Advanced Europe 1941 game

Hi all, I finally managed to take some pics of the variant I’m making - now you can see the size of the map by clicking on the link below (pic was too large to fit on here). Hope you like it. Took me ages to get the set up to the play test stage and I have used the pc game ‘Hearts Of Iron II’ for my reference to starting forces. The pic taken is before the game begins - Spring 1941. Turn order - Germany, Soviet Union, Italy, United Kingdom, United States. I’ve come up with a few house rules of my own and I’m using D12 dice for the combat system.

The black units are Germany and the blue-ish coloured ones are the Axis Minors (Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland & Vichy France). Axis Minors are controlled by the German player on their turn. Each power in the game has certain levels of unit technology and this can be increased incrementally. The Italians have underpowered Tanks, and the Soviets have lower level Infantry to start with, for example. As you can see from the picture below, the Soviets do have some naval forces!

I would be very grateful to hear any feedback on my project as well as any suggestions/recommendations to do with unit placement. I do not yet know if the thing is balanced! I will play test a few games and post my findings here. Many thanks!  :-)

Here’s the url to mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/i/?yznnmhxouut

Hi guys, very many thanks for all your cool feedback and compliments. Okay, now to answer some questions:

Here is a link to another thread with a pic of the map for download: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=17545.30 The file is too large to post here.

I will post the unit setups very soon. They are by no means set in stone - I will probably need your help to get the balance just right!  :-)

I have made the game start in June 1941, at the launch of Op. Barbarossa, but I am obviously happy for players to create their own scenarios and victory conditions as they wish.

The turn order, as well as the starting IPC levels for the nations are:

Germany = 60
Soviet Union = 48
Italy = 20
United Kingdom = 50
United States = 80

I am trying to come up with some house rules of my own with regards to the Air and Naval bases, Axis Minor forces, rail movement and Militia units. I use a D12 combat system whereby a unit’s normal attack and defend values are just doubled, e.g. a Tank (Att 3, Def 3) is now Att 6, Def 6. This leaves a margin for modification to those values, chiefly by the implementation of field testing technology. There will be two types of tech - Practical (slow and cheap, which eventually upgrades your units to better models) and Theoretical (major breakthroughs in innovation; quick and effective immediately, but expensive).

Each power will have different levels of unit tech that they start the game with. The first or lowest level is ‘Basic’, then it can be upgraded to ‘Improved’ level, then ‘Advanced’ and so on - each time your unit reaches the next level it will be more efficient in combat, but will also be more expensive to produce. For example, Germany and UK begin the game with Improved Infantry (Att 3, Def 5) while the other nations, including the Axis Minors, all begin with just the Basic (Att 2, Def 4). However, the Soviets start with Improved Tanks (7,7). This makes for some interesting battles!

Okay, that’ll do it for the moment! I’ll be back shortly! Thanks for reading.  :-)

Thank you guys for the comments and compliments!

I will post a link to the mediafire map as soon as I can. It’s strange because axisandallies.org let me post the pic here as an attachment in the A&A Europe '40 sub-forum (‘Turn Order’ thread) but it won’t let me post it here, saying it’s too large. Well, I haven’t changed the size of the map… I’ll see what I can do.

By the way, for those who wish to print out the map, please bear in mind that it does come out a little pixelated due to the zoom magnification; I only designed it on ms paint. I will post two pics of the map: the 1st will have all the territory names and sea zones on it (for your reference), and the 2nd will be blank. When I printed off the map, I left out all the names and numbers as they were too big and looked rather ugly. Better to write them on by hand afterwards, and that’s what I did.

Yes, the Russians get two Battleships! I haven’t yet determined the strength of these vessels (their att/def values). Again, I’m basing my unit set up on the data found within the Hearts Of Iron II pc game, as Paradox do tend to be quite historically accurate. I appreciate that this will unbalance the game, and that is where I ask your help. Believe me, I was shocked when I saw how many Cruisers the UK had!

Okay, back shortly.

Okay, sorry about the wait. Here are the links to the two versions of the map - one with all the lettering and numbering, and one without:

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?kzjjuadq2uw

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?nr4dmtymnwc

I’m new to using mediafire so I hope that this works and that the files can be downloaded. Please let me know if there are any problems.

I would recommend that you print the blank version and then write the words and numbers on yourself because it’ll look better. I’ll be posting the setups shortly…

What, exactly, are my options? I’m no techie or anything and so I don’t know how to PDF>. Can anybody please explain/help ?

Obviously, I want to improve the quality of the images.

Anyway, I’m going to post the initial set up charts now, starting with Italy:

And now the Axis Minor nations. I use the blue-ish coloured German pieces from A&A Revised for these guys. There is a Finish Cruiser in SZ 8; use a Battleship piece for this.

Okay, now Germany:

United Kingdom set up:

United States:

And finally, Soviet Union: