"East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Rules Discussion: Neutrals

One other related question (which isn’t covered in the rules text) is, what happens in this scenario:

• China is contributing income to the USSR
• USSR controls North Korea
• USSR attacks China

Do the Chinese infantry in North Korea convert to UK infantry?
Do they “attack” any Soviet forces in the territory? Does this happen on the Soviet turn, or on the UK turn? Or are the Soviets considered to be attacking them? Do the Soviets have to fight to the death, or can they retreat? etc.

We realized this was a situation that just created question after question, and that the simplest solution was to say that the Chinese infantry in North Korea just poof out of existence. This also somewhat lines up with the existing rules; these units effectively just disappear anytime China stops giving income to the USSR – and because China would stop giving income in the case of the USSR attacking them, we decided it was best to follow the same line of thinking in this situation as well.

Rebalancing “Round Zero” (aka rd0)

One thing I’ve been giving some consideration to is whether there would be any value in simply reducing the starting NATO forces in frontline territories. Usually most of the rd0 placement goes towards augmenting the Soviet attacks on these territories anyway, so why not just make them weaker defensively? Particularly with the standard 20-IPC bid of 10 infantry being relatively high (by most metrics.) If this number is going to come down, then there needs to be some other kinds of changes made.

Here’s what I came up with, based on the battle calculator (note: I did not factor in any shore bombardment for the Turkey battle, since there isn’t a bombard @ 2 unit option)

the battle outcomes shown in this table are the “most likely” outcomes, as per the calculator; attacker in columns, defender in rows

What this shows is that the results associated with a typical rd0 placement of 2 inf in North Korea (to attack South Korea) + 2 inf in Romania (to attack Greece) + 3 inf in Georgia (to attack Turkey) can all be pretty closely replicated by adding 1 attacking infantry in each territory, and removing 1 defending infantry from each attacked territory. In fact, the percentages on the right (which indicate total % chance of losing all attacking infantry, plus any chance to lose additional units) shows that the +1/-1 option actually slightly favours the attacker, compared to the standard rd0 placements.

To implement something like this, you would want to change the rd0 placement limitation from “must follow standard placement rules” to a rule allowing only a maximum of 1 infantry to be placed in each territory.

One thing you’ll notice is that South Korea, Greece, and Turkey each have 4 or more starting infantry. So, to facilitate the NATO unit reductions, I’m inclined to use a rule like: “NATO territories in which the owner starts with 4 or more infantry, have that number of infantry reduced by 1.” This would impact the following territories:

• France, Greece, Turkey
• UK, India
• South Korea, Japan

(If extended to ALL stacks of 4 or more NATO infantry, this rule would further remove a single UK inf from France as well as US inf from both West Germany and Italy; this might be necessary, depending on what other rd0 modifications are used, or what the desired bid number is.)

Overall, I do like the idea of the rd0 cash, to give the USSR some options on where to focus their efforts. Unfortunately, it is used more as a ‘math fix’ than it is anything else – so I’d like to focus on properly fixing the math instead.

I think if the goal is to eliminate rd0 infantry bids entirely, the USSR is going to either need some more offense added at the start of the game, or they’re going to have to get used to more uncertainty/taking fewer territories at the start of the game.

As a footnote, I should again give credit to @The_Good_Captain for getting my brain going on this track; his analysis of Classic was that (with the proper rules implementation) a bid of 2 infantry was sufficient for balancing that game – and in fact, taking 1 Soviet inf off of Caucasus and adding that chip to the stack of German inf in Ukraine would likely work just as well. This is what got me thinking about the “+1/-1” implementation.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

@tacojohn said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

I think I may eventually try to recreate the E&W Cold War-era scenario on one of the more recent A&A maps - either the Anniversary map or maybe Siredblood’s or one of its offshoots - and work up the starting set ups, territorial control changes, etc.

I’m just looking at the Global 1940 map right now, and I have to ask if maybe doing E&W just using the Europe map would be worthwhile? It sort of begs the wider question of whether a Cold War scenario (particularly with a neutral China) really even lends itself to using a world map.

Coming back to this, without adjusting any IPC values on the map, an E&W game using Europe 1940 would have starting incomes like this:

• France: 16 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Syria)
• Italy: 7 IPCs
• Western Europe: 21 IPCs (4 less if you don’t include Greece and Turkey)
• UK: 26 IPCs (loses IPCs from Belgian Congo, Egypt, and Transjordan; gains 1 IPC from Libya)
• USA: 34 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Mexico)

USSR would gain 21 IPCs from the added “Warsaw Pact” territories (just based on the geography, it probably makes more sense to have Greater Southern Germany under the USSR) – total of 49 IPCs

Arab League would be 8 IPCs:

• Egypt (2)
• Transjordan (1)
• Syria (1)
• Iraq (2)
• Saudi Arabia (2)

OAS would be 9 IPCs – which makes it almost tempting to just… not give them Mexico, for ease of use. (2 IPCs each for Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile)

Other notes/thoughts:

1. I’d almost be tempted to go the “occupation zone” route, and give Greater Southern Germany to the US, while having Western Germany be UK. Western Germany touching Northern Italy reflects the east/west split for Austria (more accurately than how E&W does it) by including western-occupied Austria as part of Western Germany. GSG basically represents Czechia and the Soviet-occupied parts of Austria, on this map.

2. If you combine France, Italy, and the rest of Western Europe without Greece and Turkey, you’re looking at a solid 40 IPCs vs. 49 IPCs for the USSR. This makes WE the strongest NATO faction, which is… weird. Granted, Western Germany and Northern Italy being under threat right away, translates to a 9 IPC swing.

