A simple fix for China…

@barnee Thanks for the replies, the CIS ones sound good, and I like the idea of Gibraltar actually being important in 1914. I might also give the Spanish objectives in North Africa to motivate them to spread out a bit more. Not quite sure what to do with China yet, but they will probably be with the Central Powers (I know they weren’t historically, but it balances the game better). I’m thinking maybe I will give them IPCs for capturing Korea and parts of south Asia.

@Argothair:

Hey ClassicDude,

We agree on the narrow issue that China shouldn’t be knocked out quickly and easily by Japan, but we may need to agree to disagree about the rest. It sounds to me like we’re trying to accomplish different goals. You seem mainly interested in encouraging players to re-enact the historical Japan vs. China conflict, where Japan made deep investments in the China war all through WW2, and didn’t get much to show for it. I’m more interested in making sure that all players have a variety of interesting and balanced strategies available to them – which might include a heavy war in China, or it might focus instead on Indonesia, Siberia, India, or a naval showdown with the Americans.

I think it’s very possible that given your group’s play style, your rules may work great for you and your friends – if America is in the habit of ignoring Japan, then you may as well buff up China to the max to keep Japan busy. In my playgroup, though, we often see Kill Japan First openings, where the USA builds a large navy and attacks the Japanese Empire with it starting on turn 3 or 4. If Japan has to spend most of its income fighting China, then Japan won’t have a realistic chance to even hold off the US Pacific Fleet, let alone defeat it. We do in fact sometimes invade mainland China, because Japan is usually too heavily fortified to take with an early transport fleet – the USA will only have enough cash left over to build one or two loaded transports in the opening, because the rest of their money has to go toward building up a fleet that can overwhelm the Japanese boats and planes.

Cheers,
Argo

Yes I think that this is something we can agree on. However I am still willing to test out your ideas.

@vodot said in [AA50 & AA42.2] Fixed Cost Techs + Tech Expansion:

This is a work in progress, but I’m putting it out here for ideas and feedback if anyone is interested in geeking out on something like this.

This is an expanded list of techs with fixed costs (no more die rolls) that would simply come into effect immediately (unless otherwise specified) for the cost shown. Some of these have a cost of 5 IPCs, with the intention of simply enabling what are essentially house rules/new units (Mechanized Infantry, Cheaper Naval units, rudimentary dogfight rules, etc.) while allowing players with no interest/need for them to ‘opt out’ and save the 5 IPCs. I’ll be using this list for my next solo game and will be making adjustments.

Note: The ‘Turkish Pact’ tech is designed for games where the Turkish Straits begin the game closed (via house rule), but also works for games where the straits start open as per OOB rules (in which case, upon the development of ‘Turkish Pact’ they would cease to be a special case of “Always Open” straits and revert to the normal OOB straits rules (closed to units unfriendly to the controller of Turkey).

Fixed_cost_Tech_v2.xls

SIR, THIS IS PURE GOLD! :)

Cruisers or Destroyers for my new surface warship?

Subject of a new post: www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41552.0

For those following along at home…

-Midnight_Reaper

I agree with you on heavy bombers.  Classic version were OP - basically, I win buttons since they threw 3 dice each (3@4 for 12 IPC vs any other build was a bit much!)  However, 2 dice and keep both results for combat is fine.  I draw the line at for SBR, maybe 1d6+2 or best of 2d6+1 there.

@calvinhobbesliker:

You’re the one who started the discussion by saying  that japan doesn’t need to take 8 chinese territories.

How is my math fuzzy? China starts with 12 infantry. Killing 3 kills 25% of their power. Japan starts with 14 fighters. Taking one out is taking out 7% of their fighter force and 3.5% of their entire air force.

What I was talking about was in reguards to the Chinese NOT the Japanese. I dont believe Japan needs to focus on taking all those Chinese tt early on, its got better things to do. But this isnt really the place to discuss it at lenght. I made a passing comment, you are the one who turned this thread into another J1 attack fan boy rant. Also, anyone with a bit of sense would never make an attack with 6 planes and 1inf, if they can avoid it. Most people would better support their attacks so they wouldnt have to take fighters as casualities, which you can easily do in China as Japan. A  fighter is more useful, just because you have alot of them, dosnt mean you should be looking to lose them, its a waste of resources

@Praetorian:

Thus, at the start of the Chinese turn both the USSR and US bid.  the USSR secretly bids $2.  The US secretly bids $4.  The bids are revelaed simletaneously.  The US wins and now immeditaely transfers the winning $4 to China’s cash.

(the goal of this is to represent the schizophrenic nature of the Chinese forces - its not quite modeling history since it treats the Chinese as a cohesive whole, but does model the conflicting goals of the US and USSR and their intervention in China).

Unless there are seperate victory conditions for the Soviet and US player, there’s still no conflicting goal.  The US could simply bid an excessive amount of money as they have better position and economy to stick it to Japan, and now they have essentially a free infantry factory in China.  For it to really work you’d have to choose two somewhat passive-aggressive people to play the USSR and the US who have some sort of bet going on between for who controls the most territory at the end of the game.  Maybe the bill for pizza & beer at stake, but even then I can’t imagine Russia choosing to give themselves another front when they’re already going to be needing that cash to halt Germany.  And add another rule that if US units enter Russia they immediately become Russian but are unable to use or participate in combat for a full round (to emulate lend lease training, plus they refused to return the b29s that made emergency landings so reverse engineering and research)

@Imperious:

The reduced values are realistic because the target is a fast moving plane and not a slow moving tank.

My point is: if you don’t dominate the skies, then you can’t loiter around doing the damage required to neutralize a dug-in infantry division, for example.

IMO, there should be some decrease in fighter lethality if enemy fighters remain in the battlespace.