How could we use GC Battle box approach to play Pacific?

[dinosaur]

Guys,

I really like GC but my son likes Pacific better.  This got me to wondering if we could create a set of rules for Pacific that used the GC battle box.  I can’t ask this on the Pacific board because if they don’t have the game GC, they won’t know what the heck we’re talking about.  My biggest problem in doing this is recreating Japan’s first round advantage with the Battle box system.  I really like the three phase combat environment, Air, Sea and Land.  And I like the way the battle box randomizes casualties but still makes screening ships relevant.  Has anyone else started looking at this idea?

[Adlertag]

My playgroup looked at it, but have now abandoned it totally. It boogs down the game. The Guad system is nice for the little Guad map, but for the much bigger Pacific map it is not. The Pacific game have 5 different nations, USA, Australia, India, China and Japan. Imagine Japan move a battelship, then Australia move a battleship, then USA move a battleship. Then Japan move a destroyer, then India move a destroyer, then Australia move a destroyer, then USA move a destroyer. Then Japan move a fighter, then India move a fighter, then Australia move a fighter. Then Japan move an infantry, then India move an infantry, then Australia move an infantry, then USA move an infantry and then China move an infantry. Then Japan move a tank, then India move a tank, then USA move a tank. And finally the 1 hour long combat move is finished, and you can resolve combat. etc etc

Now try to imagine a turn with the official Pacific rules. It is faster, right ?

[luvjay0918]

Because of the place they can move fast and they really known what plan to do to attack,if they all was taken to attack the battle can end faster.

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[losttribe04]

I could jump on board with the battle box but Adlertag is right about the intigrated movments.

The best thing I have seen happen to the battle box is using diffrent colored dice.  Maybe you could use the same number value just assign units colors.

That would give you the random hits you are looking for and streem line the dice rolling.

LT

[Make_It_Round]

I think it’s a great idea, and that we ought to revisit this topic. I’m surprised that no one’s accomplished it so far. Maybe if we put our heads together ;)

Okay, so keep all movement ‘integrated’ (turn-based) like standard A&A… You could still make all combat and movement rules / values of units equal those of Guadalcanal, and that would make the game more textured. Forget the battlebox even, my favourite bit was the breakdown of the combat into Air/Sea/Land phases (which could be accomplished without randomizing casualties, which takes up too much time).

The difficulty I came across when trying to combine these two was finding a way to reconcile the economies of A&A: Pac and A&A: Guad… The units are just radically different in terms of their cost in either version, and the number of ‘IPC’ points on the each board available for purchasing new units seem incompatible as well. The question of bringing in ‘supply’ rules to allow for extra ship / tank movements has to be raised, as well (inviting comparisons between Guad and BotB supply rules as to which was better).

[Make_It_Round]

Oh, and to recreate Japan’s ‘suprise attack’ advantage: have Japanese units hit on three or less, or Allied units hit on just a one, or both. You’ll need to playtest to see which of the three options is best.

The more pressing question is whether you’re going to limit yourself to one round of combat or keep rolling indefinitely, like in old-fashioned A&A. You could keep the ‘attack air units’ phase going until one side’s air had been wiped out, and so forth to the ‘attack sea units’ and ‘attack land units’ phases… Problem then being that one fighter could wipe out an entire stack of infantry without any way of shooting back (though I suppose that then we’d see players actually buying AA guns en masse!). The other alternative would be to keep combat going for only one round, like Guad, and end up with a lot of contested territories (which could also be fun).

[Make_It_Round]

I think I’ve got it now.

Use the fighter range 2 and bomber range 3 from Guad, but otherwise unit movement is the same as standard A&A.

Combat is one round only, and broken down into 3 distinct phases like Guad (to avoid odd situations, e.g. wherein 1 fighter could grind down a huge infantry stack).

To compensate for the different economies of the two games, give aircraft and tanks the ‘resilience’ ability.

Units with resilience that are damaged get a ‘damage’ counter (from A&A: 50) and are removed from combat. Damaged units get -1 movement and have the same status as transports in this version; they have no fighting ability and cannot be chosen as casualties in combat unless every other friendly combat-worthy unit in the territory or sea zone that is being attacked is destroyed. To have a damage counter removed, the damaged unit must start the turn at a friendly industrial complex, and its controller must pay 1 IPC to the bank.