3. Being that they joined NATO in 1952, you could just as easily leave Greece and Turkey as neutrals, which means the Soviets wouldn’t need to invade Turkey to get the protection of the straits. Obviously, you’d still want to remap Turkey to be “Pro-Allies”…

4. Oddly enough, when I was mocking up E&W onto the TGW map, I ultimately ended up doing it as France+Italy and US+UK vs. the USSR. You could almost combine Italy and France in this version, too…

5. If WE is made into their own separate country (without France and Italy) they’re really weak, and they’d likely get gobbled up. Then it’s a question of, do you just exclude the minor NATO members (in lieu of having just a huge WE) by treating them as (Pro-Allies) neutrals? Or should they be occupied by US or UK, as appropriate? Since NATO wasn’t actually formed until 1949, you can get away with that if you set the game in 1948 or earlier. But, without a WE faction, Western Germany becomes… weird.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Coming back to this, without adjusting any IPC values on the map, an E&W game using Europe 1940 would have starting incomes like this:

• France: 16 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Syria)
• Italy: 7 IPCs
• Western Europe: 21 IPCs (4 less if you don’t include Greece and Turkey)
• UK: 26 IPCs (loses IPCs from Belgian Congo, Egypt, and Transjordan; gains 1 IPC from Libya)
• USA: 34 IPCs (loses 1 IPC from Mexico)

Coming back to this, actually what seems like the obvious thing to do is to just shunt Italy under Western Europe. France had sort of a cold war reputation of wanting to go their own way within NATO, so trying to frankenstein Italy onto France makes even less sense, from a historical perspective. (Although, as I’ve said, this would actually probably work well for an E&W game using the TGW map.)

Really, it’d become a question of how many bullets WE can take before they’re not an effective, meaningful power anymore, and whether that threshold is so low that it’s not worth having them as a separate power from France. This also dovetails into the question of whether to include Turkey and Greece in the alliance, as that might help beef up WE for a turn or two.

The idea I had with using the TGW map, is that you could have “NATO” be US+UK and France+Italy, with the other minor alliance members as their own “neutral alliance” – so attacking one would bring all under the NATO banner. This works better when you can just make West Germany part of the US+UK faction; trying to implement something like that on this map doesn’t really make a lot of sense, unless you just arbitrarily make the territory American, or something. Otherwise, you have to start hacking the map, and that’s not really the intent with this exercise.

The other thing to consider is if you’d really want it to be a 4v1 game. Or whether you’d have WE function sort of like ANZAC does in some games, i.e. they purchase separately but can attack together (with, say, French units in this scenario.)

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

2. If you combine France, Italy, and the rest of Western Europe without Greece and Turkey, you’re looking at a solid 40 IPCs vs. 49 IPCs for the USSR. This makes WE the strongest NATO faction, which is… weird. Granted, Western Germany and Northern Italy being under threat right away, translates to a 9 IPC swing.

Thinking on this a little bit more, probably one way to avoid a huge Western Europe is to go the ‘occupation zone’ route with West Germany – Western Germany belonging to UK and Greater Southern Germany belonging to the US.

(This would also potentially resolve the issue in ‘stock’ E&W whereby WE has to always be the one liberating West Germany, or there’s no net economic benefit to the Alliance.)

Taking GSG away from the USSR would knock their income down to 45, compared with:

• France: 16 IPCs
• WE: 19 IPCs (not including Turkey or Greece)
• UK: 31 IPCs (including Western Germany)
• US: 38 IPCs (including GSG)

This would mean US is the strongest NATO ally economically, at the start; however, a combined WE/France would have more income (35 IPCs) than the UK – and none of that income would be on the immediate frontline, either.

The other angle to come at it might be to treat France similar to a “neutral alliance” that favours NATO; units of the Alliance can move through their territory, but they don’t purchase/move/attack, and instead only defend French territory. This would likely require putting Greece and Turkey under WE, and possibly West Germany as well. It’s interesting to ponder…

The Western Bloc
I still haven’t nailed down whether to unite France and WE.

If you keep them separate, it probably makes some sense to allow WE to build infantry as per the normal E&W rules (assuming you wouldn’t normally allow it in this scenario, as a general rule.) I also like the idea of having them “declare multi-national force” i.e. the only action they take on their turn is to say “WE units will act on the [France/UK/US] turn, this round.” This is something I did for the NATO vs. Arab League mini-game/scenario I created, where the NATO factions are:
France & Belgium, Spain & Portugal, UK & Commonwealth.

If you put France and WE together, the interesting thing is how closely the economics line up with classic E&W (using the territorial assumptions from earlier in this post):

Classic vs. Europe
WE: 32 IPCs vs. 35 IPCs
UK: 33 IPCs vs. 31 IPCs
US: 43 IPCs vs. 38 IPCs
(NATO: 108 IPCs vs. 104 IPCs)
USSR: 48 IPCs vs. 45 IPCs

Neutral Considerations:
The whole “pro-neutral” mechanic of the 1940 game adds an interesting dimension that isn’t seen in the original E&W, per se. If you’re going to keep with the mechanic of letting the USSR attack any neutrals at any time, then the only real consideration is whether there are any “pro-neutrals” in the game at all.

1. Greece & Turkey: If these are strict neutrals, there is a lot less incentive for the USSR to attack them; if they are pro-NATO, then USSR has a lot more incentive to take Turkey, in order to prevent NATO from activating them to enter the strait.
2. Yugoslavia & Albania: If Yugoslavia is kept neutral, that would mean NATO offensives would have to funnel through the German territories, and likewise the USSR would have fewer territories to attack from on rd1, potentially making it tougher to take Germany. If Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece are all neutral, this would create a solid barrier for the USSR against invasion.
3. Persia/Iran: Should the Allies be freely able to open this route into the USSR? Or should this territory be strictly neutral?
4. Spain & Scandinavia: There’s probably an argument to be made that these territories should be easier for NATO to influence, but likewise that they shouldn’t be able to just freely “activate” them – so I can’t say that they absolutely should be pro-NATO. They might need their own distinct mechanic.
5. Ethiopia/Italian Somaliland: Being neutral in E&W, this serves as a meaningful barrier to shipping UK infantry from Africa to India. With the Europe map potentially greatly de-emphasizing India, these territories become less important; making it pro-NATO seems a bit silly, since then it’s kind of a freebie that the USSR would have a hard time contesting.

