In my own case, for example, my general approach to problem-solving of any sort (including A&A redesign problems), is to work in the opposite direction: starting with broad concepts first, then working my way down to the specifics. …
And I just want to clarify what I mean by “big picture” concepts. I mean very basic things like: how many game powers are there? how many types of game units are there? in what year of WWII does the game begin? what are the victory conditions at their most fundamental level? should the game offer an even chance of victory to both sides or should it favour a victory by the Axis or the Allies?
This is my overall philosophy of game design as well – I like to figure out what problems I’m trying to solve, and then try to drill down into the specifics. However, as CWO_Marc says, there are many valid approaches here.
If we are going to make a new map, I favor using as much compression and creative redrawing of borders as necessary to wind up with comfortably spaced, adequately sized territories. When tripleA infantry are packed so closely together that you can’t see their national flag emblems and you have to click on the “territory” panel just to see who owns a stack, or when face-to-face infantry are packed so closely together that they’re always falling off their chips and you can’t tell which territory they’re supposed to be in, that really sucks the fun out of a game for me. I guess we all have our “line in the sand” when it comes to accuracy; I don’t want to play on a map of Europe that visually represents, e.g., Rome and Moscow as being closer together than Warsaw and Moscow. But if the borders between two territories look a bit different than they would have in real life, that’s fine with me, even if that means they become a bit blob-shaped. A batallion here or there that held its ground for an extra week or panicked and ran a week earlier could have reshaped the borders pretty easily. In peacetime, the border between “Karelia” and “West Russia” is marked out by which postmen deliver your mail and which taxmen collect your local sales tax. In wartime, who’s to say exactly where the border lies?
This projection was my best effort to address the compression we usually see in A&A while still trying to make a map that looks recognizable in places like China. Not sure if you’re into it.
It’s a very good start, Black Elk. My preference would be to vertically compress Africa more sharply and to expand the northern edge of the map a bit more, either by re-sizing it, or just by adding more pixels to the image and extending the sea zones northward, to provide a bit of psychic “white space” that can help compensate for any crowding in the vicinity of Leningrad. I think Leningrad, West Ukraine, Baltic States, Tunis, and Peking on your map are a bit too cramped for practical use, but I very much enjoy the overall “graph theory” of your map, and I think the projection is about right.
Why are places like Polesti considered less valuable than Bucharest for a VC?
Or that the Azores are not being considered, or that you don’t have Dakar as a VC?
Mosul?
Baku, which was the whole intention of Hitlers 1942 campaign?
Somebody who knows or reads about the actual war should be influencing this process, or the end result will not look well.
CWO_Mark should be commenting on this.
At least you guys made Truk a VC ( very important to japan btw)
@Imperious:
Why are places like Polesti considered less valuable than Bucharest for a VC?
[…]
Somebody who knows or reads about the actual war should be influencing this process, or the end result will not look well.CWO_Mark should be commenting on this.
I haven’t commented on the VC discussion of the last few days because – in line with what I mentioned earlier today in my post about game redesign methodologies – I’m not comfortable with getting into the intricate details of a greatly expanded list of VCs without feeling that some much more fundamental “broad picture” questions has been tackled first: Which game (1942? 1940?) is being revised? What are the victory conditions at their most fundamental level? Should the game offer an even chance of victory to both sides or should it favour a victory by the Axis or the Allies?
You’ll notice that my list of “first-tier” questions above (and the one from my earlier post today) doesn’t include VCs at all. In my opinion, the list of which cities should be VCs is actually a third-tier question, positioned as follows:
Tier 1: What are the victory conditions at their most fundamental level?
Tier 2: What role do VCs play within the general system of victory conditions?
Tier 3: What should the actual list of VCs be?
The reason I’d be inclined to work downward from Tier 1 to Tier 3, rather than diving straight into Tier 3, is that, in my opinion, it seems like a (potential) waste of time to debate if City X should be a VC without really having a clear idea of what a VC is supposed to do in a redesigned A&A game. Or more precisely, in a redesigned Global 1940 or in a redesigned A&A 1942, since the list of cities would probably be different for both games. In my opinion, that is.
@Imperious:
Why are places like Polesti considered less valuable than Bucharest for a VC?
