G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

the xeno game used to make you roll 2 dice to repair your BB. I always thought that was cool. You didn’t know how bad it was hurt. Made for more unpredictable situations, which helps realism imo.I could see where their bombard should be suspended or reduced to a 3 anyway as well.

I’d be ok with 1 fighter on a damaged CV. A playtest for sure. That would make for more powerful fleets. The defensive fleet has the advantage now. A little too much imo. It’s a lotta dough to build a fleet and a bad first rd of rolling can devastate it. Makes (me anyway) more conservative in the pacific, which leads to more of a attrition struggle.

@barney:

the xeno game used to make you roll 2 dice to repair your BB.

And what happens after you’ve rolled the dice? Do you had to pay the totalled sum in IPCs to get the BB ready for combat again?

CVs taking 2 hits should be a UK NA only. British carriers had steel decks, and none were ever sunk, even by the Kamikazes.

American carriers were built for speed with wooden decks, hence the high loss rate to air attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_flight_deck

Victory Conditions: Part 1

(Because of its length, I’ll post this message in two parts.  The first part will give background information, and the second will focus on a specific concept for possible application to the game.)

I’m going to take another crack at a subject that I’ve discussed a few times, which is is the subject of victory conditions.  As I’ve argued previously, I think that it’s a fundamental consideration to any game design process because it provides a central reference point for evaluating all the other elements of the game.  My feeling is that without such a reference point, one simply ends up with a collection of cool game mechanics that aren’t held together by anything coherent.  To use a musical analogy: it’s important for a symphony orchestra to include a wide range of instruments played by musicians who each sound great individually, but those individual qualities are meaningless if the individual musicians don’t have a conductor to make sure they play together harmoniously – or, even worse, if the individual musicians aren’t even playing the same symphony.

The idea I’ll be outlining here developed in the following way.  It started out from the premise that, fundamentally, the Axis powers in WWII were optimized for fighting a series of short, decisive campaigns (with breaks in between them to allow them to restock and reorganize for the next campaign), while the Allied powers were in a better position to fight a long-term war of attrition.  This is, or course, an overly simplified description of the status of the two sides during the war, but it’s a useful starting point for thinking about how this model could translate into victory conditions in a redesigned Global 1940 game.

When I started to consider this model, the first idea that came to mind was this one.  If we work from the premise that the Axis has no chance of winning a long war of attrition, then the obvious conclusion is that the Axis has to win early through hard-hitting maneuver warfare, and that the objective of the Allies in this early phase of the game is simply to survive.  It then follows that, if the Axis fails to achieve this early win, then the war can be assumed to be changing from a short-term war of maneuver to a long-term war of attrition, and that in such a context the Allies will almost certainly win, and thus that it’s meaningless to allow the game to continue beyond a certain point.  The victory conditions that emerge from this line of reasoning are therefore something like this: the Axis powers have to achieve such-and-such an objective by such-and-such a round of play; if they succeed, the Axis powers win; if they fail, the Allied powers win.  Ergo, we end up with a game that has a built-in time limit, or more correctly a built-in round limit.

That was my first idea.  I didn’t really like it because although it has the virtue of being simple it has the defect of being simplistic.  It’s based on the premise which I described in the two previous paragraph, and that premise is itself simplistic.  So let’s look at that original premise more closely and try to draw a fuller picture of the situation.  Specifically, we need to look at what “winning the war” would have meant in realistic terms on both the German side and the Japanese side in WWII.

On the German side, the conceptual model of fighting a series of short, decisive campaigns initially went well.  Germany achieved a quick and complete victory on the Eastern Front, conquering the eastern side of Poland, then got a long break (the Phony War) during which it was able to rest, reorganize, plan and train for the next campaign.  It then achieved a quick and complete victory in Denmark and Norway, then another quick and complete victory against the Low Countries and France.  Against Britain, however, the German campaign of May-June 1940 did not produce a victory, but rather a second-best result: what I call a “sustainable stalemate.”  Germany knocked the BEF out of Continental Europe, forcing it to abandon all its equipment in order to evacuate its men, but it proved unable to invade and occupy Britain or to  force it to capitulate.  Britain survived and stayed in the war, but was in no immediate (or even medium-term) position to invade and liberate Western Europe or to force Germany to capitulate.  Hence, the two sides were essentially deadlocked, and were reduced to fighting each other on the ground in fringe territories (like Africa), in the air (in reciprocal bomber offensives) and at sea (the Battle of the Atlantic), with the air and sea campaigns being the start of attritional warfare between the Britain and Germany.  This went on for years, and did not change fundamentally until the mid-1944 D-Day landings in Normandy and Anvil-Dragoon landings in Southern France signaled the resumption of maneuver warfare in Western Europe, and the gradual driving back of the Germans out of France and into Germany.

