Posts made by The Janus

@motdc said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

I think I have made all the technical changes needed, but feel free to let me know if you hit a glitch: http://www.motcreations.com

P.S. MapView can be downloaded from here ^^^

@imperious-leader said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

@the-janus Hey, I am very happy you are so persistent with your fondness for that game, it may take a while but to discuss more on how to access the game so others may participate will facilitate your end and bring this forgotten game to greater light. (I would get a proper file for the map and rules and ask permission of course from whomever). I remember very well all the chatter on IMP games back in the day. Another thing - perhaps you might bring up that space 4X game IMP games made along with the WW1 game and how to get these. I own all three of course, but im lazy to find them in storage. Pictures do alot towards promoting these games as well. Just trying to help!

So, just to recap:

My discussion with Imp Games in the past few years has basically all been 2nd-hand. But, as Mot said earlier in the thread, he was given permission by them to unlock the MapView modules, so that anyone can save games using Imp Games maps, within the MapView application (which Mot programmed/created) without needing to have a serial number/registration code thinger from Imp Games.

What this means:
Currently, the easiest way to play East & West, The Great War, and/or Crucible is through the MapView utility.
The forums won’t allow me to upload the installer (because of its size) so anyone who wants this file should get ahold of me in direct messages, or contact someone else who already has it (i.e. @Motdc or The Good Captain.)

2nd:
Obviously, Mot was given access to a hi-res scan of the E&W map in order to create the MapView module for the game; my understanding is that Mot does not have express permission to distribute (or use for any other purposes) any versions of the E&W map which were given to him by Imp Games, in good faith, for the purpose of creating the MapView module. If I am incorrect on this, hopefully Mot can provide some more context. At the very least, it is my understanding that he is choosing not to make these materials available, at the request of Imp Games.

Furthermore, I do not have express permission to distribute (widely/publicly/freely/etc.) the rules document for E&W. That being said:

1. I cannot play the game if my opponent does not have access to the rules.
2. Imp Games has said implicitly (through their decision allowing people to freely use MapView) that they wish for us to continue being able to play their games – this was the tone and tenor of the communications I have indirectly had with them.

All this is to say, I am willing to distribute an electronic copy of the rules to anyone who expresses an interest to play the game; I do this at my own discretion, on a case-by-case basis, and with no intent/expectation of any monetary or other compensation for myself. I’m doing this only for people to be able to play the game together, and with the understanding that Imp Games also wishes for us to be able to freely play their games together.

At this time, Imp Games is not making the rules commercially available, but this does not explicitly mean they have disclaimed any rights to exclusively distribute or sell the rules – so, I would ask anyone using such materials to take that under advisement.

@tacojohn all good, I’ve been pretty swamped myself.
If/when you’re ever ready to get rolling on MapView, just drop me an email.

“Floating Bridge” strategy

So I just finished watching this US strategy video for Global 1940, by @GeneralHandGrenade : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHkjC0E42d0

It’s interesting, because I’ve recently been having similar ideas for the UK in E&W – and so the US could probably also do the same type of thing.

First, if you want the UK to be building transports in the Atlantic right out of the gate (and specifically I was thinking of building 2 in Ontario) then you end up with 6 in total. And what I’ve come to realize is that rather than moving your starting transports all across the world, you kind of want to keep them more or less where they are.

The economics are important to consider. If you’re the UK, you can count on a production of 32 IPCs; as I’ve mentioned before, this translates to 9 infantry and 1 armor. You can place 3 of these infantry in India, meaning 6 infantry and 1 armor that potentially need 4 transports to move them from the UK (although you could also place the infantry in Africa.) This leaves you with 2 unused transports out of your 6 (starting with 4, and buying 2 more.)

The reason you want to place 2 transports in Ontario is so that you can be moving all of your units off of Canada and Iceland ideally by rd2. With your ships repositioned to the North Sea or the Barents Sea, the UK can be landing units in Norway every round. If that is not advisable, they can instead land units in France from either the North Sea or the Irish SZ.

