@Young:
I guess I should have been more clear and asked how the map could be better, didn’t really anticipate a house rules discussion but that’s ok.
“Better” is sort of an open-ended concept. At one end of the scale it could cover purely aesthetic map elements that have absolutely no effect on game play (or on anything else). As one travels along the scale from that starting point, one starts getting into things like geographical and historical changes that correct factual errors, and which potentially affect game play. And at the other end of the scale one gets into map elements that are purely rule-related…things like territory IPC values, for example.
I think the map is pretty good as is in terms of territory placement and division. One thing I’ve never like about HBG’s 1939 map is it have too many territories, slowing down the game immensely.
But if I were to make changes, it would would be to correct some of the bizarre IPC values.
– Byratia (sp) should be 2 to allow an MIC
– Hinan should be 1
– Cylon should be 1
– Sicily should be 1
– Ireland should be 1
– Turkmenistan should be 1
– Novosibirsk should be 2
– Iceland should be 1
– New Foundland should be 1
– Yukon should be added back and worth 1
– New Ginuea should be 1
– all the worthless SA countries should be 1
– and finally a harbor in Panama
hear, hear;
Very good points.
If not already suggested – JAPAN needs to be more than just 1 territory PLEASE!!!
I agree with Marc’s suggestion, about designing a map which supports multiple start dates/scenarios.
My main suggestion, which I have made a number of times, is to begin with a base 1 ipc system for all territory tiles, rather than base 0 ipcs. In other words, every territory given representation on the map should be worth at least 1 ipc. The value of all other territories, the production restrictions, overall game economy and overall unit count should scale from that baseline. Territories should be collapsed into each other or omitted entirely, if they don’t meet the 1 ipc threshold.
This would necessarily involve increasing many values across the map, but would at the same time provide a much greater range of values within which to work, so you could create a more interesting nexus of tiles.
I believe almost all of the major issues with G40, stem from having way too many territories at zero or 1 ipcs. No/Low value “speed bump” territories don’t provide much in the way of gameplay interest. And when the baseline value is so low, there is no room to break up those large low value regions of the map with territories at the much more strategically interesting value of 2 or 3 ipcs. The whole Soviet far East, and Asia Pacific region suffers from this problem.
The game needs more 2 or 3 ipc territories, in regions where they would actually advance the gameplay possibilities.
Although there might be other ways to correct those issues, I think the simplest and most effective would be to adjust the printed values on the game map directly, and then build the rest of the game out from there accordingly.
For gameplay, I would have Manchuria border not only Amur but also Sakha and Buryatia, the Soviet Far East is too static, and I’m quite shocked that no one here bothers to notice that (The point of 1940 was to open up options).
Maybe more VCs, like Kiev, Vladivostok, Singapore, but not much else, modifying the game too much eliminates it being 1940 anymore and we might as well just get a new game altogether.
Add a Urals impassable territory, with behind it a 1/3 IPC territory, that initially is just 1 IPC, but adjusts to 3 when USSR goes to war.
The only other things I would consider is making Eire Strict Neutral (As they despised the UK and did not want to be part of an alliance with them), and remove many territories that add nothing to the game typically, like most of those South American regions (Ecuador and Uruguay), Sierra Leone, and at least one Mongolian region (perhaps make one of them worth 1 IPC). I would much rather have less regions and more space to work with than do the opposite, even if said regions will likely never play a part in game.
Everything else is just adjusting region size a bit (such as Normandy), modify the North American and Pacific regions to border from opposite sides of the map (while still stating adjacent regions listings), make the Kamikaze/Convoy zones more visible, remove the territory borders in Sahara, and include a new IPC chart in a similar manner as 1942 Second Edition did.
Pet peeves:
Other, more speculative:
Along with Karl7’s most excellent list I would like to see the Caroline Islands with a 1 IPC value.
It has an airbase, naval base and is in a valuable positon in the Pacific.
