G40 League House Rule project

[Guest]

@alexgreat:

What I never understood is why Japan would let unescorted TTs sail safely to their amphibious invasion sites, while a lone DD could get up to 6 kamikaze hits. I know that there is scrambling as well, but still.

At least sz 6 should get the kami option in combat move phase for TTs without surface ships.

How do you kamikaze on a submerged vessel?

[lexgreat]

Where did I say submerged? Last time I checked TTs stayed above water level ;)
And I said “without surface ships”. To clarify, a TT with only a sub as escort should also be target of kamikaze, imo.

[gamerman01]

@Soulblighter:

Removing France as a players makes the French navy obsolete. For example the destroyer at Z72 will sit there a lot of the time doing nothing.

French cruiser sitting in 110 and destroyer/cruiser sitting in 93 are still major issues for the Axis
I did think about the DD in Z72 but I see I never put anything in my spreadsheet.
I think we should make the one UK.  Remember, battleship in Z37 is being removed.

[gamerman01]

Thanks for bringing up unescorted transports, Alex

I am definitely opposed to kamikazes targeting transports, but I think there is another solution
I guess Larry’s solution was to disallow unescorted transports skating over enemy submarines.
I’m not sure if we want to do anything about this or not, but let’s think about it.

So you’re saying that (for example) an unescorted transport zooming in to land on Borneo (and presumably take it), from Queensland, is unrealistic and/or cheesy?  I guess under 2nd edition game rules, Japan has to leave a sub in Borneo’s zone if they want to require escort.  What do you think it should be?  Besides kamikazes.  A lot of these targets aren’t kamikaze zones anyway…

[lexgreat]

At least for sz6 I dont think unescorted transports planing to take Korea should be left unopposed by kamikazes, Japanese sub in place or not. You can make a case for the other kamikaze szs being not as protected as sz 6, but I’d prefer a rule that does not make excpetions. You are an Allies player, Gamerman :)

Borneo is not concerned as there is no kamikaze symbol.

I am not hysterical about this, I just think it impossible that Japan should let a TT with no escort sail past and take Korea when they would have a kami to stop them if they thought it important enough, strategically.

[gamerman01]

Well, a single fighter on Japan that can scramble prevents this, of course

[variance]

What if you made it so that unescorted transports can’t unload if there is a sub present OR if it is a kamikaze zone and Japan still has at least 1 kamikaze.  They can’t sink the transport with the kamikaze but a surface warship would be necessary for the transport to unload.

[Derek]

Could somebody update the OP with the house rule document?

Or possibly create a new thread?

Pretty confusing right now and a pain sifting through dozens of post trying to find the document.

[gamerman01]

Uncrustable, the problem is there is no edit access to this thread because it’s in the play boardgames section.
All you have to do is ask for it -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydGh6d2NwRDJRRzBteEsyU1EtNGhXVUE#gid=2

I know it’s very different from what you’re doing, in most ways, but I would appreciate your general feedback

[gamerman01]

Actually, replies 1131 and 1132 contain the link to the project spreadsheet and also a statement about the intent of this project.  That’s only 17 posts ago  :-)

This thread was the Rankings thread for the league for a long time, and has been converted to the House Rule project thread.  So all of the older pages until the past few weeks are actually irrelevant to the House Rule project.

[Derek]

@Gamerman01:

Uncrustable, the problem is there is no edit access to this thread because it’s in the play boardgames section.
All you have to do is ask for it -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydGh6d2NwRDJRRzBteEsyU1EtNGhXVUE#gid=2

I know it’s very different from what you’re doing, in most ways, but I would appreciate your general feedback

I like most if it, much if it needs explanations however.
Do France territories become pro allied neutrals that can be activated by the allies?
Or are they capturable by allies only after axis control?
In the rare event that Paris hasn’t fallen by F1, I believe France should be able to spend its cash and collect more. Or is this scenario a gg?

How do the flying tigers chits work?
How many does china get?

