G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

Argothair

Perhaps what is needed is more movement away from the separate Pacific game effect? Like providing a clearer connection between the UK economy, and that of India/Anzac?

Right now the way the objectives are worded, UK only gets a bonus for things that happen in the ATO, and India/Anzac only get bonuses for things that happen in the PTO.

What if this was reversed?

UK gets bonuses for things that happen in the Pacific, and India/Anzac get bonuses for things that happen in Europe? Or what if all the objectives were reworded, so that the bonuses apply to the team as a whole (or the other members of the team), rather than the individual nation? Instead of accomplishing the goals for yourself, you accomplish them for your teammates. Maybe that would create a more integrated global dynamic, and tie the two theaters together in a more satisfying way, with more variety for the gameplay?

Couldn’t agree more! Either unite the UK economy and limit gamey “I spend my entire UK income in Singapore” builds with more intelligent production caps that are baked into the definition of how a factory works, or reverse the NOs so that Anzac / Indian goals feed money to London and vice versa.

baron Münchhausen

@Argothair:

@Black_Elk:

Perhaps what is needed is more movement away from the separate Pacific game effect? Like providing a clearer connection between the UK economy, and that of India/Anzac?

Right now the way the objectives are worded, UK only gets a bonus for things that happen in the ATO, and India/Anzac only get bonuses for things that happen in the PTO.

What if this was reversed?

UK gets bonuses for things that happen in the Pacific, and India/Anzac get bonuses for things that happen in Europe? Or what if all the objectives were reworded, so that the bonuses apply to the team as a whole (or the other members of the team), rather than the individual nation? Instead of accomplishing the goals for yourself, you accomplish them for your teammates. Maybe that would create a more integrated global dynamic, and tie the two theaters together in a more satisfying way, with more variety for the gameplay?

Couldn’t agree more! Either unite the UK economy and limit gamey “I spend my entire UK income in Singapore” builds with more intelligent production caps that are baked into the definition of how a factory works, or reverse the NOs so that Anzac / Indian goals feed money to London and vice versa.

I find both KEF and “KAF” quite interesting options to discuss.

For my part, a plausible “what if” scenario would apply differently to USA case than others.

I can imagine Japan holding India and Australia while Germany launching Sea-Lion. So it is a real KEF.

However, USA captured capitol and San Francisco VC is mere fantasy and usually bad rolls and bad plays.

I know Barney increased action for all Pacific Islands with at least 1 IPC each.
Assuming more an Industrial and Progress Credit than Industrial Production Certificate.

Assuming there can be more challenge via NOs and increase values in PTO, what do you think of this special San Francisco conquest rule:

If Japan can conquered San Francisco two times or hold it for 2 game rounds in a row, then USA is considered broken morale and signed up a peace treaty with Japan.
Washington can no longer produce units to go forward but act in war against other Axis belligerents as Washington was taken and can no longer collect income. US Citizens riots and anti-war party arises so no new conscript to fight in WWII. (Think of it as similar to Viet Nam War.) North Viet Nam didn’t win the war against US. US citizen simply convinced the US government to cut dry army resources for this far away foreign war. Then Chinese supported North Viet Nam overwhelmed South Viet Nam.

Let’s suppose something similar would have happen and Isolationism begun to take precedence in local politic once Japan kill USWestern Coasters and Emperor demand for peace.

What do you think?
After all, politics was part of G40.

Black_Elk

OK hows this for an idea? Instead of awarding objective bonuses on a per turn basis, what if it happened all at once, at the end of each game round?

For specific objectives I would run down the list OOB, determine how many are active in any given game, and use that to determine what the total economic boost needs to be for each nation to make them functional. Then get rid off all OOB objectives. Replace the national objectives with Team objectives and a more integrated (bonus/penalty) system that does something similar in terms of economic weight, but which is more “international” in theme. I would have no more than a dozen total for each side, and award them all at the same time, during the end of the game round.

Create a new special group phase at the end of each round called the “Victory Phase.”

During this phase, all objectives are tallied up, and the bonus cash distributed to the teams. Teams can then use a simplified War Bonds/Lend-Lease mechanic, where this international objective money can be pooled and distributed as needed for the following round. During the Victory Phase, you can also include any bonuses based on VC/Capital control.

The idea here is to make the end of each game round a time to pause, confer with the team, assess overall progress, and determine where both sides are along the path to victory.
This way you get a natural break every round, instead of trying to pack all this stuff into every nations normal turn, and the war bonds/lend lease/material aid idea provides a gameplay element to cap the round, something which is currently lacking.

Right now the money from objectives is pretty lopsided OOB. UK/Russia basically receive nothing, while the USA receives a huge boost. ANZAC AND China are pretty middling. On the Axis side it’s rather similar, Japan gets comparatively little, while Germany and Italy are majorly affected by the objective cash. There are a lot of wasted lines in the rules, for objectives that rarely come into play. I’d streamline all of this stuff, and put it into a single phase at the end of the round. The Victory Phase. Something more engaging and team oriented than what we currently have OOB.

Argothair

That’s extremely interesting, Black Elk. I agree with you that the turns need some kind of “capstone” that gives you a sense that you’ve reached the end of the chapter, as well as a ritual opportunity for the team as a whole to check in with its members and discuss overall strategy goals.

There’s an opportunity for elegance in tying the national objectives to the lend-lease mechanic: let each team distribute its national objectives to any/all members as it sees fit, and that’s the only lend/lease you can do. The more you achieve your objectives, the more you can engage in lend-lease; each nation is guaranteed to collect and required to spend whatever income it generates by virtue of occupying territory, but each nation may share (or receive) the additional income generated by fulfilling national objectives.

The lingering question is whether players will really be incentivized to distribute their cash in ways that strike us as historically plausible and/or dramatically compelling. Like, let’s say ANZAC chalks up a few solid victories in the opening, and so Britain is now achieving the ANZAC-related objectives. Meanwhile, Germany is kicking butt in the North Atlantic, so the Axis are now achieving the Scandinavia-based national objectives. Where will each team invest the resulting cash? Is there any force tending to prevent 100% of that cash from going directly toward a center crush in every single game? E.g., can’t the Allies just decide to give the cash earned by ANZAC to Russia so it can drop more infantry in the Caucasus? And can’t the Axis just decide to give the cash earned by northern Germany to Italy, so that Italy can ferry more tanks to Trans-Jordan?

How does letting players freely determine where to assign cash from National Objectives lead to the interesting strategic “fork” where the Axis can choose between KBF and KRF while the Allies choose between KGF and KJF?

LHoffman

Is KJF ever a winning strategy?

