Global 1940 & 1943 Expansions Game Reports

@The-Captain

Nice!

Hi @blaze-the-action-junkie

This is an interesting way of getting more tech rolls as well

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/13543/research-facilities-and-infrastructure-simple-rule-additions

@CWO:

A&A is fundamentally a board game, and its relationship to more rigorous military-simulation wargames (both hobby-level and professional-grade) is roughly the relationship that the Monopoly board game has to the kinds of economic-simulation games that are detailed and accurate enough that they could be used as teaching tools in a management school curriculum.

I agree to the Monopoly comment, or maybe better said, without historical events and situations to use in conjunction with play, then A&A is just a glorified version of Risk.  But, I want some history and random events that change the play of the game.

The map is still a mess. MS Paint’s paintbrush option doesn’t appear to lay an even coat, so I can’t auto-fill within national borders, meaning that each country must be painted by hand. I’m trying to figure out if it would be wise to invest in a WaCom tablet for this kind of work and would greatly appreciate any suggestions from some of the community’s seasoned mapmakers.

I’ve calculated income (IPC values) for all the major and minor powers in the game at this point, so let’s shift gears tonight and take a look at how that breaks down, with some additional points of interest for each country. Here’s an early (albeit incomplete) preview.

Allied Powers

United Kingdom & Dominions: 54

Representing His Majesty’s possessions and Commonwealth allies west of Suez. The U.K. starts with sevenof the Empire’s eight battleships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and one of its two battlecruisers. The British also field a pair of fleet carriers, divided between either station.

British Far East Command: 50

All British Empire forces east of Suez, inclusive of Australia and New Zealand. There are 10 INF in greater India alone, and another 4 in Malaya or on Singapore at game start. By contrast, Australia and New Zealand are virtually defenseless. A battleship, battlecruiser, cruiser, and two destroyers comprise the Royal Navy presence here.

France: 37

France is a going concern in this game, with powerful armies concentrated along the Maginot Line, the Alpine Line on the Franco-Italian border, and in North Africa. The French Indochina garrison is also formidable, with 1 INF, 1 ARTY, and 1 FTR. Powerful squadrons of the French Navy, including 2 BB and 1 BC, are at Toulon and Mers el-Kébir. A cruiser lays at anchor off Indochina. A troop transport in the Indian Ocean carries 1 additional INF and 1 AAA.

United States of America: 130

The wealthiest nation on Earth, but humbled by the Depression. The United States Navy counts ten battleships and one fleet carrier.

Pro-Allied Minors

United Netherlands: 28

Anticipating war with Japan rather than Germany, the Dutch spent heavily on air and naval defenses in the Indies, where a BC and a SUB patrol, backed by a TAC. At game start, a Dutch FTR on Java is the closest possible air cover available for Malaya. A modest increase to the army began more recently, but there can be no illusions about what will happen if Europe falls into another war.

Communist Powers

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 57

An industrial behemoth, the Soviets are arrayed against the Germans in the west and the Japanese in the Far East. The massive Red Army fields 24 infantry in total.

Axis Powers

Japan: 35

In terms of capital ships, the Japanese operate three BB and one BC, as well as two fleet carriers.

Italy: 22

Still smarting over the abandonment of her Entente partners in the last war, Italy has renewed its membership in the Triple Alliance. The Italian army in North Africa, amounting to 2 INF, 1 ARTY, 1 armored car (AC), and 1 ARM, is a significant threat to French possessions there. The Italian Navy includes 1 BB and 1 fleet carrier. Italy’s mobilization factor of 11 INF is high for a country of her size; by way of comparison, the British Far East Command fields 17 INF at game start, spread across a far wider operational area.

Pro-Allied Minors

Polish Commonwealth: 11

In this timeline, a client state of Germany. Considering the weight of Soviet metal arrayed on its eastern border, the Poles are likely to serve as the doormat over which its neighbors stomp with reckless abandon.

Siam 2

A client state of Japan. Poised to invade French Indochina at game start with a formidable army of 3 INF, 1 ARM, and 1 FTR. The Siamese navy is a destroyer, standing in for the pair of coast defense ships it operated historically.

That’s generally what war is about, one country(s) wanting to expand and colonize, and other county(s) trying to stop it to protect their own interests. England was a super power at the time, it won multiple wars allowing it to expand the Empire. With expansion comes a strain of resources and uprisings (like that little conflict in the America’s). Although the English were on the winning side of WWII much of the Empire was disassembled afterwords.