I really like the unit cost changes, except fighters and tacs. I would strongly argue against further increasing the cost of fighters to 12 along with tac bombers.
I think both at 10 is even better.
I wasn’t even remotely aware that fighters were too cheap, it seemed the condenses that tacs were overpriced.
A buff to battleships/cruisers and a nerf to carriers is too much anyhow.
Now carriers could be under purchased and this is worse than what we have now in my opinion.
Is +2 IPCs and -1 die bonus on SBR too much nerf for bombers?
I would suggest 10 IPC fighters and tacs with 13 IPC bombers. Start with minor adjustments and see how it works.
I understand the reason to reduce the dice bonus with current rules = automatic facility shutdown. But even with only +1 it’s only a 1/6 chance of the base being still operational

I think an even better solution to SBR is get rid of the dice bonus altogether for the bomber, and introduce a negative dice bonus for the tac bomber (-1 or -2) is this possible with tripleA?
So a tac bomber SBR will be 0-4 damage potential
Bomber would be 1-6 damage potential

[gamerman01]

Wow, that was fast, thanks.  Thanks for the thought you put into it.

@Uncrustable:

I like most if it, much if it needs explanations however.

Yeah

Do France territories become pro allied neutrals that can be activated by the allies?
Or are they capturable by allies only after axis control?
In the rare event that Paris hasn’t fallen by F1, I believe France should be able to spend its cash and collect more. Or is this scenario a gg?

French territories are French, and would just operate like the Dutch territories.  So Allies must wrest from Axis to control.  Yes, by keeping the 19 IPC’s in France and not being spendable, this prevents the ultra penalty of G/I failing on round 1 (it would still be very bad).  Also, this change prevents France from invading the Axis in 1940.  Thanks for the feedback.

How do the flying tigers chits work?
How many does china get?

This is in process - I don’t know yet.  Probably 3 to 5 chits.  I think they could actually be used in UK territories in Southeast Asia, maybe excluding India, maybe not.  I think they would work like AA, but each chit would be a single die roll, with a 1 hitting Japanese aircraft.  From what I’ve read on wikipedia about them, briefly, they went on attack raids too.  Perhaps allow spending multiple chits to roll an attack on Japanese aircraft in any adjacent territory to Allied controlled territory?  Spend 3, you get a single roll that hits on 3 or less, etc?  Brainstorming!

I really like the unit cost changes, except fighters and tacs. I would strongly argue against further increasing the cost of fighters to 12 along with tac bombers.
I think both at 10 is even better.

Actually, this is what I had originally.  But then I got to thinking that I think fighters are underpriced, given the increased importance of range and their utility with scrambling, carriers, airbases increasing range further, and ability to escort/intercept (tacs can’t intercept at all).  OK, I deleted my comment that maybe increase them to 12 and will just tick fighters up to 11 so they are the same as tacs.  Like you said, small changes.

I wasn’t even remotely aware that fighters were too cheap, it seemed the condenses that tacs were overpriced.

I am pretty sure fighters are too cheap, and yes tacs are overpriced.  Fighters are better than tacs, when you consider everything.

A buff to battleships/cruisers and a nerf to carriers is too much anyhow.

I disagree that reducing cost of BB to 18 is really a “buff”.  I think this modest change will have little effect on the # of BB’s actually purchased.  Reduction of cost of cruisers to 11 should also have almost no effect on # of carriers purchased, and still, few cruisers will be purchased.  Reduction to 18 and 11 just makes them a bit less over-priced.  They are still overpriced at 11 and 18 I think, and that’s OK given what we know about history.

Now carriers could be under purchased and this is worse than what we have now in my opinion.

Yeah, I don’t think so.  Carriers are still ultra useful even with fighters at 11, cruisers at 11, battleships at 18, and transports at 6.  I’m sure of this.

Is +2 IPCs and -1 die bonus on SBR too much nerf for bombers?

Good question.  Maybe, but again, what I have in mind is the massive utility of range in G40.  Bombers being able to move 6 or 7 is amazing, compared to everything else.  Someone on the site made a pretty good case that bombers are significantly overpowered.  JamesAleman I think it was.  I tend to agree, and what I have in the back of my mind is that bombers used to cost 15 and fighters cost 12 in previous versions, and they are much more valuable now the way the map is, and all powers have significantly higher incomes than earlier games.

