What's the cheesiest thing about Global 1940?

The cheesiest thing about this game is the mythos surrounding the cost of items 1 IPC = 1 million production hours and what is a production hour worth in actual currency?

Players arguing over hard facts about what any given unit in the game reperesents. Nobody knows and the fact is there are no hard facts. At this level of gameplay realistically the should be only 3 units land, air, sea. We know though that’s not fun or we all would just play risk.

Time. There really is no solid representation of time even Larry says he sees time like a rubber band in A&A. Technically everything in a round happens at the same time. However simulating realtime would be extremely difficult.

Still love the game but constantly trying replicate history or justify things we’d like to see in the game or series doesn’t need to be so serious.

@eddiem4145:

**A battleship cannot sail into Berlin any more than German tanks could simply blitz an empty channel into England.

Lets talk cost. If everyone is paying the same low cost for naval units and we have the well known Transport stats, naval units priced more in line with thier land counterparts would simply add more naval combat and allow a more simulated version of the war.

The arguement that Sealion would be done with ease is valid except that Britain is paying the same cost for naval units as Germany would, hence they can produce more naval defense to counter Germany.**

Toblerone’s comment, that I bolded above could not have been better said. I don’t understand, that IF, there is ever a new edition, that this would not be fixed. Which mean a significant reduction in all costs. Yes, it might require a change in initial setup, but it wouldn’t matter if done with a new edition.

The arguments for this have been said many times. It should be obvious.

With that said, the Japan 6VC rules is the cheesiest.

For the record eddie I agree with some of the principals of your statement. I would support a set of house rules or variant but I DO NOT agree with this being an official rule. I still would suggest that if you are going to do this you need to run a session and give an after action report. Then post in a more appropriate forum such as House Rules or A&A Variants.

Back to NOs: If the Russian “spread of communism” NO can be abused, the British Empire NO hardly sees the light of day. Can’t it just be kept to major Commonwealth cities and strategic territories? Ontario, Union of South Africa, Egypt & Gibraltar? The Axis can still grab Gibraltar to cancel it but Italy holding British Somaliland is not exactly a massive blow to national prestige.

This is also a map nitpick, but since there was so much room on the Arabian Peninsula, why didn’t they throw Aden in there? Could give the UK an extra landing spot when things get hairy in East Africa. Turkey probably should have been divided since it is such an enormous shortcut to the Middle East for the Axis (or the Balkans for the UK).

Good points, General

I wanted the Azores. It had strategic value as an unsinkable carrier to fight German subs, but for the axis with long range aircraft a base to SBR the eastern coast which was the value to Germany. The Maldives would also be useful.

Good point rjpeters.
Italy having even 30 IPCs is a joke. I think most of think their NOs are too generous.

@wittmann:

Good point rjpeters.
Italy having even 30 IPCs is a joke. I think most of think their NOs are too generous.

Yeah, I kind of agree with that. On the other hand, without the NOs, Italy really can’t accomplish much. It does seem kind of ridiculous that half or more of Italy’s income is from NOs. With all of the big countries, the NOs are just a nice little boost to their income. Not counting the three $2 NOs from the Middle East, if Italy gets all three of the $5 NOs they could still only have $9 in territory income. (S Italy, N Italy, Albania and Libya).
$5 for NO Allied surface warships in the Med. – That requires no territorial acquisitions.
$5 for AXIS control of 3 of 4, Gibraltar, S France, Greece and Egypt. It’s possible for Germany to control any or all of those territories for Italy to get the bonus, plus Gibraltar is worth $0.
$5 for AXIS control of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Tobruk and Alexandria. Again, Germany could control the three French territories, Libya is already Italian so no gain there and Tobruk and Alexandria both worth $0.

So, assuming Italy lost Ethiopia by this time, which is very possible, Italy would only be making $9 in territorial income and $15 in NOs. While Italy really needs the money, it just doesn’t seem right that any nation get more money for NOs than they have in territories. Perhaps the difficulty of Italy getting going is meant to have Germany help them out which definitely happened in the real war many times. Still, perhaps the NOs should be dropped to $3 each.
By the way, ANZAC is in almost the same boat. They only have $10 in territorial income but once they are at war and snatch Dutch New Guinea, they double their income. Maybe those NOs should be cut down too.

I agree about Anzac. The only reasoning to keep those two for them, is because UK get none most of the time.
It is messed up.
I have always thought the US should get more than its paltry 20. The reason Japan does so well is they start very strong and can stay ahead of the US if played aggressively.
I believe the US should always have the economic edge and 20 in NOs is not enough, if the conquest of  Asia can almost triple Japan’s starting income.

I am sure it has been said, but a victory turn limit in Global may have worked more sensibly.

@wittmann:

I agree about Anzac. The only reasoning to keep those two for them, is because UK get none most of the time.
It is messed up.
I have always thought the US should get more than its paltry 20. The reason Japan does so well is they start very strong and can stay ahead of the US if played aggressively.
I believe the US should always have the economic edge and 20 in NOs is not enough, if the conquest of  Asia can almost triple Japan’s starting income.

I am sure it has been said, but a victory turn limit in Global may have worked more sensibly.

I like this line of thinking.
And it is not only the USA that has a paltry bonus, Russia also has too little economic power. Or perhaps in this case it has to be called manpower…

This is of course again due to game-balances but I’d be very pleased if the same balance could be reached with a more historic feel.
For example Germany could have a greater punch, destroying the entire Red Army at least once on their way towards Moscow. Russia on the other hand must then be much more able to rebuild.
I also ‘have problems’ with the Royal Navy being such a complete and utter walk-over on the European map. I understand game-balance but the UK receiving nothing in return for this, is bad. Or have they received something in return that I may have missed?

