Bonehead European setup?

[Hepps01]

I too find Global very limiting from a playability standpoint.  Too much of the game is predetermined, not enough left for players to effectively come up with different strategies that might or can work.  The opening setup is highly unrealistic and leaves the British with only one option.  Not an ideal way to start a game when a team is forced into only one possible move prior to even having it’s first turn.

I agree with Der Kuenstler 100%.

[AlphaKappa]

What if, at the start of the game, every nation gets 1 turn of only non-combat movement (no attacks, no income) in the standard order?

[Der Kuenstler]

@AlphaKappa:

What if, at the start of the game, every nation gets 1 turn of only non-combat movement (no attacks, no income) in the standard order?

I doubt if that would be popular because people usually want to jump right into things and start rolling dice, but it would certainly put more responsibility on the player himself for winning/losing and not the OOB setup.

[Gargantua]

You’d have to NCM blind.  And it would make balancing totally impossible.

[special forces]

Apart from all that it was not a bad idea at all, i think (if the set-up would be planned accordingly)

edit: would give a LOT of different possibilities to the game (maybe too much even)

[AlphaKappa]

@Gargantua:

You’d have to NCM blind.

What do you mean?

[Razor]

@Gargantua:

You’d have to NCM blind.  And it would make balancing totally impossible.

Exactely, you would have to use the movement rules from Diplomacy, or the Optional Naval Move from A&A Guadalcanal, where all players write down the moves on a pad, and then simultanesly everybody revel their moves. Its what IL used to name “Write an essay each turn”-game. Would have been fun but also a lot more work

[Gargantua]

Maybe set a number like 5…

You get to NCM 5 units secretly (Blind).  Then everyone reviews thier moves at the same time.

If you get to see your opponents NCM, then you`ll want to counter them, and them you, and it will go on forever and get dumb.

You could even add in an espionage cycle, like you get 5 moves, and if I spend 1 ipc per roll, and roll a 6, I get to see one or two, or whatever NCM`s, before I do my own.

[Cow]

hmm, yeah I mean I pretty much do sea lion or barb with germany. Japan I always go to war round 1 unless amur is loaded with russians.

UK have to load london with inf. china skirmish. Anzac and usa have some flexibility. uk pac infs up. Russia does what russia does.

I pretty much just play global for the pacific half which is the half that makes sense.
~
J1 and G1 is standardized in AA50, but there is a little bit of flexibility or deviation people do.

[Cow]

In any case I can’t come up with a better europe half that wouldn’t screw things up in the pacific half.

[LHoffman]

@Der:

In the current global setup, as the British player you can do nothing at all with your scattered and vulnerable navy but watch as the Germans decimate practically everything afloat,

Another example is the Italian DD and transport setup next to Malta. What smart player would do that with British airpower nearby? They are automatically destroyed every opening turn with no chance to do anything.

I will echo and amplify some of the points brought up earlier: it is necessary for the balance of the game. No, the British did not get their entire Navy sunk in 1940, but if the Axis are to have a chance in hell of winning this boardgame, they must have the opportunity to strike quickly, heavily and on multiple fronts. Spendo02 said earlier that if the UK Navy is not destroyed on turn 1, Germany is pretty much screwed. If it is not destroyed (or mostly) on turn 1, UK consolidates its navy and reinforces it, so much that it becomes utterly suicidal for Germany to attempt an attack. Not that Germany could not win the battle, but they would lose so much irreplacable equipment in the process that it is a strategic loss. But if Germany did not attack and destroy it, the UK would conduct invasions every turn on Western or Northern Europe distracting Germany from putting pressure on Russia and therefore effectively ending the game. Even if the Royal Navy is mostly destroyed on turn 1 they have the resources, territories and allies which allow them to rebuild and be a threatening force to the Germans. Even with this situation in G40 1st, how many times did the Axis win…? Not very many.

