@Cow:

I myself am pretty sad America won WWII in real life you know, because Japan is a way better country plus PS3 > XBone. We all know Japan was trying to liberate people from Western imperialism.

Cow I am all for loving japanese culture and Japan itself (also agree with your idea with macarthur and sgt. Basilone) but they werent exactly righteous rooting out western imperialism, they were just trying to make an empire of their own and used “Asia for the Asians” like the Germans used lebensraum to justify their empire building. Given they werent as bad as the nazis, but their atrocities against chinese like the Rape of Nanking was the worst the world had ever known before the holocaust.

I agree with your point cow and especially with Russia and U.K. it feels like at least in the beginning that there is virtually no strategy whatsoever and you just clap down inf and hope for the best. However i don’t quite understand your solutions.

1: adding 5 soldiers to bolster Britain’s land defenses would allow for safe builds of navy and ic in Egypt and i would love that opportunity as a U.K. player. But we all know that Sealion is already a pain in the rear for the Germans and i feel like this addition would kill Sea lion outright unless you gave Germany and additional 2 trannies at the start as well

2: U.S.A. is so far ahead from the start of the game in IC’s even without war time N.O.'s that I think America is fine, and besides, the U.S. is supposed to feel left out and just start building up forces for the first couple turns anyways

3: It is incredibly hard to balance Russia and Germany together and Russia will always have to retreat and fall back for the first couple of turns, what will a bomber in archangel do? I mean maybe it will add more to Russian counterattacks but i still don’t understand the value of it

I think that is a really great idea Grasshopper and will definitely make games go faster  :-)

My only suggestion is to have Russia move all units in block 2 due to complications of non combat move when at war with Japan and also ANZAC could just go with France in block 5 to avoid complications with Aussie units in North Africa against Italy

Love the Idea Grasshopper :)

should i keep this as my setup for game day or does it favor Germans too much?

played 2 games against land only Russian bot trying to replicate these changes as best as possible and one once lost once, would love extra input especially if the Russian moves were good or should be changed

the setup i have is before soviets take their turn, my goal with this is to have them destroy smolensk with ease, but then have to retreat to protect southern flank in Caucasus and Stalingrad, which is both historically accurate and fair giving both sides a chance, I want them to only be able to take one territory or else Germany would be screwed. With this Operation Blue is once again the centerpiece of the eastern front and with German reinforcements is possible. Also ever so slightly backed up Belarus and Baltic States means Germany doesn’t have to worry about a soviet attack in the region and can take the initiative in the south

and how Japan is affected from the moves of its inf and art to Germany

P.S. i am just using the Japanese pieces in Germany to show that those were moved from Japan

pics of How Russia and Germany look after moves mentioned in my above post

I played around with moving units from Japan to Germany, from inner Germany to the front lines (though i tried to restrict these moves) and Russians moving into more reasonable positioning

Japan: 1 inf New Britain > Ukraine, 1 art Philippines > Ukraine, 1 inf Kiangsu > Belarus, 1 art Kwangtung > Western Ukraine, 1 inf Japan > Baltic States

Germany: 1 inf/1 art Germany > Poland, 1 mech Poland > Ukraine, 1 mech Poland >  Western Ukraine, 1 mech Poland > Romania, 1 inf Romania > Besserabia

Russia: 2 tanks Urals > Sakha, 1 inf Yakut > Sakha, 1 tank Moscow > Urals, 1 tank Archangel > Urals, 1 inf Archangel > Karelia, 1 art Bryansk > Moscow, 1 inf Bryansk > Tambov, I art Rostov > Stalingrad, 1 inf Rostov > Caucasus, 1 inf Rostov > Kazakhstan

My goal was to make Russians still able to counterattack but not on all fronts, leaving Smolensk to still be doomed, Make Operation Blue still possible, give Germany better reinforcements behind the front, Have Japanese forces taken away so that there is a difference in Japans capabilities but not to the point that they would object

Thoughts?

I know that my group gets very heated when trying to get bids or changes in rules and so should my argument be that I take some Japanese forces from the mainland (and new britain) and transferring them to Germany is fair? but in that case do you still think Germany can survive with the Massive Russian forces on the front lines? or should they be moved to or transferred to another allied power?