G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

[LHoffman]

@Flashman:

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

[Black_Elk]

Difficult terrain is a very cool idea, because it could be used in other areas as well. Tank/Mech drives occur in a couple regions of the map, and often (because it’s a turn based game) the movement exploit for can opening with land units that move 2 spaces per turn can be pretty dramatic. I know we’ve discussed in other threads the idea of difficult terrain,  but that was more in the context of regional climate/weather. This would probably be too challenging to represent in a simple way, since frozen tundra, ice sheets, scorching dessert, mud and rain all have a seasonal component.

My preference would be to clearly denote “difficult terrain” on the map with a marker of some sort, like a special chip, if we went for this idea of a movement restriction for select territories (not a prohibition like with impassibles, but someway to limit the breakout speed of fast moving mech/tanks.) For infantry or other units you could limit the combat effectiveness rather than movement. This would produce a similar effect, but would be easier to capture with games mechanics.

Infantry or other units, instead of being “frozen” in place, might just have their attack value reduced -1 or something like that, when operating in difficult terrain.

[LHoffman]

@Black_Elk:

Infantry or other units, instead of being “frozen” in place, might just have their attack value reduced -1 or something like that, when operating in difficult terrain.

Would this mean that they could actually not be able to attack (having a 0 value)… those not supported by artillery.

[CWO Marc]

@Flashman:

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.

These are good points.  Here’s a revised proposal that incorporates some of the ideas from today’s discussion.  It’s still missing the answer to two crucial questions, but I think it resolves plausibly several of the problems that have been raised.  I was hoping to find a solution to those two remaining questions before posting this message, but I’m a bit rushed at the moment…so I’ll post what I have so far.

1. Japan needs to have a powerful (and credible) motivation in the game to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.  In WWII, Japan did have such a motivation: oil.  When Japan (with Vichy acquiescence) occupied French IndoChina, the US responded by hitting Japan with an oil embargo.  This embargo posed a deadly threat to the Japanese Empire; as I recall, Japan calculated that its oil reserves would last at best two years, so Japan had to take action to secure new supplies of oil (of which it had none domestically) before its stocks ran out.  The Dutch East Indies were the most practical source that could be acquired by conquest.  There were also other very important strategic raw materials nearby – such as rubber from Malaya – so these resources added further incentives for Japan to go to war in that region.  Oil, however, was the central consideration.

2. This dependence on oil – and hence this strong motivation for Japan to attack the DEI – could be built into the game as one element of those country-specific, time-dependent IPC adjustment tables that I discussed earlier.  And it would be easy to do, in my opinion.  The nominal starting date of Global 1940 is early June 1940, and France is already programmed to fall almost immediately.  Japan first entered FIC in late June, and took full control of FIC in late September 1940.  So our modified rules could plausibly include a provision which automatically puts a Japanese presence in FIC soon after the game begins, thus triggering (in the game’s invisible economic background) the American oil embargo.  The time-dependent IPC adjustment tables would, from that point onward, adjust Japan’s IPC income further and further downward unless Japan captures the DEI.  This would basically force the Japanese player to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, because otherwise Japan’s IPC income will eventually melt to zero (or close to zero).

3. Japan already starts the game at war with China.  The Japanese invasion of the DEI (which is now almost obligatory under the rules just described) will automatically put Japan at war with the UK, ANZAC, France (nominally) and Holland (nominally), since these were all Allied powers who were at war with Japan’s ally Germany.  However, the Japanese invasion of the DEI will not automatically put Japan at war with the USSR,  nor with the US (unless Japan attacks US-controlled territories as part of its campaign of conquest).  As I mentioned earlier, it would have been logical for Japan not to attack the US in WWII , so let’s assume that the Japanese player (if given a free hand) will only go to war against the “European imperialist colonial powers”.

4. On paper, we’ve now solved the problem of forcing Japan into a state of war with the UK and ANZAC (and France and Holland).  However, we still need two more things: getting the US to enter the war against Japan, and giving the Allied powers a strong motivation to fight Japan actively.  Without such a motivation, the Allies could simply dismiss the Asia-Pacific theatre as a backwater and let Japan run wild there while they concentrate on beating Germany in the European theatre.  With such a motivation, on the other hand, we can solve several problems:

• The US would be at war with Japan rather than at peace.

