Pacific Islands worth 3 icps

@SS:

The basic idea was to get more action from islands and to see if there was anymore ideas out there.

I sympathize with SS when he wishes that the Central Pacific islands would see more action, which would indeed make the game more interesting if they did.  To draw a parallel, this is similar to the long-expressed wish by many players for the cruiser unit to get bought more often and see more action.  And in both cases, I think that the root cause of this under-use problem is the fact that the A&A games – even when it comes to a version as large and complex as Global 1940 – are (of necessity, since they’re board games rather than full-blown wargames) a highly simplified and abstracted representation of WWII.  As a result of the simplifications and abstractions they involve, certain map places (like the Central Pacific islands) and units (like the cruiser) end up looking rather pointless in the game, even though their importance was clear and substantial in the real Second World War.  To use those two cases as examples:

• The real-life importance of the Central Pacific islands in WWII had to do with the mechanics of how Japan and the US controlled (i.e., either fought to get control of, or fought to keep control of) the vast and mostly empty stretches of the Pacific Ocean – something which isn’t modeled into the A&A game, either in terms of how these operations actually worked or in terms of the completely unrealistic size of the Pacific Ocean on the map.  The gradual US advance westward across the Pacific from 1942 to 1945 illustrates that these operations hinged on island-based control of the airspace and of the waters of each successive region through which the US was advancing.  In short (and what I’ll describe here is a very simplified sketch), the script worked as follows.  By securing a new island territory – say, the Marshall Islands – the US gained both airbases and naval bases.  To conquer the next island territory down the line – say, the Carolines – the US would begin by using its Marshall Island airbases to start securing the airspace of the Carolines.  This initially would involve trying to demolish Japan’s Caroline Island air forces on the ground by long-range bomber attack.  As the airspace around the Carolines would become more secure, the US Navy would start venturing into the area to speed up the airspace-securing process (using medium-range carrier-based airstrikes against Japan’s planes and runways) and would also start securing the waters around the Carolines (in part to cut them off from resupply).  Once the Caroline’s airspace and waters were sufficiently secure, the US would send in an amphibious invasion force; this would operate in conjunction with continued US attacks from the air and from the sea (including naval bombardment and short-range carrier-based airstrikes).  Ground troops – Army and/or Marines – would ultimately be landed on the beaches and would fight their way inland until the island was secured.  Other islands in the island group would receive the same treatment.  And once the whole island group was secure, the US would repeat the whole process for the next island group down the line…say, the Marianas.  To put the whole thing in a nutshell: air forces would be used to secure the air, which in turn would allow naval forces to secure the water, which in turn would allow ground forces to conquer the land (specifically, island territory), and the newly-secured island territory would allow the process to be repeated in order to make the next jump westward.  A&A doesn’t work like that (at least not in that level of detail in its OOB form), so it’s not surprising that in A&A the Central Pacific islands don’t see much action.

• In real-life WWII, cruisers saw more action than battleships for a couple of reasons, both of them related to the cost differences between these two types of gun-armed surface-combat vessels (which were conceptually similar, though very different in terms of the scale of their features).  One reason was sheer weight of numbers: naval powers had far more cruisers than battleships in their fleets because cruisers (especially light cruisers) were cheaper and faster to build (just as destroyers were vastly cheaper and faster to build than cruisers; the US Navy ended up with hundreds of destroyers, if I’m not mistaken, though destroyers were conceptually quite different types of warships).  The other reason was that, because battleships were more expensive to operate (in terms of crew size and fuel consumption) and represented a more serious blow if they were lost in combat (because they represented such a huge investment), admirals tended to more cautious about sending battleships into combat that cruisers, whose combat loss was, frankly, more affordable.  For a classic example of this skittishness, look at the Japanese superbattleships Yamato and Musashi, which spent most of their careers at anchor in bases located far from the front lines.  The same thing happened in WWI with the battleships of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas fleet: they spent much of the war at anchor, in part because it was felt (though not necessarily said out loud) that it was more important for them to stay float than sink the enemy.  Again, A&A doesn’t model this very well in its OOB rules.  The battleship unit was the first A&A unit to be created, back in the original game, and then the destroyer was added in the original Europe and Pacific games; when the cruiser was introduced later (I can’t recall in which game), Larry may have had no choice but to try to jam it as best he could between the existing rule conception of the battleship and the existing rule conception of the destroyer, with (arguably) results that made the cruiser an unattractive purchase.

yea it seems to me that it’s generally easier to prevent a NO bonus than attain it. The big money islands for JPN being an exception, at least early. Still think it’s a good idea that could produce more action, depending on ones strategy.

Just have to try it out : )

Cool way you change up the  combat movement and non.

I seem late into this post but we have to sit down and figure out what the value of the territory is worth is based on. Most of us will automatically say it represents resources right? Well unfortunately, not every island is going to be worth anything if it is based on resources, take Iwo Jima as an example. The island is completely worthless but it became great worth based on its military value of having an airstrip long enough for bombers to takeoff and land.

I agree with those islands having actual worth. As I pointed out time and time again, I have no idea how the hell the testers came up with the values of each territory as most are very incorrect in my opinion.