Thank you my lord.
Thoughts on A-Bomb
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I know I could have posted this else where but thought it belonged here first.
The effort to build a bomb was shared by almost all major powers during the war. It was a huge undertaking with many steps leading to the final product. To suggest that one singe roll of the die in the game leads to the bomb I think historically and for the sake of play is a bit two simple. All of the games have introduced avarious tech charts and national advantages to play all ignoring the bomb like the proverbal elephent in the room.
With that said lets us say that even to make a bomb takes the development of the spliting of the atom. This should be a sperate die roll needing a 6 to achieve like all other technologies. Once that is achived you shoud have enffective means to deliever the bomb which could be either heavy bomber or Rocket both of which are already on the boards in most A&A games. So that means two rolls to even say you have a bomb. each bomb should coast 20 or 30 ICs, and when used the player should annouce his target either an Industrial Center or troops one or the other which removes that unit(s) from play. Each following use requies the player to purchase new bombs at above mentched cost. This will prevent the player from going over board in using the A-Bomb.
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I don’t know. The A-bomb, even in a game, seems to sensitive to be part of the game. I don’t know if I want to be dropping an A-bomb on my opponent and then being happy about it. It would be like adding a gas chamber tech for Germany. Some things, in MY opinion, are best left out of the game. I am sure Larry felt the same way when creating his games or we would definitely have seen it as a tech, I would think.
And besided, once you drop the A-bomb you should win the game, no?
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@Captain:
I don’t know. The A-bomb, even in a game, seems to sensitive to be part of the game. I don’t know if I want to be dropping an A-bomb on my opponent and then being happy about it. It would be like adding a gas chamber tech for Germany. Some things, in MY opinion, are best left out of the game. I am sure Larry felt the same way when creating his games or we would definitely have seen it as a tech, I would think.
And besided, once you drop the A-bomb you should win the game, no?
thats a little silly. A&A centers around a repersentation of the killing of millions of people from around the world. Even if you dont have a problem with simulating soldeirs dying, what do think is happening during strategic bombings? Heavy bombers are just the PC name for a-bombs.
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I wouldn’t call it silly, I would call it an opinion. There is a difference between soldier vs. soldier, tank vs. tank, plane vs. plane and the likes of the A-bomb. That is why in today’s wars we still have these face-offs. You don’t see A-bombs being dropped in Iraq or Afghanistan do you? There is a reason for it right, there is no place in war for it, period……IMO. Today’s new tech’s focus on better accuracy, longer range, heck the U.S. even has a weapon that does not kill but makes people feel like they are on fire…rendering them useless.
Even though AA is game based on WWII I am glad the A-bomb is not part of it. I just can’t see it being accepted with open arms. Maybe a good poll to put out there and see if the general AA community would like the A-bomb added. Maybe I am way off base with my assumptions.
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The Atomic bomb was created in the NOVA games edition. for some reason since 1979 games don’t include A-bombs, or SS Panzers…This happened about the same time Christmas was removed and “happy holidays” showed up out of the blue, and when we had 3 different Presidents days and Columbus day that got replaced with “other people”
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Captain you might want to compare the results of the fire bombing of Tokyo with the Atomic bombing of Nagasaki or Hiroshima.
From a game mechanics perspective I could see it as a difficult thing to implement.
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@Captain:
There is a difference between soldier vs. soldier, tank vs. tank, plane vs. plane and the likes of the A-bomb.
Well they are all different ways of killing people, that is for sure. But thats why I play A&A, because there are so many different weapons in it. The varity in units is what sperates it from games like Risk, Diplomacy or Conquest of the Empire.
I dont really understand you point about Modern armies not using A-bombs. First off modern armies have nuclear weapons that are much more powerful and accuarte than the Atom bombs dropped on Japan , and secondly weapons change and some become usless like battleships, but that is no reason to not have them in a WW2 game. If I understand your argument correctly your saying A-bombs are to insecnitive to have in an A&A game, but I will disagree with you until you explain to me how it is anymore insesitive than the millions of other acts of violence implide in A&A play. -
Its a slippery slope to avoid the A-Bomb, but say “hey the rest of the war is just fine”
SBR implies killing civilians and all these dead infantry also are “people”. I think the A Bomb snafu is a crock compared to what the game implies on so many other levels.
