G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

C5 bomber discussion kicked off on page 43.

I’m not opposed to including more bomber options beyond what we have already in there, though I still think anything with a combat and hitpoint value at m6-7 is going to remain primarily combat focused, rather than SBR focused. 0/0 C5 represents the extreme, purely SBR oriented.

I don’t know if people want to try alternative intermediates you could always have separate toggle or upGun.

Almost back from this San Diego bachelor party haha. Catch you guys in a few

I’m not terribly invested in the specific base suggestions. Each was for novelty primarily and an attempt to give otherwise underserved (or in the case of a place like Newfoundland, entirely useless) territory tiles more of a reason to exist. In any case, it would be purely a manual edit at this point, since the change is too easy to execute in the current edit mode to justify a separate toggle. Quebec is a more obvious choice from a gameplay advantage standpoint, I just tossed out Newfoundland for historical significance, since it was the main point of departure for short range aircraft headed from North America to England along the North Atlantic route (the one that included Greenland, Iceland etc). By the end of the war the busiest airport in the entire world was located there, so just sort of a nod.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_air_ferry_route_in_World_War_II

That route did not fully come into its own until America entered the war, and if the purchasing incentive was greater, I think you could make a case for allowing players to “build it”, but the game being what it is, no one will invest in ABs for these places if given the choice, motivated purely for historical fascination vs limited gameplay function. Really the only reason for entertaining them as add-on starting units in my view (since otherwise they would of course be terrible buys.)

I agree for an AB in Newfoundland, it’s gameplay usefulness would not be major. There were certainly bases in Ontario and Quebec as well, if not quite as signicant in scale or total traffic. Quebec is fairly well represented, probably outsized, but then you have all these extra low value tiles around it that serve no purpose other than window dressing for geographical “accuracy.” Just looking for some minor way to distinguish the TT that otherwise probably should have just been folded into a neighbor haha.

The C5 bomber was a suggestion for a fairy radical approach to that Strat Bomber unit entirely for SBR. But I wouldn’t think that everyone would instantly hop on board. Many many not like losing the Strat B, as the A&A queen of the skies (using the chess analogy.) I’m all for more options there. I just think the combat unit at m6 will always be gamey, even with a reduced attack value. Tried to explain my thinking there back when I first floated the idea. But if others are more interested in trying an c12 or c8 stratB with a significantly nerfed attack value that is another viable approach. For a modular package it’s worth having something in the middle.

Ps. One more thought on bases. It’s been mentioned many times already, how it would be nice if the US could build bases for the UK/Anzac (which would certainly fit the history.) I still like that rule. Though I don’t know if we ever articulated what the possible restrictions there might be. Like perhaps the Americans must have a unit stationed in the TT before they are allowed to build there?

I should also clarify again that a bunch of the material floated in this thread in the past is not necessarily integrated, or all intended to fit together perfectly at this point. It’s more like nuts and bolts, laid out in piles.
:-D

So when I suggested a Newfoundland AB, initially the thought was for a base that would be used primarily by US air units, not Canadian national air units produced at the minor in Quebec. Nobody is going to move a fighter 1 space, to get a bonus +1 on the subsequent turn for a total of 6, if it could have moved 8 spaces already in the same amount of time. I think that is Simon’s point.

I liked Newfoundland mainly for historical reasons, because it is 5 moves to Scotland, so you’d have the proper historical terminus for a US fighter moving along this route.

Adding Canada as a player nation throws on a new spin on things though. If going through the effort to add a new player nation though, I think it would be understood that some set-up adjustments would be required. So you could get your extra RCAF fighter, infantry in London or whatever, add a base, plug in another NO etc. You could give them a starting AB in Newfoundland and a starting fighter to mess around with, on the assumption that if they ever actually purchase an AB it’s clearly going to go in Quebec, since that gets them straight to England in one move.

As for the bombers, I feel like we have heard a number of possible approaches. Just include as many of these as seem feasible I’d say. Some people may not care at all about the OOB StratB unit, other’s think it’s the most broken unit in the game (well after maybe the transport haha), so I’d just want to give people options here. Personally I find the mental gymnastics a lot easier when I make a clean break (no combat, pure SBR only), rather going with half-measures and trying to ease into it. So the C5 suggestion is like jumping straight into the deep end, rather than wading out, because I don’t think the water is going to get warmer there haha. But that’s me, others might lean the way Simon is, and just want to try a reduced attack value before they go with anything more extreme.

To me the OOB combat bomber at m6 doesn’t suggest historical accuracy or realism in any way whatsoever, regardless of the cost or the attack value. It’s just an abstract long distance “super-unit” the way it’s presented OOB, or at least that’s how it plays.

