AARHE: Phase 2: Victory Cities (VC)

Other than the Russian bomber added to the setup, I highly doubt any of my group will want house rules for a game that we just started playing… especially with my history of changing the Global rules… LOL. Nice idea, but I probably won’t be able to introduce house rules until my group gets board of the game in a year or 2 (maybe even 3).

Thanks for providing this background information, YG.  I now understand better what you’re aiming to accomplish.  I don’t have a specific solution to recommend that might work for your group, but here are a few questions you and the other people in your group might want to consider.  The answers may provide you with guidance on what kind of point-scoring system might best suit your purpose. Fundamentally, the question to consider is: what kind of accomplishments do you want to reward by awarding points?  Here are a couple of aspects of that question:

First: do you want the rewards to be incremental (round-by-round) throughout the game or do you want them to be based only on the final outcome?  Under the first option, it doesn’t matter so much whether a player controls X at the end of the game; all that matters is how often he controlled it during the game.  Under the second option, the reverse would be the case.  Each option has its upside and its downside.  For example, under a final-outcome-only system, a player who controlled X throughout the game but lost it on the last round would be in the same unhappy position as an investor whose stock portfolio did wonderfully for decade after decade but then crashed in value just before he was planning to sell it to finance his retirement.

Second: Assuming you choose an incremental system, do you want to reward consistency more (or less) than changes?  Example: Let’s say that I’m the Soviet player and that I manage to hold on to Moscow for the whole game.  Objectively, this is a desirable state of affairs (just think of what Stalin would have done to Zhukov if he’d lost Moscow in late 1941), but if the point system only rewards changes (i.e. the achievement of a defined goal), then my success in holding my capital doesn’t give me any points.  Now let’s say that I’m the Soviet player and that, in an 8-round game, I lose Moscow 4 times and regain it 4 times, and let’s say that the point system rewards gains without penalizing losses.  In that scenario, I’d gain 4 points – so I’d be further ahead point-wise than if I’d managed to successfully defend my capital from capture for the whole game.  That would sound bizarre to me.  One partial way to address this problem is by having both debits and credits: giving points for successes and deleting points for failures.  In such a system, losing Moscow 4 times and regaining it 4 times would have the same zero-sum result as simply holding Moscow.  But here we’d face a new question: should two such different situations really translate into the same number of points (in this case zero)?  Or should the point system reflect the view that one of those scenarios demonstrates superior generalship, and hence should be rewarded?  (Personally, I’d argue that the general who holds Moscow for the whole game is doing a better job than the one who keeps losing and recapturing it.)

I had an idea to calculate an axis win at the end of each full game turn

Each capital held is worth 3 points (india counts as a capital)
Each other victory city is 2 points
Each completed national objective is 1 point.

Total up on Germany’s turn, on Japans turn and Italy’s turn.
Lets just spitball and say, if the axis number is 31, if they score 31 at any time during rounds 5-10 they win.

For the allies to win, they need to bring the axis down to a certain number, lets say 15

As the game goes on, the numbers get closer to eachother, so lets look at it this way

Turns 5-10
Axis wins with 31 points, lose if they fall below 15 points
Turns 11-15
Axis wins with 27 points, lose if they fall below 19 points
Turns 16-20
Axis wins with 24 points, lose if they fall below 21 points

@variance:

Its nice how its simple and it gives a victory condition for both the allies as well as the axis. It’s not “the allies win if the axis don’t”; the allies can’t “win” by just stacking Cairo and Hawaii forever. I could see the axis going for Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Nanking, Hong Kong, Manila, and then Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, with UK struggling to defend either Cairo or Calcutta (but not both) and allies race to get Paris or Rome in time. That should actually work pretty well I would think!

That’s exactly what I was thinking Vance…

My Axis strategy would be to hold Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, Rome, Leningrad, Moscow, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, and any pair of Cairo, Calcutta and/or Stalingrad for the win.

My Allied strategy would involve holding all their “untouchable” cities like Ottawa, Washington, London, San Francisco, Honolulu, and Sydney. I would then give them individual responsibilities for the UK to hold Calcutta and Cairo… for the US to take Paris and get back Manila, and for Russia to hold Moscow and Stalingrad for the win.

I like these victory conditions because it’s the same objective for both sides, and lets face it, if either side holds 12 cities after the 5th round… it’s pretty much over anyways.

@Rakeman:

@Cmdr:

That is significantly better. (Allies can capture Kwangtung or Philippines easier.)

Though, I still think having it auto liberate after Russia’s turn is the best idea.  That way Japan would have to maintain pressure on W. USA too keep the VC.

Perhaps if USA loses money due to bombing, the VC is captured, but liberated automatically on Russia’s turn?  It would require pressure maintained, but not so much pressure that Japan needs to dedicate all of its money to bombing.

I think it would be okay as long as Japan has to successfully bomb W. USA each successive turn to maintain command over the Victory City there.

That way Japan can still screw up by sending one bomber and having it shot down, or America could get lucky and get 3 hits with it’s AA Gun against 3 bombers.

thats just fine.

ok thats fine then.

yep