Along with Karl7’s most excellent list I would like to see the Caroline Islands with a 1 IPC value.
It has an airbase, naval base and is in a valuable positon in the Pacific.Â
I think it was CWO Marc who saw IPC value of territories as a resource worth, and bonus IPC given through national objectives as a strategic worth. This made sense to me because Midway is a worthless piece of rock with zero resource value, but worth way more as a strategic value represented in national objectives (although I agree that the Pacific island national objectives don’t promote fighting over them).
Here is my A&A wishlist without changes that need house rules:
IPC adjustments:
Ulaan Baator and two other Mongolian and the zero IPC South American territories become 1 IPC.
Vyborg and Bessarabia 1 IPC
Urals, Novosibirsk, and Buryatia 2 IPC
Tobruk and Alexandria 1 IPC
Sicily and Sardinia and Crete 1 IPC and add Corsica 1 IPC (I don’t like seeing everybody ignoring these)
British and Italian Somaliland 1 IPC
Eastern Persia and Northwest Persia 1 IPC
Ceylon, Hainan, Carolines, Solomans, Dutch New Giunea, New Guinea, Marianas 1 IPC
Newfoundland Ireland Iceland 1 IPC
Turkmenistan 1 IPC
India 5 IPC
Burma 2 IPC
French Indo-China 3 IPC
Yunnan 2 IPC
Territory changes.
Add three zero IPC Cinese territories in between them and Russia.
Add 1 infantry to the empty Mongolian territories.
Add one infantry to South America that is empty.
Give UK Canadian roundel on Western Canada and Sierra Leone.
Fix Albania/Bulgaria/Yugoslavia/Greece.
Make Yugoslavia 2 territories total worth of 3
Finland no longer reaches the sea in the North and add an impassable territory between Norway and Russia.
Northern Italy doesn’t touch France and Western Germany.
Corsica French territory
Add Balaeric Islands name.
Iceland Pro Allies
Greenland Pro Allies
Ireland Neutral
Cyprus neutral
Japan 3 territories (Honshu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku/Kyushu)
Thailand touches Malaya.
Japan controls Anhwe.
Neutrals need help but this is more a house rule thing.
Change some of the misnomers.
Now that I am done ranting, keep in mind that this is everything I want. I only get about 1/5 of that usually.
@Young:
Along with Karl7’s most excellent list I would like to see the Caroline Islands with a 1 IPC value.
It has an airbase, naval base and is in a valuable positon in the Pacific.�
I think it was CWO Marc who saw IPC value of territories as a resource worth, and bonus IPC given through national objectives as a strategic worth. This made sense to me because Midway is a worthless piece of rock with zero resource value, but worth way more as a strategic value represented in national objectives (although I agree that the Pacific island national objectives don’t promote fighting over them).
Although this makes a lot of sense, given that the reward in both cases is IPCs, I think it’s simpler to just modify the territories on the map directly and say that all tiles have a certain minimum strategic value. Think of it as an Objective you don’t have to memorize, baked into the map from the get go.
The relative values of territories and objectives are all over the place (by which I mean they’re pretty arbitrary in many cases.) I think the map should function on a basic level without the need for any objectives, and the objectives should be added afterwards to encourage (not force) historical play patterns, and to balance the game by sides.
For a shorthand, consider that all territoris are worth 1 ipc, meaning that they all have a basic positional strategic value which holds regardless of whether there are any additional resources or production to be had.
Any territory worth 2 is consider to have either some basic production/resource potential, or it is just extremely advantageous/prestigious to hold.
Territories worth 3 or more have a value that matches the localized significance of the production/resources at that tile. Leaving some freedom here to vary the value based on the gameplay needs of one region over another. (i.e. you don’t need to create a system that necessary weights all regions of the map equally.)
This way your territories can scale up according to the needs of the gameplay, without breaking the internal logic (as seems to happen when you consider IPCs drawn on the map as purely representing production alone.)
And of course any territory might have an objective attached to it.
