All fair points. I look forward to your upcoming house rule releases!
Scorched Earth: Allowing players to Damage their own facilities and bases
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This is a pretty simple rule. At any point in the game, a player may elect to damage their own infrastructure, bases or production facilities, as part of a “scorched earth withdrawal.”
Scorching the Earth occurs during the repair units phase, except in this instance, rather than repairing their units at a cost in IPCs, the player will instead be dismantling them (placing chips under their bases/facilities rather than removing chips.)
option 1: Players may damage their own facilities up to the maximum value (twice the operation threshold) at no cost.
option 2: Players roll 1d6 (in the case of bases) or 2d6 (in the case of production facilities) to determine how much dismantling and destruction they can achieve before the enemy arrives.
[Edit: option 3 (scrapped, see comments below): Players may recoup some IPCs from this dismantling process, up to, but not exceeding, the operational threshold of the base or facility. Example, a player may recoup up to 3 ipc for a base (not 6), or 10 ipcs for a Major Facility (not 20) etc. Basically, even if the enemy is allowed to bomb up to twice the value, for the purposes of dismantling a base or facility is only worth its operational value.]
These rules create a means whereby a player can preempt an enemy advance on their infrastructure, and damage this infrastructure beforehand, to prevent it from being immediately used against them the following round. However, and this is critical, the player may not completely destroy the bases or facilities. This prevents a situation where players can completely raise bases or facilities to the ground. Here you have the option to damage, but not to totally destroy it or remove it from play entirely. So there is still some risk, or at least a cost/benefit aspect to the initial purchasing decision.
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option 3: Players may recoup some IPCs from this dismantling process, up to, but not exceeding, the operational threshold of the base or facility.
If I understand this correctly, a player gains some cash from dismantling his facilities – essentially, converting a factory into money by downgrading it (the reverse of the normal operation of spending money to upgrade a factory) and putting the resulting money in the bank. I can see this working if we were talking about, let’s say, scrapping a decommissioned warship in peacetime and selling it for scrap metal. Demolishing facilities in wartime to keep them from falling into enemy hands, however, isn’t something that’s done to generate revenue. If anything, it actually costs money (at the very leat in terms of time and labour) to destroy things under those circumstances, especially big structures like concrete dams. Demolishing facilities in a money-neutral way (meaning that it costs no IPCs to do so, but no IPCs are recouped either) might be a good compromise.
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Yeah and the more I consider it the more option 3 is likely to be abused if the player can gain any appreciable amount of money, it would make more sense at a cost than a gain. I kind of added that 3rd option at the last second and it was pretty late last night. The thought was that the player could get a few more ipcs to dedicate to actual units. But I think you’re right. I was thinking either approach it would probably make sense to cap at the operational value rather than the max (double operation value.) But the idea to recoup has never been tried in one of my games. We used the free damage option 1 when we tried it. Probably should just scrap the 3rd option and keep it simple.
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I love scorched earth, it should be a OOB rule. I figure it should be like, when a territory is attacked and occupied, all factories and bases should receive max damage, a major IC should even turn into a minor with max damage, and a damage token should cover the IPC value, so nobody could collect income from that territory in that turn. Now that is true scorched earth, man. And that is exactly how it was in the real war too. The exception being the Capital of course, that is booty.
But it will change the game and strategies. If the original owner or the attacker want to collect income from his territories, or use the facilities, he must defend it. This rule will be the death of the classic double dipping strafe attack, where you defend with one inf, and the attacker use two inf and a plane to take it so he can plunder one turn of IPCs, turning a contested territory into a milk cow. In the real war, you could plunder and loot a territory once, after that is was free of stuff. Void. But the A&A Global is designed to favor aggressive and gamey play, turning a poor desert territory like Persia into a gold mine that it is possible to plunder 4 or 5 times in the same turn, and on top of that Ge and It even got NO bonuses worth twice what is even remotely thinkable.
Now I think a scorched earth rule would make play more realistic, more in touch with the real war. And less gamey. But do we want that ?
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when a territory is attacked and occupied, all factories and bases should receive max damage, a major IC should even turn into a minor with max damage
This is how it should be.
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To be absolutely realistic, nobody should ever be able to build units at a captured factory; this never happened in the war. Industrial complexes need a large, willing workforce to be put into production.
Even liberated factories are questionable; when France was liberated its new army was entirely equipped with American weapons and kit.
What would be more realistic is if captured factories are simply removed, and the captor gets a cash bonus to represent asset stripping (sending production equipmment back to their own factories).
Under some circumstances, specifically Soviets in retreat from Germany, entire factories might be transported to safer tts, but this should be a costly undertaking.
The old multiple dip cash grab is one of the game’s more absurd anomalies, easily fixed by moving collect income to the start of a player’s turn. Thereby, tts which exchange hands due to combat generate less income, not more, which makes a lot more sense.
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when a territory is attacked and occupied, all factories and bases should receive max damage, a major IC should even turn into a minor with max damage
This is how it should be.
This was the first system we tried, because it was simple to implement and works reasonably well. The reason we ended up putting the onus on the defender (in the repair units phase) was to force the defender to plan their withdrawal in advance and to provide a punishment for abandoning their facilities. So in this case the defender can’t place in a facility they plan to destroy in the same round.
But again the simple max damage on capture rule does create a very similar effect with a more direct wording on the rules. I would prefer either to the OOB situation, where you have to wait a round and then strat bomb to hurt the enemies production when they capture your facility. Auto destruct at capture also works, but it does a present a more do or die situation for the defender, and provides a somewhat weaker incentive for the attacker, since they don’t get to use the production without investing in a new facility. Still, that rule would also be preferable to OOB too.
