WW2 Aircraft Production vs Starting IPC Allotment

[Guest]

I am terminating any and all posting regarding production and game balance.  It appears to be a total lost cause, and I do not have the time nor energy to further pursue the matter.  Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls.  Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.

[Weekend Gamer]

@timerover51:

I am terminating any and all posting regarding production and game balance.  It appears to be a total lost cause, and I do not have the time nor energy to further pursue the matter.  Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls.  Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.

???  Did you just flame everyone on this website?  :?  And if you have THAT big a problem with games that re-enact WWII, then WHY ARE YOU HERE?

[Amon-Sul]

@timerover51:

I am terminating any and all posting regarding production and game balance.  It appears to be a total lost cause, and I do not have the time nor energy to further pursue the matter.  Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls.  Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.

so what you re tryin to say allies were saints
i could find even worse things made by the communists, far much worse :x

[Romulus]

Timerover51, I apologize if my post may have offended you, I am not native english and so my english grammar is not correct sometime or I may appear more harsh than I would.

However also I do not feel good with what you said.
First, there is a thing that I do not understand: according to you how should happen a discussion about game balance and production?

With all the participants that say “yes timerover51, you are right”!?!?!?
Summarizing with all that agree with you?!?!?!?!

I think that a forum is for free expressing opinion and free discussing, but with respect for the other participants. Having differents idea and confronting them with ideas from other people.

Second thing that I would to clarify: I am deeply offended of being qualified as:

Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls.  Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.

I never do such things. And I never justify who did, or do, or would do such things.

And all this why? Because I believe that A&A should be an equilibrated games?
For being politically correct I should play always as Allies and beat the Axis all the times avoiding that the Axis player may do barbarity? In the game?

It is how someone would accuse the chess game of racism and intolerance, because there are white pieces against black pieces!

Finally, I am Italian and my country has been on the Axis side in WWII.
But I am happy that Allied has won the war, beating Italy!
I am grateful to the USA and UK for all the efforts and all the youngs that has dead to liberate my country. People younger than me, had given their lives miles far from their country, for what? For bringing peace and freedom to me and my compatriots!

If now Italy is a free and democratic country, with all the problems that we have still to solve, I may only say “Thanks” to USA, to UK and all other allied nation.

[Weekend Gamer]

@Romulus:

Timerover51, I apologize if my post may have offended you, I am not native english and so my english grammar is not correct sometime or I may appear more harsh than I would.

However also I do not feel good with what you said.
First, there is a thing that I do not understand: according to you how should happen a discussion about game balance and production?

With all the participants that say “yes timerover51, you are right”!?!?!?
Summarizing with all that agree with you?!?!?!?!

I think that a forum is for free expressing opinion and free discussing, but with respect for the other participants. Having differents idea and confronting them with ideas from other people.

Second thing that I would to clarify: I am deeply offended of being qualified as:

Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls.  Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.

I never do such things. And I never justify who did, or do, or would do such things.

And all this why? Because I believe that A&A should be an equilibrated games?
For being politically correct I should play always as Allies and beat the Axis all the times avoiding that the Axis player may do barbarity? In the game?

It is how someone would accuse the chess game of racism and intolerance, because there are white pieces against black pieces!

Finally, I am Italian and my country has been on the Axis side in WWII.
But I am happy that Allied has won the war, beating Italy!
I am grateful to the USA and UK for all the efforts and all the youngs that has dead to liberate my country. People younger than me, had given their lives miles far from their country, for what? For bringing peace and freedom to me and my compatriots!

If now Italy is a free and democratic country, with all the problems that we have still to solve, I may only say “Thanks” to USA, to UK and all other allied nation.

Romulus, as an American and grandson to those who defended freedom in 1941-1945, I can only say I greatly appreciate your sentiments.  And, as “ugly” as we sometimes are, we Americans greatly appreciate the sacrifices made by others in advancing freedom, not to mention the culture and civilization bequethed to all of us by the Greeks and the Romans, your ancesters.  Who knows where we would all be without the civilizing influences of those great peoples.

[cyan]

I think Italy is a great country(hope to go one day), but there is a joke about France which goes like this. who the only country to lose NOT once but twice to Italy? France.  just kidding  :lol:

[Romulus]

Nice joke cyan! France is also a Great country!
Even if we and the French have had something to say, sometime!
Just to remember a historic fact: our national flag is insipred to the French national flag, only difference we have green instead than blue.

Gamer, I want to thank you for your words.
I think that USA is a great Country.
I has been only three times in USA, for biref time, I hope to have other chance to get there.