On the Eastern Front, in 1941, Germany initially tried to win a quick victory over the USSR through maneuver warfare.  The Germans managed to push deeply into Soviet territory, but not deeply enough to achieve either a decisive victory.  (“Deeply enough” would have meant the Urals, or possibly just the A-A line, but my feeling is that it was simply unrealistic for the Germans to get that far.)  Instead, the Germans ran out of steam, then got pushed back part of the way by the Russians…who in turn ran out of steam.  This scenario was repeated in 1942-1943, with the Germans pushing eastward towards Stalingrad and the Russians pushing them back.  In other words, the two sides engaged in a combination of maneuver warfare and attrition warfare for about two years, with the maneuvering component mainly being a back-and-forth see-sawing of the front (similarly to what happened in North Africa) and the attrition component mainly being a huge consumption of manpower on both sides.  The fundamental change on that front occurred in the period following Kursk, when the Russians were able to finally start pushing the Germans back without getting stopped.

How could we define “winning conditions” for Germany in this context?  Physically overrunning Britain proved impossible because of the Channel and physically overrunning Russia proved impossible because of its sheer size, so we can rule out physical conquest as an indicator of victory.  The number two option then becomes getting Britain and Russia to quit.  Germany did make some progress in that direction: Britain’s convoy situation got pretty grim on a couple of occasions, and the USSR supposedly put out some peace feelers to Germany at one point.  All in all, however, Britain and the USSR were too strongly motivated to capitulate unless their resources were exhausted – and neither ever go to that point.  The number three option then becomes achieving a sustainable stalemate on each front.  To “win” in practical terms, Germany would have had to be able to defeat the 1944 Anglo-American landings in France (and any subsequent ones made in 1945 and thereafter) and would have had to be able to keep playing “push me, pull you” with the Soviets on the Eastern Front: falling back from Soviet advances in the winter, and driving forward into Soviet territory in the summer.  So on that basis you could say: if the Germans can achieve this on the game board, and can sustain it for long enough, they can be considered to have won by default because they’re holding on to their gains no matter how hard the Allies try to defeat them.  Conversely, if the Allies manage to regain and hold significant territorial space that the Germans have conquered, they can be considered to have won because the momentum is on their side.  You could call this the “barometer” approach rather than the “thermometer” approach.  With a thermometer, the single reading given at a single moment is meaningful; with a barometer, the meaningful information is the trend shown over time, i.e. whether the pressure is rising or falling.

I’m not going to analyze Japan’s situation in much detail because, frankly, I don’t think Japan ever had much of a chance to win.  It was already wearing itself down in China when it launched (with the bare-bones forces it could spare) its 1941 campaign of conquest in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, so right from the start it was biting off more than it could chew.  In my opinion, Japan’s only realistic chance of achieving sustainable conquests in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would have been if it had done something that can’t be modeled into A&A (because it would distort the game too badly): attacking the British and Dutch colonial territories it wanted, but not going to war against the US.  Japan’s vague strategic hope was that the Americans would get tired of fighting a losing war against Japan, and would eventually sit down to negotiate a treaty that would allow Japan to keep its gains.  This hope would only have worked if Japan had left it up to the US to decide if it wanted to enter WWII, and thus if the US had gone to war without the powerful motivation and the sense of outrage that Pearl Harbor caused.

Victory Conditions: Part 2

The information I gave in the previous post was intended mainly as background to help understand how the actual (or potential) “victory conditions” of the Axis might have worked in WWII.  I mentioned a few concepts that could potentially be turned into actual victory conditions for a redesigned G40 game – but I realize that the concepts are probably too abstract for practical use.  So as a follow-up, here’s a much more concrete proposal that is built around some of the same ideas.

My earlier statement that “the Axis powers in WWII were optimized for fighting a series of short, decisive campaigns, while the Allied powers were in a better position to fight a long-term war of attrition” could be expressed differently by saying that, fundamentally, the Allied powers were fighting space and the Axis powers were fighting time.  The danger faced by the Allied powers was that the Axis would quickly overrun their space early in the war by hard-hitting maneuver warfare.  The danger faced by the Axis was that the Allies, if they survived the initial Axis offensive, would in the long run crush the Axis through attrition with their industrial and manpower superiority.

Attrition and productivity were hugely important to the outcome of WWII, but they’re very inadequately modeled in A&A.  The closest equivalent to these factors is IPC income, but the IPC element is for the most dependent only on space (the conquest of territory) rather than on both space and time.  With one exception, the OOB game does not take into account the fact that the economic and industrial situations of WWII’s combatant nations changed dramatically over time, and that these economic and industrial changes were not exclusively dependent on territorial changes.  The exception is the concept of bonus income, and specifically the concept of the US shifting to a “wartime economy.”

Historically, there were all sorts of factors that affected the economic and industrial situations of the various combatant nations.  To give a couple of examples:

• Japan took an economic hit when the US imposed an oil embargo on it.  Its situation improved when it conquered the Dutch East Indies and Malaya.  This economic situation reached a plateau as the US submarine campaign started to bite, then started to deteriorate as the the sub campaign became more effective, then deteriorated even more when the US got close enough to start its B-29 bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands.

• Germany got a financial boost from its early conquests, but failed to employ them as efficiently as it could have.  Moreover, it did not put its civilian population on a full war footing (from the point of view of factory service) until 1943, whereas the UK and the USSR did so right from the start of the war in each country.  Germany gained industrial capacity from this civilian mobilization, and also from the subsequent program rationalizations introduced by Albert Speer, but at the same time these industrial improvements were “capped” (prevented from growing to their full potential) by the direct destruction caused by the Allied bombing campaign, and indirectly by the inefficiencies caused by the dispersal of industry to which the bombings led.

Some of the factors I’ve mentioned (like the conquest of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya) are already built into the G40 game, but others (like the US submarine campaign against Japan) are not.  So perhaps these time-based factors could be modeled into the game – essentially as IPC modifiers that would affect different countries in different ways in different game rounds, according to predetermined tables.  To give just one very simple example, we could assume that when we get to such-and-such a round of play, Japan’s IPC income would be adjusted downward to represent the effects of the American submarine campaign.  Every power would have its own table of time-based adjustments, representing a combination of two things: the degree to which it improved its industrial productivity at a given moment of the war, and the degree to which that industrial capacity was degraded by enemy action.  The geographic factor (i.e. which territories a power controlled) would not be modeled into these tables because it’s represented by the game map and is under the control of the actual players.  The tables would focus instead on background factors which are currently not modeled (or barely modeled) in the A&A game, the US shift to a wartime economy being the major exception.

These tables would not, in and of themselves, constitute a set of winning conditions.  Rather, their point would be to prevent the game from degenerating into an endless stalemate.  A stalemate, as I’ve argued above, could be designated as a situation which allows the Axis to claim victory.  If, however, such a stalemate-based Axis victory isn’t a satisfactory solution, then the time-based economic adjustment tables might be the answer.  The tables would reflect the fact that long-term attrition warfare favoured the Allied side, so the tables would gradually tilt the balance towards the Allied side.  If there’s no limit placed on this tilting (which is one option), the Allies are guaranteed to win if they hold on long enough.  If there is a limit placed on this tilting, then an Allied victory is not a foregone conclusion but the job of the Axis becomes harder once the game progresses past a certain point – which is an incentive for the Axis to try to win before the equivalent of, let’s say, 1944.

@Hessian

Yea you add the dice and that’s what it costs to fix it.

Changes either added to or discussed already, that I am advocating as potentially good changes.

1. � I don’t really like how America declares war in this game. � It seems so arbitrary when there were huge political forces both for and against the war (and let’s face it, I have NEVER seen a Pearl Harbor on round 4 and I highly doubt anyone else has either…not as it happened where the American battleships and cruisers were sunk.) � So what if we go with the following:

Before America’s turn, each round, the player rolls 2 dice.

• � Round 1: � If both dice are a 1, then America may declare war from then on. (2.89% chance of happening.)
• � Round 2: � If both dice are 2 or less, then America may declare war from then on. 2.89%  (11.82% chance of happening.)
• � Round 3: � If both dice are 3 or less, then America may declare war from then on. � (25.23% chance of happening.)
• � Round 4: � If both dice are 4 or less, then America may declare war from then on. � (45.17% chance of happening.)
• � Round 5: � No matter what, the United States may engage in war at the start of this round. � (Percentages were from an online calculator, so they MIGHT be off…)

So there is a better than 50/50 shot the United States won’t go to war until Round 5, even if they are in Round 4 already! - yes that is a full round late! � Perhaps in this reality the people are more pacifistic than normal? � However, there’s always that chance that the United States may go to war early - something the Axis have to worry about.

