AARHE: Phase 3: Revised NA's

I’d rather have cheaper, defenseless transport planes myself.

I think that’s totally reasonable, Midnight_Reaper. You could introduce cheaper air transports into this roster without breaking anything important. My preference is for more expensive air transports because the extra price thematically represents (a) the up-front cost of developing the technology and tactics (nobody has to spend money on researching paratroopers for this roster), and (b) the relatively limited supply of air transport available during World War II. There’s a fun little article below about how most of the American Air Force’s transports were either hastily converted civilian planes, or wooden gliders manufactured in piano factories. If the Americans had to make do with makeshift equipment, you can only imagine what the Italians were using.

https://amcmuseum.org/history/world-war-ii-transport-and-troop-carrier/

Strategically, air transports provide a much deeper threat into enemy territory that requires a much larger garrison. E.g. if you put an assault boat in the English Channel, it threatens Normandy, Holland, Norway, Hanover, and Denmark. If you put an air transport in London, it threatens all of those plus Paris, Marseilles, Gibraltar, Morocco, Milan, Berlin, Poland, Finland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. It’s not that I expect anyone to fly many air transports into a battle to use as fodder; it’s just that spending 12 bucks on one air transport can force your opponent to spend more than 12 bucks on extra defending infantry.

In terms of rules simplicity, I have tried to eliminate the concept of the “defenseless unit” from my unit roster. I find automatic combat losses to be something of a downer, and I’d rather use that spot in the rulebook for a more interesting rule.

All of that said, again, this is mostly personal preference – if you want a $9 defenseless air transport with 4 movement, that’s almost certainly fine.

@Black_Elk:

That’s a clean map Ryuzaki_Lawlie!

The color selection is ideal. Though the black impassibles still jump out at me

From a design standpoint the only things that catch my eye are the two round sea zones surrounding Japan and Hawaii.

It feel like you need one in the Atlantic to balance things out aesthetically. Have you considered the possibility of one surrounding the British Isles?

Or maybe Iceland? Or maybe both?

I still think Mercator is a bit tight in Europe, a little stretching there might be ideal, even if it was just along the vertical axis. I think the map would still read fine, but you’d get a few more pixel for units into those key European spots. Also if you were willing to shrink South America slightly you could almost curve off a 10th of the map height at the bottom of the screen (which is notorious for players forgetting units in the south sea hehe) without really needing to change Africa/Australia of the pacific. Basically a slight bend would go a long way, even if using Mercator for the baseline.

Oh and I think the possession colors for Dutch Borneo and British Sarawak and North Borneo should be reversed.

My only suggestions :)

Nice work man. That would be a fun map to form the basis of a 1939 game, or any year from 39 on.

I like that you have not yet imposed on the map any extraneous information such as IPC values or VC. This means the map is adaptive for many purposes. I like the general division of territories. Only that the projection is a bit large at the poles for my tastes. If we could shrink them up slightly I think the map would be ideal. Its really more about screen dimension for me when it comes to the Big World Map that Wandering Head made. These days most screens are very long relative to their height, so standard Mercator always seems blown out a bit in tripleA to me, especially at the south end, and of course Europe is always tight. I wish the center picker for tripleA was better at housing units to smaller scales. Its a little better than it used to be, especially with the guiding lines, but still Europe loves to clutter up haha.
:-D

Again though, great design direction!

I’ll probably shift the continents (turning their general direction), and stretch out northern Africa and Europe, will probably require North America to get a bit skinny, but I think the big benefit from this, is that potentially more European spaces can be added. This will allow me to add more to the Mediterranean however (and it really needs the space), perhaps round out where Rome is. Africa, I think needs a bit more work. South America possibly as well, but I sort of need an idea of which cities can be considered major not only there, but elsewhere. Vladivostok will defiantly get added in with it’s own space.

I picked black for impassables, since it tells me that there is nothing there, no play space, it’s simply temporary, and they are there for the designer’s benefit.

I’m not sure where else to put a rounded Sea Zone, I’m considering more though.

