Nice ideas. Thanks for posting. You have probably seen that many here do the same thing.

Deck of cards, one for each neutral.

Start of each player turn, top card is drawn and disposition of country is determined.

Each neutral will have a scaled historical bias based on likelihood of joining each side, expressed as a number in favour of either side.

Each side places a secret bid in IPCs from their banks to influence the result, winner gets control. Money bid by both sides is considered spent. Ties are replaced in bottom of the deck.

Result could also be influenced by other factors, for example presence of units in a bordering tt.

Cards can be placed in “historical” order by number based on when they were first engaged, or shuffled for random events.

Card drawn for neutral already attacked is ignored.

OR

Cards are dealt randomly to the players (half for each side for balance or same for each power?). Maybe 5 cards per side with a draw deck. Start of every player turn, that player can play a card from hand for each side to bid upon.

And a Prussian ought to know.
Long live Germany!

I think with all the tech weapons at their disposal Japan would be able to wipe out China in the first 3 rounds and be in a good position to attack down into Burma. Also, since they would have the cheaper shipyards they would probably have more transports than usual to attack all the British holdings on round 3. Calcutta would probably fall round 4 or 5.

Germany and Italy would have a fun time punishing Britain. They might even be able to pull off a round 3 Sealion and still be ready to confront Russia and the US. Although the Luftwaffe might suffer some from Britain having Radar. I can’t count the number of times I have rolled for AA and gotten a bunch of 2s.

I think with a victory city game, it would definitely be an Axis win. If you didn’t use victory cities and played until one side or the other gave up, the Allies might be able to pull out a win over time.

@Black_Elk:

For what it’s worth I still think this HR mod is entertaining.

Which options did you play test YG?

Given all the input and ideas in this thread, I think its still worth kicking around.

I would submit than any balance issues could surely be corrected through National Objectives. Perhaps your suggested NOs for UK, did not provide enough to compensate for the inclusion of the Commonwealth?

Did you play option 2 (with South Africa)? Or just option 1?

I also like the limited cash haul concept

I have played both options and I have found that much of the Allied income is pushed to the outside on spawning locations far from the fighting. I now perfer a system where the UK Europe economy is it’s own nation separate from the UK Pacific economy… I also like combining ANZAC income and territories with UK Pacific (with Calcutta as it’s capital) in the same way Canadian income and territories are combined with UK Europe.

@Black_Elk:

it becomes a full mod and an entirely new game.

Here’s a radical suggestion which you might want to consider – either as a practical project, or just as a way to generate some out-of-the-box lateral thinking.

There are many aspects of the Global 1940 game (and of other A&A games) over which people have expressed dissatisfaction and for which they’ve proposed house rule alternatives.  Some of these proposals have targeted just one or two specific game elements and have involved changes of a very modest nature (such as adjusting the turn order and nothing else).  Other proposals have been more wide-ranging in scope and more intricate in nature.  Generally speaking, however, all of these proposals have operated under an implicit restriction: trying to stick as closely as possible to the OOB game in order to keep things recognizable.  It’s a valid design principle, with the advantage that it makes proposed changes acceptable to a broader base of players, but the downside is that it acts as a straightjacket: it severely limits what you can change.

So here’s an alternative you might want to think about: remove the self-imposed restiction of needing to come up with the same game.  Rather than starting from the premise that the end result of the design process has to be a game which is essentially the same as G40, eliminate this predetermined end result from the equation.  Instead, draw up an inventory of: 1) all the things about the game that you absolutely want to keep; 2) all the things that you’d be flexibily prepared to either keep or modify or discard, depending on what works best; and 3) all the things that you feel don’t work properly in the OOB rules and that you feel absolutely must be improved or replaced, whether by minor tinkering or total reconceptualization.  Then try to come up with a redesigned version of the game that addresses all of your issues and which works well on its own terms, regardless of how closely it adheres to the OOB game or how far it deviates from it.

The thing to keep in mind here is that, in the redesign of any existing system, you can only make so many adjustments to the system while sticking to its original basic architecture.  Beyond a certain point, the original architecture becomes a constaining factor rather than a help, and instead of an improved version you end up with something that’s even clunkier than the unsatisfactory version which you were trying to fix in the first place.  So beyond a certain point, you have to throw out that constraining architecture, start with a clean slate, focus on the specific things you’re trying to achieve, find the solutions which achieve your aims, and then let those solutions dictate the eventual new architecture of the revised system.

