Topics created by Argothair

I am not a big fan of house rules, since this is supposed to be a balanced game that is played in tournaments, and only loosely based on a WWII theme. But if you insist to add all this extra spice, I suggest to keep it inside the A&A box of known game mechanics. Let China be the base of what happens when your capital is lost. And skip the pro neutral thing, its either true neutral or not neutral.

The Rule.
1. When your capital is lost, all territories under your control become true neutral. You are no longer an active player. You can no longer move any of your former units, they are stuck where you left them last turn. Your ships will not make a seazone hostile. Former allied units on your territory must either combat move out next turn or trigger combat. If you have units in former allied territories, they are removed from the map.

A lot of evidence from the real WWII support this rule suggestion. When the French capital was captured, all other French territories became neutral. Not pro but true. US and UK had to combat move into neutral French Morocco, Germany had to combat move into Vichy, and Japan had to combat move into FIC. Also, all French units that were in UK when Paris fell, were demobilized and sent home to occupied France. When the Italian capitol was taken, the former allied German units in Northern Italy would face combat against the by now neutral Italian units in that territory. When the Finnish capital was taken by Russia in sept 1944, Finland was declared neutral and the former allied German units in Northern Finland faced combat against the Finnish forces there. Same with Romania in 1944. And so on. When Japan captured the Chinese capital Bejing in 1937, China become neutral. When this game start, China is a neutral with an occupied capitol.

2. When a neutral territory is attacked, it is no longer neutral but allied to the enemy of the attacker. And remember, with this rule there are no pro neutral, only true neutral, so a combat move into a neutral territory will never trigger a world wide uprising by other neutrals, like in the OOB rules.

Evidence to support this.
Neutral Poland is attacked by Germany and Russia and get allied to UK and France. No other true neutral join the war.
Viborg territory of neutral Finland is attacked by Russia, and can join the Western Allies, but the road to Finland is blocked by other neutrals that dont want to join the war.
Neutral countries Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands is attacked by Germany, and taken in one round since they are one territory each. No other true neutrals join the war.

3. When a neutral nation is at war, and it has no capitol, either because the capitol was taken in a previous turn, or it is a minor one territory nation, or Mongolia, then it can purchase infantry only, limited by its income, and place this infantry in any territory in order to the Chinese special OOB rule

Hi Argothair! Cool to see your reply! Would be fun to see this in a real dual! Actually that would be the best way to proof certain ideas! ;) but for the sake of the forum discussion we can battle in words! I will share my comments on the points you make.

First of all I do agree that England should spend a considerable amount of money on building up a fleet. This will one way or an other revert pressure from the USSR to the west. Germany either need to build planes to deadzone the Atlantic, or it has to build a defense of infantry. Like in the real history a treat of an invasion already ties down a large force, but at some point you will need to execute it. Norway is still a good starting point. The downside of building the fleet early is that no fighters are going east to support the Indian contingent. This will take pressure off Japan.

Next to that England has to build infantry and artillery in India to at least maintain the stalemate with Japan in Birma. The role of England in the East would not be so big, but it can maintain itself. The pressure on Japan need to come from the US. But it can grab one of the money Islands when it sees a chance. Overall this means that Japan will take longer to conquer. But with Russia getting more support the Allies have more time. More time is equal to more chance to win.

I think the factory in Egypt would be an ok investment. Especially if Germany leaves it alone. Though i doubt if it is a better investment then a fleet in the Atlantic. The Allies need to spend their IPC’s wisely. It can not do both. It could serve to send a few units to help defend Moscow or Caucasus. Though i believe it would be too less by the time it is needed. I like the idea of making a second front in Europe. That can be more effective because Germany need to spread his armies. If you only fortify Moscow Germany can stack into one big army.

Also i agree with your argument about Russia taking Karelia with force if Germany puts down 4 inf in every border territory. But this depend a lot on the outcome of R1! Did Russia get diced in the opening round? Then there are not enough troops in West Russia! Did Russia get a bid? Or did Russia do a Ukraine straffe? What did Russia buy first turn? There is a big chance (i don’t know a percentage) that Russia can not even take Karelia without being wiped out! If Germany would have bought 10 inf as i had suggested and spend the rest on offensive pips, then Germany could have bought 2 tanks. That means Germany had 12 to 13 tanks in range, plus at least 6 inf (2 from Norway plus 4 from Belo Russia plus anything from Baltic), plus 5 or 6 planes. The chance is huge that Karelia is deadzoned! So you should have had luck with the dice and smart with bits and buys to make this work! And it will be tricky still! Even if it works, Germany would take West Russia in stead, and also Russia would not be able to maintain 26 IPC.

