Balancing the 42.2 game without the need for Bids

@Imperious-Leader
Hi IL,
I can see that some TTy in Siberia did not worth a real boost in economy.

Your suggestion made me think about a way to expand my first idea a little bit more, even if it is not truly accurate/realistic from a geo-economic POV.

When invading a Zero IPC island TTy with an amphibious assault, if winning get 2 IPCs.
If defending side won the battle, he get 1 IPC.

If it is a Zero IPC continental TTy, the invader gain 1 IPC.

It remains a bonus given through the result of a combat. No additional economic value to keep such islands on subsequent rounds.

That way, it is an incentive to fight over these TTys nonetheless.

I think the USA non-combat turn zero pretty much balances the game 50/50! If you want, you can give the Axis a bid of 3 to 6 IPCs, but I doubt it’s necessary.

I don’t think Russia gets erased by Germany. Russia actually starts with a healthy number of troops even out of the box, and because Russia goes before Germany, Russia has a chance to shape the European map in its favor. With an USA turn zero, the Allied Atlantic fleets will survive, which means much earlier Allied pressure on Norway/France/Morocco, which really limits Germany’s ability to secure a permanent economic advantage against Russia. In other words, in my opinion, the problem with the OOB 1942.2 setup isn’t that Russia is too weak – it’s that the US & UK are too weak. Giving the USA a zero turn helps protect both US & UK assets, which fixes this problem.

Related to #2, if you haven’t already read Black_Elk’s sticky thread on Russian Openings, you really need to. It will totally change the way you see the 1942.2 board.
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35487.0

I had to rewrite it.  Oh well, I made it more brief.

I played another game with India at 5, but I played against myself instead of the AI (first time doing that!).

Russia got absolutely diced in the heavy Ukraine strafe, and so West Russia was abandoned R2 and with no fighter support (Iceland gone G1, no other good routes) Germany rolled over them on turn G5.

Once the fighter route was gone I went heavy tanks in India, hoping to swing out against the Japanese and provide defence for Moscow.  I did have 8 UK tanks about to rush in to Moscow for defence (on UK6), but that would have exposed India on J6 AND Japanese tanks were closing in on Moscow as well, so it would have been a 1 or 2 turn delay at most.  Japan had the luxury of building a factory in Manchuria for north route tanks and just stacking Yunnan with art and inf (with their fleet in the adjacent SZ) and deadzone Burma, so the UK troop buildup in India couldn’t really pivot out of India as much as I thought.  Any foray out of India, and the 5 IPC factory would be gone, so the two armies stayed in the gravitational pull of one another.

I’ve never really done a KJF, but I think that might work a lot better with 5 IPC India.  I might read some KJF strategies and try it out.  So far, 5 IPC India is a failure, haha.

@Cmdr:

I would be concerned in allowing the UK to can open like that for the Americans.

What if the turn order ended:  USA >> Italy >> Germany (Germany being first in the turn order)?

That at least permits Italy to blitz some tanks from N. Italy into Denmark to save Germany’s arse at the last minute.

London is at risk, Calcutta is at risk, Moscow is at risk… Why shouldn’t Berlin and Rome be at risk?

Is there a link to boardgamegeek where these files are now located?!?!
Thanks!

No. That increases the already ridiculus range of the West German airbase and the US airbases. With +2 movement, Bombers can move from Western US to Tunisia and from Eastern US to Sydney.

Small change to the rules.

I did my playtesting on TripleA where Afghanistan is adjacent to Chinghai.  I had the opportunity to play a live ftf game last night and noticed that on the real board the Himalayas lie between Afghanistan and Chinghai.  Therefore…Afghanistan is no longer a selectable neutral by China…they may take Mongolia only.