Next Sets from Historical Board Gaming

Part Five:

Errata & Optional Rules: Discussion

Upon reviewing the rules a bit, naturally the ones that stick out and cause problems are the ones that don’t pertain to RISK’s core combat mechanics.

Indonesia

Let’s say the USSR attacks the Arab League: Indonesia is supposed to stay neutral in this case, but can NATO still influence them, somehow? Does WE have to be the one to do it, or could it be UK? The ‘quick and dirty’ solution would just be to reverse the rule treating Indonesia as a separate entity, and say that the territory sides with NATO, if the Arab League is attacked by the USSR. Since they are aligned with WE, their troops should be replaced with WE (blue) troops, if/when this happens.

An obvious optional rule in this situation might be that Arab League territories join WE but Indonesia joins the UK; chalk this up to representing Singapore, Malaya, etc. or just with the continent of Australia being aligned with UK, in this game.

The alternate solution is to clarify the rule to be “an attack on Indonesia is not treated as an attack on the Arab League, but an attack on the Arab League DOES count as an attack on Indonesia.” I think this probably most closely reflects the intention of the mechanics.

Possibly a better (albeit more complicated) solution would be to allow NATO to use their influence roll towards their affiliated neutral alliance OR towards Indonesia. If they successfully influence Indonesia, they would replace Indonesia’s troops with their own. This treats Indonesia more like a “minor neutral” such as they would be in E&W; the reason I don’t like this is that it creates a new set of rules around a single territory, instead of just conforming to the existing/general rules.

Since the USSR has the option to ATTACK Indonesia, they can always gain the territory that way; this rule would simply address the fact that NATO does not have such a mechanism to gain the territory.
I should probably mention in this space that allowing NATO to use its influence roll to gain Indonesia, would allow for the possibility of the US gaining the territory. This would be an interesting wrinkle, as I’ve often said that in classic E&W the US needs to be able to gain Thailand in the event that the USSR goes nuclear; this would sort of serve to simulate that scenario, of the US needing to use its influence to try and gain a base of operations on mainland Eurasia.

Influence

Since the opening-game balance is presupposed around the OAS being at +1 to US and China being at +1 to the USSR, the obvious optional rule to include would be one not allowing diplomacy until the 2nd round of play. This would reflect the mechanical realities in E&W, of everybody starting the game with no spies in play (barring the USSR spending their “round zero” mobilization cash on spies.)

The rule limiting NATO to influencing only their affiliated neutral could also be changed… Although it might have to be limited to “once you’re already receiving +2 from them” to prevent dogpiling.
The intention of the limitation is to keep the game simple and fast; it’s also meant to avoid some of the pitfalls of E&W’s system, whereby there’s really only one correct choice, so just hammer that option as early and often as possible.

Nukes vs. Capitols

An interesting thing with the mechanic of nuclear weapons being added to a RISK game, is that it creates the possibility of a territory being cleared of armies. Since armies are used to denote territory ownership (serving the function performed by control markers, in A&A-type games) it stands to reason that a territory with no armies on it is controlled by no one. But what if the territory has a capitol on it?

This is an interesting thing, because the existence of a capitol implies ownership of the territory, corresponding to a specific faction, without there being troops in the territory (i.e. which would be the normal way to denote ownership of the territory.)

Obviously, a territory with a city but no armies is not controlled by anyone; this makes targeting cities with nukes more appealing, since it doubles the loss in “income” – similar to how targeting Industrial Complexes with nukes in E&W effectively doubles the reduction in infantry production, on that territory.

So the questions seem to be:

Can you place troops on your capitol, if there are currently no troops there? Do you get credit for “controlling” your capitol, if there are no troops in its territory? Does your capitol allow you to get credit for “controlling” the territory it resides in (including the bonus for a city)?

I think my answers to these would be: yes, maybe, and no (respectively.)

If a nuke wipes all of the armies off of a territory without a capitol, my general assumption was that this works the same as if a nuke in E&W reduced the IPC value of the territory to zero – meaning it cannot produce any infantry. The question then is, do capitols provide some immunity to this? Does not providing this immunity make nuking capitols (exclusively) too powerful in the overall meta? Again, these would have to be born out with more playtesting.

I had a similar idea for my my big variant where that uses some historical and balance modifications. Basically there would be more than just an axis or allies alliance. The game starts in 1919 and carries on into the 21st century and has technological advancement stages and political rules. It has build-up/political rounds and at turn 20 i.e. 1939 the war starts WWII and doesn’t until either the Comitern, Nationalist, or Allied forces lose a super power’s capital. A cold war begins and limited warfare and second build up/political phase begins. The first superpower to make an aggressive action then starts World War III.

Everyone will start out with exactly the same military forces but maintains thier sphere of influence and must choose their alignments and government styles.

The game will be complicated but simple at the same time with most of the luck factor going towards combat.

The US, UK, USSR, Germany, and Japan will be the five major superpowers. The USSR represents all communist aligned powers but may make alliances with either the Axis or Allies. France, Italy and Anzac may ally themselves with any major superpower except Anzac may never go to war against the U.K.

All minors will play a role in the game too with limited but playable forces. Some will literally act as puppet-states to the superpowers.

I would go on further but there are more details im working on and do not want to divert the thread from the original topic. Also my post is just part of a rough draft.

@Imperious:

I prefer this:

Infantry 6
Artillery 3
Mechanized Infantry 3
Tanks 3

Fighter 3
Tactical Bomber 2
Bomber 1

Transport 2
Submarine 2
Destroyer 2
Cruiser 1
Battleship 1
Carrier 1

Trucks 2

TOTAL = 32 pieces set

I really like your numbers IL. This would provide a much better ratio of more common units (infantry, tanks, fighters) to less common units (capital ships, bombers). Even more so than FMG’s current set. For example: With FMG’s sets, you only get 12 tanks per 6 Carriers. With your proposed numbers, you could buy 4 sets, get 12 tanks but only 4 Carriers.

The picture is primarily about the chips, but I notice it includes a bonus piece of new information about the FMG Italian infantry units: they have the FMG star under the base.  Nice touch!

now all it needs are your pieces

My copies are of the 2nd version, otherwise I wouldn’t have recommended it.

The pieces are in the primary colours: red, blue, green & yellow.

Also the board is simpler, as you get a “console” for each player to store units, reserves etc:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/82252/power?size=original

Also browsing around my collection I noticed these planes from Airways:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/525846/airways?size=medium

Just wondered if people would prefer aircraft mounted on stands like this; you could have them on a peg that slotted into the stand or into a corresponding slot on a carrier.
More expensive to produce, but gives a more imposing impression of air power.

just beat me to it   :-D

is it an inlarged W@W board?