Axis and Allies Revised Varient ( historical edition)

Great house rules Duke and Imp…

Maybe a little complicated for a non-hardcore WWII fanatic but still, these rules are way better than standard AA rules.

I have a simple suggestion for you: How about introducing the possibility of invading neutral countries?

Oh, and in the Blitzkrieg national advantage for the germans, when a fighter attacks with a tank, do both units attack on 4 or less?

GG

Keeping the ideas simple is in the forefront in terms of importance. The latter phases of our modifications will get slightly more complex, but only because they need to for us to do what we want to do with them. If you have any more new ideas or ideas on how to simplify what’s already been said, we’d appreciate the help.

IMO, the option of invading a neutral territory is a must, but since it’s not absolutely needed to have a good game we’ll probably end up incorporating it in phase 2. I never liked the 3 IPC penalty in the original game. I was always fond of the idea of the nearest opponent automatically placing free units of his to defend it.

Hey Imp, did you ever get down to analyzing those sub combat rules I posted? I’m looking forward to your feedback.

You guys have thought about approaching Avalon Hill to make your rules an official expansion set for Revised? I mean, it would be quit useful to buy all the kit (Rulebook, Tiger tanks, cruisers, halftrack etc…) in a single buy… Moreover, the units would be butiful and ACCURATE! :-D

That’s great. I can hardly wait to play with the new rules. Though a little more complex than the box rules, they put so much more realism in the game that it’s definitely worth a shot. Just the sub detection roll is a superb idea, how come nobody thought about it earlier? what about SS panzers, the new national advantages and new units like the cruisers?

I understand that you want to make this a gift to every AA fan in the world and I salute your intentions. But don’t you think it would be easier for everyone to buy your expansion as an official Avalon Hill expansion pack?

Why?

Let’s say I want Halftracks, Russian Shock troops, SS panzers, Cruisers, Heavy artillery scale units…Where do I get them?

As a customer, I dont care paying 20 bucks to buy such a great expansion pack with a new bigger map instead of passing countless hours on the web trying to find scale pieces suitable for the game…

OK, here I go…. how about these possible rules for commerce raiding:

During every player’s collect income phase, the player counts up all the IPCs under his control (just like before), but before he actually collects the IPCs each opponent first gets to conduct commerce raiding to reduce that IPC count (Remember that collect income phase occurs before combat move phase).

When commerce raiding is performed: Commerce raiding is performed during any given player’s collect income phase when either an enemy naval unit is located in a SZ bordering an IC owned by that player and/or when an enemy fighter is located in a territory which borders one of those SZs. Enemy fighters located on a CV are considered naval units in that SZ. Enemy fighters located on a territory bordering more than one SZ which borders an enemy IC can only conduct commerce raiding on 1 of the SZs (the owner of the fighter chooses which SZ). An example of this is German fighters in W. Europe raiding either SZ 6 or 7.

How commerce raiding is performed: Every enemy naval unit/ fighter satisfying the above qualifications rolls a die to determine the number of IPCs that the opponent must surrender back to the bank. The number of IPCs surrendered is equal to the number rolled, however, units only do damage on rolls that would be considered a hit during combat when they are the attacking. For example, BBs will only do 1-4 IPCs of damage when they roll that respective number. Fighters will only do 1-3 IPCs of damage when they roll that respective number. Submarines conducting commerce raiding roll 3 dice instead of just 1.

Limits on commerce raiding: Only 1 roll from a surface naval unit/ fighter (either CV or land based) per SZ per turn may be counted when calculating the reduced number of IPCs. The 1 roll that is used is the roll that does the greatest amount of damage. (This rule is used to encourage players not to clump all surface units/ fighters in only 1 SZ bordering an enemy IC).

Notice that submarines, in addition to rolling 3 dice each instead of just 1, also aren’t grouped into the same limitation above because they aren’t surface naval units. Instead, only the best 3 rolls from subs may be counted per SZ per turn. This means that the total IPCs surrendered per SZ is the sum of 4 Numbers… the single best roll from surface/fighter units and the 3 best rolls from sub/s.

Maximum loss for commerce raiding: The maximum number of IPCs that can be surrendered to the bank during commerce raiding for each IC is equal to the maximum amount of IPC output of the IC less the number of ‘connected IPCs’ to that IC. More than 1 IC may be raided during the same collect income phase.

The maximum amount of IPC output of an IC is either 4 times the IPC value of that territory or the total number of IPCs collected by that nation for that turn, whichever is smaller.

Remember the definition of a connected territory, pertaining to infantry placement limits? Same definition here. A territory is connected only when there is a continuous line of friendly territories separating the territories of interest.

Here are a couple of examples: Let’s say UK counts up 30 IPCs before raiding. The maximum that can be raided from UK territory is 30 (since 30 is less than 4 times the IPC value of 8 ) minus 8 (since no other territories are connected to the island of UK). This is 30-8=22.

