Development of Alternate Version of Rules

@Der:

How far can your ships move during non-combat movement? That’s interesting to me.

And what are the details of your railroads? I’m trying to work the trans-Siberian RR into my AA 42 variant map. I have it able to send 2 transports worth of land units from Moscow to Vladivostok during non-combat.

For non-combat movement, ships can move 3 spaces, 4 if it is from a port, and 5 if it is from a naval base. For railroads, we said that 3 units could be moved through a rail system per turn. If a rail is damaged, then less (they have 3 points, so if a RR takes damage - like 1 point - from a strategic bombing raid - then it has 2 points remaining - and therefore 2 units can move). Certainly this can be adjusted - we could make a RR system move 4 units instead of 3…

Fog of War: because this is a strategic level game, the fog of war is difficult to implement. So, we made more variables in tactical combat to introduce more fluidity in the game: rounds of combat per offensive (0-5), surprise, surrender, initiative, retreating. Plus, what is on the board is not actually what’s “on the ground” in the strictest sense: what’s on the board is troop types in a general sense more than actual numbers - because a unit on a strategic level is about relative combat power. The great equalizer in the game is the battle board and dice. Yes, a D12 system provides more variance, but we stuck with the D6. So, the Russians at some point had 400 divisions in their army. Some of these divisions were so understrength that they would amount to a combat brigade in the US Army - 3,000 men. Russian divisions were organized smaller than German divisions. If you have a German infantry unit on the board and a Russian infantry unit on the board, they have equal combat power. But “on the ground” they are not equal number of troops at all. In the beginning of the war, that Russian infantry unit might be twice as many actual men with rifles than its German counterpart.

An example of the fog of war or variables in combat: Last week, I had 3 British Heavy Bombers attempt to pulverize Axis ground units at Tobruk. They were going to conduct a one-time saturation bombing of ground troops. The only problem: I rolled a ‘0’ for the number of combat rounds to take place - which meant that nothing happened. In the ‘real world’ several things could have been the cause for why this bombing raid failed: perhaps the bombers got lost, had bad intelligence and couldn’t find targets, had maintenance problems, logistical problems - who knows… You can do a little role-playing here if you want. Whatever happened, the British failed (which is really bad right now for me - really bad).

We’re playing tomorrow night and Weds. morning. We want to get rules out ASAP. But we want to play-test it thoroughly. The writing of the rules will be the most important. We will spell everything out and provide examples - as if the reader has never played Axis and Allies in their life (even though many will have). The introduction will give the reader a rationale for the game and the change in mentality needed to enjoy it - to be in it for the long haul.

I agree with Tigerman77: this game will take days even weeks to play - even longer - depending on how much you play per session. We are going to introduce building times. We’ve determined that units you buy are already in some ways sort of on the books - that they’re not created from scratch completely - especially ships. Normally, a battleship took 2-3 years to build; a cruiser 1 year - we reduced it to 4 turns. Infantry is 1 turn. So, if you buy an infantry unit in March 1940, you can put it into play the following turn (April 1940) during place new units - essentially 2 actual months: beginning of March you buy - training takes place; April comes - training and equipping - at the end of April it can go on the board during place new units. Replacements, however, in which damaged units can be repaired, are repaired during phase 1 of a turn provided they are at an IC or a Forward Supply Base. This assumes that there are replacements and new equipment in theater already.

I’m finding out that in the old AA versions, I didn’t have to think through things too carefully at some point. After playing for 20 years+ I found few surprises in the game. That’s why we embarked on this advanced version. You really don’t know all the variables - it’s too fluid - you have to really sit down and think what you’re going to do, what your opponent might do, and prepare for a catastrophe because it’s going to happen. I think variable turn order had changed the game in such a way that it is impossible to play a similar game. You have to think to yourself: What if the Germans go first this round in tactical turn order? Are you prepared for that? The war moves at a slower pace precisely because of this. It took the US and British six months+ to dislodge Rommel from North Africa - from November 1942 to May 1943. In our game, the British are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to defend Cairo. The Americans are not in the war yet (who knows when they will be?). The Axis own the Mediterranean to my detriment. The Japanese own Burma. Their progress in China has slowed some and the Soviets have attacked the Japanese to relieve pressure on the British and Chinese. Japan invaded Western Australia in Feb. 1940 - last month, and ANZAC can’t dislodge them - it’s been contested… The Axis owns the Atlantic and the British can’t really build ships that won’t be sunk. It’s difficult. Thank God the German navy doesn’t have too many transports to attempt a Sea Lion. But I think he might. And he’ll be reading this post so I shouldn’t give him any ideas…