If you’re keeping 2 transports in the Mediterranean, this allows you to move units landed in France (from the UK, or Africa) into either Yugoslavia or Greece every round; you can supplement these attacks by putting your bombers into France also. Since WE is likely going to be placing most/all of their infantry in France, they can do a similar move by corralling their 3 transports into the Mediterranean. The US could certainly use this tactic as well, since they can shuck-shuck from Quebec into France quite easily.

If France is well-defended enough by WE’s allies, they can instead place their units in Italy, and go after Turkey; using the WE fighters on the UK carrier is helpful for this. You can also “tag out” WE and UK fighters; if the WE fighters start on the carrier in the Cyprus SZ, they can move 1 space to attack Turkey, and then 3 spaces on non-combat to land in Italy – allowing UK fighters in Italy to attack Turkey and land on the carrier. This is even easier to execute if you’re focusing on Yugoslavia and Greece rather than going for Turkey.

For the UK specifically, the transport you start off with at Italy could easily be moved to the Atlantic (picking up the infantry from Libya and Gibraltar along the way); combined with the transport off Quebec and 2 more purchased in Ontario, this gives you enough transports to fill every round. Alternatively, if you keep this transport in the Mediterranean, that means you would be limited to 3 transports moving units from the UK – but this opens up options on the other side of the map, as I’ll explain below. (Basically, you can place 2 infantry in Singapore, with the remaining 4 infantry and 1 armor placed in UK – enough to fill 3 transports.)

Typically the Australian transport moves 2 inf from NSW to India; it could then be moved towards the Mediterranean. (It’s worth noting that typically WE will transport 2 inf from Indochina to India on rd1 as well, meaning that the WE and UK transports will both be lined up off of India, at the end of rd1 – so they would be moving towards the Mediterranean at the same time.) If you wanted the India transport to be on the same schedule, you can have it pick up the 1 infantry from Singapore and land it in India.

Lately I’ve been considering moving it to Australia instead, so that on rd2 it can pick up the 1 inf from Queensland and the 1 inf from Singapore, to land in Burma. Then, you could place 2 infantry on Singapore every round, and;

• a) move them to India
• b) move them to Korea, then have the transport swing back and land the infantry in Burma on the subsequent turn

However, this assumes you want to be putting more production into the region than just the 3 infantry in India. Even if you don’t keep this transport around Singapore, going down to Australia means it won’t reach the Mediterranean until round 4 at the earliest. This whole play also means that you’re not sending any transports down to pick up units from South Africa (at least not any faster than they can walk their way up to Libya) and you aren’t sending those units to India if/when you do pick them up – they would instead be going to Europe.

More generally, the reason for moving away from an India-centric strategy to more of a Europe focus as the UK is because IMO the new meta is one of the Soviets overrunning all of Scandinavia; a UK with lots of transports in the Atlantic is probably the best counter/deterrence to this. (I should probably mention that this makes it very important early on to decide whether the UK will keep their bombers in Europe, or move them to India – possibly even to Western Canada en route to Japan, to assist in Korea or Siberia.)

This focus also gives more flexibility (doubly so compared with an India IC) since units transported from the UK could land in Komi, Karelia, Norway, West Germany, France, or even Portugal. By contrast, I’ve found that placing in India only serves to create a stalemate, and to “mobility-kill” any units committed there. And the pipeline from South Africa into Pakistan or Iran is a lot less of a sure thing than you would expect.

With a weaker UK presence in India, I think it’s valuable to have the US be able to send more units there – so that’s a topic/tactic I will likely touch on in an upcoming post.

@the-janus said in Classic game using d10 dice:

Attack 2: inf, CV (increase of 1 for both)
Attack 4: sub
Attack 5: arm, ftr
Attack 7: bmb, BB

Defend 2: bmb, trn (increase of 1 for both)
Defend 3: inf, sub
Defend 5: arm, CV (increase of 1 for both)
Defend 7: ftr, BB

Looking at this, I actually have half a mind to just go with 2/4/6/8 for attack and 1/3/5/7 for defense.

