Yeah, that sounds about right.
Development of Alternate Version of Rules
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I live in Savannah, TN.
Do you guys realize this game would not take hours but days to play? Cool ideas though!
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Tigerman77 you are correct. I know that for many, AA needs to be completed in a long afternoon as the game is designed. However, Bud T and I leave the game set up and come back to it week by week. This is simply unrealistic for many. There are ideas about establishing victory conditions for shorter gaming. However, as we continue to play-test these rule changes it is quite enjoyable. It is almost a new genre of board gaming in some sense, much like when someone does campaign mode on the Xbox and comes back to it when they have time. They save where they left off. The complexity allows for much variation in play. One will never play the same AA game twice! Thanks for your input and your achievement in the map.
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three more things.
- what kind of map changes did you find necessary? i have heard several people talking about the way turkey is divided up, and just based on historical knowledge i have of the region i could see a different design making sense. i personally so far have divided western poland into 3 zones to better deploy the polish armies to their respective historical regions. in addition i’ve divided reims into three zones, east reims, i.e. the maginot line section, the ardennes section which is where the main german mechanized advance occurred because french and british theoreticians didn’t believe a large mechanized force could make an assault through the dense woods, and west reims where the bulk of the french forces were located to advance into the low countries where it was believed the Germans would attempt to recreate the schlieffen plan from the first world war. these are the only territory modifications i’ve made so far because i havent set up my game and looked at what areas need to be adapted to better suit a 1 month turn.
2) i realized that earlier when i mentioned counter battery fire and you asked a question about how often this happened i never replied. i personally am a history major at UMBC and my area of interest is military history in the first half of the twentieth century. I’ve read a lot more scholarship on the first world war compared to the second one. and just based on both German and allied powers artillery doctrine from that war, counter battery fire was very important and for the Germans very successful. so i dont think that allowing for counter battery fire in the strategic phase at a lower combat value then what artillery usually fire at in the tactical phase would be too far off. the lower combat value would represent the increased difficulty in firing at hidden artillery positions compared to infantry in the open.Â
3) my goal in trying to develop these rules is much like yours. i want to create a game that is fun but where events in the war can actually occur. my main issue with the current a & a game is that france always gets pwned which isn’t very accurate. the guderian thrust towards the channel could have just as easily been thwarted by allied efforts. however the french government believed that all hope was lost, and in churchills eyes he’s not going to continue to help defend a government that has already given up. hence the allied retreat at dunkirk. so i think to accurately represent these kinds of issues political situations would have to be very in depth. i also was toying with the idea of grand army movements. so for example you could attempt an encirclement movement and if successful an entire army could be either captured or prevented from retreating and hence completely destroyed. i think success would have to be determined by a dice role which would be effected by certain modifiers both positive and negative. what do you guys think of this kind of idea.
p.s. sorry for the rambling nature of my posts.
These are great ideas. I will examine the map changes you refer to when I get a chance. I could see that spacing may be a problem though I like the Ardennes idea. Those nuances are important. You certainly know your history. I can see why you say the things you do because of the study of military history. Most of my own studies centered on the Eastern Front. As Tigerman77 indicated, realism and playability do not always mix unless you have the time and space to leave the game set up and return to it. It does take days!
We address the grand army movement in terms of encirclement with surrender roles. If a territory is surrounded and attacked by one who wins the initiative, there is a greater propensity to surrender for the defender. Generals and air power also affect surrender roles as well. Recreating France with its military power is so difficult, because we all know they could have put up a better fight than they did. We may need to address morale as another factor to add to the mix. Thanks for your important contributions.
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Just wondering here. Have you guys considered implementing fog of war elements into the game? If so, how? Do you think it would slow the game down too much? Is it even viable with your ruleset?
The way I would do it is have 3 boards setup (one for Axis, one for Allies and one for a referee). I’d have a system setup to have reconnaissance in the game, and other ways of information gathering (informants, spies, etc, if it’s possible). You would need separate rooms and a way to communicate wirelessly (like with skype or something of the sort).
I thought about doing it a while ago myself, but as for many others, there’s lack of space, material and willingness on my friends’ part.
