The design work on Flashpoint Middle East (near future war) is nearing completion and I’m looking to start designing my next map.
I’ve decided that I’m going to stick to WWIIish and not stray too far from the basic A&A formula. This way anyone who has the basic A&A pieces can download my maps, have them printed and play the campaigns. They won’t need to come up with new pieces.
So what shall my next design be?
How much would the map cost to print? (In your opinion)
I have printed and laminated maps for others games for around $20-$60 (as was mentioned the size makes a big difference).
The test map I printed was 25" x 27" and I found that some of the territories were a tad small (but larger than many of the standard A&A Pacific Islands). I’ve gathered all my pieces and soon I’ll host the results of a test game.
The problem with a WWI game is that you need to make a major investment to get the pieces (both in time and money).
If you’re anything like me you’ll want all the pieces to really look the part so you’ll need biplanes, zeppelins, tanks, all new infantry, artillery, all new naval units.
You can use micro armour or naval miniatures for most of this stuff (1:72 plastics for the infantry) but then you’ll have to paint them all (perhaps to match some plastic pieces you’ve got). Also, this can get really expensive.
Lets face it there is no easy way to produce a complete and uniform looking set of WWI pieces for a strategic game.
The question is how badly do you want to play a WWI game?
This is why I’m concentrating my creative efforts on producing maps and variant rules for pieces that already exist.
I agree that Israel is a military powerhouse. However, including them as a playable nation presents a few challenges. Adding Israel would force a 7th player nation into the game and I don’t want to lose any of the nations I’ve got now (If I would squeeze one out it would be Russia I guess).
In addition, Israel is merely one region on the map. If they are to compete economically with the other nations Israel must have an IPC value of 30 or so! Either that or Israel starts with a huge military advantage.
For now Israel is going to have to remain a powerful neutral nation. It is the most valuable IPC region on the map and it includes a victory city (Tel Aviv). Accordingly Israel will have a very potent mic of military units should someone invade.
BTW: The armed forces of Turkey are no slouches either (2nd largest in NATO behind the USA). They are armed with modern equipment too.
Latest version of the map. It’s very near completion. IPC values are all assigned. The only thing I need to do now is flesh out the Victory cities.
I’ve tweaked the combat system a little. At the end of every round of combat both the attacker and the defender have the opportunity to attempt to retreat any or all of their units. These retreating units are moved to the “disengaged” portion of the battle board. If these units survive an entire round of combat in the disengaged area (disengaged units may not attack) they withdraw from battle and make a retreat move into an adjacent region. Basically a unit gives up its chance to make an attack roll in order to retreat. Submarines may “Submerge” and immediatly move to the Disengaged area after making an attack roll (getting them out of combat one turn quicker than most).
I was looking at some maps of the Middle East and there are roads, highways and railways threading all over the regions of the map. I think adding strategic highways or rail-lines directly onto the map is out. Instead, in order to keep it simple: if you want to use strategic movement pay 1 IPC to the bank and then you may move that unit up to 4 regions (limit of 4 units per turn). Perhaps a tech could improve this ability (advanced logistics or strategic deployment or something).
Getting close to printing this map out and playing a few games.
Been working more on this game. I finally ordered all the Table Tactics plastic pieces. These will form the backbone of the various units in the game. Together with the old A&A pieces I’ve got pretty much everything I need. The only things really missing are a modern bomber and a modern submarine. I think I’m going to have to order some miniature bombers and subs and paint them.
First the latest map:
-Egypt has now become its own seperate player nation with its own colour.
-A few regions added to Turkey to break up some of the larger regions there.
Other changes:
-Decided to ditch the Battleship unit.
-What I think I’d like to do now is to randomly assign two opposing teams at the beginning of the game. Each team would be composed of three nations. So you take the six player aid cards (one for each nation). You flip them over and randomly deal them out into two stacks of three. Those are the teams for the game. This will make the game really variable and change the entire nature of the gameplay each time. The trick with this approach is to make the game balanced enough so that there are no real killer teams that make the game unplayable. To this end each nation must be roughly the same in terms of power (both military and economic wise).
