I should also add that for a “bid”, we give the US “improved shipyards” and that seems to balance things out.
"East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion
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@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 ^^^
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Tactics: Japan IC vs. Philippines IC
Back in the old days, it was not uncommon to see the US player build an IC in Japan. In one of my games from earlier this year, however, I found myself placing an IC in the Philippines instead. I’ve done some more thinking about it since then, so I’d like to go into some depth about the pros and cons.
The simple geography paints this picture, for the Philippines IC:
Every round, you can “shuck-shuck” units built in the Philippines to either Burma or the Koreas. Since the Philippines is a 2-IPC territory, it would natively be able to produce 2 infantry every round (enough to fill 1 transport.) Adding an IC means you could produce 2 more units of any kind, which gives us a couple of distinct options for what to place there every round:- 4 inf: costs 12 IPCs, fills 2 transports
- 2 inf, 2 arm: costs 16 IPCs, fills 3 transports
- 2 inf, 1 arm, 1 ftr: costs 23 IPCs, fills 2 transports
(Another thing to consider is that even if we’re only producing 1 arm/ftr/bmb in the Philippines per round, we’re still getting use out of that IC, so it’s adding some value. If it’s primarily supporting the UK in India, we want to build up some tanks for offense, so that we can eventually be in a position to attack.)
Now, let’s delve a little deeper into the economic situation, to figure out which of these options to consider.
It doesn’t make a ton of sense to exclusively build our Pacific units out of the Philippines; without an IC, Japan can produce 6 infantry every round – enough to fill 3 transports, at a cost of 18 IPCs.
I generally work from the assumption that the US will lose South Korea, and the USSR will be able to hold it for a round or so; this means we can expect the US to have a reliable income of 41 IPCs.
6 inf (Japan) = 18 IPCS + 2 inf, 1 arm, 1 ftr (Philippines) = 23 IPCs Total: 41 IPCsThis means that if we plan to produce these units every round as the US, we won’t have anything left to contribute to Europe.
The idea of producing a fighter every turn is that it can be used to defend India, since it has the movement to make it there in one turn. This is obviously not cheap, so let’s replace the fighter with a 2nd armor.
This leaves us with 7 IPCs to commit to Europe, which IMO is kind of the bare minimum; 7 IPCs is enough to fill one transport, using either an armor (say, from the Eastern US going to France) or 2 infantry (such as from Iceland, going to France, or somewhere along the Barents Sea.)
The trickiest part about going with 2 inf + 2 arm for the Philippines build, is that this requires 3 transports in order to move. Generally, the idea is that the US would spend rd1 building new transports, rd2 moving transports around and using them to collect starting infantry/armor, but by rd3 the shuck-shuck pipelines need to be in place.
Since the US starts with 3 transports in the Pacific (which can be filled by Japan all on its own) a strategy where the Philippines also needs 3 transports is going to take an extra round to set up. My general thinking is that you will want to use the Philippines IC to produce a transport on rd2, but otherwise its purpose should be to produce ground(/air) units – not navy.
So, if we’re only using 2 transports for the Philippines, and we’ve ruled out building a fighter, that reduces our options to producing 2 infantry or 1 armor there (plus the 2 inf base) every round – maybe even alternating between the two options. This means we’re spending 11 or 12 IPCs here, leaving 29-30 IPCs; after we factor in Japan’s placement (18 IPCs) we’re left with 11-12 IPCs. What this translates to is 4 infantry or 2 infantry and 1 armor for Europe.
(Another option, if the decision is made to only use 2 transports around the Philippines, is to build 2 armor there every round; this would tend to imply that they would always be sent to Korea, supported by infantry being sent from Japan.)
Chukchi Sea Pipeline
So this is what the geography dictates we could do, without building a new IC (in either Japan or the Philippines.) Essentially, if we want to put armor into the theatre, we can do this by using the shuck-shuck in to either Eastern Siberia or Kamchatka, every round:- The reason to put an IC in Japan, is to put armor into Eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, or Korea every round
- The reason to put an IC in Philippines, is to put armor into Burma or Korea every round
Using this simple axiom, what becomes clear is that the Philippines IC extends the ranges to which we can project force, in a way that the Japan IC does not.
The other big mark against the Japan IC comes from the economics side of it:
- 12 inf: costs 36 IPCs, fills 6 transports
- 10 inf, 2 arm: costs 40 IPCs, fills 7 transports
- 6 inf, 6 arm: costs 48 IPCs, fills 9 transports
With the first option, we’re left with only 5 IPCs (i.e. 1 armor) to send to Europe.
The second option, we’re spending all of our income (save 1 IPC) cranking out units from Japan. These armor have to be going to Korea in order to make purchasing this IC even worth it – otherwise, we’re better off building armor in Western US. (The other thing to consider is, do we even need a Japan IC if/when we conquer Eastern Siberia?)
The third option, we’ve gone completely over budget trying to maximize production on Japan; keep in mind, as we take territories and gain IPCs, we can actually place infantry directly into those territories, making this new IC even less valuable as the game goes on – not more.The other thing to consider is that by using the Japan IC, we’re not able to use our 2 infantry production capability from the Philippines; if we were to not put an IC in either territory, we could still fill 4 transports (with 8 infantry = 24 IPCs) every round, plus whatever we’re able to ship in from North America.
Nuclear Deterrence
The other reason to consider the Philippines IC, is in the case of the USSR developing nukes early in the game; with their free tech roll, this outcome is basically an inevitability. As we can see from above, a nuke meant to deter the US Pacific fleet would likely be built in Eastern Siberia, and have an effective range of 3 spaces (launched either from a bomber or by ballistic missile.)This means that any shuck-shuck from Japan OR from North America is essentially ruined. Your opponent may not want to waste 20 IPCs to clear your fodder and leave you transports intact, but if the first nuke doesn’t get them, the second one will (or an upgraded nuke.)
If you base your entire Asia shuck-shuck around a Philippines IC supported by 3 transports, this means you’re moving 2 inf and 2 arm to Burma every round. Your transports end their turn in the Burma SZ, safely out of the range of most nukes (barring long-range aircraft.)
Countering Soviet Ambitions: Stopping the Domino Effect
Another move to consider is the one depicted here: moving an AA gun from the Philippines, to defend India.
(Yes, this will leave your transport out of position for a turn, but this can be mitigated a bit if you move the US transport from Italy out towards this direction.)If the Soviets are going for an early India attack (like the one I have outlined in the “Operation: Underbelly” write-up) getting an AA gun to India on rd3 can do a lot to foil this plan, and tip the odds in NATO’s favour – since the attack is reliant on massing the entire Soviet air force.
On rd1, we can place an IC in the Philippines; on rd2, we can use the IC to produce an AA gun, and a transport with which to move it. This spares the UK from having to commit to an India IC build, just for the purposes of getting an AA gun in-theatre.
(As I’ve talked about before, the India IC removes a lot of the flexibility the UK potentially has, since they can easily spend all of their income just in this theatre. However, if the spectre of Soviet nukes in the early game is threatening the Atlantic fleet, the India IC becomes a more attractive pipeline for the UK getting boots on the ground.)
Overmatch Capability
The other thing to consider in this theatre is the production capacity of the USSR; between Kamchatka, Eastern Siberia, and North Korea alone, they can put out 8 infantry per round.
This means that just to maintain parity, the US needs to commit a minimum of 4 transports to the theatre – enough to fill with infantry from Japan and the Philippines, every round. Of their 41 IPC budget, this would leave them another 17 IPCs to spend on units in North America, to send to either Europe or to Asia. This translates to 4 infantry and 1 armor – an additional 3 transport loads.