But this way, at least at the low end, you have a system that gives every tile an in game value, and a range within which to work up to 2 ipcs, before you have to start justifying it in terms of some specific industrial rationale.
My feelings about territory values are basically as follows. I can understand the argument that all territories should have some sort of value, and I’m not necessarily against the idea that this “some sort of value” should take the form of IPCs, but I would argue that modifications of this type should be thought out carefully and should take all relevant points into consideration. Here are my thoughts on what those points are:
Different territories indeed should have different values, as Black Elk has said, though the reasons I’ll give are somewhat different. Let’s assume – purely for discussion purposes, to explain the point that I’m making – that every single territory on the map had the same IPC value of 1. In such a situation, we’d end up with a game that had no sense of direction and little relationship to WWII, since capturing random territory X would have the same value as capturing random territory Y. The actual map has IPC values that vary considerably rather than being uniform, for two very good reasons: partly to give players incentives to capture some of the territories that historically were highly fought-over during WWII (and to ignore those that weren’t), and partly because in real life not every part of the world has equal value from an economic point of view. An extreme example would be the New Siberian Islands (they’re not an A&A territory), which are isolated and resource-poor and have a severe Arctic climate; as far as I know, nobody lives there, few people have even visited them, and their practical value is essentially zero. Saudi Arabia is to a large extent a barren desert with a severe climate of its own, but it sits on top of major oil reserves and is easily accessible by land and by sea from multiple directions (for example, it borders the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and it’s close to the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean), so it has great strategic importance in today’s world.
The second point is related to the one I’ve just mentioned. It’s been argued that places like the Soviet Far East should be given more value, as an incentive for the Axis to conquer it and as an incentive for the Soviets to defend it. My feeling is that this would distort both the map and the game play overall. The criticism that “such-and-such-a-territory doesn’t normally see much action in the game” misses the point that there’s a good reason why this is so: because some territories are genuinely more important than others (both in real life and in any game that has clear objectives), and competent generals don’t waste their valuable time or their limited resources fighting unnecessary battles over useless territories. The goal of the players should be to defeat their opponents, not to make sure that every territory on the map sees its fair share of action; all the players in an A&A game should have a good time, but territories aren’t people and their feelings won’t get hurt if they end up being peripheral bits of the world that everyone ignores.
All that being said, I agree that there are territories on the game map (specifically most of the Pacific islands) whose low overall value in the game (and here I’m not specifically talking about IPC values) grossly under-represents their actual high importance in WWII. I think players should be given stronger incentives to capture or defend those territories. As YG alluded to, however, I don’t think this should be done to the Pacific islands via IPCs because those islands had no economic value. Their value was as strategic naval and bases: allowing the airspace around them (and the sea lanes under that airspace) to be dominated; serving as forward bases for the deployment of naval task forces (example: Ulithi Atoll); serving as launching points for bombers to prepare enemy-held islands for amphibious invasions; serving as launching points for US bombers to engage in strategic bombing over Japan (example:Tinian); and serving as emergency landing strips for damaged bombers returning from such mission (example: Iwo Jima). None of these functions would be represented adequately by IPCs, either hard-wired as territory values nor as bonus points tied to national objectives. They would be better expressed by game mechanics, such as (perhaps) special air base and naval base rules that would apply only to Pacific islands.
I can see maybe buying an airstrip for 5 icps and thats the only time u can land planes on a island unless u have an airbase.
As far as naval bases just keep them the same.
Points all well taken. I would just say that in my view, achieving a historically satisfying play pattern is more significant to the overall game experience, than ensuring historically accurate or internally consistent ipc values for all territories.
I would approach it from the following perspective. What happens when, for example, you have a Soviet Far East that is all carved up and low value per OOB? Russia has little reason to fight for it. They back away to hold a more defensible line near the center, while Japan advances uncontested. Effectively all it does is push the conflict out by a few rounds, and push the threshold out geographically, into an area that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if Japan and Russia actually did go to war. Instead of battles located in Amur or Manchuria, you see them fought well into the interior.
