Posts made by nishav

awesome, thanks!

"If the combat is occurring in a convoy sea zone containing transports
owned by the defender, they may not be taken as casualties until no
more escorting sea or air units remain in the combat. "

If attacker has submarines remaining but convoy escorts are down to only fighters the submarines would seem to stop firing until the defending fighters are destroyed at which point submarines can roll attacks against any remaining convoy targets.

This is inconsistent with previous rules regarding submarine hits to transports if there are no other legal targets:
“and hits can be assigned to transports only if there are no other eligible units.”
Axis & Allies Europe 1940 2nd Edition

Please confirm if I’m reading the rules correctly and if any insight into why the change

“Defending Ground Units reroll 9s & 10s”

Are AAA & Anti-Tank guns defending ground units and therefore re-roll 9s & 10s during Air Defense?

I know this is errata’d somewhere but for the life if me I can’t track it down. If UK gets War Bonds, us it 1 die split between the 2 economies however UK wishes or is it 1 die for Europe & 1 die for Pac?

@panther to clarify, landing the plane there would not take control of the territory, that would require NCM a ground unit?

@panther thanks Panther! It seemed unintentional but given the comically immense amount of coast Sea Zone 10 covers I couldn’t rule out part of Mexico touching 11.

I can’t tell if the sliver of Mexico shown on the edge of the map is intentional.

Does Sea Zone 11 border part of Mexico?

@taamvan you didn’t follow my logic at all, as your proposal completely ignores the game design tradeoffs that have continued to emphasize generally generic units to keep the game at very much an entry level, and simultaneously ignores my statements regarding units on carriers still being completely independent, in favor of a point I never raised regarding the specialization of CAGs.

@andrewaagamer yes, but, Axis & Allies is a strategy World War 2 board game. Any nuance and complexity should exist within the framework of historical reality.

The fact of the matter is that most of the game’s design decisions represent a trade-off between two mutually exclusive extremes. On the one hand, we have absolute historical fidelity (guess who wins) and on the other we have pure game design in which any change to improve play can be made.

While I agree with you that there is nothing game breaking about other nation’s fighters taking up carrier spaces, it is still a jarring disconnect from an historical fidelity standpoint. If the ANZAC fighters have been assigned to a US carrier why aren’t they taking orders from the US Admiralty and participating in US maneuvers? Why is Soviet Russia’s penalty for having 8 British fighters sitting on Moscow from turn 4 onward only the loss of a $5 bonus?

Certainly this is not the place for specific House Rules discussions, but it is important we remain conscious of the reality that thousands of people play this game, and that many of them disagree with us on everything, other than how awesome this game is.

@superbattleshipyamato there was a time in the 90s when people were buying nothing U1 and 14 dice U2. It made some extremely frustrating games (although the times when they got 0 sixes out of 14 dice were hilarious)

@taamvan At least I now understand our fundamental difference. To me, original should be a concise 1 day game, Revised maybe 1 day. Global '40 should be a multi-week 20-30 hour game with its early starting position and rich ruleset regarding individual powers, national advantages, and neutral countries.

I personally prefer Columbus in June but I do hope you enjoy Atlanta.

@taamvan Thank you for your response as it beautifully sums up the disconnect surrounding this issue. While I certainly can’t speak for anyone else, the arguments that I have advanced here and elsewhere, as well as many of the arguments I have seen over the years pertaining to the overly simplified retreat rule are not based in any way on their reasonableness or their lack thereof from a game balance perspective.

Axis & Allies is a re-creation of an event from our very recent history. It’s not Dune, it’s not Root, it’s not Twilight Imperium. It’s not just another board game that simply needs to be fun, interesting, and deep. Its appeal is that it is simultaneously extremely accessible and attempts to remain true to the spirit of accurately depicting the realities of the Second World War.

Ultimately, over the past 43 years, the game has changed multiple times resulting in a consistent increase of complexity while still remaining one of the most accessible wargames you’ll find. This is a damned challenging tightrope to walk and Larry Harris indeed deserves our gratitude and recognition.

This does not mean, however, that we are not to point out rules that need changing. From the perspective of a game designer one of the most reliable indications that a rule needs to be altered, changed, or tweaked is when it creates extremely non-intuitive gameplay and motivations. In an historical game it also needs to be considered if it is creating clearly anti-historical gameplay situations.

Yes, there are other facets of the game that would certainly fall under these umbrellas, and yes, this is a rule that has been part of the game for years and is a part of making the game relatively simple. But if we can keep track of the movement remaining on planes coming from 6 different territories to the same battle, we can keep track of which units came from which land territories.

@superbattleshipyamato I respect your difference of opinion. While I do disagree with you, in that i feel this is a problem in the game, I do concur that it is not of the same severity as several other opportunities the game has experienced and continues to experience.

@arthur-bomber-harris The game is improved by people providing constructive criticism, as it was when transports were made defenseless, battleships stopped by sunk by the same amount of damage as a submarine or destroyer, and addressing the vast distances of Siberia and China dwarf those of Europe.

As I’m not addressing any kind of house rule, simply the flawed logic behind the existing rule in the game, this would seem to be the correct place to discuss it by default. Unfortunately, there is no separate “review” section of the forums to have this discussion.

@superbattleshipyamato when 2 armies approach an opponent from opposite directions, engage in battle, and then retreat, the opponent does not open his lines to allow one army to join the other in retreating in one direction

@burgh-gamer-67 the logic holds, they march forward, then they retreat back, the problem that people have with this abstraction is that the units “retreat” forward

The Hard AI will execute specific strategies well, but has some interesting blind spots. Countering Middle Earth it amassed a German force of almost 80 at Stalingrad, leaving Russia surrounded but holding on in Moscow and declared war on the neutrals to come through Turkey. However after the British broke through in the Balkans, rather than pull that force back to protect the homeland in push into the Middle Eastern factories it just continued to use them to hold the Caucasus/Stalingrad bonuses until they were eventually surrounded and wiped out by the Russian stack they allowed to build up. Seems like the Hard AI may have a little too much value allocated to the National Objectives.

@andrewaagamer 2 clarifications:

1. The Rom IC is this Germany/Italy player’s SOP, the only variance is between $12/$30, regardless of whether he’s going G1 or G2. So that’s going to happen before I take any action.

2. I see the confusion. My intent is not to send the 6 new tanks to Asia, they would remain in Europe.

I’ve been considering an R1 6 tank buy, starting 2 tanks and 2 mechs moving east, and flying the Russian airforce out to Siberia as part of a KJF strategy. R2 or R3 assault on Manchuria and sending the 4 mobile units into China to prop China in the north.

My opponents have typically shown an extreme reluctance to use Calcutta Crush because they have been punished multiple times for failing to adequately defend the home islands so I anticipate J2 to be the absolute earliest they’ll go. However the aggressive Soviet stance seems dangerous assuming a G2 and Italian Med. The small factory in Romania G1is almost a guarantee. I anticipate no Sealion threat due to their conservative nature therefore Middle Earth is almost mandated. I am also conservative and will not be doing Taranto, opting instead to vacate the Med after strafing the Tobruk DD/Trn and reinforce the Indian Ocean.

Any suggested tweaks to the R1 buy?

Has anyone tried playing G40 with the National Advantages from Revised? In Revised they always seemed wildly imbalanced but I think some of the G40 rule changes may have helped somewhat.

Also, if anyone has, how did you address the National Advantages potentially obviated by G40 rules changes (Mongolian pact, Radar tech, Kamikaze rule, China)