The axis partners had spheres of interest prior to the start of WWII. Germany would dominate Europe, Italy the Med region, and Japan would get Asia and the Pacific. If things had continued to go the axis way,  those lines very well could have gotten blurred leading to conflicts among the axis. We all know that the Germans were capable of back stabbing their treaty partners.

Yea the Germans were late to the party, but did colonize in the Pacific and Africa prior to WWI. As a result of WW1 they lost those colonies. It is reasonable to believe that had the war progressed in their favor the Germans would want those lost territories back at some point. Would the Japanese just freely relinquish those Pac territories? Maybe some kind of trade off?

I’m no historian, but I don’t think the Japanese had any interest in expanding into Africa during the war(?). That would fall under German/Italian influence where the Euro axis were already fighting. I’m not saying the Japanese didn’t have the means to make landings in Africa, only that it would probably raise red flags to their axis partners if they did. Plus such a landing would have been a major strain on Japanese ambitions and holding they already had in their own back yard. They chose to keep the NAP w/Russia to continue their conquest of Asia and the Pacific (against the wishes of their strongest ally). I don’t think the Japanese would have looked at Africa unless they got the US to sign a treaty giving them complete reign of Asia and the Pac. Then they may have looked towards Africa or the Mid East???

With that said, I like that fact that if the US goes full tilt Europe the game allows you as the Japanese to venture to into Africa, and other European territories. Same for if the Japanese are getting pounded the Germans/Italians can make gains on the Pac side if they want. I wouldn’t like a set of rules that limit you to one map side or the other. Many people already complain about the Acme Chinese wall as it is.

If a house rule limited axis cross overs, or base certain moves on a domino type of effect, I think that you would also have look at putting in some US spending limits per theater as well.

I’ve always felt the same way as the jetset. For me the dice rules are an important part of the narrative aspect of the game. They allow for more surprises or turn arounds or crushing upsets at the last minute, the kind of thing that allows you to build out a uniqur story around what just happened in a given combat.

I understand the appeal of Low Luck, but the gameplay is substantially different.  A build or combat strategy that is guaranteed to come off in LL, could fail miserably in a dice game. Sure you might be able to model averages for expected results using an LL scheme to map your strategy in a dice game, but there’s always a chance that the dice end up disagreeing with you ‘that time.’

In that respect I don’t see a huge amount of cross over. Playing 100 dice games won’t really prepare you or teach you a whole lot about what to expect in an LL game. As mentioned before low luck alters a lot of things, with respect to deadzoning and strafing, the number of defensive units required to back down an attack entitely, the way the airblitz works, the way anti aircraft fire works, etc. Just too many differences to really say that a strategy that anticipates the one style of combat is going to graph onto the other consistently.

I think after playing a few games, most players are able to determine which style of gameplay they prefer. If you love the consistency of LL, and hate the unpredictably of dice, then wait for a match with another LL player. If you hate LL, but love dice, then wait for a match against a dice player. Especially in a long game like global, if you start a playing with a combat system you dislike, then chances are that the game won’t be very satisfying for you. There are enough players out there who enjoy both ways of playing that you can probably find a likeminded opponent if you just stick it out for a little while.

To the initial question about why LL isn’t used more often, the answer is probably just because the manual doesn’t offer a description of how Low Luck works, or provide the kind official endorsement for that combat system that would probably be necessary for a larger groundswell of support. In regular tournament play it foes have a bit more cache, since that is where the systemperature was first put into practice… Fortunately for those who do enjoy Low Luck, tripleA  created simple “click tab” option in the game options menu, that allows any game to be played with universal LL rules, which I think has done a lot to popularize that style of play. There are also tripleA scenerios out there which were designed from the ground up with the LL playstyle in mind, which helps. I don’t know if the G40 designers took LL into account when they created the set up. If it was designed for LL, I imagine some of starting unit distributions might have been a little different. But again the game is pretty flexible, so even a game that wasn’t created with LL in mind, can still be adapted pretty easily, although the playtime required or the usual bids might be slightly different.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is.

Lol no I think you misunderstood me. I ment do you think we could make rules for a game like this even if it never happened. Like I said you could just commit small numbers and pieces to the game.