Having Italy as the 6th player in revised axis and allies

@LuckyDay:

  We’ve played it FTF, but put together the triplea model because we had a couple new players and wanted them to practice as well as everyone play-testing.

sorry for the confusion IL, thus far we’ve used this map setup for practice in prep for playing in the group FTF with a revised board and extra pieces from various A/A boards.    I did not realize that you were talking about better pieces and maps for the computer game.  I thought you were talking about physical pieces.

luc

@Imperious:

http://www.onwar.com/articles/f0302.htm

here is some information from the harrison book concerning Italy and here economic capabilities in 1942.

Here’s another roughly accurate source of of GDP listings through-out the ages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_GDP_(PPP)

I’ve redone all the IPC values for my games awhile ago. I assigned a value to every territory on the board including neutrals, except for the Sahara and some of the itty-bitty pacific islands.
After several revisions, I’ve settled with the following numbers…

USSR 47 (before germany invaded)
Germany (and nations under its influence) 119
British Empire 92 (India alone is 22)
Japanese Empire 55
USA (states only + panama) 172 :-o

China 24 (split between US and Japan)
South America 25

Russia simply has no chance and is always crushed by Germany if you use the revised or classic maps original unit setups. :cry:
The game does get fun and out of hand very quickly dealing with tons of IPCs and huge masses of units. :-D

Email me at www.biofury@yahoo.com if you want a copy of a map with these different IPC values and how I figured them out.

@Biofury:

Here’s another roughly accurate source of of GDP listings through-out the ages.

Thanks for that information. But while GDP figures are a useful thing to keep in the back of one’s head, I prefer to rely on military production figures for game design purposes. Below are some military production data for World War II.

Tanks
Soviet Union: 105,000
US: 88,000
Germany: 46,000
UK: 28,000
Canada: 6,000
Japan: 3,000
Italy: 2,000
Hungary: 500

Artillery
Soviet Union: 517,000
US: 257,000
Germany: 159,000
UK: 125,000
Japan: 13,000
Canada: 10,000
Italy: 7,000
Other Commonwealth: 5,000
Hungary: 400

Mortars
Soviet Union: 200,000
US: 105,000
UK: 103,000
Germany: 73,000
Commonwealth: 46,000

Machine guns
USA: 2,680,000
Soviet Union: 1,477,000
Germany: 674,000
Japan: 380,000
UK: 297,000
Canada: 252,000
Other Commonwealth: 38,000
Hungary: 5,000

Military aircraft
US: 325,000
Germany: 189,000
Soviet Union: 157,000
UK: 132,000
Japan: 76,000
Canada: 16,000
Italy: 11,000
Other Commonwealth: 3,000
Hungary: 1,000
Romania: 1,000

The Soviets produced 2.3 times as many tanks as the Germans, 3.3 times as many artillery, 2.7 times as many mortars, 2.1 times as many machine guns, and 83% as many military aircraft. It’s true these numbers don’t capture the fact that the Germans devoted a greater portion of their output to naval spending than the Soviets. Also, some of these differences are due to Germany’s late-war production problems. But Germany arguably reached its production peak in 1944; so its late war production problems only explain a modest portion of the production gap between itself and the Soviet Union.

Historical Military production does gives some hitorical hints. But it is after all based on historical decisions.

One thing the game shouldn’t do is to enforce historical decisions. We want the historical background not the historical decisions otherwise there would be no game ?  :wink:

Military production “capacity” would be be better. But not prefect. I mean how hard is it to open up new tank factories and close down a few fighter factories?

@Imperious:

I don’t agree with that premise. The total production of war material remains very linked to the ACTUAL outcome of the war. So if the axis get off to a great start… you suddenly got alot of numbers having no meaning at all, because now say the Germans are camped in Moscow and the Soviets are weaker. Additionally, the cost of producing a tank in one economy is not the same as another. Example: German tanks were made up of many more parts than the Soviets and even when these tanks broke down a part from the same exact model tank would not be a fix… They in many cases had to be custom made. The Soviets metal was very poor grade, while the early German armor was exceptional grade. Late German armor was totally horrible because the metals used ‘filler’ metals to make up for scarce raw materials.

GDP is the best starting point for addressing the economics, while the starting forces that were historically available would be a better guide to address setup problems.

But in the end it all depends on game balance… or the game will play the same result everything and soon become a chore.

There are a host of problems involved with applying GDPs to a game like this.
1. Different nations devoted a different portion of their capacity to the war effort.
2. As you explained, varying degrees of reliance on mass production gave some nations an advantage over others.
3. The way GDP is calculated is . . . less than useful for a game like this. Woman A takes care of her own children. Contribution to the GDP: 0. Woman B provides babysitting services for someone else’s children. Those babysitting services are factored into the GDP. Moreover, suppose an American woman and an African woman both make money by babysitting children. The American woman earns ten times as much per hour. I’m pretty sure that the American woman is contributing ten times as much to her country’s GDP as is the African woman. The logic is that, since the free market valued the American woman’s babysitting services ten times as much as the African woman’s; the American woman’s are ten times as valuable. Obviously, this logic leads to an inaccurate comparison between the services provided in poor countries vis-a-vis those in rich countries.

Problem 3 means that GDP figures tend to overstate the production differences between rich countries and poor countries. The average German had a higher standard of living than the average Soviet citizen. That difference caused Germany to have a higher GDP than the Soviets; but it didn’t cause Germany to produce more tanks.

@tekkyy:

Historical Military production does gives some hitorical hints. But it is after all based on historical decisions.

One thing the game shouldn’t do is to enforce historical decisions. We want the historical background not the historical decisions otherwise there would be no game ?  :wink:

Military production “capacity” would be be better. But not prefect. I mean how hard is it to open up new tank factories and close down a few fighter factories?

