Do people see Italy as an Axis minor? I don’t, I know it’s the poorest major power in the game but it’s still a major power. My two cents on this debate is you either take Italy and have it support Germany when it invades USSR or you use Italy as a naval power to keep India and UK from linking up or you can take a more questionable route and try to do both.
Just how balanced is the Balanced Mod?
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You could also easily make it three cards, like so:
Lend Lease Aid - Northern Route
2 PUs if Russia is at war with European Axis, Archangel is Russian-controlled, and sz125 has no enemy warships. (4 PUs if Japan has also declared war on Russia).Lend Lease Aid - Persian Corridor
2 PUs if Russia is at war with European Axis, Persia is Allied-controlled, and sz80 has no enemy warships (4 PUs if Japan has also declared war on Russia).Lend Lease Aid - Pacific Route
2 PUs if Russia is at war with European Axis, Amur is Russian-controlled, and sz5 has no enemy warships (4 PUs if Japan has also declared war on Russia).Something like that?
You’ve seen my cards, they have a big number on them with a word (2 TWO or 5 FIVE), having a sentence at the bottom of the NO discription that changes those graphics takes away from the purpose of looking at the cards and adding the big visible numbers to get a grand total of bonus income to collect. I’m by no means suggesting that a rule be changed simply because of my card designs, or that table toppers are too dumb to make the necessary adjustment… I’m just asking if it’s of the upmost importance that this concept of NO values changing during the game worth having a mechanic so different from all other NOs in the game? If it is and nothing simpler can be devised to convey the same effect, than I think I would just make 3 extra cards with the 4 FOUR which can be swapped for the 2 TWO if Russia is at war with Japan. I’m a little curious though why an open convoy route from London to Archangel would double because of a state of war between Russia and Japan.
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Thinking about marines (and I have not thought much about it)… instead of a separate unit, any infantry transported by a cruiser or battleship and dropped on an island during an amphibious assault could get the same combat stats as the new marine unit. The only problem is applying the cost increase for such a unit, but you could always charge the attacker the extra IPC per infantry when used in this capacity. Not that this problem exists in tripple A, but it could be a catch all way to implement marines in table top games.
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@Young:
I’m a little curious though why an open convoy route from London to Archangel would double because of a state of war between Russia and Japan.
Excellent question. The “real-world” rational for how the NO is structured is twofold: First, the Western Allies would be inclined to place a higher priority on lend lease to Russia if Russia were involved in a two front war as a result of Japanese invasion. Second, since Japan can easily block the Pacific Route when at war with Russia, the allies would be forced to send more aid through the other available routes (to offset the reduction).
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Black Elk, did CWO Marc ever propose anything specific in this regard–like propose actual victory conditions that could be implemented. I remember he posted something about it the G40 Redesign thread, but what I recall was mostly conceptual (like “we could have theater based VCs for both sides”) without any specific details.
While its probably beyond the scope of what we’re doing with Balance Mod, I’d be curious to read detail proposals for this kind of thing if they’re out there. Can you provide a link?
Just reread the first dozen or so pages in the thread, revisiting the conversations we had. I think it did indeed stop somewhat short of proposing actual conditions, and then morphed into another discussion as we were wont to do in that thread haha. I think the closest we came was to the concept of a table trying to match specific conditions to the game round, falling within 3 general periods of war he outlined. I think that subject may have become to broad, into a conversation too different from the way victory is tallied OOB to really be applicable without some kind of major overhaul. Though I love the spirit and the concepts. At this point I’m not sure such a system could even be implemented in tripleA, so given that this mod is already up and running, and seems popular, from a practical standpoint it’d make more sense to work within the existing framework. For sure the OOB rules for Allied victory are way too demanding, as pretty much everyone would ignore them and call the game well beforehand. Which while kind of bummer, at least has this one advantage, that almost anything else would probably be more interesting. At least that leaves a lot of room for potential alternatives/improvements on the Allied side of the equation haha.
For now I have to say, I’m just kind of pleased that a larger group of players has coalesced around a single mod, and one that at least includes a good amount of the ideas we kicked around, implemented in a way that is familiar enough to players of global to gain some real traction. And of course that it’s being adapted for a focus on face to face play as well.
