Back in the 80’s and 90’s we sometimes did alternate alliances with the classic AA version (only one we had back then). Maybe the Germans and the Russians were allies against the others and so forth. Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Triple A on the computer and have enjoyed it quite a bit. I’ve discovered that you can switch the various political alliances/change income amounts/add or change units etc. Quite interesting.
I’d like to ask if anyone has experimented with this feature (either on the computer or table top) of changing up alliances and such. And if so, what combinations have you found worked well? Have you had to add/change things for the different countries.
Thanks. :-)
Try an actual possible historical change in geo politics. Try France and UK vs Germany and USSR so basically USSR becomes an Axis power. For fairness, France moves first.
Put Italy on allies and France on Axis, with or without altering turn order.
Play UK as 1 giant power
Play Anzac with Canada added on
Play Anzac and UK Pac as one power either grey or tan
Put Mongolians/Neutrals/Dutch on the board with some new rules of your choosing
Play the French as an independent team after their capital is lost similar to China
USSR and Germany should probably remain opposing forces since they have a big battleground between them, but you could switch that up to USA+Ger+Others vs UK Japan USSR, or you could do Germany+UK+Anzac vs USSR USA Japan.
USA and Germany are the biggest powers, UK and Japan the second biggest, have to take that into consideration in making fair teams. Some NOs might not make sense when you are switching stuff around
You can tinker with the turn order to make the beginning of the game fair, if the setup remains the same.
Careful when editing while playing your AAA game it can mess it up :)
The book “What If? : The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been” includes an essay titled “Triumph of the Dictators” by David Fromkin. The article postulates how the course of WWII might have gone if Germany and the USSR had not ended up at war with each other. The USSR did vaguely contemplate joining the Axis at one point – but even without such a step, Germany and the USSR had a non-aggression pact in place from 1939 to 1941. Fromkin, as I recall, points out that that just prior to Barbarossa most of continental Europe and much of Asia were under the control of the Tripartite Pact nations (Germany, Italy and Japan) and of countries which were allied to them or which had non-aggression pacts with them. (Russia, in fact, had non-aggresion pacts with both Germany and Japan.)
@CWO:
The book “What If? : The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been” includes an essay titled “Triumph of the Dictators” by David Fromkin. The article postulates how the course of WWII might have gone if Germany and the USSR had not ended up at war with each other. The USSR did vaguely contemplate joining the Axis at one point – but even without such a step, Germany and the USSR had a non-aggression pact in place from 1939 to 1941. Fromkin, as I recall, points out that that just prior to Barbarossa most of continental Europe and much of Asia were under the control of the Tripartite Pact nations (Germany, Italy and Japan) and of countries which were allied to them or which had non-aggression pacts with them. (Russia, in fact, had non-aggresion pacts with both Germany and Japan.)
The one I pitched was from the idea that France and UK almost sent their military into Finland to stop USSR from invading to which documents later said Stalin would of ran to Hitler for help.
But then again it was always hitlers plan to invade russia, apparently extreme leftwing goverments dont tollerate eachother. If hitler would not have attacked stalin would have attacked but later when he had a better production capacity.
Yes, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact can be seen as basically a cynical and temporary arrangement of covenience between ideological enemies. And I agree that Hitler would have been better off delaying Barbarossa for, let’s say, a year, so that he could concentrate first on knocking Britain out of North Africa (to cut its Mediterranean / Suez Canal route to the eastern part of the Empire) and out of the Middle East (thus depriving Britain of part of its oil supply, gaining that oil for Germany, putting India at risk of an Axis invasion from both east and west, and putting Germany on the south-western flank of the USSR).
@CWO:
The book “What If? : The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been” includes an essay titled “Triumph of the Dictators” by David Fromkin. The article postulates how the course of WWII might have gone if Germany and the USSR had not ended up at war with each other. The USSR did vaguely contemplate joining the Axis at one point – but even without such a step, Germany and the USSR had a non-aggression pact in place from 1939 to 1941. Fromkin, as I recall, points out that that just prior to Barbarossa most of continental Europe and much of Asia were under the control of the Tripartite Pact nations (Germany, Italy and Japan) and of countries which were allied to them or which had non-aggression pacts with them. (Russia, in fact, had non-aggresion pacts with both Germany and Japan.)
But then again it was always hitlers plan to invade russia, apparently extreme leftwing goverments dont tollerate eachother. If hitler would not have attacked stalin would have attacked but later when he had a better production capacity.
Hitler’s reason for invading USSR was because of what Germany saw from Finland and in Spain since German and Soviet forces technically already engaged each other in Spain. But what cross the final straw for Hitler to invade USSR was Stalin trying to set up large military bases in Eastern Europe in neutral countries that could be used to invade Italian territories and parts of German territories. On paper, Axis forces should of steamed rolled USSR, Germany had no problem destroying the Russian army in WWI and a weak outdated country like Finland inflicted 5 times their own lost to USSR. So if a weak nation like Finland can hold their own against USSR, why can’t a proper force like Germany do it? And people forget that Germany lead 7 other nations in that invasion.