Black_Elk

Just trying to imagine further how such a system might look. Lets say that OOB in a given round, something on the order of 30-40 ipcs enter play each round via objective bonuses. Pre-DoW you can Ballpark it at around 15 ipcs reliably to each team, with the Lion’s share going to US/Japan at peace. After the DoW, a bigger slice of the pie is going to the US consistently per round.

So starting pretty small, lets say that one of the most basic team objectives is control of Victory Cities (since these are what is supposed to win the game for either side.) That would be 19 ipcs per round, distributed between the two teams. There are 19 across the map, 14 starting under Allied control, 5 under Axis control. With total war conditions, the Axis will pick up 3 more in fairly short order. So lets just say 8 to Axis on average, vs 11 to Allies, during the early game.

With a very modest bonus +1 ipc per VC under team’s control, you’d have a fairly even split for most of the game.

I’d say the VC cash for each team can be distributed however the team chooses. For example, if the Allies want to send it all to Russia or Anzac, fine. If Axis want to send it all to Italy no problem. If they want to give it to the team member who is currently running the board instead of the little guys, no prob. If the teams want to split it up more evenly between each nation, again that’s their prerogative.

The VC warchest then allows each team a way to focus their spending for whatever strategy they’re trying to pursue. But the total amount is necessarily limited by the total number of VCs on the map, so it’s not too over powered. Once the decision is made at the end of each round, the team has to stick to it, at least until the next round concludes (so no revising where the money goes mid-round, based on the results of individual turns.) I think +1 per VC would be enough to be pretty interesting, though I suppose you could go higher if you wanted. Perhaps +1 for normal VCs and +2 just for Capital VC, or something along those lines. This VC Warchest money during the Victory Phase, would be a way to reinforce the overall victory conditions for each side.

Definitely ditch the OOB Victory Conditions, which are painful right now anyway. Currently they read like this (tripleA wording)…

To win with the following victory conditions, a side must maintain it for a complete round of play and must also control at least one of its own capital cities.

Axis Victory: 8 European Victory Cities OR 6 Pacific Victory Cities where at least one is Rome/Berlin/Japan.

Allied Victory: Berlin and Rome and Japan are under allied control and allies maintain control of one of their own capitals.

Those have to go. At least the second one has to go. We want a way for Allies to win too right?

Giving the VC’s a +1 and turning that cash into a lend-lease type situation for the team, you would still have room to do national stuff as well, to balance the individual nations/theater, but at least you’d have the VC win and the material aid concept built into the gameplay for a change.

Ps. If you don’t like sudden death VC wins, then perhaps you could have a doubling mechanism for the VC warchest? Like after you pass a certain threshold, each VC is worth +5 instead of +1 or something major. Then maybe it could replace the capital capture dynamic somewhat in significance for the team?

Black_Elk

Going still further. The VC war chest distribution in FtF could conceivably be revealed simultaneously, but that would not work for tripleA or play by forums or email. So I would suggest that “the reveal” during the Victory Phase should alternate each round. Starting first with the Axis (for initiaive), then the Allies.

At the close of each odd round, Axis declare their bonus income distribution first.
At the close of each even round, Allies declare their bonus distribution first.

That way the response/initiative advantage is equitable for both sides over the course of the game. This would also create thematic round breaks, Axis vs Allies, where the teams alternate position in the warchest driver’s seat.

I rather like the idea of keeping the VC warchest at the +1 scale at least until the endgame, since it seems more manageable. But during the endgame (let’s say past the threshold of 15 VCs for either side) then you might kick off a doubling mechanic, or something which makes the VC warchest income swing more dramatic. Under such a scheme taking Manila or Cairo or Paris etc might start to look on par with Capital capture, so you could have climaxes that don’t necessitate sudden death, but which nevertheless start to put one side seriously ahead in the overall economic advantage.

Whatever the optimal number is for a VC balance, then you could have that be the number beyond which it doubles from +1 per VC, to +2 per VC for that side. So perhaps Axis doubling occurs at 12 VCs, Allies at 15 VCs, or whatever numbers makes sense on balance. Or you could have it so that the Allies start out doubling, and the Axis knock them down below their threshold in the opening rounds. Something like that. But the idea is to make the last VC on the threshold something truly significant to the gameplay, on par with Capital Capture. Such that any VC could be like a mini capital under this scheme, once the threshold is crossed.

If you wanted to retain the current national objectives scheme on a per turn basis, then you could do so. Though I would reword many of these, to create a more desireable balance with the VC War chest/Victory Phase considered. And also just to simplify the NOs and make them more international in scope.

baron Münchhausen

It definitely worth to explore.
I wonder about how you would pay for NOs.
Taking notes a certain situation occurs during round of specific owner or just the last picture of
Last power to play.

Black_Elk

Well right now perhaps we should explore how the Victory Phase might work in isolation. Because the same concept could then be used in 1942.2 as well (a game which doesn’t have NOs.)

Let’s say that in 1942.2 the VC warchest doubles at 9 VCS?

I think this could actually work pretty well on that board as a stand alone. 13 ipcs would enter play at the close of each round, split pretty much down the middle.

In Global you might have to have a separate number for Axis vs Allies, but it could work much the same. Then you could still have normal NOs in G40 if desired, but you’d have an actual gameplay mechanic to compliment the ultimate Victory conditions, something beyond just capital capture or sudden death, which uses all these VCs scattered across the map.
:-D

This would be a very simple edit in tripleA.

At the end of each game round, the game master edits “Change PU” and awards the bonus +1 per VC to each side.
Axis first in Odd rounds, then Allies.
Allies first in Even rounds, then Axis.

Then all that remains, is to determine what the appropriate win number is for each team. When they achieve control of that many VCs, the number for the bonus jumps from +1 per VC to +2 per VC. This allows for an endgame economic driver, based on VCs, but which would allow players to opt out of sudden death if desired, and go by concession instead. I think it would prove a popular hybrid for many players. Gets the VCs into the gameplay on an ongoing basis (not just at the very end), but they become considerably more important as one team or the other approaches/surpasses their Victory threshold.

Black_Elk

Alright so for 1942.2…

On the map are twelve victory cities crucial to the war effort. The
Allies begin the game controlling Washington, London, Leningrad, Moscow, Calcutta, Honolulu, and San Francisco. The Axis powers
begin the game controlling Berlin, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Manila, and Tokyo.
:-D

For each victory city controlled at the end of the game round, +1 ipc will be awarded to the team’s War Chest. This income may be distributed however the players on the team choose, and may be interpreted as war bonds, lend-lease, material aid etc. for the broader war effort.

At the close of each round both teams will declare how they wish their VC War Chest to be distributed for the following round. Once declared the income is added to the national incomes for the team. At the close of odd rounds the Axis will declare first. At the close of even rounds the Allies will declare first.

