Avoiding Infantry blobs. Change their Cost to 3.2!

Hey, this looks very interesting, BUT I think the Allies stand little chance since the UK cannot put any units on the table in time. They start first, granted that, but having to build an IC first will just spell disaster on India. Japan has 5 transports, 10 units in total, and using all their fighters, India should fall turn 2 or 3.

But I will gladly try this one out and maybe I will be proven wrong!

Yeah that makes sense

These house rules are meant to make the game more realistic while staying as simple as possible.

Battleships cost 14 IPCs. They cost 1 IPC to repair.

Switzerland has an IPC value of 4.

The U.K. can only produce up to 4 units per turn in India. If India is captured by the Central Powers, the Central Powers cannot produce units there.

If a capital is captured, the IPCs are discarded and not taken by the capturing power.

Neutral territories that are not home territories still get units if invaded.

Sea units, except submarines, must end their movement when they enter a sea zone with enemy mines.

Units that retreat from a contested territory cannot move into another contested territory. They may move into any adjacent friendly territory.

There is a combat move and a non-combat move. During the combat move, units can move into neutral, contested, and enemy territories. The non-combat move comes after combat. During the non-combat move, units that did not move during the combat move and did not conduct combat can move into friendly territories. Land units can move an unlimited number of territories during the non-combat move within their original territories.

Optional Manpower Rule

Keep track of the infantry that are destroyed for each power. If a power has had 2x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect half of the total IPC value of their territories when they collect income (rounded up). If a power has had 4x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect the IPC value of their capital territory when they collect income.

Part Five:

Errata & Optional Rules: Discussion

Upon reviewing the rules a bit, naturally the ones that stick out and cause problems are the ones that don’t pertain to RISK’s core combat mechanics.

Indonesia

Let’s say the USSR attacks the Arab League: Indonesia is supposed to stay neutral in this case, but can NATO still influence them, somehow? Does WE have to be the one to do it, or could it be UK? The ‘quick and dirty’ solution would just be to reverse the rule treating Indonesia as a separate entity, and say that the territory sides with NATO, if the Arab League is attacked by the USSR. Since they are aligned with WE, their troops should be replaced with WE (blue) troops, if/when this happens.

An obvious optional rule in this situation might be that Arab League territories join WE but Indonesia joins the UK; chalk this up to representing Singapore, Malaya, etc. or just with the continent of Australia being aligned with UK, in this game.

The alternate solution is to clarify the rule to be “an attack on Indonesia is not treated as an attack on the Arab League, but an attack on the Arab League DOES count as an attack on Indonesia.” I think this probably most closely reflects the intention of the mechanics.

Possibly a better (albeit more complicated) solution would be to allow NATO to use their influence roll towards their affiliated neutral alliance OR towards Indonesia. If they successfully influence Indonesia, they would replace Indonesia’s troops with their own. This treats Indonesia more like a “minor neutral” such as they would be in E&W; the reason I don’t like this is that it creates a new set of rules around a single territory, instead of just conforming to the existing/general rules.

Since the USSR has the option to ATTACK Indonesia, they can always gain the territory that way; this rule would simply address the fact that NATO does not have such a mechanism to gain the territory.
I should probably mention in this space that allowing NATO to use its influence roll to gain Indonesia, would allow for the possibility of the US gaining the territory. This would be an interesting wrinkle, as I’ve often said that in classic E&W the US needs to be able to gain Thailand in the event that the USSR goes nuclear; this would sort of serve to simulate that scenario, of the US needing to use its influence to try and gain a base of operations on mainland Eurasia.

Influence

Since the opening-game balance is presupposed around the OAS being at +1 to US and China being at +1 to the USSR, the obvious optional rule to include would be one not allowing diplomacy until the 2nd round of play. This would reflect the mechanical realities in E&W, of everybody starting the game with no spies in play (barring the USSR spending their “round zero” mobilization cash on spies.)

The rule limiting NATO to influencing only their affiliated neutral could also be changed… Although it might have to be limited to “once you’re already receiving +2 from them” to prevent dogpiling.
The intention of the limitation is to keep the game simple and fast; it’s also meant to avoid some of the pitfalls of E&W’s system, whereby there’s really only one correct choice, so just hammer that option as early and often as possible.

Nukes vs. Capitols

An interesting thing with the mechanic of nuclear weapons being added to a RISK game, is that it creates the possibility of a territory being cleared of armies. Since armies are used to denote territory ownership (serving the function performed by control markers, in A&A-type games) it stands to reason that a territory with no armies on it is controlled by no one. But what if the territory has a capitol on it?

This is an interesting thing, because the existence of a capitol implies ownership of the territory, corresponding to a specific faction, without there being troops in the territory (i.e. which would be the normal way to denote ownership of the territory.)

Obviously, a territory with a city but no armies is not controlled by anyone; this makes targeting cities with nukes more appealing, since it doubles the loss in “income” – similar to how targeting Industrial Complexes with nukes in E&W effectively doubles the reduction in infantry production, on that territory.

So the questions seem to be:

Can you place troops on your capitol, if there are currently no troops there? Do you get credit for “controlling” your capitol, if there are no troops in its territory? Does your capitol allow you to get credit for “controlling” the territory it resides in (including the bonus for a city)?

