A&A Global IPC (& More) Log Sheet

@shadowhawk I can’t argue with that.Take out india 1st and then go toward Egypt and middle east to obtain victory on the Europe side.

@aequitas:

@knp7765:

Or how about Germany? In our game, it’s 1 battle and done. In reality it took the Allies on both sides from December 1944 to May 1945 to conquer all of that single country and that was with their main thrusts involved for the US/UK and USSR.

That was because the Americans dragged it out because of the good Food here in Germany.
Name one american who can resist Bratwurst and  Sauerkraut or Schweinsbraten??

Oh and 'mericans love Castles so there you go, they got a lot of them here.
(Not to mention the good beer,though)

Well, I do like a good Bratwurst. Don’t care for Sauerkraut (although I loved it as a kid) and I don’t even know what a Schweinsbraten is.
I must admit, castles are pretty cool too. And who doesn’t love a good cold beer (especially if it’s served up by a lovely blond fraulein)?

This is why I interpret IPCs in A&A as abstract and flexible. Lets looks at some examples by Region from Revised up to G40…

Canada: from 4 ipcs up to 7 ipcs
America (the continental USA): from 28 ipcs up to 45 ipcs
Africa: from 11 ipcs up to 20
China (unoccupied): from 4 ipcs up to 12 ipcs
Western Europe (France/Holland/Denmark): from 6 ipcs to 14 ipcs
Germany: from 10 ipcs to 14 ipcs
Australia: from 2 ipcs to 8 ipcs

United Kingdom: from 8 ipcs to 8 ipcs
Japan: from 8 ipcs to 8 ipcs
Hawai: from 1 ipc to 1 ipc

Philippines: from 3 ipcs down to 2 ipcs

I could go on, but the point here is that there is no hard and fast relative scale for how these values are being worked out over successive boards. Sometimes the same region nearly doubles in value, sometimes it triples, sometimes it stays roughly the same.

This is a very strong indication to me that IPCs are not the iron values sometimes suggested, or that IPC values in A&A are somehow set in stone. They have been changing to suit the gameplay for a while now.

I want to point this out because I think it speaks to a more general feeling I get, that money/production should be flexible, to suite the needs of the gameplay, rather than something highly rigid or that must somehow retain consistency along historical lines, or to match up with previous boards. It just seems arbitrary for the most part, and more so when you look at the values side by side for successive boards. Clearly IPCs are there for the gameplay. They are distributed in the way they are for gameplay purposes, not in some highly fine tuned or particularly accurate spread for historical or “real world” reasons.

If for example, China’s total value can increase by 300%, or Australia can go up by 400%, while Hawaii stays exactly the same, and Philippines is decreased by 33%, then why should we expect anything consistent out of IPCs anywhere on the gamemap?

To me this is encouraging, because it suggests that IPC value and “collect income” can be tweaked for game balance (on a regional basis) without upsetting some underlying foundation. The fact that these values have changed so much over time, indicates a high level of abstraction going on.

The thing to notice is that IPCs are already being counted differently (in terms of relative value) depending on where they are located on the gamemap. I think this is an important thing to bear in mind when considering what IPCs really represent, and to see why gameplay (and not necessarily historical production analogy) is the critical factor in determining how these should be distributed across the map on any given board.

Here is the game setup as provided on Larry’s site:

http://smo63.fatcow.com/pdf/G42setup2013424.pdf

If by “original” Global 1940 you mean 1st edition, the 1st edition Europe and Pacific FAQs should answer your questions.

@Darby:

No you need De Gaulle

……and I like those “lost patrols” in the desert and the last couple of games they have actually done good things !
(they were able to bring done the fighter from England to lend some punch to their attacks

Haha, yeah, the Paris roundel thing was just a joke since Paris is taken so soon.

Nice one on the using the “lost patrols” so effectively!  I know they can be used to do good things, just have to get them there (and I’m an impatient man)  :-D

This is all there will be in the way of official errata for the box rules for a while.

I cleaned it up. Their is no official FAQ as of yet. The body of questions asked and answered make up the potential points to be made in the FAQ.

This is a typical process in development of the questions that will be elaborated in the official FAQ.