How will AA42 promote a Pacific Theater?

But here are the problems I see:

1. Is it a race?  Would Japan getting to her goal 1st put a stop to everyone else and that would mean Japan would win?

2. Most importantly can it still be a two player game?  As a practical matter, how many people can expect 3-7 players everytime.  2 is much simpler, allows (in a way) more people to be willing to play.  And most importantly more marketable.  If multi-player is to be designed, it still has to be able to fit 2 player play.

3. No but its a game where if somebody gets too large over a period of time they can win the game, for the allies it is a race situation to see who gets the IPC goal first. The axis are basically independent nations trying to win and this process is NO longer tied to each other , just like it was in the real war when the axis had ZERO plans for mutual cooperation. For japan she was just grabbing stuff and starting a war for different reasons and thought the focus would be on Europe allowing for japan to take parts of Asia and nobody would be the wiser. The problem i see is the aspect of alliances was only part of the equation, Both sides were pursuing totally independent goals and this has not ever been solved in the game but it could be a real benefit to solve some of the complaints of people who hate having a partner and want to do everything themselves. This removes the social aspect of gaming of which AA is supposed to be supreme at and once was before the internet.

4. yes certainly, because in this way you just focus the game toward getting one of your nations to win and focus the strategy to make that nation look good. Its like in a basketball game where one player is scoring at will and the other members keep feeding him the ball… he will score enough to win, so a simple player can try to perfect this with each nation and using the others as ‘soak offs’ and finish the job with the nation he wants to deliver the final blow.

I think making both oceans bigger would be good. The continents have got bigger - but as far as I can see the Pacific is almost the same as in the 1984 ed! Definitely it is not significantly larger.

I’d rather have playability over realism.  That’s not to say you can’t have both, but if you tie things to closely to the realism side you end up with a boring one sided game.

On the flip side, if we go too far it would be equally as bad to have a game that is always decided in the Pac instead of Europe.

I don’t like the idea of VCs and I think most players like to take Capitals.  Call it an old M84 bias, but people like marching into Capitals and building big armies to win, not playing to build a few trans to sneak a few Island VCs that may take 2 turns to get back but you only have the current US turn to do so.
IMO, its a plain and simple cheap win (exception time based games) just like M84.

To truely encourage a World Wide game, it must be equally likely for Ger-Mos to fall as it would be for Tokyo-WUS and it must happen within the same time frame, otherwise one will be viewed as “easier” whether it is or not.

You also can’t go overboard with ticky tack rules and over complicating things too much, like minor powers or non-aggression treaties or specializing too many units (exception: Tech).

Some of my fixes would include:
-Add a Sz to prevent the Ecan-Alg one turn shuck
-All Pac Islands worth at least 1 IPC.
-Key islands like HI, Sol, Mid, Wake worth more (2-4 ipc).  You don’t need a VC if you make them worth enough IPC.  Example, France isn’t valueable b/c its a VC, it is valuable b/c it is worth 6 ipc.
-Make WUS worth 8 IPC (equal to Japan), give the US potential production cap issue.
-Give China back to the US but divide it up into 3-4 ter.  Make one worth 2 ipc, the others worth 1.
-Give Russia an arm or 2 (or rt) in the Eve area.  Not able to make a rd 1 attack but gives the player the freedom to move either East or West pending their strategy.
-Make Egy a “gimmie” for Ger on Rd 1 (maybe 3 inf, 1 rt, 1 arm vs. 1 inf, 1 arm) and not counterable by UK.
-Rebalance the Middle East and India.  I would think you want India “holdable” for the UK for a 2-3 rds without reinforcements.  Maybe drop it to a 2 ipc territory but beef up initial forces.
-Alternative:  Start Japan extremely weak on Asia, but strong in the Pac.  Maybe they only start with 2-4 inf on Asia that are able to attack.  Maybe they start tran and navy heavy but extremely light on ground troops.

I’m sure I could think of more, but in any case it would have to be massively play tested and quite honestly play testers can’t compete with the numbers of games that can be played online in a 1 vs. 1 format.

My final Alt that I’ve mentioned in another thread or two would be to split the US into 2 separate players, an East and West US player.  West US gets China.  You’d have to rebalance IPC but if you had the WUS coming out to 18-20 ipc (not including taking any J islands) and EUS coming out to 22-28 (not including any gains in Afr or Eu) you can essentially mandate a specific % split of US resources to the appropriate theatre.

