A new income paradigm?

[Der Kuenstler]

When a 3 IPC territory is taken in Axis and Allies, this actually represents a 6 IPC swing of income. The offended country loses three IPCs in income, and the attacking country gains three IPC’s in income. This can quickly escalate when 3-4 territories are taken during a turn. Often nations that have taken losses like this in one round cannot recover financially, and it is game over.

What if attacking countries did not gain any income at all when taking a territory? Only the country losing the territory would lose the income from it? This would more accurately represent the resistance of occupied enemy territories towards their invaders. It would also make the swing of income from battles only half as critical.

The game would probably progress at a slower pace and give nations more of a chance to recover from a string of lucky enemy rolls. It would no doubt lengthen the game, but if this is not a problem for you, do you think would it would make the game better?

[Narvik]

I am not sure, but I guess that the Designer have calculated this swing in some way when he balanced the game, so this issue is taken care of as far as playability is concerned, I hope. But if you got problems when the Conquer get 3 IPC from a territory, what do you think about the 5 IPC NO bonus on top of that again ? I guess you don’t love it. Stalin, the original owner, could only receive 2 IPC from Leningrad, but Hitler is able to squize 7 IPC out of it every turn, and that is even after the territory was bombed, scorched, burned down and the population killed. So I figure the rules, and the NO rule in particular, are not up to exactly what happened in the real war. And if you ask me, I guess it was designed this way to make for a faster game. As simple as that.

But, since we are in the house rule forum, after all.

Russia could get a Scorched Earth national Advantage rule. Every time you capture a Russian territory, put a damage token over the IPC income number. This territory was scorched and nobody get income from it now. You need to pay 1 IPC to remove the damage token during the Repair phase in your next Turn. Now, the loot is at least delayed one turn. But it may effect the balance.

I don’t think this rule should go for France too. France did not blow up the Factories or burn down the corn fields when the Huns come. The GDP was halfed yes, Hitler got less than 50 % of the money France was making before the war, but in this A&A map that is taken care off. In this game France got a ridiculous low IPC value compared to the real France, so lets keep that as it is.

[Zombie69]

It’s only a swing of 6 IPCs if the other nation doesn’t take back the territory. More often than not, they will. If they lose 3 or 4 territories and can’t take back any of them, that shows they were losing before these territories were taken because they weren’t able to set up proper dead zones.

[Flashman]

Since I don’t allow players to use captured factories, it seems reasonable that they receive less in income from basic tt than the original owner. You have to consider material damage, and the lack of motivation and active sabotage from the workforce in occupied tt.

Perhaps 1/2 the income (rounded down) would be more realistic, though some would consider this a pain to keep track of.

[WILD BILL]

I think that if you weren’t able to collect income from captured territories that axis home territories would need to be bumped, or another way for them to make up for the lost income. There’s no way the Huns could sustain a Barbarossa with less income, while leaving Russia how it is (slowly losing territories/IPCs).

Consider that the Germans gain 9 IPCs from French territories almost from the beginning (about 45 IPC in 5 rounds).  Plus there are the Pro neutrals in Eastern Europe too that generate a lot of income for the Germans (some are pro-allied captured by the axis). Then once they start cracking Russia they slowly build more income to keep the units flowing. You’re looking at probably about 100 IPCs over 7-8 rounds of play from captured territories.

I have heard people say that you should collect income at the beginning of your tun though (instead of the end). If that was the case then if you take a territory, but lose it then you get nothing (wouldn’t be yours when your next turn starts). Not sure how that would effect things, but it wouldn’t be as drastic as your proposal. It would stop multiple powers from collecting from the same territory as they trade it back-n-forth in any given round of play. If it was played this way you might see the enemy attempting to retake lost territories more often, because it would directly effect the income of the other side.

[knp7765]

This would seem like kind of an odd game to me. Basically, with the exception of friendly neutral territories, nobody’s income would increase above their starting income.
For example, Germany would activate Finland (2 IPCs) and Bulgaria (1 IPC) giving them a total of 33 IPCs per turn. You couldn’t include Yugoslavia or Greece because the Axis has to take them by force. So Germany would have to spend the rest of the game with only 33 IPCs per turn, perhaps a little more if you include NO money. Meanwhile, UK would still be making 28 IPCs per turn and Russia would be making 37 IPCs minus whatever territories have been taken. Since so many of Russia’s territories are 1 or 2 IPC territories, it would take some time for them to really start losing a lot of money.
What I’m getting at is that UK and Russia would be able to produce as much as Germany since Germany’s income would never rise. There is no way Germany could win in this case. They would never be able to build up enough units to overwhelm Russia AND protect the coast from UK. Once the US shows up, Germany would be totally sunk.
And what about Japan? They start out with 26 IPCs but 11 of those are captured Chinese territories. If we go with the premise that captured territories do not benefit the capturer, then technically we would have to lower Japan’s income to 15 IPCs. Even if you made this an exception for Japan, they wouldn’t get any more IPCs from conquering Chinese or other Allied territories. So why would they bother attacking the DEI? I guess to keep them from the Allies but this would be extremely hard for Japan to accomplish with such a low income.
Also, regarding the Chinese territories. If China takes one of the territories that started out under Japanese occupation, does China get those IPCs or are they disallowed since China had to take that territory by force? What if Japan retakes that territory? Does Japan get the IPCs or are they now just subtracted from China with no benefit for Japan?

