AARHE: Phase 3: land Combat

Well for me boosting other pieces can get crazy out of hand. As I mentioned before my system is not quite like those games as I posted chart in above post.

I just don’t agree here on a few pieces not being able to get a shot. Plus who’s to say my battleship is shooting at a destroyer and not another battleship and vice versa or its aa guns are also trying to kill a plane. IMO.

OK I’ll bow out of this topic. Don’t want to jam it up for you guys. Take care.

Well, it could add some interesting flavor to the endgame, but if you’re down to two territories, then you’re not purchasing much of anything anyway, so there won’t be much tactical difference.

One of the strongest two-territory combinations is Moscow + Caucasus, which are often worth about 12 IPCs. So, instead of 4 regular infantry, you buy 6 citizen-soldiers…but they’ll defend roughly as well. 6 hit points and 6 defensive pips vs. 4 hit points and 8 defensive pips? It’s kind of a wash.

Even if you get the design of the citizen-soldier unit right, having the rule kick in when you’re down to only a couple of territories doesn’t quite satisfy the itch I’ve got, which is to punish countries that repeatedly over-produce infantry. The idea is that if you pour out the blood of your armies like water, well, then, eventually you run out of blood! But with the two-territory rule, you could build nothing but tanks and fighters the whole game, symbolizing your anxious concern to avoid risking any more lives than you absolutely have to – and then still wind up “running out” of infantry in the endgame when your enemies push you back to your capital.

There’s nothing wrong with designing custom units, and in fact I think your citizen-soldier unit is quite well-balanced, but I don’t think the “manpower tracking” problem can be solved with any kind or kinds of custom units. It’s just not that sort of problem.

@Der:

@simon33:

You can look at it like that. I’m looking at it from the point of view of what makes the game more fun. If I take your baking a cake analogy, do you read the recipe before shopping for ingredients? The current turn order is basically, buy some ingredients, read the recipe (combat movement), bake cake (conduct combat). You have to prognosticate what will be in the recipe to know what you need to buy.

No combat movement would be moving all of your ingredients to stove. ;)

I think my analogy is every bit as valid as yours.

The point is that the need to prognosticate the likely outcome of the board at the end of your combats is unnecessary, time consuming and reduces the fun. Whether the current rule makes sense or not isn’t really relevant.

The point about forgetting to purchase isn’t really valid with a Triple-A game because it prompts you. You can say that a forgotten purchase is a zero purchase if you apply the rule strictly. In general I would expect so if a retrospective purchase gives an unfair advantage.

Face to face, I use a merged purchase+combat movement phase. Probably why we can play a game in a day.

Great posts Black_Elk. I’m trying to imagine any problems a 3 move non-combat rule would create.

On my map with this rule the USA could reach the shore of Japan from San Francisco in one move and vice versa. A US navy could reach Normandy from New York. But they could not actually do anything but sit there, as it would be non-combat movement. Nobody likes to leave loaded transports floating around, so I’m thinking attacks would still come from two zones away and the three zone moves would pretty much be limited to shuffling navies from one ocean to the other. Heck, if that’s true, everything could move 4 in non-combat, 2 in normal combat, and 3 in combat from naval bases. What would it hurt? I suppose it would all have to be game tested.

Well, we finished Round 7 last night and here is the situation:
England is pretty much stuck on their island, although the Canadian factory is helping put destroyers in the water. UK’s factory and both bases are maxed out in damage.  Germany has surrounded Moscow and Stalingrad, both of which factories are also maxed out on damage.  Gotta love those SBRs.  Japan has taken all of China, Mongolia and eastern Russia.  Still no action in the Pacific or SE Asia as the Axis have been very careful not to provoke America, which is still neutral until next round.  America has built up a monsterous fleet, most of which is by the Philippines.  With that and the few ships out by Hawaii, I think they out number the Japanese fleet.  The Japs have gotten a few more warships, but had to mix that with land units to hit China, Russia and get ready to go after Allied positions.

America also has a modest fleet in the Atlantic but is stuck on the East Coast since London hasn’t fallen and nobody has attacked them.  Italy has swarmed all over Africa and the Middle East and is currently on Calcutta’s doorstep in West India.  Only British assets left are on the UK itself, Canada and SE Asia.  I’m afraid that by the time the USA can do anything, the Axis will have all the Victory Cities in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Unfortunately, my weekend is wrapping up.  Got to go back to work tonight.  We might squeeze in a round or two before going to work sometime this week, but more than likely this game will have to wait until next weekend, which for me is Mon/Tue nights.  I will post how it ends, but at this point I’m almost sure it will be an Axis victory, unless USA is able to pull a pretty big rabbit out of their hat.  I’m pretty sure Moscow will fall next round and after that will come Sealion.  Don’t think that UK will be able to do much to stop it either.

Or when all else fails you can do what the soviets do and lie on your back and fire your rifle into the air at oncoming planes.  :-D

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/02/20/more-photos-from-ww2/

I agree I don’t like retreating either. In the subs case it should only be allowed to submerge when its defending. The attacker has the retreat option only, so that is what it should be for all pieces. That way you are only moving on your turn.
Your are correct about the mechanized infantry being a tech advance. I have played too many versions and sometimes get confused on which rule goes with which version.

all destroyers and cruiser may fire an ASW attack roll or normal combat roll, regardless of submarine detection

in your example effectively all 4 ships can fire ASW attack roll at the 1 detected submarine