-I want to reduce the effectiveness of the cruise missiles. I think I’m going to limit their range to 4 spaces. and reduce their combat value to a max of 4 at range 1, 3 at range 2, 2 at range 3 and 1 at range 4.
More to come.
I was considering adding railway lines to the map to facilitate strategic movement. What do you guys think of that?
Also, what are your opinions on technology development? I had some plans on the back burner for tech upgrades to the military units in addition to more general tech upgrades.
Anyone have any Central Powers runners for sale? I missed my chance to grab them from Table Tactics.
Not much progress on this game (life gets in the way) but I plan on getting back to it soon.
Here’s what I’ve been working on. I’ve really been trying to nail down the combat sequence and the units.
Some quick comments on combat that may not be evident at first.
-Units only have one Combat Value (CV). No Attack & Defend rating. However…
-Generally, the defender fires first and the attacker removes his casualties before returning fire. This obviously gives the defender a natural advantage.
-At the start of battle, air units are assigned either Air to Air or Air to Ground.
-Fighters fight at 4 in Air to Air but 1/2 (ie:2) in Air to Ground. Helicopters & Bombers fight at full strength in Air to Ground mode (4 & 2) but fight at 1/2 in Air to Air mode.
-Air to Air hits must be taken by enemy air units (never naval or ground units).
-Air to Ground hits must be taken by Naval or Ground units (never enemy air units).
-At the start of each round of combat, players can move their air units around between Air to Air and Air to Ground modes.
-Defending air units can retreat from battle.
-AA guns are now units that shoot once each prior to battle. In other words you can (and should) buy multiple guns to defend important positions.
-Frigates and Cruisers also act as AA guns.
Ah, I see where the problem lies. I was using measurements from the original generic A&A bomber piece (which is 38mm in width).
And yes, I was aware that the pieces are all different scales. I assume that you’d want the transport plane to scale up against the bombers.
Regardless, my final conclusion that 1/700 scale is fairly close is still valid and correct.
I’m afraid your attempt to embarrass and discredit me has failed :-).
1/700 gives the junkers Ju 52 a 1.6 inch wingspan. Slightly larger than the standard Axis & Allies airplane scale (the A&A bomber has a wingspan of 1.5 inches).
If you assume the A&A bomber is a B-17, then the miniature scale is:
Real life B17 wingspan = 103 ft 9 in = 1245 in
A&A plastic bomber piece wingspan = 1.5 in
1245 in / 1.5 in = 830
Therefore, the A&A aircraft scale is 1/830.
1/700 is fairly close.
Well IPCs can represent the nation ability to mobilze its nation.
See post above.
Nice to see new units.
The missile unit looks really powerful, i would say too powerful with a range of eight!. I would accauly incldued two missile units in the game. One short range that can fire 2 space away, and another that is medium range that can fire from six spaces away but costs 10. I think you should also be able too load these missiles up on certain ships, subs, and aircraft aswell so that they can be fired from their.
You did see that the missiles are expendable. As in when you fire them they are gone. They only get one shot then removed from play. Note this is one combat roll only. Not one entire combat. So they get one good shot in the first round of combat and that’s it. Also they can be used for Strategic Bombing. Also note that they are susceptible to AA fire.
Also, for your land units, I think its just going to add confusion too the board if you have two varaints of the same unit, while not adding a whole lot of strategy and fun since they the new units are not that different from the old ones.
Well, I did want to go for additional detail in this game. The main difference is that the mechanized units have an additional movement point which is a huge advantage to be able to keep up with the armour. If a nation is on the defensive and need to maximize combat power they can save a bit of money by purchasing the non-mechanized units. A mobile/mechanized unit represents serious support in terms of armoured vehicles and logistics. I assume that standard, non-mechanized units also utilize motorized transport (in the form of trucks or other such vehicles) its just that they are not as capable or as reliable as the mechanized form of the unit and hence they are not afforded the additional movement point. In addition, mobile Infantry take up more room on transports (ie: a transport can carry 1 non-mobile infantry + 1 other unit) and cannot be used for airborne operations (inserted via transport planes).
