"East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion

[Argothair]

@the-janus So thanks for all of the thoughtful commentary on a Cold War map; I think the Cold War gets neglected on these forums as an interesting time period that could fit in well with tripleA style mechanics, and you are clearly a deep thinker and an astute observer of possibilities within this game that you’re sharing with us.

I have never played or even seen East & West other than in this one article, so I’m in need of more of a primer. Is East & West available at all on TripleA other than as a mod of the Classic map? Does it really make sense to use the Classic map, given the limits that places on your ability to have additional territories? Have you been able to automate any of the (e.g.) diplomacy rules for tripleA, or does that all have to be done manually by the players? How does East & West think about the possibility of nuclear escalation – I saw in one place you discussed using an essentially tactical nuke against a US Pacific fleet, but is there any possibility that the game escalates into strategic nuclear war? Finally, does it make any sense to have traditional ‘capital’ rules during this time period and at this scale? My understanding is that half the point of NATO was to assure countries that the rest of western Europe would keep fighting even if, e.g., France were occupied. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine China or the USSR surrendering in the 1970s or 1980s just because you took Beijing or Moscow.

[The Janus]

There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll go through your post and answer as best I can.

@argothair said:

I have never played or even seen East & West other than in this one article, so I’m in need of more of a primer. Is East & West available at all on TripleA other than as a mod of the Classic map?

The answer is no. I am not experienced enough (i.e. at all) with adding/creating new maps/games within TripleA, although it would be theoretically possible.

What you can do is go to http://www.motcreations.com/ and download the MapView app; in short, what this allows you to do is add and move units around the map, creating a new map tab for each turn-phase, but everything else has to be done manually (dice rolls, etc.) It’s handy for visualization, but by and large it is essentially just an aid for PBEM play.

Does it really make sense to use the Classic map, given the limits that places on your ability to have additional territories?

The thought with mocking the game up in Classic has basically everything to do with the fact that the rules/mechanics of E&W most closely line up with those of Classic; by running it in Classic, you at least get a sense of how combat would go in terms of odds, as well as testing strategies, because you can pretty much map the starting setup 1:1, and the relative positioning of units is mainly the same. The other consideration is that most other global maps (i.e. Revised, Anniversary, etc.) tend not to have the “cold war” territories you would expect anyway, such as North/South Korea and East/West Germany. Again, this is why I have mentioned upthread that I would be interested in converting Europe 1940 to play E&W with – link to the separate thread for that here: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/39450/brainstorming-east-west-cold-war-scenario-for-europe-1940/1

Have you been able to automate any of the (e.g.) diplomacy rules for tripleA, or does that all have to be done manually by the players?

As I mentioned, I have no experience with the developer tools in TripleA, so I’ll give you an overview of how the diplomacy mechanics work:

Essentially, if you influence a major neutral (aka neutral alliance) they move one pip towards your side (as depicted on the map.) They can give 1/4th, half, or all of their income to either the USSR, or the NATO nation which they are affiliated with. There’s also “+0” to each side, and a “true neutral” (let’s say) spot. So effectively a sliding scale of 9 positions; China starts at +1/4th to the USSR (i.e. +4 IPCs, since China is worth 16 IPCs) and the OAS starts at +0 to USA; the Arab League starts out at true neutral.

(as a side note, Imp Games’ followup game, a WWI game known as The Great War, reduced the sliding scale for diplomacy to only 7, removing the +0’s. This game map is also available with MapView.)

Since the diplomacy roll is just a 1d6 (successful on a 1) I imagine it’d be possible to build that into TripleA; at worst, you’d have to mod the PUs at the end of the relevant turn(s).

As for minor neutrals, they essentially have their own forces (as is the case in, say, G40) but can be influenced to join a NATO power or the USSR; the USSR can also attack any neutrals at any time (including majors.) So those territories would just become “owned” if influenced or attacked; IME with TripleA, this would be a little janky, because the app seems to hard-code all territories as belonging to a particular owner, and that underlying alignment never changes. So, for example, if you code China as neutral but the USSR attacks them, any remaining territories should become British-owned; if the US were to liberate those territories, TripleA would (I suspect) make them American, when they should be British.

How does East & West think about the possibility of nuclear escalation – I saw in one place you discussed using an essentially tactical nuke against a US Pacific fleet, but is there any possibility that the game escalates into strategic nuclear war?

So the other mechanic that impacts diplomacy is the “complication table” for nuclear weapons. Essentially, whenever a nuke goes off, you roll 2d6, and consult the complication table; the most likely outcome is a normal attack, but you can also cause “outrage” by one or all 3 of the major neutrals, shifting their support one notch to the opposing alliance.

On a 2, the nuke detonates in the territory from which it was originally launched (i.e. at the start of the combat move phase) and on a 3, the nuke is a dud and is both lost, and fails to detonate over its target.

The other risk with nukes is that the bomber carrying them can be shot down by AA fire, and may fail to escape the blast radius (1 on a d6 roll.)

