Here’s an idea inspired by some of your thoughts: You win the game if and only if your team controls 2+ out of 3 “target cities” in both theaters simultaneously.
Allied Atlantic Target Cities are Paris, Rome, and Warsaw.
Allied Pacific Target Cities are Manila, Shanghai, and Singapore.Axis Atlantic Target Cities are Cairo, Leningrad, and Stalingrad.
Axis Pacific Target Cities are Honolulu, Sydney, and Calcutta.
Here’s a (still only rough) concept for a variation on your idea. It’s aimed at accomplishing both of the goals that have been mentioned: on the one hand, encouraging the US and the UK to fight a multi-front global war, while on the other hand encouraging the European Axis powers of Germany and Italy to concentrate on their half of the map board and encouraging Japan to concentrate on its half of the map board. A lot of details are missing, so I can’t tell yet if it would actually work, but I’ll float the idea for whatever it’s worth.
First the background. If you look at a historical map of Axis territorial holdings in mid-1942 (the high point of the Axis conquests), you’ll see that the Axis powers, the Anglo-American / Commonwealth powers, and the Soviet Union were basically in three different geographic situations.
Germany and Italy in the European / Mediterranean region more or less held a single, large, contiguous block of territory running vertically from Norway to North Africa and horizontally from France to the western Soviet Union. Japan, similarly, held a single, large, contiguous block of territory (most of it ocean), with Manchuria in the north-west, the Dutch East Indies in the south-west, the western Aleutians in the north-east and the Gilberts in the south-east. Both the European Axis powers and Japan were therefore controlling a territory that had a single large perimeter, and they were fighting a multi-front war at various points along that perimeter; to oversimplify, they were each fighting on a circular front.
The US, the UK and the Commonwealth Dominions of Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, unlike the territorially concentrated Axis powers, were quite literally scattered over the map. Some of their territories were contiguous, but others (because of the presence of oceans and neutrals) were not contiguous; overall, their locations on the world map were characterized by dispersion rather than concentration. One important advantage of this dispersion was that they could reach (and thus reinforce) one another, whereas the two Axis blocks were more or less isolated from each other. While the Axis powers could visualize themselves as fighting to push outward to expand their respective blocks of territories, the Anglo-American / Commonwealth powers could visualize themselves as being outside those Axis blocks and fighting on multiple fronts to force those blocks inward.
The USSR, like the Axis powers, was defending a single block of contiguous territory, but unlike both the Axis powers and the Anglo-American / Commonwealth powers it spent most of WWII fighting a war on a single linear front rather than a single circular front (like Germany/Italy and Japan respectively) or on two circular fronts (like the US and the UK). The potential existed for the USSR to end up fighting a two-front war if Japan had invaded the eastern USSR, but that didn’t end up happening in real life.
As previously mentioned in this thread, in A&A the US tends to concentrate all its forces in one theatre or another (which is dull) and Japan tends to join Germany in a drive on Moscow (which is unrealistic) because the existing victory conditions encourage it. Argothair proposed solving the problem by requiring the Axis and the Allies to capture certain specific victory cities in both theatres in order to win. I’m thinking that it might be useful to refine this model by introducing the following distinctions:
The Allies (as a group) would have to control a certain number of VCs on the Europe map and a certain number of VCs on the Pacific map in order to win, but they would not be required to control any specific cities (which is a departure from Argothair’s model). In that sense, every VC on the Global map would be a potential target for any Allied power; it wouldn’t matter which one of the six Allied powers controlled such-and-such a city, though of course there are built-in limitations to what France and China can do in that regard.
The Axis, likewise, would have to control a certain number of VCs on the Europe map and a certain number of VCs on the Pacific map in order to win, and would not be required to control any specific cities. In this respect, they’d be just like the Allies. The difference would be that all the VCs on the Europe map would be designated as VCs for the European Axis powers alone (or alternately designated as primary VCs for the European Axis powers and secondary ones for Japan), and all the VCs on the Pacific map would be designated as VCs for Japan alone (or alternately designated as primary VCs for Japan and secondary ones for the European Axis powers).
