G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

@LHoffman:

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.

Yes, the idea behind the tables I’ve been discussing is that they serve to adjust the net income that reaches a player’s hands.  The net income is determined by taking the IPC value of the territories held by the player (gross income) and adjusting it by that particular power’s table for that particular round (which raises or lowers the gross income to produce the net income).  Each power has its own table, and each table has specific adjustments (perhaps some obligatory and some conditional) for each round of play.

The table adjustments partly reflect some time-dependent factors that are assumed to automatically happen in the background of the game (like the positive effects of increased wartime production or the negative effects of enemy actions like oil embargoes or submarine campaings) and partly depend on events under the control of the players (e.g., does Japan capture the DEI or not?).

The adjustments could potentially work in two ways.  The less drastic way would be additive or subtractive: take your gross IPC income and add (or subtract) so many dollars to calculate your net income.  The more drastic way would be multiplicative: take your gross income, multiply it by x%, then add (or subtract) that amount to calculate your net income.

@CWO:

Yes, the idea behind the tables I’ve been discussing is that they serve to adjust the net income that reaches a player’s hands.  The net income is determined by taking the IPC value of the territories held by the player (gross income) and adjusting it by that particular power’s table for that particular round (which raises or lowers the gross income to produce the net income).  Each power has its own table, and each table has specific adjustments (perhaps some obligatory and some conditional) for each round of play.

The table adjustments partly reflect some time-dependent factors that are assumed to automatically happen in the background of the game (like the positive effects of increased wartime production or the negative effects of enemy actions like oil embargoes or submarine campaings) and partly depend on events under the control of the players (e.g., does Japan capture the DEI or not?).

The adjustments could potentially work in two ways.  The less drastic way would be additive or subtractive: take your gross IPC income and add (or subtract) so many dollars to calculate your net income.  The more drastic way would be multiplicative: take your gross income, multiply it by x%, then add (or subtract) that amount to calculate your net income.

Gotcha… I didn’t realize you were talking about doing this for other Powers also.

In general, this is a pretty simple mechanic. I am not so sure about the multiplication part. I assume most people can do math, but it is simpler to have a set amount to add or subtract (even if it becomes compounded over turns in the case of Japan). What you surrender is known and constant rather than variable based on what you gain, lose or have in your hand. You get into stuff like “do bonuses count towards this loss?” and “do I include money I have leftover from my purchase phase?”… even though it seems to me the answers to those are pretty clear (yes and no, respectively).

@LHoffman:

Gotcha… I didn’t realize you were talking about doing this for other Powers also.

In general, this is a pretty simple mechanic. I am not so sure about the multiplication part. I assume most people can do math, but it is simpler to have a set amount to add or subtract (even if it becomes compounded over turns in the case of Japan). What you surrender is known and constant rather than variable based on what you gain, lose or have in your hand. You get into stuff like “do bonuses count towards this loss?” and “do I include money I have leftover from my purchase phase?”… even though it seems to me the answers to those are pretty clear (yes and no, respectively).

Yes, at this point the table idea is just a very general concept, not a finished tool or even a working prototype.

The finished mechanic itself would be simple to use (especially if it just uses plain addition and subtraction), but it would require a good deal of thinking and research to set up.  We’d need to look into things like:

• The economic adjustments that are already built into the game, such as the national objective bonuses and the US shift to a wartime economy.  We’d have to decide which ones to keep as is, which ones to modify, which ones to discard – and then which ones to integrate into the table and which ones to keep separate as N/Os (or whatever).

• The game-dependent events that we want to model into the tables.  Example: the idea we’ve been discussing about Japan taking an oil embargo hit when it occupies FIC, and the oil boost it gets when it occupies the DEI.  (It’s interesting that Japan has such a rocky relationship with three-letter abbreviations: FIC and the DEI both have a major effect on Japan’s GDP.)

• The “background” economic and attritional events of WWII that the tables are intended to reflect.  I gave examples of these “boosts” and “hits” for Germany and Japan in my Reply #94 of September 19.  To work out those time-dependent curves, we’d need to consult sources giving economic statistics for the WWII participants, to look for things like gross domestic product, convoy sinkings, percentage of population mobilized in industry, bomber damage and so forth.

