AARHE: Phase 2: National victory conditions

@FranceNeedsMorePower good point

Okay so I that title sounds kinda clickbait-y and I apologize for that. To get it said and done, no I don’t think France should be scrapped entirely replaced with Britain or something. I just think that as is, it needs way more to be an actual nation worth having a person play if you have a lot of people while still being balanced. So we all know that 99% of the time, France is gonna fall on the first turn to Germany. Maybe they pull some weird new mega brain ultra plan but that’s pretty unlikely. Paris falls, Germany gets cash money and the French are left playing the most minor and conservative support role known to man.
This really sucks for you when you first pick up the game and think maybe there’s gonna be some interesting new faction with special rules like China but instead you’re just a stepping stone. So here’s what I would suggest:

Instead of having just France it be France and a collection of the other minor allied powers in exile. So France, Dutch, Poland, etc. Change Congo to this new faction and place an infantry down there. Maybe one infantry in Indonesia and one in Indo China, an extra fighter in Britain, and maybe a Transport in either the Atlantic or Med.
But that still isn’t really much of an improvement for the player, so similarly to China I would say that the exiled Allies should get some special way of recruiting units. It’d be very small like at the end of every turn roll a die and if you roll a one you can place one infantry down in any territory of yours worth at least one IPC. While I do want to make it more interesting for the exiled Allies player, I don’t want to make them too powerful to significantly hurt the Axis. To counteract this maybe make a few territories they own worth an extra IPC? They won’t be making money once Paris falls and a few more IPCs I think would add up to a rough equivalence. Territories like Normandy, Indochina, Tunis, etc.

I’m not gonna pretend like I’ve actually tested this yet and I’m also fully admitting that I might be accidentally suggesting some horrible completely unbalanced idea that would throw it to the Allies. But this is just a little idea I thought up to try and help make things slightly more fun for the poor French player. Is this a good idea? Am I a big dumb-dumb? (Those are not mutually exclusive.) I really want to know your guys’ thoughts on this before I actually try it or anything I could do to change or fine tune it so please let me know!

Here’s how I would do it:

Don’t think of the new power as just “Italy.” Instead, think of the new power as “all minor Axis powers.” The starting territories would be Italy, Southern Europe, Algeria, Libya, Rumania/Bulgaria, Finland, French Indo-China Thailand, and Argentina (!). You can actually leave the starting unit setup as is – that will give the new player 2 fighters, a battleship, and a transport to start with, while still leaving Germany and Japan with a bomber and five fighters each.

Open the Turkish Straits.

Put Italy first in the turn order, e.g., Italy - Russia - Germany - UK - Japan - USA. This is OK because Italy’s not really in position to mess up the Russian starting units too badly.

Leave Italy at 3 IPCs, and create a new 2 IPC territory out of neutral “Peru Argentina” that starts out empty, under Italian control, just as Brazil starts out empty and under American control. This will give Italy 14 IPCs at the start of the game – enough to buy a carrier, or a fighter, or a bomber, or a cruiser.

It’s OK that Italy has only three production slots, because Italy’s going to want to drop some expensive air/sea units. For example, if on turn one Italy builds 3 infantry and saves 5 IPCs, then on the next turn Italy might have as much as 22 IPCs to spend – which is really easy to do; you could buy a fighter and a bomber, or a transport, a destroyer, and a tank. Having only three production slots doesn’t really cripple the Italian player, and it wouldn’t be realistic anyway for Italy to crank out enormous armies of infantry; Italy’s population just wasn’t that large. If you really want to, you can probably build an Italian factory on turn 2 in Rumania.

@barney:

Looks like you’ve got it tuned in pretty good to me YG. Those all look good and equally obtainable for each side. Good work!

Thanks Barney… I agree, a couple are easy for both sides but they get really hard after that. Using it tomorrow in a game where it’s the only house rule.

@Imperious:

you AARHE reader you. :-D

I am now - I took those from the LHTR 2.0 - but I’ve just seen you’ve done loads of National Advantages for all the countries, so I feel like I’m at a rules buffet now!

Excellent - there are some really good ones in there. I like the Amerika bomber!

Your Italian ones are good - I like how the obvious ones people first think of are the Gustav Line and mountain terrain - it was always a problem for me that it was easy to do in Axis and Allies what it was not easy to do historically - get to Germany through italy.

For Japan I’ve got one new one which is ‘elite naval air’ - I like how in some Pacific wargames the Japanese start with amazing units, which are non replaceable - representing their elite air arm. I use the red A&A Pacific Japanese fighters for these and give them a 4/4 rating. My rule is that fighters that start on carriers are ‘elite’ they are non replaceable.

This rule is linked to the Kamikaze rule in that, once all elite air units have been destoryed - the Japanese may then convert one normal fighter to 2 kamikaze planes - these have no attack value and can only move 2 - but their ability is they work like an AA gun for ships, so it’s basically the AAR national advantage.

But it makes use of the red Japanese planes I have… I use the red infantry to denote those that are ‘dug’ in on islands.

Your Iwoa ships are good - the US did put lots of AA defence on their ships.

Ok - great stuff, and plenty of food for thought!

remember the 4X rule in these places and also the variations on costs for infantry depending on VC.

1.  Is there a limit as to the number of infantry that can be built at VCs?

yes of course, the 4x rule…

2.  If China is incapable of replacing American aircraft or building armor, why are they given a factory in the game?  In reality, China had only the capability to build infantry - which was poorly trained and equipt.  The presence of a factory in the game allows for China to build any type of unit.

4x rule allows them to only build artillery or infantry ( or mech)

As infantry are built at victory cities, I propose removing the factory from China.

but what about artillery? China had artillery and they are but an army of misfits w/o them

I love copy and paste  :-).

I am a big fan of Diplomacy, but can’t imagine adding simultanious movement to A&A. First, as Imperious Leader noted, there would be a large amount of moves to write. In Diplomacy a leader has to write at most 17 orders, but will generally need to issue 5-10. In Axis and Allies both the number and the complexity of the orders increases.
Second, writing down orders will likely serve as somewhat of a deterent to inivation. For example; as Germany I draft a set of orders to strike the U.S.S.R at Causcus and Karelia. If I suddenly see a stronger strategy that involves me completely changing my orders for both countries, the time I already put in that will be lost and the time I will need to write up new orders may deter me from attempting my new course of action. Having to continuously edit a page or two of orders will be tedious.
Third, in real life military leaders would re-act to enemy movements. If as Japan I ordered my units in Kwangtung, Manchuria, and French Indochina to attack China, but was attacked by units in Soviet Far East and India my attack would not proceed. Not only that, the Manchurian units would likely be diverted to re-inforce and/or counter-attack.

oh I see
thats fine
the current tech list welcomes scrutiny

check out the draft detailing the techs if you haven’t already

the heavy artillery gives you a new unit at 5 IPC 3/2, it has ability to fight in adjacent territory with -1 modifier, provided itself is not being attacked