Axis&Allies Risk style

So, My friends and I really love the maps and combat system and just about everything about the new Global A&A game, except the setup. It takes us nearly 45mins to set it up and then it takes about an hour to get through 1 full turn. One day, we all really wanted to play a game, but no one had the energy to set the it up, I came up with way to play the game without actually playing the game.
All the basic game mechanics are the same, all units cost the same, and each turn you do things in the same order as you would in the normal game.
How to set-up: Pick a victory city and a color and set-up 5infantry, 1arty, 1tank and a minor IC. There are no alliances, outside of temporary ones (units from 2 players cannot occupy the same space unless its a combat movement).

Collecting income: you start with no income collecting at the end of your first turn. While you will get the full amount for the territory you start in, every other territory you take drops down to 1 in value, increasing by 1 for each turn you hold up to its maxium printed amount.

Rules changes: the only change to the rules is reguarding the production of ICs. A major IC can only be placed on Territories that have an ipc value of 3, or have an ipc value of 2 AND contain a victory city.

Map changes. Outside of the standared vc’s, we play with a couple of extra starting places where we place victory cities, they are as follows: Stockholm(Sweden), Istanbul(Turkey), Cape Town(South Africa) Rio(Brazil), Madrid(Spain). We also have divided Turkey in two, pretty much styrait down the middle, and we’ve divided Spain into 3, with Madrid being in the center territory, without an atlantic coast line or bordering Portugal.

Playing this way makes the game very fast paced and you will usually get through 7 or so turns with in the first hour or so. It is recomended that you not play with more then 4 players if your only using Europe (as we have done) or pacific, if you have 5 or more players we recommend using both boards, otherwise people get crowded.
We also recomend having paper on hand to help keep track of what territories you have taken and to help track their value.
Different starting positions have different advantages to them, with some being better then others, though we havent been able to test them all out, yet  :-D
Strong positions (so far): DC, Berlin, Paris, Moscow. These places allow for rapid expansion in to IPC rich/numerious territories. DC is one of the strongest as it gives you the advantage of having a board edge at you back, alsoyou will usually come to dominate the entirety of the Americas and have a firm ecnomic base from which to build and strike out against Europe and Africa. Moscow also give you a board edge at your back. while the territories around arent worth very much, the number of them help offset this. You will have the abality to advance in both western(poland and Germany) and southern(Turkey and Middle east) theaters. An added bonus being that you capitol is deep inside your territories meaning any attacker will have difficult resuplying his armies if they start taking casualties. Berlin and Paris are also strong because the are srounded by some of the wealthiest territories in the game, and both a protected from a seaborne invasion. However should 2 players start opposing eachother here, it will become a race to gain the upperhand and elimnate the other.
Good Positions (so far): Madrid, Capetown/Cario, Stolkholm. Each one of these are good positions but are made weaker by their lack of expansion and poor wealth of srounding territories. Stockholm is the strongest of this bunch as its economic base will be stronger early on, but if new areas arent rapidly found to advance into, other players will begin to out strip you. It dose have the added bouns of being protected from sea born invasion, and if you can gain control of Denmark you can turn the baltic into your own personal sea. Capetown/Cario are grouped together because if players start in each of these territories they will rapidly cancle eachother out. Southafrica is good because it is isolated, but it needs to rapidly expand its economic base and gain control of nearly all of Africa to really have a chance. Cario is more exposed to the rest of the world, but has a number of rich middle eastern territories it can grab while advancing in Africa, however a player in Istanbul could rapidly weaken this position.  Madrid is good as it is potected from an invasion from the atlantic but has a long coast on the Med, also its surounding territories are very poor. However if it can expand into either France or Africa, it will be able to build a strong, if difficult to reenforce, economic base.

And thats all we’ve tested out so far, through Rio, London, Istanbull and Rome might be strong,  we havent been able to test them, and they seem as though that any player starting close to them will have them at their mercy.

So I played another game with these rules last night, and man was it fun. Istanbull is a very strong strating point, just as long as no one starts in Moscow, I had reached a monstrious economy of over 60IPC a turn before we called the game on account of the late hour, and the fact that no one else could really out strip me, I was placing an army of 5tanks and 5infantry a turn, and that wasnt even using my full economy.

2 things I neglected to mention, the overall objective of the game is to capture and hold for one full turn 12 victory cities. Also, if someone starts on an Island (i.e. England, Japan, or the Phillipines) the are give only 3infantry 1tank and 1 arty as oppose to the normal 5infantry, but in exchange they are give a transport to stat off with.

@C_Strabala:

I don’t know if you realized it, but the ruleset you described is almost identical to Attack! by Eagle Games. If you want to play Global '40 this way, that’s fine. But it seems odd to pay roughly $120 to play a ruleset to a game that can aquired for under $20.

Just my thoughts on the subject……

Seriously!?! I’ve never actually played or seen the game Attack! only heard about it through word of mouth on this site. Thats freakin creepy. I, nor any of the other fellows I play with, have never played attack, and none of them even know of the games existence. Really weird

@hewhoisnickel:

This actually sounds like a lot of fun, filled with possibilities. However, I’d probably make it so everyone says which victory city they want (everyone picks a different one) and then we write them all down on little slips of paper, put them in a hat or something, and pick them randomly.

How long would you say one of these games takes, on average?

It depends on how many people you have playing. So far i’ve left the decision of where to start up to the players, it may take a game or 2 but people usually get the hint that starting close to eachother is bad. I also reccomend that you only play 4 to a map, if you have more then 4 players use the whole world. Game lenght is usually up to how the people play. Early on you will burn through turns, and depending on where people start will affect the length as well. Also, if certian players are left unchecked, they may turn into a behemoth. Another thing I may have neglected to mention, we modified the US territories values, with the east US being worth 6 and the central being worth 5 (and the west coast being worth 5). Good luck, you’ll find its alot of fun

Thanks for the awesome feedback! Istanbull is a very strong position, I had a game like that once, only I was turkey  :evil: The game dose need some tweaking, I agree, espically having played using the entire world map, some positions are a bit weaker, for instance, australia, needs a transport. However, I think Stockholm, is strong enough, you just need to get to Lenningrad, and set up a factory there. We had one player do just that, as well as capture Berlin and be right in the center of the action in Europe. Stockholm also allows for a player to strike out toward Britian, and possibley challange a DC player in the atlantic.

There are so many different options for players, espically when playing on the world, we still havent tested them all. My concern with giving stockholm a transport is that it will make the player too strong, able to move to rapidly early in the game. If you feel up to it test it out, I will do the same, and then we can compare notes.

After several more games, that have all ended with my winning, My friends and I have decided to add a number of objectives, and an alliance system to it, to give them game a bit more of a purpose. We have several New national objectives for each of the countries, and we have written up 24 global objectives for players to accomplish to win the game. The thought is to give each player 2 or 3 global objectives and this is what they have to do to win the game. We are going to be spending all friday night and saturday day play testing these out. God Help me!  :wink: