Posts made by theduke

No, I didn’t mean that it’s easier to take China on turn 1 than with the OOB rules. I mean that it’s still too easy to take China on turn 1! Our rules do make it harder to take China, but we need to change the rules so it’s even harder still. That’s all I meant.

After working some of the numbers in the first turn of the game, it’s still too easy for Japan to take China on turn 1. I propose a minor change to the initial setup: China starts with 2 extra US infantry, Egypt with 1 extra UK infantry, Trans-Jordan with 1 extra UK infantry and the Kwangtung SZ with 1 extra DD. Note that both the Axis and the Allies each get a total of 12 IPCs worth of extra units.

What do you guys think of the following set of mobilization rules:

For Russia, Germany and Japan:
-Max number of infantry=number of VCPs for all territories
-Infantry placed in the capital VC cost 2, in any VC contiguously connected to the capital VC cost 3, and in any VC not contiguously connected to the capital VC cost 4. (note that this is no difference between captured VCs and VCs of your color).

For UK and US:
-Max number of infantry=1 for minor VCs, 2 for both moderate and major VCs, and 3 for capital VCs.
-Infantry at the capital cost 2, at all other VCs of your color cost 3, and at captured VCs cost 4. (note that there is no difference between contiguously connected and not contiguously connected).

That’s all the rules. This is much simpler IMO and yet is still realistic.

Previously I’ve only seen bmb or bmr for abbrev. for bomber, which is why I was confused. When I see BO I think “battle orders” or something. When I write up my version of phase 1 rules, I’ll start the writeup with a key to all abbrev. and terms.

If you haven’t started playtesting your rules yet, please start. I’ve still got to work out some stuff with mine before we can compare them.

having cheaper DDs and BBs is the type of things that we can add in at the last minute after playtesting. There’s no point in really debating cheaper units until after we playtest it.

SS hits cannot be taken by BB
Sorry typo. Its meant to say BO. Edited.

What exactly do you mean by BO??

Once again, I don’t like radar as a UK advantage, but as a tech replacement for combined bombardment. I’ll post all my new ideas together so everyone knows how my rules will play off each other, compliment each other and I don’t have to keep posting each new idea separately in a confusing manner.

I don’t see how this is a game breaker:

Once per turn, Russia may declare 1 infantry either on attack or defense to be a 2-hit unit.

What is this worth? Well, if Russia got 1 free infantry to place anywhere at the site of any battle, that would be worth about 3 IPCs. It would be worth a little better than 3 IPCs because the infantry can be placed at any battle, not at any VC. The reduced criteria for infantry placement would increase the value of this to be about 3.5 IPCs or so. However, the above rule that I’m proposing isn’t as good as 1 free infantry because although, it counts the same as 1 extra infantry hit when assigning casualties inflicted by the opponent, there is no “extra infantry” firing on attack or defense. Therefore, the rule above is not as good as even getting 1 free infantry per turn. I would say that the inability of the “extra infantry” to fire would reduce the worth of this advantage down to 2.5 IPCs total (including the +0.5 IPCs for the unrestricted placment. Is an advantage worth 2.5 IPCs per turn a game breaker? IMO it is not.

I never said each russian infantry is a 2-hit unit. Do you actually think that I would propose something that rediculously powerful??? You apparently don’t know me very well if you would think for even a second that I would propose anything like that. What I said was that we should allow 1 infantry, and only 1 infantry, per battle to be a 2-hit unit. If this is still too powerful relative to the other advantages, than it should be limited to only 1 infantry per turn (not per battle), but for any battle chosen by the russian player. I think russia should get 1 2-hit infantry on attack and 1 on defense on each turn.

This would be an easy rule to imploy that would replace 1 normal unit of infantry men attacking/defending at the normal ability with twice the number of infantry men attacking and/defending at half the normal ability.

Justification: The Soviets sent massive number of untrained men to fight= 1 infantry per turn on offense and defense as a 2-hit unit but still attacking/defending at the normal number.