2. � War Bonds for nations at war - per technology rules. As discussed above. � (Combined with #1) which will help the Axis (primarily) mitigate the risk of the United States going to war early.

3. � National Objectives:

Germany (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC no British, surface, warships in the North Atlantic (Naval supremacy)

Russia (in place of the current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC No Allied forces in Russia, and Russia is at war with the European Axis powers
B) � +5 IPC for the capture of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Poland (each)
C) � NO BONUS for any other captured Axis territory
D) � +5 IPC not at war with Germany and/or Italy

Japan (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC every round they have more capital warships in the Pacific than all allied nations combined (i.e. they have more battleships and aircraft carriers combined.) - Naval Supremacy
B) � +5 IPC for the complete capture of all Chinese territories

The United States (in addition to, except one change)
A) � CHANGE +5 IPC for the control of E. USA, C. USA & W. USA � (Down from 10 IPC)
B) � +5 IPC for allied control of Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, Paulau Island, Iwo Jima and Okinawa � (Island hopping campaign) � (brings their total NO income back up to where it was before.)

China: � NO CHANGE

England (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC no German submarines in the North Atlantic (able to get supplies from her colonies)
B) � +5 IPC if the United States is at war with Germany and Italy - AND - has 5 ground units in Normandy, France, S. France and/or England � (Allied Forces - basically to make up for the fact they will NEVER get and keep their current NO)

ANZAC: � NO CHANGE

Italy: � NO CHANGE

France: +1 Infantry a round for every round Paris is controlled by France (yea right! � That’s basically game over anyway, right?)

4. � Battleships and Aircraft Carriers must be adjacent to either a friendly Industrial Complex or a friendly Naval Base to repair. �

5. � The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may declare war on the European axis powers only when they have more infantry in E. Poland, Baltic States and/or Bessarabia than Germany and Italy do in Poland, Slovak/Hungary and Romania. � (Rationale: � Stalin wanted to go to war with Germany and if the Germans didn’t have the man power present to cause him to pause, he probably would have declared before Hitler did.) � Yes, for the record, this MIGHT cause the Russians to not be able to declare war the WHOLE game!!! � But it will tie up a whole lot of German income!!! Don’t forget those extra NOs Russia’s getting! �

6. � Russia is permitted to invade Finland, Norway and Sweden even if not at war with Germany (pre-existing disputes.) � Again, this is to tie up German units, who are allowed to liberate these territories without going to war with Russia. �

7. � Minor Industrial Complexes are limited to building the following units: � Infantry, Artillery, Mechanized Infantry, Armor, Fighters, Cruisers, Transports, Submarines and Destroyers only. �

8. � Victory Conditions: �
   Allies: � Allies win if all allied territories everywhere on the game board are controlled by the allies AND no allied capitols are held in enemy hands (yes this includes Paris!) �
   or
   Allies: � Japan is captured OR Italy/Germany are both captured (their capitols.)

Axis: � per game rules (VC or Capitol victory.)

Those are just my opinions…not saying I am correct or I have all the data nor am I saying I thought of all issues these changes might wreak on the game…

The mechanic of “Axis/Central Powers must control X victory cities at the end of round Y” is something I’ve considered for 1914, based on the simple fact that no capitals were captured in that war, and that Germany surrendered with no enemy units on German home soil.

There is therfore a natural “victory curve” graph for the CPs; the game ends automatically after 10 rounds as an Allied win if the CPs fail to achieve an end of round victory.

Two possible mechanics for American entry:

VC threshold - America declares war if the CPs hold X cities at the end of round Y (beginning round 4). Thus American entry only occurs if the CPs are doing reasonably well.

Also, American entry cannot happen until Russia suffers at least a level 1 collapse (fall of the Tsarist regime).

It should also be noted that the Tournament rule victory conditions for 1914 do not work. Very simply, a system based on holding home territories always favours the CPs as it is they who do the attacking - they who fight the war on enemy soil. A system has to be devised in which a side can loose the war without losing home territory. The best idea is a system based on collapse of morale, factoring in such things as number of units lost, bombing raids on home cities and so forth.

Another idea is that at a certain point the Central Powers declare unrestricted submarine warfare, triggering American entry. This does not work in 1914 official rules as the advantage to the CPs for doing this is too trivial. There has to be a big boost for them to to compensate American involvment.
One thing I’ve suggested is that of combined command - essentially the CPs can all take their turn together, including attacking, - possibly giving them an edge to break the stalemate on the Western front.
For WWII this is no so great, and in any case I think Germany and Italy should play together from the start.

