Here:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/32236/oztea-s-1939-global-setup?page=1
I don’t think it says either way, which is why I have all these questions.
New Custom Map Project
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One other thing, if you are going to change some of the IPC values I would probably do a re-set for the Russians. Make Moscow worth more (3 IPCs really?) and some of the far east 0 IPCs so the Japanese don’t get much value. I think you can consider a 2 IPC territory out east, but I would be careful not to make it a target for Japan to take or build an IC.
I’d consider going somewhat in the opposite direction. To me the main problem with the Soviet Far East is that Russia has no motivation (=cash) and no ability (=production) to actually stay and fight over this region.
I think what is needed for the Russians is like a Soviet Far East equivalent of India. Basically a high value and strategically useful territory that the Allies must hold, if Japan is at war with the USSR, in order to have any reasonable expectation of stalling a Japanese advance towards the center.
Otherwise the Russians (and other Allies) have no real reason to invest in the area. The starting Soviet stack might stick around for a few turns, but in fairly short order (as soon Japan outpaces their ability to deadzone) they just fold into a full retreat.
I think the NAP is only interesting if it’s backed up by something effective. Japan should be just as interested in maintaining it as the Russians are.
I’d also like to see a return to convoy boxes, as an economic anchor, and a way to give the naval game a bit more independence.
Ps. I would seriously just take Evenki, Novos and the Tunguska territory between them down to a single tile worth 3 IPCs and stick a major on it! This would give the Soviets that much desired production center behind the Urals, with 2 routes into China and one to reinforce the far East.
Similarly, I would collapse Yenisey and Yakut into a single territory worth 2, so it can serve as a potential minor, and a desirable buffer tile. Rather than decrease the production and increase the distance I would go the exact alternate direction. Provide the Russians with the means to make a stand, and to go on the offensive in the case of a pacific strategy. With enough money you could flip the Russian situation here on its head, and get away from the whole idea of forcing the Russians to play a purely defensive game in the East because all their far eastern territories have been reduced into Japanese speed bumps. That’s the only way to make that region of the map dynamic in my view, since having it all carved up and worthless just puts it out of play for the Allies. I’d rather it be conceived as a position from which to threaten Japan.
It’s actually possible to play out that situation on the vanilla map, if you conceive of the territory tiles I mentioned before as being collapsed (for Russian movement and production purposes), potentially with a nod to the railways. Of course they would need money to make the theater operational, so an increase at Moscow would seem desireable. 5 or 6 ipcs would be totally justified, I’d go as high as 10 there, easily, if the rest of the map was reworked at a base 1 ipc per tile sort of play scale. I think Russia should be a power more on par with Germany, if the map is supposed to reflect the reality of World War II. Right now they’re a good 15-20 ipcs shy of where they need to be.
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I struggled with voting on the poll between configuring sea zones, territories and IPC values of territories, however with not knowing what the thought is on new configurations I went with IPC values.
Its always been a mystery to me why some well fought over territories have a zero value? Also, it was mentioned earlier about the eastern Russian territories if one of those could be a 2 IPC value that would be huge for the Allies to build a minor and stem the Japanese sweep that invariably occurs. Or huge for Japan if they capture the minor.
Actually, most of the items on your poll would be great to see. Thanks for the effort YG.
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I changed my mind about the blowup boxes. You can always use task force cards or anything really to set your units down on and then you don’t have to permanently mark up your map with the blowup boxes. In the game I’m playing now I’m using a set of coasters from HGB that has each nation’s symbols on them. They’re very cheap and the perfect size to use for a blowup box. It also looks kind of cool too.
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YG,
I voted for IPC changes on the map. My particular interest is Russia.
My opinion may not sway anyone, but as a US Army Logistics officer, I never liked how Japan can march all the way across Pacific board Russia to help Germany get Moscow (by lowering their IPCs for unit purchases). I don’t believe this feat possible in real life. I understand this is a game. But please consider how territories end up being too much like the board game Risk, where every territory is the same, no terrain features, and infrastructure development is taken into consideration…ect.