The problem is that nukes destroys 5 units (either on land or at sea) so while Soviet infantry cost 10 IPCs for 5, naval units cost a minimum of 40 IPCs for 5 – with nukes costing 20 IPCs.

Because E&W takes place in 1948, the USSR does not start with the technology to produce nukes, and (as you can see) the cost and other drawbacks make them a tough sell for NATO; this keeps their use generally very limited – often the US fires their starting nuke, but the only others I tend to see are purchased by the USSR late in the game (round 6+, approximately.)

Hopefully that all answers your question about nuclear escalation.

Finally, does it make any sense to have traditional ‘capital’ rules during this time period and at this scale? My understanding is that half the point of NATO was to assure countries that the rest of western Europe would keep fighting even if, e.g., France were occupied. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine China or the USSR surrendering in the 1970s or 1980s just because you took Beijing or Moscow.

E&W expressly does not use the capitol rules from Classic; a country keeps fighting on if they lose their capitol, and they do not surrender their IPCs or stop producing IPCs in that situation. In terms of mimicking E&W using the Classic map in TripleA however, these mechanics cannot really be worked around.

[Argothair]

@the-janus Interesting. I’m an amateur developer and many of these changes would be relatively easy for me to code – turning off capitals is not hard, permanently awarding Chinese territories to the British is not hard, and even the diplomacy is probably doable. The nukes are probably weird and rare enough that it makes sense to just do them manually for now. I could add a ‘dummy’ nuke unit on the map that you can move around and so on, and then when you’re ready to fire it, we would just roll a die and use edit mode to resolve the effects.

If you want to send me whatever files you have and if you’d be willing to play a couple of games once the module is ready, I’ll see what I can make happen. No promises, but I think I would probably be able to hack something playable together in a month or so.

If you’re interested, send me a list of your top 10-ish highest priority changes from the Classic map/ruleset. I need a medium amount of detail, I think – like I’m not sure why China goes British, specifically, and not American. If there’s a short rulebook (<= 30 pages) that spells all this out, then send me a link and I’ll read it; otherwise I need you to tell me.

[The Janus]

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

If you’re interested, send me a list of your top 10-ish highest priority changes from the Classic map/ruleset. I need a medium amount of detail, I think – like I’m not sure why China goes British, specifically, and not American. If there’s a short rulebook (<= 30 pages) that spells all this out, then send me a link and I’ll read it; otherwise I need you to tell me.

The biggest changes from Classic to E&W are largely rules cribbed (IMO) from Xeno Games’ World at War

1. Infantry can be placed on any territory you have owned since the start of your turn; the number of infantry is limited to the IPC value of the territory.
2. Industrial complexes allow for the production of ANY type of unit, limited to a number equal to the territory’s IPC value (no exceptions for capitols, or “original” ICs) – this can be used to effectively double the production of infantry on a territory; it does not have to be used for mechanical units
3. New units: (aside from tech upgrades to existing units) heavy tanks (move 3, attack 4, defend 3, cost 7) and cruisers (move 2, attack 2, defend 3, cost 12; can bombard) – self-propelled artillery can also be unlocked, with a tech (move 2, attack 4, defend 1, cost 4; cannot blitz)
4. Units hit by shore bombardment cannot fire back.
5. Tanks/heavy tanks/artillery (not just planes) can use any remaining movement, on the non-combat phase, even after retreating – handy for increasing their survivability. From the FAQ: In a combined overland + amphibious assault, the overland units can still retreat; aerial units may always retreat from amphibious assaults.
6. Bombers can carry 1 infantry as a “paratrooper” but they must both start their turn in the same territory. (Bombers are also used to carry nukes)
7. Map changes: (check the OP for the prototype map, which is functionally accurate to the final product) Again, much of it is nearly identical to the Xeno Games W@W map; if we’re just doing a hack of Classic, it’s not entirely necessary to faithfully recreate the E&W map. Basically, every territory is split depending on its alliance, so “French Indochina Burma” from Classic effectively becomes Burma (British), Thailand (neutral), Indochina (WEur), and Singapore (British) – exactly as it in in W@W.
   As far as other “cold war necessary”-changes…

• North Korea/South Korea (splits Korea from W@W)
• Greece/Yugoslavia (splits Balkans(iirc?) from W@W)
• East Germany/West Germany (effectively includes Netherlands and Denmark)
  The USSR and eastern bloc countries are largely the same as in W@W (Poland and Baltic States are split) so, that part of the map actually pretty closely resembles the Revised A&A map.