@tacojohn said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

I think I may eventually try to recreate the E&W Cold War-era scenario on one of the more recent A&A maps - either the Anniversary map or maybe Siredblood’s or one of its offshoots - and work up the starting set ups, territorial control changes, etc.

I’m just looking at the Global 1940 map right now, and I have to ask if maybe doing E&W just using the Europe map would be worthwhile? It sort of begs the wider question of whether a Cold War scenario (particularly with a neutral China) really even lends itself to using a world map.

The Europe side at least already includes a Germany that’s split into east/west/south; the Pacific only has one Korea, and the Dutch islands would be going to waste in an E&W scenario. Really the only intriguing thing (to me) is that you could actually represent Taiwan – which seems like a weird/major oversight from the original E&W. (Particularly when you consider all of the 0-IPC island groups that were included; I have to remind myself that this is likely the result of E&W probably being based directly off of W@W.)

I think I wrote this in the other thread (where I first posted on this topic) but I wanted to reiterate it here, just for posterity:

With the values I had originally suggested, you can kinda use the 4-column setup of the Classic battleboard, and just paste over the number values (assuming the ergonomics of face-to-face play are of any consideration.)

Attack 1: inf, CV
Attack 4: ftr, sub
Attack 5: arm
Attack 7: bmb, BB

Defend 1: bmb, trn
Defend 3: inf, sub
Defend 4: arm, CV
Defend 7: ftr, BB

Taking into account some of @General-6-Stars’s suggestions, if you’re trying to keep that structure intact:

1. increasing inf/CV to A2: I think if the overall idea is to keep infantry from being too strong, it’d be hard to justify increasing their attack from 1/6 to 2/10.
2. increasing arm/CV to D5: CV defends at 50% in Classic, but at 1/6 in most other versions (however, those tend to include other ship types for defense.) 3/6 seems ok – but somehow 5/10 seems too high, when 4/10 is an option.
3. increasing ftr to A5: Should you increase sub to A5? I’m leaning towards keeping both of these at a 4, and have jet power/super submarines increase both attack and defense by 1 (as mentioned in the previous thread.)
4. increasing BB to A8/D8: should you increase bmb to A8 and ftr to D8, to match? Rolling at 8/10 just seems really strong, overall; 7/10 seems like a more reasonable cap.
5. increasing trn/bmb to D2: Since transports are such a big part of why the shuck-shuck is so strong, I would kind of lean towards keeping them at a lower defense.

There’s probably some utility in keeping ftr and arm at the same attack value as each other, moreso than ftr + sub.

Assuming you don’t increase the BB to 8/8, the suggested revisions would basically result in:

Attack 2: inf, CV (increase of 1 for both)
Attack 4: sub
Attack 5: arm, ftr
Attack 7: bmb, BB

Defend 2: bmb, trn (increase of 1 for both)
Defend 3: inf, sub
Defend 5: arm, CV (increase of 1 for both)
Defend 7: ftr, BB

So, overall this looks like a greater increase for defense than for offense, but since infantry are getting the increase in attack, that’s going to outweigh the increases to other units. This setup looks fine; I think really my initial one is only preferable w/r/t the tech boosts.

Maybe the solution is to go with 5 attack and 5 defense values, with inf at A1 and trn at D1? This could work, because attacking inf/CV and defending bmb/trn are never gonna be in the same battle (on the same side) together, anyway.

I’d also kinda lean towards keeping arm/CV at D4; depending on the ratio of inf to arm…
i.e.
10 inf + 2 arm:
20/6 + 4/6 = 24/6 = 4.0
or
30/10 + 8/10 = 38/10 = 3.8 (arm w/ D5 would make this 4.0)

Likewise…
2 ftr + 1 CV: (a fairly likely combination)
4/6 + 4/6 + 3/6 = 11/6 = 1.83
or
7/10 + 7/10 + 4/10 = 18/10 = 1.80 (CV w/ D5 would make this 1.90)

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So blending everything together, maybe (probably?) we’d come up with something like this:

Attack 1: inf
Attack 2: CV
Attack 4: sub (ssub +1)
Attack 5: arm, ftr
Attack 7: bmb, BB

Defend 1: trn
Defend 2: bmb
Defend 3: inf, sub
Defend 4: arm, CV
Defend 7: ftr, BB (jets +1)

I think the first thing to test is whether inf w/ A1 is too wimpy. Then maybe you’d adjust it to A2 and turn ftr down to A4(?) After that, the next thing would be to look at increasing arm/CV to D5.

Analysis of the Early Game

So after getting resoundingly thumped by our forums’ very own @The_Good_Captain (in roughly half a dozen games) earlier this year, I find myself having another big think about E&W lately.

(One thing I should mention was that we hadn’t yet dug up the Imp Games E&W FAQ while we were playing; probably the most significant rule clarification in there was that aerial retreats are allowed. So that will have an impact if/when I ever get rolling with an opponent again.)

Anyways, what we learned is that is it is very plausible (with the round 0 bonus of 20 IPCs) to have the USSR capture basically all of the frontline territories on round 1:

• Norway (2)
• West Germany (4)
• Greece (2)
• Turkey (3)
• Pakistan (1)
• South Korea (2)

What you end up with is an income tracker like this:
USSR: 62 (+4 more, from China)
WE: 21
UK: 32
US: 41

Since this is a Classic-style IPM game, we can translate this pretty easily into units:

33 inf for the USSR, vs.

• 7 inf for WE
• 9 inf, 1 arm for UK
• 12 inf, 1 arm for US
  = 30 ground units for NATO

NATO starts out the game with a sizeable advantage in infantry; even taking into account 10 inf being added in round 0, they’re ahead of the Soviets, 92-70. However, this advantage is largely flattened out through combat on the first round, and by the fact that US and UK are typically going to be producing transports on round 1, rather than landing many units in Eurasia.

Where this starts to tip into imbalance is the fact that the USSR can begin attacking neutrals to increase their economy, right away on round 2. Conversely, it is difficult for NATO to be taking territory away from the USSR by round 2, because they are reliant on transports to do so – in both Siberia and Scandinavia.

I’ll qualify this by saying I haven’t attempted a full-blown Scandinavia focus as NATO in these most recent games (although this is what I’m looking into now.) But with that being said, I’m essentially counting on the aerial retreat rule to tip the balance enough in NATO’s favour, that other house-rules won’t be needed; I’m skeptical that this will be the case.

I think that having some reliability in the round 1 outcomes is important, but it’s becoming clear that maybe the USSR shouldn’t get to win all of the battles. My first instinct is to tinker a bit with the initial setup, but possibly a better starting point is to go back to playing the game without any purchases on round 0, and then slowly start adding a “bid” back in, to see where the numbers fall.

Turkey is probably the hardest nut to crack in the starting setup, and the Soviets using control of the straits to defend their backline has been a cornerstone of the game for the longest time. It’ll be interesting to see if the game still “works,” under a paradigm where the USSR isn’t expected to take Turkey right away. The larger problem is that if every battle on round 1 is a 50/50 proposition between clearing the territory and strafing it, NATO can potentially end up with a lot more air power (i.e. South Korea, Greece, and West Germany) – and that would also throw the balance completely out the window. It might just be time to shake up the status quo.

Tech/Spying revamp: Breakthroughs

Coming back to this, the 2nd half of my previous house rule thread outlines what I call the “breakthrough” system; this replaces both the spying and technology phases.

Each nation can make a number of free breakthrough rolls equal to:

the number of free tech rolls they get, under the baseline rules + the maximum number of spies they can have on the board at a time, under the baseline rules

This gives us the following numbers:

• USSR: 3
• WE: 1
• UK: 1
• US: 2

Each nation may also purchase a number of additional breakthrough rolls on their turn, up to the number of free breakthroughs roll they can make; the cost of an additional breakthrough roll is equal to the cost of an infantry, for that nation (2 for USSR, or 3 for any of the NATO powers.) Being that E&W is fundamentally still an IPM game, this is intended to make purchasing breakthroughs competitive with purchasing infantry.