I think some more exciting options for land warfare would be units like special forces or marines. Special forces could have some sort of support bonus or they could allow you to train forces in countries that are not your own, or they could have some ability to attack cities or oil fields. They could have an ability simialr to subs, accept that they “submerge” on land.
Special forces and marines while interesting introduce another two types of infantry which would be a pain in the neck to get pieces for. I might consider marines, but I’d rather leave special forces to some kind of tech advantage or an action card or something. Also, if these unit types are introduced then it brings up the whole “why isn’t there a dedicated paratrooper unit?” debate.
Also I would rename heavy Armor advacned armor, since how big a tank is in modern warfare does not correspond to how powerful it is as much as it did in World War 2. Or you coudl call the heavy tank a Main Battle Tank.
The Heavy Tank is actually called advanced tank but I shortened the name so that it would fit into a chart I’m making (same for the cargo plane which is actually a transport aircraft). The normal tank unit represents older, less capable models held in inventory and the Advnaced Armour is a cutting edge MBT.
Also, almost all infantry today are motorized or mechanized, so the mobile infantry peice should be the main unit in an army, when you are figureing out the setup. I also feel infantry unit should be renamed light infantry, and it should be able to be transported in helecopters and 2 should fit in a cargo plane. Cargo planes should also be renamed transport aircraft, to give the game a more military and official feal.
addressed above.
Also, helocopters should get some kind of bonus when fighting tanks, like you said they are tank hunters.
Helicopters have the “Tank Hunter” special ability. Each Helicopter unit present in battle reduces the combat value of enemy tanks by 1 (either attack or defend value). This makes regular tanks defend at only 1 against helicopters! I didn’t want to allow Helicopters to transport infantry because Apache’s cannot morph into Chinooks. Also, that would make them really powerful and the cost would have to go up considerably (although it would be cool to mount air mobile helicopter borne operations).
For the navy, you should scracth the battleship, since that is not used asmore. Instead call it a Frigate, and make it orienated to fighting off aircraft and cruise missle, also lower its cost. Accaully all the naval unit should have lower cost, otherwise cruise missles are going to be deveistating against them, although cruise missles should remaine more effective against naval units than land units.
The battleship represents either and old WWII battleship which has been modernized (Iowa class) or the heavy Soviet battle cruiser designs (Kirov class). There were only to be few of these units on the board at start and I didn’t really expect anyone to buy them. I could just amp their cost up to prevent anyone from purchasing them (or just outlaw buying them). I think I’ll change the two smaller naval vessels to Frigate and Cruiser (Frigates are smaller and less capable vessels than destroyers or cruisers). The Frigate will be the sub hunter and Cruisers will be the anti-air unit. I’m considering making each naval unit count as an AA gun and the cruisers count as AA guns hitting on 2 or less. This way you’ll have to saturate a naval force with numerous missiles and aircraft to get enough through to do damage. I’ll think on it more.
Also, why havnt you included Surface-to-Air missile sites, otherwisw their wont be anything to fill the role of the AA gun
AA guns are in the game (named Anti-Air missiles). They just didn’t get listed. They will not be capable of rocket attacks (that’s what the cruise missiles are for).
I didn’t list the factories either. I’m considering adding a heavy factory to the unit mix. A heavy factory can be represented by having two factory pieces present in the space (for lack of a bigger heavier factory piece) and it will allow you to build twice the IPC value in pieces there.
Keep the feedback coming.
@CWO:
I guess another way to help explain it (at least as far as equipment is concerned) might be to assume that some of it is being purchased from foreign sources (outside the Middle East theatre in which the game is set) and that it’s being shipped to the buyers out of existing inventories (rather than being built on demand, which in a short regional war would take too long for complex modern weapons). The existing inventories could consist either of weapons built specifically for export by countries (like North Korea) which sell a lot of military equipment to foreign nations, or they could be surplus older material no longer needed by the country of origin (like those surplus World War I destroyers which the U.S. transferred to Great Britain early in World War II).
