Axis & Allies custom setups.

@FranceNeedsMorePower France only needs a infantry in Normandy.

Hello everyone! I’m back after a long absence (forgot my password, forgot to reset my password, and had a bunch of other commitments) However, now with summer quickly approaching, I will be dedicating a lot more time to 2 of my biggest projects.

The first of these is the Axis and Allies Expanded Global scenario. Essentially, it is a sandbox, Game of Thrones scenario where there are no set alliances and nations may do as they please.

Additional nations I have included are Indonesia, Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Eastern Commonwealth of Europe (ECE), Canada, and India. I have also strengthened the Chinese.

Nations will have the ability to sway neutral to their side, engage other nations in proxy wars, and form alliances with any power they wish.

Turn order is not permanent, for it is the nation with the lowest income that starts the round. Especially during wartime, incomes will always change as will the turn order.

With Neutral Nation, players may attempt to spend Influence to gather neutral parties to their cause. When a nation succeeds in placing 4 Influence chips, they will control that Neutral Nation as their own territory.

All new technology will also be present. I will be posting updates in the form of a storyboard, making this a massive creative endeavour.

The second project is the continuance and modifications to my Alternate History stories and rules, for which game updates will also be posted.

As the Expanded Global scenario is more complex (despite play testing being achieved) I will focus my attention first to a round of Alternate History.

The scale is the thing that most bedevils me.

I was recently watching some commentary on house rules from [b]Lion in the Trenches[/b], who was reacting to suggestions that he place an Austrian cruiser in the Sea Zone off Tsingtao in his Global 1914 customization. He made the point that a single Austrian cruiser doesn’t scale with the squadron or fleet implied by the corresponding game piece.

By my estimate, Global 1940 models ground units at the level of army corps, naval units at the level of fleets or task forces, and air forces at the level of wings. There are a handful of exceptions for colonial detachments, such as the two starting British Infantry in Kwangtung (Hong Kong), which stand in for about 14,500 defenders historically. India’s potential as a source of colonial manpower is significantly curtailed by the British Empire’s income problems, and Australia often explodes in production by the end game (win or lose) even when their national manpower pool and industrial capacity would never have allowed it.

In my opinion, scale should be balanced rigorously against the opportunity for fun gameplay. In my Global War games, I always add a French Infantry in Indochina, for example. There is also a clear movement in favor of bulking up the Dutch presence in the East Indies when games of Global War are played, and many players prefer to give the Italian fleet-in-being a fighting chance with set-up variants to blunt the Taranto Raid.

@Arreghas:

You are indeed proving to me that changing any rule set is complex indeed and requires very thoughtful analysis.

Yes, that’s quite correct.  An important point to remember is that a complex game such as Global 1940 is similar to other complex devices (such as automotive vehicles): they are systems consisting of multiple interrelated parts which are designed to work together in a particular way and which reflect many design choices and compromises.  Sometimes it’s possible to make minor or even major alterations to some of those components without affecting significantly the performance the overall system, but sometimes even a minor adjustment to a single critical component can wreck the whole thing.  (Take as an example the recent Galaxy Note 7 debacle.  There’s been speculation that Samsung may have changed the electrolyte in the lithium-ion batteries to something less stable, or that it may have gone too far in thinning the separator which keeps the positive and negative sides apart so that the battery doesn’t short-circuit and overheat.)  And design considerations have to take into account the fundamental question of what purpose the system is supposed to serve.  A luxury limousine, a Formula One race-car and a semi-trailer truck are all automotive vehicles, but they’re all optimized to do specific jobs and they all place different leves of emphasis on different capabilities such as passenger comfort, baggage / cargo-holding capacity, speed, fuel consumption efficiency and so forth.

@Gargantua:

Also… the research facility cost the same as all the other facilities for simplicity sake (15), not that it’s a huge deal…  and they also operated the same (built in AA, up to 6 damage, operable at 2 or less damage).

I think handing out free research facilities at the beginning of the game may make things very tech heavy, but I understand the need to get some of the smaller nations involved. I suggest a price ladder for multiple facilities…

1st Lab = $5
2nd Lab = $10
3rd Lab = $20
4th Lab = $40
5th Lab = $80
6th Lab = $160

This way, 1st Labs are practically free for UK, Russia, Italy, and India, but there is still a small risk for having one. It also makes nations who want more research rolls, to pay accordingly for them. I would still like to see ANZAC, France, and China ineligible, however, I like your idea of an invading nation choosing to steal a tech by destroying the captured facility, or keeping it for themselves, it solves some issues when capturing.

I could be mistaken… but Purchasing TECH, might actually come BEFORE the repair units phase… in which case, a bombed facility, wouldn’t be able to roll for tech - until AFTER repairs, and a turn where it isn’t damaged again.

Don’t we want players to spend for repairs, roll for research, and purchase developed weapons all in the same turn?

Japanese destroyers can carry one infantry.

typo.

Britain can start with more factories only if nations are not allowed to use captured factories.

Germany+Italy should outproduce UK+Russia while Japan should be two times weaker than USA in a 1942 scenario.

Yeah you’re right, finished, not finalized…