8. Another one of the rules from the FAQ: NATO cannot land planes in any territory which they have not controlled for an entire round, i.e. if UK liberates a territory, the US cannot land fighters there on their turn, they have to wait until the following round to do so.
9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)
10. 2-hit Battleships: cost 10 IPCs to repair (has to be at a coastal IC, IIRC) and damaged battleships cannot attack or bombard, but defend as normal. From the FAQ: if struck by a nuke, a battleship can absorb two “hits” before being destroyed
11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)
12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

[Argothair]

The biggest changes from Classic to E&W are largely rules cribbed (IMO) from Xeno Games’ World at War

1. Infantry can be placed on any territory you have owned since the start of your turn; the number of infantry is limited to the IPC value of the territory.
2. Industrial complexes allow for the production of ANY type of unit, limited to a number equal to the territory’s IPC value (no exceptions for capitols, or “original” ICs) – this can be used to effectively double the production of infantry on a territory; it does not have to be used for mechanical units
3. New units: (aside from tech upgrades to existing units) heavy tanks (move 3, attack 4, defend 3, cost 7) and cruisers (move 2, attack 2, defend 3, cost 12; can bombard) – self-propelled artillery can also be unlocked, with a tech (move 2, attack 4, defend 1, cost 4; cannot blitz)
4. Units hit by shore bombardment cannot fire back.

#1-4 should be no problem.

5. Tanks/heavy tanks/artillery (not just planes) can use any remaining movement, on the non-combat phase, even after retreating – handy for increasing their survivability. From the FAQ: In a combined overland + amphibious assault, the overland units can still retreat; aerial units may always retreat from amphibious assaults.

I’ll see what I can do on enabling a second non-combat move. It might be possible, but I don’t know how to do it; I’ll have to ask the experts. It probably means adding a special “mobile move” phase to the game, which is easy enough, but players might have to just remember which units have movement left. The overland/aerial retreats should be no problem.

6. Bombers can carry 1 infantry as a “paratrooper” but they must both start their turn in the same territory. (Bombers are also used to carry nukes)

No problem.

7. Map changes: (check the OP for the prototype map, which is functionally accurate to the final product) Again, much of it is nearly identical to the Xeno Games W@W map; if we’re just doing a hack of Classic, it’s not entirely necessary to faithfully recreate the E&W map. Basically, every territory is split depending on its alliance, so “French Indochina Burma” from Classic effectively becomes Burma (British), Thailand (neutral), Indochina (WEur), and Singapore (British) – exactly as it in in W@W.

Eh, I’m happy to at least give this a try, but please drop the map you want me to use right here at the end of the thread so I don’t have to go looking for it and guessing which one you mean. If there’s a high-resolution version, so much the better.

As far as other “cold war necessary”-changes

• North Korea/South Korea (splits Korea from W@W)
• Greece/Yugoslavia (splits Balkans(iirc?) from W@W)
• East Germany/West Germany (effectively includes Netherlands and Denmark)
  The USSR and eastern bloc countries are largely the same as in W@W (Poland and Baltic States are split) so, that part of the map actually pretty closely resembles the Revised A&A map.

8. Another one of the rules from the FAQ: NATO cannot land planes in any territory which they have not controlled for an entire round, i.e. if UK liberates a territory, the US cannot land fighters there on their turn, they have to wait until the following round to do so.

This sounds like it is going to be way more trouble than it’s worth to code. I could maybe make airfields pop up at the appropriate time as a reminder? And then if you don’t have an airfield, that means you shouldn’t land your planes there.

9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)

I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone else knows how to enable defenders to retreat. I don’t know of any other tripleA game that does that off the top of my head.

10. 2-hit Battleships; cost 10 to repair (has to be at a coastal IC, IIRC) and damage battleships cannot attack or bombard, but defend as normal. From the FAQ: if struck by a nuke, a battleship can absorb two “hits” before being destroyed

Should be fine. I’m not going to code special rules for the nukes because I think the nukes will be fully manual anyway.

11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)

Should be fine. The idea here is that if Sweden is even slightly tilted toward your opponent diplomatically, then it blocks the strait for surface warships?

12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

Is there a chart somewhere that shows me exactly what all these techs do? How do you gain a new tech? Can we just rely on players to research techs in a legal order, or is there a reason that has to be coded in?

[The Janus]

Specifically to your question regarding China, each of the 3 major neutrals are aligned to one NATO power: OAS is the obvious one to line up with the USA; the rulebook cites historical ties such as Hong Kong for why China favours the UK.

IMO it’d make more sense to align the Arab League with the UK, and then have China align with Western Europe – but I think it was done this way because UK tends to be more active in Asia whereas WE centres more around the Mediterranean.

[The Janus]

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)

I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone else knows how to enable defenders to retreat. I don’t know of any other tripleA game that does that off the top of my head.

IIRC this rule is in the 3rd Edition of rules for Classic, so I’d be surprised if it hasn’t made it into (at least) some other version of A&A / probably already exists within TripleA, somewhere.

11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)

Should be fine. The idea here is that if Sweden is even slightly tilted toward your opponent diplomatically, then it blocks the strait for surface warships?

So, because Sweden is a neutral country, basically control of West Germany determines who can use the strait. If Sweden becomes active (either influenced using diplomacy, or invaded) then you have to control both sides of the strait. If control is split, no one can pass.

12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

Is there a chart somewhere that shows me exactly what all these techs do? How do you gain a new tech? Can we just rely on players to research techs in a legal order, or is there a reason that has to be coded in?