Tanks are 5IPCs, 0 air / 0 sea / 2 land / 2 move, resilience.

Artillery can use their ability to shoot at sea units only when an amphibious assault is being conducted, and the only casualties that can be inflicted by artillery fire are those units that are directly involved in the assault, or supporting the assault with bombardment.

Battleships and Cruisers can use their ability to shoot at land units only when an amphibious assault is being conducted, and only 1 ship may fire in this way for each 1 attacking land unit involved in the assault.

That’s my proposal in a rough form. Anybody have any thoughts on the matter?

[idk_iam_swiss]

Love the resilience idea. but you are going to need fighter and bomber range in the ocean. (ITS HUGE!)

[Make_It_Round]

Rule Changes

• Combat is one round only, and broken down into 3 distinct phases: (1) attack air units, (2) attack sea units, and (3) attack land units (transporting units drop their cargo at the beginning of this phase). All units engaged in each phase of combat roll the specified # of dice indicated on the table simultaneously (‘2’ or less counts as a hit), and then casualties are removed.
• Units with Resilience that are hit on a result of ‘2’ (or higher) get a ‘damage’ counter put under them instead of being destroyed and are removed from combat at the end of that phase. Damaged units get -1 movement, and roll no dice in combat. If another damage counter is applied to an already-damaged unit, it is destroyed. To have the damage counter removed, the damaged unit must start the turn at a friendly industrial complex, and its controller must pay 1 IPC to the bank.
• Ranged Fire: Artillery can use their defensive ability to shoot at sea units only when an amphibious assault is being conducted by the enemy, and the only casualties that can be inflicted by artillery fire are those units that are directly involved in the assault, or supporting the assault with bombardment. Battleships and Cruisers can use their offensive ability to shoot at land units only when they are supporting an amphibious assault, and only 1 ship may fire in this way for each 1 attacking land unit involved in the assault.
• Control of territories is determined by who has the majority of land units there—in the case of a tie, the previous owner retains control. As long as a player has any land units in a territory, their industrial complex there continues to produce units for them.
• Winning the game (for Anniversary Edition): if either the Axis or the Allies control 13 Victory Cities at the end of the US player’s turn, that side wins the game.

[dinosaur]

I also like the three phase combat system and I want that in this new variant of AAP.  However, I would like to propose we look at the game changes that are needed from the opposite view.

In Guadalcanal each ship represents about one ship (I think the cruisers represent about two ships, and the destroyers and transports represent three or four ships, in my opinion).  In AAP, a carrier represents a carrier or two, along with a couple escorts.  A battleship represents one or two battleships and some escorts.  A destroyer represents a couple cruisers and several more destroyers.  This is the scale problem with the game.  The cost for the ships doesn’t scale very well when you compare the games.

My solution is to change the number of starting units (increasing the number in Pacific) but lowering the cost for new units (to something very close to the AAG costs).  Once a play balance is found for this relationship, then we have to redefine the IPC value of some territory.

Another problem will be that tanks are not on the battle box and artillery has a different meaning in AAP.  In AAG artillery can fire at ships but do not “help” infantry.  We need to find a solution to ground combat to make this work.  Maybe we just give tanks a cost of $3 (in AAG economy numbers) and a ground attack of three dice (no ship or air attack value), with one infantry slot on the battlebox renamed for tanks.  We may have to introduce two other compromises for this too.  Transports can ttransport one infantry and one other unit, and destroyers can transport only one infantry.

What we really need is folks that want to play test this.  I know a fun game would come out of it if we can find a formula to play balance the thing.

[dinosaur]

One more thing …

The opening turn would be a single round attack by the Japanese with a 5 damaging ships and a 4 or less killing a ship; and air and ground units are killed on a four or less.  The Allies damage a ship on a 2 and kill a ship on a 1.  Air and ground units are killed on a 1.

This is my starting thought on a first turn Japanese advantage.

Lets see if that can survive some play testing.