I wasn’t saying that your idea was bad.
But yes, that makes sense.
G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)
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My philosophy is to reduce cost so you can afford more… but not to change the value of the ship types as it stands.
Carriers (w/planes)>Battleship>Cruiser>Destroyer>Sub
That should remain constant.
I never see fleets of just battleships, subs or destroyers. Even as it stands OOB, and with the addition of other special abilities, fleets are best served with a variety of ship types.
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Ok I have another question for you guys to kick around…
What are your thoughts on the damage/repair mechanic for the two capital ships in this game, battleships and carriers?
The 1940 game departs pretty significantly from its predecessors in this area. The OOB rules require that you be adjacent to friendly naval base in order to repair damaged capital ships.
Do you like this system? From a gameplay perspective? How about from a historical accuracy perspective?Historically, the picture looked roughly like this in WWII – “roughly” because it varied from country to country due to things like differences in ship design, differences in damage control practices, differences in training and differences in how much support infrastructure each navy could count on. But basically, the answer goes like this.
Generally speaking, battleships could survive a lot more battle damage than carriers. Battleships had the advantage that they were heavily armoured, and that the forward and aft main gun turrets (their primary weapons) were sufficiently far apart (except in all-forward designs like the Richelieu class) that one group of main guns could keep fighting even while the other ones were disabled. To use a Timex watch analogy, battleships could take an awful lot of licking and still keep on ticking, as the Musashi and the Yamato demonstrated: each one absorbed an impressive number of bombs and torpedoes before sinking. (On the other hand, an enemy shell or bomb reaching the main gun ammunition magazines could blow a battleship apart, as happened to the Arizona and the Hood.)
Carriers were much more vulnerable than battleships. Their huge flat decks were a juicy target for enemy dive-bombers, and the area beneath the flight deck was a huge empty space (the hangar deck) through which a bomb blast could propagate. Most carriers had little armour protection (the major exception being certain British designs). Carriers were loaded with highly combustible aviation gasoline (fuel for the planes), plus their own fuel oil, plus explosive ordnance for the aircraft (bombs and torpedoes). Moreover, a single hit on the flight deck – even when it was non-lethal – could make it difficult or impossible for a carrier’s planes (its primary weapons) to operate.
That being said, good damage control protocols – even on carriers – could help enormously when it came to surviving battle damage at the moment when it happened and immediately afterwards. The US Navy in WWII was particularly rigorous in its D/C training and practices, and this paid handsome dividends in ships (and lives) saved. For example, US carrier crews in battle situations were trained to flush their fuel hoses with air (or some sort of noncombustible gas; I can’t recall) once they has finished fueling their planes, as a way of reducing the fire hazard posed by these fuel lines. Another example: the US Navy discovered at one point that the standard cotton uniforms of its enlisted sailors had a considerable degree of resistance to flash fires, so it required American sailors in combat zones to wear full-length pants and shirts at all times (and prohibited them from rolling up their trouser legs and shirt sleeves), no matter how hot the weather was or how much they envied the handsome tans of the Royal Navy guys (who were allowed to wear tropical short uniforms). The result? US sailors tended to be burned less severely than their RN counterparts if battle damage caused a flash fire.
Any competent navy would train its men to make sure all watertight hatches and doors were shut when battle stations were sounded, and would train its men in D/C procedures: plugging hull breaches, putting out fires, and so forth. Like first aid in humans, D/C is intended to address immediate damage as quickly as possible in order to stabilize the situation. And it’s no laughing matter: Japan’s largest carrier, Shinano, was lost to a torpedo attack by a single US submarine largely due to incompetent damage control by its crew.
Looking beyond immediate damage control, we get into the issue of post-battle repairs. Speaking in very general terms, battleships and battlecruisers with good crews, decent supplies of spare parts and adequate onboard machine shops could patch up minor damage themselves, and could often deal with more serious stuff to the extent of at least getting the boilers back online and getting under way (even if at slow speed). The Yorktown – which had been patched up hastily in Hawaii after being heavily damaged at the Battle of the Coral Sea – was put out of action at Midway, but managed to get herself back under way; if she hadn’t subsequently been torpedoed by a Japanese sub, the old girl would quite probably have made it all the way back to the ship repair yards at Pearl Harbor. The most impressive of all carrier damage-survival cases is the story of the USS Franklin (CV 13), which I won’t even summarize here because you have to read it to believe it.
All that being said, however, I think it’s completely unrealistic to picture a heavily damaged carrier or battleships fully repairing itself. Repairs of such magnitude require a shipyard or a drydock, either at a major port or naval base (or at the very least at an advanced naval base, of which the US Navy established several in the Pacific during WWII). Realistically, all that’s expected of a warship which has sustained battle damage is that it deal with the immediate harm through good D/C, complete its mission if it can, then repair itself sufficiently to get itself back to a proper repair facility where it can be fixed up properly.
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the xeno game used to make you roll 2 dice to repair your BB. I always thought that was cool. You didn’t know how bad it was hurt. Made for more unpredictable situations, which helps realism imo.I could see where their bombard should be suspended or reduced to a 3 anyway as well.
I’d be ok with 1 fighter on a damaged CV. A playtest for sure. That would make for more powerful fleets. The defensive fleet has the advantage now. A little too much imo. It’s a lotta dough to build a fleet and a bad first rd of rolling can devastate it. Makes (me anyway) more conservative in the pacific, which leads to more of a attrition struggle.
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the xeno game used to make you roll 2 dice to repair your BB.
And what happens after you’ve rolled the dice? Do you had to pay the totalled sum in IPCs to get the BB ready for combat again?
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CVs taking 2 hits should be a UK NA only. British carriers had steel decks, and none were ever sunk, even by the Kamikazes.
American carriers were built for speed with wooden decks, hence the high loss rate to air attacks.
