Global 1940 & 1943 Expansions Game Reports

@FranceNeedsMorePower

There’ve been many country-specific national advantages proposed over the years (many historically based). A great place to start is The Captain’s House Rules Expansion (I don’t find his implementation of many of the rules completely accurate, but he has some really good ideas):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SRDOsOwlO4Aa13cULwkWrorrXEmCmiN-/view

Specifically, there are some great Soviet ones in those rules.

Made a few more changes. Removed 3 inf from allies on setup in Asia.
Made FIC worth 3 instead of 2.
Cauraucus now worth 4 instead of 5. Russia income back to 24. from 25.

We played another game but ended it on turn 4. Axis not being able to get that 12 city.
But of course more play is needed.

I can post updated map if somebody wants to see it.

@Argothair:

I think I’m shooting for something in between those two extremes, Caesar. We have a rough idea of the manpower reserves of each nation – so maybe nations can only purchase X infantry per turn at the low cost of 3 IPCs per unit, and then after that they have to pay a higher cost of 3.5 IPCs or 4 IPCs per unit? And then X can vary by nation based on what we know about the nations’ manpower.

E.g.
China – 20 infantry / turn
Russia – 18 infantry / turn
America – 16 infantry / turn
UK Pacific – 14 infantry / turn
Germany – 12 infantry / turn
Japan – 10 infantry / turn
UK Europe – 8 infantry / turn
Italy, France, ANZAC – 6 infantry / turn

I’m not saying that’s accurate; that’s just an illustration of the level of detail that interests me. Other players might be interested in more detail or less detail than that.

Not a bad idea but China and Russia will never have issues because 20 Chinese infantry equal $60, literally larger than the possible total value it can have unless you’re working a rule where China can leave their territories. I think 18 infantry for USSR would be $54 which is larger than it’s own national worth unless it captures Axis territories which the excuse for that is now it has more population to use.

Hi all,

Been a long time reader on the boards, but this is my first time posting! Been an avid AA player and history buff for a long time. Sorry to post here at such a later date, but I wanted to get an opinion.

My take on adding Canada to the game without too much drastic effects on the playability involved a couple of moving parts.

Give Canada the 7 ipc income of the Canadian territories to spend each turn, but that same ipc value still counts towards the UK as well, with the UK also able to build from IC’s there.

Do the same thing for South Africa, giving them both South Africa territories and Rhodesia for a 4 ipc total. Again, UK still controls the money as well, with UK also able to build from IC’s there.

Both Commonwealths still play as part of the UK, buy, move, combat, etc. Essentially just adding 11 ipc income.

To counter this so it’s not unfair to the Axis, do the same thing with Romania, Finland, Bulgaria, and Hungary (Slovakia-Hungary on the map of course). Those four powers would have a total of 9 ipc value between them. I figured the extra two ipc’s would have minimal effect.

Essentially all I did was add ipc’s and therefore troop numbers to the game, just forcing them to be used at their respective locales.

My only thought with this was would the immediacy of the minor Axis powers being on the front lines basically effect gameplay on the Eastern Front more so than the added Commonwealth powers would in Africa and Europe? I don’t want to hurt the USSR unfairly.

Any feedback would be great! Glad to finally post and be a part of the community!

Thanks for providing this background information, YG.  I now understand better what you’re aiming to accomplish.  I don’t have a specific solution to recommend that might work for your group, but here are a few questions you and the other people in your group might want to consider.  The answers may provide you with guidance on what kind of point-scoring system might best suit your purpose. Fundamentally, the question to consider is: what kind of accomplishments do you want to reward by awarding points?  Here are a couple of aspects of that question:

First: do you want the rewards to be incremental (round-by-round) throughout the game or do you want them to be based only on the final outcome?  Under the first option, it doesn’t matter so much whether a player controls X at the end of the game; all that matters is how often he controlled it during the game.  Under the second option, the reverse would be the case.  Each option has its upside and its downside.  For example, under a final-outcome-only system, a player who controlled X throughout the game but lost it on the last round would be in the same unhappy position as an investor whose stock portfolio did wonderfully for decade after decade but then crashed in value just before he was planning to sell it to finance his retirement.

Second: Assuming you choose an incremental system, do you want to reward consistency more (or less) than changes?  Example: Let’s say that I’m the Soviet player and that I manage to hold on to Moscow for the whole game.  Objectively, this is a desirable state of affairs (just think of what Stalin would have done to Zhukov if he’d lost Moscow in late 1941), but if the point system only rewards changes (i.e. the achievement of a defined goal), then my success in holding my capital doesn’t give me any points.  Now let’s say that I’m the Soviet player and that, in an 8-round game, I lose Moscow 4 times and regain it 4 times, and let’s say that the point system rewards gains without penalizing losses.  In that scenario, I’d gain 4 points – so I’d be further ahead point-wise than if I’d managed to successfully defend my capital from capture for the whole game.  That would sound bizarre to me.  One partial way to address this problem is by having both debits and credits: giving points for successes and deleting points for failures.  In such a system, losing Moscow 4 times and regaining it 4 times would have the same zero-sum result as simply holding Moscow.  But here we’d face a new question: should two such different situations really translate into the same number of points (in this case zero)?  Or should the point system reflect the view that one of those scenarios demonstrates superior generalship, and hence should be rewarded?  (Personally, I’d argue that the general who holds Moscow for the whole game is doing a better job than the one who keeps losing and recapturing it.)

well you are right in some points and may be wrong in others. My opinion is that is excellent to develop new ideas, but you are just altering too many points.

Try to make fewer changes and them we can all together develop the game instead of replacing the game.

@adam.hall:

@skinny1:

I found a pack of these at a Dollar General store. They were on sale for 25% off so with tax the pack of 4 cost $.80. Thanks for the tip. I can’t wait to paint these and add them to my games.

Good to hear you tracked some down; are they exactly the same? Paint 'em up and post some photos.  :-)

Yeah, they are the same. Package was a little different but the pieces are the same.

You forgot to mention the difference in sub mechanics. By the way, we still keep the house rule of not having planes strafe subs without the presence of destroyers in our game of AAR with my group.