Posts made by ossel

For those of you that have been following this, I’ll post the National Objectives I’ve thought up so far. As always, feedback and suggestions are welcome.

National Objectives

Cut the Line:
If the United States controls any of the Confederate territories bordering Mexico (Texas, Chihuahua, or Guaymas), the East-West Railroad is considered cut, and the CSA cannot recruit troops in cities west of the captured territory.

De Jure and De Facto:
If the Confederate States captures Washington D.C., it receives a one-time award of 10 IPC’s.

If the CSA captures both Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, it receives all of the IPC’s in the United States’ bank, and the U.S. economy henceforth functions as two nations: Eastern U.S. and Western U.S. (similar to the U.K. in A&A Global 1940). The two “nations” may only earn IPC’s from their own territories and may only place units in Victory Cities within their own territories. If either Washington D.C. or Philadelphia is recaptured, this restriction ends and the economies are recombined.

Blockade:
Blockades work in much the same way as “Convoy Disruptions” in A&A Global 1940.

Each enemy surface warship in a sea zone adjacent to one of your territories causes the loss of one IPC from your income for the turn. Each submarine is considered “On Station” and causes the loss of 2 IPCs. However, each sea zone can’t lose more IPCs than the total IPC value of controlled territories adjacent to the sea zone.

@knp7765:

Hello ossel,
I just got done reading the Wikipedia page on the Southern Victory alternate history. It was fascinating. Looks like the CSA sort of took the place of Nazi Germany. It seemed to me like the alternate WW2 consisted of the CSA, Russia, England and France as sort of the Axis, USA, Germany and Austria/Hungary as sort of the Allies, with Japan as a third party. Japan had clashes with the US, but also apparently threatened British possessions in the Pacific.
Overall, it seemed like almost a reversal of both WW1 and WW2. A very interesting story. I love alternate timeline scenarios. I would have liked to find out more about the Japanese position in the far east. There was mention of the US attacking Midway and Wake islands to find the Japanese simply left before they got there. Also that Japan had “influence” with the Nationalist government in China. Did that mean they were allies? Guess I would have to get into the actual novels for more info there. Still, overall a fascinating read.
So your map would be for WW1? Once it is completed, do you have any plans on making one for the WW2 scenarios?

Yes, the story is very interesting, though admittedly long. There are 11 full-length books in the series, so good luck if you embark on reading them!

I do intend to make a WW2 map, but I haven’t put much thought into which pieces would represent which side, etc. After all, as you’ve pointed out, the Confederates became Fascists in the alternate timeline, and the North pretty much became socialists! Making a WW2 scenario is definitely in the cards though, and the effort would be fairly minimal once the WWI map is complete.

@protevangelium:

@GENERAL:

We already play tested and it seems to work fine….
Don’t get me wrong it needs more playtesting…

Even with the lack of this or that, the basic combat mechanic, I think, works pretty well for simulating the era. And maybe the fact that it didn’t go far enough in some areas, lends it to some interesting house-ruling. I was never sold on the Russian Revolution optional rule, however (esp., its territory-as-trigger element). It really ought to be triggered by the pile of hit plastic infantry…

I agree. Despite small quibbles with the map and the disappointment with the price of the game vs. the quality of the components, the basic combat mechanic is fun and representative of the actual war.

@CWO:

@Auztria:

Land movement is still too slow, the ground war feels too monotone until tanks get involved

That’s actually a pretty good description of how WWI was actually like on the Western Front.

^this

This war was hallmarked by slow-moving fronts, and the tactics were pretty “monotone” as well…send massive numbers of infantry over the top into the teeth of machine guns and infantry. If you want a fast-moving war, I suggest looking elsewhere.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the war was uninteresting. I personally find it fascinating; the transformation of warfare from line maneuvering and firing to modern tank- and air-based tactics, the obsoletion of cavalry, and the desperate life-and-death struggle between great empires. But it was by no means fast-moving, and expecting the game to simulate it as such is not reasonable.

@DarthShizNit:

About time you got around to this, I was actually looking up mapping programs so that I could do it myself if you didn’t lol.

Alright, you’ve inspired me to finish this! I’m going to try and get it knocked out by this time next month.  :-D

@Auztria:

I think that for a more fluid game we need cavalry units as well as adjusting the price of tanks. Tanks are devastating in large groups, but it’s hard for most nations to produce large groups of tanks at 6 ipc’s. Plus the early game is pretty monotonous with only masses of infantry and artillery attacking and counter-attacking. Cavalry could help spice it up a bit, maybe with 1/3 atk/def and a movement of 2 with blitz. If they cost 4 but could be boosted by artillery, they’d be a fairly viable unit but would probably fade a lot when tanks arrive.

To say that cavalry played a major role in the war or even that it had an equal level of survivability as infantry is a misstep at best, and revisionist at worst. Cavalry units were consistently BUTCHERED against machine gun-defended infantry lines, and quickly became obsolete. I actually think that the omission of cavalry from this game is one of the better choices of the designer. The early game is “monotonous” (as you’ve put it) with infantry and artillery, because the early WAR was “monotonous”; 1914-1916 was a period hallmarked by mass artillery-supported infantry attacks.

Now, I will grant that on the Eastern Front (as well as in other parts of the world, Mid-East, etc.) cavalry played a slightly greater part than on the Western Front, but I still don’t think it is worth adding an entire other unit to the game to represent this limited role.

If you ARE going to represent cavalry in the game (which I don’t recommend), you must then differentiate between entrenched infantry and mobile infantry, and make the cavalry 0 attack against entrenched. This is the only way it would make sense.

@Krieghund:

Rather than decreasing the cost of fighters, how about increasing their survivability?

Try having dogfights last for just one round.  After the dogfight, the side with the most fighters remaining gets air supremacy, and only the fighters in excess over the enemy’s get to strafe land units (the others being tied up in ongoing dogfights).  If the number of fighters is the same on both sides, neither side can promote artillery or strafe.

That might work. My major hangup with the rules as they are written is that I’ve never seen more than 3-4 fighters per nation on the map at one time (they are usually much more rare, IPC’s are much more commonly spent on Infantry and Artillery), so I thought reducing their cost might help remedy that. I’d really like to see 3-4 fighters per front; right now it seems like combined arms is not worth the cost of the specialty units.

I just wanted to throw this one out there and see what people thought. This isn’t a massive overhaul, just an idea that I had after playing the game.

So it seems to me like some units, especially fighters, are overpriced in regards to their effect on the war. I think reducing the cost of these units is something that’s in order, and it will also have the added effect of making fighters and tanks more plentiful on the map. Here are some suggested values:

Fighter - 4 IPC’s
Tank - 4 IPC’s

I also thought that maaaaaaybe Infantry should be reduced to 2 IPC’s to reflect the massive numbers of troops being thrown into the war, but this in essence just makes it so my other changes equate to raising the price of artillery.

Anyway, thoughts and comments are welcome.

I’m probably in the minority here, but I don’t find this show funny. At all.

It just seems to pander to the “geek” crowd. The actors for the most part aren’t geeks in real life, and the laugh track of the show is obnoxious.

To me, this A&A example ("Should we play teams??  :roll:) is just another example of that.

@Baron:

@ossel:

I also want to work on adding an air superiority combat phase anyway; I’ll be posting my initial stabs at these rule adaptations in the House Rules forum soon.

Hi Ossel,
Hope I gave you some water to the mills.  :-D

If you find I derailed somehow from your intent on this thread, let me know, I will put elsewhere the long posts.

See you soon on this forum,
Baron.

Baron,
  Thanks for the message. I do feel as if the thread has derailed a bit; I was going for more of a KISS approach in applying a few of the neat mechanics from 1914 to 1940, but I don’t begrudge the discussion at all. I’m always interested in hearing new ideas.  :-D

@Chacmool:

Maybe the violation of any neutral brings US on turn earlier (CPs inavde) or one turn later (Entente invades) into war against the CPs.

I don’t really know why this game departed from the method used in G40, that if a strict neutral was attacked, ALL strict neutrals would then become pro-whoever-didn’t-attack-them. This was a great deterrent to invading strict neutrals like Switzerland, and it makes real-world sense as well.

I would suggest that this simple change be made to the PTR. Imagine if Switzerland was invaded by Germany to widen the front, France could just pop down into Spain and pick up some free units/IPC’s. If France invaded Switzerland, Germany could roll through Holland and pick up some units along the way. Definitely a deterrent.

