Bonehead European setup?

[Der Kuenstler]

Granted I’m fairly new to the Global series, but after getting my G40 2nd ed games last week and playing live and online it seems to me the OOB setups for some nations do not represent historical reality or even intelligence.

In a classic game like chess, for example, your pieces are set up so that neither player can really hurt the other due to the thoughtful setup. That way if you lose, it is due to the moves YOU make.

However, in these global setups there are often situations created in the setup that you can do nothing about. The main problem for me is the British navy surrounding England, which historically was the most powerful in the world at that time and a very intimidating force. In the current global setup, as the British player you can do nothing at all with your scattered and vulnerable navy but watch as the Germans decimate practically everything afloat, because your ships are set up in a way they never would have been by an intelligent player. This results in the British player piling an unhistorical 20+ infantry on England, cowering to stave off a huge German naval attack, when historically it was the huge British navy and airforce that discouraged the germans from sealion.

IMHO, the British navy should all start off together for protection somewhere like sz 119 NW of Scotland, as they would be placed by an intelligent being. The DD and transport by Nova Scotia should at least get some fighter cover by an airbase or the German subs should be placed out of range for G1.

Another example is the Italian DD and transport setup next to Malta. What smart player would do that with British airpower nearby? They are automatically destroyed every opening turn with no chance to do anything.

My point is, the game should not be set up so that vital and expensive units will get trashed the first turn without you having any say in it. The player himself should make the vital decisions for victory or defeat in each battle - not the setup cards. I mean, why even have those units out there in the first place if that’s the way it is going to be? Why not just start the game out with the British having no navy around England, for example? That’s the way it usually looks by round 2 anyway.

I can see having SOME of this nonsense in the setup (French for example - they were steamrolled) but in other areas it is just silly.

[Gargantua]

This results in the British player piling an unhistorical 20+ infantry on England, cowering to stave off a huge German naval attack

Well… there was a certain amount of cowering that occurred after Dunkirk… without denial.

[Spendo02]

The Germans would never be able to even think of advancing against Russia if the UK was allowed to keep its fleet intact.  6 Ftr scrambling over what ships the UK has equates to a very early amphib landing by the allies.  The only way to counter that would be to deny the UK via game rule no landings until the US is in the war and lands on the same round as the UK.

Germany would need a significant bump in production and/or starting units if you let the UK keep her Navy (in this game).  Which then means Moscow needs more units to keep the balance.

Sea Lion existed, just at great cost for the Germans.  I think this game reflects it rather well considering putting all your resources into a single VC at the cost of giving Russia plenty of IC’s and basically making Moscow a fortress isn’t always a wonderful idea.

[cond1024]

It is for playability. As stated if the large UK navy survives G1 then Germany is doomed.  The second Ed set up is better than the original set up.  You have to have the navy because it forces Germany to risk their Air Force  to sink it.  Even with UK getting killed G1 they can still form up a big navy by bringing the pacific navy over to the med or by joining the remnants of the Atlantic navy with the med navy.

[Cow]

I like this thread.

Yes, it is pretty silly of a setup. I mean UK and France were at war with germany from sept 1939… here we are in jan 1940… they had 4 months to get their fleets together before germany made a move.

I just assume this is an alternate universe. UK and France were still trying to appease Germany and Germany decided to give them the finger and take the initiative in attacking.

Meanwhile in the Pacific, China and Japan were already at war and have been having small skirmishes, but Japan did not feel like taking all of china for international political feasibility reasons. Germany declares war on UK and France and so Japan hops on that gravy train.
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I mean really now, this is 1940 and I am always declaring war on everyone with Japan on the first round (except when the russians line themselves up in Amur then I just kill those things and go to war later).

Historically we know USA does not enter the war until 1941.

We are going back in time and making assumptions then changing things up so the axis win most games.

I mean the world would have been a better place if the axis won WWII so it would be silly to have the allies do something intelligent when they are so clearly dumb.

[Guest]

Der Kuenstler, I sympathize with what you’re saying, especially the part about z119 being the proper location for the scapa flow fleet instead of z111.  But the setup has emerged this way to force Germany to make difficult choices on G1 that affect the rest of the game.  They can’t hit everything they would like to hit and still have enough airforce leftover to throw at Russia, let alone defend Italy.

I have a solution for you though.  Demand a bid of $8 and spend it on a French destroyer in z104.  Seriously, check it out.  Look closely at what is likely to be left of Germany’s airforce if they try to hit both z111 and z110 (without the subs), and you scramble.  To heck with Taranto if you can wipe out half the Luftwaffe on the first round, or more likely, they choose to just hit z110, in which case you don’t scramble and your scapa flow group is preserved.  And there will be no sealion without a luftwaffe, or if the UK has a fleet that can defend z110 or zap z112.

If they do try for z110 and z111, notice what z92 might look like if you skip Taranto.  Italy may blow its navy anyway sinking all the blockers you have left out, plus the silly French fleet, because they want to prevent all those ships merging together again.

If Germany doesn’t sink the French destroyer G1, it will later be used as a blocker to prevent sealion via z109. Germans will have to go through the British fleet in z110, which takes air units in case of scramble, and Italy won’t be able to airstrike the blocker because it is French.  If they don’t sink z91 cruiser G1 then Taranto raid is easier (or it defends carrier in z92 with no Taranto).  If they don’t sink z106 there will be an extra inf and tank defending London.  Not enough subs to go around.  So my French destroyer in z104 allows a Taranto raid while making London harder to take or at least very costly.

Another issue it opens up is the problem of providing landing spots for Italians. Suppose Germany hits z110, z106 and z91, and take Normandy to give the Italian bomber a landing spot so it can make a risky run at the french destroyer.  If they do that, it will mean skipping Southern France or not sending enough to take Paris without heavy losses.  No Southern France means no landing spot for Italian planes to hit z92 (and no IC to build subs next turn in case they give up on sealion and focus on defending Italy).  I suppose they could take Algeria and let the Germans airstrike it, but then the luftwaffe is way out of position to do anything useful to either UK or Russia for a couple of turns.

[Der Kuenstler]

I can see the balance issues - you want it to be an enjoyable game. But I have downloaded and viewed over 10 TripleA games now and played three live games of global and it is the same thing EVERY time. I mean EVERY time. The German player goes over first thing and sinks everything in SZ111 and 110, leaving nothing for England but the transport and DD in SZ 109. If England scrambles its fighters this only helps Germany as the fighters are shot down, making Sealion easier. Germany then plops an aircraft carrier and two more transports in SZ 112 by Norway.

All of this happens before the British player has any say at all. All Britain can do is run away with the sorry remnants of its fleet or try to mop up the damaged BB that Germany has left.

There is no drama to this - no real thinking other than following the same script over and over. I’m tired of it already and I’m new to it - I can’t imagine you veteran players enjoying this opening over and over after 50 games or so.

The reason there was no Sealion historically is the German high command saw it was not possible. Hitler didn’t even want to try it and was making a half-hearted faint at it as a bluff. Admiral Donitz said at the time “We possessed neither control of the air or the sea; nor were we in any position to gain it.”

So what could the solution be? Surely a group of creative minds could come up with something better.

• The IC on the UK could be required to be a minor until the USA enters the war.
• Take all land units off UK except one infantry in UK and Scotland. The Mech unit needn’t be there as the British lost most heavy equipment at Dunkirk
• Put only one Brit infantry in all of Canada
• Take away the UK’s bomber
• Take away all of Britain’s transports on the Europe side
• Take away the German transport in the Baltic and give them another sub
• Give UK 6 fighters, and set up all the European British Navy in SZ 109 where Britain can scramble six fighters if attacked
• Give Britain a loaded AC carrier and take away a cruiser and BB so it can’t bombard as effectively
• Add more Germans on the coast. There would be no reason to strengthen Russia as Germany would HAVE to keep these units in place to stave off Britain.

Now perhaps you have a Germany that sees it would be suicidal to try Sealion - and whose main naval build would be to pump submarines into the Atlantic to try to starve Britain, as happened historically.

