I’m not sure if it’s bad form to be posting in this thread after February ;) but anyway…

My name is Janus (also known on other parts of the internet as P.d0t)
I got into A&A with the MB version, back in about 1997 or so(?)
However, the biggest chunk of my A&A play experience is/was with the Imp Games expansion “East & West”: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/6441/east-west-global-war-1948

That company seems to have gone defunct (and their forums went down long before that) so I joined the A&A .org forums a while ago – somewhat passively – but have been following the site’s news via Facebook. When the announcement for A&A Online came through on that channel, it rekindled my interest in E&W. As such, I’ve been trying to track down anyone who owns the game or has played it, and have been working on honing strategies for the USSR.

One such strategy can be found here on the forums, which I ran just as a playtest against myself:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/19172/east-west-by-imp-games-soviet-strategy-playtest

If you’re a fan of E&W, please get ahold of me here on the forums/PMs; it would be much appreciated :)

@black_elk I think the way to do Italy justice is to just have a full-blown “Axis & Allies: North Africa” in the vein of the D-Day game.

You could have German reinforcements come in waves sorta like D-Day, but more or less run the rest of the mechanics like A&A but with a cap on the number of rounds.

@black_elk said in Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?:

I tend to agree with most of the points Janus is making about streamlining the game. I think the prob comes from low-balling the money and trying to keep those numbers so low, instead of just amping the production a bit.

After reading the thread saying “infantry should cost 3.2!” this idea popped into my head: increase the IPC values and unit costs by 10x except for infantry – which would then cost 32.

In that same vein, I think if you want to have a game with more and more unit types, they should look at doing a move to d10 (as was done with Napoleon’s Imperium.) Having infantry at A1|D3 on a d10 might help negate the IPM.

Tactics: Operation Fishnet (Soviet Pacific Fleet)

For those who know me, I’ve historically mostly played as NATO in E&W. As part of the ongoing refinement of my Soviet strategy, I wanted to come up with some better opening moves for their naval units; here’s what I’ve been looking at just recently:
(red arrows outline spaces that US navies could conceivably reach)

Objectives: To stall US transport capability in the Pacific.

This should be a fairly straightforwardly important goal, for any Soviet player: keeping the US off of your shores (or away from landing support into SE Asia.) It’s difficult to actually attack the US transports (because of their positioning) so instead we want to prevent them from steaming across the ocean, for as long as possible.

Scatter
The purpose of scattering your navy is to make it a less-attractive target for the US nuke. Many times, the Soviet moves in the Pacific involve slamming as much force as possible against another large force. Usually this is a no-win situation; either your remaining force is large enough to warrant dropping the bomb on, or is small enough that it is mopped up by US naval forces, with nary a whimper. Also, keeping subs separate from surface ships will tempt your opponent to split their air power from their naval power.

Block
By positioning the subs between your other ships, and the West US fleet, you’re able to effectively keep those units from using their full movement – unless the enemy attacks both ranks of your defensive line. Again, this is not the worst result, because you’ll have already prevented them from being able to concentrate their forces.
If the Japan SZ fleet attacks the Soviet ships in the Bering Strait, this means that the transport at Okinawa cannot effectively be used to amphibiously assault Kamchatka or East Siberia; the ships at Hawaii are also blocked from providing shore bombardment, and the carrier cannot move in to provide a landing space for supporting fighter aircraft.

Deadzone
As you’ll note on the map, the Marcus Island SZ can potentially be hit by all of the US ships in the area. However, if the US moves heavily into this zone with their surface fleet, they will not be able to keep the Japan SZ well-defended – potentially leaving it open to a counter-attack, with support from Soviet aircraft. If they instead consolidate their navy at Marcus Island, their transports will be far out of position to send reinforcements to SE Asia.
The place where the US can launch the strongest amphibious assault (with both their Japan fleet and Hawaii fleet) is against North Korea. Fortunately, the free Chinese infantry make this a tough nut to crack, and the Soviets should always have units in East Siberia and/or Manchuria, available for a counter-attack. Also, the commitment of US surface ships to such an attack would mean a much weaker naval response, to the Soviet fleets; if the US only commits submarines to Marcus Island, and only aircraft to deal with the Soviet submarines, they risk leaving the West US transport exposed to the Bering Strait ships. In this situation, the US may opt to instead move this transport towards the Panama Canal – both to be out of reach, and to instead assist in moving forces to Europe. In this case, the Soviet fleet will have succeeded at its objective.