Here is a saved game “rough draft” edit of the China set up above, for use with TripleA. Right now it uses the standard turn order, but that can altered if desired. All edits to achieve the set up are logged in the game history.

Note how China is no longer a separate nation but instead placed under direct USA control.
Check the stats column for the total Money, Production, and TUV for the United States.

Burma units may be edited into the appropriate territories per the rules above.

There are no co-located units here, all roundel substitutions in play according to the rules above, including for the Commonwealth (represented here in the save edit by ANZAC at 20, Eire south Africa etc.

It is up to the player to enforce the production rules via the edit mode, or to adjust territory possession as necessary (in the case of liberated territories). Example if Japan takes Hunan, and the Americans then liberate it, the game will show Hunan as Chinese, edit possession back to United states. The same thing for the Commonwealth, or if UK pacific territories reappear after conquest/liberation, edit them back to the appropriate power. Otherwise it works as normal, just remember to enforce the factories at 10, 5, 3.

Edit any Soviet Japan Nap conditions you wish.

If no DoW is desired, then you can have all Axis declare in the first round.

VC or Combat bonuses may be edited into the IPC totals at the end of the turn to augment or replace NOs if desired.

Savegame attached below… the next step would be to create an xml gamefile reflecting the new production units, and the Commonwealth faction (while removing UK pacific and China). Eliminate the politics phase, and create a simple NO option on the VCs. Adjust the turn order to the one outlined above.

Halifax china mod no-colocation.jpg
G40 Halifax 2 China to USA.tsvg

And instead of giving the US an extra $10 for having the Philipines and Hawaii, they should start off with $10 extra and lose $10 due to a massive loss of morale when they lose them. A penalty as suppose to a reward. The loss of morale can truly result in a loss of production. That would make it more realistic.

I am probably going to post this topic in another section. I would like to build more support for this for any future revisions to the rules.

I’ve changed my chart in accordance with the game pieces Field Marshal Games will be coming out with.

BREAKTHROUGH CHART 3

1. Atomic Bomb
You may build 1 Atomic Bomb per tern for a cost of 10 IPCs.  Only 1 Atomic Bomb may exist on the board at one time.  It can be captured.  It may be carried by a bomber or rocket.  An Atomic Bomb dropped on any territory destroys all units (including factories) in that territory.  Place 1 damage counter on that territory’s IPC value.  That territory now produces 1 IPC less,(applies to factory production).  When territory damage is equal to the territory’s value, remove counters and place 1 upside-down damage counter (the side that does not say “damage”) over the National Control Symbol.  This territory is now Impassable.

2. Super Carriers
Your carriers may now carry up to 3 fighters.  They can now take 1 free hit that can be healed at the end of the battle.

3. Underground Factories
Your factories now take half the damage from Strategic Bombing Raids, rounded down.

4. Combined Bombardment
Your surface combat ships can now fire in the first round of an amphibious assault, in addition to the Opening Fire stage.  Ships are vulnerable to enemy fire during the first round of combat.

5. Naval Night Fighting Skills
Your surface combat ships now fire twice in the first round of sea combat.

6. Stealth 
You accidentally discover stealth technology.  Your planes are no longer effected by enemy radar upgrade.

Just curious why “Oil producing Countries” are not brought into play in the 1942 game as they are for 1939.  Makes for a very strategic play.

Its a deliberate tiered approach to introducing ideas outside OOB/LHTR… the idea of three stages of learning: basic, intermediate, advanced.

People invariably start basic and learn that the game does not need to remain an abstraction of WW2, but even with pieces can allow for rules to create a historical model of the real war and its realistic capabilities. Many issues are swept under the rug to deliberately dumb down the game for the beer crowd, but Grognads expect something more and AARHE delivers the promise.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10338.30

replace
“its income cannot be spent in other territories.
That income and only that income can be spent in its IC or VC during purchase units phase this turn.
That income is forfeited if not spent this turn.”

with
“The blockaded territory’s income can only be spent in its own VC or IC. Income from other territories may not be spent in the blockaded territory’s VC or IC.
If the blockade territory’s income is not spent this turn it is forfeited.”