@CWO:

The finished mechanic itself would be simple to use (especially if it just uses plain addition and subtraction), but it would require a good deal of thinking and research to set up.  We’d need to look into things like:

• The “background” economic and attritional events of WWII that the tables are intended to reflect.  I gave examples of these “boosts” and “hits” for Germany and Japan in my Reply #94 of September 19.  To work out those time-dependent curves, we’d need to consult sources giving economic statistics for the WWII participants, to look for things like gross domestic product, convoy sinkings, percentage of population mobilized in industry, bomber damage and so forth.

“Good deal of research”… no joke.

@LHoffman:

“Good deal of research”… no joke.

Fortunately, the goal isn’t to produce a highly detailed economic model of WWII, because that level of detail would be wasted on a game that is extremely simple and abstract when it comes to depicting economic factors.  The goal is simply to identify some large-scale economic factors that had large-scale effects on the course of WWII within some broad slices of time, and to use these factors to fix parts of the game that are problematic.  The table adjustments don’t need to be intricate, nor even super-accurate; they just need to be reasonably credible and to feel right from an impressionistic point of view, with a view to improving the game in ways that people are happy with.

@CWO:

Fortunately, the goal isn’t to produce a highly detailed economic model of WWII, because that level of detail would be wasted on a game that is extremely simple and abstract when it comes to depicting economic factors.  The goal is simply to identify some large-scale economic factors that had large-scale effects on the course of WWII within some broad slices of time, and to use these factors to fix parts of the game that are problematic.  The table adjustments don’t need to be intricate, nor even super-accurate; they just need to be reasonably credible and to feel right from an impressionistic point of view, with a view to improving the game in ways that people are happy with.

That is exactly my philosophy as well.

I think the problem with USA vs Japan is two fold:

A)  Even in history there really was no rationale for going to war.  Japan’s navy needed resources because the Army was getting it all, so they picked a fight to justify more resources from the Emperor.  America, of course, retaliated.

B)  It’s too hard to take islands.  You CAN load transports but then to move on you have to use those transports again.  In Europe/Africa you use the transports then leave the troops behind so they can move on without you.  Perhaps if you allowed Destroyers to carry 1 infantry unit and transports could carry either 3 infantry, or 2 mechanized units (artillery, mech infantry or armor) thus improving the functionality of them IN THE PACIFIC ONLY we’d see a better push by the USA to take out Japan.

Alternatively, perhaps just say that you may move 1 infantry from one island group to the next without a transport.  So Carolines could go to Paulau without a transport as if they were going from Algeria to Libya.

I looked at the G40 map and I noticed that Malaya has a pretty decent IPC value (3), which goes nicely with the DEI islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java (4 each) and Celebes (3).  The total value of those five pieces of real estate is 18 IPCs, which makes them important in themselves, and they become even more important if we use the adjustment table factor we discussed: with a US oil embargo in place, Japan’s IPCs get adjusted downward more and more with every round unless it takes and holds the DEI.  So Japan would have strong economic reasons to grab the DEI and fight for them at all costs.  An additional rubber-from-Malaya bonus/penalty adjustment could be thrown in too, if desired, as a bit of extra motivational icing on the cake.

Now for the missing piece of the puzzle: giving the US a strong reason to go to war against Japan and fight actively in the Asia-Pacific theatre rather than just letting Japan romp all over the area while the US attends to the more pressing matter of Nazi Germany in Europe.  Thanks to LHoffman for pointing out that the going-to-war part is a virtual certainty under the OOB political rules, which solves half the problem.  As for the strong-reason-to-fight part, I’ve had an idea that I’d like to float for consideration.  As what’s proposed above for Japan, it’s meant to make it financially disadvantageous for the US to simply sit around in a technical state of war without actively fighting.

The proposal is in two parts, but both parts hinge on the same assumption: that the US can only get the full benefits of a fully mobilized wartime economy if the American public is strongly motivated to support the war effort.  This is a credible premise because that’s exactly why the American public: a) abandoned isolationism and supported Roosevelt and Congress in declaring war against Japan after Pearl Harbor; b) went along with the call-up of men into the armed services and the call-up of women into the shipyards and factories; c) went along – though with some grumbling, especially as regards gasoline for their cars – with rationing and other privations; and d) contributed an awful lot of money to the war effort by buying war bonds.

Part one of the proposal has to do with the state of war in and of itself.  Even though a DoW is virtually guaranteed onder the OOB rules, it doesn’t hurt to give things a little (actually a big) nudge in the right direction.  So here’s the idea: the US can (obviously) only shift to a wartime economy if it goes to war, but it can only shift to a full wartime economy if it goes to war against both Japan and the European Axis powers.  The rationale is simple: being at war against both Japan and the Germany/Italy pairing is a far bigger crisis than being at war just in the Pacific or just in Europe, so it’s easier to convince the public that a far greater effort is needed.  Therefore: If the US is at war against Japan alone, it can only ramp up to x% of its potential full wartime economy (x being significantly smaller than 100).  If the US is at war against Germany/Italy alone, it can only ramp up to y% of its potential full wartime economy (y being significantly smaller than 100).  Only if it’s at war against all the Axis power can it ramp up to 100% of its potential full wartime economy.

Now for part two, which has to do with the need to fight aggressively.  Here’s the idea: unless the US fights actively on both fronts, on a fairly constant basis, it won’t be able to maintain its full wartime economy.  The rationale is that the workers and the bond-buyers on the home front have to be kept motivated by a sense of urgency, and by the feeling that the weapons they’re building and financing are being put to good use in active combat.  A great example of this sort of thing was the motivational wartime documentary Angel in Overalls – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhVikLVKWVU – which was made “for the men and women of American industry”.  It shows an isolated and damaged American bomber over Germany facing gim odds against some German fighters, until a P-38 Lightning charges to the rescue and blasts the enemy planes out of the air.

This part of the economic adjustment table would, in essence, deduct points from the US wartime economy if the Americans aren’t actively fighting on one of their two fronts…and would deduct even more if they’re not fighting actively on either front.  “Fighting actively” would have to be defined, of course, but here’s the neat part: it’s the “fighting actively” part that would matter, not whether the Americans are winning or losing.  News that the troops are fighting a winning war can be a great motivator on the home front (“Angel in Overalls” basically tells factory workers: “The fighter planes you build are saving Americans boys in combat, so please keep up the good work and build even more”), but news that the troops have suffered a grave defeat and are desperate for weapons can be a powerful motivator too (as British workers proved after Dunkirk and Russian workers proved in the second half of 1941).

Getting the US to fight actively in this way will go a long way to keeping Japan occupied (and away from Russia), so that’s already a big help.  Is there a way to motivate the British to likewise fight actively in the Asia/Pacfic theatre?  This will require more thought, but one option would be to make use of the fact that India was: a) enormously important to the British economy; and b) politically restless, and under active attempts at Japanese political subversion; and c) under direct threat once Japan had invaded Burma.  So, to apply here a formula similar to the one above for the US, the UK might get IPC points deducted owing to restlessness in India unless it can show the population of India that it’s fighting actively against Japan (including nearby in Burma).

I was under the impression that the US has to go heavy pacific already or they’ll generally lose. I thought the issue was Japan steamrolling China or blazing through Russia. Give China some more dudes and maybe a free spawn of 2 inf should help.

Russia would be a little more problematic. It’s been talked about limiting minors to inf/mech builds only. IDK if that’s the answer as Japan would be severely limited building any type of other units.

Japan already has plenty of incentive to take the DEIs. While penalizing them for not having the DEIs would help the allies in Asia later in the game, it would encourage a KJF strategy even more.

I guess it depends on what you’re after but just because certain things didn’t happen or were unlikely to historically, doesn’t mean they should be excluded or so unlikely to succeed that they never happen. I don’t think Japan would have done well blowing through Russia in the real war. It should still be a viable strategy if you want to try it though. Japan just needs to be slowed down/discouraged a little bit more than currently.

@Black_Elk:

Difficult terrain is a very cool idea, …

Difficult terrain is cool. I would just make them 1 M TTs for all land units and not have any other restrictions to keep it simple

Been following this thread with interest.

Thought you might enjoy a playable saved game file containing the National Objectives I mentioned in a earlier post.