What i do not believe is that Russia is able to send units east. Because Germany comes in too strong. For Russia to survive the first 6 rounds against Germany it needs every unit it can get. Even if England decides to build a fleet and harass the coastal territories, then it takes time before this gets some momentum. Overall this means that more inf stay behind to guard the coast. Here i think you overstate the possibilities of England and underestimate the possibilities of Germany. If it wants to maintain its stalemate in Birma, then it can not build much more then about 6 units in Europe. Or it need to buy inf only, which is an army without teeth. At the other hand Germany stays at at least 40 IPC to turn 6 even if they don’t do well. That is because whatever England takes from Germany, they either take back, or they compensate with Russian IPC’s. Most probably making 40+ every turn. By turn 6 the more and more Inf need to stay in the West to fight England. Then around that time it need to be clear whether operation Barbarossa was successful. By that time roughly 50 to 60 inf had been send East. Giving Germany a good possibility to take Moscow. Plus, if the German plan was successful it can continue the pressure with the Caucasus factory.

So i do believe the battle is won between turn 6 and 8. Then it need to proof if Germany was successful in taking Moscow without loosing other terrain to much. And you are right with you comment that it matters with how much Army Germany has left after the sack of Moscow. Are that 20 tanks or 4 tanks? If Germany lost his entire stack of inf but kept the offensive force, then it is not too difficult to swing South and take India and Egypt. After that the Allies go down hill, or does Germany has a few tanks left over and does it need to start build up a force while it need to fight England at the same time? Then probably it is a down hill battle for Germany, which will not get any help from Japan.

At the side of Japan i’m not so sure whether you are right about how quickly it will fall. Obviously the fighters need to stay at sea or close to sea. Japan starts with one bomber and should purchase at least one more. The bombers have a great reach and can both threaten sea zones and help doing some territory trading.

So, the main focus for Japan is defense. It does mostly naval purchases. And you are right that after a couple of turns Japan can not keep up with the US anymore. That shouldn’t be the 4th turn but later if you do it well. That is because the US need to sail their ships across the ocean first. And further: Japan starts with a little head-start, so it has an advantage over the US with a couple of turns. Its best bet is to deadzone the important zones around the Japan with cheap subs. That is cheaper then a balanced fleet, so it can hold of the US fleet for 1 or 2 turns longer than it otherwise would. However, once the US fleet is defensive stronger than the Japanese is offensive, all hope for Japans naval ambition is lost. It can probably buy itself an other turn by retreating a zone closer to Japan. After that it can do two things: wait and see how it will be destroyed, or be opportunistic and attack the US fleet. A lot depends on how the board looks like. Japan might be able to kill all ships except for planes, or just decimate the US fleet. Whatever Japan does, it is not allowed to loose its planes! At the turn you decide to strike, you should be wise to purchase a IC on the mainland, because after that there is no shipping troops possible anymore. This should be about the sixth or seventh turn, depending on a number of factors. Those factors are besides luck and skill, chooses in purchases and early attacks, like the SZ37 attack.

After Japans fleet is gone, Japan need to turtle even more. If the game is in favor of the Axis, then Moscow should have been fallen and Germany starts to pressure England. Japans only income comes from the mainland now. And the US might be busier helping defend India against Germany then it is to sack Tokyo. If that is what is happening, then those are bad days for the Allies. If the situation is that Germany did not take Moscow, while the UK/US are taking territories in the mainland from Japan, while building transports to threaten an invasion of the Japanese homeland, then it are dark days for the Axis!

In a OOB scenario i’ll put my money on the Axis for sure. With any bits the odds might change in favor of the Allies. Also a lot depend on luck in the first round. If Russia looses too much units in the opening round, and the UK doesn’t kill a ship in a SZ37 attack, you might reconsider whether KJF is feasible! But if you see the opposite happening, then KJF strategy can be a very good alternative!

It seems pretty clear that you can’t just move the fighter onto the sea zone, since the bid has nothing to do with changing the initial setup.  The fighter could fly out and land during the US turn, if the carrier survives.

If you permitted it in this case, why wouldn’t you allow the UK to bid a carrier (with the BB and tran off Scotland) then just randomly move any two fighters onto it at the beginning of the game and change the entire setup thereby?

Just because you are only moving the fighter one square (from EUS to SZ) it still alters the setup dramatically.

and as other people pointed out, even if you protect this critical DD+2TT with the bid, they can still attack the UK one just north of it leaving UK with nothing at sea.

So for the Airblitz part, are we talking a hit on Szech J1, even with the Russian inf and British fighter? Or like Kazakh on J2? Or you mean just like quickly moving them to the eastern front for defensive position? No bid?

Usually I’m landing the fighters in Kwang regardless, since they don’t need to be on the carriers, and it’s optimal after all the mainland battles as a landing spot. Kwang gives decent coverage at sea while allowing you to throw them westward if Germany gets an opening. But going forward into Caucasus on the second round seems like an option that would only present itself occasionally.

I guess as a counter you could try stacking the British in Persia with an India tank buy (if the transport in 61 is handled you can move a small force into position.) Might be enough to threaten a suicide sting, before Japan lands, to shave off enough German hit points to make a Russian counter more viable.

G certainly has a lot on the ground that could get in behind the lines, especially if no bid to knock Ukraine down.  Couple solid inf purchases by G to open the game, and Moscow is on the ropes. That’s a lot of Japanese fighters in Caucasus, but isn’t that what the Axis want anyway hehe. Japanese air cover to G. :-D

I think it’s pretty hard for the Allies on this map, if Russia doesn’t have enough to strafe or take Ukraine. All in on W. Russia you’d probably get forced back anyway if facing down such a heavy Ukraine stack. Even 6 artillery in the first round isn’t enough.

If Germany is committed and Russia only attacks W. Russia, then G can have a total of 11 inf, 7 armor, 1 art, 6 fighters and a bomber in Ukraine at the end of G1. With 5 infantry 1 artillery and 4 armor in Poland and Bulgaria (plus any mobile units you bought in Berlin) to back up the play.
Gives up the canal, but you can still take out the British battleship at odds with the cruiser and subs alone.

Against this Russia has a likely 10 inf, 3 artillery, 4 tanks in West Russia. No chance to counter Ukraine, even if they bought armor at moscow. For dead zone on Caucasus you could add to that like what 6 art, and muster 2 inf and 2 fighters at Moscow? Still not nearly enough if Japan sends fighters. So definitely a bind for the Russians to leave Ukraine alone against an aggressive Axis player out for blood. Center crush for sure.

@Argothair

-Assigning 1ipc values to the Pacific Islands would certainly help and encourage Japan to invade them but I doubt USA will try to retake them. For balance purpose, Japan has to start with significantly bigger fleet than the Allies. It requires minimum 15 ipc (transport+destroyer) just to invade one of the island with a protection. Even if Japan lose some of them, she is still capable of compensating these loses with another conquests. While if USA just ignores Japan, the huge Japanese fleet lose its all combat value suddenly for a long time.

-Yes, the capital rule does not make sense. Nations should be able to collect income and mobilize units even if their capitals are fallen. Also no losing all of incomes when capital is lost.

-That’s why I think Germany is too weak and Japan is absurdly too strong in A&A games which should have been the other way around and it results Germany just spamming infantry and waiting Japan ro rescue. It makes no sense. Historically by far the strongest Axis country should not have badly needed Japan’s and Italy’s helps to just stay even alive. This aspects also encourage USA to go only one front since if Uk-Russia is strong enough to defeat Germany-Italy. USA could choose to go Pacific only to just secure the British colonies but still no two ocean going USA unfortunately.

-Ipc vaules are known very abstract but still it would look very weird if these Pacific islands worth more than 1 except Hawaii. For example Australia was obviously a lot more than twice valuable than Guinea yet having Australia just twice valuable than Guinea is somewhat justifiable for playability but Australia cannot be same with Guinea. It would totally negate all WWII feelings as much as the Japanese tanks storming Moscow.
If Guinea becomes 2 then Australia should be minimum 4, India 5 or 6, South Africa 3, Egypt 3, Hawaii 2 etc.