USA has done a lot of good think for Italy.
And, in my opinion and of many Italians, USA still do a lot of good thing for all the world!

I think that Greeks and Roman are our common ancestor!

[cyan]

I take Latin in school, so maybe i’ll go on the senior trip to Italy in a couple of years.

[axis_roll]

@Gamer:

@timerover51:

I am terminating any and all posting regarding production and game balance.  It appears to be a total lost cause, and I do not have the time nor energy to further pursue the matter.  Have fun glorying in Axis wins, and remember to also enjoy roasting Jews, using China as a biological testing lab, having shot down aviators for lunch, and those non-existent Korean comfort girls.  Oh yes, I forgot testing your samurai swords on prisoners necks, and having live targets for target practice.

???  Did you just flame everyone on this website?  :?  And if you have THAT big a problem with games that re-enact WWII, then WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Timerover51 posted the same crap over at Avalon Hill when people started to question his postings.

[Romulus]

But why posting if wanting not contraddiction?
I only wanted to have a discussion with him, also I am interested in history.

Joking time….

Cyan, I am remebering one phrase of Winston Churchill about Italians:

“Italians lose war as if they were football matches and they lose football matches as they was war!”

Latin is an intriguing language, I have only few remembrances and it is very difficult.

[Imperious Leader]

Hey Timerover51:

Don’t take what they say with any credibility. Keep plugging away with what you fell is best for the game and don’t lose sight of that.

AARHE has nearly 3,000 downloads (at least) and i know scores of people feel the same way as we both do. Both myself and Tekkyy answer many emails from different people who enjoy our variant as the best around. Because it offers both realism and balance and cuts the playing down and all the unrealistic ideas that were brushed under the carpet to avoid a few more pages of rules. But we succeed because the new system offers a more intuitive approach to how the game is played.

Balance for balance sake is a folly where you keep changing one thing and compensate by then changing the other thing… which results in adding to both sides where it would have been better to strip it down first and figure out why it was imbalanced in the first place and only correct/repair those things.

[Romulus]

Imperious leader,

Also I have downloaded the AARHE, and I found them really interesting.

In this thread there are two problems in discussion.

More realism is the first point. I have nothing again realism. I have also tried to discuss about this. But AARHE is more realistic of AAR because there is a well thought rule set that change and improve a lot of rule.
On the other hands you cannot change only production levels in AAR, increasing Allied production, without imbalancing the game. It is just trying to do what you have AARHE avoided to do.

Second point. Forums are made for discussion and ideas confrontation. I have only tried to say my idea about the argument and… it seems that… you may read by yourself.

[Guest]

I am using the game to teach history, and as I have indicated before, I could not care less about game balance, or appeasing the gods of game balance.  You want game balance, go play chess or checkers.  Second, I suspect most of this discussion of game balance is based on two player games online between expert players, where even a small advantage can be decisive.  I am running 5 player team games around an actual board, with kids who are not expert gamers, and for some, this is the first board wargame that they have ever played.  Under this situation, any kind of a good Axis player is probably going to defeat the Allies in very short order.  We have been using 2nd Edition, and I will likely be using 2nd Edition when I work with my son’s high school class.  Either that or a combined Europe-Pacific game, if I can figure out how to merge the IPC values of the two games. I have been tweaking the rules now over a 4 year period, to insure that the Allies can stay in the game under the circumstances under which we play.  National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area.  Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.

Have the kids enjoyed the games?  Yes, enormously, as the class has grown from 15 to 46 in four years, and we still had a waiting list.  Another telling point is the number of games sold on the open house night at the end of the class session, when we have been selling 4 to 6 copies of the game for the past two years.  We have also been selling the kids on Mayfair’s railroad games, and the various Eagle games still available.  They have also been learning an enormous amount of history in the process of playing the games.

US production superiority was a FACT in World War 2.  Lend-Lease was a FACT in World War 2. The kids see very quickly that if the US had not gotten into the war, that the world would now be a very different place.  Without Lend-Lease, US production ability would have taken longer to have an effect, with the Germans being far harder to defeat.  Some of the posts have mentioned IPC values for the US assuming the US full production was in the game.  Calculating what the full US production value would be is actually quite simple.  The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Pacific Division, calculated that at its peak, Japanese production was one-tenth of the United States production.  Take your value for Japanese production and multiply by 10.  You then have the US production.  Germany and the UK/Commonwealth were about equal, Russia a little behind Germany.

Give the Japanese 25, the US then gets 250 by the end of the game, the Germans get 80, the Commonwealth gets 80, and the Russians get 65.  Part of the Commonwealth production was in Canada, so that is not immediately in the game.  Same for Australian production.  Give the Germans 80 to start with, give the Japanese 25, add the captured territories as they occur, start the UK at 60 and the Russians at 45. To get the additional production, the UK needs a industrial center in Canada, and one in either India or Australian, or both.  The Russians need to build IC in order to get their increase in production.  The US simply goes up 10 IPC per turn until 250 is reached.  The Axis player either wins early, or get crushed. Game balanced.

[Weekend Gamer]

It seems to me that timerover’s question is NOT how to make A&AR more realistic.  Let’s face it, A&AR is so UNREALISTIC, it’s hard to know where to begin.  Conquering territory boosts industrial production?  Since when?  Apart from cannibalizing factory parts and confiscating equipment, and perhaps “oil” territories, taking territory has NOTHING to do with industrial output.  I sincerely doubt that America’s loss of the Phillipines on the one hand, or it’s conquering of Okinawa on the other, had any measurable impact on how many tanks or planes Detroit cranked out during the war.  It’s also absurd from a realism standpoint that a bomber based in the Eastern United States can bomb transports in the Japan sea zone (sz60) if Buryatia is in Allied hands.  And it’s absurd that Japan can invade Western Canada from the Alaska sea zone.  The list goes on and on.  So realism was never really what A&A was about – it was more about re-creating the “flavor” of the war in a way that would be accessible to the casual gamer.  Those who want “realism” have had Third Reich to play for quite some time. The rest of us who have lives prefer A&AR.

If you want a game that re-creates lend lease and stays more true to history, then A&A Europe is closer to what you are looking for.  It has lend lease and America’s economy is far larger relatively speaking than it is in Revised.  It also has convoy zones to allow the Germans to re-create the sinking of Allied shipping.  It’s a more challenging game tactically than Revised, but it is closer (but not quite equal) to history.

[Romulus]

timerover51, the first motivation that induced me to answer to your post is that I am an appassionate history reader. It is not my profession, but I usually read history books, and a lot of them.

Second motivation was that I always plays A&A on actual board, with 3 or 4 players. sometime we have also played in 5 players. So I would tell my opinion, having experienced that.
My opinion, I repeat, is that in A&A Revised, as in 2nd edition, the game is slightly favouring the Allies, even with more than 2 players.
I understand that IPC allotment are not realistic. But they work quite good.
In our actual games, initially the Axis have had the advantage, but playing more games, and mastering well the technic and logistic of the game now Allies are winning more games than Axis. They have to collaborate. This is the point.
Axis collaboration is “opportunistic”, really they act no as Alllies do, but, as in the WWII, they act with opportunism. Allies must have one to support each other and they need to plan moves ahead and sharing their opinions.
However Allied have strategic and geographic predominance, and every medium skilled A&A player is able to take advantage of that.
I repeat that: USA has 42 IPC but has not needs of buying defensive units, all the units buyed may be used offensively; Germany has 40 IPC but needs to employ great part of them to defend from potential invasions, so immobilize IPCs (in WE for example) that are no useful for the offensive. If your students, when playing Allies, do not press Germany and use ineffective moves it is not a game balancing problem. It means that they do not know how to effectively use allied supremacy, point. Without knowledge of the game techniques Axis are favoured. If you want to have an A&A game realistic and about historic facts then you have to consider that one thing is having the weapons and another thing is know how to effectively use them.
So it is not a balancing issue, but game techniques and allied collaboration are the key.

I suppose that it is not a good idea to say to the srudents: you lose but it is not your fault is a problem of the game. In chess if you leave your Queen in a exposed position on the board and your opponent capture it, you may be sure that it is an error not a game imbalance.
In the human life first thing to learn is the responsibility of our own action.
In my Country we say: Learn from your errors.

Moreover, as I said, quality of industrial production should be considered. Having diofferent unit costs for example, and so on.
Otherwise, you may use AAR Enhanced rules or AAR Historical Edition rules for having a greater realism.

Finally, I did not like all the thing you said about “criminals Axis players” etc.
I think that morale, history and good education may be taught even without playing A&A. In Italy we do not play A&A at school, but we have a solid tradition of democracy and freedom, also thanks to the USA and the Allied, as I said.
I know a lot of people that are polite and good persons and have never played A&A.
I know also polite and goog persons that play A&A (my playing group, for example), even the Axis side, and they do nothing of the bad thing you said, and they do not hail to Axis powers. But I do not want to have a political discussion here.

Last, if you are not interested to my opinions, you are free to ignore them or to disagree.
But, please, do not deal with me as I was a criminal. Thank you for your attention.

