Thank you for clarifying!
G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)
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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
:-D -
@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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I disagree with the carrier rule above as well. My reasoning for it is based on how long a turn is supposed to represent. If a turn represents 6 months (or even 1 month in this particular case) it wouldn’t be realistic anyways to have to have a whole turn dedicated to “refueling and resupply”. In fact, I think that would make it even less realistic. We must remember the time scope being encompassed in each game round. A single turn would realistically represent multiple recons, battles, missions, etc. that would have taken place in that time frame. Same as with land combat representing essentially a whole campaign of battles and not just a single battle. Yes, if a single turn was only 10 days or something I would totally be more on board with restrictions such as this, but that isn’t the case. Refueling, resupply, refitting, combat, recon, repairs, etc., all are simulated within that one turn that represents one or multiple months.
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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.
Interesting discussion. Perhaps the way to find a good solution is to look at what’s the most problematic case in both real life and in the OOB game Japan vs. the United States.
In Europe in real life, the UK and France (in the west) and the USSR (in the east) all had strong motivations to fight Germany (in the middle), and Germany had strong motivations to fight them, so it’s not problematic to translate that motivation into game terms. That area of the game map has a high concentration of capitals in a small amount of space, and it contains a lot of IPC-rich territories, so it’s a high-profit area to fight over.
Japan and the US are another story, as is the low-capital-density and (on the game map) mostly-IPC-less-island Asia-Pacific theatre in general. From a purely objective, detached, rational point of view (not the kind of viewpoint which characterized a lot of leaders of that era), Japan had good reasons not to fight the US, and the US had good reasons to view Germany as a vastly more dangerous threat than Japan. As I’ve mentioned previously, Japan was already getting overstretched in China when it set out to conquer the DEI and Malaysia (its prime economic targets), so a sensible policy for Tokyo would have been to apply the old adage “Don’t make more enemies than you have to.” Setting out to conquer the DEI and Malaysia was achievable – and in fact was achieved – by Japan because Holland and Britain were already busy (to put it mildly) halfway around the world in their war against Germany. Grabbing those territories without going to war against the US would have put Roosevelt in a very awkward position because of the strong US domestic isolationist lobby. The isolationists didn’t oppose the US going to war as such; they opposed the US going to war unless the US was attacked. It would have been a hard sell for Roosevelt to go to war without being attacked first: domestic opposition would have been strong, and the public would not have been as highly motivated as it proved to be after Pearl Harbor because the US would technically have been an aggressor nation rather than the injured party (i.e. the victim of a treacherous sneak attack rising up in righteous indignation to fight a just war of self-defense). It probably would have happened sooner or later, but they domestic political dynamics (which were an important motivational factor) would have been different.
Also weighing against a Japanese-American war were a few other awkward details. On the Japanese side, Japan didn’t have enough men (due to its commitments in China) or enough maritime shipping capacity (logistics not being their strong suit) to fight a sustained war in the Asia-Pacific theatre…especially with the US as one of its enemies. Japan’s vast perimeter of control in the central Pacific wasn’t something it acquired from scratch when the war started: most of it consisted of islands which Japan has acquired as mandate territories after WWI. Japan simply added a few missing pieces like Guam and Wake and the Gilberts from late 1941 to mid 1942. Keeping those remote island bases supplied proved difficult for Japan as the war progressed. (This is one reason why Japan could probably never have occupied the Hawaiian Islands, even though they did think about invading them: the huge logistical challenge this would have implied.) On the American side, a strong factor weighing against a Japanese-American war was the realization that Nazi Germany had to be the priority. Despite the outrage that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused, the US agreed with Britain on a “Germany First” overall strategy. The fact that the US fought Japan to any significant extent in 1942 was, in a sense, simply a reflection of the fact that America’s considerable naval strength was of little direct use in fighting a land war in Europe, and that therefore it might as well be put to good use fighting an oceanic war against Japan.
