Axis & Allies Global 1940 House Rules Expansion

@The-Captain

Nice!

@all-encompassing-goose

I think this a great idea-I just think it’s too complicated. Make it so the Bulgarian infantry can only move in three territories: Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia.

I have been reading about your house rules, and you should put them into one giant rulebook like The Captain. Keep up the good work!

I edited the Tacs in list.
Is there still a bid ?
BB & CR shore shot at 11 and 9 ?
How many table top games have you played ?

These house rules are meant to make the game more realistic while staying as simple as possible.

Battleships cost 14 IPCs. They cost 1 IPC to repair.

Switzerland has an IPC value of 4.

The U.K. can only produce up to 4 units per turn in India. If India is captured by the Central Powers, the Central Powers cannot produce units there.

If a capital is captured, the IPCs are discarded and not taken by the capturing power.

Neutral territories that are not home territories still get units if invaded.

Sea units, except submarines, must end their movement when they enter a sea zone with enemy mines.

Units that retreat from a contested territory cannot move into another contested territory. They may move into any adjacent friendly territory.

There is a combat move and a non-combat move. During the combat move, units can move into neutral, contested, and enemy territories. The non-combat move comes after combat. During the non-combat move, units that did not move during the combat move and did not conduct combat can move into friendly territories. Land units can move an unlimited number of territories during the non-combat move within their original territories.

Optional Manpower Rule

Keep track of the infantry that are destroyed for each power. If a power has had 2x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect half of the total IPC value of their territories when they collect income (rounded up). If a power has had 4x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect the IPC value of their capital territory when they collect income.

@Topmat

AxA has often been called a “beer and pretzels” wargame, I suppose because it is fairly simplistic and available—FOR a wargame. That’s not because AxA is elementary or easily mastered, its because other wargames tend to be even more rules-heavy and detailed, which makes some of them famously and notoriously unplayable. They may have an attractive theme or rules, but the “chit” game era (60s-80s) built up to a crescendo before it burst. PC Computer gaming was a major catalyst for this; the ASL/Avalon Hill/SSI style games BEGGED for a computer to handle some of the more complex calculations, setup, rules etc.

I think AxA has the general appeal and longevity it does precisely because it appeared after this “First Golden Age”, and is not married to overcomplex or overly realistic considerations, its a truly “abstract” wargame, where each step (building, conquering, purchasing, combat, movement) is fairly simple, but all together, they are complex enough to satisfy long-time players while only barely overwhelming the new ones.

And, the fact that AxA doesn’t try to simulate or do everything a wargame possibly COULD do is the very reason why there is enough room left in the game to add more, but that’s not necessarily desirable. If the game was already highly complex, rich and random, it would already have many of the things that people are trying to add to it—but its likely no-one would play it. I think most of the more complex house rules systems for AxA fall into this trap, by pushing the complexity/time investment level out of the Goldilocks zone.

I bought a “political” Avalon Hill chit game in 1992, Republic of Rome (4/4 difficulty rating). When I read the instruction manual, I was blown away-- I understood nothing of what i’d read… until I read it for nearly 2 years. We only played it in college 4 times, and the Republic consistently lost as a group. Its a great game, but its also an example of a highly complex simulation game with a narrow audience from the first era–very few people still play these games because they lack any general following or appeal in the internet age, and have been replaced by computer-style games, like the Total War and Europa Universalis series.

Do you have any pictures of your board with all the different units?

If you can save like $10, you will find German pieces on eBay from the original 1984 set.

If you love A&A Revised but feel it falls a bit short of it’s potential, try http://boards.avalonhill.com/showthread.php?t=15339  I would be happy to discuss the rules or even play a game with interested players…