Bonehead European setup?

This results in the British player piling an unhistorical 20+ infantry on England, cowering to stave off a huge German naval attack

Well… there was a certain amount of cowering that occurred after Dunkirk… without denial.

The Germans would never be able to even think of advancing against Russia if the UK was allowed to keep its fleet intact.  6 Ftr scrambling over what ships the UK has equates to a very early amphib landing by the allies.  The only way to counter that would be to deny the UK via game rule no landings until the US is in the war and lands on the same round as the UK.

Germany would need a significant bump in production and/or starting units if you let the UK keep her Navy (in this game).  Which then means Moscow needs more units to keep the balance.

Sea Lion existed, just at great cost for the Germans.  I think this game reflects it rather well considering putting all your resources into a single VC at the cost of giving Russia plenty of IC’s and basically making Moscow a fortress isn’t always a wonderful idea.

It is for playability. As stated if the large UK navy survives G1 then Germany is doomed.  The second Ed set up is better than the original set up.  You have to have the navy because it forces Germany to risk their Air Force  to sink it.  Even with UK getting killed G1 they can still form up a big navy by bringing the pacific navy over to the med or by joining the remnants of the Atlantic navy with the med navy.

I like this thread.

Yes, it is pretty silly of a setup. I mean UK and France were at war with germany from sept 1939… here we are in jan 1940… they had 4 months to get their fleets together before germany made a move.

I just assume this is an alternate universe. UK and France were still trying to appease Germany and Germany decided to give them the finger and take the initiative in attacking.

Meanwhile in the Pacific, China and Japan were already at war and have been having small skirmishes, but Japan did not feel like taking all of china for international political feasibility reasons. Germany declares war on UK and France and so Japan hops on that gravy train.
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I mean really now, this is 1940 and I am always declaring war on everyone with Japan on the first round (except when the russians line themselves up in Amur then I just kill those things and go to war later).

Historically we know USA does not enter the war until 1941.

We are going back in time and making assumptions then changing things up so the axis win most games.

I mean the world would have been a better place if the axis won WWII so it would be silly to have the allies do something intelligent when they are so clearly dumb.

Der Kuenstler, I sympathize with what you’re saying, especially the part about z119 being the proper location for the scapa flow fleet instead of z111.  But the setup has emerged this way to force Germany to make difficult choices on G1 that affect the rest of the game.  They can’t hit everything they would like to hit and still have enough airforce leftover to throw at Russia, let alone defend Italy.

I have a solution for you though.  Demand a bid of $8 and spend it on a French destroyer in z104.  Seriously, check it out.  Look closely at what is likely to be left of Germany’s airforce if they try to hit both z111 and z110 (without the subs), and you scramble.  To heck with Taranto if you can wipe out half the Luftwaffe on the first round, or more likely, they choose to just hit z110, in which case you don’t scramble and your scapa flow group is preserved.  And there will be no sealion without a luftwaffe, or if the UK has a fleet that can defend z110 or zap z112.

If they do try for z110 and z111, notice what z92 might look like if you skip Taranto.  Italy may blow its navy anyway sinking all the blockers you have left out, plus the silly French fleet, because they want to prevent all those ships merging together again.

If Germany doesn’t sink the French destroyer G1, it will later be used as a blocker to prevent sealion via z109. Germans will have to go through the British fleet in z110, which takes air units in case of scramble, and Italy won’t be able to airstrike the blocker because it is French.  If they don’t sink z91 cruiser G1 then Taranto raid is easier (or it defends carrier in z92 with no Taranto).  If they don’t sink z106 there will be an extra inf and tank defending London.  Not enough subs to go around.  So my French destroyer in z104 allows a Taranto raid while making London harder to take or at least very costly.

Another issue it opens up is the problem of providing landing spots for Italians. Suppose Germany hits z110, z106 and z91, and take Normandy to give the Italian bomber a landing spot so it can make a risky run at the french destroyer.  If they do that, it will mean skipping Southern France or not sending enough to take Paris without heavy losses.  No Southern France means no landing spot for Italian planes to hit z92 (and no IC to build subs next turn in case they give up on sealion and focus on defending Italy).  I suppose they could take Algeria and let the Germans airstrike it, but then the luftwaffe is way out of position to do anything useful to either UK or Russia for a couple of turns.

Der Kuenstler,
The changes you list seem to make UK totally defensive with almost no offensive capability at all. While that may be closer to being historically accurate, I don’t think that would work so well for this game. UK needs to have some capability to “hit back” and that bomber is just about the only way they can, at least in the first round or two, which was also like it was back then.
I agree that it sucks having Britain losing most of it’s Atlantic navy right off the bat, but in most cases, it costs Germany a lot of it’s planes and subs. In fact, Germany also loses it’s one battleship most of the time. I’ve even seen some games where the dice went bad for Germany and a good part of the Royal Navy ends up surviving. It’s a risk for Germany and could even set them back even if they are planning straight Barbarossa.

Cow,
This game starts off right after the Dunkirk evacuation, which occured late May to early June 1940. So, we are starting in June 1940, not January, so it’s really 9 months after the beginning of the war.

Yes, this is not fair man

I too find Global very limiting from a playability standpoint.  Too much of the game is predetermined, not enough left for players to effectively come up with different strategies that might or can work.  The opening setup is highly unrealistic and leaves the British with only one option.  Not an ideal way to start a game when a team is forced into only one possible move prior to even having it’s first turn.

I agree with Der Kuenstler 100%.

What if, at the start of the game, every nation gets 1 turn of only non-combat movement (no attacks, no income) in the standard order?

You’d have to NCM blind.  And it would make balancing totally impossible.