This variant is the result of a collaborative effort among several regulars on TripleA (see revision “credits” in Game Notes), and seeks to address some of the common complaints with the standard G40 Map, including the imbalance in favor of Axis, the lack of serious engagement in certain historically important theaters, etc. Based on the play testing we have done to date, the new NOs do seem to go along way to improving balance and enhancing the overall gameplay experience.

The revisions are as follows:

REVISIONS

Revised Air Raid Rules: Fighters attack and defend at 2. Strategic and tactical bombers attack at 1.

Additional National Objectives

UK

1. 3 PUs for UK Europe if Allies control at least 2 of: Sicily, Sardinia, Greece.
2. 3 PUs for UK Europe if Malta, Crete, and Cyprus are Allied or pro-Allied controlled.
3. 3 PUs for UK Europe if there are no enemy submarines in the Atlantic, excluding szs 112 and 125-127.
4. 3 PUs for UK Pacific if West India and either Egypt or South Africa are British-controlled, and there are no enemy submarines in the western half of the Indian Ocean (sz71,…,sz81).

USA

1. 5 PUs if Allies control at least 2 of: Normandy Bordeaux, Holland Belgium, Southern France, and USA has at least one land unit in any of these territories.
2. 5 PUs if Allies control Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and USA has at least one land unit in any of these territories.
3. 5 PUs if Allies control Midway, Wake Island, Guam.
4. 5 PUs if Allies control Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, Paulau Island, Marianas.

Revised National Objectives

Russia

1. 5 PUs if Russia is at war with European Axis, there are no allied units in any originally Russian territories, and at least one of three Lend-Lease routes is open: (Archangel, sz 125), (Persia, sz 80) or (Siberia, sz 5).
2. 3 PUs for each originally German, Italian, or Pro-Axis neutral territory that Russia controls in mainland Europe.

NOTE: The new objectives will not be listed in the “Objectives” Panel (a separate download is required for that). But they are listed in Game Notes, and will be displayed on your income screen when they are achieved.

Feedback always welcome.

G40BalanceVariant.tsvg

@barney:

I was under the impression that the US has to go heavy pacific already or they’ll generally lose. I thought the issue was Japan steamrolling China or blazing through Russia. Give China some more dudes and maybe a free spawn of 2 inf should help.

Russia would be a little more problematic. It’s been talked about limiting minors to inf/mech builds only. IDK if that’s the answer as Japan would be severely limited building any type of other units.

Japan already has plenty of incentive to take the DEIs. While penalizing them for not having the DEIs would help the allies in Asia later in the game, it would encourage a KJF strategy even more.

I guess it depends on what you’re after but just because certain things didn’t happen or were unlikely to historically, doesn’t mean they should be excluded or so unlikely to succeed that they never happen. I don’t think Japan would have done well blowing through Russia in the real war. It should still be a viable strategy if you want to try it though. Japan just needs to be slowed down/discouraged a little bit more than currently.

The issue that people had raised, as I understand it, was that in the existing game the Axis can try to win by having Japan and Germany gang up on Russia.  This was seen as a problem for several reasons.  In game terms, it’s a problem because it encourages both sides to focus their attention on Europe, with little to no action in the Pacific.  In historic terms, it’s unrealistic because historically Japan and the European Axis powers fought uncoordinated local wars rather than a single integrated war; because in the real world it would be physically impossible for Japan to reach Moscow from the eastern extremity of the USSR; and because Japan’s track record of military success against the USSR from 1937 to 1939 was crummy.

My feeling is that, realistically, the best that Japan could do in the game (if we could find a way to model it) in support of the overall Axis war effort would be to tie down the USSR’s crack Siberian divisions by posing a credible threat to Mongolia and the eastern Soviet Union, this preventing the Siberians from reinforcing the Russian troops who were fighting against Germany in the western Soviet Union.  It’s what happened historically until the fall of 1941, when Stalin learned that Japan was actually planning to attack in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, which freed him to move his Siberians westward.  But here we’d just be solving a problem by creating a new one: to credibly threaten – or even invade – Mongolia and the eastern Soviet Union, Japan would have to give up on its plans to fight in Southeast Asia and the Pacific because it didn’t have the resources to simultaneously fight three wars (against the Russians, the Anglo-Americans, and the Chinese).  Arguably, it didn’t even have the resources to win just the war it was fighting in China, let alone two additional ones.

