AARHE: Map files

I think you’re asking a lot of the right questions: how to add more variety, how to make the game more truly global in scope, how to create advantages for the Allies without overcorrecting. I’m not sure how well you’ve thought through some of the specific changes that you’re recommending.

Moving the British ships from Gibraltar to east Africa does nice things for a British naval presence in the Indian Ocean, but it makes it way too easy for Germany to win the Battle of the Atlantic – Germany can now routinely take out all of Britain’s ships in the Atlantic on the first turn without taking too many risks. This means that Germany can totally evacuate France on turn 1 and probably also on turn 2, which gives Germany a big advantage against Russia.

The Sea Lion threat is probably exaggerated – sure, if you spend 100% of your economy on ships and planes for India, then London could be in trouble, but it’s pretty easy to build, say, 4 infantry in London and still have enough cash left over to place a variety of units in India. Britain starts with 43 IPCs, and London’s not that hard to garrison.

Meanwhile, Japan’s ability to take India or use it as a base to threaten Russia is almost entirely gone. One of the key threats the Japanese have in OOB Anniversary 1941 is building a factory in Indochina on turn 1, capturing Burma turn 1, and then threatening to build a factory in Burma on turn 2. If Japan pulls this off, then it doesn’t matter if Britain has a factory in India, because Japan is still outproducing Britain 4:3, and Japan will wind up with all 3 factories, which can then churn out infantry and tanks to head for Stalingrad. On the other hand, the only way Britain can prevent Japan from pulling this off is by sacrificing its entire starting force of troops from India and Persia, which is expensive and leaves Egypt vulnerable to the Italians.

In your version, Burma is only worth 1 IPC, so there’s very little point in having Japan build a factory there. Japan can’t take Bengal until at least turn 2, and the UK starts with a factory in India, so even if Japan gets a factory in Indochina right away and an eventual factory in Bengal, that’s very unlikely to be enough to deal with the forces Britain will have been accumulating in India proper. The Indian factory is almost 100% safe against anything short of a massive naval invasion – but that naval invasion is much harder to pull off assuming even a modest USA presence in the Pacific, because Britain now has two extra warships in the Indian Ocean, plus a starting factory there.

I think the dance of attacks and counter-attacks you outline in West Africa is entertaining, but unrealistic in terms of strategy – if you’re playing to win, then nobody cares enough about French West Africa to bother sending a transport there. Allied transports are much better off going to Morocco or Gibraltar, and Axis transports are much better off going to Gibraltar or Egypt.

Finally, I don’t think an Indian factory is likely to have any effect on the war on China – it’s 3 moves away from the nearest Chinese territory, and likely 4 or even 5 moves away from the Chinese front lines by the time forces actually arrive.

What all of these admittedly nitpicky corrections add up to is a sense that your changes won’t actually deliver that much variety. You get a different scenario with your changes, but it will always be the same different scenario: Germany wipes out the British Atlantic fleet and then charges hard for Moscow while Britain easily holds London and India and stalemates Japan. The USA can choose to either knock out a weakened Tokyo (and try to get to Tokyo before Germany gets to Moscow) or rush toward Paris and Rome (to try to set up a stable beachhead on the Western Front before Germany gets to Moscow). Other than the USA’s single choice of whether to go to the Atlantic or the Pacific, nobody has any interesting grand strategy decisions to make. Italy has to fight for Egypt, Germany has to fight for Moscow, Russia has to fight for Moscow, Japan has to fight just to hold onto a decent income, and Britain has to defend London, Egypt, and India. The details will vary from game to game based on tactics and dice, but I predict you’ll see a lot of the same general campaigns over and over again.

You may be interested in this earlier thread about splitting India and splitting the Indian Ocean:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41826.0

@Argothair:

Should it take more turns, in general, to move a basic unit by land, by sea, or by air? Why?

For whatever it’s worth, sea transporation and land transportation and air transportation in the real world exist on a continuum in which speed is inversely proportional to tonnage.  Shipping by sea is (and has been since ancient times) the cheapest way to move vast quantities of goods over great distances, giant supertankers being a good example of this principle, but it has the disadvantage of being slow and (for obvious reasons) of being limited to oceans and seas and coastlines and certain rivers.  Shipping by air is the fastest method, but it’s expensive and it involves much smaller payloads; it also has limitations imposed by landing strip requirements.  Helicopters are more flexible in this regard than fixed-wing aircraft, but they have terrible fuel consumption, a short range, high maintenance costs and small payload capacities.  Transporation by land is roughly half-way between those two extremes.  Of the two land options, rail shipping is in many ways superior because combines fairly high speed with low fuel consumption and large payload capacity, but it’s limited to places where rail lines exist.  Trucking is more versatile because there are more roads in more places than rail lines, and in a pinch some trucks can operate off-road, but they’re not as efficient at moving tonnage than trains.

I would like to be able to share the Axis & Allies Community maps, charts, tokens, aids, & Variants on my website. I already have one game system with map, rules, and setups that someone asked that I share with the Community, my only stipulation is that I am able to link to it within my web site that say it used a special color tank and I have it, I will link to it, tokens, etc. (It’s business)  :-D
Please email me your file(s) and a description on what you want on the site with your email or any credit for your work if you want it. It be be put on my site for downloads. If the file is too large, I will have to link it to mediafire where they can download it from there.
Thanks

ok lets do it.

if you want to be able to move through enemy submarines in non-combat move, I am ok with it

yes they can pass thru. no special dispensations.

if you want to be able to retreat into a sea zone occupied by enemy submarines, I am not sure about that (as mentioned)
if so I rather we let defender retreat into ANY adjacent sea zone

They can retreat to ANY sea zone not occupied by enemy surface warships ( so they can enter SZ with subs or transports)

From now on subs and transports don’t do anything unless its their active turn.

Of course you can send ASW units and try and kill them by hunting them down.

also,have some new ideas for subs which are extremely simple, listed under AA50 house rules.

I want to make a new AARHE version for AA50 once we fix these semantic issues and clarifications.

I have a map that’s the best map you have seen. Id say its at least as good as the new map and done in the same style. Its 98% done. adding artistic items. I will release this and alot of files in a few weeks time.

I love copy and paste  :-).

I am a big fan of Diplomacy, but can’t imagine adding simultanious movement to A&A. First, as Imperious Leader noted, there would be a large amount of moves to write. In Diplomacy a leader has to write at most 17 orders, but will generally need to issue 5-10. In Axis and Allies both the number and the complexity of the orders increases.
Second, writing down orders will likely serve as somewhat of a deterent to inivation. For example; as Germany I draft a set of orders to strike the U.S.S.R at Causcus and Karelia. If I suddenly see a stronger strategy that involves me completely changing my orders for both countries, the time I already put in that will be lost and the time I will need to write up new orders may deter me from attempting my new course of action. Having to continuously edit a page or two of orders will be tedious.
Third, in real life military leaders would re-act to enemy movements. If as Japan I ordered my units in Kwangtung, Manchuria, and French Indochina to attack China, but was attacked by units in Soviet Far East and India my attack would not proceed. Not only that, the Manchurian units would likely be diverted to re-inforce and/or counter-attack.

right.

Yeah I recall seeing some photos somewhere on the internet.

Someone traced a real map.
Painted it on a huge piece of wood. A0 or A-1.  :mrgreen: