How much would the game change if…....

@SuperbattleshipYamato I have played a few games and though the Axis can initially worry the Allies , (I thought I would lose ), I have always been able to keep the income gap and , as the game progresses, it opens up much more .
I don’t believe , The Allies don’t need help in this game, if the players are equal ability.

Re: Global 1940 & 1943 Expansions Game Reports

Global 1940 July 4th 2024 Game (start) report #4
(4th day of play on 11/3)

Global 1940 with Expansion Rules & the following optional rules:
Rockets
Heavy Bombers
Seafire fighter planes
Jet Fighters
Japanese Destroyers
King Tiger & SS Heavy Tanks

Agreed a win can happen through Economic Victory or Axis capturing victory cities per the original Global 1940 rules.

Germany - Josh S
Japan - Alex M
UK - Pat H
Russia - mkgionet
USA - Mike K
Report from Japan’s turn in Late 1947 (round 16) USA turn of Late 1949 (round 20)
Longest game I’ve ever played!

First I need to admit that I’m a bonehead! We were all so excited that the game finally ended that we immediately started cleaning up and I neglected to take any pictures - Ugh!

1947
If folks remember, the Allies looked to be in a dire situation at the end of the last report with Germany having pushed most enemy troops out of its territory and poised to make a powerful advance into Russia, while Japan firmly had 5 Victory Cities in hand and was in a position to retake the 6th city. Us Allied players held our breath while Japan took their turn, hoping that the massive US fleet surrounding Japan would focus Japan’s attention more than retaking and holding the 6th Victory City (Shanghai). Tick, tick, tick, tick, pieces move, tick, tick, tick, more pieces move…

YES! Indeed, the fleet around Japan caused him to ignore thinking much about Shanghai and, as we hoped, he committed the majority of his military power to eliminating this fleet. Between games I took a long hard look at the board and realized that if Japan used his 7 strategic bombers on the mainland, with his mainland ground troops, he could not only retake Shanghai, but likely eliminate all of the Chinese infantry to retake Anhwe and place ground troops in Shantung so that USA’s tank army would be blocked from getting to/liberating Shanghai. Thus causing the Axis to hold 6 Victory Cities and win. Thankfully Japan didn’t see this. He did retake Shanghai, but left Anhwe untouched.

The Allies make preparations to retake Hawaii and the Philippines. Japans troops are now primarily concentrated in southeast Asia, India, and Japan.

The US continues to get hammered by German Wolf Packs on the east coast, losing 20+ IPC. However, the Tank Army on the Asia mainland rolls in to retake Shanghai, while China has an income around 20 and continues placing significant amounts of infantry on the board.

UK strengthens Persia & Finland & holds West India.

1948

Taking Barnee’s advice (thank you) the US finally purchases an air base and fighters for Central America. Works like a charm with the wolf packs scattering and being chased down and mostly destroyed by fighters.

Anzac momentarily captures the Philippines before Japan quickly recaptures it. Japan retakes Korea and invades nearby Russian territories. Clearly, the new Axis plan is to focus on attacking Russia on both sides.

Hawaii is easily recaptured and the USA prepares to move troops north to Alaska so they can retaliate against the Japanese invasion of Russia.

UK continues to strengthen Persia and lands paratroopers in various German territories.

Germany makes a massive attack to retake Finland and Leningrad, but then pulls back in order to attack Russia’s Army Group with 2 tank armies and a plethora of ground troops. Russia is able to retake Leningrad and continue reforming armies that are pushed along to the front lines. Russia isn’t able to recapture Finland, but is able to kill off the few remaining troops that had succeeded in taking it back for Germany.

1949 - A Pivotal year!

Germany purchases several transports and a super heavy battleship. It looks like they may be preparing to invade London. They do leave a few territories vulnerable on the front lines with Russia though, allowing a Russian Tank Army to get behind the front lines and on Berlin’s doorstep. Not a real threat to Germany, but it’s a target they’ll need to attack.

USA navy in place in Alaska, ready to come liberate Russian territories from the Japanese invasion.

Japan builds a major industrial complex in Korea and focuses on producing troops there. They pull some troops out of India in order to combat the growing number of Chinese forces, which ends up being a crucial mistake. In a very even battle the UK takes a gamble and goes all in on attacking India. With solid rolling it results in a UK victory! Even better, Anzac takes Burma and Japan has no way to retake India anytime soon. Other territories on the mainland south and west of Shanghai are also taken from the Japanese.