@DarthMaximus:

I’d rather have playability over realism.  That’s not to say you can’t have both, but if you tie things to closely to the realism side you end up with a boring one sided game.

On the flip side, if we go too far it would be equally as bad to have a game that is always decided in the Pac instead of Europe.

I don’t like the idea of VCs and I think most players like to take Capitals.  Call it an old M84 bias, but people like marching into Capitals and building big armies to win, not playing to build a few trans to sneak a few Island VCs that may take 2 turns to get back but you only have the current US turn to do so.

I am probably more in agreement with you.  I hate special rules.  I would much rather have a look at the board and figure out how to take command of it, rather than everyone having a different goal.  If it is someway possable to have Japan and Russia be somewhat seperate style players though, that would be very intriguing.  To me it feels like victory when one achieves tactical and economic superiority over the board to such an advantage that the only way to lose is by a MAJOR oversight or “beyond” bad luck with the dice.

That being said, even with VC’s if it is more effective to shut down a capital, I would pursue that path anyway. My guess is it probably would be.

That being said, even with VC’s if it is more effective to shut down a capital, I would pursue that path anyway. My guess is it probably would be.

IMO, that is the problem in each of the versions of the game so far.  Nothing trumps taking a capital, and the only one Japan can feasibly go after is Moscow.  And I’m just not a fan of that.

Maybe a time limit, where by the time Japan got to Moscow, the game would be over anyway - that might force me to take VCs instead.

Cheers

Just have Germany as its VC is take Moscow, Japan takes X IPC, or X territories, or X income over a 3 turn period, or take what we got in AAP and give them victory points for every 10 IPC they have. This is not complicated or “unbalanced”

The western allies can win by either taking Berlin, or by turn X, or defeating Japan, The Soviets can win only by taking Berlin.

What is not balanced by assigning different victory conditions? If you want balance then give everybody 20 IPC a turn and the exact same military forces. The game is not balanced in that manner, so why do the VC all of a sudden have the be the same thing for everybody?

I don’t have a problem w/ separate VCs, except as a 1 to 1 game.  Even in Multi-player games, both sides are played by commitee, so it may as well be 1 vs 1.

I need something that accounts for that.

Besides, I’m still finding that taking Moscow 1st, THEN taking the VCs is the way to go.

Cheers

@jim010:

Besides, I’m still finding that taking Moscow 1st, THEN taking the VCs is the way to go.

Which proves this sentiment…

“Aahhh, Jack, Now that be the attitude that lost ye the Pearl.  People are easier to search when they’re dead.”

@Imperious:

Just have Germany as its VC is take Moscow, Japan takes X IPC, or X territories, or X income over a 3 turn period, or take what we got in AAP and give them victory points for every 10 IPC they have. This is not complicated or “unbalanced”

The western allies can win by either taking Berlin, or by turn X, or defeating Japan, The Soviets can win only by taking Berlin.

What is not balanced by assigning different victory conditions? If you want balance then give everybody 20 IPC a turn and the exact same military forces. The game is not balanced in that manner, so why do the VC all of a sudden have the be the same thing for everybody?

But I think map design coupled with The USSR and Japan as more independant and seperate entities greatly mitigates the need for actual VCs.  Still an open style of play where you wish for your team/ nation to figure out how to dominate the board as it exists and keep the rules uniform for all the nations. Perhaps something along the line of “Axis and Allies” with just a dash of “Diplomacy” thrown in, and somehow still find a way to make it viable for two players.  I admit it is a tall order, and at the moment I am not clever enough to figure out how it could be done in an elegant manner, but that would be closer to my ideal I think.

Perhaps something along the line of “Axis and Allies” with just a dash of “Diplomacy” thrown in, and somehow still find a way to make it viable for two players.

In a 2 player game (or playing by commitee) when there are 2 defined sides, I just don’t see how diplomacy b/n your own allies can work when you are negotiating with yourself.  You need 2 separate rule sets like Eagle Games did with Napoleon in Europe.

I am not clever enough to figure out how it could be done

That make 2 of us.

“Aahhh, Jack, Now that be the attitude that lost ye the Pearl.  People are easier to search when they’re dead.”

You’ll have to explain that one to me.

… and what is this karma thing above my avatar?

What about reducing both the EUS and WUS IPC values to limit production while increasing the central US value to up the overall US IPC rake?

