Collect income phase…

@Baron:

I was wondering, does anyone ever worked on a different way to collect IPCs from territory?
As following the rules, the more a territory is fight over and exchange during a turn of play, the more cash every power getting over it. Usually, it worth double value: (USSR gets a 2 from Germany, Germany takes it, then UK retakes the 2).
In an extreme example, it can even be 4 times with an exchange between Russia, Germany, UK and Japan.
But if a Power keeps a country for an entire turn without any fight over it, it worth only its face value.

Isn’t strange, that a more unstable and crippled by war territory bring more IPCs during a turn?
For example: France can give 6 IPCs to Germany and also 6 IPCs to UK in the same turn. Thus raising the sum of all Powers incomes up to 6 IPCs.
It is quite counter-intuitive, even a non-sense.

To change this anomaly:
1- the collect income should be at the start of a turn. It will usually reduce the IPCs flows to undisputed “at peace” territory for 1 turn.

Or, (what I prefer)

2- after the first turn, after a territory is conquered, the ex-owner have to return back about half the territory’s value to the bank (minimum 1 IPC for 1, 2, 3 IPCs territory / 2 IPCs for a 4 territory/ 3 IPCs for a 6 / 4 IPCs for an 8 / 5 IPCs for a 10 / etc.).

Thus, you received half reward for a lost conquered territory and the sum of the IPCs allocates during a turn never exceed the total every Powers would have if all have kept their original territories.

If the balance of the game requires that USRR and Germany has more IPCs in hand because of this constant exchange of European territories, maybe we can allocate an extra 4-6 IPCs bonus to both and only two (as a citizen war effort campaign/ labor camp/ and conscripts men-women/soldier)

Is it changing 4 quarters for 1 buck?
Or does it worth the change?

Just to add a follow-up thread on this problem.
I think this game mechanics can fix somehow but not entirely the problem of not rewarding uncontested territory vs lost ones during a whole turn:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31978.0

@Black_Elk:

This is a general rule that is very easy to implement in most A&A games.

It’s called The territory income Bonus or the Boost and it works like this…

+1 ipc for each territory your nation controls at the start of your turn. It is added in during the purchase unit phase. Each player counts up all the spaces they control and announces the number. So like…

“Russia +10” added to 24 in revised. Or “Russia +11” added to 24 in 1942.2
“Germany +9” or “G+10” etc
“UK +X”
“Japan +Y”"
“USA +Z”

and so on. Very simple. Just count and add to the total, at the beginning of the turn. The counting is quick, it takes all of 10 seconds each turn. Just count the territories (markers or cardboard chips) and add. Easy rule, but adds quite a lot to the game.

The rule is in place from the first round, and in effect for the duration of the game.

Because this income is counted at the start of the turn, it has the effect of giving an incentive to attack and defend territory. Either to gain the +1 on the boost, or deny it to your opponent. Even territories with no value are now at least worth +1 on the boost (or -1 from your enemy, if you can take it before their turn). But the normal collect income rules apply as well, as normal, so the effect is not totally distorting, but just complements the mechanics already in play.

Adds in a little more cash for everyone, to make unit purchasing more exciting, and breathes new life into the older maps.

Limits somewhat the effect of sbr. Encourages more conflict across the board. Is just a lot of fun in general.

options*

VC boost: It is also possible to add in a boost for VCs, where any VC territory gives a total boost of +2 ipcs (one for the territory, and one for the city). Has the effect of making VCs more valuable, and more hotly contested.

Capital Boost: there are a lot of different A&A games, and some are balanced in a more one-sided way at the start than others, at least as concerns total territories controlled. If there is a player/nation which starts in a dramatically nerfed position on a particular board, it is possible to include a base boost for the capital of that nation. For example, if Germany is in a particularly weak starting position on a particular A&A board, you could do a “Berlin boost” of +5, or +10 on top of the normal territory income boost. On the idea that G in the older games was designed to fold into just a tiny core, and then fight out of it. So as long as you hold the capital you get something for it, a modest amount added along with the normal boost, during the purchase units phase. Or you could do the same for Moscow, or perhaps Tokyo in some of the newer games. Giving you some flexibility to incorporate this with other house rules, or with National Objectives in the case of AA50. On the whole though the normal boost, and the VC boost do go a long way in balancing out across most maps. Everyone gets a boost, everyone has something to look forward to, and a reason to fight on to the last.

Basically, the rule seems to hold up well in all the core A&A games I’ve tried so far, and most players I’ve gamed with seem to enjoy the effect it has on the play. A slightly higher economy, not too distorted relative to everything else, but just offering a bit more entertainment value in the overall conflict patterns.

If anyone gets the chance to play using this rule, I would love to hear how it worked in your game

@Flashman:

I’ve always been in favour of collect income at the start of a turn; nobody should attack a tt with the intention of holding it for only one round.
This rule also tends to mean that a typical turn has fewer, larger battles as the active player will attack in numbers intending to take and hold a tt rather than making a series of cash-grabs with just enough units to take the tts for a single round.

This is a more realistic depiction of WWII era strategy.

Some balancing ideas if this means too few units:

Apply the “boost” mentioned elsewhere in reverse (at the end of a turn); this also leaves an IPC “float” to pay off SBR damage etc.

