AA50 - Starting the game with techs for each power

I think you’re asking a lot of the right questions: how to add more variety, how to make the game more truly global in scope, how to create advantages for the Allies without overcorrecting. I’m not sure how well you’ve thought through some of the specific changes that you’re recommending.

Moving the British ships from Gibraltar to east Africa does nice things for a British naval presence in the Indian Ocean, but it makes it way too easy for Germany to win the Battle of the Atlantic – Germany can now routinely take out all of Britain’s ships in the Atlantic on the first turn without taking too many risks. This means that Germany can totally evacuate France on turn 1 and probably also on turn 2, which gives Germany a big advantage against Russia.

The Sea Lion threat is probably exaggerated – sure, if you spend 100% of your economy on ships and planes for India, then London could be in trouble, but it’s pretty easy to build, say, 4 infantry in London and still have enough cash left over to place a variety of units in India. Britain starts with 43 IPCs, and London’s not that hard to garrison.

Meanwhile, Japan’s ability to take India or use it as a base to threaten Russia is almost entirely gone. One of the key threats the Japanese have in OOB Anniversary 1941 is building a factory in Indochina on turn 1, capturing Burma turn 1, and then threatening to build a factory in Burma on turn 2. If Japan pulls this off, then it doesn’t matter if Britain has a factory in India, because Japan is still outproducing Britain 4:3, and Japan will wind up with all 3 factories, which can then churn out infantry and tanks to head for Stalingrad. On the other hand, the only way Britain can prevent Japan from pulling this off is by sacrificing its entire starting force of troops from India and Persia, which is expensive and leaves Egypt vulnerable to the Italians.

In your version, Burma is only worth 1 IPC, so there’s very little point in having Japan build a factory there. Japan can’t take Bengal until at least turn 2, and the UK starts with a factory in India, so even if Japan gets a factory in Indochina right away and an eventual factory in Bengal, that’s very unlikely to be enough to deal with the forces Britain will have been accumulating in India proper. The Indian factory is almost 100% safe against anything short of a massive naval invasion – but that naval invasion is much harder to pull off assuming even a modest USA presence in the Pacific, because Britain now has two extra warships in the Indian Ocean, plus a starting factory there.

I think the dance of attacks and counter-attacks you outline in West Africa is entertaining, but unrealistic in terms of strategy – if you’re playing to win, then nobody cares enough about French West Africa to bother sending a transport there. Allied transports are much better off going to Morocco or Gibraltar, and Axis transports are much better off going to Gibraltar or Egypt.

Finally, I don’t think an Indian factory is likely to have any effect on the war on China – it’s 3 moves away from the nearest Chinese territory, and likely 4 or even 5 moves away from the Chinese front lines by the time forces actually arrive.

What all of these admittedly nitpicky corrections add up to is a sense that your changes won’t actually deliver that much variety. You get a different scenario with your changes, but it will always be the same different scenario: Germany wipes out the British Atlantic fleet and then charges hard for Moscow while Britain easily holds London and India and stalemates Japan. The USA can choose to either knock out a weakened Tokyo (and try to get to Tokyo before Germany gets to Moscow) or rush toward Paris and Rome (to try to set up a stable beachhead on the Western Front before Germany gets to Moscow). Other than the USA’s single choice of whether to go to the Atlantic or the Pacific, nobody has any interesting grand strategy decisions to make. Italy has to fight for Egypt, Germany has to fight for Moscow, Russia has to fight for Moscow, Japan has to fight just to hold onto a decent income, and Britain has to defend London, Egypt, and India. The details will vary from game to game based on tactics and dice, but I predict you’ll see a lot of the same general campaigns over and over again.

You may be interested in this earlier thread about splitting India and splitting the Indian Ocean:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41826.0

That’s generally what war is about, one country(s) wanting to expand and colonize, and other county(s) trying to stop it to protect their own interests. England was a super power at the time, it won multiple wars allowing it to expand the Empire. With expansion comes a strain of resources and uprisings (like that little conflict in the America’s). Although the English were on the winning side of WWII much of the Empire was disassembled afterwords.