@Cmdr:

A)� Even in history there really was no rationale for going to war.� Japan’s navy needed resources because the Army was getting it all, so they picked a fight to justify more resources from the Emperor.� America, of course, retaliated.�

True. In A&A the lack of logic for outright DoW of Japan on the US is obvious. But the intent of the game, from my perspective, is to get the Big 5 fighting each other as per history (at least taking the sides they did). If we are to keep that premise, thereby limiting each player’s political decision making, then we have to find some way to instigate war so that the result is always ���-Ger-Ita vs UK-USA-USSR. Fortunately, per the OOB political rules, this has already been figured out and will always happen, it is only a matter of time.

Would the US have gone to war against Japan even if they were not attacked? I don’t know that we can say definitively because there are many possible scenarios. I think what we need to treat as inevitable and unchangeable are the deeper political and military leadership attitudes that formed the decisions for entry to war, most importantly for the Axis. If we change that, a historically plausible outcome may never happen because such a road is perceived as illogical or from our simplified chair at 90,000 ft we as players are detached from the nuances that motivated historical leaders.

Our perspective in re-designing the game should be that the historical Axis vs Allies conflict is inevitable and unchangeable… it is only a matter of time. Once everyone is fighting each other, the board is open to whatever military strategy players want to devise. They will just be politically constrained (they cannot change sides) and more accurately geographically constrained (crossing Asia is possible, but will take a long time).

@Cmdr:

B)� It’s too hard to take islands.� You CAN load transports but then to move on you have to use those transports again.� In Europe/Africa you use the transports then leave the troops behind so they can move on without you.� Perhaps if you allowed Destroyers to carry 1 infantry unit and transports could carry either 3 infantry, or 2 mechanized units (artillery, mech infantry or armor) thus improving the functionality of them IN THE PACIFIC ONLY we’d see a better push by the USA to take out Japan.�

I agree that this is somewhat inconvenient. I don’t like the idea of having different rules for units on two halves of the board, but it would be an option if someone wanted to do that.

I have also considered lowering the cost for a transport down to 6 or even 5. They are not particularly large or complex ships to build and they have no attack or defense value. Yes, they are important pieces, but just by themselves they are utterly worthless. This one in particular should be playtested. I don’t know the ramifications of making transports cheaper and more prevalent… Will it make Sealion that much easier? Will it allow for larger UK invasions into France? Will it give Japan too much mobility?

@Cmdr:

Alternatively, perhaps just say that you may move 1 infantry from one island group to the next without a transport.� So Carolines could go to Paulau without a transport as if they were going from Algeria to Libya.

I was almost going to say that this was maybe okay, but island taking in the Pacific was a far more involved process with transports and protective support fleets. Cutting those out entirely would seem to defeat much of our purpose… Japan and the US would have fewer (if any) ships in the mid and south Pacific because they don’t need them. Rather than more Pacific action I think we would see less.

@LHoffman:

���-Ger-Ita vs UK-USA-USSR

Really? J-A-P got blocked? It was an abbreviation not a pejorative!

@LHoffman:

@LHoffman:

���-Ger-Ita vs UK-USA-USSR

Really? J-A-P got blocked? It was an abbreviation not a pejorative!

JPN might be a good alternative.

@CWO:

The proposal is in two parts, but both parts hinge on the same assumption: that the US can only get the full benefits of a fully mobilized wartime economy if the American public is strongly motivated to support the war effort.�

Part one of the proposal has to do with the state of war in and of itself.� Even though a DoW is virtually guaranteed onder the OOB rules, it doesn’t hurt to give things a little (actually a big) nudge in the right direction.� So here’s the idea: the US can (obviously) only shift to a wartime economy if it goes to war, but it can only shift to a full wartime economy if it goes to war against both Japan and the European Axis powers.� The rationale is simple: being at war against both Japan and the Germany/Italy pairing is a far bigger crisis than being at war just in the Pacific or just in Europe, so it’s easier to convince the public that a far greater effort is needed.� Therefore: If the US is at war against Japan alone, it can only ramp up to x% of its potential full wartime economy (x being significantly smaller than 100).� If the US is at war against Germany/Italy alone, it can only ramp up to y% of its potential full wartime economy (y being significantly smaller than 100).� �Only if it’s at war against all the Axis power can it ramp up to 100% of its potential full wartime economy.