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Well a debate has insued fowlling my little thouths on, basically, game mechanics. But let me retort a little. The debate on the bomb has been a recent occurence, say since the late 60’s. Before that it was simply “Wow what a powerful weapon and thank God we used it to too end the war”. yes that simple I would say the invention of the H-Bomb caused more disturbance in the mind then the A-bomb ever could have caused. One point often overlooked is that many in Japan wanted to continue the war, even after Nagisaki (SP?), and it was only till the Russians came in did these voices get drown out. But the idea of the war going on was a real possisbillty late into 45 and early 46. On top of this the US was out of bombs, looking at mid 46, till new ones appeared, in fact, I think, Nimitz wanted to use the bomb in the invasion of southern Japan in late 45, against troop concentrations. So the idea of using the bomb as a weapon operationally was a valid option. There fore why keep the bomb out of the arsenal.
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Well I guess the good thing is that I speak my opinion only. I totally understand how some don’t see a problem with the A-bomb being implemented into the game. Does anyone know of a game that includes the A-bomb in it?
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Does anyone know of a game that includes the A-bomb in it?
yes like dozens.
Invasion Amerika
Axis and Allies NOVA games edition
WW3 by SPI
Nuke War card Game by Buffalo games
Ultimatum by Yaquinto
Something called Nazis, Nukes and something else?
ICBM
The Next War by SPI
a few of the post 1991 Desert Storm types of games.
Sushi- Jalapeno War by Xeno gamesmany others
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Well maybe I am just a bit sensitive on the issue then, who knows.
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Captain Crunch ,Thank you for yout thoughts they were well worded and well said.
Now any opinons on the system I mentioned for play?
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Supremacy is a great game that dealt well with nukes. A bit expensive to buy now though…
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Taiki makes a good point, HeavyBombers are so over-matched in the games that they really have to be considered A-bombs. Taking that line of thought, simply create a higher costing bomber, say adding 5 to their cost and use only allow one purchased per turn, then use them as otherwise stated in the various editions of the game. Rather than recreate the whole A-bomb tech and development system, maybe it would be more simple to correct the broken aspect of H-bombers that we already have and implement them back into the game as A-bombers….
i would think you could let it all go after that, after all, Japan had two Nuke programs going to the US’ one.
The added aspect of A-bombs is the near instant death and destruction that they brought, vaporizing cities from the air is/was/can be a rather terrifying thought. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were smaller cities farther away from the capital that had been relatively left alone from earlier bombing and were not as densely populated as places like Tokyo, so when fire sweeps through densely packed buildings you get many deaths. when nukes explode and fire sweeps through more spread out and less densely packed buildings you get many deaths but less overall because of the lower numbers that started out, plus you get more survivors to hang on long enough to tell the horror stories of the mushroom clouds.
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Captain Crunch ,Thank you for yout thoughts they were well worded and well said.
Now any opinons on the system I mentioned for play?
Yes, now that you know where I stand on the A-bomb in general. If it was to be adapted into the game I definitley like the way you set it up. Taking a few different hits of development before you cannot actually implement it.
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I think that with the A-bomb you have to have a process that is time consuming and expensive, just as the real thing was. I think like three stages of breakthroughs, not to mention you would need tech like rockets or heavy bombers to deliver the payload. As far as cost is concerned I think it needs to be from 25-50 IPCs, it has to be the most expensive thing in the game. And as far as implementing a strike, I think you just roll a die and whatever it lands on is how many units get destroyed. Then I think that you would need some sort of a moral system to stop people from just buying one every turn and unleashing it, maybe have lingering radiation poisoning effects that if you go through that territory kinda like AA guns you roll a die for every unit and if it is a 1 then that unit gets destroyed from radiation poisoning or something.
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in AAP you can’t make the process too long as Japan has somewhere about 7 turns, at very best and by the 6th won’t be making 50, let alone 25 to be able to pay for a bomb and the US won’t need it. A bomb that expensive may have to be the hail mary that wins the game though too, I’d be afraid that the simple expense using it will cripple a country for a couple turns while the enemy advances…
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The reason that I would have it that expensive is to really replicate how much manpower and money went into actually making it all happen. It is a luxury that only should be available to a country that really would have the money and time to actually pull it off. I think a three turn process to get it and of course to start it off you would need to winning dice roll. I think you could have it this way so the game wouldn’t become an A-bomb-a-thon, more like a faster way to finish a game off, to capture a heavily fortified capital for instance. Again I say this purely for historical purposes.
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I’ve always been of the opinion that there would be no better way to make A&A less fun than to introduce nuclear weapons.
Any nuke is going to have to be a game-breaker, or there’s no point to producing it. People won’t have fun playing the game if they do everything right, only to be nuked into a loss.
The playing field is level in A&A, and that’s what makes it fun, which is supposed to be what a game is about…having fun.
Nukes will put a stop to all that fun pretty quick, no matter which A&A version you try to add them to.
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