Concerns and Balance Problems with 42.2

@Argothair:

Sadly, Japan moves before US, so US fighters moved to Yakut on US1 will not make it to Chinghai before J2. US2 is too late! This is crazy, hence our discussion about giving the US a “turn zero” before anyone else goes.

I don’t remember ever losing the IC on China. Perhaps with bad bad dice. Between the Allies, it was able to be defended.

@Black_Elk
To increase US fleet in Hawaii, I would rather add a more historical Cruiser unit.
And if needed, an additional Submarine.

US Hawaiian BBs were not repaired on Pearl Harbor at that time.

New to the forum and have been following the balance discussion.  I am really impressed with everyone’s thoughtful and well argued points about 42.2.  This has been very helpful because I am thinking about purchasing the game but am worried about how the game seems very skewed toward the Axis.  Global was okay when I played it a few years back, but I am hoping to find a game that is less “intense” so I can maybe convince others to play (1941 doesn’t look like it will be fun for me).

Looking at all of the possible house rules, the one that stood out to me was Black_Elk’s idea of the USA doing noncombat moves before the game begins.  It seems that this simple and small adjustment could even things out a little in the Atlantic and help the US navy at Pearl Harbor.  Is this enough though?

I think the consensus for the “A0” idea was to give the Americans a noncombat move and a purchase phase before any other player acts. That’s a minimum bid of 42 ipcs, plus whatever gains you can arrange by, e.g., defending against high-risk attacks like the German subs in the north Atlantic, and Pearl Harbor. You can also fly us fighters to cover some trouble spots like Egypt. If anything, the A0 adjustment might be slightly too powerful, and require am Axis bid. I am really looking forward to testing it as soon as I can get a set of opponents who allowe@adobe.com have some 1942.2 experience!

Thanks, Argothair.  I am very interested in hearing about your results.

From what I have read about the huge Axis advantage, the A0 with noncombat will make the game feel more historical and give it some of the balance it needs.

I also think the ships moving 3 spaces could provide more excitement and speed up the game.

I think anytime I want to talk about 1942.2 I’ll just use this thread for now. Since I’m interested in possible solutions beyond the bid, and that conversation invariably drifts into HR territory.

It seems to me that what Larry really wants is for the Chinese units to stay in China (not used at the center to prop up Russia). In AA50 and Global this is enforced with separated nation specific rules. Frankly I think those rules are complex and uneccessary.

1942.2 is a 5 man game (like Classic and Revised) so such rules don’t work regardless.

I think what I would have done is to make the border between Russia and Sinkiang/Szech impassable. This would prevent Japan from just blowing through the middle on the way to Moscow. Sure you’d lose the option for Russia to support China directly, but you also wouldn’t have to worry about the Japanese just pushing through Szech with ground and aircraft in every game. If Japan wanted to get to the Russian capital they’d either have to take the long road in the north, or go through India.

This would simplify the situation considerably in central Asia. The “American” units in China would be basically stuck there, not pulling back through Kazakh. In a KJF, you wouldn’t have to deal with Germany blowing the lid off China, before they handle South Asia or the Soviet Far East. China itself would be more a detour or quagmire for Japan, since it would put them farther from the path towards the center. Russia might actually be able to wage a decent defense if they only had to cover 2 fronts vs the Japanese drive instead of 3.

It is possible to create these divisions without actually requiring that the physical map be redrawn. You just enforce it with the following…

Rule: No movement between Chinese and Russian starting territories.
The border separating Chinese and Soviet starting territories is now considered impassable for all units.

Szechuan no longer connects to Kazakh.
Sinkiang no longer connects to Kazakh, Novosibirsk, and Evenki.

The terrain here is now considered “too rough” for armies and aircraft to pass. As if an impassable neutral title was inserted along the border line between Russia and China, stretching from Mongolia down to Afghanistan/Himalaya.

OOB China would still likely be flattened by Japan, but with this restriction in place you could add American units to the set up in China if desired, without fear that the units just immediately get redirected to the Soviet front with Germany. Instead the Chinese units would fight the Japanese like they’re suppose to. This would still allow for Russia to enter China via Manchuria (which is what actually happened at the end of the war) but it would prevent either side from using the central Asian route to transit between China and the Soviet Union.

Any thoughts?

I don’t reckon that would help game balance.