I think my answers to these would be: yes, maybe, and no (respectively.)

If a nuke wipes all of the armies off of a territory without a capitol, my general assumption was that this works the same as if a nuke in E&W reduced the IPC value of the territory to zero – meaning it cannot produce any infantry. The question then is, do capitols provide some immunity to this? Does not providing this immunity make nuking capitols (exclusively) too powerful in the overall meta? Again, these would have to be born out with more playtesting.

France paratrooper can also simulate commandos  along european shore.

Also, you can identify special infantry or Marines with a Control Marker below the sculp.
That way, you can increase their cost without having to buy 1914 or 1941 to get different Infantry sculpt.
I still wonder if a 3 IPCs unit can be a balanced cost for a weaker Marines unit able to move with Cruiser and BB.
As written elsewhere:

Marines as simply Marines and nothing more
Cost 3
Attack 1-2
Defense 1
Move 1

Sea movement bonus:
1 Marines unit can be carried on 1 Battleship or 1 Cruiser.
Transport can load 2 Marines or 1 Marines plus any other 1 ground unit.
Gets +1A on amphibious assault only.

No combined arms with Artillery.
No production limit number.

That way, 2 Marines for 6 IPCs, A4 D2 on amphibious assault will be better cost ratio than regular Infantry paired with Artillery A4 D4 C7.
But, in defense, 2 Marines Defense @2 cannot hold the ground as 2 Infantry Defense @4.

And also 2 Marines being weaker if going inland combat by themselves because of the no pairing bonus with artillery. But they stay on par 1:1 compared to a single Infantry on offense.

Also, in amphibious assault, Marines will be probably taken amongst first casualties compared to regular infantry because it is the same attack factor than Inf with Artillery (but have a lesser defense factor (very low 1), unless you keep them to move on a Cruiser or BB and want to spare TP to turn back home for new supply on next turn. So, such Marines unit will more often die during debarkment and regular Infantry will last longer, in anticipation of next assault going inland.

About Infantry moving NCM only with Cruiser or Battleship, it cannot simulate the initiative and offensive role being taken by Marines such as Guadalcanal.
As far as I understand, Marines were first almost everywhere in PTO while regular army troopers were mopping behind Marines and garrisoning conquered islands. Maybe the exception is Peleliu in Palau islands.

@barney:

Hi Baron
You get the +1 A w/tank when you get Improved mech infantry tech. The tank just lets you blitz 1:1 same as OOB. Do you think the Mech at C5 needs to get the +1 A w/tank?  That seems a little too powerful. Also it would make the tech worthless but it could always be replaced w/ another one. Although improved mech would allow the arty to blitz as well.

But no it shouldn’t be too hard to add the +1 A to mech.

Hi Barney,
Is it easy to change a Tech so such Mech Inf Tech gives Attack 2 by itself?
And Attack 3 when paired 1:1 with either Artillery or Tank?

I asked because that way, it can be easier to accept the changes coming in Opening Post Mechanized Infantry unit suggested by YG.

@Young:

New G40 unit profile created through discussion and collaboration.

Mechanized Infantry

Cost - 5 IPCs
Move - 2
Attack - 1 (2 when combined with an artillery or tank unit)
Defense - 2

Special abilities:

_Each mechanized infantry unit may pull an artillery unit up to 2 spaces during the combat movement phase, or non combat movement phase (both units must originate from the same territory).

Mechanized infantry may blitz when combined with a tank (both units must originate from the same territory), however, mechanized infantry may not pull artillery units when blitzing with a tank._

See this thread for various alternative maps:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30553.0

If Russia can attack a neutral Turkey then why not the UK?

But you’re right, since Turkey is likely to go to war T1 there’s little advantage for the Allies in not attacking it (unless you favour a house rule banning the Allies from attacking neutrals).

The point of Austria not attacking a neutral Italy is that it denies Italy an entire turn to collect income and build units.

@knp7765:

Personally, I think it’s pretty cool that each country’s elite troops have different names (USA = Marines, Germany = SS, Russia = Guards, UK = Commandos, etc.)

The different names reflect the fact that the forces you mention had different roles and origins, and in many ways weren’t equivalent.  The US Marines and the Royal Marines both originated in the days of sailing ships when those navies, in addition to having sailors who manned a ship’s guns, needed sailors who were trained for infantry-type combat – for example for boarding operations.  The Commandos originated, I think, with Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Directorate and were intended to conduct hit-and-run raids in occupied Europe.  I don’t know enough about the Guards to know why the Russians used that name.  The SS – specifically the Waffen SS – were a military extension of the Nazi Party’s secret police force; in many ways, the Waffen SS were a private army under the control of the Nazi Party, operating parallel to the regular (Wehrmacht) German Army.  I doubt the US Marine Corps would approve of being viewed as an equivalent “elite” to the Waffen SS, whose training included a substantial dose of indoctrination in Nazi ideology.

Almashir mentioned the US Army Rangers, which illustrates the point that some countries had several types of elite units.  The British SAS (which originated in WWII) are another example.  I think the French, German and Italian armies all had some  mountain troop units which were considered elite forces.  Paratroopers are also often put into that category.