OK, as promised, here are the Microsoft Word write-ups of the two versions of the 1942.2 reboot, on one side of one sheet of legal-size paper. I am calling it “1942 Redesign Alpha” per Baron Munchhausen’s suggestion. Once we run some playtests and agree on a more or less final format, I’m tempted to rename it “1942 Third Edition!”
If I get any specific constructive criticism on these writeups (including on their graphic design!), then I’m happy to revise the documents accordingly. If anyone wants to playtest either version of these with me, just let me know!
PDF versions to follow in the next comment.
1942 Redesign Alpha - Face to Face.doc
1942 Redesign Alpha - TripleA.doc
PDF versions here.
1942 Redesign Alpha - Face to Face.pdf
1942 Redesign Alpha - TripleA.pdf
I suggest that 1942.2 Redesign should be main title.
If a game file is loaded from a third source, he may think it is actually a third official version.
Also, a secondary should be added to see which step of achievement it is actually. To easy recognize older and newer draft.
Something as simple as 1942.2 Redesign draft 1, or 1942.2 Redesign.d1, etc.
Larry develop up to three alpha before second edition mint.
The play-test and discussion will take time and some idea might reveal less interesting for complexity added, etc.
I prefer baby steps, to let the bird fly off the nest.
Fair enough! 1942 Redesign Alpha it is. I will label the two variants “TripleA” and “Face to Face,” and we can use version numbers as needed as each variant evolves.
@SS:
Maybe give a 5 icp NO to any country controlling up to so many sea zones next to kami token or symbol ? Or they attack or blow up the symbol and get some kind of bonus.
Treat it like an island or a Kami base. You can damage it. Can’t launch any Kami’s in those sea zones until repaired.
Still hoping to find a rule like this that might work.
I’d say a straight bonus for control of the sz or associated island will be easiest to implement. I like the idea of a token that can be damaged somehow, but not sure how to make such a thing work in tripleA. I’d settle for a simple enticement for the Allies to move into these otherwise pretty dangerous places.
Also, for liberation rules, I’d also like something simple that can work for G40. For example…
Liberation Rules
When a Nation’s capital is captured by the enemy, any territory still under their control may be occupied by a teammate for the purposes of income/production. The first friendly power to enter the territory with a ground unit will place a control marker for their Nation on the territory, to indicate the new ownership.
Any units from the vanquished nation still in the territory are treated as pro-side neutrals, and can be claimed by the new owner.*
When a Capital is liberated, any original territory currently under the direct control of a teammate (e.g. any territory with another teammate’s control marker on it) can only be returned to its original owner once a ground unit from the restored Nation claims the territory.
*seems to me that you could go either way here, with units either claimed by the new owner, or just remaining in place as friendly. The latter option would make restoration automatic, in the case of liberation. Does anyone have a preference?
These rules will allow, for example, the purchase of Allied bases in French territory in Africa/Middle East, even if those territories have not yet been occupied the Axis. It would also remove any weird and gamey incentive for Germany, not to take Normandy, simply to prevent it from being controlled by the Allies.
I think the same rule could work in 1942.2. There we don’t have the concept of pro-side neutrals built in, but the explanation is basically the same. For example, if Moscow falls, and Russia has 2 infantry in Karelia, then the Americans may take direct control of the territory by moving ground units into it. An American control marker is then placed on Karelia and the 2 Russian infantry are switched out for 2 American infantry.
In this situation, if Moscow is Liberated, Karelia will remain under US control, until a Soviet ground unit moves into the territory to reclaim it. At which point the US control marker is removed, and the territory is restored to the Russians for income/production.
Any objections? I can’t see any real downsides to this approach, and think it will solve some of the weirder issues we see cropping up with liberation in A&A.
I mostly like these new liberation rules, and I agree that they’ll eliminate lots of gaminess vis-a-vis the French without any real downsides.
