Custom 1942 Map

@jkprince indeed 🙂

Thank you both for your interest!

More links added, working on more

Update September 2022:

I just found this one:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/36740/1940-global-alternate-universe-g40-alt-universe/5

“The war is the same, but occurs in an alternate universe where the Earth’s land formation happened
differently.”

(From the Rules: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/assets/uploads/files/1661014153409-g40-alt-universe-rules-vb1.4-8.1.2022.pdf )

So Axis and Allies… just on another map.

Will check this one out asap…

@SS-GEN
I mentionned the OOB ways in beginning of my last post.

@blakeadam who are you talking to?

I think it might make more sense to just return Australia to a single territory rather than two.

I have tried games before testing the idea of splitting islands across sea zones (basically a reverse definition) it has the effect of making bombardments more significant, and fleets less likely to engage on attack (they tend to camp defend  relying instead on amphibious.) Splitting islands also increases fighter movement in a somewhat overpowered way, so you have to be careful. I think with an interesting starting unit placement you can accomplish a lot. Australia as a single territory would have greater reach for any fighters landed there, and the scale of the territory warrants it a bit more then solomons.

I think the best approach is to tilt Japan slightly counter clockwise at the southern tip of the island to make more room for ships. And then put the alignment for the smaller islands based of the relative distance between Australia Hawaii and the three major island territories (East Indies, Borneo, and Philippines). I will play up the focus on the key islands (though some of those chains were involved Palau and the Marianas and such. On the whole though I think the stepping stones out of W. USA would be the most interesting way to change the Pacific dynamic. Force both players to defend their coastlines instead of drop south so easily with everything.

Will redraft it sometime on Tuesday when I get a break from work.

Have a nice memorial day

Cannot find many threads that really get into this version of the game in great detail. Played 1 full game of it so far, and love it. (I was originally a Classic player all the way.)

Anyway, few questions to maybe spark some discussion on this:

Which official version is this map closest to? Also which “official” rule set does this variant use? Spring 1942 edition?

Bidding: on the few posts I found on the topic, it seems people think this map favors the Axis and they actually bid allies. Either I am reading posts on a different version or I just suck, because it seems like the Allies are in pretty good shape in this map from the beginning and they can do some things right out of the gate to slow what needs to be a rapid Axis assault. E.g. China being a distraction and the UK being able to defend most of its colonies for at least 3 turns.

I am still not entirely sure what the best opening moves are for the Axis, which is what I would really like to discuss in depth here if other folks have some more experience with this game. For instance, what odds should the German player take to try and take Leningrad first turn? It seems like their Northern fleet cannot last more than a turn against a good UK player, so should you just sacrifice it and take worse odds on a Leningrad assault if the Soviet player leaves you, say, a 70% chance? (I am usually the kind of player that only attacks with overwhelming odds, e.g., 90% and above. Even 85% makes me nervous…) How can the Germans ever keep their Northern fleet alive? Do they need to? (It seems like the English can kill it turn 1 no matter what the Germans do.) If you cannot take Leningrad T1, is it better to instead focus like a laser on a later round (T4 or 5) take over of Stalingrad with a huge mass of tanks and infantry that you slowly plod over there?

Is a rapid take over of Africa impossible against a UK player who adequately defends Syria and Egypt T1 and who rapidly stacks Gibraltar with numerous planes and troops? Should the Italians forego Africa and put everything into a Russian assault? Is Western Turkey a viable take-over to open up another avenue for Italian ships and/or tanks into Russia or Africa?

Do the Japanese sacrifice their fleet to kill the US at Midway or do they ignore them entirely and focus everything on India? It seems like focusing on anything else is ultimately a mistake, at least thats how my last game played out.

So many questions! What do you guys think is the optimum opening Axis move?

@Sime:

For some reason he wrote to wizards of the coast to ask permission to post it. They denied, so he chose not to post it. It’s a shame, it looked really great.

Here’s the thread:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=22238.0

Thank you very much for guiding me there. Sucks to get posts deleted (same thing happened to me with my much improved handbook, something about copy-write or something)