Bucharest is 50 KM south from Ploiesti and in Romania, you really want this specific name?
Baku is in Caucasus, right?
If an NO gives 5 IPCs to Germany, if Axis get there, it is not enough?
(Actually VCs only give +1 or +2 IPCs)
It was the same for Gibraltar (it must covered for Azores), NOs but no VC.
UK EUROPE NO:
+5 for each Allied controlled territory: Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, Normandy.
Also, about covering Atlantic Gap, now Redesign make it possible to have air gap of some SZs.
OOB, for StBs vs Subs, this was only possible if no DD were around a given Sub infested SZ.
About Mosul, Baghdad can do it or not?
To simplify things, we try to get a G40 40 VCs list which encompasses all 1942.2 30 VCs.
Trying as much as possible to some significant points either for game play strategic pattern or historical reason.
What occurs to me is that VCs can be an intented goal but never see a gunfight at all (Baku) while other were hardly fought over. And other were never an intended goal at all (Washington D.C., seriously?).
Tier 1: What are the victory conditions at their most fundamental level?
That point is not clear for G40.
We set some numbers of VCs for 1942.2, but 20 VCs seems more difficult to set than 30 VCs.
Strangely, there is some kind of inductive thinking which can give some answers to this question (tentatively at least) after a few play tests if Triple A have them on, but it would be more difficult if we don’t have them on map.
Good question CWO Marc:
Should the game offer an even chance of victory to both sides or should it favour a victory by the Axis or the Allies?
I believe we aimed at make it even as possible but I’m pretty sure that if a side is slightly favored in fact it will be already incredible.
I really believe we need to have a clear list of questions like you’ve done went comes the time to make some report and analysis of first draft playtest games.
@Imperious:
Why are places like Polesti considered less valuable than Bucharest for a VC?
Or that the Azores are not being considered, or that you don’t have Dakar as a VC?
Mosul?
Baku, which was the whole intention of Hitlers 1942 campaign?
Somebody who knows or reads about the actual war should be influencing this process, or the end result will not look well.
CWO_Mark should be commenting on this.
At least you guys made Truk a VC ( very important to japan btw)
My thought there was that by focusing on the territory rather than the city, it would be easier to allow for both in the imagination. So that’s why I made all the cities parenthetical and listed TTs first. Mainly because so many people refer to TTs based on cities sometimes, I wanted to list the OOB. So just made sense for consistency. Sadly in tripleA the cities aren’t listed by default, so you need a map skin. But I agree in some cases it makes sense to go for things other than cities.
I take all CWO’s comments on the previous page to heart. Sometimes I wheel back around quite a bit. And am perhaps trying too hard to tease out possible points of overlap between 1942.2 and 1940. The tripleA versions of either map enter into it for me mainly from a practical standpoint, since I’m a big proponent of digital play and also using it for playtesting. So that was the motivation behind including tripleA in the discussion, so that hopefully it works in both.
That’s one point where I am in considerable agreement with the people pursuing the Balance Mod idea. It was kind of painfully ironic to have my constant argument about the importance and efficacy of digital testing, which I’ve tried to advance many times over the years, thrown back on me recently by the people heading up that effort. But I definitely still believe that the easiest way to test these ideas is with the machine.
:-D
I think one big picture goal that I keep returning too, which may help to explain the sorts of brain storms I keep revisiting is the idea that the game needs to be sufficiently similar to OOB to be broadly recognizable at the end of the day. So I do kind of latch on to the familiar there, even if I go off on tangents about possible alternatives.
Alas I’m on a mad dash to work. But I will return later with more thoughts on Victory conditions/cities. I agree those should be fundamental. I did try to outline an idea there for tier 1 and 2, which may explain somewhat the desire to include more in tier 3. But perhaps didn’t make it clear enough. Functionally they are intended as both an economic gameplay driver, and as a way to determine victory by sides, with the former being somewhat more important than the later in my view.
