Balanced Mod on Table Top

@fat-belly-general

I really like this idea, as it allows even in a three player game to have two players as the Axis.

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

It is more realistic to move warships from one SZ to another.
But, would you retreat more than 1 TT to repair your Tank?
(Land movement are much slower and falling back damaged Tanks while staying in position with Art and Inf make such delay an issue. You also have to compare between planes for the cost. Aircraft mobility and versatility is way more interesting than 2 hits units which have to return to IC for repair.)

IMO, it is easier to consider that such unit are repaired right on place with spare parts.

A different procedure I suggested a while ago is that you can only repair one and have to pick a damaged Tank as casualty before allocating a hit to damage another Tank.

So, instead of 10 Tanks staying on battle until the 11th hits.
A second hits eliminates a first Tank.
This becomes far less effective, but it is easier to follow a single damaged Tank per stack.

However, I did not search on how to calculate such way of allocating damage.

@Der:

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill’s meetings are represented by the 10 minute opening meeting and the 5 minute meeting every round. According to this site the three only got together three times during the whole war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_conferences

As for the table talk sample you gave, at our table it would go more like this:

Player 1: “dude, you really want to throw all those troops at Crete?”
Player 2: “Yeah, because look over there, the USA could counterattack.”
Player 1: “No they won’t with my submarines threatening them.”
Player 3: “What you should do is use those on the East Front”
Player 2: “But islands are hard to get back - Crete could pay off for several rounds.”
Player 1: “But that won’t win the game for us.”
Player 1: “OK take Crete, but use the bomber on Caucasus’ factory.”
Player 3: “No way - what if it gets shot down? Italy doesn’t have money to replace it.”
Player 1: “Seriously dude, just do this…” (Starts moving player all of player 2s pieces around) “See?”
Player 2: “No, I don’t like that” (Moves all pieces back to where they were)
Player 3: “Can we have the map for a few minutes?”

It’s this type of tomfoolery I’d like to curb - in my solution players can advise each other all they want if they are not actively trying to complete a turn. I think that is reasonable. If you have something so all important to say to your teammate that it’s worth spending 3 IPCs, you can still do it. We’ll see if it works, I could be wrong also.

I like the setting individual goals idea the most, but after thinking about it it seems too hard to implement. Each nation does not start out even. For example, Italy may have played a great game just keeping what they have with their small income, while Japan should be able to take a lot of land. How do you figure out who did better to declare individual winners? Seems complicated.

Yes, this does happen over table and in team meetings !  :lol: :lol: :lol:

We do have little talks over table if somebody needs to ask what you or him want to do if its like when US and UK are playing split sides and Germany Italy.

We do have team meetings after every turn for 5 to 10 mins if sides request it.

Last game was really good and we had more team meetings than was expected. But guys want that and get it.  :wink:

The destroyers came with the Central Powers set which is sold out and as far as I know, Jack does not plan to make anymore right now. You may find some on Ebay or here, but there are none left on Fair Play Games…

All these problems are solved if you remove the extra movement and instead allow naval bases to shelter ships in harbour.
The ships can still be targeted by bombing raids; altogether this creates the mechanics for a much more realistic depiction of both the Taranto raid (and the copycat Pearl Harbor operation), and the general usefulness of Gibraltar (which by the way should not be a tt but a UK NB in Southern Spain).

@Napoleon:

Someone tried to put extra chinese infantry on all empty territory?

Does it make a difference?

It made China an annoy bitch.

I like the China mod Idea, would like to give it a try.
However, I think these might be some possible options for the House rule.

1.  China can only purchase Infantry and artillery,  perhaps add a new unit, Cavalry!  at 2,1,2,4?
2.  U.S. is and Russia can fly aircraft to chinese capital, on subsequent turn they become chinese.
3.  Japan should start with a bomber and an extra sub or destroyer in 41 and an extra carrier and f2 fighters in 42 to balance this out.