Breakthrough results:
on a roll of 1, you may do one of the following:

• gain a diplomatic success at a neutral alliance (OAS, Arab League, or China)
• gain a full step in one technology tree

on a roll of 2, you may do one of the following:

• gain a diplomatic success at any minor/independent neutral
• gain a half-step in one technology tree

You may only apply one breakthrough to any tech tree, per turn.

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Optional rules:

• The USSR may use a 2 to influence China
• (revised NATO tech sharing) If a NATO partner uses a 1 to gain a technological advancement, both other NATO partners may each gain a half-step in that same tech tree. This is still not allowed for the nuclear weapons tech tree.
• (revised USSR counter-intelligence) The USSR may make one free counter-intelligence roll on their turn; if the result is a 1 or 2, this roll can be used to foil a matching NATO breakthrough on the same round, only. The USSR may also purchase 1 additional counter-intelligence breakthrough on each of their turns.

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These optional rules combined, would in theory make it easier for the USSR to keep China in the fold, since it also encourages NATO to use their 1s on technology rather than diplomacy.

Essentially, I’ve come to the conclusion lately that nuclear tech is supremely important for the USSR, and the only viable NATO counter is diplomacy. The problem is that the USSR gets free tech rolls AND free rolls to foil NATO’s spies (i.e. their attempts at diplomacy.) In my opinion, this is where the late-game imbalance lies, and short of just completely removing tech/spying from the game (or imposing nerfs on the USSR) the only other real fix is to move towards something where all sides can make any type of rolls they want (i.e. in the base game, US having a free tech roll when they really need a free diplomacy roll, IMO.) Allowing for more rolls overall, should also decrease the randomness by flattening the bell curve. It’s also just fun (in my experience) to get to see more techs in play by more countries, and more neutrals getting active – and allowing that to play into your strategies more reliably.

@barnee re: testing

Since the Axis each have a starting income that is divisible by 3, originally I had the mechanics for merging theatres as a function of the Axis country either increasing their income by 2/3rds more than their starting income, or decreasing it by 1/3rd less than their starting income. (Which sort of dovetails into the “2 out of 3” rule for Victory Cities.)

This effectively worked out to:
Germany: +14/-7
Italy: +8/-4
Japan: +10/-5

Changing it to a uniform +10/-5 made the math a little bit more intuitive, but it also means the USSR doesn’t have to get beat up so much (down half their income, possibly even losing their capitol) before the US/UK are able to jump in and help.

In terms of territorial gains/losses, this typically works out like…
+10 Germany = Karelia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Persia
-5 Germany = Finland/Norway, Eastern Europe

+10 Italy = all of Africa, plus Brazil or Eastern Canada
-5 Italy = all of Africa (except for one territory), or losing Southern Europe

+10 Japan = all Chinese territories, plus India or Philippines
-5 Japan = Indochina/Burma, Manchuria

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So, Italy probably has the toughest time (as one might expect) but none of these scenarios are completely out of the realm of possibility.

@the-janus said in 1941 "limited" scenario for A&A Classic:

some of the “limited” scenarios (where not all nations were used/played) on thrasher’s A&A site

Just as a fun bit of context, I dug up one of the scenarios that I believe had influenced my ideas here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020416082827/http://www.wargamer.com/axisandallies/original/scenarios/historical/1939/scenario_1939_battleplan_perrintong.html

This scenario has both China and (what particularly stood out in my memory) “South Pacific Forces” as separate powers from the US and UK. With the timeframe of 1941 (China already at war with Japan, and the UK already at war in the West) it made more sense to me to slot China in with the UK rather than the US. This means Chinese units wouldn’t be subject to the early game restrictions that the US has, and also gives “China” enough of an economy to really be a meaningful world power in this setup (albeit as a sub-faction of the UK, rather than a truly independent power.)

@barnee
I tested it quite a bit (just solo play) way back when I first wrote it; that’s how the various Axis buffs / Allied restrictions more or less got hammered out.

