Splitting the UK into 2 nations

@barnee

We decided to create a new set of Tournament Rules for general use in all Wiking-Cons as well as the 2026 World Championship.

This set of Tournament rules is described at the “Events” thread, inkluding the Wiking-Con Tournaments.

_Here’s a rule with two aims:

1. Safeguard Russian production (with some historical precedent) from relatively easy/early/immediate German poaching
2. More setup variety and more interesting potential play at the periphery of the map._
3. Enable/strengthen KJF and bilateral games.

The Rule:
During setup, do not automatically place any ICs in non-capital territories.  Instead, those ICs (and up to one AA unit/gun that accompanies it) may be placed in any territory controlled by their owner. The choice of where to place any starting ICs can be discussed openly, but should be made in secret and revealed simultaneously by all players.
Optional: If the UK does not start with at least one non-capital IC, allow it to place an IC+AA unit as well.

I think this works best with some of kind of mild incentive to encourage creative placements, so here are two versions of a bonus (pick one):

Bonus version A: Wherever a starting, non-capital IC is placed, permanently increase the IPC value of that territory by one (but not above 3).

Bonus version B: Whenever ANY non-capital IC is built or placed (for the duration of the game), permanently increase the IPC value of that territory by one (but not above 3).

I played another game with India at 5, but I played against myself instead of the AI (first time doing that!).

Russia got absolutely diced in the heavy Ukraine strafe, and so West Russia was abandoned R2 and with no fighter support (Iceland gone G1, no other good routes) Germany rolled over them on turn G5.

Once the fighter route was gone I went heavy tanks in India, hoping to swing out against the Japanese and provide defence for Moscow.  I did have 8 UK tanks about to rush in to Moscow for defence (on UK6), but that would have exposed India on J6 AND Japanese tanks were closing in on Moscow as well, so it would have been a 1 or 2 turn delay at most.  Japan had the luxury of building a factory in Manchuria for north route tanks and just stacking Yunnan with art and inf (with their fleet in the adjacent SZ) and deadzone Burma, so the UK troop buildup in India couldn’t really pivot out of India as much as I thought.  Any foray out of India, and the 5 IPC factory would be gone, so the two armies stayed in the gravitational pull of one another.

I’ve never really done a KJF, but I think that might work a lot better with 5 IPC India.  I might read some KJF strategies and try it out.  So far, 5 IPC India is a failure, haha.

This mechanics can also be applied to ABs as Carolina is suggesting:

Air and Naval base damage
@Carolina:

Great topic - hi-lights how A&A is a little too basic.  ie. not all hits should be equal - really, when would AAA blow every plane out of the sky?

I would propose to change the AAA rule for bases and industry that AAA does not kill but affects the accuracy of the attacker.  Defending installation rules a 1d6 and this is subtracted from the attacker’s roll.  
1d6-1 for fighters and tacB
1d6-2 for bombers
Roll an AAA dice for each attacking aircraft.

Alright, I finally got around to completing a full game with these rules. The results:
Soviet Union Victory! The game was close, with the last few turns being a race to see whether Russia could hold Berlin for a full turn before the US could capture and hold a capital. In the end, Russia was able to hold Berlin the turn before the US would have won for holding Rome. The game was 11 turns long, I think. I kind of lost count.

France was definitely the big loser of this game, never capturing a single victory city, and being almost completely wiped from the board by the end. Though France started fairly strong, its navy (the most expensive at the start) was too spread out to accomplish anything, and it slowly lost its African territories due to an inability to reinforce them. The final blow was when France, seeing a weak Northern Italy, send out too many forces on the offensive and lost its Capital to Germany.

Italy also did poorly. Though it easily dominated the Mediterranean, it lacked the economy to support its efforts against a UK that was going almost full Egypt. When France invaded Northern Italy, Italy withdrew as many of its forces from North Africa as possible to defend its Capital. After that, Italy managed to stave off a German assault and even counter attack back into a then dying Germany, but the US came in and crushed Rome just before the end.

Germany did quite well, before it fell apart. Early on, Germany held the line with France and Italy, while still throwing most of its forces at Russia. It managed to gain some good ground, and was greatly helped initially by the Finnish and Bulgarian troops. However, after France made it’s move on Italy, Germany was forced to march into Paris to prevent France from gaining control of Southern Europe and fighting Germany with all its might. This unfortunately destabilized the Western front, and Germany began losing ground in Russia while fighting with France and Italy. A rush to try and take Paris and Rome before the Russians took Poland failed, and Germany was eventually completely wiped from the board.

The United Kingdom struggled initially, as Italian forces opposed it in Africa. However, the UK put a Minor IC in Egypt and was able outproduce Italy over time. Eventually it took complete control of Africa as Italy pulled out to defend its European territory. The UK managed to defend against a US invasion, and at the end game launched an invasion of Belgium and took Normandy and West Germany. It was maybe one turn away from a victory at the end, but Russia and the US had just barely beaten it to meeting their objectives.

The United States was the “clock” of the game: with no opponents at the start, the US had a few turns to build up an invasion force to conquer Europe. It was a race for the other nations to win before the American behemoth arrived to crush them. Unfortunately, this made America really boring to play, as they had no action until the end of the game.

The Soviet Union had a great game. They struggled against the mighty German war machine at first, but in the end, their single-minded assault on Berlin won out. They were able to reached a staggering 50 IPCs a turn as they captured Berlin, and managed to hold it a full turn just ahead of the capitalist Americans.

So, what needs changing? Not much. The Major powers all seem pretty balanced, as any of them could have won if they had used an ideal strategy. Additionally, most of the game they were all at about 30 IPCs, with the US having slightly more and the UK having slightly less.

The Minor Powers need help though. Their starting advantage of having the most units quickly wears off, and then Italy is left neutered with IPCs hovering at about 14, and France loses IPCs over the course of the game as its colonies are taken.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a good way to balance it well. I believe a National Objective system might help, giving France and Italy NOs that are relatively easy to accomplish while giving the Major Powers NOs that require a lot of work.

With the political exile option for the UK, our group has decided to give Germany a 10 IPC NO for control of London.

I’d stick with the Larry Harris scheme (factory in Sink for 5 doesn’t seem right), just add a total of 5 inf to what China already has.  1941 requires even more inf I think as China is much too weak.

If Japan can destroy China by Turn 3 something isn’t right IMHO.  A pro Japan should capture China by Turn 4-5, India by 6-8, and start threatening Moscow around Turn 10.  If Germany/Italy can still hold out for a few more turns at this point then the Axis probably deserves the win.

oh ok.