AARHE: Victory City Infantry Purchase-Japan

@Valladares
There’s been a lot of discussion on CAs. Two of the more popular opinions seem to be letting them transport 1 Marine/Elite type unit for amphibious attack. The other is giving it some sort of AA capability.

As far as Mech, their mobility is their worth imo. Combine them with Bombers for striking power and they can be quite effective. Some countries will use them more than others. Germany and JPN and UK coming up out of Africa probably the most. I tend to not as much with USA as I like Inf/Arty to establish a beachhead in Western Europe. Then some speed units out of the factories, especially if I’m in Norway. I don’t usually go into Africa with them, but you’d want speed there too imo.

It’s nice to have a small mechanized force with Russia if you can afford it. Just having the threat of a Quick Reaction Force can limit some moves by the enemy. Or at least make them think about it.

Usually like a 2:1 ratio with Armor. Especially Germany. Not sure how others do it. I should probably study some more games others have played. It seems I always get sidetracked doing other stuff though :)

@Young:

Thanks for the reply KNP, while I was reading your post I got the idea that the combined 18 IPCs for strict neutrals can be taken for strategic purposes, and for collecting income, however, IPCs from strict neutral territories will not be added to your sides total when calculating for an economic victory. Thanks for the brain food.

Interesting idea YG. Only problem I would see was having to keep track of 2 incomes, one without the strict neutral income and one with.

@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.

Think of every tt with an IPC value as having an infantry “depot”. The limit raised per turn based on the IPC value is reasonable.

But in the long term (and I’m thinking in particular of WWI) the number of men of fighting age available in any area is limited. WWI would not have gone on indefinitely; each side would simply have run out of men. Furthermore, the more you try to recruit in a particular area, the quality of troops raised decreases, and resistance to conscription grows.

Also consider depots as infantry training centres; a unit recruited there receives basic training, say the equivalent of a 1-1 infantry unit.

Leave it there another turn and it improves to a 1-2 unit, or you might use the turn to train it as storm troopers, paratroopers etc. You have to decide on the value of properly trained units against the immediate need for troops at the front, even if they’re just raw recruits to soak up hits.

A further refinement is to indicate the nationality of a depot; some nationalities will fight for more than one side, for example Romanian units might be raised by Germany or Russia depending on who controls Bucharest.

Units starting the game can be assumed to be fully trained, those raised from scratch start as raw. You can even consider some casualties to be wounded, and needing to be sent back to the depots for recuperation.

You could use the same general rules for AA50, but you would have to pick one of the AA 50 setups (1941 or 1942) then add up the total cost of starting units to get the starting cash for each country. For one thing, I think there are less starting pieces for all the nations because AA 50 has a smaller map than the 1940 games so there are less pieces. Another thing is I think the prices are a little different in AA50 than in the 1940 games, plus you won’t have Tac Bombers or Mechanized Infantry as those units didn’t come out until the 1940 games.
Also, I’m not sure how you would handle China, since in AA50 they don’t actually get IPCs but rather 1 infantry for every 2 Chinese territories still under Chinese control at the beginning of their turn.
Other than a few small changes though, I think you could still adapt this idea to AA50.

Making units obsolete/worthless is what I was getting at in my post. I don’t think that’s exactly the case, but it can sort of make it a speciality item, and I’m not sure if the incomes are high enough for that. Not sure if I’m wording this write either.

Reading what you wrote about the late war carriers, maybe you could make the rules time related. Meaning they are like automatic technologies that appear after a certain round and just replace the older ones. All infantry gets those bonuses with movement and everything, and still costs 3 IPC, after the 5th round maybe. Fourth, even.

I don’t know. I like the idea (especially the mech inf), but it’s hard to implment.

IMO, keeping the Japanese focus on the American threat and the Chinese irritant is the preferred way to keep Japan out of Moscow… pretty much the way if happened historically.

If we find those two factors consistently being so minor that strategic adventurism prevails for the Japanese player then I’d lean towards beefing up his Pacific opponents versus “treaty handcuffs”.

ok ill make a third version with the changes you asked for. Tonight.