Based on your feedback, I’ve made a couple of tweaks to the variant. The most recent version is attached for play testing.

Changes from the original version are indicated by underscoring:

Revised Russian National Objectives

1. Spread of Communism: Bonus for Russian control of originally Axis/Pro-Axis territories is confined to mainland Europe (excluding Africa, Iraq, mid-east Islands, etc.).

2. Lend Lease: Russia receives +5 PUs, when at war with Germany/Italy, if at least one of three historical Lend-Lease lanes is “open” (i.e., the lane territory is friendly-controlled and there are no enemy warships in the corresponding sz). The Lend-Lease lanes are as follows:

a. Archangel, sz 125
b. Persia, sz 80
c. Siberia, sz 5

As in the original version of the NO, the presence of non-Russian allied units in originally Russian territory cancels out the objective.

(Hat tip to calvinhobbesliker and ItIsILeClercs for this change. I enjoyed reading up on the subject)

Other Allied National Objectives

1. Western Europe Beach Head: Allied control of at least two of the following gives USA +5 PUs if at war: Normandy, Holland, Western Germany, Denmark.

(Hat tip to The Hessian for this change)

2. Southern Europe Beach Head: Allied control of at least two of the following gives UK + 5 PUs: Southern France, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece.

3. Vital Forward Bases: Allied control of all of the following gives USA +5 PUs if at war: Wake Island, Midway, Caroline Islands, Marianas, Marshall Islands.

(Hat tip to Gencre for this change)

Air Raids

Fighters attack and defend at 2 during air raids. Strategic and tac bombers attack at 1.

Play-Testing

Over the last week, I had the chance to play test the variant a half-dozen times times, both as Allies and Axis. Some observations:

1. Axis players generally were more proactive in defending Western Europe against small-sale allied incursions.

2. In two games, Italy used its surving transport (after Taranto) to move defensive units to sicily and sardinia.

3. In all but one of the games, the changes to the Lend Lease objective effectively extended Russia’s +5 PU bonus until entry of allied units into Russia (usually by round 6 or 7). Mostly, no serious effort was made to contest the objective. However, in one game I was able to defeat it by getting a sub to sz 80 by round 4.

4. The 2 attack/defense value of fighters during air raids significantly reduced the frequency of unescorted bombing raids. Dark skies was not attempted in any of the games I played (whether due to the changes, or a coincidence, I don’t know).

5. The “Vital Forward Bases” objective encouraged “island-hopping,” as well as early naval engagement in the central-pacific, which was fun.

Thanks again for ur feedback guys. Am curious to hear your thoughts on the changes. Shoot me a message if you’d like to arrange a play test.

RegularkidG40BalanceVariantv5.tsvg

I like the idea to create a new unit class that behaves in a unique way, and the AAgun does seem to be pretty good to denote it (since they’re rarely purchased). But of course, creating a new unit class does create some barriers to entry and diminishes the ease of adoption.

Basically the Bazooka concept as described (whatever you end up calling the unit, for me that’s not as important) will require an update to the battleboard, and the unit cost/abilities lists of the maps/book. Its one more thing that players have to learn, in addition to the new set up, so in that respect it will be harder to gather testers than if you just stick with the regular unit roster. Sure it’s a different balance then, but at least everyone has the info memorized already.

I think the easiest approach for a mod to adopt is to keep everything else the same, and just a offer reprint of the unit set up cards for each nation.

Those are typically separate materials anyway, and even the OOB cards have misprints (for the starting IPC value of UK and Germany) and printing out a few new cards is pretty easy. Placing starting units for a new set up takes about the same amount of time as it does to set the OOB game. So that’s pretty easy too.

I like a lot of the concepts here, especially the 1 ipc factory, which I think could be a major benefit to the play patterns on the board. But the Bazooka concept might overshadow them.

