Man, you gotta believe there must have been an easier way to encourage the Non Agression pact, without requiring such complex Mongolia rules. Or a way to provide disincentives for the neutral crush, or dealing with the Dutch, without requiring so many specific rules to be memorized.
The second edition would have been a nice oppertunity to step back and say “Ok let’s simplify all this” down to just couple basic conditions, reducing the Mongolia weirdness, instead of tacking on even more territory specific politics rules.
Like all that Mongolia stuff just to keep the Japanese out of Amur?
Or with the Dutch, all those exceptions just to give Anzac a gamey landing spot in Sumatra?
It’s just a lot of rules, for a comparitvely small payoff, in gameplay terms. There must have been an easier way to approach this.
I know it’s a dead horse, but I can’t help but repeat the old lament… I wish they didn’t try do so much at once with Global. A bigger map, with more nations and an expanded unit roster would have been a lot in and of iself. But then they had to go and throw all the political rules and objectives on top of it. It’s like, wouldn’t it make more sense to test the waters first, before diving in headlong? See how sales hold up for a large combined map game, and gauge player response to that idea by itself, before setting in 1940?
Oh well, that ship has already sailed I guess. But threads like this remind me why so many people I know are intimidated by Axis and Allies 1940 haha. Its because the rulebook reads like a confusing study guide, for a poorly written standardized test, in some subject you’re not very familiar with hehe. Basically you just skipped from Pre-Algebra to Calculus, without any primer. And now you’re all stressed out for trick questions on Mondays exam lol!
:-D
