Gameplay mechanics: Defensive reinforcements, capital loss

@KraytKing

I think the system is fine as it is. Sure, the attacker has the advantage 90% of the time. But when it’s their turn, the other side can do the same thing.

I’m also not sure how making the system more complicated will make it better when again, when it’d their turn the defender becomes the attacker and the attacker becomes the defender.

On the strategic level, any piece of equipment that sees action is going to be regularly lost, and need replacement, but this is not always seen in A&A.

Excellent point. I see this imitated in the game in two ways:

Replacements are too small to portray.

As I said earlier, the attacker-defender mechanics work for both sides (hypothetically equally, more on that later), so if defending aircraft and tanks are being destroyed by attacking infantry as often as you say, then you will need replacements.

In too many games, German aircraft fly constantly against the Soviet Union, never taking losses while German infantry get torn to pieces.

I’ll admit this is my one weak spot and is a great point. My defense assumes both sides equally attack, but the game’s dynamics probably mean the Axis attack more than the Allies do. If your real problem is balance, I suggest you should admit that and we can better understand your ultimate goal.

I wish you luck on your further planning.

@SS-GEN said in AA1914 - Playing with Statistical Losses:

Ok. Low luck with a twist right ?
So how does the -10/+10 roll work ? say
A
6 inf = 15
3 art = 6
Total = 21 points
Then div 6 into 21 = 3.3
3 hits plus a 3 left or half hit.
How does the rest of this work ?

Hello!

If using the 1914 values ( 2 for Inf, 3 for Artillery and supported Inf), it gives this :

(9+9+6) = 24
24 / 6 = 4 hits.
Roll for +/- 10%. We typically call for a minimum variance of one, so you would end up with between 3 and 5 kills.

We round the number before rolling, so in your case, 21 hit points divided by 6 gives 3.5, so we count 4 kills before rolling for +/-.

This makes for low luck games but that +/- 1 or 10% can be the difference sometimes between changing your strategy or staying with it without killing you on one bad roll.

I hope this helps you out. Enjoy!

I am not a big fan of house rules, since this is supposed to be a balanced game that is played in tournaments, and only loosely based on a WWII theme. But if you insist to add all this extra spice, I suggest to keep it inside the A&A box of known game mechanics. Let China be the base of what happens when your capital is lost. And skip the pro neutral thing, its either true neutral or not neutral.

The Rule.
1. When your capital is lost, all territories under your control become true neutral. You are no longer an active player. You can no longer move any of your former units, they are stuck where you left them last turn. Your ships will not make a seazone hostile. Former allied units on your territory must either combat move out next turn or trigger combat. If you have units in former allied territories, they are removed from the map.

A lot of evidence from the real WWII support this rule suggestion. When the French capital was captured, all other French territories became neutral. Not pro but true. US and UK had to combat move into neutral French Morocco, Germany had to combat move into Vichy, and Japan had to combat move into FIC. Also, all French units that were in UK when Paris fell, were demobilized and sent home to occupied France. When the Italian capitol was taken, the former allied German units in Northern Italy would face combat against the by now neutral Italian units in that territory. When the Finnish capital was taken by Russia in sept 1944, Finland was declared neutral and the former allied German units in Northern Finland faced combat against the Finnish forces there. Same with Romania in 1944. And so on. When Japan captured the Chinese capital Bejing in 1937, China become neutral. When this game start, China is a neutral with an occupied capitol.

2. When a neutral territory is attacked, it is no longer neutral but allied to the enemy of the attacker. And remember, with this rule there are no pro neutral, only true neutral, so a combat move into a neutral territory will never trigger a world wide uprising by other neutrals, like in the OOB rules.

Evidence to support this.
Neutral Poland is attacked by Germany and Russia and get allied to UK and France. No other true neutral join the war.
Viborg territory of neutral Finland is attacked by Russia, and can join the Western Allies, but the road to Finland is blocked by other neutrals that dont want to join the war.
Neutral countries Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands is attacked by Germany, and taken in one round since they are one territory each. No other true neutrals join the war.

3. When a neutral nation is at war, and it has no capitol, either because the capitol was taken in a previous turn, or it is a minor one territory nation, or Mongolia, then it can purchase infantry only, limited by its income, and place this infantry in any territory in order to the Chinese special OOB rule

Another aspect which can show how
Anti-Tank Gun
Attack 1
Defense 3
Move 1
Cost 4,
+1 Def to 1 Inf
is still balance:

1 Infantry (A1-2 D2-3) + 1 Artillery = A2 D2 + A2 D2 = A4 D4, 2 hits for 7 IPCs.

1 Infantry (A1-2 D2-3)+ 1 Anti-Tank Gun = A1 D3 + A1 D3 = A2 D6, 2 hits for 7 IPCs.

The same overall number are kept, 8 combat points, same hits, same cost.

The vichy rules reminds me of the one from xeno games.  I think their’s was to roll for the fleet like yours except uk and germany each got one chance at the fleet and 2-4 was scuttle. I like your idea of rolling for individual ships. Maybe make it individual sz’s?

On the territories they rolled 50-50 free or vichy. If it went vichy it and everything in it turned german. I think the allies were allowed to use free french areas any way they wanted,but if they actually attacked a FF territory to take control of it, all remaining FF turned vichy. If FIC went vichy it went to japan.

It went something like that anyways.

All these extra dice just completely change the game. Large battles are gonna mess up the Soviets because they can’t really afford a “combined arms” thing.

The whole benefit should be one of movement: 2 movers paired with 1 movers in NCM at 1:1 basis should all move two.

Combat should be toned down to this: 1 air, 1 armor, 1 Inf/Art/Mech gets one re-roll if missed. Don’t add more dice, just take the dice you got and possible re-roll.

However, the movement won’t change the game too much, like this 3 or less thing.

Besides, that idea was submitted by Larry Harris like 3 years ago and people shot it down then too. He considered it before AAP40 came out.

We’re curious if you get to roll for Diplomacy if you lose your capital.  There doesn’t seem to be anything in the rules prohibiting it like there is for Tech Dev.

We’re leaning towards not allowing it.

BTW:  Germany had some HOT dice and repelled the UK invasion.  Lesson learned!  Must be Begas rubbing off.

No you lose your capital you lose ability for tech and diplomacy, when you lose your last factory you cant build anything but infantry.

in the end is this kind of attack reasonable?
considering the AA batteries are scattered and not easy to spot?