Talk to me about Paths of Glory

So I finally got Twilight Struggle.

I quite enjoyed it. This was the first CDG i've ever played of those descended from We the People. I'd played Combat Commander and Commands and Colors of course, but these are tactical and well people seem to get in a fit about whether or not those are "true" CDGs.

ANYWAY, i've heard Paths of Glory was a badass game for sometime, but I was unsure of the card based mechanics simply because i'd never played a game like that before. But now i'd like to think about get PoG because i've found I appear to like CDGs, I currently have no games on WW1, and of late i've been enjoying more strategic games with only a few fixed scenarios (as opposed to tactical systems with dozens of scenarios).

So how much of a step up is PoG from TS? My understanding is that mechanically PoG is simple, there are just a bunch of exceptions regarding certain areas and units.

How is combat resolved? Is it just a D6? Are charts referenced?

Also whats the playing time - 10 hours?

You can download the PoG rules online. Reading them should give you a good gauge of the step up in complexity. From what I can tell, it's very significant. I've been tempted to get the game a few times, but each time I read the rules I realize I don't have anyone that would play it with me.

I've got the rules, just haven't read through them really.

I need to print them out.

I hate reading lengthy things on a computer monitor.

I have played Paths of Glory 200 times or so over the years and have read all the posts on ConsimWorld (20,000+ now), so I have a good grasp of the rules. I'm happy to teach you to play either by VASSAL, wargameroom or cyberboard using ACTS. Send me a PM.

I'm solo-ing my first game. It is a substantial step up from TWILIGHT STRUGGLE, I don't think there's any arguing that point.

The rules are pretty daunting to read through the first couple of times. I highly recommend Eric Brosius' learning guide on BGG in the Files section. Despite his apparent fascination with parenthetical phrases, it's a very fine distillation of the game and presents the concepts in a different order than the actual rulebook. I reformatted it to fit on fewer pages and printed it out in booklet form so I can page through it.

Once you get your head wrapped around things, the mechanics are in fact fairly simple. You can use your cards for events, ops for activating armies and corps for movement and attack, replacement points to use at the end of the turn to rebuild your units' strength, or strategic redeployment (long distance moves).

Ultimately, you need to up your War Status to gain access to the additional card decks, and you need VP to win the war. You get VP from capturing certain spots on the map or through some card events. You avoid at all costs the possibility of having your units cut off from supply, especially armies.

Much of the rulebook is devoted to the bumper crop of rules exceptions and nation-specific rules. I don't have any specifics on hand to prove this, but I do think the rules could have been written with substantially more concision.

So far it seems like a great game, albeit one with a steep learning curve.

The difficulty with PoG is that

the map is more detailed/complex and therefore demands more attention.
the cards have more different uses: event, operational, strategic, replacements
the game lasts longer (unless it is decided by a stupid mistake, destroying large part of your army through out of supply early in the game).
The events have their own separate storylines: War Status, Russian Collapse, bringing new countries into the war

this makes the game tougher to master and handle, but also ups the excitement (in my limited experience).

It certainly is worth trying!

Consider taking Ted up on his offer. He is a great opponent. My first wargame was POG. It was a bear, but it's definitely learnable. The core rules are easy.

On the other hand it is at its best in your first 20-25 plays IMHO. It's only once you play enough that the whole thing gets really gamey. The Italian collapse, the retreat behind the Rhine and some other strategies take some enthusiasm for the game from me, personally.

Here's a brief overview of combat resolution. The basics are actually fairly straight forward and quickly resolved. Resolution has each player rolling a d6 and consulting a very simple table. Combat generally results in damaging both attacker and defender.

Combat is initiated by activating a space containing your combat units that are in an adjacent space to enemy combat units you wish to attack. This means that there is no movement into attack by any one unit per turn. In other words you can see the attack coming at least one card play away.

The attacker and defender adds up his combat strengths, find the corresponding column on the CRT, roll the dice, and the result is the damage the other suffers. If the attackers inflicts a loss factor higher than the defend, the attacker wins the combat and may force the defender to retreat. There are two CRTs, of which you use one of them for your combat roll. One CRT is if your space has at least one army sized unit and the other is if you only have corps sized units. The army sized table will inflict more damage.

That's the basics, there are modifiers that may applies, such as trenches, combat cards, and flank attacks, but these are smoothly incorporated after using each one once or twice.

PCS

A couple extra combat rules and clarifications:

1. The defender may cancel retreat by taking an extra step loss if he is in swamp, mountain, forest or trench. This is usually worthwhile to hold a trenchline or fort, especially if you are only flipping a corps.

2. The defender doesn't need to retreat if there are no full strength attacking units left after combat.

3. The attacker can attack a space with no defeding units if there is a defending fort. An unoccupied fort fires on the corps table, and does not get the benefit of a trench.

4. If the attacker's loss number exceeds the defender's by 2 or more the defender has to retreat 2 spaces. Sometimes you can use this retreat to set up attacks or OOS moves in your next action round.

5. The game is so long that the player that is able to cull his deck of his low Ops 2/2 Combat Cards earlier will have a better chance later in the game. In Late War you need to cycle the 4/4 and 5/5 cards for RPs as much as possible to avoid collapse.