Variant for History Buffs Under Development

The issue with this kind of variants is the game get scripted. Do you want to reenact the historical correct war step by step, or play a game ?

@iwugrad:

The aspect I’m most concerned about would be how having all the forces playing simultaneously could affect balancing.

That’s something I’m worried about too.  In the OOB rules, nine countries each get separate turns, and these separate turns more or less keep alternating between the Axis and the Allies.  It’s not a perfect alternation because the three Axis nations have to be sandwiched between six Allied ones, but it’s close enough, especially when you consider that China and France aren’t really first-rate powers in the game).  So in the OOB rules, there’s only one power “in the driver’s seat” at any one time, and the side which has one of its powers in the driver’s seat alternates pretty regularly.  In the proposed variation, however, all the countries on one side would be “in the driver’s seat” simultaneously, and I’m worried that this might give them too much of an advantage.

Another consideration is that the concept of having all the Axis players take their shot simultaneously (while the Allies are in purely reactive mode), then having the reverse situation occur, goes against the house rule’s stated objective of achieving greater historical realism.  WWII wasn’t fought that way; for the most part, both sides kept “making their moves” simultaneously throughout the war, though of course not with uniform levels of intensity.

@iwugrad:

1. All Aligned Nations Have Simultaneous Play
This aspect opens up the possibility of some key events.  Also, it makes the game much faster and more enjoyable for some of the patience deficit friends I play with.  The turn order and rules would be:
a.  All Axis aligned nations play simultaneously:  Italy may not attack US/UK/France/Russia on R1.  They may attack neutral, allied neutral, or incorporate Axis aligned nations.
b.  All Allied aligned nations play simultaneously
c.  All neutral countries play simultaneously:  For R1, this is the U.S. and Russia if they haven’t been attacked.

I believe this can work, but rather suggest this >

a. All Axis aligned nations play simultaneously. This is Germany, Italy and Japan.
b. USSR play. This is Russia and a possible Red China.
c. All western Allied nations play simultaneously. This is UK, France, USA, ANZAC and Nationalist China.

USA must play in the Allied group even when neutral, he just don’t take part in combats as long as neutral. USA was never a true neutral, it sent LendLease to UK from day one.

True neutral major nations like Spain, Turkey and Sweden are not players, they just sit there until attacked.

Now I think this is more historical correct than the other suggestion.
I don’t believe simultaneous play will break the balance in the big picture. It will save time for sure, and take away some dead time when five players drink cola and watch TV while one guy makes his moves. I believe it will enhance the game.

But because simultaneous play take away the classic can opener moves, we must add a new Blitz rule. Tanks and Mechs may blitz through any enemy territory that is free of enemy units. Even newly captured territories. But land and air units that is used in this breakthrough attack can not have taken part in any other combat moves this turn. It must be fresh units. This will replace the classic can opener, where two Italian tanks killed the lonely Russian inf in Ukraine, and next a huge German tank stack would blitz through. Now that was not historical correct, but this will be.

@CWO:

Another consideration is that the concept of having all the Axis players take their shot simultaneously (while the Allies are in purely reactive mode), then having the reverse situation occur, goes against the house rule’s stated objective of achieving greater historical realism.  WWII wasn’t fought that way; for the most part, both sides kept “making their moves” simultaneously throughout the war, though of course not with uniform levels of intensity.

I don’t agree. The western allies USA, UK, ANZAC, Canada and France all had the same objective, to capture Berlin, Rome and Tokyo, and end the war. And troops from all allies did cooperate close in operations from start to end. Even in complex operations as amphibious landings. Ships, planes and troops from UK, France and Poland cooperated in the amphibious attack at German occupied Norway in 1940. Ships, planes and troops from USA, UK, Canada, France and Poland did cooperate in the Normandy landings in 1944. So yes, I believe simultaneous moves are historical correct. I cant imagine USA would attack Normandy alone in the real war, then get kicked out by the Germans next week, then next week UK would attack Normandy alone, and next week get kicked out by Italian units. But then, France would attack Normandy alone, but they don’t get kicked out, because now Germany and Italy were too tired ? So next week Canadian troops can reinforce Normandy easily. And the week after that, some Polish troops. Then USA troops, but now Germany would be ready to attack again. This don’t make sense to me.

Germany and Japan may have different objectives, that is correct, but they play on separate maps. Why cant Germany move units into Ukraine in the same turn that Japan is moving units into Hawaii ? If it is time saving, then why not ? If Japan don’t want to attack Hawaii before he see how the Ukraine battle turns out, then he can just attack something else while he wait. No big problem.