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Victory Conditions: Part 1
(Because of its length, I’ll post this message in two parts. The first part will give background information, and the second will focus on a specific concept for possible application to the game.)
I’m going to take another crack at a subject that I’ve discussed a few times, which is is the subject of victory conditions. As I’ve argued previously, I think that it’s a fundamental consideration to any game design process because it provides a central reference point for evaluating all the other elements of the game. My feeling is that without such a reference point, one simply ends up with a collection of cool game mechanics that aren’t held together by anything coherent. To use a musical analogy: it’s important for a symphony orchestra to include a wide range of instruments played by musicians who each sound great individually, but those individual qualities are meaningless if the individual musicians don’t have a conductor to make sure they play together harmoniously – or, even worse, if the individual musicians aren’t even playing the same symphony.
The idea I’ll be outlining here developed in the following way. It started out from the premise that, fundamentally, the Axis powers in WWII were optimized for fighting a series of short, decisive campaigns (with breaks in between them to allow them to restock and reorganize for the next campaign), while the Allied powers were in a better position to fight a long-term war of attrition. This is, or course, an overly simplified description of the status of the two sides during the war, but it’s a useful starting point for thinking about how this model could translate into victory conditions in a redesigned Global 1940 game.
When I started to consider this model, the first idea that came to mind was this one. If we work from the premise that the Axis has no chance of winning a long war of attrition, then the obvious conclusion is that the Axis has to win early through hard-hitting maneuver warfare, and that the objective of the Allies in this early phase of the game is simply to survive. It then follows that, if the Axis fails to achieve this early win, then the war can be assumed to be changing from a short-term war of maneuver to a long-term war of attrition, and that in such a context the Allies will almost certainly win, and thus that it’s meaningless to allow the game to continue beyond a certain point. The victory conditions that emerge from this line of reasoning are therefore something like this: the Axis powers have to achieve such-and-such an objective by such-and-such a round of play; if they succeed, the Axis powers win; if they fail, the Allied powers win. Ergo, we end up with a game that has a built-in time limit, or more correctly a built-in round limit.
That was my first idea. I didn’t really like it because although it has the virtue of being simple it has the defect of being simplistic. It’s based on the premise which I described in the two previous paragraph, and that premise is itself simplistic. So let’s look at that original premise more closely and try to draw a fuller picture of the situation. Specifically, we need to look at what “winning the war” would have meant in realistic terms on both the German side and the Japanese side in WWII.
On the German side, the conceptual model of fighting a series of short, decisive campaigns initially went well. Germany achieved a quick and complete victory on the Eastern Front, conquering the eastern side of Poland, then got a long break (the Phony War) during which it was able to rest, reorganize, plan and train for the next campaign. It then achieved a quick and complete victory in Denmark and Norway, then another quick and complete victory against the Low Countries and France. Against Britain, however, the German campaign of May-June 1940 did not produce a victory, but rather a second-best result: what I call a “sustainable stalemate.” Germany knocked the BEF out of Continental Europe, forcing it to abandon all its equipment in order to evacuate its men, but it proved unable to invade and occupy Britain or to force it to capitulate. Britain survived and stayed in the war, but was in no immediate (or even medium-term) position to invade and liberate Western Europe or to force Germany to capitulate. Hence, the two sides were essentially deadlocked, and were reduced to fighting each other on the ground in fringe territories (like Africa), in the air (in reciprocal bomber offensives) and at sea (the Battle of the Atlantic), with the air and sea campaigns being the start of attritional warfare between the Britain and Germany. This went on for years, and did not change fundamentally until the mid-1944 D-Day landings in Normandy and Anvil-Dragoon landings in Southern France signaled the resumption of maneuver warfare in Western Europe, and the gradual driving back of the Germans out of France and into Germany.
On the Eastern Front, in 1941, Germany initially tried to win a quick victory over the USSR through maneuver warfare. The Germans managed to push deeply into Soviet territory, but not deeply enough to achieve either a decisive victory. (“Deeply enough” would have meant the Urals, or possibly just the A-A line, but my feeling is that it was simply unrealistic for the Germans to get that far.) Instead, the Germans ran out of steam, then got pushed back part of the way by the Russians…who in turn ran out of steam. This scenario was repeated in 1942-1943, with the Germans pushing eastward towards Stalingrad and the Russians pushing them back. In other words, the two sides engaged in a combination of maneuver warfare and attrition warfare for about two years, with the maneuvering component mainly being a back-and-forth see-sawing of the front (similarly to what happened in North Africa) and the attrition component mainly being a huge consumption of manpower on both sides. The fundamental change on that front occurred in the period following Kursk, when the Russians were able to finally start pushing the Germans back without getting stopped.
How could we define “winning conditions” for Germany in this context? Physically overrunning Britain proved impossible because of the Channel and physically overrunning Russia proved impossible because of its sheer size, so we can rule out physical conquest as an indicator of victory. The number two option then becomes getting Britain and Russia to quit. Germany did make some progress in that direction: Britain’s convoy situation got pretty grim on a couple of occasions, and the USSR supposedly put out some peace feelers to Germany at one point. All in all, however, Britain and the USSR were too strongly motivated to capitulate unless their resources were exhausted – and neither ever go to that point. The number three option then becomes achieving a sustainable stalemate on each front. To “win” in practical terms, Germany would have had to be able to defeat the 1944 Anglo-American landings in France (and any subsequent ones made in 1945 and thereafter) and would have had to be able to keep playing “push me, pull you” with the Soviets on the Eastern Front: falling back from Soviet advances in the winter, and driving forward into Soviet territory in the summer. So on that basis you could say: if the Germans can achieve this on the game board, and can sustain it for long enough, they can be considered to have won by default because they’re holding on to their gains no matter how hard the Allies try to defeat them. Conversely, if the Allies manage to regain and hold significant territorial space that the Germans have conquered, they can be considered to have won because the momentum is on their side. You could call this the “barometer” approach rather than the “thermometer” approach. With a thermometer, the single reading given at a single moment is meaningful; with a barometer, the meaningful information is the trend shown over time, i.e. whether the pressure is rising or falling.