I think the game has to assume that a Japanese attack on UK/F/NL brings the American in, otherwise there’s no way Japan will attack the US. This in turn brings a German declaration on America. Japan’s incentive to do this must be based on gaining resourses in the Pacific, either economic (oil) gain from the DEI or political in terms of victory cities (using the victory curve method described above). Axis short-term gains must balance the long-term inevitable defeat spelled by American involvment.

Thus, a Japanese Pacific strike is likely to bring the Axis to the brink of victory (in terms of holding X VCs), forcing America into an aggresive Pacific strategy to regain VCs, rather than simply playing a long game based on wearing down the Axis economically (which is likely to mean ignoring the Pacific).

@Cmdr:

2. � War Bonds for nations at war - per technology rules. As discussed above. � (Combined with #1) which will help the Axis (primarily) mitigate the risk of the United States going to war early.

Is this the everyone has War Bonds roll once per turn, providing they are at war? If so, I like it a lot.

@Cmdr:

Japan (in addition to current NOs)
A) � +5 IPC every round they have more capital warships in the Pacific than all allied nations combined (i.e. they have more battleships and aircraft carriers combined.) - Naval Supremacy
B) � +5 IPC for the complete capture of all Chinese territories

A) I like this one. Gives Japan a reason to keep building ships and has a veneer of historical reality to it.

B) This could easily be bumped up to 10 IPCs in my opinion. I should clarify that it should be bumped up only if modified rules are instituted that make China harder to conquer. Although I would have to reconcile that with their other NOs…

@Cmdr:

7. � Minor Industrial Complexes are limited to building the following units: � Infantry, Artillery, Mechanized Infantry, Armor, Fighters, Cruisers, Transports, Submarines and Destroyers only. �

I thought the point of limiting the unit types for minor ICs was (at least partially) to prevent a Japanese tank crush on Asia? Maybe I misread that, but it seemed a reasonable and convenient limitation. Also looks like you added Fighters and Cruisers to the list of ‘can-builds’. I am not sure I like that, but that is my opinion.

I may be in the minority, but I tend to view cruisers as capital ships. Historically, it would have depended on their size and armament, but most were big enough that I would not list them for building at a minor IC, whose facilities are supposed to be more limited.

Also… the area described as the North Atlantic will have to be delineated with what Sea Zones comprise or encompass it.

@Flashman:

CVs taking 2 hits should be a UK NA only. British carriers had steel decks, and none were ever sunk, even by the Kamikazes.

American carriers were built for speed with wooden decks, hence the high loss rate to air attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_flight_deck

I disagree. A great many US carriers took loads of punishment and survived multiple battles. The US only lost (4) carriers that could be considered Fleet size (14,000+ tons or 50+ aircraft capacity).

http://www.militarian.com/threads/how-many-aircraft-carriers-did-each-country-have-during-wwii.9324/#post-49821 (Cited from: http://www.militarian.com/threads/how-many-aircraft-carriers-did-each-country-have-during-wwii.9324/)

(see post #3 in above link)

If the link above is to be believed… US Carrier losses (which include a greater number of escort/light carriers) are about 11 out of 119 total = 9.2%. British losses were 7 out of 64 total = 10.9%.

Perhaps more importantly, a comparison of Fleet Carriers lost vs. Escort/Light Carriers looks like this:

USA:  4 Fleet / 11 Total = 36% losses were Fleet Carrier size
UK:  4 Fleet / 7 Total = 57% losses Fleet Carrier size

Also, more of Britain’s fleet carrier losses were ships that were more heavily armored because they were converted battleships or cruisers, rather than purpose-built carriers.

I will grant you that the UK never lost one of her newer, Illustrius-era, carriers in the war… but neither did the US lose one of its Essex class, which were essentially comparable in vintage and capabilities.

I just geek-ed out there calculating a bunch of ship stats, but my point is that due to the ability for Fleet-level carriers in general to absorb punishment and survive, they should all be 2-hit to sink.

@Black_Elk:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

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

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

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

@LHoffman:

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

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

@CWO:

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

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

@CWO:

@LHoffman:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Example: the equivalent of Fall 1941.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just my personal opinion, feel free to disagree.

@Flashman:

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

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

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

@Flashman:

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

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

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

@Flashman:

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

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

@Flashman:

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

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

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

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

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

@Flashman:

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

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

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

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

@Flashman:

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

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

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

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

@LHoffman:

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

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

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

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

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

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