AA50: Spawning infantry

Anniversary Edition is well-known for being slanted towards the Axis.  This is partly because of China’s weakness and unnecessary special rules that just make new players confused and us veterans upset.  Let’s fix China with some easy changes:

1.  In both the 1941 and 1942 setups there should be 4 infantry and 1 fighter in Yunnan.  This usually saves the fighter, making China fun to play, and also helps to balance the game.
2.  Remember that rule in which China cannot have more than three units in one space? Scrap that.  It only makes things confusing and too hard for China.
3.  China is no longer limited in movement.  Go ahead and attack Burma, sink a Jap (Nips, Japanese, you know what I mean stupid censor) transport off the coast with the Flying Tigers, and march into Russia.  Who’s stopping you?  insert Bruce Lee photo

Tanks are definitely not as good of a buy as they used to be. I think 2 infantry is a much better buy.

Interesting addition of Communist Chinese forces.

I have cobbled together suggestions voiced online here and Larry Harris site,
what players believed may be missing from AA50 1941,
   This is a simple compilation of those ideas, just started testing;

1)selected Neutral Territories can now be invaded ,
     with added defensive units for Neutrals.
     also:see house rules for additional ideas on how to handle Neutrals.)
2)Earlier setup than OOB-March 1941, Greenland is still a Neutral territory,
     Persia(Iran) is also a Neutral territory.
3) Added suggested IPC strength to Allies:
         Canada divided into (4) Territories;
         Australia divided into (5) Territories.
         U.S.A. added (1)new territory Rocky Mtn West and
         moved Central U.S. next to Eastern U.S.
4)Axis Africa was still in play;:
         (Italians control East Africa, Vichy control West Africa/Madagascar, )
          with added Vichy and Italian units to support.
5)Added for those who wanted value, (1) IPC to all island territories,
    only for those Islands that previously had no territory value.
6) Added Player’s suggested Units for balance:
     Germany-Battleship-BB
     U.S.-Crusier unit-CA, ARM
     U.S. UK Japan-SS units missing from Pacific added.
     USSR-FTR and several RTL
     UK-CA, DD, INF units to Africa campaign.
     Vichy French-Naval-CA, SS, DD, RTL, INF for Africa campaign.
     Italian-DD, SS, FTR, INF for Africa campaign.
     Japan -BMB, DD
     1941 China starts with qty (11)INF

Suggested Optional Rules:
Optional rule:Non-Aggression Treaty between Japan-USSR, if they attack each other penalty invoked, focus Japan on Pacific and U.S.S.R. on Europe.
optional rule:Stealth Subs-pop up undetected and ambush your enemy.
optional rule:Vichy units-will they Defend yes/No.
optional rule:Carrier Island to give Islands tactical value.
    (this provides Island based Air units a slight range increase.)

Thanks everyone for the ideas.

Setup Map can be found here under Folder AA50 Variants-AA50Shades of Grey;
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=db7389213b434449d2db6fb9a8902bda

I remember right after AAR came out, almost five years ago, playing a game of AAE with tanks that defend on 3. It was horrible, horrible idea. Germany just got too much out of that one. But reduced prices on fighters and carriers didn’t seem to break the game as much. Germany builds lots of fighters, but so do the UK and US. Nobody builds carriers in AAE unless something unusual has happened anyway.

At any rate for both AAE and AAP besides the reduced price on fighters and carriers to match AAR (and 24 VPs for AAP) my group plays with the rules as is. Transports are any land or one tank, tanks defend on 2, etc.
But now with AA50 there’s a lot of change. The problem with wholesale just changing the unit stats is that setups were designed for the original stats.

So I have a few questions:
Do you think fighters that cost 10 and carriers at 16 ruins or damages gameplay in either AAE or AAP? Especially considering escorts for SBRs it might be a concern.

Any consider going through and tweaking the setups for E and P to make them fair for the new unit stats? It might do good to freshen them up a bit. I think if well done it could further enhance the Pacfic especially. Convoy values, of course, are a concern.

What about tweaking setups to Europe to add Italy? Without Sub-Saharan Africa this might be pointless, but maybe the oil money alone would be enough.

Thanks at least for not making a book recommendation.

I got to say that the introduction of the National Objectives concept, was a stroke of genius imho.
Now, the game, through the NO Bonus Incentives, push the players towards their historical aims.

Anyhow, as with any setup, I think that even with the NO setup, AA50 might go stale over time.
Also, not ALL historical strategies are being encouraged by the OOB NOs. What about the German Sub strat, for example? It is not shown in any NOs at least.

Therefore, I thought of the Variable NO concept. It runs like this :

We create a list of, say, 5-10 NO’s per Nation (not possible to create even THAT many for a nation like China, for example). Before the game starts, every nation rolls randomly to see what NO’s they get.

1 NO: China
2 NO’s each: Italy and Soviet Union
3 NO’s each: Germany, Japan, UK and US

I like the thought of China having their own NO/NOs, but of course, they could be incorporated into the US one.

What’s your thought? Or maybe you got some NO’s of your own?

Yes. The main problem is that in reality infantry is raising from population (territories). Not manufactured at factories (IC).

Phase 2 can be downloaded here:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=7188.0

Phase 1 can be read here:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=6743.0