Also, is this issue not the case in almost every Axis and Allies game, to a similar degree? I have not played G40 2nd Ed., but G40 1st Ed. is situationally almost identical I believe. The UK Navy gets trashed, fends off attack, rebuilds and invades… happens almost every game. Similarly for A&A Revised, and Anniversary Ed.

On the UK’s side of the coin, it is a similar situation. The UK has important decisions to make, there are pros and cons to attacking and not attacking. The best course of action may be for the UK to attack the fighter and transport as you say. Most times it will work, sometimes it will fail. The dispairity between a fighter and a destroyer is pretty small. Plus, fi this is the only such situation for the Italien Navy in G40 2nd, then it is actually an improvement over the previous situation in G40 1st, where they could launch a full scale Taranto raid and possibly wipe out 80-100% of Italy’s navy on turn 1.

@Der:

My point is, the game should not be set up so that vital and expensive units will get trashed the first turn without you having any say in it. The player himself should make the vital decisions for victory or defeat in each battle - not the setup cards. I mean, why even have those units out there in the first place if that’s the way it is going to be? Why not just start the game out with the British having no navy around England, for example? That’s the way it usually looks by round 2 anyway.� �

Because it is necessary to give Germany the choice of attacking them or not. There are pros and cons to both; ultimately the decision is in the hands of the German player. However, in the interests of survival and a chance at winning it is almost necessitated that Germany attacks the UK and eliminates its threat for a while. This is effectively what Germany did in 1940, without sinking all of the Royal Navy. It was called the Blitz for a reason; the British were on their heels and reeling for a time against German attack. The possibility for a German invasion of Britian was contingent on air superiority, not whether or not the Royal Navy still existed; because it did still exist but that did not matter. Britain was saved by her air force. In this game, history tends to be modeled well in the beginning of the game. Britian is relatively weak and threatened by invasion. Most of the time, she fights off invasion, only to be reinforced by the United States. By which time Germany’s attention and main objective has become the USSR anyway. For being a vastly simplified version fo WWII, it tends to follow historical events in a recognizable fashion; showing how inevitable and necessary certain actions were.

And if no “vital” units (whatever those are defined as) are in harms way on turn 1, there will be little risk and little reward and every game will become even more the same.

The setup will always be, or need to be, something like it is: Axis big push at the beginning and Allies comeback to dominance (providing the Allied players are not incompetent). The real differences from game to game will be dictated by (1) chance (rolling) and (2) choices by the individual players. With people playing these games like supercomputers crunching numbers, a “best course of action” will inevitably be worked out. Experienced players will go with this 99% of the time as it will prove to yield the best possible results. That is why the choices of players comes second to chance or rolling. If (again, with experienced players) all the decisions become more or less predictable, the only thing that will cause different decisions to be made will be the outcome of battles based on rolling. Rolls can result in unpredictable events which may necessitate a strategy different from what you normally see. However, if you were to play with relatively inexperienced players (or ones who are new to a version fo the game), then most games will be unique and a bit more interesting.

[LHoffman]

@Spendo02:

The Germans would never be able to even think of advancing against Russia if the UK was allowed to keep its fleet intact.  6 Ftr scrambling over what ships the UK has equates to a very early amphib landing by the allies.  The only way to counter that would be to deny the UK via game rule no landings until the US is in the war and lands on the same round as the UK.

Germany would need a significant bump in production and/or starting units if you let the UK keep her Navy (in this game).  Which then means Moscow needs more units to keep the balance.

Sea Lion existed, just at great cost for the Germans.  I think this game reflects it rather well considering putting all your resources into a single VC at the cost of giving Russia plenty of IC’s and basically making Moscow a fortress isn’t always a wonderful idea.

Well said.

[Fortress]

The flipside of Sealion being a little too playable because the Royal Navy gets obliterated on G1 is that British chances of successfully landing in Western Europe in 1940 (in game time) is zero - and THAT is an absolutely essential requirement for this (or any?) game to work at all, perhaps as essential as limiting America’s reach until war-conditions prevail.