@iwugrad:

That’s certainly something to watch out for: so the question would be “Is this scripted?”. Â

Don’t take me wrong, I love your effort to make it more historical correct. But I don’t think scripted rules are the way to go.
With scripted rules, I talk about Italy is not allowed to attack UK in turn 1. Why ? What on earth would stop Mussolini from attacking Egypt in 1939 if that was what he wanted to do ? Not some rules in a book, that for sure. In the real war, Italy did not attack Egypt in 1939 because they was bussy elsewhere, not because some rule told them not to do it. If you don’t want Italy to attack Egypt in turn 1, then make Italy weak and Egypt strong, then that attack wont happen, but by rational cases, not by rules.

The other issue I got with you, is the Maginot line. Now Germany is not allowed to attack directly into France, they must go through Belgium because that is historical correct. I hate that kind of scripted rules. If you want a Maginot line, why don’t make it ? Buy the Blockhouse units and minefields tokens from HBG, and place them at the German border. Now Germany will suffer if they make a frontal attack against Blockhouses and minefields. So maybe they move through Belgium, by choice and not because of scripted rules

Don’t take me wrong, I love your effort to make it more historical correct. But I don’t think scripted rules are the way to go.
With scripted rules, I talk about Italy is not allowed to attack UK in turn 1. Why ? What on earth would stop Mussolini from attacking Egypt in 1939 if that was what he wanted to do ? Not some rules in a book, that for sure. In the real war, Italy did not attack Egypt in 1939 because they was bussy elsewhere, not because some rule told them not to do it. If you don’t want Italy to attack Egypt in turn 1, then make Italy weak and Egypt strong, then that attack wont happen, but by rational cases, not by rules.
I agree with narvik.
I also play 1939 game and Italy cannot play in the first turn.

The other issue I got with you, is the Maginot line. Now Germany is not allowed to attack directly into France, they must go through Belgium because that is historical correct. I hate that kind of scripted rules. If you want a Maginot line, why don’t make it ? Buy the Blockhouse units and minefields tokens from HBG, and place them at the German border. Now Germany will suffer if they make a frontal attack against Blockhouses and minefields. So maybe they move through Belgium, by choice and not because of scripted rules

Yup it’s exactly what I have done…and it works…

@iwugrad:

The Maginot line portion would take out some of the scripting from the original game.  It’s possible that if you get too ambitious (wanting to conquer Normany/Bordeaux in R1, conserve more men for an early Russian attack, or allocate too much air power to destroying the British fleet), you may fail to conquer France on R1.  Of course this would be disastrous, as France could then build on their turn.  With that possibility, it makes this portion of the game more intense and less scripted.

The Global 40 map is wrong, it should be based on the A&A Europe 1999 edition map. So I made a suggestion for an improved map, where France proper, with industry, ports and airfields, are protected by buffer territories.

Now Germany must make an historical correct decision. Go through neutral and light defended Belgium, or frontal against the heavy stacked Maginot Line. The heavy gun in bunker take two hits to kill, just like a battleship, and defend on a 4 or less.

Netherland and Belgium are together? Not seperated?

@crusaderiv:

Netherland and Belgium are together? Not seperated?

Of course, a playable map cant have too many small territories

I tend towards Japan and the European Axis playing separately, so there are 4 power blocks in the game.

It also conveniently defines the loose association for Japan and USSR with their “allies”, that is they cannot move together but neither can they share territory or use the transports and carriers of their partners.

For example it would prevent the UK/US from landing a large army in Karelia to prop up the USSR: its unlikley the Soviets would have agreed to this, less still that Germany & Japan would have co-operated inn this way.

Some also use the rule that allied blocks do not liberate each other’s tt but keep everything they capture, though a more extreme version is that allies may not even attack each other’s occupied tt.

Stalin signed deals with both the Germans and British defining “spheres of influence” by defining which areas would be controlled by which, with a tacit agreement to “keep off” the other partner’s designated patch.

@iwugrad:

a.  All Axis aligned nations play simultaneously:  Italy may not attack US/UK/France/Russia on R1.  They may attack neutral, allied neutral, or incorporate Axis aligned nations.
b.  All Allied aligned nations play simultaneously

I think the way to approach this is for all players to resolve their moves in secret (independently of the enemy side) and then all reveal their moves at once.  Step one is to resolve border clashes, when two forces of opposing sides try to cross the same border. These are the first battles rolled. All units in a border clash roll as if “attacking” for the purposes of determining hits.