Applying this is practice wouldn’t simply be matter of saying that, for example, Japan is prohibited from capturing Moscow, because that would just be another way of saying (in this particular case) that Japan can’t break the NAP with the USSR. Rather than saying that Japan is prohibited from capturing VCs on the Europe board and that Germany and Italy are prohibited from capturing VCs on the Pacific board, it might be better to make it more advantageous for Germany and Italy to capture VCs on the Europe board and more advantageous for Japan to capture VCs on the Pacific board. One possibility would be for VCs to have differentiated values depending on who captures them, wich is what I meant by primary and secondary VCs.
Just for illustrative purposes (these aren’t meant to be real numbers), let’s say that in order to win the Axis has to control 6 points’ worth of VCs on the Europe side plus control 6 points’ worth of VCs on the Pacific side. A Europe VC controlled by Germany or Italy would be worth 2 points. A Pacific VC controlled by Japan would be worth 2 points. A Europe VC controlled by Japan would be worth 1 point. A Pacific VC controlled by Germany or Italy would be worth 1 point. Under those conditions, it would be (for example) of greater advantage for the Axis side for Japan to go after Pacifc VCs than after Moscow.
There are probably other ways to achieve this kind of differentiation, but at the moment the above is the only one that came to mind, so I wanted to put it out for potential consideration.
…or just skip VCs and play for an individual economic victory, like what actually happened in WWII. The first player to gain a set number of conquered IPC income, is the winner. Easy to track on the income chart both in tournaments and the casual play in basements. Rational logic easy to understand. Japan went to war for oil and resources, not to raise the flag in Honolulu.
Partly to follow up on yesterday’s post and partly just for the fun of it, I’ve prepared the two blank tables that I’ve attached below. They don’t propose any actual numbers, but they provide a worksheet that could be used to apply the concept that different cities have a different point value depending on who controls them. Yesterday’s draft post was more narrow conceptually because it worked from the principle that it’s only for the Axis that point values would be different. The tables below allow the concept to be generalized to all the powers. This might perhaps be useful to achieve such things as better game balance between the Axis and the Allies, or greater two-theatre involvement by the US. The tables are divided for convenience between a Europe table and a Pacific table, but they don’t have any built-in restrictions or assumptions regarding which city ought to be worth more to whom, or by how much, or for what reason. The only built-in restrictions are the “not applicable” notes found in most of the boxes for China, which under the rules can only enter two of the cities on the game map (Hong Kong and Shanghai).
Great analysis from both Black_Elk and CWO Marc, as usual.
Here’s an idea inspired by some of your thoughts: You win the game if and only if your team controls 2+ out of 3 “target cities” in both theaters simultaneously.
Allied Atlantic Target Cities are Paris, Rome, and Warsaw.
Allied Pacific Target Cities are Manila, Shanghai, and Singapore.Axis Atlantic Target Cities are Cairo, Leningrad, and Stalingrad.
Axis Pacific Target Cities are Honolulu, Sydney, and Calcutta.For example, if the Allies control Paris, Rome, Shanghai, and Singapore, they would win at the end of the turn. Likewise, if the Axis controlled Cairo, Leningrad, Sydney, and Calcutta, they would win at the end of the turn. If your side manages to capture two pairs of its target cities, you’ll have a satisfying win – it’s obvious that you’re running away with the game – but you don’t have to grind your opponent into the dirt. The game ends when it’s clear who would be the ultimate political winner of the war, not five turns later, when the last enemy infantry is cleared out of the enemy capital.
Taking a city like Moscow or London or Berlin is still useful, because the territory is worth lots of IPCs and has a factory in it, but sacking a capital is no longer the central goal of the game. Instead, both sides have plausible intermediate targets to focus on that collectively represent a solid/decisive victory. You don’t have to fight on till the bitter end, you’ve got no reason to march Japanese troops through Siberia, and Japan can be started off much weaker than it would be in a typical Axis & Allies game (i.e., much closer to its historical strength) without denying the Axis the chance to win the game.
