Larry's suggested setup changes

@calvinhobbesliker:

@The:

Just saw this, and wanted too comment. I like the extra chinamen, (I always feel that they underrepresent China, who never saw the kind of sweeping domination that Japan deals it these days) like the downgrade to the jap airforce, (who, although they may have been more militarily active before 1940 than germany and may have had more airpower, there is no way they had 3X as many planes as their far superior (although not often shown in these games) German counterpart) and the moving of the transports and the naval base in NSW. But the 10 ipc NO for not being at war is complete Bullshit. Sometimes I just want a completely historical game with no changes to it than compared to the stupid ways people come up with to balance the game. Japan was dying to go to war b/c they were running out of resources. We weren’t freakin paying them to stay peaceful! That is so… i don’t even know. Those other things should probable turn the balance back to pretty even (that and russians). But, heres a thought. If this was actually play tested properly, and people saw the glitch, then maybe they could think to themselves “well, maybe Japan doesn’t need so many planes…” Or maybe they could actually represent China properly on the board! Does anyone here think it odd that in AA50 China starts out with a territory boardering the coast, but that, apparently, Japan owned it (according to this game) 1 year previously? That could certainly shift some more balance, by actually representing the board correctly! Maybe, since the Italian were weak, we should just let them start of with Egypt! Or maybe it’s only fair that the Germans control all of Scandinavia, so why not just give them Sweden!!! Ok. Rant done. Bottom line, the people who come up with game balancing ideas need to have taken a history lesson or two.

The reason they had no resources was because the US stopped them after they took FIC. Japan only gets the NO if they don’t take FIC(or any non Chinese tt).

Ah, well that makes sense then. But im still pissed off by a underrepresented china, a over represented pre-war U.S., Japan owning China places, and too many freakin Jap planes.

Wait, nevermind. I’m pissed again. It wasn’t b/c of FIC that We all embargoed Japan. It was b/c Japan declared war on China right?

@calvinhobbesliker:

@The:

Wait, nevermind. I’m pissed again. It wasn’t b/c of FIC that We all embargoed Japan. It was b/c Japan declared war on China right?

Not really. Japan declared war on China in 1937. We embargoed in 1941, leading to Pearl Harbor

I see. Just looked it up now. In that case though, I advocate giving the Chinese back their coast in future games, and giving the U.S. only a 30 ipc war bonus, just like in Global.

At this point it is not about what we all want for AAP1940 but about play testing Larrys proposed changes. To find out if they are workable or not. Check out his web site.

I agree with Fire Knight that I like the changes Larry has suggested except I also balked at a 10 IPC NO for Japan only being at war with China.  It seems a little high and a little far fetched to me…  I wish I could play test this stuff though…

Thinking about it a little more I suppose it basically compensates Japan for removing the 1 or 2 planes from the setup (build a fighter for each of the 2 turns Japan will get the NO until the US comes in turn 3) and forces them to be further back from the front lines when they are built.  At least the Japanese only will get the NO for 2 turns pretty much.

So essentially the changes keep the Japanese initially the same, just with a little less airforce available immediately, and boosts the Allies a little bit.  I suppose with that explanation and the historical basis of the embargo on Japan after they began attacking I’m feeling a little more comfortable with it.

We playtested the changes a bit this week.  The air force reduction is noticable, but not detrimental- it simply evens the playing field between Japan and UK/ANZAC.  By the time Japan had “rebought” those planes and moved everything in position, India had a decent small counter airforce and I (I was playing ANZAC) was able to bring the Kiwi air force over to Java to support India, as well as build more in Queensland.

The 10 IPCs- I don’t know.  It allowed our Japan player to do something totally unexpected.  He was using those extra 10 to help buy a Transport and 2 Infantry every turn as well as his normal purchases.  But he was just stacking them in Japan, not moving.  By the end of J3, he had 6 Transports stacked in the Sea of Japan, with Infantry to match. (Some Artillery tossed in as well).  UK3, UK moves into China to ssave her and goes on the offensive.  USA 3, they declare war as per rules.

J4 opens, and Japan moves all half dozen Transports AND Infantry (with 3 supported DDs) to ALASKA.  Everyone looked at him and was “lol wut??”.  We all thought it was nuts… until our USA player spent the next 3 turns totally fixated on the frozen north, barely buying a navy, sinking almost all his money into Tanks and Fighters.  We stopped at turn 7, Manilla and Honolulu had fallen, and the USA had just gotten Alaska back but had no way to challenge the Imperial Navy, yet.