While this is an interesting idea, I just don’t think it would work, especially for the Axis. The main point of this game is to conquer territories to increase your income so you can produce more units to keep the offensive going. If you have a relatively static income, you would never be able to produce enough to really get ahead.
Wild Bill’s idea of collecting income at the beginning of your turn has some merit. That way you wouldn’t get the benefit of captured territories unless you held them for a round. That could represent the time it would take to get established in the territory and set up the necessary means to exploit it.

[CWO Marc]

@knp7765:

While this is an interesting idea, I just don’t think it would work, especially for the Axis. The main point of this game is to conquer territories to increase your income so you can produce more units to keep the offensive going. If you have a relatively static income, you would never be able to produce enough to really get ahead.

Agreed.  A&A is basically driven by the following four-stroke engine:

• Territory generates income
• Income purchases units
• Units fight battles
• Battles gain territory

This engine would have to be replaced by something else if there was no positive income incentive to conquer territory.  The only incentive in the proposed system would be a negative one (conquering territory to deprive the other side of income), which to me doesn’t sound terribly motivating.  As DK himself says, this would greatly slow down the game; I can’t think of anything that would be gained in exchange that would compensate for this slower pace (especially in a game like Global which takes a notoriously long time to play).

Although there’s some justification to DK’s point that the economic output of an occupied country tends to be less (in part due to resistance activities) than the economic output of a country that isn’t occupied, it should also be remembered that occupied countries in WWII did nevertheless economically benefit the occupiers significantly.  Germany basically looted France from 1940 to 1944, having imposed upon it a kind of “occupation tax” of heaven-knows-how-many-million francs a day, and the Germans also sent vast numbers of forced labourers to Germany from the occupied countries.  Occupation also gave conquerers control of the occupied country’s raw materials; one example can be found in Steinbeck’s novel The Moon is Down (with which Narvik is probably familiar), in which the point is made that the occupied Norwegian town in the novel is valuable to the Germans because of its coal mine.

[Black_Elk]

In general I prefer a situation that awards more potential income per territory rather than less income, especially for the attacker. Keeping in mind that the vast majority of territories on the gameboard aren’t worth 3 ipcs or even 2 ipcs, but rather most are worth a meager 1 ipc or Zero ipcs. The cheapest unit with which you can take land is infantry. Meaning even when you do take territories, usually you’re doing this at a net loss. 3 ipcs worth of units  (minimum) for the infantry needed to take the land, which means the land itself is frequently worth less than the cost invested to take it. Right now this means, unless the land is already on the warpath, players don’t have a very strong incentive to attack and claim it. The Pacific highlights this problem with all the worthless islands, but you face a similar situation anywhere on the board where the land is worth less than 2 ipcs or when that land doesn’t have a production consideration in play. Sure if the land stands between you and your primary objective of a Capital or VC, then you’ll still take the land, since it’s on the warpath. But if it isn’t on the path, then why go out of your way? Right now only the income swing gives you a reason, and even then, often the swing is not enough. Deadzoning occurs already because of this, even on low value territories on the warpath , so I’d be concerned that without the income draw, players would have no reason to move out.

[CWO Marc]

@Black_Elk:

Meaning even when you do take territories, usually you’re doing this at a net loss. 3 ipcs worth of units  (minimum) for the infantry needed to take the land, which means the land itself is frequently worth less than the cost invested to take it.

Reminds me of a quote from Voltaire: “You know that these two nations are at war about a few acres of snow somewhere around Canada, and that they are spending on this beautiful war more than all Canada is worth.” Which actually fits with Black Elk’s argument, since the Canadian territories in Global are worth 2 IPCs or less.

[Black_Elk]

Haha leave it to Voltaire to nail the sentiment. The trick here is that, in the real world, nations don’t fight wars to make money, they spend, and fight for other reasons, like national prestige that are much harder to quantify. Even if you were exploiting every captured territory to the fullest, the way the Germans tried to, the cost of occupying would still totally outweigh the gains, at least in the short term. I mean for everyone who isn’t selling weapons or making loans at least. And then there’s the whole Orwell argument, that all war at bedrock is about destroying money (your enemy’s as well as your own), rather than acquiring it. But this would be very hard to model in a game, and probably wouldn’t be very amusing to play. I think in some ways the game just falls apart the more accurate you try to make it, since in real life it’s always better from an overall economic standpoint not to be at war, and once at war the more land you occupy the more expensive and burdensome it is, whereas in the game the situation is basically the opposite haha

[Der Kuenstler]

Good points guys - this is why I like to post ideas here. You’ve convinced me this idea won’t really work. Thanks for the input!