However, I’m confused about how Russia is supposed to generate new ground units with which to re-take its capital, and why it’s necessary for Russian units to become pro-Allied neutral after Moscow falls. Is the idea that in order to get the Russian army up and moving again, the Allies have to move American/British units into Moscow, then wait a full turn for Russian income to reboot, then place a couple of Russian infantry in Moscow, then march those Russian infantry back into core Russian territories like Karelia and Kazakh? That seems unnecessarily slow.
What if the territory becomes effectively pro-Allied neutral upon the fall of Moscow (or Paris), but the Russian (or French) armies carry on fighting and moving as normal? If the rump Russian armies capture a German territory, that territory also becomes pro-Allied neutral, which represents partisans denying the area’s resources to Berlin without being organized enough to industrially exploit those resources themselves.
I have never played triple A but have been following the posts as far as adjusting triple A. I know I saw some where in these posts where you are putting SBR from a sub next to a factory. There any way you can put the Kami symbol inside a convoy box or put a convoy box next to the Kami symbol so you can damage it somehow ?
That way you have some way of damaging the Kami base symbol. Don’t know if it can be done in Triple A so this idea may be way out there.
Typically when Moscow is taken, most of the Russian units are destroyed in the process. So when it is liberated this is usually done by a teammate (or in the problem case, not done by a teammate, simply because they want to avoid the restoration dynamic haha.) Under these rules, the Russians could basically withdraw from the capital. Allow their remaining territories to be occupied/controlled by a teammate and then continue to fight on. Which might be pretty cool.
I’m not sure the pro-side claiming of units is really necessary, just tossed it out there for consideration.
Also, will look over the docs you posted and get back to you soon.
:-D
ps. the more I think on it, the more doing anything with the units seems unnecessarily complex. Easier to just keep the rules focused on just the territories.
Liberation Rules
When a Nation’s capital is captured by the enemy, any territory still under their control may be occupied by a teammate for the purposes of income/production. The first friendly power to enter the territory with a ground unit will place a control marker for their Nation on the territory to indicate the new ownership.
When a Capital is liberated, any original territory currently under the direct control of a teammate (e.g. any territory with another teammate’s control marker on it) can only be returned to its original owner once a ground unit from the restored Nation claims the territory.
This way the wording is the same for both games. The purpose of that later part of the rule, is to actually encourage the liberation of capitals in the endgame, so the potential liberator isn’t stuck trying to weigh a loss to their own production (gained since the capital fell), against the desire to restore a teammate and the turn order advantage. Here the restoration of individual territories is more deliberate and controlled, instead of an all or nothing type situation.
So you can imagine, for example, that Russia loses Moscow to Germany. The US starts landing units in Karelia (increasing their own income and production in the process). When the US gets to a point where the Liberation of Moscow is possible, they don’t have to face a situation where restoring the Russian capital immediately denies control of the smaller factory they’ve since taken over. Instead, the Russians would have to move units into Karelia to claim it again. Basically it gives the liberating side more flexibility to fight an effective game under such conditions, instead of being penalized for doing what we’d expect them to do, namely liberate the fallen capital for their team.
For the Kamikazi stuff in G40, going to take a look at what might be possible as far as creating some kind of unit to represent the Kamikazi ability, that might be possible to damage or destroy, once the sea zone is taken over.
Pps. Just for the record, the easiest way to avoid some of these problems around capital restoration would be to move the Collect Income phase from the end of the turn to the begining.
But that is a huge change to the gameplay, and sadly the economic balance of the OOB board just collapses under such conditions.
The way A&A works, many Nations are reliant on territory trading to maintain income parity, which means that a given territory can introduce much more money into play over a given round than its printed ipc value would suggest. Take France in 1942.2 as a prime example.
Were I designing a new game from scratch, with an entirely new economic balance, I would have income collection occur at the beginning of the turn. Since I think that produces a more realistic play style regarding territory defense.
Unfortunately I’ve tried this with the OOB games, and it doesn’t work particularly well. The turn order screws some nations way more than others, and you wind up with a fairly massive income gap. This is why I’m trying to find a solution for liberation that works with the Collect Income at the end of the turn OOB structure.
Fair enough! 1942 Alpha v1-A and v1-B it is.