The case could be convincingly made that the US actually must spend all of their production in this theatre, in order to push back the Soviets.
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Conclusions:
There are essentially 3 different ways of getting armor into Asia:
- North America: into Kamchatka or Eastern Siberia
- Japan IC: into Korea (or Kamchatka or Eastern Siberia)
- Philippines IC: into Korea or Burma
Comparing the effective builds (from the previous post) which use the Japan IC (i.e. 12 inf vs. 10 inf, 2 arm) it’s basically a choice between saving 1 transport load to send to Europe vs. spending everything in Asia. Being that the US starts with one transport in the Atlantic, the only reason not to set aside 5-6 IPCs for Europe every round is if you’re going to move that transport through the Panama canal – which seems a bit silly. However, keeping a transport in the Atlantic serves to narrow the effective Japan IC builds down to just the 12 inf option (or more likely, a variation such as 10 inf, 1 arm); the only reason to do this would be to opt for Korea over Kamchatka/Eastern Siberia.
If we build the Philippines IC instead, we can produce two comparable builds by adding Japan’s native production into the equation: 10 inf vs. 8 inf, 2 arm – leaving us 2 or 1 transport loads (respectively) to send to Europe. However, it’s worth noting that the 10 inf option only requires 2 transports by the Philippines, whereas the 8 inf, 2 arm option requires 3 transports to be there.
If the best we can hope for is 2 arm per round being sent into Korea, I think I’d lean towards the Philippines IC; if we’re just looking at raw unit output, Japan is better than North America or Philippines IC strictly for going through Korea. One thing to not discount in this calculation, is that if we are committing 6 or 7 transports to a Japan IC, we can consider sending 1 or 2 of them down to Burma every round – effectively doing the job of the Philippines IC.
(One other minor note with the Japan IC is that it would be in range of Eastern Siberia w/r/t strategic bombing. This means we would want to purchase an AA gun to defend the IC, if the USSR moves their bomber to this side of the map. An IC in the Philippines is just far enough away from Eastern Siberia; it can still be threatened from North Korea, however.)
Cost Comparison
Another thing to consider is the setup costs; money saved on ICs and/or transports for the US should be invested in getting a spy (or possibly on additional tech research.)
Starting with 3 transports in the Pacific means:- Japan IC requires building 3-4 more transports, allowing for 1 or 0 transports in the Atlantic
- Philippines IC requires building 2-3 more transports, allowing for 2 or 1 transports in the Atlantic
With the Japan IC, we can just always build 3 transports; we might as well bring the transport over from the Atlantic if we want a 4th – since we would not have any cash left in our budget for the Atlantic anyway. (Again, this would take about 3 rounds to get over to Alaska, which probably isn’t worth it. But only adding 3 transports to the Pacific limits what the Japan IC can do.) So the cost of transports + the IC = 39 IPCs
With the Philippines IC, we’re either building 3 transports for the Pacific, or 2 transports for the Pacific and 1 transport for the Atlantic – meaning it costs the exact same as the Japan IC, to properly support.(Probably worth noting is that with a 41 IPC budget, our most likely overall builds for the US are either 12 inf, 1 arm or 10 inf, 2 arm – 7 transport loads in total. If we budget 6 inf for Japan, that means either 6 inf, 1 arm or 4 inf, 2 arm to be split between the Philippines and North America. An IC in the Philippines supported by only 2 transports has the flexibility to put out either 2 inf, 1 arm or 2 arm or 4 inf. This would leave 2 transport loads for North America each round – one or both of which could be allocated to the Pacific.)
Revisiting the fighter purchase
However, an interesting alternative would be to build the Philippines IC, but commit only 1 transport to it. This means we could spend 41 IPCs on 6 infantry for Japan, plus another 2 inf, 1 arm, 1 ftr (as described previously) but, split these between the Philippines and the Atlantic (i.e. rdX you would place 2 inf, 1 ftr in the Philippines and 1 arm in Eastern US; rdX+1 you could place 1 arm, 1 ftr in the Philippines and 2 inf in Eastern US.)By not adding a 2nd transport to support the Philippines, we likely have the cash to invest into a spy (if not on rd1 then by rd2.) Again, I think that fighters are primarily helpful for defending India, but they can also fly from the Philippines to attack Korea, and then land on a carrier in the Japan SZ. And if you’re producing 1 or 2 mechanical units out of the Philippines every round, it feels like you’re getting better value out of that IC purchase, if nothing else.
If we’re budgeting 12 IPCs every round for a fighter, we can also tap into this budget to replace our spy, if it gets killed. Probably the biggest drawback to this is that NATO is already in such a crunch to get ground units in play, just to maintain parity with the USSR. I’m not sure of the long-term viability of fighter builds, in the grand scheme of things.
Actual Conclusions (for real this time)
Overall, if I’m going to place an IC as the US, I’m really leaning towards picking the Philippines. I think it just creates way more options than going the Japan route.Where the Philippines IC starts to pull ahead, is in any of the following scenarios:
- early nuke tech by the USSR
- shipping AA to India by rd3 (as opposed to rd4)
- getting fighters to India
- if UK is going stronger in Europe (and therefore weaker in India)
- after Eastern Siberia falls to the US
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
“Floating Bridge” strategy
I came up with an alternate way of setting up the UK’s transport pipelines, and I just wanted to quickly share it here:
Quebec transport:
- moves 1 arm Quebec to France
- moves 1 inf Gibraltar to Algeria. (1 inf Libya moves to Algeria)
- moves 2 inf Algeria to Italy/Yugoslavia/Greece
India transport:
- moves 1 arm India to Tanganyika. (2 inf South Africa move to Mozambique)
- moves 2 inf Mozambique to Sudan. (1 arm Tanganyika moves to Libya)
- moves 2 inf Sudan to Italy/Yugoslavia/Greece
Italy transport:
- moves to Red Sea. (1 arm South Africa moves to Tanganyika)
- moves 1 arm Tanganyika to Italy.
- moves 1 arm Libya to Italy.
Australia transport:
- moves 2 inf NSW to India.
- moves to NSW SZ
- moves 1 inf Queensland + 1 inf Singapore to Burma
Canada transports (x2)
- placed in Ontario, end of rd1. (1 inf Western Canada moves to Ontario)
- moves 3 inf from Canada + 1 inf Iceland to France/Norway/Karelia/Komi
- moves 1 inf from Iceland + 1 inf, 1 arm from UK to France
By doing this, you’ve moved all ground units from Canada, Iceland, Gibraltar, Africa, and Australia onto the Eurasian continent, by the end of UK3. You’ve also gotten all UK tanks into Europe, and 3 UK transports into the Mediterranean. (If you purchase 2 more transports on UK2, you’ll have a total of 4 in the Atlantic.)
You’ve also got your remaining transport set up right by Singapore; if you place 2 inf there on rd3, they’re ready to be moved to India/Burma/Korea as desired. If you don’t think you’ll want to be using this transport to support India for the rest of the game, move it up to Korea at a later round, and then up to the Chukchi Sea on the following round; make sure you’ve got some infantry from Canada ready to load up, so that you can start sending them into Kamchatka once the Americans hold it.
Basically, you want enough transports up by the UK that you can contest Scandinavia, with the help of your air force. The other thing you can do is land defensive infantry in France, and then use them with your Mediterranean transports (and your armor) to attack Yugoslavia. This lets WE focus on Greece or Turkey, which helps them with their income (whereas UK liberating these territories does not.)