• The US, the UK and ANZAC (and nominally France) would all be fighting a vigorous war against Japan, rather than settling for a technical state of war and letting Japan run wild.

• The vigorous war fought by the Allied powers against Japan in the Asia-Pacific theatre would force Japan to defend itself, and therefore force it to fight vigorously rather than just resting on its laurels and being satisfied with the territories it has acquired.

• By having to fight vigorously in the Asia-Pacific theatre, in addition to fighting a war in China, Japan would not have the resources (and historically did not have the resources) to get embroiled in a war against the USSR.  So this would solve the Japan/USSR problem: if we can ensure that Japan has to fight for its life in the Asia-Pacific theatre, it won’t dare go to war against the USSR because diverting resources towards Russia would expose Japan to rapid defeat in the Asia-Pacific theatre.

5. So the double-barreled question that now has to be solved is: how do we get Japan and the US into a war against each other, and how do we ensure that the US, the UK and ANZAC will fight so hard against Japan that Japan won’t dare go to war against the USSR?  I’m still thinking about those two questions, but I’m encouraged to see that we have the outline of a plausible overall solution, and that if we can answer those two questions then we’ll have have solved (I think) the other problems too.

[LHoffman]

@CWO:

2. This dependence on oil – and hence this strong motivation for Japan to attack the DEI – could be built into the game as one element of those country-specific, time-dependent IPC adjustment tables that I discussed earlier.  And it would be easy to do, in my opinion.  The nominal starting date of Global 1940 is early June 1940, and France is already programmed to fall almost immediately.  …  So our modified rules could plausibly include a provision which automatically puts a Japanese presence in FIC soon after the game begins, thus triggering (in the game’s invisible economic background) the American oil embargo.  The time-dependent IPC adjustment tables would, from that point onward, adjust Japan’s IPC income further and further downward unless Japan captures the DEI.  This would basically force the Japanese player to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, because otherwise Japan’s IPC income will eventually melt to zero (or close to zero).

I think I understand this and it is intriguing. There would be a discrepancy then between the total IPC income that Japan is collecting via occupied territories and what actually reaches the player’s hand. Maybe it is just semantics or procedure, but it may be clearer to allow Japan to collect everything they are due, but institute a rule or drawdown table such that every turn that Japan lacks the DEI then they must surrender 5 IPCs (multiplied by the Turn number) back to the bank. This simulates the tapping of their strategic oil reserves. If they have not taken the DEI by Turn 4, Japan is losing 20 IPCs automatically.

Per the G40 political rules, Japan must declare war on the UK/ANZAC before attacking the DEI. An unprovoked DoW against the UK/ANZAC allows the US to declare war on any and all Axis powers on their turn. These situations and Japan’s need to take the DEI soon basically result in the US entering the war by Turn 2… almost always. The rules never say the US must declare war on Japan, but there is no reason for them not to. The longer they wait to fight them, the more territory, objectives, IPCs/prestige Japan accumulates and decreases the ability for the Western Allies to win.

@CWO:

3. Japan already starts the game at war with China.  The Japanese invasion of the DEI (which is now almost obligatory under the rules just described) will automatically put Japan at war with the UK, ANZAC, France (nominally) and Holland (nominally), since these were all Allied powers who were at war with Japan’s ally Germany.  However, the Japanese invasion of the DEI will not automatically put Japan at war with the USSR, nor with the US (unless Japan attacks US-controlled territories as part of its campaign of conquest).  As I mentioned earlier, it would have been logical for Japan not to attack the US in WWII , so let’s assume that the Japanese player (if given a free hand) will only go to war against the “European imperialist colonial powers”.

Per above… the bold statement is not true. At least not the second half.

@CWO:

5. So the double-barreled question that now has to be solved is: how do we get Japan and the US into a war against each other, and how do we ensure that the US, the UK and ANZAC will fight so hard against Japan that Japan won’t dare go to war against the USSR?  I’m still thinking about those two questions, but I’m encouraged to see that we have the outline of a plausible overall solution, and that if we can answer those two questions then we’ll have have solved (I think) the other problems too.

I think the first part is solved.