[Der Kuenstler]

But why was it that the British did not land units on Europe basically from 1940-1944? Was it that they had no navy, or that the Germans were so strong on land?

I’ll give you an example of a thoughtful setup from the Pacific side. the navies start out scattered and unable to destroy one another round 1. The USA has a cruiser, DD, Tspt and sub by Hawaii. Japan could sink it with PART of its navy on J1 before the USA even gets to move. But then if it did the USA could counterattack with the bulk of its Navy in SZ10, thus discouraging Japan from doing so most of the time. With NOs and other considerations, generally nothing happens much on that side of the world round 1. That’s good. The setup does not dictate who wins there. It is your decisions FOLLOWING the setup.

Now you move over to the Atlantic and you see practically the whole British navy lined up for destruction. For the German player, there is really no bad consequences for attacking all of these exposed ships. The USA and Russia will stay out of it. There is no UK counterattack other than sinking what’s left of Germany’s battleship and sub(s), which aren’t vital to Germany’s plans anyway. That is why you see the same German move over and over. In chess it would be like setting up a game where your knight is exposed at setup and your opponent goes first. Well of course he’s going to go get it every time.

The most reasonable solution to this is to set up the UK so that it can have its navy and airforce but not much else.

How about a rule that the UK cannot put land units in Europe until there are US land units in England? That would give Germany 3-4 turns. Or give germany more land units to defend with.

There are many thoughtful ways you could do the setup. But Churchill was no fool and the setup should reflect that.

[LHoffman]

@Der:

But why was it that the British did not land units on Europe basically from 1940-1944? Was it that they had no navy, or that the Germans were so strong on land?

Probably. The UK by itself could not have defeated Germany and would not have commenced such a substantial invasion without American support. So maybe a rule like you proposed could work… but I am not sure that I like limiting Allied choices like that. It means Germany can go wild in Europe for 3-4 turns not even worrying about UK or US. Then it is basically Germany against Russia for 3-4 turns… and Russia will get steamrolled. By then it will be too late for the Allies, because German industrial production will prevent them from ever gaining a foothold in Europe. Plus the UK becomes basically as boring as the United States for the first half of the game.

Historically, the Western Democracies were generally less willing to “waste” their armies on attrition or battles where they would not have a distinct advantage, which is one reason for them waiting so long to invade. And this tends to be the case in G40 anyway. The Allies will not make a substantial invasion until they have enough forces to back it up. It would be more inaccurate to prevent the Allies from even having the option of invading because it takes away from player freedom to do what they want and introduces an artificial construct to gameplay. Germany will know there is not even the threat of invasion so they don’t even have to prepare for one (and this rule would allow them to know on what turn it will come)… which is a situation that was not true at all in the war.

@Der:

I’ll give you an example of a thoughtful setup from the Pacific side. the navies start out scattered and unable to destroy one another round 1. The USA has a cruiser, DD, Tspt and sub by Hawaii. Japan could sink it with PART of its navy on J1 before the USA even gets to move. But then if it did the USA could counterattack with the bulk of its Navy in SZ10, thus discouraging Japan from doing so most of the time. With NOs and other considerations, generally nothing happens much on that side of the world round 1. That’s good. The setup does not dictate who wins there. It is your decisions FOLLOWING the setup.

You are implying here that who wins is already pre-determined by the setup; in this case, Germany will win because it can sink most of the UK’s large naval units at the beginning. I personally have never heard anyone make such an assertion regarding this game, even if it is complained (and justly so) that the game favors one side or another, which is another matter. I personally do not believe that the setup is so biased that it determines the game.