Probably the Pacific part would still be the most rough, if I had to point to one area. I do recall at one point I just had it as “all original Japanese naval units are still Japanese in this setup” but eventually changed that (hence the big discount in cost of naval units on Round Zero.) Also, at one point I had it as NO allied AA guns firing during Round Zero, but India was falling too easily/reliably, so that’s when it was changed to just US/USSR having that restriction.

I also tinkered with the turn order a bit (and with the possibility of not having US/USSR act at all, during round one), but with the “impulse” turn being what it is, you can’t quite let Germany have two full turns before Russia can react; much the same for Japan. So, there was some thought and testing that went into hewing closer to the original turn order (not just “keep it the same, for the sake of keeping it the same.”)

Having Persia under the USSR helps make the sea zone split a little easier to manage, but also gives Germany an alternate attack route, without having to mix the threatres together at all.
Similarly, I had considered giving Western Canada to the Pacific US (since it doesn’t quite feel right being part of “China”) – and in the original A&A Pacific game, Western Canada is a 0-IPC territory, so it doesn’t matter much who owns it. I definitely think it makes more sense being part of “UK Pacific” in the context of playing the global game.

Were there any specific rules or changes you had any questions about? I’m happy to answer :)

Turn Order:
(With the intention of keeping as close to the original turn order, while still slotting in the added countries)

1. USSR
2. a) Italy (and Vichy France)
   b) Germany
3. a) UK (Atlantic)
   b) China (includes India, Dutch, ANZAC, etc.)
4. Japan
5. a) US Pacific
   b) US Atlantic

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Round Zero / “Impulse”:
Prior to the first full round, the Axis get one round to act. This should be played out in the turn order described above, omitting the Allied turns.

The Axis conduct all phases of their turns during this round, with some very important bonuses added:

• Infantry & Armor: attack power is increased by 2, costs are reduced by 1 IPC
• Fighters & Bombers: attack with 2 dice instead of 1, costs are reduced by 2 IPC
• Naval units: attack power is increased by 1, costs are reduced by half

During this round, Allied units defend as per normal, with one notable exception: since they are not yet at war, AA guns belonging to the USSR and USA do not fire.

Axis Advantage / “Russia Restricted”
On the first round, the USSR and the US (both Atlantic and Pacific) may only conduct the following phases of their turns: Purchase Units, Place Units, Collect Income.

In addition to the bonuses on Round Zero, all three Axis countries gain these benefits:

• all Axis battleships are 2-hit battleships
• all Axis powers have Super Submarine technology
• all Axis powers have Jet Power technology

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Setup & Territorial Changes:
The original setup for Classic is used, however changes in ownership of a territory also govern changes in the nationality of ALL units listed for that territory (including naval units) with the following exceptions:

• All German naval units are given to Italy (including any newly purchased units)
• All Soviet naval units are given to the UK; the USSR may not produce naval units in this scenario

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As you can see from the map above, the sea zones are broken down into two sections:

1. those bordering the territories of USSR, Germany, Italy, UK, and US Atlantic – to be used only by the navies and air forces of those countries
2. all other sea zones – to be used by the navies and air forces of China, Japan, and US Pacific

You’ll note that this limitation creates one sea zone in the mid-Atlantic which is effectively impassable; feel free to adjudicate this differently, if you find a change to be helpful.

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Industrial Complexes / “Victory Cities”:
Add an AA gun and Industrial Complex to the following territories:

• Ukraine SSR
• South Africa
• India
• Australia

No new industrial complexes may be built.

In this scenario, the number of units a complex can produce is limited to the IPC value of the territory in which it is located (including capitols.) As such, you may only purchase a number of units up to the total IPC value of the industrial complexes which you have controlled since the start of your turn. For example: the UK has an industrial complex on their capitol (8 IPCs) as well as in South Africa (2 IPCs) meaning they can purchase a maximum of 10 units on their turn.

Further to this, the number of naval units you may purchase is limited not only to the IPC value of your coastal/island complexes, but also by whether the adjacent sea zones are clear of enemy ships. For example: Since Japan only has an industrial complex in their capitol, if the islands are surrounded by Allied naval units at the start of the Japanese turn, Japan may not purchase any naval units on that turn.