Our intrepid Axis & Allies player @The_Good_Captain has put out a video which includes a review of East & West!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsm4is72-sc

I’m about to check it out myself; I’ll let the crowd know if I have any thoughts on it :)

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

IMO the new meta is one of the Soviets overrunning all of Scandinavia; a UK with lots of transports in the Atlantic is probably the best counter/deterrence to this.

units transported from the UK could land in Komi, Karelia, Norway, West Germany, France, or even Portugal.

And the pipeline from South Africa into Pakistan or Iran is a lot less of a sure thing than you would expect.

I’m thinking that probably the best way to break into “Middle Earth” as NATO is by applying pressure through the Mediterranean; essentially you want WE defending Italy and attacking Turkey, with the UK defending France and attacking Greece. Probably any US units need to be in a position to attack Switzerland, or possibly Yugoslavia. The hope being that by going through Turkey, you can eventually take back Iran, to punish the Soviets for invading neutrals.

The UK should probably be moving 3 or 2 transports to the Mediterranean, and building 3 or 4 transports in the North Atlantic; it depends if you choose to move the starting Quebec transport into the Mediterranean, or not.
To move units directly from Ontario or Quebec into Norway/Karelia/Komi, new transports need to be placed in Ontario.
Basically, anytime you’re not moving units into Scandinavia, they need to be moved into France, and then used somewhere in the Mediterranean after that.

Generally as the UK, I’m thinking it’s best to send everything to Europe; likewise, the Americans need to send basically everything to the Pacific.

Overall, the heaviest blows need to be landed in/around Scandinavia (UK) and Siberia (US) in order for NATO to really put Moscow in a vice. Drawing Soviet troops down to Greece can be a useful diversionary tactic. But I think the main responsibility for the UK is to invert the current meta, by turning Scandinavia into contested territory, rather than secure income for the Soviets.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

I’m thinking that probably the best way to break into “Middle Earth” as NATO is by applying pressure through the Mediterranean; essentially you want WE defending Italy and attacking Turkey, with the UK defending France and attacking Greece. Probably any US units need to be in a position to attack Switzerland, or possibly Yugoslavia. The hope being that by going through Turkey, you can eventually take back Iran, to punish the Soviets for invading neutrals.
[…]
Overall, the heaviest blows need to be landed in/around Scandinavia (UK) and Siberia (US) in order for NATO to really put Moscow in a vice. Drawing Soviet troops down to Greece can be a useful diversionary tactic. But I think the main responsibility for the UK is to invert the current meta, by turning Scandinavia into contested territory, rather than secure income for the Soviets.

Upon further consideration, I think it makes more sense to have the UK contesting Turkey, with the hopes of eventually linking together their forces coming from India.
This requires UK troops to be landed in France, walk to Italy, and then be transported over to Turkey; in order to ensure a continuous supply of troops, you can’t really ever divert forces to Scandinavia, unfortunately.

This means that WE should focus on defending France, and either counter-attacking West Germany over land, or liberating Greece via amphibious assault. I’m strongly leaning towards a heavy investment in tanks on WE1 to facilitate this. NATO attacks into Greece and Turkey can begin as early as round 2.

It is important to not fritter away the starting US forces in Italy. Once UK forces arrive en masse in Italy, US forces should marshal in France for defense, and should counter-attack Switzerland, if possible; UK tanks landed in Europe (and infantry not being sent to Turkey) should be used to attack Yugoslavia.

The US should have a lone transport around Iceland to keep Europe supplied, particularly if the UK can do a ‘can-opener’ somewhere in Scandinavia. But by and large, I’m convinced that the US needs to purchase 3-5 additional transports in the Pacific on US1, and must position themselves to hit Kamchatka on US2, using their scattered island units.

Part of the thinking with all of this, is to eliminate what @The_Good_Captain commonly refers to (in his 1914 series of videos) as “fruity pebbles” – in other words, multi-national forces – which are good for defense, but no good for offense.

At the start of the game, you have the following naval distribution, in terms of transports:
North Atlantic: WE, UK, and US
Mediterranean: WE, UK, and US
Indian Ocean: WE, UK
Pacific: UK and US

By rd3, we want this tightened up to something more like:
North Atlantic: UK and US
Mediterranean: WE, UK
Indian Ocean: UK
Pacific: US

Since the US and UK are basically always going to be landing their troops in France, you’re still going to have a rainbow coalition defending that territory. But, by requiring WE to only be responsible for defending France (and not Italy) this means their attack power can be concentrated. Since the US won’t have any transports in the Mediterranean, it likewise makes sense for them to focus on defending France, rather than splitting their forces between Italy as well.

WE will likely want to put their fighters in Italy, to be used against Greece – but otherwise, I’m thinking the defense of Italy should be left entirely to the pipeline of UK forces.

This means that all 3 members of NATO each have their own jobs, but that they can still help each other out as well:

• WE is responsible for West Germany and Greece, but can also hit Switzerland and Turkey (if they have units in Greece)
• UK is responsible for Yugoslavia and Turkey, but can also hit Switzerland and Greece (and forces in France or UK can hit West Germany)
• US is responsible for Switzerland, but can also hit West Germany

By having the UK as the sole actor in India, and the US likewise in Siberia and the Koreas, we avoid having the diluted attack power of the “fruity pebbles” approach.

Since the US is going to have the smallest amount of responsibility in the European theatre, any strafing attack against France should eliminate US infantry first – so that the WE attack can be kept strong, and the UK pipeline kept intact.

Investigating this further, what I’m finding is that it is extremely difficult for WE and UK to both be doing offensives in the Mediterranean; this creates too much of a drain on the defense, requiring the US the bail out the situation.

