global has a way of going on and on and on. The axis usually win, but the allies can get lucky or do something desperate.
I like the new 1941 board that just came out, but it is very unforgiving.
AA50 is probably the most skirmish oriented board as far as 1941 goes, you can lose battles and still be in the game. Obviously you can’t lose 4 uk transports and the whole fleet to some bad dice, then recover unless your income is really good. Obviously the game can be won or lost in caucasus. Obviously capital attacks are when the game is won or lost for all axis and allies setups.
Global is very strange sometimes, you can strait up lose the game playing axis just by sending every ground force unit to France and just lose a battle you win 99+% of the time. You can get really screwed as uk if you totally miss with your naval defense rolls, you need to get some subs. I seen a guy totally screwed after G1 went and did not lose a single sub or air unit, not even the bship was tilted…
aa50 is like oh well so my 2 fighters lost to a destroyer guarding a transport on J1, no biggie.
Global is not like that at all.
Problem with global is, the allies don’t have much of an income edge for long, transports are units that don’t roll dice, so by default the allies want to do pacific play.
If transports defended and could be cannon fodder, you would see more atlantic play from america. Or if the allies and japan got more national objectives, you might see more skirmishing. UK has only 2 national objectives, owning original territories for london and malaya/kwangtung for uk pacific. Japan has only 3 NOs, one of which is a whole bunch of 0 ipc islands, which are further away from japan than the victory cities needed to win.
Global has always been flawed in how it induces action. Basically the axis push for vcs, the allies don’t have much they can go for to get allies national objectives so the axis aren’t really defending anything. It takes 35 ipc of transports + 30 ipc for 10 men to drop 10 men on europe, it costs germany 30 ipc to pump out 10 men on west germany (germany usually makes 50-70+ and can produce up to 23-31 units).
In aa50, germany itself could only make 10 men, you had to buy an IC to make more than 10 units or take karelia/caucasus. Caucasus is heavily defended, karelia not is not so much defended, but uk can always drop in on it. So yeah 10 men, having caucasus is big because it was an NO and 4 ipc and increased the total # of units germany can produce.
So in global, the axis can do whatever they want, they have the positioning advantage, the income to do what they want, they go first, and the allies don’t have much to begin with in strategic areas (aside from the medit sea).
For these reasons, people suggest a bid. Most people will settle around 6. Granted low luck games tend to be a bit higher.
I personally have a rule for my live global face to face games, russia starts with an additional unit, a bomber or we don’t play global at all (I give russia bomber and I still want to be axis). I did buy the game, but I don’t care if it gets touched. I got other stuff we can do, civilization (old version with dice and new with cards), risk, monopoly, fortress america, classic, revised, 50th, 1941, chess, poker chips, ps3, wii, and xbox. Hell, everyone I played with liked the russian bomber so far, even when they were axis.
Any game that has randomization, be it cards or dice, is strait up gambling in my opinion. Sure axis and allies has strategy involved, but you do need to hit where it matters. The gambling element to the axis and allies games, have been very unforgiving as of late more so for the allies.
In my subjective opinion, because USA can barely stop japan from winning if it goes to war J1 or J2 with everyone, that leaves uk and russia vs germany/italy… which is why most groups experience the axis winning a majority of the matches.
Some groups will split usa into two seperate countries, a pacific half and an atlantic half, if london is taken quebec or whatever is the new capital for uk europe and germany won’t get uk’s money, but it will get the territory. I played a game with a group that did that, it was fun. It just meant if usa wanted to go full pacific, fighters would have to fly from east usa over to carriers off of hollywood, and naval on the atlantic would have to cross the canal over so it set usa back a little in the pacific to give japan more time to work. It also meant that sea lion wasn’t as drastic, still worth doing in my opinion, because the major goes to a minor, big income loss for uk while you have it. I did sea lion anyway, because london wasn’t as defended as usual and I ended up winning still. I didn’t have to hold on to it, so I just went barb after. Won with Japan of course, but whatever. When I was allies I just went pacific hard no worries, won a key battle and japan never recovered (if I lost that battle, I would have a hard time recovering as well).
Some groups are just so traumatized by sea lion that london just strait up starts with 4 more infantry, which is something I found hilarious. So if you want to do sea lion, you really got to get everything in on it and you will really lose some armor units and some air. It ain’t no freaking cakewalk.
So yeah, you can do what you want.
For global, I like house rules, bids, or whatever. It is fun.
If you want to do the added national objective thing. +3 uk for if allies control normany, holland or yugoslavia (not each). +5 usa for taking 6 of 8 original japanese islands. +5 russia if it owns novgorod, ukraine and volgograd and is at war with germany. +5 japan if no chinese units are on the board. +5 japan if it owns 8 original allies islands (including dutch islands).
It is fun to add national objectives to the game. It is all stuff you would fight for, realistically anyway.