I’m not going to analyze Japan’s situation in much detail because, frankly, I don’t think Japan ever had much of a chance to win. It was already wearing itself down in China when it launched (with the bare-bones forces it could spare) its 1941 campaign of conquest in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, so right from the start it was biting off more than it could chew. In my opinion, Japan’s only realistic chance of achieving sustainable conquests in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would have been if it had done something that can’t be modeled into A&A (because it would distort the game too badly): attacking the British and Dutch colonial territories it wanted, but not going to war against the US. Japan’s vague strategic hope was that the Americans would get tired of fighting a losing war against Japan, and would eventually sit down to negotiate a treaty that would allow Japan to keep its gains. This hope would only have worked if Japan had left it up to the US to decide if it wanted to enter WWII, and thus if the US had gone to war without the powerful motivation and the sense of outrage that Pearl Harbor caused.
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Victory Conditions: Part 2
The information I gave in the previous post was intended mainly as background to help understand how the actual (or potential) “victory conditions” of the Axis might have worked in WWII. I mentioned a few concepts that could potentially be turned into actual victory conditions for a redesigned G40 game – but I realize that the concepts are probably too abstract for practical use. So as a follow-up, here’s a much more concrete proposal that is built around some of the same ideas.
My earlier statement that “the Axis powers in WWII were optimized for fighting a series of short, decisive campaigns, while the Allied powers were in a better position to fight a long-term war of attrition” could be expressed differently by saying that, fundamentally, the Allied powers were fighting space and the Axis powers were fighting time. The danger faced by the Allied powers was that the Axis would quickly overrun their space early in the war by hard-hitting maneuver warfare. The danger faced by the Axis was that the Allies, if they survived the initial Axis offensive, would in the long run crush the Axis through attrition with their industrial and manpower superiority.
Attrition and productivity were hugely important to the outcome of WWII, but they’re very inadequately modeled in A&A. The closest equivalent to these factors is IPC income, but the IPC element is for the most dependent only on space (the conquest of territory) rather than on both space and time. With one exception, the OOB game does not take into account the fact that the economic and industrial situations of WWII’s combatant nations changed dramatically over time, and that these economic and industrial changes were not exclusively dependent on territorial changes. The exception is the concept of bonus income, and specifically the concept of the US shifting to a “wartime economy.”
Historically, there were all sorts of factors that affected the economic and industrial situations of the various combatant nations. To give a couple of examples:
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Japan took an economic hit when the US imposed an oil embargo on it. Its situation improved when it conquered the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. This economic situation reached a plateau as the US submarine campaign started to bite, then started to deteriorate as the the sub campaign became more effective, then deteriorated even more when the US got close enough to start its B-29 bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands.
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Germany got a financial boost from its early conquests, but failed to employ them as efficiently as it could have. Moreover, it did not put its civilian population on a full war footing (from the point of view of factory service) until 1943, whereas the UK and the USSR did so right from the start of the war in each country. Germany gained industrial capacity from this civilian mobilization, and also from the subsequent program rationalizations introduced by Albert Speer, but at the same time these industrial improvements were “capped” (prevented from growing to their full potential) by the direct destruction caused by the Allied bombing campaign, and indirectly by the inefficiencies caused by the dispersal of industry to which the bombings led.
Some of the factors I’ve mentioned (like the conquest of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya) are already built into the G40 game, but others (like the US submarine campaign against Japan) are not. So perhaps these time-based factors could be modeled into the game – essentially as IPC modifiers that would affect different countries in different ways in different game rounds, according to predetermined tables. To give just one very simple example, we could assume that when we get to such-and-such a round of play, Japan’s IPC income would be adjusted downward to represent the effects of the American submarine campaign. Every power would have its own table of time-based adjustments, representing a combination of two things: the degree to which it improved its industrial productivity at a given moment of the war, and the degree to which that industrial capacity was degraded by enemy action. The geographic factor (i.e. which territories a power controlled) would not be modeled into these tables because it’s represented by the game map and is under the control of the actual players. The tables would focus instead on background factors which are currently not modeled (or barely modeled) in the A&A game, the US shift to a wartime economy being the major exception.
These tables would not, in and of themselves, constitute a set of winning conditions. Rather, their point would be to prevent the game from degenerating into an endless stalemate. A stalemate, as I’ve argued above, could be designated as a situation which allows the Axis to claim victory. If, however, such a stalemate-based Axis victory isn’t a satisfactory solution, then the time-based economic adjustment tables might be the answer. The tables would reflect the fact that long-term attrition warfare favoured the Allied side, so the tables would gradually tilt the balance towards the Allied side. If there’s no limit placed on this tilting (which is one option), the Allies are guaranteed to win if they hold on long enough. If there is a limit placed on this tilting, then an Allied victory is not a foregone conclusion but the job of the Axis becomes harder once the game progresses past a certain point – which is an incentive for the Axis to try to win before the equivalent of, let’s say, 1944.
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@Hessian
Yea you add the dice and that’s what it costs to fix it.
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Changes either added to or discussed already, that I am advocating as potentially good changes.
- � I don’t really like how America declares war in this game. � It seems so arbitrary when there were huge political forces both for and against the war (and let’s face it, I have NEVER seen a Pearl Harbor on round 4 and I highly doubt anyone else has either…not as it happened where the American battleships and cruisers were sunk.) � So what if we go with the following:
Before America’s turn, each round, the player rolls 2 dice.
- � Round 1: � If both dice are a 1, then America may declare war from then on. (2.89% chance of happening.)
- � Round 2: � If both dice are 2 or less, then America may declare war from then on. 2.89% (11.82% chance of happening.)
- � Round 3: � If both dice are 3 or less, then America may declare war from then on. � (25.23% chance of happening.)