A nation who loses their capitol may continue to collect IPCs from any territories they still control, provided they also still control at least one industrial complex after the Combat Phase of their turn. If a nation controls no industrial complexes after any nation’s Combat Phase, they must surrender their IPCs to the nation whose turn it currently is. They also can no longer collect IPCs, until they regain control of at least one industrial complex.

Victory is achieved when either side controls at least “2 out of 3” Axis and “2 out of 3” Allied starting Industrial Complexes (8 Industrial Complexes in total) at the end of any round of play.

Theatres of War
It is intended that each theatre may be played separately, as their own sort of “mini-game” but they may also be played in concert, and merge together under certain circumstances of victory or defeat. A nation may not attack nor move units into any territory which is not a part of their theatre, until those theatres merge together.

• Atlantic Theatre: UK, Italy, US Atlantic
• European Theatre: USSR, Germany
• Pacific Theatre: China, Japan, US Pacific

If Germany or Italy collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income, the Atlantic and European theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Germany collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income.

If Italy or Japan collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income, the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Japan collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income.

If playing any theatre individually, the Axis country wins if they collect an income of at least 15 IPCs more than their starting income; the Allies win if the Axis country collects no income.

Starting Incomes:

1. USSR - 28 IPCs
2. a) Italy - 12 IPCs
   b) Germany - 21 IPCs
3. a) UK - 18 IPCs
   b) China - 18 IPCs
4. Japan - 15 IPCs
5. a) US Pacific - 18 IPCs
   b) US Atlantic - 17 IPCs

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Mergers and Restrictions
Whenever the European and Atlantic theatres merge, Germany and Italy combine their cash on hand, and effectively become one nation.

Whenever the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge, the same happens with the UK and China, as well as with US Atlantic and US Pacific. Additionally, when this merger takes place, the restrictions on naval movement end; the navies of all nations can enter any sea zones on the map.

Unlike most global Axis & Allies games, in this scenario Japan and the USSR may never attack each others’ territories or naval units. However, if the Pacific and European theatres have merged (i.e. all 3 theatres must have merged, for this to happen) the following actions are permitted:

• Soviet units may enter Allied-controlled territories (such as those belonging to China)
• Japan may destroy Soviet units in Allied-controlled territories, on Allied aircraft carriers, or aboard Allied transports.

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Other Recommended Rules

1. No invading neutrals
2. No technology advancement

I’ve decided to leave out most of the “errata”-type changes I had written up in my earlier draft, since those are mostly down to a matter of taste; generally sticking to the 2nd Edition rules will be perfectly fine. But if anyone is interested, I’ll be happy to add those to the thread.

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If you have any questions or comments, please post them down below :)

@krieghund said in Applying Casualties Question:

The rules do say on page 18 that the defender resolves combat “as the attacker did”, but they go on to say that the attacker’s casualties are “immediately removed from the battle board” and that “They are immediate casualties because they have already fired.” This clearly indicates that they are treated differently from the defender’s casualties in this regard, but the process is the same in all other regards.

Herein I think lies a chunk of the issue: the word “casualties” is being used to describe two mechanically different concepts.

• a Defender’s casualties which are expressly “behind the casualty line” and are allowed to fire back
• an Attacker’s casualties, which are neither moved behind a casualty line, nor are allowed to fire back (i.e. “immediate casualties”)

I also think the fact that the description of the counterattack being resolved “as the attacker did” then jumps to “units that are hit are immediately removed” allows for some vagueness/confusion as to the ways in which the counterattack is similar, and what the actual order of operations is, for doing everything that occurs during/between those two steps. (I suspect your contention would be they are only similar in the manner that combat is resolved by columns, but I don’t believe the text is specific enough to say that, definitively.)