The biggest reason is to gate the more powerful techs behind a certain amount of progression – the most obvious being that the 3rd-tier nuke is just the 1st-tier nuke, but it deals double the amount of damage. (IMO they aren’t well balanced, and I’d restructure the whole thing, but that’s neither here nor there, as far as this discussion.)

[barnee]

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

I’ll see what I can do on enabling a second non-combat move. It might be possible,

Game Sequence is where to do it if you can.

yea I have thought about this but never tried it. I was able to do two "Place"phases.

I don’t remember exactly why I did it the way i did but

<stepProperty name=“resetUnitStateAtStart” value=“true”/>
</step>

makes it work. I think lol

You could ask wc_sumpton at the triplea site. He’s the one who told me how to do it

[The Janus]

House Rule/Discussion Topic: Tech Tree Rework

I’ve often found the tech progression in E&W to be an interesting take on the A&A formula, but in practice it has some flaws. Probably the most glaring one being long-range aircraft; ostensibly this “tech” existed in WWII well before the invention of jet aircraft, yet in E&W jets come first in the progression.

It also doesn’t serve the priorities of the individual nations particularly well, since they all have different needs. NATO generally isn’t going to object to having jets for defending France in particular, but the British and Americans would get more use out of long-range aircraft; extending the range of paratroopers and strategic bombing (as well as nukes, for the US) is handy, but the added range is also useful for shifting offensive assets between theatres, such as from Europe to India, India to Japan, and vice versa.

Likewise, heavy armor is completely useless to WE, but anti-tank guns can be potentially game-saving; ballistic missiles are almost useless for NATO, but are effectively war-winning for the USSR. The entire submarine tree is… a mess; frankly, everybody wants submarines to be able to soak hits, while their surface ships fire back (against planes, in particular) and the lack of a “super submarine” tech makes this doubly true – subs are just fodder.

The other problem is that the idea of using the straits to effectively create “sub pens” (immune to attack from the air, using the snorkels tech) and to build up a submarine fleet to counter NATO at sea, is nowhere near as cost-effective as just using nukes. The nuclear power tech for subs is likewise… dubious; would the Soviets ever build up subs in the Baltic and then send them to the Pacific, under the ice sheet? Maybe, but I have to imagine the NATO Atlantic fleet would always be the biggest priority.

Anyways, down to the meat and potatoes, I think rather than just have random techs in the A&A sense, my thought was to break the techs down into trees consisting of only two tiers, instead of 3.

Something like this:

1. Defensive Weapons: Jets -> Anti-tank Guns
2. Mobile Warfare: Heavy Armor -> Self-propelled Artillery
3. Aircraft: Long-range Aircraft -> Helicopters
4. Nuclear Weapons: Fission Weapons -> Fusion Weapons
5. Missiles: Cruise Missiles -> Ballistic Missiles
6. Submarines: Nuclear Power -> Snorkels

What this means in practical terms:

• USSR needs to go 3 tiers deep to get fission weapons + ballistic missiles (a war-winning combo) but they can more easily get to SPA, which can be fairly devastating on its own.
• WE would have just as much difficulty getting to anti-tank guns, but they would get an actual useful tech in the process – could just as easily switch these techs around, if SPA spam becomes a problem
• USA has an easier time getting the big bomb, which only just barely makes the thing cost-effective anyway – getting hung up in between the two types of nukes is just painful
• Cruise missiles could be used in the early game by NATO, to buff up their amphibious invasions; having it as a 3rd tier tech made it completely useless, since most subs are dead by the time the Soviet fleet is wiped out – and the remaining subs are left with nothing to do. Potentially an especially useful tech for the UK.
• Putting nuclear power before snorkels in the sub tree means that it’s actually worth investing in the tech tree, if you still want the option to use your subs as fodder.
• Long-range aircraft as a 1st-tier tech definitely changes the strategies, but it’s certainly not game breaking. I think it would add a lot more fun and variety for NATO, but also for the USSR to swing their aircraft between theatres, for multiple different offensives. Making helicopters into a lower-tier tech also makes them potentially more likely to see actual use.

---

As with any change to the status-quo, I’m sure it’s possible to create some perfect, game-breaking meta with this change. But I think it’d be an interesting change to explore, nonetheless.

[The Janus]

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

East & West using the Classic map, in TripleA
[…]
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.)

Worth mentioning, TripleA does actually offer a “3rd Edition” Classic map, which (crucially) does allow for aerial retreats.

I’ve tested out a few different setups, specifically:

2v1: Combined WE+UK, USSR gains all Chinese territories; USSR gets Industrial Tech and Super Subs

3v1: Japan as WE, Chinese territories are neutral (German); USSR gets Industrial Tech and Super Subs

3v2: Japan as WE, China active (Germany as their capitol)

I haven’t played the 3v2 very much, but it’s tough to balance. I’m unsure what tech (if any) to give USSR and/or China. Their combined income is 50 (not far off of the Axis’ starting income of 57) and they have the advantage of going 1-2 in turn order – which means southeast Asia is overrun quicker than in other setups. There is also a huge demand for the USSR to protect Germany.