-Having both Indian and Australian factories can actually help Japan more then Allies since if Japan concantrated southwest Pacific with East Indies Factories, UK might find itself spending more money than Japan in this area to just defend these factories because the Japanese units will be in range in both factories simultaneously considering USA needs 2 rounds to reinforce Australia.That’s why I’am fine with Indian factory but not with Australian factory.

-A solid way preventing USA going Pacific only is making UK-Russia doomed to fall without strong US assist in Europe. Preventing USA going only Atlantic is uhm… well I do believe not possible in A&A maps with its rules and cost structures. Totally needs redrawings, revaluings, new rules and costings.

-Expensive ships discourage naval investments for both sides when fighters just do well better than them with similar costs. Destroyer is too expensive for even mimic infantry abilities on sea such as blocking, baiting, deadzoning etc. Of course reducing ship costs do not magically create two ocean going USA, it is just one of the indispensible condition to achieve that. The expensive ships also reason too why Germany and Russia don’t build navy either.

@axis_roll:

@Argothair:

The TripleA bid rules are pretty simple:

Auction off the right to play with the Axis by saying “I’ll take the Allies if you give me a bid of 15 IPC…”, “No, but I’ll take the Allies if you give me a bid of 14 IPC…”, “No way, man, because I’ll play the Allies with a bid of only 13 IPC…” until someone says “OK, fine, you can play the Allies with that bid” because they don’t want to bid any lower.

However much IPC you collect with your bid, you can split any way you like among your nations, as any combination of cash and/or pre-placed units that hit the board on round 0, subject to the following restrictions:

(1) You can’t buy more than one unit per territory or sea zone
(2) You can’t place a nation’s unit in a territory or sea zone where that nation doesn’t already have at least one unit.

That’s pretty much it! You can spend your money on whatever you want, including bombers and eastern european tanks and things, but the bid is usually lower than it would be under Chicago rules, so if you do buy a bomber, that’s most of your bid right there.

Funny, the axis have a better chance to win, so it would make sense to bid an increasing amount of units to take the stronger side.  I know this bid system has been around for a while, but it is seems so counter intuiative to me.

Thinking about this comment, imagining how this would go:

“I’ll play the Axis against an Allied bid of 12.”
“No way, I’ll play the Axis against an Allied bid of 14.”
“Chump change, I’ll play Axis against an Allied bid of 15.”
“All right, I’ll take the Allies with a 15 bid.”

-Midnight_Reaper

Agreed…  using bombers to industrial raid can be devastating…  Especially when the opponent gets a 50% hit ratio on your bombers.  I think using bombers to threaten navy or trade territories makes much more sense.  There’s nothing like going in with four bombers, losing two of them and getting a total of 3 damage to an opponent to see the futility of industrial raids.

of course, your mileage may vary…

Kirk S.

@Wicked:

Don’t forget, unlike France or Norway surrender was no survivable option for the Russian population. Hitler made very clear quite early that he considered them “subhuman” and GeStaPo and SS did their deadly job in notorious german thouroughness in Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. So I’m not sure if taking the capital would have ended the war in Russia - perhaps the regular war, but not the need for massive amount of troops there. I’m pretty sure the long term need and lack of administrational staff and police for this vast area with millions of deads causing disobeyance and riots would have been more than a pain in the a… for the Reich.
The Nazi dictature based on nationalism including/featuring hatred towards Jews and Slaws, denunciation and a powerful police - that wouldn’t have worked there. But on second thought, they might have been able to get some russians to help and give some incentives like surviving a month longer… It would have been hell on earth.

In the end Hitler had not enough of his beloved true blood Germans to realize his megalomaniac ideas - you don’t make many friends by hating them constitutionally.

An important part of German planning for the postwar period included the intention of forcibly relocating 30 - 50 million Poles eastward, to make room for German expansion. Had the Allied food blockade still been in effect, the deaths of large numbers of Poles along the way would have been considered an acceptable way of relieving pressure on Germany’s food supply; thereby preventing the starvation of an equal number of non-Poles.

During the war, the combination of the Allied food blockade and Stalin’s scorched earth tactics made it impossible for Germany to feed all the people within the lands it had conquered from the Soviet Union. The physical impossibility of Germany feeding those people proved a boon for Soviet propagandists; who took advantage of the situation by claiming that Germany planned to starve or kill all the people of the conquered Soviet Union. Soviet propagandists were not normally considered a highly reliable source of information. In this instance, however, the fact that large numbers of people in German-occupied portions of the Soviet Union were actually starving seemed to lend a hint of credibility to these claims.

As the war in Europe became increasingly less favorable for Germany, large numbers of Soviet civilians fled west into Germany. The westward flight of many Soviet civilians demonstrates that not all Soviet citizens believed Soviet wartime propaganda.

Ps. Couple thoughts on the Polar Express concept as an endgame play rather than an opener…

A version of this strat can be made to work in the final rounds, provided that Japan is no longer needed at the center, and has sufficiently outpaced the Americans on income. It’s also helpful if the Allied player is a good sport, or just wants to play out a few more rounds before calling it a night.  :-D

An example might be, if Germany is poised to take Moscow alone, such that Japan has a free hand to redirect early against North America, instead of Africa. Or if it seems like the Allies might be able to trade Moscow for Berlin in the same round, and Japan wants to keep going.

It requires that you have a large number ground units at the ready preferably in Yakut and Munchuria. The basic idea is to spam transports at the last minute before the planned invasion. So say you have 5 or 6 transports with 12 or more units ready to transport out of sz 60 to Alaska, and several more ground units in Yakut or Manchuria, that can move to Bury at the same time so that they can be shucked the following round. Then you spam 5 more transports to set up the double shuck, from Japan and Manchuria to Buryatia with one transport group, and from Buryatia  to Alaska with the other transport group.

To pull this off, you have to be able to match US production a full round ahead of their ability to equal your forces from their production centers, and this with already existing Japanese units, which is why you need the Yakut stack at the ready. If you can rapidly amass a large stack of ground in Alaska by using existing Japanese units, it may be possible to walk them to Western Canada without fear of a crushing counter attack from the US, and then you can use your transports to threaten W. US on amphibious, while you attempt to can open Central or Eastern Canada with German bombers for a blitz on DC. Although not a particularly likely deep endgame, it can sometimes be a more direct route to the ultimate Axis smackdown, than taking London.

Again, I don’t think its something that you can really plan for from the outset, but more of a redirect at the last possible second, where you make as if to threaten Moscow from Yakut, but then rapidly double back for the Alaskan crossing. It’s also pretty simple for the US to cover against this play, if they see it coming, so you really have to catch them with their guard down.

I think there are only two times I’ve seen it work. Once was in a KGF game, where the Russian player made a strategic withdrawal from Moscow in an attempt to triple team G. And another game where Germany got lucky on their tank drive and smoked Moscow earlier than anyone expected. In both instances the Allies were playing a masochist’s game, fighting on rather than conceding haha

If, instead, you allow US player to simply  built up to 2 Infantry per turn on any Allied chinese territory

That works OK, Baron – I’d prefer to the OOB rules. The problem with building infantry is that it doesn’t create an interesting choice for the US player, and if Japan kills the Flying Tiger on J1 (as it always should without an American bid or a radically intense Russian reinforcement gambit), then China never has any offensive potential no matter how much Japan under-invests there. Right, like let’s say on turn 1 I kill just Szechuan, leaving you with 4 infantry. You build 2 more infantry, now you have 6 infantry. So…so what? I’ve got something like 6 infantry, 2 artillery, and 2 fighters in the region; you don’t have any interesting counter-attacks.

With an IC, America can choose to build infantry (standard play) or something aggressive like a tank or fighter (Chinese gambit) or build nothing at all and save the IPCs for the ocean (Atlantic gambit).

@Argothair:

Gain 5 IPCs if the Axis powers control at least three of the following territories:
Egypt, Trans-Jordan, France, and/or Gibraltar.

You’re right, again. I apologize for the mistake. OK, so even if you control Gibraltar and Morocco, Italy could conceivably collect one of its NOs. That’s important, because it means that if you’re not at least trading France with the UK, then taking Egypt back from Italy is a 9-IPC swing. I would say that in roughly half of your games, you’re going to have an opportunity to retake Egypt a turn or two before you can wisely/safely start trading France, so that’s an important rule that makes fighting for Africa more attractive than I had originally realized.

I am glad I was able to clarify the Italian National Objectives.  The $5 NO is very big for ‘little brother’ as that’s a 50% increase from their base income of 10 IPCs.

