G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

@Black_Elk:

Great feedback there. I like the broad sketches. It would be nice if “Axis Victory” felt like something achievable historically.

A realistic Axis victory, to expand a bit on my two earlier posts, could essentially be defined as “grab significant territory and show that you can hang on to it.”

I once read an interesting statement in a book on the American Civil War.  It argued that there were three possible outcomes to the war, and that two of those three outcomes amounted to a Confederate victory.  The Confederacy could invade and occupy the Union (a pretty improbable scenario), or it could simply hold on to its existing territory (something at which it was initially successful).  To win, the Union would have to invade and occupy the Confederacy (which it ultimately accomplished, but at the cost of four years of fighting).

In the WWII context of A&A, the situation isn’t quite that simple because the Axis isn’t fighting to keep the territory it controlled prior to the outbreak of war, it’s fighting to acquire more territory and then hold on to it.  There are, however, some rough parallels with the Civil War situation I described above.  For the Axis, the ideal (but improbable) outcome would have gone like this.  On the Western Front, Germany would have knocked Britain out of the war either by direct invasion (not likely in 1940, given its lack of preparation for an invasion) or an intensive submarine blockade (which might have been achivable if Germany had started preparing itself a couple of years earlier for such a naval strategy).  Depriving the Allies of the British Isles would have caused the Allies immense problems because Britain was the forward base from which they fought the war from 1940 to 1944.  In Africa, the ideal Axis outcome would have been complete Italian and German control of North Africa and the Horn of Africa.  On the Eastern Front, the ideal Axis outcome would have been conquering everything west of the Urals, where most of the USSR’s resources were located, and using the Urals as a natural long-term defensive barrier in the same way as the English Channel was used as a natural defensive line for Fortress Europe.  In the Pacific,  the ideal Axis outcome would have been a complete Japanese conquest (in addition to the ones they actually achieved) of Papua, the Solomons, the Ellice Islands, Samoa, Fiji and the New Hebrides, in order to cut the sea and air routes between North America and Australia and New Zealand.  Conquering Australia itself would have been too much of a challenge due to its size, but cutting it off would have made it more difficult for the Allies to use it as a forward base (in the same way that they used Britian as a forward base).  As for the China-Burma-India theatre, Japan’s best option in my opinion would have been to simply hold the line in Burma (to protect Malaya), to keep up its efforts to subvert India by political means, and to either hold the line in China or to pull back from the Chinese interior and settle for the coastal provinces it had already conquered.

This ideal Axis outcome, like the ideal “Confederacy invading and occupying the Union” scenario, was unachievable in my opinion.  The second-best Axis outcome, which like the “Confederacy holding on to its existing territory” scenario was more realistic, would have been what I described earlier as a sustainable stalemate.  (I won’t repeat its details here because they’re in my earlier posts.)  In Global 1940 game terms, I think they’d translate as follows if we include the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables which I described previously.  Essentially, a complete G40 game would have three major phases, with each phase corresponding to the three major phases of WWII: the period of Axis dominance, the “deep war” period, and the period of Allied dominance.

The first phase of the game would be the phase during which the Axis can make use of its military superiority to make early major territorial gains.  Ideally it can even achieve a complete victory in this phase (so there should be victory conditions which would produce an early Axis victory if the Axis players do a good job and/or the Allied players play badly).  More typically, however, this phase would be characterized by the Axis advancing significantly on all fronts and the Allies basically trying to survive.  An Allied victory in this phase is highly improbable, so the victory conditions should – for this phase – be just barely achievable for the Axis and quite unachievable by the Allies.

During the second phase of the game, both sides are engaged in a fairly balanced slugging match.  The Axis has benefited economically from its territorial conquests, but these benefits are starting to level off towards a plateau as Allied attritional warfare begains to have an effect (as simulated by the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables I’ve discussed).  The Allies have stopped the Axis offensive, but are not yet strong enough to push back significantly.  The Allies have suffered economically from their loss of territory, but the mobilization of their economy (the rebuilding of Soviet factories east of the Urals and the US shift to a wartime economy) are starting  to pay dividends.  During this phase, the Axis and Allied victory conditions should be more balanced than in the first phase (when only the Axis powers had any prospect of achieving theirs), but they should not be easy to achieve for either side.  For the Axis, this phase should probably be the last one in which the Axis has a chance to win by capturing victory cities.

During the third phase of the game, the Axis powers should be feeling a serious bite from the effects of attritional warfare, while the Allies should be reaping the full benefits of their industrial mobilization (again, as reflected by the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables).  During this phase, in which the Allies finally have the cash to achieve military superiority, an Allied victory by the capture of victory cities should become possible.  The flip side is that the Allies can only win by capturing victory cities: it’s in the same position as the Union in my Civil War example, because to win the Union had to invade and occupy the Confederacy.  The Axis, for its part, is now trying to survive (as were the Allies in the first phase).  The Axis is in no position to win by capturing victory cities…but it can still achieve a “vistocy through indefinite stalemante” by hanging on to what it has and/or perpetually throwing back back the Allies every time the Allies make gains.  It’s at this point that a game-round limit would kick in.  Basically, if the Axis can maintain a perpetual stalemate over X number of rounds during phase three, when the Allies are at their peak power (as reflected by the time-based, country-specific economic adjustment tables), then the Axis has proved that its conquests are sustainable and it wins on that basis.