So…how do we realistically give Japan and the US a strong motivation to fight each other in Global 1940, without simply scripting it into the rules? I don’t know (or at least I haven’t thought of a plausible answer yet), but there’s at least one thing that seems clear: the rules have to make it impossible for the Axis to win the war by having Japan march across Asia towards Moscow in support of its German ally. This would have been utterly impossible for Japan to do so in real life. Japan barely got a toehold of Russian/Mongolian territory when it fought its border wars with the USSR in 1938 and 1939, and it ultimately lost those conflicts. Marching two or three thousand miles across Siberia to Moscow (including a climb over or through the Urals) would be sheer fantasy, and a deployment by train would have to be based on the assumption that the Japanese could capture and hold (and defend from partisan sabotage and Red Air Force attack) a couple of thousand miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway. And remember too that Japan wasn’t exactly making stellar progress in that other very large and very populous country where it had been fighting since 1937: China.
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Yes! Much as I love one off starships trekking about, my real goal here is for a DS9 style series long plot arch! You know, fully comprehensive with the depth to give it staying power. Fantastic commentary and digression.
:-DI still like the name “Dominions” for a Commonwealth faction, for reasons that I guess will be obvious to some hehe
Excellent ideas coming in, especially regarding the shape of possible victory conditions and outlines for how the game might play. This stuff is getting me excited. I’m about to make a move in a few days. Got into a new place much closer to work. I’ll be packing for the next few days, but when I get my new dungeon cave/A&A garage set up, I’ll definitely be looking to cystalize some of these ideas into a general framework and start building it out in earnest.
Keep it up all, great posts this weekend. Look forward to reading more thoughts.
Also, I just noticed Cernel mentioned wanting to include a Nova mock-up in TripleA. This is not exactly related to the current discussion, but it might be an interesting thing to consider, from an original design vision type standpoint.
Comparing the rules of that proto-game version of Axis and Allies to the Global game, you get a real sense for just how much has changed and expanded in the many releases between today and back in 81. Which coincidentally is the year I was born, and makes me suddenly all intrigued by this relic of a bygone age! haha
:-Dhttp://axisandallies.wikia.com/wiki/Nova_Games_Edition
Curious to look at, just as a milestone, Nova to G40. How different the game was then, and how flexible and open to adaptation it is generally in successive editions.
This whole last section outlining the differences is interesting to consider I think…
You can’t collect income if your capital is enemy-occupied, otherwise there is no penalty.
Pro-neutrals give their income to the named power while neutral
Neutrals can be occupied by paying 3. You do not need to stop.
Allies have economic victory by controlling 85 at the end of Japan’s turn, Axis by controlling 70 at the end of US turn. Either wins immediately by controlling 2 enemy capital.
AA Guns and factories can be removed during the buy units phaseNot that any of those rules are worth readopting, but they show some kind of foundational ideas that might somehow be relevant. New changes excused as a kind of vague “return to the original conceptions,” in seach of a jumping off point, to take it in some other new direction. More from the perspective of rationalizing possible abstractions we want to adopt later on.
:-D -
I disagree with the carrier rule above as well. My reasoning for it is based on how long a turn is supposed to represent. If a turn represents 6 months (or even 1 month in this particular case) it wouldn’t be realistic anyways to have to have a whole turn dedicated to “refueling and resupply”. In fact, I think that would make it even less realistic. We must remember the time scope being encompassed in each game round. A single turn would realistically represent multiple recons, battles, missions, etc. that would have taken place in that time frame. Same as with land combat representing essentially a whole campaign of battles and not just a single battle. Yes, if a single turn was only 10 days or something I would totally be more on board with restrictions such as this, but that isn’t the case. Refueling, resupply, refitting, combat, recon, repairs, etc., all are simulated within that one turn that represents one or multiple months.
I can see why people don’t like the idea; perhaps a more feasible variant would be that you cannot take carriers as casualties before the fighters they support. That is, after each round of combat you must demonstrate that all fighters are effectively supported by surviving carrier capacity, and thus able to continue. This should include damaged carriers only supporting one fighter, so if you choose to use CVs to absorb hits you must reduce the number of fighters you can sustain in the battle.
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@CWO:
Interesting discussion. Perhaps the way to find a good solution is to look at what’s the most problematic case in both real life and in the OOB game Japan vs. the United States.
In Europe in real life, the UK and France (in the west) and the USSR (in the east) all had strong motivations to fight Germany (in the middle), and Germany had strong motivations to fight them, so it’s not problematic to translate that motivation into game terms. That area of the game map has a high concentration of capitals in a small amount of space, and it contains a lot of IPC-rich territories, so it’s a high-profit area to fight over.
