Pps. In case anyone is curious, using the scheme I suggested (combining UK, UK Pacific, Anzac and France into a single player) gives the British Empire a pretty reasonable starting income/production amount. If we gave starting possession of North Africa to USA, and starting possession of Persia and Iraq to UK, that would be a total of around 55 ipcs to UK.
Totally workable in my view, since the British Empire was the largest in world history. And the Allies would then be able to build bases on all that Free French territory in Africa (something which they can’t do in 1940, unless the Axis take it over first.) I think this would make the UK a much more interesting power to play.So depending on how you set things up with starting National Objectives, you could have a basic starting income for UK of around 60 ipcs. That’s a lot of money, they should have a lot fewer starting units, but the factory spread means they could pick a focus for their theater and build out how they like. So again that’s about 60 ipcs for UK as a starting point.
Now Germany, including the European Italian territories and a few more Territories on the Eastern Front would be around 65 ipcs starting income. With starting NOs you bring this up to around 70 or 75 ipcs at the start.
USA, including North Africa and China, Brazil etc. would be at around 70 to start, with NO’s you could bring this up to around 80 ipcs or so.
Japan, depending on how you want to handle a few starting territories (like Celebes or Burma) could be around 50 ipcs, with Nos you could bring that up a little bit.
Russia would have less starting territories, meaning their baseline would be somewhere in the mid 20s. This is very low relative to the other players. So my suggestion would be to give them stronger NOs to put that amount at least into the mid 30s on starting Income, and then give them a much stronger starting unit force. For example, right now they start with a paltry 3 aircraft total! This should be doubled at the very least!
Give the Russians at least a half dozen aircraft so they can play like a normal nation. My suggestion would be 3 fighters, 2 tactical bombers, and 1 strategic bomber.
You could also give the Russian more starting Armor, again at least double the numbers. These heavy hitters (the extra tanks and aircraft) could be located behind the Urals, so they have to move out. But basically, give the Soviets enough starting power to compensate for their lack of starting cash, and then give them the option to expand. Basically the reverse of the 1940 game.
One more time, just ballparking it, we should shoot for a starting income breakdown something like this…
Russia: 30s
Germany: 70s
UK: 60s
Japan: 50s
USA: 80s
Axis 120
Allies 170
With a 50 ipc swing, in contested areas of the game map. This could be easily managed with National Objectives at around +10 or +15 ipcs, tweaked to find a good starting income balance.
I’d shoot to have a total of 300 ipcs in play at any given time, once NOs are factored in. Again I believe this is workable, it’s essentially double the scale of the 1942.2 game, just like the map scale is basically doubled!
Remember that All Axis and Allies games (regardless of their start date) have always required an ahistorical Japanese expansion to be playable on balance, so it’s definitely possible to set this up such that the two sides achieve a rough income parity by sides after a few rounds. The difference in starting income you just make up in the starting forces, in this case with a lot more Axis units at the outset.
I think it could be done. And I think it would be fun.
I don’t think we need another Global 1940/42 type game, with like 10 player nations, and a super complicated turn order with a pain in the ass set up. If people want to play a game like that then they’ll just play the normal Global game!
If going through the trouble of making a whole new 1943 scenario, we should cater it to the demographic that wants a game pace more like the original 5 man A&A games, just featuring a larger Global map, with more money, more units and more fun. I think this could be a real opportunity to correct some of the issues that have long plagued the game, especially with regard to how the Soviet Union has been traditionally set up. We could fix the Russians here and make them fun to play, and shift the game from one where Axis always have to meet in the middle to win, to one where Axis just have to hold their starting territories to win, and its the Allies who are under pressure to move the ball forward. I think it would be cool. I’d play a game like that for sure. Especially if it was built out in a collaborative way and had the backing of the A&A.org community.
Global 1942 was not really released that way. It’s design process from the ground up didn’t take input from the community, it was released more as a tournament expedient, pre-built. In my view the Global 1942 scenario didn’t gather the sort of strength and popularity that it might have gained otherwise for this reason. If it was designed and popularized more as a group effort, instead of being put out as a “ready made” more people might be playing it right now.
But 1943 could be different!
