House Rules for Victory Cities

[theduke]

1. russia
2. both axis
3. western allies

I was thinking of holding off on combining turns until phase 2 modifications. Either way, the effect on that ‘before first turn’ rule is about the same from the original order. The only territories effected either way are basically you get RR and a protected Cairo and China. No difference except for no protection for Japan if UK attacks Philippines or FIC or Kwang. (all minor issues).

[theduke]

Determining the cost of Industrial Complex is good and it makes sense, except I would add initially a factory in France, 3 in the Soviet Union ( leningrad, moscow and stalingrad and possibly one in india, Austrailia, or canada.

I was debating whether to just add more ICs at the start of game and say no new ICs or just keep the ICs the same and make some really cheap. I went with the latter. I am a minimalist and I don’t want to add ICs where I think they should go when it won’t effect the game that much.

We could have an optional rule that states that at the start of the game, before anyone moves, every nation gets to purchase as many ICs as they wish. It would be a fun rule that doesn’t seriously shift the game balance.

[theduke]

Lastly, i think Hawaii was far more important to US than Kwangtung. Hawaii should be 2 and Kwangtung should be 1. This change allows more fight in the pacific, rather than china.

Kwangtung belongs to Japan at the start of the game, not the US. I want every nation to have 5 cities for simplicity. Do you mean Hawaii more important than China?

I want US to be able to only put 1 infantry in Hawaii, not 2, and I want US to be able to put 2 infantry in China, not 1, to represent those massive, massive numbers of men. I don’t want to make anymore exceptions to the ‘max infantry=VCPs’ rule if I can help it.

[theduke]

Soviets: 8
Germany:14
Japan:8
Uk:6
USA:8

Russia’s economy can only support 8 infantry per turn anyway even though the formal limit is at 13. Adjusting the ridiculously high limit of 13 for Russia won’t effect the game and just introduce one more unnecessary rule. Besides, I would probably not buy over 8 men in a turn becuase I would probably have to place that 9th man way out in Novo. That is penalty enough to deter the Russians from building over 8 men.

Do we need to adjust Germany’s limit from 13 to 14 or Japan’s from 9 to 8? The changes are so minor that I would like to keep it the same, again just to cut down on unnecessary rules.

Practically, UK’s limit is 3 with my rules. Although all the other infantry that they place look like UK troops, they are really just basically infantry from the minor Allies (Canada, Australia, India). I like the idea of keeping UK limit at 3 because it almost forces UK to also build other units like fighters without the need of completely overhauling the realative value of the various types of units.

USA can basically buy only 8 per turn now (3 for E. US + 2 for C. US + 3 for W. US). I don’t think the 1 on Hawaii will ever truly matter and the other infantry represent the Chinese, not US. The Chinese infantry won’t be able to be placed once China is taken over on the 1st-3rd turn so the US limit is basically 8 already with the rules I proposed.

[Imperious Leader]

Chongqing (2)–China
Honolulu (1)–Hawaii

what i meant was to switch these two …forget kwangtung so:

Chongqing (1)–China
Honolulu (2)–Hawaii

[Imperious Leader]

I am now convinced of your ideas, but once the allies swing their weight around and are able to get those extra infantry… it was impossible for the axis to swing the door back. This was borne out from playtesting and is where the comments came from.

[theduke]

I think the game is much better in terms of balance and realism with 1 inf per turn at Hawaii and 2 inf per turn in China. It’s possible to have Hawaii worth 2 and China worth 1 and still keep the same inf placement limits, but we’d have to add more exceptions to the rule ‘max inf=VCPs’. I don’t think it’s worth the added confusion.

I’d like to hear more on why Hawaii is more important than China. The territory labeled China on the game has much more area, much grater population, and did much more in stopping Japanese expansion.

I made the rule that the Allies could build 1 more inf per turn in captured VCs just for realism, not balance. I see your point about a snowball effect once the Axis territories start to fall. The game should be just as good with the limits for the Allies the same as the Axis, 0 in minor VCs and 1 in all the others. But then there’s only 1 inf per turn in France (that’s too small). I think you’ve convinced me to make the Allies captured VC limits the same as the Axis and just have more French inf available as a NA.

[Imperious Leader]

I’d like to hear more on why Hawaii is more important than China

I think that to the United States the events in China are not too dramatic to the overall American war plan and pretty much the war in china would not have mattered to much to the course of the war even if they were to conclude a peace. On the other hand if the US lost Hawaii… that would have been catastrophic to the ability to “funnel” units into the pacific. The doorway to the western US would be open to a very real threat. thats why “to america” losing Hawaii is much more important. Japan really does not posses the ability to take hawaii on turn one, so it can be defeated…

BTW since i can easily edit the VC cities I can add additional cities noting that stalingrad is not a current “Official” VC and possibly adding “canbarra” or “Sidney” as a new VC…

Now that we fully agree with how VC are handled in concept… we only have to make decisions on what if any additional VC are to be included and add them to each players mix of starting VC.

1. Russia gets Stalingrad’
2. germany gets Polesti oil fields in Balkans ( very important to german strategic fuel supply)
3. UK gets sidney or canberra
4. Japan gets truk or ?
5. usa gets ?

[theduke]

BTW since i can easily edit the VC cities I can add additional cities noting that stalingrad is not a current “Official” VC and possibly adding “canbarra” or “Sidney” as a new VC…

Now that we fully agree with how VC are handled in concept… we only have to make decisions on what if any additional VC are to be included and add them to each players mix of starting VC.

1. Russia gets Stalingrad’
2. germany gets Polesti oil fields in Balkans ( very important to german strategic fuel supply)
3. UK gets sidney or canberra
4. Japan gets truk or ?
5. usa gets ?

What? Since when have we been adding more VCs? I thought each nation was just getting the 5 VCs outlined above. Do you want to change those VCs, and if so how?

Oil fields as a VC? We can represent oil in the game better than with VCs IMO. Oil is not crucial for phase 1, but we can still discuss it for introduction in a later phase.

[theduke]

If you wanted to add 2 more Pacific island Japanese minor VCs in addition to Manila and Honolulu, which ones would you choose?

[Imperious Leader]

I am sorry bout my last post… you have allready covered all the necessary VC. I will add these with small numbers denoting the value on the map. I think exactly what you made is perfect. except i really feel that hawaii and that china spot should be switched in values. that is all.

I think we need to work on combat system next. ill post another land combat idea soon…

[theduke]

I got it! I was just fooling around with some more calculations on VCs and I came up with a system that’s much, much better! I’ll work on posting the new VC system in a new topic.

BTW, it’s too bad we can’t come to an agreement about the China/Hawaii issue. If we switch the values they won’t really flow with the rest of the game. China needs to be able to build 2 inf, otherwise it will fall too easily. 2 inf in Hawaii isn’t realistic. I have a problem with US putting 1 inf there per turn, let alone 2.

[Imperious Leader]

Naw its a small point… let it stay how it is… I guess its a balance issue vs. Historical thing and a minor one at that.