Apart from all that it was not a bad idea at all, i think (if the set-up would be planned accordingly)

edit: would give a LOT of different possibilities to the game (maybe too much even)

@Gargantua:

You’d have to NCM blind.

What do you mean?

@Gargantua:

You’d have to NCM blind.  And it would make balancing totally impossible.

Exactely, you would have to use the movement rules from Diplomacy, or the Optional Naval Move from A&A Guadalcanal, where all players write down the moves on a pad, and then simultanesly everybody revel their moves. Its what IL used to name “Write an essay each turn”-game. Would have been fun but also a lot more work

Maybe set a number like 5…

You get to NCM 5 units secretly (Blind).  Then everyone reviews thier moves at the same time.

If you get to see your opponents NCM, then you`ll want to counter them, and them you, and it will go on forever and get dumb.

You could even add in an espionage cycle, like you get 5 moves, and if I spend 1 ipc per roll, and roll a 6, I get to see one or two, or whatever NCM`s, before I do my own.

hmm, yeah I mean I pretty much do sea lion or barb with germany. Japan I always go to war round 1 unless amur is loaded with russians.

UK have to load london with inf. china skirmish. Anzac and usa have some flexibility. uk pac infs up. Russia does what russia does.

I pretty much just play global for the pacific half which is the half that makes sense.
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J1 and G1 is standardized in AA50, but there is a little bit of flexibility or deviation people do.

In any case I can’t come up with a better europe half that wouldn’t screw things up in the pacific half.

@Der:

In the current global setup, as the British player you can do nothing at all with your scattered and vulnerable navy but watch as the Germans decimate practically everything afloat,

Another example is the Italian DD and transport setup next to Malta. What smart player would do that with British airpower nearby? They are automatically destroyed every opening turn with no chance to do anything.

I will echo and amplify some of the points brought up earlier: it is necessary for the balance of the game. No, the British did not get their entire Navy sunk in 1940, but if the Axis are to have a chance in hell of winning this boardgame, they must have the opportunity to strike quickly, heavily and on multiple fronts. Spendo02 said earlier that if the UK Navy is not destroyed on turn 1, Germany is pretty much screwed. If it is not destroyed (or mostly) on turn 1, UK consolidates its navy and reinforces it, so much that it becomes utterly suicidal for Germany to attempt an attack. Not that Germany could not win the battle, but they would lose so much irreplacable equipment in the process that it is a strategic loss. But if Germany did not attack and destroy it, the UK would conduct invasions every turn on Western or Northern Europe distracting Germany from putting pressure on Russia and therefore effectively ending the game. Even if the Royal Navy is mostly destroyed on turn 1 they have the resources, territories and allies which allow them to rebuild and be a threatening force to the Germans. Even with this situation in G40 1st, how many times did the Axis win…? Not very many.

Also, is this issue not the case in almost every Axis and Allies game, to a similar degree? I have not played G40 2nd Ed., but G40 1st Ed. is situationally almost identical I believe. The UK Navy gets trashed, fends off attack, rebuilds and invades… happens almost every game. Similarly for A&A Revised, and Anniversary Ed.

On the UK’s side of the coin, it is a similar situation. The UK has important decisions to make, there are pros and cons to attacking and not attacking. The best course of action may be for the UK to attack the fighter and transport as you say. Most times it will work, sometimes it will fail. The dispairity between a fighter and a destroyer is pretty small. Plus, fi this is the only such situation for the Italien Navy in G40 2nd, then it is actually an improvement over the previous situation in G40 1st, where they could launch a full scale Taranto raid and possibly wipe out 80-100% of Italy’s navy on turn 1.

@Der:

My point is, the game should not be set up so that vital and expensive units will get trashed the first turn without you having any say in it. The player himself should make the vital decisions for victory or defeat in each battle - not the setup cards. I mean, why even have those units out there in the first place if that’s the way it is going to be? Why not just start the game out with the British having no navy around England, for example? That’s the way it usually looks by round 2 anyway.� �

Because it is necessary to give Germany the choice of attacking them or not. There are pros and cons to both; ultimately the decision is in the hands of the German player. However, in the interests of survival and a chance at winning it is almost necessitated that Germany attacks the UK and eliminates its threat for a while. This is effectively what Germany did in 1940, without sinking all of the Royal Navy. It was called the Blitz for a reason; the British were on their heels and reeling for a time against German attack. The possibility for a German invasion of Britian was contingent on air superiority, not whether or not the Royal Navy still existed; because it did still exist but that did not matter. Britain was saved by her air force. In this game, history tends to be modeled well in the beginning of the game. Britian is relatively weak and threatened by invasion. Most of the time, she fights off invasion, only to be reinforced by the United States. By which time Germany’s attention and main objective has become the USSR anyway. For being a vastly simplified version fo WWII, it tends to follow historical events in a recognizable fashion; showing how inevitable and necessary certain actions were.

And if no “vital” units (whatever those are defined as) are in harms way on turn 1, there will be little risk and little reward and every game will become even more the same.

The setup will always be, or need to be, something like it is: Axis big push at the beginning and Allies comeback to dominance (providing the Allied players are not incompetent). The real differences from game to game will be dictated by (1) chance (rolling) and (2) choices by the individual players. With people playing these games like supercomputers crunching numbers, a “best course of action” will inevitably be worked out. Experienced players will go with this 99% of the time as it will prove to yield the best possible results. That is why the choices of players comes second to chance or rolling. If (again, with experienced players) all the decisions become more or less predictable, the only thing that will cause different decisions to be made will be the outcome of battles based on rolling. Rolls can result in unpredictable events which may necessitate a strategy different from what you normally see. However, if you were to play with relatively inexperienced players (or ones who are new to a version fo the game), then most games will be unique and a bit more interesting.