Motivation for fighting Japan is also solved if giving Japan independent victory conditions that are easier to achieve than taking Moscow. Japan and Germany never worked together tactically or strategically so they should not have a joint goal of bringing down the USSR as the only path to victory.

[CWO Marc]

@LHoffman:

I think I understand this and it is intriguing. There would be a discrepancy then between the total IPC income that Japan is collecting via occupied territories and what actually reaches the player’s hand. Maybe it is just semantics or procedure, but it may be clearer to allow Japan to collect everything they are due, but institute a rule or drawdown table such that every turn that Japan lacks the DEI then they must surrender 5 IPCs (multiplied by the Turn number) back to the bank. This simulates the tapping of their strategic oil reserves. If they have not taken the DEI by Turn 4, Japan is losing 20 IPCs automatically.

Yes, the idea behind the tables I’ve been discussing is that they serve to adjust the net income that reaches a player’s hands.  The net income is determined by taking the IPC value of the territories held by the player (gross income) and adjusting it by that particular power’s table for that particular round (which raises or lowers the gross income to produce the net income).  Each power has its own table, and each table has specific adjustments (perhaps some obligatory and some conditional) for each round of play.

The table adjustments partly reflect some time-dependent factors that are assumed to automatically happen in the background of the game (like the positive effects of increased wartime production or the negative effects of enemy actions like oil embargoes or submarine campaings) and partly depend on events under the control of the players (e.g., does Japan capture the DEI or not?).

The adjustments could potentially work in two ways.  The less drastic way would be additive or subtractive: take your gross IPC income and add (or subtract) so many dollars to calculate your net income.  The more drastic way would be multiplicative: take your gross income, multiply it by x%, then add (or subtract) that amount to calculate your net income.

[LHoffman]

@CWO:

Yes, the idea behind the tables I’ve been discussing is that they serve to adjust the net income that reaches a player’s hands.  The net income is determined by taking the IPC value of the territories held by the player (gross income) and adjusting it by that particular power’s table for that particular round (which raises or lowers the gross income to produce the net income).  Each power has its own table, and each table has specific adjustments (perhaps some obligatory and some conditional) for each round of play.

The table adjustments partly reflect some time-dependent factors that are assumed to automatically happen in the background of the game (like the positive effects of increased wartime production or the negative effects of enemy actions like oil embargoes or submarine campaings) and partly depend on events under the control of the players (e.g., does Japan capture the DEI or not?).

The adjustments could potentially work in two ways.  The less drastic way would be additive or subtractive: take your gross IPC income and add (or subtract) so many dollars to calculate your net income.  The more drastic way would be multiplicative: take your gross income, multiply it by x%, then add (or subtract) that amount to calculate your net income.

Gotcha… I didn’t realize you were talking about doing this for other Powers also.

In general, this is a pretty simple mechanic. I am not so sure about the multiplication part. I assume most people can do math, but it is simpler to have a set amount to add or subtract (even if it becomes compounded over turns in the case of Japan). What you surrender is known and constant rather than variable based on what you gain, lose or have in your hand. You get into stuff like “do bonuses count towards this loss?” and “do I include money I have leftover from my purchase phase?”… even though it seems to me the answers to those are pretty clear (yes and no, respectively).

[CWO Marc]

@LHoffman:

Gotcha… I didn’t realize you were talking about doing this for other Powers also.

In general, this is a pretty simple mechanic. I am not so sure about the multiplication part. I assume most people can do math, but it is simpler to have a set amount to add or subtract (even if it becomes compounded over turns in the case of Japan). What you surrender is known and constant rather than variable based on what you gain, lose or have in your hand. You get into stuff like “do bonuses count towards this loss?” and “do I include money I have leftover from my purchase phase?”… even though it seems to me the answers to those are pretty clear (yes and no, respectively).

Yes, at this point the table idea is just a very general concept, not a finished tool or even a working prototype.

The finished mechanic itself would be simple to use (especially if it just uses plain addition and subtraction), but it would require a good deal of thinking and research to set up.  We’d need to look into things like:

• The economic adjustments that are already built into the game, such as the national objective bonuses and the US shift to a wartime economy.  We’d have to decide which ones to keep as is, which ones to modify, which ones to discard – and then which ones to integrate into the table and which ones to keep separate as N/Os (or whatever).