I love that it handles the 5 ipc spot in the unit roster for example. And dig that it went with the warships carrying a single marine concept, (despite the various objections raised as to exactly what those units represent at scale) I still think it’s fun for the gameplay. The NOs are engaging and encourage more dynamic play patterns. This mod definitely has a lot going for it, so I wouldn’t want to upend it coming on as I am a little late to the show, hanging up the victory conditions with any proposals that are too radical. Moving in with the lady and living with a 5 year old starting school has eaten way more of my free time than I’d have guessed a few months back, so I’d be hard pressed to come up with them at this late hour. I’m just stoked that when those blue moon game nights do roll around, that we have another cool option to sink our teeth into now!
Again, nice work all!
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@Young:
I like the lead lease ideas, but the execution is clumsy in my opinion. Trying to figure out how to apply my card design to this concept is difficult, I would basically have to create 6 cards for one mechanic (2 IPCs each 3 NOs, and 4 IPCs each for the same 3 NOs. I would make them 3 IPCs each no matter what the political situation is between Japan (seems like a lot of words for one declaration of war). This way a Japanese ship in SZ 5 won’t mean a lick when it comes to taking away the 3 IPCs, Japan will be forced to declare war on Russia just to make their ship in SZ 5 an enemy ship. I have not played it yet, this is my inexperienced opinion… but I like clean worded rules, and this Lend Lease bump from 2 to 4 IPCs is far from it.
You and I think alike my friend. I just revamped my NO cards to use with balanced mod and ended up just putting a note on the bottom to double the cost. I also thought of the +3 instead of +2/+4 as well… Anyways, I have not updated them on Artscow yet but I have the card images made. Now I have to paint some Vichy France inf, artillery, cruiser and destroyer. Also have to paint Russian and Anzac Marines. I doubt the Russians will ever be used But I can see Anzac using them.
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Dude, those cards look awesome. Nice work.
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I suppose it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to use balance mod NOs in our games instead of what we have had. However, not giving Germany a NO for control of London just won’t work for us, I know that this one may be on the block for consideration… and I think you should find a way to make it work. There was a plan to conduct this operation, so avoiding an NO would be grossly inaccurate, and Germany capturing London encapsulates everything a “national objective” is suppose to represent.
In our group, I offer a 5 IPC national objective, a victory objective that will help them win the game, and a free R&D breakthrough… all that and we still go for Moscow instead of London (not to say our guts measure up to those in the league). There must be some middle path, if the difference between going for sealion and not is a 5 IPC swing, I think we would see more sealion attempts even without the NO.
So we should talk about this, and you can take it to your mod squad…
5 IPCs for control of London, or if the London major IC is unoperational (or maxed if you prefer).
That way they can get their 5 IPCs in a way that relates to the battle of Britain (via or Sealion) without having their arm twisted to do “the obvious”, or is this more about Churchill not sleeping at night?… If so, than just balance it with something else for the allies, but a NO for London is a no brainer. -
I think the no subs in the Atlantic NO is a factor - I mean, 2nd edition doesn’t even have that. That gives Germany incentive to wage more war on London
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Since everyone’s throwing out so many wish list items, I’ll add a little one -
Give back the 1 UK infantry in Egypt that they took away toward the end, that was there before! Taking away that infantry helped skew the balance even harder toward the Axis and necessitate larger bids (well, about +3 larger anyway).
I realize all the other changes were made in light of no returned infantry to Egypt, but YG’s talking about London 5, which was taken away, reminded me of this one which was also taken away inexplicablyPerhaps these 2 would kind of offset?!
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I think the no subs in the Atlantic NO is a factor - I mean, 2nd edition doesn’t even have that. That gives Germany incentive to wage more war on London
I think it gives Germany incentive to have a sub in the Atlantic, not necessarily incentive to spend almost 100 IPCs + starting units for one landing while jeopardizing any success of Barbarossa.
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Fine, then I’ll say that +5 for controlling London is a very small factor in deciding whether to actually buy all the transports, etc. 2nd edition doesn’t have the NO, why should the balanced mod have it. It’s not a no-brainer. People including you probably wouldn’t even be thinking about it if there wasn’t originally an NO for London by the official rulemakers along with that crazy +10 for Russia taking Berlin which is never a factor
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For that matter, I think all NO’s for taking CAPITALS are stupid, including the ones for NSW and India. (Throw in WUS too because it has a major complex) Isn’t it already enough that you raided their money and they can’t build?
