Axis and Allies Revised Varient ( historical edition) Phase one proposal (draft)

[theduke]

I’ll answer your questions but I first want to introduce you more idea I have for techs. In order to incourage a more steady purchasing strategy for tech development we should introduce the following rule:

Tech Development Re-startup fee:
If on any turn a given nation doesn’t purchase any tech rolls, then on the next turn that the nation buys at least 1 tech roll, the nation must pay an additional 5 IPCs as a re-startup penalty.

Onto the movement questions…

At midway the carriers traveled separate because they could get to where they were wanted much quicker, while the Battleships were in a followup fleet to deliver the “coupe de main” on any surface action that was possible.

So I guess we agree it’s good to have CVs move at 3. I’m OK with having DDs only move 2, like all other ships.

I feel it will work as you do, but why don’t you feel it wont work if they move 3 in combat phase like cruisers?

I don’t want US exploiting the 3 moves. What I’m envisioning is Japan having a lone transport 3 away and a US CV with no fighters moving 3 to attack the lone transport. This will probably never happen in a game but at the same time I don’t want to give CVs any added incentive to be used as attack units by themselves. If they move 3 in only non-combat then they can still move just as far as your proposing to be used as a fighter platform, which is their main purpose. If they can move 3 and attack then the only extra advantage these CVs have is that they can participate in combat themselves (all fighters associated with the CV can still attack just like before since no thing’s stopping the CV from moving 3 to that same space in non-combat). Does that rambling make any sense?

[Guerrilla Guy]

Maybe you guys are looking at it in the wrong sense… Fleets speeds were varied based on what they were travelling with… If you want to make “Non-combat Naval Moves” and “Combat Naval Moves” Then separate “Fleets” from “Ships”… That will introduce a whole new tactic to the game… “Convoys”(referring to Transports plus Escorts) can move fast, at the expense of “Search and Destroy” Moves in a territory… They just want to get to their destination without engaging… “Fleets” move entirely differently… They move all at 2 and cannot have this “3 move” stuff, but they gain advantages that individual units wouldn’t have (Search and Destroy, Preemptive Fire from Battleships, etc.)

ideas? or a total waste of a post?

GG

[Imperious Leader]

I don’t want US exploiting the 3 moves. What I’m envisioning is Japan having a lone transport 3 away and a US CV with no fighters moving 3 to attack the lone transport. This will probably never happen in a game but at the same time I don’t want to give CVs any added incentive to be used as attack units by themselves. If they move 3 in only non-combat then they can still move just as far as your proposing to be used as a fighter platform, which is their main purpose. If they can move 3 and attack then the only extra advantage these CVs have is that they can participate in combat themselves (all fighters associated with the CV can still attack just like before since no thing’s stopping the CV from moving 3 to that same space in non-combat). Does that rambling make any sense?

OK i am going along with this reasoning. So Lets incorporate the naval fighter concept and move forward. So cruisers and CV move 3 in non combat… good.

[tekkyy]

@theduke:

Why do we need to denote CVs with US markers? All CVs should be represented the same.

I was thinking they are allowed to build normal (stronger) CVs if they wanted to.

If the enemy AA gun hits a bomber with LRA, it should at least be registered as a full hit on a fighter escort unit (=10 IPCs). Not half an escort unit. Where are you getting 5 IPCs from?

I don’t know the scale of things. I was thinking an escort unit has less planes than a fighter unit. I was also thinking escort units cost less than full blown fighter unit.

I don’t think it should apply to regular combat, but it’s still on the drawing board.

Thats fine. I don’t think planes needs to be detected in regular combat either.

[tekkyy]

@theduke:

Against air units:
No more than 3 AA guns may fire in any 1 territory. Anytime an enemy air unit flies over a territory, either in combat or non-combat move phases, the AA guns may fire against those air units. Each AA gun (up to 3) rolls 1 die to target an air unit. For every roll of a 1 or 2 an air unit has been targeted. For every successful target roll roll another die to determine the number of air units shot down. An air unit is shot down on a roll of a 1.