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I actually posted about this back in July. I also had worked out a sulyatem for the current game. But given that I don’t want to spend an extra $100 on a new board let alone $200 on two, I decided on a one board version that needs to be played with trusted friends. Given that, I don’t think it would work on my version that I’m developing just because of the sheer scale of my game. Since I’m using division as my infantry unit, you’d need to be keeping hundreds of units secret, there’s too much room for error. If you’re interested in my fog of war rules the title of my previous post was intelligence.
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How far can your ships move during non-combat movement? That’s interesting to me.
And what are the details of your railroads? I’m trying to work the trans-Siberian RR into my AA 42 variant map. I have it able to send 2 transports worth of land units from Moscow to Vladivostok during non-combat.
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Rohr,
Yeah, I remember that thread.
It’s too bad I live way farther North than all of you… Rules like these could get refined much more easily, at least for the group that would be testing them out. I have quite a collection of pieces and such myself.
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How far north? Are you in Canada?
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would anyone on this post be interested in trying a long distance game, i extended the offer to ben-d but he is in a bind as far as being able to have his board set up. i’m reluctant to extend the offer to everyone on the board because im not sure who would be trustworthy. we would need to keep an excel doc for every space and sea zone, and die rolls would occur via skype or something else of the sort. let me know if you’d be interested. this would also open up the possibility of having more people play test the variants we are all working on.
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I am :).
I’m just wondering here… Are the rules close to being documented? I know this question’s already been asked, but I’m just looking to see if they are. I’d like to show them to my friends and see if they would try the rules out (eventually*). They might provide more input on it as well if possible.
*sometime in the distant future :D
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i’ve begun documenting them but i’m still working on my setup, which has been the hardest part. especially for japan, given how spread out their navy and army is.
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@Der:
How far can your ships move during non-combat movement? That’s interesting to me.
And what are the details of your railroads? I’m trying to work the trans-Siberian RR into my AA 42 variant map. I have it able to send 2 transports worth of land units from Moscow to Vladivostok during non-combat.
For non-combat movement, ships can move 3 spaces, 4 if it is from a port, and 5 if it is from a naval base. For railroads, we said that 3 units could be moved through a rail system per turn. If a rail is damaged, then less (they have 3 points, so if a RR takes damage - like 1 point - from a strategic bombing raid - then it has 2 points remaining - and therefore 2 units can move). Certainly this can be adjusted - we could make a RR system move 4 units instead of 3…
Fog of War: because this is a strategic level game, the fog of war is difficult to implement. So, we made more variables in tactical combat to introduce more fluidity in the game: rounds of combat per offensive (0-5), surprise, surrender, initiative, retreating. Plus, what is on the board is not actually what’s “on the ground” in the strictest sense: what’s on the board is troop types in a general sense more than actual numbers - because a unit on a strategic level is about relative combat power. The great equalizer in the game is the battle board and dice. Yes, a D12 system provides more variance, but we stuck with the D6. So, the Russians at some point had 400 divisions in their army. Some of these divisions were so understrength that they would amount to a combat brigade in the US Army - 3,000 men. Russian divisions were organized smaller than German divisions. If you have a German infantry unit on the board and a Russian infantry unit on the board, they have equal combat power. But “on the ground” they are not equal number of troops at all. In the beginning of the war, that Russian infantry unit might be twice as many actual men with rifles than its German counterpart.
An example of the fog of war or variables in combat: Last week, I had 3 British Heavy Bombers attempt to pulverize Axis ground units at Tobruk. They were going to conduct a one-time saturation bombing of ground troops. The only problem: I rolled a ‘0’ for the number of combat rounds to take place - which meant that nothing happened. In the ‘real world’ several things could have been the cause for why this bombing raid failed: perhaps the bombers got lost, had bad intelligence and couldn’t find targets, had maintenance problems, logistical problems - who knows… You can do a little role-playing here if you want. Whatever happened, the British failed (which is really bad right now for me - really bad).
We’re playing tomorrow night and Weds. morning. We want to get rules out ASAP. But we want to play-test it thoroughly. The writing of the rules will be the most important. We will spell everything out and provide examples - as if the reader has never played Axis and Allies in their life (even though many will have). The introduction will give the reader a rationale for the game and the change in mentality needed to enjoy it - to be in it for the long haul.