• The game-dependent events that we want to model into the tables.  Example: the idea we’ve been discussing about Japan taking an oil embargo hit when it occupies FIC, and the oil boost it gets when it occupies the DEI.  (It’s interesting that Japan has such a rocky relationship with three-letter abbreviations: FIC and the DEI both have a major effect on Japan’s GDP.)

• The “background” economic and attritional events of WWII that the tables are intended to reflect.  I gave examples of these “boosts” and “hits” for Germany and Japan in my Reply #94 of September 19.  To work out those time-dependent curves, we’d need to consult sources giving economic statistics for the WWII participants, to look for things like gross domestic product, convoy sinkings, percentage of population mobilized in industry, bomber damage and so forth.

[LHoffman]

@CWO:

The finished mechanic itself would be simple to use (especially if it just uses plain addition and subtraction), but it would require a good deal of thinking and research to set up.  We’d need to look into things like:

• The “background” economic and attritional events of WWII that the tables are intended to reflect.  I gave examples of these “boosts” and “hits” for Germany and Japan in my Reply #94 of September 19.  To work out those time-dependent curves, we’d need to consult sources giving economic statistics for the WWII participants, to look for things like gross domestic product, convoy sinkings, percentage of population mobilized in industry, bomber damage and so forth.

“Good deal of research”… no joke.

[CWO Marc]

@LHoffman:

“Good deal of research”… no joke.

Fortunately, the goal isn’t to produce a highly detailed economic model of WWII, because that level of detail would be wasted on a game that is extremely simple and abstract when it comes to depicting economic factors.  The goal is simply to identify some large-scale economic factors that had large-scale effects on the course of WWII within some broad slices of time, and to use these factors to fix parts of the game that are problematic.  The table adjustments don’t need to be intricate, nor even super-accurate; they just need to be reasonably credible and to feel right from an impressionistic point of view, with a view to improving the game in ways that people are happy with.

[LHoffman]

@CWO:

Fortunately, the goal isn’t to produce a highly detailed economic model of WWII, because that level of detail would be wasted on a game that is extremely simple and abstract when it comes to depicting economic factors.  The goal is simply to identify some large-scale economic factors that had large-scale effects on the course of WWII within some broad slices of time, and to use these factors to fix parts of the game that are problematic.  The table adjustments don’t need to be intricate, nor even super-accurate; they just need to be reasonably credible and to feel right from an impressionistic point of view, with a view to improving the game in ways that people are happy with.

That is exactly my philosophy as well.

[Jennifer]

I think the problem with USA vs Japan is two fold:

A)  Even in history there really was no rationale for going to war.  Japan’s navy needed resources because the Army was getting it all, so they picked a fight to justify more resources from the Emperor.  America, of course, retaliated.

B)  It’s too hard to take islands.  You CAN load transports but then to move on you have to use those transports again.  In Europe/Africa you use the transports then leave the troops behind so they can move on without you.  Perhaps if you allowed Destroyers to carry 1 infantry unit and transports could carry either 3 infantry, or 2 mechanized units (artillery, mech infantry or armor) thus improving the functionality of them IN THE PACIFIC ONLY we’d see a better push by the USA to take out Japan.

Alternatively, perhaps just say that you may move 1 infantry from one island group to the next without a transport.  So Carolines could go to Paulau without a transport as if they were going from Algeria to Libya.

[CWO Marc]

I looked at the G40 map and I noticed that Malaya has a pretty decent IPC value (3), which goes nicely with the DEI islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java (4 each) and Celebes (3).  The total value of those five pieces of real estate is 18 IPCs, which makes them important in themselves, and they become even more important if we use the adjustment table factor we discussed: with a US oil embargo in place, Japan’s IPCs get adjusted downward more and more with every round unless it takes and holds the DEI.  So Japan would have strong economic reasons to grab the DEI and fight for them at all costs.  An additional rubber-from-Malaya bonus/penalty adjustment could be thrown in too, if desired, as a bit of extra motivational icing on the cake.

