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.
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.
The map also contains numerous printed fortresses (e.g. 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 – cards vary from 2 to 5 in value), strategic redeployment, replacement points (rebuilding units after combat losses) or special events (see below).
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", representing political pressure to make an attack which s/he might otherwise not have chosen, and which might even be quite inadvisable.
They include the raising of fresh armies, the entry of neutral countries or the descent of Russia by stages to the Fall of the Tsar, the Bolshevik seizure of power 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.
It is perfectly possible that the Tsar might fall but the Bolsheviks never seize power, or that the USA might enter the war but never deploy its armies to Europe.
[2] 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.
The sixth printing was released in December 2018 and introduced a new map based on the tournament scenario, revised counters, incorporated errata, and several new playing aids.