If you could choose any TWO new unit sculpts, what would they be?

All fair points. I look forward to your upcoming house rule releases!

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My map isn’t heavily distorted to fit too many kind of units. I am favour to add new units if only absolutely needed. But Italy and China have units with similar Mech stats to diversify their options.

I’d rather have cheaper, defenseless transport planes myself.

I think that’s totally reasonable, Midnight_Reaper. You could introduce cheaper air transports into this roster without breaking anything important. My preference is for more expensive air transports because the extra price thematically represents (a) the up-front cost of developing the technology and tactics (nobody has to spend money on researching paratroopers for this roster), and (b) the relatively limited supply of air transport available during World War II. There’s a fun little article below about how most of the American Air Force’s transports were either hastily converted civilian planes, or wooden gliders manufactured in piano factories. If the Americans had to make do with makeshift equipment, you can only imagine what the Italians were using.

https://amcmuseum.org/history/world-war-ii-transport-and-troop-carrier/

Strategically, air transports provide a much deeper threat into enemy territory that requires a much larger garrison. E.g. if you put an assault boat in the English Channel, it threatens Normandy, Holland, Norway, Hanover, and Denmark. If you put an air transport in London, it threatens all of those plus Paris, Marseilles, Gibraltar, Morocco, Milan, Berlin, Poland, Finland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. It’s not that I expect anyone to fly many air transports into a battle to use as fodder; it’s just that spending 12 bucks on one air transport can force your opponent to spend more than 12 bucks on extra defending infantry.

In terms of rules simplicity, I have tried to eliminate the concept of the “defenseless unit” from my unit roster. I find automatic combat losses to be something of a downer, and I’d rather use that spot in the rulebook for a more interesting rule.

All of that said, again, this is mostly personal preference – if you want a $9 defenseless air transport with 4 movement, that’s almost certainly fine.

I have found 2 changes to the map that enhance the game play - thought I would share.

Darfur - Minor Aligned with Ottoman Empire (1) IPC.  This new territory sits between French Equatorial Africa and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, with Belgian Congo keeping a border on AES.  This change provides more action in Africa, without it just becoming a big waste of space by turn 3 or 4 and an IPC pump for the British.

Sea zone 31 - A new sea zone that splits SZ17 in half.  SZ31 borders SZ16 to the west, SZ17 to north, SZ19 to the east, and Libya/Egypt to the south.  All of Greece borders the new SZ31 and SZ20.  This change provides much more freedom of movement of any CP ships that leave their home ports from mine rolls.  From the Allied powers standpoint - protects from an AH early thrust into the Black Sea or Eastern Med.

As you can see CWO, Japan is more or less stationed in Saigon and the Philippines protecting there money islands they have control of after 4 turns.
Also they seem to be buying a few more bombers due to there range from airbases in Saigon and the Philippines.

This setup does change the game for Japan and the allies. Right now it is making UK spend more money in the Pacific as far as more ships.
It also has made the US buy more in Europe due to UK has no control in Africa and not spending any money in Europe side. The US right now is doing Operation Torch for support in Africa but may shift to London with troops. With the UK Pacific ship buy support, its seems to give US a little more room to focus some troops else where.

UK is not split up as for as the money goes. They start with 75 icps and can buy anywhere. If this was a split economy ( UK, Canada,  FEC, and Anzac ) it would probably make the US buy all in the Pacific because UK Pacific side would be in a world of hurt with Japan focusing everything down by thee islands.

Just thought you like to see how it was going with the territory value changes and moves.

Well, as long as you admit to it being different and for those reasons, I see no issues. I am interested to see what exactly you come up with.

There are a lot of good ideas here that’s for sure. Some, like IL’s ideas are great theme based ideas that real capture the essence of the China theater and others, like Gar’s are great from a game play mechanic point of view. I think any of them would be an improvement to the existing state of affairs for China’s movement restrictions.

@Yavid:

why not let china place there inf. in any original chinese territory even if they don’t control them. if it’s unoccupied then they gain control, if it is occupied then combat insues as soon as the territory is attacked by an allied power or on Japan’s combat phase which ever one comes first.

I like this idea, but it would need to be controlled. Making it so that the Chinese could mobilize new units (maybe 1 or 2 infantry) in any original Chinese territory that is unoccupied might make this better, and again, a great way to represent the guerrilla and partisan warfare that was a major part of the fighting in China during WW2.

@Young:

Chinese units may move into any friendly, hostile, or neutral territory during the combat or non-combat movement phases. However, they may never enter Russian territories for any reason.

I see the thinking here, but I think its entirely to arbitrary, Japan should not have a way to “opt out” of Fighting China. I think having something in place that would want Japan to keep some portion of China under occupation (I would have thought the victory city would have been reason enough but I guess i’m just old fashioned  :| ). Placing a penalty on Japan for doing so by removing China’s movement restrictions is a good idea and giving China the ability to become more of a threat is even better.

Perhaps making it so that once China captures all of its original territories it’s movement restrictions are lifted. This was Japan will want to keep at least one Chinese territories under its control to keep them in check. However, lets up the ante here, if Japan is pushed off the Asian mainland (for sake of argument lets keep it to all non Soviet land territories) China can place an IC in Shanghai which will be their capital for the remainder of the game and can purchase units normally. This way even if China is able to move and attack where ever she wants, Japan still has a chance to push them back before China gains the ability to deliver the knock out blow to Japan.

and just to note, I would have to believe that by the time either of these instances were to happen, the game would be all but over for Japan anyway.

@Bonus_Bonus:

I made many modifications and forced my friends to play test them.

regarding getting friends to playtest
creating theme depending on your friends tastes would make house rules more attractive

I made an accessory called the Cards of War.

by the way what were the cards of war?