill up with replacements. This simulates the original game's rules such as "after turn X, the player can build units of type Y"--British draft units, German stosstrupen.

Theater options exist for the Central Powers to attack Italy or Rumania prior to their voluntary belligerency. Declaring war on other neutrals can be done by moving adjacent to or attacking their units. I used some exclusion zone hexes to keep German units from unfairly using Netherlands territory to attack Belgium from the flank--if you as the Central Powers want to use Netherlands territory, you will have move next to their units and make them an Ally. It is too bad that TOAW only lets us use two exclusion zones--why not unlimited? Anyway, that is why the Dutch border hexes are the same as those in Italy. When the Italian ones disappear later, then the Dutch ones will too, and by that time, it won't matter anyway. Similarly, I have used the Rumanian exclusion zone to close the Turkish-Bulgarian border, which is realistic because Turkish units would not become involved in Balkan warfare until the warfare became more generalized, as was the case historically. So, until Rumania gets involved, Turkish units will serve their historical purpose in defending only their own territory.

Naval transport exists for the Allied player but not for the Central Powers and is designed primarily to shuttle units from Britain and the US to the Western Front or perhaps for a bit of amphibious invading in Greece or Turkey. With respect to submarines, please note that at the beginning of 1915, 1916, and 1917, special theater options will appear for the Central Powers player concerning whether to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare for that year. Choosing to do so will harm Allied war production, but it will also increase the chances of US intervention. Because the US will be involved by 1918, it is automatically assumed that the Germans will engage in unrestricted submarine warfare until the end of the war. If unrestricted submarine warfare is not chosen, the default will be restricted submarine warfare, but this will have no adverse economic impact upon the Allies due to expert arms smuggling by the Americans. (It has been argued that the reason that the "innocent" Lusitania blew up and sank so quickly is because it was secretly loaded with arms for the British!)

It would be great to allow a human player to play only a single country rather than a full coalition, but TOAW does not seem to allow for such a thing. Even in Steel Panthers, you can let the computer play some of the formations on your side. Note that many of the news events are extremely biased viewpoints of particular nations taken from actual headlines of the day. These headlines are not meant to be taken as absolute truth but they do represent what was being said at the time. It is actually an excellent exercise to study how different nations treat the same events in totally different manners. Players who are easily offended by war propaganda from either side in the event engine should not read the news items. Players offended by war should perhaps play something rather than wargames.

Players who are afraid to play a game over 200 turns should use military wisdom to win the war in miracle time or in the alternative, simply stop playing after 3 or 6 months and check which side is winning. You do not have to play the whole war if you do not want to--stop whenever you like. But if you want the whole war, it is there for you.

Reconstituted units should appear in rational locations, at least according to the game manual; however, sometimes units appear in stupid places, such as Russian units in France. Well, to help correct this, I have added an abstract sea corridor between the North Sea and Russian Railhead #1--if units appear in stupid places, then the human player can immediately send the units by sea movement to where they should have appeared in the first place. Because part of the fun of the original game was setting up the units in a "wise" manner, players may want to go to the game editor and change the starting locations of units on the side the player wishes to play--save under a new name and play. Of course, you should only deploy your own units and only within your own countries. There is no need to change formation objectives, because they do not affect human players anyway.

To repair railroads, you will need to use the railroad engineer regiments. The countries of France, Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary each have two of these. Protect them well and keep them out of combat, because there are no replacements for them. If Italy joins the Central Powers, many of the Italian railroads will be automatically destroyed because of the change in ZOC. To compensate for this, the Italians will receive two RR repair units if they join the Central Powers. This clever idea came from the brilliant Slovenian Uros Trshan, and it seems to correct a problem which I had not solved myself.

Also please be aware that your replacement rate is extremely important over time to rebuild or to replenish units. The replacement rate will increase proportionally when new countries join your alliance and will decrease when you lose cities to the enemy. Note also that recapturing cities will get you victory points but will NOT increase the replacement rate back to the original level--once the city is conquered, its factories are considered destroyed and are not easily fixed.

The strategic issues are pleasantly similar to the historical situation. As the Germans, you must try to crush the French quickly while holding the Eastern Front against the huge Russian steamroller. You will probably find the need to transfer quite a few units to the Eastern Front to avoid collapse. However, once you turn the tide and start pushing the Russians back, then you can probably keep advancing eastward as long as you continue sending sufficient reinforcements. Of course, as you advance, the front gets wider and wider, taking an increasing larger number of units to keep an unbroken front. At a certain point, the front will break, creating possibilities (and risks) of encirclement. Operating against this is the slow mobility. On the West, as soon as you lose momentum, it will be hard to regain, as the British and ultimately the United States heavily reinforce the French. As the Germans learned, a two-front war is a bitch.

As the Austrians, you face an even worse strategic situation. You need to crush Serbia as quickly as possible to free up your forces for use elsewhere. Gaining Balkan allies will help out a lot, but beware of political volatility on your borders. Nothing sucks like finding Rumania or Italy ready to invade when you are busy elsewhere. The most dangerous thing, however, is the big Russian forces on your Galician border--it will be very hard to hold them off without help from the Germans, who are of course quite busy elsewhere. It is very hard to hold both Przemysl and Lemberg, but it is very important to hold the mountains to keep the Russians out of the open Hungarian plain. If Italy joins the Allies, hold them out of Trieste until you can send reinforcements. A stalemate on the Austro-Italian border is quite acceptable.

On the Allied side, you also have a historically realistic strategic situation. As the French, you must hold the German flood until your allies can relieve the pressure. Especially the Russians can help by a big attack into Prussia. Be careful about losing French cities--they are so tightly packed (as opposed to the spread-out cities in the East) that losing a little territory can have a dramatic adverse long-term economic effect upon your forces. As the Russians, you must attack early and powerfully. If the German makes mistakes in the defense of Prussia (such as refusing to send reinforcements), then you can plow all the way to Berlin. However, even if you do not succeed, you will still buy valuable time for your French ally. Remember--if the French surrender, then the Germans are going to kick your ass anyway.

Britain (and ultimately the US) must strive to use their limited forces to tip the balance in important areas. For example, it is very hard for the French to hold off the Germans in 1914 unless the BEF sends its units into northern France and Belgium. Serbia's strategic role is to be a pain in the ass to Austria for as long as possible. Use those endless mountains to tie down the enemy for a long time.

Belgrade will fall, but your forces will continue to exist until Skopje falls.

For all players, you will notice that the variable entry of allies will have a major impact upon the game. Now of course these little countries are weak and almost silly compared to the big ones. However, when the grand strategic situation is a big stalemate, any little bit helps. Also you should be careful not to attack neutrals until you are ready and able to beat them quickly. For the Allies, it is a big deal when the news states that the United States has become an Ally, but you should keep in mind that US reinforcements while very numerous will take a very long time to arrive.

I have added naval units upon the suggestions of intelligent players. If you notice that the "pre-dreadnought" naval units actually are a bit stronger than the "dreadnought" naval units, it is because they include more capital and supporting ships--it is only the final total strength that is greater. I have used the heavy cruiser equipment option to model the class pre-dreadnought battleship. There are mines blocking amphibious invasions of certain Central Powers hexes. Finally, keep some units in reserve to prevent the enemy from raiding your cities while you are occupied at the front. Although this is a big scenario, it seems to play rather quickly. Intelligence and wisdom in the use of your forces should produce a fun and educational gaming experience.