One person, I think Black_ Elk said for you to start with all territories having a value of 1. I’m of the opposite opinion. I think only coastal Russian territories on the Pacific board should have a 1 IPC value. Eastern Russia is mostly just wilderness. How many resources were really extracted back then in the middle of that tundra? Probably not a whole lot. The eastern Russian territories other than the coastal ones should all be 0 in my humble opinion in order to lower the incentive for Japan to march across northern Russia.
The 6 IPC values taken from the Pacific board would then be added to European Russian Territories. My opinion for the distribution would be 1 extra to Leningrad, 1 to Stalingrad, 1 to the Urals, 1 to Bryansk, and 2 to Russia.
Germany may gain a few extra IPCs while marching towards Moscow, but now Russia may only face losing their pacific board 3 IPCs (coastal territories) as a Japanese player may not go further.
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You could also go the other way with the income as well. Move the 6 infantry from Buryatia to Siberia or disperse them to the west and make Buryatia an impassable zone. Take the IPC’s from Buryatia, Yakut, Yenisey, and Evenkiyskiy. With that you could double each of the territories value to the east of the impassable zone. With the 18 infantry and 2 AAA the Russians could hold off the Japanese for a few turns anyway. In a bizarre game where Germany sucks the big one Russia could build a minor factory over there because the IPC value would allow it. I don’t see that happening against good competition though.
There has to be a great deal of natural resources in that area that Japan could utilize in their war effort since their island nation has limited resources. The reason they went to war with America was because of the embargo that kept them from getting fuel for their war machine against China and Southeast Asia. Doing that would turn the Mongolians against them but that wouldn’t be the end of the world, so it would still be unlikely that they would attack Eastern Russia but that doesn’t mean that they can’t do it to secure resources (IPC’s). The only impossible thing they couldn’t have done was skate an army all the way to Moscow from the Pacific Coast. If they are still hell bent on getting to Moscow they could go through China or violate the strict neutrality of Mongolia with the consequences that go along with doing so.
If you take everything away from Siberia you would be rendering a large part of the map as useless as South America is in G40. I think we could find a way of making it somewhat relevant without completely suspending our belief in reality.
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Well to be clear, my long standing position is that Industrial Production Capacity is just a poor way to characterize the basic game points in use.
:-DI understand that Larry wanted to connect his game points to the real world in some sort of meaningful way, but it just isn’t executed very well in many instances. The discrepancies with relative value are all over the place.
As long as we hold to the idea that the game points must reflect real world industry in a 1:1 way, we’re going to keep coming up against this issue. The issue where the game’s internal economy doesn’t align with the needs of the gameplay, but can’t be changed because that would break with the supposed historical reality. A reality which isn’t accurate anyway, but which is made entirely inflexible by the proposed definition of the game points as IPCs in the first place. I just don’t see a good way to resolve the issue in a consistant or satisfactory way, until you ditch the problematic definition, because the rigid definition is what’s hamstringing us.
I think there are a number of ways we could approach the Russian backdoor problem, but my gripe with the IPC system at large, is more foundational. I would like to see a situation where we can use them as generic “carrots” to encourage historical play patterns, without having to worry about how that connects (or fails to connect) to things like natural resources or population or whatever.
In fairness, the logistical challenge of the Japanese getting to Moscow via the China route would have been equally improbable. All those Chinese spaces are currently worth 1 ipc, regardless of whether it’s a larger population center along a river or some backwater desert province in the far west. Taken all together, unoccupied China is worth more than the United Kingdom. It’s just kind of hard for me to take it all that seriously, which is why I prefer a system that gets away from the strict definition of IPCs in favor of something more abstract and easy to adjust on the fly, according to the specific needs of the board in various places.