My biggest problem with going Pacific as US is I can’t build enough ships AND ground troops to threaten anything that scares Japan and hence I like increasing the values of the Pacific islands.

If the US had more loot but couldn’t pump it all into one theater easily would that make a difference especially if they could then take something from Japan in the Pacific?

To have more activity in the pacific, the Pacific itself needs to be worth more than now.

@Subotai:

To have more activity in the pacific, the Pacific itself needs to be worth more than now.

The main issue with AA50 is that if USA go Pacific, he will never get more than 38 IPC income, because all the islands are British.

• The big islands must start as japanese or neutral, so USA can build factories there.

• Ships must cost less. Now an army with a million men cost 3 IPC while one ship cost 20 IPC, and this is insane.

• There must be convoy zones in the Pacific, like the ones in A&A Europe and Pacific. Then USA will need to protect this convoy zones, or get bankrupt.

• China need a capitol and a factory.

• Australia should start with a factory

You have to look at this problem from a historical point of view.

There are THREE fundamentally unhistorical factors in the standard A&A set-up that conspire to produce the tiresome convergence of Axis tanks on Moscow; and each of these can be quite simply and elegantly fixed:

1. The Japanese-Soviet non-aggression pact must be enforced until one capital falls.  It is ludicrous to expect any game to bear even a passing resemblance to WWII without this.

and/or

2. Moscow must be placed in it’s correct location in Eastern Europe, not in central Asia, placing it outside feasible reach of Japanese land forces.  Possibly used in combination with difficult blocking terrain in Siberia.  This must also be combined with the placement of a Soviet factory in the Urals (Tankograd), to give the USSR a fall-back production base if the front line is overrun by Germany.

3. All UK Pacific territories should be placed under US control in line with MacArthur’s SWP Command. A factory with limited production (maximum 2 units, no cap ships) in Sydney gives Japan a worthwhile Pacific target and the USA something valuable to protect there.

Another possibility is to open up neutral South America to invasion, giving Japan a valuable expansion base too close to home for American comfort.

@Flashman:

Another possibility is to open up neutral South America to invasion, giving Japan a valuable expansion base too close to home for American comfort.

I like this. A variant would be making South Americas territories 1 IPC each, USA’s controled

@Funcioneta:

@Flashman:

Another possibility is to open up neutral South America to invasion, giving Japan a valuable expansion base too close to home for American comfort.

I like this. A variant would be making South Americas territories 1 IPC each, USA’s controled

Yes, but that did not happen in the real war, now did it ?

Next thing, we will se Japanese fleet in Atlantic, is that fun to you ?

In the real war, USA had this Monroe-doctrine, wich assured an automatic war against USA if attacking any minor in South America. Let me tell you this, South America is the backyard, or b*tch, of USA. South America is to US what Eire is to UK, or what Italy is to Germany, or what Sweden is to Norway.

@Funcioneta:

@Flashman:

Another possibility is to open up neutral South America to invasion, giving Japan a valuable expansion base too close to home for American comfort.

I like this. A variant would be making South Americas territories 1 IPC each, USA’s controled

Not quite what I had in mind; all south America should be neutral (including Brazil) except small Guiana territories (French Guiana could be Vichy = German; I think USA had garrisoned Suriname by this time).

You have to give Japan plausible expansion targets other than India if you close down the road to Moscow.

Brazil should be worth 3 and Argentina 2, also Colombia 2 or 3 if we consider oil revenue as a factor. A total of 12-15 IPCs up for grabs cannot be ignored.

Japanese control of south American countries from 41 is the same fantasyland as Japan holding/trading Alaska, India, and/or Australia. The pacific problem is that Japan hoped for a small scale war against the US, but US reacted/retaliated with a full scale war, even if US used only 25% of resources against Japan, and 75% against Germany. While these things are “less” fantasy than Japanese tanks in Moscow, it’s still pure fantasy.

Germany could win, even from 41, with great luck or skill, but Japan would lose anyhow.

For A&A to be more historical correct, you need to remove more fantasy happenings than Japanese tanks in Moscow.

what if you just gave japan a really low income, like one that is historical. What if they only had an income of 15 IPCs even with the East Indies. They would still be a threat to the pacfic, becasue they start out with all that hardware, but now they are not able to replace their loses and is it not as costly for the US to go after them, therfore making the pacfic a more viable theater.