Starting pieces totals:

@timerover51:

Let me see if I get this straight.  Italy gets 1 battleship and two cruisers.  In 1941, Italy had 5 battleships, counting the older ones, and 18 cruisers.  The US had 17 battleships and 27 cruisers, and gets no battleships and 1 cruiser.  The UK gets one battleship and one cruiser.  The Italian Navy is as larger than either the US or the UK navies.  The US and the UK do have some destroyers.  Not going to happen.  US gets 3 battleships and 3 cruisers, UK matches that.  And both keep the destroyers.

The Japanese get 3 carriers with 2 aircraft each.  They had 6 fleet carriers as of late 1941.  The US had Saratoga, Lexington, Enterprise, Yorktown, Wasp, Ranger, and Hornet by late 1941.  The US gets one carrier with a single aircraft.  The UK gets no carriers.  That is not going to happen either.  US gets 3 carriers with 6 aircraft, UK gets 2 carriers with 2 aircraft each.

US and UK and Italy each get one sub.

Game balance gets overruled by a more accurate balance of forces.  Or the Italian Navy gets drastically chopped.

you do know that axis and allies peices never have and don’t represent a fixed number, they represent the capabilties of that country they belong to. In 1941 the Italian Navy was competitive with the british navy, and all though the US navy was larger they were not able to support large scale naval battles in the mediteranian like the A&A US would be able to do if it had a bigger navy.
A&A is to abstract to have a proper scale for its peices and thats the way i think most people like it.

+plus the game will also represent quite well the collapse of the Italian navy over time seeing as Italy has almost no ablity to replace any of its losses

dang its gonna be really fun to play as the Axis :evil:

@Emperor_Taiki:

@timerover51:

Let me see if I get this straight.  Italy gets 1 battleship and two cruisers.  In 1941, Italy had 5 battleships, counting the older ones, and 18 cruisers.  The US had 17 battleships and 27 cruisers, and gets no battleships and 1 cruiser.  The UK gets one battleship and one cruiser.  The Italian Navy is as larger than either the US or the UK navies.  The US and the UK do have some destroyers.  Not going to happen.  US gets 3 battleships and 3 cruisers, UK matches that.  And both keep the destroyers.

The Japanese get 3 carriers with 2 aircraft each.  They had 6 fleet carriers as of late 1941.  The US had Saratoga, Lexington, Enterprise, Yorktown, Wasp, Ranger, and Hornet by late 1941.  The US gets one carrier with a single aircraft.  The UK gets no carriers.  That is not going to happen either.  US gets 3 carriers with 6 aircraft, UK gets 2 carriers with 2 aircraft each.

US and UK and Italy each get one sub.

Game balance gets overruled by a more accurate balance of forces.  Or the Italian Navy gets drastically chopped.

you do know that axis and allies peices never have and don’t represent a fixed number, they represent the capabilties of that country they belong to. In 1941 the Italian Navy was competitive with the british navy, and all though the US navy was larger they were not able to support large scale naval battles in the mediteranian like the A&A US would be able to do if it had a bigger navy.
A&A is to abstract to have a proper scale for its peices and thats the way i think most people like it.

+plus the game will also represent quite well the collapse of the Italian navy over time seeing as Italy has almost no ablity to replace any of its losses

I am fully aware of the scaling in Axis and Allies.  I am also aware that the game is designed to give the Axis a reasonable chance of winning, even if that means skewing the game pieces a bit in the favor of the Axis.  Which is why the US Navy is so drastically limited in the starting set up of the game.  A&A Pacific is a bit more realistic in force scaling in this respect than any version of straight A&A.  I am also aware that US production capacity is frozen at 1941 levels in order to give the Axis a chance at winning. US production capability by late 1943/early 1944 can be represented quite simply.  Add up the total IPC production of all of the non-US players in the game, and give that to the US.  Of course, the Axis players would never accept that, although that would be quite accurate.  The Axis has to have a fair chance at winning or the game will not sell.  I fully understand that.

I teach a class every summer using board games to teach history.  We use Axis and Allies a lot.  I will simply add house rules to more accurately reflect the various naval force ratios, and modify the production tables a bit, and play with the combat results table a bit, and to more accurately reflect US production capability, add a considerably different version of Lend-Lease to the game.  It may not be the best game for an Axis player to play, but it will be a bit more historically accurate.  That is what I am looking for.

I fully understand that the game has to give all players an equal chance of winning.  In this summer’s gaming class and War and Diplomacy class, we had 5 games of Axis and Allies Classic going.  The kids got a bit creative with one game board on the last day, so a potential winner could not be determined.  In the other four games, in one the Axis players were loosing quite badly, in one the game was pretty even with no clear winner, and in two, the Axis were clearly beating the Allies quite badly.  That was playing the standard game rules and set up.  I will assume that the Anniversary version will be similarly balanced.  One-sided games do not sell.

I prefer a more historically accurate approach, and if the Axis loose every time, I will be quite happy with the outcome.