@Argothair:

Surely you can further attack Russia underneath (sz16).  That can wait until round 2 or so, once a few units have eliminated the UK forces in north Africa.

I don’t fully understand what you’re trying to say here. If you’re saying that Italy can use its Med fleet partly to ferry troops to Africa and partly to attack Russia, well, sure – but then your attack on Africa will be less effective. A full attack on Africa requires the use of at least one transport for at least three turns, so that you can ferry to Egypt, then ferry to Ethiopia, then ferry to South Africa. If you don’t have the transport available, your attack will be slower, and you’ll earn less income from your attack.

Along the lines of your summary below:
strategy of “send a small mission to Africa so that you can exploit any opportunities that arise there, but be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice, and keep an eye on the cost-benefit ratio”

If the allies do not move units into Algeria (or are not set up to do so), then the Axis do not need more than 2 turns of transports (Germany round 1, Italy round 1, Germany round 2, Italy round 2… maybe, maybe not)

@Argothair:

I propose that NO German or Italian planes will be lost in Africa if a proper retreat is made.

I mean, possibly, if you are both skillful and lucky about your retreat.

A safe Axis retreat is not as difficult as you may deem.  If the odds are against you holding, play safe, fall back either into Africa further or into Trans-Jordan on the way to pressuring Russia thru Persia.  At the very least, you will now force Russian units to kill your African units.  Not a good thing for the allies (or Russia).

@Argothair:

It is interesting to see you try to put an exact cost on everything.  There are the ‘costs’ of free/original units that are not costing a country anything further versus newly purchased/added units.

I certainly find it interesting! I acknowledge that all costs are only crude estimates, but I find that the effort of at least trying to put a numerical price on my tactics helps clarify my thinking. Thank you for helping me do that! As far as original units not ‘costing’ anything, I think that’s a more convincing argument when it comes to underpowered units like cruisers, or ill-placed units like the Australian destroyer. Sometimes a unit is comparatively useless, so any use you manage to put it to is ‘free’ relative to your (near-zero) opportunity cost of leaving it in place. However, the infantry, tanks, and planes that start in Europe (or could easily be evacuated to Europe from north Africa) are nowhere near useless – they’re perfectly useful for the Barbarossa (eastern Europe) campaign, and if you divert them away from Barbarossa campaign, you will feel the burn.

Hence it is very hard to accurately tally these costs/value of these units.  When we think of the Med fleet, we look at how much damage it will do when it is destroyed.  Will it cost the allies 3 planes?  Perhaps a couple of destroyers and a plane?  As the Axis, we want to make it as costly as possible, sometimes even moving a Japanese carrier into SZ15/SZ16 to help protect that fleet.

@Argothair:

What are the allies going to be doing with their forces if they do not go into Africa?  A defensive Germany can delay any effective D-Day for a few rounds.

Well, that’s a fair point, but even if you don’t literally invade France, having extra infantry/transports available with which to threaten an early D-Day still forces Germany to garrison France (and NW Europe, and Italy, and the Baltic States, etc.), and that pulls troops from the eastern front, which allows Russia to make some favorable trades. One set of troops and transports that are focused and stockpiled in London can force Germany to defend four or five territories, which is very efficient for the Allies. Those same troops and transports committed to Africa and spread out across the African territories don’t require any particular German defense other than a token roadblock of 1 inf in Libya followed by 1 inf in Egypt.

True.  You are describing the main issue that the allies are forced to overcome.  How to help the Russians as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Bringing the fight to the short lines of supply in western Europe might tie up some units, but are short term gains that the Germans can usually absorb moreso that the allies.  If Japan flies some planes (2-4 fighters) to Europe by round 3 and 4, this greatly helps German fend off the usual KGF allies strategy employed.

@Argothair:

My take is that a minimal investment by the axis can return much, especially early.  It is THEN that these units can be brought back out of Africa if the allies have decided to not any units to this theatre.

That may be. The strategy of “send a small mission to Africa so that you can exploit any opportunities that arise there, but be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice, and keep an eye on the cost-benefit ratio” strikes me as way more useful than “send a steady stream of units to Africa because you can’t afford to lose it no matter what.” On the forums, I think I see people recommending the “win Africa at all costs” strategy, but maybe I’m just not picking up on the full context.

There are many variables at play, so strategic discussions on a grander scale often overlook some of the details you are bringing into the discussion.