The 3v1 is probably my favourite, but I tend to put Japan as an AI player when I’m running NATO, since they just don’t get a lot to do. If/when Japan loses West Europe and South Europe, the AI tends to build an IC in Japan, but not an AA gun for it; you may be inclined to edit one in for them and edit out the appropriate PU’s.

The 2v1 plays pretty well; the UK is obviously a lot stronger, which is why the USSR needs that little extra economic boost to keep things close. The US is also a little bit stronger (since they get control of Japan’s capitol) so they can play a little different in this setup.

Overall impressions:
The big drawback is whenever NATO takes Germany and then the USSR liberates it, any territories that are German in the Classic setup, and are controlled by the USSR at the time, get reverted to German. If you’re playing as the USSR, you can manually edit this at the end of the combat phase; if you’re playing against an AI USSR, you basically need to manually edit the territories on your turn AND correct their PU totals to reflect those territories. (The same is obviously true for the 2v1 scenario if Japan falls, but this is a lot more rare.)

Another problem is that the AI doesn’t really know how to handle the USSR’s turn, w/r/t all of the units in embattled territories. Basically, they don’t seem to move additional units in (despite being able to) which causes them to perform poorly in most battles. What I’ve taken to doing, is just using a save where I’ve done up the standard opening combat moves for the USSR, and loading that up when I want to play as NATO.

Not having the ability to place units in Asia/Pacific makes for a very different experience. Keep in mind, the AI NATO will likely attack Sinkiang; generally I’ve let the USSR keep any Chinese territories that they liberate. China having fewer territories makes it easier for Soviet units to get down from Manchuria towards southeast Asia.

Likewise, no one being able to pass through the Suez makes for a situation where the NATO fleets are split into two hemispheres; this means the UK in particular plays a lot differently. (Worth noting, if the US’ nuke complication in standard E&W results in Arab Outrage, this is a situation NATO can potentially find itself dealing with.)

[Argothair]

@the-janus Unfortunately, I have gotten overscheduled with too many different board game projects, so it will be a while before I do any development on this one, but I’m still interested and I hope to come back to it someday.

[The Janus]

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

House Rule/Discussion Topic: Tech Tree Rework

1. Defensive Weapons: Jets -> Anti-tank Guns
2. Mobile Warfare: Heavy Armor -> Self-propelled Artillery
3. Aircraft: Long-range Aircraft -> Helicopters
4. Nuclear Weapons: Fission Weapons -> Fusion Weapons
5. Missiles: Cruise Missiles -> Ballistic Missiles
6. Submarines: Nuclear Power -> Snorkels

One idea for a balance fix (building off of this concept) might be to require a country to gain at least one tier in either Submarines, Missiles, or Aircraft before it can start to do research into Nuclear Weapons.

[The Janus]

Pakistan: the other, other keystone state

A brief UK strategy discussion

(starting setup for the region)

One thing that I think is key to NATO’s success is the simple logistics of figuring out how to get land units onto the Eurasian continent; if you lose Pakistan, that’s 1 fewer UK infantry you can place on the mainland, per round. It’s also important to keep Pakistan strong, in order to threaten Turkmenistan and Iran (the latter of which the Soviets will likely crush) as well as to deter a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; we can’t do any of these things if NATO gets boxed up into India.

The UK’s starting income is 33 IPCs – a budget of 11 infantry (assuming we can hold onto all of our starting territories.) This translates easily into 5 infantry for Pakistan + India + Burma, and another 6 infantry (i.e. exactly 3 transport loads) for the UK. If we lose Pakistan, this all gets messed up.

The other thing is, it’s easy for the Soviets to box the UK into India, with just a mass swarm of infantry in Pakistan, and then pull all of their offensive units away to focus on other theatres; an aggressive defense of Pakistan is necessary, to counteract this move.

WE:
2 infantry from Indochina can be transported to Pakistan, or at least to India, in order to be in Pakistan by round 2 (with the expectation of the Soviets moving through Iran on round 2, and then intending to hit Pakistan on rd3.) The fighter can also be landed in Pakistan on rd1, with the intention of hitting Turkey, and potentially landing on the UK carrier from the Mediterranean, ultimately en route to Europe. It can be kept in this theatre instead, especially if WE is committed to placing more infantry into Indochina.

You can also consider sending a transport with 2 infantry from Italy to Sudan, to reach Pakistan on rd2; this gives you some more forces if you want WE to be able to attack in the region. You can also send your bomber from France (carrying 1 paratrooper) to Pakistan on rd1.

UK:
Send everything from India into Pakistan on rd1. The transport from India can be sent down to pick up the infantry from South Africa (moved to Mozambique on rd1), and the transport from the Mediterranean can pick up the armor from South Africa (moved to Tanganyika on rd1) by moving to the Red Sea. These units can then reach Pakistan on rd2. With land units in Pakistan, these transports can be used to amphibiously assault Turkey, or else be moved into the Mediterranean to create the “Orient Express” floating bridge, from either France or Italy to either Greece or Turkey.