The AA piece can shoot in non-combat now?
Imperious Leader sugguested adding the “damaged but not killed” effect for SBR. Should we have it for normal combat as well?
I still think prefer AA to shoot more than once, maybe up to 2 air units can be targetted? I think historically flak fire a lot and only hit sometimes. (At the moment flak fire rarely and only hit sometimes.)

Against amphibious assaults:

Thats cool.

[theduke]

As much as I don’t want to have a big list of NAs in phase 1, I think everyone can agree that a must have in any historical edition of A&A is a non-aggression treaty betwen Russia and Japan. I don’t like the OOB rules for non-aggression treaty NA. I don’t like how it’s listed as a Russian NA as if Russia shouldn’t have the same penalty that Japan gets for breaking it. I also don’t like how the penalty is that 4 infantry magically pop out of nowhere. I don’t know how this will be proposed as an optional rule yet, but it won’t be as a NA for either Russia or Japan. Here is a proposal and I need your opinions on it:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/410413awp.html

The first time in the game that either nation performs any of the following acts that nation is considered to be the aggressor in breaking the treaty:

1. When either nation conducts combat in (or flies air units over) a territory either controlled by the other nation or of the others nation’s color (Both parties will respect the other’s territorial rights).
2. When either nation moves any number of their units into a territory of the other nation’s color during the non-combat move phase (Both parties will remain neutral, even due to conflict with any 3rd power).

Once the treaty is broken the first time and the penalty is assessed to the aggressor, none of the treaty rules no longer apply.

Penalty: Immediately after the aggressor breaks the treaty (i.e. before any combat, if broken due to rule 1), the other player involved in the treaty rolls 2 dice. The lower number of the 2 rolls is the number of the aggressor’s infantry that are immediately taken from the board and replaced by infantry of the other nation involved in the treaty. These infantry represent defecting units due to decreased morale. The infantry that defect are the ones that are the fewest number of spaces away from the capital of the nation receiving the infantry. If infantry from more than 1 territory qualify, then the player receiving the infantry chooses which infantry defect. These infantry are converted to the other nation’s color and these infantry are placed in the territory of that nation that is the fewest number of spaces from where they came from.

[Imperious Leader]

OMG thats harsh!  I dont think thats historical either. Can it just be something like:

System 1:
The Soviets cannot attack Japan untill germany and italy are defeated.

If the Japanese decide to attack all soviet troops gain a +2 combat modifier against japans pieces = to the number of rounds rolled on a d6.

System 2:

Each nation has specific VC that it needs to win and Japan has no VC in Soviet territory ( so no incentive to invade)
this would presumably be based on historical victory conditions.

System 3:

NA form–- All attacks by either the soviet or japanese player (breaking the non-aggression treaty) results in the other side awarded with 4 infantry to be immediatly placed in attacked territories… or varient 2… roll d6= number of free infantry placed in this territory.

System 4:

Use Anderssons NA for this.

[theduke]

I can’t find Andersson’s rules. Can you repost them here?

If the Japanese decide to attack all soviet troops gain a +2 combat modifier against japans pieces = to the number of rounds rolled on a d6.

How is this any more realistic than what I proposed?

I like the idea of giving ‘an out’ to either side… Russia can break the treaty without penalty if all red territories+Germany+Southern Europe are all Allied occupied at that time. Japan can break the treaty without penalty if all yellow territories+China+Sinkiang+India are all occupied by the Axis at the time of breaking the treaty.

[theduke]

How about this:

3 categories of optional rules. If player’s decide to use all rules in the same category, then the game will maintain approximately the same balance.