A victory turn limit seems sensible indeed but not an arbitrary one. I’d like the allied economic power to grow more over time, making it an urgent matter for the Axis to win before the allied economies have come to full power. More urgent than it is now at least.

Still, the game balance must ofc remain at around 50-50 for each side to win, otherwise it makes no sense to play. It is still a game and we like to win ;-).

I don’t think it really a cheesy thing but I would have liked to see more involment with France. I know there were historical  timeline considerations but I would have liked some mechanic that made them more playable. Even as Vichy and or free France.

If any of you ever played World at War, I think many of there concepts played well into the historical aspect of things while keeping the game simple enough. Especially the French idea.

I agree with most of everyone’s ideas except of course the problem is always keeping it simple, however in Global, I think there is a lot more room for historical accuracy while keeping it simple.

Overall I really think the game could have achieved the desired changes we now see without some the NO’s being as silly as I think some of them are.

Did anyone here play World at War. They were working on an online game version, like triple A but it took years for the first version to come on line, and years of promises for the 2nd version. Many of us paid in advance for the online version never to see it fully developed and out money gone.

I expect when Axis came out with its Europe/Japan/Global versions, it put them out of business.

With that said it is worth reiterating the cheesiest thing about Axis, by a landslide is the 6VC rule for Japan. Does anyone play without that rule.

@eddiem4145:

With that said it is worth reiterating the cheesiest thing about Axis, by a landslide is the 6VC rule for Japan. Does anyone play without that rule.

The league is working on a New and Improved house rule version of G40, and it will certainly not include a 6VC rule for Japan.  We’re just getting started - not a finished product yet.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydGh6d2NwRDJRRzBteEsyU1EtNGhXVUE#gid=2
Discussion on this thread:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=25260.0

At least 2 in the list are more or less easily obtained by Japan (no. 3 and 4), at the cost of letting the USA fleet get ahead.
This leaves 1 harder task, which I like. It replaces the importance of Hawai with Sydney which is harder to take (except when early focused on) but not impossible. Maybe those 20 islands need to be a few more or less, but I like the basic idea, especially the islands!

I think the usual game-mechanics stay unchanged by these conditions. However, this does make it easier for the allies. Now they don’t need to defend both Hawai and Sydney but only Sydney. Assuming that if the USA + ANZAC are strong enough to defend Sydney, Japan also cannot hope to take 20 islands instead.

Defending Sydney and preventing Japan from Getting 20 islands sounds easier than defending Hawai + Sydney but even if that is not, it shouldn’t be harder and the historic feel seems much stronger in your proposal!

This might even tip the balance for allied wins in the league closer to 50% from its 44%. But I still feel, given normal luck, the allies should win much closer to 50% anyway ;-).
At equal experience levels, Allied losses seem always to be due to a judgemental error to me (or very bad dicing) and lucky enough for the axis, those are quite easily made because the Axis flexibility!

That 20 Islands idea is an interesting concept. I just took a look at the Pacific map and there are 30 total islands. Japan starts out with 9 of those. Let’s assume, just for the moment, that Japan is able to keep ALL the islands it starts out with. Suppose Japan is able to conquer all of China, satisfying ONE of the victory conditions. Upon declaring war, here is what I figure:
Philippines is almost always one of the first to fall to Japan == 10 Islands.
Guam wouldn’t be too hard == 11 Islands
The DEI is usually one of Japan’s major objectives == 15 Islands
If Japan takes Calcutta, Ceylon is almost a given == 16 Islands (plus one more victory condition)
Let’s say for the sake of argument that Japan also manages to nab Wake == 17 Islands
Now it gets somewhat tricky. Japan needs 3 more islands. They could go head on against the US and grab the Aleutians, Midway and Hawaii, then try to hold all those for a complete round. Possible, but pretty hard if the US has any decent force in W US. Would work best if the US went all after Germany.
Another possibility is going hard after ANZAC. Japan could grab New Guinea, New Britain and the Solomons. Japan would be pretty strong at this point and ANZAC may not be able to do much about it. However, if the US has a strong fleet around Hawaii, they can reach the Solomons.
Of course, then there is Wake and the Marshalls within easy range of Hawaii.
I think the only way this could be accomplished is if the US almost totally ignored the Pacific. There is no way Japan could guard all those islands. Of course, maybe this is meant more to keep the US engaged in the Pacific and not going KGF. In that case, it would be a successful idea.

By the way, you said ANY 20 islands. So it would be okay for Japan to end up losing one or more of their original islands (except for Japan of course) as long as they still had a total of 20?

I like the idea of more varied paths to victory for each side. It makes balance tougher, but done right would be great.

@variance:

(…) I would bet that in this scheme India becomes a lot harder to get than it typically is now because everyone focuses on defending Cairo instead (e.g. Tobruk or Taranto raids instead of sending everything Eastward).  If that’s true then USA would have to do something about the Atlantic, maybe get a second front going to relieve Russia.Â

From my own experience I’d say you bet right: at least the threat of a second front is needed to keep Germany in check, else the allies risk loosing both Moscow and Cairo.

To be honest I don’t see how not sending everything eastwards makes life easier for India? I’d rather say it 'll make life in Calcutta harder because Japan doesnt have to face a bigger UK-fleet and airforce. I suspect I am missing something ;-).

ah nvm, I guess Im on the wording a bit too much ;-)

I take it we agree that not sending units from Cairo -> Calcutta makes it harder for UK to defend India and easier for Japan to get it.