Now let’s do E. Canada with UK cashing out at 30 again. 12 (just 4*3) - 4 (E. Canada is connected to W. Canada 3+1=4… don’t count up US territory IPCs when calculating total connected IPCs for UK). 12 - 4 = 8.

Now India (still cashed out at 30) and only UK territory taken so far is Egypt. 12 - 5 (3 for India + 1 for Persia + 1 for Trans-Jordan)= 7.

You get the point. That’s all the rules to it. It’s not that much considering all the realism it incorporates into it. In case you’re wondering why the equation (total IPC output from IC) - (total connected IPCs) = (total amount that can be commerce raided) here’s the reasoning:

(total IPC output from IC):
Remember from IC purchase limitations per turn that no more than 4 times the IPC value of the territory may be placed at an IC per turn. This is where the first term comes from. Also, since no one can spend more IPCs than they have, I included the part about “or the total IPC count for the nation”.

(total connected IPCs):
The more the nation is connected to other friendly nations the less it is dependent on naval shipping to bring in supplies. This makes it so commerce raiding is more effective against the island of UK or Japan and less effective against Russia and Germany.

That’s great. I can hardly wait to play with the new rules. Though a little more complex than the box rules, they put so much more realism in the game that it’s definitely worth a shot. Just the sub detection roll is a superb idea, how come nobody thought about it earlier? what about SS panzers, the new national advantages and new units like the cruisers?

I’m really excited about these new rules. After running all my calculations on how these rules play out with the rest of the out of box rules I can’t see any problems that commonly creep up with many other house rules out there. I can’t see how this won’t be a smash-hit, unless people don’t even give it a chance because it might be so much at first to absorb. That’s why we really need these phases. If we put all the rules in 1 batch, it would be too long and no one would start using them. I’m sure after the 1st phase of rules people will be thirsty for more. It may take some time to spread the word out though.

My major concern right now is simplifying the way the rules are presented. I think I can make them appear simpler without actually changing the rules around that much.

Let me know what you guys think of the commerce raiding rules. When we feel like we’re done with those, we can move onto some slight tech changes and then hopefully do some serious playtesting.

If we find that the Axis are too powerful, I have a pretty good lend-lease rule to add…. US automatically gets 10 extra IPCs a turn but the catch is that they have to allocate it out to UK/Russia to be used on their next turns and it can be commerce raided as well.

If instead, we find that Allies are too powerful, then we can make commerce raiding even more powerful than it already is.

Very interesting post Imp. You’ve brought up some points about flak that I wanted to talk about because I don’t know as much as I probably should about it.

Question 1. I can easily see why the probability of shooting down a fighter doesn’t double when the number of attacking fighters doubles, but at the same time doesn’t the probability go up, and thus shouldn’t be fixed at, say, 10%? More fighters mean more targets, and a greater surface area being covered in the sky. It’s more likely (not double though) to hit a fighter when there are double the number of fighters. This is why I don’t go for a fixed 10% probability of hitting fighters no matter how many there are.

I’m up for adding the rule that the total number of air units that can be shot down per combat move phase and per non-combat move phase in a certain territory is equal to the number of AA guns in the territory. Opinions?

Question 2. If loses are randomly either bombers or fighters, then what’s really the point of escorts other than firing on interceptors? The escorts aren’t protecting the bombers if losses are random, they are just counter-attacking the SBR defense. Shouldn’t escorts screen out flak and interceptors from the bombers and thus be more likely to be hit?

I think it’s just simpler to say attacker chooses his own loses. It’s nice and neat and as easy as it gets. I suppose we could discuss saying that interceptors don’t choose their target (hits fighters first) but flak chooses it’s own targets (hits bombers first). This would make it about the right odds of somewhere between random and only fighters first. I don’t know how realistic it is since fighters fly below bombers as well as ahead of them to screen them from both flak and interceptors, but let’s discuss it. I think either way is fine by me.

I still don’t think we should include escorts and interceptors for phase 1. Not worth the added confusion. Opinions?

There are many ways we can make commerce raiding more powerful. One way is to instead limit the damage to 4 IPCs per SZ per turn for surface fleet/fighters and 4 IPCs per SZ per turn for subs. Another way which would be even more powerful would be to have no limits per SZ per turn, but if you do this then Germany would just probably hang out in SZ 6 and not move further into the middle of the Atlantic (not realistic). Opinions? Do you like the original idea or any other ideas or any ideas of your own? It’s really hard to find a good compromise here between simulating reality and simplicity while being just right in terms of effectiveness. Do you think these rules are too complicated? Any ideas for simpler rules with the same effectiveness and reality?

@DasReich:

Oh, and in the Blitzkrieg national advantage for the germans, when a fighter attacks with a tank, do both units attack on 4 or less?

