Commanders unit house rules

Hello everyone!
Here is the Part 1 to the MonsieurMurdoch’s Comprehensive Collection of Alternate History
There are 5 scenarios total in this package, with more on the way.
Read through, play, and let me know what you think!
Cheers!
Alt History Rulebook.pdf

@panther

Thank you! Anyways, this is a bit redundant as I have a topic discussing a massive change to make The Captain’s house rules more historically accurate:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/37504/let-s-make-the-axis-and-allies-global-1940-expansion-rules-even-more-accurate

@Topmat

AxA has often been called a “beer and pretzels” wargame, I suppose because it is fairly simplistic and available—FOR a wargame. That’s not because AxA is elementary or easily mastered, its because other wargames tend to be even more rules-heavy and detailed, which makes some of them famously and notoriously unplayable. They may have an attractive theme or rules, but the “chit” game era (60s-80s) built up to a crescendo before it burst. PC Computer gaming was a major catalyst for this; the ASL/Avalon Hill/SSI style games BEGGED for a computer to handle some of the more complex calculations, setup, rules etc.

I think AxA has the general appeal and longevity it does precisely because it appeared after this “First Golden Age”, and is not married to overcomplex or overly realistic considerations, its a truly “abstract” wargame, where each step (building, conquering, purchasing, combat, movement) is fairly simple, but all together, they are complex enough to satisfy long-time players while only barely overwhelming the new ones.

And, the fact that AxA doesn’t try to simulate or do everything a wargame possibly COULD do is the very reason why there is enough room left in the game to add more, but that’s not necessarily desirable. If the game was already highly complex, rich and random, it would already have many of the things that people are trying to add to it—but its likely no-one would play it. I think most of the more complex house rules systems for AxA fall into this trap, by pushing the complexity/time investment level out of the Goldilocks zone.

I bought a “political” Avalon Hill chit game in 1992, Republic of Rome (4/4 difficulty rating). When I read the instruction manual, I was blown away-- I understood nothing of what i’d read… until I read it for nearly 2 years. We only played it in college 4 times, and the Republic consistently lost as a group. Its a great game, but its also an example of a highly complex simulation game with a narrow audience from the first era–very few people still play these games because they lack any general following or appeal in the internet age, and have been replaced by computer-style games, like the Total War and Europa Universalis series.

Mr. Piscolar;

the fortress idea is OK, but it seems OP when you can build them to defend key VC strongholds like Moscow.  Your point about inactivating them is interesting, but that’s not how the rules for Airbases work, you can’t disable them right before the scramble.  It is sort of interesting to imagine a fighter intercept/bomber part of that transaction, but at some point you simply need all your planes in order to overwhelm, you can’t split them off to wrack the forts first, or the defense becomes too favorable (because you have increased defensive power by +1 or reserved the planes for this task, either outcome increases the defense vs offense pretty dramatically).  When you are talking about potentially adding +1 defense to 40+ units, it becomes OP.

Actual fortresses are not realistic in WW2, as they were captured by paratroops, reduced by bombing, surrounded and besieged, or simply bypassed and ignored.

Your ANZAC idea is fun and interesting, but unless ANZAC takes the risk of moving its assets to Brazil, there wont be much coordination there.  Not sure why you would cleave off a second grey team.  Why not just clarify your original idea by making the ANZAC team better (by giving them Canada and 1-2 ships 1-2 units) at the expense of UK Atl.?  UK isn’t really a viable team at that point but neither is a 7 income independent team with split forces…

I like the special NOs from Balanced mod, but I’m not sure why you’ve added NOs that are active based on what teams already pretty much have or go for from the get-go.  NOs should draw the players into an unexpected alignment to incentivize new play, not reward them for doing what they were already going to do.

Adding German Units seems very odd since they are usually getting a bid of 20+ against them, now the required bid would be even higher.  You have offset some of the Axis advantage with other NOs, but I wouldn’t make the Germany start position even more advantageous its extremely powerful as is.

You also added several Axis NOs for just being Axis, these aren’t necessary to bolster their already dominating economic position and they aren’t dependent on what the Axis choose to do.  Giving Japan an NO for attacking allied zero $ islands or for Germany to attack Iceland are some examples of encouraging the player to do something that otherwise he would rarely or never choose to do.

the VC condition is messed up OOB, good effort on trying to change it

Tech/Cruisers/Bombers; these are similar to other suggestions, I think the tech doesn’t need new incentives to go after it, several of them are awesome and the rest are junk.  Unless you nerf the good ones and improve (all) the bad ones, making them easier to get doesn’t really balance anything.  Smart to reshuffle the Charts, but the “Land” one is packed with junk.

Crusiers are OP if they are 10 AND AAA.

Bombers are OP at 12, but if they cost 14, SB isn’t viable and buying them in bulk isn’t either.

These are just a ton of interesting extra rules, which are all fun and creative but they don’t seem to balance Axis vs Allies any better than standard rules.

I believe this thread below may provides some additional ideas and concept such as “double dipping”.
So I bumped it to reactive this TT income bonus thread.
Territory Income Bonus: for Classic, Revised, 1941/42.2 etc
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31978.msg1190315#msg1190315

Sorry for the late reply. I told Seancb I would post his PDF for him. It got lost in my dice mailbox :)

A&A Global realism rules.pdf

Come to think about it, there is already an A&A Expansion named Honor and Infamy Commanders that you can buy. Just google the name, and see attached pic

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@knp7765:

@Der:

We play where subs do not attack one another or have any effect on one another on the map or on the battleboard.

What if you have a naval battle involving two large fleets with subs on both sides?

You just say “subs can’t hit planes OR SUBS” and play it out. If there ends up being only subs left, the battle ends - put the subs back out on the map.

1945 February 6- The Royal Navy submarine Venturer became the only submarine to sink another submarine while they were both submerged when she sank U-864 off Norway. In all the naval action of the whole world war this only happened once! I think you could say realistically it shouldn’t happen on the scale od Axis and Allies.

As far as limiting the subs, IMO they should be limited. Their primary role historically was convoy raiding, and they now only cost 6 IPCs.