The USA is about to launch their Alaskan fleet over to the Soviet Far East when the Allies see a golden opportunity. Off the coast of Japan are a few transports, (3) Aircraft Carriers, and (6) Carrier Fighters. Even better, all ground troops (even the AA gun) have been moved out of Japan over to Korea and the mainland. The only thing left in Japan are (4) Strategic Bombers. The USA seizes this opportunity and attacks Japan for the 2cd time and scores a victory! At this point the Axis surrender. The Allies have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat!

A very long, but very enjoyable game with lots of twists and turns. The Victory Cities really add an interesting element to the game. I think we’ll be taking a long break before our next game!

@GGleize:

Hello,

The only two rules changes we are still using after several battles because useful and no disadvantages noticed yet are:

The BB needs 2 hits to be destroyed but IN A ROW - So if the defender decides to take a damage on a BB > The very next hit (if any) during the battle must be one this same BB. This to avoid the 2 or 3 BB “damage shield” of 2 or 3 hits at the start of the battle. Notice that this do no weaken the big advantage of each BB to bring +1 hit point to the battle.  And for example 2xBB + 2xDD will still bring 6 targets to be destroyed by the enemy instead of 4.

We play where every other hit HAS to kill or sink something. So say you get three hits on your navy. The first hit you can take free on your BB, but the second hit you have to sink the BB or a different smaller vessel, or lose a plane. Then the third hit you can take free on a different battleship, etc. Works good for us!

I recently played a game with a new group, and they had a few changes that altered the game dramatically. They edited units so that they “represent” real units during the war. For instance, they changed German tanks to Panzers and made them 4/4/2’s for 8 IPs. They gave Russia 2 free INF at the start of their turn to place at an IPC before mobilization. They made Japanese fighters into Zeros making them 3/3/4’s for 8 IPs. British AA guns hit is increased to 2 while in London. Lastly, American transports get to move one space after offloading, but cannot pickup or dropoff during this move. This was my first exposure to these rules. In my opinion, the US transport rule made shuck-shuck much faster. These rules clearly favor allies, but definitely changed the game. Give me your thoughts, changes, etc.  :mrgreen:

Moderator’s Edit: Added [Spring 1942] to title

Some good ideas here.  This got me to thinking… if someone really wanted to play France as a country, buy units, etc.; then you could play it this way:

French player starts out with the Allies, but once Germany takes the capital, they play with the Axis.  The capital and all territories remain in French hands and they still retain their income and build on their factories.  When/if the Allies liberate Paris, the French player then joins the Allies.  Each time Paris in taken, any French units in territories occupied by other nations remain Allied and usable by that nation (like the French fighter and soldiers in England and boats in the same territory as the British).  If the Allies take Paris, any French units with German/Italian/Japanese combat units in Russia/Germany/the water/wherever are usable by that nation.  The rules are mirrored for if the Allies take Paris: France retains control of their income and all their territories that they control and simply fights with the Allies.

Aspects of this would actually be similar to how it was in the war.  Although you didn’t have stacks of French soldiers defending Normandy from Allied invasion (though some French soldiers fought for the Axis), you also didn’t have the French Mediterranean fleet, Morocco, and southern France fighting against the Axis after France capitulated.

I’m not sure if this might even be balanced or whether it might swing to Allies or Axis.  The push towards Russia would be hampered as some units would need to come all the way from France and those units would attack out of turn from Germany, but on the other hand the Axis would have more total income and a D-Day invasion would be much harder.

We always play with all the Axis playing at once and all the Allies playing at once, so that would likely give the Axis an advantage, but you could compensate by giving the Allies more money.

As an optional rule, you could allow the Japanese player to conquer French Indo-China (just as in the war and just to spice things up) or leave for the French player (maybe France could build a factory there?).  This decision could be strategic by the Japanese player: allowing money to flow where it’s most needed, or it could be cordial: gentlemanly to leave it to your new co-belligerant, or it could be playfully poking fun: haha, it’s mine and you can’t do anything about it.  It might make the Japanese player less ‘lonely’ to have some interaction with their co-belligerants.

The French player might have some disconnection with who wins (or might slightly favor Axis since that’s where their reputation as a skilled player is on the line), but on the other hand, it might be a happy ending to be on the winning side no matter which side won the game.  Another plus is that for a Europe only game, the sides would be an even 3 on 3 for the nations for most of the game and it might allow you to have a 6th player on the Europe only board.

If you just want to change from D6 do D12, then just double all attack and defenses values, unless you want to edit costs and powers to satisfy historical details, such as better german tanks, etc. But then you have to mess around with initial deployment too (if russians are gonna have weaker infantry, then they need to start with more of them, right?).

I have a 30 sided die i got as a gift. So i’ll just multiply everything by 5 :D

Infantry at 5/10/3
tanks at 15/15/6 :D

under 10 pages of actual ‘new concept’ rules would be nice.

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.