Topics created by Navalland

Thats a pretty general question, and I assume the answer varies depending on which WWII board game you are playing. I personally can’t speak regarding other games (Global War 1936, War Room, Triumph and Tradgedy)… I can only speak about my experience with various versions of axis and allies.
Most of the axis and allies variant games I played this year lasted very long (7 or more full rounds) and were fought to a stalemate, with the axis player eventually conceding that they were going to lose in the long-run.
The original classic A&A, revised A&A, and A&A europe 1940 2nd edition often seem to boil down to this: If axis powers take moscow, the game is pretty much over. If the allies conquer either Berlin or Tokyo, the game is pretty much over. Its rarely necessary to continue once either of those conditions is met, because the income bonus and momentum is hard to overcome.
I would say that most games I play end in less than 10 rounds.

In a WWII context, I think that having a draw as a war goal is a concept that would only apply to the Axis, and that would only apply (depending on the game start date) after Germany and Japan had made the territorial gains that were in place by mid-1942: Western Europe, the western part of the USSR, and the Asia/Pacific territories which Japan initially overran. It can be argued that from this point onwards, the Axis could be satisfied by either defeating the Allies entirely (a win) or by simply hanging on indefinitely to what they’d conquered (a draw).

The Allies, on the other hand, could only be satisfied by winning. As Stalin said, the Axis powers weren’t going to jump into the abyss without being pushed. To the Allies, a draw would essentially have meant acknowledging that Germany and Japan has established a “new order” in Europe and Asia. Indeed, Japan’s overall strategy – if you can call it that – was the hopeful idea that the Americans would suffer some costly losses if they tried to attack Japan’s defensive perimeter, would lose their will to fight, and would simply walk away, leaving Japan in possession of its newly acquired marbles. That plan went out the window when Japan, to put it mildly, got the Americans really really angry at them by attacking Pearl Harbor. Germany had a somewhat similar goal of conquering the USSR roughly up to the Urals (the “A-A” line), digging in, and limiting itself from then on to bombing the Asian part of the USSR to keep it from making trouble. That plan went out the window when Germany failed to even get as far as Moscow.

@Eric-Poppleton @GEN-MANSTEIN

Benefits of making all units AA.

No need separate AA gun, more space. Cheaper air and naval costs allow more different combination of purchases. It encourage German naval build up and two ocean going USA. Losing air unit isn’t a big deal anymore.

Though I have been still working on balancing units with each other after giving AA ability. I think I’m getting closer.

Further stacks do not increase AA possibilities. Only matter is amount of attacker planes. 1/6 shot down chance per attacker air unit.

I had to give ground forces +1 defense otherwise especially infantry would become so ineffective considering fighter has 2 defense and just 3ipc cost.

This is of course unplayable on board because of fractionel numbers and upkeep ( Yes there is also upkeep and method to buy 1 destroyer despite 3.5 ipc cost but its out of topic otherwise calculating massive stacks would be huge trouble). Its totally for TripleA I just wanted to learn with these unit set up, would air units be underpowered/overpowered or balanced?

The current unit set up like this (still progressing);

chart.png

@Navalland said in Artillery to defend at 3?:

Just trying to figure out the most balanced unit set up and wondering if +1 defense to artillery would be good idea. Probably better to leave it as it is right now.

Ya I would for now.

Iv’e always felt that in the game axis has to win by a certain turn to win. Once you go be on a certain turn then your going into late 45 46 47 etc.
Victory city’s and or points seems to get a quicker out come in our games. If axis don’t have 30 points by end of any turn up to 10 rounds they lose. Now of course this may change based on better players. We usually can see if the axis will get 30 points on turn 10 or not or maybe 11.

Your probably looking at a bit different scenario.
Losing side

Gets some kind of atomic bomb Certain low income receive so much more money from bank based on a LL from another country Certain time ( income ? ) a bunch of inf and or pieces pop up on capital.

But then all players have to agree but the winning side will say we won but losing side got the end win.

Something to that affect ? But then game may drag on.

Depends on the intended audience.

For the more accessible games intended for 3+ in person playing(IE: 1941/1942SE), I would say late 1941 (not spring 41) would be the best time to start, for two reasons.

-The Japanese blitz/pearl harbor is a pretty dramatic start, and not having Japan start with a bunch of conquests paces their advance better.

-Russian winter counter offensive: Assuming it’s a multiplayer game, and someone is playing Russia alone, it’s more fun for Russia to have at least one turn on the offensive before defending for the rest of the relevant game time. Back and forth is more fun then defense only. The 1942 German setup is good from a game design point of view. Russia starts with positioning advantage vs superior German economy, which has superior might to the allies initially but inferior economy. It’s a double layer of asymmetric warfare.

For veteran players, the earlier the better really. An official game with a ~1936 start to provide for varied initial game states would be interesting, if nearly impossible to balance.

@Navalland OK, so that is your background layer.

In brief:
On other layers apply an image of a greyscale streetmap to the territory outlines and create some cloud-like effect on the seazone-layer. The territory layer should have a high level of transparency, you need to experiment here. When you are ready merge the territory layer and the seazone layer to one png-file, preserving transparency there. This will be your relief-image. Of course you can apply whatever visual effect you want there.

I found this tutorial for creating “clouds”:
https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/17972-make-real-clouds/

Maybe something similar exists for GIMP, too.

For further details please try to reach out to active map-makers. I can only give you this quite superficial information.

@Navalland Like the work that you are doing. Here are my opinions to your questions,

I would rather play on a World version simply because it is more. I am always a fan of more so given the choice between Europe or Europe + everything else I will pick Europe + everything else. That does not mean that I always need to have a World map, I am just fine with a Europe map if that’s all there is. Additionally, this is your map, not mine. If you are good with just Europe then there is no need to add more.

If you are making a Europe map I would recommend at least adding some connection from the Atlantic to the Middle East area (to represent sailing down under Africa) as that route was really important in moving soldiers to maintain the Middle East and North Africa fronts.

It is a hard thing to try and make the US go on both sides. You can try to balance it to where if the US spends too much on one side and too little on the other that the other side is going to win. To where the US has to spend so much on both sides to prevent one side from winning. Of course this would work only if all players knew what they were doing and would work less with beginners.

Alternatively, here is my better solution. You could split the US economy between the two sides. The US income from these territories go towards Europe. The US income from these territories go towards Pacific. The income collected on the Europe side has to go to the Europe side. The income collected on the Pacific side has to go to the Pacific side. The US is allowed to move units from one side to the other, but at a cost as to discourage having a massive army on one side while still allowing the US to have the ability to have more units on a side if need be.