The importance of victory cities

I like the basic thrust of trying to make VCs more relevant, but this is very potent. During the endgame, with 19 VCs on the map, you’re talking about introducing 57 TUV worth of infantry every round. Potentially more, since the way it reads now, it seems like you could mobilize in a newly conquered VC, allowing the same territory to count more than once in a round.

Not saying it couldn’t work, but it’s certainly stronger than a cash bonus. I’d be curious to see how it plays out.

This can be divided by two or three.
For each 2 VCs, a nation gets 1 Infantry to be allocated into one VC.

One thing I like is when a rule lays out a connection/justification to the gameplay narrative. I’m usually pretty willing to except a high level of abstraction when a rationale is presented. In this case with VCs I think a cash bonus would be a little more flexible than armies in the field, because the money can be interpreted in different ways, such as from looting, or “liberating” resources, or selling war bonds after a big victory etc. For a free infantry unit though, the situation might be a little trickier to frame. In some territories it might make sense for an army to spontaneously materialize or perhaps conscripted after a city is occupied, for other situations less so.

Either way, I think VCs need an in game reason for existing, beyond just determining the conditions of Axis victory

I like Victory cities as a concept. They are cool for a couple reasons. First just as an aid to geography and history it’s nice to see them represented on the map. Having that extra information represented graphically on the board does a lot to grant those territories special significance, compared to others that don’t have a city.

But in the boxed games (not just G40 but all the boards since revised) their only in game function has been to determine Victory.

Having a universal cash bonus is one way to bring them into play, and that is the main method I’ve used in the past to make VCs relevant/important.

But spawning infantry is an interesting approach as well, because it bypasses the normal purchasing/placement mechanic and would allow for different conquest strategies!

If, under the China type model, it happened automatically during the mobilize units phase for control of the territory, those tiles would be way more valuable  (esp. Valuable independent of the normal production scheme) such that you’d be a fool not to contest them whenever and wherever you have a shot at doing so!

It’d make every VC territory exciting, because they’d serve as an alternate/parallel way that new units enter play. And if that happened every round (at war) that would mean there is a game action bringing the focus on those Cities with each and every turn.

Thinking about in terms of a more out of the way VC territory like Honolulu, or Manila (those that wouldn’t otherwise have any production potential) these city tiles suddenly start churning out forces each round, and it draws play into those areas. If the units are already coming anyway, it encourages the production of transports and fleets, and frees up resources to do so, since you don’t have to factor as many infantry each round into your purchasing decisions.

Such a rule could also work for other boards using the same basic wording  (although in those cases I would drop the requirement to be at war with a certain number of nations, since they are all  total war boards, other than G40) but it’d still work in principle.

Doesn’t require any set up changes to implement, so that’s a plus as well.
So just to paraphrase, the way I’m reading it…

Control of a VC at the end of your turn = 1 infantry spawned at that VC.

I think that could potentially be very interesting, even as a stand alone house rule. I don’t know how it’d look on balance, but since all player/nations control VCs at the start, the power of the new rule would at least be pretty evenly distributed, so a lot of dynamism introduced to the gameplay without much complexity and overhead to manage.

ps. I like it as a general gameplay mechanic, basically as a sub-phase of unit placement, where the player simply adds 1 infantry unit to all their VCs as the final action.

I’m sure there are ways that this could be explained that would satisfy the desire for a practical/historical analogy of some sort, but for now I’m just liking it as a simple way to change the gameplay pretty dramatically, without having to do much else to the OOB game. There is no complex memorization about how to apply the rule. It reads at a glance.

In 1942 for example, you have 13 VCs.
7 Allies, 6 Axis at the start for a total of 39 TUV (or more) introduced every round as inf. Basically freeing up that much more cash to be spent on other units, so it is similar to a cash bonus, but it actually does a lot more, because that’s at least 13 new infantry brought into play by the VC rule.

In 1941 there are 5 VCs (the Capitals) bringing 15 TUV each round.

When compared with the regular income per round and the starting TUV, these numbers don’t seem all that huge, but as time goes on their impact would be dramatic. Such that Victory really would likely go to the side that controls the most VCs for the longer period of time, and that if one side fails to contest them for too long it will eventually be outpaced by the side that controls the majority.

Again looking at 1942, Russia and UK would get 2 inf at the outset, Germany, Japan and the US would each get 3. There are basically 7 contested VCs up into the endgame; Leningrad, Paris, Rome, Calcutta, Shanghai, Manila and Honolulu, so whoever controls the majority there (while maintaining income) is likely the side that will prevail. I like this because it makes the “Victory” in Victory City ring a bit truer, by providing an overwhelming advantage that accrues over time, rather than just going with a TKO.

Plus it favors both sides, or at least its equitable… whichever side is doing better while playing, and conquering more VCs consistently, can gain the advantage. Whereas in a a game like G40, tracking VCs is really only relevant for determining Axis victory on one side or the other of the map, this system gives a reason to track VCs for the duration, and pay attention to them each turn.