1. National Unit Advantages
   (I don’t need to go through them again)

2. Economic Advantages
   a) Lend-Lease
   b) Italian Forces

3. Political Advantages
   a) Russian/Japanese Non-Aggression Treaty
   b) Neutral Aid

I’ve already discussed all the other advantages except the last one. Neutral Aid= If either the Axis side or the Allied side controls all the IPCs from the adjacent territories to any of the following neutral territories, then the nation that controls the majority of those IPCs gets 1 additional IPC per qualifying neutral territory.
Neutrals contributing aid:
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey

[Imperious Leader]

How is this any more realistic than what I proposed?

I like the idea of giving ‘an out’ to either side… Russia can break the treaty without penalty if all red territories+Germany+Southern Europe are all Allied occupied at that time. Japan can break the treaty without penalty if all yellow territories+China+Sinkiang+India are all occupied by the Axis at the time of breaking the treaty.

Ok during the war neither side defected to the “other side” also in 1939 soviets led by Zhukov clashed with the Kwantung Army in northern Manchukou with the japanese being the aggressor… Result: The japanese were totally smashed to pieces and learned an important lesson that they would never repeat… they decided not to go with the northern strategy advocated by the army, instead they went for a conflict with the navies plan which was to surprise the US pac fleet and sink it hoping that they would sue for peace. Their is not way in hell that the japanese would choose both courses of action… that would have led to national suicide. The army all ready had seen the fighting in China lead to a battle of attrition and to just open up another campaign in worthless land or the Russian eastern territories was basically the biggest waste of resources possible.

Your plan somehow removes up to 12 infantry ( does Japan even start with this?) and gives them to the Soviets? huh? why  defectors? This project has to be historical and based on what actually happened… optional rules could cover the “what ifs” but this idea of defectors is not at all what could have been remotely possible. Whats wrong with some of the other ideas>?

Andersson will post shortly… not to worry…

BTW the neutral aid rules have a few things as well…

Ill save that for another post.

[theduke]

Your plan somehow removes up to 12 infantry ( does Japan even start with this?) and gives them to the Soviets? huh? why  defectors? This project has to be historical and based on what actually happened… optional rules could cover the “what ifs” but this idea of defectors is not at all what could have been remotely possible. Whats wrong with some of the other ideas>?

I think you misunderstand my rule. The nation that doesn’t break the treaty rolls 2 dice and takes the lower of the 2 rolls. This means that:
(a) the most number of infantry that can defect is 6. Although the net effect of this is a loss of 6 and a gain of 6 to the other side which is 12, no side ever loses 12 infantry.
(b) the odds of losing 6 infantry is 1/36. More than half the time it will be 1 or 2 infantry defecting for a net change of 2 or 4 infantry, respectively. This is far from a game-changer but enough to make it a serious deterrent.

Why allow infantry to magically appear (OOB rules) when you can have them just come from the opposing side? I say this is more realistic than the OOB rules. At least the units are coming from a real source. I don’t think it’s possible to simulate a real penalty for this so maybe we shouldn’t have one. Maybe we could just have a list of conditions that need to be satisfied before the treaty can be broken, but when it is broken there is no penalty. This would be rrealistic IMO.

[theduke]

How about this?

Russia can only attack/fly over/move into a yellow or Japanese controlled territory when any or all of the following conditions apply:

1. Russia can break the treaty without penalty if all red territories+Germany+Southern Europe are all Allied occupied at that time.
2. The total IPC value of all Japanese ground units in the territory being attacked is less than 1/3 the total IPC value of all Russian ground units attacking that territory.

Japan can only attack/fly over/move into a red or Russian controlled territory when any or all of the following conditions apply:

1. Japan can break the treaty without penalty if all yellow territories+China+Sinkiang+India are all Axis occupied at that time.
2. The total IPC value of all Russian ground units in the territory being attacked is less than 1/3 the total IPC value of all Japanese ground units attacking that territory.

The 2nd condition for each is to simulate a buildup of troops so Russia doesn’t exploit the treaty and not reinforce the front as much as they should. It also allows the possibility of the treaty to be broken early in the game if 1 side becomes lax. Notice that only ground troops are counted so high priced air/naval units don’t over-inflate the advantage for the attacker.