Japan and the US are another story…
If I could give this post 2+, I would. Very well said, even if we don’t yet have a solution. This is a great identification of one of, if not THE, trickiest aspect of A&A to make realistic. Europe pretty much takes care of itself. But Asia/Pacific is another story… It is very easy for Japan in a boardgame to over-achieve immensely compared to what was even plausible in real life. I do not want to script the game or place undue limitations on it, but if we want to avoid a cross-Asia run on China and the USSR, which often happens, we need to institute rules or objectives which steer gameplay from that possibility. One of the hardest things to do in a game of this scale is to accurately depict the geographic challenges involved in fighting a world war. If we care about realism at all, I think this needs to be taken into account somehow. Doesn’t mean we need to make certain things completely impossible, just that doing them certain ways will be very, very difficult or near impossible.
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It is very easy for Japan in a boardgame to over-achieve immensely compared to what was even plausible in real life. I do not want to script the game or place undue limitations on it, but if we want to avoid a cross-Asia run on China and the USSR, which often happens, we need to institute rules or objectives which steer gameplay from that possibility. One of the hardest things to do in a game of this scale is to accurately depict the geographic challenges involved in fighting a world war. If we care about realism at all, I think this needs to be taken into account somehow. Doesn’t mean we need to make certain things completely impossible, just that doing them certain ways will be very, very difficult or near impossible.
I hesitate to put this idea forward because the Japan/US problem (or actually the triple Japan/US Japan/USSR Japan/China problem) needs a comprehensive solution, and this idea is just one fragment that’s not sufficient by itself…but for whatever it’s worth, here it is.
A problem with the game map is that – for various practical reasons – it distorts the size and shape of many land and sea areas. China is one example: I once estimated that China on the game map is about half as wide as it ought to be relative to its height, with most of the compression located in the western half of the country. I haven’t done similar estimate for the USSR, but my guess is that it too is much narrower on the game map than it ought to be. This makes it possible for Japan to march westward across both countries, whereas in reality Japan never penetrated more than one-quarter to one-third of the way into the Chinese interior and never made significant inroads of any kind into the USSR during the WWII era. In the game, both countries should be impossible for Japan to overrun; grabbing pieces of them sounds fine, but getting all the way to the Himalayas and Moscow does not.
Some proposals have been made in the past to add more territories to the USSR, as a way of slowing down Japan. I can see the advantages of this, but it involves redrawing the map; my preference is to use the OOB map and find a different solution. One geographic feature which caught my eye were the map’s impassable terrains, like the Himalayas. The concept of impassable terrains can’t be used directly to solve the Japan/USSR and Japan/China problems, for two reasons: we shouldn’t make China and the USSR totally impassable, and we shouldn’t use solutions that involve redrawing the map. The concept of impassable terrains could, however, be adapted in the following way. When pushing into China and the USSR, Japan could be confronted with “difficult” rather than inpassable terrain, the “difficulty” representing both the challenging nature of the terrain itself and the increasing logistical challenge of supporting the advancing Japanese forces as they go further and further inland and keep stretching their supply lines. This “difficulty factor” could be represented by something as simple as putting coloured mini poker chips on the map, which have to be removed one at a time (one chip per round) before Japan can advance to the next territory in line.
To give an arbitrary example, let’s look at the shortest route between Japanese-occupied Jehol and Moscow. Chahar might be given 0 terrain chips (no adjustment), Suiyuan and Kansu might each get 1 terrain chip, and Novosibirsk and Samara might each get 2 terrain chips. As a result, moving from Jehol to Chahar could be done in 1 turn, moving from Chahar to Suiyuan could be done in 1 turn, but moving from Suiyuan to Kansu would take 2 turns [1 chip removal turn + 1 movement turn], moving from Kansu to Novosibirsk would take 2 turns, moving from Novosibirsk to Samara would take 3 turns, and moving from Samara to Russia (and thus Moscow) would take 3 turns. Not impossible, but not easy. To keep some options open for Japan, there could be a related rule saying that Japan can speed up this advance (which we could assume is being done by infantry) but at a substantial cost and/or with substantial restrictions (for example by requiring Japan to ditch its infantry and advance exclusively with more expensive mechanized infantry).
