I would post this under House Rules, but I’m moreso trying to get others’ opinions upon balance, and less trying to share a ruleset.
But I had the thought with a friend recently of the thought of counting up the IPC value of all of the units on the board for each nation, then basically allowing a re-spend and redeployment of all starting units (but with air/naval bases, AA guns, and IC’s remaining in starting locations, although can be purchased.) Naval units would be restricted to sea zones where the alpha 2+ setup had naval units in them though.
However, naturally, this would change things quite a bit. The inner territories of Germany would be vacant and the fronts would be more loaded up, allowing for a faster, more aggressive attack due to everything already being on the front for the Axis powers.
But on the other hand, the UK can consolidate the Royal Navy, making it very difficult to destroy.
Do you think this would work? Would the Axis become too powerful as a result of frontline deployment? Would the consolidation of the Allied fleets make things too difficult?
Or would a combination of things make this such a massive mess that it wouldn’t even be worth trying?
Basically before I go spending a few hours on it, I want general feedback on if it wouldn’t completely suck.
Kind of an interesting idea. Certainly something different. So basically you can redeploy each countries’ starting forces almost where ever you want, as long as it is on their original territories. I understand your naval restriction. This prevents something like Japan plopping a huge fleet off the coast of America or Britian putting a large navy in the Baltic, right? I am assuming that you can take some of your men and equipment and put them already on transports and ready to go, right? (like in the Anniversary 1941 setup for Japan)
Also, you are suggesting taking the total sum of IPC worth of the starting pieces and perhaps distributing that differently (eg. instead of 4 inf, you can get 2 tanks or 3 art). That might be cool, especially for Japan or Russia that get a lot of infantry but very few tanks. Does that apply to ALL different units? For example, could Japan trade in 2 fighters (20 IPCS) for another Battleship (20 IPCs), or visa-versa?
I have dones something similar to this. Just moving the pieces around, not actually counting up the net worth and possibly exchanging them for other units of the same worth. That’s interesting. Anyway, I came up with different alliance games. For example, say Germany and Russia were best buds: well, they wouldn’t need all of that hardware along each other’s borders, right? So I had to relocate the majority to other territories against with they were fighting leaving 1 or 2 infantry for a simple garrison (it is WAR time after all). I also had Japan being friends with USA, ANZAC and UK which meant there was no Pacific war and thus no need for the huge fleets to be out there. With the US it was fairly simple – I relocated most of their fleet to the East coast and Caribbean.
Japan was trickier since their navy really had no business anywhere but the Pacific since all their possesions were in the Pacific and Eastern Asia. However, with your formula of adding up the net IPC worth of starting pieces and exchanging them for others, that would fix that problem. Japan could reduce their massive navy in favor of more land and air units for attacking China and Russia. You know what, I might just try that out. Also, Germany might not need as many land units so they could get more navy and air. Thanks for the idea!
Also, you are suggesting taking the total sum of IPC worth of the starting pieces and perhaps distributing that differently (eg. instead of 4 inf, you can get 2 tanks or 3 art). That might be cool, especially for Japan or Russia that get a lot of infantry but very few tanks. Does that apply to ALL different units? For example, could Japan trade in 2 fighters (20 IPCS) for another Battleship (20 IPCs), or visa-versa?
That was the plan.
Japan was trickier since their navy really had no business anywhere but the Pacific since all their possesions were in the Pacific and Eastern Asia. However, with your formula of adding up the net IPC worth of starting pieces and exchanging them for others, that would fix that problem. Japan could reduce their massive navy in favor of more land and air units for attacking China and Russia. You know what, I might just try that out. Also, Germany might not need as many land units so they could get more navy and air. Thanks for the idea!
You’re welcome!
Here’s a bit of info for this idea. Starting IPC value totals of COMBAT UNITS only (not including ICs, AA guns or bases)
RUSSIA = 230
United States = 266
China = 58
France = 132
United Kingdom (Europe & Pacific) = 430
ANZAC = 85
Germany = 387
Italy = 211
Japan = 552
GRAND TOTAL = 2351 IPCs
Can you believe Japan actually has nearly as much as Germany and Italy combined. Probably due to their large, expensive navy and the abundance of aircraft (more than twice the amount of Germany and Italy together).