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Analysis of the Early Game
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
I think it’s important to discuss how some of the basic mechanics lead to what I perceive as the stalemating that takes place in E&W.
First of all, the placement rules generally remove the single drawback of infantry (their speed) for the USSR.
With 33 infantry at their disposal, the USSR can easily commit 19 infantry to Europe. (I use this number for easy figuring, as I’ll explain.) In order to match this, NATO needs to spend all of the output for both WE (7 inf) and UK (9 inf, 1 arm) in Europe, plus the unofficial minimum US contribution of 2 infantry (i.e. from Iceland.) This would mean the UK not contributing anything to India, and solely relying on the US to handle all of Asia. It’s just not viable.
The other problem is that WE is the weakest of the 3 allies, but they are the only one who can “trade” territories with the USSR and still gain income. This is where liberating allied territories is a huge weakness for NATO; even if the USSR has to abandon West Germany for a round (in order to push into Switzerland, for example) NATO isn’t able to hold the territory AND collect income from it.
The other big problem contributing to the stalemate is this:
The USSR can’t strafe a multinational force.Now, literally, as far as rules are concerned they are still allowed to do this. But in practical terms, the biggest advantage the USSR has over NATO is that no single NATO power has enough forces in Europe to overmatch the Soviets. If the Soviets strafe France, what happens is that they will simply peel off infantry from the ally/allies with the fewest infantry in the territory, making the remaining ally stronger and better able to counter-attack.
The other thing is turn order: since WE goes first, that means their attack against the Soviets needs to be the strongest – but they’re the weakest ally economically, and therefore the least able to absorb casualties. And if the NATO followup attacks fail, then WE is basically dead at that point – not to mention, this still produces no added income for NATO, even if they succeed. The obvious solution is to have each NATO power project as much force as possible, into one theatre… but this assumes that NATO can outmatch the USSR’s placement in any of the main theatres – which they can’t. (If anything comes close, it’s probably the UK’s Scandinavia strategy.)
The situation in E&W is effectively NATO having to play as the Axis, needing to be very aggressive right out of the gate in order to not fall behind – while also having the disadvantage of needing to carefully set up their supply pipeline, as the Allies typically do. (Which is very strategically limiting. NATO has little or no wiggle room to “redo” their transport pipeline, and no time to reposition their air forces.)
The USSR does not have either of these problems.
They don’t have the same problem as the Allies, since the USSR is not stuck just placing infantry in Moscow and slowly marching them towards the front lines (because of the placement rules.) There are basically no wrong ways for them to set up their pipeline: just place on the front line (or as near as possible.) If you overcommit to one theatre on one round, it is easily remedied right away on the next round; they also don’t suffer the Axis problem of having to split their income between Asia and Europe, meaning they are always able to respond to what the NATO pipeline ends up being, and more often can dictate to NATO, putting them always on the back foot. Again, they can do all of this while essentially passively supplementing their income by gobbling up neutrals – something which NATO can do nothing about, nor can they mimic.
So overall, if the situation is one where the Soviets can never strafe, but NATO can never attack, then the side with the superior economy is going to win, over time; from turn 1 onward, this describes the USSR. It is piss-easy to set up a Soviet first turn where the US cannot land in Korea or Kamchatka; WE and the UK will have a hard time liberating Norway (and an even harder time holding it.) The only place NATO can really roll back the Soviets on rd1 is in Yugoslavia (and maybe Greece.) This means out of the 33 infantry the Soviets can build on rd2, NATO can only realistically expect to roll this number down by 1 or 2 – meaning the USSR is still overmatching their output by 1 unit, on rd3.
For the US to have any hope of a breakthrough in the east, they basically need to be able to liberate South Korea, capture Kamchatka, and successfully nuke Eastern Siberia (mainly to limit its production capacity) all on rd2. And they still need to be putting all but one transport-load worth of production towards the Pacific, in order to have any hope of overmatching the Soviets in time.
(Another problem with nukes is that the US is at best spending 20 IPCs to destroy 20 IPCs worth of infantry, whereas the USSR taking out 5 transports with a nuke equates to spending 20 IPCs to prevent 30 IPCs of infantry per round from reaching the mainland – and destroying 40 IPCs worth of transports. The former needs the 3rd-tier nuke tech, while the latter only needs the 1st-tier. NATO just does not have a counter to this; the USSR with nukes vs. without are just two completely different games.)
This pipeline predicament also means that the UK likely doesn’t have the time to relocate their main source of offense (bombers) since they need to be constantly attacking, as early as possible. This in turn means they cannot ever have enough offensive units for a breakout from India. Again, this just showcases how few options NATO really has. And if India is being defended by a mix of UK and US units, their chances of ever breaking out are even less – much the same problem NATO faces in France.
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
(Another problem with nukes is that the US is at best spending 20 IPCs to destroy 20 IPCs worth of infantry, whereas the USSR taking out 5 transports with a nuke equates to spending 20 IPCs to prevent 30 IPCs of infantry per round from reaching the mainland – and destroying 40 IPCs worth of transports. The former needs the 3rd-tier nuke tech, while the latter only needs the 1st-tier. NATO just does not have a counter to this; the USSR with nukes vs. without are just two completely different games.)
The Case for Revamping Tech and Spying
I wanted to highlight this bit from the previous post, just for some important context. Once the Soviets get nukes, the game is effectively over for NATO; since the USSR gets a free tech roll every round, this is basically bound to happen every game, sometimes as early as the first turn.In my opinion, if you want to test strategies (or you want something of a balanced “tournament” rule set) I’d strongly suggest removing technological progression from the game.
Unreliable Intel
I would probably throw spying out with the bathwater, too. NATO can’t really afford spies (if they want to keep up with the IPM game) and the fact that the USSR gets a free attempt to kill one each round, makes it almost not worth the investment. Likewise, if you want the game to run in a more even/predictable fashion, you can’t have Chinese troops being pulled out of North Korea; it’s just too much of a swing in favour of the Americans.The problem with getting rid of spying, is that diplomacy (i.e. random luck) is NATO’s only counter to Soviet nukes. The difference being that the Soviet’s random luck at getting nuclear technology is free, whereas NATO’s is at a huge cost – and subject to interdiction… which is also free, for the Soviets.
I should probably explain how NATO can use diplomacy to counter Soviet nukes. Basically, it’s by no longer needing transports, and thus nullifying the threat of nukes to the NATO fleet. For example, if the UK places an IC in India, they can basically spend all of their income in the theatre; if the US influences Spain and Thailand, they can put ICs into both. This would allow them to produce a total of 5 infantry and 5 armor on mainland Eurasia, without the need of transports – and at a total cost of 40 IPCs, effectively maxing out their budget.
The problem is, NATO is relying on blind luck in order for this to succeed – “hope is not a strategy” and all that. So I’ve been thinking of some ways to tackle the uncertainty a bit.
The Accelerationist Route
First off, if you’re playing any scenario where technological development is still allowed, you probably need to consider whether the game would be better off just giving Soviets nuclear weapons tech, from the start; as I’ve said before, it’s a very different game, but at least NATO can plan for it from the outset, and not have to worry about trying to “redo” their pipeline. Another option is to start the USSR with just a half-step in the nuclear weapons tree, meaning they gain the tech on a roll of 1 or 2 – still leaving some randomness, but also making it more of a foregone conclusion.Countering Soviet Nukes
In that case, I think the solution would be to make it easier for NATO to influence neutrals. The first idea that popped into my mind is to make it more like “activating” neutrals, such as in A&A 1914 or 1940. You might have to scale it somehow, based on the IPC value of the territory and/or the amounts of units the neutral territory gets. But with Soviet nukes in play, the US has to be able to reliably get Spain and Thailand on their side in the war, or the game is effectively over.One possible limitation on this could be that for each neutral in Asia that is activated by NATO, China moves one step towards the USSR. I think you would also have to limit this ability strictly to just the US, rather than allowing any NATO power to do it; maybe allow the UK to activate neutrals in Europe(?)
Countering the Soviet IPM
While I was thinking about that, I was also trying to think of some way to balance the Soviet’s ability to freely invade neutrals. Basically, if the average neutral is worth 2 IPCs, that means they’re worth 1 infantry per round, to the Soviets; if your intent is to even that out, you need to do something which gives NATO 1 infantry per round.So, looking at the IPC track for the neutral alliances, we see that moving the OAS from +0 to +3 would be worth 1 infantry to NATO. Without carving anything in stone, my basic idea would be that for every neutral the USSR invades, NATO can shift a neutral alliance one step.
You might have to build in some sort of limitations for this to work, possibly including:
- This cannot be used to influence China, if it would cause Chinese troops to be removed from North Korea
- This cannot be used on a neutral alliance more than once
- This cannot be used on a neutral alliance if doing so would increase their contribution to its maximum IPC value
These restrictions could at least leave some room where spying is still useful, if you wanted to keep that as part of the game.
Other House Rule Ideas
With the intention of reducing or limiting the Soviet’s ability to gain nukes, I’ve spitballed a couple different ideas.- The USSR can only gain nuclear weapons technology through the use of Espionage. Somewhat historically accurate, this rule essentially requires the USSR to buy a spy if they want to get nukes – much like how NATO has to buy spies, if they want to counter the Soviet nukes. Fair is fair.
- The USSR cannot use their free tech roll until after the US has used theirs; the US player may opt not to use this roll at all. At a bare minimum, this prevents the USSR from getting nukes on turn 1.
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@tacojohn Did you ever consider porting E&W back onto the Classic map? I know it at least crossed my mind.
I really had fun with the version of E&W that I came up with for RISK: Reinvention
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Rules Discussion: Neutrals
One of the unclear rules that we came across in playing E&W again earlier this year, is what happens when neutral countries are captured and re-captured, or attacked but not completely conquered.
From the rules text:
If attacked and not completely conquered, neutral countries
will join the opposite side, banding with the power nearest to
them.Ok, so, how do you define “nearest”? Is it the nearest territory owned or nearest territory controlled? Is it based on territories, or something else (like capitols)? What do you do in the case where two NATO powers’ are determined to be equidistant?
A similar sort of confusion applies in the case of influencing a minor neutral. Say the US influences Iran, then the Soviets occupy it, but after that the UK takes the territory back; does it revert to US control, or does it become British? The rules aren’t particularly clear on this; for neutral alliances it seems (mostly) pretty clear that (probably) the territories would always remain owned by the power they sided with when attacked.
Anyways, this is just a gap in the rules text that I thought was worth mentioning. It may need to be ironed out with your opponent, before starting to play the game together.
One hot-fix I had suggested was to just across the board have all minor neutrals in Asia join the UK if attacked by the USSR, while minor neutrals in Europe or Africa would join with WE. It’s by no means a perfectly solution, but it’s simple and good enough, IMO. (For example, you could probably convincingly argue that Ireland or Ethiopia should join the UK, or that perhaps the Indonesian islands should join the US, given their proximity to the Philippines.)
This also brings up one of the more weird/quirky questions:
Does the UK share a land-border with Ireland? -
@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Rules Discussion: Neutrals
One other related question (which isn’t covered in the rules text) is, what happens in this scenario:
- China is contributing income to the USSR
- USSR controls North Korea
- USSR attacks China
Do the Chinese infantry in North Korea convert to UK infantry?
Do they “attack” any Soviet forces in the territory? Does this happen on the Soviet turn, or on the UK turn? Or are the Soviets considered to be attacking them? Do the Soviets have to fight to the death, or can they retreat? etc.We realized this was a situation that just created question after question, and that the simplest solution was to say that the Chinese infantry in North Korea just poof out of existence. This also somewhat lines up with the existing rules; these units effectively just disappear anytime China stops giving income to the USSR – and because China would stop giving income in the case of the USSR attacking them, we decided it was best to follow the same line of thinking in this situation as well.
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Rebalancing “Round Zero” (aka rd0)
One thing I’ve been giving some consideration to is whether there would be any value in simply reducing the starting NATO forces in frontline territories. Usually most of the rd0 placement goes towards augmenting the Soviet attacks on these territories anyway, so why not just make them weaker defensively? Particularly with the standard 20-IPC bid of 10 infantry being relatively high (by most metrics.) If this number is going to come down, then there needs to be some other kinds of changes made.
Here’s what I came up with, based on the battle calculator (note: I did not factor in any shore bombardment for the Turkey battle, since there isn’t a bombard @ 2 unit option)
the battle outcomes shown in this table are the “most likely” outcomes, as per the calculator; attacker in columns, defender in rows
What this shows is that the results associated with a typical rd0 placement of 2 inf in North Korea (to attack South Korea) + 2 inf in Romania (to attack Greece) + 3 inf in Georgia (to attack Turkey) can all be pretty closely replicated by adding 1 attacking infantry in each territory, and removing 1 defending infantry from each attacked territory. In fact, the percentages on the right (which indicate total % chance of losing all attacking infantry, plus any chance to lose additional units) shows that the +1/-1 option actually slightly favours the attacker, compared to the standard rd0 placements.
To implement something like this, you would want to change the rd0 placement limitation from “must follow standard placement rules” to a rule allowing only a maximum of 1 infantry to be placed in each territory.
One thing you’ll notice is that South Korea, Greece, and Turkey each have 4 or more starting infantry. So, to facilitate the NATO unit reductions, I’m inclined to use a rule like: “NATO territories in which the owner starts with 4 or more infantry, have that number of infantry reduced by 1.” This would impact the following territories:
- France, Greece, Turkey
- UK, India
- South Korea, Japan
(If extended to ALL stacks of 4 or more NATO infantry, this rule would further remove a single UK inf from France as well as US inf from both West Germany and Italy; this might be necessary, depending on what other rd0 modifications are used, or what the desired bid number is.)
Overall, I do like the idea of the rd0 cash, to give the USSR some options on where to focus their efforts. Unfortunately, it is used more as a ‘math fix’ than it is anything else – so I’d like to focus on properly fixing the math instead.
I think if the goal is to eliminate rd0 infantry bids entirely, the USSR is going to either need some more offense added at the start of the game, or they’re going to have to get used to more uncertainty/taking fewer territories at the start of the game.
As a footnote, I should again give credit to @The_Good_Captain for getting my brain going on this track; his analysis of Classic was that (with the proper rules implementation) a bid of 2 infantry was sufficient for balancing that game – and in fact, taking 1 Soviet inf off of Caucasus and adding that chip to the stack of German inf in Ukraine would likely work just as well. This is what got me thinking about the “+1/-1” implementation.
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@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.
Coming back to this, without adjusting any IPC values on the map, an E&W game using Europe 1940 would have starting incomes like this:
- France: 16 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Syria)
- Italy: 7 IPCs
- Western Europe: 21 IPCs (4 less if you don’t include Greece and Turkey)
- UK: 26 IPCs (loses IPCs from Belgian Congo, Egypt, and Transjordan; gains 1 IPC from Libya)
- USA: 34 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Mexico)
USSR would gain 21 IPCs from the added “Warsaw Pact” territories (just based on the geography, it probably makes more sense to have Greater Southern Germany under the USSR) – total of 49 IPCs
Arab League would be 8 IPCs:
- Egypt (2)
- Transjordan (1)
- Syria (1)
- Iraq (2)
- Saudi Arabia (2)
OAS would be 9 IPCs – which makes it almost tempting to just… not give them Mexico, for ease of use. (2 IPCs each for Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile)
Other notes/thoughts:
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I’d almost be tempted to go the “occupation zone” route, and give Greater Southern Germany to the US, while having Western Germany be UK. Western Germany touching Northern Italy reflects the east/west split for Austria (more accurately than how E&W does it) by including western-occupied Austria as part of Western Germany. GSG basically represents Czechia and the Soviet-occupied parts of Austria, on this map.
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If you combine France, Italy, and the rest of Western Europe without Greece and Turkey, you’re looking at a solid 40 IPCs vs. 49 IPCs for the USSR. This makes WE the strongest NATO faction, which is… weird. Granted, Western Germany and Northern Italy being under threat right away, translates to a 9 IPC swing.
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Being that they joined NATO in 1952, you could just as easily leave Greece and Turkey as neutrals, which means the Soviets wouldn’t need to invade Turkey to get the protection of the straits. Obviously, you’d still want to remap Turkey to be “Pro-Allies”…
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Oddly enough, when I was mocking up E&W onto the TGW map, I ultimately ended up doing it as France+Italy and US+UK vs. the USSR. You could almost combine Italy and France in this version, too…
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If WE is made into their own separate country (without France and Italy) they’re really weak, and they’d likely get gobbled up. Then it’s a question of, do you just exclude the minor NATO members (in lieu of having just a huge WE) by treating them as (Pro-Allies) neutrals? Or should they be occupied by US or UK, as appropriate? Since NATO wasn’t actually formed until 1949, you can get away with that if you set the game in 1948 or earlier. But, without a WE faction, Western Germany becomes… weird.
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Coming back to this, without adjusting any IPC values on the map, an E&W game using Europe 1940 would have starting incomes like this:
- France: 16 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Syria)
- Italy: 7 IPCs
- Western Europe: 21 IPCs (4 less if you don’t include Greece and Turkey)
- UK: 26 IPCs (loses IPCs from Belgian Congo, Egypt, and Transjordan; gains 1 IPC from Libya)
- USA: 34 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Mexico)
Coming back to this, actually what seems like the obvious thing to do is to just shunt Italy under Western Europe. France had sort of a cold war reputation of wanting to go their own way within NATO, so trying to frankenstein Italy onto France makes even less sense, from a historical perspective. (Although, as I’ve said, this would actually probably work well for an E&W game using the TGW map.)
Really, it’d become a question of how many bullets WE can take before they’re not an effective, meaningful power anymore, and whether that threshold is so low that it’s not worth having them as a separate power from France. This also dovetails into the question of whether to include Turkey and Greece in the alliance, as that might help beef up WE for a turn or two.
The idea I had with using the TGW map, is that you could have “NATO” be US+UK and France+Italy, with the other minor alliance members as their own “neutral alliance” – so attacking one would bring all under the NATO banner. This works better when you can just make West Germany part of the US+UK faction; trying to implement something like that on this map doesn’t really make a lot of sense, unless you just arbitrarily make the territory American, or something. Otherwise, you have to start hacking the map, and that’s not really the intent with this exercise.
The other thing to consider is if you’d really want it to be a 4v1 game. Or whether you’d have WE function sort of like ANZAC does in some games, i.e. they purchase separately but can attack together (with, say, French units in this scenario.)
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
- If you combine France, Italy, and the rest of Western Europe without Greece and Turkey, you’re looking at a solid 40 IPCs vs. 49 IPCs for the USSR. This makes WE the strongest NATO faction, which is… weird. Granted, Western Germany and Northern Italy being under threat right away, translates to a 9 IPC swing.
Thinking on this a little bit more, probably one way to avoid a huge Western Europe is to go the ‘occupation zone’ route with West Germany – Western Germany belonging to UK and Greater Southern Germany belonging to the US.
(This would also potentially resolve the issue in ‘stock’ E&W whereby WE has to always be the one liberating West Germany, or there’s no net economic benefit to the Alliance.)
Taking GSG away from the USSR would knock their income down to 45, compared with:
- France: 16 IPCs
- WE: 19 IPCs (not including Turkey or Greece)
- UK: 31 IPCs (including Western Germany)
- US: 38 IPCs (including GSG)
This would mean US is the strongest NATO ally economically, at the start; however, a combined WE/France would have more income (35 IPCs) than the UK – and none of that income would be on the immediate frontline, either.
The other angle to come at it might be to treat France similar to a “neutral alliance” that favours NATO; units of the Alliance can move through their territory, but they don’t purchase/move/attack, and instead only defend French territory. This would likely require putting Greece and Turkey under WE, and possibly West Germany as well. It’s interesting to ponder…
The Western Bloc
I still haven’t nailed down whether to unite France and WE.If you keep them separate, it probably makes some sense to allow WE to build infantry as per the normal E&W rules (assuming you wouldn’t normally allow it in this scenario, as a general rule.) I also like the idea of having them “declare multi-national force” i.e. the only action they take on their turn is to say “WE units will act on the [France/UK/US] turn, this round.” This is something I did for the NATO vs. Arab League mini-game/scenario I created, where the NATO factions are:
France & Belgium, Spain & Portugal, UK & Commonwealth.If you put France and WE together, the interesting thing is how closely the economics line up with classic E&W (using the territorial assumptions from earlier in this post):
Classic vs. Europe
WE: 32 IPCs vs. 35 IPCs
UK: 33 IPCs vs. 31 IPCs
US: 43 IPCs vs. 38 IPCs
(NATO: 108 IPCs vs. 104 IPCs)
USSR: 48 IPCs vs. 45 IPCs
Neutral Considerations:
The whole “pro-neutral” mechanic of the 1940 game adds an interesting dimension that isn’t seen in the original E&W, per se. If you’re going to keep with the mechanic of letting the USSR attack any neutrals at any time, then the only real consideration is whether there are any “pro-neutrals” in the game at all.- Greece & Turkey: If these are strict neutrals, there is a lot less incentive for the USSR to attack them; if they are pro-NATO, then USSR has a lot more incentive to take Turkey, in order to prevent NATO from activating them to enter the strait.
- Yugoslavia & Albania: If Yugoslavia is kept neutral, that would mean NATO offensives would have to funnel through the German territories, and likewise the USSR would have fewer territories to attack from on rd1, potentially making it tougher to take Germany. If Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece are all neutral, this would create a solid barrier for the USSR against invasion.
- Persia/Iran: Should the Allies be freely able to open this route into the USSR? Or should this territory be strictly neutral?
- Spain & Scandinavia: There’s probably an argument to be made that these territories should be easier for NATO to influence, but likewise that they shouldn’t be able to just freely “activate” them – so I can’t say that they absolutely should be pro-NATO. They might need their own distinct mechanic.
- Ethiopia/Italian Somaliland: Being neutral in E&W, this serves as a meaningful barrier to shipping UK infantry from Africa to India. With the Europe map potentially greatly de-emphasizing India, these territories become less important; making it pro-NATO seems a bit silly, since then it’s kind of a freebie that the USSR would have a hard time contesting.
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T The Janus referenced this topic on
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Our intrepid Axis & Allies player @The_Good_Captain has put out a video which includes a review of East & West!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsm4is72-scI’m about to check it out myself; I’ll let the crowd know if I have any thoughts on it :)
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
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.
units transported from the UK could land in Komi, Karelia, Norway, West Germany, France, or even Portugal.
And the pipeline from South Africa into Pakistan or Iran is a lot less of a sure thing than you would expect.
I’m thinking that probably the best way to break into “Middle Earth” as NATO is by applying pressure through the Mediterranean; essentially you want WE defending Italy and attacking Turkey, with the UK defending France and attacking Greece. Probably any US units need to be in a position to attack Switzerland, or possibly Yugoslavia. The hope being that by going through Turkey, you can eventually take back Iran, to punish the Soviets for invading neutrals.
The UK should probably be moving 3 or 2 transports to the Mediterranean, and building 3 or 4 transports in the North Atlantic; it depends if you choose to move the starting Quebec transport into the Mediterranean, or not.
To move units directly from Ontario or Quebec into Norway/Karelia/Komi, new transports need to be placed in Ontario.
Basically, anytime you’re not moving units into Scandinavia, they need to be moved into France, and then used somewhere in the Mediterranean after that.Generally as the UK, I’m thinking it’s best to send everything to Europe; likewise, the Americans need to send basically everything to the Pacific.
Overall, the heaviest blows need to be landed in/around Scandinavia (UK) and Siberia (US) in order for NATO to really put Moscow in a vice. Drawing Soviet troops down to Greece can be a useful diversionary tactic. But I think the main responsibility for the UK is to invert the current meta, by turning Scandinavia into contested territory, rather than secure income for the Soviets.
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
I’m thinking that probably the best way to break into “Middle Earth” as NATO is by applying pressure through the Mediterranean; essentially you want WE defending Italy and attacking Turkey, with the UK defending France and attacking Greece. Probably any US units need to be in a position to attack Switzerland, or possibly Yugoslavia. The hope being that by going through Turkey, you can eventually take back Iran, to punish the Soviets for invading neutrals.
[…]
Overall, the heaviest blows need to be landed in/around Scandinavia (UK) and Siberia (US) in order for NATO to really put Moscow in a vice. Drawing Soviet troops down to Greece can be a useful diversionary tactic. But I think the main responsibility for the UK is to invert the current meta, by turning Scandinavia into contested territory, rather than secure income for the Soviets.Upon further consideration, I think it makes more sense to have the UK contesting Turkey, with the hopes of eventually linking together their forces coming from India.
This requires UK troops to be landed in France, walk to Italy, and then be transported over to Turkey; in order to ensure a continuous supply of troops, you can’t really ever divert forces to Scandinavia, unfortunately.This means that WE should focus on defending France, and either counter-attacking West Germany over land, or liberating Greece via amphibious assault. I’m strongly leaning towards a heavy investment in tanks on WE1 to facilitate this. NATO attacks into Greece and Turkey can begin as early as round 2.
It is important to not fritter away the starting US forces in Italy. Once UK forces arrive en masse in Italy, US forces should marshal in France for defense, and should counter-attack Switzerland, if possible; UK tanks landed in Europe (and infantry not being sent to Turkey) should be used to attack Yugoslavia.
The US should have a lone transport around Iceland to keep Europe supplied, particularly if the UK can do a ‘can-opener’ somewhere in Scandinavia. But by and large, I’m convinced that the US needs to purchase 3-5 additional transports in the Pacific on US1, and must position themselves to hit Kamchatka on US2, using their scattered island units.
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Part of the thinking with all of this, is to eliminate what @The_Good_Captain commonly refers to (in his 1914 series of videos) as “fruity pebbles” – in other words, multi-national forces – which are good for defense, but no good for offense.
At the start of the game, you have the following naval distribution, in terms of transports:
North Atlantic: WE, UK, and US
Mediterranean: WE, UK, and US
Indian Ocean: WE, UK
Pacific: UK and USBy rd3, we want this tightened up to something more like:
North Atlantic: UK and US
Mediterranean: WE, UK
Indian Ocean: UK
Pacific: USSince the US and UK are basically always going to be landing their troops in France, you’re still going to have a rainbow coalition defending that territory. But, by requiring WE to only be responsible for defending France (and not Italy) this means their attack power can be concentrated. Since the US won’t have any transports in the Mediterranean, it likewise makes sense for them to focus on defending France, rather than splitting their forces between Italy as well.
WE will likely want to put their fighters in Italy, to be used against Greece – but otherwise, I’m thinking the defense of Italy should be left entirely to the pipeline of UK forces.
This means that all 3 members of NATO each have their own jobs, but that they can still help each other out as well:
- WE is responsible for West Germany and Greece, but can also hit Switzerland and Turkey (if they have units in Greece)
- UK is responsible for Yugoslavia and Turkey, but can also hit Switzerland and Greece (and forces in France or UK can hit West Germany)
- US is responsible for Switzerland, but can also hit West Germany
By having the UK as the sole actor in India, and the US likewise in Siberia and the Koreas, we avoid having the diluted attack power of the “fruity pebbles” approach.
Since the US is going to have the smallest amount of responsibility in the European theatre, any strafing attack against France should eliminate US infantry first – so that the WE attack can be kept strong, and the UK pipeline kept intact.
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Investigating this further, what I’m finding is that it is extremely difficult for WE and UK to both be doing offensives in the Mediterranean; this creates too much of a drain on the defense, requiring the US the bail out the situation.
So I’m finding myself re-evaluating the distribution of NATO’s purchases.
After rd1, their income should pretty reliably be (at least) these numbers:- WE: 21 IPCs (7 inf)
- UK: 32 IPCs (9 inf, 1 arm)
- US: 41 IPCs (12 inf, 1 arm)
WE is always going to be putting everything into Italy or France. I would suggest that the UK should always be putting at least 3 infantry towards India. With the US having 3 starting transports in the Pacific, and Japan having an IPC value of 6, I would also contend that they should be putting at least 6 infantry toward that theatre. I would also argue that at a minimum, the US should use Iceland to send 2 infantry to Europe every round.
So what kind of wiggle room does this leave?
The UK would have 6 inf and 1 arm to play around with; the US would be left with 4 inf and 1 arm.
With the UK, you’re probably going to want to add an even number of infantry towards India (if any) to keep your transports around the UK full. The obvious options are:
- 1 inf Burma, 1 inf Pakistan (assuming the USSR doesn’t take the territory)
- 2 inf Singapore
- 2 inf South Africa (assuming there is a reasonable possibility of landing them in Iran or Pakistan every round; otherwise they can only reach India every other round.)
This is why I like the idea of keeping at least 1 transport around the Indian Ocean. I’m also tempted to leave a 2nd transport in the area, to maintain the threat of amphibious landings in the Persian Gulf. This would mean that of your starting 4 transports, 2 would end up in the Mediterranean – any new transports would be purchased for use around the UK. Really the question is whether 2 transport loads of infantry is enough to do any damage in the Mediterranean.