WWII (and this game) was won based on mobility and reusability of resources.  So tanks and planes are better than artillery and infantry.  But you need some infantry to take the hits, so you can’t just buy all tanks and planes.  So fighting Africa with tanks, fighters and transports are the most efficient way (for both sides).  Why was Africa lost for Germany?  Lack of resources, mainly due to no control of the Med.  The European axis lost many, many men by NOT falling back via a safe retreat.  Don’t make that mistake.

@Argothair:

Thanks for having this debate with me! I am / have been really enjoying it. :-)

You’re welcome.  I love talking strategy

Seems overly complicated to me. Also, you can end up getting worse luck than dice (at least in smaller battles); for your 2 inf, 1 bomber example:

Dice: 5/6 * 5/6 * 1/3 chance of 0 hits –- 23.15%

Fudge dice: (1/3 * 1/3) + 2 * (1/3 * 1/3)=1/3 chance of 0 hits — 33.3%

Maybe it gets balanced out by the fact that the opponent also has bad odds, but not to my fancy.

Two defending infantry not having better odds than one other than the extra hitpoint seems…off to me as well.

Excellent read with bullet points made! Thumbs up

Deck of cards, one for each neutral.

Start of each player turn, top card is drawn and disposition of country is determined.

Each neutral will have a scaled historical bias based on likelihood of joining each side, expressed as a number in favour of either side.

Each side places a secret bid in IPCs from their banks to influence the result, winner gets control. Money bid by both sides is considered spent. Ties are replaced in bottom of the deck.

Result could also be influenced by other factors, for example presence of units in a bordering tt.

Cards can be placed in “historical” order by number based on when they were first engaged, or shuffled for random events.

Card drawn for neutral already attacked is ignored.

OR

Cards are dealt randomly to the players (half for each side for balance or same for each power?). Maybe 5 cards per side with a draw deck. Start of every player turn, that player can play a card from hand for each side to bid upon.

I like the idea to create a new unit class that behaves in a unique way, and the AAgun does seem to be pretty good to denote it (since they’re rarely purchased). But of course, creating a new unit class does create some barriers to entry and diminishes the ease of adoption.

Basically the Bazooka concept as described (whatever you end up calling the unit, for me that’s not as important) will require an update to the battleboard, and the unit cost/abilities lists of the maps/book. Its one more thing that players have to learn, in addition to the new set up, so in that respect it will be harder to gather testers than if you just stick with the regular unit roster. Sure it’s a different balance then, but at least everyone has the info memorized already.

I think the easiest approach for a mod to adopt is to keep everything else the same, and just a offer reprint of the unit set up cards for each nation.

Those are typically separate materials anyway, and even the OOB cards have misprints (for the starting IPC value of UK and Germany) and printing out a few new cards is pretty easy. Placing starting units for a new set up takes about the same amount of time as it does to set the OOB game. So that’s pretty easy too.

I like a lot of the concepts here, especially the 1 ipc factory, which I think could be a major benefit to the play patterns on the board. But the Bazooka concept might overshadow them.

Perhaps test the Bazooka concept first in the OOB game to see how if it gathers interest? But I kind of like this set up, with the placements, even if they’re just normal AAguns. You can always use a bid, or further tweaks to rebalanced the situation (sans bazooka concept, if that’s needed.) I like pretty much all the other ideas. Though I’d still pull for a Pearl Factory hehe
:-D

Again man, nice concepts

I look forward to hearing Argothair’s answer to your question about the intended purpose of his proposal, but for whatever it’s worth my impression is that he wanted to speed up the game by taking advantage of the G40 map’s Europe / Pacific geographic split to eliminate the time wastage that’s caused when the action on the whole board gets held up by the turn of a player power which, for all practical purposes, operates on only one side of the board.

On the other hand, the higher workload of the 4-person option might be seen as an advantage in that it would keep people busier and reduce the boredom of waiting for one’s turn to arrive.

Couldn’t have put it better myself – my main two goals here are to save time, and help keep players occupied.

@Black_Elk:

That’s a clean map Ryuzaki_Lawlie!

The color selection is ideal. Though the black impassibles still jump out at me

From a design standpoint the only things that catch my eye are the two round sea zones surrounding Japan and Hawaii.

It feel like you need one in the Atlantic to balance things out aesthetically. Have you considered the possibility of one surrounding the British Isles?