I agree with Tigerman77: this game will take days even weeks to play - even longer - depending on how much you play per session. We are going to introduce building times. We’ve determined that units you buy are already in some ways sort of on the books - that they’re not created from scratch completely - especially ships. Normally, a battleship took 2-3 years to build; a cruiser 1 year - we reduced it to 4 turns. Infantry is 1 turn. So, if you buy an infantry unit in March 1940, you can put it into play the following turn (April 1940) during place new units - essentially 2 actual months: beginning of March you buy - training takes place; April comes - training and equipping - at the end of April it can go on the board during place new units. Replacements, however, in which damaged units can be repaired, are repaired during phase 1 of a turn provided they are at an IC or a Forward Supply Base. This assumes that there are replacements and new equipment in theater already.
I’m finding out that in the old AA versions, I didn’t have to think through things too carefully at some point. After playing for 20 years+ I found few surprises in the game. That’s why we embarked on this advanced version. You really don’t know all the variables - it’s too fluid - you have to really sit down and think what you’re going to do, what your opponent might do, and prepare for a catastrophe because it’s going to happen. I think variable turn order had changed the game in such a way that it is impossible to play a similar game. You have to think to yourself: What if the Germans go first this round in tactical turn order? Are you prepared for that? The war moves at a slower pace precisely because of this. It took the US and British six months+ to dislodge Rommel from North Africa - from November 1942 to May 1943. In our game, the British are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to defend Cairo. The Americans are not in the war yet (who knows when they will be?). The Axis own the Mediterranean to my detriment. The Japanese own Burma. Their progress in China has slowed some and the Soviets have attacked the Japanese to relieve pressure on the British and Chinese. Japan invaded Western Australia in Feb. 1940 - last month, and ANZAC can’t dislodge them - it’s been contested… The Axis owns the Atlantic and the British can’t really build ships that won’t be sunk. It’s difficult. Thank God the German navy doesn’t have too many transports to attempt a Sea Lion. But I think he might. And he’ll be reading this post so I shouldn’t give him any ideas…
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For facility bombing and saturation bombing do you have escorts and intercepting? just in general how do you do these two strategic attacks?
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For facility bombing and saturation bombing do you have escorts and intercepting? just in general how do you do these two strategic attacks?
We are revamping the sequences here. In short we do have these rules. For saturation this is one of the missions we have. We are adding reconnaissance as a type of air mission in naval battles (remember Strawberry 5 in Midway finding the Japanese Navy?) I know it has been awhile since we have posted but we have play-tested a version but have needed to make some revisions. We are adding new weapons development and timetables for producing units (as suggested by you and others) as well as a few new types of units (militia/auxiliaries) and medium bombers. We are increasing maritime movement. We are adding weather as a significant factor (after all weather played a factor in countless engagements including D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and Stalingrad and Russia in general).
The hardest part is set-up. Not every unit listed in the beginning of the game is mobilized on the board. Some of it is in process. The French army is not quite ready. They boast 5,000,000 in Reserves but these will be designated as auxiliaries and not as good. These nuances will help with the realism in determining combat power. We are adding Industrial complexes in the US as well as railroads in Europe.
We are typing this up. What will be needed to play is Global 1939 with all the necessary parts.
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Have you considered bombing of fortresses and a separate artillery phase, like in inasion of italy?
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Have you considered bombing of fortresses and a separate artillery phase, like in inasion of italy?
In terms of bombing fortresses - absolutely we have this as a strategic-phase action which goes before the tactical phase. In terms of artillery, we have considered an artillery phase but due to this being a strategic level game, we have included artillery along with all ground units in that attack or defense. We do have where improved artillery can pinpoint and select targets.
Thanks for asking. We are getting ready to launch the new rules version.
