Axis and Allies Revised Varient ( historical edition)

Very interesting post Imp. You’ve brought up some points about flak that I wanted to talk about because I don’t know as much as I probably should about it.

Question 1. I can easily see why the probability of shooting down a fighter doesn’t double when the number of attacking fighters doubles, but at the same time doesn’t the probability go up, and thus shouldn’t be fixed at, say, 10%? More fighters mean more targets, and a greater surface area being covered in the sky. It’s more likely (not double though) to hit a fighter when there are double the number of fighters. This is why I don’t go for a fixed 10% probability of hitting fighters no matter how many there are.

I’m up for adding the rule that the total number of air units that can be shot down per combat move phase and per non-combat move phase in a certain territory is equal to the number of AA guns in the territory. Opinions?

Question 2. If loses are randomly either bombers or fighters, then what’s really the point of escorts other than firing on interceptors? The escorts aren’t protecting the bombers if losses are random, they are just counter-attacking the SBR defense. Shouldn’t escorts screen out flak and interceptors from the bombers and thus be more likely to be hit?

I think it’s just simpler to say attacker chooses his own loses. It’s nice and neat and as easy as it gets. I suppose we could discuss saying that interceptors don’t choose their target (hits fighters first) but flak chooses it’s own targets (hits bombers first). This would make it about the right odds of somewhere between random and only fighters first. I don’t know how realistic it is since fighters fly below bombers as well as ahead of them to screen them from both flak and interceptors, but let’s discuss it. I think either way is fine by me.

I still don’t think we should include escorts and interceptors for phase 1. Not worth the added confusion. Opinions?

There are many ways we can make commerce raiding more powerful. One way is to instead limit the damage to 4 IPCs per SZ per turn for surface fleet/fighters and 4 IPCs per SZ per turn for subs. Another way which would be even more powerful would be to have no limits per SZ per turn, but if you do this then Germany would just probably hang out in SZ 6 and not move further into the middle of the Atlantic (not realistic). Opinions? Do you like the original idea or any other ideas or any ideas of your own? It’s really hard to find a good compromise here between simulating reality and simplicity while being just right in terms of effectiveness. Do you think these rules are too complicated? Any ideas for simpler rules with the same effectiveness and reality?

@DasReich:

Oh, and in the Blitzkrieg national advantage for the germans, when a fighter attacks with a tank, do both units attack on 4 or less?

GG

uh Das Reich that is my name… not a statement… 8-)

I’m not very creative so I won’t post about the above ideas, but I would like to add my two cents about game balance: I think the gameplay needs to be more at the point where:

1. The Axis have an even chance of winning the game.
2. The Allies have an option whether or not to go after Japan first instead of the usual Germany first.

In order to achieve this I believe that Japan must be made more threatening somehow if completely left alone. Currently the Allies can retreat from Japan as hard as they want and Japan will not crash Moscow in a timely fashion (you can take Moscow the same turn as Berlin falls, but this is quite usually an Allied win since they have a big economic edge, like 100 to 66 or something like that).

But on the other side of the coin, Japan must also be made more vulnerable if the Allies choose to pursue them first. The Pacific strategy is just too hard to implement currently and lets the Germans get far too powerful before Japan is reasonably contained.

1. Math Cutback: the idea of “multiply by 4, minus the value and any adjacent territory” is very unique, but to save math… why not multiply by 3 and subtract adjacent territory. IN the example with UK which is 84=32 ( 30 cap) , so 30-8=22.  The equation is now 83=24. IN the India example its 9-2=7 I feel its simple to keep the math not too time consuming for playability. The results are basically the same. Otherwise its very good idea.

Is multiplying by 4 harder than multiplying by 3? I don’t see what problem is being solved here. If we reduce it to only 3 times then take an example for E. US…. 12*3=36. They are connected to something like 32 or 34 IPCs. That means only 36-32=4 IPCs max can be raided. That’s no good. I like 4 times because that’s the same as the max number of IPCs spent at the IC and therefore makes more sense IMHO.

2. Limitations of History: Germany and the Soviet Union had very limited sea faring trade. Sweden was Hitlers only real trading partner and that was very limited value to the German economy. I don’t like the idea of the entire allied fleet moving into the Baltic in the middle game and blasting the German economy. In the first case allied ships should not be allowed into the Baltic unless the allies own Norway, Sweden, and Germany.The Axis ships in the Mediterranean should not be able to leave the Mediterranean unless they own Gibrater and or the Suez. That should be compensation. However, now the allies will kill German economy using the Italian complex… so in general the idea has some flaws.

The Allies won’t be able to commerce raid Germany for much if they take Baltic or S. Europe SZ. For Baltic, 104=40. Germany is connected to around 35. 40-35=5. For S. Europe, it’s 46=24. 24-35 is less than 0 so it can’t be raided. I’ll work on modifying the limitations so both these numbers are more realistic.

I agree with the need for keeping Allies out of Baltic and Axis in the Med. I’ll introduce my “strait” rules that I talked about a while ago.

There are 2 straits in the game, 1 between SZs 5 and 6 and 1 between SZs 12 and 13 (I think I got this right, I don’t have the map handy). Surface naval units (note this excludes subs) may not travel between SZs 5 and 6 unless W. Europe is a friendly territory. Surface naval units may not travel between SZs 12 and 13 unless Gibraltar is a friendly territory (Gibraltar now borders SZ 12 as well as 13).

3. Subs are getting too much value. A BB thats costing 20 can only claim up to 4 IPC, while a cheap sub gets 3 rolls… This will kill naval buys.

Solutions:

1. Subs get only one roll, but it counts as double? and only one sub per Zone as per the other rule you have on surface/ air units

The double count is what I had for subs initially, but I changed it because of the huge variance and few possibilities. You can get a lot more possible damage values with mult. dice. I’m looking into tweaking this a bit and get back to you.

2. The commerce raiding rules only pertain to UK, Japan, and USA and not Italy, Germany and Soviets.

I don’t want separate standards for different nations if we don’t have to have them. The connected IPC factor should be enough to settle this problem. Russia is so connected that they’ll never have problems. I’m working on fixing the limitations so Germany isn’t affected so much.

New possible SBR rules:

bomber piece represents medium bombers and escorts.

AA gun piece now called “infrastructure defense” (or something like that…. ideas for the name?) and represents units for both air defense (AA guns and interceptors) and coast defense (coast rtl and fortifications). Still costs 5 IPCs each.

Each infrastructure defense (ID for now) piece only rolls once during targeting (1 or 2 successfully targets) and if successfull then rolls to fire (hit on a 1). The number of dice rolled now depends on the number of ID pieces, not enemy air units. A max of 3 ID pieces can fire per territory per turn. ID pieces cannot move but can be placed in any territory that started the turn under your control (this means ID pieces are not built by ICs).

As for coastal defense, during any amphibious assault on that territory each ID piece (up to 3) rolls a die for targeting. For every roll of 1 or 2, 1 die is then rolled and every roll of 1 hits a transport. If hit, the transport and all units it is carrying are destroyed before the units are unloaded.

ID pieces in a territory that was SBRed do not fire in non-combat move phase, just like in box rules. Other territories still fire in non-combat like before. ID pieces can be destroyed at the defenders discretion when the territory is taken over.

Here’s a simple idea that fixes some complications:

For commerce raiding on a capital VC IC the first max IPC term is always equal to the total number of IPCs for that nation. For all other VC ICs the first max IPC term is always equal to 4*IPC value of territory.

Now I understand where the misunderstanding came from. When I say “connected territories” I don’t mean adjacent territories. For example, W. Europe is connected to Norway if there exists any continuous line of friendly territories connecting them. So they are connected if Germany and E. Europe and Karelia are all owned by Germany too. I can see your confusion. I need to choose a new term other than connected.

In the usa example: under your system you take 12x4=48 minus the value of 12 and minus  adjacent territories which are central usa 6 and Panama is 1=7 so the total IPC potential is now  48-12-7=29.