Then any army which gets across the border, rolls to resolve whatever combat results in the territory which they were attacking. Here normal combat ensues (with the defender rolling at their defense value.)

Basically you have a situation where every player has to think about where they want to move, without first knowing where the enemy players’ units will be (or be moving themselves). You would therefore have to elect whether to commit all units to a cross border engagement, or leave some behind… In case you get beat at the border, or get invaded across a different border than the one you just attacked across. This would have the advantage of making territories with several borders, more strategically useful for attack, while simultaneously being more vulnerable on defense. This idea for a collapsed turn order, could be used in conjunction with new rules for armor on the blitz, to provide a can opening effect. There would also be an interesting dilemma for the attacker, whether to send units across borders into attacks, or to hold some forces in reserve, in case their borders are penetrated.

For enforcing alignment, you might restrict movement across borders in the known sphere of influence by side, For Japan/Axis and Russia/W. Allies for example. Though you would have to come up with a system to resolve which power is awarded control of a territory in the case of joint attacks against the enemy. Still it could probably be made to work in a 4 block, rather than a 2 block. We’d just have to put some thought into what co-location restrictions would be in place.

In order for such a game to work on a board like G40, I think you would have to dramatically increase the amount of money in play. This is because more units would necessarily be destroyed in the course of the game, on account of the unpredictability of simultaneous attacks, so you’d really want more unit replacement per round to keep it fun.

@Black_Elk:

I think the way to approach this is for all players to resolve their moves in secret (independently of the enemy side) and then all reveal their moves at once.

I love to play Diplomacy, and it use this system. It work because you can only have one unit in a territory at the same time. Using this system in A&A have been playtestet many times, they nicknamed it #Write an Essay# and it is complicated. If you look up the MB Classic at BBG, you will find some house rules using this system. If you buy A&A Guadalcanal, it has an optional naval rule using this system. Both players wrote down on paper the naval moves, and then try to resolve it. The fans turned it down, and that was the easy edition with two player, imagine 8 players writing down moves for hundreds of units. Be my guest

@iwugrad:

.  So another possibility could be that Germany could decide whether to take Italians, Japanese, or Germans as casualties in a joint operation and Russia could decide whether to take their own or their ally. Â

this is exactly the same problem as you get when you attack a territory or seazone with defenders from several nations. Best way to solve is let Germany and Italy be played by the same person, and USA, France and UK by the same person. Unless you really want a 8 player game.

Well you did say it was for history buffs after all, and you know that thing about history… If no one writes it down nothing gets remembered! ;) haha

Yeah, so of course this system requires each player to bring a notepad, since it’s a basically a page per round, per player. But that’s not as burdensome as it sounds, because here game phases are strictly enforced, and everyone allots their moves at the same time. So it’s not like you’re sitting around, just waiting forever for the other guy to do all his moves, before you get a chance to go. The waiting around is what usually defeats a collapsed order (all Allies then all Axis etc) since nobody likes just rolling defense for an hour, while they wait for their side’s turn to come up. If you do everything at once, then the game has natural breaks by phase, so that game flow is preserved, and players don’t get bored.

Basically the way it works…

1. All players allot purchase and repair (purchase remains secret until the placement phase at the end of the round.)

2. Then all players write down their intended combat moves. (if you want to expand the blitz ability of armor during second tier of the combat phase, then any blitz moves through the lines could be written down at this point.)

3. Combat begins, all players reveal their moves at the same time. Heavy action and rolling for about 30 minutes to an hour.

a. Border Clashes (enemy armies crossing the same border must be resolved first.)
b. Normal Combat
c. Blitz Combat (blitz units that haven’t yet moved, may attempt to punch through the lines.)

Then there is another natural break in the action, as all players write down their non combat moves, and reinforce their positions.

4. All players reveal non com, place units, and collect income.

Then repeat into the next round.

It’s helpful to remove the restrictions on combat movement all together, and think of it not so much as a “combat” and “non combat” move, but as an “initial” move and “follow up” move. Initial Movement and Support Movement for example. This basically has to be written down, or else chaos ensues.

It actually takes less time to strictly enforce game phases and write down moves than you might expect. A timer can be helpful for this. It also prevents confusion, second guessing, or otherwise trying to exploit the order of battles.