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I don’t know if anyone is still interested out there, but we’re play-testing the final version of the rules for this. Some significant changes have taken place as we have thought about World War II. They are the following:
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Using a D20 for combat (along with the D6 and D12 for other things too). Buying D20 dice is easy if you don’t have any - they’re fairly cheap to get at your local game store or on-line. The D20 system allows for more variance between national armies, which is number 2) below. Ground units, for example, have a TH OFF POS score, which means a “to hit, offensive posture score” - i.e., let’s say a German Infantry in the Offensive Posture has a score of 17. The player needs to roll a 17 or higher on the D20 to hit. I basically converted the percentage ratios of the D6 into the D20. So, needing a 1 on the D6 now could mean a range of 17-20, depending on your unit/nationality and other stuff.
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Variance of national armies. What I have done is make a series of reasonably easy-to-read charts for all the units and their capabilities by nation. Germany Infantry are better than Italian Infantry. You will be able to see the differences.
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Terrain and weather: I’ve updated our weather chart based off of world-wide seasonal weather patterns. It took some time, but I think it’ll work (there were a few problems with our earlier version). Terrain: we’ve added Rivers to certain territories - most territories have rivers, but we’re only concerned with large rivers and delta areas - places that could impeded military progress significantly. It’ll affect combat in the first round of a battle and give defenders bonuses.
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We’ve reworked strategic bombing damage on factories. It’ll probably take months of sustained strategic bombing to really start affecting the war. But it will. Major Ind. Complexes don’t have negative production capacity until after 20 points of damage, for example…
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Limitations to industrial production: Major ICs can produce up to 6 mechanized units, planes or ships per turn; Minor ICs 1 mech. unit (i.e. Light Tank, Medium Tank, Heavy Tank, Self-Propelled Artillery, all planes, all ships). There are no limitations for Infantry, Auxiliary Infantry, AA Guns, Artillery or Paratroopers) - except one’s normal production capacity. We found it unrealistic that South Africa could produce so many tanks.
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We’ve split the economies of Canada and South Africa.
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UK-London, British Empire Far East, Canada, South Africa and ANZAC all go at the same time for strategic and tactical combat.
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Destroyer screens during naval combat.
More to follow… I have to run at the moment!
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@Bud:
I don’t know if anyone is still interested out there, but we’re play-testing the final version of the rules for this. Some significant changes have taken place as we have thought about World War II. They are the following:
-
Using a D20 for combat (along with the D6 and D12 for other things too). Buying D20 dice is easy if you don’t have any - they’re fairly cheap to get at your local game store or on-line. The D20 system allows for more variance between national armies, which is number 2) below. Ground units, for example, have a TH OFF POS score, which means a “to hit, offensive posture score” - i.e., let’s say a German Infantry in the Offensive Posture has a score of 17. The player needs to roll a 17 or higher on the D20 to hit. I basically converted the percentage ratios of the D6 into the D20. So, needing a 1 on the D6 now could mean a range of 17-20, depending on your unit/nationality and other stuff.
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Variance of national armies. What I have done is make a series of reasonably easy-to-read charts for all the units and their capabilities by nation. Germany Infantry are better than Italian Infantry. You will be able to see the differences.
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Terrain and weather: I’ve updated our weather chart based off of world-wide seasonal weather patterns. It took some time, but I think it’ll work (there were a few problems with our earlier version). Terrain: we’ve added Rivers to certain territories - most territories have rivers, but we’re only concerned with large rivers and delta areas - places that could impeded military progress significantly. It’ll affect combat in the first round of a battle and give defenders bonuses.
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We’ve reworked strategic bombing damage on factories. It’ll probably take months of sustained strategic bombing to really start affecting the war. But it will. Major Ind. Complexes don’t have negative production capacity until after 20 points of damage, for example…
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Limitations to industrial production: Major ICs can produce up to 6 mechanized units, planes or ships per turn; Minor ICs 1 mech. unit (i.e. Light Tank, Medium Tank, Heavy Tank, Self-Propelled Artillery, all planes, all ships). There are no limitations for Infantry, Auxiliary Infantry, AA Guns, Artillery or Paratroopers) - except one’s normal production capacity. We found it unrealistic that South Africa could produce so many tanks.
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We’ve split the economies of Canada and South Africa.
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UK-London, British Empire Far East, Canada, South Africa and ANZAC all go at the same time for strategic and tactical combat.
