My own historial HouseRules for AA1914

Hello everyone! I’m back after a long absence (forgot my password, forgot to reset my password, and had a bunch of other commitments) However, now with summer quickly approaching, I will be dedicating a lot more time to 2 of my biggest projects.

The first of these is the Axis and Allies Expanded Global scenario. Essentially, it is a sandbox, Game of Thrones scenario where there are no set alliances and nations may do as they please.

Additional nations I have included are Indonesia, Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Eastern Commonwealth of Europe (ECE), Canada, and India. I have also strengthened the Chinese.

Nations will have the ability to sway neutral to their side, engage other nations in proxy wars, and form alliances with any power they wish.

Turn order is not permanent, for it is the nation with the lowest income that starts the round. Especially during wartime, incomes will always change as will the turn order.

With Neutral Nation, players may attempt to spend Influence to gather neutral parties to their cause. When a nation succeeds in placing 4 Influence chips, they will control that Neutral Nation as their own territory.

All new technology will also be present. I will be posting updates in the form of a storyboard, making this a massive creative endeavour.

The second project is the continuance and modifications to my Alternate History stories and rules, for which game updates will also be posted.

As the Expanded Global scenario is more complex (despite play testing being achieved) I will focus my attention first to a round of Alternate History.

@arreghas

Thank you for responding!

In regards to your comments:

Adjusting Ship Costs: You’re probably right, but each piece in Axis And Allies never equals one division-in Global 1940, Germany probably had over a hundred divisions, and yet there is nowhere near that many infantry and tank units represented on the board at the start. I have a feeling that one tank equals one division, and one infantry equals one corps. Likewise, Germany had over a hundred divisions at the in 1914, which the game doesn’t represent. Each corps had two divisions, so an infantry unit probably represents a corps. So you should think about how you should tackle this problem.

I’m surprised you were able to get extra pieces from Historical Board Gaming-everything from 1914 is almost always out of stock, especially the German ones (I really want the Ottoman ones, though, because that is the only power that doesn’t have World War 2 pieces corresponding to the colour of the country, but those are always out of stock). Still, a few months ago I found a lot of transports for several countries including Germany, and some naval units. Land and air units are the hardest to find, and I could only find ones for the US.

Submarine Rules: Cruisers are more simple, so maybe we can think of them as cruisers and destroyers together (the lack of any destroyer units is puzzling, as there were many destroyers in 1914).

Restricted And Unrestricted Submarine Warfare: Great that you agree!

Defensive Dive: I’m happy that you find my idea interesting!

Aircraft Combat: Despite what you said, I think your current rule doesn’t solve this. Perhaps a better rule would be that the side in an air battle that has less aircraft can retreat, which ends the air battle and hand either air superiority (half of the opponent’s artillery is upgraded) or air supremacy (all of the artillery is upgraded)-it’s your choice.

I have nothing to say about Artillery Neutralisation.

Interesting truck pieces! For some reason, I have a feeling I’ve seen those from another topic.

As for my game, whilst the Central Powers won the sea, Germany would capitulated before that happened had the Allies not made many mistakes. So I think your assessment is accurate, although the Central Powers in my game got some bad luck in naval battles, which contributed to investing even more in ships-due to naval superiority, Germany was able to invade Scotland. Still, even without the bad luck, the Allies could have taken Berlin without making the mistakes they did.

@playing-kid

I like this, but is there a way to adapt this to the newer editions? Thank you!

@SS-GEN said in AA1914 - Playing with Statistical Losses:

Ok. Low luck with a twist right ?
So how does the -10/+10 roll work ? say
A
6 inf = 15
3 art = 6
Total = 21 points
Then div 6 into 21 = 3.3
3 hits plus a 3 left or half hit.
How does the rest of this work ?

Hello!

If using the 1914 values ( 2 for Inf, 3 for Artillery and supported Inf), it gives this :

(9+9+6) = 24
24 / 6 = 4 hits.
Roll for +/- 10%. We typically call for a minimum variance of one, so you would end up with between 3 and 5 kills.

We round the number before rolling, so in your case, 21 hit points divided by 6 gives 3.5, so we count 4 kills before rolling for +/-.

This makes for low luck games but that +/- 1 or 10% can be the difference sometimes between changing your strategy or staying with it without killing you on one bad roll.

I hope this helps you out. Enjoy!

Hello, first post on aa.org! Did post this too on BGG, with some editing.

Just bought AA41, played Classic a zillion hours way back, was looking to scratch a wargaming itch and 3a-41 fits juuuuust fine. Friends (mostly poker and PS4 fiends) love it (“Like Risk on steroids”).

Still, the first two sessions were nowhere near to completion, but that’s only logical. 1st game I played all three Allies against two opponents, 2nd game I played both Axis.