- � Round 4: � If both dice are 4 or less, then America may declare war from then on. � (45.17% chance of happening.)
- � Round 5: � No matter what, the United States may engage in war at the start of this round. � (Percentages were from an online calculator, so they MIGHT be off…)
So there is a better than 50/50 shot the United States won’t go to war until Round 5, even if they are in Round 4 already! - yes that is a full round late! � Perhaps in this reality the people are more pacifistic than normal? � However, there’s always that chance that the United States may go to war early - something the Axis have to worry about.
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� War Bonds for nations at war - per technology rules. As discussed above. � (Combined with #1) which will help the Axis (primarily) mitigate the risk of the United States going to war early.
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� National Objectives:
Germany (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC no British, surface, warships in the North Atlantic (Naval supremacy)Russia (in place of the current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC No Allied forces in Russia, and Russia is at war with the European Axis powers
B) � +5 IPC for the capture of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Poland (each)
C) � NO BONUS for any other captured Axis territory
D) � +5 IPC not at war with Germany and/or ItalyJapan (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC every round they have more capital warships in the Pacific than all allied nations combined (i.e. they have more battleships and aircraft carriers combined.) - Naval Supremacy
B) � +5 IPC for the complete capture of all Chinese territoriesThe United States (in addition to, except one change)
A) � CHANGE +5 IPC for the control of E. USA, C. USA & W. USA � (Down from 10 IPC)
B) � +5 IPC for allied control of Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, Paulau Island, Iwo Jima and Okinawa � (Island hopping campaign) � (brings their total NO income back up to where it was before.)China: � NO CHANGE
England (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC no German submarines in the North Atlantic (able to get supplies from her colonies)
B) � +5 IPC if the United States is at war with Germany and Italy - AND - has 5 ground units in Normandy, France, S. France and/or England � (Allied Forces - basically to make up for the fact they will NEVER get and keep their current NO)ANZAC: � NO CHANGE
Italy: � NO CHANGE
France: +1 Infantry a round for every round Paris is controlled by France (yea right! � That’s basically game over anyway, right?)
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� Battleships and Aircraft Carriers must be adjacent to either a friendly Industrial Complex or a friendly Naval Base to repair. �
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� The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may declare war on the European axis powers only when they have more infantry in E. Poland, Baltic States and/or Bessarabia than Germany and Italy do in Poland, Slovak/Hungary and Romania. � (Rationale: � Stalin wanted to go to war with Germany and if the Germans didn’t have the man power present to cause him to pause, he probably would have declared before Hitler did.) � Yes, for the record, this MIGHT cause the Russians to not be able to declare war the WHOLE game!!! � But it will tie up a whole lot of German income!!! Don’t forget those extra NOs Russia’s getting! �
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� Russia is permitted to invade Finland, Norway and Sweden even if not at war with Germany (pre-existing disputes.) � Again, this is to tie up German units, who are allowed to liberate these territories without going to war with Russia. �
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� Minor Industrial Complexes are limited to building the following units: � Infantry, Artillery, Mechanized Infantry, Armor, Fighters, Cruisers, Transports, Submarines and Destroyers only. �
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� Victory Conditions: �
Allies: � Allies win if all allied territories everywhere on the game board are controlled by the allies AND no allied capitols are held in enemy hands (yes this includes Paris!) �
or
Allies: � Japan is captured OR Italy/Germany are both captured (their capitols.)
Axis: � per game rules (VC or Capitol victory.)
Those are just my opinions…not saying I am correct or I have all the data nor am I saying I thought of all issues these changes might wreak on the game…
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The mechanic of “Axis/Central Powers must control X victory cities at the end of round Y” is something I’ve considered for 1914, based on the simple fact that no capitals were captured in that war, and that Germany surrendered with no enemy units on German home soil.
There is therfore a natural “victory curve” graph for the CPs; the game ends automatically after 10 rounds as an Allied win if the CPs fail to achieve an end of round victory.
Two possible mechanics for American entry:
VC threshold - America declares war if the CPs hold X cities at the end of round Y (beginning round 4). Thus American entry only occurs if the CPs are doing reasonably well.
Also, American entry cannot happen until Russia suffers at least a level 1 collapse (fall of the Tsarist regime).
It should also be noted that the Tournament rule victory conditions for 1914 do not work. Very simply, a system based on holding home territories always favours the CPs as it is they who do the attacking - they who fight the war on enemy soil. A system has to be devised in which a side can loose the war without losing home territory. The best idea is a system based on collapse of morale, factoring in such things as number of units lost, bombing raids on home cities and so forth.
Another idea is that at a certain point the Central Powers declare unrestricted submarine warfare, triggering American entry. This does not work in 1914 official rules as the advantage to the CPs for doing this is too trivial. There has to be a big boost for them to to compensate American involvment.
One thing I’ve suggested is that of combined command - essentially the CPs can all take their turn together, including attacking, - possibly giving them an edge to break the stalemate on the Western front.
For WWII this is no so great, and in any case I think Germany and Italy should play together from the start.I think the game has to assume that a Japanese attack on UK/F/NL brings the American in, otherwise there’s no way Japan will attack the US. This in turn brings a German declaration on America. Japan’s incentive to do this must be based on gaining resourses in the Pacific, either economic (oil) gain from the DEI or political in terms of victory cities (using the victory curve method described above). Axis short-term gains must balance the long-term inevitable defeat spelled by American involvment.
Thus, a Japanese Pacific strike is likely to bring the Axis to the brink of victory (in terms of holding X VCs), forcing America into an aggresive Pacific strategy to regain VCs, rather than simply playing a long game based on wearing down the Axis economically (which is likely to mean ignoring the Pacific).
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I’m intrigued by this idea of Victory tables. I’m out on the grind at work, but just wanted to check in and say that idea is very interesting.