@CWO:

I’m going to take another crack at a subject that I’ve discussed a few times, which is is the subject of victory conditions.� As I’ve argued previously, I think that it’s a fundamental consideration to any game design process because it provides a central reference point for evaluating all the other elements of the game.� My feeling is that without such a reference point, one simply ends up with a collection of cool game mechanics that aren’t held together by anything coherent.

This is foundational to Axis&Allies and any redesign needs to start here and keep this in mind throughout the process. Otherwise we get what Marc very aptly points out: “cool mechanics held together by nothing [or little that is] coherent.” Well put.

The cool mechanics need to relate back to advancing your objectives in winning the game.

@CWO:

the Axis powers have to achieve such-and-such an objective by such-and-such a round of play; if they succeed, the Axis powers win; if they fail, the Allied powers win.� Ergo, we end up with a game that has a built-in time limit, or more correctly a built-in round limit. That was my first idea.� I didn’t really like it because although it has the virtue of being simple it has the defect of being simplistic.

It is somewhat simplistic and it does put a hard time limit on things (which honestly I have never liked), but it is possibly the most accurate way to simulate political and social fatigue in a game. A few hours among friends is fun. A few years of harrowing world war and bloody death and suffering is something else entirely.

@CWO:

Specifically, we need to look at what “winning the war” would have meant in realistic terms on both the German side and the Japanese side in WWII.

It would never have been feasible for Japan or Germany to conquer the world. I do not believe that was even the expressed intent of either one. The objectives described in the back of the 1940 Europe Rulebook for Global do a pretty good job of fundamentally describing the Axis motivations and goals for war.

Germany = Lebensraum: This sort of evolved into continental Europe domination but mainly consists of the ideologically and resource motivated takeover of Poland, Eastern Europe, Russia and the Caucasus extending to the Middle East. The only capital they really need to focus on is Moscow, though London is still an option for gameplay purposes.

Italy = Mare Nostrum: Mediterranean dominance and a revived Roman Empire. Even though the Roman Empire was huge during its time, in 1940 and in terms of A&A this is a relatively limited objective comprising the Med, Southern Europe and North Africa/the Mid East. With Germany’s help this is an achievable goal.

Japan = Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Just as racially motivated and subjugation-centric as Nazism, this is also a pretty specific and geographically limited goal. That stretch of geography is huge, but Japan was able to achieve its objectives about 75% complete by the time they really started losing the war. China was a problem that staggers the imagination and needs to be better represented in the game.

With the Axis having the initiative in the game, they should dictate the victory conditions. By that I mean, they are the ones with specific victory conditions that need to be reached. If the Allies can survive the early going and push the Axis back and assault their capitals, then the Allies win.

@CWO:

How could we define “winning conditions” for Germany in this context?� Physically overrunning Britain proved impossible because of the Channel and physically overrunning Russia proved impossible because of its sheer size, so we can rule out physical conquest as an indicator of victory.� The number two option then becomes getting Britain and Russia to quit.� All in all, however, Britain and the USSR were too strongly motivated to capitulate unless their resources were exhausted – and neither ever go to that point.� The number three option then becomes achieving a sustainable stalemate on each front.�

Good analysis. While sustainable stalemate is plausible, I don’t think that anyone wants that for a resolution in a boardgame.  :wink:

@CWO:

if the Germans can achieve this on the game board, and can sustain it for long enough, they can be considered to have won by default because they’re holding on to their gains no matter how hard the Allies try to defeat them.�

Yes. Same for Japan. If a Turn Limit Victory is enacted, it should be on the Allies. A Turn Limit Victory for the Axis is somewhat redundant: if the Axis are not achieving their objectives over time the Allies will by design get bigger and harder to defeat and eventually begin to crush the Axis. This is already built into the game and IMO does not require a Turn Limit rule.

Actually, to avoid the hard Turn limit, I would propose that if the Axis achieve their objectives and can hold them for 2 Turns they can be said to have achieved victory by staving off the Allies and exhausting their will to continue to oppose them. Said Axis objectives do not necessarily include taking Ally capitals, but it could. I would go so far as to say that you could split the Axis victory… Japan and Germany(w/Italy) can achieve victory separate from one another. E.g. if Japan achieves objectives and holds for 2 turns, they have “won” and the war ends for them, even if Germany is still fighting. At that point the US and Britain could turn all their attention to Germany. How this would work out in gameplay I don’t really know.

@CWO:

I’m not going to analyze Japan’s situation in much detail because, frankly, I don’t think Japan ever had much of a chance to win.� In my opinion, Japan’s only realistic chance of achieving sustainable conquests in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would have been if it had done something that can’t be modeled into A&A (because it would distort the game too badly): attacking the British and Dutch colonial territories it wanted, but not going to war against the US.� Japan’s vague strategic hope was that the Americans would get tired of fighting a losing war against Japan, and would eventually sit down to negotiate a treaty that would allow Japan to keep its gains.� This hope would only have worked if Japan had left it up to the US to decide if it wanted to enter WWII, and thus if the US had gone to war without the powerful motivation and the sense of outrage that Pearl Harbor caused.�

This is an interesting and valid point, but I don’t know that attacking the US (or at least bringing them into the war against Japan) can be avoided in the game. To achieve their Greater-East Asia objective Japan must attack the UK. In the OOB political rules, Japan attacking the UK brings the US into the war against Japan, even if Japan does not attack the US directly. This rule should be preserved and would ensure that the US will always fight Japan.

@LHoffman:

A few years of harrowing world war and bloody death and suffering is something else entirely.

Lt. Commander Worf: There are six trials we must face on the path to Kal’Hyah. This is the first - deprivation. We now begin a fast that will continue until the day of the wedding.
Captain Sisko: What are the other five trials?
Lt. Commander Worf: Blood, pain, sacrifice, anguish, and death.
Doctor Bashir: Sounds like marriage alright.

@CWO:

A realistic Axis victory, to expand a bit on my two earlier posts, could essentially be defined as “grab significant territory and show that you can hang on to it.”

Your entire post here makes me happy that we are saying almost the exact same things simultaneously.

@CWO:

@LHoffman:

A few years of harrowing world war and bloody death and suffering is something else entirely.

Lt. Commander Worf: There are six trials we must face on the path to Kal’Hyah. This is the first - deprivation. We now begin a fast that will continue until the day of the wedding.
Captain Sisko: What are the other five trials?
Lt. Commander Worf: Blood, pain, sacrifice, anguish, and death.
Doctor Bashir: Sounds like marriage alright.

Haha! I am a huge Star Trek fan. Very apt quote from Worf.

Another that I often use comes from Worf sitting in front of plates upon plates of food and a piece of meat in his hand: “It has been a difficult day!”

On the subject of carrier damage, I once floated the idea that carrier based fighters should have to spend every other turn during combat on a friendly carrier refueling/rearming. Essentially, carrier planes had just enough of each for ONE attack on the enemy fleet before having to return to recharge. Perhaps this needs to be factored when considering the effect of carrier damage; e.g. a damaged CV can hold/resupply only one fighter.

This is similar to my suggestion that every ship should have to refuel at a friendly port EACH AND EVERY GAME ROUND.

The point I was getting at regarding armoured CVs is that they in effect were self-repairing, while the old wooden tops needed extensive repairs at NBs.

The point of the suggested curve for Axis progress is to give them a realistic schedule for expansion, requiring continual attacks in the early stages. Drop far below the curve and they lose the game, they must push over it for victory.

Example: the equivalent of Fall 1941.

Germany is slogging into Russia, Japan is bogged down in China. Several VCs need to be taken to keep the Axis above the “defeat” threshold for that turn. Several VCs sit in the Pacific, relatively weakly defended. A bold attack could take Singapore, Manilla & Jakarta, and place Sydney and Hawaii within achievable range. This then draws Japan into a Pacific war, even though it means war with the USA. America in turn will notice that with Japan within range of Australia, & Germany at the gates of Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Axis could win in a round or two, so it has to engage in a Pacific war now rather than build up for the regulation long-term economic squeeze on Germany.

Without such a curve, America will simply ignore the Pacific; while default Axis strategy of KRF will send those Japanese tanks pinging off towards Moscow rather than going east to help defend the Pacific perimeter.

Another factor that can be worked in here is oil reserves - the Axis moves towards NEE & the Caucasus were largely driven by the need for fuel; e.g. they need to hold enough oil tts on round X to continue their war efforts.

I agree that a four player game should give each of the 4 blocks individual victory goals; fighting mutual enemies should be co-incidental. There should be no sharing of tt between “allies”, nor “liberating” of original allied tt.
This also has the obvious advantage that if A & B concentrate on destroying C, then D will walk away with the game; therefore you must balance efforts equally against each enemy.

In general, I would say we should not make things so overly complex just to attain a bit more realism and improve game play.  Just my opinion.  But AARHe (Revised Historical Edition) had pages upon pages of extra rules and it made it tough to find opponents….

Having planes land every other round for rearmament might be more realistic (for all battles, only so much they could take with them after all!) but it adds complexity where, IMHO, it isn’t needed to balance game play or enhance the game experience.

Requiring capitol ships to be in “port” with a friendly IC/SY adds both reality and enhances the game (you damaged it, now it either retreats or lives with the damage and presses on!)

Just my personal opinion, feel free to disagree.

@Flashman:

On the subject of carrier damage, I once floated the idea that carrier based fighters should have to spend every other turn during combat on a friendly carrier refueling/rearming. Essentially, carrier planes had just enough of each for ONE attack on the enemy fleet before having to return to recharge. Perhaps this needs to be factored when considering the effect of carrier damage; e.g. a damaged CV can hold/resupply only one fighter.

Agree with Jennifer here… The idea sounds like reality, but I suspect there would be a lot of pushback on such a rule. It reduces the utility of aircraft and changes a simple and well established mechanic in a small way, but it isn’t a change that really improves upon much. IMO

A single fighter piece represents more than simply one aircraft though. Since it is just a representation of a much larger force, it can be accepted that part of the force is attacking at all times while the other portion is refueling and rearming as you say.

@Flashman:

This is similar to my suggestion that every ship should have to refuel at a friendly port EACH AND EVERY GAME ROUND.

Same… seems like it would really clog up gameplay and logistics. They wouldn’t be able to make it anywhere on the board. Again, if a Power’s Turn is accepted to be about 6 months of time, it is reasonable to assume that your ships (and other units) have been able to fight, rearm, refuel and reposition themselves in half a year.