I don’t know if anyone is still interested out there, but we’re play-testing the final version of the rules for this. Some significant changes have taken place as we have thought about World War II. They are the following:

1. Using a D20 for combat (along with the D6 and D12 for other things too). Buying D20 dice is easy if you don’t have any - they’re fairly cheap to get at your local game store or on-line. The D20 system allows for more variance between national armies, which is number 2) below. Ground units, for example, have a TH OFF POS score, which means a “to hit, offensive posture score” - i.e., let’s say a German Infantry in the Offensive Posture has a score of 17. The player needs to roll a 17 or higher on the D20 to hit. I basically converted the percentage ratios of the D6 into the D20. So, needing a 1 on the D6 now could mean a range of 17-20, depending on your unit/nationality and other stuff.

2. Variance of national armies. What I have done is make a series of reasonably easy-to-read charts for all the units and their capabilities by nation. Germany Infantry are better than Italian Infantry. You will be able to see the differences.

3. Terrain and weather: I’ve updated our weather chart based off of world-wide seasonal weather patterns. It took some time, but I think it’ll work (there were a few problems with our earlier version). Terrain: we’ve added Rivers to certain territories - most territories have rivers, but we’re only concerned with large rivers and delta areas - places that could impeded military progress significantly. It’ll affect combat in the first round of a battle and give defenders bonuses.

4. We’ve reworked strategic bombing damage on factories. It’ll probably take months of sustained strategic bombing to really start affecting the war. But it will. Major Ind. Complexes don’t have negative production capacity until after 20 points of damage, for example…

5. Limitations to industrial production: Major ICs can produce up to 6 mechanized units, planes or ships per turn; Minor ICs 1 mech. unit (i.e. Light Tank, Medium Tank, Heavy Tank, Self-Propelled Artillery, all planes, all ships). There are no limitations for Infantry, Auxiliary Infantry, AA Guns, Artillery or Paratroopers) - except one’s normal production capacity. We found it unrealistic that South Africa could produce so many tanks.

6. We’ve split the economies of Canada and South Africa.

7. UK-London, British Empire Far East, Canada, South Africa and ANZAC all go at the same time for strategic and tactical combat.

8. Destroyer screens during naval combat.

More to follow… I have to run at the moment!

Thank you John Brown. I’m back…

Additional rule changes:

8. Destroyer screens: Destroyers can try to intercept attacking subs before they reach the rest of the fleet (kind of like the way a Fighter scrambles to intercept an attacking bomber) - but on water. A submarine/anti-submarine warfare phase always goes before surface warfare (right after the Air Battle phase in Air-Naval Combat).

9. Weapons, Technology & Research Development: certain nations can acquire most of these; some nations are restricted to a few. We researched who had what technology or was “working on it” so to speak. Some countries start off with a few WTR developments at the beginning of the game too to reflect reality.

10. Politics. We know some people might not like political complexity to this game, but we had to make it realistic. And if Germany decides to start the war in Europe by attacking someone else besides Poland, that option is available. But, we want to remind players that World War II has already begun in a sense - Japan has attacked Nationalist and Communist China, the latter entities are supported by Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States (historically, anyways).