Germany has plenty of decisions to make on Turn 1; definitely more than any other nation. Germany’s air force is its most important (and fragile) weapon. To defeat the Royal Navy on Turn 1, they must use it and pray they roll well and the UK rolls poorly; otherwise it is Germany who can get screwed at the beginning. The German air arm is also essential in playing the Eastern front well and simultaneously keeping the UK at bay as it builds up after Turn 1. If Germany loses even a quarter of its planes at the beginning of the game it can be disasterous and is almost impossible to recover from while at the same time balancing other needs. Overall, Germany is in a much more delicate situation in Turn 1 than the UK is. Yes, Britain is under threat of invasion, but that is basically an all or nothing gambit for Germany which is not, I believe, a typical strategy. I think that if we are really concerned about a Sealion being too easy, then we could modify or create another rule instead of not allowing something. For example, if Germany were to reach a certain threshold of transports or had a certain threshold of units grouped in Western Europe (presumably for invasion purposes), etc… then the United States could enter the war, or the Soviet Union could enter the war… That in my opinion would be a better idea, because it does not prevent anyone from doing what they want to, but it does add some consequences for those actions and makes people (Germany) think twice about it.

@Der:

Now you move over to the Atlantic and you see practically the whole British navy lined up for destruction. For the German player, there is really no bad consequences for attacking all of these exposed ships. The USA and Russia will stay out of it. There is no UK counterattack other than sinking what’s left of Germany’s battleship and sub(s), which aren’t vital to Germany’s plans anyway. That is why you see the same German move over and over. In chess it would be like setting up a game where your knight is exposed at setup and your opponent goes first. Well of course he’s going to go get it every time.� �

If the UK is in a position to mop up remaining German naval units on the next turn, then I don’t see what the big deal is here. If we are not talking (directly) about a Sealion type attack being staged but simply about the UK getting its ships blown up and then continuing the war… then what is the concern other than that it is not adherant to historical events? If there is a universally good move at the start of the game, yes, you will take it any time; anyone will. Japan does (mostly) the exact same thing every game on Turn 1; as does the US, and USSR and everyone else. Turn 1 should be the most predictable turn in the game. Chess is a poor analogy because the mechanics of the game are vastly different. There are no aberrant factors such as income and territory spaces and differing force sizes or compositions; each Chess player is absolutely equally matched in setup and strength as his opponent; no one is supposed to have the advantage. It is very different in Axis and Allies where the Axis are supposed to have the advantage early in the game, just as they did early in the war. And again, in my experience, and I think safe to say most everyone else’s here, the Allies usually win. Their economic advantage over the Axis is considerable and they need to use it to their advantage. They still need to play intelligently, but you have to be both smart and lucky to win with the Axis. If that is the case, as I believe it is, Britain losing their ships at the start of the game is not an insurmountable obstacle.

@Der:

The most reasonable solution to this is to set up the UK so that it can have its navy and airforce but not much else.

I hope that I have pointed out why this is not accurate and why it is essential that Germany be allowed to try to destroy them if they so choose. Additionally, there is no way for the UK to keep its Navy and Air Force and NOT everything else. “Everything else” would be Land Units, which Britain will always retain on Turn 1 because (other than those in France) Germany cannot get to British land units on Turn 1. The Italians hardly can either. So basically, you seem to want Britain to retain everything on Turn 1.

@Der:

But Churchill was no fool and the setup should reflect that.� � � � � � � � � � � �

No he wasn’t. But the setup also reflects the UKs character as a worldwide power. The entire Royal Navy was not anchored at Scapa Flow for the duration of the war. They were in the middle of the Atlantic protecting convoys, in the Channel on patrol, off Scandinavia wary of Norwegian alliance and later escorting convoys to Russia, in the south Atlantic pursuing German raiders and in the Mediterranean fending off Italy. I think it is erroneous to assume that all or most of the UKs ships should be in a single sea zone.

[LHoffman]

I am sorry if I seem to be angry or judgemental here. I am not, and do not mean to be. I am just forceful and convinced on my opinion… and because I think I am right.  :-D

But then again, don’t we all…

[ghr2]

@Der:

@knp7765:

I agree that it sucks having Britain losing most of it’s Atlantic navy right off the bat, but in most cases, it costs Germany a lot of it’s planes and subs.

