AARHE: Phase 3: land Combat

Indications from the latest Q&A would seem to confirm that A&Aonline won’t have a lot in the way of set up adjustment, at least in early access. So I’m suggesting this rule as the only thing I can think of right now to reset the playbalance in a way that will actually work with the game we get.

I still don’t know what sort of patterns would ultimately develop on balance, but at least it is a way to get something new going for a 1942.2 that strictly uses the boxed starting set up.

I imagine this only works for PvP, so not sure how they will handle solo play vs the AI.

I took another look at the house rules I’m considering, and hopefully will get a chance to test it out over the coming Christmas holidays. This mod is definitely intended for games with 4+ active players so that multiple people can be “active” at once and encourage a quicker, less downtime game.

If you only have 2 players, then of course use the the standard turn order.

My 2nd pass of writing it up has resulted with this. Rules/changes in bold, with discussion following.

-Start of game, the “one weird turn”: Russia and Britain take one simultaneous turn. Russia acts as normal. Britain only starts with 12 IPCs and can only move pieces from or into territories east of and including Persia. UK can only buy/place units on the pacific side of the board during this turn

-After this turn finishes, the turn order becomes: All axis powers followed by all allied powers

-The above change allows simultaneous turns while preserving the general flow of each theater and keeps the usual critical opening strikes intact.

Consequences and clarifications: A couple situations will pop up due to the changes.

1)Multinational attacks:
Still not allowed, instead if more than one nation attack a single territory, battles will be resolved one attacker at a time.

IE: If Russia, Britan and US all combat move to a single axis territory, the attacks happen one at a time. Russians fight untill they win/lose/retreat, followed by UK, followed by US. The allied player 2nd/3rd in line may decide to immediately retreat before dice are rolled if they don’t like the results of the previous players attack.

Can opening: No longer possible. Losing this “trick” is an acceptable loss IMO.(Personal taste: It’s very “gamey”)

Loss of landing planes/strait use. IE: US cant land planes on territory UK just conquered. In practicality, this is a minor nerf to allied KGF play.(landing planes in west europe. If there is an example of strait use that happens in a “typical” game I’m unaware). Is this a big enough deal to warrant additional changes? We will see. Easiest solution for balancing may be modifying the British “bid” introduced for first turn pacific spending.

Anything I missed?

The new map is an uneasy compromise, with some tts values reflecting oil wealth, others not.

Personally I prefer adding industrial base and mineral resources together to create a single economic index, but the separate oil values have been tried:

http://www.basesproduced.com/aaa.html

The big problem is that the Allies always have more than enough oil, the Axis hardly ever enough.  Forcing the Axis to take oil centres to keep going makes their moves very predictable.

@cressman8064:

@Fishmoto37:

Here is an easy fix for the problem of not being able to land planes on carriers after one hit. Carrier takes one hit and combat lasts one round then it cannot land planes as per the rule book. If combat lasts two rounds then carrier can land planes because damage control parties have had time to make temporary repairs. If carrier takes the hit in the second round then it must survive a third round of combat in order to land planes and so on. The damaged carrier must still make its way back to a friendly naval base to be repaired. To be fair and balanced this rule must be the same for each nation even though the U.S. had the best damage control.

So according to this house rule if your attacked by an enemy fleet who scores 1 hit and you apply it to your carrier, then on defense you roll all 3 hits and wipe out the attackers you would loose your planes, where as if missed and the attacker continues for another round your planes can safely land if you eventually succeed?

You are correct. If you are involved in a small naval battle like this and the the battle is NOT in a sea zone that contains a friendly island or a sea zone next to any friendly land territory then you obviously need to put some serious thought into taking that hit on your carrier. This is all covered in the rule book for the first round of combat. This house rule does not even come into play unless the combat goes into the second round. It would make no sense to take a hit on your carrier if you thought there was any chance of combat not going into the second round and you might LOSE your planes. If you were attacked by a force that only took three hits to destroy, then I would take my first hit on my escorting vessel or vessels. I would never have an unescorted carrier anywhere near the enemy at any time.

Thanks Tekkyy

ok lets do it.

you can muck around with the abattlemap map I pulled together in a hurry
download at the http://home.exetel.com.au/cometo/aarhe/

a while back I intended to take part in TripleA to open ways for support of house rules such as AARHE

however TripleA had no intentions to provide a proper framework to support the newer axis and allies games let alone house rules

there was a possibility of great things to happen for TripleA 2.0 but I am not busy with life things

FYI TripleA supports Classics natively, after that even Revised is a bit of a hack

ok