I think you’re on to something interesting, Black Elk, although I agree with simon that totally blocking off China (with no other changes) wouldn’t necessarily help game balance. With no Russia-China connection, you couldn’t reinforce the Flying Tigers, so they would die J1 every game. Yes, Japan will have to walk some units into China that then have to walk back out, but that’s not a huge inconvenience, because we’re talking about a force of infantry and fighters that already start in the region. Many of the Japanese infantry in China would ordinarily die fighting the American Chinese in any case, and the fighters can fly out in one turn.

A variant that might be more interesting: only two land units per nation per turn can pass through the Russian-Chinese border. So, the Russians can send 1 inf, 1 tnk to Szechuan on R1 if they want – but then they can’t also send 1 inf to Chinghai the same turn, because they’ve hit their two unit cap. Then, if the Japanese eventually conquer the region, the Japanese could send, e.g., 1 inf to Kazakh and 1 inf to Novosibirsk on a given turn, but they couldn’t also send a tank to Kazakh, because the Japanese have hit their two-unit cap. Fighters and bombers do not count against the cap.

My hope is that this would have some tendency to nerf the Japanese tank rush to Moscow (which is historically implausible and not a huge amount of fun for most players) without totally shutting down the Chinese theater as totally irrelevant.

More broadly, I see the Japanese as having five basic directions to expand in 1942.2:

1. West through China to Moscow
2. Southwest through India to the Caucasus/Egypt
3. Northwest through Siberia to Moscow
4. Southeast to Honolulu and Sydney
5. Northeast to Alaska and Western Canada

With OOB rules and even with most of the popular house rules, option #4 is terrible because at most you pick up 1 VC and 4 IPCs (West Australia, East Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii) – a lousy haul for a long campaign to the middle of nowhere. Same thing with option #5 – it might be a useful distraction to help with a German victory, but it’s never going to be a useful path to a Japanese victory. You max out at 0 VCs and 3 IPCs, because you can’t possibly conquer San Francisco.

So there are really only three viable Japanese paths to victory. If you completely nerf the “West through China to Moscow” path by sealing the border, now there are only two paths left, and that’s not as interesting for the Japanese player. Hmm, should I go north or south this game? It’s not nearly as interesting of a question as figuring out which and how many of three paths to use!

I’m still optimistic about giving America a non-combat and purchase turn before anyone else goes as a way of balancing the map and saving the Pacific as a viable theater for an American offensive, and I’m going to do a solo test today – but I don’t think it does anything to give Japan a reason to go on the offense in the Pacific, and I do think that allowing Japan a strategically viable path to expand to the east is a necessary requirement of a complete/perfect fix for an Axis & Allies game.

I would say there are about five big problems that need fixing in 1942.2:
(1) Game is unbalanced in favor of the Axis; the Axis win too often.
(2) Game is overly focused on a rush for the center; the periphery of the board can and should be ignored.
(3) It is too difficult to cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific with boats, so players often mostly ignore their navies.
(4) There are too many units on the board at setup that exist only to be killed off on the first turn, which is slow and frustrating.
(5) Russia has to pour 90%+ of its income directly onto the front lines of eastern europe just to survive, which can be boring.

You can fix (1) with an ordinary bid, but some people are unhappy with how large the bid has to get.
You can fix (2) by adding extra starting factories and/or victory cities on the periphery, but some people are unhappy with changes that are so “radical.” Sealing or partially sealing the Russian-Chinese border could help treat the symptoms of (2) by making the center rush harder for the Axis, but it doesn’t add any interesting new options.
You can fix (3) by giving navies a move of 3, but that would totally shake up the game in ways that we can’t easily predict.
You can partially fix (4) by giving the Americans a starting non-combat & purchase turn, although the British and German navies are still going to get crushed. The A0 turn also fixes (1) and fixes the American half of (3) by giving the Americans enough boats to cross the Pacific successfully.
You can partially fix (5) by giving the Russians a starting bomber, although I don’t think it really changes the overall dynamic – the Russians can make better trades with a bomber, but they still have to use almost all of their production to crank out infantry to trade with. You can mostly fix (5) by giving the Russians three starting fleets, but that’s a really drastic change to the map setup that requires extra set-up work and that might turn out to be unbalanced in favor of the Allies, especially if combined with the A0 turn.

Thoughts? Have I missed any major problems or proposed solutions?

Pretty good summary IMO.
Only sad that it will becomes buried somewhere in this thread in Houserule forum.
It provides a few points to check when trying to improve the game somehow.
I can say that Cruiser and TP M3 is promising because it opens more actual possibilities within 1 or 2 game rounds.
Otherwise, Naval is pretty focused on acquiring big targets not secondary objectives.

