[Global 1940] One rule to balance it?

@barnee

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything from Der Kuenstler. Here is the piece Gen Manstein was talking about:

https://www.historicalboardgaming.com/Atom-Bomb-3D-Printed-x5_p_3707.html

This rule is part of the Axis & Allies Global 1940 2E, House Rules Expansion.

To increase the striking force of Tank units, they must be organized into an Army - the Panzer Army.

This rule shows how to organize such an Army - how it fights - and ultimately what strength it represents.

Though limited in numbers (due to Play Balance as well as Historical Accuracy) the Panzer Armies are the single most hard hitting combination of units anywhere on the game board.

Still, the Panzer Army should not fight on its own - it should be part of a larger force and serve as the backbone - for as long as possible.

As you’ll discover, the Panzer Army Formation has multiple purposes and options - both in the Strategic Offensive role as well as during defensive combat etc.

G40 Panzer General & Panzer Army.pdf

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in When USA not at War:

@Marshmallow-of-War ANZAC DOW is not always dumb. Sometimes it allows a key ship block or prevents transports in disputed zones from picking up soldiers. I have seen it happen a handful of times.

Completely true! The ANZAC declaration following a UK Pacific ship move is a classic! I can’t imagine anyone taking issue with that.

However, you’re ignoring the second half of that…

It’s taking the Carolines after initiating a war that leaves the US out of the fight that is the issue, leaving the transports vulnerable and stripping defenses from ANZAC itself. I can’t imagine a scenario where that would be wise.

G40 France Strikes Back

This is a rule for our G40 mode that we are testing, in order to make France a little more relevant in the game, but we think any one can use it .

The Rule:

1- Once Paris is taken by the axis, the treasure of France passes to the enemy, as in OOB rules.
2- Automatically, the de facto capital of France is London, France will be able to add new IPC at the end of its turn, as any nation does.
Note: There is no Vichy vs Free France dynamic. France is a single entity, and it maintains the mechanics of the game simple, and without requiring the purchase or painting of new pieces.
3- France can buy and place infantry in any original territory on the map.
4- France can buy equipment in London, and place it right there, land, sea, air; but, cannot place new infantry in London. France can buy technology dice, ports and airports, for its original territories
5-France cannot produce units in industrial complexes that captures from the enemy, in this case the complexes will take full damage. France cannot buy industrial complexes.
Note: in the territory of France, the same applies, unless France or the allies take parís.
6- If parís is free, it merges into the capital of France again, France will return to the rules of OOB.
7- If Paris is retaken, a second time, the money passes to the conqueror (subsequent reconquests will have the same dynamics). And the capital of France will pass London again, unless it is taken by the enemy.
8-If London is taken by the enemy, and is the de facto capital of France, the IPCs of the two are delivered to the conqueror.

Balance: we have found that in some occasions Italy will have more pressure in North Africa. To counter this, we believe that this rule for Italy should be used to.

Italy Lean-lease: During WW2, Germany sold or licensed equipment to its allies, especially Italy.
1- During its non-combat face, Germany can send to the north of Italy any air unit or ground machines (except infantry) for sale. A maximum of 2 per round.
2- Italy in its face of purchases can buy at half price, the German units on loan. The money is delivered to Germany.
Units are immediately replaced by Italian equivalents for immediate use.

Restrictions: Infantry and ships cannot be sold. Berlin must be in the hands of the axis, northern Italy must be in control of Italy.
Note: If Rome falls, this rule still works, if italy had warbonus tec. In this case, dice need to by the number to pay.

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See the current tested rules of our mod, here:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/33074/g40-historial-v1-1?lang=es&page=1

Our videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRZntU00ooZQX6KTb3gbKgg

Just yesterday I read a chapter on Madagascar in Chruchill’s series, The Second World War: The Hinge of Fate.

I don’t know if you can credit this victory to the effectiveness of marines.  Chruchill considered the operation a great success because of excellent planning and execution.  Using a far superior force against a weak colony composed of Vichy, African natives, and even Frenchmen who disliked Vichy was almost a sure win from the start.

Yes, marines are effective, but they are basically regular troops extensively trained for certain situations.

Any well-trained handful of men could have done the same job given the same circumstances.

I do not want to discredits the marines, but there is no reason why they should be counted separate or special compared to other infantry divisions.

I’ve always felt the same way as the jetset. For me the dice rules are an important part of the narrative aspect of the game. They allow for more surprises or turn arounds or crushing upsets at the last minute, the kind of thing that allows you to build out a uniqur story around what just happened in a given combat.

I understand the appeal of Low Luck, but the gameplay is substantially different.  A build or combat strategy that is guaranteed to come off in LL, could fail miserably in a dice game. Sure you might be able to model averages for expected results using an LL scheme to map your strategy in a dice game, but there’s always a chance that the dice end up disagreeing with you ‘that time.’

In that respect I don’t see a huge amount of cross over. Playing 100 dice games won’t really prepare you or teach you a whole lot about what to expect in an LL game. As mentioned before low luck alters a lot of things, with respect to deadzoning and strafing, the number of defensive units required to back down an attack entitely, the way the airblitz works, the way anti aircraft fire works, etc. Just too many differences to really say that a strategy that anticipates the one style of combat is going to graph onto the other consistently.

I think after playing a few games, most players are able to determine which style of gameplay they prefer. If you love the consistency of LL, and hate the unpredictably of dice, then wait for a match with another LL player. If you hate LL, but love dice, then wait for a match against a dice player. Especially in a long game like global, if you start a playing with a combat system you dislike, then chances are that the game won’t be very satisfying for you. There are enough players out there who enjoy both ways of playing that you can probably find a likeminded opponent if you just stick it out for a little while.

To the initial question about why LL isn’t used more often, the answer is probably just because the manual doesn’t offer a description of how Low Luck works, or provide the kind official endorsement for that combat system that would probably be necessary for a larger groundswell of support. In regular tournament play it foes have a bit more cache, since that is where the systemperature was first put into practice… Fortunately for those who do enjoy Low Luck, tripleA  created simple “click tab” option in the game options menu, that allows any game to be played with universal LL rules, which I think has done a lot to popularize that style of play. There are also tripleA scenerios out there which were designed from the ground up with the LL playstyle in mind, which helps. I don’t know if the G40 designers took LL into account when they created the set up. If it was designed for LL, I imagine some of starting unit distributions might have been a little different. But again the game is pretty flexible, so even a game that wasn’t created with LL in mind, can still be adapted pretty easily, although the playtime required or the usual bids might be slightly different.

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.)

I agree I don’t like retreating either. In the subs case it should only be allowed to submerge when its defending. The attacker has the retreat option only, so that is what it should be for all pieces. That way you are only moving on your turn.
Your are correct about the mechanized infantry being a tech advance. I have played too many versions and sometimes get confused on which rule goes with which version.