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I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.
Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.
The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.
Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.
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@CWO:
A problem with the game map is that – for various practical reasons – it distorts the size and shape of many land and sea areas.� China is one example: I once estimated that China on the game map is about half as wide as it ought to be relative to its height, with most of the compression located in the western half of the country.� I haven’t done similar estimate for the USSR, but my guess is that it too is much narrower on the game map than it ought to be.
I just made this comment in a thread on the Global War board about the new HBG map for Global War. The style of the map is great but there are significant distortions from a geographic perspective. I realize some distortion is necessary to fit a sphere onto a rectangle of a given aspect ratio. Not to mention that some territories must be re-sized because they are more important/travelled/utilized and/or stacked with pieces… like Japan and England.
However, this is more of an artistic problem than a geographic one. The real issue is how territories are broken up and how many there are when representing distance or natural obstacles. My assumption is that game designers take these factors into account when creating the map, but I have been wrong to assume such consideration before…
@CWO:
Some proposals have been made in the past to add more territories to the USSR, as a way of slowing down Japan.� I can see the advantages of this, but it involves redrawing the map; my preference is to use the OOB map and find a different solution.� One geographic feature which caught my eye were the map’s impassable terrains, like the Himalayas.
I have come to the point where I no longer find the OOB G40 map to be sufficient for me. I think it could be improved in many ways and my ideal is something along the lines of HBG’s Global War map, but even that could use some tweaking for my tastes. I will never find a perfect solution so I am starting to embark on creating my own. Right now it is more of an exercise to test my ideas and manipulate the map in a way to fix some of these geographic challenges we have been discussing. I want it to be very similar to HBG’s map, because I like a lot of the elements and the framework. Their new map looks cool, but as I said, I have some issues with it and would like some explanations.
@CWO:
The concept of impassable terrains can’t be used directly to solve the Japan/USSR and Japan/China problems, for two reasons: we shouldn’t make China and the USSR totally impassable, and we shouldn’t use solutions that involve redrawing the map.� The concept of impassable terrains could, however, be adapted in the following way.� When pushing into China and the USSR, Japan could be confronted with “difficult” rather than inpassable terrain, the “difficulty” representing both the challenging nature of the terrain itself and the increasing logistical challenge of supporting the advancing Japanese forces as they go further and further inland and keep stretching their supply lines.� This “difficulty factor” could be represented by something as simple as putting coloured mini poker chips on the map, which have to be removed one at a time (one chip per round) before Japan can advance to the next territory in line.�
Interesting idea. I have toyed with the idea of making up some vaguely reasonable rule that would essentially serve the same purpose (bogging down passage across Asia), but it would be more of a legislative act than your tangible and visual representation. Either one could work, but my idea could be viewed as more red tape where as yours is a bit more concrete and therefore acceptable.
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I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.
Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.
The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.
Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.
Yes! I agree totally. Splitting up the Axis victory is the quickest way to get Japan away from trekking to Moscow because it no longer has a vested interest for doing so. It is, as you said, an unnecessary waste of men, materiel and time.
I was thinking more on the Prestige victory concept last night and wondered how it could be tracked. Certainly a combination of IPC income, holding of victory cities or strategic resource areas could all play a part. The challenge is finding a simple metric. The easiest may be straight up IPC income at the end of your turn. It sort of amalgamates the characteristics of having a certain amount of territory, high value territories and (with NO bonuses) indicates the achievement of strategic objectives. This would also force the Allies to fight for said strategic resource centers or victory cities to some degree, or just to take as much territory back as possible. Islands (if given IPC value) could become relevant.
The problem of the USA/UK just letting Japan win so they can focus on Germany could be avoided by stating that for the any of the Allies to be able to “win” the game, they must defeat both Japan and Germany. No one side has to take both Axis capitals, they just have to both be taken. The US/UK could take Japan and the USSR could take Germany, but the winner would then be calculated by prestige points somehow. I think this would foster the needed amount of competition between the Western Allies and the USSR.
EDIT: just found this on another thread in House Rules. May be a good start in drafting a Prestige Victory system. Never heard of this game before.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36589.msg1451991#msg1451991
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