You might need to split the UK between London and Calcutta.
Fun idea, but i think it would need a maximum ipc limit
Allowing the UK to fortify Egypt and the UK more at the expense of its Atlantic fleet, or allowing it to consolidate its Atlantic fleet, or allowing it to move some to the Mediterranean to more easily sink the Italian fleet, would be really bad for the Allies. You have to take into account the fact that a lot of that starting value, especially for Britain’s fleet, generally doesn’t last long enough to be used, but if given the chance to redistribute it becomes a lot more dangerous.
This might work, very well actualy, if all placements are written down in secret. (So that you have to prepare for any eventualities)
And also an IPC Cap per territory
Something like: No more than a 50% IPC increse from what starts there (or even a 100% IPC increse)
If players do this in secret….then you wont see gamble placements like all UKs stuff in the med.
Because italy might exhange some land units for 2 more fighters in south Italy and another boat and combine its fleet.
Allowing the UK to fortify Egypt and the UK more at the expense of its Atlantic fleet, or allowing it to consolidate its Atlantic fleet, or allowing it to move some to the Mediterranean to more easily sink the Italian fleet, would be really bad for the Allies. You have to take into account the fact that a lot of that starting value, especially for Britain’s fleet, generally doesn’t last long enough to be used, but if given the chance to redistribute it becomes a lot more dangerous.
Okay, I don’t get what you are saying. I really don’t understand how this would be bad for the Allies. Take the UK navy in particular; Most of it usually gets trashed G1 and there isn’t really enough in the Med to accomplish enough damage to Italy, especially if Germany send a couple of planes to Italy’s airbase for scrambling. So really all the Royal navy is doing is perhaps costing the Luftwaffe some planes. In this case, if you could move them around to other areas, the Royal navy could actually accomplish something like destroying the Italian fleet. You could put more ships in the Med and more units on London for good defense against Sealion. Also, I don’t understand why you say sinking the Italian navy is bad for the Allies. Britain could shut Italy down good by confining them to Europe and not allowing them to expand in Africa and the Middle East, which is what Italy really needs to do to get any income.
This might work, very well actualy, if all placements are written down in secret. (So that you have to prepare for any eventualities)
And also an IPC Cap per territory
Something like: No more than a 50% IPC increse from what starts there (or even a 100% IPC increse)If players do this in secret….then you wont see gamble placements like all UKs stuff in the med.
Because italy might exhange some land units for 2 more fighters in south Italy and another boat and combine its fleet.
This is interesting. So I assume players would take turns placing their pieces which would give the later players a real advantage.
On the IPC cap, would that extend to sea zones as well? For example, UK starts with a BB and CA in SZ 110 = 32 IPCs. So they couldn’t place more than another 32 IPCs worth of ships in that SZ? That might cut down on the advantage factor of replacement but make it a little more interesting.
One other thing just occured to me. How would this affect USA and USSR? Since they are basically neutral for the first 3 rounds, moving around their starting pieces wouldn’t be much of a game changer for them. Exchanging some units for others might benefit the USA some, like if they wanted more or less navy but with 3 rounds to move and build, I don’t see this idea as being a huge change for them.
As for USSR, they usually play the game very defensively and most of the USSR’s worth is in infantry already. I guess if they wanted to try being offensive for a change, they could exchange some of that manpower for more tanks and planes. They could even totally abandon the idea of a navy and change the BB and two SS for more land/air units. That’s an extra 32 IPCs of tanks or fighters. Or, they could go the opposite way and build a huge navy to mess with Germany in the Baltic. Heck, they could even get a bunch of transports and invade Germany directly on R4, that is if the German player is blind or can’t figure out what all those Russian transports on Leningrad are for.
This might work, very well actualy, if all placements are written down in secret. (So that you have to prepare for any eventualities)
And also an IPC Cap per territory
Something like: No more than a 50% IPC increse from what starts there (or even a 100% IPC increse)If players do this in secret….then you wont see gamble placements like all UKs stuff in the med.
Because italy might exhange some land units for 2 more fighters in south Italy and another boat and combine its fleet.
This rule would need to be tweaked a little bit to allow players to place units in their starting territories that did not originally start with any units. For instance, if GB wanted to stock Africa with more units, or if Chana wanted to move around its starting infantry.
