General 6 Stars 1941 WW2 Game

Re: Making my own WW1 game…
Hey, y’all. I was wondering how y’all made games, like this one. Please reply if you have an answer!

heh heh that ought to keep a guy busy

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.

Those are bleachers (houses) from NFL Monopoly. I glued short dowels to the back and painted them brick red to use as minor factories.

I will have to check that book out, thank you. :-D

MIDDLE EAST TERRITORIES Cont…

The territories of the Middle East consist of independent countries that provide oil and other resources to the Allies. During the game, Germany and Italy have a chance to control this oil (and the IPCs) by taking over these territories. They are captured or liberated like any other land territory, but the IPCs of this region are tracked differently. The Allied powers may occupy these territories in order to defend them from Axis capture, but they can never take control of these territories for themselves. In fact, the United Kingdom player begins the game with one Infantry in Lebanon-Syria, but does not gain the IPCs generated by this territory.

Whenever Germany or Italy captures a Middle East territory, move their national control marker (either German or Italian) along the track of the lower ‘Middle East Territories’ section of the National Production Chart (NPC), according to the value of the territory just captured. The upper part of the chart is unaffected.

As per the normal rules for the Axis Minors; if the AM capture a Middle East territory, place a German national control marker on the Middle East Territories section of the NPC, according to the value of the territory just captured.

Germany and Italy may never build Naval Bases or Industrial Complexes on a Middle East territory. However, Air Bases are allowed.

There are eight positions on the Middle East Territories track of the NPC chart. During their Collect Income phase, the German and/or Italian player may collect their IPC income, according to their respective IPC level, directly from the Allied players - not from the bank. The Allies must decide who will pay Germany and/or Italy. The costs may be spread out among the three Allied powers, or one power may bear the burden. If the Allies are unable to decide to pays, the Axis powers will choose.

For Example: In the chart below, Germany controls 3 IPCs and Italy controls 2 IPCs. During Germany’s Collect Income phase, he/she will collect 3 IPCs from the Allied powers. During Italy’s Collect Income phase, he/she will collect 2 IPCs from the Allied powers.

Axis Capture Middle East IPC's.PNG

@Rorschach:

@12doze12:

I just have one answer.

The boards, the units, the dice trays and the boxes come with the box right?

No.  The ammo box itself, the boxes FOR the units and the dice trays come with it.  Pretty clear in the product description on the website i think.

Ok, thank you

Oh i see, you play ‘‘world in flames’’

No, I could never get my friend interested into playing the cardboard chit piece games.