Neutral Italy on Turn 1 (1914)

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Chaos in the Balkans:
Hungary and Romania are at war, Germany has annexed Austria, Yugoslavia suffered an unfortunate die role and has been forced to disintegrate into a Pro-Fascist Croatian state and a smaller Serbia. Italy managed to seize Albania without loss, and Czechoslovakia is reinforcing its border with the Nazis.
The UK has pledged to declare war on any power invading Greece.
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Swedish Disaster:
The Swedes attempted to peacefully take over Norway to prevent any major nations from entering Scandinavia, but the plan backfired. Not only did another unfortunate die role cause the Norwegians to resist, but the German and British players were offended by the assault, and Germany turned a blind eye to a British force that liberated the Norwegians and devastated Sweden’s hopes of a powerful, neutral, United Scandinavian state.
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Spain in Flames:
The civil war rages on in Spain, just as a deadly naval encounter ended in mutual annihilation for the Nationalists and Republicans. The free world does not want a Fascist Spain, and the U.S. Player has sent generous air aid to the Republicans. With Franco’s Army of Africa having headed for the mainland, I, as France, took advantage and seized their Moroccan colony. Unfortunately, I earned a -1 diplomacy points for this “aggressive” act.

I hadn’t really given it a thought, but here’s two ideas that just came to mind:

Make it so that the player has to somehow “transfer” the precious metal from the area. This could be as simple as forcing there to be one unit in the zone, or somehow involve a shipping convoy.

Another thing I was thinking that might help with the same old boredom in Africa, is perhaps gold or silver can be used to recruit more African locals and deploy infantry in the colonies.

I find it funny.

Painstate posting this question on the premise that axis players “drag” the game out once they start losing.

Then posts that he loves Axis players that refuse to give up.  Then asks “how many do you know who do that”

As for setting a 25 turn limit, based on the length your group plays, that seems ridiculously long. Try 12 turn as suggested or have a tactical/statistical review of some kind.

I don’t know what the challenge your group is facing is -but we almost always complete in one session.  Usually we schedule a weekend.  And get two full games in. One on each day, with the backup day for the game if it runs long.

Maybe get an egg timer for each side to increase focus!

Well the idea was to take all the “at war” related NOs and just streamline them into a single simple to remember rule with a straight forward easy to remember bonus. G40 is poorly balanced to begin with. I wouldn’t suggest this as the sole corrective for game balance, since clearly, if you want a game balanced by side, you’re going to have to tweak the board in more ways than this. I just find it annoying how for example, Russia has no incentive not to declare on Japan immediately, or how there is no mechanism to support neutrality in so many instances with various powers. Even if the decision to declare is still fairly obvious,  at least this gives you something to consider,  and something that holds for both sides along a neutrality pact, instead of so many 1 sided DoW bonuses. There are a bunch of silly NOs that seem to exist for no other reason than to give certain nations +5 here and there. I’d just as soon ditch all of them in favor of a single rule that handles neutrality across the board.

I think it might be novel if this included a nod to the pro - side neutrals too. But again, I don’t see this as necessarily a balance driver, more something I prefer for rules consistency with all powers.

When you get down to it, I just don’t think the DoW bonuses +5, belong in the National Objectives list. They cannot be contested the way other NOs can, and the way they are worded OOB, these objectives don’t seem to drive the gameplay in a very meaningful way. I would seperate them off from the other NOs and provide a universal rule that can be handled in a line or two, applying to everyone equally. Then replace the existing Neutrality/DoW NOs currently in G40 OOB, with some NOs that are more interesting as gameplay drivers.

My usual approach for Axis and Allies, going back to AA50 and now with G40, is to replace specific National Objectives, with universal or general Objectives that accomplish similar gameplay effects whenever possible, since I believe the latter are better for the game flow and easier to remember. Basically if you can replace half a dozen Nation Objectives, with a single General Objective (that applies the same way for all nations) that is ideal.

Thus far I have used this neutrality bonus idea, in conjunction with a VC bonus idea, and a few others to more less strip G40 of “national” objectives altogether. Then if you wanted to bring NOs back into play, to do something more streamlined,  with just 1 or 2 high value NO per nation, on areas of the board where the gameplay/strategic interest would benefit from their inclusion.

Along these lines, for consistency and to provide additional income for Germany and Italy, it might make sense to include China in the neutrality rules. I gripe on China constantly, but in this case you’d have a potential +10 for both sides if G/I opt not to declare on it. Axis would have to decide if they want the extra in Europe, but only at the risk of a stronger China vs Japan. Which might have an interesting effect on balance. I’ll edit to the lead post to reflect this option.

I have something new in mind. A game with OOB.1-tt-movement. A Major power is only allowed to attack once in a turn.

First Three powers have mandatory attacks: Austria -> Serbia. Russia -> GE. GE-> Belgium.

A power collapses if 3 of its Home-tts were captured by the enemy. (Russia 4 tts) (or if the capital is lost) Game is over if two CPs or three Allies are finished.

OE, Italy and other minor powers enter war as they did historical. It is not allowed to attack them before their entry.

Neutrals are impassable.

Capturing tts doesnt pimp your income. Minor powers if not captured generate their own units (they can spend their own IPCs every turn they survive)

Not sure about the initial Setup-armys:

Maybe:

Belgium 6/2
Portugal 1 (it will after entering war consequently produce one Inf per turn surely without getting captured)
Bulgaria 8/2
Romainia 7/2
Serbia 6/2
Montenegro 3/1
Arabia 2
Greece 3/1

India can build max. 16 IPcs per turn.

Rest you can see on the map.

USW means a 12-sided dice if one Sub manages to be in a zone when US/GB collect income.

US-initial Setup has 6 more Inf.

6 more Infs for Russia.
Austria gives 3 Infs and 2 Art to GE.

GB gets one more transport in India.

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To some extent devastation is represented by the fact that contested tts yield no income, though we still have the absurdity that a tt might yet produce EIGHT TIMES the usual income if it changes hands often enough.

:lol: Those one, two attakes must have sucked for you!  :lol:

ok