Perhaps test the Bazooka concept first in the OOB game to see how if it gathers interest? But I kind of like this set up, with the placements, even if they’re just normal AAguns. You can always use a bid, or further tweaks to rebalanced the situation (sans bazooka concept, if that’s needed.) I like pretty much all the other ideas. Though I’d still pull for a Pearl Factory hehe
:-D

Again man, nice concepts

I think France should get an extra CV and a TT in either sz 109, sz 111, sz 110 and the reason for the TT is that then they can move their troops easier around the board without having to use their ally’s or even get the troops in Normandy to England.

Just to say again, that I like this solution for G40.

In the tripleA edit mode it only take a few moments.

Just enable edit mode
edit the “territory ownership” of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Chile to USA
click the neutral infantry and remove them, then “add units.” The default is American, since you already changed ownership.
then “Change PUs” of America from 52 to 60 ipcs.

Easy. It’s also fun to watch how the AI tries to make use of the new loot and the new units haha
:-D

I look forward to hearing Argothair’s answer to your question about the intended purpose of his proposal, but for whatever it’s worth my impression is that he wanted to speed up the game by taking advantage of the G40 map’s Europe / Pacific geographic split to eliminate the time wastage that’s caused when the action on the whole board gets held up by the turn of a player power which, for all practical purposes, operates on only one side of the board.

On the other hand, the higher workload of the 4-person option might be seen as an advantage in that it would keep people busier and reduce the boredom of waiting for one’s turn to arrive.

Couldn’t have put it better myself – my main two goals here are to save time, and help keep players occupied.

My idea is that the attacker gets to roll 1(or 2) dice and what ever the number is is how many disabled defending infantry which means that they can’t fire back.

Argothir, I think that your point illustrates why cavalry are only likely to be useful in games using a d12 or d20 for combat.

Here is a savegame using the concept in tripleA…

To achieve the desired turn order position, I fast forwarded the first round to Italy, and then returned each Nation to its normal starting income via the edit mode.

This means that the USA will be closer to their DoW as well, by a round, which I think might be interesting as well.

Anyway, just thought I’d toss it out there in case anyone wants to get a feel for how this might look in practice.
:-D

G40 Italy first (fast forward to Italy).tsvg

@Black_Elk:

What if you just moved the carrier fleet from Pearl to San Diego?
Instead of introducing new TUV onto the board, you just shift it out of harms way. This would give the US a strong Pacific option, but also preserves these units to go either way if desired.

Admiral James O. Richardson would have approved of this concept.  In fact it’s pretty much what he said to President Roosevelt in 1940.  It didn’t turn out to be a good move career-wise in the short term (he was dismissed as CinCUS), but this wasn’t altogether a bad thing for him in the long run in view of what happened to his successor, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel.

The interseting thing with the Supreme Excellence card is what it brings in for strategy, not so much about the numbers. If you attack and concentrate a force into one zone or territory, just to deplete an enemy on a stack of strategically interesting units, you might end up in trouble. What would happen if the defending player plays the Entrenchment or Signals Intelligence card! As you see, it will bring a second level thought to the strategy that we have never seen before. Make it more of a strategy game, and less luck, which is the opposite to what most people think at first sight. If you try these rules you will discover new insights about this second level thought in many other situations of the game play. Enjoy!

Mr. Andersson

The Allies may indeed have problems getting numbers of units into Europe and Asia, but the whole reason they need to do this in the first place is because Russia has such woefully inadequate starting attack power!

The Soviets can barely trade with Germany or Japan for 2 territories a turn, before they start hemorrhaging ground units in the process, forced to make terrible trades at a loss just to prevent Axis blitz paths or landing spots. This means that the Germans can advanced along a broad front, with only modest sized stacks, and Russia is totally unable to contest them.

Instead, because they cant attack on their own, the Soviets are almost completely reliant on UK/USA to run direct counter attacks for them, against a relentless Axis advance. And this all happens in their own backyard, right in their own core Russian territories!

And its not as if Russia collapses only when they receive zero aid from the West (which might be understandable) but they collapse when they don’t receive the full maximum aid. Like literally almost all the UK/US ipcs from the early rounds dedicated just to holding the center.

The western Allies routinely send dozens of fighters and as many ground units as they can to prop up Moscow. And even then Moscow gets hammered.

Honestly if I was designing this thing from the ground up, I’d give Russia an airforce on par with the other powers. Like 3 fighters AND a bomber. Or hell even 4 fighters AND a bomber!

