Best posts made by KraytKing

I’m working on a comprehensive rebuild of the game to be more realistic in terms of planning and executing large scale operations. I think A&A does well to ignore a lot of minutiae–the differences in capability between infantry and marines is not significant, for instance, and paratroopers are not relevant on the scale the game is played. But, the game doesn’t really simulate operational art. Usually, the core gameplay cycle is building very large stacks of troops in one spot, then eventually crushing your enemy if your stack is bigger. If you plan right, then you don’t lose anything but infantry, despite air and armor doing most of the killing.

The problem is mobility and reactivity. The reason they didn’t just stack up a huge army on one part of the line and ignore the rest–you can move fast enough to reinforce the line when you get hit. When Case Blue activated in 1942 and Germany punched through Soviet lines in the south, Soviet troops were able to retreat ahead of the Germans and reinforce from elsewhere before the assault reached operational objectives. But, this isn’t true in Axis and Allies. If Germany attacks a territory, the defenders have to die to the last man. No reinforcement, no evacuation. And the operations are limited in scope: in a turn, Germany will conquer Baltic States, Eastern Poland, and Bessarabia. Historically, in that first turn, Germany also conquered Belarus, Smolensk, Bryansk, Ukraine, Western Ukraine, Rostov, and half of Novgorod and Russia.

My initial thinking is fairly complicated. Multi-territory attack is necessary, obviously. But there must be an accompanying system to decrease the reliance on IPC value of territories so that Russia doesn’t just lose then and there. And a system to weaken that forward position Germany now occupies. Also something for the defender to do on the attacker’s turn, like abandon a battle, reinforce a rear area, or quickly counterattack.

I have more to post but I’m out of time. I’m interested to hear thoughts and feedback from the community. As I come up with the systems I’ve outlined, I’ll be posting them here.

Here’s the brief of the pitch, assuming G40 rules: Allies and Axis alternate with a very significant buff. For now, simplistically, lets say all of their units roll at 1 value higher than ordinary–a tank scores a hit on a 4 or lower, an infantry attacks at 2 and defends at 3. Axis gets the buff on odd-numbered turns and Allies on even turns.

The long of the pitch:

Currently, the concept of “initiative” is vaguely modeled by turns. Germany has the initiative on Germany’s turn. If we accept that as true, then we also accept that there is no initiative in the defense. This is also supported by the general advantage of the attacker, in that defenders can’t retreat or reinforce, and so are almost always guaranteed to lose battles and suffer disproportionate losses.

I find this somewhat jarring. Germany seems strong at the end of their turn, and Russia seems strong a moment later. Both sides tend to attack frequently. Sometimes, it can be advantageous to hold in reserve and gather forces, but it is somewhat niche; the opportunity cost is just so high, the enemy can do so much if you leave their forces alive. More frequently, you hold back from attacking just so that you can hold the enemy at risk—a tank army in Leningrad is more valuable if it is NOT used.

So why do I think a seasonal advantage would help? For one, it guardrails opponent behavior somewhat, which makes the game slightly easier to forecast, therefore enabling longer-term strategy. You can predict that on turn 5, the Allies will tend to hold their positions. You can bet that Japan will go after a big fleet on turn 3 or 5, but not 4.

Two, it directly encourages both sides to carefully gather up forces for a big “pulse” of action, rather than continuously expend forces for incremental gains (on the reference set of the game, not real life—capturing all Belarus in a round is not incremental by real-world standards). Pull back and organize on the enemy’s advantage, then expend the effort you’ve gathered on the turn of your advantage.

To better address the issue of defense, perhaps we add another, greater rule: the defender can retreat on the turn of their initiative. If Germany exposes itself to take Ukraine, and the Russians have a correlation of forces sufficient to overcome the dice modifiers, then even still, the Germans are able to preserve their forces if not their territory. Without this rule, perhaps I’ve created a misaligned incentive; since the enemy has a positive dice modifier whether they are attacking or defending, perhaps it is better for the disadvantaged side to pitch everything into attacks, where at least they can control the correlation of forces and advantage themselves.

To talk specifics: I would suggest that the game switch to d12s, and every unit’s attack and defense value is increased by 1. So a tank attacks at 7, while the enemy tank only defends at 6. A boost of +1 on a d6 might be too severe. Though, I’m open to dissent there. Maybe 1 point on a d12 is too subtle.

I also think that the Axis advantage should last slightly longer at the start of the game. Perhaps they get the bonus on turn 1 AND turn 2, and Allies get it on turn 3 and all odd turns thereafter. Or, Axis gets odd turns, but Allies skip their first advantage and only get the initiative starting turn 4.

Perhaps the idea needs a larger adjustment, and it should just focus on the weather? What if odd turns occur during pleasant summers, so planes, tanks, and ships get a +1? Winters similarly penalize ships, tanks, and planes with a -1 modifier. Infantry and artillery are more durable and less affected by storms. This would produce very different incentives: rather than favoring one alliance at a time, it favors certain units. Infantry armies lead the way during winter, then tanks strike back in summer. Navies steer clear of each other on odd turns. Perhaps some combination of both rules, where odd turns are Axis-initiative summers, and they are encouraged to leave Allied tanks and planes alone since they get debuffs in winter. On the Allied initiative, they should favor infantry armies and go after Axis armor specifically.

This is a rambling post, containing a lot of somewhat separable ideas. I would love to hear the thoughts of the board on part or all of these concepts.

I think I’m going to rebuild the idea ground-up and implement it in a different ruleset, but for the sake of the discussion, these are my thoughts.

I do recognize that a tank piece does not represent a single tank, or even a large all-tank unit, but rather a combined arms unit that includes tanks, artillery, dismount infantry, and of course fuel trucks and other add-ons. My objective isn’t to “increase realism” (without increasing realism) by having tanks mostly engage other tanks, but rather, give the defender some way to even out the loss ratio in terms of cost. If the attacker has the firepower advantage and brings lots of infantry, then the defender will lose expensive aircraft and expensive tanks without attriting enemy air or armor. THIS is the problem. Aircraft and tanks can effect damage without taking it. In the simple concept outlined in the OP, that would be partially remedied. The attacker could lose all of their planes and still win the battle.

Overall, I think it’s too simple a method for targeting attacks. Tanks WILL be somewhat protected by their infantry. Strategic bombers are not going to shoot down fighters. I had a slightly better idea a while ago, that for fighters, a roll of a 1 hits an enemy aircraft, and a tactical bomber rolling a 1 hits an enemy tank. Again, though, the objective isn’t entirely to tunnel-vision onto realism for specific units, but rather to improve the strategic decision making. In too many games, German aircraft fly constantly against the Soviet Union, never taking losses while German infantry get torn to pieces. On the strategic level, any piece of equipment that sees action is going to be regularly lost, and need replacement, but this is not always seen in A&A.

I appreciate the discussion, all. At the moment, I’m still in the brainstorming stage, but once I have a few games to report on, I’ll write up a ruleset and share it. Thanks everyone.