Some of the OOB “at war” bonuses are already timed such that they always occur by round 4/5 (if not sooner) so its not like the idea is totally alien to the game. Its expressed more indirectly OOB via the politics system and the attendant NOs, but I don’t see why that couldn’t be pinned more to the overall conditions of victory, on a round specific timed table of some sort. Right now G40 has a lot of bonuses via the NO system its a lot to track, and those are independent of overall victory, just playing the economic game. I wouldn’t mind retaining the idea of Victory Cities, or perhaps change them to “Objective Cities” that award a basic IPC bonus (as a gameplay driver to highlight these territories that already have the information represented graphically on the map), but that doesn’t mean control of those cities should necessarily be the way that Victory itself is determined.
Great feedback there. I like the broad sketches. It would be nice if “Axis Victory” felt like something achievable historically.
I’m reminded of the Total War franchise, where in the og MTW the prestige victory system allowed more minor powers to “win” without just steamrolling the entire map of Europe. In M2TW the prestige system was removed and it was like pure conquest, which was fun but felt somehow less nuanced. I think something similar happens in A&A, where its fun to smash across the global with the Axis, but would probably be cooler if the Axis victory was more what was described above.
Japan’s role in the game is pretty out-sized. I admit it is fun to entertain the idea of Japan crushing China or India or Russia or go toe to toe with Anzac and the North Americans, but to pull off all this stuff in the same game at the same time seems a bit ridiculous. Whatever kind of historical fantasy element you want to keep for the Japanese, I think it would be cooler if they had higher value targets oriented more toward the Eastern Pacific, or South Eastern Pacific (as opposed to the West/South Wester) giving them a reason to fan out in that direction. Japan in A&A has always departed from the historical feel. Whatever the assessment is on their achievable victory in the real war, I think it would be cool to give them a different style of play in a redone game.
Also those battlewheels are cool. Never seen anything of that sort before
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@Cmdr:
- � War Bonds for nations at war - per technology rules. As discussed above. � (Combined with #1) which will help the Axis (primarily) mitigate the risk of the United States going to war early.
Is this the everyone has War Bonds roll once per turn, providing they are at war? If so, I like it a lot.
@Cmdr:
Japan (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC every round they have more capital warships in the Pacific than all allied nations combined (i.e. they have more battleships and aircraft carriers combined.) - Naval Supremacy
B) � +5 IPC for the complete capture of all Chinese territoriesA) I like this one. Gives Japan a reason to keep building ships and has a veneer of historical reality to it.
B) This could easily be bumped up to 10 IPCs in my opinion. I should clarify that it should be bumped up only if modified rules are instituted that make China harder to conquer. Although I would have to reconcile that with their other NOs…
@Cmdr:
- � Minor Industrial Complexes are limited to building the following units: � Infantry, Artillery, Mechanized Infantry, Armor, Fighters, Cruisers, Transports, Submarines and Destroyers only. �
I thought the point of limiting the unit types for minor ICs was (at least partially) to prevent a Japanese tank crush on Asia? Maybe I misread that, but it seemed a reasonable and convenient limitation. Also looks like you added Fighters and Cruisers to the list of ‘can-builds’. I am not sure I like that, but that is my opinion.
I may be in the minority, but I tend to view cruisers as capital ships. Historically, it would have depended on their size and armament, but most were big enough that I would not list them for building at a minor IC, whose facilities are supposed to be more limited.
Also… the area described as the North Atlantic will have to be delineated with what Sea Zones comprise or encompass it.
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CVs taking 2 hits should be a UK NA only. British carriers had steel decks, and none were ever sunk, even by the Kamikazes.
American carriers were built for speed with wooden decks, hence the high loss rate to air attacks.
I disagree. A great many US carriers took loads of punishment and survived multiple battles. The US only lost (4) carriers that could be considered Fleet size (14,000+ tons or 50+ aircraft capacity).
(see post #3 in above link)
If the link above is to be believed… US Carrier losses (which include a greater number of escort/light carriers) are about 11 out of 119 total = 9.2%. British losses were 7 out of 64 total = 10.9%.
Perhaps more importantly, a comparison of Fleet Carriers lost vs. Escort/Light Carriers looks like this:
USA: 4 Fleet / 11 Total = 36% losses were Fleet Carrier size
UK: 4 Fleet / 7 Total = 57% losses Fleet Carrier sizeAlso, more of Britain’s fleet carrier losses were ships that were more heavily armored because they were converted battleships or cruisers, rather than purpose-built carriers.
I will grant you that the UK never lost one of her newer, Illustrius-era, carriers in the war… but neither did the US lose one of its Essex class, which were essentially comparable in vintage and capabilities.
I just geek-ed out there calculating a bunch of ship stats, but my point is that due to the ability for Fleet-level carriers in general to absorb punishment and survive, they should all be 2-hit to sink.
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Great feedback there. I like the broad sketches. It would be nice if “Axis Victory” felt like something achievable historically.
A realistic Axis victory, to expand a bit on my two earlier posts, could essentially be defined as “grab significant territory and show that you can hang on to it.”
I once read an interesting statement in a book on the American Civil War. It argued that there were three possible outcomes to the war, and that two of those three outcomes amounted to a Confederate victory. The Confederacy could invade and occupy the Union (a pretty improbable scenario), or it could simply hold on to its existing territory (something at which it was initially successful). To win, the Union would have to invade and occupy the Confederacy (which it ultimately accomplished, but at the cost of four years of fighting).