The US territories connected to E. US at the start of the game are E. US, C. US, W. US, Mexico, Panama, and Alaska (not Brazil because you have to go through Venezuela which is neutral, not friendly).

What term should I use to avoid this confusion with ‘connected’?

I think the AA gun should be a new artillery piece… either heavy artillery, anti- tank gun, coastal gun, fortress defense. I understand that phase one is to be kept simple, but if we maintain a built in defense for any Factory or VC then this does not require a UNIT to represent this… this frees up the piece for other duty. In any case the Flak battery was stationary it did not roam around Europe on trains looking for where to go next. They are integral part of the defense of major cities and industrial centers. They were fixed guns.Of course they could be moved , but not to the extent thats represented by the current AA gun model in OOB rules.

So do you like the idea of just making the AA gun unit incorporate all bombing and coastal defenses like flak, interceptors, coastal rtl and coastal fortifications? I think it would be nice to have a type of unit to represent coastal defenses so Germany has the option of building up coastal defenses. I also like the idea of a nation being able to spend money to build up defenses against SBR (e.g. If my opponents are buying a lot of bombers and putting them in UK then as Germany I can counter this by building more of the defense units and/or teching for radar). We can make the numbers work out so bombing doesn’t easily become easily ineffective against radar and more defense units, but it is worth sometimes buying.

yes thats fine. actually i was thinking that during invasions these units get a preemptive roll on invading units just before they conduct attacks, while say in places like Gibrater if the axis move units from the medd into the Atlantic and you have this gun in gibrater… then it should get some preemptive shot against naval targets.

In land combat it can also be heavy artillery attack at 4 defense at 2 moves 1 cost 6 ?

I was thinking that if Gibraltar is hostile then it’s impossible for surface naval units to cross, not that these defense units would fire on them. Although the 2nd idea does seem really fun, unfortunately you can’t have both rules. If one of these units is firing then the territory is hostile and that means that the ships can’t cross to begin with. If we say that these units can fire on passing ships even though W. Europe is hostile, then the Baltic will fall to the Allies much faster and the game balance will be just about as bad as before. This coastal rtl is not that good to stop many of the ships.

As for the idea that these units would also act as h. rtl, I also think that would be fun, but don’t think it would fit in well. It would make them worth much more then their cost of 5IPCs (i.e. too powerful), and not be very realistic since if they move like h. rtl then that means that the coastal fortifications and AA guns would also move (not realistic). If we want to have h. rtl then they have to represented as a different piece than an immobile piece. I’ll discuss h. rtl more in the next post.

Back to the “raid system”…

So where are we at… I now understand that we include all contiguous connected land territories… thats the key term. However what about the math idea?  If you multiply x4 and subtract the value on the territory AND additional contiguous territories… then isn’t the same as or easier to just multiply by 3 and ONLY subtract the contiguous territories? What is the difference?

You are right in that there is absolutely no difference mathematically. I chose the *4 idea simply because I thought it was easier to explain because it fits in well with the rule: *4 IPC value of a territory = max spending at that IC. I guess after thinking about it *3 and minus all ‘other’ contiguous territories is just as simple so we can go with that. Like I said before, I’m thinking about changing around those commerce raiding rules so we might not need either type of calculation after all.

About heavy rtl:

So I got an interesting set of ideas to fix the problems with techs. Problems like some are worth much more than others and realism. Opinions on these ideas?

Radar- this must be included as a tech because of it’s significance in the battle over the Atlantic, etc… It fits in well with the detection rules discussed before. If you achieve this tech then all enemy subs in SZs bordering one of your ICs are automatically detected and enemy air units flying over territories with AA gun pieces and an IC are automatically detected. Notice that you still have to roll to actually hit them. This tech may need to be worked on a little because it might be too powerful especially with the new modifications that up to 3 AA gun units may fire per territory. If this is too powerful then we can say that instead of automatically being detected, the units are now detected on rolls or 4 or less instead of 2 or less.