The fighter from Australia can reach India on rd1. The transport at Australia should be used to move 2 infantry to India, so that they can then be moved to Pakistan on rd2; this transport can then be sent back to Australia on rd2, to pick up 1 more infantry there + 1 infantry from Singapore on rd3 (ending its turn in the Burma SZ, and unloading into either Burma or Indochina.) You need to decide if you want to keep producing 2 inf per turn in Singapore to continue using this transport, or to instead produce those 2 inf over in the UK.

The UK can also send a bomber + paratrooper from France to Pakistan on rd1; you can decide if you want to move your remaining infantry from France to Italy, and potentially land your starting UK bomber there, to pick up a paratrooper and carry it to Pakistan on rd2. The fighter from the UK carrier in the Italy SZ can also reach Pakistan on rd1; you may want to consider sending the UK’s fighter to land on this carrier in Italy SZ on rd1, and then continue to Pakistan on rd2.

US:
If you plan to be feeding this theatre with 2 inf per turn from the Philippines, then you should also consider some or all of these moves:

The tank on Okinawa can be transported to Burma on rd1, and move to Pakistan on rd2; this transport is then in position to pick up infantry from the Philippines every round (until relieved by another transport; read on…)

The US can transport 2 infantry (or 1 armor) from Italy to Sudan (much as WE can do) to arrive in Pakistan on rd2; this transport can then continue on towards the Philippines to replace the transport that started at Okinawa. You can also consider sending the US fighter from Italy either to Sudan or onto the UK carrier, to reach Pakistan on rd2.

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If you implement this plan, along with consistently placing the 5 UK infantry in the region every round (and moving them forward) you should be able to fend off Soviet advances from both Iran and through the Chinese territory of Sinkiang. You don’t want to leave India weak, but if you’re placing 3 inf and moving in 1 more (from Burma) you should be set. It can be risky if the USSR moves heavily into the region, so it’s not advisable to build an IC in India with this strategy (as well as for other reasons.)

[The Janus]

We’s fightin’!

After a relatively long hiatus, @The_Good_Captain and I have been getting in a few games of E&W.

I’ve mostly been playing as the USSR recently; as I may have said before, I think my opponent has probably nailed down the ideal Soviet opener, so I’ve been trying to go a little off the beaten trail.

In this video, you can see my latest attempt – a “no Turkey attack” opening move as the USSR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zydQmlM2JWI

Thanks again to @The_Good_Captain for editing and posting the video.
Feel free to comment below (and if you’d like us to make separate comment threads for actual gameplay, let us know that as well.)

[The_Good_Captain]

I’ve just posted the second round (in two parts). If anyone was interested in a game, please reach out to either of us.

Here is the link to the first part of round 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQjGkXAKE3U

[The Janus]

Overall thoughts on the USSR:

Generally speaking, the conventional wisdom/orthodoxy amongst E&W players is that you need to at least take out West Germany, Greece, Turkey, and South Korea on rd1; if you’re going to push for taking out all of the countries in Scandinavia, you’d likely add Norway to that list. Aside from West Germany, you want to place infantry on the front lines on rd0, to be used in those attacks on rd1.

What @The_Good_Captain tends to do at sea (which is… unorthodox, but that may have to do with us old-timers not fully reading/understanding the submarine rules, back in the day) is to send transports and a fighter to clear the US sub at Guam, while sending the rest of the fleet (along with the bomber) to the Japan SZ, but having 1 attacking sub retreat to the Marcus Island SZ after the first round of combat. This blocks the other US fleets (and particularly, the US transport at Hawaii) from reaching either the Japan SZ or the East Siberia SZ, on rd1.

As a minor side comment, I find the 3rd Edition style of sub rules like these to be a little bit janky, in the sense that it ‘breaks’ the general rule that “all combat occurs simultaneously.” Specifically, I always understood this to mean not just attacking/defending rounds of combat in a single space, but also all spaces in combat, on the same turn.
With this sub movement put into place, it actually matters which of these two sea combats is resolved first, because the US sub at Guam SZ could potentially retreat into the Marcus Island SZ, thus spoiling the other part of this move. So, this rule necessarily means that each battle has to be done in a particular order (which, to my experience, wasn’t the norm in 2nd Edition Classic) especially when dealing with battles in adjacent sea zones, where subs are involved.

Now, my particular deviations from this overall strategy aren’t a refutation of them. My style is more “ok, that worked; now, what else works?” whereas the Captain tends to brute-force a winning strategy until someone or something breaks it.

In our recent games, there have been 3 driving ideas behind what I’ve been doing differently:

1. Sending the armor from Moscow to East Siberia, rather than Turkey. Generally speaking, I think one of the better strategies is to bottle up India with a huge wave of Infantry, and then pull back offensive units out to other theatres. The problem is that the armor are kinda slow, and I’d rather put them in a position to counter-attack Kamchatka and North Korea, ASAP.

