@inveratulo Do you not consider the number of Infantry you start with and value the extra attack point you get for free? Its not math in a vacuum. Look at your assets and buy what best fits and this depends on Nation, Projection, Income level, How close you are to taking his capital, etc. If you can risk a slow walk to Moscow as Germany, Or as UK you buy tanks so you can overrun Japan with a factory in Egypt and India. It depends on the situation alot more than creating units out of a vacuum.
China. What's its use?
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All Chinese territories border far superior Japanese forces. By round 3 the Japanese will have pushed through China (worst of all usually after only having lost three infantry or so!) and be knocking art Moscow’s back door!
What’s worse, it doesn’t really seem that Germany needs the help!
What I don’t understand about many A&A games lately is that historically Japan had three war aims, which they could never hope to execute all at once:
- Conquer China
- Conquer the Pacific Islands (most importantly the Dutch East Indies)
- Attack Russia in the East thereby aiding Germany, but more importantly for the Japanese secure Siberia’;s raw materials and oil, materials which were denied by them by the US oil embargo.
They never did manage to conquer China, despite of having an army there of almost a million strong. Not so much because the Chinese army was so strong-on the contrary- but simply because of the vast distances involved.
They did indeed take much of the Pacific, but only held on to it for a very short time until the US war economy completely made final victory an illusion for Japan.
As the Japanese High command realized that going for options 1 and 2 at the same time meant that Russia would have to be left alone as Japan’s resources had alreay been stretched to the utmost, this option was discarded (among other reasons).
Why then is it that in nearly all A&A games Japan can easily attempt and ever so often succeed at achieving all of the three above??? Why couldn’t the designers offer some strategic options and/or gambles? (Example: they did this for the Indian fleet: the UK player can try and take out the battleship and the carrier off the East-Indies and the rewards can be great, but if it goes terribly wrong then the UK is in a bad position right away. However, it’s a risk one can take or not. Japan doesn’t take any risks when taking on China or Russia. It’s simply a matter of pushing your troops forward.).
Solutions would be so easy:
Add some more Russian punch in the far East, so Japan would be forced to either commit larger forces to really threaten Soviet terrritory or-if they choose to stay on the defensive in the far-East- that they’d be obliged to leave considerable forces in Manchuria. A Russian tank, artillery and fighter added would go a long way.
Secondly, it might have been an option to add more territories to China so it’d at least take longer to reach Moscow this way. Alternatively 3 or 4 Chinese infantry could have been added to set up.
Finally, the US could have been given a much higher starting income (since this is already '42) or could get an increase of 5 IPC each turn to symbolize the ever expanding US war economy.
What do you all think?
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Solutions:
Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression pact
- If one attacks an original territory of the other, the defender gets 3 Infantry and an AAA.
- Russia also starts with an Artillery in the far east
Stronger China
- As long as the Allies control India, then during Japanese turns, the US player may place one infantry in a Chinese territory that is being attacked by Japan this round.
Stronger US
- USA starts with a bomber and artillery on the west coast.
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Solutions:
Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression pact
- If one attacks an original territory of the other, the defender gets 3 Infantry and an AAA.
- Russia also starts with an Artillery in the far east
Stronger China
- As long as the Allies control India, then during Japanese turns, the US player may place one infantry in a Chinese territory that is being attacked by Japan this round.
Stronger US
- USA starts with a bomber and artillery on the west coast.
No offense, but I prefer my “solutions”.
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Well your “solutions” don’t work within the confines of the board.
What are you going to do? Get a sharpie and draw more territories in China? Draw a higher IPC value on some US territories.Your ideas might have merrit, but it’s too late for them. The board is already on the table. WOTC isn’t going to print another one for years.
So work within the realm of the board we HAVE, not the board you WANT. -
You could make a house rule: Standing Armies. With some spare monopoly pieces or some Victory City Markers from HBG you could add a couple to East Russia (don’t remember territory name) and maybe to China as well. They could defend on a two or defend on a one w/2 hits or something to that effect. That way you don’t have an obnoxious amount of Russian attacking power in the East, but the defense is a lot better. The same would take place in China, although I think I’d rather have the fighter defend on a 5 or 6 even, as the “Flying Tigers” were very skilled pilots. Maybe you could pair those ideas? The standing armies could represent the extra time and effort the Japanese had to spend to break through China.
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What do you all think?
On Classic/Revised/AA42.1/AA41.2 China’s role is to be a speed bump. On AAE/P/G and AA50 they aren’t.
The game is designed for balance, not reproduce WW2. Otherwise the Allies would start by earning at least twice as much as the Axis.
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I’ve been asking what’s China’s use ever since they’ve turned to communism….oh, it’s to do math!
This is more balanced than 42.1. I think you’re playing the Allies wrong to say that this is a favoring the Axis like you think it is.
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Well your “solutions” don’t work within the confines of the board.
What are you going to do? Get a sharpie and draw more territories in China? Draw a higher IPC value on some US territories.Your ideas might have merrit, but it’s too late for them. The board is already on the table. WOTC isn’t going to print another one for years.
So work within the realm of the board we HAVE, not the board you WANT.Of course I’m not suggesting the board should be changed. A houserule or errata saying that the US gets their income+ X IPC each turn, doesn’t require any board changes. Nor do a few extra pieces in Russia. All that would be required add unit X to territory Y, similar to the Alpha 3 project.
Any suggestions then how to better play the Allies?
BTW, we use the houserule (standard rules in A&A global '40) that naval passage to the Blatic and Medittereanean require friendly control of Northwestern Europe (Denmark) and Gibraltar respectively, so no Allied landings oin the Baltic States, Poland etc.
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I have just lost as the Axis. Japan could not take India, then lost Philipinnes. Germany would probably have hot Moscow, but too late.
The Allies can win, but if you as a group are unhappy, give them a bid of 6-8. -
I think to make a WWII game that is realistic, balanced, and fun to play and has a historical starting point you need to give it an earlier start and more vibrant political rules and victory conditions. You could start the game something like 1938 and have a buildup & influence period of a couple of rounds. Each major power should have its own victory conditions. For example, if USSR wound up conquering all of mainland Europe, that would be a total victory for the Soviet player, a total defeat for Germany and France, and a defeat for UK and USA.
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I think to make a WWII game that is realistic, balanced, and fun to play and has a historical starting point you need to give it an earlier start and more vibrant political rules and victory conditions. You could start the game something like 1938 and have a buildup & influence period of a couple of rounds. Each major power should have its own victory conditions. For example, if USSR wound up conquering all of mainland Europe, that would be a total victory for the Soviet player, a total defeat for Germany and France, and a defeat for UK and USA.
It’s all about dimension, complexity and time. Global might be a better game to add all these house rules, or even have just a ‘pre-war’ phase where both Axis/Allies play diplomatic/economic to get their countries ready for war.
This maybe interesting actually to implement because it could be really short (2-3 turns) and instead of trying to reproduce everything from pre-war up to 1942 you just play a phase that affects your starting territories and units. -
I think to make a WWII game that is realistic, balanced, and fun to play and has a historical starting point you need to give it an earlier start and more vibrant political rules and victory conditions. You could start the game something like 1938 and have a buildup & influence period of a couple of rounds. Each major power should have its own victory conditions. For example, if USSR wound up conquering all of mainland Europe, that would be a total victory for the Soviet player, a total defeat for Germany and France, and a defeat for UK and USA.
Wouldn’t you then end up with the USSR attacking Western Allied troops? Otherwise i like the idea, although I guess a 1 September 1939 start date would do fine.
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