[General_D.Fox]

@timerover51:

I am using the game to teach history, and as I have indicated before, I could not care less about game balance, or appeasing the gods of game balance.  You want game balance, go play chess or checkers.  Second, I suspect most of this discussion of game balance is based on two player games online between expert players, where even a small advantage can be decisive.  I am running 5 player team games around an actual board, with kids who are not expert gamers, and for some, this is the first board wargame that they have ever played.  Under this situation, any kind of a good Axis player is probably going to defeat the Allies in very short order.  We have been using 2nd Edition, and I will likely be using 2nd Edition when I work with my son’s high school class.  Either that or a combined Europe-Pacific game, if I can figure out how to merge the IPC values of the two games. I have been tweaking the rules now over a 4 year period, to insure that the Allies can stay in the game under the circumstances under which we play.  National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area.  Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.

Have the kids enjoyed the games?  Yes, enormously, as the class has grown from 15 to 46 in four years, and we still had a waiting list.  Another telling point is the number of games sold on the open house night at the end of the class session, when we have been selling 4 to 6 copies of the game for the past two years.  We have also been selling the kids on Mayfair’s railroad games, and the various Eagle games still available.  They have also been learning an enormous amount of history in the process of playing the games.

US production superiority was a FACT in World War 2.  Lend-Lease was a FACT in World War 2. The kids see very quickly that if the US had not gotten into the war, that the world would now be a very different place.  Without Lend-Lease, US production ability would have taken longer to have an effect, with the Germans being far harder to defeat.  Some of the posts have mentioned IPC values for the US assuming the US full production was in the game.  Calculating what the full US production value would be is actually quite simple.  The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Pacific Division, calculated that at its peak, Japanese production was one-tenth of the United States production.  Take your value for Japanese production and multiply by 10.  You then have the US production.  Germany and the UK/Commonwealth were about equal, Russia a little behind Germany.

Give the Japanese 25, the US then gets 250 by the end of the game, the Germans get 80, the Commonwealth gets 80, and the Russians get 65.  Part of the Commonwealth production was in Canada, so that is not immediately in the game.  Same for Australian production.  Give the Germans 80 to start with, give the Japanese 25, add the captured territories as they occur, start the UK at 60 and the Russians at 45. To get the additional production, the UK needs a industrial center in Canada, and one in either India or Australian, or both.  The Russians need to build IC in order to get their increase in production.  The US simply goes up 10 IPC per turn until 250 is reached.  The Axis player either wins early, or get crushed. Game balanced.

I have a bit of a problem with the bolded/italicized statement.  You say the area you live wouldn’t like it if the Germans - in the game - had a decent shot at winning.  In AAR, the Germans (Axis) need a bid just to stay competitive sometimes.  If playing against a skilled Allies player, the Germans (and Axis in general) can be easily crushed and defeated in a few rounds.  Sometimes the Axis needs all the help they can get.  I frankly don’t believe this game gives the Germans “a very high chance of winning.”  I believe this game allows the Germans to stay in the game by gaining more IPCs to build more material.

Now, granted, this thread is about balance and making it more real, but if the people in your area have trouble with a game, they don’t have to play it.  It’s not as if they are forced to play, right?

You might want to be careful when you say the “Germans” all the time.  What you’re really probably meaning to say are the Nazis.  Not every single German was guilty of everything done in WWII.

[Amon-Sul]

@General_D.Fox:

@timerover51:

You might want to be careful when you say the “Germans” all the time.  What you’re really probably meaning to say are the Nazis.  Not every single German was guilty of everything done in WWII.

i would gladly quote and discuss about topic you started here

Germans are today indeed hostages of WWII , hostages of selfputed condemnation

but it would be a political discussion so

trust me there were, are and will be far more bigger murderers than some Nazis/Germans were

[General_D.Fox]

Amon, is your last post something “you” are saying?  Or are you quoting someone else?

[Romulus]

@timerover51:

National Louis University, where the classes operate from, is in the middle of a heavily Jewish area.  Any game which gives the Germans a very high chance of winning is not going to fly.

I have overlooked this part of the message of timerover51, caught in the game related discussion.

Timerover51 you cannot say such things. They are really intolerant affirmation: you cannot consider Germans and Nazis the same thing.

If people in National Louis University area are intolerant you should not adapt to them.
And you cannot allot the IPC in the game to support this approach.

[Amon-Sul]

@General_D.Fox:

Amon, is your last post something “you” are saying?  Or are you quoting someone else?

i was saying but somehow put myself in the net, there my post  stuck as quotated

you ll notice the text which is mean that should be a reply to your post