@Charles:
I realize this is quite out of place as I see that’s the main goal was better rules than better setup, but is it possible to play this with standard rules (perhaps only change the turn order)? My fellow gamers still refuse to play it, but I love to play any alternate setup I can get my hands on! Thanks.
de Gaulle
You could try, but expect possible balance issues.
Not sure if I’m allowed to post a link, but you could use Triple A, just Google search it.
Triple A File is here guys, it should work.
I’m interested to see what people think of this setup using the balance mod, but with 1942 alterations (Turn order).
@RetroFuhrer
There’s definately some nice things in your map there… I see you added some plants in Leningrad and Rome… I can see both of those (why Italy doesn’t start with a factory in 1941 is beyond me).
Two things though… and these are totally “me only” issues.
- going over your numbers, I see Germany has 15 to start and the US 20… in both cases, that’s only a 3 IPC boost over default… and not enough IMHO to get where i’d like to see 1941 be… it’s certainly suitable for a replacement of 1941, but its not really the change I’m thinking about.
- once again… very personal choice here… but I have grown fond of the “style” of the 1941/1942 maps with their coloring and contours of geography, which is why I really like Dedo’s Supreme maps for 1941 and 1942. Unfortunately for me, they are in PDF format, which editing PDFs is not something I’m familiar with (maybe something I should look into). Your map, while completely functional and a fine alternative to the 1941 map, just isn’t what I’m thinking of. But kudos for your work… it’s certainly better than mine (which is non-existant!).
1. I would up IPCs further, but this is meant really only for quick games. You can edit the map if you want to suit your needs though.
2. Unfortunately, this is impossible for me, my computer is incapable of handling PDF. files for whatever reason, I have attempted to fix the problem, but no luck.
Hard to notice, but there exists imprinted setups on the map, for quicker setup time.
This map is gorgeous… I would concur with RetroFuhrer that you might consider changing the colors of counties on the map around to match the 1914 A&A colors, since you (and anyone else) could use the A&A 1914 units with the map, and that would solve the lack of units issue.
Regardless, that is top-notch professional work on that map!
Also, I forgot to mention, but the Control Markers for Russia, Britain, France, and America need to be changed to resemble the official insignias, and yeah, maybe France and perhaps others could have multiple capitals, like Bordeaux and Paris. Surprised Moscow doesn’t function as a secondary capital. These are just suggestions to broaden the use for others if you release the map file.
The map could legally be sold, there is nothing that should stop you, it’s your creation. Just the box art can’t since it resembles the official WWI release, and obviously not with the pieces you have now, with the exception of those cards you have.
Map is beautiful, although if I had the adobe file, I would change the colours for Austria-Hungary to Green, Italy to Orange, Ottoman Empire to Teal, and Portugal to Purple, to be consistent with the official WWI game. I believe you can sell this, just different box art, since the map is original (HBG made maps too without issues), also don’t sell pieces unless you have original sculpts.
The WWI pieces could be used for some stuff, with WW2 filling missing pieces, for your personal one at home, just paint for the other 6 powers.
@Baron:
Facilities roll AA Fire now at 2.
Strategic Bombers can only attack at 2 against naval units.
Strategic Bombers only receive a +2 bombing damage bonus if they depart from an operational Airbase.What line of reasoning made you radically change the AA facilities to @2?
The other two seems enough to better balance StBs.
I can see from historical perspective reducing StBs vs naval units to A2 or from game POV to limit Dark Skies Strategy.
The first one, IC’s AA@2, completly negates StBs usefulness in SBR.
Hence, StBs stay unhistorically useful for regular combat against ground units.
It was to help aid the Soviet Union, who is destroyed by bombing faster than by actual combat, resulting in most of the axis victories you tend to see.
I’ll change the AA fire rule. It will only apply to Major Factories, and it is modified enough to still help out the Soviet Union and not discourage bombing too much for Germany.
Please see the original post.
@Don:
@RetroFuhrerMeister:
Two Powers of the same alliance may not enter one another’s territory unless they share a state of war with at least one enemy power. This rule also applies to Canals and Straits.
We will be playing A&A this weekend, we might try this alternatve setup and rules. I like it a lot!
Can you explain the political situation between Germany and Italy? Italy is neutral till round 2 so France and UK can’t attack Italy. Italy however can (and probably will) attack the UK and/or france It.1.