So I’m finding myself re-evaluating the distribution of NATO’s purchases.
After rd1, their income should pretty reliably be (at least) these numbers:

• WE: 21 IPCs (7 inf)
• UK: 32 IPCs (9 inf, 1 arm)
• US: 41 IPCs (12 inf, 1 arm)

WE is always going to be putting everything into Italy or France. I would suggest that the UK should always be putting at least 3 infantry towards India. With the US having 3 starting transports in the Pacific, and Japan having an IPC value of 6, I would also contend that they should be putting at least 6 infantry toward that theatre. I would also argue that at a minimum, the US should use Iceland to send 2 infantry to Europe every round.

So what kind of wiggle room does this leave?

The UK would have 6 inf and 1 arm to play around with; the US would be left with 4 inf and 1 arm.

With the UK, you’re probably going to want to add an even number of infantry towards India (if any) to keep your transports around the UK full. The obvious options are:

• 1 inf Burma, 1 inf Pakistan (assuming the USSR doesn’t take the territory)
• 2 inf Singapore
• 2 inf South Africa (assuming there is a reasonable possibility of landing them in Iran or Pakistan every round; otherwise they can only reach India every other round.)

This is why I like the idea of keeping at least 1 transport around the Indian Ocean. I’m also tempted to leave a 2nd transport in the area, to maintain the threat of amphibious landings in the Persian Gulf. This would mean that of your starting 4 transports, 2 would end up in the Mediterranean – any new transports would be purchased for use around the UK. Really the question is whether 2 transport loads of infantry is enough to do any damage in the Mediterranean.

For the US, if you’re moving your transport from the Mediterranean out to the Atlantic, the obvious option is to at least use that to send the 1 arm per rd to Europe, via the standard shuck-shuck. If you’re producing 2 inf in Iceland and 6 inf in Japan, that leaves 4 inf (2 transport loads) per round, which can be flexed to either the Atlantic or the Pacific. It is important to decide immediately where to put your transports, and to get them moving units ASAP.

If you’re going for any sort of floating bridge strategy as the US, you’re going to need more transports than just the minimum needed to ship units to Eurasia. In the Pacific, you probably need to think about landing in South Korea, and then in the next round, having enough transports to move your units from both South Korea and Japan, into either Kamchatka or Eastern Siberia. In the Atlantic, you need to set up a couple transports to move your units from France to the Barents Sea – IMO, the number of transports should be less than the number already supplying France, so that you’re still leaving some units for defense.

As much as I would like to avoid the “fruity pebbles” I am realizing that Europe really needs all 3 NATO powers contributing to defense. Also, if you’re having the UK moving through the Mediterranean into Turkey, that means UK units will be in both France and Italy at all times. To balance this out, you’re probably shifting WE’s placement to Italy instead of France – letting the US and UK defend France instead. The big, big downside with this is that it leaves WE out of position to counter-attack West Germany (a nice income boost) but the tradeoff is they can attack Turkey OR Greece every round, helping facilitate the UK’s moves in the area.

House Rule/Discussion Topic: Unit Modifications

One thing I’ve thought about on occasion is whether tanks in E&W should just flatout cost 4 IPCs instead of 5.

1. The USSR still has almost no incentive to build anything other than infantry, even with the change
2. Western Europe needs all the “hit points” it can get, meaning… also no incentive to build anything other than infantry
3. UK would need to build transports, or else a new industry in India in order to add tanks
4. US (similarly) finds itself in the position of always needing to use transports to move tanks (or transports and new industry, in the case of Japan or the Philippines.)

So I think it’s pertinent to breakdown the economics, for the UK and US in particular.

As said many times before, the UK can rely on an income of 32, and the US can rely on 41. (This is where an India IC would be handy, since for the cost of 2 transports, it can “transport” 3 tanks.)

Now, comparing 4-IPC tanks vs. infantry:

• 32 IPCs = 10 infantry, requiring 5 transports
• 32 IPCs = 8 tanks, requiring 8 transports (or an IC in India + 5 transports)
• 41 IPCs = 13 infantry, requiring 6.5 transports
• 41 IPCS = 10 tanks, requiring 10 transports

The obvious conclusion is still(!) that infantry are cheaper (in terms of transports) and add more “hit points” – the only place where tanks start to pull ahead is in attack power:

• UK: (infantry) 10 attack power vs. (tanks) 24 attack power
• US: (infantry) 13 attack power vs. (tanks) 30 attack power

Again, keep in mind that the tanks still require more transports while providing fewer HP – it’s one thing to go “all tank” armies as Germany or the USSR, but for US or UK it’s a completely different thing altogether.

If a tank costs 4, it still takes 8 IPCs to ship it – meaning you’re spending 12 IPCs to get 3 attack power, and 1 HP
Compare that with 2 infantry + 1 transport – spending 14 IPCs for 2 attack power, and 2 HP

So let’s say we want to “spend it all” every round (just to narrow things down) and examine the possible combinations of tanks and infantry:

32 IPCs:

• 8 tanks (8 transports) – 24 attack power, 8 HP
• 5 tanks, 4 infantry (7 transports) – 19 attack power, 9 HP
• 2 tanks, 8 infantry (6 transports) – 14 attack power, 10 HP

41 IPCs:

• 8 tanks, 3 infantry (9.5 transports) – 27 attack power, 11 HP
• 5 tanks, 7 infantry (8.5 transports) – 22 attack power, 12 HP
• 2 tanks, 11 infantry (7.5 transports) – 19 attack power, 13 HP

So what we’re finding is that reducing the number of tanks significantly reduces the attack power, but does not significantly reduce the HP or number of transports. Now, I would argue that we cannot reduce the infantry to zero, but the mid-point option in each of these examples is certainly a lot more viable.

This leads into my other point of discussion: does the USSR have too much defense power?

What I’m finding is that the number of ground units that the Soviets have (on land, in the Eurasian continent) tends to be about 1 full round’s worth of production more than NATO (about 30 infantry.) This seems to be a deficit that NATO simply can’t make up.

If this assertion holds, then something would need to be done about a) increasing NATO’s attack power (such as decreasing the cost of tanks), or; b) decreasing the USSR’s defense power.

