Concerns and Balance Problems with 42.2

@crockett36

No thank you, I don’t have the time. So you’re reducing the IPC value of Japan whilst giving fixed bonuses? Hmm, that does limit Japan’s options and would definitely be a slight nerf.

@Ichabod:

@Argothair:

Ichabod, your idea of boosting capital territories’ income is interesting and worth considering as an alternate way to balance the game, although if we only boost capital territory income, then the Axis will have no incentive to fight over peripheral territories, which will become even more irrelevant to the war. As I’ve mentioned on other threads, it bothers me that Australia, South Africa, the Urals, and Archangel wind up being so irrelevant to the game, even though in reality they were a major component of the Allies’ industrial and logistical capacity.

I agree with you that we should not be boosting any territories that would wind up just being a gift to the Axis, because the Axis have plenty of advantages already, but I think it is actually very hard for the Axis to stack Archangel in the early game – it’s three territories away from Berlin and its adjacent to Moscow, so if the Russians can’t at least trade Archangel (to share the extra income), then you’ve probably reached the endgame.

I assure you, that as the Axis I will be trying to take as many territories as possible to boost my income even if the value is still the original 1 or 2 IPCs. I’ve played 42.2 only a few times. I grew up on Classic/Revised and it’s basically just an updated version. The 2x I played 42.2 however were enough to demonstrate to me how ridiculously unbalanced it is, way worse than G40 (which is my go to game).

Start small, make the capital territories an increased value of 5 IPCs and see if it doesn’t unbalance the game.

I’m telling you if you make irrelevant territories like Archangel or South Africa, or Australia worth more, the Axis will just capture those places, and poof, there goes your game balance and it’s even more lopsided. Archangel was captured on round 2 or 3 of the 2 games I played. It’s easy for Germany to push Russia back in 42.2; heck a caveman could do it.

Axis can grab lands such as South Africa or Australia but I don’t think it might be optimal for Axis.
Such are out of position and, if Germany waste money in Africa, this is less units against Russia.
Same for Japan wasting resources against US instead of crushing India, then going Caucasus or Moscow.

I do agree about Archangel and Karelia, it is on the north way toward Moscow.

@Cmdr:

I would be concerned in allowing the UK to can open like that for the Americans.

What if the turn order ended:  USA >> Italy >> Germany (Germany being first in the turn order)?

That at least permits Italy to blitz some tanks from N. Italy into Denmark to save Germany’s arse at the last minute.

London is at risk, Calcutta is at risk, Moscow is at risk… Why shouldn’t Berlin and Rome be at risk?

@Black_Elk:

it becomes a full mod and an entirely new game.

Here’s a radical suggestion which you might want to consider – either as a practical project, or just as a way to generate some out-of-the-box lateral thinking.

There are many aspects of the Global 1940 game (and of other A&A games) over which people have expressed dissatisfaction and for which they’ve proposed house rule alternatives.  Some of these proposals have targeted just one or two specific game elements and have involved changes of a very modest nature (such as adjusting the turn order and nothing else).  Other proposals have been more wide-ranging in scope and more intricate in nature.  Generally speaking, however, all of these proposals have operated under an implicit restriction: trying to stick as closely as possible to the OOB game in order to keep things recognizable.  It’s a valid design principle, with the advantage that it makes proposed changes acceptable to a broader base of players, but the downside is that it acts as a straightjacket: it severely limits what you can change.

So here’s an alternative you might want to think about: remove the self-imposed restiction of needing to come up with the same game.  Rather than starting from the premise that the end result of the design process has to be a game which is essentially the same as G40, eliminate this predetermined end result from the equation.  Instead, draw up an inventory of: 1) all the things about the game that you absolutely want to keep; 2) all the things that you’d be flexibily prepared to either keep or modify or discard, depending on what works best; and 3) all the things that you feel don’t work properly in the OOB rules and that you feel absolutely must be improved or replaced, whether by minor tinkering or total reconceptualization.  Then try to come up with a redesigned version of the game that addresses all of your issues and which works well on its own terms, regardless of how closely it adheres to the OOB game or how far it deviates from it.

The thing to keep in mind here is that, in the redesign of any existing system, you can only make so many adjustments to the system while sticking to its original basic architecture.  Beyond a certain point, the original architecture becomes a constaining factor rather than a help, and instead of an improved version you end up with something that’s even clunkier than the unsatisfactory version which you were trying to fix in the first place.  So beyond a certain point, you have to throw out that constraining architecture, start with a clean slate, focus on the specific things you’re trying to achieve, find the solutions which achieve your aims, and then let those solutions dictate the eventual new architecture of the revised system.

More factories (probably with some simple rules that restrict the types of units that can be placed there) could radically transform the strategic options in A&A…

For me it’s already done…

You could use the same general rules for AA50, but you would have to pick one of the AA 50 setups (1941 or 1942) then add up the total cost of starting units to get the starting cash for each country. For one thing, I think there are less starting pieces for all the nations because AA 50 has a smaller map than the 1940 games so there are less pieces. Another thing is I think the prices are a little different in AA50 than in the 1940 games, plus you won’t have Tac Bombers or Mechanized Infantry as those units didn’t come out until the 1940 games.
Also, I’m not sure how you would handle China, since in AA50 they don’t actually get IPCs but rather 1 infantry for every 2 Chinese territories still under Chinese control at the beginning of their turn.
Other than a few small changes though, I think you could still adapt this idea to AA50.

All these problems are solved if you remove the extra movement and instead allow naval bases to shelter ships in harbour.
The ships can still be targeted by bombing raids; altogether this creates the mechanics for a much more realistic depiction of both the Taranto raid (and the copycat Pearl Harbor operation), and the general usefulness of Gibraltar (which by the way should not be a tt but a UK NB in Southern Spain).

ok