Likewise for the Pacific Islands. What happens when they have no value? They are skipped over, in favor of the money islands. Again pushing the conflict into regions that don’t make a whole lot of sense if the goal is to model a historical play pattern.
I think the problem is that, at the low end of the spectrum, the base value of territories is simply too low. If zero is your base, there isn’t enough room to play with the numbers in the mid range.
If a territory worth zero ipcs on the map, can suddenly be worth 5 additional ipcs because it has an objective attached to it (and nobody sees that as problematic) then what’s really the difference between that and just saying the base tile is now worth 1 instead of zero? To me this isn’t a reality breaker, or an unforgivable distortion.
I think territories valued at 1 ipc should be regarded as necessary abstractions for the gameplay. Reserve territories at 2 or more to give expression to things like industry or national resorces or national prestige. It just gives us a much better range, and more room to develop a nuanced campaign map, given the way people typically play.
I think you need incentive to bring the Pac islands into the game, but I think you can do it w/o making them all 1 IPCs. I think NO’s can do it, but the current NO’s fall short.
The Japan perimeter NO is a joke, and I’ve only seen them get it once in a game (US went 90% Europe). There is no island hopping or fighting over islands in the Pac because there is no incentive, but there was a while back with the 5/7 island NO from the past.
I have been experimenting with additional NO’s in the Pac for both the Japanese and US, UK/Anz.
For the DEI I think that the high IPC value is representing the resources (oil), but you should get a bonus if you hold them all, and can show that you are able to ship the resources from them (no enemy ships in the four island convoy sz’s).
My DEI NO for Japan is only 4 IPCs, and there can be no allied warships in any of the DEI sz’s. I also give the UK Pac and Anz 2 IPCs each if the allies hold the DEI, and their power either has a control marker or unit on one of the Islands, plus there are no Japanese warships in any of the DEI sz’s.
The NO I have been experimenting with and I like the most is a mid Pac Islands that both the US and Japan can get. I have 7 islands in play, and you need 5 of then to get 3 IPCs. 4 are Japanese (Caroline, Marshal, Marinas, Paulau), and 3 US (Midway, Wake, and Guam). So the Japanese can easily get this NO if they take one of the US islands (also get an airbase), and the US is forced to retake them just to keep the Japanese from getting the extra bonus, or can also take several of them to increase their own income.
I’m also looking at a 3 IPC NO if the Japanese get just 3/6 SE Pac islands (New Brit, Solomon, New Hebrides, Gilbert, Fiji, Samoa).
As for the Russian far east territories being worth more, I think you will just be giving the Japanese more incentive to take them. I don’t see the Russian putting up much more of a fight to keep them, and if they do Moscow will fall easier. If you do make Bury and/or Novo a 2 IPC territory you would need to off set that by making a couple territories out there 0 IPCs IMO. But honestly I see this as a win fall for Japan. If they get both Stalingrad (comes with IC) and Novo (may come w/IC, or can build an IC) the Russians are in bigger trouble then they are now.
I think you would be better off with a Russian rail running from Moscow to Bury to allow the Russians some limited rail movement between them (both ways), but only works for the Russians. Either that or change the rules for a minor IC when it isn’t the original owner (captured, liberated, or newly built) to where it only produces 1 unit. This would fix a lot of things IMO!
I’m wondering: what if Russia was given some sort of incentive – perhaps raised IPCs, perhaps a NO bonus, perhaps something else – to set up an anti-Japanese defensive line east of Moscow? On the game map, the most logical defensive line would be the one consisting of just three territories: Urals, Novosibirsk and Kazakhstan. As long as the Soviets hold that line, Japan could run wild in eastern Russia without Moscow having to worry. And it makes geographic sense because the Urals are the traditional dividing barrier between the European and Asian parts of the country.