It’s also the unit most responsible for undermining the technology system in A&A going back several editions to Classic (with Heavies or LRA) even before it was made cheaper at 12 ipcs. Hence the desire to tweak it into something that feels a bit more like what the name suggests as a"Strategic Bomber" and more narrowly focused in that role. Anything that helps push it in that direction will be better than the status quo in my view.
:-)

@simon33:

I will also add:

• Reverse the German objectives for Novgorod and Volgograd (Rationale: the tank factories benefited the USSR, not Germany, and the USSR needs some love)
• SZ5 being a convoy zone - Rationale: Kamchatka still has no roads in and Vladivostock is a major port. Should get some hate with blockades
• Canada as a separate power or separate economy, haven’t completely decided which, with only the Atlantic clear of subs as the NO from BM. I prefer the separate power really.
• Perhaps trim a couple of UK inf from London to help out sea lion.
• Airbase on Malta. Reason: Historical accuracy. Was an important air station.
• UK Original ownership of Sierra Leone. Reason: Historical accuracy
• USSR DOW on Japan will nullify Mongolia. Reason: Logic
• Increase max damage on airbases, naval bases and minor industrial complexes to 9. Rationale: Increase pressure on defenders to provide interceptors and reduce the effect that you don’t want to trade a territory with significant damage on a major IC because you repair their damage. Also makes it more worthwhile to bomb the bases.

Now, I think these changes have a small chance of balancing the game. Would require a fair bit of play testing. There is also the chance of a breakthrough in play making balance somewhat different.

I think that is all I’ve been thinking about.

EDIT: I’ve also been thinking about having a scramble of one unit from every land territory which can’t be revoked by bombing. If you have an airbase, you’d have 4 units potentially to scramble.

Just wanted to keep sight of these.

Specifically regarding Canada, I would definitely rather go full player nation than separate economy if only because I think that’s a bigger draw. But I’ll admit my motivation there is almost entirely tripleA focused. Because the map change would look cooler with those TTs in red.
:-D

Separate economy would be more convenient FtF, since it doesn’t require new pieces, just roundels for income tracking. But the whole ‘one nation two economies’ thing is something I’ve never much liked OOB. It strikes me as a holdover from the 2 separate games = 1 bigger game design approach. I think it would also make ANZAC feel even more out of place, as the only Commonwealth territories to get a full representation.

For a similar turn order you could put Canada with Anzac to close out the round, so that slot is more meaningful. But I actually really dislike the OOB turn order. I think it is highly awkward given the way A&A is usually played, and is unnecessarily drawn out. So I see no reason we can’t try something new here.

If fully redesigning the sequence, I’d try to block the turns so it’s more entertaining live, or more streamlined in the pbem exchange. I believe a new turn order requires a full xml mod with separate file (not something you can just toggle with a tech add right now). But I still like the idea of Canadian materials in the standard package, to make that a little easier. I’d consider breaking up the Anglo-American turn, which is currently the most involved. I think a sequence with the following blocks would be ideal…

GER
RUS, FRA, USA, CHN
JPN
UKE, CAN, UKP, ANZ
ITA

That would take you from 6 pbem exchanges down to just 4, in a given round.

After the opener it’s basically 2 Axis turns and 2 Allied turns, since Italy would piggy back onto Germany after the first round. By changing the US position you give the Allies a can opener rather than just Axis (Italy), at least once the Americans are at war. I think it’s a better distribution for live play as well, since it puts the game into 4 larger blocks, mirroring the old Classic dynamic for both live and remote play.

After the first round the PBF/PBEM exchange breakdown might look like this…

1. Italy/Germany (save)
2. Soviets+France/USA+China (save)
3. Japan (save)
4. UKE+Canada/UKP+ANZAC (save)

Less exchanges overall, less total scramble clarifications in a given round etc, to speed things along. In live play you have a pretty easy way to break it apart into 3 player, 4 player, 5 player, and 6 player groupings.

For example…
3 man could be 1 Axis player vs 2 Allied players (Russia/US player block and UK player block.)
4 man could be 2 Axis players vs 2 Allied players.
5 man could be 3 Axis players vs 2 Allied players.
6 man and up, you just start breaking down the Allied blocks.

Ps. You obviously don’t need Canada to achieve this, it would work with the standard nations too, but Canada would provide a good oppertunity. You would have to make a turn order adjustment regardless, if adding a new player nation, so might as well try to clean everything up in the process so its smoother round to round.

I really think a new turn order is the most interesting idea we could explore. I brought it up on the first page of this thread, even if it’s been on the back burner lately. Would people be agreeable if we had two standard gamefiles in the HR package? Like one with OOB G40 turn order sequence, and one with a new 4 block turn order sequence (that includes Canada)?