Ideological warfare: Whenever Germany or USSR take a tt from each other the winner gets a free infantry in the tt to represent locals opposed to the ideology of their own system (Germany ended up with about a million Soviet citizens in their forces in Russia).

I’ve always been in favour of collect income at the start of a turn; nobody should attack a tt with the intention of holding it for only one round.

I agree with you this aspect of the game is historically inaccurate (and bias because of the IPC income phase at the end of the player’s turn).

Apply the “boost” mentioned elsewhere in reverse (at the end of a turn); this also leaves an IPC “float” to pay off SBR damage etc.

If I understand what you say, the real income phase is put at the beginning of the player’s turn while the “boost” is given at the end of the player’s turn.

It is a very very interesting idea. :-)
If it is done this way, the conquered and lost territories will no count in the income of a power.

And with the “boost” phase at the end, a just conquered territory will only give 1 IPC even if it has a greater value.

This phase need another better name.
Something like as National Pride Income (end) vs Industrial Production Income (start).

The only problem is about planing buying units. It will base upon an approximation (of what you will have at the start of your future turn) instead of the “money” you have actually in hand.

@Flashman:

Germany ended up with about a million Soviet citizens in their forces in Russia.

Is it true? 1 million? That much soldiers? Are you sure?

@Flashman:

Of course you could simply add the basic income and boost together if you need a similar level of overall income.

http://www.feldgrau.com/rvol.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osttruppen

Thanks, I will read the sources.

I think that’s maybe the way to keep the same overall income.
Balancing lost of IPCs from one Income by the other type of Income.

But for USA (which don’t have much contested territories) it will be a major build-up of IPCs.
Maybe it must be .5 IPCs / territory. I don’t know.

@Flashman:

Depending on the sources. The actual combat troops may have been about half this, the rest served the Germans as rear-echelon personnel (Hiwis). You might also consider them making a “sweep” of occupied areas for slave labourers; but this is getting more political than many would care to see in a boardgame.
There may have been considerable asset-stripping of military facilities which the end-of-turn boost may represent.

Of course you could simply add the basic income and boost together if you need a similar level of overall income.

http://www.feldgrau.com/rvol.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osttruppen

Very very interesting indeed:
Thanks for the sources.

From the moral point of view, the Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Cossacks, the Georgians, Armenians, and Turkomans, and the members of all the other non-Russian nations were not traitors. No matter under which government they were born and in which part of the world, they all fought against a government which was not their government and against a country which was not their country, but which had enslaved them. By contrast, the Russians of General Vlasov fought only against their government but not against their own nation; what is more, they fought for the liberation of their nation from the system which enslaved it. One could say of them that they were traitors to their government but not traitors to their nation, and in Soviet Russia the government and the nation are not the same, as in the West.

In my opinion there is one reason which explains everything: the general hatred of the Soviet system, a hatred greater than inborn patriotism and loyalty to one’s own government. Those who have not seen the limitless degradation of man in what was the Soviet hell cannot understand that a moment may come when a man out of sheer desperation will take up arms against the hateful system even at the side of an enemy. The responsibility for his mutiny falls on the system and not him. Here the notions of loyalty and treason lose their meaning. If, in the eyes of many people, Germans who fought against Hitler were not traitors, why should the Russians who fought against the Soviet system be traitors?

How little public opinion in the West understood the real state of affairs is perhaps best shown by the text of the leaflets, addressed to Soviet soldiers in German uniform, which were dropped by the Allied Air Forces in France in the summer of 1944. These leaflets called for the cessation of fighting and promised as a reward - speedy repatriation of prisoners to the USSR! The effect was of course, such that some of the Eastern troops fought desperately to the last man.(77) Thus, for example, an Armenian battalion perished completely in bitter fighting.(78) Soldiers of the Eastern formations were the unhappiest soldiers of the Second World War. Deprived of their fatherland, scorned by their protectors, regarded generally as traitors, although in their consciences they were not traitors, they fought often for an alien and hateful cause; the only reward which they eventually received for their pains was toil and death, mostly in a foreign land, or “repatriation” to the hell from which they had tried to escape.

@Flashman:

Of course you could simply add the basic income and boost together if you need a similar level of overall income.

Here is a different way to calculate it as a Conquest Bonus Income:
Give 1 IPC for each just conquered territory during the Combat Phase.
Give 1 additional IPC for each victory city captured during the Combat Phase.
And 1 IPC for each only foreign territory (as colored on the board) captured during preceding other turns.

Of course, I would keep Income Phase at the beginning of the turn and the collect Bonus Phase at the end, after NCM and placement of units.

No more double dipping, but a little compensation for Russia and Germany fighting back and forth.

Giving 1 IPC/each turn for captured foreign territory including “0” value may become an incentive to capture them.
And also reason to not let them go easily to the enemy.

There is more explanations on the other thread:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31978.msg1248476#msg1248476

I believe this thread below maybe looking for some ideas here and concept such as “double dipping”.
So I bumped it to reactive this Collect income phase… thread (much harder to find with google search).
Re: House rule proposal
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38261.msg1563914#msg1563914