Hmmm…Well I’ve never seen Germany really hurt at all by attacking Britain’s navy G1. They just use their huge airforce for hitting and then take off a few $6 subs for any German casualties. They then have a huge paycheck on G2 from the French conquest to replace anything lost.

Ya but its very risky for germ to buy more navy.  It makes it more difficult to take our russia and it buys the allies alot more time.

[ghr2]

Can we just say that the reason why everyone plays the same turn 1 moves is that this game has been played so much that people have found out the most optimal turn 1 attacks?

[LHoffman]

@ghr2:

Can we just say that the reason why everyone plays the same turn 1 moves is that this game has been played so much that people have found out the most optimal turn 1 attacks?

Exactly. That was one of my points; there is a consensus on the best moves on Turn 1 for G40. I am not certain how much the setup has been changed for 2nd Ed. but so far I have not seen anything to suggest it is significant.

If you want to try new Turn 1 attacks it is your prerogative as a player to do so. However, I would not expect your opponent to do the same just because you are. If you play to win, you want the best way. And I do think there is a consensus on the best way, for both the Axis and the Allies. Anyone who goes after Germany at least has the benefit of observing how well Germany’s attack went and conforming or altering their plans accordingly.

Worst case scenario for the UK is their Navy is 90% wiped. If this can be expected, and you plan for it accordingly afterward, anything else that happens can only be positive.

[Der Kuenstler]

@LHoffman:

Germany can go wild in Europe for 3-4 turns not even worrying about UK or US. Then it is basically Germany against Russia for 3-4 turns… and Russia will get steamrolled.

How will Russia get steamrolled if Germany has to keep enough infantry in Normandy to deal with the US and Britain’s largely intact navy on turn 3? Russia’s capital is not in danger until G6-8 in the games I’ve seen.

@LHoffman:

Plus the UK becomes basically as boring as the United States for the first half of the game.

How so, when all the action at the beginning of the game for the UK is in Africa and the Middle East?

@LHoffman:

….introduces an artificial construct to gameplay.

Which is exactly what Britain’s naval setup is!

@LHoffman:

I personally do not believe that the setup is so biased that it determines the game…

That’s not my complaint. The setup may be balanced, but it is arranged so that the Royal Navy looks like a bunch of boobs. And the British player has no chance to do anything about it but watch it sink. My proposition is an ammended setup/rule(s) that allow all the PLAYERS to decide the outcome of round one, not the opening setup.

@LHoffman:

Germany’s air force is its most important (and fragile) weapon. To defeat the Royal Navy on Turn 1, they must use it and pray they roll well and the UK rolls poorly; otherwise it is Germany who can get screwed at the beginning. …

Really? Have you run the odds calculator in the TripleA program for Germany’s opening attacks on the Royal Navy? I have and in SZ111, the odds are 100% German win with 6.13 out of 7 attacking units left. In sz 110 it’s a 97% German win with 3.59 units of 8 left. Germany generally loses 2 fighters doing this. Germany then gets 19 IPCs From France to buy two more fighters. I don’t see Germany under any stress here.

@LHoffman:

Overall, Germany is in a much more delicate situation in Turn 1 than the UK is.

Wow - I don’t see how you can believe that when the UK is spread out all over the world with multiple fronts to manage and Germany is just bunched up in Europe alone.

Your transport rule could be a possibility, although it doesn’t address the Royal Navy setup.

@LHoffman:

And again, in my experience, and I think safe to say most everyone else’s here, the Allies usually win.

If the Allies usualy win, then why is every bid I’ve seen given for games here always for helping the Allies?

@LHoffman:

So basically, you seem to want Britain to retain everything on Turn 1.

The UK should not have to lose 92 IPCs worth of navy (including the French BB) before it can even move.

@LHoffman:

I think it is erroneous to assume that all or most of the UKs ships should be in a single sea zone.

They don’t have to all be in the same zone - just placed intelligently in zones where the huns can’t decimate them all first thing.

And I’m not offended by anything you said - I like a good debate!