I’d argue that the 2-IPC infantry mechanic is necessary for the USSR to function as a global superpower – and leaning on E&W’s supposed origins in World at War, I’d offer that it is a simple, quality-of-life improvement over the model of having cheap partisans available to the USSR, in addition to regular infantry. If the price isn’t going to be changed, then perhaps the defense value should be. Since infantry currently defend at 2, that would mean a decrease down to 1.

The other thing to consider with this, is the fact that the US and UK are basically locked into their supply pipelines – effectively capping the maximum possible amount of attack power they can project into any given theatre, lest they have to rebuild the pipeline from scratch. The USSR simply doesn’t have this problem; they can place infantry anywhere, anytime. There aren’t many theatres where they cannot out-produce NATO simply by choosing do to so – their supply lines are not at all complex.

So, this begs a third question: Should the placement rules be changed?

Perhaps territories with industrial complexes would follow the current rules, but other territories with an IPC value could only produce 1 infantry (regardless of IPC value.)

Typically, I’ve seen the USSR place 12 infantry in Europe (and a further 4 in Karelia) pretty reliably every round. With this rule in place, the USSR would need to spread those 12 infantry around to:

• 1 each in West Germany, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Romania
• 6 infantry in Ukraine

Effectively, this would add one whole round of movement to the USSR’s supply lines, meaning NATO would have a more meaningful chance of contesting the border territories in Europe. In Karelia and East Siberia, the USSR would still be at a distinct advantage – but an advance towards India would be slowed much like Europe, perhaps even making China (finally) a worthwhile vector of attack for the Soviets.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

@tacojohn Did you ever consider porting E&W back onto the Classic map? I know it at least crossed my mind.

East & West using the Classic map, in TripleA

I’ve been poking around with this idea a bit recently, and I’ve had a few playthroughs just to see how things work. Here’s what I’ve come up with, so far:

Interestingly (for some reason unknown to me) when you go into the edit mode for Classic, you’re able to add both destroyers and artillery – but I haven’t found a way to purchase them (not that I’ve dug deeply into it.) My first thought was to replace each heavy armor with 2 artillery, however since they can only move 1 space, I changed that to 1 armor + 1 artillery instead.

With attack and defense of 3, destroyers are a close enough approximation for cruisers in E&W, except that they don’t bombard. I played a game or two using a straight 1:1 conversion, and I found that having the NATO destroyers just dotted all over the Eurasian coastline with nothing to do was… kind of boring.

I think they’re still useful as Soviet units, but for NATO I’m leaning towards this conversion:

1. Wherever there would be a NATO cruiser in the starting setup, instead put a battleship
2. Wherever there would be a NATO battleship in the starting setup, ADD a destroyer

What this does is a) gives “cruisers” the ability to bombard, and; b) makes battleships “2-hit” (i.e the destroyer represents the 2nd hit)

Gentlemen’s agreement: To better simulate 2-hit battleships, you might want to institute a rule where the battleships have to be taken as casualties before destroyers, or something similar.

Playing it this way means that the sea zones with battleships are a little bit beefed up, in terms of the dice they can roll; my first thought to offset this was to give the USSR super subs – but I haven’t tried that out yet. I might have to tune it down to where only one of those two substitutions is used, but not both.

Territory Conversions

The idea was to keep all of the units on the board, somewhere. It is actually fairly straightforward, for the most part, so I’ll only list the more tricky ones:

• Iceland: 3 inf, 1 ftr (US) are moved to UK; 1 sub (US) is moved to East Canada SZ; 2 inf (UK) are moved to East Canada
• North Sea/Ireland SZ: 2 trn, 1 crz (US) are placed in the UK SZ; 1 sub, 1 crz, 1 BB (UK) are placed in the East Canada SZ
• Germany: All starting NATO units from West Germany as well as all starting Soviet units from both East Germany and Yugoslavia are placed into this territory; this means there will be a battle in Germany right at the combat phase of Russia’s turn.
• Eastern Europe: Likewise, all starting NATO units from Greece as well as all starting Soviet units from Poland and Romania are placed into this territory.
• Ukraine SSR: Combines units from the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Baltic States; this is so that the infantry that would be in Baltic States are still far enough away that they cannot reach Germany or Norway-- as would be the case in E&W
• Soviet Far East: Combines units from the territories of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia
• Manchuria: all starting NATO units from South Korea as well as all starting Soviet units from North Korea and all starting Chinese units from Manchuria are placed into this territory. Do not add 6 extra Chinese infantry (which normally would be moved into North Korea on the Soviet turn.) The Chinese transport off Manchuria is instead placed off of Kwangtung
• Chinese territories: Sinkiang should be directly converted, without any other territories added to it; Jiangsu and Hunan units are placed into Kwangtung, and all units from all remaining Chinese territories (except Manchuria) should be placed into China.
• Western Europe: all territories and units which would belong to WE are instead given to the UK; Portugal’s 1 inf is put into Gibraltar
• India: Combines units from the territories of Pakistan, India, and Burma
• French Indochina: Combines units from the territories of Indochina and Singapore

Starting Territories:
USSR:

• Germany
• Eastern Europe
• Karelia SSR
• Ukraine SSR
• Caucasus
• Kazakh SSR
• Russia
• Novosibirsk
• Evenki
• Yakut SSR
• Soviet Far East
• Mongolia

WE/UK:

• West Canada
• East Canada
• UK
• Gibraltar
• Western Europe
• Finland Norway
• Southern Europe
• Turkey
• Algeria
• Libya
• French West Africa
• French Equatorial Africa
• Congo
• Angola
• Mozambique
• Madagascar
• Kenya Rhodesia
• South Africa
• India
• French Indochina
• New Guinea
• Solomon Islands
• Australia
• New Zealand

US:

• Japan
• Philippines
• Okinawa
• Caroline Islands
• Wake Island
• Midway
• Hawaiian Islands
• Alaska
• West US
• East US
• West Indies
• Panama

China:

• Sinkiang
• China
• Kwangtung
• Manchuria

Mechanics specific to TripleA

So, in the ‘edit mode’ you are actually able to change the alliances (i.e “Change Political Relationships” option) however, you only have an ‘allied’ and a ‘war’ option. You can also edit in techs, so the obvious thing to do is give Industrial Technology to Russia, for those classic 2-IPC infantry.