[Imperious Leader]

Yes this last post is much better!

the rationale presents each side with a much better historical situation that would ALLOW the treaty to work. I accept the conclusion but the wording to get just the perfect list of what needs to be captured for the Japanese side may be necessary. AS you may remember the Soviets only ventured into Manchuria in order to make claims on lost territory ceded during the Japan-Russo war of 1904. In that war the Soviets (then Russians) lost the Shaklin Islands (spelling?) and wanted a place at the peace treaty just to gain some of that territory back. So in a historical context the attack on Japan in Aug 1945 was for this purpose. Stalin had no intention of fighting both the Germans and Japanese at the same time. He left two front wars for Hitler to engage in because its stupid to fight wars with limited resources.

The idea that japan has to accomplish a list of conquests before any action taken against the Soviets makes alot of good sense.

Japan should have to take out China, India, and Australia and selected islands before they could be in the position to attack the Soviets. This would be conjoined with our national victory conditions… right?

Also, sorry i was not reading your post on the penalty correctly… I have limited time sometimes and my posts suffer from it. Your rule is fine, but we have to have some combat modifier as well…  What should actually happen is to create a NA for the “Siberian eastern army” which must stay at the eastern border until a certain turn. It would gain some modifier in combat against Japanese forces because they were much better trained soldiers and knew how to fight in frozen environments, while the Japanese clearly did not have a clue.

Idea:

The Soviets get some fixed army (research needs to be done) I think it should consist of:

4 infantry
1 armor
1 artillery
1 fighter

this would presumably be the siberian army ( again research)

your idea of the Germans having to be captured for a soviet attack is historical (germany lost in may 11 45, Soviets transfered the army to Manchuria and attacked on about Aug 6th 1945.

I would be noted that we dropped the A-bomb for many reasons and one of the main reasons was because we wanted the japanese to quickly surrender because we didnt want to Soviets to get too far into japanese territories and didnt want that area to turn into a 3rd world war. WE dropped the bomb because we wanted a quick surrender, because the Soviets were a competing ally that had its own agenda ( which brings up national victory conditions)

[theduke]

Japan should have to take out China, India, and Australia and selected islands before they could be in the position to attack the Soviets. This would be conjoined with our national victory conditions… right?

Should it really be that hard for the Japanese to break the treaty. Remember, with the new rules for infantry placement it’s a lot harder to take China, Sinkiang and Australia. Is there any evidence as to when the Japanese would have broken the treaty? I thought they just wanted to completely take out China first (which they never did). Would they have gone after Australia and/or India before Russia? Didn’t they kind of have an obligation to their German ally to cause Russia to fight a 2 front war?

I think we’re looking at an avg of about turn 6-7 until Japan has China+Sink+India. If we add Australia to the list, that won’t happen until turn 10 at the earliest IMO.

What if we have it that Japan can break it when they have China+Sink+ either India or Australia? Leaves more options that way.

[theduke]

I know the western allies couldn’t send ground troops into Russian territory, but could they send planes? US/UK planes for defense in Russia is a typical strategy in A&A. If it’s true that it’s realistic to say they can’t send those planes, then that would improve the balance a lot more (Russia would fall easier).

[Imperious Leader]

Should it really be that hard for the Japanese to break the treaty. Remember, with the new rules for infantry placement it’s a lot harder to take China, Sinkiang and Australia. Is there any evidence as to when the Japanese would have broken the treaty? I thought they just wanted to completely take out China first (which they never did). Would they have gone after Australia and/or India before Russia? Didn’t they kind of have an obligation to their German ally to cause Russia to fight a 2 front war?

I think we’re looking at an avg of about turn 6-7 until Japan has China+Sink+India. If we add Australia to the list, that won’t happen until turn 10 at the earliest IMO.