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I’m thinking this rule, although more realistic, would slow the game down more, and not likely affect the final outcome.
We used to play where you could pay 1 IPC and remove any IC you have owned since the beginning of your turn. But it really didn’t do much other than delay the attacker a little, and deny the attacker the fun achievement of taking an enemy IC.
The “collect income at the start of your turn” rule is also more realistic but results in less units on the map, and therefore more luck determining results. And generally, more units is more fun. Getting paid at the end of your turn is a game mechanic that feels right, like getting paid after you’ve done your work. You can also think of getting those IPCs at the end of your turn as increased production morale from winning battles.
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To be absolutely realistic, nobody should ever be able to build units at a captured factory; this never happened in the war. Industrial complexes need a large, willing workforce to be put into production.
Even liberated factories are questionable; when France was liberated its new army was entirely equipped with American weapons and kit.
What would be more realistic is if captured factories are simply removed, and the captor gets a cash bonus to represent asset stripping (sending production equipmment back to their own factories).
Under some circumstances, specifically Soviets in retreat from Germany, entire factories might be transported to safer tts, but this should be a costly undertaking.
The old multiple dip cash grab is one of the game’s more absurd anomalies, easily fixed by moving collect income to the start of a player’s turn. Thereby, tts which exchange hands due to combat generate less income, not more, which makes a lot more sense.
I like the idea of stripping enemy factories for parts, plus not having the ability to dump units deep in enemy territory forces players to keep steady supply lines. Gives Russia some relief from the inevitable siege of Moscow.
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What would be more realistic is if captured factories are simply removed, and the captor gets a cash bonus to represent asset stripping (sending production equipmment back to their own factories).
One possible qualifier is that industries aren’t always compatible between nations. As just one example: when the French battleship Richelieu went over to the Allied side in 1943, she was sent to a New York shipyard for refitting. The shipyard workers found her to be a huge headache to work on because she had been designed with parts sized using the metric system, in contrast with the imperial measurements used to manufacture conventional American parts.
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To be absolutely realistic, nobody should ever be able to build units at a captured factory; this never happened in the war. Industrial complexes need a large, willing workforce to be put into production.
_Even liberated factories are questionable; when France was liberated its new army was entirely equipped with American weapons and kit.
What would be more realistic is if captured factories are simply removed, and the captor gets a cash bonus to represent asset stripping (sending production equipment back to their own factories).
Under some circumstances, specifically Soviets in retreat from Germany, entire factories might be transported to safer tts, but this should be a costly undertaking.
The old multiple dip cash grab is one of the game’s more absurd anomalies, easily fixed by moving collect income to the start of a player’s turn. Thereby, tts which exchange hands due to combat generate less income, not more, which makes a lot more sense._
Good point Flash…but don’t forget Germany used french,belgium and Netherlands factory for their own and If i’m not wrong Japanese used some in China But you’re right about USSR, Germany shouldn’t used the Russian factories.
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Well, Germany used some industries in occupied countries, but the major weapons of war: tanks, artillery, machine guns, aircraft etc were still built in Germany. The relatively low cost of transportation to the front meant that it was far more effective to keep producing what they were used to and their forces were trained in.
Of course, if you don’t have realistic transport rules (i.e. rail movement for land forces) then Germany being able to build panthers in Leningrad becomes a viable option, however unrealistic. Though, as the topic suggests, the Russians would hardly allow an intact tank factory to fall into the hands of the enemy; they would either transport it east or put it beyond use.
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i]Well, Germany used some industries in occupied countries, but the major weapons of war: tanks, artillery, machine guns, aircraft etc were still built in Germany. The relatively low cost of transportation to the front meant that it was far more effective to keep producing what they were used to and their forces were trained in.
Of course, if you don’t have realistic transport rules (i.e. rail movement for land forces) then Germany being able to build panthers in Leningrad becomes a viable option, however unrealistic. Though, as the topic suggests, the Russians would hardly allow an intact tank factory to fall into the hands of the enemy; they would either transport it east or put it beyond use.
I agree….In fact, in my game, USA can’t build unit in enemy factory but I should extend this rule to all the countries, not only Germany… -
The scorched earth idea is good and was implemented I think in the Hasbro CD Rom game. Doesn’t really matter. I think a player should be able to destroy facilities upon capture forcing the victor to build their own.
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The scorched earth idea is good and was implemented I think in the Hasbro CD Rom game. Doesn’t really matter. I think a player should be able to destroy facilities upon capture forcing the victor to build their own.
Only in USSR.
Non European countries destroyed their Industries like USSR did. -
Its difficult to tell what other powers would have done if, for example, England, Japan or mainland America had been occupied.
Italy changed sides before it was occupied. Hitler gave orders for German industry to be destroyed, but this failed because Speer disobeyed the directive.
Other than Russia transporting factories east to the Urals before the Germans reached them, I find it hard to accept any factory being used (by anyone) after it’s tt has been captured in combat. Therefore, simply remove them and give the captor a cash bonus for acquired assets. Or allow them to build (in their own home factories) any new tech units the enemy had developed.
Even a liberated France “building” anything other than infantry in Paris is unhistorical, while the American tank factory in Norway is something from a parallel universe.
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Other than Russia transporting factories east to the Urals before the Germans reached them, I find it hard to accept any factory being used (by anyone) after it’s tt has been captured in combat. Therefore, simply remove them and give the captor a cash bonus for acquired assets. Or allow them to build (in their own home factories) any new tech units the enemy had developed.
I think you got it….
In fact not remove it but give the captor a cash…
For minor factory give the value of the territory in cash.
For major factory give x 2 the value of the territory in cash.Even a liberated France “building” anything other than infantry in Paris is unhistorical
I totally agree….
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