What is Alpha V1-B?
I like all these 3 Maps changes. It needs to be tested with Player Enforced agreement in Triple A.
Map Changes:
- North Sea <-> Baltic Sea is now a canal; must control either Norway or Northwest Europe in order to pass through this canal.
- Eastern Atlantic <-> Western Med is now a canal; must control either Gibraltar or Morocco in order to pass through this canal.
- The western border of China is now impassible during combat moves; no player can make a combat move between Szechuan and Kazakh, Szechuan and Novosibirsk, Sinkiang and Kazakh, Sinkiang and Novosibirsk, Sinkiang and Evenki, or vice versa. This restriction applies even if the destination territory is undefended. Non-combat moves across China’s western border are still allowed.
Yes looking over Args pdf, most things listed in the bold sections can be player enforced or easily edited.
The unit roster is its own special beast, so there can start with the tech options available in the HR file. Some of these are slightly different than the values listed in the doc, but it’s a good jumping off point.
For the section that deals with adjusted territory values directly, if you want to display them on the map, it means editing the xml. This is doable, but not something that I would suggest for the basic HR package, which is mainly concerned with rules changes rather than map tweaks. This can be done later if desired, for a more complete full overhaul. Same deal for additional VCs, likewise requires Xml edits.
It may be possible to do this via a tech add, like “18 VCs,” but I’m not sure there. In any case though, it would be easy enough to alter in a separate file, for a mod.
I’d say most things listed in the pdf are achievable. But will be easier to create once the basic HR toggles are in place for some of the more generic one off features.
First we gotta cinch up G40 though hehe. Would be nice to drop both files at the same time, so the people can get familiar with the tech add approach, and explore save game settings. Should be fun!
:-D
Glad most of it looks doable. Like I said before, if you send me a copy of the HR file you’re working with, I’ll be happy to adjust the PDFs accordingly.
Part of why I prepared the PDFs is that I thought you wanted to use the 1942.2 redesign as a bridge and testing ground that would pave the way for a G40 redesign. I’m surprised to hear you say now that the 1942.2 redesign playtesting should wait until the G40 redesign is finished.
Also, I would strongly caution everyone against releasing a redesign that lacks any mechanism for boosting the importance of the southern and Pacific territories, e.g. Australia. Personally, I think it’s very easy to edit the IPC value of territories in an xml file on TripleA – I’ve done it many times for my own amusement; you just have to edit a couple of clearly organized lines of text by typing in the new IPC values that you want. I will cheerfully make the edits myself if you want to send me the base .xml file. Even if it were really hard, though, it would still be worth doing, because players are understandably low on patience for this entire series. If we release yet another edition (even an unofficial one) that encourages players to ignore South Africa and Australia and Hawaii, then I think we will see some good players give up on the franchise altogether.
Map Changes:
- North Sea <-> Baltic Sea is now a canal; must control either Norway or Northwest Europe in order to pass through this canal.
- Eastern Atlantic <-> Western Med is now a canal; must control either Gibraltar or Morocco in order to pass through this canal.
- The western border of China is now impassible during combat moves; no player can make a combat move between Szechuan and Kazakh, Szechuan and Novosibirsk, Sinkiang and Kazakh, Sinkiang and Novosibirsk, Sinkiang and Evenki, or vice versa. This restriction applies even if the destination territory is undefended. Non-combat moves across China’s western border are still allowed.
For the first two, the proper term to describe it would be “straits” rather than canals.
Norway/Denmark would be the Strait of Kattegat/or the Strait of Skagerrak.
Gibraltar/Morocco would be the Strait of Gibraltar.
For geographical and historical accuracy, I think you might consider getting rid of the either/or and making control of these based on a single territory or control of two territories (rather than one out of two territories).
Properly the Strait of Kattegat is between Denmark and Sweden, (Skagerrak between Denmark and Norway), but the entrance to the Baltic itself should really be defined by who controls Denmark/Sweden. In this case Sweden is neutral, so it really comes down to Denmark. The sea lanes between these Danish islands are very narrow, so its hard to imagine how anyone passes through to the Baltic with ease in this period, without controlling first Denmark.
