Posts made by knp7765

I understand how you guys are feeling.
France – I am really wanting the French to have their own units. Really don’t care for the blue Soviet pieces.
Russia – I would like to see some more Russian units, like perhaps some navy and later war planes.
Italy – I really want some HBG produced Italian units.  The FMG Italians were great but since they got ripped off and that project got cancelled, I just don’t care to use the FMG units. They are too dark in color and there is no other country units to work with them.

Still, I don’t mind waiting.  HBG will get to these eventually I’m sure. I am really looking forward to the Germany 3 set. I know we already have a lot of German units, but this set really has some cool pieces. I’m most excited for the Panzer IV, Panther, Pocket Battleship and Infantry in Greatcoat. Lots of possible uses for these.
Plus, while some of these are re-dos of OOB parts (Panther, Stuka, Bismarck, Graf Zeppelin), we all know HBGs version will look so much better, plus we can get them in dark grey OR black as we wish.  OOB is only in black.

Yeah, I made that mistake myself one game. I was having all this fun with this stack of bombers, I think 9 or 10 at the time, and I left them on the French Coast within range of British Fighters. He came at me with just 3 fighters and wiped out all but 1 of my precious bombers.
He just kept getting hits while I kept rolling everything but a 1. One or two combat rounds I didn’t even get a single hit. Of course, it was well worth it for the UK to lose 3 fighters while taking out 9 bombers.

One thing this would definitely accomplish is splitting the US and UK incomes. I know even in Global UK London and UK Pacific are kept separate, but in this case one wouldn’t be wondering about the other or able to affect the other (Example: India sending tanks up to support Moscow).
The US would be forced to have a split income. It’s been a while since I played either Pacific 40 or Europe 40 alone so I wonder if the US would be as much of a force on either board.
One question:  If the US or UK gets a tech breakthrough on one game, would they share that on the other game?

Also, there are some strategies where Germany sends a few bombers to help Japan by clearing blockers. If you buy a bunch of bombers with Germany, you will have enough to send a few to Japan and still have plenty to do stuff in Europe.

@Young:

I like the idea of American fighters reinforcing the Siberian Russian troops, but the fact that Japan is between Russia and US in the order of play is problematic.

That would work well if most of Japan’s force were down south taking the DEI and fighting China.  Sometimes Japan forces are just out of reach of Manchuria.  That’s why if I’m Japan and Russia keeps those Siberian guys hanging around then I will keep a decent amount of infantry on Manchuria and Korea.  It sucks when you could use them in China or elsewhere, but you got to guard against the Russians.

I think the B-24 was just right.  I think the Sterling bomber was too big.  I was surprised when I first got my UK sets at the size of the Sterling bomber.
I really like the Pershing tank too.  It will easily compare to the nasty German Tiger I. The 155mm “Long Tom” looks really cool. I like getting the South Dakota battleship too.  I was getting tired of using the Nevada for the US battleship.

@Koningstiger:

And I thought i owned a lot of pieces…just out of curiosity, what do you need 25 sets for??

This might be a little weird, but I have a set piece count that I like to have for my gaming pieces. Here is what I like to have for the basic game of Global 1940:
Infantry = 100 pcs.
Tanks, Mechs, Artillery = 50 pcs.
Fighters, AA Guns, Transports, Submarines, Destroyers = 40 pcs.
Tac Bombers, Strat Bombers, Cruisers = 30 pcs.
Battleships, Aircraft Carriers = 20 pcs.

I do it this way because I really don’t like using chips unless absolutely necessary, like a lot of units in a small territory. I came up with these numbers basing it on how often each unit is likely to get purchased. I do this for all nation sets, even France and ANZAC, because we sometimes will mix things up with new games like “Alternate Alliances” or play the regular Global 40 game and just use different country’s units for whatever country we are playing. EG. Germany plays with ANZAC pieces, etc.
So when I started collecting HBG sets, I like to try and get the same amounts, or at least close to it. I’ve actually got 5 more sets in each color on another order that I placed after this order that will be coming later. This will total 20 sets in Olive and 15 sets in Dark Green. Olive is my main US color so that’s why I got more of them.

