Luxembourg in this game

[mdsmall]

Luxembourg is the most overlooked country in this game, for good reason. But given that the Central Powers get a nice morale boost for occupying it on turn 1 plus some plunder, why do they not have to declare war on Luxembourg before occupying it? And why are there no mobilization effects on other countries - such as Belgium or the UK (if neither enter the game on turn 1) or the USA - when Luxembourg surrenders? In War in Europe, Luxembourg is treated like any other Minor and when the Axis occupies it, it does trigger a small but useful mobilization swing for both the USA and the USSR.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

Luxembourg is the most overlooked country in this game, for good reason. But given that the Central Powers get a nice morale boost for occupying it on turn 1 plus some plunder, why do they not have to declare war on Luxembourg before occupying it? And why are there no mobilization effects on other countries - such as Belgium or the UK (if neither enter the game on turn 1) or the USA - when Luxembourg surrenders? In War in Europe, Luxembourg is treated like any other Minor and when the Axis occupies it, it does trigger a small but useful mobilization swing for both the USA and the USSR.

I've wondered this myself considering you have to in WIE and WAW...

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Another minor but important fix! Time for the Entente to get some love now. The CP got all the hugs and kisses..(well mostly anyways), in the last patch...which they needed btw

[shri]

ORIGINAL: mdsmall

Luxembourg is the most overlooked country in this game, for good reason. But given that the Central Powers get a nice morale boost for occupying it on turn 1 plus some plunder, why do they not have to declare war on Luxembourg before occupying it? And why are there no mobilization effects on other countries - such as Belgium or the UK (if neither enter the game on turn 1) or the USA - when Luxembourg surrenders? In War in Europe, Luxembourg is treated like any other Minor and when the Axis occupies it, it does trigger a small but useful mobilization swing for both the USA and the USSR.

The grand duchy had a grand total of 500 troops or lesser, all of them laid down arms and co-operated.
The duchy was ruled by its own laws though German military commanders could and did exercise control as and when needed esp with Trains.

Major Edit: Ever since the wars of 1866 Lux was part of German Zollverin (customs union) and thus Lux markets and trains were linked to Germany since then, there was even talk of making it a part of the German empire in 1871 and there was popular consensus for it, but International (read: English) pressure stopped it.

[Pocus]

Too bad, that would have removed a money-laundering country from Europe.

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: mdsmall
Luxembourg is the most overlooked country in this game, for good reason. But given that the Central Powers get a nice morale boost for occupying it on turn 1 plus some plunder, why do they not have to declare war on Luxembourg before occupying it? And why are there no mobilization effects on other countries - such as Belgium or the UK (if neither enter the game on turn 1) or the USA - when Luxembourg surrenders? In War in Europe, Luxembourg is treated like any other Minor and when the Axis occupies it, it does trigger a small but useful mobilization swing for both the USA and the USSR.

It's an interesting point, however, and Bill could confirm here, my gut feeling is that the diplomatic effects are already built into the start of the game without having the need to declare war which might be tedious to do at the start of every game.

For example, just like in our WWII game, Germany doesn't have to declare war on Poland, and here Germany doesn't have to declare war on Russia, Luxembourg etc., and the Austro-Hungarians also start at war with Serbia and so on.

The other question I would ask is if we were to add diplomatic effects, e.g. if something more is felt to be needed, what would be considered and does it potentially throw off the balance. It's always the unintended consequences we hope to avoid etc.

But again, if this comes back to the Montenegro issue, then I believe our hope is to simply resolve that first whereby these other potential concerns ideally go away.

[mdsmall]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

It's an interesting point, however, and Bill could confirm here, my gut feeling is that the diplomatic effects are already built into the start of the game without having the need to declare war which might be tedious to do at the start of every game.

For example, just like in our WWII game, Germany doesn't have to declare war on Poland, and here Germany doesn't have to declare war on Russia, Luxembourg etc., and the Austro-Hungarians also start at war with Serbia and so on.

It is no big deal to oblige Germany to DOW Luxembourg, just as it has to DOW Belgium if it wants to invade it. In the other cases of countries already at war on Turn 1, that's because that was the sequence of events in late July 1914 that lead to a World War breaking out on August 1st.

I leave it to the history buffs to opine about how independent Luxembourg was from Germany at the start of the war. But it does not seem unreasonable to add a small mobilization swing for both Belgium and the UK towards the Entente if Germany invades Luxembourg, given the morale swing benefits discussed in my separate thread. If Germany invades Belgium too, the mobilization effects are irrelevant but they would not be irrelevant if Germany decides not to invade Belgium but still wants the morale benefit of Luxembourg's surrender.

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks and I can see a bit of both sides on this one as you are not wrong on having to declare war on Belgium, yet since the historical DoW didn't happen until the 4th, that arguably works out well as it can allow players to entertain some alternate strategies (alt-history) if they want to hold off on declaring war on Belgium and focus on Russia first instead.

For Luxembourg, if I remember correctly, might have seen the first action from German soldiers in the entire war as I believe plans were for the Germans to invade on the 1st. While they didn't follow through, some units apparently didn't get the message and I believe took a town before retreating.

1) On the one hand the game starts on the 1st, arguably there was action in Luxembourg on the 1st (even if very limited), then the Germans did take it on the 2nd. For Russia, the Germans did declare war on them on the 1st as well but we don't have the need for the German player to declare war on Russia either as it is already at a state of war in game. Austria-Hungary and Serbia are of course also already at war as well, and since the 28th of July before the start date of the game.

2) On the other hand, Luxembourg is really not formally invaded until the 2nd, and you could logically group them in with the Belgian invasion as part of the Schlieffen plan.


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In my mind, at this point in the release, if there is a game play issue here that adding a declaration of war on Luxembourg solves, then I would think that is the primary case for this and players would have to accept the addition of a declaration of war on Luxembourg at the start of each game. If not, then it might be better to leave it as is instead of adding another declaration of war for possibly limited impact.

For example, if we are happy with where the UK currently sits diplomatically in game, and we assume that their current mobilization and leaning is already balanced and already taking into account Luxembourg (since it starts at war) then any additional effects to the UK could be problematic to game balance. If on the other hand something is felt to be missing regarding the UK then this could be a good mechanism to add that in via a DoW versus Luxembourg.

If in the end the only diplomatic effects would be on Belgium then there could be a case for that, but if it is negligible then perhaps not.

Either way it is something for us to think about one way or the other.

[mdsmall]

Hubert - Looking into this further, I see that the game treats Luxembourg as a French controlled minor which starts the game at war with Germany. Hence the morale effects when Germany occupies it on turn one. But was Luxembourg actually allied and militarily aligned with France in 1914? If not, then logically Germany should have to DOW it before occupying it, just as they do in the WW2 games. And there could be a small diplomatic bonus in terms of UK, US and Belgian mobilization as a result of a DOW against Luxembourg. A percentage point or two for the UK could make the difference of a turn when the UK joins the war, if they are not triggered to join on the first CP turn.

In terms of game play, I can see the purpose of the morale effects when the occupation of Luxembourg is part of a German Schlieffen plan strategy that includes invading Belgium. A historical German attack in the West could use a little offensive buffing in the first couple of turns to get as far they did and Luxembourg's surrender provides that. But if Germany decides to attack in the south against Serbia and in the East against Russia rather than invading Belgium, I can't see the fairness of this nice little morale bonus for pocketing Luxembourg on turn one.

At a minimum, reducing the morale effects of Luxembourg's surrender to just apply to French units would be fairer. But given the Luxembourg has no army, no mobilization percentage and it does not even appear on the diplomacy table, I think treating it as an unaligned neutral would be fairer. It would still require a DOW to occupy, but there would be no diplomatic consequences for doing and no surrender effects when it was occupied. The occupying major (presumably Germany) could still get some plunder and there could be a small NM bonus for capturing it - say 300 NM. But that should be it.

[Hubert Cater]

With how the game engine works we do have to unfortunately assign parents to nations even if sometimes there really wasn't that sort of relationship.

That's the catch here, Luxembourg and Belgium surrendering definitely do give us what we want when it comes to the German Schlieffen plan, and we don't really want to lose that.