The way I’ve been playing is to having Japan allied to the USSR, and making all of China’s territories “Japanese”-owned. This allows the USSR to move freely through them; I find it’s helpful to set Japan as a “Does Nothing (AI)” before starting the game.

Now, the problem I’ve had with this setup is that whichever side you put Germany on, as soon as that side liberates the German capitol from the enemy, all German-owned territories that the liberating power controls automatically revert back to German control. The same kind of thing happens if the USSR liberates Japan.

Gentlemen’s agreement: Basically the way I’ve worked around this limitation is by treating Germany as a “no man’s land” that is always under Soviet control. You might want to stipulate that no units are allowed to end their turn there.

The alternative way to fix this is to just manually correct the territorial ownership in the edit mode, whenever a capitol changes hands.

One other thing of note is that, even if you edit in extra “PUs” for a country which does not control their capitol, they cannot purchase units – even if they control an industrial complex. (This is why my initial idea of having a fully 2v2 game doesn’t work – the best you can manage is to have China attack on its own turn, until it runs out of units. The same is true for having WE as a separate power – and their naval units become really useless, real fast that way.) I suppose you could just manually edit in purchases/placements at the end of the turn, but that’s getting overly kludgey for my tastes.

Another thing to keep in mind is territory ownership. If USSR takes Finland Norway, and then the US liberates it, the US will get ownership and not the UK – because the game still codes the territory as being German, I guess? Likewise, the Chinese territories can get eaten up by the USSR, if NATO conquers them first.

There is no mechanical way to prevent NATO from attacking China, so you’ll have to decide beforehand if this should be allowed or not.

Another way to play it would be to just make all of China’s territories Soviet territories, but have ‘neutral’ units there, defending them – particularly if you’re going to allow NATO to attack China anyway. This does give the USSR a bigger economy, though.

I haven’t been playing with any institution of “neutral armies” although there’s nothing stopping you from editing those units onto the map if/when they are attacked. Keep in mind, there’s no way around the 3 “PU” cost, when invading neutrals – aside from manually editing territory ownership.

Since originally-neutral territories are all worth 0 (and I haven’t found a way to edit that, if there is one) the only neutrals I’ve bothered invading as the USSR are Persia and the suez canal territories. Again, how you handle neutrals is a matter of how closely you want to hew to the original E&W rules.

With this setup involving hostile units starting in the same territories, it’s important to note that (for whatever reason) TripleA has it so that you can’t move ground units out of contested territories and into enemy territories, on the combat move phase. You can, however, move units between the contested territories (i.e. Germany and Eastern Europe.) This means that Soviet units in Germany cannot attack Western Europe or Southern Europe on turn 1, and units in Eastern Europe also cannot attack Southern Europe on that turn. Soviet fighters in those territories still seem to be able to be moved freely.

Rules Differences

I might just be doing it wrong, but as far as I can tell, the ruleset in TripleA does not allow for the “Tokyo Drift” maneuver to work reliably. This may be due to sub rules, or some interaction with destroyers – I haven’t really nailed it down.

It’s also important to remember that there’s no aerial retreat from amphibious assaults, and also tanks cannot move after combat so be careful about where you strand them. (Again, unless you want to overrule this with editing.) Likewise, defenders hit by naval bombardment from battleships still get to fire back, unlike in E&W; this relative nerf is a reason I felt it was ok to use battleships in place of cruisers, straight up.

Probably the biggest change is that you cannot place infantry everywhere. Again, any ICs that are hard-coded in as “starting” ICs have no placement limit – but for their original owner, only. Any ICs that you edit in or purchase later on are limited to the value of the territory, as far as how many units they can produce. This means that the USSR has to spend a lot more turns walking forward, whereas the UK can almost max out placement in “France” and “Italy” – the drawback being it’s a lot harder to defend India. Likewise, the US has a lot harder time getting ground units into the Pacific theatre; you’ll have to decide whether you’ll want to add ICs for NATO, or make them have to purchase more.

Anyways, I’ve been having fun playing E&W this way; it’s a neat little scenario and it plays a bit quicker than regular E&W/Mapview, despite typically taking a lot more rounds to finish. It’s also a handy way to test out certain ideas/strategies, particularly w/r/t supply pipelines and such.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

East & West using the Classic map, in TripleA

A few other things to report:

1st:

I tested changing the Chinese territories so that they belong to the USSR, with ‘neutral’ (Japanese) armies defending them. I also “manually enforced” the rule that NATO cannot attack Chinese territories (although I usually end up sinking their transport, for spite.)

The boost in $ for the USSR is not huge, as once I kinda got my sea-legs under me, I was finding NATO to be quite strong – particularly the united Western Europe/UK, who can reliably put down 12 infantry onto the continent, all game long. Compare that with the USSR’s starting production of 40 (i.e. 20 infantry) and you can see how the extra money from China is probably a necessity.

2nd:

If the US does not take the Soviet Far East right away, they’re going to have a hard time doing anything in the Pacific. With no Korea territories to land units in, and not being allowed to attack China, the alternatives are either:
a) putting an IC in Japan, and shucking to Indochina half the time, or;
b) putting an IC in Philippines – meaning you’re probably sending over 1 tank and 2 infantry each round, which is a slowww grind.

3rd:

That all being said, I never thought to use the factory in Manchuria (as the Soviets) until after the game was already over. With it being a Soviet territory (and interestingly, making the AA gun Soviet, too) there wasn’t anything mechanically preventing this. I’ll have to test it and see if that’d tilt things too far in one direction.