The first victory condition is if your side controls nine (9) victory cities at the end of a complete round of play (after the completion of the U.S. turn), your War Chest bonus is doubled from +1 to +2 ipcs per victory city controlled.

At this point the team controlling 9 VCs may declare a major victory. The opponent is then offered the choice to concede or play on. If they choose to continue the next levels of resolution are:

Decisive Game at 10 VCs.
Glorious Game at 11 VCs.
Historic Game at 12 VCs.
Last Man Standing 13 VCs.

At each game level, the underdog may receive a one time bonus to their team War Chest “Final Defense”, if they choose to play on. [Amount to be determined?] If they convert their defense into a major victory, the War Chest resets.

This way we have some kind of built in way to both call the game, and allow it to continue. The War Chest could also be used as a tracker if desired, as a way to tally overall game scores. It could also be made progressive if desired (+1 ipc per round, or +1 ipc every other round, +1 ipc every 5 rounds etc). Could see several options here.

For Global 1940…

You could do much the same, while still preserving NO’s, Capital Capture etc, or using new NO’s or other victory mechanics (like the R&D methods proposed elsewhere.) So its more of an all purpose HR, that might be used with other ideas.

Argothair

There are some brilliant ideas in here, and then there are some less fully-developed ones. I’ll stick to 1942.2 since that’s what I know best.

I think a +1 IPC bonus per VC per full game turn in “flexdollars” (as we used to call them at the college dining halls) that can be assigned to any nation is great. It’s a great way to keep players interested in the victory cities during the game, and it helps cushion Russia against an early knockout. I also love the idea of a major, ongoing cash bonus triggering when one side has achieved a critical threshold of victory cities – as you say, a big cash bonus to the leading team encourages and accelerates the end of the game without requiring an immediate surrender, which is exactly the effect we’re looking for.

Let’s see how this plays out in practice.

In most games, Germany will quickly take Leningrad, and no other VCs will change hands for the first few turns. Eventually Calcutta will fall to the Japanese, but around that time, America should be able to start trading Paris. So, for most of the game, the Axis will have 7 VCs and the Allies will have 6 VCs. Russia will be getting +6 IPCs on just about every turn in most games, which will help their defense more than an extra +7 IPCs placed in Berlin or Kwangtung, because defense is cheaper, and because the extra Russian infantry can be dropped directly into Moscow/Stalingrad, without having to march anywhere. That’s all fine with me; should keep things interesting.

The problem comes in the endgame. Let’s say the Allies start to get the drop on the Germans, and they liberate first Paris (turn 5?), then Rome (turn 7?), and finally Leningrad (turn 9?). If India has fallen to Japan without direct compensation, then that still puts the Allies at only 8 VCs – not enough to collect the big cash bonus. The Allies have to either take Berlin, hold India out to at least turn 9, or take a VC away from the Japanese in order to get to 9 VCs. If you take Berlin, that’s a major capital capture, so you’re not really adding anything to the de facto standard victory conditions. If you hold India to turn 9 in a KGF game while seizing most of western Europe and protecting Moscow, then Japan has probably screwed something up somewhere pretty heavily. Ditto if you manage to take Manila or Shanghai away from Japan while also seizing western Europe – the Allies really shouldn’t have enough cash in the first ten turns of the game to win control of the western Pacific Ocean while also landing enough loaded transports in France/Rome to actually beat back the German garrisons there.

Let’s flip things around, and say that Germany has the edge in the endgame. They win the Battle of the Bulge, push the Americans back into the sea, and hold Paris, Rome, and Leningrad. Meanwhile, the Japanese take Calcutta. That still only puts the Axis at 8 VCs. To get to 9 VCs, the Axis have to take Moscow, Honolulu, or London. If they take Moscow, that’s a capital capture, so, again, you’re not really changing the de facto standard victory conditions. If Japan takes both Honolulu and Calcutta in the first ten turns while also putting enough pressure on Russia to let Germany hold western Europe, then America probably screwed up – it’s not that hard for America to deadzone Pearl Harbor. You build a couple of subs and a couple of fighters in San Diego as needed, and Japan really shouldn’t be able to spare the cash to build a large enough fleet to take and hold Honolulu; it’s a non-trivial expense. And London is just silly – London never falls in a 1942.2 game. I had a game last week where Russia failed to capture any territories on R1, and I had Germany build a Baltic fleet with 3 transports and position the entire Luftwaffe in range of London, in a full-dice game, and London still wasn’t seriously threatened.

The point of all these details is that it’s absurdly hard to get to 9 VP in a game of 1942.2 without capturing a capital or being in such a crushingly dominant position that any sane player will acknowledge that you’ve won the game. If anything, by the time you get up to 9 VP, the losing team is often already bored and demoralized.

I’m not sure that 8 VP would work any better, though. 8 VP is too easy! The Germans seize Leningrad, the Japanese steal Honolulu for a turn, and BOOM! instant cash bonus. The British grab France for one turn, the Americans suicide a transport to take Manila for a turn, and BOOM! instant cash bonus. It’s too easy for one side or the other to get a ‘cheap’ infusion of cash by unsustainably grazing the 8 VP threshold.

Maybe you could interpret that as the “morale boost” from making major progress on your campaigns, but then when you get pushed back away from your “gains”, shouldn’t you have to refund the money to represent your now-sagging morale? It seems artificial and game-y to me. Yes, I know we’re discussing a game. Grrrr.

Anyway, I think to make this idea work in 1942.2 you’d need more victory cities on the map. It’s a really cool idea, but there’s no useful place to draw the line where your VC cash would suddenly double.

Also, if you give a cash bonus to the losing team to reward their decision not to surrender, then you’re pulling on the rope from both ends, and I think you wind up wasting your efforts and getting sweaty without moving the rope anywhere. If Germany is losing and you want to put pressure on Germany to accelerate the end of the game, fine, give the Allies more cash. If Germany is losing and you want to give Germany a boost to help it sustain the resistance, fine, give Germany more cash. But don’t do both at once; that’s just a way to prolong an already long game by giving both sides more cash at a time when the game should be winding down, and forcing both sides to do some fresh thinking about how to spend that extra cash. You’re also giving the losing player false hope – if I get a one-time defensive bonus, and you get an every-turn offensive bonus, then it’s just a matter of time before you crush me. Even if I can momentarily knock you down to 8 VPs with my “Final Defense” cash, you’ll go right back up to 9 VPs once the purchases you made with your “Major Victory” cash catch up to the front lines, and then you’ll get even more Major Victory cash that you can use to take my capital.

Black_Elk

Yeah it’s pretty hard to work in the 13 VC spread. Would have been easier if we had 18 VCs like AA50. Probably a shot in the dark there, trying to find a way to keep the underdog in it till the bitter end, lets shelve that for now and just keep to the basics.