You can accept to invade a secondary objective if it is within 1 round from a loaded TP or it is on the way toward main objective.
M3 allows more secondary targets.

Well I wasn’t claiming that an impassable neutral tile on the map would fix overall game balance. Only that it would have accomplished the aim of restricting how starting units in China can be used without requiring separate nation/region specific rules.

For example, in such a situation (with no movement across the Chinese western border with the USSR) you could have then added additional “American” ground units in China, and these would not simply double back out of China on US1. Similarly you could have added a starting IC in China and Japan could not have used such an IC to immediately start pushing ground units across the central route towards Moscow once captured.

It just strikes me as a more straightforward way that could have been used to handle the situation here, with basic map design, rather than extra rules or a complex multi nation reinforcement along the central route. If the Allies wanted to reinforce the Chinese they’d likely have to do so through Burma, which would be more historical. If you wanted to give Mao a nod, this could have been done with a starting Soviet tile or starting units in China, instead of the Russians sending large armies into Western China.

Would it be less interesting for Japan? Probably sure. But the movement of large armies across this region never happened, for either side, and it’s completely unrealistic historically. As unrealistic as moving large armies across the Gobi or the Himalayas (or the Sahara for that matter). Its at least as easy to imagine active armies rolling over Spain or Turkey or Mongolia, and all those tiles are impassable in 1942.2. I just don’t see the need to give the Japanese such an obvious choice. At least the choice between the North and South would be consequential (you can’t do both at the same time.) With the central route open you can do all 3 at the same time!

The northern and southern route are both 5 turn routes…

Sz 62 into Buryatia, Yakut, Evenki, Novos/Vologda/Arch, Moscow:  5 turns from Japan

Sz 36 into Burma, India, Persia, Caucasus, Moscow: 5 turns from Japan

But Sz 61 into Yunnan, Szech, Kazakh, Moscow: 4 turns from Japan!

There is isn’t an interesting choice, the decision is obvious. Japan should use sz61 into Yunnan. Not only because it’s the fastest route to Moscow and an ideal shuck, but because it also covers India and the Southern route at the same time. Yunnan is adjacent to Burma, and sz 61 is one move from India, so this move only puts you one turn off the Southern Route, you lose practically no time at all on the redirect. But more importantly, if Japan sends 20+ units into Szech or Sinkiang (to crush China), they can just keep marching forwards towards Moscow without skipping a beat. If an impassable tile blocked this route, then such a move would be putting Japan 2 turns out of position on the either the Northern or Southern route should they decide to handle China.

That is an actual choice, because there would be a cost (in time) for executing the center crush, if Japan moves in from the coast to conquer the Chinese interior.

In other words an impassable tile would force a decision, where one doesnt currently exist. A decision that looks a bit more like the decision Japan faced in the actual war. Do they attack the Russians in the North? The British in the South? Or do they commit to the conflict in China? Historically they chose option 3 (with like their entire army) and ended up losing the wider War. The game doesn’t model this very well, because China here is a cakewalk conquest. It’s not a “speed bump,” but a smoothly paved super highway, running along the most direct route to Moscow. All I’m saying.
:-D

Well, sure, as a matter of map design principles, if we were making a new map and/or new unit setup, then an impassible Gobi Desert tile would allow for a starting factory in Szechuan. You could make Burma adjacent to Szechuan as well as Yunnan, so that British reinforcements weren’t too difficult, and you could even add one Russian tile on the southern side of the Gobi desert. Those are all very interesting ideas if we’re designing a new map from scratch (which I am not opposed to!).

As a mod for the current 1942.2 map, I don’t find these ideas as compelling. Making China stronger weakens or delays the Axis center crush, but it doesn’t change the underlying logic – the Axis can’t win the game in China, they can’t win the game in Siberia, they can’t win the game in Hawaii, and they can’t win the game in Australia, so sooner or later the Axis will have to converge on India/Egypt/Caucasus. If China is sufficiently strong, then you can weaken the Axis relative to the Allies or you can weaken the Axis Pacific relative to the Axis Atlantic – but you’d have to get the balance exactly right, or else China would be so strong that Japan’s only viable strategy will be crushing China first and then shifting to another theater afterward.

I take your point that you aren’t necessarily trying to fix overall game balance here, just trying to salvage the Chinese theater in a way that doesn’t require nation-specific rules…but I’m not convinced that the Chinese theater is on the top-10 list of problems with the 1942.2 map. To me the decision to invade Moscow through China doesn’t seem “obvious” for Japan. Yes, the central route is one turn shorter, but the southern route has the advantage of a juicy factory along the way, and the northern route has the advantage of choking off Russian income, helping the Germans to whittle Russia down to nothing while you’re marching. I think these are interesting choices, and I’d be really hesitant to close one of those choices off without replacing them with something equally interesting.