@timerover51:

I prefer a more historically accurate approach, and if the Axis loose every time, I will be quite happy with the outcome.

Although I disagree, seeing how Japan now has China to deal with, has a harder time hitting Russia, Germany is split between 2 nations, Russia has more territories and income, something tells me we wont see many Axis victories.  That’s a good 4 major nerfs to the Axis, in a game that already favors the Allies.  The games will probably mostly run KIF (Kill Italy First), then Germany, then just roll over Japan.  While Japan may be powerful, it is unable to harm Russia in a meaningful way, and now has China to deal with.  Since it has such a large navy, I imagine a US player would much rather KIF, KG, then go for japan, as opposed to any other strategy.  The game might last a long time, but I can’t imagine the Allies losing if they go all out at Germany and Italy.  Just some speculation.

/IL

Isn’t the ship off Hawaiian Islands a battleship? It thought it was laid out for Pearl Harbor repeated? It’s pretty clear on the other BGG pic where you see the Pacific better.

So, US should be, navally speaking:

1 Battleship
1 CV +ftr
4 destroyers
3 transports

Of which the battleship, 2 destroyers and 2 transports (Hawaii, Phillipines & West Coast) would never survive turn J1… Will force the US to put loads of production into Pacific, which is fine by me, good for game balance! I assume the US can’t ignore the Japanese, now that Sydney and Honolulu are VCs.

All in all, good naval balance I think. Only four battleships at start, and you would be hard pressed to build one. Probably only US would afford it in a normal game. So, going at the battleship at Pearl for the Japanese IS a good move. Likewise, the Germans might be tempted to commit its air force to destroy the British battleship off Scapa Flow, with potentially disastrous consequences on the Eastern front…

@Imperious:

Hey timerover:

I think you should make a historical 1941 scenario. I can help you if you like.

But i think the balance should also somewhat reflect in the set up.

Id say:

BB= 4 BB
CV= 4 CV
CA= 12-15 CA
DD= 20 DD
SS= 20 SS
AP= 100 AP

Inf= 1 army ( 3-5 corps)
Tank= 2,500 tanks
Art= mech/tanks combo
Fighter= 2,000-3,000
bomber= 1,000-1,500

You might want to rethink your proposed ideas for Infantry, Tanks, Fighters, and Bombers.  With those numbers, no Africa Corps, maybe one or two German tank units, no Japanese tanks units, and maybe one or two fighters for Germany and Japan.  Carrier air groups would not exist.  Example, total Axis tanks at El Alamein, 496.  Total Allied tanks, 1029.  Aircraft, Axis about 350 total, Allied 530.  Before doing any work on what I would regard as an Historical 1941 scenario, I would need to have the game in front of me, and see what the standard start up positions look like.

I would have to do some thinking about the naval ratios, and probably give some navies more than they should have simply to give them the capability that they had, like transports for the Italians.  I would most likely look at total merchant marine tonnage to come up with some transport number.

Given the number of Official Historys that I have, I suspect that I already have all of the data I need for doing a 1941 and 1942 scenario.  The biggest thing will be coming up with a reasonable scaling factor.

Comment to Rakeman:  Kill Italy First was the strategy actually used in the war.  Worked quite well.  I suspect that what will happen is that you will rarely have 6 players in the game, and that as a result, the German player will control Italy.  For those who are really worried about play balance, I would recommend in the 4 player game, one player controls the Axis, and you have three Allied players.  Getting three players or teams to cooperate is not what I would call easy, having watched the way our Axis and Allied games have gone over the past 5 years.

After taking a good look at the one photo on Boardgame Geek,

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/362530?size=original

I would say that the US ship is a battleship, which would make the lineup 1 battleship, and no cruisers.  That helps a little bit, but no cruisers, and 1 battleship.  I figure I will have to wait until more data is available.

Balance should always come before historical accuracy.

I still think setup is accurate becasue if you gave the US a big navy at the start of the game they take over the med on turn 2 and that would be almost just as bad historically as the japanese taking moscow.

Plus i can’t beleive ILs scaleing becasue in A&A superior forces in quality of soldeirs and equipment are represented by superior quantity of them.

So shouldn’t they scaling also change based on country and front

Looking at this starting setup I have to agree with Emperor_Taiki.
We have to remeber two things. First A&A pieces are abstract pieces and not historical formations or units. Second the number of units on the board depict not only the quantity but also the quality of the units. Red Army in 1941 was still recovering from the purges inflicted by Stalin and by the Finnish campaign. USSR had the greatest number of tanks, but the great part of them are outdated models and are also employed with inferior tactics.

Moreover, I like the order of play of the 1941 scenario.

With Russia having so much INF at the begining they can splerge and do a 100% ARM build first round if they wanted to.

@LT04:

With Russia having so much INF at the begining they can splerge and do a 100% ARM build first round if they wanted to.

Maybe even a fighter.  It helps that they start with 30 IPC

That will be nice that Russia get so discretion as is able to be creative beside the normal build INF and don’t loose Moscow routine.

LT