If 9 VCs is too high for 1942.2 to accomplish what we want, and the main thrust of the game is already decided at that point, then maybe 8 VCs is still workable?… if the bonus doesn’t double, but just scales up/down for the two teams in some other more moderate way?

Like when you cross the 8 VC threshold, you get a one time bonus? Or perhaps deny the War Chest to the enemy, but just for that round? Ideally you’d have a situation where the second tier of VCs (Rome and Honolulu in particular) come into the War Chest equation with more significance, something that gives a better swing to indicate a launch from the mid-game into the end-game.

ps. Perhaps another option would be not to count the Capitals in the spread for 1942.2? So only the 8 Victory cities that aren’t capitals count for the Warchest. Then you’ve got 4 vs 4 at the outset. in 1942.2 that might recommend just a flat bonus for the non-capital VCs at whatever level seems best for that map, maybe +2 per VC to the Warchest? For G40 the situation is different though, since you’d want to bring Sydney and Rome and Paris into it for sure, and they are all Capital VCs on that map.

I’m not gonna lie, trying to make VCs actually work well as a victory mechanic, has been a source of consistent frustration for me hehe.
I’d probably settle for a War Chest mechanic that just makes them relevant to the gameplay, even if they still aren’t particularly useful for their stated purpose of determining who wins.

Main goals for 1942.2 would be to encourage players to conquer/defend the VCs that are actually in contention with more vigor and commitment, Rome, Paris, Honolulu, Leningrad, Manila esp. instead of just ignoring them in favor of Capitals exclusively. Taking Paris or Rome as an example, the Axis should really want to hold this territory till the end of the game round, every round for as long as possible, not trade it endlessly with UK/US until it starts to matter for sudden death. Similarly for Honolulu and Manila, you’d want the US to really fight to defend/recover these, so the Pacific VCs matter more economically (on an ongoing basis) relative the VCs at the Center or in Europe.

I think by putting this income into team Warchests, you get more gameplay interest out of a smaller amount of total IPCs, because these can be focused where they’re most needed. Creates a special class of separate VC income, that is more strategically valuable than normal income, on account of the way it can be distributed however the team wishes. I also like the idea that the VC territory has to be held till the end of the round, to count towards the team bonus.

Even if we didn’t change from the stated OOB victory conditions, at least this would make those little red dots more meaningful to the gameplay, while the game is actually still going on.
:-D

LHoffman

Cool idea. I assume this is all based on keeping the VCs shown on the OOB boards for 42.2 and G40.

If the board was at all to be changed or added to, you could have tiers of VCs denoted by different colors, maybe not counting capitals which would be in a category by themselves. You would have minor VCs (Warsaw, Nanking?, Kiev) worth +1 and major VCs (Stalingrad, Singapore, Cairo) worth +2. That would necessitate some changes to the board and probably addition of cities.

baron Münchhausen

Here is an alternate 1942.2 VCs and set up from arwaker:
@Baron:

Just a transcript of the file below (for those which don’t want to load the file). And make comments easier.

How to retrieve victory in A&A Spring 1942 2.nd Ed. - House Rules (rev1.0)
(Rules for additional victory cities to increase the strategic depth of A&A 42)

At the end of US turn, the victory conditions are checked. If one of the powers has at least 25 victory points, it is considered as the winner of the game. Victory points are provided by holding countries that contain a certain important victory city. Each of these cities provide 1, 2 or 3 victory points and the sum must be 25 or more to win the game.

As far as possible, the victory cities represent a certain kind of importance for the global political situation. Controlling them symbolizes an important part of winning the whole war. However, due to tactical and strategic issues, some of the victory cities (and their specific position on the map) were chosen simply due to the fact that it improves the experience of game play. They open up new interesting strategies and give action to some of the fewer busy areas of the map.

3 Victory Points
Russia Moscow
Germany Berlin
United Kingdom London
Japan Tokyo
Eastern United States Washington

2 Victory Points
Karelia S.S.R. Leningrad
France Paris
Italy Rome
India Calcutta
Kiangsu Shanghai
Philippine Islands Manila
Western United States San Francisco

1 Victory Point
Caucasus Stalingrad
Norway Oslo
Ukraine Kiev
Eastern Canada Ottawa
Egypt Cairo
Union of South Africa Cape Town
Eastern Australia Sydney
Manchuria Beijing
East Indies Jakarta
Brazil Rio de Janeiro
Hawaiian Islands Honolulu

Starting Victory Points:
Axis Power: 18 VP
Germany: 9 VP
Japan: 9 VP

Allies Power: 22 VP
Russia: 6 VP
United Kingdom: 9 VP
United States: 7 VP

The Allies Power has a beginning advantage of 4 VP and only need 3 more VP to win. This opens up some new strategic possibilities to overwhelm unwary Axis players and end the game rather quickly. However, the capital cities like Berlin or Tokyo should be rather impossible to conquer (getting one of them would be sufficient) but some others are quite exposed and easy to get, like Kiev or Jakarta.

The Axis Power needs additional 7 VP (4 more than the Allies), which might look really imbalanced, but some of the Allies’ Victory Cities are really simple to get (eg. Cairo, Honolulu). In this version the Allies players do not only have to defend Moscow and London, but also the rest of the world, which is totally different to normal games. Instead of the ordinary great battle in Europe, now the Axis also can strike at new areas. For example getting India, Karelia, Egypt, Australia and Hawaii is enough to win.

The national setup charts were changed significantly. With these changes, the setup is less historically but more motivated by providing a larger variety of strategic possibilities, bringing the war to regions where normally nothing happens and last but not least by improving balance.

Changes to the Rules

Minor Industrial Complex
Cost: 10 IPC
Placement: Any territory with at least 1 IPC and that was under your control at the beginning of your turn.
Unit Production: Up to 2 units with maximum of 10 IPC worth each
Upgrade: Can be upgraded to Major Industrial Complex for 15 IPC

Major Industrial Complex
Cost: +15 IPC (only upgradeable from Minor Complex)
Placement: Any territory with at least 3 IPC production, already containing a Minor Complex, and was under your control at the beginning of your turn.
Unit Production: Up to 5 units with no IPC worth limit

Cruiser
Price reduction to 10 IPC

Battleship
Price reduction to 18 IPC

Aircraft Carrier
Price increase to 15 IPC

National Setup Chart � Soviet Union 24 IPC
Russia: 4 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 AAA, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter, Major Industrial Complex
Karelia S.S.R.: 4 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter, Minor Industrial Complex
Archangel: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank
Novosibirsk: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Bomber
Caucasus: 3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 AAA, Minor Industrial Complex
Kazakh S.S.R.: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank
Vologda: 1 Infantry
Evenki National Okrug: 3 Infantry, 1 Tank
Yakut S.S.R.: 1 Infantry
Burytia S.S.R.: 1 Infantry, 1 Artillery
Soviet Far East: 1 Infantry