Now for the missing piece of the puzzle: giving the US a strong reason to go to war against Japan and fight actively in the Asia-Pacific theatre rather than just letting Japan romp all over the area while the US attends to the more pressing matter of Nazi Germany in Europe.  Thanks to LHoffman for pointing out that the going-to-war part is a virtual certainty under the OOB political rules, which solves half the problem.  As for the strong-reason-to-fight part, I’ve had an idea that I’d like to float for consideration.  As what’s proposed above for Japan, it’s meant to make it financially disadvantageous for the US to simply sit around in a technical state of war without actively fighting.

The proposal is in two parts, but both parts hinge on the same assumption: that the US can only get the full benefits of a fully mobilized wartime economy if the American public is strongly motivated to support the war effort.  This is a credible premise because that’s exactly why the American public: a) abandoned isolationism and supported Roosevelt and Congress in declaring war against Japan after Pearl Harbor; b) went along with the call-up of men into the armed services and the call-up of women into the shipyards and factories; c) went along – though with some grumbling, especially as regards gasoline for their cars – with rationing and other privations; and d) contributed an awful lot of money to the war effort by buying war bonds.

Part one of the proposal has to do with the state of war in and of itself.  Even though a DoW is virtually guaranteed onder the OOB rules, it doesn’t hurt to give things a little (actually a big) nudge in the right direction.  So here’s the idea: the US can (obviously) only shift to a wartime economy if it goes to war, but it can only shift to a full wartime economy if it goes to war against both Japan and the European Axis powers.  The rationale is simple: being at war against both Japan and the Germany/Italy pairing is a far bigger crisis than being at war just in the Pacific or just in Europe, so it’s easier to convince the public that a far greater effort is needed.  Therefore: If the US is at war against Japan alone, it can only ramp up to x% of its potential full wartime economy (x being significantly smaller than 100).  If the US is at war against Germany/Italy alone, it can only ramp up to y% of its potential full wartime economy (y being significantly smaller than 100).  Only if it’s at war against all the Axis power can it ramp up to 100% of its potential full wartime economy.

Now for part two, which has to do with the need to fight aggressively.  Here’s the idea: unless the US fights actively on both fronts, on a fairly constant basis, it won’t be able to maintain its full wartime economy.  The rationale is that the workers and the bond-buyers on the home front have to be kept motivated by a sense of urgency, and by the feeling that the weapons they’re building and financing are being put to good use in active combat.  A great example of this sort of thing was the motivational wartime documentary Angel in Overalls – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhVikLVKWVU – which was made “for the men and women of American industry”.  It shows an isolated and damaged American bomber over Germany facing gim odds against some German fighters, until a P-38 Lightning charges to the rescue and blasts the enemy planes out of the air.

This part of the economic adjustment table would, in essence, deduct points from the US wartime economy if the Americans aren’t actively fighting on one of their two fronts…and would deduct even more if they’re not fighting actively on either front.  “Fighting actively” would have to be defined, of course, but here’s the neat part: it’s the “fighting actively” part that would matter, not whether the Americans are winning or losing.  News that the troops are fighting a winning war can be a great motivator on the home front (“Angel in Overalls” basically tells factory workers: “The fighter planes you build are saving Americans boys in combat, so please keep up the good work and build even more”), but news that the troops have suffered a grave defeat and are desperate for weapons can be a powerful motivator too (as British workers proved after Dunkirk and Russian workers proved in the second half of 1941).

Getting the US to fight actively in this way will go a long way to keeping Japan occupied (and away from Russia), so that’s already a big help.  Is there a way to motivate the British to likewise fight actively in the Asia/Pacfic theatre?  This will require more thought, but one option would be to make use of the fact that India was: a) enormously important to the British economy; and b) politically restless, and under active attempts at Japanese political subversion; and c) under direct threat once Japan had invaded Burma.  So, to apply here a formula similar to the one above for the US, the UK might get IPC points deducted owing to restlessness in India unless it can show the population of India that it’s fighting actively against Japan (including nearby in Burma).

[barney]

I was under the impression that the US has to go heavy pacific already or they’ll generally lose. I thought the issue was Japan steamrolling China or blazing through Russia. Give China some more dudes and maybe a free spawn of 2 inf should help.

Russia would be a little more problematic. It’s been talked about limiting minors to inf/mech builds only. IDK if that’s the answer as Japan would be severely limited building any type of other units.