This is excellent. Very plausible and simple also. The split could be as easy as 50/50… 50% is much less than 100%. Otherwise maybe 60 (Germany)/40(Japan). But I always like standing numbers over percentages for game purposes. That can be easily arranged, ex. 30 IPCs for being at war w/ Japan and 40 IPCs for being at war w/Germany.

@CWO:

Now for part two, which has to do with the need to fight aggressively.� Here’s the idea: unless the US fights actively on both fronts, on a fairly constant basis, it won’t be able to maintain its full wartime economy.�

This part of the economic adjustment table would, in essence, deduct points from the US wartime economy if the Americans aren’t actively fighting on one of their two fronts…and would deduct even more if they’re not fighting actively on either front.� “Fighting actively” would have to be defined, of course, but here’s the neat part: it’s the “fighting actively” part that would matter, not whether the Americans are winning or losing.�

�

This is a little more nebulous and open to interpretation. We would have to define it pretty well to avoid confusion and argument. I am not sure how we would quantify “fighting actively”.

My initial thought was that we could treat the US very much like the UK/India. Income would be split between the Eastern US and Western US - the board is conveniently split for that. Western US IPCs must be placed in the West. This would not prohibit the transfer of units to the Eastern US (and to Europe) after they are purchased, but it could provide incentive to use them to fight in the Pacific.

Honestly, I don’t really like that idea. Poses a couple of problems and really dictates too much what the US buys for the logistical problems it imposes.

@CWO:

Getting the US to fight actively in this way will go a long way to keeping Japan occupied (and away from Russia), so that’s already a big help.�

The best way to incentivize activity is for money to be involved, especially for the lower economy Powers (Japan, India, ANZAC). This means more NO bonuses. I think there is an overload point with NOs, so we do have to be judicious about how many we set up. The problem I see with some of the NOs in the rules now is that their difficulty/time taken to achieve outweighs their economic gain. Or that by the time you get the NO you are already winning the game.

I think that given credible economic benefits (NOs, DoW IPC+, island territory values) and necessary strategic concerns (Japan’s Victory Points/Prestige), the US will have good reason to engage Japan. If we adopt the Independent Victory Conditions and split the game into effectively four teams (JPN, GER/ITA, US/UK, USSR)… I hope that it becomes apparent that the US and UK have as good, if not a better shot at winning the game by taking Tokyo before the USSR takes Berlin. If we split the Allies and give them reason to compete against each other, I think some of these issues may take care of themselves. The situation will be UK/ANZAC/USA versus Japan and UK/US/USSR versus Germany/Italy.

It will take time and resources for the Soviets to start their fight with Japan. Time and resources they will not have while Germany is still a credible threat. This leaves an open path to victory for the Western Allies against Japan. They really will hold victory in their hands if they put forth the effort to take Tokyo. This all would have to be ironed out in what will constitute victory, but I think part of it should involve who of the Allies can take Berlin or Tokyo first.

What the OOB format of US/UK/USSR vs Germany/Japan has is a whole heck of a lot of COOPERATION and COORDINATION and not much COMPETITION. I think that is a big failing as evidenced by the Japan Attacks USSR problem and the Allies Ignore Japan problem.

@CWO:

Is there a way to motivate the British to likewise fight actively in the Asia/Pacfic theatre?�

I have never really had issue with this. ANZAC (essentially the UK) is a given. India, with its separate economy, usually has to use its resources to fight Japan for economic sustenance (DEI and Malaya) and to prevent Japan seizing victory by assaulting Calcutta. India usually sticks to the land war though. This pretty well mimics history in that the UK didn’t assault Japanese Pacific holdings to the scale that the US did. ANZAC and UK ships were present in US fleets pretty often, but even that was mostly confined to the South and Western Pacific.