The Strait of Gibraltar, likewise would seem to require control of both Morocco and Gibraltar, or at least control of Gibraltar itself.
While on the subject, I think if you’re going to introduce new movement restrictions on the water, it would be worth making the Suez Canal entirely controlled by Egypt alone, as Panama is. In reality the Sinai is part of Egypt, so its kind of bizarre to have Trans-Jordan involved in control of Suez the way it is OOB.
Yet another Strait that might have been interesting to include would be Singapore, (which would have given Britain a reason to care more about Malaya), though unfortunately the map design with the sea zone layouts in this region don’t really encourage the idea visually. 1942.2 for example, has 3 sea zones all meeting up in this region 36, 37, and 47. There I suppose you could make free movement through sz 36 dependent on control of Malaya. In Global you could do the same for sz 37. If you wanted to make Singapore more relevant to the gameplay, and somewhat more accurate in terms of its strategic value historically. That’s the only other Strait I can think of that would be relevant to the gameplay. Aden doesn’t exist on either board. The Strait of Messina isn’t really relevant to the way the Sicily and Med sea zones are set up. Same deal with the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian gulf, just not relevant to the design of the sea zones. Unfortunately the sea zones just weren’t drawn in a way that would allow those straits to come into play, without seeming weird. The sea zone drafting in A&A always struck me as a little bit arbitrary, but I guess you kind of have to work with what you’re given in these games.
Part of why I prepared the PDFs is that I thought you wanted to use the 1942.2 redesign as a bridge and testing ground that would pave the way for a G40 redesign. I’m surprised to hear you say now that the 1942.2 redesign playtesting should wait until the G40 redesign is finished.
Yeah, I was discussing the tripleA HR package implementation here. I agree that for the players its easier to go from a 1942.2 redesign to a G40 one. But for the designing in tripleA its basically the opposite. So Barney started with G40 first, because its more complicated. The idea being that, once you handle the tricky stuff in G40, porting it over into 1942.2 is much faster. Crush all the bugs in G40, and see what is doable generally. Once G40 is finished, which should be pretty soon here, it will be a lot easier to bang out something similar (but scaled down) for 1942.2 in tripleA.
Regarding the part about Kattegat-Skagerrak straights, the original phrasing "“North Sea <-> Baltic Sea is now a canal” confused me because I thought it was referring to something else: the Kiel Canal – which actually is a real canal, not a straight – which connects the North Sea to the Baltic. It’s not shown on the game map, and I though the proposal was to add it to the map.
Regarding the strait near Singapore, which runs between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra: its name is the Strait of Malacca, and in real life it’s one of the most heavily travelled sea routes in the world, with about 25% of the world’s traded goods going through it every year. It actually explains why the British colonized Singapore: back in the days when Britannia ruled the waves, the British recognized that the Strait of Dover, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Malacca, and the Cape of Good Hope were important maritime choke points and they made sure that they controlled all of them. The Strait of Hormuz, a.k.a. “the jugular vein of the West”, achieved similar importance in the 20th century as oil became a vital strategic commodity.
Glad most of it looks doable. Like I said before, if you send me a copy of the HR file you’re working with, I’ll be happy to adjust the PDFs accordingly.
Part of why I prepared the PDFs is that I thought you wanted to use the 1942.2 redesign as a bridge and testing ground that would pave the way for a G40 redesign. I’m surprised to hear you say now that the 1942.2 redesign playtesting should wait until the G40 redesign is finished.
Also, I would strongly caution everyone against releasing a redesign that lacks any mechanism for boosting the importance of the southern and Pacific territories, e.g. Australia. Personally, I think it’s very easy to edit the IPC value of territories in an xml file on TripleA – I’ve done it many times for my own amusement; you just have to edit a couple of clearly organized lines of text by typing in the new IPC values that you want. I will cheerfully make the edits myself if you want to send me the base .xml file. Even if it were really hard, though, it would still be worth doing, because players are understandably low on patience for this entire series. If we release yet another edition (even an unofficial one) that encourages players to ignore South Africa and Australia and Hawaii, then I think we will see some good players give up on the franchise altogether.
