The point about the difficulties in dividing up India resonates for me. I helped to make a few of the larger scale maps for tripleA, and there is definitely a point at which dividing stuff up delivers ever diminishing returns. Not only does it stall the pace of the gameplay, and result in unit crowding, but it also has a way of making each space of the map seem less significant. It becomes like a Hex Map, where every tile is the same, and you start to lose the strategic variety of having uniquely significant spaces/connections on the map.
For a good example of this in the OOB games, just take a look at Australia. In Classic and up through AA50, this territory was a single space worth 2 ipcs. Although comparatively low value, and strategically out of the way, its value as a target territory for Japan was much greater than the same region in 1942.2, which has Australia divided into 2 spaces.
As a single territory in the earlier games, it had a potential value as a factory location (though almost no one would use it this way). At least it was an option for the cash grab. Sure, you had to go out of position for a round, but you picked up 2 ipcs in the process.
Global which took the Australia thing even further (and basically broke with any pretense that the IPC values of specific regions need to be consistent board to board) jumped the regional value of Australia to 7 ipcs!
Can you just imagine how important Australia would be in a game like 1942.2 if it was worth 7 ipcs in a single territory?
Granted in Global the income boost to Australia is undercut by the fact that Anzac is a separate nation, but can you imagine if it was under UK control, with the full weight of the British purse directed there? The territory would be absolutely critical.
It would make Australia a true Pacific prize that both Japan and America would definitely fight over. Even if you split that value over 2 territories (one worth 3 and the other worth 4) the strategic value of Australia would be major, and it could then serve as a springboard for all sorts of different Pac strategies.
But with two Australian territory tiles worth only 1 ipcs, is it any wonder that everyone just ignores these spaces in favor of India?
I’m not saying make Australia worth 7 ipcs, you don’t have to go that far, but I’m saying you could go higher than 2 ipcs haha.
In global India is given a total regional value of 5 ipcs. That is less than the regional value of Australia in the same game. This really turns the normal situation on its head, when you compare Global to the earlier A&A boards, where India’s regional value always exceeded that of Australia.
My point here is pretty simple, that IPC values are fairly arbitrary, and as such, I think you should use them in whatever ways would seem to encourage the most fun from a gameplay perspective.
When in doubt, I say go little higher, by like +1 ipc. Instead of having a territory be worth 1 ipc, go up to 2 ipcs. Instead of 2 ipcs go up to 3 etc. If you don’t want a territory to just be a “speed bump on the way to somewhere more important” or just be “a distraction from the real goal” there are a lot of ways to accomplish this. First you can use starting factories as anchors for the fighting. 1942.2 does not handle this particularly well (in the case of India/Karelia) because while they do include the starting factories, the players who control them don’t really have the income necessary to defend them as choke points.
Its important to recall that every A&A game I’ve ever played, builds itself out around a Japanese expansion that goes well beyond anything that happened in the real war. So either you have to just suspend the disbelief, or I guess (if something more accurate was your aim) then you need to find other ways for Japan “to win” that don’t require a Godzilla globe trot.
Personally I don’t mind the Godzilla model, but the problem is that it always goes in the same direction (e.g Towards the Center, India, Suez Canal, Moscow.) What I would like to see is an attack route that brings Japan more into conflict with North America, rather than Russia. To achieve that I think you basically need two things…
1. more production value spread out across the Pacific (so Japan has some way to springboard over there, and pick up cash in the process, otherwise they’ll just ignore the area).
2. A sea zone design that allows Japan to shuck units in range of W. USA, along the southern route. Right now they only have the Northern Route, which although interesting is universally acknowledged to have a very low pay off, for the units required. At best its a stall tactic into Alaska, that never gets much farther than that, before turning around to dump units into the Soviet far east again.
Now imagine India as a single territory worth 5 or 6 ipcs, on par with France, rather than being all broken up into a bunch of useless 1 ipc territories. Now its a real anchor, a do-or-die type tile, where if Allies lose control of it, they’re basically losing the War. I think this could work, but only if Australia is of comparable importance. In Global, Anzac can’t really do anything, even if Allies are kicking ass, beyond just spamming aircraft. The region has IPCs, but they’re too split up to be of much use.
I like it when each nation has like 3 possible attack routes, where they could pick a focus, but only if they give ground somewhere else. I think the game works best when its possible to go maybe 2 out of 3 directions on the split purchase, but not all 3. And that if you ignore 2 directions to focus on just 1, then there should be definite cascading consequences along the other fronts, that way you can play the rush game where both sides have a chance to spin it their way. Just as an example, right now Japan has basically 1 route that can return victory (towards the center.) Even in Global with all the promise of the Pacific win, that still usually means making a B line towards India and the money islands. I think it would be cool if going towards Australia or North America could actually work sometimes instead of just being a “losing” strategy, that only beginners would adopt.
Taking it back down to a 1942.2 playscale, I’d say Australia as a single territory should have a minimum value of 3 ipcs (the replacement cost of a single infantry unit) and a starting factory to anchor it as a contested region. I think you could go up to 4 ipcs, and it’d still work fine.
As for trading territories back and forth, I kind of look at it like France. Say W. Europe is trading hands every round, I kind of interpret this as one side or the other “gaining the upper hand” in a region that’s being contested.
The early stuff is like Dunkirk, where UK is trying to hold onto a sliver of the coast. Then first time Allies take France in force with American boots on the ground, that is D-Day, But after this, if the Allies get ejected from France by the Germans a round or two later, I tend to look at that, not as “the Allies were driven back into the sea!” but rather, “ok now it’s the Battle of the Bulge, and Germany is kicking ass again, so France is up for grabs once more!” The ownership roundel at any given point, just indicates who is “winning” in that territory currently. Or at least that’s how I work it out in my imagination, when trying to come up with a narrative that makes sense. Otherwise the regions change hands too often to resemble anything like the campaigns of the actual war. Sure in the game it’s an all or nothing, winner takes the whole pie type scenario, but how you interpret what’s going on from a story telling dimension leaves you with a lot more flexibility.
:-D
