I like those ideas CWOMarc.
It seems fairly straightforward using the Flag Roundel Markers, since these are not usually placed in Sea Zones, they would be fairly easy to distinguish. It might be cool to see them moving, but I would probably avoid that and just fix their locations for simplicity. I’ve tried playing A&A with movable resources before, and while I enjoyed it, my players found it cumbersome in a game that already has so many “moving parts.”
For simplicity I would also suggest having each Roundel represent an equivalent “set” value in IPCs that is consistent across the map, like each roundel = 3 ipcs convoy income. 1 ipc would probably be too low, and require too many roundels to get up off the ground, but if they were all worth 3, I think players would go for it. You could just put a green chip under the roundel, or 3 gray chips.
I’d probably try to keep things confined to one convoy roundel per sz, just to prevent too much confusion.
Again for simplicity, I would include this cash in addition or “on top” of the Nation’s OOB starting income. That way we don’t have to completely redesign the game’s economic system on land.
Lets just say each convoy was worth 3 ipcs. How many should each Nation get? And where should they go?
Some ideas about how that might look in 1942.2
Russia starts with 24 ipcs.
2 convoys, brings their total up to 30 ipcs.
sz 4 and sz 63 might be cool candidates.
Germany starts with 41 ipcs.
3 convoys, brings their total up to 50 ipcs.
sz 5, sz 14, and sz 15? I think G should probably get 3 convoys, since Axis will need more income for game balance, and those zones seem fairly reasonable.
UK starts with 31 IPCs.
3 convoys brings their total up to 40 ipcs.
Here there is an interesting question of which sea zones to put the convoys in? Gathering them all around UK is one option, since it would be easier for G to disrupt. But if that puts too much local concentration of Convoys in “busy” sea zones (ones that are already likely to be cluttered with units), then another option would be to put them in sea zones that currently receive little action. For example, sz 2, sz 9 and sz 12. This would force the Brits/Allies to put their warships somewhat out of position to keep their convoy lanes defended, and make the job of the raiding U-boats a bit less daunting. Or you could maybe stick one in sz 40 New Zealand to give Japan some raiding options.
Japan starts with 30 ipcs.
3 convoys would bring their starting income to 39 ipcs.
Again there is a question of where they could best be located? Placing them on the “money island” sea zones would make sense, sz 37, sz 47, and sz 48, but that probably just exacerbates the already outsized importance of those islands/sea zones.
Another option would be to push out the zones a bit. Perhaps sz 59, sz 51, and sz 50. This region of the map is still close enough to the money “islands” that one could envision a vague connection here between the imagined source of the resources (Borneo, East Indies, FIC etc) and the destination (Japan itself, and then on to the forward military outposts on the worthless islands.) This would be a conveniant way to use convoys to make the normally worthless territories of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Caroline islands more relevant to the game play, since those sea zones would have convoys.
But now you get to the question of how to approach USA?
I think there is an idea that USA is shipping resources to Allies more than collecting resources.
If you wanted to low-ball it, you could just give them 1 convoy.
That would be 6 convoys for Allies worth 18 ipcs.
And 6 convoys for Axis worth 18 ipcs.
USA starts with 42 ipcs.
1 Convoy would bring their starting income up to 45 ipcs.
You could put it in sz 53 to make Hawaii more relevant?
Or if you wanted to give the Allies more convoys, or the Axis less, that would probably work too. I just thought of the 6/6 idea to preserve a rough balance by sides. You could easily drop the Germans to just 2 convoys, or even 1, if balance by sides is less an issue to you etc. On the other hand, I don’t know that its really necessary to try to distinguish between whether the power is shipping resources or receiving them. If a convoy of USA resources gets sunk by a uboat somewhere in the mid Atlantic, you could just abstract that into USA money that’s “up for grabs.”
In that case you might give USA 3 convoys, and put them in interesting sea zone locations. Up the USA starting cash to 51 ipcs, so they still have the slight production edge on G (the way the OOB parity is.)
That would bring the totals too…
Allies: 8 convoys worth 24 ipcs.
Axis: 6 convoys worth 18 ipcs.
This might solve the balance issue many people complain about, that USA doesn’t have enough starting income relative to the other nations, while still preserving the slight Allied economic edge so familiar in A&A.
If 3 Convoys for USA, then sz 2, 9, and 12 could also be cool, if you didn’t already reserve those for UK. Other options might be sz 57 (Midway), or maybe some of those useless south pacific zones, like sz 43. Another option would be to stick the convoy cash in places like sz 22 (Brazil), sz 18 (Caribbean), sz 55 (Mexico) etc. This would probably make a bit more sense from a trade perspective, since you could say the resources are like cash or raw materials from other Allies in the Western Hemisphere. Those zones would be harder to raid, creating a larger pile of “safe” convoy income for USA, relative to other Nations. Again this would be more of a gameplay/game-balance expedient than anything else.
I think a rule like this for convoys would be a cool way to introduce more money into a game at the scale of 1942.2. Though it doesn’t do as much for the submarine unit specifically. For this system you might have it that ships take the IPCs away (ie. Remove the chips from beneath the roundel) during the conduct combat phase. That way you don’t have to address subs, not being able to create a hostile sz in 1942.2 like they could in the old games. But this gives a definite advantage to the raider over the defender. In other words, to prevent your convoys from being raided, you have to defend them beforehand, not just “clear the zone” of enemy ships before your collect income phase.
The way I was putting it, the system is almost exactly equivalent to the older convoy system, just plugged into 1942.2. Not sure if that’s what people are after, but it does seem workable. At least it would be familiar to anyone who has played using that older system before.