I have got both versions of Fortress America. The new version has exactly 30 city pieces to match the 30 US cities that the invaders have to capture. The old version from Milton Bradley had something like 32 city pieces. That version had a few extra pieces in all the colors which is a rare thing. Games now days tend to just include the number of pieces that you need to play the game. If you accidentally lose a piece or two, you are just SOL.
With the new Fortress America game, I agree with toblerone77. The city pieces do look a little cooler. I really like the laser complexes in the new game. They come in 3 pieces and you have to put them together. They are kind of big but look really cool. Maybe you could use those as some sort of “super cannon” in A&A. Range of 10 spaces. Hit on a 5 or less. Destroys all units in a territory. Lays waste to everything!
I got the city pieces from RISK a while back. I was using them for Major ICs, but now I use them for Mid-Level ICs. For Major and Minor ICs, I use the colored factories from “The War Game: World War 2”. They look really good, problem is there is a limited number of factory pieces. The US dark green has plenty, more than you need. There are a lot of dark grey for Germany, but you can run out of the minor ICs if Germany is successful at expanding. During the game, I like to remove the colored factory of the original owner and replace it with the colored factory of the conqueror. If Germany really expands, that would mean 7 minor ICs (3 in France, 4 in Russia) and that is without Germany buying any new factories or conquering Allied factories that were purchased. I think there is only 6 or 8 dark grey minor ICs.
Russia and Italy have to share the brown factories, which only works because Italy has 1 major and 1 minor. There seems to be plenty of tan (UK) and yellow (Japan) ICs. There are no Majors in blue (France) so to start out the game I have to use the light grey for France’s major IC. There really is no minor IC for ANZAC as The War Game doesn’t have that particular color, so I use the original IC pieces for ANZAC’s minor.
The other problem with The War Game for anyone who doesn’t have one is that it is expensive. I think I spent a little over $200 for one copy of the game, one set of extra pieces and shipping. The War Game looks pretty cool. Very similar to A&A but there are a number of different rules, like defender retreats and 2-step naval attacks (which would eliminate blockers in a lot of cases). The pieces look really cool with great detail but most are somewhat bigger than A&A pieces and all units for all countries are German sculpts in different colors. All carriers are Graf Zeppelin, all Battleships are Bismarck, all tanks are Tiger, etc. They even have a Maus heavy tank and Me262 Jet fighter.
Also, the game board is HUGE. About the same size as HBG’s 1939 map in the large size, close to 8 ft. x 4 ft.
Anyway, if some of you happen to have that game, the ICs are pretty cool looking. Although, it looks like in a few months or so HBG will fix the problem of different types of ICs along with other neat facilities too.