So if a weak nation like Finland can hold their own against USSR, why can’t a proper force like Germany do it? And people forget that Germany lead 7 other nations in that invasion.
Because the Finns used (mostly) unconventional warfare whereas the Germans were (of course) a conventional army. The Winter war (as I like to call it) was mostly fought on Finnish soil till the later part of it whereas the German invaded Russia and thus inspired a lot of partisan groups that did serious damage to some German units.
@SEP:
Back in the 80’s and 90’s we sometimes did alternate alliances with the classic AA version (only one we had back then). Maybe the Germans and the Russians were allies against the others and so forth. Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Triple A on the computer and have enjoyed it quite a bit. I’ve discovered that you can switch the various political alliances/change income amounts/add or change units etc. Quite interesting.
I’d like to ask if anyone has experimented with this feature (either on the computer or table top) of changing up alliances and such. And if so, what combinations have you found worked well? Have you had to add/change things for the different countries.
Thanks. :-)
USSR and Germany plus a 3rd power (France or Italy or China?) vrs everyone else might be interesting. Would take some experimentation to figure out the appropriate balance.
The other combo from back in the day was Germany and USA vrs everyone else, but they would need a 3rd or 4th ally in the early going in Global.
Would be a great TripleA mod!
@Benito:
So if a weak nation like Finland can hold their own against USSR, why can’t a proper force like Germany do it? And people forget that Germany lead 7 other nations in that invasion.
Because the Finns used (mostly) unconventional warfare whereas the Germans were (of course) a conventional army. The Winter war (as I like to call it) was mostly fought on Finnish soil till the later part of it whereas the German invaded Russia and thus inspired a lot of partisan groups that did serious damage to some German units.
I am not disagreeing that at all. Finland used hit and run tactics and rear reserve action to fight the larger stronger USSR. I am just pointing out what the logic of the Wehrmacht was during WWII when Hitler brought up the idea of invading USSR. There basically was no Red Navy, their air ability was weak, and their army was crap so Germany assumed they would be able to capture USSR like they did France. Remember, Battle of France was going to be an estimated loss of 1 million forces to Germany and they only lost 40,000 soldiers so image the number projected for USSR.
The Finns did indeed do very well against the Russians during the Winter War, but only some of the factors which were involved were applicable to an eventual German invasion of the USSR. Finland, which I’ve heard described as “a country whose topography consists almost entirely of obstacles to military operations,” i.e. lakes and dense forests, is an ideal terrain for defenders, especially in harsh winter conditions. The Finns made these natural advantages even more effective by capitalizing on them correctly, notably by using fast-moving ski troops in winter camouflage smocks. Western Russia’s terrain, by contrast, is relatively flat and open (which favours the attacker), but is enormous in size (which allows the defender to mount a defense in depth, which is a good way to deal with a mechanized attack).
It’s quite correct that Hitler was very impressed by the performance of the Finns against the Russians – or, to put it another way, was encouraged by how badly the Russians did against the Finns – but unfortunately for him the Russians similarly took note of how badly they’d done in Finland and undertook reforms to correct these deficiencies in the Red Army. By mid-1941, the Red Army and its leadership had improved significantly. Moreover, Hitler seems to have overlooked an important element of the Winter War: the fact that the Finns did end up losing once the Russians brought the full weight of their enormous numbers to bear, without regard to the casualties they took in the process…which in many ways (but not exclusively) is how the Russians ended up beating Germany in the 1942-1945 period. The “not exclusively” part refers to the fact the the Soviet Union did make qualitative improvements in its fighting ability, not just quantitative one. A good example is the development of the T-34: when the Whermacht starting encountering it for the first time around late 1941, the Germans – who prided themselves in their armoured forces and technical expertise – were shocked to discover that a nation of (in their view) backward Slavic peasants had produced the best medium tank in the world. (It was especially humiliating for them to note that the Russians had developed a diesel engine powerful enough to drive a tank, something which the Germans had up to then not been able to accomplish.)
As Caesar Seriona correctly points out, Stalin did build a buffer zone on the western border of the USSR; on the Global 1940 map, the territories in question are called Vyborg, Baltic States, Eastern Poland (with German collusion) and Bessarabia. It should be noted, however, that Hitler similarly built himself a springboard for an invasion of the USSR by annexing or conquering or forming an alliance several territories of his own: Czechoslovkia, Hungary, Romania and Western Poland (with Russian collusion).
Correct. While we all know the outcome of Axis forces in USSR, I am just pointing out here that the Just Cause for invading USSR heavily favored the Axis forces. And remember when Hitler gave the orders, the Heer was basically doing nothing but waiting to see if the air and naval power of Germany could contain UK so the army was doing nothing and neither the navy or a large air force was needed to invade USSR so why not? Personally, I would have waited for Stalin to make the first move.
