Posts made by Holden

Here’s what I’ve done with my map so far:

As you can see I still have a lot of work to do. I have some interesting design challenges ahead of me. For example:

1. How big do I big should I make the regions? Some spaces are necessarily small (Israel, Kuwait). While others are rather large (Saudi Arabia, Iran). The larger regions will be broken up into several smaller spaces. Exactly how big these spaces should be and what their composition should be is proving to be vexing. Make them too small and there’s too much territory on the board. If I make them much larger than the smallest regions then that messes up with game balance and raises other issues. Should I attempt to chop up the larger countries according to political districts or just slice them up evenly?

2. What should I name the regions? Some of the regions will be named for the country they represent (Israel, Kuwait) while other regions will only be a small part of a larger nation. Should I use district names or geographical names? You can already see a little of that if you look at Egypt. The area east if the Suez canal I named Sinai (geographic region) while if you look up near Russia I’ve got an abstract “Southern States” which is simply an amalgamation of several smaller countries rolled into one.

3. Should I have blow up boxes off to the side for the smaller regions? 2nd edition Axis and Allies did this and many players never used them (some did though). AA Revised had those numbered cards with small numbered chits to achieve the same thing (in a more generic way). What area peoples thoughts on this?

4. Should I put the game charts, build area, turn sequence the above mentioned holding boxes and/or any other information directly onto the board? If so where? The southern part of the board (Sudan, Egypt and the bottom right portion of the Arabian Sea) looks like a good spot.

5. Should I put neutral region unit strengths directly on the board? The advantage everyone can see what they have to deal with without looking up a separate chart. The disadvantage is that it may clutter up the board. What about set-up information? Personally I tend to frown on this kind of this put right onto the board but what do others think?

6. How many victory cities should I put on the board and what criteria should I use to select them? Each country should have at least two to start with (all of the capitals will be victory cities). Should some regions have two or more victory cities (making them that much more important than other regions).

7. Same as above for oil fields.

8 ) Should I put geographical features on the map? Things like mountains, deserts and rivers could be added. If these things were added, should they affect game play or be there for appearances purposes only? If I add Mountains ranges and rivers, should I put them IN regions or put them bordering regions?

Any comments or suggestions would be helpful.

Here is the basic outline of the game: The game takes place in the near future (well say 2015-2020). Political pressure and unrest at home has forced the USA to remove itself from the Middle East theatre (perhaps the United States is embroiled in some kind of conflict with China) although they still support Egypt, Israel & Saudi Arabia (which isn’t really represented directly in this game. Players can assume that America’s support has enabled these countries to achieve the military muscle that they demonstrate on the board). Russia, after decades of turmoil has stabilized itself internally and now looks to involve itself in the world stage again. Russia has shown a renewed interest in the Middle East and has backed Iraq (perhaps filling a void left by a departing America). Russia has also paved inroads with several bordering countries surrounding the middle east including: Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan. These are countries that were once holdings of the USSR during the cold war and have recently “come back into the fold” so to speak. Opposing these two nations are the countries of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt (Saudi Arabia and Egypt are played as one nation).

The stage is set for these two opposing factions to wage war against one another all across the Middle East. Iraq is strong economically and militarily but is surrounded on three sides by enemies. Russia has a powerful military, is relatively safe from invasion and may choose when and where to attack. But Russia must act quickly before Iraq is overwhelmed. Iran and Turkey are both have to worry about an invasion from Russia while Saudi Arabia-Egypt must balance attacking Iraq with supporting her allies to the north. Each nation has the opportunity to invade any of the neutral regions on the map (which defend themselves with their own forces) but if that invasion fails the neutral country will automatically ally itself with the opposing faction. Nuetral nations offer the chance to claim additional resources as well as victory cities and oil fields.

There are two means of achieving victory. An economic victory occurs when one side controls a set number of oil field regions (the number will depend on the final disposition of the map). A political victory occurs when a set number of victory cities are controlled by one side (again, this is dependant on the map).

The game will play out in the same manner as Axis and Allies. That is to say: Develop Tech, Purchase New Units, Combat Move, Non-Combat Move, Place New Units, and Collect Income. Combat will be resolved in the familiar manner and the units will have similar capabilities.

Anyone have anything to add so far?

The first thing I decided I needed was a name for my project. As you have not doubt surmised (from the title of this thread) for now I’ve settled with: FLASHPOINT MIDDLE EAST. I think it’s kind of catchy and it isn’t likely to be confused with other games (although there was that Flashpoint: Golan war game by Victory Games).

If anyone has other suggestions for a title I’d love to hear them.

I’ve been a long time Axis and Allies player but I’ve been craving a modern take on this otherwise fine series of games. Something similar to Fortress America but maybe a bit more grounded in reality. So I’ve decided to design my own game. But I won’t be working completely from scratch.

Years ago I acquired an AA expansion game titled “Middle East Combat” http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17151. This game featured a new map of the Middle East with the Red Pact of Iran and USSR taking on the Triad: Saudi-Egypt, Iran & Turkey. Special rules covered insurrections, oil fields, cruise missiles, laser guided bombs, chemical weapons and host of other considerations. The game played quite well and was a blast but its looking a bit dated now. I thought I’d spruce up the design and add my own elements along the way.

I started this thread in order to air my ideas out and receive criticism, feedback, suggestions and wisdom so that I can make the best design possible. Over the next few posts I’ll be introducing some concepts and ideas I have for the design. This will include the units in the game and the map.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Eagle Games’ Civilization game can provide modern infantry, towed artillery and really cool modern tanks. These pieces are all a bit larger than the standard AA pieces.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3633

Supremacy only ever had two expansions which added miniatures (the standard game comes with abstract cubes and oblongs). These expansions are Main Battle Tanks and Boombers. These pieces look great however they are also on the larger side (the tanks are 1" long and the boomers are 2 1/4" long). Rolco Games sells these pieces in a variety of colours.
http://www.rolcogames.com/product.php?id=41&catid=14

I also have Stratagame and the ships are just a tad shorter than the standard AA battleship piece. The rest of the pieces are on the larger side. The colours are very bright also.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27582

I find this thread very interesting since lately I have been creating my own version of a modern day strategy game based on Axis and Allies. I’m using the AA 2nd edition pieces as my base and I’ve been scouring the net for additional pieces. Here is what I’ve discovered.

The pieces by TableTactics are great. They are all to scale with the original AA pieces and come molded in the orignal five colours. You can even get them in some of the new colours (dark grey, creme and burnt orange).

The New world Order set has M1 tanks, M113 APC’s, F16 style jets, attack copters and hovercraft.

Central Powers (a WWI variant) has conventional artillery pieces (which are lacking if you are using AA 2nd edition as a base), and two types of ships; destroyers and cruisers. These ships both look rather modern as opposed to originating in WWI (they have squared off sterns just like modern frigates/destroyers/cruisers). The other pieces in this set are of marginal value; machine guns (too tactical to be considered in a grand strategy game) Mk4 style tanks (too dated looking) and halftracks (once again these look very WWIIish).

Risk 2042 includes more M1 tanks and attack helicopters (these look the same as the ones in New World Order) a slightly different version of a hovercraft, scout cars (look like WWII armoured cars) and most importantly mobile artillery pieces.

A & A accecories is of limited value as it includes a host of WWII themed pieces. Of interest may be the rockets (kinda look like V2’s) and the minefield pieces (I believe minefields are once again too tactical to be included in a grand strategy game however, these small disks could be used to represent ICBM or Anti-missile silo’s).

Link - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/2248

The only pieces I can’t find are modern bombers (B-52’s) and modern subs (Los Angeles, Ohio’s).