Improving Italy as a playable Power

I like barney’s idea.  That way who ever captures the territory gets the IPC.  The NO is a good idea as well.  I need to bounce this off our gaming group.  Some suggestions are definately better than others.

that sounds like a cool NO (Malta, Crete, Cyprus) Chris_Henry. Maybe make it worth 3 ? Or 2 ? That would make all 3 worth a collective 5. I wonder if 5 might be too much.

I agree LHoffman. A small Malta UK NO would be cool too. I wonder how you could word it so they don’t start with it ? Maybe Malta, Gib and Cyprus for 2 ?

@barney:

that sounds like a cool NO (Malta, Crete, Cyprus) Chris_Henry. Maybe make it worth 3 ? Or 2 ? That would make all 3 worth a collective 5. I wonder if 5 might be too much.

I agree LHoffman. A small Malta UK NO would be cool too. I wonder how you could word it so they don’t start with it ? Maybe Malta, Gib and Cyprus for 2 ?

If Italy takes Malta, Malta becomes a UK NO. 1 buck and the Italian player has to do a shot.

I tested some G40 games where we gave each valueless (named) island on the map a value of +1 ipc, as an objective bonus. The original goal was to enhance the Pacific game, but it had a pretty cool side effect of making the Med more fun as well. Sand and Sea, it was pretty important theater of operations after all. Often times the Torch campaign gets stalled up, because there’s just not a whole lot to do except hold Cairo or take Cairo. Giving the islands a role to play seems to help.

A more narrowly focused rule like +X for control of “the Mediterranean islands” would probably also work. Though I tend to prefer when the NOs treat such territories individually rather than as a large group. If grouped the Objective is a lot easier to disrupt. You figure, if someone is going to go through the effort of putting a transport at risk to take Crete, they should probably get something out of the deal hehe.
:-D

@barney:

that sounds like a cool NO (Malta, Crete, Cyprus) Chris_Henry. Maybe make it worth 3 ? Or 2 ? That would make all 3 worth a collective 5. I wonder if 5 might be too much.

I agree LHoffman. A small Malta UK NO would be cool too. I wonder how you could word it so they don’t start with it ? Maybe Malta, Gib and Cyprus for 2 ?

Agreed, +5 IPC’s is maybe too much, just spit balling ideas. +2 IPC’s would probably be better for sure.

I also agree with LHoffman that giving some kind of bonus to the Allies for holding it would be nice as well. It would be great to find a single rule that incentivized both the Allies to want to hold it and make the Axis want to take it. This is a bit farfetched, but what about making Malta similar to a convoy zone for the Allies. By that I mean at the same time you roll for the regular convoy zone IPC hits, you roll 1d6 for Malta as well and remove those IPC’s from Italy. Could make the UK do more to want to hold/defend it, and would almost certainly force the Axis to take it out.

I may be wrong about this but since Malta is original UK territory, it is already a UK N/O.  IPC’s for all original  UK territories.  Italy takes Malta and UK doen not get the bonus and it is alot easier for Italy to hold that then say, Kenya.  I do like giving the islands a value of 1 no matter who pocesses them.

@Dafyd:

I may be wrong about this but since Malta is original UK territory, it is already a UK N/O.  IPC’s for all original  UK territories.  Italy takes Malta and UK doen not get the bonus and it is alot easier for Italy to hold that then say, Kenya.  I do like giving the islands a value of 1 no matter who pocesses them.

You are correct about that UK NO, but use the ANZAC NO’s as an example. One of them gives a bonus for holding all original ANZAC territories, while the other gives a bonus for holding the Solomon’s, which is already an ANZAC territory. So that one overlaps, this wouldn’t be much different.

I’d also point out that the Italians taking Alexandria from the UK is much more plausible in the game as is and thus taking away the UK NO than them having any incentive to taking Malta.

@Dafyd:

I may be wrong about this but since Malta is original UK territory, it is already a UK N/O.� �IPC’s for all original� UK territories.� Italy takes Malta and UK doen not get the bonus and it is alot easier for Italy to hold that then say, Kenya.� I do like giving the islands a value of 1 no matter who pocesses them.

Personally, I think that the OOB NOs for the UK suck. They only have two, only one of which is for the European side, and it isn’t much of an incentive: 5 IPCs if the UK controls all original territories, or something like that.

1. That is already the general goal of all Powers: to retain or take back their original territories… so it is nothing special or specific.

2. It can be a difficult goal to attain because it is so unfocused. The UK has territories all over Africa, the mid-East and the Med… if even a single, out-of-the-way and IPC worthless one is taken, the NO cannot be collected. Some people may say this is fine, which in-and-of-itself there is nothing wrong with it, but it is Britain’s only NO and is usually not achievable for at least 50% of the game. Even more if Italy is played well.

I never considered it before but the Axis could land an infantry in Cyprus on Turn 1 and screw the UK out of 15-25 IPCs over the course of the game.

@LHoffman:

Personally, I think that the OOB NOs for the UK suck. They only have two, only one of which is for the European side, and it isn’t much of an incentive: 5 IPCs if the UK controls all original territories, or something like that.

