Final Global setup!

Thanks for the tips and suggestions guys. I am really trying to find ways to reduce the overall time of the game since 8-15 hours is a tough sell when trying to find more players. We usually don’t even wait till all the necessary victory cities are captured either. We basically can tell once the game is lost for either side.

Perhaps having a timer on the Purchase and Combat Move phase as well as make a hard end date at the end of Turn 7 or 8 would make things go quicker? I think playing a setup where Russia and America are already in the war could speed things up too.

My own version. Feel free to correct and commentSetup Charts A&A 1940 2nd edition.pdf

@Navymule:

If there are 241 IPC’s worth of territories (before NO’s), that would mean the Allies would be earning well over 200 IPC’s a turn.  No way the Axis could recover from that deficit.  That would mean another 50-70 IPC’s worth of NO’s as well.

I wouldn’t think the Axis could recover, either, but I also wouldn’t say it’s impossible. The Allies begin the game with a 175-66 IPC advantage, but seem to lose more than half the time. Why does this happen?

The short answer is that the Axis victory conditions are easier to achieve, in part because Axis income is concentrated in Germany and Japan. This allows the two main aggressors to develop strategy, purchase units needed to implement that strategy and get them to the front rapidly. Put another way, in the hands of an experienced player, the Axis have a very efficient military-industrial complex.

On the other hand, the Allied IPC advantage, at least for the first 5-6 turns, is negated by the dispersal of those IPCs to every corner of the globe…and the Allies’ powerhouse must cross two oceans to join the fight. Until the US is fully engaged in battle, the Allied IPC advantage is virtually nonexistent.

I could talk/write at length on the economics of G40, but I’ll jump to the key question: If the goal is to improve game balance by creating a new victory condition, wherein the Allies win if the number of Axis-controlled Victory Cities falls below X and the combined IPC value of Axis-controlled territories falls below Y, what are X and Y? In other words, what is the Axis’ “point of no return?”

Will these ever be updated for second edition?  They are too great to be forgotten.

@JimmyHat:

I think you can attack unescorted transports, because they would not have any larger combat ships to hide behind.  This would be the only occurrence though because the kamikaze pilots are trained to go for the big combat vessels and not the weak, cheap transport vessels.

No, you can’t.  The errata has not overridden the pac40 rulebook, and the errata applies to Alpha 2.  Alpha 2 only changed the triggers to kamis but it didn’t change how they work.
Kamis can only target surface warships, and it’s not an attack (so deceptive to call it that).  it’s ONLY a defensive action declared at the end of a combat move (not during a combat move) in exactly the same way scrambling is declared.

This also has never changed, it’s ALWAYS been if combat move ENDS in a kami symbol SZ, which ALWAYS means either combat in the seazone or an amphibious assault.  You can’t combat move if you aren’t going to conduct combat.

Thanks for the responses.  They were a big help.

You misunderstand my post - there are only ever four powers, with the neutrals acting just like OOB, but with different alignments.

It really should be:

1939- June 1941 Four Power game (Allies[UK & F], Axis[G & I], USSR, Japan)

Becomes three power game after June 1941 (i.e. USSR joins the Allies)

Becomes two power game after December 1941 (Japan joins the Axis)

It’s reasonable to assume that the USA only ever joins the Allies, and that (before June 1940) Italy only ever joins the Axis.  The position of China is tricky, since we don’t want to exclude the possibility of an Allied/Japanese alliance, but where does that leave China - a neutral that the other powers (i.e. not Japan) can send aid to without it being a DOW on Japan?

I played Japan last weekend. I didn’t have too hard a time, however I tend to play a very anti-US strategy. Therefore I was able to manage them as well as I had been able to in the Pacific game. I even had him spending more on the pacific side. Russia was actually what tended to throw me off because I had to constantly be prepared for a potential invasion until it was my time. Luckily I had set a trap and Russia invaded Korea, allowing me to trap him between my navy and land forces.

If your looking for more specifics then let me know, otherwise that should give you a slight idea as to what to expect.