Rockets are different. Rockets were fired from W. Europe, not from Germany because the range wasn’t the equivalent of 3 spaces on the game board but only 2. It’s not realistic to have the range be 3. Also, why do they need to be fired from flak batteries? What’s up with that? I’m thinking that they can be fired from any territory contiguous to the attacker’s capital VC and from there they have a range of 2. They either cost 1 IPC each and you roll 1 die to determine the damage or they cost 2 each and you roll 2 dice and take the bigger roll for the damage, I haven’t decided which yet. Just like before, the damage is limited to the territories IPC value.

Super Subs are the same in that every roll hit’s on a 3 (even for raiding), but since subs are more important to the game and harder to kill, super subs are effectively more powerful.

Jet fighters and heavy bombers are both a little better in that they get long range movement added to each of them. Jet fighters now make fighters range 6 (does not change range of bombers). Heavy bombers now make bombers have a range of 8 (doesn’t change range of fighters).

This leaves an opening for a new tech if we want to keep with only 6 techs (which I think we should since it works in nicely with the die). Heavy artillery is an option, but is that really a good representative to being one of the major historic tech advances during WWII? Industrial technology was definitely more important, which might be a reason why it was one of the original techs. I think the only reason it was discarded was because it was too powerful and not realistic in the way it was brought into the game. Now that we already have infantry placement separate from IC placements, we can easily make use of this distinction and say that ind. tech. only applies to non-infantry. This tech could ease up the restrictions on unit placement at ICs as well as make these units cheaper. -1 from all units isn’t that realistic and favors rtl purchases much more than expensive purchases. Opinions? Ideas for a new tech in place of long-range aircraft?

I like the idea of certain techs countering the effect of other techs… examples:
-If UK gets radar to help in the Atlantic, then Germany could counter by getting Super subs. German subs would be more easily detected, but they would do much more damage and the net effect would be still an even battle.
-If Germany gets radar to stop all the SBRs, then UK or US can get heavy bombers. Heavy bombers could be defined so that they can only be targeted on a 1 (not a 1 or 2) in addition to other bonuses.

@Imperious:

I also like the idea of a nation being able to spend money to build up defenses against SBR (e.g. If my opponents are buying a lot of bombers and putting them in UK then as Germany I can counter this by building more of the defense units and/or teching for radar)

Yeah so antiaircraft guns and costal batteries should be stackable.
They shouldn’t be able to move though.

Here’s an idea for industrial tech that I really like:

For every IPC you spend at any IC, you get 1 free IPC to also spend at that IC (up to a maximum number of free IPCs equal to the number of VCPs for that territory). Note that this only applies to non-infantry units since infantry are not built at ICs anymore.

I’ll work on wording that better later. To illustrate my point, if Germany gets industrial technology, then the German player may get 5 extra IPCs if they spend at least 5 IPCs on non-infantry units at their capital. These 5 free IPCs must also be spent on non-infantry units at their capital. The same bonus applies for all the other German ICs provided that the free IPCs are also spent at that corresponding IC. It’s true that you get a lot of free IPCs so it will end up being one of the better techs, but I don’t think it will be too powerful because it really restricts your purchases in order to get to use those free IPCs.

What do you think?

I’m thinking an even better way to represent rockets is that each rocket costs 2 IPCs and only 1 die is used to determine it’s damage. Keep the other modifications the same, regarding that rockets have a range of 2 and can be fired from any territory you control that is contiguous to your capital and that the damage per turn per IC is the IPC value of that territory.

This means that the net effect of a rocket is 3.5(avg. die roll) - 2(cost of rocket) = 1.5 IPCs of damage.

Yes, there is a 1/6 chance of a rocket doing only 1 damage and not even covering it’s cost. This is a simple representation of some of the rockets that ended up being duds. Rockets could be modeled differently, such as rockets costing 1 IPC but only hitting on rolls of 4, 5, or 6 (this would also give a net value of 1.5 IPCs). This would better represent the fraction that were duds but seems not as simple. Opinions on either model, or anyone have any different ideas?

Sounds interesting but a little too complicated IMHO because it involves adding new rocket launcher units. I never liked how even in Axis and Allies original and revised a territory can only shoot 1 rocket per turn.

What do you think of all the other tech ideas from the past several posts?