This and the fighter issue are tactical and logistic considerations that really aren’t well suited to a game on this scale. If this were A&A the miniature game, it would be a different story.

@Flashman:

The point I was getting at regarding armoured CVs is that they in effect were self-repairing, while the old wooden tops needed extensive repairs at NBs.

That isn’t a bad point or special rule. It is actually interesting to think of an Advantage for the UK along those lines. Personally I would still keep all Fleet Carriers at 2 hits.

@Flashman:

The point of the suggested curve for Axis progress is to give them a realistic schedule for expansion, requiring continual attacks in the early stages. Drop far below the curve and they lose the game, they must push over it for victory.

America in turn will notice that with Japan within range of Australia, & Germany at the gates of Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Axis could win in a round or two, so it has to engage in a Pacific war now rather than build up for the regulation long-term economic squeeze on Germany.

Without such a curve, America will simply ignore the Pacific; while default Axis strategy of KRF will send those Japanese tanks pinging off towards Moscow rather than going east to help defend the Pacific perimeter.

A curve of success that the Axis must maintain is an interesting concept. I like that it can work to keep the Allies honest, like you mentioned in fighting Japan. However, my concern would that be if the Axis simply can’t hold the objective curve for some reason, even if they are not really losing the game by anyone’s measure, then the game could end pretty abruptly without the Allies having done much of anything but weather the storm for a bit.

Some compelling reasons must be given for everyone to actually fight each other. Or rather for the Allies to fight Japan and not just ignore them because Russia/Germany is where the war is won. I think there may need to be a balance of political, strategic and economic Objectives or Rules that foster the need to fight Japan simultaneous to Germany… at least to some degree. You don’t want to script the game, but at the same time you want to funnel the gameplay toward some balance of realism and fun.

@Flashman:

Another factor that can be worked in here is oil reserves - the Axis moves towards NEE & the Caucasus were largely driven by the need for fuel; e.g. they need to hold enough oil tts on round X to continue their war efforts.

Intellectually, I am all for incorporating oil into the game because it was such a strong strategic motivator, particularly for the Axis.

At the same time, I do not wish to add another phase to the game or more limitations on units because of it. (I have read over HBGs Oil Rules for GW1939 and my initial reaction was “Oh crap, how the heck do you get anything done?” Especially the Axis because they have so little.

I have considered just adding a bit more value to a territory IPC-wise, but it doesn’t convey the same motivation. A couple extra IPCs won’t make or break your ability to operate. Supposedly, territory values in regular A&A are supposed to imply the possession of resources like oil. Always wondered why then the Caucasus and Mid-East were so low in value…

@Flashman:

I agree that a four player game should give each of the 4 blocks individual victory goals; fighting mutual enemies should be co-incidental. There should be no sharing of tt between “allies”, nor “liberating” of original allied tt.

This is interesting also. Germany and Japan never got into the position of having to jointly defend a territory. Neither, really, did the USSR and the Western Allies. Germany and Italy and the US/UK/ANZAC were the only ones to truly attack together and defend together.

Having a rule limiting who can jointly occupy territories would solve some problems and maybe bring others up. I like the thought though.

I disagree with the carrier rule above as well. My reasoning for it is based on how long a turn is supposed to represent. If a turn represents 6 months (or even 1 month in this particular case) it wouldn’t be realistic anyways to have to have a whole turn dedicated to “refueling and resupply”. In fact, I think that would make it even less realistic. We must remember the time scope being encompassed in each game round. A single turn would realistically represent multiple recons, battles, missions, etc. that would have taken place in that time frame. Same as with land combat representing essentially a whole campaign of battles and not just a single battle. Yes, if a single turn was only 10 days or something I would totally be more on board with restrictions such as this, but that isn’t the case. Refueling, resupply, refitting, combat, recon, repairs, etc., all are simulated within that one turn that represents one or multiple months.

@LHoffman:

Some compelling reasons must be given for everyone to actually fight each other. Or rather for the Allies to fight Japan and not just ignore them because Russia/Germany is where the war is won. I think there may need to be a balance of political, strategic and economic Objectives or Rules that foster the need to fight Japan simultaneous to Germany… at least to some degree. You don’t want to script the game, but at the same time you want to funnel the gameplay toward some balance of realism and fun.

Interesting discussion.  Perhaps the way to find a good solution is to look at what’s the most problematic case in both real life and in the OOB game Japan vs. the United States.

In Europe in real life, the UK and France (in the west) and the USSR (in the east) all had strong motivations to fight Germany (in the middle), and Germany had strong motivations to fight them, so it’s not problematic to translate that motivation into game terms.  That area of the game map has a high concentration of capitals in a small amount of space, and it contains a lot of IPC-rich territories, so it’s a high-profit area to fight over.