@CWO:
I’m wondering: what if Russia was given some sort of incentive – perhaps raised IPCs, perhaps a NO bonus, perhaps something else – to set up an anti-Japanese defensive line east of Moscow? On the game map, the most logical defensive line would be the one consisting of just three territories: Urals, Novosibirsk and Kazakhstan. As long as the Soviets hold that line, Japan could run wild in eastern Russia without Moscow having to worry. And it makes geographic sense because the Urals are the traditional dividing barrier between the European and Asian parts of the country.
I agree that Russia should get something if the Japanese come a calling. They don’t even have enough to hold back a determined German assault, much less both powers converging on them. You could even make it a 2nd lend lease NO that allows Russia to get 5 IPCs if the Japanese take a Russian territory, or have units in a Russian territory.
The Russians wouldn’t get the NO for simply being at war with the Japanese. Only if the Japanese take a Russian territory. This would allow the Russians to invade Japanese land, and the Japanese to take it back w/o triggering the NO. But if the Japanese take it further and invade Russian territory (or start the hostilities by attacking a Russian territory) the allies send more war materials. You could even link it to Amur/sz5, or Persia/sz80 must be clear for the Russians to get the NO.
Yeah, but the problem with Russia goes well beyond just an economic inability, its a logistical/production problem.
Amur is 7 moves from away from the nearest Russian production center (which happens to be Moscow) while it’s effectively 1 move away from the main Japanese production center, since Japan can drop in from anywhere along the coast.
The production numbers are likewise heavily skewed in favor of Japan. Russia has to divert resources from its production front with Germany to put new units into the far east theater, can’t afford new minor factories, and wouldn’t have anywhere to put them even if they could. Japan by contrast has effectively a single front, half a dozen locations that can support minor factory expansions within drop range of transports (more if they have a naval base along the coast of Southeast Asia), and plenty of cash to bring the war wherever they want to.
Honestly if you’re going to drop the value of those Far East territories to zero and carve them up into speed bumps, purely to keep them out of Japan’s hands, while simultaneously eliminating any possibility of a Russian offensive against the Pacific, you might as well go all the way and just take this whole region of the map out of play altogether. Or rather, take it out of play, at least as far as the Moscow crush is concerned.
This could be achieved by making Siberia impassible.
Isoltate the pacific half of the Soviet Union, and have Siberia divide the two. Put a production center on the Pacific side and make that the primary target if Japan wants to contest the Soviet Far East. Since aircraft can’t fly over impassibles, this would restrict the theater to a more narrow and manageable contest.
That might seem kind of boring, but it doesnt have to be, and it’d be a lot simpler to achieve. Then the calculus from Japan would be, “is it worth it to spend the effort destroying like 20 russian units for a handful of IPCs only to see your attack force bogged down in the frozen tundra unable to advance across the vast frozen wastes?”
You could still give the Russians a production center right before the impassible Siberia territory, since it couldn’t be used as a springboard towards Moscow anymore, there would be less risk in doing so. Basically you’d end up with a Soviet empire divided in two by Siberia, so they could still reinforce China from the western half, while the Far East would basically have to function on its own.
I’d rather go the other way and give Russia a connected production center that can actually reinforce their position in either direction. One which they have to hold, so it isn’t just a simple choice of redirecting all their resources towards Germany while running away from Japan. But an impassible Siberia seems like a workable alternative.
As for the Pacific islands. I’m sure with enough NO’s you could get players to pay attention to them. The problem I see with objectives like 5/7 island, or 3/7, is that it involves more tracking and memorization than I care for, and it doesn’t have them same feel of building momentum during the island hop. Those NO’s strike me as an ‘all-or-nothing’ choice, where either you think you can grab them all for a big bonus, or just decide it’s enitrely out of reach, at which point the map defaults to the usual situation where those islands are ignored. Not saying that a big NO bonus couldn’t work, I just think it would work better if it was added on top of islands that are already worth 1 ipc.