@SAS:

Thinking about it a little more I suppose it basically compensates Japan for removing the 1 or 2 planes from the setup (build a fighter for each of the 2 turns Japan will get the NO until the US comes in turn 3) and forces them to be further back from the front lines when they are built.  At least the Japanese only will get the NO for 2 turns pretty much.

So essentially the changes keep the Japanese initially the same, just with a little less airforce available immediately, and boosts the Allies a little bit.  I suppose with that explanation and the historical basis of the embargo on Japan after they began attacking I’m feeling a little more comfortable with it.

Larrys suggestion takes away a total of five aircraft from Japan at the start. The 10 IPC NO for Japan lasts only for two rounds at the most as they must go to war by the third round or they might as well throw in the towel. In my current game in progress I declared war as Japan on the second turn and find myself just hanging on. It is going to be a close contest in which I cannot afford to make any more mistakes.

I still think the simplest solution to balancing the Pacific theater is to not allow Japan to attack any power but China its first turn. It forces the Japanese player to set specific plans for future attacks and reposition its forces accordingly. It allows the Allies a turn to build up some and reposition as well. Japan may have a powerful navy and airforce but when those fleets split up to quickly take targets like the DEI and the Phillipines, they become exposed, easy targets for Allied units with reckless abandon.
Has anyone tried this rule with any success?

I still think the simplest solution to balancing the Pacific theater is to not allow Japan to attack any power but China its first turn.

I said this too except for the first 3 turns. By that time the allies got enough and Japan wont capitalize on its strongest advantage with is on J1, followed by J2 and J3.

You don’t need any changes in the set up and it is the most KISS idea proposed. All these changes are based on a faulty setup from design. It is not historical and so japanese assets are too far forward at this stage in the war and it leads to all sorts of complications because it is too tempting.

Of course nobody tried to address this other than me and now you.

Japan was not in a position to attack USA or UK in 1939, nor Russia. They just got started with full scale war in China since 1937.  The representation of her air-forces is totally ridiculous. I can’t believe the playtesters didn’t say something about this, because it makes no sence for them to have so many planes.

I don’t know but for some reason these games always have some problem about them requiring ‘fixes’. Perhaps the games are coming out too fast and since they don’t want realistic rules, the candyland approach causes many problems in the final outcome because its a faulty foundation with cards built on top and it can’t be sustained. If its not a production issue then you get this.

Really only MB AA had good balance ( sort of)

@Imperious:

I still think the simplest solution to balancing the Pacific theater is to not allow Japan to attack any power but China its first turn.

I said this too except for the first 3 turns. By that time the allies got enough and Japan wont capitalize on its strongest advantage with is on J1, followed by J2 and J3.

You don’t need any changes in the set up and it is the most KISS idea proposed. All these changes are based on a faulty setup from design. It is not historical and so japanese assets are too far forward at this stage in the war and it leads to all sorts of complications because it is too tempting.

Of course nobody tried to address this other than me and now you.

Japan was not in a position to attack USA or UK in 1939, nor Russia. They just got started with full scale war in China since 1937.  The representation of her air-forces is totally ridiculous. I can’t believe the playtesters didn’t say something about this, because it makes no sence for them to have so many planes.

I don’t know but for some reason these games always have some problem about them requiring ‘fixes’. Perhaps the games are coming out too fast and since they don’t want realistic rules, the candyland approach causes many problems in the final outcome because its a faulty foundation with cards built on top and it can’t be sustained. If its not a production issue then you get this.

You should be a play tester. That would fix a ton of issues. How do you become one?

I’d say AA50 is very balanced. Do agree Pacific40 is horribly UNbalanced and I don’t get that either how playtesters did not spot that…

Like the"Attack China only on turn 1" variant!

@Koningstiger:

Do agree Pacific40 is horribly UNbalanced and I don’t get that either how playtesters did not spot that…

I still think many allied players give up too fast. Japan starts as a monster, but getting all the needed victory cities is not thàt simple. India falls if Japan wishes so, yes… but that last victory city is usually a big problem.

@The:

You should be a play tester. That would fix a ton of issues. How do you become one?