Let me know what you think about this opening move :)
Comments and critiques are always welcome!

I’m kind of an old skool, Classic-ish grognard; I’ve been poking around with the Europe 1940 game (in TripleA, against the ai) mainly as the Allies, but a little bit as Italy.

I guess my question is, which units should each country purchase?

For example, I’ve found that the UK can make use of subs against Italy’s surface fleet (although I guess I’m a n00b for not just YOLO’ing and blowing them up with all of the UK’s planes, on rd1.) But generally, it seems like no one should really want/need to build any navy other than destroyers, transports, and carriers (with aircraft to go on them). Destroyers just do everything…

Is there any sense in bringing along extra carriers, i.e. more than just enough to hold your planes, in case one gets sunk? Why are carriers 2-hit anyway, if they’re effectively useless after the first hit? Are there any good spots to put down new airfields, or is scrambling underused in the Europe map, and really only applies to the Pacific?

I don’t find artillery all that helpful; if you’re the US for example, you have the cash to build tanks, and if your intention is just to send as much stuff as possible to the USSR, then you want units that can race across North Africa quicker. I think for poorer countries, artillery makes sense but even as Italy I tend to go all infantry, and as USSR I maybe crank out 1 artillery per round; if you can get your income up, tanks seem way more helpful for counter-attacking in and around Novosibirsk, while using your planes to clean up along the main front line.

What circumstances do people use mech. infantry in? Honestly, I rarely buy it other than to place at an Allied factory in Persia, Norway, or similar/nearby territories (Greece, Turkey, Finland). I particularly can’t justify putting one on a transport, instead of a tank (or even possibly an artillery.) I’ve heard that it’s a good unit for the Axis, on defense…

I guess I just feel like there’s a lot of chrome/cruft to this version of A&A, and I believe it could improve by being stripped down a little.

Turn Order:
(With the intention of keeping as close to the original turn order, while still slotting in the added countries)

1. USSR
2. a) Italy (and Vichy France)
   b) Germany
3. a) UK (Atlantic)
   b) China (includes India, Dutch, ANZAC, etc.)
4. Japan
5. a) US Pacific
   b) US Atlantic

Round Zero / “Impulse”:
Prior to the first full round, the Axis get one round to act. This should be played out in the turn order described above, omitting the Allied turns.

The Axis conduct all phases of their turns during this round, with some very important bonuses added:

• Infantry & Armor: attack power is increased by 2, costs are reduced by 1 IPC
• Fighters & Bombers: attack with 2 dice instead of 1, costs are reduced by 2 IPC
• Naval units: attack power is increased by 1, costs are reduced by half

During this round, Allied units defend as per normal, with one notable exception: since they are not yet at war, AA guns belonging to the USSR and USA do not fire.

Axis Advantage / “Russia Restricted”
On the first round, the USSR and the US (both Atlantic and Pacific) may only conduct the following phases of their turns: Purchase Units, Place Units, Collect Income.

In addition to the bonuses on Round Zero, all three Axis countries gain these benefits:

• all Axis battleships are 2-hit battleships
• all Axis powers have Super Submarine technology
• all Axis powers have Jet Power technology

Setup & Territorial Changes:
The original setup for Classic is used, however changes in ownership of a territory also govern changes in the nationality of ALL units listed for that territory (including naval units) with the following exceptions:

• All German naval units are given to Italy (including any newly purchased units)
• All Soviet naval units are given to the UK; the USSR may not produce naval units in this scenario

As you can see from the map above, the sea zones are broken down into two sections:

1. those bordering the territories of USSR, Germany, Italy, UK, and US Atlantic – to be used only by the navies and air forces of those countries
2. all other sea zones – to be used by the navies and air forces of China, Japan, and US Pacific

You’ll note that this limitation creates one sea zone in the mid-Atlantic which is effectively impassable; feel free to adjudicate this differently, if you find a change to be helpful.

Industrial Complexes / “Victory Cities”:
Add an AA gun and Industrial Complex to the following territories:

• Ukraine SSR
• South Africa
• India
• Australia

No new industrial complexes may be built.

