[AA50] Looking for ways to add more income without national objectives

Karvajo,

Welcome to the A&A.org forums. You are in luck, I’ve already done the work to figure out how to add Arty to 1941. Allow me to regale you:

While I’m no expert, if I were going to add artillery units from 40 or 42 to my copy of 41, this is how I would do it.

First, use the pieces and rules from 42. Here are the stats for artillery:
@Axis:

Artillery
Cost 4
Attack 2*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supports Infantry: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. Artillery does not support infantry on defense.

Also, note in the rules section for infantry:
@Axis:

Infantry
Cost 3
Attack 1 (2 when supported by artillery)*
Defense 2
Move 1

Supported by Artillery: When an infantry attacks along with an artillery, the infantry’s attack increases to 2. Each infantry must be matched one-for-one with a supporting artillery unit. If your infantry outnumber your artillery, the excess infantry units still have an attack of 1. For example, if you attack with two artillery and five infantry, two of your infantry have an attack of 2 and the rest have an attack of 1. Infantry are not supported by artillery on defense.

Finally, I would change the initial setup for 1941 to reflect the presence of artillery in armies already on the board. I would think that changing every 3rd infantry in a territory to artillery would be a decent start. If I did that, I would change the setup in some territories and leave the rest alone. The changed territories would reflect the following setup:

Russia: 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter*
Archangel: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Karelia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery
Caucasus: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank
Siberia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Germany: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter, 1 bomber
Eastern Europe: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
Ukraine: 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 2 tanks
West Russia: 2 infantry, 1 artillery

Japan: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

*Note that according to the FAQ put out after the game released, the territory labeled Russia should start with six infantry. If you haven’t read this FAQ, you should, as it made other changes to the setup of the board. If you swap every third infantry for an artillery, you would get four infantry and two artillery, as shown above.

The FAQ for Axis & Allies 1941 can be found here: www.wizards.com/AvalonHill/rules/AA_1941_FAQ.pdf

Also, this would mean that neither the UK nor the US would start with any artillery as their regular setup have no territories with three or more infantry. Either shrug your shoulders or change their setup as you feel appropriate, perhaps as follows:

India: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter
Eastern U.S.: 1 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter, 1 bomber

The above changes should integrate artillery into a game of 1941 fairly well. The Axis would swap 5 infantry for 5 artillery and the Allies would swap 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) infantry for 6 or 8 (with optional UK and US artillery swapping) artillery for the setup of the game.

My 2 IPC

-M_R

Source: (https://boardgamegeek.com/article/22682014#22682014) Still me, just the BGG me.

-Midnight_Reaper

I agree on 2nd version - very doubtful.  As to the tourney rules, I have found the 2 movement factor rule to greatly change how the game is played - not a fan.

Because the western Allies can more easily project power and gang up against Japan or Germany, while the axis are too far apart to help each other. Italy is really not much help. They can pile up in Spain and really easily make that a base to attack France, or even do a 2 to 1 in France. Go play it and find out. I did a few times over the years.

I have been working on something that may help balance any abilities you give to cruisers . A way to add more of a “capital” ship into the game, so I have bought blue, black, and orange counters (same kind as stock white and red ones) and plan on using them to mark hits on capital ships, orange being fire (dive bomb/ kamikaze) and blue being water (torpedo bomber). I have bought several new units from HBG to depict the different aircraft, but being largely a historian I find the loss of a battleship or carrier during one roll kind of odd. I know you have the option to tilt the piece for a second hit? But what about if you mark the ship with a hit or two and then put a black marker for smoke? Now while you are limping the ship to port for repairs attacking battleships can fire from longer range instead of attacking within the same sea zone. This in effect would make any rules to cruisers balanced because they can be sunk in a round of combat. Whereas if capital ships BB and CV’s are sunk in shallow water areas they can be raised as well. Now your poor man’s BB pales in comparison because it won’t have the capability to take multiple hits and long range engagements. As for balance the very fact that when crippled movement shall be one space and the smoke allowing for long range engagement should even things out. I don’t mind adding miniature elements to the game because it only enhances play.  What do you guys think?

I’ve seriously considered using the map and customizing it for my never-ending variant project.

One thing I like in both Risk! And Attack! That I didn’t like previously is the “sea lane” movement as opposed to A&A’s transport only movement. This idea is one I’m tinkering with on the A&A maps not only to speed up the game but to also break away from standardized strategy. Which not only lengthens the game but contributes negatively IMO to replayability as well as other aspects.

Thanks for providing this background information, YG.  I now understand better what you’re aiming to accomplish.  I don’t have a specific solution to recommend that might work for your group, but here are a few questions you and the other people in your group might want to consider.  The answers may provide you with guidance on what kind of point-scoring system might best suit your purpose. Fundamentally, the question to consider is: what kind of accomplishments do you want to reward by awarding points?  Here are a couple of aspects of that question:

First: do you want the rewards to be incremental (round-by-round) throughout the game or do you want them to be based only on the final outcome?  Under the first option, it doesn’t matter so much whether a player controls X at the end of the game; all that matters is how often he controlled it during the game.  Under the second option, the reverse would be the case.  Each option has its upside and its downside.  For example, under a final-outcome-only system, a player who controlled X throughout the game but lost it on the last round would be in the same unhappy position as an investor whose stock portfolio did wonderfully for decade after decade but then crashed in value just before he was planning to sell it to finance his retirement.

Second: Assuming you choose an incremental system, do you want to reward consistency more (or less) than changes?  Example: Let’s say that I’m the Soviet player and that I manage to hold on to Moscow for the whole game.  Objectively, this is a desirable state of affairs (just think of what Stalin would have done to Zhukov if he’d lost Moscow in late 1941), but if the point system only rewards changes (i.e. the achievement of a defined goal), then my success in holding my capital doesn’t give me any points.  Now let’s say that I’m the Soviet player and that, in an 8-round game, I lose Moscow 4 times and regain it 4 times, and let’s say that the point system rewards gains without penalizing losses.  In that scenario, I’d gain 4 points – so I’d be further ahead point-wise than if I’d managed to successfully defend my capital from capture for the whole game.  That would sound bizarre to me.  One partial way to address this problem is by having both debits and credits: giving points for successes and deleting points for failures.  In such a system, losing Moscow 4 times and regaining it 4 times would have the same zero-sum result as simply holding Moscow.  But here we’d face a new question: should two such different situations really translate into the same number of points (in this case zero)?  Or should the point system reflect the view that one of those scenarios demonstrates superior generalship, and hence should be rewarded?  (Personally, I’d argue that the general who holds Moscow for the whole game is doing a better job than the one who keeps losing and recapturing it.)

sounds very promising!

yeah not much to be said here
nothing “new”