For the US, if you’re moving your transport from the Mediterranean out to the Atlantic, the obvious option is to at least use that to send the 1 arm per rd to Europe, via the standard shuck-shuck. If you’re producing 2 inf in Iceland and 6 inf in Japan, that leaves 4 inf (2 transport loads) per round, which can be flexed to either the Atlantic or the Pacific. It is important to decide immediately where to put your transports, and to get them moving units ASAP.
If you’re going for any sort of floating bridge strategy as the US, you’re going to need more transports than just the minimum needed to ship units to Eurasia. In the Pacific, you probably need to think about landing in South Korea, and then in the next round, having enough transports to move your units from both South Korea and Japan, into either Kamchatka or Eastern Siberia. In the Atlantic, you need to set up a couple transports to move your units from France to the Barents Sea – IMO, the number of transports should be less than the number already supplying France, so that you’re still leaving some units for defense.
As much as I would like to avoid the “fruity pebbles” I am realizing that Europe really needs all 3 NATO powers contributing to defense. Also, if you’re having the UK moving through the Mediterranean into Turkey, that means UK units will be in both France and Italy at all times. To balance this out, you’re probably shifting WE’s placement to Italy instead of France – letting the US and UK defend France instead. The big, big downside with this is that it leaves WE out of position to counter-attack West Germany (a nice income boost) but the tradeoff is they can attack Turkey OR Greece every round, helping facilitate the UK’s moves in the area.
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House Rule/Discussion Topic: Unit Modifications
One thing I’ve thought about on occasion is whether tanks in E&W should just flatout cost 4 IPCs instead of 5.
- The USSR still has almost no incentive to build anything other than infantry, even with the change
- Western Europe needs all the “hit points” it can get, meaning… also no incentive to build anything other than infantry
- UK would need to build transports, or else a new industry in India in order to add tanks
- US (similarly) finds itself in the position of always needing to use transports to move tanks (or transports and new industry, in the case of Japan or the Philippines.)
So I think it’s pertinent to breakdown the economics, for the UK and US in particular.
As said many times before, the UK can rely on an income of 32, and the US can rely on 41. (This is where an India IC would be handy, since for the cost of 2 transports, it can “transport” 3 tanks.)
Now, comparing 4-IPC tanks vs. infantry:
- 32 IPCs = 10 infantry, requiring 5 transports
- 32 IPCs = 8 tanks, requiring 8 transports (or an IC in India + 5 transports)
- 41 IPCs = 13 infantry, requiring 6.5 transports
- 41 IPCS = 10 tanks, requiring 10 transports
The obvious conclusion is still(!) that infantry are cheaper (in terms of transports) and add more “hit points” – the only place where tanks start to pull ahead is in attack power:
- UK: (infantry) 10 attack power vs. (tanks) 24 attack power
- US: (infantry) 13 attack power vs. (tanks) 30 attack power
Again, keep in mind that the tanks still require more transports while providing fewer HP – it’s one thing to go “all tank” armies as Germany or the USSR, but for US or UK it’s a completely different thing altogether.
If a tank costs 4, it still takes 8 IPCs to ship it – meaning you’re spending 12 IPCs to get 3 attack power, and 1 HP
Compare that with 2 infantry + 1 transport – spending 14 IPCs for 2 attack power, and 2 HPSo let’s say we want to “spend it all” every round (just to narrow things down) and examine the possible combinations of tanks and infantry:
32 IPCs:
- 8 tanks (8 transports) – 24 attack power, 8 HP
- 5 tanks, 4 infantry (7 transports) – 19 attack power, 9 HP
- 2 tanks, 8 infantry (6 transports) – 14 attack power, 10 HP
41 IPCs:
- 8 tanks, 3 infantry (9.5 transports) – 27 attack power, 11 HP
- 5 tanks, 7 infantry (8.5 transports) – 22 attack power, 12 HP
- 2 tanks, 11 infantry (7.5 transports) – 19 attack power, 13 HP
So what we’re finding is that reducing the number of tanks significantly reduces the attack power, but does not significantly reduce the HP or number of transports. Now, I would argue that we cannot reduce the infantry to zero, but the mid-point option in each of these examples is certainly a lot more viable.
This leads into my other point of discussion: does the USSR have too much defense power?
What I’m finding is that the number of ground units that the Soviets have (on land, in the Eurasian continent) tends to be about 1 full round’s worth of production more than NATO (about 30 infantry.) This seems to be a deficit that NATO simply can’t make up.
If this assertion holds, then something would need to be done about a) increasing NATO’s attack power (such as decreasing the cost of tanks), or; b) decreasing the USSR’s defense power.
I’d argue that the 2-IPC infantry mechanic is necessary for the USSR to function as a global superpower – and leaning on E&W’s supposed origins in World at War, I’d offer that it is a simple, quality-of-life improvement over the model of having cheap partisans available to the USSR, in addition to regular infantry. If the price isn’t going to be changed, then perhaps the defense value should be. Since infantry currently defend at 2, that would mean a decrease down to 1.
The other thing to consider with this, is the fact that the US and UK are basically locked into their supply pipelines – effectively capping the maximum possible amount of attack power they can project into any given theatre, lest they have to rebuild the pipeline from scratch. The USSR simply doesn’t have this problem; they can place infantry anywhere, anytime. There aren’t many theatres where they cannot out-produce NATO simply by choosing do to so – their supply lines are not at all complex.
So, this begs a third question: Should the placement rules be changed?
Perhaps territories with industrial complexes would follow the current rules, but other territories with an IPC value could only produce 1 infantry (regardless of IPC value.)
Typically, I’ve seen the USSR place 12 infantry in Europe (and a further 4 in Karelia) pretty reliably every round. With this rule in place, the USSR would need to spread those 12 infantry around to:
- 1 each in West Germany, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Romania
- 6 infantry in Ukraine
Effectively, this would add one whole round of movement to the USSR’s supply lines, meaning NATO would have a more meaningful chance of contesting the border territories in Europe. In Karelia and East Siberia, the USSR would still be at a distinct advantage – but an advance towards India would be slowed much like Europe, perhaps even making China (finally) a worthwhile vector of attack for the Soviets.
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@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
@tacojohn Did you ever consider porting E&W back onto the Classic map? I know it at least crossed my mind.
East & West using the Classic map, in TripleA
I’ve been poking around with this idea a bit recently, and I’ve had a few playthroughs just to see how things work. Here’s what I’ve come up with, so far:
Interestingly (for some reason unknown to me) when you go into the edit mode for Classic, you’re able to add both destroyers and artillery – but I haven’t found a way to purchase them (not that I’ve dug deeply into it.) My first thought was to replace each heavy armor with 2 artillery, however since they can only move 1 space, I changed that to 1 armor + 1 artillery instead.
With attack and defense of 3, destroyers are a close enough approximation for cruisers in E&W, except that they don’t bombard. I played a game or two using a straight 1:1 conversion, and I found that having the NATO destroyers just dotted all over the Eurasian coastline with nothing to do was… kind of boring.
I think they’re still useful as Soviet units, but for NATO I’m leaning towards this conversion:
- Wherever there would be a NATO cruiser in the starting setup, instead put a battleship
- Wherever there would be a NATO battleship in the starting setup, ADD a destroyer
What this does is a) gives “cruisers” the ability to bombard, and; b) makes battleships “2-hit” (i.e the destroyer represents the 2nd hit)
Gentlemen’s agreement: To better simulate 2-hit battleships, you might want to institute a rule where the battleships have to be taken as casualties before destroyers, or something similar.