SS hits can no longer be taken by SS. It still cannot be taken by FTR or BB.
subs can’t hit battleships? since when?

++++++ SS can be taken by Fighters and BB’s where does it say they cant?

I don’t understand. Are you proposing that subs cannot hit battleships? If so, why?

I like the idea of massive infantry better than shock troops. I think the massive number of men played a more important facotr in the outcome/tactics of the Soviets.

We can’t have radar as a UK advantage and a tech.

as production interruption stands as of now I think it’s too much. That doesn’t mean I won’t like it if we can make it simpler.

Why do you mant to change the cost of DDs and BBs?

You didn’t include a lot of stuff that I thought we were going to include in phase 1. Is this a complete list of what you wanted phase 1 to be?

i vote against including national units and national attack in phase 1. if we do end up including them there are problems with some of the ones you listed:
-radar is a tech, right? it can’t be a UK advantage then.
-instead of russian shock trops, a more accurate/historical advantage would involve the massive number of men, not the ability of some of the best men. I don’t know what you would call it, but the massive number of men would allow 1 russian infantry per battle to act as a 2-hit unit.

did i ever propose my ideas for optional rules on oil, foreign policy and techs?

SS hits can no longer be taken by SS. It still cannot be taken by FTR or BB.
subs can’t hit battleships? since when?

i don’t think we “need” to reduce the cost of DDs and BBs. I think for phase 1 the prices should be left alone.

i think production interruption requires too much info for players to keep track of. i vote against it.

for phase 1, i vote for no change in turn sequence rules… russia, germany, uk, japan then us as in OOB rules.

this is the only solution to my following criteria:
-same turn sequence throughout each turn
-russia goes before germany on turn 1
-germany goes before both uk and us on turn 1
-japan goes before us on turn 1

the only solution satisfying all those criteria are the OOB rules.

i still think we should keep the same order of stages within each turn… like develop weapons at the end of each turn.

apparently it’s not clear because i didn’t know that the game sequence was set and done. why am i proposing all these ideas on game sequence if the rules for it are already set in stone? my last post was concerning my proposal, not anyone else’s.
in my proposal, i’m saying that to speed up things the russians should take their turn with the other allies… that way there are only 2 turns per round instead of 3. but what should the order to the 2 turns be? allies and then axis or the other way around? imp says russia needs to move first in the game.

i don’t think the turn sequence should change at all. every turn should be the same sequence as the turn before. i understand that your change is as simple a change as you can have, but it’s still a change and thus not simple enough for my taste.

i agree with you that it will be a big advantage for germany if they go first. however, i can just see it now. we have all the allies go, then both the axis. wouldn’t everyone ask, well then shouldn’t the game be called allies and axis instead.  :lol:

every rule should definitely have its own explanation.

I don’t think it will be much of a game changer to switch the order between the russians and the germans. even if it is a game changer in the OOB rules,there are so many new rules now that it might not be that big a deal. for example, attacking a VC gives the defender 1 2-hit inf is a good defensive boost to VC territories. how wll germany take moscow on g1?

it wouldn’t be a big deal to have all allies go, then all axis go. i don’t feel that strongly about it. the only reason why i proposed it was because the axis were the aggressors in wwii and the aggressors should naturally attack first.

here’s another idea:

how about we do away with the rule that if a VC is attacked before the defenders first turn, the defender can place inf there before the attack. we replace it with the rule that anytime throughout the game when a VC is attacked, the defender doesn’t have to assign a casualty on the first hit. this means that the defender gets one free hit per battle defending a VC.

i think a better way to say basically the same thing is to say that when defending a VC, 1 inf is a 2 hit unit (like a battleship).

either of these new rules will make the game more realistic IMO by modelling the extra defense in these VCs and reduce the occurence of these being traded back and forth costantly. now players will more likely hold off 1 turn and attack a VC next turn extra strong and only giving the defender 1 free hit instead of attacking a VC weak 2 turns in a row and giving the defender 2 free hits (one per turn).

if we want to go even further with this, we could say that VCs with more VCPs get more 2-hit infantry. number of 2 hit inf=number of VCPs might be too powerful…. 5 2-hit inf defending each capital might never make capitals taken. we could reduce the effect by limiting it to only the first combat round. after the first combat round all inf turn ack to regular 1-hit inf no matter if they were hit on turn 1 or not.