4th:

With the Suez Canal being neutral, neither side is able to use it, in TripleA. This means that you end up with the UK fleet effectively split into two halves; you need to decide pretty early on whether the units around the Indian Ocean are going to ship up to Alaska to be fed from the factory in East Canada, or circle around Africa into the Atlantic or Mediterranean. I haven’t tried sending them through Panama yet.

5th:

With WE and UK being one power, the “Orient Express” pipeline (through France, Italy, and Turkey) is a lot easier and more viable than in regular E&W. The US can even get in on the fun, since there are such fewer sea zones on the Classic map, and also because Karelia is such a dog to try and smash through (because it has unlimited placement for the USSR.)

I’m not settled on how you would handle the straits rule for the Baltic (and with Karelia and Eastern Europe being such strong territories, it might not even be needed) but I think a “manually enforced” straits rule for Turkey is probably necessary. The NATO spam into the Black Sea is just too strong, and with fewer territories, they end up being at Moscow’s doorstep a lot faster. Short of an early India IC purchase, Turkey is probably going to be one of NATO’s main vectors into Asia, regardless.

6th:

If you’re going to keep with the rule that only the USSR can attack neutrals, it might be worthwhile to use German units to represent all of the neutral armies on the map. You could even put the 2 infantry from Thailand right into French Indochina; if you’re going that route, you’d need to decide which territory the 2 Tibetan infantry would go to.

7th:

I found that manually editing the territory ownership when Germany gets traded is probably the way to go. (Edit: if you’re playing against an AI, you can’t really do this, since you need to make the territory edits before the “collect income” phase, and there’s no way to pause the game, AFAICT.) The UK can’t afford to just not have the income from original-German territories, and it’s a hard territory for either side to hold strongly – which makes for lots of fighting back and forth over the territory. The effect being that a lot of times, both the USSR and UK are cashing out $10 on that territory in a given round; it’d probably be detrimental to give USSR an unassailable 10 IPCs from Germany and another 10 (likewise) from China.

8th:

On a lighter note, and with all that being said…
Bizarrely enough, it just occurred to me that probably the correct way to do Western Europe as a separate power is to actually use Japan. This would mean the US would lose that capitol territory (which has several knock-on effects) but it would fix the problem of W.E. constantly losing and regaining their capitol.

Likewise, there might be a case for making China’s capitol be Germany – especially if the intent is to have China as an active Soviet ally, so that the extra IPCs aren’t being wasted. Otherwise, if Japan is effectively Western Europe, a ‘neutral’ China (even if its territories were Soviet-controlled) would then have German units.

There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll go through your post and answer as best I can.

@argothair said:

I have never played or even seen East & West other than in this one article, so I’m in need of more of a primer. Is East & West available at all on TripleA other than as a mod of the Classic map?

The answer is no. I am not experienced enough (i.e. at all) with adding/creating new maps/games within TripleA, although it would be theoretically possible.

What you can do is go to http://www.motcreations.com/ and download the MapView app; in short, what this allows you to do is add and move units around the map, creating a new map tab for each turn-phase, but everything else has to be done manually (dice rolls, etc.) It’s handy for visualization, but by and large it is essentially just an aid for PBEM play.

Does it really make sense to use the Classic map, given the limits that places on your ability to have additional territories?

The thought with mocking the game up in Classic has basically everything to do with the fact that the rules/mechanics of E&W most closely line up with those of Classic; by running it in Classic, you at least get a sense of how combat would go in terms of odds, as well as testing strategies, because you can pretty much map the starting setup 1:1, and the relative positioning of units is mainly the same. The other consideration is that most other global maps (i.e. Revised, Anniversary, etc.) tend not to have the “cold war” territories you would expect anyway, such as North/South Korea and East/West Germany. Again, this is why I have mentioned upthread that I would be interested in converting Europe 1940 to play E&W with – link to the separate thread for that here: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/39450/brainstorming-east-west-cold-war-scenario-for-europe-1940/1

Have you been able to automate any of the (e.g.) diplomacy rules for tripleA, or does that all have to be done manually by the players?

As I mentioned, I have no experience with the developer tools in TripleA, so I’ll give you an overview of how the diplomacy mechanics work:

Essentially, if you influence a major neutral (aka neutral alliance) they move one pip towards your side (as depicted on the map.) They can give 1/4th, half, or all of their income to either the USSR, or the NATO nation which they are affiliated with. There’s also “+0” to each side, and a “true neutral” (let’s say) spot. So effectively a sliding scale of 9 positions; China starts at +1/4th to the USSR (i.e. +4 IPCs, since China is worth 16 IPCs) and the OAS starts at +0 to USA; the Arab League starts out at true neutral.

(as a side note, Imp Games’ followup game, a WWI game known as The Great War, reduced the sliding scale for diplomacy to only 7, removing the +0’s. This game map is also available with MapView.)

Since the diplomacy roll is just a 1d6 (successful on a 1) I imagine it’d be possible to build that into TripleA; at worst, you’d have to mod the PUs at the end of the relevant turn(s).

As for minor neutrals, they essentially have their own forces (as is the case in, say, G40) but can be influenced to join a NATO power or the USSR; the USSR can also attack any neutrals at any time (including majors.) So those territories would just become “owned” if influenced or attacked; IME with TripleA, this would be a little janky, because the app seems to hard-code all territories as belonging to a particular owner, and that underlying alignment never changes. So, for example, if you code China as neutral but the USSR attacks them, any remaining territories should become British-owned; if the US were to liberate those territories, TripleA would (I suspect) make them American, when they should be British.

How does East & West think about the possibility of nuclear escalation – I saw in one place you discussed using an essentially tactical nuke against a US Pacific fleet, but is there any possibility that the game escalates into strategic nuclear war?

So the other mechanic that impacts diplomacy is the “complication table” for nuclear weapons. Essentially, whenever a nuke goes off, you roll 2d6, and consult the complication table; the most likely outcome is a normal attack, but you can also cause “outrage” by one or all 3 of the major neutrals, shifting their support one notch to the opposing alliance.

