Finally, what should i do whit italy

If we want to be historically accurate in all tactics and strategy, what is the point of playing the game?  I thought the fun of the game was to pick a point in history and say hey, if different decisions were made, would the outcome have been different?

To me, Italy could have definitely made a difference in the war.  Thus an Italy variant seems reasonable.  And shouldn’t throw off game balance too much doing it.  Plus it makes a 3 on 3 game.

China on the other hand only starts with a handful of units and a couple of territories, so nobody is going to want to play them unless significant changes are made to both the axis and allies units in the interest of balancing the game.  Assuming you can get an interesting China setup that is also reasonably balanced, you are then looking at a 4 on 2 game.

Just from game dynamics alone, Italy seems to make much more sense as a variant.  IMO.

@Imperious:

China has no story line in the war. They just sit and take loses from the japanese empire like a punching bag. At least italy went and attacked Greece and the British in Africa and had a dream of another roman empire. They also sent troops in the Soviet Union and helped Spain win the war in 36’ China would have probably beaten Italy in a land war but italy had a huge navy and air force… essentially a modern army run by horrible incompetent leadership. They were by far a complete military power compared with China.

why couln’t japan concur all of china then. if the chinease were so bad. i don’t think japan had many tanks. i think there sould be a rule that would make tanks harder for japan. like reinsate the whole transport rule. tanks were hard for transport s to carry so why would the game promte the use of tanks. most of the tanks would get killed in amphibous landings anyway.

You mean conquer?

The idea was that in taking China was akin to the commitment of the bulk of the Japanese army in attacking a rather large barren wilderness. The economic benefits of such an expedition would not have the return to Japan as a measure of what Japan would have to give up. AS it was they occupied only the good farmlands and coastal territories and didn’t deal with the mountain territories. The problem with this is because no armistice was negotiated the Japanese had to commit the kuangtung army as a garrison.

China did not posses a balanced military. Surely they had some 560 divisions of rather dubious strength but really no armor, no air force to call their own, no navy… not to mention a civil war brewing at the same time all leading up to no unification of national strategy but rather somebody just playing a waiting game… trying to stay alive.

If any additional nation were to be addedother than Italy consider separating the purely British elements with the ‘commonwealth’ creating a separate identity for India, Austrailia and Canada with their own forces and income.

rjclayton, Axis and allies is not a very tactical game, it is very strategic however. Imperious Leader, you seem to have a lot facts, so correct me if I am wrong,
but weren’t the Germans making most of the strategic decisions for Italy after Spring 1942, the date at which the box says the game starts. And weren’t most of the soldiers fighting the Allies in North Africa and Italy German. And in 1943 after the Allies took Rome Italy switched sides.

It seems to me that as soon as Italy joined the war in 1940 they went down hill in terms of military capability. They could not even defeat the French(I mean offense) Greeks!( I don’t mean offence, but soldeirs do not ware tutu’s)

Go here to see a Greek Army Evzone
http://www.wright-photo.com/GreeceandTurkeyImages/042guards13.jpg

weren’t the Germans making most of the strategic decisions for Italy after Spring 1942, the date at which the box says the game starts.

Italy was plagued by military leadership created by appointments by Mussolini. This created a crisis for the military. Italy had told Hitler in the late 1930’s that it had not the resources to fight a war before 1944. However, she did undertake some rather striking campaigns of her own but in each case the defeat was attributed to leadership.

The Germans appointed Field Marshall Kesselring to oversee the defense of Italy and the events… but he still was under the thunb of Il Duce who had his own designs. The Italian navy would have been a much greater factor in the war but it had no fuel to sail out of the Mediterranean because they were too timid in the initial campaign of 1940. AS you may know they had 300,000 men against 30,000 British inside the Egyptian border but suffered from not understanding the new concepts of warfare and thought the war would be played out like another WW1 trench battle. They choose to move inside Egypt but only dig in and play defense. if they decided to move further they would have taken the Suez canal and theirs no doubt about that. The British had time to recuperate and equalize the front.

In every case it was the method of how they went about the war then anything else. If they let Rommel take over the forces it would have been much better. In their part of Barbarossa they displayed a great vigor in battle because the germans were in charge of the strategy.It further supports the idea that everything was about leadership.

If Axis & Allies started in '39, '40 , or even '41 I would have much less of a problem with giving Italy it’s own leader.
BUT GUESS WHAT! :?
:roll:
:roll:
:roll:
:|
It doesn’t!
:-o

China is the way to go if you want to add a new country, but just like as if you added Italy it would take some redrawing of the map.

And if you just want to accommodate a sixth player, simply split the US up.

The Leader in any case is the player who will assume the role of Italy and not make the same mistakes. If your so keen on China you would have to play it as two seperate nations: both the nationalist and communist factions. The two halfs had a rather unholy alliance. Leadership in this case was more bankrupt because they had no clear direction, while Italy was a bit more united.

BTW whats wrong with the commonwealth idea?  England didnt really gain all the income from her territories. Of course they were supported but some level of autonomy with them should be possible.

The commi’s did not have any territory they controlled until '44. Remember they if Japan had not invaded they would have lost in '36. Commi’s could be represented by Soviet infantry that start in in China and maybe a Soviet tank. Saying you need another side for the Communists is like saying there should be a player foe the French Resistance.

Splitting up the British empire seems reasonable, but Britain and the colonise should be able to give money to each other, like in A&AP.

china is used in the rule book that we use.  the enhanced realism booklet.  you can actually check it out on the home page of this site.

china can only be attacked for one combat cycle and can only attack others for one combat cycle.

you start with the normal beginning number of troops in china, in the world version.  but china goes after america, and america goes first.  then china’s player rolls a die, on a 2 3 or 4  you get to add that many pieces to the board as chinesse units.  1’s 5’s and 6’s dont count. then the chinese player must have 5 pieces to get one attacking die roll on a hit of one.  (ex: if i had 10 chinese inf.  then i could attack any japanese territory of the 3 orange ones, with 2 dice.  the attacking value of each is to hit a 1.  so every five guys gets you one die for one combat cycle.)

on defense, with ten chinese inf.  you do the standard defense.  10 guys equals ten dice with the value of 2.  but you can only be attacked for one cycle, then the japanese have to break contact.

the british or americans can send fighters and bombers into the two chinese areas.  but these units then become chinese for the rest of the game.  the fighter that starts in china is china’s only.

until china is taken out of the game, the british or americans can’t attack jap units in greater china.  the top two orange squares.

but america and britain can both attack japs in french indo-china at will.

thats it i think.

that sounds cool, what is the homepage