With the units that are different versions of our current units, like infantry, tanks, fighters, etc., I like to try and get them to the same numbers that I have with my OOB pieces. 20 sets will get me to 40 pieces of each. I might get a few more when they go on sale individually later on if I feel I really need to.

As for the supplement and expansion pieces, I match those units up to the OOB unit they most closely match.
Tank Destroyers, SP Artillery, Heavy Tanks = Tanks
Jet Fighters, Naval or Army fighters, Early or Late War Fighters = Fighters
Dive Bombers, Torpedo Bombers, Fighter/Bombers = Tactical Bombers
Heavy Bombers = Bombers
Trucks, Halftracks, Armored Cars, Armored Personnel Carriers = Mechanized Infantry

Anyway, that is why I make such big orders.

Finally, here are the heavy and light cruisers.
Also a pic of all of my dark green pieces that I ordered.

These pieces really look good.  Coach did a great job of designing them and the factory did good producing them.  I ordered 15 sets in olive and 10 sets in dark green.  In all of that, only a couple of ships were a little bent.  Most of all the ships were nice and straight.
Even the planes came out excellent.  In past sets , you would get some planes where the wings were kind of bent.  There were a few here but most were nice and straight.  A lot less work for me.
I am really happy with these pieces.  GREAT JOB COACH!!!

Here is the battleship and carrier.

Here are the halftracks and armored cars and the planes.

Here’s the heavy artillery and the tanks.

Here is a couple of pics.  One full set in each color.  Close-up of the Infantry piece.

I got my shipping notice too.  Really looking forward to getting them.

Also have my pre-order for Germany 3. I know we’ve got till April on those, but I’m excited for them anyway.

Yeah, I got my shipping notices too.  Really anxious now.

By the way, anyone else get the pre-order for Germany 3 sets? I have.

One idea you could use is  Neutral Blocks. You put the strict neutrals into geographic blocks so when one of the neutrals is attacked, only the other neutrals in that block are affected. The other neutrals around the world stay strict neutral. Here are what we came up with:
Mongolia = all the territories within Mongolia
Middle Eastern Block = Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan
African Block = All strict neutrals in the continent of Africa.
South American Block = All strict neutrals in the continent of South America.
European Block = Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Sweden.

Our reasoning behind this was that why would Chile care if Sweden was attacked. However, Switzerland or Spain might take more notice.
It’s an interesting way to play but we did think that it made it too easy to attack neutrals.

Usually, the allies have best success if the US goes strong after Japan first, especially if Germany doesn’t do Sealion. UK will be able to harass Germany enough that Germany won’t be able to go all out against Russia. So, Russia should be able to hold out until the US can get into Europe.
First the US should build a power fleet – all warships and planes. Hunt down the Japanese fleet and try to force a big battle with them. Even if the US loses that battle, Japan will lose a lot of their fleet and the US can replace their ships much easier than Japan. So they can keep sending more warships out to finish off the Japanese fleet. Then the US needs to occupy SZ 6 with subs and convoy raid Japan silly. Also, take Iwo Jima and start SBRs on Japan. You will pound them into the poor house.
The Chinese and Indians should be able to start whittling down the land force on the continent while ANZAC starts taking islands away from Japan. Before long Japan won’t be getting enough money to be able to build units and they will be neutralized.
After that happens, keeps some subs in SZ6 and some bombers on Iwo and everything else can start heading for Europe.

Now, if Germany does take London, that’s obviously a different matter. Then Germany will have no one bothering them while they go barreling into Moscow. Also Italy will just have a grand old time taking over Africa. They may even go through the Middle East and threaten Russia from the south or threaten India from the west.
In that case, I think liberating London and getting UK back in the game is paramount. This will mean letting Japan romp through the Pacific and Asia for a few rounds but that can’t be helped.

Don’t try to split the US resources evenly between both theaters. I’ve found that when the US does that, they don’t have quite enough in either theater to stymie the Axis. The most they will do is perhaps delay them.

You could try out something we have done a few times: Alternate Alliances.
We played a game where France was a part of the Axis with Germany and Italy. All you have to do is change the UK tank and artillery in Paris to French pieces, swap out the French Infantry and Fighter in London for UK pieces and move the French Cruiser in SZ 110 to SZ 105.
This way instead of Germany tromping France with Italy finishing them off in the first round, now they go in other directions while France gets to buy stuff and attack the Allies. It was fun.