Control of a VC at the end of your turn = 1 infantry spawned at that VC.

I prefer: Control of a VC at the beginning of your turn = 1 infantry spawned at that VC at the end of your turn.

That way contested VC will not overproduce Infantry.
It makes sense that a devasted area cannot be as productive.
Otherwise, you get double dip effect every time a VC is contested.
The stakes remains still since you forbid the opponent to gain a free Infantry if you contest a VC.

@Young:

Or…

During the place new units phase, nations may mobilize 1 free infantry unit on each victory city the have controlled since the start of their turn.

Excellent formulation.
:-)

I’m not sure spawning Infantry in every VC each turn makes a lot of sense historically (as a population/recruitment center)… what looks good on paper in Berlin, London and Washington sure seems right, but when you start thinking of tiny Honolulu or a Japanese controlled Manila or Shanghai, I don’t really see tons of Philippinos or Chinese flocking to the Japanese banner. What looks good in Europe, can look really shaky in some places in the PTO.

It could work GAMEPLAY wise, but some serious sense of historical disbelief would have to be factored in.

Well depending on how well it worked for the gameplay, that suspension of disbelief might come a lot easier. Here is the reason I find it intriguing…

If for example, you were to get 1 free infantry mobilized in a place like Hawaii, the player would have a strong incentive to develop a permanent logistics operation there, which would activate the whole area around the territory each turn. You’d want to have a transport at the ready for example, and some warships or fighters to cover it. Likewise, as an opponent, you’d be keeping an eye on that territory as well, and want to contest it.

I grant that it’s not quite as flexible in the abstract as say a National Objective bonus of X ipcs, but by restricting it to just infantry, I think some abstraction here is certainly possible.

I would suggest not trying to be too specific in the description of what exactly the infantry represents. Keep it very broad. Let’s say for example that it could represent not just local recruits, conscripts, partisans or whatever, but normal occupation forces or defensive garrisons or expeditionary troops awaiting  deployment on a regular basis. Or if none of that works exactly, then don’t even get that specific. It’s not a very radical departure from other things that happen in game.

The point I was making is that this rule would make each VC important for all nations every round, and it’s very simple to implement. Much easier than even an equivalent cash bonus would be.

I honestly think it would be simpler, if it just used the China spawn model, because that provides an immediate incentive for the attacker every turn (as we see working in China OOB). Holding the territory for an entire round is much more challenging, I think in this case the double dip might actually benefit the gameplay.

But if that is too much for you, then controlled from the start of the turn would work as well, and wouldn’t be too hard to track. Again I would try to avoid making the analogy too clear or too one dimensional, as to what the inf is representing exactly, instead leave it as open as possible (broad strokes) for whatever interpretation makes the most sense for any given territory.

I don’t see a need for this rule to be attached to others to function. It would work all by itself. And I think it would work on all boards that have VCS. Though of course if it works as a stand alone, it would likely work with others as well.

I think what it offers to the gameplay goes well beyond a desire to have Marines in global, or improve bases or ships etc. It could fix the Victory condition problems for all the recent maps.
So I would not rephrase the rule to try and accommodate other HRs or connect it into some more complicated system. That stuff is unnecessary in my view, because it functions as a stand alone the way it reads now, and offers a lot with very little overhead in the implementation.

I’m not hugely invested in a 4 part rules change to the global map (that stuff is great for those who want to pursue a more sweeping HR change to G40), but a single rules change for all maps since revised that fixes the VCS system via one universal mechanism is very attractive. It would be very easy explain and very easy to test.

Ps. I would submit that there is already a relative scale of forces represented in the OOB starting unit distribution, such that 1 inf in one territory (or one region of the map) doesn’t necessarily equate to 1 inf in another territory (somewhere else on the map) in terms of how many actual men that sculpt is supposed to represent.

The game is intentionally vague about this stuff, and if you try to force a one-size-fits-all analogy onto every sculpt on the board, such that 1 sculpt = X number of actual historical forces, the game immediately breaks down with a number of wild inconsistencies all over the place.

This is not just the case for infantry, but for all unit types. A fighter sculpt in Russia or Germany might represent thousands of more individual aircraft than one in China would. Likewise a starting ship in one part of the world might represent a force that is much larger than a starting ship in some other part of the world. Even Ipcs on the map are like this, where the value of one territory tile vs another, can only be really be understood/accepted as anything even remotely accurate if you evaluate it in relative terms on a more localized scale.

For the purposes of a historical gameplay narrative, 1 infantry unit on the map represents whatever it needs to, for the game to make sense. And we are basically already suspending disbelief, when we accept the OOB set up. This rule would just build on that by adding the 1 inf per VC thing into the equation, leaving the player free to imagine that the unit scales in whatever way makes the most sense for a given VC.