So, we’re treating defender “losses” and attacker “casualties” as being the same (and defender casualties and attacker casualties as being different)? If so, then I would say that if we accept the contention that defending losses are determined after all attackers have fired (and keeping in mind that the counterattack is resolved “as the attacker did”) then it stands to reason that attacker’s “casualties” should be determined at the same point in the sequence as defender’s “losses” i.e. “immediately” after all defending dice have been rolled, as per the contention.

Now, I think we disagree on that fundamental contention, and that’s fine. I merely want to demonstrate how I can understand why the contention has been made in the past. I think your explanation of how the rules are meant to work is more straightforwardly supported by the text.

@andrewaagamer

I completely understand the arguments you are making, and I agree with you.

In short, my point is that I can read the text of the book and draw different conclusions about what the implications of the text are.

I’m not even saying you’re wrong, I’m saying I can understand why there’s different interpretations of the text.

@andrewaagamer said in Applying Casualties Question:

Also, not all opposed dice are rolled before a unit becomes lost.

Please read the example combats I cited from the rule book.

@krieghund said in Applying Casualties Question:

It’s simply because, unlike the defender’s casualties, the attacker’s have already fired, and don’t need to stick around any longer.

Correct. So here is a further question: the rules on page 5 say “The defender now rolls for a counterattack, just as the attacker rolled.” (I believe roughly the same wording is used on page 18 or 19, as well.)

If we grant that there is a distinction in the text between a “casualty” and a unit that is “lost” (and that units are only ‘lost’ after all of the opposed dice have been rolled) would it not then follow that all defending dice must be rolled, before attacking units are designated as “lost”?

This would follow from the assertion that the defender rolls “just as the attacker” and also would not put the defender at a distinct advantage over the attacker when deciding casualties (as you suggest it would, if the defenders hits were inflicted by columns, but attackers weren’t.)

I also believe this would explain why there is a distinction between defender’s casualties vs. attacker’s (i.e. the word literally appearing on the battle board, on the defending side, but not the attacking side.) There is still a line for “hit” attackers to be moved behind, but they are not behind a “casualty line” because “behind the casualty line” implies the mechanic of being able to shoot back, after being hit (which attackers cannot.) This might also make it more clear why one side’s “casualties” are removed on the counterattack phase, and another’s are removed on the “remove all casualties” phase.

@krieghund said in Applying Casualties Question:

In fact, if it were the intent that casualties be finalized after all of the attacker’s dice are rolled, it would be much simpler for the rules to instruct you to keep track of all hits and choose casualties after all dice are rolled. Why specify choosing them column by column only to change them later? It just doesn’t make sense.

Again, what I said is that moving units behind the casualty line is a method to keep an accurate accounting of how many hits are scored – under the assumption that you’re rolling a maximum of 12 dice at a time.

If you don’t implement a system to manage this in a face-to-face environment, you’re going to end up with a situation where you’re miscounting or not correctly adding up all of the hits which are scored (I think of it like that “Did he fire 6 shots or only 5?” scene from Dirty Harry.)

It basically forces the players to agree that a number of units are being moved behind the casualty line, corresponding to the number of hits that were scored – before moving on and rolling more dice. It’s to reduce the possibility of errors or cheating.

So here’s a question.

If there is no distinction between a “hit” or “lost” unit and a “casualty”, then why are attacker’s “casualties” immediately removed in the counter-attack phase, and not in the “remove all casualties” phase? That seems unintuitive.

It may very well be that the defender DOES get a distinct advantage over the attacker (for some reason)
I do think there is a reason for rolling by columns (as I’ve outlined) I just think it’s possible that the mechanic is being misapplied here.

Edit: I would contend that "After the defender’s counterattack, the defender removes all of his or her casualties that were behind the casualty line of the battle board and places them back in the tray.” implies that there is a gray area. All this is saying is that once the defender rolls, their casualties are now lost, and cannot be changed. It does not say “all decisions about which units are behind the casualty line are final, and you must now roll dice.” If you allow that there is a distinction between designating a casualty and losing a unit, then it stands to reason that the final determination happens sometime after attacking rolls are final and before defending rolls have begun. This is the gray area in which I think it would be possible to change your casualty selection.