I think the R&D rules are allowed in any game. It depends on who you are playing with. Some people just don’t like to mess with them. Usually it is like you said, they don’t want to spend the money on a chance that they may get a breakthrough that they could actually use.
Plus you might not even get a breakthrough so that is money wasted. Some people play with some sort of tokens (I use the research tokens from the Anniversary game) so you buy them and if you don’t get a breakthrough, you can keep them for following rounds and try again until you get a breakthrough, so at least the money you spent isn’t totally wasted. Even then, the tech roll is still random so you are not sure which tech you can get.
Some people have made house rules regarding techs.
One idea is to give every major nation a free tech roll every turn. How many dice depends on how much the power is making:
0-25 = 0 dice
26-50 = 1 dice
51-75 = 2 dice
76+ = 3 dice
This way the tech will still be random but most everyone gets a chance. Your game could have quite a few techs in play.
Another idea is to use a tech tree. Certain techs become automatically available on certain rounds. Usually when you use this method, it also includes special pricing for the new units involved.
For Example: Say Jet Fighters becomes available round 6. You might price Jet Fighters at 12 IPCs. So, players could still get regular fighters at 10 IPCs or get Jets at 12 IPCs. Also, this fixes the problem of when the Jet Fighters tech goes into effect, all the existing fighters don’t automatically become jets. Some people had a problem with that.
One more idea is to simply assign certain techs to certain countries and that is it for the techs. You don’t try for any other techs for that game.
Usually when you use this system, the techs go as follows:
Germany = Jet Fighters
Soviet Union = Advanced Artillery or Improved Mechanized Infantry
Japan = Improved Shipyards or Super Submarines
United States = Heavy Bombers or Long Range Aircraft
United Kingdom = Radar
Italy = Improved Shipyards or Increased Factory Production

Generally, techs aren’t given to ANZAC, France or China. UK Pacific shares whatever UK London gets.

So, it’s up to you and whomever you play with if you want to use techs or not. If you do, I hope these ideas help you.

Long ago when only Classic was available, I came up with this idea of expanding the game by taking each territory and breaking it down into a separate map for each land territory. The reason being is I thought it was ridiculous to have one single battle for places like Western Europe, Eastern United States, etc. Back then I did not take into account that each round represented several months in real time.
It turned out to be a much bigger task than I first thought and I ended up abandoning it. Also, I thought about it later and realized that would stretch out a single game to many days. I mean, imagine when you start a battle for any land territory on the Classic map and you are basically starting a sort of mini-game. It would take forever to get through one game.
I also needed to figure a way to break down the units to adjust for scale. In other words, 1 infantry unit on the big map would be equal to 10 or 20 infantry units on the smaller blow-up maps. Plus, I didn’t have any ideas on naval units.

There is one exception to capturing facilities:
If Japan places a minor IC on any of the Chinese territories that can support one – Manchuria, Shantung and Kiangsu – and that territory is liberated by the Allies, the minor IC is removed. This is the only instance where a facility of any kind is removed from the game.
The reason for this is the strange rules concerning China. Since China has no central capital to capture like other nations and they don’t turn over their cash on hand even if the last Chinese territory is captured by the Axis, China can never be totally defeated as long as there are other Allied powers around that could liberate them. Whenever an Allied player liberates ANY Chinese territory, on China’s next turn they can purchase and place infantry there.
Also, China is allowed to place their units on any Chinese territory that they control and they only buy infantry (and artillery IF the Burma road is totally open), they do not use Industrial Complexes. When any Allied power takes a Chinese territory from the Axis, they are always liberating it for China. No other Allied power can ever control any Chinese territory so they can never make use of any industrial complex that is there.
So, since China doesn’t use ICs and the Allies can’t use them, they are removed. Another option would be to leave them in that territory just in case Japan could recapture that territory later and use the IC, but then you would have part of the game with an IC sitting there that no one could use.  So I think they decided on simply removing those ICs to make it easier to remember.
As for Air Bases and Naval Bases built on Chinese territory, those can remain because Allies can use each other’s bases.