A thought regarding initial set-up

[Aretaku]

My friends and I have only played a few games of A&A...and already we are hooked.

I am, however, getting a little bored with one thing.

I don't like that the game starts out the exact same way every time. Sure, theres some historical accuracy involved, but it makes for a degree of predictability that I don't much like in strategy games.

So I thought of something.

I added up IPC value of all the units that start on the board, minus one infantry in each territory that has at least one infantry.

I forget the exact numbers, but Russia had about 110 IPCs worth, US just under 200, and UK, Germany and Japan all had somewhere around 220-230 IPCs worth (UK was actually highest, with 4 or 5 dollars more than Germany).

I figure that people should be able to choose what they want to place, aside from the minimum requirement of one infantry where the game dictates.

You should only be able to place in sea-zones that units normally start in, but would have flexibility in exactly what naval elements are located in those sea-zones.

You also should place your units in reverse turn order. US first, then Japan etc. This is mainly so that Germany has to react to US/UK, rather than just put his whole economy on the Russian border in the hopes of a swift victory. It also allows Russia, with a much smaller starting position, to react to Germany's placement, rather than the other way around.

I think this could make for some extremely interesting games, not to mention the multitude of new options that might be available in terms of tactics. Ususally, games follow the same basic structure. Germany and Japan double team Russia, Japan goes after India, Germany after Africa, and the US tries to be everywhere at once.

This startup could completely change that pattern.

Thoughts?

[AgentOrange]

That sounds interesting.  Usually, we just change up the teams. (Like Germany and Russia vs. Everyone else, or maybe Germany and US vs. Everyone else)  Your idea, however, serves to make the game even more diverse - I gotta bring it up to my crew!  Thanks man! 

[xenon]

Do you accidently have the exact figures somewhere? I´m too lazy to count

To further balance this, I thought about placing 2/3 it in a first set up turn and the rest in a second one.

[Aretaku]

Do you accidently have the exact figures somewhere? I´m too lazy to count

To further balance this, I thought about placing 2/3 it in a first set up turn and the rest in a second one.

I would normally like the idea of a 2/3-1/3 set up, but with Russia so much weaker economically than the rest, I don't think it would work too well.

I don't have the exact figures, but I'll post them sometime this weekend. I know Russia was 108, and I believe US was 198, but I forget the rest.

[ShredZ]

The first problem that pops into my mind is that, Russia is able to strafe and take a couple Germany territories on R1, inflicing more IPC lose to the Germans, if the Germans were placing first, obviously the front lines would be barren wastelands... maybe you should take away a certian amount of IPCs from the Germans to account for this, like maybe take off 15 IPCs since thats about an average lose on R1 or something...

[ncscswitch]

Allowing the players to simply "place" all of their forces where they chose is going to lead to some huge stacks in key areas on all sides... US in China, Japan in FIC, UK in India, Russia in Russia and Germany in West Russia.

And there is the rub.

Even if Russia moved EVERYTHING they have to Russia for defense (15 INF, 2 ART, 4 ARM, 2 FIG) plus their initial build of 8 INF
They would face
10 ARM
4 ART
11 plain INF
4 Supported INF
6 FIGS
1 BOM

Attack Rating:  79 and 36 units
Defense Rating:  70 and 31 units (plus AA)

Odds are, Russia falls on G1.


As an alternate, why not simply do "All Nations Restricted" and allow folks to purchse and Non-Comabt one full turn sequence before begining attacks?

THAT will shuffle the hell out of things, but do so within the realm of initial set up and prevent over-stacking.  Only problem is, since the Allies are initially economoically superior, it gives the Allis a slight edge, an edge that SHOULD be offset by the Axis's superior initial number of piece and ability to move them in preparation for initial advances...



as an attack in G1.