Japan and the US are another story, as is the low-capital-density and (on the game map) mostly-IPC-less-island Asia-Pacific theatre in general.  From a purely objective, detached, rational point of view (not the kind of viewpoint which characterized a lot of leaders of that era), Japan had good reasons not to fight the US, and the US had good reasons to view Germany as a vastly more dangerous threat than Japan.  As I’ve mentioned previously, Japan was already getting overstretched in China when it set out to conquer the DEI and Malaysia (its prime economic targets), so a sensible policy for Tokyo would have been to apply the old adage “Don’t make more enemies than you have to.”  Setting out to conquer the DEI and Malaysia was achievable – and in fact was achieved – by Japan because Holland and Britain were already busy (to put it mildly) halfway around the world in their war against Germany.  Grabbing those territories without going to war against the US would have put Roosevelt in a very awkward position because of the strong US domestic isolationist lobby.  The isolationists didn’t oppose the US going to war as such; they opposed the US going to war unless the US was attacked.  It would have been a hard sell for Roosevelt to go to war without being attacked first: domestic opposition would have been strong, and the public would not have been as highly motivated as it proved to be after Pearl Harbor because the US would technically have been an aggressor nation rather than the injured party (i.e. the victim of a treacherous sneak attack rising up in righteous indignation to fight a just war of self-defense).  It probably would have happened sooner or later, but they domestic political dynamics (which were an important motivational factor) would have been different.

Also weighing against a Japanese-American war were a few other awkward details.  On the Japanese side, Japan didn’t have enough men (due to its commitments in China) or enough maritime shipping capacity (logistics not being their strong suit) to fight a sustained war in the Asia-Pacific theatre…especially with the US as one of its enemies.  Japan’s vast perimeter of control in the central Pacific wasn’t something it acquired from scratch when the war started: most of it consisted of islands which Japan has acquired as mandate territories after WWI.  Japan simply added a few missing pieces like Guam and Wake and the Gilberts from late 1941 to mid 1942.  Keeping those remote island bases supplied proved difficult for Japan as the war progressed.  (This is one reason why Japan could probably never have occupied the Hawaiian Islands, even though they did think about invading them: the huge logistical challenge this would have implied.)  On the American side, a strong factor weighing against a Japanese-American war was the realization that Nazi Germany had to be the priority.  Despite the outrage that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused, the US agreed with Britain on a “Germany First” overall strategy.  The fact that the US fought Japan to any significant extent in 1942 was, in a sense, simply a reflection of the fact that America’s considerable naval strength was of little direct use in fighting a land war in Europe, and that therefore it might as well be put to good use fighting an oceanic war against Japan.

So…how do we realistically give Japan and the US a strong motivation to fight each other in Global 1940, without simply scripting it into the rules?  I don’t know (or at least I haven’t thought of a plausible answer yet), but there’s at least one thing that seems clear: the rules have to make it impossible for the Axis to win the war by having Japan march across Asia towards Moscow in support of its German ally.  This would have been utterly impossible for Japan to do so in real life.  Japan barely got a toehold of Russian/Mongolian territory when it fought its border wars with the USSR in 1938 and 1939, and it ultimately lost those conflicts.  Marching two or three thousand miles across Siberia to Moscow (including a climb over or through the Urals) would be sheer fantasy, and a deployment by train would have to be based on the assumption that the Japanese could capture and hold (and defend from partisan sabotage and Red Air Force attack) a couple of thousand miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway.  And remember too that Japan wasn’t exactly making stellar progress in that other very large and very populous country where it had been fighting since 1937: China.

@Chris_Henry:

I disagree with the carrier rule above as well. My reasoning for it is based on how long a turn is supposed to represent. If a turn represents 6 months (or even 1 month in this particular case) it wouldn’t be realistic anyways to have to have a whole turn dedicated to “refueling and resupply”. In fact, I think that would make it even less realistic. We must remember the time scope being encompassed in each game round. A single turn would realistically represent multiple recons, battles, missions, etc. that would have taken place in that time frame. Same as with land combat representing essentially a whole campaign of battles and not just a single battle. Yes, if a single turn was only 10 days or something I would totally be more on board with restrictions such as this, but that isn’t the case. Refueling, resupply, refitting, combat, recon, repairs, etc., all are simulated within that one turn that represents one or multiple months.

I can see why people don’t like the idea; perhaps a more feasible variant would be that you cannot take carriers as casualties before the fighters they support. That is, after each round of combat you must demonstrate that all fighters are effectively supported by surviving carrier capacity, and thus able to continue. This should include damaged carriers only supporting one fighter, so if you choose to use CVs to absorb hits you must reduce the number of fighters you can sustain in the battle.

@CWO:

Interesting discussion.  Perhaps the way to find a good solution is to look at what’s the most problematic case in both real life and in the OOB game Japan vs. the United States.

In Europe in real life, the UK and France (in the west) and the USSR (in the east) all had strong motivations to fight Germany (in the middle), and Germany had strong motivations to fight them, so it’s not problematic to translate that motivation into game terms.  That area of the game map has a high concentration of capitals in a small amount of space, and it contains a lot of IPC-rich territories, so it’s a high-profit area to fight over.

Japan and the US are another story…

If I could give this post 2+, I would. Very well said, even if we don’t yet have a solution. This is a great identification of one of, if not THE, trickiest aspect of A&A to make realistic. Europe pretty much takes care of itself. But Asia/Pacific is another story… It is very easy for Japan in a boardgame to over-achieve immensely compared to what was even plausible in real life. I do not want to script the game or place undue limitations on it, but if we want to avoid a cross-Asia run on China and the USSR, which often happens, we need to institute rules or objectives which steer gameplay from that possibility. One of the hardest things to do in a game of this scale is to accurately depict the geographic challenges involved in fighting a world war. If we care about realism at all, I think this needs to be taken into account somehow. Doesn’t mean we need to make certain things completely impossible, just that doing them certain ways will be very, very difficult or near impossible.

