Changed turn sequence for Axis and Allies World War 1

US War Time Economy:  To show a wishy-washy attitude of the US towards the war in Europe, change the 20 IPC value of USA to a variable amount.  With the US’s involvement inevitable due to continued provocation from Germany on US interests, the calculation will also increase each turn. The variable calculation is; 8 + Tn + 2d6, where Tn = turn #.  At point where US enters the war, the latest calculated IPC count of US will be fixed to USA going forward. (US can hold until after turn 4 to declare war in an effort to possibly improve the IPC value).

Some good ideas here.  This got me to thinking… if someone really wanted to play France as a country, buy units, etc.; then you could play it this way:

French player starts out with the Allies, but once Germany takes the capital, they play with the Axis.  The capital and all territories remain in French hands and they still retain their income and build on their factories.  When/if the Allies liberate Paris, the French player then joins the Allies.  Each time Paris in taken, any French units in territories occupied by other nations remain Allied and usable by that nation (like the French fighter and soldiers in England and boats in the same territory as the British).  If the Allies take Paris, any French units with German/Italian/Japanese combat units in Russia/Germany/the water/wherever are usable by that nation.  The rules are mirrored for if the Allies take Paris: France retains control of their income and all their territories that they control and simply fights with the Allies.

Aspects of this would actually be similar to how it was in the war.  Although you didn’t have stacks of French soldiers defending Normandy from Allied invasion (though some French soldiers fought for the Axis), you also didn’t have the French Mediterranean fleet, Morocco, and southern France fighting against the Axis after France capitulated.

I’m not sure if this might even be balanced or whether it might swing to Allies or Axis.  The push towards Russia would be hampered as some units would need to come all the way from France and those units would attack out of turn from Germany, but on the other hand the Axis would have more total income and a D-Day invasion would be much harder.

We always play with all the Axis playing at once and all the Allies playing at once, so that would likely give the Axis an advantage, but you could compensate by giving the Allies more money.

As an optional rule, you could allow the Japanese player to conquer French Indo-China (just as in the war and just to spice things up) or leave for the French player (maybe France could build a factory there?).  This decision could be strategic by the Japanese player: allowing money to flow where it’s most needed, or it could be cordial: gentlemanly to leave it to your new co-belligerant, or it could be playfully poking fun: haha, it’s mine and you can’t do anything about it.  It might make the Japanese player less ‘lonely’ to have some interaction with their co-belligerants.

The French player might have some disconnection with who wins (or might slightly favor Axis since that’s where their reputation as a skilled player is on the line), but on the other hand, it might be a happy ending to be on the winning side no matter which side won the game.  Another plus is that for a Europe only game, the sides would be an even 3 on 3 for the nations for most of the game and it might allow you to have a 6th player on the Europe only board.

@MacNaughton:

But for the sake of game mechanics, it is important that we say that Germany “liberates” Rome. Also, for the sake of game mechanics, we can only take historical accuracy so far. Which means that if Rome is liberated by Germany, then we pretend that all the Italian territories all over the board will be perfectly happy to come back under the rule of Italy no matter the actual feeling of those people in actual history.

Exactly. Thank you, sir.

@Imperious:

All those dice rolls thing would imbalance the game, only a fixed result can be balanced and must be.

Hmm… We are both talking about Axis and Allies, right?

There are both on Larry Harris’ site IIRC.

Ya i hate how (if someone is gb and they send all ther men and lose in france then usa comes and gets it i hate that i really do)  but once a game brits + usa can do that it is a lot better!

Hmmm, have you considered giving Japan jet fighters instead of Germany, just to make it a little easier on Russia without unbalancing the teams?

Japan somehow had about 100 Me-262 in underground facilities at mt. fuji? ready for action if we had invaded. I have read this in a few places… i am not sure that its mt. fuji however.

at the wars end i also read they “used” 2 of these in actions over Japan before the close of the war.

I thought i might just bring up this old post out of of the blue because the funny thing is the units listed in many cases became the various new units over the years.

Cruisers, BB price drop, Mechanized infantry, Artillery, fighter-bomber, etc…