For your first point, I agree with the fact that the OOB G40 rules don’t necessary reflect reality in regards to landing aircraft. I didn’t realize you were promoting completely scrapping the “no landing in newly captured tt’s” rule. I was simply saying that if you were keeping the OOB rules, it doesn’t make sense to not allow planes to land in contested tt’s and not newly captured tt’s.

As far as the scrambling rule, I’ve always thought that they should be able to scramble to land attacks. In fact, here is a house rule I use:

Scrambling is a special movement that the defender can make at the end of the Combat Move phase. It must be done after all of the attacker’s combat movements have been completed and all attacks have been declared. The attacker may not change any combat movements or attacks after the defender has scrambled.

The new version of this rule allows players to scramble fighters to adjacent land zones as well as sea zones.

A quick reaction team of no more than 3 defending fighters and tactical bombers (strategic bombers can’t scramble) located in a territory that has an operative air base can be scrambled to defend against attacks in the sea zones or territories adjacent to those territories. These air units can be scrambled to help friendly units in adjacent sea zones or territories that have come under attack.

It’s basically a small re-write of the rule in the book.

In my personal opinion, tanks in 1914 had the “hit soaking” ability because they didn’t have the advantages of tanks in the WWII games…namely speed and increased firepower. I don’t really think it’s necessary to add this ability to the WWII game.

In regards to planes landing in contested tt’s, as I’ve pointed out before in this thread, planes can NEVER land in a newly captured territory anyway, so I’m not sure how a territory remaining contested could ever make it easier for aircraft to land there. Just stick to treating contested territories as hostile for the purpose of movement and it resolves a lot of the issues that arise from the WWII rules (blitzing, etc.).

@Imperious:

I’d offer it (Germany) was the winner of the Treaty of Versailles.

Ridiculous conclusion.

I have to say I agree. Ask the German worker pushing a wheelbarrow of money to the bakery to buy his family bread if Germany was the winner of the Treaty of Versailles.

@Flashman:

I think a fix is needed for one unit contesting a tt holding up a huge enemy stack - just about possible in WWI but not the more mobile war that followed.

The way I imagine it, it’s more of a thin line of defenders who have just barely broken enemy morale, who then fall back to their lines, as opposed to one single unit holding off a horde of enemies for a sustained period of time a la Thermopylae.

@Flashman:

Reminder:

The topic title is “wish list”.

That includes pretty much anything anyone would like to see, so what’s the beef?

Honestly Flash (can I call you Flash?), I don’t have much of a problem with your posts. For the most part, you just want to make the game slightly more realistic, although you can get carried away at times.

I didn’t want to point anybody out, but mainly what I’m talking about is posts like this one: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33029.0

I would need a Sherlock-style board with pins connected by string to decipher this. Nothing against the author, I too have gotten crazy with house rules that I later realized weren’t practical.

On the other side of the spectrum, I don’t like posters who are opposed to house rules just for the sake of being opposed to house rules. Even if the game is balanced (which it is not), house rules can add flavor and interest. I’ve seen some on this particular forum discourage all forms of house rule talk (cough, IL, cough), and I think this is extreme.

I’m simply promoting moderation when it comes to game tweaks. Keep in mind that if you want people to play them, house rules have to be fun and somewhat simple. And of course this is a wish list. But the thing that I liked about OP’s post was that I could see his changes actually becoming part of the game.

I’ve actually been testing some of these rules in a recent solo game. The results are very interesting!

During Germany’s first turn, they actually ran into some bad die rolls and ran over the 3-round limit, failing to take Paris! Perhaps the German High Command decided to take on the Maginot line after all? The defending French dug in around Paris and prevented a German sweep of the country.

I’ve also been playing around with an “air combat phase,” basically resolving air combat before land combat, and I think you’re right Razor, air attack/defend values need to be reduced from what they normally are.

Well said.

Very true. I guess it just depends on the cocktail of political opinions in your country and which one gains traction.

@Flashman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9yNEvV6lI4

Very interesting video. I do have a heard time believing, however, that the early 20th century Germans would have created some sort of proto-EU had they won. The aristocratic nobility was still very much alive and well in Germany (as in many places in Europe at the time), and had the Central Powers won, they would have simply added an annexed France to the German Reich, not set them up as an equal member of a pan-European organization.

Perhaps, as Harry Turtledove suggests in his novels, if the French and British had lost WWI, nascent fascist movements would have arisen there instead of defeated Germany.