@CWO:

@Black_Elk:

Separate economy would be more convenient FtF, since it doesn’t require new pieces, just roundels for income tracking. But the whole ‘one nation two economies’ thing is something I’ve never much liked OOB. It strikes me as a holdover from the 2 separate games = 1 bigger game design approach. I think it would also make ANZAC feel even more out of place, as the only Commonwealth territories to get a full representation.

For a similar turn order you could put Canada with Anzac to close out the round, so that slot is more meaningful. But I actually really dislike the OOB turn order. I think it is highly awkward given the way A&A is usually played, and is unnecessarily drawn out. So I see no reason to we can’t try something new here.

If fully redesigning the sequence, I’d try to block the turns so it’s more entertaining live, or more streamlined in the pbem exchange. I believe a new turn order requires a full xml mod with separate file (not something you can just toggle with a tech add right now). But I still like the idea of Canadian materials in the standard package, to make that a little easier. I’d consider breaking up the Anglo-American turn, which is currently the most involved. I think a sequence with the following blocks would be ideal…

GER
RUS, FRA, USA, CHN
JPN
UKE, CAN, UKP, ANZ
ITA

Here’s a thought.  If the ‘one nation two economies’ thing is something you dislike about the OOB rules, and if you’re thinking about detaching Canada from the UK player-wise and putting it close to ANZAC in the play order, have you considered the alternate possibility of bundling Canada, ANZAC (which itself represents a combination of two different countries, Australia and New Zealand) and possibly South Africa into a single player power, the Commonwealth Dominions?  Newfoundland could even be added to this composite power, and a further extension of the idea might be to include Eire if this pro-Allies country gets pulled into the war.  All six of these entities had Dominion status within the British Commonwealth (though technically Newfoundland wasn’t self-governing, since it had given up that status at its own request during the Depression).

Yeah that was my approach to the Halifax concept we kicked around a while back. Option 2. Even if the thread is kind of defunct, I plan to carry the idea forward anyway with the HR package because I still like the idea. I’d still use a 4 block turn order for the Commonwealth idea too.

I think that one is already a modification that we can definitely explore, because all the materials are ready to go.

This way all your weird rules nations (China/France) and all your DoW restricted Allies (Russia/USA) are grouped together in the second slot of the sequence.

All the British/Commonwealth nations at war from the start are grouped together in the 4th slot.
Basically you’d just substitute what I had there for the full Commonwealth including South Africa etc.

1. GER
2. RUS+FRA/USA+CHN
3. JPN
4. UKE+CAN/UKP+ANZ
5. ITA

Slots 1 and 5 piggy back for the European Axis as basically a single slot after the first round.

Or you could potentially switch slot 2 and 4, if you want the “at war” block to go before the weird rules/DoW block, for Allies. The situation would be similar, but the flow of the sequence would look a lot more like 1942.2 or Classic than G40, since then UK would lead rather than US the way it is in OOB G40. That’s why I figured we could probably have US in the second slot to keep something of the G40 flavor, since that change was pretty major compared with previous editions of A&A. Though I’m still not a huge fan myself. The older Classic sequence had a certain charm to it for ease of use/familiarity, with the British leading the Americans in sequence. The main difference there would be with the Japanese opener. Which is why I’d probably put USA in slot 2, just so you didn’t have to rebalance Japan too much to accomodate the change.

For this latest proposal (full separate nations) you’d have the Canadian minor power attached to UKEurope in the ETO, and the Anzac minor power attached to UKPacific in the PTO, so at least there is some kind of symmetry there.

I went ahead and re-colored a set of British unit graphics so they’d be more red in hue.

In tripleA these could work for Canada. FtF you’d have to order some materials from HBG, or do some painting. But these at least should work for testing the idea digitally.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/ohrjdx

Yeah, no other territory on the board has an attached island separated by a sea zone, where that sz doesn’t also border the main territory. The reason these issues don’t come up is because no one would ever land aircraft or buy a base here in normal OOB play, since there is no gameplay incentive to do so, which seems unfortunate from an historical interest perspective.

Perhaps it is just better to treat them as separate tiles? Labrador sz 116, Newfoundland sz 106.

Least that way you avoid any potential confusion regarding the scramble, or amphibious assaults, both of which seem unlikely anyway, but you know just in case the Germans ever got any crazy ideas.

Ps. In case anyone is curious, TripleA incorrectly treats Newfoundland as attached to New Brunswick/Nova Scotia, and not Labrador. My proposal earlier would I guess have to be for a Labrador AB “Goose” in that case, since that one at least existed in 1941 and wouldn’t lend itself to map confusion.

Newfoundland “Gander” would be better since it opened in 35-6. I guess you could just say Newfoundland is attached to the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia tile that already has an NB? Seems like it could be confusing to have a single AB covering both tiles, but you could just have 2 ABs maybe?

One in Labrador and another in New Brunswick/Nova Scotia/Newfoundland.

*Edit double checked on the dates.