Sea Zone 4: 1 Destroyer, 1 Submarine, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 16: 1 Cruiser, 1 Submarine, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 63: 1 Destroyer

National Setup Chart � United Kingdom 31 IPC
United Kingdom: 3 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Artillery, 1 AAA, 1 Fighter, 1 Bomber, Major Industrial Complex
Eastern Canada: 2 Infantry, 1 Tank
Egypt: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter
French West Africa: 1 Infantry
French Equatorial Africa: 1 Infantry
Union of South Africa: 1 Infantry
Trans Jordan: 1 Infantry
Persia: 1 Infantry
India: 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery
Burma: 1 Infantry
Eastern Australia: 1 Infantry, 1 Fighter
Western Australia: 1 Infantry
New Zealand: 1 Infantry

Sea Zone 1: 1 Transport
Sea Zone 7: 1 Battleship, 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, 1 Submarine, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 10: 1 Destroyer, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 14: 1 Destroyer, 1 Aircraft Carrier with 1 Fighter
Sea Zone 17: 1 Battleship, 1 Destroyer
Sea Zone 25: 1 Cruiser
Sea Zone 28: 1 Destroyer
Sea Zone 35: 1 Aircraft Carrier with 1 Fighter, 1 Destroyer, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 39: 1 Cruiser, 1 Submarine, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 40: 1 Destroyer

National Setup Chart � United States 42 IPC
Eastern United States: 2 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter, Major Industrial Complex
Central United States: 1 Infantry, 1 Bomber
Western United States: 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter, Major Industrial Complex
Central America: 1 Infantry
Hawaiian Islands: 1 Infantry, 1 Fighter
Yunnan: 2 Infantry
Szechwan: 2 Infantry, 1 Fighter
Anhwei: 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery
Sinkiang: 1 Infantry

Sea Zone 11: 1 Destroyer, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 19: 1 Cruiser, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 53: 1 Aircraft Carrier with 1 Fighter, 1 Destroyer, 1 Submarine
Sea Zone 56: 1 Battleship, 1 Destroyer, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 65: 1 Cruiser

National Setup Chart � Germany 41 IPC
Germany: 4 Infantry, 1 AAA, 2 Tanks, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter, Major Industrial Complex
France: 2 Infantry, 1 AAA, 1 Artillery, 2 Tanks, 1 Bomber, Minor Industrial Complex
Northwestern Europe: 1 Infantry, 1 AAA, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter
Norway: 2 Infantry
Finland: 3 Infantry
Baltic States: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank
Poland: 2 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter
Bulgaria Romania: 2 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter
Italy: 2 Infantry, 1 AAA, 1 Tank, Minor Industrial Complex
Southern Europe: 1 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter
Ukraine S.S.R.: 3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Tank
Belorussia: 3 Infantry
West Russia: 3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter
Marocco: 1 Infantry, 1 Artillery
Algeria: 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery
Lybia: 1 Infantry, 1 Tank

Sea Zone 5: 2 Cruiser, 2 Transports
Sea Zone 8: 1 Submarine
Sea Zone 9: 1 Submarine
Sea Zone 12: 1 Submarine
Sea Zone 13: 1 Submarine
Sea Zone 15: 1 Cruiser, 1 Battleship, 1 Transport

National Setup Chart � Japan 30 IPC
Japan: 6 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 AAA, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter, 1 Bomber, Major Industrial Complex
Manchuria: 3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter
Kiangsu: 3 Infantry, 1 Tank
Kwangtung: 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery
Iwo Jima: 1 Infantry
Okinawa: 1 Infantry
French Indo-China Thailand: 2 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 1 Fighter
Malaya: 1 Infantry
East Indies: 2 Infantry
Borneo: 1 Infantry, 1 Artillery
New Guinea: 1 Infantry
Philippine Islands: 1 Infantry, 1 Artillery

Sea Zone 37: 1 Aircraft Carrier with 2 Fighters, 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 44: 1 Submarine
Sea Zone 50: 1 Aircraft Carrier with 1 Fighter, 1 Battleship
Sea Zone 60: 1 Battleship, 1 Destroyer
Sea Zone 61: 1 Cruiser, 1 Transport
Sea Zone 62: 1 Cruiser, 1 Transport

Argothair

That could work nicely for an alternate set of VCs! Collect $1 per “point” per turn of each Victory City in flexdollars, and if you collect $25 or more, then you double your flexdollar take.

Black Elk, maybe you’re right that the 8 VC threshold for doubling would work for an otherwise OOB 1942.2. It’s easy for Germany to hold Leningrad and for Japan to grab Honolulu, but harder for them to hold it against even one USA attack, and the cash doesn’t get distributed until after the USA’s turn. If Japan manages to take and hold Honolulu for one full turn, but then loses it again, I guess it’s not the end of the world if the Axis get an extra one-time bonus of $8 in flexdollars. That seems proportionate!

Likewise, if the Allies have lost Calcutta but are still trading all three of Paris, Rome, and Leningrad (so they hold those cities at the end of America’s turn, but not necessarily at the end of Germany’s turn), then they deserve an $8 boost, because they’re trampling over the Atlantik Wall and turning into the Atlantic Rubble. Same thing if the Allies hold Calcutta and trade both Paris and Rome in the same turn – they deserve a boost. That’s not cheap; that’s proportionate; it’s part of Germany’s job to make sure that the Allies don’t penetrate into the European heartland. The Allies can land in Norway or Northwest Europe and Germany doesn’t lose major income, but if the Allies actually make it into both France and Rome, even if they can’t quite stay there, then that ought to signal the endgame and trigger a bonus.

Black_Elk

@LHoffman:

Cool idea. I assume this is all based on keeping the VCs shown on the OOB boards for 42.2 and G40.

If the board was at all to be changed or added to, you could have tiers of VCs denoted by different colors, maybe not counting capitals which would be in a category by themselves. You would have minor VCs (Warsaw, Nanking?, Kiev) worth +1 and major VCs (Stalingrad, Singapore, Cairo) worth +2. That would necessitate some changes to the board and probably addition of cities.

Yeah I was mainly thinking in terms of the OOB map. It’s not that adding VCs would be particularly difficult, all it really requires is some sort of generic marker pieces. For many it wouldn’t be an issue, even if the boxed map is at a premium for space to house units, some will just print out custom maps anyway. But somehow map modifications still strike me as a barrier to ease of adoption. If ever there were a 3rd edition to any of these games, it might be nice if Victory Cities were indicated by a unit token on the set up cards (perhaps with a couple extras VC tokens included, just in case one were to “get lost”) that way people could experiment with removing/adding/changing VC locations on the fly. In that case it would also be nice if many more territories had city names written on the map, if only for educational purposes.