@LHoffman:

It is very easy for Japan in a boardgame to over-achieve immensely compared to what was even plausible in real life. I do not want to script the game or place undue limitations on it, but if we want to avoid a cross-Asia run on China and the USSR, which often happens, we need to institute rules or objectives which steer gameplay from that possibility. One of the hardest things to do in a game of this scale is to accurately depict the geographic challenges involved in fighting a world war. If we care about realism at all, I think this needs to be taken into account somehow. Doesn’t mean we need to make certain things completely impossible, just that doing them certain ways will be very, very difficult or near impossible.

I hesitate to put this idea forward because the Japan/US problem (or actually the triple Japan/US Japan/USSR Japan/China problem) needs a comprehensive solution, and this idea is just one fragment that’s not sufficient by itself…but for whatever it’s worth, here it is.

A problem with the game map is that – for various practical reasons – it distorts the size and shape of many land and sea areas.  China is one example: I once estimated that China on the game map is about half as wide as it ought to be relative to its height, with most of the compression located in the western half of the country.  I haven’t done similar estimate for the USSR, but my guess is that it too is much narrower on the game map than it ought to be.  This makes it possible for Japan to march westward across both countries, whereas in reality Japan never penetrated more than one-quarter to one-third of the way into the Chinese interior and never made significant inroads of any kind into the USSR during the WWII era.  In the game, both countries should be impossible for Japan to overrun; grabbing pieces of them sounds fine, but getting all the way to the Himalayas and Moscow does not.

Some proposals have been made in the past to add more territories to the USSR, as a way of slowing down Japan.  I can see the advantages of this, but it involves redrawing the map; my preference is to use the OOB map and find a different solution.  One geographic feature which caught my eye were the map’s impassable terrains, like the Himalayas.  The concept of impassable terrains can’t be used directly to solve the Japan/USSR and Japan/China problems, for two reasons: we shouldn’t make China and the USSR totally impassable, and we shouldn’t use solutions that involve redrawing the map.  The concept of impassable terrains could, however, be adapted in the following way.  When pushing into China and the USSR, Japan could be confronted with “difficult” rather than inpassable terrain, the “difficulty” representing both the challenging nature of the terrain itself and the increasing logistical challenge of supporting the advancing Japanese forces as they go further and further inland and keep stretching their supply lines.  This “difficulty factor” could be represented by something as simple as putting coloured mini poker chips on the map, which have to be removed one at a time (one chip per round) before Japan can advance to the next territory in line.

To give an arbitrary example, let’s look at the shortest route between Japanese-occupied Jehol and Moscow.  Chahar might be given 0 terrain chips (no adjustment), Suiyuan and Kansu might each get 1 terrain chip, and Novosibirsk and Samara might each get 2 terrain chips.  As a result, moving from Jehol to Chahar could be done in 1 turn, moving from Chahar to Suiyuan could be done in 1 turn, but moving from Suiyuan to Kansu would take 2 turns [1 chip removal turn + 1 movement turn], moving from Kansu to Novosibirsk would take 2 turns, moving from Novosibirsk to Samara would take 3 turns, and moving from Samara to Russia (and thus Moscow) would take 3 turns.  Not impossible, but not easy.  To keep some options open for Japan, there could be a related rule saying that Japan can speed up this advance (which we could assume is being done by infantry) but at a substantial cost and/or with substantial restrictions (for example by requiring Japan to ditch its infantry and advance exclusively with more expensive mechanized infantry).

I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.

Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.

The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.

Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.

@CWO:

A problem with the game map is that – for various practical reasons – it distorts the size and shape of many land and sea areas.� China is one example: I once estimated that China on the game map is about half as wide as it ought to be relative to its height, with most of the compression located in the western half of the country.� I haven’t done similar estimate for the USSR, but my guess is that it too is much narrower on the game map than it ought to be.

I just made this comment in a thread on the Global War board about the new HBG map for Global War. The style of the map is great but there are significant distortions from a geographic perspective. I realize some distortion is necessary to fit a sphere onto a rectangle of a given aspect ratio. Not to mention that some territories must be re-sized because they are more important/travelled/utilized and/or stacked with pieces… like Japan and England.

However, this is more of an artistic problem than a geographic one. The real issue is how territories are broken up and how many there are when representing distance or natural obstacles. My assumption is that game designers take these factors into account when creating the map, but I have been wrong to assume such consideration before…

@CWO:

Some proposals have been made in the past to add more territories to the USSR, as a way of slowing down Japan.� I can see the advantages of this, but it involves redrawing the map; my preference is to use the OOB map and find a different solution.� One geographic feature which caught my eye were the map’s impassable terrains, like the Himalayas.

I have come to the point where I no longer find the OOB G40 map to be sufficient for me. I think it could be improved in many ways and my ideal is something along the lines of HBG’s Global War map, but even that could use some tweaking for my tastes. I will never find a perfect solution so I am starting to embark on creating my own. Right now it is more of an exercise to test my ideas and manipulate the map in a way to fix some of these geographic challenges we have been discussing. I want it to be very similar to HBG’s map, because I like a lot of the elements and the framework. Their new map looks cool, but as I said, I have some issues with it and would like some explanations.