Ps. Right now, what you get when you add a VC to the digital map, is just the generic star marker untitled. So in practical terms the more important thing to know is just which territories are involved. Barney suggested we try to avoid putting them in Pro-side territories, which is why Mosul was given the hefty objective bonus rather than the VT status. Similar with Caucasus. I thought I explained the rationale with Dakar, but maybe not clearly enough. Also some consideration was given to 1942.2 applications, to avoid reduplication. So in that game for example, Volgograd and Caucasus are the within the same tile, and one VT can service both the Stalingrad and Baku concept.
In general terms, I suppose you could say that I am still thinking about overall victory in terms of concession and economic advantage, more so than sudden death based on VT control. If only because I think that is the way many players haved played the game traditionally. So if these features of the map exist, I wanted them to work in service of the economic gameplay drivers. Not just to reinforce the objectives already in place, but to cover areas of the map not currently covered by specific objective bonuses. I think the logic there is pretty straight forward. The more VTs your team controls, the greater purchasing power you develop, based on Income and Progress Credits. And if you want sudden death then you can suggest a number by sides, but it’s not strictly necessary for this feature of the map to still have a major impact on the play pattern. And if you want to keep it more concession oriented instead of sudden death, you can still have a progressive bonus that kicks in once a particular number VTs is reached. That was the idea anyway
To keep it short and sweet, these are the basic answers I would give…
Which game (1942? 1940?) is being revised?
Both. This may seem like trying to do a lot at once, but if both games use related basic mechanics/features, it just makes sense to me to use similar approaches here for each. Just as an example, If the 1940 game is meant to include a timeline that reaches 1942 and beyond, then the 1940 game should have many of the same principle VCs that are used for a game set to open 1942. Even though the scale of the two boards is different, it is helpful to consider them both, so that you don’t end up with a lot of divergence or curious omissions when going from one to the other.
Tier 1: What are the victory conditions at their most fundamental level?
Concession or Sudden Death. While I think that there are definitely other options than these two, such as victory charts with specific goals by nation or hard limits by game round, if going on traditional A&A, those are the two we have seen. Concession or sudden death (whether based on VCs or total IPCs) is basically what we were given with Axis and Allies. Anything substantially different, and I’m not sure the gameplay would really be recognizeable.
Tier 2: What role do VCs play within the general system of victory conditions?
Providing an in-game economic advantage to the side which controls them. And to activate the sudden death condition if desired.
Tier 3: What should the actual list of VCs be?
Enough so that each area of the map (where the historical conflict occurred, or might sensibly have occured under alternate history imaginings) actually comes into play.
I know the answer to the Tier 1 Q, is probably not the most exciting from a major redesign standpoint. It is basically the same as OOB. But I am just trying to be somewhat realistic here, in terms of what would be broadly acceptable for a simplified war game like A&A. The goal here is rather modest, just finding a way to connect these features of the map to the rest of the game in a more meaningful way, so that they can shape the play pattern on an ongoing round-by-round basis, instead of only at the end and purely as an outside game resolution mechanism.
…Barney suggested we try to avoid putting them in Pro-side territories, which is why Mosul was given the hefty objective bonus rather than the VT status.
Hmm…don’t recall making that suggestion :). I do remember Baron saying the list changed and the 3 neutral ones were replaced with 3 others. But yea, no reason you can’t have a neutral as a VC, at least from a triplea pov.
Then again I may have. If so I don’t remember why :)
…Barney suggested we try to avoid putting them in Pro-side territories, which is why Mosul was given the hefty objective bonus rather than the VT status.
Hmm…don’t recall making that suggestion :). I do remember Baron saying the list changed and the 3 neutral ones were replaced with 3 others. But yea, no reason you can’t have a neutral as a VC, at least from a triplea pov.
Then again I may have. If so I don’t remember why :)
Yes, Mosul/Baghdad was put in a more important place as Germany’s NO:
+5 for each Axis controlled territory: England, Volgograd, Novgorod, Russia, Caucasus, Egypt, Iraq, Persia.
So, Baku and Mosul are more subtle than a VC, but it worth a lot more to Axis.
As far as I remember, it was because 3 pro-side Neutral were only remaining and seems not very symetrical.
The last time, it was between
1- Archangel (Russian) or Helsinki (Pro-Axis Neutral),
2- Kiev (Russian/ German’s on 1942.2 or Athens (Pro-Allies Neutral/ German’s on 1942.2)
Ah perhaps I got confused there then. I thought maybe there was an issue with tripleA, as well as the symmetry thing.
In that case, we could still conceivably do one for Mosul I suppose or Athens or wherever (with any other such pro side tile in G40).
I was rather hoping to catch some more feedback on which TTs would be the most desireable for G40 Top 40. IL offered suggestions. I’m certainly fine if we want to include more of them. But I was also trying to be somewhat equitable in trying to include areas of the map which see less action OOB.
I tried to set a number that was well at the high end, so that we could be accommodating.
For the territory list, which substitutions would you prefer, to feel as if history is not being ignored? Focusing on TTs rather than cities.
IL had these a few pages back…
Astrakhan
Truk
Polesti
Baku
Oslo
Mosul
Dutch oil centers
Norway, Romania, Carolines are already here.
The discussion about Caucasus, Iraq and the Dutch East Indies islands was whether these TTs needed a further incentive, beyond the high base economic value or bonuses already in the game?
Astrakhan on the Caspian is a situation much like Volgograd/Caucasus. It’s a VT that would only be relevant to Global. But I would not be hard line. If it makes sense to use these. But it is a high concentration of VTs in an area of the map that is already coveted by both sides and fully in play.
Ps. Yes perhaps drop Ukraine. I think that territory is undeniably already in play on both boards.
I haven’t followed the VC thing that much but one of the first ones I did for triplea was Greece. It looked kinda cool :). But I really have no preference. Greece is a strategic location on the map, or a good landing spot, although it takes a while to get there. Might promote some early British intervention such as happened in the real war. I’m not sure what it’d replace though.
Anyway, I’m good with whatever is decided. I just want to get them in action so I can see how they play :)
I haven’t followed the VC thing that much but one of the first ones I did for triplea was Greece. It looked kinda cool :). But I really have no preference. Greece is a strategic location on the map, or a good landing spot, although it takes a while to get there. Might promote some early British intervention such as happened in the real war. I’m not sure what it’d replace though.
Anyway, I’m good with whatever is decided. I just want to get them in action so I can see how they play :)
Argothair was “harshly” defending Athens to be VC.
I’m not opposed because, anyway there will be a lot of combat in Ukraine.
No need to add a VC, there is already an IC in G40, right?
And if Russian NOs is still:
+5 if at War, for each open supply route: Persian Corridor, Pacific Route ALSIB Northern Trace, Arctic Route.
It can be Helsinki as VC, if you want absolutely 2 Pro-side Neutral.
I still don’t think we need to add VC in Irak or Baku.
They are clear war NOs.
Astrakhan and Baku (both Caucasus) is also considered in the Persian Corridor, isn’t?
Moving G40 VCs impact on 30VCs.
That’s why I preferred to give Archangel (instead of Helsinki) in 1942.2 because it makes an even number of VCs between Japan and Germany which provides the same number of VCs to captured for both. Simpler.
And if Russian NOs is still:
+5 if at War, for each open supply route: Persian Corridor, Pacific Route ALSIB Northern Trace, Arctic Route.
Astrakhan and Baku (both Caucasus) is also considered in the Persian Corridor, isn’t?
Does the Persian Corridor is passing through Caucasus or Kazakhstan?
After a few reading, IMO both TTy should be captured to block this route, of course Persia must be friendly or Allies owned.
Also, we don’t have Azores on the map but we gave both Gibraltar (NO for UK and Italy) and Iceland (VC) to cover somehow about the supply lines of UK.
Here is an interesting extract from a longer text on Azores:
The U-Boat Attack Was Our Worst Evil
A problem for all these schemes was that Portugal, a strict neutral, had no desire to get involved in a conflict between the great powers, firmly believing that when an elephant sneezes a mouse dies of pneumonia. To stay out of the war, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar did not want either side to use his territory as a base for offensive operations.
The Allies agreed on one thing. World War II would not be lost on any land battlefield but might be in the ship graveyard of the North Atlantic. Churchill wrote: “The U-boat attack was our worst evil. It would have been wise for the Germans to stake all upon it.”
U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull said, Our whole democratic civilization twice hung by a thread during the recent war once during the summer of 1940 after Dunkirk and the fall of France, when Britain even with her Navy might have failed to repulse a full-scale German attack across the Channel, and again during 1942, when German submarines were sinking three Allied merchant vessels for every one constructed.
In 1941, Admiral Karl Donitz’s U-boat wolfpacks sank 2.1 million tons of shipping, while submarine production was increasing from 65 to 230 a month. Ships were destroyed faster than they could be replaced. Over 3.5 percent of the tanker fleet was lost each month. To win the war, the sea lanes had to be protected and that could be accomplished only by long-range bomber patrols flying from air bases on neutral territory around and in the Atlantic. For the northern sea routes, Denmark’s Greenland and Iceland would provide that protection, and for the broad expanse of the central Atlantic, Portugal’s Azores Islands were the only possibilities. The German wolfpacks had to be contained if American convoys were to bring their precious cargoes of men and material into the war.
Combatting the U-Boat Menace With Air PowerThe outlook for the free world in 1941 appeared bleak, but by 1943 the Allies had constructed airfields along the northern perimeter of the Atlantic in Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom so ships following an extreme northerly route had aerial protection.
The bases in Greenland were made possible by an agreement signed on April 10, 1941, between the United States and Henrik de Kauffmann, recognized as the legitimate Danish ambassador by Washington but not by Copenhagen, then under German occupation. Since the United States was not at war yet, Roosevelt called on the Monroe Doctrine to justify the action, loudly protested by Hitler as an outrageous violation of neutrality.
After Iceland declared its independence from Denmark on July 7, Roosevelt sent Naval Task Force 19 made up of the Marine Corps 1st Brigade accompanied by four battleships, 13 destroyers, and eight supply ships, or more than the entire German fleet in the Atlantic, to Iceland to relieve a small British force. Once again Hitler expressed dismay that a professed neutral could take such belligerent actions. German newspapers howled, Invasion of Iceland; Roosevelt provokes war; Arm-in-arm with Bolshevik mass murderers; Roosevelt has irrevocably torn up the Monroe Doctrine.
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/covering-the-azores-gap-in-world-war-ii/
And we are not that bad since we clearly improved the Subs, DDs and planes dynamics.
Now planes have an opportunity to attack Subs. And a Gibraltar AB will be very convenient to help TcBs chasing U-boats in Mid-Atlantic. Knowing that StBs cannot do the job after A0 C5 bomber has been introduced.
@Imperious:
…Somebody who knows or reads about the actual war should be influencing this process, or the end result will not look well. …
Idk Baron. According to some, we might not be qualified to comment. :) Lol w/e
@Imperious:
…Somebody who knows or reads about the actual war should be influencing this process, or the end result will not look well. …
Idk Baron. According to some, we might not be qualified to comment. :) Lol w/e
IL was a kind of wake up call.
Are we sleeping eyes wide open that we missed that much our targets?
IDK but I think it was a special day for him. He’s other comments on other threads have a similar tone.
The Azores history is interesting, Baron Munchhausen; thanks for sharing. Some day I would like to have a mid-scale map (1942.2 / AA50) that has convoy zones, as in, you put an enemy ship or sub in the convoy zone, and the owner of the convoy zone loses money. I would be very happy to have minor Atlantic territories such as Iceland become somewhat more important because they’re convenient to use as airbases for patrolling convoy zones.
That said, the Azores are not represented on the 1942 Second Edition map by even one pixel, so it’s not obvious to me how we’re supposed to turn them into a Victory City.
Finally, if Imperious Leader wants sympathy because he had a bad day, he can ask for sympathy. If he wants to help design the game, he can offer specific, constructive suggestions. If he just wants to swing by and insult our intelligence, then I plan to ignore him. I’m not intimidated by his dire predictions about “the end result.” We’ve got some smart people working on this project, and I’m sure we can do it justice in the end.
As you saw a few weeks ago, I posted a revised version of my Convoy Raid rules.
It had an interesting depth to AA50 and 1942.2 while making it similar to SBR for Subs: either attack or either disrupt convoy.
I already spoted the main SZs as Convoy Zones and it was on my roster files.
One issue, is that I made it with low cost warships, so it left money for Subwarefare and Convoy disruption.