The axis partners had spheres of interest prior to the start of WWII. Germany would dominate Europe, Italy the Med region, and Japan would get Asia and the Pacific. If things had continued to go the axis way,  those lines very well could have gotten blurred leading to conflicts among the axis. We all know that the Germans were capable of back stabbing their treaty partners.

Yea the Germans were late to the party, but did colonize in the Pacific and Africa prior to WWI. As a result of WW1 they lost those colonies. It is reasonable to believe that had the war progressed in their favor the Germans would want those lost territories back at some point. Would the Japanese just freely relinquish those Pac territories? Maybe some kind of trade off?

I’m no historian, but I don’t think the Japanese had any interest in expanding into Africa during the war(?). That would fall under German/Italian influence where the Euro axis were already fighting. I’m not saying the Japanese didn’t have the means to make landings in Africa, only that it would probably raise red flags to their axis partners if they did. Plus such a landing would have been a major strain on Japanese ambitions and holding they already had in their own back yard. They chose to keep the NAP w/Russia to continue their conquest of Asia and the Pacific (against the wishes of their strongest ally). I don’t think the Japanese would have looked at Africa unless they got the US to sign a treaty giving them complete reign of Asia and the Pac. Then they may have looked towards Africa or the Mid East???

With that said, I like that fact that if the US goes full tilt Europe the game allows you as the Japanese to venture to into Africa, and other European territories. Same for if the Japanese are getting pounded the Germans/Italians can make gains on the Pac side if they want. I wouldn’t like a set of rules that limit you to one map side or the other. Many people already complain about the Acme Chinese wall as it is.

If a house rule limited axis cross overs, or base certain moves on a domino type of effect, I think that you would also have look at putting in some US spending limits per theater as well.

I think I overreacted on the Italian situation. I foresaw UK being able to focus more on Italy in this compared to a normal game, since Britain’s income is centralized due to Halifax, and because it can probably afford to redirect Pacific forces west since USA in the Pacific isn’t as immediate of a threat to Calcutta as Japan was. Additionally, to defend the mobilization of Spain, I moved France’s destroyer by Madagascar to the Mediterranean to block off a Italian T1 transport heading to Gibraltar.
To counterbalance that I made one of Italy’s NO more attainable, upgraded 2 infantry to mechs, gave a free tank and artillery already in Africa, combined the Somalian infantry with the Ethiopians which is almost like giving an extra infantry, gave a free destroyer, and took away an ANZAC infantry from Egypt and a UK AAA from Malta.

But there’s another big factor to consider. Like, uh, I don’t know… USA PLAYING ON THE OTHER TEAM, MAYBE?? ;)

So! I’m changing some of that, and that’s the biggest change of these tweaks here. I acknowledge most of these changes are in favor of the Allies. I now present v1.4, which I intend to be playable as-is and the last of this series of changes, until I play some real games myself or get feedback from you kind or heartless souls. ^_^

v1.3 —> v1.4 changes
-Burma: -1 Infantry, -1 Fighter, +1 Artillery
-switched Cruiser and Battleship in SZ37/SZ39 (this and the Burma changes were actually done a while ago, I just forgot to write them down)
-removed extra tank in Libya, re-separated Somalian infantry, returned Malta AAA
-added to Story (Greenland)
-placed Commonwealth transport in SZ106 (Canada should have SOME sort of Navy, right?)
-removed extra Inf in Slovakia
-changed Eastern Mex standing army to 3 Inf (from 2)
-simplified Commonwealth defense perimeter NO
-modified Commonwealth 1st NO to require Ontario or Quebec (to encourage US player to strike fast and not overwhelm them separately)
-modified UK anti-sub NO to exclude eastern US coast
-fixed Russian lend-lease NO to not penalize Russia for support from allies
-added 2 Inf in Borneo
-added 1 Inf in Hawaii
-fixed a conflicting statement about Bolivia (Bolivia is Pro-Allies)

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=22164.0

I have always been in favour of the incremental research system whereby each Power begins the game at some point along a ‘ladder’ in achieving a given tech. When they reach the end of that ladder, they have achieved the tech. Each tech lader would be say, 10 points (or steps) long and it would cost 5 IPCs to move your Power’s control marker one step further - but perhaps you could only attain one point per tech, per turn.