You say “Oh that would make Sealion IMPOSSIBLE!” Exactly. Nor is it possible for Japan to sink the USA’s entire pacific fleet on J1, but no one complains about that because it didn’t happen historically.

[knp7765]

Der Kuenstler,
The changes you list seem to make UK totally defensive with almost no offensive capability at all. While that may be closer to being historically accurate, I don’t think that would work so well for this game. UK needs to have some capability to “hit back” and that bomber is just about the only way they can, at least in the first round or two, which was also like it was back then.
I agree that it sucks having Britain losing most of it’s Atlantic navy right off the bat, but in most cases, it costs Germany a lot of it’s planes and subs. In fact, Germany also loses it’s one battleship most of the time. I’ve even seen some games where the dice went bad for Germany and a good part of the Royal Navy ends up surviving. It’s a risk for Germany and could even set them back even if they are planning straight Barbarossa.

Cow,
This game starts off right after the Dunkirk evacuation, which occured late May to early June 1940. So, we are starting in June 1940, not January, so it’s really 9 months after the beginning of the war.

[Der Kuenstler]

@knp7765:

I agree that it sucks having Britain losing most of it’s Atlantic navy right off the bat, but in most cases, it costs Germany a lot of it’s planes and subs.

Hmmm…Well I’ve never seen Germany really hurt at all by attacking Britain’s navy G1. They just use their huge airforce for hitting and then take off a few $6 subs for any German casualties. They then have a huge paycheck on G2 from the French conquest to replace anything lost.

[Razor]

Yes, this is not fair man

[Hepps01]

I too find Global very limiting from a playability standpoint.  Too much of the game is predetermined, not enough left for players to effectively come up with different strategies that might or can work.  The opening setup is highly unrealistic and leaves the British with only one option.  Not an ideal way to start a game when a team is forced into only one possible move prior to even having it’s first turn.

I agree with Der Kuenstler 100%.

[AlphaKappa]

What if, at the start of the game, every nation gets 1 turn of only non-combat movement (no attacks, no income) in the standard order?

[Der Kuenstler]

@AlphaKappa:

What if, at the start of the game, every nation gets 1 turn of only non-combat movement (no attacks, no income) in the standard order?

I doubt if that would be popular because people usually want to jump right into things and start rolling dice, but it would certainly put more responsibility on the player himself for winning/losing and not the OOB setup.

[Gargantua]

You’d have to NCM blind.  And it would make balancing totally impossible.

[special forces]

Apart from all that it was not a bad idea at all, i think (if the set-up would be planned accordingly)

edit: would give a LOT of different possibilities to the game (maybe too much even)

[AlphaKappa]

@Gargantua:

You’d have to NCM blind.

What do you mean?

[Razor]

@Gargantua:

You’d have to NCM blind.  And it would make balancing totally impossible.

Exactely, you would have to use the movement rules from Diplomacy, or the Optional Naval Move from A&A Guadalcanal, where all players write down the moves on a pad, and then simultanesly everybody revel their moves. Its what IL used to name “Write an essay each turn”-game. Would have been fun but also a lot more work

[Gargantua]

Maybe set a number like 5…

You get to NCM 5 units secretly (Blind).  Then everyone reviews thier moves at the same time.

If you get to see your opponents NCM, then you`ll want to counter them, and them you, and it will go on forever and get dumb.

You could even add in an espionage cycle, like you get 5 moves, and if I spend 1 ipc per roll, and roll a 6, I get to see one or two, or whatever NCM`s, before I do my own.

[Cow]

hmm, yeah I mean I pretty much do sea lion or barb with germany. Japan I always go to war round 1 unless amur is loaded with russians.

UK have to load london with inf. china skirmish. Anzac and usa have some flexibility. uk pac infs up. Russia does what russia does.

I pretty much just play global for the pacific half which is the half that makes sense.
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J1 and G1 is standardized in AA50, but there is a little bit of flexibility or deviation people do.

[Cow]

In any case I can’t come up with a better europe half that wouldn’t screw things up in the pacific half.