@CWO:

The concept of impassable terrains can’t be used directly to solve the Japan/USSR and Japan/China problems, for two reasons: we shouldn’t make China and the USSR totally impassable, and we shouldn’t use solutions that involve redrawing the map.� The concept of impassable terrains could, however, be adapted in the following way.� When pushing into China and the USSR, Japan could be confronted with “difficult” rather than inpassable terrain, the “difficulty” representing both the challenging nature of the terrain itself and the increasing logistical challenge of supporting the advancing Japanese forces as they go further and further inland and keep stretching their supply lines.� This “difficulty factor” could be represented by something as simple as putting coloured mini poker chips on the map, which have to be removed one at a time (one chip per round) before Japan can advance to the next territory in line.�

Interesting idea. I have toyed with the idea of making up some vaguely reasonable rule that would essentially serve the same purpose (bogging down passage across Asia), but it would be more of a legislative act than your tangible and visual representation. Either one could work, but my idea could be viewed as more red tape where as yours is a bit more concrete and therefore acceptable.

@Flashman:

I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.

Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.

The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.

Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.

Yes! I agree totally. Splitting up the Axis victory is the quickest way to get Japan away from trekking to Moscow because it no longer has a vested interest for doing so. It is, as you said, an unnecessary waste of men, materiel and time.

I was thinking more on the Prestige victory concept last night and wondered how it could be tracked. Certainly a combination of IPC income, holding of victory cities or strategic resource areas could all play a part. The challenge is finding a simple metric. The easiest may be straight up IPC income at the end of your turn. It sort of amalgamates the characteristics of having a certain amount of territory, high value territories and (with NO bonuses) indicates the achievement of strategic objectives. This would also force the Allies to fight for said strategic resource centers or victory cities to some degree, or just to take as much territory back as possible. Islands (if given IPC value) could become relevant.

The problem of the USA/UK just letting Japan win so they can focus on Germany could be avoided by stating that for the any of the Allies to be able to “win” the game, they must defeat both Japan and Germany. No one side has to take both Axis capitals, they just have to both be taken. The US/UK could take Japan and the USSR could take Germany, but the winner would then be calculated by prestige points somehow. I think this would foster the needed amount of competition between the Western Allies and the USSR.

EDIT: just found this on another thread in House Rules. May be a good start in drafting a Prestige Victory system. Never heard of this game before.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36589.msg1451991#msg1451991

@Black_Elk:

Infantry or other units, instead of being “frozen” in place, might just have their attack value reduced -1 or something like that, when operating in difficult terrain.

Would this mean that they could actually not be able to attack (having a 0 value)… those not supported by artillery.

@Flashman:

I think more and more that a Victory/Presteige Curve for the Axis is the best way of de-activating the Moscow Tank Magnet.

Japan should strike south-east because that is where its main objectives lie - Victory Cities (which in my suggestion it must capture after a certain point in the game to sustain Axis presteige) and/or oil reserves.

The empty wastes of Siberia and north west China offer nothing in comparison. Only if ultimate economic victory is the sole winning condition does the Russia crush become default Axis strategy.

Also, with individual victory objectives it makes no sense for Japan to expend resourses capturing what should be a German/Italian target.

These are good points.  Here’s a revised proposal that incorporates some of the ideas from today’s discussion.  It’s still missing the answer to two crucial questions, but I think it resolves plausibly several of the problems that have been raised.  I was hoping to find a solution to those two remaining questions before posting this message, but I’m a bit rushed at the moment…so I’ll post what I have so far.

1. Japan needs to have a powerful (and credible) motivation in the game to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.  In WWII, Japan did have such a motivation: oil.  When Japan (with Vichy acquiescence) occupied French IndoChina, the US responded by hitting Japan with an oil embargo.  This embargo posed a deadly threat to the Japanese Empire; as I recall, Japan calculated that its oil reserves would last at best two years, so Japan had to take action to secure new supplies of oil (of which it had none domestically) before its stocks ran out.  The Dutch East Indies were the most practical source that could be acquired by conquest.  There were also other very important strategic raw materials nearby – such as rubber from Malaya – so these resources added further incentives for Japan to go to war in that region.  Oil, however, was the central consideration.

2. This dependence on oil – and hence this strong motivation for Japan to attack the DEI – could be built into the game as one element of those country-specific, time-dependent IPC adjustment tables that I discussed earlier.  And it would be easy to do, in my opinion.  The nominal starting date of Global 1940 is early June 1940, and France is already programmed to fall almost immediately.  Japan first entered FIC in late June, and took full control of FIC in late September 1940.  So our modified rules could plausibly include a provision which automatically puts a Japanese presence in FIC soon after the game begins, thus triggering (in the game’s invisible economic background) the American oil embargo.  The time-dependent IPC adjustment tables would, from that point onward, adjust Japan’s IPC income further and further downward unless Japan captures the DEI.  This would basically force the Japanese player to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, because otherwise Japan’s IPC income will eventually melt to zero (or close to zero).

