DK's Hybrid Axis and Allies Map and Rules

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.

OK I am going to give that one its own thread in house rules so it doesn’t get lost and forgotten.  Simple fix to a few issues.  Sorry I didn’t mean to hijack this thread, but it seemed to have already switched topic from the Murmansk NO

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35771.0
I also added the phrase “on the Europe map” so Russia can’t get the NO for its cities by declaring war on Japan.

OK please go back to Murmansk

And how is game balance threatened when both sides can do the same thing? It may upset game tradition, but I don’t see how it hurts game balance. The Brits put a large capacity IC in South africa. Hmmm…the Germans put a large capacity IC in North Africa. Now you’re both fighting somewhere else. Where’s the imbalance?

@Vance:

Thanks YG.  If you don’t mind I think I will post “espionage” as a separate house rule that could work with your tech system, or with just about any tech system for that matter.  You never know someone might use it or get an idea from it.  I love the idea of STEALING the other guy’s tech LOL

Hey man, feel free to use any of my ideas for separate rules, I just ripped off some good ones from Axisplaya and I didn’t feel bad about it one bit 😏 As for espionage, I thought stealing a tech from an enemy might be to powerful for the 10 spot, so I modified it to say develop any tech that an enemy power possesses.

So if a power on one side, let’s say AMERICA, has committed a ton of war crimes and their morality score gets down to say 50(?), then all the neutrals become pro-axis.  Very realistic.

Now what if you could buy off a neutral with “foreign aid” and prevent them from going pro-other side?  Suppose the “Hearts & Minds” thing were changed so that you get a +1 morality point AND prevent a neutral from going pro-other side by coughing up the number of IPCs their territory is worth.  For example, if Germany is <50 morality points and all the neutrals are going pro-allies, then they can pay Spain $2 to stay strict neutral for another turn.  You do this every turn at Purchase Units.  Once a strict neutral goes pro-other side they can never go back to strict neutral.

So having a bad reputation means the other side gets lots of potential income from the neutrals (and their units) and you have to spend a bunch of money every turn on forein aid to Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc to appease them. The good news is everytime you buy them off you get to brag up your generosity in propaganda that earns you +1 morality point.  Now that’s realistic.

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.

That non-aggro pact looks a little familiar.

But it should add this: the 2 signatories cannot allow their allies to attack the other signatory from their territory.

That is, for example, UK bombers based on Russian soil cannot attack Japanese units, nor land in Russia from such an attack from elsewhere.

The treaty should remain in force for as long as the power gaining the right to attack wishes.  For example if Berlin falls Russia and Japan are only at war when Russia declares war on Japan, which it can do at any time.  Japan would not have the right to attack until Russia declared war, or until it’s own criteria were achieved.
(Supposing Russia wanted to see a powerful Italy beated down a bit, or rebuild it’s own forces up after a hard German campaign, before risking war with a bloated Japanese monster.)

updated 11/10/07 check first page