11. We lowered Italian overall IPC levels a bit. We did change how the United States would enter the war too. They start at 0, and do not roll to add to their national production until January 1940 (provided they are not attacked). They’ll roll IPCs until they reach 30 and will be capped at 30 until November of 1940, in which the US begins rolling 2-7 IPCs per month (plus bonuses). It signals the change in the Roosevelt Administration after the November 1940 election. The IPC level will also increase every turn by certain events on the board as a reaction to Axis aggression, including Axis occupation of Atlantic convoy zones. France has a similar slow start - because although France boasted of having 5,000,000 reservists, they couldn’t call them up easily. And this reflects French political leadership and their unwillingness to fight an offensive war. The French player can certainly attack the Germans, but it’s really risky because they won’t have much in the way of reinforcements during the Fall of 1939…

12. We really boosted the US strategic infrastructure. The US will be fully mobilized at 92 IPCs plus a 20 IPC bonus. Lend lease has been changed. The US can give up to 18 IPCs to Allied countries per month. The British can give 5; the Soviet Union can give C. China 1-2 IPCs per month.

13. Vichy rules. Simplified rules. Corsica remains Free French. All other French territories automatically become Vichy. Units on those countries may join the Axis or disband. Ships might be scuttled, join the Axis or the Allies. French troops in Allied controlled territories might remain Free French or disband.

14. Partisans and Axis Auxiliary troops. We’ve made an interesting chart that outlines potential Partisan uprisings and Axis Auxiliaries at certain times.

15. A general Events Chart is rolled every month that could affect one or more players - inflation, industrial fires, civilian volunteers, economic surges and also problems…Roll D30.

Anyways, these are a few things. We don’t know who will play this version. Perhaps no one will want to. That’s okay with us. But, what we’re going to do is play a few months of the war and then present the rules. The rules will be long and somewhat complex - I’m going to try to write them in such a way as to provide clarity and consistency throughout. Right now it’s about 55 pages long. It’ll probably end up being a little longer than that. Charts will be in the rules and also in an appendix for quick reference. We’ll also include a list of all units needed to play and our suggested map revisions. Those map revisions do not have to be “permanent” - just use scotch tape and a marker. We made our own terrain markers but one can just go to Staples and buy 1/4" colored dots (red=urban; yellow=mountainous; green=jungle/forest; blue=river or in a sea zone to account for 2 spaces to expand the Pacific Ocean since we think it should be bigger).

Hi Munck,
We plan to keep everyone informed of its development - for those who want it. I am aware about the new version coming out in November. The map looks really interesting, although I’d personally want some modifications to it (I think Africa is too small and the Pacific is too small). We actually like the revised map HBG put out a couple of years ago… We just had to make modifications, including adding extra Sea Zones, placing a blue dot on certain Sea Zones to count for 2 movement points, adding terrain, adding territories (mainly in Africa), and changing IPC values for some territories. We also changed set up to reflect a historical approach - so we made set-up charts for all the nations. We didn’t change everything though. If it was historically accurate, we kept it. We based units on the board according to combat power and not number of troops/tanks (the Russians had about 19,000 tanks in 1939, but they don’t have a massive stack of tanks on the board).

Anyways, we’ve abandoned the idea of each turn lasts 6 months approach. That approach makes it more playable and faster (and maybe more fun?), but we just couldn’t reconcile it with actual historical events and ship and plane technology. Their movement points don’t coincide with history at all. Our one-month-per-turn will be a slow, grinding game - but we’re going for more realism. As a player, you get to make the strategic and tactical decisions that are difficult: we’re trying to lessen “game” aspects and heighten realism. Obviously it is still a game. But we’ve introduced things that will make the game more fluid: weather, terrain, leadership, logistics, somewhat complex rules for actual battles (with initiative, number of phases in a battle, offensive and defensive posture, retreating, amphibious evacuation, surprise and surrender), politics, an events chart and partisans, different training among nations and their armed forces, some new Weapons Developments. But most of all: changes in strategic and tactical turn order every month. Who went first in last round may not go first in this round. It’s random but there are modifiers that give you a better chance of acting before your enemy does. You’ll never play the same game twice. You don’t know what the weather will be like. And, of course, you might radically alter what the Axis or Allies actually did in the war. It’ll be like a game that you “save” and come back to later. Some people might not be able to do this, and that’s okay. But for those who want a more historical approach to World War II, we’re going to offer it as an alternate version.