In the WWII context of A&A, the situation isn’t quite that simple because the Axis isn’t fighting to keep the territory it controlled prior to the outbreak of war, it’s fighting to acquire more territory and then hold on to it. There are, however, some rough parallels with the Civil War situation I described above. For the Axis, the ideal (but improbable) outcome would have gone like this. On the Western Front, Germany would have knocked Britain out of the war either by direct invasion (not likely in 1940, given its lack of preparation for an invasion) or an intensive submarine blockade (which might have been achivable if Germany had started preparing itself a couple of years earlier for such a naval strategy). Depriving the Allies of the British Isles would have caused the Allies immense problems because Britain was the forward base from which they fought the war from 1940 to 1944. In Africa, the ideal Axis outcome would have been complete Italian and German control of North Africa and the Horn of Africa. On the Eastern Front, the ideal Axis outcome would have been conquering everything west of the Urals, where most of the USSR’s resources were located, and using the Urals as a natural long-term defensive barrier in the same way as the English Channel was used as a natural defensive line for Fortress Europe. In the Pacific, the ideal Axis outcome would have been a complete Japanese conquest (in addition to the ones they actually achieved) of Papua, the Solomons, the Ellice Islands, Samoa, Fiji and the New Hebrides, in order to cut the sea and air routes between North America and Australia and New Zealand. Conquering Australia itself would have been too much of a challenge due to its size, but cutting it off would have made it more difficult for the Allies to use it as a forward base (in the same way that they used Britian as a forward base). As for the China-Burma-India theatre, Japan’s best option in my opinion would have been to simply hold the line in Burma (to protect Malaya), to keep up its efforts to subvert India by political means, and to either hold the line in China or to pull back from the Chinese interior and settle for the coastal provinces it had already conquered.
This ideal Axis outcome, like the ideal “Confederacy invading and occupying the Union” scenario, was unachievable in my opinion. The second-best Axis outcome, which like the “Confederacy holding on to its existing territory” scenario was more realistic, would have been what I described earlier as a sustainable stalemate. (I won’t repeat its details here because they’re in my earlier posts.) In Global 1940 game terms, I think they’d translate as follows if we include the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables which I described previously. Essentially, a complete G40 game would have three major phases, with each phase corresponding to the three major phases of WWII: the period of Axis dominance, the “deep war” period, and the period of Allied dominance.
The first phase of the game would be the phase during which the Axis can make use of its military superiority to make early major territorial gains. Ideally it can even achieve a complete victory in this phase (so there should be victory conditions which would produce an early Axis victory if the Axis players do a good job and/or the Allied players play badly). More typically, however, this phase would be characterized by the Axis advancing significantly on all fronts and the Allies basically trying to survive. An Allied victory in this phase is highly improbable, so the victory conditions should – for this phase – be just barely achievable for the Axis and quite unachievable by the Allies.
During the second phase of the game, both sides are engaged in a fairly balanced slugging match. The Axis has benefited economically from its territorial conquests, but these benefits are starting to level off towards a plateau as Allied attritional warfare begains to have an effect (as simulated by the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables I’ve discussed). The Allies have stopped the Axis offensive, but are not yet strong enough to push back significantly. The Allies have suffered economically from their loss of territory, but the mobilization of their economy (the rebuilding of Soviet factories east of the Urals and the US shift to a wartime economy) are starting to pay dividends. During this phase, the Axis and Allied victory conditions should be more balanced than in the first phase (when only the Axis powers had any prospect of achieving theirs), but they should not be easy to achieve for either side. For the Axis, this phase should probably be the last one in which the Axis has a chance to win by capturing victory cities.
During the third phase of the game, the Axis powers should be feeling a serious bite from the effects of attritional warfare, while the Allies should be reaping the full benefits of their industrial mobilization (again, as reflected by the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables). During this phase, in which the Allies finally have the cash to achieve military superiority, an Allied victory by the capture of victory cities should become possible. The flip side is that the Allies can only win by capturing victory cities: it’s in the same position as the Union in my Civil War example, because to win the Union had to invade and occupy the Confederacy. The Axis, for its part, is now trying to survive (as were the Allies in the first phase). The Axis is in no position to win by capturing victory cities…but it can still achieve a “vistocy through indefinite stalemante” by hanging on to what it has and/or perpetually throwing back back the Allies every time the Allies make gains. It’s at this point that a game-round limit would kick in. Basically, if the Axis can maintain a perpetual stalemate over X number of rounds during phase three, when the Allies are at their peak power (as reflected by the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables), then the Axis has proved that its conquests are sustainable and it wins on that basis.
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@CWO:
I’m going to take another crack at a subject that I’ve discussed a few times, which is is the subject of victory conditions.� As I’ve argued previously, I think that it’s a fundamental consideration to any game design process because it provides a central reference point for evaluating all the other elements of the game.� My feeling is that without such a reference point, one simply ends up with a collection of cool game mechanics that aren’t held together by anything coherent.
This is foundational to Axis&Allies and any redesign needs to start here and keep this in mind throughout the process. Otherwise we get what Marc very aptly points out: “cool mechanics held together by nothing [or little that is] coherent.” Well put.
The cool mechanics need to relate back to advancing your objectives in winning the game.
@CWO:
the Axis powers have to achieve such-and-such an objective by such-and-such a round of play; if they succeed, the Axis powers win; if they fail, the Allied powers win.� Ergo, we end up with a game that has a built-in time limit, or more correctly a built-in round limit. That was my first idea.� I didn’t really like it because although it has the virtue of being simple it has the defect of being simplistic.
It is somewhat simplistic and it does put a hard time limit on things (which honestly I have never liked), but it is possibly the most accurate way to simulate political and social fatigue in a game. A few hours among friends is fun. A few years of harrowing world war and bloody death and suffering is something else entirely.
@CWO:
Specifically, we need to look at what “winning the war” would have meant in realistic terms on both the German side and the Japanese side in WWII.
It would never have been feasible for Japan or Germany to conquer the world. I do not believe that was even the expressed intent of either one. The objectives described in the back of the 1940 Europe Rulebook for Global do a pretty good job of fundamentally describing the Axis motivations and goals for war.
Germany = Lebensraum: This sort of evolved into continental Europe domination but mainly consists of the ideologically and resource motivated takeover of Poland, Eastern Europe, Russia and the Caucasus extending to the Middle East. The only capital they really need to focus on is Moscow, though London is still an option for gameplay purposes.