You could use these victory conditions with no other rule changes, or you could eliminate the capital-looting rules, as per Black Elk’s suggestion.
I wonder if a simpler 4 VCs win would work in 1942.2.
Sydney ia added to PTO while Cairo and Stalingrad are added to ETO.
That way US and Allies need 1 more VC from the other theater.
Seeing as this thread has turned into a victory condition suggestion box, I would like to throw my Victory Objectives house rule into the ring. They may be gimmicky, but they are tested, fun, and they solve many problems in this game.
Victory Objectives and Victory Tokens
Once a victory objective is achieved, a victory token will be awarded, the side with the most victory tokens at the end of the day wins the game. Victory tokens are awarded immediately upon completion regardless of when, or how the objective was achieved, and a token can never be taken away or awarded twice for the same objective. It doesn’t matter which round the game ends, however, a win or a tie can only be declared at the end of a full game round.
Optional Rule: The first side to achieve 3 victory tokens will immediately win the game.
New Research & Development Rule:
Research rolls are no longer used to develop breakthroughs, instead, nations are awarded development rolls when victory objectives have been achieved. Once a victory token is gained, the nation with the corresponding (*) instructions listed with each objective will choose a breakthrough chart, and make a free development roll with the resulting breakthrough taking effect immediately (may not effect units already in battle during the turn in which the breakthrough was rolled). Any breakthroughs gained by either UK Europe, or UK Pacific will be shared between both UK nations throughout the game.
Here is a list of all victory objectives for each side…
Axis Powers
London
The Axis control London
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Moscow
The Axis control Moscow
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Calcutta
The Axis control Calcutta
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Sydney
The Axis control Sydney
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
North Africa
The Axis control Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Tobruk, Alexandria, and Egypt.
(R&D) *The nation that controls the most
Pacific
The Axis control 6 victory cities on the Pacific map
(R&D) *The nation that controls the most
Europe
The Axis control 7 victory cities on the Europe map
(R&D) *The nation that controls the most
Global Economy
All 3 Axis powers have a combined total of 136 IPCs on the income tracker
(R&D) *The nation that controls the most
Allied Powers
Berlin
The Allies control Berlin
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Rome
The Allies control Rome
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Tokyo
The Allies control Tokyo
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Africa
The Allied powers control all non-neutral territories on the continent of Africa
(R&D) *The nation that controls the most
Paris Liberation
The Allies have liberated Paris
(R&D) *The nation that takes control
Philippines Liberation
The Allies have liberated the Philippines
(R&D) *The United States
Asia
The Allies control the Burma road as well as Hong Kong and Shanghai
(R&D) *The United Kingdom
Pacific Fleet
There are no Japanese Capital ships on the board
(R&D) *The United States
Nice ideas! And some clean looking charts!
I don’t have a whole lot more to add, except to say that I think it’s probably important for any new victory scheme to include an ipc reward, or some similar form of gameplay incentive (the R&D option that YG uses would work too) as a way to counterbalance the capital capture rules that everyone has grown accustomed to using.
Despite the problems it causes for realism, I think most players still enjoy the idea of looting, and of having that huge purse afterwards to make a major purchase. I think for a new victory system to replace the current one, and be popular, it should somehow satisfy that desire for victory spoils and relate to the actual gameplay, rather than purely as a technical victory abstraction. If that makes sense. Otherwise I think most people will just default to the OOB rules and capitulation.
Black_Elk, I think there’s something in what you say – if conquering a target city doesn’t feel important, then people won’t bother to keep track of them.
I think the biggest problem with the current idea of victory cities is that official victory cities aren’t distinctly more important than ordinary valuable cities. Yes, the victory cities tend to be in high-IPC territories and/or in strategic locations, but not uniquely so, and not much more so than other cities. For example, suppose that the two teams have armies that are roughly the same strength as they are at the game’s OOB setup, but as the Allies, I control all of the starting Allied territories, plus Oslo, Helsinki, Kiev, Baghdad, Tehran, Saigon, Beijing, Borneo, and Sumatra. I’d argue that the game is over – even though I haven’t captured a single Axis victory city, the Axis have no real hope of winning. This example shows why keeping track of victory cities doesn’t feel rewarding – yes, it’s nice to have victory cities, but there are other, non-victory cities that can be just as crucial to your strategy, and it gets kind of annoying to have to track (a) which cities you need as launching pads for your attacks, (b) which cities you need for their IPC value, © which cities you need because they have factories in them, and also (d) which cities you need because the victory conditions said so. The (d) just winds up feeling arbitrary and superfluous.
The capital rules – looting your opponent’s treasury and shutting down 100% of their production – give you a reason to actually care about your progress. That’s drama; the in-game consequences of losing Moscow are in a whole new league compared to the in-game consequences of losing Leningrad. It’s not just a difference in degree; it’s a difference in kind.
The problem is that the capital rules incentivize players to engage in boring, ahistorical, one-sided offensives where the players take turns steamrolling each other in opposite theaters. So how can we eliminate that incentive while still capturing a sense of drama and purpose in our victory conditions?
I don’t think setting up 10+ victory cities per side is compatible with drama, even if we write great new looting rules. You want progress toward a victory condition to be something momentous – a turning point in the war – not just the seizure of another, somewhat more important territory. If I capture France, that’s a turning point in the war regardless of whether Paris is a victory city and regardless of whether I get to loot the French treasury. The territory itself is inherently valuable because of its location and its IPC value. Making it one of 20 victory cities on the map won’t do much to add or detract from that value.
I do think some modest looting rules could work well with having 3 target cities per theater per side – maybe in 1942.2 you steal 10 IPCs from the opponent’s treasury when you capture a target city, in AA50 you steal 15 IPCs, and in Global 1940 you steal 20 IPCs.
If you want to stick with a traditional victory city mechanic despite my arguments against it, then I have no objection to adding Cairo, Sydney, and Stalingrad as new victory cities – but don’t expect that to solve the one-theater problem. If I can win by concentrating all my forces in one theater, then I’m going to do so, and it’s much, much easier to win by taking, e.g., Leningrad + Moscow + Stalingrad + Cairo (i.e., a purely European victory) then it is to win by taking Leningrad + Moscow + Sydney + Honolulu (a victory balanced across both theaters).
Finally, having a victory condition based on pure economy or based on Young Grasshopper’s victory token rules could get you the incentives you want, but only at the cost of a potentially unsatisfying “Euro ending,” where someone is declared the “official winner” even though her opponents still have plenty of will and opportunity to fight. I realize that Settlers of Catan is an incredibly popular game, but I personally avoid it because I see no reason for someone to win just because she has 10 victory points. That goes double for, e.g., Twilight Imperium. If I’m going to setup and play a competitive 8-hour game like AA50, I don’t want that game to end until someone (maybe you, maybe me) has been soundly defeated or until the game has been fought to a plausible stalemate. Other people may feel differently, but I feel intensely frustrated when the rules call for me to end the game and put the game away just because someone has checked off a bunch of boxes on his in-game to-do list.
Out of curiosity, if you do favor a pure economic victory condition for AA50 or 1942.2, where would you draw the line? How many IPCs should the Axis need to win? How about the Allies? Are people willing to call the game for the Axis if the Allies haven’t won by turn X? Which turn?
The problem is that the capital rules incentivize players to engage in boring, ahistorical, one-sided offensives where the players take turns steamrolling each other in opposite theaters. So how can we eliminate that incentive while still capturing a sense of drama and purpose in our victory conditions?
Maybe by introducing some sort of political-impact element to the game. I don’t know what precise form it could take (a current approximate equivalent are the national objectives) or what kind of bonus it would translate into (perhaps cash, perhaps victory points, perhaps forward or backward movement along a political “progress towards victory” chart of some sort), but the idea would be for some territories (and some player actions, about which I’ll say more in a moment) to have higher political/symbolic value than others.