In this scenario, the number of units a complex can produce is limited to the IPC value of the territory in which it is located (including capitols.) As such, you may only purchase a number of units up to the total IPC value of the industrial complexes which you have controlled since the start of your turn. For example: the UK has an industrial complex on their capitol (8 IPCs) as well as in South Africa (2 IPCs) meaning they can purchase a maximum of 10 units on their turn.

Further to this, the number of naval units you may purchase is limited not only to the IPC value of your coastal/island complexes, but also by whether the adjacent sea zones are clear of enemy ships. For example: Since Japan only has an industrial complex in their capitol, if the islands are surrounded by Allied naval units at the start of the Japanese turn, Japan may not purchase any naval units on that turn.

A nation who loses their capitol may continue to collect IPCs from any territories they still control, provided they also still control at least one industrial complex after the Combat Phase of their turn. If a nation controls no industrial complexes after any nation’s Combat Phase, they must surrender their IPCs to the nation whose turn it currently is. They also can no longer collect IPCs, until they regain control of at least one industrial complex.

Victory is achieved when either side controls at least “2 out of 3” Axis and “2 out of 3” Allied starting Industrial Complexes (8 Industrial Complexes in total) at the end of any round of play.

Theatres of War
It is intended that each theatre may be played separately, as their own sort of “mini-game” but they may also be played in concert, and merge together under certain circumstances of victory or defeat. A nation may not attack nor move units into any territory which is not a part of their theatre, until those theatres merge together.

• Atlantic Theatre: UK, Italy, US Atlantic
• European Theatre: USSR, Germany
• Pacific Theatre: China, Japan, US Pacific

If Germany or Italy collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income, the Atlantic and European theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Germany collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income.

If Italy or Japan collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income, the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Japan collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income.

If playing any theatre individually, the Axis country wins if they collect an income of at least 15 IPCs more than their starting income; the Allies win if the Axis country collects no income.

Starting Incomes:

1. USSR - 28 IPCs
2. a) Italy - 12 IPCs
   b) Germany - 21 IPCs
3. a) UK - 18 IPCs
   b) China - 18 IPCs
4. Japan - 15 IPCs
5. a) US Pacific - 18 IPCs
   b) US Atlantic - 17 IPCs

Mergers and Restrictions
Whenever the European and Atlantic theatres merge, Germany and Italy combine their cash on hand, and effectively become one nation.

Whenever the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge, the same happens with the UK and China, as well as with US Atlantic and US Pacific. Additionally, when this merger takes place, the restrictions on naval movement end; the navies of all nations can enter any sea zones on the map.

Unlike most global Axis & Allies games, in this scenario Japan and the USSR may never attack each others’ territories or naval units. However, if the Pacific and European theatres have merged (i.e. all 3 theatres must have merged, for this to happen) the following actions are permitted:

• Soviet units may enter Allied-controlled territories (such as those belonging to China)
• Japan may destroy Soviet units in Allied-controlled territories, on Allied aircraft carriers, or aboard Allied transports.

Other Recommended Rules

1. No invading neutrals
2. No technology advancement

I’ve decided to leave out most of the “errata”-type changes I had written up in my earlier draft, since those are mostly down to a matter of taste; generally sticking to the 2nd Edition rules will be perfectly fine. But if anyone is interested, I’ll be happy to add those to the thread.

If you have any questions or comments, please post them down below :)

@tacojohn said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Yeah, it might be that. But right now, the only TGW map is in MapView, right?

FWIW, I was able to dig this out of archive.org, from the Imp Games website; I probably have it saved somewhere, but it was just quicker to dig it out that way. (Obviously not high-res, but was freely available online, when the site was up.)

@hengst I mean if you’re building a game where your baseline assumption is that Germany would/should be overpowered, then sure :face_with_rolling_eyes:

Edit: To clarify my point, I think one of the things that works to keep Germany competitive is that the Allies don’t get to attack them together. Even then, their job tends to be “don’t die, until Japan sweeps the board.” If you take that disadvantage and give it to Germany by splitting their economy and units into smaller chunks, it’s not actually a benefit to them. And I think if the only justification for doing it is to have a 3v3, I feel like the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Our intrepid Axis & Allies player @The_Good_Captain has put out a video which includes a review of East & West!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsm4is72-sc

I’m about to check it out myself; I’ll let the crowd know if I have any thoughts on it :)

@hengst I guess my point is that you don’t make the Axis more interesting by splitting Germany into a moderate power and a minor power; I think you can do that more effectively by making Germany a proper superpower.