@LHoffman:

I think that given credible economic benefits (NOs, DoW IPC+, island territory values) and necessary strategic concerns (Japan’s Victory Points/Prestige), the US will have good reason to engage Japan. If we adopt the Independent Victory Conditions and split the game into effectively four teams (JPN, GER/ITA, US/UK, USSR)… I hope that it becomes apparent that the US and UK have as good, if not a better shot at winning the game by taking Tokyo before the USSR takes Berlin. If we split the Allies and give them reason to compete against each other, I think some of these issues may take care of themselves. The situation will be UK/ANZAC/USA versus Japan and UK/US/USSR versus Germany/Italy.

It will take time and resources for the Soviets to start their fight with Japan. Time and resources they will not have while Germany is still a credible threat. This leaves an open path to victory for the Western Allies against Japan. They really will hold victory in their hands if they put forth the effort to take Tokyo. This all would have to be ironed out in what will constitute victory, but I think part of it should involve who of the Allies can take Berlin or Tokyo first.

What the OOB format of US/UK/USSR vs Germany/Japan has is a whole heck of a lot of COOPERATION and COORDINATION and not much COMPETITION. I think that is a big failing as evidenced by the Japan Attacks USSR problem and the Allies Ignore Japan problem.

Hmm.  The “four-team” model you mention could perhaps profitably be paired with the “three phases” model I previously mentioned. Here are some thoughts on this.

The four-team model does reflect reasonably well the situation that existed in WWII.  On the Axis side, there was basically Japan on its own in the Asia-Pacific region and the European Axis block (Germany, Italy, plus various Axis minors like Romania) in the European/Mediterranean region.  Their respective wars were linked, but not really coordinated.  On the Allied side, the picture was more complicated because some of the Allied powers were fighting in both theatres…so we have a collection of Allied campaigns involving different combinations of countries.  Basically, though, I think it’s fair to distinguish between the USSR and everyone else (US, UK, ANZAC, France and China – though France and China are both odd cases in their own ways).  The USSR was significantly different from the other countries in ideology and governance, with the USSR being the only totalitarian dictatorship on the Allied side.  The USSR and (for simplicity) the Anglo-Americans also fought the European part of WWII in very different ways.  Russia spent most of WWII fighting a head-on land war against Germany, and its basic approach to waging this war was labour-intensive and relatively low-tech.  The Anglo-Americans spent most of WWII fighting on the fringes of Axis territory, and their basic approach to hitting Germany directly (their bomber campaign) was capital-intensive and relatively high-tech.  There was a lot of friction between the Soviets and the Anglo-Americans, with neither side really trusting each other and with both sides seeing their alliance very much as a temporary marriage of convenience.  Stalin spent the period from mid-1941 to mid-1944 complaining that Russia was bearing the brunt of the war against Germany, and demanding that his western allies open a second front.  The British, and later the British and the Americans, spent those years a) building up their forces in Britain for a cross-Channel invasion; b) explaining to Stalin that they weren’t yet ready to invade France; c) sending supplies to Stalin to keep Russia in the fight; d) fighting in fringe territories like North Africa, Sicily and Italy, in part to be seen by Stalin as actively fighting the Axis somewhere; and e) trying to convince Stalin that their bomber offensive against Germany was a “second front” in and of itself.

Your reference to the question of “who of the Allies can take Berlin or Tokyo first” raises an interesting angle, which is where the connection with the “three phases” model comes in.  For the first phase of the war, the phase of Axis dominance, I’d say that the UK and the USSR each had immediate survival as their top priority.  The middle “deep war” phase is the part of the war where the Soviets and the Anglo-Americans started to have enough breathing room to start engaging in political machinations.  Their priorities here, I’d say, were to each fight the war on a basis that they were capable of and which they felt was acceptable to them (the labour-intensive vs. capital-intensive approaches I mentioned earlier), and to try to get their allies to do what they wanted (with the USSR wanting the Anglo-Americans to open a second front, and the Anglo-Americans wanting the USSR to keep fighting Germany).  It’s in the third phase (the phase of Allied dominance) that I think we could validly start bringing into the game some competing political objectives for the USSR and the Anglo-Americans…objectives that would anticipate the Cold War.  Historically, the Russians were determined to capture Berlin themselves, while the Americans were equally determined to take the Japanese home islands themselves and, if at all possible, to prevent the Russians from setting foot there.  So perhaps we could make use of this in some way when setting victory conditions.