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I think there are a number of ways we could approach the Russian backdoor problem, but my gripe with the IPC system at large, is more foundational. I would like to see a situation where we can use them as generic “carrots” to encourage historical play patterns, without having to worry about how that connects (or fails to connect) to things like natural resources or population or whatever.
Regardless of what the IPCs stand for – whether they’re just regarded as abstract game points or whether they reflect real-world economics – their current structure discourages historical play patterns when it comes to Japan. The non-coastal Russian territories on the Pacific side of the map have IPC values of 1, and the central Pacific islands have IPC values of 0. This (combined with Moscow’s reachability by Japan as a high-value joint Axis target) encourages Japan to direct its war effort westward by land towards Moscow (the direction in which Japan did not go historically) rather than eastward by sea towards Hawaii (the direction in which Japan did go historically). It would make more sense if the IPCs were reversed, with most of the Russian territories being dropped to zero and the central Pacific islands being raised to 1. The Chinese provinces of the deep interior could likewise be dropped to 0, as a further disincentive for Japan to head westward. Japan never got more that about one-quarter or one-third of the way into China in WWII, and likewise did not view China as being an alternate route for reaching Moscow.
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So you don’t think that would hurt Japan in the long run. ? That would be something worth seeing where some islands are worth 2 icps.
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Of course it could hurt Japan. But on the flip side if Japan snags more islands real quick and has the position to hold onto them for awhile it could help them gain the upper hand whichever direction they’re going. In reverse of course, if the US and ANZAC get the islands then it will naturally help them beat back Japan.
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I do agree now that I am thinking about it more. Seems like more pressure on India.
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@SS:
That would be something worth seeing where some islands are worth 2 icps.
This concept for a 2-IPC island value would actually fit nicely with the idea of stripping the interior Chinese provinces of their 1-IPC value, in the same way that the Russian non-coastal eastern territories would be stripped of their 1-IPC value.
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I’m playing a new G40 game and I think I will put this idea in game and try it. But still put in any planes that want to land on islands must have at least an airstrip on it.
But game starts with some airbases and naval bases but you can’t buy any during game.
Can buy airstrips only. Cost is 5 icp’s. -
Ichabod, I will take your ideas to my game. As far as China I will have an answer soon. From now on I will be discussing my game and changes in a new thread.
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Just as a quick back-of-the-envelope kind of thing, I’ve had a look at the current IPC values of the Russian and Chinese territories that seem (at first glance) to be the most likely candidates for a 1-IPC drop, and at the Japanese and American islands that seem (at first glance) to be the most likely candidates for a 2-IPC boost, just to see whether the swapped IPCs add up properly.
The current values are:
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Buryatia (1 IPC)
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Evenkiyskiy (1 IPC)
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Kazakhstan (1 IPC)
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Novosibirsk (1 IPC)
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Sakha (1 IPC)
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Timguska (1 IPC)
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Urals (1 IPC)
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Yakut S.S.R. (1 IPC)
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Yenisey (1 IPC)
Total: 9 IPCs -
Anhwe (1 IPC)
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Chahar (1 IPC)
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Hunan (1 IPC)
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Hopei (1 IPC)
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Kansu (1 IPC)
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Kweichow (1 IPC)
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Shensi (1 IPC)
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Sikang (1 IPC)
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Suiyuyan (1 IPC)
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Tsinghai (1 IPC)
Total: 10 IPCs
(Note that I didn’t downgrade Yunnan or Szechwan because their connection to the Burma Road gives them special importance) -
Caroline Islands (0 IPC)
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Iwo Jima (1 IPC)
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Formosa (1 IPC)
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Marianas (0 IPC)
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Marshall Islands (0 IPC)
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Okinawa (1 IPC)
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Paulau Island (0 IPC)
Total: 3 IPCs -
Guam (0 IPC)
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Hawaiian Islands (1 IPC)
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Johnston Island (0 IPC)
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Line Islands (0 IPC)
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Midway (0 IPC)
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Philippines (2 IPC)
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Wake Island (0 IPC)
Total: 3 IPCs
If we drop all the Russian and Chinese territories I’ve listed to 0 IPCs, this liberates 19 IPCs for distribution to the Japanese and American islands I’ve listed, of which there are 14. This would translate into a boost of 1 IPC for 9 of the 14 islands, and a boost of 2 IPCs for 5 out of the 14 islands.
