Calculating NO IPC's

Needed to bump this for my Russia strategy video.

I have to say I like the idea of giving all nations more money.  Perhaps each nation collects their normal income + national objective income and then adds 2d6 bonus economy to add in randomness?

That should only average an extra 6 IPC per nation (6.090909… really) but would be flexible enough to give only +2 or as much as +12 both of which could add some flair and randomness to the game.

This is why I interpret IPCs in A&A as abstract and flexible. Lets looks at some examples by Region from Revised up to G40…

Canada: from 4 ipcs up to 7 ipcs
America (the continental USA): from 28 ipcs up to 45 ipcs
Africa: from 11 ipcs up to 20
China (unoccupied): from 4 ipcs up to 12 ipcs
Western Europe (France/Holland/Denmark): from 6 ipcs to 14 ipcs
Germany: from 10 ipcs to 14 ipcs
Australia: from 2 ipcs to 8 ipcs

United Kingdom: from 8 ipcs to 8 ipcs
Japan: from 8 ipcs to 8 ipcs
Hawai: from 1 ipc to 1 ipc

Philippines: from 3 ipcs down to 2 ipcs

I could go on, but the point here is that there is no hard and fast relative scale for how these values are being worked out over successive boards. Sometimes the same region nearly doubles in value, sometimes it triples, sometimes it stays roughly the same.

This is a very strong indication to me that IPCs are not the iron values sometimes suggested, or that IPC values in A&A are somehow set in stone. They have been changing to suit the gameplay for a while now.

I want to point this out because I think it speaks to a more general feeling I get, that money/production should be flexible, to suite the needs of the gameplay, rather than something highly rigid or that must somehow retain consistency along historical lines, or to match up with previous boards. It just seems arbitrary for the most part, and more so when you look at the values side by side for successive boards. Clearly IPCs are there for the gameplay. They are distributed in the way they are for gameplay purposes, not in some highly fine tuned or particularly accurate spread for historical or “real world” reasons.

If for example, China’s total value can increase by 300%, or Australia can go up by 400%, while Hawaii stays exactly the same, and Philippines is decreased by 33%, then why should we expect anything consistent out of IPCs anywhere on the gamemap?

To me this is encouraging, because it suggests that IPC value and “collect income” can be tweaked for game balance (on a regional basis) without upsetting some underlying foundation. The fact that these values have changed so much over time, indicates a high level of abstraction going on.

The thing to notice is that IPCs are already being counted differently (in terms of relative value) depending on where they are located on the gamemap. I think this is an important thing to bear in mind when considering what IPCs really represent, and to see why gameplay (and not necessarily historical production analogy) is the critical factor in determining how these should be distributed across the map on any given board.

You know, I’m kind of surprised that Larry didn’t include US Submarines in costing 3 IPCs for convoy raiding.  Historically, the US submarine force did the same thing to Japanese merchant shipping that German U-boats did to Allied shipping in the Atlantic.  In fact, the US submarines were actually successful at it whereas through convoying and ASW improvements, the U-boat threat in the Atlantic was gradually reduced.  US subs were so successful that in 1944 the US Navy had to cut back on submarine production because they already had too many and were running out of targets since they had so crippled the Japanese importing.

I made an axis and allies utility app that includes a battle calculator, and supports Global 1940 rules. On iOS it’s called “Axis & Allies Utility”, on android its called “Utility for Axis & Allies Game”

The ICs become major the instant Italy declares war on the US, which is BEFORE it conducts combat. Thus, when Italy captures EUS, it has a major, which is immediately downgraded as per the “captured majors become minors” rule.

I have created a sheet for entering in battle results such as:

Land Defence
Land Attack
Naval Attack
Naval Def

It will tell you the overall percentage of your results and of your team and the 3 different neutrals.

I also hope to add an IPC loss and Gain based on units that were lost in battle so for example:

I lost 3 inf and 1 arm
you lost 5 inf and 1 fig

I lose 15 IPC worth of units you lost 25 so my battle gain is +10 ipc worth of units your loss is 10 ipc worth of units
Battlesheet.xls

You could bring a couple of mech infantry along with the tanks from west germany. These could act as soakers for the tanks.