You become one by invitation.  Right now Larry is asking for people to playtest his proposed adjustments to AAP40 and give him feedback.  The discussion is in this thread.  Everyone is welcome to participate in this effort.

@Fishmoto37:

@Zarnak:

There’s quite a few suggestions for balance all around.  My game buddy won’t help me test any of them until AAE40 comes out.  He’s all about the global game.   :-P

Here’s what I’ve seen that I’ve liked so far:
5 extra China infantry.
2 extra American Infantry in the Phillipines.
Move a UK transport to sea zone 39. 
Add a naval base to South Wales.

I don’t like the idea of taking away from the Japanese air force.  The global game has two allied warships off of Africa that can reinforce India.  The USSR pressence alone would seem to discourage the J3 India crush.  The more subtle the changes the better.  I just don’t know if you can balance AAP40 perfectly by itself w/o the Russians.

I think that Larrys suggestions are probably for AAP1940 as a stand alone game.

@Krieghund:

Any changes made would have to work for both games.

@Fishmoto37:

I played two AAP1940 games today using Larrys suggestions. A total of five planes were removed from Japan, the extra infantry were give to China, the UK transport was moved to India, the extra sea base was added to ANZAC and the 10 IPC bonus was given to Japan for not declaring war the first two rounds. The fellow playing Japan did not buy any transports or ICs the first or second round. (Very BAD BAD and BAD) He got the NOs the first two rounds and declared war in the third round. I fell back with the Chinese until I got more infantry and artillary by keeping the Burma road open. Then when he was spread thin I counter attacked and took back almost everything. I have never seen so many Chinese in one of these games. This game ended early as Japan was getting creamed. In the second game I took the Japanese side and purchased two transports and four infantry the first round. Took a couple of Chinese territories, positioned my southern navy and got 10 IPC bonus for not declaring war. I did buy a minor IC for the China coast on the second turn. But I had a case of brain fade or senior moment as I attacked a destroyer and a transport with two infantry that was escaping from the Phil. islands. I lost my 10 IPC bonus as I did not intend to declare war until the third round. The Americans were very aggressive and we had two large sea battles and I won both times but lost a lot of units. I kept a good supply of infantry and tanks in China. Got China down to one territory but the UK built up a sizable force as I tried to rebuild my navy. ANZAC had mostly fighters that could not reach me. All my planes were very busy going from here to there in support of my attacks. I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails. I did not get the east indies as quick as I wanted to but finally did. As we stopped the game I was up to 60 IPCs. but was being out produced by the combined allies. This is a very close game and we plan to resume next tuesday.

Well we resumed this game today and the allied player was doing so good that I thought that I was on the verge of losing the war for Japan. But then it happened. The U.S. had nine B17s within range of one of my two fleets which was in sea zone #20. So he attacked with all bombers but without any fighter escort. All bombers were lost in one round of combat. 108 IPCs down the drain. Then he proceeded to leave his fleet where it was within range of both of mine. (sea zone #34) My other navy was in sea zone #6. On Japans turn I attacked and the U.S. fleet was toast. Minimum losses in both actions for Japan. At this point China was defeated, U.K. was still holding on with no navy, ANZAC had a good air force but no navy and the U.S. had a good income but no navy and no air force to speak of. So the allies threw in the towel. Game over. Again this game was started with Larrys suggested changes. Seems that the suggested changes have made it a little tougher for Japan. This game just shows that one must remain focused at all times.

Well, I started a game using the set up changes (-fighter, Tac, Bomb Japan, -Bomb Manch, total 5 inf added to China, UK transports moved to India, NSW naval base) and I have to say the game looks very very good for the allies.

Japan did not attack J1, DEI got snapped up by UK + ANZAC and Japan was forced to attack J2.

Japan decided to move fleet down to DEI territory. Even managed to take Queensland with India very tenuously held.

UK made its stand in Sumatra with fighters/AB so no NO for Japan. USA built up invasion fleet and by turn 3 had them stationed in Midway (with NB, my personal favorite allied build).

Japan forced to retreat fighters to Japan but could not stop US Korea landing.

Stopped the game at that point: Overall the change that had the most effect was moving the transports to India.

The China reinforcement seemed a bit of an overkill.
Having DEI in allied hands by the end of turn 1 was a huge boost for the allies.

Japan rapidly falls behind in income. Very, very tough to make it back.

Better to just get the game right the first time :-(