I would suggest 10 IPC fighters and tacs with 13 IPC bombers. Start with minor adjustments and see how it works.

Another good point - I think I’ll settle for now on 11 IPC fighters and tacs, and 13 IPC bombers

I understand the reason to reduce the dice bonus with current rules = automatic facility shutdown. But even with only +1 it’s only a 1/6 chance of the base being still operational

Another good point, but I would remind you that they have to get by AA first.  So it’s only 69.4% chance of 1 strat bomber disabling a base that has no damage on it.  5/6 * 5/6
With Larry’s latest +2 rule it is 83.3% chance of disabling (just have to get by the AA)

I think an even better solution to SBR is get rid of the dice bonus altogether for the bomber, and introduce a negative dice bonus for the tac bomber (-1 or -2) is this possible with tripleA?
So a tac bomber SBR will be 0-4 damage potential
Bomber would be 1-6 damage potential

Yeah, thanks for the idea, but I think this is nerfing them too much.

Thanks, uncrustable, and keep those ideas coming.  You have influenced the project significantly with this single post.

[gamerman01]

Uncrustable, did you notice that there are multiple tabs to the spreadsheet?  It seemed all your comments were on the first sheet, and I would love to hear what you think about the NO changes, true neutrals, etc
Thanks

[gamerman01]

@Cmdr:

Any discussion yet about throwing in a few more victory cities?  Seeing lots of complaints it’s too easy with 6 in the Pacific, so what if Japan needed 8 and we made 3 more VCs on the board?  Sikiang maybe (I don’t have the map in front of me, thinking of the one that is SW China in 2 spaces from Volgograd and would not screw up Mongolia if Russia reinforced), Alaska or at least Aleutian Islands since they really were invaded and I cannot think of one that would have been a historical target right now, but I am sure we can think of a 3rd one for the Pacific.

Jennifer has a very creative and possibly useful idea, here

[variance]

malaya (singapore)?

[Jennifer]

I had thought of Malaya or the Dutch East Indies area, but aren’t those already prime targets for Japan?

I guess if they needed 8 to win, and one of those would just be the 7th so they still had to move out of their comfort zone for the 8th.

[gamerman01]

@Cmdr:

I had thought of Malaya or the Dutch East Indies area, but aren’t those already prime targets for Japan?

I guess if they needed 8 to win, and one of those would just be the 7th so they still had to move out of their comfort zone for the 8th.

Taking the DEI and holding all of them are 2 totally different matters :)

[bmnielsen]

For kicks I looked up the most populated cities in 1950 (oldest data I could find). In order of largest population to smallest, here are all of the cities on the Pacific map with more than a million inhabitants that don’t overlap with a current VC territory. The territory they would geographically be in is in brackets. In some cases there are multiple cities to a territory so I bundled them together.

Beijing & Tianjin (Jehol)
Shenyang & Haerbin (Manchuria)
Chongqing (Kweichow)
Zibo (Shantung)
Jakarta (Java)
Bangkok (Siam)
Melbourne (Victoria)
Wuhan & Xiantao (Anhwe)
Rangoon (Burma)
Ho Chi Minh City (French Indo China)
Seoul (Korea)
Singapore (Malaya)

Like half of them are Chinese, which obviously wouldn’t work :) But any of I have no idea what the various cities’ importance to the war was, however.

[bmnielsen]

Ignore that weird last sentence, hit post while I was editing it :)

[gamerman01]

I am really liking Jenn’s idea.

It makes sense to make it 8 victory cities on the Pacific map, which is congruent to the Europe map then!

It just never occurred to me to add victory cities that weren’t already on the map.

Not easy to choose from that list.  Thanks for doing the research, nielsen.

My short list would be Malaya, Korea, Manchuria, FIC, and Java.  2 of those.
What do you guys think?  In my first 24 hours of considering this idea, I think it does the trick.  It would be significantly harder to hold 8 cities for a round than 6, especially if only adding 2 cities to the map and not 3 to choose from (adding 3 cities and a requirement for 8 effectively means Japan does not have to take Hawaii or Sydney either one, so that’s no good)