I am of no relation to him. Likely just a similar appreciation of the movie Gunga Din.
[Global1940] Idea for Balancing
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Given the consensus that the game OOB favors the Axis, and I personally don’t like bidding, I was thinking that a slight rule tweak could really balance the game. What if the DEI were automatically UK-PAC from the start? This would make historical sense and it could really prop up the Allies economy against the early Japanese onslaught. Any thoughts on this would be really appreciated!
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P Panther moved this topic from Axis & Allies Global 1940 on
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Wouldn’t be enough. The Japanese could easily take all three of those islands on Japan 2, which means that the allies will only collect the money for one Turn. $11 in the pockets of UK Pacific is virtually useless in comparison to a $50-$60 Bid.
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50-60? that much?
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If you don’t want to make many changes, just combine UK Europe and Pacific into 1 economy with London as the capital.
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It’s been interesting over the years reading about all of the various rule modifications, bidding, and setup variants all in an efdort to balance the game.
Of all the discussions, I may have missed where the goal of balancing, or definition of “balanced” means? Is it to enable the game to be won by either side assuming player skill and strategy are equal, or to allow for more historically aligned unfolding of events? The latter seems illogical, as trying to create calculated, pre-set outcomes in a game of a real war that itself was navigated through a global fog of war would require cumbersome rules that restrict player creativity and inhibit fun gameplay. The entire premise of playing a historical event themed game being to see how YOU would have done it differently would seemed to be lost. That being said, using iterative setup variants - 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, etc, does create nuanced scenarios challenging a player with “How would you have done it, from this point on?” with victory conditions varrying through the years from complete conquest, to holding off conquest for as long as possible.
That being said, the former goal of balancing - enabling the game to be won by either side - is achieved via setup modifications/bidding, permanent or phased gameplay rule changes, and altered victory conditions. Additional rule modifications for gameplay interest inherently have an effect on balancing even when equally apllied to all powers, as the economic and current unit positions magnify or reduce the impact of the rule.
Finally, the question behind the question, why do all of the above balancing? While the answer may seem obvious to each of us in it’s own way, have we paused to ask ourselves, what is the ultimate purpose of bringing balance to game that is fundamentally about creating imbalance? How does answering that question change our approach to “balancing” techniques. Do we try to achieve balanance by equalizing - bringing all variables towards the center of the balance beam - or by diversifying - sending variables for each power further toward the extremes? The result of the latter would be playing with powers that have very distinct and unique strengths and weaknesses, versus all powers being more or less equal in terms of functioning, with current unit mass and economic prowess being the only differentiators.
Two cents: I find playing with more distinct and variable national attributes to be far better (and more fun) at achieving balance. Consider in real life, how a tight-rope walker uses a long pole to balance rather than trying to squish their entire body down to a single point over the rope. Historically we see this as well in the war: the US didn’t build a Tiger tank to balance out the Germans Tiger, they mass produced the Sherman and gained air superiority. The Germans didn’t build a bunker buster to defeat the Maginot line, they used mechanized forces to manuever around it. The US didn’t send 2 million Marines to invade mainland Japan, they used the atom bomb. Finland didn’t build up armor divisions to counter the Soviets, they strapped on ski’s and lit bottles of booze on fire… I digress!
Curious to hear others thoughts and philosophies on this, and maybe spark some new thoughts around game mods!
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@SeaYa said in [Global1940] Idea for Balancing:
to enable the game to be won by either side assuming player skill and strategy are equal
That’s always been my understanding of what “balancing” the game means.
A lot of the players in the League here are some of the best in the world having played 100’s of games, some even more, so their ideas of balancing the game don’t really apply to beginners or intermeidate/casual players.
Anyway, to have balance and a high degree of historical accuracy, I suggest trying @The-Captain s Global1940HouseRulesExpansion
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/37535/the-captain-s-global-1940-house-rules-collectionThe multiple strategies to victory allow newcomer and experienced vet both chances to win, albeit with the vet usually still having an advantage.
The Danish Axies and Allies Community has documented over a thousand games played and have refined this mod over decades of play using various iterations of A&A.
I highly recommend it :)
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