GG

uh Das Reich that is my name… not a statement… 8-)

I’m not very creative so I won’t post about the above ideas, but I would like to add my two cents about game balance: I think the gameplay needs to be more at the point where:

1. The Axis have an even chance of winning the game.
2. The Allies have an option whether or not to go after Japan first instead of the usual Germany first.

In order to achieve this I believe that Japan must be made more threatening somehow if completely left alone. Currently the Allies can retreat from Japan as hard as they want and Japan will not crash Moscow in a timely fashion (you can take Moscow the same turn as Berlin falls, but this is quite usually an Allied win since they have a big economic edge, like 100 to 66 or something like that).

But on the other side of the coin, Japan must also be made more vulnerable if the Allies choose to pursue them first. The Pacific strategy is just too hard to implement currently and lets the Germans get far too powerful before Japan is reasonably contained.

1. Math Cutback: the idea of “multiply by 4, minus the value and any adjacent territory” is very unique, but to save math… why not multiply by 3 and subtract adjacent territory. IN the example with UK which is 84=32 ( 30 cap) , so 30-8=22.  The equation is now 83=24. IN the India example its 9-2=7 I feel its simple to keep the math not too time consuming for playability. The results are basically the same. Otherwise its very good idea.

Is multiplying by 4 harder than multiplying by 3? I don’t see what problem is being solved here. If we reduce it to only 3 times then take an example for E. US…. 12*3=36. They are connected to something like 32 or 34 IPCs. That means only 36-32=4 IPCs max can be raided. That’s no good. I like 4 times because that’s the same as the max number of IPCs spent at the IC and therefore makes more sense IMHO.

2. Limitations of History: Germany and the Soviet Union had very limited sea faring trade. Sweden was Hitlers only real trading partner and that was very limited value to the German economy. I don’t like the idea of the entire allied fleet moving into the Baltic in the middle game and blasting the German economy. In the first case allied ships should not be allowed into the Baltic unless the allies own Norway, Sweden, and Germany.The Axis ships in the Mediterranean should not be able to leave the Mediterranean unless they own Gibrater and or the Suez. That should be compensation. However, now the allies will kill German economy using the Italian complex… so in general the idea has some flaws.

The Allies won’t be able to commerce raid Germany for much if they take Baltic or S. Europe SZ. For Baltic, 104=40. Germany is connected to around 35. 40-35=5. For S. Europe, it’s 46=24. 24-35 is less than 0 so it can’t be raided. I’ll work on modifying the limitations so both these numbers are more realistic.

I agree with the need for keeping Allies out of Baltic and Axis in the Med. I’ll introduce my “strait” rules that I talked about a while ago.

There are 2 straits in the game, 1 between SZs 5 and 6 and 1 between SZs 12 and 13 (I think I got this right, I don’t have the map handy). Surface naval units (note this excludes subs) may not travel between SZs 5 and 6 unless W. Europe is a friendly territory. Surface naval units may not travel between SZs 12 and 13 unless Gibraltar is a friendly territory (Gibraltar now borders SZ 12 as well as 13).

3. Subs are getting too much value. A BB thats costing 20 can only claim up to 4 IPC, while a cheap sub gets 3 rolls… This will kill naval buys.

Solutions:

1. Subs get only one roll, but it counts as double? and only one sub per Zone as per the other rule you have on surface/ air units

The double count is what I had for subs initially, but I changed it because of the huge variance and few possibilities. You can get a lot more possible damage values with mult. dice. I’m looking into tweaking this a bit and get back to you.

2. The commerce raiding rules only pertain to UK, Japan, and USA and not Italy, Germany and Soviets.

I don’t want separate standards for different nations if we don’t have to have them. The connected IPC factor should be enough to settle this problem. Russia is so connected that they’ll never have problems. I’m working on fixing the limitations so Germany isn’t affected so much.

New possible SBR rules:

bomber piece represents medium bombers and escorts.

AA gun piece now called “infrastructure defense” (or something like that…. ideas for the name?) and represents units for both air defense (AA guns and interceptors) and coast defense (coast rtl and fortifications). Still costs 5 IPCs each.

Each infrastructure defense (ID for now) piece only rolls once during targeting (1 or 2 successfully targets) and if successfull then rolls to fire (hit on a 1). The number of dice rolled now depends on the number of ID pieces, not enemy air units. A max of 3 ID pieces can fire per territory per turn. ID pieces cannot move but can be placed in any territory that started the turn under your control (this means ID pieces are not built by ICs).

As for coastal defense, during any amphibious assault on that territory each ID piece (up to 3) rolls a die for targeting. For every roll of 1 or 2, 1 die is then rolled and every roll of 1 hits a transport. If hit, the transport and all units it is carrying are destroyed before the units are unloaded.

ID pieces in a territory that was SBRed do not fire in non-combat move phase, just like in box rules. Other territories still fire in non-combat like before. ID pieces can be destroyed at the defenders discretion when the territory is taken over.