I was questioning myself: why Larry and playtesters completely neglect all these TTys and PTO?
Is it because it only draw too much attention from a secondary objective instead of purchasing directly in UK SZs to land ASAP into Europe and perform a KGF?
They try to allow a KJF (in which only money islands matter and stop any southward IJN expansion) but from Japan POV, the only way to help on a KGF was to Center Crush Moscow.
I just wonder how they left this PTO issue unresolved for so long since Classic!
While on the subject, I think if you’re going to introduce new movement restrictions on the water, it would be worth making the Suez Canal entirely controlled by Egypt alone, as Panama is. In reality the Sinai is part of Egypt, so its kind of bizarre to have Trans-Jordan involved in control of Suez the way it is OOB.
Actually, I can see why the Suez and Panama canals are treated differently for game play. The Panama Canal is part of the North / Central / South America continental structure, which for all practical purposes in the game is either US-controlled or US-friendly, so there’s not much chance of Panama having it north-of-canal and south-of-canal halves coming under the control of opposite power blocks. Suez, on the other hand, is vulnerable to an Axis attack from the west (which Italy controls), and potentially to an attack from the east if Germany violates Turkish neutrality.
CWO Marc, I agree that the features you describe are straits. I think there is a term of art in the TripleA code that uses the word “canal” to refer to all restricted waterways, but I couldn’t swear to it, and I am happy to call the waterways straits if that’s what people prefer.
Black Elk, I had the same thoughts you did about Singapore, but I worry that it would be too hard to code a rule like “Ships must halt their movement when entering SZ 35 unless their team controls Malaya.” My compromise was to make Malaya a Victory City.
I don’t have strong feelings about the exact territories that players should control in order to pass through the Skaggerack or the Suez. Keying the Baltic Sea to NW Europe only is more historically accurate, but allowing players to substitute control of Norway is more strategically interesting, because it draws some focus up north, away from the attack on Berlin.
Similarly, the vacant Sinai Desert was technically administered from the British de facto protectorate of Egypt, rather than from the British Mandate of Palestine, but since only a few hundred unarmed Bedouin lived in the Sinai, I’m not sure that it matters where you draw the border for the purposes of a WW2 game. I recently finished a fun book of alternate history called the Moscow Option, in which British forces in Baghdad, Aden, and Jerusalem were desperately containing an Afrika Korps that had crossed the Suez. The author did not even consider the possibility that the Axis would have been able to ship troops through the Suez in that context; he assumed that as long as the region was still being hotly contested, the Suez would have been tactically unnavigable. I think that’s a plausible assumption. Making Trans-Jordan one of the keys to the Suez gives that otherwise unremarkable territory a bit of interest, and allows Italy to close the Suez canal (denying Britain the option to bring naval reinforcements into the Eastern Med) without having to conquer Cairo. This leads to the (in my view) more realistic tactic of reinforcing Egypt from India via the Persian Gulf, where British naval power was strongest, rather than via Alexandria, where British naval power in 1941 / 1942 was quite weak. All of that said, if people want the Suez contained entirely within Egypt, I will bow to popular demand.
Baron Munchhausen, I could not agree more. PTO has been broken since Classic. For the love of napalm, let’s get it right THIS time! No more “intermediate” versions that fail to fix the PTO.
@Baron:
Also, I would strongly caution everyone against releasing a redesign that lacks any mechanism for boosting the importance of the southern and Pacific territories, e.g. Australia. Personally, I think it’s very easy to edit the IPC value of territories in an xml file on TripleA – I’ve done it many times for my own amusement; you just have to edit a couple of clearly organized lines of text by typing in the new IPC values that you want. I will cheerfully make the edits myself if you want to send me the base .xml file. Even if it were really hard, though, it would still be worth doing, because players are understandably low on patience for this entire series. If we release yet another edition (even an unofficial one) that encourages players to ignore South Africa and Australia and Hawaii, then I think we will see some good players give up on the franchise altogether.