Italy = Mare Nostrum: Mediterranean dominance and a revived Roman Empire. Even though the Roman Empire was huge during its time, in 1940 and in terms of A&A this is a relatively limited objective comprising the Med, Southern Europe and North Africa/the Mid East. With Germany’s help this is an achievable goal.
Japan = Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Just as racially motivated and subjugation-centric as Nazism, this is also a pretty specific and geographically limited goal. That stretch of geography is huge, but Japan was able to achieve its objectives about 75% complete by the time they really started losing the war. China was a problem that staggers the imagination and needs to be better represented in the game.
With the Axis having the initiative in the game, they should dictate the victory conditions. By that I mean, they are the ones with specific victory conditions that need to be reached. If the Allies can survive the early going and push the Axis back and assault their capitals, then the Allies win.
@CWO:
How could we define “winning conditions” for Germany in this context?� Physically overrunning Britain proved impossible because of the Channel and physically overrunning Russia proved impossible because of its sheer size, so we can rule out physical conquest as an indicator of victory.� The number two option then becomes getting Britain and Russia to quit.� All in all, however, Britain and the USSR were too strongly motivated to capitulate unless their resources were exhausted – and neither ever go to that point.� The number three option then becomes achieving a sustainable stalemate on each front.�
Good analysis. While sustainable stalemate is plausible, I don’t think that anyone wants that for a resolution in a boardgame. :wink:
@CWO:
if the Germans can achieve this on the game board, and can sustain it for long enough, they can be considered to have won by default because they’re holding on to their gains no matter how hard the Allies try to defeat them.�
Yes. Same for Japan. If a Turn Limit Victory is enacted, it should be on the Allies. A Turn Limit Victory for the Axis is somewhat redundant: if the Axis are not achieving their objectives over time the Allies will by design get bigger and harder to defeat and eventually begin to crush the Axis. This is already built into the game and IMO does not require a Turn Limit rule.
Actually, to avoid the hard Turn limit, I would propose that if the Axis achieve their objectives and can hold them for 2 Turns they can be said to have achieved victory by staving off the Allies and exhausting their will to continue to oppose them. Said Axis objectives do not necessarily include taking Ally capitals, but it could. I would go so far as to say that you could split the Axis victory… Japan and Germany(w/Italy) can achieve victory separate from one another. E.g. if Japan achieves objectives and holds for 2 turns, they have “won” and the war ends for them, even if Germany is still fighting. At that point the US and Britain could turn all their attention to Germany. How this would work out in gameplay I don’t really know.
@CWO:
I’m not going to analyze Japan’s situation in much detail because, frankly, I don’t think Japan ever had much of a chance to win.� In my opinion, Japan’s only realistic chance of achieving sustainable conquests in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would have been if it had done something that can’t be modeled into A&A (because it would distort the game too badly): attacking the British and Dutch colonial territories it wanted, but not going to war against the US.� Japan’s vague strategic hope was that the Americans would get tired of fighting a losing war against Japan, and would eventually sit down to negotiate a treaty that would allow Japan to keep its gains.� This hope would only have worked if Japan had left it up to the US to decide if it wanted to enter WWII, and thus if the US had gone to war without the powerful motivation and the sense of outrage that Pearl Harbor caused.�
This is an interesting and valid point, but I don’t know that attacking the US (or at least bringing them into the war against Japan) can be avoided in the game. To achieve their Greater-East Asia objective Japan must attack the UK. In the OOB political rules, Japan attacking the UK brings the US into the war against Japan, even if Japan does not attack the US directly. This rule should be preserved and would ensure that the US will always fight Japan.
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A few years of harrowing world war and bloody death and suffering is something else entirely.
Lt. Commander Worf: There are six trials we must face on the path to Kal’Hyah. This is the first - deprivation. We now begin a fast that will continue until the day of the wedding.
Captain Sisko: What are the other five trials?
Lt. Commander Worf: Blood, pain, sacrifice, anguish, and death.
Doctor Bashir: Sounds like marriage alright. -
@CWO:
A realistic Axis victory, to expand a bit on my two earlier posts, could essentially be defined as “grab significant territory and show that you can hang on to it.”
Your entire post here makes me happy that we are saying almost the exact same things simultaneously.
@CWO:
A few years of harrowing world war and bloody death and suffering is something else entirely.
Lt. Commander Worf: There are six trials we must face on the path to Kal’Hyah. This is the first - deprivation. We now begin a fast that will continue until the day of the wedding.
Captain Sisko: What are the other five trials?
Lt. Commander Worf: Blood, pain, sacrifice, anguish, and death.
Doctor Bashir: Sounds like marriage alright.Haha! I am a huge Star Trek fan. Very apt quote from Worf.
Another that I often use comes from Worf sitting in front of plates upon plates of food and a piece of meat in his hand: “It has been a difficult day!”
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On the subject of carrier damage, I once floated the idea that carrier based fighters should have to spend every other turn during combat on a friendly carrier refueling/rearming. Essentially, carrier planes had just enough of each for ONE attack on the enemy fleet before having to return to recharge. Perhaps this needs to be factored when considering the effect of carrier damage; e.g. a damaged CV can hold/resupply only one fighter.
This is similar to my suggestion that every ship should have to refuel at a friendly port EACH AND EVERY GAME ROUND.
The point I was getting at regarding armoured CVs is that they in effect were self-repairing, while the old wooden tops needed extensive repairs at NBs.
The point of the suggested curve for Axis progress is to give them a realistic schedule for expansion, requiring continual attacks in the early stages. Drop far below the curve and they lose the game, they must push over it for victory.
Example: the equivalent of Fall 1941.