2. Setting up air forces for naval attacks on rd2. Now, with the hindsight of some experience, this doesn’t work well at all – the Soviet fleets are in a lot better position to do damage to their NATO counterparts, before they’ve had a turn to merge up. But suffice it to say, this is why I have been largely keeping the Soviet navy out of major battles on rd1.

3. Reducing the number of combat rounds in rd1 battles. The idea essentially being “a penny saved is a penny earned”; what I was finding with the Captain’s moves is that the USSR was kind of gassed out on rd2, and didn’t have many infantry left after most battles (particularly in Greece, Turkey, and South Korea.) A slight shift in the odds could leave you in a really weak position in any/all of these battles, so I wanted to commit overwhelming force to land battles – in the process, stripping air power from naval battles. Ideally, you want the average number of combat rounds below 2, to produce the best results.

Ultimately, this 3rd point comes with some sacrifices (particularly combined with the 1st point) – in short, you typically end up ‘skipping’ one of the rd1 battles in order to beef up the others. By not sending the armor against Turkey, you end up having to pull fighters and/or heavy armor away from West Germany and/or Greece in order to compensate… meaning you usually skip Greece.

In this latest game, I went the other way around, skipping Turkey instead. Being isolated, it’s a little harder for NATO to move units in or out of, compared to Greece; it also has the benefit of that big stack of infantry in Moscow just waiting to be moved up to the front line. By not controlling the strait, you’re potentially sacrificing your Black Sea fleet – but I almost never end up being able to use them offensively anyway, so I don’t see that as a factor.

One of the pros to skipping any battle is that you don’t have to put any rd0 resources towards that battle, leaving more for others – typically West Germany, or possibly a Pakistan attack. The cons of skipping a battle is not destroying NATO “equipment” (particularly fighters) in Greece, Turkey, and/or South Korea.

It’s for this reason that I would posit the idea that the “ideal” battle to skip would be Norway, since it has no equipment in it, only infantry; I’ve seen the Captain pull 2 infantry out of Norway (when I’ve done this in conjunction with other strategies) but other than a move where you skip Greece / stack Yugoslavia strongly on rd1, NATO would be pulling these 2 infantry out of wherever you skipped a battle anyway (in Europe, at least.) So, probably the next go-round I take as the Soviets, a “no Norway attack”-strat on rd1 might make an appearance.

The other thing I’m weighing is how to distribute air power in Asia/Pacific on rd1; basically, the two fighters and 1 bomber can all participate in either the South Korea battle or the Japan SZ battle – so do you go all in on one, or the other, or split them? If you go all in on the naval battle(s), do you ‘skip’ South Korea entirely (negating a rd0 placement in North Korea)?
What I’ve come to find out is that crippling the Japan SZ fleet is critical, because the shore bombardments for the US are so potent – particularly if the US is all-in on the Pacific theatre. So an “overwhelming force” doctrine for land battles in Europe might not be what the doctor ordered, on the other side of the map.

[The Janus]

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Overall thoughts on the USSR:

One other minor thought that I would add is that I don’t generally find myself in a position to spend money on spies, as the USSR. I think the priority (as @The_Good_Captain plays it) would be using your spies to kill all of NATO’s spies… and if they stay dead, then the secondary priority would be boosting favour with China. Stealing nuclear tech would also be tempting.

As it is, the Captain will always replace NATO spies that get killed, and it never seems to have any material impact on him (militarily or otherwise.)

So I’ve generally resigned myself to:
a) rolling the free counter-intelligence, but otherwise not bothering with spying, and;
b) not building any strategy around relying on China (either moving through their territory, or them defending North Korea) beyond the first round.

[The Janus]

@the-janus said in “East & West” by Imp Games - Discussion:

Pakistan: the other, other keystone state

A brief UK strategy discussion

(starting setup for the region)

Building off of this post, I think a broader discussion of the overall UK strategy is warranted.

Essentially, I would proffer that there are 4 places from which the UK can meaningfully generate units:

1. UK
2. India
3. Singapore
4. Ontario

The way I tend to look at it is that whatever you do on the rest of the board determines what you do at your capitol; if you place 5 infantry around India, then you’re going to place 3 transport loads in UK – either all infantry, or 4 infantry and 1 tank. If you control Pakistan, you’ll place those 5 infantry in Pakistan, India, and Burma; if you lose Pakistan, you’ll probably place in India and Singapore instead.

The unique positioning of Singapore means that you can do some interesting things with it, just by using one transport:

• Move 2 infantry to Burma every round
• Move 2 infantry to India every round
• Move 2 infantry to Pakistan (or Iran) on round X, and move 2 infantry to Burma on round X+1
• Move 2 infantry to Korea on round X, and move 2 infantry to Burma on round X+1

Now the question that always gets asked is whether to build an IC – and possibly, whether it should be built in India or Singapore.
As demonstrated above, the positioning of Singapore makes it an appealing choice, but it has all the same problems as a Philippines IC – with the added problem of the UK having less income than the US. Do you want to have to commit 3 transports so that you can build 2 tanks every round?

