I’ve been waffling all morning about whether or not I should enter this discussion. I have no strong feelings about the subject itself (so I was inclined to stay out of it), but I also do like terminology that’s precise and clear and correct and (ideally) simple – so for whatever it’s worth, here’s my two cents.
It would be nice if whatever terms get used for the three factory/complex types could immediately and unambiguously express how big they are relative to each other when the three terms are seen side-by-side, and preferably even if they’re seen in isolation. It would also be nice if the chosen terminology didn’t deviate too much from established A&A practice. The official rules call these units Industrial Complexes (hence the handy acronym IC). The term is, in my opinion, conveniently generic (potentially covering everything from a single factory building to a whole industrial city), in the same way that IPCs are a generalized and abstract representation of gross domestic product rather than dollars. On the other hand, the IPC sculpts that were part of the older games look like a single factory building, not like what we’d call an “industrial park” today. Their design, however, is a conventional abstraction for industry in general (see the examples below from Frank Capra’s Why We Fight films), so it can plausibly stand for more than just a factory building.
By the way, just to toss in an extra item from everyone’s favourite unofficial source of information, Wikipedia’s view on the subject is that:
Industrial complex may refer to:
A factory or collection of buildings relating to industrial production
Military-industrial complex, the term referring to a close and symbiotic relationship between a nation’s armed forces, and its private industry.
Anyway, taking as a starting point LHoffman’s comment that…
“factory implies an isolated and singular building where production takes place (i.e. small, focused and not widely developed). An Industrial Complex implies an undefined number of multiple production elements grouped together in a large and expansive conglomerate.”
…my suggestion would be to use these terms:
Major Industrial Complex
Minor Industrial Complex
Single Factory
Here are the pictures I mentioned. Forgot to attach them.
Great post as always CWO Marc… but here lies the problem:
_…my suggestion would be to use these terms:
 Major Industrial Complex
 Minor Industrial Complex
 Single Factory_
How do we explain that the Minor Industrial Complexes (original units producing 3) in the initial set up… are to be replaced with Minor Industrial Complexes (new units producing 5) without baking everyone’s noodle?
@Young:
How do we explain that the Minor Industrial Complexes (original units producing 3) in the initial set up… are to be replaced with Minor Industrial Complexes (new units producing 5) without baking everyone’s noodle?
Well, to turn the question around: what are you planning to use as your three markers types? Three cardboard tokens with different values printed on them? Three different sculpt types, differentiated by size or by number of smokestacks or something?
@CWO:
@Young:
How do we explain that the Minor Industrial Complexes (original units producing 3) in the initial set up… are to be replaced with Minor Industrial Complexes (new units producing 5) without baking everyone’s noodle?
Well, to turn the question around: what are you planning to use as your three markers types? Three cardboard tokens with different values printed on them? Three different sculpt types, differentiated by size or by number of smokestacks or something?
Myself personally, I’m using…
Industrial Complex - gray 1942 oob plastic ICs (painted blue for 10)
Major Factory - Plastic monopoly hotel (red for 5)
Minor Factory - Plasitic monopoly house (green for 3)
@Young:
How do we explain that the Minor Industrial Complexes (original units producing 3) in the initial set up… are to be replaced with Minor Industrial Complexes (new units producing 5) without baking everyone’s noodle?
I still don’t see why this is a big problem. If the Halifax rules are intended to better gameplay by altering parts of the game… then it should be expected that a change like this will occur. People will have to just accept the fact that production facilities have changed slightly and new game pieces may be needed to represent this. I don’t think this will be too hard for everyone to grasp or accept. They have been doing it for a number of years.
And as I said before, remembering a couple minor changes here are quite insignificant compared to the vast swath of information needed to play G40… which we are assuming has already been memorized.
Thanks for the additional information, YG. I’m beginning to think that whatever these units end up being called, their names are in a sense the least important thing about them. To echo what LHoffman said (“remembering a couple minor changes here are quite insignificant compared to the vast swath of information needed to play G40… which we are assuming has already been memorized”), in practical terms, what matters during game play is for players to know and remember:
Players need to keep all these details straight in their minds to use the units properly, and changing any of these things would affect how the units function. Their names, however, have no effect on anything. It would make no difference if you called them 10s/5s/3s, blues/reds/greens, Class-A/Class-B/Class-C factories, or any of the other nomenclatures that have been discussed here. The names are labels, not performance specifications, so in principle anything would do. Their sole purpose is to help the players mentally categorize them, and it would therefore be advantageous to have a nomenclature system that’s as straightforward and unambiguous as possible.
I’m not going to frame the following as a recommendation, because I’d be very surprised if you liked the idea, so I’ll just frame it as an abstract argument. I’d argue that the most unambiguous approach would be to completely scrap the terms “major” “minor” and “industrial complex” because they replicate words that have very specific meanings in the official A&A rules; thus, any use of them is likely to create confusion in your house rules. You pointed out that it would be a confusing deviation from the original rules to keep the name Minor Industrial Complex and give it a new output value of 5 rather than 3. Fair enough…but I’d argue that it’s just as much of a confusing deviation from the original rules to have a unit retain its output value of 5 but to rename it a Major Factory rather than a Major Industrial Complex, and to have Industrial Complexes take on a new meaning separate from the original major/minor dichotomy. (After all, when players use house rules, they know that they’re using rules which, by definition, deviate from the official ones, so it should come as no surprise to them to run into units whose numbers or values have been changed from their by-the-rulebook origins.) So I think the possible issue here is that the OOB terminology is being retained but partially re-wired and redefined, rather that either being kept completely intact (in which case they wouldn’t be a house rule) or being replaced with an entirely new and unambiguous nomenclature that breaks cleanly with the OOB wording.