So for example, Germany may be at 7 or 8 towards Super Submarines, and maybe 6 towards Rockets, but only 3 for Heavy Bombers. And this would be based on the historical situation.

I’m sure this system has been proposed before by people but I think it needs to be raised, now and again, as a possible house rule.

I’m wanting to condense rules for AA50 Strategic down as much as possible
I do still like the idea of adding ONE unique Tech to each nation
Mass Aircraft and Heavy Transports are not really needed, game’s are generally shorter and these are less advantageous to research
Royal Air Force will also be eliminated as it’s use is limited in a shorter game
With only 1 starting BB, Yamatos has limited use and can also be eliminated (I’ve kept Air bases as a Global Tech (at reduced cost) for Naval defense vs. HB)

**RUSSIA

MOBILE INDUSTRY (Minor Tech, 5IPC/researcher)
-Your ICs may move 1 territory during NCM (as long as you owned them at turn start). ICs can only move among Red territories. They may produce in territories they just moved to, as long as Russia owned the territory at turn start. Production in the new location is “Limited” to INF, RTL and ARM only, up to the territory limit.
-Multiple ICs may exist in a single territory, but only 1 remains active (for the purposes of Rocket attacks, SBR and unit production)

UNITED STATES

REINFORCED CARRIERS (Minor Tech, 5IPC/researcher)
-Your ACs require 2 hits to destroy, just like BBs

UNITED KINGDOM

JOINT COMMAND: D-DAY (Minor Tech, 5IPC/researcher)
-Once during the game, at the start of UK’s turn, you may declare a D-Day Invasion, a combined attack of UK and US forces which occurs on UKs turn. D-Day may only target France, and all attacking land and sea units MUST amphibious assault from SZ 7 (with the rare exception of land units already in Ger, NWEur, or Italy which can attack France as per regular rules). Air units may come in from any territory provided they have enough movement points.
-On the UK turn, you may command any US units in range of France.  These US units cannot be used on US’ next turn. US units can use UK transports and vice versa.
-The UK and US must agree on casualties, otherwise the defender chooses. AAGun fire is rolled separately against each nation. Techs still only apply to the units of the power that has them.**

Let me clarify my reasoning on point number 2:

Submarines defend at a zero because they are not firing back, they are battening the hatches, flooding the ballast tanks and adjusting the dive planes hoping to get below depth charge depth before being sunk. (Which is silly, I guess you should say destroyed not sunk, since they sink on purpose…)

Meanwhile, they attack at three because they quietly slip into range, hide in the waves, line up their shot just right and fire.  Since there is resistance to giving them called shot abilities (where they tell us who they aim for before firing, like Kaitens and Kamikazees did in AARe) I figure this is a solution that would work.

Also, it should be mentioned that I am assuming Super Submarines has been changed to Super Destroyers which would increase Destroyer Attack Power = to Submarine Power.

Submarines do not defend with a surface fleet, they travel solo usually way out ahead as scouts or raiding enemy shipping.  Treat them like transports if they are detected and defenseless.

You’re right, I don’t think Russia and Germany can Fall to any sort of allied attack. Thats why the allied victory conditions are for it to only stop Axis from cliaiming Africa Asia before USA creates a Atom Bomb (by turn X) and forces a treaty/surrender.

As it was, the only ground Axis had gained by turn 4 was Persia, Trans Jordan and 1 territory in China It had lost Libiya. If you had asked my opponet who was Axis, he would say my bid was already high.