Larry's suggested setup changes

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 :-(

Better to just get the game right the first time

I agree.  I didn’t pay money for this game so I could have the honour of being a playtester.

I did playtest some of his early changes, but he has so many different ideas he has going on right now that to play test them all in all the combinations would take a lot of games.  I have since lost interest in trying out all his proposed cahges, and will wait for Stoney’s map or play with a bid.  At least until Larry finally comes up with his finalized set-up.

The only changes i paid attention to was…

Russia getting the 18 infantry in the east (for the global game)
Downgrading Aussie’s Complex
Adding Air/Sea ports in Phillipeans

@Van_Trump:

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.

Only one transport is to be moved to India.

Just so that everyone knows< we’re coming very close to a finalized set of changes.  And Jim, if you wouldn’t have perfected such a devastating set of moves we wouldn’t have to do this.  :p

There is a new one up. I’m keen to try this via forum ASAP. Please let me know if you would like to have a game.

Here is the link:

http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2531

Here is the Setup:

**Adjust your normal setup by doing the following:

Remove the following air units:

Japan
1 fighter, 1 tac bomber, 1 bomber from Manchuria
3 fighters and 1tac bomber from Japan

Allies
1 UK fighter from India
2 ANZC fighters from New Zealand
1 US bomber from the Philippines
1 US fighter, and 1 US tac bomber from WUS
1 US tac bomber from Hawaii

In addition the aircraft I have also moved some units around on the map:
Move 1 US infantry from WUS to the Philippines
Move 1 UK transport from sz39 to sz37
Move 1 Japanese transport, and 1 battleship from sz33 to sz19

Add 3 Japanese infantry on Manchuria
Add 4 Chinese infantry: 1 on Hunan, 1 on Szechwan, 1 on Shensi, and 1 on Yunnan

Add 1 naval base on New South Wales

Remove 1 UK infantry from Malaya

That’s it… nothing else should be changed from the established setup.

I’d be very happy if this new setup cannot be broken. Are there any volunteers willing to BREAK this game? If so, be my guest, by all means.

Think Global too…**

If I might make a casual observation, it seems to me that LHPC (Larry Harris Pacific Changes, lol feel free to make fun of that name) have caused Japan to have a more desperate war than OOB. It seems that Victory is still possible, but now, like original Pacific, requires more calculated moves, and for one to make the most usage of their units. Having played with LHPC, I found it much more desperate and sometimes even felt like it was almost historical in it’s difficulty. Well, not entirely, but I think you catch my drift.

And if all that is true, then it looks like they’ve done their job. It doesn’t make Japan’s job impossible (as we’ve seen), just more difficult, which is ideal, cause OOB was simply ridiculous. I fully support the current changes, but I wouldn’t mind slightly more.

That’s just me though. I’m interested to see your opinions on LHPC.

Also, has anyone playtested the new setup with Global?

why are the Allies having all those aircraft removed??? I thought the problem was that Japan was too strong… :?

The game by it’s nature is difficult to balance.  The allies historically didn’t know that Japan was going to attack.  Here it’s only a question of which turn.  The allies begin to aggressively position their forces for an onslaught they know is coming if Japan does not attack turn one.  J1 attack is the only one that catches the allies with their pants down.

I added the other suggested changes to a global game - 5 extra chinese infantry and a naval base in South Wales - that’s it.  In the global, Germany and Italy are better off if Japan does NOT attack the first turn.  I chose to attack the 2nd turn.  It turned into an incredibly desparate struggle that I might pull off only because the US player can’t seem to stick to any one battle plan.

The plus to this setup is that with three less planes and minus an infantry in Malaya it will be more difficult for the UK/ANZAC player to fortify the DEI if Japan does not attack the first turn.  It will also take the US longer to get into the fray with the loss of four aircraft.

The four extra Chinamen and the loss of seven aircraft make me wince though.  :-o

If you have comments or playtest results to report, it would be most helpful if you would please post them in the original thread on Larry’s site.

these aren’t tweaks

this is a whole new game… call it axis and allies pacific 1939 december or something

it looks like he is taking a sledgehammer to the balance instead of a scalpel

not that that is bad or anything, just that i’d prefer small tweaks to completely re-doing the unit placement

@Krieghund:

If you have comments or playtest results to report, it would be most helpful if you would please post them in the original thread on Larry’s site.

Bleh, Krieg I just spent $70.00 on the game (as of today haha), I’d like to hear how this works out. I’ve visited Larrys site one time (and saw 100 different sub-topics to go to, I perfer this site). Please let people feel free to post their opinions and ideas on this thread so others like myself who use this as their primary site don’t feel it necessary to go through the hassle of finding and navigating to another site to get the same exact answers. Or if the same topics have been brought up, simply delete or sticky one thread to keep it simple (I do see 2 of the same topic on these threads).

By the way, Larrys thread is SEVENTY THREE pages long. Not sure about you but I’d rather get to the point in this 5 page thread.

I just checked out the changes to the AAP40 setup and I have to say they make more sense to me.
1> I’ve always wondered why NSW didn’t have a naval base.
2> 3 fighters on New Zealand just didn’t seem right to me.
3> The US always seemed a little too heavily equipped compared to how things really were in Spring 1940.
4> While I know that Japan did build a very strong war machine, it seemed dispropotionately plane heavy in the original setup.
5> I’ve always thought that China was too weak.  Sure they were struggling with Japan and rather backwards in equipment, but they had a lot of men.

As for the rest of the changes, I’m sure they make better sense too.  I look forward to trying these out in my next AAP40 game or Global 40 game since I guess they work for both.
Any word on if the special NO for Japan is a part of this new setup?  How about the garrison of Manchuria?  I haven’t seen how many units Japan is expected to keep there.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Here are the latest changes:

.AAM  what format is that? Where can I go to download the proper software needed to view it?

It doesn’t seem fair … Japan can afford lose 7 figs easily, but allies cannot. Japan should have more figs deleted or at least add the aa gun for China

We played last night with Larry Harris’s latest setup that removes planes from both sides and makes some other changes in the setup. My conclusion is that Japan still has too many planes (I played Japan). It was just too easy to run over everything.

First turn Japan moved its 2 transports south towards India and built a naval base in Kwangsi that was however not needed as access to India was blocked by allied ships. Most of the aircraft was based in Kwangsi as well.

Second turn Japan attacked various targets (mostly ships) all around Pacific. An airbase was built in Kwangsi to extend the range of Japanese planes based there. US took Carolines for the price of a transport.

Third turn India was almost completely blockaded. Major factory was built in Malay. Forgot to defend the factory however, so British took it, and again on the next turn.

The US however lost its fleet on turn 4 (to Japanese air force and some ships) when it moved it opportunistically to the Carolines on turn 3. That sealed the victory for the Japanese as US was basically out of the game (as were ANZAC and the British from the start) so Japan kept taking everything but the victory cities and went to 72 IPC. US was still at 55 and really had no chance against huge amount of ships and planes that Japan still had.

But even without the move to Carolines, I don’t see how US could have stopped Japan. Well, next game I’ll have to play the allies, hopefully I’ll figure something out then ;)