From a gameplay standpoint, it is hard to support “retreating” under such a system. If you allow retreats in the midst of the combat phase then it really matters which battles occur first and which occur later. If you remove the retreat component then it doesn’t matter which order you run the battles in. You can alternate left side of the board first in one round, then right side of the board in the next (for variety) if you like. Once the moves are allotted, there is no going back to change them. This is why retreating in combat doesn’t work well, since it breaks with the “all moves allotted beforehand” idea. Basically you give up the attacker retreats dynamic, but you get other interesting gameplay dynamics in exchange. Its possible there may a way to handle retreating, but that was the main hang up for me.

If you’re curious what this would look like in the first round, most players will pull back and consolidate (especially their navies) if they are potentially at risk. So using an OOB board, this means the first round is often just positioning and set up.

This whole thing works a lot better, in terms of the game flow if you’re playing with more than 2 players (since the writing and the moves are much faster), and the actual dice rolling is more engaging, if you can split it up between 4 people.

I have only tried using a system like this on the Revised and AA50 boards. It basically busts the set up (though no more than an All Axis then All Allies turn order does) which is why I suggest more money. Awarding +1 ipc extra for a successful combat to take a territory for example. Or +5 for control of a VC. Or +10 for a capital, things like that. Since basically, more units are going to die per round.

Consider also how Navies move, which means you need more money to buy blocking units, and more money for air to run recon, and try to pin fleets. The same can be said of ground forces, though here the movement range is of course more limited. This type of gameplay gives a slight advantage to the attacker who can bring multiple armies across multiple borders into the territories they are attacking, which encourages more attack fanning and less stack pushing.

The main thing this type of game does is get rid of the “Omniscient General”, ie the player who knows exactly where the enemy is at all times, and exactly how many units they need to commit to a given attack/defense in order to beat the odds. Players who predominantly game Low Luck,  might find that aspect rather annoying, but I think this type of gameplay definitely accords better with the real character of warfare during the period. Basically you know where the units are at the beginning of the round, but you don’t know where they will end up during combat, (and you also don’t know which units will be placed when the combats and moves are all finished.) This means you basically have to hedge your bets, and be a little conservative sometimes, or maybe not, if you are willing to risk the consequences. There is more variability, obviously, and more TUV destroyed on average, since players will be allotting their moves while still in the fog.

Contrast this with the OOB game, where the current player has complete foreknowledge, they know how many units will be defending against their attack in any given battle. They can conduct their moves with total confidence (if they bring in another fighter say, or an extra inf unit), knowing what the odds on the outcome will be.

Instead, here, players will spend less time calculating everything out to the Nth degree, and more time actually fighting. The secret “write it down” phase, allows sufficient time for deliberation and strategic discussion with your teammates, but without stifling the action a thousand times during a given round, as players argue back and forth with their teammates about what to do. “You have to do this, because of such and such!” or “Dude if you don’t do Y, then we’re going to lose!” etc. You’ve all seen I’m sure, how that sort of constant strategic banter can disrupt a multi player game. In this situation, all that discussion is confined to one period, the allot move phase. And the discussion can be more nuanced, since you don’t know what your enemy will do. Its not like it is OOB, where there is often just one right play, and the more experienced player who sees it, has to convince his buddy to see it too. Does that make sense? Basically I think there are definite gameplay advantages to doing things this way, which could accelerate the game pace over OBB in certain aspects. Its not just a time sink, what you give up in time requirements in one respect, you gain back in another. Its just a very different way to play, but one that strikes me as more historically accurate to the character of World War 2.

Clearly this type of game, is going to need some kind of balancing mechanism over the OOB set up.

This is definitely the case if you’re talking about a Fully Collapsed turn order where all players go at once, simultaneously (where you have no “Turns” per se, just Phases and Rounds, since everyone moves simultaneously/secretly), but its also still the case in a collapsed turn order by side (All Axis then All Allies etc) since in either case, the OOB unit set up, the income and production spread, is not designed to support such a concept. The whole thing was built ground up TBS, which is why in the past I have argued against a collapsed turn order, in favor of a variable turn order (by Nation.) But if you do want to try collapsed order, then I suggest that you balance by starting income adjustment.

Its better to change the money values, than it would be to change the unit set up or distribution. The latter takes too much time to implement, and so fewer people will try it. If the board can use the same OOB unit set up, but just change the starting IPCs values of certain Nations to balance for the new rules, or just change the IPCs awarded for certain simple objectives (like taking a territory or a VC) to balance for the new rules, that is always better. Since its easy to adopt.