Part of my idea behind the “two land units per turn” rule is that it does simulate the difficulty of getting “large armies across the region” while preserving the central route as an interesting choice for Japan. If Japan can take and hold the Szechuan starting factory, then they can use it to harass the Russian (and Indian) rear in Kazakh. If Japan can put enough hurt on China to neutralize China as a fighting force, then at least that guards the Japanese rear in Manchuria/Kiangsu/Kwangtung, and the players might wind up lightly trading the Szechuan factory, which is an interesting and plausible alternate history. If Japan withdraws from China altogether, America has the option of slowly shifting some of the Chinese forces toward Moscow, but they can’t just suddenly redeploy the entire Chinese Nationalist army to Russian territory.

The initial A0 proposal was for a full combat turn, and if your playgroup sees the game as hugely biased toward the Axis, then by all means, give that a try and let us know how it goes!

If you’re also going to give the US an extra 10 IPCs a turn, and you’re also going to make all ships move 3 spaces, then that just seems broken to me. As just one example, the US could conquer France on A0 using its two starting transports. Britain could follow up with another loaded transport on B1, from Canada. America would build about three more loaded transports on A0 that would reach France on A1. The USA would get about 58 IPCs to spend on A1 – enough for 4 new loaded transports to hit the water, which will reach France on A2. So Germany would have to deal with 10 loaded transports (20 units) hitting France within the first two full rounds of the game. There’s no way Germany has the troops to deal with those invasions and also send enough to the eastern front to avoid getting crushed – I think if you actually play with all of the changes you suggest, you’ll see Berlin falling on A4 more often than not.

I guess my thought was that if you blocked the center route, then other balancing options might become possible. Because we wouldn’t have to deal with all the issues that free movement across that border produces.Unlike some other map adjustment proposals (such as adding new territories or sea zones) this one just cuts off the connections. Pretty simple to state and memorize.

I see it as being rather similar to the optional rule that closes off sz 16.

With an A0 turn, this might make an IC purchase in China actually workable. Similar to the Classic strategy where the Brits would buy an IC in India and the Americans would buy one in Sinkiang, with the idea that Japan might take one or the other, but would be hard pressed to take both. On this board the India IC is already in place. Even in Classic though, China presented similar problems to what we see in 1942.2. The Americans love to just pull out at the first oppertunity.

Restricting the movement to a certain number of units is novel, but also totally unprecedented. No other tile on the map is treated that way, so to me that’s similar to the approach taken in AA50… Like ‘let’s just make the rules for the Chinese different than everyone else.’ I prefer a game where all regions/players are opperating under the same set of universal rules, as opposed to what we see especially in Global, where there are special rules for practically everything.

I agree that this issue might not be the most salient, esp. when compared with other things like the capital capture dynamic or the VC spread. I was just trying to think of a simple way to alter the movement on the map, without having to actually alter the way the map is drawn.

To Holy Roller, I still think the game is playable with a full American turn to start. The game then becomes Allied advantage. That isn’t such a bad thing though. It just means you might need an Axis bid, or something else to make it balanced by sides, among players of equal skill. I think the play patterns would probably still be pretty entertaining though.

You might try it as is with a full A0 turn, and see how the game shakes out. Then if it’s too strong for the Allies in your play group, you can always scale it back to a restricted A0 opening.

I think your China rule does more good than harm, especially when combined with an A0 turn and/or starting factory in sinking.

It could be fun to try a game with:

1. A0 noncombat
2. Impassable Gobi Desert, and
3. One free extra starting factory in a 1-IPC territory for each player.

I think those rules would all synergize well with each other!

@Holy:

If there is any hope for the Allies to have a chance, the US has to be more involved (as we all know).  Along with the map problems, the game doesn’t give the US a real opportunity to threaten Germany or Japan, especially in the early to midgame.  End game is too late.

Here are my suggestions:

Going off the A0 idea, why not just change the turn order and have US go first (combat and all)?  Then keep the countries the same, thus Japan goes last.  US can clear out the two enemy subs, maybe go into Africa, and set up in the Pacific.

Give the US a plus 10 for holding West, Central, and Eastern US.  It doesn’t make sense that the US is on par or behind in the industrial IPCs.  Common, its the US.  It has to spend so much on naval to transport troops and aid its allies.