And like I said, any timeframe later than 1940 makes it harder and harder to justify Italy being a separate power, unless your idea is that their main contribution is to be an “also-ran” on the eastern front, as part of a bloc with the other minor powers. It just doesn’t vibe, IMO.

@Stucifer said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:

I used the “save game at this point (beta)” feature to save the game at the start of round 3 and will play out round 3 and post it.

I tried to open one of the saves you posted, but it gave me an error, saying that it was made in a newer version of TripleA… but when I followed the link to download the new version, I’m pretty sure it led me to the same version I already have.

TripleA in a nutshell, am I right? 🙃

@Stucifer said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:

Round 2 - moved 7 units into Holland belgium to retake it from 1 artillery. Should have been 1 inf, 1 artillery, if you want more % use a mech that can move fast afterwards.
[…]
The 3 infantry in W Germany should have moved to Germany. on NCM. Shouldn’t have built in France, it’s another turn away from the front.

What you’re saying all makes sense in the context of the pieces actually in play; I guess I would say that I did these sorts of moves under the assumption that I would have to leave more units in these areas for defense, if I was playing against a tougher opponent/I’m also working from the assumption that Ai Italy won’t have my back at all, and therefore I basically always need to be producing a few units in France, so that I can react to landings in the area.

Part of the reasoning is that in previous games, I’ve had West Germany’s industry get bombed into smithereens for the entire game, and I never felt like I should bother spending the money to repair it; I just assumed from that experience that I’d need to be building in France and “convoying” defensive units out to West Germany for the entire game.

…

I agree that I definitely didn’t need to build all artillery on rd2, but I had already decided to “commit to the bit” for the sake of seeing the experiment through. I stuck with it until the US entered the war, because by then it was already obvious that I needed to switch it up.

P.S. I think with a map looking like this, the allies should just go in on the neutrals; UK is well-positioned to take out Turkey (if they wanted) and then continue on through the Balkans, and the Americans (as always) can easily stomp down Spain. Even the remaining USSR forces are insulating Sweden from being used by the Germans.

@Stucifer said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:

@The-Janus I actually meant the territory labeled France, so Normandy and Southern France both go to Italy. Plus Yugo & Greece. Bulgaria goes to Germany for the extra infantry to use in Russia.

Here’s my latest attempt: 2025-2-11-World-War-II-Europe-1940-2nd-Edition – Germany all artillery.tsvg

The gimmick this time is basically that I went all artillery with Germany for 3 turns, then split inf and mech the rest of the way; on rd8 Germany took Moscow, but US took Rome.

My rationale for this is kinda wild/stupid, but basically I wanted to test whether artillery had any real value; they move like infantry, cost the same as mechs, but attack better than either, and buff both. It seemed to work out OK…?
Getting the bombers to the front line ASAP so that they could be bombing Moscow seemed to help out a lot.

Germany I feel just generally needs a lot of land units in order to cover the ground they’re taking and absorb losses; artillery seems suitable for this, with the added perk of a little bit of extra offense. But once your front-line moves far enough, their speed becomes a real weakness, and you need those “fast-movers” (generally mechs, just due to budget restraints.)

I could probably continue with this game, by sweeping down into the middle east, but man… it always seems like around the time I’m in position to take Moscow, the allies just show up all over western Europe. I’m not sure how I could get Germany to finish the job any sooner than I have been (round 8, in this case.)

@Stucifer said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:

I am somewhat partial to another strategy which is to give everything that is not France to Italy and have them focus on garrisoning the wall.

Is this saying to give Germany all of France and let Italy take everything in the Balkans?

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:

@The-Janus

About the game attached:

I think you did a really great opener and your moves into the Soviet Union were probably what I would’ve done as well. Breaking out from Eastern Poland is what Cow’s G1 opener implies.