With an India IC, you’re committing at least 6 infantry (18 IPCs) per round to the theatre. Without building an IC, you can easily commit 5, and with 1 transport you can boost that up to 7. If that’s the case, then why even bother with the IC?

So let’s assume you’re using the IC to build armor instead:
3 infantry + 3 tanks = 24 IPCs
This leaves 9 IPCs for the rest of the board, meaning likely just 2 infantry for Europe… doable, but probably not advisable.
With a Singapore IC, 2 infantry + 2 tanks = 16 IPCs… assuming you spend at least another 9 IPCs for 3 infantry in India (total of 25 IPCs) that leaves just 8 IPCs for the rest of the map… also gross.

Probably (barring heavy armor, or self-propelled artillery) the best use of an India IC is something like 5 infantry + 1 tank, per round (20 IPCs). This leaves 13 IPCs for the rest of the map – essentially 4 infantry.
The other option would be 4 infantry + 2 tanks for India (22 IPCs), leaving 2 infantry + 1 tank for the UK (11 IPCs).
Generally I like to have the UK putting out 3 transport loads every round, but I’d say 2 is the bare minimum.

Now, the Ontario strategy is a very niche kind of build, but it is super fun if you’re willing to commit to it.

1. You need to commit (at least) your transports from India and Australia; send them up to the Chukchi Sea ASAP
2. You probably need to send both bombers towards Western Canada (and eventually Japan)

What this allows you to do is create essentially a complimentary Western Canada shuck to help your American friends; similar to Singapore you can:

• Move 4 infantry to East Siberia every round
• Move 4 infantry to Kamchatka every round
• Move 4 infantry to Korea on round X, and move 4 infantry to Kamchatka on round X+1

Because Ontario is worth 2 IPCs, the IC there allows you to build 4 infantry, then you can simply march them forward to Western Canada to get the pipeline rolling. If you can swing a 3rd transport over in that direction, you can instead place 1 infantry in Western Canada every round, along with 3 infantry + 1 tank in Ontario (the Quebec transport could reach the Chukchi Sea by round 4, but could actually reach Western Canada by round 3; the Italy transport would take until round 5.) It’s a very handy tactic for punching holes in the far east, to allow the US to walk in unopposed and reinforce those positions.

If you’re committing 12 IPCs per round to Ontario, that leaves a healthy 21 IPCs (7 infantry) to split between India and the UK – in other words, likely 3 infantry for India, and 2 transport loads for the UK.

[The Janus]

Re: infantry placement rule in E&W, other general thoughts

One thing I’ve recently come to realize / appreciate about the infantry placement rule is that it really goes a long way to reversing the imbalances of the shuck-shuck (if not necessarily negating them.) This means that the game is a lot more more even vis-a-vis a land power like the USSR and countries that rely on navies.

What I mean by that is, transports effectively allow infantry to move across an ocean at faster speeds than they move across land. This seems… weird. So, while the “global” infantry placement rule may also seem weird and unrealistic, particularly in certain circumstances (US infantry in Japan or Iceland being examples that always stuck out to me) I think the rule actually is a step forward, in terms of mechanics. Sometimes I sort of just assume it’s meant to replicate something more akin to rail movement, or (especially for the USSR) communist / partisan uprisings. Create whatever fiction you want.

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As those who have followed the videos might have noticed, E&W games are very short. Back in the day, my friend and I figured an average game was decided at about the 4th round; I believe the Captain pegged it as being within 4 to 8 rounds, in his video. This is a stark departure from A&A, where (for example) me playing E&W on the Classic map in TripleA takes something like 20 rounds for a NATO victory, and usually at least double that for the USSR to build enough boats to win.

Since the way we’re playing is effectively “PBEM” with MapView support, we usually can get through a game at a rate of about 1 “turn” (USSR, or all three NATO turns) per day – meaning we can wrap up a game in 1.5 to 2 weeks, tops. Part of that may be the distinct lack of a back-and-forth, in the sense of a game like A&A1914, just for example.

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I do think that the speed of the game is definitely a point in its favour, particularly in the electronic format. I say this because (obviously) setup and teardown are very quick, but also because the units fit into the territories much better. As I can recall, on my physical map you could barely fit in a chipped stack of infantry onto territories like Poland, the Balkan countries, North or South Korea, etc. let alone any tanks or planes that were supposed to be there.

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I love cruisers, and I think they work particularly well for this game; IMO the reason that we didn’t get the W@W-esque “half-battleship” unit (although I think that’s a general QOL improvement) is because E&W is so slanted in terms of the naval game. I think the way that damaged battleships are handled is meant to give the Soviets more of a chance, in that regard; they aren’t useless once they’re damaged but IMO it negates their main selling point – namely, shore bombardment. If I’m NATO, I tend to try and save a cruiser (or even a sub, if it’s early in the game) rather than a damaged battleship.

[The_Good_Captain]

hey everyone! My conversation with @The-Janus is available as an audio only podcast type conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4KrQ1V9IcI

We discuss a range of different topics related to East & West as well as review the two games that are posted previous to this conversation.