Or maybe Iceland? Or maybe both?

I still think Mercator is a bit tight in Europe, a little stretching there might be ideal, even if it was just along the vertical axis. I think the map would still read fine, but you’d get a few more pixel for units into those key European spots. Also if you were willing to shrink South America slightly you could almost curve off a 10th of the map height at the bottom of the screen (which is notorious for players forgetting units in the south sea hehe) without really needing to change Africa/Australia of the pacific. Basically a slight bend would go a long way, even if using Mercator for the baseline.

Oh and I think the possession colors for Dutch Borneo and British Sarawak and North Borneo should be reversed.

My only suggestions :)

Nice work man. That would be a fun map to form the basis of a 1939 game, or any year from 39 on.

I like that you have not yet imposed on the map any extraneous information such as IPC values or VC. This means the map is adaptive for many purposes. I like the general division of territories. Only that the projection is a bit large at the poles for my tastes. If we could shrink them up slightly I think the map would be ideal. Its really more about screen dimension for me when it comes to the Big World Map that Wandering Head made. These days most screens are very long relative to their height, so standard Mercator always seems blown out a bit in tripleA to me, especially at the south end, and of course Europe is always tight. I wish the center picker for tripleA was better at housing units to smaller scales. Its a little better than it used to be, especially with the guiding lines, but still Europe loves to clutter up haha.
:-D

Again though, great design direction!

I’ll probably shift the continents (turning their general direction), and stretch out northern Africa and Europe, will probably require North America to get a bit skinny, but I think the big benefit from this, is that potentially more European spaces can be added. This will allow me to add more to the Mediterranean however (and it really needs the space), perhaps round out where Rome is. Africa, I think needs a bit more work. South America possibly as well, but I sort of need an idea of which cities can be considered major not only there, but elsewhere. Vladivostok will defiantly get added in with it’s own space.

I picked black for impassables, since it tells me that there is nothing there, no play space, it’s simply temporary, and they are there for the designer’s benefit.

I’m not sure where else to put a rounded Sea Zone, I’m considering more though.

Its one thing to increase the output of an industrial zone, quite another to build one from scratch. Even in the case of the USSR, the new factories established in the east were built largely from industrial base evacuated from western Russia. It would be authentic to allow the Soviets to transport a factory from say Ukraine to the Urals, but this would be very much the exception.

Major war materials were all built in home countries - it was more efficient for America to build tanks in Detroit and ship them overseas than to set up factories in Morocco or Norway.

Flashman, can you be a little more specific about what you mean by “a nation is defeated?” Does that mean all of the nation’s pieces are immediately removed from the map when it loses its last production center? If not, are there any practical consequences to being “defeated” other than not being able to produce new units? And by “nation,” do you have in mind something like “France,” or more like “the Allies?”

If you treat production centers as victory cities, then how many victory cities do you think each side should have to control in order to win? Would you have any victory cities that are not also production centers?

Finally, would you agree that banning the creation of new factories takes some of the variety and surprise out of the game? Off the top of my head, it seems like Japan is more or less required to try to conquer India (since Japan can no longer build a factory in Manchuria or Kazakh), and the USA is more or less required to try to conquer Italy or Tokyo (since the USA can no longer build a factory in France, NW Europe, or Norway). I would also be sad to lose the option of having the UK build a factory in South Africa, having the USA build a factory in Sinkiang, having the UK (or Germans!) build a factory in Egypt, having Japan build a factory in Alaska, and having the USA build a factory in Borneo or the Philippines. No one of these options is really part of ‘orthodox’ play, but collectively they spice the game up quite a bit, and often players will adjust their moves to make sure that these builds don’t become optimal. For example, the US might leave a significant garrison, including a tank and a fighter, in Western USA / Western Canada to guard against a Japanese Alaskan factory, but if Japan can’t build in Alaska, then the USA can make do with a much smaller, cheaper, more passive defense of the homeland.

Thanks for the graphics, Black_Elk! Let me know if you have any thoughts, aesthetic or strategic, about this draft of a new map. I’m shooting for something in between 1942.2 and 1940 – I don’t want dozens of fidgity territories in the middle of nowhere that just require extra counting, but I do want to give people options to set up different kinds of front lines (and prioritize theaters) in new and interesting ways.

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