Admiral Jackie Fisher believed that there were five strategic keys to the British empire and to the world economic system – all of which were located at vital maritime choke points and all of which Britain held.  They were: Gibraltar (controlling the western entrance to the Mediterranean), Alexandria (controlling the eastern entrance to the Mediterranean, i.e. the Suez Canal), Singapore (controlling the Strait of Malacca), the Cape of Good Hope (controlling the open-sea route between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans) and the Straits of Dover (controlling the narrowest part of the Englsh Channel).  Perhaps they could be worked into Britain’s national objectives in some way?

@CWO:

Admiral Jackie Fisher believed that there were five strategic keys to the British empire and to the world economic system – all of which were located at vital maritime choke points and all of which Britain held.  They were: Gibraltar (controlling the western entrance to the Mediterranean), Alexandria (controlling the eastern entrance to the Mediterranean, i.e. the Suez Canal), Singapore (controlling the Strait of Malacca), the Cape of Good Hope (controlling the open-sea route between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans) and the Straits of Dover (controlling the narrowest part of the Englsh Channel).  Perhaps they could be worked into Britain’s national objectives in some way?

Those do sound good. They do not have to all be maritime NOs, but those are more applicable to Britain than any other Power. I would just like to develop a couple more.

@LHoffman:

I would just like to develop a couple more.

A map of the British Empire in 1939 could be a good place to look for ideas because, in addition to Fisher’s list, Britain controlled additional maritime choke points around the world – or more precisely land territories overlooking maritime choke points.  Two examples I can think of would be Aden and the Falkland Islands, but there were probably others.  They’re imporatant for maritime reasons, but fundamentally they’re land-based objectives.

@CWO:

They’re imporatant for maritime reasons, but fundamentally they’re land-based objectives.

True, as most if not all would require a land-based occupation of territory. Something that really isn’t utilized in A&A is sea zone based occupation for NO bonuses. The old convoy system in A&A Europe is very close to what I am talking about, but also like the USSR’s NO “SZ 125 free of Axis warships”.

I suppose I am thinking of a hybrid between the two where you must have a combat sea unit in a given SZ to collect an NO. May go well with the ones you proposed for the UK. However, it would lock up a ship for pretty much the whole game. Depending on how you structure it, such an NO could foster more naval battles in certain areas. It is hard to tell.

@LHoffman:

However, it would lock up a ship for pretty much the whole game.

I think it might actually work the opposite way.  If we go by the principle that “freedom of the seas exists unless something challenges it”, we could assume that – to use Britain as an example – Britain doesn’t need to keep a ship at a strategic maritime choke point in order to collect trade income; rather, it’s the Axis that needs to put a ship there to stop Britain’s trade income.  It’s only in such a case that Britain would then have to eliminate the enemy interloper, either by sending in a ship of its own or by attacking the enemy ship with land-based aircraft…hence the usefullness of controlling land near a maritime choke point.

I made sz 114 a convoy zone. Uk gets 2 bucks if there are no axis warships/subs in it. Germany can usually shut it down early for a few turns. Forces Germany to burn another sub which is 6 less bucks going to Russia. There’s no AB support so it’s easier to trade. Makes for some more battle of the Atlantic action as well.

@CWO:

@LHoffman:

However, it would lock up a ship for pretty much the whole game.

I think it might actually work the opposite way.  If we go by the principle that “freedom of the seas exists unless something challenges it”, we could assume that – to use Britain as an example – Britain doesn’t need to keep a ship at a strategic maritime choke point in order to collect trade income; rather, it’s the Axis that needs to put a ship there to stop Britain’s trade income.  It’s only in such a case that Britain would then have to eliminate the enemy interloper, either by sending in a ship of its own or by attacking the enemy ship with land-based aircraft…hence the usefullness of controlling land near a maritime choke point.

I could definitely see how this could work. I’ve seen the HR somewhere where UK gets +5 IPC’s if no Axis warships are in the Atlantic, this would be similar to something of that nature. I wish Singapore was it’s own territory on the map separate from Malaya (and should be a VC, but that’s another matter), but holding Singapore could bring an NO, or be similar to other straights and canals and not allow enemy ships to pass through SZ’s 37 and 41 without holding Malaya. Similar to the Atlantic rule above, you could say that while at war with Japan the UK (and ANZAC?) get a +5 IPC NO for no Axis warships in the Indian Ocean, signifying supply routes.

To the general theme of UK NO’s though, this one may be too dramatic, but you could have like a “Commonwealth Army” NO. Whenever an ANZAC unit is on an originally controlled UK territory the UK gets +3 IPC’s, this showing how integral other forces were to supplementing British armies. I think of the 8th Army in Africa particularly to being dependent on Commonwealth support. Would work better if Canada and South Africa were there, but it could work. This could be applied to both the Europe and Pacific UK economies separately. Would encourage ANZAC to send a bit of support to Africa to help the UK Europe side. That, and would give those two ANZAC INF in Egypt at the beginning a bit more purpose than just a defensive presence. I don’t know, just thinking out loud.