Ships can move 3 to cut down on game time and create real threats to enemy borders without 2 turns to defend.

I can say that M3 doesn’t seem to change anything for India IC.
Seems so hard to resist Japan Juggernaught if both IJN TP are kept alive.
M3 UK Cruiser allow more invading possibility but doesn’t seems a good idea.
It needs more strategy to keep Allies head above water.
And 3M was not a factor in IJN TP action.
IMO, it needs more than that. Or maybe this make a difference in KGF…

@Argothair:

I think your China rule does more good than harm, especially when combined with an A0 turn and/or starting factory in sinking.

It could be fun to try a game with:

1. A0 noncombat
2. Impassable Gobi Desert, and
3. One free extra starting factory in a 1-IPC territory for each player.

I think those rules would all synergize well with each other!

One of the things I find interesting about this potential change (closing the western border of China) is that it makes the Soviet Far East more defensible for Russia. If Japan pushes along this route they have to come heavy or risk being stalled up at the Yakut/Evenki choke point. The Russian supply line to Evenki has a one move/turn advantage over Japan’s out of sz 62/Manchuria. So even though Russia clearly has less purchasing power and hitpoints to send east, at least their final defensive line is closer to reinforce. Meanwhile if Japan goes north with the plan to march “all the way” then this takes pressure off India. China, if it had a little bit more to work with at the start, would then be a serious potential distraction. Also because the Indian units no longer have to worry as much about the Russian center (at least not compared to OOB with the Kazakh choke point) I think this makes them somewhat more likely to engage Japan on the offensive.

If Japan goes south to India, then it might be possible (depending on the presence of the USN) to reinforce the Russian position in the north. So you have a kind of counter weight, to the South Pacific. Again China would function as a stall, since every round Japan commits to China puts them likely one more turn off India. I think if the US had a reason to stay, more units for a mini stack (like they can achieve A0) or an IC, then they’d be more likely to keep the Flying Tiger around.

None of this really requires new mechanics or anything special.
It uses the regular rules, and standard set up cards.

The change is just to turn order, and enforcing a movement restriction at 2 tiles (one that applies to all units/players equally), the same way you can with sz16 if the bosphorus is closed. I think the 1 ipc factory idea would be fun. But perhaps it’s not even necessary if America had a viable purchase on A0, or just enough surviving starting units to have an impact. Either way I think China would feel more like the situation in WW2.

The change reflects what CWOMarc has mentioned in the past that the map doesn’t really present the vast Chinese interior with appropriate geographical scale. This rule (closing the Chinese border with Russia) is a way to abstract that, at least for gameplay. The terrain here is imagined as unforgiving, without the roads and railways and airfields or what have you, necessary for moving a huge army across it. Consider this movement restriction to reflect the Taklamakan desert, the Tibetan Plateau, or whatever other geographical justification is required. Szechuan is no where near Kazakh in the real world, and Sinkiang is pretty damn far from Evenki too, so this rule just puts that geography to scale. Basically “too damned far” for practical movement, and treated like Himalaya, or Mongolia (which in 1942 is imagined to include the Gobi). Here the rule is the basically like saying that for logistical purposes, this part of China didn’t look much different in 1942 than it did in the days of Genghis Khan, and harsh enough to be treated like other geographical impassable territories. Mostly for gameplay purposes, but it has a justification in history and in reality too.

In tripleA terms the rule to close the border between Russian and Chinese starting territories doesn’t even require a gamefile edit. You can option the rule on a game by game basis as desired. Player enforced, just like sz 16, and stated at the outset.

Ps. I think such a rule would make it at least somewhat more difficult for the Japanese to send fighter support to Germany. With the Chinese border closed Japan can’t send fighters from Kwangtung to Ukraine with such ease. Now those same fighters would have to travel across the Northern Route or the Southern Route or be launch from carriers towards Europe. I don’t doubt that crafty players will still find a way to get their fighters around the map, but at least it won’t be such a straight shot across central Asia, as it is OOB. I think this Japanese fighter transit is actually one of the top 10 problems, so anything to reduce its immediate effectiveness probably helps.
:-D

Teamvan, Black Elk, Argo or even No limit.

I know this is an old topic but did you guys ever come up with an allies setup change and not using a bid of 20 icps ?

I did see BE suggestion on a d6 roll list for allies piece placements

@taamvan said in Concerns and Balance Problems with 42.2:

@general-6-stars

based on axa online, with the larry harris mod the teams seem pretty even and no bid mechanic is provided so far

Is larrys setup different than oob ? If it is can u steer me to larrys setup charts please.