The other issue is about testing it thoroughly. And this is the same issue for any other kind of Convoy raiding system. It would be easier to test on Triple A, but it is a huge work to just trying to implement the G40 Convoy Zones into 1942.2
However, if playing for fun in a non-competitive environnement on table top, it can be played as I did.
One National Control Marker in each given SZ, and put chips to register damage (and maxed out SZ) until players repair and damage phase. U-boats (5 IPCs) have something to do every turn. Archangel Artic SZ was quite interesting to plunder. Once, on AA50, Russia was able to launch a Destroyer (A2 D2 at 6 IPCs) to get ride of 2 u-boats which were relentlessly harrassing his Convoy SZ (losing 4 IPCs each turn): epic.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=39163.msg1618926#msg1618926
I didn’t take it as an insult. Just a suggestion (perhaps sardonically framed) that I haven’t been clear enough in articulating what I think the aim of adding more VCs should be.
Every time an A&A game has come out since Revised, I hear people make the same lament. That the game has too few VCs, and that if only a couple more were added then maybe the game would work. Or that of the VCs which are included, that half are largely irrelevant to the gameplay, or only relevant in terms of the capital dynamic etc.
My thought here is that, instead trying to be conservative with numbers, why not try to be more radical for a change? Instead of adding just one or two VC, add 10 or 20. Because the more VTs you have over all, the more flexibility you have to justify the inclusion of one place over another.
If every VC is a Capital, there isn’t much room to opperate. Global added only 1 VC (in Cairo) compared to the 18 in AA50, despite a map which is more than double the size.
I actually liked the VC spread in AA50. It had a real goldilocks feel to it, like just right for the scale of the map. Global by contrast feels like it is a bit shortchanged. So my thought was, if you have twice as many territories, why not twice as many VCs. That way you can add a TT like Truk or Chongqing and people are less likely to balk at the idea, because it’s not so much of an outlier.
That’s why I suggested we just pick a number that seemed to scale appropriately with the size of the map, and just start listing potential candidates. The door isn’t shut on this one yet. If there are arguments to be made or historical digressions that will better inform the choices, I’m all ears.
@Imperious:
…Somebody who knows or reads about the actual war should be influencing this process, or the end result will not look well. …
Idk Baron. According to some, we might not be qualified to comment. :) Lol w/e
Yeah, lol.
@Baron:
IL was a kind of wake up call.
Are we sleeping eyes wide open that we missed that much our targets?
IDK but I think it was a special day for him. He’s other comments on other threads have a similar tone.
IL’s suggestions are all personal pet-peeves for him. His maps include emphasis on Caucasus and DEI Oil areas and for some reason he attaches special significance to small island chains like the Maldives and Azores.
As you guys have already said, both Caucasus (Baku) and DEI regions are heavily incentivized as-is. It would be redundant and probably inappropriate to put even more money on the line in each territory. If you had a VC for Baku, that would be 2 IPCs for the territory, 2 for the VC and 5 more for a NO = 9 IPCs. That’s as much as a capital.
IMO, the Maldives and Azores are unnecessary. I don’t believe the game is impacted in any way by having or not having them. Both are in such proximity to significant landmasses that they are hardly effective. Maldives in particular. The Azores could be occasionally useful in SZ 103 (G40), but the Allies already have two territories (Iceland and Gibraltar) on which to land fighters when ferrying across the Atlantic. Plus, far as I can tell, the Azores were not actually used by the Allies until 1943, so they would need to be pro-Allied Neutral to start the game. Not that that’s a big deal.
Casablanca should be a VC before Dakar and if we list Gibraltar as a VC then I am not sure we need Casablanca. And we have Freetown still, so that makes it more moot.
His aims are fine, but I don’t believe they are necessary additions.
One thing I learned about Rostov-on-Don and Baku is that Russia would have make sure they become unexploitable for a long time when Whermarcht get hands on it.
They fell up the digging holes with concrete when leaving Rostov oil field.
And if Baku was reached, it have had received the same treatment or put in fire.
So it would have take months to make it useful for Germany.
Meaning the main impact was to shot off oil access to Russia.
Germany would never get richer with it.
