[1942.2] Is there a 1940 setup for 1942 game?

@inveratulo Do you not consider the number of Infantry you start with and value the extra attack point you get for free? Its not math in a vacuum. Look at your assets and buy what best fits and this depends on Nation, Projection, Income level, How close you are to taking his capital, etc. If you can risk a slow walk to Moscow as Germany, Or as UK you buy tanks so you can overrun Japan with a factory in Egypt and India. It depends on the situation alot more than creating units out of a vacuum.

IDK if even 1 IPC bonus per working Convoy SZ can remain manageable.
US 9, UK 8, Japan 7, Germany 2, URSS 1.

Well, there’s no reason we can’t decrease the number of convoy zones. The point should be to simulate a few of the most important, most vulnerable commerce lanes, not to put a convoy box in every single sea zone that saw merchant traffic. Just off the cuff, here’s another possible distribution of convoy zones for 1942.2:

USSR: Archangel, Soviet Far East
Germany: Baltic, Central Med
UK: English Channel, Central Atlantic, Eastern Med, Persian Gulf, Cape of Good Hope
Japan: Tokyo Bay, South China Sea, Java Sea, Coral Sea, Leyte Gulf
USA: Solomon Islands, Pearl Harbor, Caribbean, New York, Brazil

That should produce a less crazy income swing. If you think that’s still too much, you can relocate income from land territories to adjacent sea zones, instead of adding fresh income. E.g., Borneo drops from 4 IPCs to 3 IPCs, but the Borneo Sea Zone is now worth +1 IPCs if its convoy is undamaged.

No the AAA’s ability to reduce aircraft attack power does not stack, but having two AAAs will allow you to reduce the attack value of up to 6 aircraft.  Also, the controlling player (attacker) chooses SBR casualties.

From our limited experience, one fighter usually isn’t enough to deter a SBR.  Remember that there are no longer any AA shots on attacking planes during a SBR so fighters are the only thing the defender has to inflict damage on the attacker.  If he chooses not to intercept due to escorts, the attacker will inflict bombing damage with no losses.  Escorts were used more to take hits from the defending fighters so the bombers would continue to do damage.  A territory defended by an AA gun and a stack of fighters is a hard target and usually not cost effective to bomb unless you have a massive air force.  Germany needs to use it’s full airforce if it wants to SBR England effectively.  Russia needs to actually build fighters or ask for allied fighters if it wants to defend it’s factories.

We could increase the max damage a facility could take to increase the potential damage of a SBR.  We’ll have to play more games with this to see how changes things.

That’s generally what war is about, one country(s) wanting to expand and colonize, and other county(s) trying to stop it to protect their own interests. England was a super power at the time, it won multiple wars allowing it to expand the Empire. With expansion comes a strain of resources and uprisings (like that little conflict in the America’s). Although the English were on the winning side of WWII much of the Empire was disassembled afterwords.

The axis partners had spheres of interest prior to the start of WWII. Germany would dominate Europe, Italy the Med region, and Japan would get Asia and the Pacific. If things had continued to go the axis way,  those lines very well could have gotten blurred leading to conflicts among the axis. We all know that the Germans were capable of back stabbing their treaty partners.

Yea the Germans were late to the party, but did colonize in the Pacific and Africa prior to WWI. As a result of WW1 they lost those colonies. It is reasonable to believe that had the war progressed in their favor the Germans would want those lost territories back at some point. Would the Japanese just freely relinquish those Pac territories? Maybe some kind of trade off?

I’m no historian, but I don’t think the Japanese had any interest in expanding into Africa during the war(?). That would fall under German/Italian influence where the Euro axis were already fighting. I’m not saying the Japanese didn’t have the means to make landings in Africa, only that it would probably raise red flags to their axis partners if they did. Plus such a landing would have been a major strain on Japanese ambitions and holding they already had in their own back yard. They chose to keep the NAP w/Russia to continue their conquest of Asia and the Pacific (against the wishes of their strongest ally). I don’t think the Japanese would have looked at Africa unless they got the US to sign a treaty giving them complete reign of Asia and the Pac. Then they may have looked towards Africa or the Mid East???