Germany starts with two loaded transports in SZ 95 and share this zone with Italy. France and the UK are at war with Germany and neutral to Italy. They can’t enter SZ 95, 96 and 97 so the german transports are safe in this seazone.
I was wondering: is Germany allowed to drop their units in Lybia or Tobruk (so the transports stay in SZ 95 or 96)? If so, can Germany also send land units into northern Italy during NCM? this way Germany can send reinforcements to Africa G2.
If Germany is not allowed to do so, i’ll leave the transport in SZ 95,96 or 97 G1. When Italy is at war the Germans can use their transports. Leaving the transports outside SZ 95,96 or 97 is suicide.
Germany and Italy are neutral to one another, technically all Axis powers are neutral to each other at the moment.
Thus units can’t enter Italian territory, they are basically stuck till G2, unless France moves it’s units out of neighboring sea zones to it’s own territory.
Have you ever done or thought about doing something about the lack of Neutral Nation rules in 1942 SE?
I feel like introducing neutral rules would make things far too gamey in some areas, like Mongolia, Sahara, and Turkey. Plus what’s the incentive to attack these regions? No IPCs, the only appeal is strategically positioning yourself, and the Soviets would be screwed because of this. Honestly I would much rather make my own board than add any extra rules for this one, at least I could then place IPC values or redesign territorial positions.
@Don:
I love this setup! great work!
The NO’s and the order of play makes a lot more sense. some rules i won’t use such as R&D, new unit prices, Amphibious assault rules etc.
The game will be very complicated because there are lots of new rules and many many many new air- and naval bases.Great to see ANZAC and France a lot stronger so they really aid the Allies!
Can you write down the philosophy behind the political situation , the setup, the NO’s and the order of play ? Just to introduce the scenario for new players
My philosophy was putting the start date a bit earlier, prior to the evacuation of Dunkirk. Thus France has one last moment to provide an impact before Germany destroys her. The British are still stuck in France, so the Germans have the opportunity to wipe them out and correct a mistake. The Soviet Union must prepare itself for the fight of it’s life if it wishes to spread “communism” to Europe, it’s industry is behind somewhat. Japan presses itself further into China, but must be cautious of the Soviet forces and the ever painful Chinese guerrillas. ANZAC must position itself for the moment Japan decides to play aggressive in the Pacific. The United States is in a vulnerable position, it’s units are stuck almost exclusively to American regions. Italy is about to enter the war, and will receive German aid in crushing the British in Africa. China will need to weigh it’s options. Eventually everyone gets in the war, most if not all neutrals will be invaded in all likelihood. Basically in a nutshell, I wanted every nation to be able to contribute a significant bit.
I love that you have France going first, and I think your changes to the unit stats (cheaper cruiser, strategic bomber doesn’t massacre ships, etc.) are several steps in the right direction.
I’d encourage you to spend some more time balancing the value of your techs against each other. I enjoy playing with techs, but a common, valid criticism of A&A Revised Edition was that if you rolled Heavy Bombers or Long-Range Aircraft, the game was yours, and if you rolled Rockets or War Bonds, then you wasted your money. The “roll at ever easier targets until you discover something” solves the problem where you might not discover any tech, but it doesn’t solve the problem where some techs are worth much, much more than others.
Imagine, for the sake of argument, a nation that’s earning about 65 IPCs / turn. Could be Germany, Japan, USA – doesn’t really matter. A major power. Efficient Industrialization tech is worth at least 16 IPCs / turn to that major power, even if they don’t alter their strategy at all. If you build something really balanced and ordinary like 4 inf, 2 art, 1 tnk, 2 DD, 1 CV, and 1 ftr, you save sixteen IPCs because of your new tech. Every turn.
Now let’s take that same 65 IPCs and see how it benefits from Improved Artillery tech. Well, you could get away with building 5 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk, 2 DD, 1 CV, and 1 ftr, for total savings of 1 IPC per turn. If you really wanted to stress your artillery advantage, you could build something like 10 inf, 3 art and save 2-3 IPCs/turn. It’s just not in the same league as Efficient Industrialization. It could be useful for Russia if you’ve already built a huge stack of infantry and you need an offensive boost NOW because you’ve run short on artillery with which to trade territories … but I think Russia would still much rather have the Industrial advantage, because with the savings from Efficient Industrialization, Russia could just buy more infantry and more artillery.
