Limits on Infantry

[madscientist]

So you know those games where Germany is building all inf, USA is shuck-shucking 10 inf per round, Japan is bringing in 10 inf per round, UK is attacking WEU with 8 inf per round and of course Russia is building all inf:

If 1 inf represents 500 000 soldiers (which would be a good estimate if Germany’s starting army was 8 million troops) then how could there be enough people for this war? There wouldn’t have been enough people in the world to support all countries building at least 8 inf per round for seven rounds.

So what I was thinking is, maybe we could sometime try playing A&A with a limit per country on how many troops you can build. i. e. Germany can only build 30 inf, Russia 50 inf, etc. Then each country would be forced to win the war with units other than inf.

[Imperious Leader]

Well two things:

1. limit infantry purchases to 50% of each nations income
2. Limit each nation to a historically based solution that reflects what they actually produced in terms of infantry.
3. make the limitation based on a hybrid of history and play balance…

example:

Soviet Union: 6 Infantry
Germany: 8 Infantry
UK: 4 Infantry
Japan: 6 Infantry
USA: 6 Infantry

now allies can make up to 16 infantry (potentially) and axis can make 14 infantry ( potentially)

Note: dont go by these numbers– this is just idea!  research need to be done.

[Jennifer]

Two better ideas.

1)  Limit production of total infantry on the board to 3 times currently owned land value at the START of your turn.  Added bonus, this helps ensure that land is defended better, which is more accurate in history. After all, do you really think Brition would have let New Zealand fall to the Japanese in the real war?  In the game, no one really cares.

2)  Limit production of infantry to number of physical models in the game.  Much harder to control, really unfair to the axis.  But still a viable solution, imho.

[Imperious Leader]

“Limit production of total infantry on the board to 3 times currently owned land value at the START of your turn”

can we get an example? So germany has 32 IPC and now they can build 96 infantry?

What would be the example in the other case?

[tekkyy]

@Jennifer:

Two better ideas.

I agree. You are on the right track.

Infantry deployment needs to be realistic. You can’t draft unlimited infantry from a territory with a limited population. And you don’t manufacture infantry from an IC. Its not tanks. And Infantry ammunitions do not require heavy industry

In AARHE http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=6743.0 phase 1, we dealth with it by

*limiting how many infantry a territory can raise in a turn
*cost models due to democratic or dictator government
*infantry is raise in victory cities, not IC

[theduke]

Yeah, you should look at that link for house rules on infantry placement at victory cities that I posted a while ago. The rule is a really good balance of realism and simplicity.

Here’s another rule that’s also simple: don’t use plastic chips to represent infantry. That means that the population of your army is limited to how many infantry pieces come in the box. The problem with this is that territories will be more crowded without the plastic chips for infantry.

I like Imp’s idea of limiting the number of IPCs spent on infantry in a turn to no more than half the total income collected in that turn. It’s analogous to the idea I proposed a while back for solving unrealistic tech purchasing when I stated that no more than half of the total IPCs collected in a turn can be spent on techs in that turn.

Those 2 above rules (no plastic chips for infantry and no more than half spent on infantry) should do the trick for a simple realistic solution but I still like the victory city infantry placement rules better.  :-D

[Imperious Leader]

I think they wanted something simple so i didnt exactly propose our ideas… :lol:

[Jennifer]

@Imperious:

“Limit production of total infantry on the board to 3 times currently owned land value at the START of your turn”

can we get an example? So germany has 32 IPC and now they can build 96 infantry?

What would be the example in the other case?

Germany, with 32 IPCs in land mass, could ONLY build up to 96 infantry units on the board.  So if they started their round with 90 infantry, they could only build 6 more.  (BTW, this means Russia could only have 72 infantry units assuming they had all their land mass.)

Meanwhile, let’s say Germany had 96 infantry units on the board at the end of her last turn but lost 6 IPCs in mass going from 32 IPCs to 26 IPCs.  Now she could only have 78 infantry units on the board.  The extras would “dissapear” call it starvation for lack of a better term.  They go away.  The player chooses which units he wants to destroy, but they go away and he gets no refund.

Now, you’re going to say 96 infantry is a lot!  Yes and no.  In turn one it’s huge.  In turn 10 it’s not so big.  I’ve seen battles for Karelia that numbered in the hundreds of infantry. (I believe the largest is 400+ that I’ve personally seen, not including ships, AA guns, fighters, bombers and tanks.)  Do you have ANY clue how long it takes to roll 12D6 and find the results of a battle that large?

[Imperious Leader]

OK: In nearly 99% of these games that “3 times idea” really has no effect in practical play. The idea as originally addressed was to limit the builds in ordinary games… and not by token some maximum level or “ceiling” The direstion was succinctly this: what ideas on limiting infantry builds can be done in the course of a game? So clearly we need to limit what goes on each and every turn… not some “total limit” that nobody will ever see. It becomes very boring and ahistorical when all we do is buy infantry. The game becomes very reductionistic and looks more like ww1. The solution has to promote some dynamic of builds. Going the 1/2 route is simple and easy and effects everybody the same way… so as a balancing technique its clearly a possible solution.