I was questioning myself: why Larry and playtesters completely neglect all these TTys and PTO?
Is it because it only draw too much attention from a secondary objective instead of purchasing directly in UK SZs to land ASAP into Europe and perform a KGF?
They try to allow a KJF (in which only money islands matter and stop any southward IJN expansion) but from Japan POV, the only way to help on a KGF was to Center Crush Moscow.
I just wonder how they left this PTO issue unresolved for so long since Classic!
Baron Munchhausen, I could not agree more. PTO has been broken since Classic. For the love of napalm, let’s get it right THIS time! No more “intermediate” versions that fail to fix the PTO.
I have only played Classic once (a couple years ago), so I assume that you mean it was the last version of A&A in which the US-Japan PTO was a regular occurrence. Funny thing is that when the ‘old guy’ in the room saw Japan (me) not fight the USA and instead go for a JCC, he was moderately shocked, scratched his head and (effectively) said, “Hmmm, never seen that before.” He also laughed and bid me good luck in a somewhat condescending fashion. … Pretty sure the Axis ended up winning that game.
Regarding JCC vs PTO… The way Japan prosecuted the war (in real life) was not as effective as it could have been. Granted Japan had many more complex factors to deal with which are not accurately represented in A&A game mechanics, however the JCC strategy is more sound than what Japan actually chose to do. The Japanese military (navy in particular) were internally compelled to fight a mostly hopeless war against the United States with no proactive strategic objectives after about 6 months of fighting. Many Japanese military leaders realized this, but allowed the momentum of events to push them further into the fight. Continuing to face off against the US without a significant tactical advantage and either losing or drawing even only served to widen the gap of inadequacy between the two thanks to significant US resolve and industry. If Japan had more effective and centralized leadership, their efforts should have been focused on achieving their true objectives against China and the USSR, rather than pointlessly wasting time, material and blood fighting for strategically worthless islands in the South and Central Pacific. I have seen similar arguments against the US strategy of island hopping. It worked, but it may have been more costly and time consuming than was truly necessary. Yes, I am saying that people playing A&A may be fighting the war in a smarter fashion than those who actually fought it; albeit on a far more simplified level.
The way A&A frames the Pacific board is mostly accurate to reality. The material worth of small South-Central Pacific island chains is small. The strategic worth is only determined by the Japan’s own objectives and the USA’s opposing objectives and/or willingness to engage. The islands should not be framed as objectives in-and-of themselves because they aren’t what Japan was fighting for. They were a means to an end. With the clarity of purpose Japan has in A&A, it is no wonder that they simply don’t care about fighting in the Pacific ocean. Nothing there is worth fighting for. Even if island values were increased to incentivize attention, fighting the US over them doesn’t directly help win the game.
Japan’s stated and implied real-war objectives are decently conveyed in G40; mostly through NO bonuses. Where the game gets a little too simplistic is putting Japan and Germany on a co-equal level with the same objective of actively taking out all the Allies, especially the USSR. Such a grand objective was both beyond the capability and desire of Japan. In the cartoonish world of A&A, Japan actually doing those things is possible. Joining Japan’s fate to Germany necessitates a JCC almost every game because it is the easiest way to win. All the other objectives they hit in the process are either roadblocks they have to overcome or distractions. Japan can putz around in the Pacific and have themselves a nice little empire, but if the big 3 crack Germany, Japan loses too, no matter how well they played and how rich they became. Japan amassing cash in Asia and driving towards Moscow via JCC is easier and less risky than trying to cross the Pacific and attack the industrial giant USA. And clearly, attacking the UK where it hurts the most (England) is entirely out of the question because it is on the other side of the planet.
JCC is the logical choice. Barring revision of individual Axis Victory conditions, it always will be. Trying to refocus Japan-US combat to the Pacific by increasing island values will not work because it does not address Japan’s root motivation with its Axis partner. Attempting to replicate a historical PTO in A&A is admirable, but I don’t think it is realistic given OOB game structure.