To give just one rough example: the Hawaiian Islands territory (which includes Honololu) and the Philippines territory (which includes Manila) both start out as US island territories in the Pacific, and purely on paper the Philippines territory is worth more than Hawaii (at 2 IPCs versus 1), but from a historical point of view they didn’t at all have the same political value. If Hawaii had been occupied by Japan, the political symbolism would have been very large and very bad for the US and very large and very good for Japan; sort of a Pearl Harbor on steroids. Fortunately it never happened. By contrast, the Philippines were actually occupied by Japan; in the US, this event provoked a mixture of anger and embarrassment, but at a level that was quite manageable.
Some sort of political-impact factor relating to player actions in general could also, perhaps, help with problems such as the two-theatre issue you’ve mentioned. Players could be rewarded not just for holding specific territories with high symbolic value; they could also be rewarded for taking political considerations into account when planning their overall strategy. I won’t go into the details here (though I can provide them if you want), but there were a number of reasons why historically the US fought a two-theatre war in WWII, and some of those reasons were political in nature. Those kinds of considerations aren’t currently reflected in the A&A rules (which don’t use politics as a hard-wired element of the victory conditions), so naturally the players can ignore these factors and follow strategies that (as you mention) are both inaccurate from a historical viewpoint and unsatisfactory from a gaming viewpoint.
To pick up on Argothair’s reference to momentous turning points of the war being something that could perhaps be reflected in a revised system of victory conditions, here’s a concrete example of a territory (and of events associated with it) which turned out to have major political and strategic implications for both the Allies and the Axis in WWII, even though in Global 1940 this territory has no IPC value, contains no victory city, and has no OOB national objectives associated with it. That territory is Sicily.
For the Allies, the planned invasion of Sicily was (among other things) designed to benefit the overall Allied war effort by helping to keep the Soviet/Anglo-American alliance glued together. Churchill and Roosevelt were under pressure from Stalin to open a second front against Germany in continental Europe, to help relieve the pressure on the Soviets, who felt – with some justification – that they were bearing the brunt of the land war with Germany. The Anglo-American argument that their strategic bombing offensive against Germany was a kind of “second front” wasn’t satisfactory from Stalin’s point of view, but at the same time the British and the Americans weren’t yet ready in 1943 to launch a cross-Channel invasion against occupied France. An invasion of Italy (via Sicily) from North Africa thus offered a kind of compromise between what Stalin wanted and what the Anglo-Americans were unable to do. (It also helped that Churchill had the same fondness in both WWI and WWII for strategic outflanking schemes of debatable value. He believed that Italy was “the soft underbelly of the Axis crocodile,” an assertion which ought to have sounded absurd to anyone who could read a topographical map of Italy.)
The Anglo-American invasion of Sicily in early July 1943 advanced the cause of the three main Allied powers by helping to maintain their cohesion, but it was also the start of a chain of events which ultimately had the opposite effect on the two main European Axis powers. Mussolini was removed from power within a couple of weeks of the invasion of Sicily. When the Allies invaded mainland Italy at the beginning of September, the new Italian government negotiated an armistice with the Allied powers, and eventually switched sides from the Axis to the Allies. The Italian armistice led both to an Italian civil war and to the German invasion of Italy, whereby the German Army (taking advantage of the fact that Italy’s topography is well suited for defense) reduced the Allied advance to a slow grind that would last until 1945. The German invasion of Italy (and its takeover of the Italian zones of occupation in France and the Balkans) involved about 40 divisions if I’m not mistaken, which necessarily meant reducing the number of German forces serving elsewhere.
The specifics of the above anecdote are, of course, too detailed for a simplified military-themed game like A&A, and I’m not suggesting that they (and similar ones for other territories) be modeled in detail into a new set of victory conditions. The more general point to take away is that a particular territory (or a particular set of actions by a player) could potentially be considered to affect the course of the war in ways that aren’t reflected in a victory system which is based either on economics or on victory cities. I’m not sure, though, if that’s what Argothair was driving at.
All excellent points! I for one would love to see a more robust campaign in the Med, especially in the smaller scale maps, where there is little incentive to attack the med islands.
