Q & A – Answers provided by 3W, 1988

Question 1. Is one of the Belgian units miscolored red? I refer to the "British" 4th Infantry Division.

yes

Question 2. Under Replacements (7.0), the rules read 'Change a roll of "G" to an "S".' Should this be 'Change a roll of "6" to an "5"?'

yes (this was *your* rule change)
[not sure who the "your" referred to is. perhaps this is the designer addressing the publisher or vice-versa? –rh]

Question 3. Is Ghent a major city?

yes

Question 4. (a) May Belgian units receive replacements? (b) May Belgian units be recreated? (c) If the answer to (b) is "yes", where may these replacements be set up?

no (good point)

Question 5. Is it necessary to rebuild entire units or may partially rebuilt units be deployed?

Partially built units may be deployed

Question 6. Do enemy troops engaged in battle with friendly troops prevent tracing of a line of supply? i.e. may supply be traced through an engaged battle?

No, condition 2 of 6.0 states supplies cannot be traced through a city occupied by enemy units alone. logically an engaged battle is a city occuped by both players

Question 7. The rules indicate that trench construction may begin on turn 11 and to the extent indicated by the number on the Game Turn Record Track. However, there are numbers on the track for turns 1-10 as well. What are these numbers for?

Game Turn Record Track is correct

Question 8. Why are there no rules for setup in case the players want a historical scenario? Would you care to sanction the following setup locations to go with the published OOB or perhaps, suggest setup locations of your own?
German: I, II, III - Aachen, IV - Metz, V - Trier, VI - Saarburg, VII - Mulhausen. French: I - St. Die, II - Nancy, III - Conflance, IV - Verdun, V - Reims, A - Belfort (cavalry corps).

The would contradict the theme of the design (see Designer's Notes). Go ahead if you wish.

Question 9. What is the purpose of forts? It seems that they are relatively weak if not garrisoned and not very useful to the armies if garrisoned. If garrisoned, the army may be outside the fort in which case he receives none of the fort's defensive benefits or he may be inside the fort and then he is simply invested and passed by.

If the German is willing to have large numbers of troops invested behind his lines, go ahead & bypass fortresses. (I do not think this is wise at all!)

Question 10. Why does Paris have such a large fortress? I don't think Paris ever had the necessary types of fortifications to warrant this.

Each fortress step represents 2 forts (roughly). Paris and vicinity has 20+ forts warranting 10 steps (to simplify, anything over 8 steps was left at 8). Quality of forts is another matter that I did not look into seriously.

Question 11. Why isn't it possible to invade the Maastricht district of Holland which was, in fact, planned in several of the drafts of the Schlieffen Plan? Would you care to draw railroads and suggest Dutch army sizes to allow such in this game?

Valid point #2. I excluded Holland for lack of data. If you wish, I could check up on this, but what do you propose to do to the map with most of Holland excluded.

ADDITIONAL ERRATA

Map: Salin should be in Germany.

Rules:

10.0 Special Weapons & Tactics

French Elan - 6 Victory Points (should be 2) No French Elan - 5 Victory Points (should be 1)

10.0 French Elan

... on the Firing Line in a battle ... (should be just on offense)

12.0 Victory Conditions (paragraph 6)

... the challenged player has four complete turns... (should be one)

Update: The designer's comments on this page:

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 20:09:42 -0600
To: Richard Heli
From: Kerry Anderson <kanderso at ocii.com>
Subject: Re: CLASH OF EMPIRES

Looks like my writing though I don't remember writing it. OTOH, there are a lot of things I don't remember, like where are my car keys each morning.

Kerry