With that said, I like that fact that if the US goes full tilt Europe the game allows you as the Japanese to venture to into Africa, and other European territories. Same for if the Japanese are getting pounded the Germans/Italians can make gains on the Pac side if they want. I wouldn’t like a set of rules that limit you to one map side or the other. Many people already complain about the Acme Chinese wall as it is.

If a house rule limited axis cross overs, or base certain moves on a domino type of effect, I think that you would also have look at putting in some US spending limits per theater as well.

Also, it looks like you’ve made submarines 1 IPC cheaper and given them a convoy raiding ability, without any real compensating disadvantages. You’ve changed the submerge ability, but on balance I think the submerge ability is still equally powerful. I think submarines are already a pretty good buy OOB at 6 IPCs, in part because they are the cheapest ship and therefore often the best available fodder.

One thing to know about Subs A2first strike A1 C5 is that loosing them on defense as fodder, is a pretty good news to the attacker. Because, if they submerge, they will gets a much better attack factor than DDs, and for 5 IPCs, pretty cheap to buy. Also, you cannot use them as fodder against other sub.
So, on offence, it is better to lose DDs because A2 first strike should be preserved.
On defense, it is better to use your Sub later, hence Submerging eventually.
And Subs cannot hit subs so you must pick DD as fodder instead.

Exactly, especially if you’re trying out Strategic Movement rules in the game. France can take Spain, and then immediately bring it’s troops to the front the next turn. Keep 4 IPCS that will never be contested for the remainder of the war? Why wouldn’t you do that?

I’d rather see further clarifications on certain territories that historically were aligned or owned by one of the alliances, like Greece, like Persia, just like Belgium, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania currently are, but still have stricter rules for invading the remaining True Neutrals. France takes Spain = Germany building a single transport and moving infantry over to claim Norway and Sweden for a free 8 IPCS and 16 additional units. It would keep the countries that were traditional out of the war to remaining there like it does in G40.

here is a 2009 post from me at HGD: ( note this applies to when AA50 came out)

All you have to do to extrapolate these GDP numbers is to divide the GDP by 15

using 1941 numbers:
Axis: 911 divided by 15= 60.73

Allies: 1798 divided by 15= 119.86

IN AA50 the axis are at 60 total

IN AA50 the allies are at 112 total

This is why the game is somewhat accurate, and the balancing is all force projection with the advantage going to the axis, and the US and UK player facing the commitment of their forces all over the map.

For 1940 you have to make additional considerations because the game will have say 50% more territories than AA50, so the number you divide will be smaller and the total will be greater in the game so that you don’t have too many worthless territories.

So lets do June 4th, 1940:

Germany: 387, plus Poland 76.6, Czecho-Slovakia 30.3, Netherlands 44.5, Belgium 39.6, Norway 11.6, Denmark 20.9, Austria 27=637.5

42.5 IPC

Italy:147 = 9.8 IPC

Japan: 192= 12.8 IPC

Allies:
USA: 943
US colonies: 23.9
Total: 966.9= 64.4 IPC

UK: 316
UK colonies 14.4
Total 330.4= 22 IPC

France 82
French colonies 10.9
Total 92.9= 6.2 IPC

USSR 417
Baltic states 12.9
Total 429.9= 28.6 IPC

Now you have to account for peace time status vs. total war mobilization for both USA and USSR. The amount of GDP used for wartime purposes was at least twice as great for the current belligerents than neutrals. So i would put USA and USSR at 50% rate with the difference going to domestic purposes.

So problem solved. Game balanced unless your trying to make the game unhistorical with notions that the axis had ZERO chance to win, which is a bogus argument even by economics.