I’m going to drift a little here, just thinking about how players often enjoy the looting idea, and how that might be used to encourage a more dual theater type of game.
One thought is to attach a bonus to every territory, such that 1 IPC from the bank is awarded for each successful conquest of a territory that turn. The advantage here goes to the attacker, rather than the defender, and to nations that can make multiple attacks per turn, but it does ensure that every territory has a value in game.
Clearly this introduces more money into the game, with a consistent influx of cash, and some who prefer the tighter economy game will probably cry foul (‘more units means longer gamelength etc.’) So as a way to take that money back out of the game, we provide a looting mechanism, where players can take that additional money away from each other.
Rather than focusing all the loot on the capital territory, it could instead be dispersed across each victory city on the map but at some smaller amount. Or you could make it proportional somehow, to the number of total VCs controlled in a theater, such that’s it more advantageous to take a city from a Nation that controls more total VCs on one side of the map, than it is to take them from a Nation that controls fewer VCs on the other side. I’m still trying to puzzle out how to achieve that exactly, but maybe just simple doubling? There are usually more VCs on the Europe side. Or maybe it could alternate by game round, where one round the European theater get a doubling bonus, and next round it is the Pacific, so there would be a reason to focus on each theater independently (in this case alternating by gameround.) I can imagine a situation where knowing in advance which theater gets the focus, would encourage strategic purchasing for each theater. Odd rounds Pacific, Even rounds Atlantic, something along those lines?
Just having the loot attached to the VCs, whatever form that takes, would go a long way towards encouraging a dual front war. This type of scheme would make taking and holding VCs critical to the actual victory because of the powerful looting incentive. Every nation would have a reason to take and hold, rather than trade such spaces for income, since the looting value would outweigh the regular income or bonus value in most cases. Basically you wouldn’t want to just brazenly attack a VC with no intention of holding the territory, because then you run the risk of getting looted yourself in response.
Once the VCs are made more significant and harder to contest, the action would be necessarily pushed out somewhat to all the other territories on the map, since they’d all be worth at least something to attack, and you’d want to cover yourself economically for the possibility of getting looted. So maybe a space like Sicily gets into the action, as a stepping stone. Acquired initially for the bonus, and then serving as a springboard to VC looting at Rome, which is a little more like what happened in the war. Same deal with the Pacific Islands, they get snatched up for the bonus, on the way towards the main goal of contesting the VCs and taking loot from the enemy.
I do think some modest looting rules could work well with having 3 target cities per theater per side – maybe in 1942.2 you steal 10 IPCs from the opponent’s treasury when you capture a target city, in AA50 you steal 15 IPCs, and in Global 1940 you steal 20 IPCs.
If you want to stick with a traditional victory city mechanic despite my arguments against it, then I have no objection to adding Cairo, Sydney, and Stalingrad as new victory cities – but don’t expect that to solve the one-theater problem. If I can win by concentrating all my forces in one theater, then I’m going to do so, and it’s much, much easier to win by taking, e.g., Leningrad + Moscow + Stalingrad + Cairo (i.e., a purely European victory) then it is to win by taking Leningrad + Moscow + Sydney + Honolulu (a victory balanced across both theaters).
Finally, having a victory condition based on pure economy or based on Young Grasshopper’s victory token rules could get you the incentives you want, but only at the cost of a potentially unsatisfying “Euro ending,” where someone is declared the “official winner” even though her opponents still have plenty of will and opportunity to fight. I realize that Settlers of Catan is an incredibly popular game, but I personally avoid it because I see no reason for someone to win just because she has 10 victory points. That goes double for, e.g., Twilight Imperium. If I’m going to setup and play a competitive 8-hour game like AA50, I don’t want that game to end until someone (maybe you, maybe me) has been soundly defeated or until the game has been fought to a plausible stalemate. Other people may feel differently, but I feel intensely frustrated when the rules call for me to end the game and put the game away just because someone has checked off a bunch of boxes on his in-game to-do list.