I agree with you about military production capacity . . . we shouldn’t be forcing the German player to build U-boats if he or she would rather have tanks. I was merely using those production data to get a general feel for each nation’s productive capacity.

@Imperious:

what then is a better starting point IYO? production of tanks in 1944 is not the answer either…

I agree 1944 is not the answer. But in the major land battle of Kursk (1943), the Soviets had twice as many cannons as the Germans, over 2.5 times as many tanks, and roughly as many aircraft. Even assuming that 15% of the Soviets’ equipment came from lend-lease, and even allowing for the fact that the Germans were fighting an air and sea war in the west, you’re still looking at a production advantage for the Soviet Union.

@Imperious:

They had twice as many “add in any type of equipment you want to list” because Stalingrad had already happened and Germany had failed by July 1943. Your dealing with a period of History that the game allows either player to control. Thus those military balances have no meaning. The only value is what each started with in the spring of 1942 when the game begins. What happens latter is totally in control of the players and how they perform.

It’s true that a German army was encircled and forced to surrender at Stalingrad. But a number of large Soviet forces had also been surrounded and forced to surrender. I’m almost certain the Soviets experienced significantly larger losses (in absolute terms) than did the Germans.

Love the idea of having italy as a sixth player…. had them in for several years now. they start out with a building power of 25 industrial points while germany starts out with 58 industrial points. we start in 1936 with a percentage of what each nation had to begin with. ei: if britian had 75 destroyers in 36’ and they start with 15 on the game, italy would also have the same % 61 in 36’ then 12 on game, historicaly compairable. now comes the fun part… human players.  (since we are talking about italy, we will stay with italy) italian troops were not the best fighters nor were thier equipment very good. planes and ships were ok. your atack differnt then say a german tank and defend differnt.  i don’t want to stay with a bad tank or poor building facilities if i plan to be in a war at some point. will you allow for a player to improve teritory production? if a teritory starts out at 5, can it be ever increased? for example to 6 or 7? i personaly build up both my manufacturing abuility and my military fairly equally.  we are all more than your average AA players, can we not handle the more complicated part of building up a nation to fight on internal as well as militarialy? i know that america is going to come with numbers, there is no changing that fact, (they out produce me by 300%) they want to bomb me, i’ve put must of my production underground or even build in other places. they want to land, i make italy a fortress, and have it an air craft carrier as it was called. i research better planes and high powered anti-aircraft guns to fill up every territory.  i build fortifications, place mines, and place men along the beaches with machine guns.  yes they will land, they always do… but what will it cost them? and will i have enough on reserve to drive them back into the SEA?    just wondering, narsis

too bad we probably didn’t have PPP GDP (vs. nominal GDP) back then

@narsis:

will you allow for a player to improve teritory production? if a teritory starts out at 5, can it be ever increased? for example to 6 or 7?

we don’t have that yet

in game we have territory production and IC production capacity
we have to consider what they each model and whether they can be improved in a matter of months (one turn)

we, over the corse of playing with additianal countries (we have the abuility to play with 16 areas), have liked the abuility to improve our countries in diffrent ways. what it has done for us, is to allow different thinking players to change their countries territories production to increase differnt needs.  when you are italy, africa always becomes a unit pit! When the ally colilition decides it time to take the war to you in africa, sisily is usially the nexted jumping point for the allies, unless you have built up prodution, even airfeilds, and/or sea ports in new areas. this makes them tempting targets, once reconisences informs you of new and better improvements.  why would i take sisily if the italian player has built up rome or northern italy with great production and bases! I want to end their intreast in the axis powers quickly.  other things that become nice is when gabralter is taken by italy, and they place costal bunkers, land mines, sub pens, and airfields there.  It becomes a headace for the allies but a must retake for them! :-) i’m  not sure your going to incorp such an idea or not but it makes the game more of a challange!

under optional rules we do have a national advantage that models the improving German economy towards the end of the war

but in terms of mines and coastal bunkers…we only have the AA gun piece (which is now a Infrastructure Defense), it functions additionally as anti-navy coastal battery in amphibious assault
the AA piece has been weakened substantially but do allow multiple piece to fire at the same time…so you could fortify Italy a little if you want

i see now that we have things in common with imp. leader on using other peices from other aa games to include options in our own.  I have also casted or made other pieces to fit or to counter ones brought in. for exapmle… i got plastic mines from, i believe table tacics games?, and also made mine rollers to destroy them for countries.  i’ll just list most everything used so far and if some one here would be kind enough to explain how i would upload ditial pictures to this sight i will do my best to do so! (thanks in advance!)  from normandy we use caostal fortifications, also use machain guns from (ttg) and half tracks, pt boats, i used the battleships from the original aa (1979 version) as cruisers, i have made super subs for japan and sea planes (two versions), kaitians and frogmen, trucks and jeeps for mech infintry, oil drums for all!, me 262’s (i didn’t like any versions out on the market) lancasters, B17’s and B25’s (dougles), B29’s , navy zero’s from land planes for japan, sea dragon for germany, by planes (for english carriers) landing craft, 3 generations of junkers and 109’s, dive bombers V1’s and V2’s, paratropers, rockerts for russia, 5 generations of tanks for germany, m1 grants for US start and lend lease to britian, admrial ships for all countries (all the most popular ones, they took forever to paint but look really cool on the board, and some generals for land units. our game is complicated i know for a new person but we always have a teacher or game master to help them out with problems. for those of use that have been playing since 1980 it took about 4 months to keep it all straight but now we have labtops to aid on development and odds of sucsess in winning. the most difficult thing for people to grasp is the fuel needed to produce and transport. how much diesel how much high octan avation fuel, things like that!! :-o