I like what we have, but I suppose it would be helpful if we had a third stand alone term, like…
Complex, Factory, and ___________
or
Industrial Complex
Industrial Centre
Industrial Factory
or
Industrial Complex
Industrial Factory
Industrial Plant
or
Large Factory
Medium Factory
Small Factory
@Young:
I like what we have, but I suppose it would be helpful if we had a third stand alone term, like…
Complex, Factory, and ___________
Sweatshop
@Young:
I like what we have, but I suppose it would be helpful if we had a third stand alone term, like…
Complex, Factory, and ___________
Sweatshop
THAT’S AWESOME HOFF…. LMAO :-D :evil:
@Young:
Complex, Factory, and ___________
“Plant” might work.
scrap the terms “major” “minor” and “industrial complex”
Yes! I think this is the best approach for overall clarity. Rather than trying to retain terms that already have definitions but change those definitions, it’s probably easier to find substitutes for all 3 if possible. Sorry I opened such a can of worms haha
@CWO:
@Young:
Complex, Factory, and ___________
“Plant” might work.Â
funny for those who smoke weed playing this game “I want to buy another plant… hehehe”
Hehe a green plant ;) sign me up
@Young:
@Young:
I like what we have, but I suppose it would be helpful if we had a third stand alone term, like…
Complex, Factory, and ___________
Sweatshop
THAT’S AWESOME HOFF…. LMAO :-D :evil:
Can only be built by China and placed in Asian territories.
@Young:
funny for those who smoke weed playing this game “I want to buy another plant… hehehe”
“Can only be built in a Latin American country.”
Just heard from knp through PM, he prefers to keep the names as they are, and I support his decision.
That’s fine with me. knp originated the rule so his names can stick.
For the record though, I think CWO Marcs point is exactly what Wild Bill and I were driving at, just worded in an even clearer and more forceful way ;)
Fair enough…but I’d argue that it’s just as much of a confusing deviation from the original rules to have a unit retain its output value of 5 but to rename it a Major Factory rather than a Major Industrial Complex, and to have Industrial Complexes take on a new meaning separate from the original major/minor dichotomy. (After all, when players use house rules, they know that they’re using rules which, by definition, deviate from the official ones, so it should come as no surprise to them to run into units whose numbers or values have been changed from their by-the-rulebook origins.) So I think the possible issue here is that the OOB terminology is being retained but partially re-wired and redefined, rather that either being kept completely intact (in which case they wouldn’t be a house rule) or being replaced with an entirely new and unambiguous nomenclature that breaks cleanly with the OOB wording.
I have given this some more thought and I think we should stick with YG’s original naming for the different production centers:
Industrial Complex = 10 units
Major Factory = 5 units
Minor Factory = 3 units
Yeah, with this we would be changing “Minor ICs” to “Major Factories” but we are also changing production limit from 3 to 5. So we are not really “changing” them but more like we are eliminating “Minor ICs” all together.
The main consideration for me is the fact that the Industrial Complex is not only the biggest production center, but also the most un-replaceable. If an Industrial Complex or a Major Factory is captured, either one is downgraded to a Minor Factory.
If that territory is liberated, the original owner can upgrade the Minor Factory to a Major Factory for 10 IPCs.
However, NEITHER a Major Factory nor a Minor Factory can ever be upgraded to an Industrial Complex. Once an Industrial Complex is lost, it is gone forever. Thus, that production unit has a name that is different from the lower production units.
I think this is a good naming for the different production levels and I really don’t think it adds that much complexity or confusion. Most of us that will be implementing these rules are well versed in all the nuances with this game already and should be well able to differentiate the different production levels. As for newbie players, this whole game is full of complex rules and terms even out of the box so a change to the production units would just be one more thing. New players shouldn’t be playing this game alone anyway. They need to have one of us more experienced players that can explain the rules to them until they get a few games under their belt.
Anyway, I am going with YG’s original naming of the different production levels in my games. It just seems more reasonable to me.
Thanks everyone for listening.
Thanks knp… and everyone should remember that you can call these units what ever you like around your own game table according to your own preference. You can even copy and paste them into a word document and change the titles as you wish.
The important thing now is to get the word out about these Halifax rules, to play test them, and promote them whenever we can. Krieghund has already called these rules “intresting” and that’s huge. If we can show him that Halifax works, and it has the support of the whole G40 community, we might just be able to get his endorsement some day.
We are all begging for a fun modification to the rules so that G40 can feel more balanced without using the boring bid system. Lets all use our voting power and hit the +1 arrow in the first post of this thread, lets get it sticky, and lets get it official.
