AARHE Historical Map

On Tanks.

Some players will for sure claim that if the opponent choose your casualties, nobody will buy Tanks any more, never again. The land battles will look like they did in the MB Classic games, with huge infantry stacks only. So how do we fix this, and I for sure don’t want to mess with the units cost or combat values. A Tanks should always cost 6 IPC, move 2 spaces, attack on 3 or less,  defend on 3 or less, and of course be able to Blitz. The only way to make rational players keep buying Tanks is to give them one more ability, and again from the A&A 1914 game with established and playtested rules.

An attacking Tank can absorb one extra hit. So it takes 2 hits to kill a tank.

This would be very strong if Tanks was chosen last as casualties, but perfect when chosen first. Tanks are actually the fodder that break through the enemy line, and make a hole in the line that the follow up infantry can exploit. Tanks that survived a real battle got so worn down that they would need months of repair before they could be used again. A Tank should be a hard hitting one round only unit. A Tank need a lot of fuel, supply and maintenance to work, and is really expensive to keep running. But in combined operations with aircrafts, like Tactical Bombers, they really put a lot of harm to the enemy. Tanks win battles. But they get used doing so. Infantry on the other hand live of the land and is cheap, and they can go on and go on forever, but they don’t have a strong punch.

So if you want to win a battle, you need air superiority, this is true for both attacker and defender.
If you want to successfully attack a territory, you also need Tanks and Tacs in Combined operation that gives a heavy punch to the defending stack. Since attacking Tanks will also absorb one extra hit, this first round will be devastating. We must assume that Tanks are taken first as casualties, so the next rounds are likely to be infantry fighting. And in that case, attacking infantry need matching artillery if they want to be hard hitting. And as always, artillery will be targeted in artillery duels, so in the latest rounds only infantry and aircrafts will survive. Just like in the real world.

The Allies may indeed have problems getting numbers of units into Europe and Asia, but the whole reason they need to do this in the first place is because Russia has such woefully inadequate starting attack power!

The Soviets can barely trade with Germany or Japan for 2 territories a turn, before they start hemorrhaging ground units in the process, forced to make terrible trades at a loss just to prevent Axis blitz paths or landing spots. This means that the Germans can advanced along a broad front, with only modest sized stacks, and Russia is totally unable to contest them.

Instead, because they cant attack on their own, the Soviets are almost completely reliant on UK/USA to run direct counter attacks for them, against a relentless Axis advance. And this all happens in their own backyard, right in their own core Russian territories!

And its not as if Russia collapses only when they receive zero aid from the West (which might be understandable) but they collapse when they don’t receive the full maximum aid. Like literally almost all the UK/US ipcs from the early rounds dedicated just to holding the center.

The western Allies routinely send dozens of fighters and as many ground units as they can to prop up Moscow. And even then Moscow gets hammered.

Honestly if I was designing this thing from the ground up, I’d give Russia an airforce on par with the other powers. Like 3 fighters AND a bomber. Or hell even 4 fighters AND a bomber!

They’d still have the weakest starting airforce on the board.

I just think its rather lame, that the Russians are so nerfed in A&A. It feels totally ahistorical.

They had superior tanks to the Germans, even by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Germans who always tank drive. They had some the best fighter aircraft in the world by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Luftwaffe that always crushes. They had the numbers, and yet it is Germany who always pushes the massive ground stacks.

It just doesn’t look like World War 2.

The way the Royal Air Force is always camped out in Russia, and Monty is taking his tank columns on escapades through the Caucasus. For real?

If you want their income so low, they should have starting TUV. Or conversely, if you want them to have low starting TUV, then give them more income. But if you shaft them in both areas, then the game turns into this weird deal, with the western Allies running the show in Red territories.

The Russia design is just silly OOB. They have low income and as such will buy infantry and artillery as a matter of course, almost exclusively. They don’t need more inf, what they need is air power, so they can trade that infantry effectively, the way the other player nations do.

I think a single additional Russian bomber is a decidedly modest expansion compared to what they should really have, if you want to reflect their historical position during this period.

yep

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.

Tell me about it…

If you did make one though… wow!

thanks

replace
“its income cannot be spent in other territories.
That income and only that income can be spent in its IC or VC during purchase units phase this turn.
That income is forfeited if not spent this turn.”

with
“The blockaded territory’s income can only be spent in its own VC or IC. Income from other territories may not be spent in the blockaded territory’s VC or IC.
If the blockade territory’s income is not spent this turn it is forfeited.”

Ok let me clarify my thoughts on that… They wouldn’t necessarily have to pursue a historic goal, but rather go for completing a certain amount of techs (3 for example)…

GG