Best posts made by KraytKing

I’m working on a comprehensive rebuild of the game to be more realistic in terms of planning and executing large scale operations. I think A&A does well to ignore a lot of minutiae–the differences in capability between infantry and marines is not significant, for instance, and paratroopers are not relevant on the scale the game is played. But, the game doesn’t really simulate operational art. Usually, the core gameplay cycle is building very large stacks of troops in one spot, then eventually crushing your enemy if your stack is bigger. If you plan right, then you don’t lose anything but infantry, despite air and armor doing most of the killing.

The problem is mobility and reactivity. The reason they didn’t just stack up a huge army on one part of the line and ignore the rest–you can move fast enough to reinforce the line when you get hit. When Case Blue activated in 1942 and Germany punched through Soviet lines in the south, Soviet troops were able to retreat ahead of the Germans and reinforce from elsewhere before the assault reached operational objectives. But, this isn’t true in Axis and Allies. If Germany attacks a territory, the defenders have to die to the last man. No reinforcement, no evacuation. And the operations are limited in scope: in a turn, Germany will conquer Baltic States, Eastern Poland, and Bessarabia. Historically, in that first turn, Germany also conquered Belarus, Smolensk, Bryansk, Ukraine, Western Ukraine, Rostov, and half of Novgorod and Russia.

My initial thinking is fairly complicated. Multi-territory attack is necessary, obviously. But there must be an accompanying system to decrease the reliance on IPC value of territories so that Russia doesn’t just lose then and there. And a system to weaken that forward position Germany now occupies. Also something for the defender to do on the attacker’s turn, like abandon a battle, reinforce a rear area, or quickly counterattack.

I have more to post but I’m out of time. I’m interested to hear thoughts and feedback from the community. As I come up with the systems I’ve outlined, I’ll be posting them here.

I think I’m going to rebuild the idea ground-up and implement it in a different ruleset, but for the sake of the discussion, these are my thoughts.

I do recognize that a tank piece does not represent a single tank, or even a large all-tank unit, but rather a combined arms unit that includes tanks, artillery, dismount infantry, and of course fuel trucks and other add-ons. My objective isn’t to “increase realism” (without increasing realism) by having tanks mostly engage other tanks, but rather, give the defender some way to even out the loss ratio in terms of cost. If the attacker has the firepower advantage and brings lots of infantry, then the defender will lose expensive aircraft and expensive tanks without attriting enemy air or armor. THIS is the problem. Aircraft and tanks can effect damage without taking it. In the simple concept outlined in the OP, that would be partially remedied. The attacker could lose all of their planes and still win the battle.

Overall, I think it’s too simple a method for targeting attacks. Tanks WILL be somewhat protected by their infantry. Strategic bombers are not going to shoot down fighters. I had a slightly better idea a while ago, that for fighters, a roll of a 1 hits an enemy aircraft, and a tactical bomber rolling a 1 hits an enemy tank. Again, though, the objective isn’t entirely to tunnel-vision onto realism for specific units, but rather to improve the strategic decision making. In too many games, German aircraft fly constantly against the Soviet Union, never taking losses while German infantry get torn to pieces. On the strategic level, any piece of equipment that sees action is going to be regularly lost, and need replacement, but this is not always seen in A&A.

I appreciate the discussion, all. At the moment, I’m still in the brainstorming stage, but once I have a few games to report on, I’ll write up a ruleset and share it. Thanks everyone.