They’d still have the weakest starting airforce on the board.

I just think its rather lame, that the Russians are so nerfed in A&A. It feels totally ahistorical.

They had superior tanks to the Germans, even by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Germans who always tank drive. They had some the best fighter aircraft in the world by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Luftwaffe that always crushes. They had the numbers, and yet it is Germany who always pushes the massive ground stacks.

It just doesn’t look like World War 2.

The way the Royal Air Force is always camped out in Russia, and Monty is taking his tank columns on escapades through the Caucasus. For real?

If you want their income so low, they should have starting TUV. Or conversely, if you want them to have low starting TUV, then give them more income. But if you shaft them in both areas, then the game turns into this weird deal, with the western Allies running the show in Red territories.

The Russia design is just silly OOB. They have low income and as such will buy infantry and artillery as a matter of course, almost exclusively. They don’t need more inf, what they need is air power, so they can trade that infantry effectively, the way the other player nations do.

I think a single additional Russian bomber is a decidedly modest expansion compared to what they should really have, if you want to reflect their historical position during this period.

There were a few wars fought in South America in the early 30’s. I don’t know who had who’s backing in those conflicts. There was the Guerra del 41 between Equador and Peru. I know the US supported Peru and Japan supported Equador, but I’m pretty sure that support was from the bleachers. The only equipment I can tell you for sure that was used was the Czech LTP (Panzer 38t). These were used by Peru.
Peru had all the gear. They actually prepared for war. This lead to Peru having a 3-4 to 1 advantage in men and equipment. Except for tanks. Equador had none. Peru had around 25. Take a wild guess at who won.

Indeed!
The “Empire Highway to India” must be controlled by the Allies.

And maybe the risk of loosing 4 of 5 transferred IPCs is compensation enough for the option to support the defence of India or gain assistance in the Battle of Britain.

@Black_Elk:

That’s a clean map Ryuzaki_Lawlie!

The color selection is ideal. Though the black impassibles still jump out at me

From a design standpoint the only things that catch my eye are the two round sea zones surrounding Japan and Hawaii.

It feel like you need one in the Atlantic to balance things out aesthetically. Have you considered the possibility of one surrounding the British Isles?

Or maybe Iceland? Or maybe both?

I still think Mercator is a bit tight in Europe, a little stretching there might be ideal, even if it was just along the vertical axis. I think the map would still read fine, but you’d get a few more pixel for units into those key European spots. Also if you were willing to shrink South America slightly you could almost curve off a 10th of the map height at the bottom of the screen (which is notorious for players forgetting units in the south sea hehe) without really needing to change Africa/Australia of the pacific. Basically a slight bend would go a long way, even if using Mercator for the baseline.

Oh and I think the possession colors for Dutch Borneo and British Sarawak and North Borneo should be reversed.

My only suggestions :)

Nice work man. That would be a fun map to form the basis of a 1939 game, or any year from 39 on.

I like that you have not yet imposed on the map any extraneous information such as IPC values or VC. This means the map is adaptive for many purposes. I like the general division of territories. Only that the projection is a bit large at the poles for my tastes. If we could shrink them up slightly I think the map would be ideal. Its really more about screen dimension for me when it comes to the Big World Map that Wandering Head made. These days most screens are very long relative to their height, so standard Mercator always seems blown out a bit in tripleA to me, especially at the south end, and of course Europe is always tight. I wish the center picker for tripleA was better at housing units to smaller scales. Its a little better than it used to be, especially with the guiding lines, but still Europe loves to clutter up haha.
:-D

Again though, great design direction!

I’ll probably shift the continents (turning their general direction), and stretch out northern Africa and Europe, will probably require North America to get a bit skinny, but I think the big benefit from this, is that potentially more European spaces can be added. This will allow me to add more to the Mediterranean however (and it really needs the space), perhaps round out where Rome is. Africa, I think needs a bit more work. South America possibly as well, but I sort of need an idea of which cities can be considered major not only there, but elsewhere. Vladivostok will defiantly get added in with it’s own space.

I picked black for impassables, since it tells me that there is nothing there, no play space, it’s simply temporary, and they are there for the designer’s benefit.

I’m not sure where else to put a rounded Sea Zone, I’m considering more though.