3. Japan already starts the game at war with China.  The Japanese invasion of the DEI (which is now almost obligatory under the rules just described) will automatically put Japan at war with the UK, ANZAC, France (nominally) and Holland (nominally), since these were all Allied powers who were at war with Japan’s ally Germany.  However, the Japanese invasion of the DEI will not automatically put Japan at war with the USSR,  nor with the US (unless Japan attacks US-controlled territories as part of its campaign of conquest).  As I mentioned earlier, it would have been logical for Japan not to attack the US in WWII , so let’s assume that the Japanese player (if given a free hand) will only go to war against the “European imperialist colonial powers”.

4. On paper, we’ve now solved the problem of forcing Japan into a state of war with the UK and ANZAC (and France and Holland).  However, we still need two more things: getting the US to enter the war against Japan, and giving the Allied powers a strong motivation to fight Japan actively.  Without such a motivation, the Allies could simply dismiss the Asia-Pacific theatre as a backwater and let Japan run wild there while they concentrate on beating Germany in the European theatre.  With such a motivation, on the other hand, we can solve several problems:

• The US would be at war with Japan rather than at peace.

• The US, the UK and ANZAC (and nominally France) would all be fighting a vigorous war against Japan, rather than settling for a technical state of war and letting Japan run wild.

• The vigorous war fought by the Allied powers against Japan in the Asia-Pacific theatre would force Japan to defend itself, and therefore force it to fight vigorously rather than just resting on its laurels and being satisfied with the territories it has acquired.

• By having to fight vigorously in the Asia-Pacific theatre, in addition to fighting a war in China, Japan would not have the resources (and historically did not have the resources) to get embroiled in a war against the USSR.  So this would solve the Japan/USSR problem: if we can ensure that Japan has to fight for its life in the Asia-Pacific theatre, it won’t dare go to war against the USSR because diverting resources towards Russia would expose Japan to rapid defeat in the Asia-Pacific theatre.

5. So the double-barreled question that now has to be solved is: how do we get Japan and the US into a war against each other, and how do we ensure that the US, the UK and ANZAC will fight so hard against Japan that Japan won’t dare go to war against the USSR?  I’m still thinking about those two questions, but I’m encouraged to see that we have the outline of a plausible overall solution, and that if we can answer those two questions then we’ll have have solved (I think) the other problems too.

@CWO:

2. This dependence on oil – and hence this strong motivation for Japan to attack the DEI – could be built into the game as one element of those country-specific, time-dependent IPC adjustment tables that I discussed earlier.  And it would be easy to do, in my opinion.  The nominal starting date of Global 1940 is early June 1940, and France is already programmed to fall almost immediately.  …  So our modified rules could plausibly include a provision which automatically puts a Japanese presence in FIC soon after the game begins, thus triggering (in the game’s invisible economic background) the American oil embargo.  The time-dependent IPC adjustment tables would, from that point onward, adjust Japan’s IPC income further and further downward unless Japan captures the DEI.  This would basically force the Japanese player to go to war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, because otherwise Japan’s IPC income will eventually melt to zero (or close to zero).

I think I understand this and it is intriguing. There would be a discrepancy then between the total IPC income that Japan is collecting via occupied territories and what actually reaches the player’s hand. Maybe it is just semantics or procedure, but it may be clearer to allow Japan to collect everything they are due, but institute a rule or drawdown table such that every turn that Japan lacks the DEI then they must surrender 5 IPCs (multiplied by the Turn number) back to the bank. This simulates the tapping of their strategic oil reserves. If they have not taken the DEI by Turn 4, Japan is losing 20 IPCs automatically.

Per the G40 political rules, Japan must declare war on the UK/ANZAC before attacking the DEI. An unprovoked DoW against the UK/ANZAC allows the US to declare war on any and all Axis powers on their turn. These situations and Japan’s need to take the DEI soon basically result in the US entering the war by Turn 2… almost always. The rules never say the US must declare war on Japan, but there is no reason for them not to. The longer they wait to fight them, the more territory, objectives, IPCs/prestige Japan accumulates and decreases the ability for the Western Allies to win.

@CWO:

3. Japan already starts the game at war with China.  The Japanese invasion of the DEI (which is now almost obligatory under the rules just described) will automatically put Japan at war with the UK, ANZAC, France (nominally) and Holland (nominally), since these were all Allied powers who were at war with Japan’s ally Germany.  However, the Japanese invasion of the DEI will not automatically put Japan at war with the USSR, nor with the US (unless Japan attacks US-controlled territories as part of its campaign of conquest).  As I mentioned earlier, it would have been logical for Japan not to attack the US in WWII , so let’s assume that the Japanese player (if given a free hand) will only go to war against the “European imperialist colonial powers”.

Per above… the bold statement is not true. At least not the second half.

@CWO:

5. So the double-barreled question that now has to be solved is: how do we get Japan and the US into a war against each other, and how do we ensure that the US, the UK and ANZAC will fight so hard against Japan that Japan won’t dare go to war against the USSR?  I’m still thinking about those two questions, but I’m encouraged to see that we have the outline of a plausible overall solution, and that if we can answer those two questions then we’ll have have solved (I think) the other problems too.

I think the first part is solved.

Motivation for fighting Japan is also solved if giving Japan independent victory conditions that are easier to achieve than taking Moscow. Japan and Germany never worked together tactically or strategically so they should not have a joint goal of bringing down the USSR as the only path to victory.