On a 2, the nuke detonates in the territory from which it was originally launched (i.e. at the start of the combat move phase) and on a 3, the nuke is a dud and is both lost, and fails to detonate over its target.

The other risk with nukes is that the bomber carrying them can be shot down by AA fire, and may fail to escape the blast radius (1 on a d6 roll.)

The problem is that nukes destroys 5 units (either on land or at sea) so while Soviet infantry cost 10 IPCs for 5, naval units cost a minimum of 40 IPCs for 5 – with nukes costing 20 IPCs.

Because E&W takes place in 1948, the USSR does not start with the technology to produce nukes, and (as you can see) the cost and other drawbacks make them a tough sell for NATO; this keeps their use generally very limited – often the US fires their starting nuke, but the only others I tend to see are purchased by the USSR late in the game (round 6+, approximately.)

Hopefully that all answers your question about nuclear escalation.

Finally, does it make any sense to have traditional ‘capital’ rules during this time period and at this scale? My understanding is that half the point of NATO was to assure countries that the rest of western Europe would keep fighting even if, e.g., France were occupied. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine China or the USSR surrendering in the 1970s or 1980s just because you took Beijing or Moscow.

E&W expressly does not use the capitol rules from Classic; a country keeps fighting on if they lose their capitol, and they do not surrender their IPCs or stop producing IPCs in that situation. In terms of mimicking E&W using the Classic map in TripleA however, these mechanics cannot really be worked around.

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

If you’re interested, send me a list of your top 10-ish highest priority changes from the Classic map/ruleset. I need a medium amount of detail, I think – like I’m not sure why China goes British, specifically, and not American. If there’s a short rulebook (<= 30 pages) that spells all this out, then send me a link and I’ll read it; otherwise I need you to tell me.

The biggest changes from Classic to E&W are largely rules cribbed (IMO) from Xeno Games’ World at War

1. Infantry can be placed on any territory you have owned since the start of your turn; the number of infantry is limited to the IPC value of the territory.
2. Industrial complexes allow for the production of ANY type of unit, limited to a number equal to the territory’s IPC value (no exceptions for capitols, or “original” ICs) – this can be used to effectively double the production of infantry on a territory; it does not have to be used for mechanical units
3. New units: (aside from tech upgrades to existing units) heavy tanks (move 3, attack 4, defend 3, cost 7) and cruisers (move 2, attack 2, defend 3, cost 12; can bombard) – self-propelled artillery can also be unlocked, with a tech (move 2, attack 4, defend 1, cost 4; cannot blitz)
4. Units hit by shore bombardment cannot fire back.
5. Tanks/heavy tanks/artillery (not just planes) can use any remaining movement, on the non-combat phase, even after retreating – handy for increasing their survivability. From the FAQ: In a combined overland + amphibious assault, the overland units can still retreat; aerial units may always retreat from amphibious assaults.
6. Bombers can carry 1 infantry as a “paratrooper” but they must both start their turn in the same territory. (Bombers are also used to carry nukes)
7. Map changes: (check the OP for the prototype map, which is functionally accurate to the final product) Again, much of it is nearly identical to the Xeno Games W@W map; if we’re just doing a hack of Classic, it’s not entirely necessary to faithfully recreate the E&W map. Basically, every territory is split depending on its alliance, so “French Indochina Burma” from Classic effectively becomes Burma (British), Thailand (neutral), Indochina (WEur), and Singapore (British) – exactly as it in in W@W.
   As far as other “cold war necessary”-changes…

• North Korea/South Korea (splits Korea from W@W)
• Greece/Yugoslavia (splits Balkans(iirc?) from W@W)
• East Germany/West Germany (effectively includes Netherlands and Denmark)
  The USSR and eastern bloc countries are largely the same as in W@W (Poland and Baltic States are split) so, that part of the map actually pretty closely resembles the Revised A&A map.

8. Another one of the rules from the FAQ: NATO cannot land planes in any territory which they have not controlled for an entire round, i.e. if UK liberates a territory, the US cannot land fighters there on their turn, they have to wait until the following round to do so.
9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)
10. 2-hit Battleships: cost 10 IPCs to repair (has to be at a coastal IC, IIRC) and damaged battleships cannot attack or bombard, but defend as normal. From the FAQ: if struck by a nuke, a battleship can absorb two “hits” before being destroyed
11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)
12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

Specifically to your question regarding China, each of the 3 major neutrals are aligned to one NATO power: OAS is the obvious one to line up with the USA; the rulebook cites historical ties such as Hong Kong for why China favours the UK.

IMO it’d make more sense to align the Arab League with the UK, and then have China align with Western Europe – but I think it was done this way because UK tends to be more active in Asia whereas WE centres more around the Mediterranean.

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)

I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone else knows how to enable defenders to retreat. I don’t know of any other tripleA game that does that off the top of my head.

IIRC this rule is in the 3rd Edition of rules for Classic, so I’d be surprised if it hasn’t made it into (at least) some other version of A&A / probably already exists within TripleA, somewhere.

11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)

Should be fine. The idea here is that if Sweden is even slightly tilted toward your opponent diplomatically, then it blocks the strait for surface warships?

So, because Sweden is a neutral country, basically control of West Germany determines who can use the strait. If Sweden becomes active (either influenced using diplomacy, or invaded) then you have to control both sides of the strait. If control is split, no one can pass.

12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

Is there a chart somewhere that shows me exactly what all these techs do? How do you gain a new tech? Can we just rely on players to research techs in a legal order, or is there a reason that has to be coded in?

The biggest reason is to gate the more powerful techs behind a certain amount of progression – the most obvious being that the 3rd-tier nuke is just the 1st-tier nuke, but it deals double the amount of damage. (IMO they aren’t well balanced, and I’d restructure the whole thing, but that’s neither here nor there, as far as this discussion.)