But given the map that comes in the box, I was just trying to think of something simple… because at a certain point, even on a map like 1942.2, half the territories in a given theater might end up candidates for VCs, and then it’s like how do you really choose? Is Singapore better than Kiev? Is Oslo better than Cape Town, or Rio, or wherever? It kind of opens the flood gates, and on a feature of the game that in my view still isn’t sufficiently well established in gameplay interest, despite being around since Revised.

Would certainly be sweet if it worked at 8 VCs for 1942.2, since I think there are enough VCs in global to get the idea up off the ground on that map.

I’m still holding out hope that this entire 60 page thread, might somehow be condensed into an HR redesign that fits on a single side of A4 printer paper for 1942.2, maybe double sided A4 for Global. That way people’s eye’s don’t glaze over when reading it hehe, and I would prioritize the simplest HRs that have the most significant potential impact on gameplay, using the OOB materials.

This is where I’m at currently in terms of optional add ons, that might work well together.
1942.2 Rules Adjustments…

War Chest: to make VCs relevant to the gameplay.

Progressive Round Tracker option: as a compliment to the above, introducing more cash into play over time.

New Liberation/Looting Rules: 1 time looting for Capitals. No auto-restore of starting territories under friendly control upon liberation (Nation must claim TTs with ground units to restore ownership.) Things to discourage Endgame weirdness around Capital Capture/Liberation.

Working NAP: to encourage a more historical play pattern by Japan/Russia.

Team Coordination Restrictions: Something to prohibit, or at least discourage co-location by Japan/Germany and Soviet/Western Allies in each other’s starting territories.

Close Western China option: to account for the map compression here, and keep Japan honest in central Asia. I really like the idea of adding a few Soviet units in Sinkiang as part of this, to represent the CCP. Gives a nod to Mao and the second united Front. Makes the US supported KMT position more tenable too.

Turn order balance adjustment: American Zero Turn.

Objective bonuses: to encourage more historically satisfying playpatterns, Italy, D-Day, Pacific Islands etc. I’d have a very limited number, certainly fewer than AA50 to keep it manageable.

Then you have the unit expansion ideas, for existing units…

Factories: Scorched earth, and a built-in production bonus (at least for infantry) over the printed ipc values on the map. For more interesting production purchase options.

C5 Bomber: to fix SBR/Escort/Intercept and the Air vs Naval Balance.

M3 transports/cruisers: for a more layered naval and coastal defense game.

Subs can evade Destroyers: No blocking option. New interaction for SS/DD/Air with the depth charge first strike etc.

Combat AAA gun: because nothing is more frustrating that a unit that only moves in non combat haha.

Battleship AAA fire: to give that unit a purpose at the core of the fleet, and more value as a purchase option relative to other ships.

Shipyards cost revision: to make all ships more affordable.

And finally, the option to introduce G40 materials/concepts in the 1942.2 game. or entirely new units:

Tactical bombers, Mech Infantry, Bases, Major/Minor Factories, Convoy Raiding etc.

Probably a tall order to fit all that on a single sided sheet of printer paper, and some ideas might be less popular than others. But that’s what I would shoot for in 1942.2 outline.
For Global you could have much the same, so you don’t require too much reduplication and could maintain consistency with many of the 1942.2 HRs, though here you’d clearly need to spend more time/space on things like Bases, and Objectives, Tech, and Victory. Global is also better suited to introducing new units, things like Marines, Escort Carriers, Mobile Artillery and the like, for those who want to go nuts with the roster. Right now we have a pretty extensive tripleA gamefile for G40 in the works, that will hit most of the HR high notes, once Barney irons out the kinks.

baron Münchhausen

@Argothair:

That could work nicely for an alternate set of VCs! Collect $1 per “point” per turn of each Victory City in flexdollars, and if you collect $25 or more, then you double your flexdollar take.

Black Elk, maybe you’re right that the 8 VC threshold for doubling would work for an otherwise OOB 1942.2. It’s easy for Germany to hold Leningrad and for Japan to grab Honolulu, but harder for them to hold it against even one USA attack, and the cash doesn’t get distributed until after the USA’s turn. If Japan manages to take and hold Honolulu for one full turn, but then loses it again, I guess it’s not the end of the world if the Axis get an extra one-time bonus of $8 in flexdollars. That seems proportionate!

Likewise, if the Allies have lost Calcutta but are still trading all three of Paris, Rome, and Leningrad (so they hold those cities at the end of America’s turn, but not necessarily at the end of Germany’s turn), then they deserve an $8 boost, because they’re trampling over the Atlantik Wall and turning into the Atlantic Rubble. Same thing if the Allies hold Calcutta and trade both Paris and Rome in the same turn – they deserve a boost. That’s not cheap; that’s proportionate; it’s part of Germany’s job to make sure that the Allies don’t penetrate into the European heartland. The Allies can land in Norway or Northwest Europe and Germany doesn’t lose major income, but if the Allies actually make it into both France and Rome, even if they can’t quite stay there, then that ought to signal the endgame and trigger a bonus.

Instead of a given number to double up, suppose each conquered VC worth double.
Using 4 VCs vs 4 VCs, excluding Capital City, suppose each worth 2 IPCs.
Each side gets 8 IPCs for Warchest. But, if Axis gets another VC by the end of US turn, it worth 4 IPCs.
This would rise Axis to 12 IPCs while Allies would get 6 IPCs. Anothe VCs, 16 IPCs vs 4 IPCs.
Retrieved VC worth only 2 IPCs but other enemy VC still 4 IPCs.

One problem is Karelia, Soviet cannot fight back before end of round and sharing money.
Same issue for Germany, loosing Paris or Rome, cannot be taken by the end of round.
If all VCs considered 2 IPCs, it makes Axis 12 and Allies 14.
With Karelia taken, Axis 16 vs Allies 12.

That way, the 8th VC makes an Axis 20 vs 10 IPCs a pretty high differential.
If Allies keep leads, 8 to 5, then Axis 10 and Allies 18.

Probably 1 IPC per VC can work, with 2 IPCs per additional.
For each VC taken it makes 3 IPCs swing. By itself, 8 VCs give 4 or 5 more IPCs to one side.
You get this kind of IPCs progression:
VCs Axis Alllies
3vs10 3 13
4vs9 4 11
5vs8 5 9
6vs7 6 7
7vs6 8 6
8vs5 10 5
9vs4 12 4
10vs3 14 3
So, 1 VC makes 2 or 4 IPCs diff, 2 VCs make 5 or 7 IPCs differential.

