World at war (Expansion)

@All-Encompassing-Goose

Are the Canadian units in the out of box rules also converted into American units?

Anyway, if folks are interested in joining the development team, I could use the help.

This is an update on a project I began some time ago, Axis & Allies: World at War.

The goal is to create a single, custom game map, ruleset, and playset for use in private games. In short, creating an Axis & Allies variant similar to Global War, but without the intent to mass produce or sell the product commercially. This means that I will engage a professional mapmaker to create a high-quality play mat and play aids (e.g., charts, roundels, cards, etc.).

In terms of mechanics, this will be a card-driven game like Amateurs to Arms and Mr. Madison’s War bolted onto the Axis & Allies core rules. Basically, players will draw from decks of cards that set global conditions, activate neutral nations, and let them activate units in given territories. Rather than being able to move all units every turn, players will spend Operations Points to move specific armies. Additional Operations Points can be obtained through card play, from possession of strategic resources, and by building and placing supply columns. The latter are units that move along with armies, allowing the player to activate that stack every turn for free. They may, however, be captured by the enemy.

The game will feature both territories and point-to-point movement. Possession of a given number of points within a given territory translates to ownership, which yields a production value in IPCs. The game pieces will be a mixture of plastic pieces and traditional counters.

We will use an alternate history to bring all corners of the map into play. The map is inspired by both Harry Turtledove’s Great War series and an alternate history saga known as The Feast of Eagles, which imagined a world in which Europe remained largely divided after the Wars of Religion. The major conflict in North America is between the United States and the Confederate States. In South America, Argentina squares off in a naval race with Portugal, which retains its Brazilian colony. In Europe, a Franco-Russian alliance is opposed by the British and the Austrians. Minor powers include Castille (British-allied), the Two Sicilies (French-allied), Poland (allied with Sweden), and a restored Byzantine Empire. At the onset of the twentieth century, the French also dammed the Mediterranean, flooding the Lake Chad Basin. A similar project was undertaken in the Congo. Along with the Great Lakes, both African “world lakes” are accessible by a new canal infrastructure that admits oceangoing vessels. Japan squares off in the Far East against an ascendant Russia, a China of dubious strength, and the United Netherlands, not to mention the British.

At this point, I have a notional set of units. Again, feedback would be excellent, especially by folks that are good at optimizing builds. Which proposed units are unlikely every to be built?
Axis and Allies Units.pdf

What about Oil rules? By then oil will be scarce!

Table Tactics used to have available the Central Powers units, which if you combined them with say the infantry figures and artillery from Attack, you could pretty much have what you needed for a WW1 land game, and the naval units, less carriers, would cover the naval aspect.  You could pretty much eliminate the Asian aspect as that lasted a very short time.  You did have the Emden raiding in the Indian Ocean and Von Spee’s squadron sailing across the Pacific, sinking Cradock’s two cruisers, Good Hope and Monmouth, and then attacking the Falklands, where 4 our of 5 of his cruisers were sunk in December of 1914.  Aside from those naval actions, you do not have much at all.

You would need the Mid East and Africa for those campaigns, and Lettow-Vorbeck was still fighting in November of 1918, and you cannot pass up the Arab Revolt and Allenby’s campaigns in the Mid East, nor Gallipoli.  The current Europe 1940 board would be about right, reset to 1914. Another option for a start would be the basic Attack Game board covering Europe and the Americas, and then redraw the boundaries.

I am talking to Table Tactics about doing some more WW1 tanks besides the Mark II that they have: the French Renault, maybe a British Whippet as a later war tank, the German A7V, and a Rolls-Royce armoured car for the Mid East.  Given the small size of most of your WW1 fighters, you probably would want to use 1/300 scale for the fighters, rather than 1/600.  I am checking with another company on Zeppelins, and they already do a nice blimp.  Get a mix of 1/2400 scale and 1/4800 scale WW1 ships, and you have the basis for a prototype.

For Countries in the Game, you have the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire on one side, and the British Empire, France, Italy, and a Russian/US player.  The US comes in with either the Russian Revolution or the use by Germany of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare.  I have thought of a couple of ways to trigger the Russian Revolution, with the option of preventing it if the Ottomans are knocked out soon enough.  Hard to say how to handle the Balkans, as Serbia has a claim to be in the game somehow, unless they are controlled by the Russian player until knocked out of the war.

There should be some nice naval actions between the German and UK, and the Italians, the Austrians, the French and the UK in the Med, with some chance for action in the Baltic and the Black Sea.  Not sure how to handle the stalemate on the Western Front as yet.  However, it is only 2011, so there is time yet.

Has anyone here bought this game and can reveal their impressions?

Considering all the feedback I have received from my first public release of Global Conflict on this form and other outlets, **I have now released my third edition of Global Conflict. **

It is much more balanced than before. Minor changes to setup makes Germany be a more threatening adversary. The Allied economic dominance has been addressed with modified convoy rules and also the edition of supply tokens.  Long game play time has been addressed with a new turn sequence which should keep all players more involved with very little idle time. A close competitive game with five players can now be completed in less than six hours. (This does not including setup). Technology rules have also been modified. Three new units have been included. They are Mechanized Divisions, Air Transports, and Cruisers.  (If you don’t have these units, replace all cruisers in the setup with destroyers, and ignore mechanized devisions and air transports.  Play will still be balanced)

I hope all of you enjoy the game.  And as always all comments, suggestions, and game reviews are welcome.

This is the link to all the files you need
http://www.mediafire.com/?2gmbdgml0zy

Honestly, if you play the board game for the map and pieces, then you should avoid most of the board games out there.

As far as 4 revisions in 10 years, maybe that’s a bit high, granted, but….  I can tell you a fact that in 10 years, Dell has gone through more server revisions in those same 10 years.  Does that make their products (or substitute Apple, IBM, HP, etc) any worse?  That’s the worst comment I’ve ever heard.  Not only that, but revisions are there to help make the game better.

Ok, rant off.  Talking about World at War 2005 now.  The game is ok, but unfortunately when combining the latest rules from Axis & Allies (which this is based off of), the Allies has too much of an advantage.  Especially when comparing this version with the 3rd version.  There are now factories in India and Australia for Britain to use, you can still purchase infantry off of factory sites, but at a max of 1 per land and they cost 1 IPC more, which hurts Germany a ton since they can’t keep Africa.  Then again, Britain got a bump in Africa as well with the tank defending on a 3 now and they get an extra artillery piece, so you really have to commit in Africa to take it and hold it.

The technology rolls are interesting, but kind of confusing to understand at first.

I’m actually on this forum to see if anyone has brought up house rules or variants to make the game a little bit more balanced.  I believe the Allies should win about 60-65% to keep in line with history, but this version (and the previous ones as well) gives the allies about 80% chance to win.  This is assuming average dice rolls.  We’ve played around with giving Germany super subs and Japan get fighters to start, but it didn’t help all that much.  Japan usually never has a problem and the jet fighters were just the icing on the cake.  Super subs really didn’t help Germany as much as we had thought it would.

Anyone else try to do something different with this game?