[tekkyy]

oooh…Jennifer…maximum build would be getting into upkeep modelling

[Jennifer]

@Imperious:

OK: In nearly 99% of these games that “3 times idea” really has no effect in practical play. The idea as originally addressed was to limit the builds in ordinary games… and not by token some maximum level or “ceiling” The direstion was succinctly this: what ideas on limiting infantry builds can be done in the course of a game? So clearly we need to limit what goes on each and every turn… not some “total limit” that nobody will ever see. It becomes very boring and ahistorical when all we do is buy infantry. The game becomes very reductionistic and looks more like ww1. The solution has to promote some dynamic of builds. Going the 1/2 route is simple and easy and effects everybody the same way… so as a balancing technique its clearly a possible solution.

Well, you could make the limit 1 infantry per IPC in territory held at the beginning of your round.  That would at least limit Japan to 8 infantry protecting it’s homeland when all other territories fall. (Same with Brition.)  It also rewards you for conquering land that normally would be left alone.

2 infantry woudl work as well.  60% or more of the games I see have well in excess of 60 infantry for Germany and Russia.

[Imperious Leader]

but thats not limiting the builds of infantry which is the exact concern of the thread starter. he is tired of seeing only infantry builds nearly every turn. how is that addressed?

[Jennifer]

@Imperious:

but thats not limiting the builds of infantry which is the exact concern of the thread starter. he is tired of seeing only infantry builds nearly every turn. how is that addressed?

Sure it is.  If you can only have 32 infantry and you already have 32 infantry then you cannot build more.

[tekkyy]

rather then being arbitrary
you need to ask yourself is the “32” for example used to reflecting income upkeep, or population limits?

[Jennifer]

@tekkyy:

rather then being arbitrary
you need to ask yourself is the “32” for example used to reflecting income upkeep, or population limits?

It’s hard to say what would be a good reflection of income, upkeep, training, population limits and supplies are in the game.  However, if you consider that each IPC represents X numbers of hours of work and that the infantry was just a small portion of the world’s population, it could be representative.

BTW, an interesting rule I’ve heard before is that everyone makes their round’s equipment purchases BEFORE Russia’s turn.  This represents that work orders would have been submitted for fulfillment before casualties for that year were sustained.

[tekkyy]

yeah you don’t want combat first and then let them decide later what to build

in AARHE we settled at all axis buy before combat, and then all allies buy before combat

[Micoom]

I found this on the net;

World War II’s basic statistics qualify it as by far the greatest war in history in terms of human and material resources expended. In all, 61 countries with 1.7 billion people, three-fourths of the world’s population, took part. A total of 110 million persons were mobilized for military service, more than half of those by three countries: the USSR (22-30 million), Germany (17 million), and the United States (16 million). For the major participants the largest numbers on duty at any one time were as follows: USSR (12,500,000); U.S. (12,245,000); Germany (10,938,000); British Empire and Commonwealth (8,720,000); Japan (7,193,000); and China (5,000,000).

and;

The human cost of the war fell heaviest on the USSR, for which the official total, military and civilian, is given as more than 20 million killed. The Allied military and civilian losses were 44 million; those of the Axis, 11 million. The military deaths on both sides in Europe numbered 19 million and in the war against Japan, 6 million. The U.S., which had no significant civilian losses, sustained 292,131 battle deaths and 115,187 deaths from other causes. The highest numbers of deaths, military and civilian, were as follows: USSR more than 13,000,000 military and 7,000,000 civilian; China 3,500,000 and 10,000,000; Germany 3,500,000 and 3,800,000; Poland 120,000 and 5,300,000; Japan 1,700,000 and 380,000; Yugoslavia 300,000 and 1,300,000; Romania 200,000 and 465,000; France 250,000 and 360,000; British Empire and Commonwealth 452,000 and 60,000; Italy 330,000 and 80,000; Hungary 120,000 and 280,000; and Czechoslovakia 10,000 and 330,000.

What really catches the eye, is that the USSR did mobilize the most men, but at one moment in time in duty, the US had just as much. What should be used to reflect history for infantry limitations? 1)Total, 2)or total on duty at one time? I think option 2

When we you take that, and say that an A&A infantry unit reflects 2500000 men than the following limits could be used based on history;

USSR 50 inf
US  50 inf
UK  35 inf
China 20 inf ( if a player)

total 135 inf without china

Germany 45 inf
Japan 30 inf
Italy 14 inf (if a player) ( not in list but Italy had about 3 to 3.5 million man mobilized)
Minor Axis 6 inf (ad to Germany)

Total 95 inf

Axis 30% less then Allies… that will probably hurt the Axis big time…

[tekkyy]

Yeah Axis less than Allies.

In my latest proposal wrt infantry raising power:
USSR 18
German 18
UK 11
Japan 15
US 15

Axis 33
Allies 44

Although the stats shows US had more deployed at peak than Germany (12.2mil vs. 10.9mil)…the US had a navy to service. Stats on army/navy break down whould show USSR and Germany having the more infantry power.
Of course my numbers attempt to incorporation political factors, dictator vs. democracy.

[Micoom]

Y’re correct, US had to service a big navy also. Germany was all about infantry the last years. Y’re numbers are per turn/round right?

[Imperious Leader]

Its best to take what the peak armed forces were for each nation to determine the max at any one time. plus much of this information includes totals from navy, air and land, when you only need land ( army) as the figure.