Japan already has plenty of incentive to take the DEIs. While penalizing them for not having the DEIs would help the allies in Asia later in the game, it would encourage a KJF strategy even more.

I guess it depends on what you’re after but just because certain things didn’t happen or were unlikely to historically, doesn’t mean they should be excluded or so unlikely to succeed that they never happen. I don’t think Japan would have done well blowing through Russia in the real war. It should still be a viable strategy if you want to try it though. Japan just needs to be slowed down/discouraged a little bit more than currently.

[barney]

@Black_Elk:

Difficult terrain is a very cool idea, …

Difficult terrain is cool. I would just make them 1 M TTs for all land units and not have any other restrictions to keep it simple

[regularkid]

Been following this thread with interest.

Thought you might enjoy a playable saved game file containing the National Objectives I mentioned in a earlier post.

This variant is the result of a collaborative effort among several regulars on TripleA (see revision “credits” in Game Notes), and seeks to address some of the common complaints with the standard G40 Map, including the imbalance in favor of Axis, the lack of serious engagement in certain historically important theaters, etc. Based on the play testing we have done to date, the new NOs do seem to go along way to improving balance and enhancing the overall gameplay experience.

The revisions are as follows:

REVISIONS

Revised Air Raid Rules: Fighters attack and defend at 2. Strategic and tactical bombers attack at 1.

Additional National Objectives

UK

1. 3 PUs for UK Europe if Allies control at least 2 of: Sicily, Sardinia, Greece.
2. 3 PUs for UK Europe if Malta, Crete, and Cyprus are Allied or pro-Allied controlled.
3. 3 PUs for UK Europe if there are no enemy submarines in the Atlantic, excluding szs 112 and 125-127.
4. 3 PUs for UK Pacific if West India and either Egypt or South Africa are British-controlled, and there are no enemy submarines in the western half of the Indian Ocean (sz71,…,sz81).

USA

1. 5 PUs if Allies control at least 2 of: Normandy Bordeaux, Holland Belgium, Southern France, and USA has at least one land unit in any of these territories.
2. 5 PUs if Allies control Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and USA has at least one land unit in any of these territories.
3. 5 PUs if Allies control Midway, Wake Island, Guam.
4. 5 PUs if Allies control Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, Paulau Island, Marianas.

Revised National Objectives

Russia

1. 5 PUs if Russia is at war with European Axis, there are no allied units in any originally Russian territories, and at least one of three Lend-Lease routes is open: (Archangel, sz 125), (Persia, sz 80) or (Siberia, sz 5).
2. 3 PUs for each originally German, Italian, or Pro-Axis neutral territory that Russia controls in mainland Europe.

NOTE: The new objectives will not be listed in the “Objectives” Panel (a separate download is required for that). But they are listed in Game Notes, and will be displayed on your income screen when they are achieved.

Feedback always welcome.

G40BalanceVariant.tsvg

[CWO Marc]

@barney:

I was under the impression that the US has to go heavy pacific already or they’ll generally lose. I thought the issue was Japan steamrolling China or blazing through Russia. Give China some more dudes and maybe a free spawn of 2 inf should help.

Russia would be a little more problematic. It’s been talked about limiting minors to inf/mech builds only. IDK if that’s the answer as Japan would be severely limited building any type of other units.

Japan already has plenty of incentive to take the DEIs. While penalizing them for not having the DEIs would help the allies in Asia later in the game, it would encourage a KJF strategy even more.

I guess it depends on what you’re after but just because certain things didn’t happen or were unlikely to historically, doesn’t mean they should be excluded or so unlikely to succeed that they never happen. I don’t think Japan would have done well blowing through Russia in the real war. It should still be a viable strategy if you want to try it though. Japan just needs to be slowed down/discouraged a little bit more than currently.

The issue that people had raised, as I understand it, was that in the existing game the Axis can try to win by having Japan and Germany gang up on Russia.  This was seen as a problem for several reasons.  In game terms, it’s a problem because it encourages both sides to focus their attention on Europe, with little to no action in the Pacific.  In historic terms, it’s unrealistic because historically Japan and the European Axis powers fought uncoordinated local wars rather than a single integrated war; because in the real world it would be physically impossible for Japan to reach Moscow from the eastern extremity of the USSR; and because Japan’s track record of military success against the USSR from 1937 to 1939 was crummy.