So, yeah, my advice is to look at each of your techs, calculate the rough value in IPCs/turn that each tech represents to a major power, and make sure they’re within a few IPCs/turn of each other.
Specifically on the Heavy Tanks thing, I think your idea is really cool, but I agree with ammantai that heavy tanks historically were crazy expensive and could not be manufactured in strategically significant quantities. They were also no better than medium tanks at mowing down infantry – you only needed heavy tanks if you were fighting against medium tanks. With that in mind, here’s how I would reword Heavy Tanks:
“During land battles, in each round of combat during which both you and your opponent have at least one tank, you ignore the first casualty inflicted on you (if any).”
That way you can’t use a tank stack to (unrealistically and annoyingly) absorb a dozen hits each round, but your tanks will still fight better than your opponent’s tanks in a way that’s fun to exploit.
I’m considering the Artillery tech to provide 3 Infantry an attack boost, weakening Efficient Industrialization somehow, and have it where Tanks only get a free hit during an attack for every Tank the enemy has.
Can you say a few words about your design philosophy? What kind of game are you looking for, and how does this setup get you there? I like a lot of your changes, including the offensive troops in Asiatic Russia, the extra Chinese forces, the German Baltic BB and Italian pair of CAs – all both historical and fun. Other changes feel like the same basic balance of power, only with more units on the board – is it important to give German-occupied Ukraine extra units and then also give Russia extra units to attack it with? Is it important to give both the US and Japanese larger Pacific navies? I’m curious how that improves your games.
My design intention was balancing the game while modeling some stuff from Anniversary. It was based on experience playing 2nd Edition, we also wanted to give the Soviet Union a chance to fight Germany aggressively, we felt that leaving the fate of allied victory almost exclusively in the hands of the British and the Americans was a bit redundant. I wanted to do more with the Pacific, but because of my desire not to introduce new rules for this, and the lack of IPCs on most of the islands, I went with my current direction there. The extra units are really there because we liked epic battles early on, without having to wait for the Americans to slam into Europe, I can understand the redundancy a little though.
I played 1942 2nd ed with this setup. Good job! It was really fun and a close game. The allies eventually won but it was a great game! 👍
I appreciate the praise, this setup was tested over two years from my myself, my father, a couple of my friends, and a friend of my father’s. We decided to throw out the crappy generic setup for something more engaging.
Try placing them in the northern Canadian territories, Alaska, and the northern Soviet Union. These are large territories that see little action in the game, so it’s justifiable to create blowup boxes in them, probably 8 or more.
@Charles:
Any more updates on the 1940 setup?
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37461.0
It’s the second post. I honestly don’t know, until I have the chance to play it and the rules that go with it with someone, to find out if it’s imbalanced or not, so I can make the necessary changes.
Quite a late reply, but this would be an interesting way for HistoricalBoardGaming to introduce a “sequel” to their Amerika game. I actually find the idea of a losing war as Germany quite appealing, I had created a personal one for myself when I was younger. I’d prefer it though if it was a 4 player game, although the British and Americans had common goals, they also had conflicting ones too, and I feel that an ahistorical game like this should introduce this fact. Perhaps have a puppet Italy in there too.
1. Heavy Tanks: Tanks may now take 2 hits
I find this tech extremely questionable from both a gameplay and historical perspective.
Gameplay wise, would this not make tanks really overpowered? They’d be vastly superior to 2 Infantry offense-wise, but also nearly their equal defensively!
Historically, heavy tanks were not that great. They were expensive, slow, prone to mechanical failure, and generally not that much better than medium tanks, which is why they aren’t used in modern warfare. Main battle tanks are superior.
I changed it a little, slightly more balanced. I wanted to somehow get Heavy Tanks in here without adding more units (notice the lack of the new Marine unit created for the Balance mod).
Some national objectives changed, mostly for the sake of adding more areas of interest for particular nations. I’ll do more if any ideas on my end or yours come up.
I’m still trying to figure a rule for the Canadian territories, I want one for them due to the different control marker, to give it more of a purpose than simply just acknowledging Canada’s contributions.
EDIT: Forgot some units in the setup for United Kingdom.
I updated the rules, I am trying to figure a good rule for the Canadian territories.
