Posts made by Flashman

What do you mean by low recruitment?  India raised half as many troops as the UK itself, and they fought in many theatres.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_in_World_War_II

This purports to be a realistic map, and is useful in that it lists IPC values AND oil production separately:

http://www.basesproduced.com/aaa.html

Hmmm, is there a particular date?  I’m working on a C.1962 map; let you have a look soon.  But there’s really no need to add more inaccuracies to the many already present in the Hysterical, sorry Historical edition.  I’m doing a 1939 map and while I use the 1940 map as a basis, I have to change the borders to accomodate the Bastard of Europe, still extant at this time. I have to say it’s no wonder Poland’s neighbours wiped it off the map so many times - it’s an absolute pig to draw.
I have Warsaw Pact, China, NATO and SEATO as major blocks; this of course splits USA in half as some have proposed for A&A.

Sorry but as the map for this breaks ALL of my golden rules, retaining ALL of the unhistorical borders of AAR, I simply cannot entertain the idea of playing on it.  Shame, as there might be some good stuff in the rules.  First impressions, and all that.

This is a pretty good source:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/axis.htm

Loads of diplomacy maps:

http://www.diplom.org/Online/maps.html

Do your own thing, but here are a few golden rules from Flashy;

Decide FIRST if, and how much, map distortion you want.  Western Europe and Japan are hopelessly small on a world map, so most of us use projections that exaggerate their size.  It’s no good basing your outline on a real map, then discovering later that you don’t have room for enough territories in Europe.

THINGS TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS

1. Rio de Oro is in NORTH Africa. Mark that point.  It is VERY important.
2. Moscow is in EUROPE. That is, nowhere near where official A&A boards put it.  If you can live with such an outrageous falsehood as Moscow-in-the-Urals, go ahead.  But in that case abandon any pretence of creating a historical map.
3. The Sinai penninsular is in EGYPT. There is therefore no need to complicate the board with having two territories controlling access to the Suez canal.
4. Countries such as Pakistan only came into being AFTER the war. You should NEVER include them, it is prefferable to use geographical terms such as “Western India” or “Indus Valley”.
5. India is a BIG country, in fact a sub-continent.  It is the SECOND most populous country on earth after China.  DO NOT follow the example of the uneducated and just lump it together as one territory worth a scandalously low 3 dollar value.
6. Regarding IPCS, an important factor is fuel. Using GDP figures gives you a starting reference, but remember that areas such as Romania, Caucasus and the Dutch East Indies were much more important than their GDP value owing to their crude oil production.

Like the thinking on Poland.

Churchill and Stalin uprooted it and plonked it down a few thousand miles west.

You picked it up in your mighty fist and put it back again.

Leaving room for…greater East Germany!

According to this post

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/181064

there are no tanks. So we’re still stuck with the shortage from AAR.  Claims the Japanese are in “light brown”.  Another in the long series of Japanese colours indistinguishable (to me) from at least one allied colour.

Latest stuff:

1945

The Yellow Peril

No complex supply rules - just the proposal that a mechanised force cut off from any possible supply route should not be able to move.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzkrieg

Given the relatively few Russian territories in WWII the principle is the same.

This is my take on it (I suggest you read the WWII rules on naval pass-throughs for another perspective); I call it the Tank breakthrough rule.
This is based on studying the method of blitkrieg warfare and it’s use of tanks to breakthrough the enemy front line to cause chaos in his rear area.  It was particularly effective in the early war against Poland, France and the USSR; in the case of the eastern front because the enemy insisted in placing nearly all his forces on the front line.  Gamewise it borrows from the rule we use in Britannia for overruns.

If on attacking an enemy area you outnumber his ground units by at least 2-1, tanks with 2 movement points left WHICH ARE NOT PART OF THE INITIAL ATTACKING FORCE may move through the attacked territory to attack or occupy another enemy occupied/controlled area. This movement is made before resolving any rounds of combat, as it simulates tanks bypassing enemy defences to attack rear areas.  This move can only be made if the enemy is heavily, i.e. 2/1, outnumbered in the initial attack.
Of course there are risks with this move; depending on the order in which battles are fought, your blitzing tanks could get cut off with nowhere to retreat to; they can be supported by aircraft but not other ground units hence are likely to suffer tank casualties; they will have no other units to defend them in the case of enemy counter-attack.  Tank spearheads which get cut off in this way must be considered out of supply and cannot move again until relieved.
On the plus side this can cause massive disruption to the enemy’s defences, forcing him to plan defences in depth (this is what the Soviets learned to do the hard way). You have to calculate this disruption against likely heavy losses of armour units.  And of course you may be able to use breakthroughs to cut off enemy forces from their supply, or prevent them from retreating if you’re using defender retreat rules.

Considering rules such as Panzergrenadiers and mobile infantry; these would give a massive advantage to forces using tank breakthroughs as these can be immediately reinforced with infantry. Perhaps such rules should not be used in conjunction with TBs.

One rule variant that would work is different tank types;  heavy tanks with big combat values but only 1 movement, light or medium tanks with less power but the 2 movement allowance needed to effect breakthroughs.  So; use heavies, artillery and infantry to engage the main opposition while the lighter armour races through avoiding combat if possible to break through to the enemy rear.

I think this works better than the 2 combat movement rounds idea as it forces the attacker to plan ahead rather than unrealistically wait and see what r1 achieves before commiting his armour to further attacks (in which time the enemy would have the chance to redeploy defences).

But I have to pay to get it shipped over the duck pond.  Depending on exchange rates, that can DOUBLE the price.

Plus I have to take out insurance against U-boat sinkings.

Yes, lets see a full version of the map.

Regarding IPC values, you have to make adjustments for resources, like Romania’s vital (for the Axis) oil supply making it far more valuable than say Denmark, even though Denmark has a higher GDP.

Also the lack of industrialisation in places like China; it’s hardly realistic to allow the Chinese to build battleships even if they reconquer all of China from Japan and have a whopping great IPC income.  In fact, as this was a war between industrialised powers, I really don’t see the case for China being a “power” in it’s own right.  I prefer two Chinese factions controlled by the USA and USSR respectively.

US income has to be throttled, otherwise the Allies siimply can’t lose.

Soviet military strength was way higher than GDP percentage as it had a highly developed war industry, huge human resourses and payed it’s people peanuts; hence it was much cheaper for the Soviets to build a T-34 than for the Americans to build a technically inferior Sherman.  I find it much simpler to reflect this in territorial income values rather than the messy “different unit costs for different powers” approach.

I know you don’t have the exact breakdown for units, but are the nations all the same, or are they realistically structured like AAR; e.g. loads of infantry and very few battleships and bombers for Russia and China?

Poor old India, the whipping boy of Axis and Allies maps.
A sub-continent which houses the second largest population on earth reduced to a measly single territory with a putrid 3 dollar value.
To make matters worse, a completely fictional slice is carved off from Sind, NW Province and Punjab and called “Pakistan”.

There’d BETTER be a damned good reason for doing this.  See my next map for further “comment” on the pestilent “Pakistan Syndrome”.

Sorry to sound negative about the game, generally I have to admit this is the best map I’ve seen (apart from my own, obviously).  But historical inaccuracies really bug me; why continue the error of having Sinai in Arabia?

The rules I like; something along the lines of the naval pass-through has been badly needed, and (although nit-picking nay-sayers claim the scale is wrong) a land based equivalent to replace the redundant blitzing rule is a logical addition; hence my 2-1 armour breakthrough rule.

@Adlertag:

Too many ports

How many is just enough?

They do not work like NBs in Pacific.

EVERY land border is considered to have a port for refueling purposes; only Naval Bases have ship repair facilities.  They do not give ships an extra move point.

Rules file coming shortly.  Plus another map you might like.  Or not.  Incidentally, where can I find a scan of your map?

I have a set up for 1942 which has approximately twice the units.  Neutrals have combat units as well, though.

I think the ships are from Eagle Games Civilization.

Can’t read all the IPC values so will withhold comment on that.

As a qualified gameboard surgeon the following issues have to be addressed:

I don’t think the equal Atlantic/Pacific anomaly is much of a problem.  At least the Atlantic is sufficiently wide to produce an interesting theatre, a big improvement on Revised.  The Pacific was largely empty of units, and if it was realistically larger it would discourage any significant Pacific action, already a problem in Revised.  Nevertheless it does look wrong, but not something that can be cured with acrylics.

I would:
add impassable zones of Amazon and Congo Basin
separate Algeria from Algerian desert
restore Sinai (and hence Suez canal) to Egypt
India needs major surgery to remove Pakistan and add sensible divisions
There are too many petty states in Africa
As IL has pointed out there are too FEW areas in western Russia; at the very least
add impassable (to armour) Pripet to southern Belarus
divide “Caucasus” n/s
divide “Central Russia” into 3; Moscow(west), North bordering Leningrad, and East between Moscow and Urals

Mmmm, didn’t get much of a look at the map there!

IL, are you the ginger one with the beard and spectacles?

@Gamer:

Those who complain about the dice being too big a factor in the outcome of A&A games should be the ones most against using tech.  Tech is pure, unadultered dumb luck and very little to do with skill.  If you get lucky and get the right tech, you have a big advantage over your opponents.  If you get bad luck, you get stuck with something useless or, worse yet, nothing at all for your trouble and IPCs spent.  Tech should have been eliminated when they came out with revised.  It did not work well in Classic (which is why NO ONE played tournaments with tech) and still sucks in Revised.  It sure hasn’t done you any good in our game, NPB.

You seem to have missed the bit in Revised where it says you can choose which tech to roll for, so it’s entirely your own fault if you get left with a useless tech.  I will only become a fan of techs when we get specific pieces to represent the new units, as I don’t like having to remember who has what.