In the 1st game Germany was reluctant to attack, so Russia buffed up Moscow pretty up to the max. If we had another hour, there was to be a 20 against 20 unit monster battle.

Second game, I took Moscow in four rounds, but UK put up very fierce resistance. So when we called it a night, it was pretty much a draw, with me having the initiative, but by no means was capturing another capital a cakewalk.

Now “they” say that you could play this game in two hours tops. I highly doubt it… I’m no expert, but I’m no noob either and my group will adapt very quickly. So I suspect we’ll have some long nights and I’m looking for ways to shorten them up.

Plus, I also did a solitary run and boy, it was something… I quit after three nights… it was a Slugfest to end all slugfests… anyway.

So I was thinking, what about some houserules, to fiddle with the setup, some transport rules, other small stuff and, most importantly, add a couple of special one-time use tokens. So here we go. Mind you, I have not tested anything, these are just some thoughts, am hoping on some feedback on how these might work out. The goal is to speed up gameplay, create epic decisions, shorten the game.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Reduce transport cost to 4 IPC’s …or… allow more troops to move (3 inf, 2 inf + 1 tank, 2 tanks)

Destroyers can transport 1 infantry

Special tokens (one-time use):
o “Charge!”: all infantry attack with 2
o “Rally the troops”: all infantry defend with 3
o “Double shifts”: +50% IPC’s for player at start of round (purchase phase)
o “Bombs away”: player attacks enemy capital with bomber(s), for every hit(s) (4 or less) 2 IPC’s are deducted from target
o “Not today”: defender is allowed to retreat entire army at start of combat, evacuates attacked territory. Attacker must move entire force into conquered territory (except aircraft). Great for some luring into a Cannae-style ambush.

Optimizing production: IC’s “grow” each turn with +1 IPC, to a maximum equivalent of the capital IC-value (so India/Australia can grow to maximum 3 IPC (London)). When conquered, they revert to old value and can grow again under the new administration.

Soviet-Japanese Non-aggression Pact: Neither the Soviet Union nor Japan may attack territories controlled by the other until either Germany or Russia has been captured by an enemy power.
  > Or for the first five turns
This last one is ofcourse a suggestion by mr. Harris.

Buff Soviet-Union at start: +1 tank and/or +1 fighter (Lend-and-Lease), only for defense (SU-player has to pay 1 IPC to lender(s) after cashing at end of Turn One), so were are talking about non-Soviet units

Battleship bombardment during amphibious assault: roll Fives or Sixes with one dice to hit, no defensive shot.

Destroyer bombardment during amphibious assault: roll Sixes with one dice to hit, no defensive shot.

“War Bonds”: Each player nation rolls two dice at collect income and adds that to their total ipcs for the round, with a maximum of ten OR the ipc amount one player already has collected.
  > or you draw cards from a deck > numeral values are IPC values, face cards go from 11 ipcs (jack) to 14 (ace)

Turkish tollbooth: pay 1 ipc per naval unit to the bank to pass thru the Bosporus/Dardanelles

Now I understand that this is not the most popular AAA-game, but I hope someone will respond.

Anyway, good gaming to all.

@Baron:

Do you know why you choose 2 complete rounds of battle?

That is a question to which I’ve given a bit of thought.  From my experience in 1914, one round is too low.  You’re almost always going to get bogged down and for many a turn if you only roll one round per turn.  On the flip side, if you use too many rounds then the value of the special designation loses all meaning.  How many battles are going to last four or more rounds?  Not many.  Two or three seemed to strike the right balance to me, and since I wanted to err on the side of the new designation being more impactful, I opted for two rounds rather than three.

Now it sounds so good I will try this next time.

@Dauvio:

To bad you don’t have the VANN FORMULAS, that will tell you exactly what you need to know.  8-)

You wrote this on my YouTube channel… tell me why I shouldn’t block you from making these types of comments.

“I’m all for custom maps, but please game masters only stick to that, and nothing else. Leave the rest to the Grand Masters.  I wish us Grand Masters can tell that to Larry Harris (SO CALL WAR GAMING) that!!!  He is exactly like Ernő Rubik the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, but Ernő Rubik didn’t know how to solve it.  Larry Harris is a embarrassment to the Grand Master’s community of games (that’s all the board, and video games that ever existed).  He is only there to make money on all you people on selling you flawed A&A games. He doesn’t care about anybody else except himself.  And for those who follow him like a god, your lucky you didn’t bump into a Grand Master in person either!!! SO SAITH A GRAND MASTER!!! Yeah it’s my PATTON, STEVE JOB’S attitude again. Without guys like use you people would still be stuck in the stone age, and Larry Harris is below the stone age, and us Grand Masters is the highest level you people can get which I highly doubt you will ever get to that level because of Larry Harris!!! :D :D :D LOL!!! And that is me being very generous with you people. HAPPY HUNTING EVERYONE!!!”