• I’ve played Axis & Allies (in many incarnations) for 25 or so years.  The one thing that has bothered me all that time is “Order of Play”. It has always been: Purchase, Combat Move, Combat, Noncombat Move, Place Units, Collect Income.  I’ve always thought it would make more sense: Collect, Purchase, Combat Move, Combat, Noncombat Move, Place Units.
      It bothers me when (for example) USSR captures Norway, then Germany recaptures it, then UK captures it back Norway has actually been conquered three times and has miraculously produced more than Great Britain, Japan, or Russia. If Japan and USA get in on the act it will have yielded 12 IPC’s  and be tied for the most productive territory on Earth. Perhaps all that shelling has jarred loose some mineral deposits.
      I know my play order will shrink the overall game economy some.  I’m OK with that.  It would shake things up a bit and force my friends and me to take another look at some of our old gambits.
      My concern is that it would favor the Allies too much and might wreck the balance.

    Any thoughts?

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Well, as a matter of realism, you’re obviously correct. The only way conquering and re-conquering Norway could increase its economic value would be if players were looting it each time, and if you tried looting 4x the country’s GDP in 1 year, then the country’s IPC value would probably drop to 1 or even 0 IPCs/turn for the rest of the game. Not to mention you’d be likely to get more resistance from partisans and guerillas who suddenly have nothing to lose, because their families are rapidly starving.

    As a matter of game play, I have concerns. First of all, if you have to wait a turn to collect income from a territory, then the value of ‘light trading’ goes way down. Under OOB rules, if I attack your 1 infantry in a 2-IPC territory with 2 infantry and 1 fighter, knowing that on your turn you will return the favor, then statistically speaking, I can expect to lose 2 of my infantry, kill 1.5 of your infantry, and collect 2 IPCs, for a net gain to me of 0.5 IPC. This encourages light trading, which tends to bleed out players’ infantry reserves and reward players for taking the strategic offensive.

    Under your rules, neither player would get the 2 IPC bonus during light trading, which means that if your opponent has the reserves to counter-attack, then light trading will cause you a net loss of 1.5 IPCs. This discourages light trading, which tends to help players accumulate enormous stacks of infantry and rewards players for turtling and waiting for an opponent to attack first.

    Another potential problem is that players could get discouraged and stop seeing the value of invading territories at all. On any given turn, the front line will have somewhere between 10-20% of the world economy in it. You can’t conquer the entire front line on one turn, so you’re looking at conquering 5%-10% of the world economy on your turn. But you can’t hold every territory you invade, so now you’re looking at an economic boost of 2%-3% – to be collected on your next turn, not this turn – for launching a major successful attack. It hardly seems worth it; rather than seize territories now, you would often be better off ‘investing’ in rearranging your troops to launch a more decisive blow later in the game, but if your opponent follows the same advice, then ‘later’ may never come.


  • I see your point.  I’m interested in your thought on looting.  What if taking a territory was worth 1 IPC as a propaganda coup, retaking a starting position territory was 1 IPC more, a victory city was 1 more, and you could choose to liquidate a captured IC for 3 IPC.
      Say UK builds an IC in India, then Japan takes the territory (having themselves placed two IC’s in Asia).  Japan has no use for the Indian IC, but they want the AA.  They collect 5 IPC (1 for conquering a territory, 1 more because of Calcutta, 3 for looting the IC.

  • '17 '16

    I believe this thread below may provides some additional ideas and concept such as “double dipping”.
    So I bumped it to reactive this TT income bonus thread.
    Territory Income Bonus: for Classic, Revised, 1941/42.2 etc
    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31978.msg1190315#msg1190315

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