@andrewaagamer
Ah. I hadn’t understood that subtlety. It’s a bit like assuming that, as an attacker, I’m going to win - so, retreat isn’t an option. Thanks a lot for your help.
North-West Europe
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Flashman,
Collecting income at the start of a turn should be the FIRST rule in any self-respecting House Rule tome.
Interesting. A pretty fundamental game to the game if you ask me. What were the results? Were both sides making significantly less money each turn? Did games last longer than usual? How did you rebalance the game? I assume the Axis (with a small starting IPC) would need a booster shot somehow.
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it leads to quicker play and more meaningful play. No unnecessary flimsy battles just to grab money. Also less is produced so less pieces means less die rolling. also, if you also allow defender retreats you model a back and forth ongoing thing but with more pieces which eats up the plastic leading to shorter games.
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@Imperious:
it leads to quicker play and more meaningful play. No unnecessary flimsy battles just to grab money. Also less is produced so less pieces means less die rolling. also, if you also allow defender retreats you model a back and forth ongoing thing but with more pieces which eats up the plastic leading to shorter games.
Yes, these two rules lead to a more historically correct strategic pattern, i.e. a power tends to make 1 or 2 BIG attacks per turn, rather than 4 or 5 smaller actions.
Reasons:
If you only collect money for holding a territory an entire turn, you need to attack it with a large enough force. If you make several piecemeal attacks you risk losing all of the gains and therefore losing many units for no financial gain.
With defender retreats, the same tactic is needed. Make 4 attacks with a marginal material advantage in each and the defender will retreat out his expensive units with few losses, and then likely regain the territories next time with no cash gain to you.
But again, one BIG attack and you force the defender to either abandon the territory with considerable losses and little chance of regaining it, or stand and fight with crippling casualties.This will of course tend to make each player turn pass more quickly. Some people, however, will dislike the build and counter-build nature of the strategy rather than the grab-what-you-can-now tactics of the familiar game.
Another preference of mine is to allow units to be built only in home territories, which again leads to a more historical build up of forces. Probably needs some kind of non-combat rail movement rules to bring units to the front more quickly. -
If you combine this with my other concept of performing the turns together ( axis/allies) you then make something that is very quick… like 2-3 hours.
But of course other house rules come into effect to stop all the immediate things running in peoples minds about how it wont work or cant work. It does work.
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@Imperious:
If you combine this with my other concept of performing the turns together ( axis/allies) you then make something that is very quick… like 2-3 hours.
But of course other house rules come into effect to stop all the immediate things running in peoples minds about how it wont work or cant work. It does work.
All Axis/all Allies, this how we play all our 4 player games.
Who wants to wait almost an hour in between move/turns.The problem unfolding, a new abstraction is required for capturing a territory. Operational tempo gain, not production, how do we translate this into, something tangible? Extra logistic–free moves to resupply? Extra placements? Extra combat move next turn? any or all of these could replace IPC for taken territories. Deploy a tactical tempo attribute for captured territories, a territory which may have a mere 1 or 2 ipc value, for its tactical position on the map, but the real gain is operational tempo and extra move next turn or what, any ideas?
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Personally I think adding NWE and other territories was a great idea. You’re always going to have trading unless you change the core fundamentals of the game. After too many changes the game isn’t really A&A, at least to me. I also think a good number of A&A players are far more casual than some who play and post here or play in tourneys. A&A kind of tries to go for mass appeal but the beauty of the game is that it can adapt to house rules. I’m an “advanced” casual player myself. I’m very farmiliar with the game, but I don’t play as often as alot of players here.
You could try say, putting some gray or white chips under a national marker and remove one chip for every turn played. After so many turns you capture it. Or something like that. Say regular one chip for regular territory, two for VCs, and three for capitals.
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If I can return to the topic a little further back regarding income from captured territory.
Collecting income at the start of a turn should be the FIRST rule in any self-respecting House Rule tome.
I go further:
Firstly I don’t allow any use of captured ICs. I still haven’t found a single notable historical example which could justify this.
I would even suggest not being able to use liberated ICs after a certain time; for example the French forces after D-Day until the end of the war used American uniforms and equipment as their own production base was either obsolete or put beyond use by the Germans.
Yes, the Germans used Czech factories but these were captured without a fight. Using captured Soviet industry was hardly viable, indeed occuying so much of the Soviet industrial base was worth far less to the Germans than then trade agreement they had with Russia before the war.I really like these ideas. Question though… what about building ICs in captured territory? As in, if Japan captures India, building an IC there? And likewise, when the British recapture India, should the IC be considered Japanese and thus ineligible for use? I really like the idea of no using enemy ICs, I just see these loopholes. Unless you plan on playing where ICs can not be built.
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One thing to take into consideration is that ICs aren’t just production facilities they are also deployment Army/Navy Bases/HQs/ Ports/Shipyards. Like the ICs in EUSA also represent Westpoint, Quantico,VMI, etc. How you could somehow incorporate that into the game otherwise I’m not sure.
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I think NW Europe affects the allies more.
The UK can not move into sz5 with all of its fleet and hit France at the same time it lands in other sz 5 conncected spaces. The UK would have to split its fleet up in order to hit France.
Think about how many revised games had this move before AA50. -
@Rakeman:
I really like the idea of no using enemy ICs, I just see these loopholes. Unless you plan on playing where ICs can not be built.
How about you can only place infantry in captured ICs… assuming that heavy weapons, like tanks need your home industry - or home ship yard facilities that take years to build.
Those half factories from THE WAR GAME are useful to denote this status… same with newly built ICs - they are only able to place infantry.
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@Rakeman:
I really like the idea of no using enemy ICs, I just see these loopholes. Unless you plan on playing where ICs can not be built.
How about you can only place infantry in captured ICs… assuming that heavy weapons, like tanks need your home industry - or home ship yard facilities that take years to build.
Those half factories from THE WAR GAME are useful to denote this status… same with newly built ICs - they are only able to place infantry.
Firstly to clarify my proposal:
No use of captured ICs
No new ICs to be built
Infantry can be placed on ANY “home” territory regardless of factoryI believe factories which produce mechanical units should be allowed only in established industrial areas, certainly not including India.
Consider the herculean effort needed by the USSR to transport already constructed factories to the Urals region - where an industrial base was already established. The notion of Britain “building” an industrial complex capable of producing heavy bombers in Calcutta really becomes ridiculous.
Outside Europe, Japanese home islands and North America only Australia comes close to qualifying; with a 2 IPC limit it should be just about accurate.One thing I always use to illustrate this is that when France was liberated the re-formed French army used almost exclusively American equipment and uniforms. The cost of putting new factories into operation, or of reviving disused ones, was much greater than the cost of transporting equipment from established bases of production on the other side of the Atlantic.
Similarly, bringing tanks in from Germany by train was always going to be more cost effective for Germany than establishing new tank factories in the Ukraine or Leningrad. You have to consider the workforce, supply of spare parts and so forth. Only in a time of peace is it plausible to establish new centres of production in enemy territory.
Incidentally on the time thread I got rid of the non-combat movement round which also speeds things up, though I think a lot of people do this.
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Agreed, but about Europe, is there really absolutely no counter for the German tank stacks?
Agreed, its a guaranted win each time.
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