Out of curiosity, if you do favor a pure economic victory condition for AA50 or 1942.2, where would you draw the line? How many IPCs should the Axis need to win? How about the Allies? Are people willing to call the game for the Axis if the Allies haven’t won by turn X? Which turn?
Still talking about 1942.2, I cannot see a how 4 VCs winning conditions is easier to achieve by a Center charge of US and UK than a split mix of 1 ETO vs 3 PTO or 3 ETO vs 1 ETO VCs win or even 2-2.
@Argothair I am absolutely certain that its impossible to courage USA to go both oceans with just small ipc edits or some house rules. It totally requires new units, new rules, new drawings and new national balances.
Requirements:
-Reduce ship costs as much as possible (destroyer cost becomes 4-5ipc) while maintaning air unit’s somewhat usefulness against air and reducing their costs and rebalancing between ground and air units.
-Make California-Sydney distance 2 and no Australia factory.
-Open Mongolia, cooperation between Russian and Chinese units will discourage Japan to stemroll Central Asia.
-Give Russia Asian factories protected by some valueless territories serving as speed bump. You can give Russia special units to mobilize in this factories.
-If there is no harbour, make sure having no more than 4 sea zones between Japan and USA.
-Britain must start with Indian factory or factories. Open up a route from India to China hence making possible to cooperations between them in area. Also Making Russia suitable to send help India in urgency.
You’re not doing nearly enough here to explain your reasoning. I’m interested in discussing whether small changes can be enough to encourage the USA to split its forces, or whether large changes would be needed, but you’re not really discussing that topic – you’re just asserting that large changes are needed and then listing all of the large changes that you’d like to see in a game.
It’s fine if you personally like the changes you’re proposing, but if you want to have a discussion or debate or whatever then you’ll have to help us understand why you believe that they’re necessary.
That applies both to the general question of how large the changes would need to be to get the USA to split its forces, and to many of the specific changes you suggest. E.g., why does removing an Australia factory encourage the US to split its forces? Why does making ships cheaper relative to airplanes encourage the US to split its forces? These effects are not obvious to me.
Lets summarize the reasons why USA always goes Atlantic only.
The tons of solid reasons really cannot be reversed inside of classic A&A rules and costings because they will always outweight and discourage USA to split its forces.
Assigning 1ipc each of Pacific islands would have no effect to change the course of war. We would still stuck forever to the boring Japanese armour blitz in Central Asia, Germany turns into survival mod to wait Japan rescue by taking Moscow,. USA establishing a pipeline through North Africa.
-Australia factory isn’t needed, it just turns Japan into “take now or never be able to take” mod. Instead I would suggest making USA closer to Australia. Also its no fun because UK would buy nothing other than infantry and they will be unable to effectively participate Pacific campaigns.
@GEN-MANSTEIN I’ll tell you the same thing I told Navalland, which is that if you want to start an interesting conversation, you have to explain what your rules are supposed to accomplish, and how they accomplish that, and why that’s a good thing to accomplish. Everybody likes their own house rules; if we didn’t like them, we wouldn’t keep using them. But you have to do more than just share your stuff and say “my stuff is best.” Otherwise there’s nothing to talk about.
I see that both KGF and KJF can work and what is the need to in some way force the US player to commit to some rule that forces away the player options. I am always for player options and increasing the same.
Much more interesting, thank you! Now I can try to go point-by-point and explain why I disagree.
- Easier to defeat Germany first and ignore Japan
If you add IPCs in the South/Central Pacific, then it’s not as easy to ignore Japan, because Japan can grow more powerful while you’re ignoring it. In theory, you could make it harder to “defeat Germany first” by giving Germany more starting infantry.
- Easier to mass bombing Germany
London is a sort of unsinkable carrier, so it’s easier to bomb Berlin from London, which you already own, than to try to outfight the Japanese Navy, seize, e.g., Iwo Jima, and use that as a base for bombing. I hear you. Part of how you balance this is by setting up opportunities to bomb undefended Japanese transports. If the Japanese are pressured to constantly send transports into the south/central Pacific to take or reinforce valuable islands there, then you can bomb those transports from Australia or Hawaii. It’s not precisely the same thing as bombing Germany’s factories, but it winds up having a similar effect.