Germany is slogging into Russia, Japan is bogged down in China. Several VCs need to be taken to keep the Axis above the “defeat” threshold for that turn. Several VCs sit in the Pacific, relatively weakly defended. A bold attack could take Singapore, Manilla & Jakarta, and place Sydney and Hawaii within achievable range. This then draws Japan into a Pacific war, even though it means war with the USA. America in turn will notice that with Japan within range of Australia, & Germany at the gates of Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Axis could win in a round or two, so it has to engage in a Pacific war now rather than build up for the regulation long-term economic squeeze on Germany.
Without such a curve, America will simply ignore the Pacific; while default Axis strategy of KRF will send those Japanese tanks pinging off towards Moscow rather than going east to help defend the Pacific perimeter.
Another factor that can be worked in here is oil reserves - the Axis moves towards NEE & the Caucasus were largely driven by the need for fuel; e.g. they need to hold enough oil tts on round X to continue their war efforts.
I agree that a four player game should give each of the 4 blocks individual victory goals; fighting mutual enemies should be co-incidental. There should be no sharing of tt between “allies”, nor “liberating” of original allied tt.
This also has the obvious advantage that if A & B concentrate on destroying C, then D will walk away with the game; therefore you must balance efforts equally against each enemy. -
In general, I would say we should not make things so overly complex just to attain a bit more realism and improve game play. Just my opinion. But AARHe (Revised Historical Edition) had pages upon pages of extra rules and it made it tough to find opponents….
Having planes land every other round for rearmament might be more realistic (for all battles, only so much they could take with them after all!) but it adds complexity where, IMHO, it isn’t needed to balance game play or enhance the game experience.
Requiring capitol ships to be in “port” with a friendly IC/SY adds both reality and enhances the game (you damaged it, now it either retreats or lives with the damage and presses on!)
Just my personal opinion, feel free to disagree.
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On the subject of carrier damage, I once floated the idea that carrier based fighters should have to spend every other turn during combat on a friendly carrier refueling/rearming. Essentially, carrier planes had just enough of each for ONE attack on the enemy fleet before having to return to recharge. Perhaps this needs to be factored when considering the effect of carrier damage; e.g. a damaged CV can hold/resupply only one fighter.
Agree with Jennifer here… The idea sounds like reality, but I suspect there would be a lot of pushback on such a rule. It reduces the utility of aircraft and changes a simple and well established mechanic in a small way, but it isn’t a change that really improves upon much. IMO
A single fighter piece represents more than simply one aircraft though. Since it is just a representation of a much larger force, it can be accepted that part of the force is attacking at all times while the other portion is refueling and rearming as you say.
This is similar to my suggestion that every ship should have to refuel at a friendly port EACH AND EVERY GAME ROUND.
Same… seems like it would really clog up gameplay and logistics. They wouldn’t be able to make it anywhere on the board. Again, if a Power’s Turn is accepted to be about 6 months of time, it is reasonable to assume that your ships (and other units) have been able to fight, rearm, refuel and reposition themselves in half a year.
This and the fighter issue are tactical and logistic considerations that really aren’t well suited to a game on this scale. If this were A&A the miniature game, it would be a different story.
The point I was getting at regarding armoured CVs is that they in effect were self-repairing, while the old wooden tops needed extensive repairs at NBs.
That isn’t a bad point or special rule. It is actually interesting to think of an Advantage for the UK along those lines. Personally I would still keep all Fleet Carriers at 2 hits.
The point of the suggested curve for Axis progress is to give them a realistic schedule for expansion, requiring continual attacks in the early stages. Drop far below the curve and they lose the game, they must push over it for victory.
America in turn will notice that with Japan within range of Australia, & Germany at the gates of Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Axis could win in a round or two, so it has to engage in a Pacific war now rather than build up for the regulation long-term economic squeeze on Germany.
Without such a curve, America will simply ignore the Pacific; while default Axis strategy of KRF will send those Japanese tanks pinging off towards Moscow rather than going east to help defend the Pacific perimeter.
A curve of success that the Axis must maintain is an interesting concept. I like that it can work to keep the Allies honest, like you mentioned in fighting Japan. However, my concern would that be if the Axis simply can’t hold the objective curve for some reason, even if they are not really losing the game by anyone’s measure, then the game could end pretty abruptly without the Allies having done much of anything but weather the storm for a bit.
Some compelling reasons must be given for everyone to actually fight each other. Or rather for the Allies to fight Japan and not just ignore them because Russia/Germany is where the war is won. I think there may need to be a balance of political, strategic and economic Objectives or Rules that foster the need to fight Japan simultaneous to Germany… at least to some degree. You don’t want to script the game, but at the same time you want to funnel the gameplay toward some balance of realism and fun.
Another factor that can be worked in here is oil reserves - the Axis moves towards NEE & the Caucasus were largely driven by the need for fuel; e.g. they need to hold enough oil tts on round X to continue their war efforts.
Intellectually, I am all for incorporating oil into the game because it was such a strong strategic motivator, particularly for the Axis.
At the same time, I do not wish to add another phase to the game or more limitations on units because of it. (I have read over HBGs Oil Rules for GW1939 and my initial reaction was “Oh crap, how the heck do you get anything done?” Especially the Axis because they have so little.
I have considered just adding a bit more value to a territory IPC-wise, but it doesn’t convey the same motivation. A couple extra IPCs won’t make or break your ability to operate. Supposedly, territory values in regular A&A are supposed to imply the possession of resources like oil. Always wondered why then the Caucasus and Mid-East were so low in value…
I agree that a four player game should give each of the 4 blocks individual victory goals; fighting mutual enemies should be co-incidental. There should be no sharing of tt between “allies”, nor “liberating” of original allied tt.
This is interesting also. Germany and Japan never got into the position of having to jointly defend a territory. Neither, really, did the USSR and the Western Allies. Germany and Italy and the US/UK/ANZAC were the only ones to truly attack together and defend together.
Having a rule limiting who can jointly occupy territories would solve some problems and maybe bring others up. I like the thought though.
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