A&A Variant that adds a twist to the game

I am currently working on a mod in TripleA that will do this. Germany owns Germany, Italy, Poland, and Libya. Britian owns, in addition to its regular territories: France, Northwestern Europe, Norway, Morocco, and Algeria. Russia owns Finland. Japan only owns Japan, Manchuria, Kangitsu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Caroline Islands, and Formosa. Britian owns all Japanese territories that weren’t mentioned here, except for Wake Island, Kwantung, and the Phillipines, which are owned by America.

On round 1, Russia and America are out. That means that they will get no money, they can’t move units, and they can’t be attacked, with the exception of China. Americans in China get to move, attack, and be attacked normally. Also, Japan gets to attack the Americans on Wake Island, the Phillipines, and (on J3 or J4) the navy off of Pearl Harbor (which will have at least 2 battleships). On Round 3, Russia gets to join. However, Germany gets to attack Russia in G2. I’m not sure whether to let America join in round 3 or 4. It depends on how much firepower Britain gets to wield in the Pacific and India initially, and how much they can maintain pressure on Japan.

Britain starts out with no cash to spend on B1 simply because they would have a mountain of cash from all the territories. Plus, the Axis need to have a chance to beat Britain back in the first few rounds. Germany and Japan will start out with 50 bucks (to represent their massive military buildup relative to the Allies.

Unit count in all Axis territories will basically double to give them much needed initial firepower. Germany’s navy will be beefed up, mainly in SZ5. There will be some extra navy in the Med just to make sure that they have a shot in Africa. To balance that, the subs off the coast of America will be removed, as well as the British navy off America as well (so Britain can’t storm Africa).

I already have some idea for the initial situation in Japan. They will start out with enough land units, navy, and transports to either gobble up Pacific islands or storm China, but not both. Plus, there is the Indian and Australian navies to deal with, not to mention the threat at Pearl Harbor.

My goal is to be semi-historically accurate, because some accuracy has to be sacrificed in order to make the game playable and fun, and also because the map wasn’t designed for historic realism.

One thing I’d like to do is to give Japan incentive to attack Pearl Harbor the turn that America begins to play, but I don’t know of a way to give Japan good incentive to. I think I might give Japan a reward for destroying the battleships in Pearl by giving them some money or units if they do.

I would appreciate and welcome suggestions for pretty much anything in here. I want to make this work and have it at least as balanced if not more balanced than 1942.2.

@Yavid:

not revisiting the list nearly as much as I haven’t added in HBG’s UK set and will have to double check because I believe the French got some units since my last update. But yes I find it useful.

I had not entered the 2nd Japan set or the UK set HBG released, those have been added. and the going nuclear set HBG just released.

Actually, we are still working on the first game. We only get to play for a few hours each weekend so sometimes a game of Global 40 will last 2 or 3 weeks. Luckily, I have a room where I can keep the game set up.
Aside from a number of odd ball placements, I noticed two main differences: 1 > the Soviet Union forces started a lot more spread out across Russia which made Germany’s initial attack a little easier. 2 > the United States had almost no presence in the Pacific. The bulk of the US Navy ended up in SZ 101, plus most of their ground units and air units in East USA. As a result, they decided on a “get Germany first” strategy and almost ignored the Pacific.
That caused Japan to get HUGE. At present, Japan rules the Pacific, including Australia, and is threatening the US West coast. Japan also took out all of China and India.
Germany managed to take Moscow and make the Russians extinct. However, USA and Britain overwhelmed Germany and Italy and liberated Paris. There are no Italian units left and only 3 German units left on the board.
So, on the Europe board, we have a lot of German controlled but unoccupied Russian territory with the US, British and French occupying almost all of Europe and ready to start moving into Russia. Japan rules most of the Pacific board and is threatening the US West coast. Japan also has a small force traveling through the Middle East. They made some landings in Africa, but the Brits spanked them hard. The Brits are strong in Egypt with part of the US Navy there to back them up.
Technically, this would have been an Axis win with Japan getting 6 of 8 VCs on the Pacific board. But when Berlin and Rome fell, we decided to see how this plays out.

Just found this thread, thanks to Innohub.
Lots of good ideas. Thank you  all.

Using D12’s or D10’s also expands the option of having different countries units be more powerful then others, for example a German tank was more powerful then a Japanese tank, with a D12 system this could be represented.  :-D

I never do CAP, mostly because I don’t think about it.  The few times I do I don’t want to risk my fighters.  I’ve never seen it done in any games I’ve played.  I do think it could be useful so I’ve thought about adding it again to my house rules but I am striving for simplicity right now.

goto thrashers site ill bet you find it there.

@Micoom:

Germany had Already Radar in place to defend the “Atlantic wall” in Early 1941, long before “Barbarossa” would begin… So Radar shouldn’t be a UK advantage at all in a 1942 scenario. Only in a 1939…

We are working here on a Historical edition for A&A, so for this game timelines are essential and therefore more important then game flexibility, IMO.

Germany had short wave radar only, hence did not pick up a signal on airplanes being long away and the warning was too late sometimes!