- Germany initially possesses bigger threat than Japan
That’s part of why I favor factories in India and Australia. Germany initially poses a bigger threat to Moscow than Japan, which is as it should be; Japan’s initial threat should be to the centers of commonwealth production. As the Allies, you should be worried that Germany will take Moscow, Italy will take Cairo, and Japan will take Calcutta, Sydney, and/or Honolulu. Again, you have to put enough IPCs into India/Australia that the Allies will care about that threat almost as much as they care about the threat to Moscow. This might also mean you have to weaken the rules for capital looting – if you can permanently shut down the entire Russian economy just by taking Moscow, that might not be a threat that any number of valuable islands can compete with.
- Germany has no enogh money for air coverage unlike Japan.
I’m still not sure what this one is getting at – it sounds like a bad setup by whichever game you have in mind. If Germany can’t possibly afford to buy decent fighter coverage, then that’s poor scenario design. In my experience Germany can usually buy plenty of fighters if it wants to, it just sometimes has other priorities, which is fine.
- More and easily reachable money via Atlantic rather than Pacific.
That’s exactly what I’m proposing to change – put some more money in the central/south Pacific, and then it’s easier for the US to reach that money earlier in the fight with Japan.
- USA is almost alone in the Pacific while heavily accompanied by UK in Atlantic
Again, this is part of what I’m proposing to change – give the UK a factory or a good factory site in Australia and/or India, and now the UK can heavily accompany the USA in the Pacific as well.
- Japan starts with bigger fleet than USA
That’s fine as long as it’s realistic for the USA to quickly get to parity or superiority, especially in sea zones that are closer to San Francisco than to Tokyo. The ideal is for both sides to have a ‘sphere of influence.’ If Japan will obviously and always control the entire Pacific Ocean, then, sure, USA should go 100% Kill Germany First. If the USA will obviously and always control the entire Pacific, then I guess USA should go 100% Kill Japan First. The way to get the USA to split its forces between the two theaters is to set things up so that the USA can control a part of the Pacific, but not all of it, at least not right away – so the USA will have an incentive to send its starting transports, infantry, etc. to Guadalcanal and Morocco because that’s about how far away from US factories that the US can reliably protect its transports that early in the game. And then of course that demands that the Solomons, north Africa, and so on are worth a non-trivial amount of cash – just because it’s reasonably safe to go there doesn’t guarantee that it’s worthwhile.
- Ships are expensive, less flexible and don’t bring money. Totally opposite of ground units.
That’s fine, and I don’t mind reducing the price of ships, but I still don’t see what that has to do with getting the USA to split its forces between theaters.
- Cheaper option of keeping California with mass infantries.
This ties into what I was saying on #7, above – sure, if you know you can’t contest any valuable portion of the Pacific, better to just give up and garrison California, but if you have a realistic opportunity to fight for the Solomons, Carolines, New Guinea, etc., and those territories are actually worth serious cash, then garrisoning California is cheaper, but it’s also much less rewarding, so the player faces an interesting choice.
- Japan’s ability to outproduce USA even if USA goes fully Pacific.
That’s just poor design; that needs to be fixed on any map.
- Combine power’s superiority over the dispersed ones.
This is always going to be a factor; it’s always useful to gang up on one opponent at a time. So the trick is to design the game in such a way that it’s rare or impossible to win a quick, total victory against a skilled defender, so that if you try going all out for, e.g., killing Germany on turn 5 then you’re likely to stall out and give Japan a chance to get huge. One option I’m working with in my Midddleweight map is having infantry defend at 3. The World at War series has infantry costing only 2 IPCs, instead. Either change tend to make it harder to quickly bowl over any given opponent.
@GEN-MANSTEIN You ignored my request to explain what you’re trying to accomplish with your house rules, and instead you just posted more pictures of your house rules. I’m glad you like your game, but you’re not adding anything to this conversation.