What if we have it that Japan can break it when they have China+Sink+ either India or Australia? Leaves more options that way.

OK Ill give you the military mindset for Japan:

They were faced with growing an Imperial policy of conquest and subjugation of all Asian nations under the rule of Japan. Second was to remove all colonial interference from any powers that were not truly Asian. Japan saw her place in the hierarchy of superior values cultivated by the code of Bushido and the samurai spirit. The realistic plan they engaged in was to establish a pan- Asian commenwealth with economic domination by the empire of Japan. This plan was debated by both the Army and navy to find the proper solution. In fact these were competing interests and they did little to coordinate national military policy. They both saw the options which were as follows:

1. In order to establish markets the need  exploit the labor in China was needed and this was to be conquered. The act of doing this was beyond the capabilities of the Japanese military complex.
2. The Army favored a solution including taking and concentration of forces on the mainland to finish off The British hold on India and remove any European influence in Asia. Also, the war with China needed to be brought to a conclusion.
3. The Japanese army also looked into attacking the Soviets… They tried this tactic at the border in a major clash with experienced Soviet troops dug in and were fully beaten. This sent a jolt into the character of what the Japanese army was capable of and as a result they lost face from the central government for the time being for their “strategic Solution”
4. The Naval commanders came up with a plan of conquest using the existing fleet to capture oil of the dutch Indies and islands with the strategy of turning each island into a fortress so that the approaches to the mainland Japan would not ever be possible. This necessitated a clash with the major power in the pacific which was USA.
5. So the japanese military government decided that it would not venture into the Soviet Union because the Army was not ready to contribute the national resources to enable the Japanese establish this empire in asia…so
6. They then decided that they would attack USA and let the Navy have a try at bringing Japan the result it needed.

So in conclusion its totally out of the question for Japan to attack USA AND then fail… AND then attack the Soviets… this goes against every commen sence approach and was not their mindset. They could care less about the Germans, but felt that Russia was on her way out… so the fear of a Soviet attack was not seen. So in reality the Japanese feared a Soviet attack more than even considered any attack of her own EVEN after she decided to attack the USA.

No coordination of Japan and Hitler occured… only a mutual treaty that assumed it any of the partners got in a ganeral war, that the other members would support the others… Thats why Hitler declared war on USA on dec 11th 1941. To honer his treaty to his partner… unlike Italy did with Germany in 1939.

[theduke]

I don’t want to have a strict requirement before the treaty is cancelled. If it is a strict requirement, then the opposing side can try and exploit this. For example, if the US keeps harassing the Caroline Islands or the Solomons but Japan has all other goals satisfied to attack Russia.

What if we define it by victory cities.

Like Japan needs all Asian and Pacific VCs minus Hawaii (including Hawaii isn’t realistic and too hard anyway)? That way, Japan wouldn’t need to guard all islands, just the VC ones.

Russia needs all their red VCs and the Allies need to control all German VCs. (or maybe just all but 2?)

[theduke]

Is it realistic for US or UK fighters to land in Russian territory?

[Imperious Leader]

The lend lease ruloes will take care of that… BTW the land lease money should be able to only purchase armor, artillery or planes So if the land lease is looking at 10 IPC the Soviets can build 2 tanks or a plane or a tank and artillery… that seems correct based on what the other member posed regarding the types of equipment sent.

The allies cannot land any units in soviet territory however… Stalion would not allow even one pilot in Soviet territory. In april 1942 the Soviets rejected the USA request to land those “doolittle bombers” in Soviet territory. This is clearly an indication that the partnership with Soviet Union was very distant. Thats why they had to land in China which was further and they ran out of gas and crashed.

[theduke]

Forgetting our rules for a second, doesn’t it seems weird that in the OOB rules that the Allies are too powerful and that it’s unrealistic to have UK and US troops in red territories? Why isn’t a more common modification to the game (like RR etc…) to not allow any UK or US units in red territories? That’s a super easy fix to fix the balance better and is more realistic.