Next Sets from Historical Board Gaming

Re: Making my own WW1 game…
Hey, y’all. I was wondering how y’all made games, like this one. Please reply if you have an answer!

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.

Had to bump this. I’m looking forward to this set.

thanks for the update you guys are the best. Can I ask what set is after UK?

@Gargantua:

Or an American invasion map. The UK and Russia both lost to the axis powers. While fighting some smaller battles in Africa and the middle east, they now focus on taking over the Americas. With the only ally to be Argentina on the Americas mainland, they now face a coalition of the remaining American powers with the United States, Canada and Brazil as the most important ones.

COOL

A what if the Americans stayed out of the war, and the axis won scenario.

I like it.

It can even include a tech race for the bomb.

Sounds like Fortress America in 1940s

Hey All,
I’ve had time to play a couple of games of the new Fortress America. Aside from the new pieces, the game is pretty much the same as the older version. Here are the most noteable differences:

The USA’s Partisan cards are spelled out quite a bit clearer than the old ones. These tell you EXACTLY what territories, units and actions are involved. Most of the cards are really the same as in the old deck, except of course one that deals with Colorado Springs, which wasn’t in the old game, but the new cards seem to spell out what you are supposed to do in more detail. They even tell you to discard the card after you are done.
After I compared the new and old cards, I can see that some of the old cards could have been misread. Specifically, the MAJOR AIRLIFT card. With the old game, I always played it by taking ALL US units anywhere on the board and moving them as I wished. The new MAJOR AIRLIFT card specifically says that you pick ONE territory and can move the units from that territory to anywhere on the board that doesn’t have enemy units (even enemy controlled, unoccupied city territories). So, the USA player is basically limited to a maximum of 5 military units that he/she can move around like this. While this can still be a big plus for the US, especially if the invaders have left a lot of cities unoccupied, it isn’t so devastating to the invaders that it might be a game ender. Since then, I have gone back and re-read the MAJOR AIRLIFT card in the old deck and realized that I think I have mis-played it all this time. I think it might have ALWAYS been just one territory of units, not ALL US units. The way it is worded could go either way.

Another big difference is that the Mobile Units are much more useful now. If you have a Mobile Unit and an Infantry (or Partisan for the US) in the same territory, that Mobile Unit can transport that Infantry/Partisan with it in the Maneuvers phase (normally Infantry/Partisans have no movement in the Maneuvers phase). This happens on a 1:1 ratio. So if you have 2 Infantry and 1 Mobile Unit, then only 1 Infantry may travel with the Mobile Unit. That makes Mobile Units much more valuable now. In the old game, they were more or less mobile cannon fodder to me.

Finally, the biggest difference is that now there are cards for the Invaders. Each Invader has a deck of 8 cards that can give them certain advantages if certain conditions are met. During the reinforcement phase, each Invader must decide to get 8 new units or get only 5 new units and draw a card. Each card has certain advantages which could boost their forces’ movement or attacking power or cause a detriment to the US’s abilities (like depriving them of the laser attacks for a round). To gain these advantages, certain conditions must be met, like holding certain cities, or simply a certain number of cities and/or holding certain resource territories (agriculture, mineral, oil). Some cards are one time use and others are “Remain In Play” which the invader that holds that card can use even if the original conditions are no longer met. For example: Say the Western Invader draws a “Remain In Play” card and the conditions are that he has to own Los Angeles, 2 Agricultures and 1 Mineral. Then later on he loses one of the Agricultures, or the Mineral, or even Los Angeles, he can STILL PLAY THAT CARD. Also, even once the Invader’s reserves are depleted, they can still draw cards during the reinforcements phase. If you get a card for which you haven’t met the conditions yet, you simply keep it face down in front of you until you can use it. So, theoretically, Invaders could possibly use several cards in the same turn, provided all the conditions are met for each card.
Frankly, while some of the advantages in the cards are pretty good, I think overall they are more of a detriment to the invaders as well as the overall game experience. As an invader, you might end up becoming too fixated on trying to accomplish the conditions on a card so that you can gain that advantage that you end up not doing other things that would better defeat the USA forces. As for the game, it really takes more time for the invaders to keep checking their cards to see if they meed the requirements. Also, losing that 3 extra pieces each turn so you can draw a card may not seem like a lot, but I think it could be just enough for the USA player to get just enough of an edge that they don’t lose all 18 cities. The longer this game goes, the more forces the US will have and the less the Invaders will have, thus it will be that much harder to gain the 18 cities and defeat the US. Plus if you keep getting cards that you can’t use, then is it really worth losing those extra 3 units each turn. It seems to me like a lot of the conditions, while not impossible, are pretty hard for the Invaders to accomplish. For Example: there are two or three cards for the Eastern Invader where one of the conditions is an Oil Resource. The nearest one for them is clear over by Memphis. That’s a lot of territory to conquer.

Well, there is my report. It’s a pretty cool game, but VERY similar to the old game. If you have the original, unless you just really want the new pieces and map or really want to try out the new Invader cards, I would say save your money and play the original some more becasue except for the few points above, they are basically the same game.

Bump!

Your reading to far into it. Just US,BRITIAN,and Russia against a well fortified GERMANY.Bridges must be taken to speed advance before Germany can blow them. Allies must hold supply lines,Germany can sabatoge and counter attack. Simple and fun.