In fairness, Formosa and the Line Islands could probably be tossed from the list, since they saw little action in WWII. On the other hand, the Gilbert Islands, New Britain and the Solomon Islands should probably be added to the list, since they were the scene of either heavy direct fighting or (in the case of New Britain) a large-scale, long-duration blockade.
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Nice work CWO Marc… this will be helpful for sure.
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Yes Thank You
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@Young:
Nice work CWO Marc… this will be helpful for sure.
Thanks. It’s just a starting point for discussion, of course, with severeal rough edges; for example, the list of Chinese provinces to be downgraded may be too large, and there’s also the unaddressed question of which islands would get a 2-IPC boost as opposed to just a 1-IPC boost.
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Now, China would be losing 3 IPCs worth of money = 1 less infantry purchase. So what about a special peasant ability?
Perhaps the closest historical parallel would be to give China a single special extra unit (based in Shensi) representing Mao’s Communists, who historically – when they weren’t making plans to resume their civil war with Chiang once WWII was over – gave the Japanese an appreciable amount of trouble as a guerilla force, notably during their Hundred Regiments Offensive. This special extra A&A unit could be sort of a ChiCom equivalent to the single American Flying Tiger unit that the rules allocate to China.
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That idea has a lot to recommend it. The worthless islands are the areas most people want to see activated with a value anyway.
Of course stripping those interior Asian territories will nerf Russia on income, which might still prove problematic for the Allies during the opening rounds. I would offset it with a simple objective bonus attached to Soviet territories, where fighting actually occurred, along the front with Germany.
For China you could revert to an AA50 style unit spawn, or do a ChiCom thing, or both.
If increasing the pacific islands beyond a 1 ipc doesn’t grab you, then an alternative to 2 ipcs islands, would be to give some of the med tiles a value, for more sand and sea action.
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Good points, Black Elk, and a good solution might be as follows. The table that I posted earlier today was meant to see what kind of numbers we’d be playing with if we opted for an “IPC neutral” redistribution, in which the total number of IPCs on the board remained unchanged. One point that I noticed at the time, and commented on, was that there wouldn’t be enough IPCs to boost all the islands to the same degree (though that might not be a bad thing, since not all islands were equally valuable to the war effort of the nations involved). However, one point that I failed to consider (even though in retrospect it looks glaringly obvious) was that stripping the USSR and China of IPCs in certain territories (as a disincentive to Japan) would lower the Russian and Chinese incomes to such a degree that compensation might be required to keep things balanced. The solution might therefore be to move away from an “IPC neutral” redistribution model. The mainly-wilderness interior parts of Russia and China would still be stripped of their IPCs, and those IPCs would still be reallocated to various Pacific islands, but a few entirely new IPCs would also be created. Some of these new IPCs would be allocated to certain Pacific islands that didn’t get enough of a boost from the redistribution, and some would go to a few key Russian and Chinese territories. In Russia’s case, these would be somewhere on the Europe side of the map (where, as Ichabod has noted, major components of the Soviet economy were located). In China’s case, two good candidates (and there may be others) for boosting would be the two territories I’ve mentioned already in connection with the Burma Road: Yunnan and Szechwan. Both could get a boost, and Szechwan in particular could get a larger boost than Yunnan because that’s (on the A&A map) roughly the location of China’s wartime capital, Chunking, which Japan was sufficiently obsessed about that it became one of the most-bombed places on Earth. Another notable (and thus boostable) Chinese territory that I’ve mentioned would be Shensi, which is roughly where Mao’s forces ended up after the Long March.
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