I agree that the Russian far east needs some help with logistics. I don’t think giving them a 2 IPC territory for production out there will solve this though. I think it will create another problem for Russia giving the Japanese yet another place to mobilize units.
If there was a Siberian Rail though the Russians could build units in Moscow and rail them to the far east, or move the Siberians to Moscow when needed. If you don’t want to install a rail system, maybe simply allowing mech to drag one inf, art, or AA gun in NCM could solve some of the logistic problems for Russia (and other parts of the map). If you also tweaked the ridiculous 18 inf by swapping out a few inf for a couple mech and art that also helps (especially if you did allow mech to drag other units in NCM). I know any type of rail movement would help the axis, but no rail at all is pretty lame.
I don’t think making one of the territories out there impassable so the Japanese can’t go north is the way to go. Plus they could bypass it and go through Mongolia (if the Japanese go north the Mongols will activate). Although an impassible Ural mountain range that would protect Moscow’s back side and funnel the Japanese into a kill zone would be pretty cool.
You bring up good points about the Pac islands, but it would be the same if you made them all 1 IPC. Most of the 0 IPC islands belong to the allies (they would get a pretty good income boost). As Japan you either try to hold the islands you have and take some from the allies, but at some point you will be faced with giving up that fight (big win for the allies IMO).
Well when I floated the impassable Siberia idea, I was only taking myself half seriously, though the more a think on it the more attractive it’s becoming.
If re-drafting the map, it’s possible to draw the impassable Siberia space such that it extends to block any Mongolian bypass. Then having a Soviet production center wouldn’t do a whole lot for Japan, since even if they did mobilize units there, they would just have to back track them anyway. I think the most signicant thing about going with an impassable Siberia, is that it limits the usefulness of Japanese aircraft in the region (should that Russian production center fall), since they wouldn’t be able to fly over the tile to immediately crash the party in Europe.
I do like the idea of rail, but I think that falls more into the scope of an HR element than a map redesign. Although there is a kind of precedent here, with the Burma road being represented on the map. Right now it does seem a bit lonely all by itself. The only kink with transiberian rail, is that it should probably be complimented by Trans Europe rail, or Trans American rail, but I don’t know how ambitious YG is, if he wants to explore those kinds of options.
I also think having an impassable Ural range to develop a choke point would be cool. Perhaps there are other regions of the map that could receive this treatment as well? Then the impassables could be a sort of theme with the re-drafting. Right now China encompasses a rather large area without a whole lot of distinguishing features, maybe some impassable terrain would make it more interesting?
ps. how about something like this? …
You take Siberia, the Gobi Desert, the Altay Mountains, and turn them into terrain features to create a soviet far eastern pocket. This impassible tile would follow the basic contour of the current Yenisey territory (for Siberia), and then stretch down along the southern border of Mongolia (to form the Gobi desert) up to the territory called Central Mongolia. The Russian production tile here would likely be Yakut.
If desired, we could use those, along with the Urals, to create an additional central asian pocket. This one would roughly follow the western contour of the current Urals, and Novosibirsk territories down to Kazakhstan. The Russian production tile there could be Evenki. Then you’d have like a 3 tiered game for control of Eurasia, the Moscow/Europe pocket that focuses on Germany, the Central pocket that focuses on China, and the Far East pocket, each working more or less independently of each other. If you wanted you could run a rail graphic along those terrain features, and then say something like these associated production territories are meant to represent rail hubs. Gives a nod to the existence of the railroad, but eliminates the need to create new movement rules. Basically just using the terrain to create more permanent "speedbump-like’ divisions of the game board. I think it might be interesting.
I’d consider majors for the production along the hubs. Since those are immediately downgraded if captured, they’d be much more useful to Russia than they would be to Japan, which again seems to fit the theme.
I guess my thought above to the Caroline Islands have a 1 IPC value was more based on Iwo Jima having a 1 IPC value already on the map despite its zero resource value. Both are strategic and both are worthless when it comes to resources.