Anyhow, the AI basically handed you the game when they attacked the strict neutral.

I’m kind of stumped as to how badly the battles in France went. That genuinely seems to have taken way too long to mop up, and slowed everything else down.

My sense from the community was that France on the continent (and not just their capitol) could/should be mopped up on G1, every game, and if it takes longer than the first round, the Axis are basically cooked – but then in playing the German setup myself, I’m genuinely curious how anyone manages to put in enough force to accomplish that.

@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

is there any plausible reason to attack a major neutral except maybe USSR attacking the Arab league?

It’s kinda been theorized that USSR might want to attack China, in certain situations.

If China isn’t defending North Korea, or worse, if they’re actively letting NATO move units through their territory, the USSR might be better off attacking.
The other thing is that the complication table is weighted more toward China’s outrage than the other 2 majors, so if the USSR has the ability to send nukes, it’s also generally assumed that they will, whereas the US is less likely to use them; in a long enough game, that will swing China towards favoring NATO, so the USSR might pre-empt that at some point.

The other option is as a game-ender, towards obtaining an economic victory. In fact, such a thing is probably pretty impossible without invading most of the neutrals on the Eurasian continent.

P.S. I still think modeling neutral contributions as N.O.'s is an option to keep in mind

@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

The problem with E&W rules for neutrals is that they are just passive sources of income, that can also be attacked. That is not very interesting.

I think you’d just be swapping one problem for another, because making them function in more “interesting” ways would throw the game balance completely out the window. Also, the USSR can attack any neutrals at any time, but NATO can only attack major neutrals, and only if they are providing their full income to the USSR. So generally speaking there isn’t a military solution to the passive income provided by major neutrals.

Without getting long-winded about it, China basically serves as a buffer for the USSR, keeping the US and UK to the perimeter; if the Americans could just land anywhere along the Pacific coast of Asia, that’s a whole different ball-game – and not in a way that’s good for the USSR.

The other function of major neutrals is to prevent the game from being bogged down with roughly double the number of minor neutrals on the map. Having them function as a bloc and then tying them into things like nuclear complications, controlling the Suez Canal, and North Korea rules are what make the system really shine. This also circles back to the rule allowing the USSR to attack neutrals; there’s more of a downside if attacking Iraq means that Syria, Jordan, et al. also turn against you. If you get rid of the Arab League as a major neutral, I imagine the USSR would start gobbling up the middle east piecemeal in probably every game. (And I have to imagine the major neutral mechanic is an outgrowth of the original designers having tested these kinds of strategies, and found them to break the game.)

If you wanna rebalance the game around an “active China” paradigm, be my guest – but depending on things like turn order, they either get dogpiled, or they win the entire continent pretty early on. These are the types of bog-standard house rules that people immediately tried once they got their hands on the game 25 odd years ago, and couldn’t get to work. I remember those discussions, trust me.

E&W is much more about ‘politics’ mechanics than any other A&A game, full stop, and basically the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you swap out one mechanic for something you think is more interesting, that doesn’t immediately mean it’ll be better or that the game will even still function properly from a balance perspective. Trying to reinvent the China rules is probably the biggest hornet’s nest you could kick, and it’s not much less perilous to mess around with how the Arab League works, either.

Honestly, if you feel the need to strip things down, but maintain the flavour of it, I can definitely give you some suggestions in that regard – I’ve written an E&W scenario for Risk. But I’d lean more towards major neutrals not having any mechanics for getting active, than to add mechanics making that easier to do.

@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Looking at the East & West rules, it seems unlikely that you could ever bring a major neutral over. You only have a 1/6 chance to move it one step and your opponent can deploy spies to counter you.

Have you considered the knock-on effects of changing those mechanics?
Would you want China and OAS to become active powers?
Or would they just swing all their income, units, and territories to USSR/USA in one dice roll?

Genuinely curious as to what you’re thinking this implementation would look like.

@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

you either get them or you don’t

You’re going to have to unpack what you mean by that.
If China is allowed to effectively be a 16 IPC swing on a random die roll, I’m calling bullshit.

When you “get” a major neutral, would you get all of their units/territories? Or if they can still be influenced back to the other side, are you basically suggesting we compress the 9-point influence scale down to just 3 (positive, neutral, negative)?