Here’s an idea that i want to throw out there:

western allies VCs are always considered ‘connected’ (like before), but now no VC may build more than 2 inf per turn. this means that max of 2 inf per turn are made in eastern and western us and uk and eastern canada (instead of 3 at all those places). this would make the 3 us territories can make only 6 inf per turn among them (instead of 8). is this more realisitic?

should western allies also get the advantage of inf made in the capital costs only 2 each?

Alternatively, we could have both axis stagger their turns together and then have all allies stagger together. this would shorten the game a little more because now it’s just 2 turns per round. besides saving time, it also reduces down time. half the time it’s your move and the other half of the time you’re on defense and strategizing for when it’s your turn next. you’re always busy.

if we do this, then i think the axis should move first in every round. then the allies. this is both symbolic of the axis being the aggressors and also gives them a slight edge over OOB rules which improves game balance.

what should the staggering order be? for the axis, i think it should be germay, then japan to symbolize germany leading the way. for the allies, i’m not sure. i like russia, uk, then us.

What about this, for simplicity and to save time? 
-Russia has it’s turn first.
-Germany and Japan take their turn together, however, they stagger the steps in their turn order. For example, in this 1 Axis turn, Germany makes purchases, then Japan makes purchases, then Germany collects income, then Japan collects income, then Germany does combat move, then Japan does combat move, then Germany does combat, then Japan does combat, etc…
-UK and US take their turn togeter (also staggering the steps in the turn).

This shortens the length of the turn because 2 people are basically taking the turn at the same time twice per round (you have ~3 turns per round instead of 5), however, you still don’t have to worry about players attacking together since the combat phase is staggered (germany always attacks before japan).

“captured minor VCs = number of VCP if connected, and 1 less than the number of VCPs if not connected”
“All captured non-minor VCs = 1 inf max”
So we could end up with easier to raise troops in captured minor VC than captured non-minor VC?
I was thinking maybe you shouldn’t even be able go raise troops captured minor VC…

Both quotes are correct, although I think you made a mistake with the math. captured minor VCs has inf=VCPs if connected or one less if not connected. Since VCPs for minors = 1, this means that if connected you may put 1 inf there and in not connected 0 inf. All non-minor captured VCs are 1, regardless of whether on not they are connected. This means that the number of inf made in captured minor VCs is either the same or less than the number of inf made in all other captured VCs (i.e. (0 or 1) is less than or equal to 1).

The only nations that are connected to minors are russia and germany. placing 1 inf at a captured minor will hardly ever happen since the criteria are too hard to satisfy.

Yeah it would be unrealistic. I was just brain storming about how to represent US/UK polices. At the moment they can’t raise more than 3 inf anywhere right?
And with US and UK been always “connected” is that about them having better land and sea transport or is that also going to be modelled separately in latter phases?

US and UK can’t raise more than 3 anywhere is correct. The reasoning they are always connected is primarily because many of the VCs they start with are minor Allies. Minor Allies have a much easier time raising their own troops than the other nations’ VCs have to raising theirs. Germany and japan have their starting VCs because they stole those territories militarily. It should be harder to raise inf in a territory you stole militarily. US and UK didn’t do that with their VCs since thier VCs are mostly minor allies.

alternatively, we could group russia in with the western allies and then say that all allies get to raise number of inf=VCps if connected or not. this might be simpler because then all the allies would have 1 set of rules and both axis would have another set of rules. russia still needs to be able to raise 5 per turn though. UK and US shouldn’t be able raise more than 3 per turn. after second thought, maybe you can’t have same inf placement rules for all allies.