My feeling is that, realistically, the best that Japan could do in the game (if we could find a way to model it) in support of the overall Axis war effort would be to tie down the USSR’s crack Siberian divisions by posing a credible threat to Mongolia and the eastern Soviet Union, this preventing the Siberians from reinforcing the Russian troops who were fighting against Germany in the western Soviet Union.  It’s what happened historically until the fall of 1941, when Stalin learned that Japan was actually planning to attack in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, which freed him to move his Siberians westward.  But here we’d just be solving a problem by creating a new one: to credibly threaten – or even invade – Mongolia and the eastern Soviet Union, Japan would have to give up on its plans to fight in Southeast Asia and the Pacific because it didn’t have the resources to simultaneously fight three wars (against the Russians, the Anglo-Americans, and the Chinese).  Arguably, it didn’t even have the resources to win just the war it was fighting in China, let alone two additional ones.

[LHoffman]

@Cmdr:

A)� Even in history there really was no rationale for going to war.� Japan’s navy needed resources because the Army was getting it all, so they picked a fight to justify more resources from the Emperor.� America, of course, retaliated.�

True. In A&A the lack of logic for outright DoW of Japan on the US is obvious. But the intent of the game, from my perspective, is to get the Big 5 fighting each other as per history (at least taking the sides they did). If we are to keep that premise, thereby limiting each player’s political decision making, then we have to find some way to instigate war so that the result is always ���-Ger-Ita vs UK-USA-USSR. Fortunately, per the OOB political rules, this has already been figured out and will always happen, it is only a matter of time.

Would the US have gone to war against Japan even if they were not attacked? I don’t know that we can say definitively because there are many possible scenarios. I think what we need to treat as inevitable and unchangeable are the deeper political and military leadership attitudes that formed the decisions for entry to war, most importantly for the Axis. If we change that, a historically plausible outcome may never happen because such a road is perceived as illogical or from our simplified chair at 90,000 ft we as players are detached from the nuances that motivated historical leaders.

Our perspective in re-designing the game should be that the historical Axis vs Allies conflict is inevitable and unchangeable… it is only a matter of time. Once everyone is fighting each other, the board is open to whatever military strategy players want to devise. They will just be politically constrained (they cannot change sides) and more accurately geographically constrained (crossing Asia is possible, but will take a long time).

@Cmdr:

B)� It’s too hard to take islands.� You CAN load transports but then to move on you have to use those transports again.� In Europe/Africa you use the transports then leave the troops behind so they can move on without you.� Perhaps if you allowed Destroyers to carry 1 infantry unit and transports could carry either 3 infantry, or 2 mechanized units (artillery, mech infantry or armor) thus improving the functionality of them IN THE PACIFIC ONLY we’d see a better push by the USA to take out Japan.�

I agree that this is somewhat inconvenient. I don’t like the idea of having different rules for units on two halves of the board, but it would be an option if someone wanted to do that.

I have also considered lowering the cost for a transport down to 6 or even 5. They are not particularly large or complex ships to build and they have no attack or defense value. Yes, they are important pieces, but just by themselves they are utterly worthless. This one in particular should be playtested. I don’t know the ramifications of making transports cheaper and more prevalent… Will it make Sealion that much easier? Will it allow for larger UK invasions into France? Will it give Japan too much mobility?

@Cmdr:

Alternatively, perhaps just say that you may move 1 infantry from one island group to the next without a transport.� So Carolines could go to Paulau without a transport as if they were going from Algeria to Libya.

I was almost going to say that this was maybe okay, but island taking in the Pacific was a far more involved process with transports and protective support fleets. Cutting those out entirely would seem to defeat much of our purpose… Japan and the US would have fewer (if any) ships in the mid and south Pacific because they don’t need them. Rather than more Pacific action I think we would see less.

[LHoffman]

@LHoffman:

���-Ger-Ita vs UK-USA-USSR

Really? J-A-P got blocked? It was an abbreviation not a pejorative!

[CWO Marc]

@LHoffman:

@LHoffman:

���-Ger-Ita vs UK-USA-USSR

Really? J-A-P got blocked? It was an abbreviation not a pejorative!

JPN might be a good alternative.