I’d make the split differently:

The United States of America must spend at least 33 and 1/3rd of it’s income in each theater (Atlantic/Pacific) and the remaining 3rd can be spent where the player wants.  If you are not at war with one side, then you get none of your NO’s but you can spend all of your income on the one theater you are at war in.

@Cmdr:

I’d make the split differently:

The United States of America must spend at least 33 and 1/3rd of it’s income in each theater (Atlantic/Pacific) and the remaining 3rd can be spent where the player wants.  If you are not at war with one side, then you get none of your NO’s but you can spend all of your income on the one theater you are at war in.

That does sound better.

@CWO:

Hmm.  The “four-team” model you mention could perhaps profitably be paired with the “three phases” model I previously mentioned.

Yes, it would be. Particularly the third phase which anticipates the Cold War, as you pointed out. My goal would be that the individual motivations for Allied victory would be present the whole time (i.e. it gives you a clear idea of what you must do as either the UK/US or the USSR to win the game). These motivations and goals would be most apparent towards the end of the game when the Allies are making their advances… if the Allies are winning that is.

I will say that your 3-phases seems more like an analysis of game-war progression rather than a ‘system’ to be implemented.

@CWO:

Your reference to the question of “who of the Allies can take Berlin or Tokyo first” raises an interesting angle, which is where the connection with the “three phases” model comes in.  For the first phase of the war, the phase of Axis dominance, I’d say that the UK and the USSR each had immediate survival as their top priority.  The middle “deep war” phase is the part of the war where the Soviets and the Anglo-Americans started to have enough breathing room to start engaging in political machinations.  Their priorities here, I’d say, were to each fight the war on a basis that they were capable of and which they felt was acceptable to them (the labour-intensive vs. capital-intensive approaches I mentioned earlier), and to try to get their allies to do what they wanted (with the USSR wanting the Anglo-Americans to open a second front, and the Anglo-Americans wanting the USSR to keep fighting Germany).  It’s in the third phase (the phase of Allied dominance) that I think we could validly start bringing into the game some competing political objectives for the USSR and the Anglo-Americans…objectives that would anticipate the Cold War.  Historically, the Russians were determined to capture Berlin themselves, while the Americans were equally determined to take the Japanese home islands themselves and, if at all possible, to prevent the Russians from setting foot there.  So perhaps we could make use of this in some way when setting victory conditions.

I think this is a good thing. Ultimately, the Allies (if they win) will go through all 3 phases you mentioned, even if the teams are split up as I suggested. If everything works as it should, it may even foster some friendly competition and/or deception in the vein of Diplomacy (as someone mentioned) among the Allies to see who can be the outright winner.

The Soviets were determined to take Berlin, and the Western Allies let them do so to some degree because the USSR ‘earned it’. But even before the atomic bombs were dropped, Stalin was concerned that the Western Allies were going to wrap up the war against Japan without the USSR. There were huge swaths of territory in Manchuria and the Pacific that Stalin was set on obtaining… the USSR even continued fighting after Japan ceased fighting on Aug 16. (See Operation August Storm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria) The invasion of Manchuria boggles the mind due to the speed and scale of operations; the Soviets overran a defended and geographically difficult area the size of the entire Western European theater in under 20 days.

I studied a book in my college class Japan in WWII in which the author asserts that Japan quit the war not because of the atomic bombs, but because of how quickly the Soviet Union was advancing through Japanese territory in August of 1945. He backs this up with evidence of a longstanding fear among the Japanese of Soviet communism and the belief that the Western Allies would be more favorable in its post-war treatment of the kokutai (national polity - emperor) than the Soviets would.

All of this is a side-note, but my goal for a 4-Team game would be to create the kind of desperate competition to outmaneuver both the Axis enemies and your Allied counterpart to obtain more territory and influence in the post-war world. That is how the Allies would be judged to have won. I do think it will intrinsically address the annoying Japan-to-Moscow tank run also.