Playing it this way means that the sea zones with battleships are a little bit beefed up, in terms of the dice they can roll; my first thought to offset this was to give the USSR super subs – but I haven’t tried that out yet. I might have to tune it down to where only one of those two substitutions is used, but not both.
Territory Conversions
The idea was to keep all of the units on the board, somewhere. It is actually fairly straightforward, for the most part, so I’ll only list the more tricky ones:
- Iceland: 3 inf, 1 ftr (US) are moved to UK; 1 sub (US) is moved to East Canada SZ; 2 inf (UK) are moved to East Canada
- North Sea/Ireland SZ: 2 trn, 1 crz (US) are placed in the UK SZ; 1 sub, 1 crz, 1 BB (UK) are placed in the East Canada SZ
- Germany: All starting NATO units from West Germany as well as all starting Soviet units from both East Germany and Yugoslavia are placed into this territory; this means there will be a battle in Germany right at the combat phase of Russia’s turn.
- Eastern Europe: Likewise, all starting NATO units from Greece as well as all starting Soviet units from Poland and Romania are placed into this territory.
- Ukraine SSR: Combines units from the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Baltic States; this is so that the infantry that would be in Baltic States are still far enough away that they cannot reach Germany or Norway-- as would be the case in E&W
- Soviet Far East: Combines units from the territories of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia
- Manchuria: all starting NATO units from South Korea as well as all starting Soviet units from North Korea and all starting Chinese units from Manchuria are placed into this territory. Do not add 6 extra Chinese infantry (which normally would be moved into North Korea on the Soviet turn.) The Chinese transport off Manchuria is instead placed off of Kwangtung
- Chinese territories: Sinkiang should be directly converted, without any other territories added to it; Jiangsu and Hunan units are placed into Kwangtung, and all units from all remaining Chinese territories (except Manchuria) should be placed into China.
- Western Europe: all territories and units which would belong to WE are instead given to the UK; Portugal’s 1 inf is put into Gibraltar
- India: Combines units from the territories of Pakistan, India, and Burma
- French Indochina: Combines units from the territories of Indochina and Singapore
Starting Territories:
USSR:- Germany
- Eastern Europe
- Karelia SSR
- Ukraine SSR
- Caucasus
- Kazakh SSR
- Russia
- Novosibirsk
- Evenki
- Yakut SSR
- Soviet Far East
- Mongolia
WE/UK:
- West Canada
- East Canada
- UK
- Gibraltar
- Western Europe
- Finland Norway
- Southern Europe
- Turkey
- Algeria
- Libya
- French West Africa
- French Equatorial Africa
- Congo
- Angola
- Mozambique
- Madagascar
- Kenya Rhodesia
- South Africa
- India
- French Indochina
- New Guinea
- Solomon Islands
- Australia
- New Zealand
US:
- Japan
- Philippines
- Okinawa
- Caroline Islands
- Wake Island
- Midway
- Hawaiian Islands
- Alaska
- West US
- East US
- West Indies
- Panama
China:
- Sinkiang
- China
- Kwangtung
- Manchuria
Mechanics specific to TripleA
So, in the ‘edit mode’ you are actually able to change the alliances (i.e “Change Political Relationships” option) however, you only have an ‘allied’ and a ‘war’ option. You can also edit in techs, so the obvious thing to do is give Industrial Technology to Russia, for those classic 2-IPC infantry.
The way I’ve been playing is to having Japan allied to the USSR, and making all of China’s territories “Japanese”-owned. This allows the USSR to move freely through them; I find it’s helpful to set Japan as a “Does Nothing (AI)” before starting the game.
Now, the problem I’ve had with this setup is that whichever side you put Germany on, as soon as that side liberates the German capitol from the enemy, all German-owned territories that the liberating power controls automatically revert back to German control. The same kind of thing happens if the USSR liberates Japan.
Gentlemen’s agreement: Basically the way I’ve worked around this limitation is by treating Germany as a “no man’s land” that is always under Soviet control. You might want to stipulate that no units are allowed to end their turn there.
The alternative way to fix this is to just manually correct the territorial ownership in the edit mode, whenever a capitol changes hands.
One other thing of note is that, even if you edit in extra “PUs” for a country which does not control their capitol, they cannot purchase units – even if they control an industrial complex. (This is why my initial idea of having a fully 2v2 game doesn’t work – the best you can manage is to have China attack on its own turn, until it runs out of units. The same is true for having WE as a separate power – and their naval units become really useless, real fast that way.) I suppose you could just manually edit in purchases/placements at the end of the turn, but that’s getting overly kludgey for my tastes.
Another thing to keep in mind is territory ownership. If USSR takes Finland Norway, and then the US liberates it, the US will get ownership and not the UK – because the game still codes the territory as being German, I guess? Likewise, the Chinese territories can get eaten up by the USSR, if NATO conquers them first.
There is no mechanical way to prevent NATO from attacking China, so you’ll have to decide beforehand if this should be allowed or not.
Another way to play it would be to just make all of China’s territories Soviet territories, but have ‘neutral’ units there, defending them – particularly if you’re going to allow NATO to attack China anyway. This does give the USSR a bigger economy, though.
I haven’t been playing with any institution of “neutral armies” although there’s nothing stopping you from editing those units onto the map if/when they are attacked. Keep in mind, there’s no way around the 3 “PU” cost, when invading neutrals – aside from manually editing territory ownership.
Since originally-neutral territories are all worth 0 (and I haven’t found a way to edit that, if there is one) the only neutrals I’ve bothered invading as the USSR are Persia and the suez canal territories. Again, how you handle neutrals is a matter of how closely you want to hew to the original E&W rules.
With this setup involving hostile units starting in the same territories, it’s important to note that (for whatever reason) TripleA has it so that you can’t move ground units out of contested territories and into enemy territories, on the combat move phase. You can, however, move units between the contested territories (i.e. Germany and Eastern Europe.) This means that Soviet units in Germany cannot attack Western Europe or Southern Europe on turn 1, and units in Eastern Europe also cannot attack Southern Europe on that turn. Soviet fighters in those territories still seem to be able to be moved freely.
Rules Differences
I might just be doing it wrong, but as far as I can tell, the ruleset in TripleA does not allow for the “Tokyo Drift” maneuver to work reliably. This may be due to sub rules, or some interaction with destroyers – I haven’t really nailed it down.
It’s also important to remember that there’s no aerial retreat from amphibious assaults, and also tanks cannot move after combat so be careful about where you strand them. (Again, unless you want to overrule this with editing.) Likewise, defenders hit by naval bombardment from battleships still get to fire back, unlike in E&W; this relative nerf is a reason I felt it was ok to use battleships in place of cruisers, straight up.
Probably the biggest change is that you cannot place infantry everywhere. Again, any ICs that are hard-coded in as “starting” ICs have no placement limit – but for their original owner, only. Any ICs that you edit in or purchase later on are limited to the value of the territory, as far as how many units they can produce. This means that the USSR has to spend a lot more turns walking forward, whereas the UK can almost max out placement in “France” and “Italy” – the drawback being it’s a lot harder to defend India. Likewise, the US has a lot harder time getting ground units into the Pacific theatre; you’ll have to decide whether you’ll want to add ICs for NATO, or make them have to purchase more.
Anyways, I’ve been having fun playing E&W this way; it’s a neat little scenario and it plays a bit quicker than regular E&W/Mapview, despite typically taking a lot more rounds to finish. It’s also a handy way to test out certain ideas/strategies, particularly w/r/t supply pipelines and such.
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