That is certainly part of what is going on behind the curtains when nations spend IPC’s in my game however, it still doesn’t explain why your IPC total increases when you conquer enemy territory. With the basic A&A model you are capturing enemy resources and industrial areas (which is represented by the IPC total) and converting those resources into cash which you use to buy units. In the conflict I’m postulating here there would certainly be little or no time for Iraq to conquer an Iranian industrial area, re-tool it to manufacture Iraqi vehicles and arms and deploy those units in the field. Modern warfare moves too fast for that (given that I’m aiming for weekly turns).
One of the work arounds I was considering (other than ignoring the issue since the basic flow of A&A works well) is to have multiple rounds of combat and non-combat moves before a build new units round (for example: everyone performs three sets of combat and non-combat moves then everyone builds). My only concern here is that if someone breaks through a defensive line then they can push on and capture loads of enemy territory before any new units can be built to stop them (this could be desireable however).
At first the rules for combat are just going to be the standard Axis and Allies rules with some new units thrown in. I do have ideas and plans to make my own set of rules, but that going to wait until later.
I intend to use the following units
Infantry C3 A1 D2 M1
Mobile Inf C4 A1 D1 M2
Artillery C4 A2 D2 M1 (infantry support)
Mobile Art. C5 A2 D2 M2 (infantry support)
Tank C5 A3 D3 M2
Heavy Tank C6 A4 D3 M2
Helicopter C8 A2 D3 M4 (tank hunter)
Fighter C10 A3 D4 M6
Bomber C15 A4 D1 M8
Missile C5 A4 D0 M8 (one use)
Cargo Plane C10 A0 D1 M8 (transport 1 inf or 1 other unit during non-combat)
Submarine C8 A2 D2 M2 (first strike, submerge)
Destroyer C8 A2 D2 M2 (sonar)
Cruiser C12 A2 D2 M2 (bombard)
Battleship C22 A4 D4 M2 (bombard, 2 hits)
Carrier C15 A1 D3 M2 (transport 2 non-bomber air units, 2 hits)
Transport C8 A0 D1 M2 (transport 1 Inf + 1 other unit)
I wanted each turn to represent about 1 week of fighting however, this is one of those fudge factors that comes up in gaming. In reality there would little to no time for construction of major combat units in the modern war I’m trying to simulate. When you consider the entire war could be over in a matter of weeks, how can a nation possibly build entire infantry or tank divisions, squadrons of aircraft and/or fleets of warships? If you really want to do it realistically each nation should start with an order of battle and then each turn would receive set reinforcements as reserve formations are prepared (something like Axis & Allies D-day). After the first few turns all the forces would be in play with little or nothing following.
The problem is the collecting and spending of IPC’s is such an elegant and interesting mechanic, I don’t want to lose it. So I’ll just call it a flexible reserve activation method.
More to come.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are partially represented on the map. I’m going to assume for the purposes of my scenario that they are too distracted by India to get too involved in the Middle East.
The USA is indirectly represented in the game by their backing of Saudi Arabia. For all intents and purposes Saudi Arabia is the USA in this game. Once again, the US is largely concerned with events unfolding elsewhere in the world.
As far as Iraq is concerned, Russia is supposed to be backing Iraq heavily. With US resolve and morale weakened to the point that they pretty much abandon Iraq and the middle east (stretching it. I know), Russia steps into the power vacuum and re-arms the Iraqi forces.
I did consider making this an everyone sticks all game and it will still be very possible as a variant in the future. However, in my experience what tends to happen if you don’t have teams is that someone always gets shafted facing two or three opponents. Also, individual players encourages a turtling strategy. No one wants to make bold, aggresive moves for fear of being ganged up on or weaken themselves and leave themsleves vulnerable to others. In addition there always seems to be that one player who manages to avoid any major fighting in the early and middle part of the game. At the end, after everyone has been weakened due to fighting eath other, the player who has been avoiding conflict and building his/her forces steps in and dominates. There is also a potential for king making in free for all games. king making is when a player can’t really win a game but he/she can decide who can. You kno - “Well, you’ve annoyed me the whole game so I’m throwing everything I have at you even though it will mean utter defeat for me also, I know you won’t win!”. Finally, free for all games are much more difficult to playtest and achieve a real game balance.