Why not give Germany a +5 NO for having Paris? Same logic
If you want a +5 for London, just house rule it - you house rule a lot of things already - why bother the balanced mod people
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why bother the balanced mod people
Why would they feel bothered, they have already said that the London NO was probably the only thing they were open to adding in some capacity… I’m just campaigning for it.
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@Young:
However, not giving Germany a NO for control of London just won’t work for us, I know that this one may be on the block for consideration… and I think you should find a way to make it work.
Yup. I agree completely. And we have decided to include a London NO in the next release of Balance Mod (which we expect will be forthcoming in the next two weeks). The NO we have settled upon, based on user feedback in the “G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread” is this:
“5 PUs if Germany has a land unit in either Egypt or the United Kingdom (London).”
The upshot of this NO is that Germany now has two ways to achieve the 5 PUs from the OOB “Presence in Egypt” NO. But if Germany captures both UK and Egypt, it still only gets +5 PUs. This NO was the brainchild of Adam514, the Master League player who co-created the Mod. We play tested it. Its awesome. And was well received in the feedback thread.
We did initially toy with the idea of giving Germany a separate NO for London alone (so conquest of both London and UK would mean +10), but there was some well-reasoned opposition to it from League players. And after play testing several sealion games, we agreed that the separate NO would make Sealion overpowered, unduly limiting UK’s strategic options.
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sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)
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Give back the 1 UK infantry in Egypt that they took away toward the end, that was there before!
Yah, two things the Mod Squad kinda agreed at the outset was not to fuss with starting unit setup and initial territorial alignment (hence, no change to Sierra Leone). We want the mod to operate “under the hood” so to speak. If more allied units are deemed necessary by players despite all the other changes (I very much doubt this), that can always be addressed by way of a bid.
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@Young:
However, not giving Germany a NO for control of London just won’t work for us, I know that this one may be on the block for consideration… and I think you should find a way to make it work.
"5 PUs if Germany has a land unit in either Egypt or the United Kingdom (London)
I’m on board with that… It’s a direction play, in my gaming experience Germany sometimes won’t give Italy the support it needs to take Egypt for other endeavours, and Italy may simply turtle in Rome to give Germany support on the Eastern front. Therefore, I can see more desire for an African campaign coming from the Axis, as it should be. However, this makes a joint operation for Egypt a standard move IMO given the relative ease if US stays neutral, and the initial importance of Ciaro along with the new 5 IPC evaluation for Germany (and it puts sealion back on the table). My only question is… would this replace the German land unit present in Egypt NO, I assume it would. BTW, I’m not a fan of changing the initial setup, so I would support any decision to revert back from any changes made to Egyipt.
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Grasshopper, yes it replaces the Egypt NO. Obviously Germany can still get its 5 Pus from putting a land unit in Egypt. But, in a successful Sealion, it will get the same 5 PUs from occupying London (at which point the occupation of Egypt just becomes a matter of getting the necessary VCs).
YG, no changes were made to the unit set up in Balance Mod. When Gamer says he wants to revert back to the original Egypt setup, I think he’s referring to the prior edition of the game.
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sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)
Oh you don’t have to say sorry - to me this NO makes about as much difference as the +10 for taking Berlin to Russia. If I actually lose London, I’m getting it back before long at all and the Russians are going to go crazy.
My argument is it has a negligible effect, so I don’t care either way
But it is punitive to give NO’s for capitals - and that includes Moscow. They can’t collect income, they can’t build, the major gets knocked down to a minor - jeez, and why don’t we throw in bonus money every turn for the victor as well. Moscow, Berlin, WUS, India, ANZ - none of them need NO’s
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sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)
Oh you don’t have to say sorry - to me this NO makes about as much difference as the +10 for taking Berlin to Russia. If I actually lose London, I’m getting it back before long at all and the Russians are going to go crazy.
My argument is it has a negligible effect, so I don’t care either way
But it is punitive to give NO’s for capitals - and that includes Moscow. They can’t collect income, they can’t build, the major gets knocked down to a minor - jeez, and why don’t we throw in bonus money every turn for the victor as well. Moscow, Berlin, WUS, India, ANZ - none of them need NO’s
I think your views on this support my belief that a 5 IPC bonus for London does not make Sealion a forgone conclusion.
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