You get this kind of IPCs progression if 2 IPCs per TTy + 4 per VC conquered:
VCs Axis Alllies
3vs10 6 26
4vs9 8 22
5vs8 10 18
6vs7 12 14
7vs6 16 12
8vs5 20 10
9vs4 24 8
10vs3 28 6
So, 1 VC makes 4 or 8 IPCs diff, 2 VCs make 10 or 14 IPCs differential.

If capital VCs are excluded, 4 vs 4 VCs.
You get this kind of IPCs progression if 2 IPCs per TTy + 4 per VC conquered:
VCs Axis Alllies
1vs7 2 20
2vs6 4 16
3vs5 6 12
4vs4 8 8
5vs3 12 6
6vs2 16 4
7vs1 20 2
8vs0 24 0
So, 1 VC makes 6 IPCs diff, 2 VCs make 12 IPCs differential.
So, the more VCs you get the more you have money to share amongst friendly powers.

baron Münchhausen

@Baron:

@Argothair:

That could work nicely for an alternate set of VCs! Collect $1 per “point” per turn of each Victory City in flexdollars, and if you collect $25 or more, then you double your flexdollar take.

Black Elk, maybe you’re right that the 8 VC threshold for doubling would work for an otherwise OOB 1942.2. It’s easy for Germany to hold Leningrad and for Japan to grab Honolulu, but harder for them to hold it against even one USA attack, and the cash doesn’t get distributed until after the USA’s turn. If Japan manages to take and hold Honolulu for one full turn, but then loses it again, I guess it’s not the end of the world if the Axis get an extra one-time bonus of $8 in flexdollars. That seems proportionate!

Likewise, if the Allies have lost Calcutta but are still trading all three of Paris, Rome, and Leningrad (so they hold those cities at the end of America’s turn, but not necessarily at the end of Germany’s turn), then they deserve an $8 boost, because they’re trampling over the Atlantik Wall and turning into the Atlantic Rubble. Same thing if the Allies hold Calcutta and trade both Paris and Rome in the same turn – they deserve a boost. That’s not cheap; that’s proportionate; it’s part of Germany’s job to make sure that the Allies don’t penetrate into the European heartland. The Allies can land in Norway or Northwest Europe and Germany doesn’t lose major income, but if the Allies actually make it into both France and Rome, even if they can’t quite stay there, then that ought to signal the endgame and trigger a bonus.

Instead of a given number to double up, suppose each conquered VC worth double.
Using 4 VCs vs 4 VCs, excluding Capital City, suppose each worth 2 IPCs.
Each side gets 8 IPCs for Warchest. But, if Axis gets another VC by the end of US turn, it worth 4 IPCs.
This would rise Axis to 12 IPCs while Allies would get 6 IPCs. Anothe VCs, 16 IPCs vs 4 IPCs.
Retrieved VC worth only 2 IPCs but other enemy VC still 4 IPCs.

One problem is Karelia, Soviet cannot fight back before end of round and sharing money.
Same issue for Germany, loosing Paris or Rome, cannot be taken by the end of round.
If all VCs considered 2 IPCs, it makes Axis 12 and Allies 14.
With Karelia taken, Axis 16 vs Allies 12.

That way, the 8th VC makes an Axis 20 vs 10 IPCs a pretty high differential.
If Allies keep leads, 8 to 5, then Axis 10 and Allies 18.

Probably 1 IPC per VC can work, with 2 IPCs per additional.
For each VC taken it makes 3 IPCs swing. By itself, 8 VCs give 4 or 5 more IPCs to one side.
You get this kind of IPCs progression:
VCs Axis Alllies
3vs10 3 13
4vs9 4 11
5vs8 5 9
6vs7 6 7
7vs6 8 6
8vs5 10 5
9vs4 12 4
10vs3 14 3
So, 1 VC makes 2 or 4 IPCs diff, 2 VCs make 5 or 7 IPCs differential.

You get this kind of IPCs progression if 2 IPCs per TTy + 4 per VC conquered:
VCs Axis Alllies
3vs10 6 26
4vs9 8 22
5vs8 10 18
6vs7 12 14
7vs6 16 12
8vs5 20 10
9vs4 24 8
10vs3 28 6
So, 1 VC makes 4 or 8 IPCs diff, 2 VCs make 10 or 14 IPCs differential.

If capital VCs are excluded, 4 vs 4 VCs.
You get this kind of IPCs progression if 2 IPCs per TTy + 4 per VC conquered:
VCs Axis Alllies
1vs7 2 20
2vs6 4 16
3vs5 6 12
4vs4 8 8
5vs3 12 6
6vs2 16 4
7vs1 20 2
8vs0 24 0
So, 1 VC makes 6 IPCs diff, 2 VCs make 12 IPCs differential.
So, the more VCs you get the more you have money to share amongst friendly powers.

Keeping 4 vs 4 non-capital VCs, it makes sense because you get a different IPCs swing reward compared to Capital conquest.
VCs gives money in the Warchest while Capital taken gives looting enemy 's power cash in hand.
Both creates a swing to help finish the game.

baron Münchhausen

CWO Marc provides some reasons to explained how one action can make a swing on balance.
The link lead to an interesting thread on our actual topic:
@CWO:

@Argothair:

The problem is that the capital rules incentivize players to engage in boring, ahistorical, one-sided offensives where the players take turns steamrolling each other in opposite theaters. So how can we eliminate that incentive while still capturing a sense of drama and purpose in our victory conditions?

Maybe by introducing some sort of political-impact element to the game. I don’t know what precise form it could take (a current approximate equivalent are the national objectives) or what kind of bonus it would translate into (perhaps cash, perhaps victory points, perhaps forward or backward movement along a political “progress towards victory” chart of some sort), but the idea would be for some territories (and some player actions, about which I’ll say more in a moment) to have higher political/symbolic value than others.

To give just one rough example: the Hawaiian Islands territory (which includes Honololu) and the Philippines territory (which includes Manila) both start out as US island territories in the Pacific, and purely on paper the Philippines territory is worth more than Hawaii (at 2 IPCs versus 1), but from a historical point of view they didn’t at all have the same political value. If Hawaii had been occupied by Japan, the political symbolism would have been very large and very bad for the US and very large and very good for Japan; sort of a Pearl Harbor on steroids. Fortunately it never happened. By contrast, the Philippines were actually occupied by Japan; in the US, this event provoked a mixture of anger and embarrassment, but at a level that was quite manageable.

Some sort of political-impact factor relating to player actions in general could also, perhaps, help with problems such as the two-theatre issue you’ve mentioned. Players could be rewarded not just for holding specific territories with high symbolic value; they could also be rewarded for taking political considerations into account when planning their overall strategy. I won’t go into the details here (though I can provide them if you want), but there were a number of reasons why historically the US fought a two-theatre war in WWII, and some of those reasons were political in nature. Those kinds of considerations aren’t currently reflected in the A&A rules (which don’t use politics as a hard-wired element of the victory conditions), so naturally the players can ignore these factors and follow strategies that (as you mention) are both inaccurate from a historical viewpoint and unsatisfactory from a gaming viewpoint.

@CWO:

To pick up on Argothair’s reference to momentous turning points of the war being something that could perhaps be reflected in a revised system of victory conditions, here’s a concrete example of a territory (and of events associated with it) which turned out to have major political and strategic implications for both the Allies and the Axis in WWII, even though in Global 1940 this territory has no IPC value, contains no victory city, and has no OOB national objectives associated with it. That territory is Sicily.

For the Allies, the planned invasion of Sicily was (among other things) designed to benefit the overall Allied war effort by helping to keep the Soviet/Anglo-American alliance glued together. Churchill and Roosevelt were under pressure from Stalin to open a second front against Germany in continental Europe, to help relieve the pressure on the Soviets, who felt – with some justification – that they were bearing the brunt of the land war with Germany. The Anglo-American argument that their strategic bombing offensive against Germany was a kind of “second front” wasn’t satisfactory from Stalin’s point of view, but at the same time the British and the Americans weren’t yet ready in 1943 to launch a cross-Channel invasion against occupied France. An invasion of Italy (via Sicily) from North Africa thus offered a kind of compromise between what Stalin wanted and what the Anglo-Americans were unable to do. (It also helped that Churchill had the same fondness in both WWI and WWII for strategic outflanking schemes of debatable value. He believed that Italy was “the soft underbelly of the Axis crocodile,” an assertion which ought to have sounded absurd to anyone who could read a topographical map of Italy.)

The Anglo-American invasion of Sicily in early July 1943 advanced the cause of the three main Allied powers by helping to maintain their cohesion, but it was also the start of a chain of events which ultimately had the opposite effect on the two main European Axis powers. Mussolini was removed from power within a couple of weeks of the invasion of Sicily. When the Allies invaded mainland Italy at the beginning of September, the new Italian government negotiated an armistice with the Allied powers, and eventually switched sides from the Axis to the Allies. The Italian armistice led both to an Italian civil war and to the German invasion of Italy, whereby the German Army (taking advantage of the fact that Italy’s topography is well suited for defense) reduced the Allied advance to a slow grind that would last until 1945. The German invasion of Italy (and its takeover of the Italian zones of occupation in France and the Balkans) involved about 40 divisions if I’m not mistaken, which necessarily meant reducing the number of German forces serving elsewhere.

The specifics of the above anecdote are, of course, too detailed for a simplified military-themed game like A&A, and I’m not suggesting that they (and similar ones for other territories) be modeled in detail into a new set of victory conditions. The more general point to take away is that a particular territory (or a particular set of actions by a player) could potentially be considered to affect the course of the war in ways that aren’t reflected in a victory system which is based either on economics or on victory cities. I’m not sure, though, if that’s what Argothair was driving at.

LHoffman

@Baron:

CWO Marc provides some reasons to explained how one action can make a swing on balance.
The link lead to an interesting thread on our actual topic:
@CWO:

@Argothair:

The problem is that the capital rules incentivize players to engage in boring, ahistorical, one-sided offensives where the players take turns steamrolling each other in opposite theaters. So how can we eliminate that incentive while still capturing a sense of drama and purpose in our victory conditions?

Maybe by introducing some sort of political-impact element to the game. I don’t know what precise form it could take (a current approximate equivalent are the national objectives) or what kind of bonus it would translate into (perhaps cash, perhaps victory points, perhaps forward or backward movement along a political “progress towards victory” chart of some sort), but the idea would be for some territories (and some player actions, about which I’ll say more in a moment) to have higher political/symbolic value than others.

To give just one rough example: the Hawaiian Islands territory (which includes Honololu) and the Philippines territory (which includes Manila) both start out as US island territories in the Pacific, and purely on paper the Philippines territory is worth more than Hawaii (at 2 IPCs versus 1), but from a historical point of view they didn’t at all have the same political value. If Hawaii had been occupied by Japan, the political symbolism would have been very large and very bad for the US and very large and very good for Japan; sort of a Pearl Harbor on steroids. Fortunately it never happened. By contrast, the Philippines were actually occupied by Japan; in the US, this event provoked a mixture of anger and embarrassment, but at a level that was quite manageable.

Some sort of political-impact factor relating to player actions in general could also, perhaps, help with problems such as the two-theatre issue you’ve mentioned. Players could be rewarded not just for holding specific territories with high symbolic value; they could also be rewarded for taking political considerations into account when planning their overall strategy. I won’t go into the details here (though I can provide them if you want), but there were a number of reasons why historically the US fought a two-theatre war in WWII, and some of those reasons were political in nature. Those kinds of considerations aren’t currently reflected in the A&A rules (which don’t use politics as a hard-wired element of the victory conditions), so naturally the players can ignore these factors and follow strategies that (as you mention) are both inaccurate from a historical viewpoint and unsatisfactory from a gaming viewpoint.

This looks interestingly like what I proposed earlier that didn’t get much attention:

@LHoffman:

However, building on a point I made above about Japan taking Hawaii… If you really wanted to make the Pacific more of a battle ground (forget Japan invading the US), the best bet would probably be to alter victory conditions as they relate to Hawaii. Make Hawaii far more important politically. Such that if Japan takes Hawaii and holds it for a turn, the US automatically quits the war against Japan. Or something similar to that.

This would reflect history in a much more realistic fashion and brings a Pacific battleground into consideration every single game. US public and political opinion during the war would have seriously reconsidered war against Japan if Japan was to have taken such a close and important territory as Hawaii. Japan initially hoped that the attack on Pearl Harbor would be enough to dissuade the US, but that didn’t work. Physically taking Hawaii may have pushed that over the top and caused the US to sign a treaty. We will never know and I would research it more to see if that is plausible, but from what I do know that may be a darn good compromise. It makes holding Hawaii critically important to the United States and to the Allies overall. Japan could still ignore Hawaii and continue on as usual, but why wouldn’t they want to at least threaten it if it can knock a major player out of the war against them? It could even be made that if Japan takes Hawaii, they suffer an economic penalty such that they cannot spend all 80 IPCs against Germany either. Hawaii probably should probably be made harder for Japan to take in this case, or at least prevent them from doing so on their first attack.

Granted CWOMarc suggested it first sometime last year. I don’t care who gets credit for the idea, just that its merits are discussed. It seems like one of the more reasonable and non-intrusive proposals that I have seen to try and get the US to fight Japan in the Pacific.

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