Team vs team, scenario type games are just easier to design in the beggining. So that’s what I’m starting out with.
You are correct about the focus on ground combat though. I am thinking about incorporating some victory point or IPC type areas at sea (offshore oil fields, shipping routes etc…).
Oh here’s the latest version of the map by the way:
Lateset version:
The initial text were simply working labels. The spelling was fixed as I went along (not saying there aren’t anymore spelling errors in there somewhere).
The names of of Nations are in red with the regions within that nation labelled in black. Some nations comprise only one region (like Israel) while other nations only have one region represented on the map (like Romania and the Ukraine). The Crimean Peninsula is part of the Ukraine. I suppose I could label the region “Crimea (Ukraine)” or something as such.
I could have expanded the map northwards to include more of the Ukraine and Romania but then I risk losing a focus on the area where I want the fighting to occur. The same problem exists to the east with Afghanistan and Pakistan being only partially represented. Also, Sudan and Eithiopia are significantly curtailed. The cut off line has to be drawn somewhere.
The text is not going to be difficult to read once the map is blown up to its proper proportions.
Progress continues. Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia remain. Then the real fun of assigning IPC values and determining victory cities begins.
Here’s the lateset progress of the map. I pretty happy with the results so far. I’ve just been fiddling with the appearance of the text.
I didn’t want to put the game too far ahead into the future because I don’t want to include things like hovercraft and other more advanced tech. I want to use pretty much current modern day tech. In order for my story and timeline to work some extremely drastic events need to take place that affect the US and remove them from the picture.
I did orginally think of doing the game where there are no teams to begin with and everyone just rolls along fullfilling their own agenda (ala risk) and making their own alliances. But I like the idea of two sides. Besides the basic set-up is provides a really interesting dynamic (with Iraq in the middle and Russia on the outside and the other three nations in-between).
Iran is not so much allied with Saudi Arabia as it is also opposed to Iraq (the enemy of my enemy is my friend).
I don’t want to expand the map too much. I had orginally wanted to extend northwards to include more of Russia and the Ukraine, but I think I like the tightness of it now. Eventually I want to do a global game.
As for Turkmenistan, I wanted to have a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Iran.
One of the main problems when considering airborne troops for the basic Axis and Allies system is that the design doesn’t incorporate defensive advantages (beyond the basic advantage of being the defender). In WWII, paratroopers were seen as a means to circumvent the enemy’s specific defensive advantages (i.e.: coastlines, rivers, mountains, islands). If there were such a thing as defensive advantages in the game then paratroopers could be used to negate (either partially or fully) these advantages.
This would also prevent players from abusing paratroopers and using them unrealistic ways (flying over Europe to drop a single paratrooper in an undefended Italy for example).
Unfortunately what I’m talking about here is really a re-design of the basic system.
For what it’s worth here’s my take on including airborne troops with the standard A&A system.
For a cost of 5 IPC’s an infantry unit can be upgraded with an airborne marker. The marker is placed underneath the infantry piece during the “Place New Units” phase. This does not require the use of a factory. If an infantry unit that is upgraded with an airborne marker moves (either on foot or by being loaded on a transport) then the airborne marker is lost. During the “Combat Moves” phase the upgraded unit may conduct an airborne assault. The unit may be moved up to 2 spaces, just like an air unit (subject to enemy AA fire). At the start of the battle the unit is vulnerable to enemy AA fire and attacks at 2 during the opening fire phase of the first round of combat. After the first round of combat remove the airborne marker. The unit once again functions as a normal infantry unit (attacking at 1 if the combat is on-going). Infantry units performing an airborne assault may not retreat.
So that’s it. First you need to have a standard infantry unit (airborne troopers are usually trained as standard infantry first). Then you need to train the troops, accumulate the transport aircraft and prepare the logistics required to perform a major drop (this is what the 5 IPC’s is for).
People will not buy too many of these guys because they are expensive and limited. They don’t want to move them and lose their money. Players don’t want to build them “just because”. They have to have a specific purpose in mind. They are a nice bonus when attacking an enemy coast and they can fly out and capture lightly defended area’s.
What are your thoughts?