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Destroyer screens during naval combat.
More to follow… I have to run at the moment!
Wow Bud, you all have put some time into this. I really like 20 sided dice, because you can do so much with them, and I have plenty of them from D&D and fantasy games.
I can’t wait for your final rules.
This sounds very interesting. :-)
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Thank you John Brown. I’m back…
Additional rule changes:
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Destroyer screens: Destroyers can try to intercept attacking subs before they reach the rest of the fleet (kind of like the way a Fighter scrambles to intercept an attacking bomber) - but on water. A submarine/anti-submarine warfare phase always goes before surface warfare (right after the Air Battle phase in Air-Naval Combat).
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Weapons, Technology & Research Development: certain nations can acquire most of these; some nations are restricted to a few. We researched who had what technology or was “working on it” so to speak. Some countries start off with a few WTR developments at the beginning of the game too to reflect reality.
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Politics. We know some people might not like political complexity to this game, but we had to make it realistic. And if Germany decides to start the war in Europe by attacking someone else besides Poland, that option is available. But, we want to remind players that World War II has already begun in a sense - Japan has attacked Nationalist and Communist China, the latter entities are supported by Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States (historically, anyways).
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We lowered Italian overall IPC levels a bit. We did change how the United States would enter the war too. They start at 0, and do not roll to add to their national production until January 1940 (provided they are not attacked). They’ll roll IPCs until they reach 30 and will be capped at 30 until November of 1940, in which the US begins rolling 2-7 IPCs per month (plus bonuses). It signals the change in the Roosevelt Administration after the November 1940 election. The IPC level will also increase every turn by certain events on the board as a reaction to Axis aggression, including Axis occupation of Atlantic convoy zones. France has a similar slow start - because although France boasted of having 5,000,000 reservists, they couldn’t call them up easily. And this reflects French political leadership and their unwillingness to fight an offensive war. The French player can certainly attack the Germans, but it’s really risky because they won’t have much in the way of reinforcements during the Fall of 1939…
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We really boosted the US strategic infrastructure. The US will be fully mobilized at 92 IPCs plus a 20 IPC bonus. Lend lease has been changed. The US can give up to 18 IPCs to Allied countries per month. The British can give 5; the Soviet Union can give C. China 1-2 IPCs per month.
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Vichy rules. Simplified rules. Corsica remains Free French. All other French territories automatically become Vichy. Units on those countries may join the Axis or disband. Ships might be scuttled, join the Axis or the Allies. French troops in Allied controlled territories might remain Free French or disband.
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Partisans and Axis Auxiliary troops. We’ve made an interesting chart that outlines potential Partisan uprisings and Axis Auxiliaries at certain times.
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A general Events Chart is rolled every month that could affect one or more players - inflation, industrial fires, civilian volunteers, economic surges and also problems…Roll D30.
Anyways, these are a few things. We don’t know who will play this version. Perhaps no one will want to. That’s okay with us. But, what we’re going to do is play a few months of the war and then present the rules. The rules will be long and somewhat complex - I’m going to try to write them in such a way as to provide clarity and consistency throughout. Right now it’s about 55 pages long. It’ll probably end up being a little longer than that. Charts will be in the rules and also in an appendix for quick reference. We’ll also include a list of all units needed to play and our suggested map revisions. Those map revisions do not have to be “permanent” - just use scotch tape and a marker. We made our own terrain markers but one can just go to Staples and buy 1/4" colored dots (red=urban; yellow=mountainous; green=jungle/forest; blue=river or in a sea zone to account for 2 spaces to expand the Pacific Ocean since we think it should be bigger).
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We will keep everyone posted about the final testing phase of this and then get the rules out. It is important to keep in mind that this will not be a “play in the afternoon” type of game but more or less like an RPG that is on-going. It will not be decided in three turns.
We broke down and finally added light tanks too. Just remember the roll to hit on the D20 represents “combat power” which can include a variety of things: quality of unit, tactical leadership, communications, logistics, training and tactical doctrine, etc. It is not “this was a better tank” and so it this piece should be higher. There are many factors that go into combat power.
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