Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?

[The Janus]

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

• Add 1939, 1941, 1942 and 1943 versions.

1939 Would be a tough sell, IMO. At that start point, you end up with too much politics and not enough war; it’s just Germany (and USSR) invading a bunch of neutral countries. I think G40 strikes a good compromise. I’m also leery about '43.

[The Captain]

@the-janus

True - about 1939 scenario. Since this is only our suggestions, I believe that Renegade would make the necessary decisions in this matter.

Concerning Global 1943 we have already been playing this scenario for more than 8 years now.
It’s a great scenario with both the History Enthusiast as well as the Game Player in mind.

I assume that you haven’t played the Axis & Allies Global 1943 Expansion - that would explain your concerns.

We’re looking forward to your suggestions to “Advice to Renegade”.

[The Janus]

I honestly would like to see a more stripped-down version of the game. I think if you want to remove most of the politics, you need to set it either right on the cusp of Barbarossa/Pearl Harbour (Spring 1941) or what Larry calls the “high-water mark of the Axis expansion” (Spring 1942)

Just as a side note, I would say when I look at World at War, it feels like an attempt to answer the question “What if we had Axis & Allies, but with France as a major power?” without any thought as to why not to do that. I still think 1940 (before the fall of France) is probably the last, other reasonable start date – but I don’t know that it’s preferable to the other two. I think 1943, with the failure at Stalingrad (and particularly after the surrender of Italy) is kind of a “point of no return” for the Axis.

I think back to Classic, and it’s kind of a pastiche of WWII. You have to have tanks, planes, submarines and carriers – those are iconic to the period. Of course, you need transports and at least some type of surface ship (whether it’s Battleships or just something nondescript.) Artillery have been around basically forever, and I’d say they’re more iconic to WWI (that, and machine guns.)

Submarine interactions have gotten too complicated, and the creep towards contested sea zones and land territories is taking away the elegance and simplicity from the game. Also constantly trying to shoehorn in Italy and China as separate powers isn’t doing the game any favours, IMO.

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I’m not entirely sure how they might fit this into a “G40 3rd Edition” but I’d be interested to see a 1945(ish) scenario, in the vein of Operation: Unthinkable

I think there are a couple different start dates you could do w/r/t the Cold War. For example East & West (by Imp Games) is set around the Berlin Airlift of 1948, just before decolonization began to really ramp up. So you still have the full breadth of the British Empire for the most part, with the Arab League and Organization of American States being established as major neutral blocs, and the civil war in China nearing its end.

E&W sort of has the problem of being “USSR vs. the World” so I think if you could do a global game where the west is powerful enough to merit having China as an active Soviet ally, that would be ideal. The issue is always going to be that there’s effectively little or no naval game, unless you set it in a period where nuclear submarines are just all over the place, pulling wild and crazy stunts.

Other dates:
1950-1953 - Korean War, Greece and Turkey join NATO
1955 - West Germany joins NATO, occupation of Austria ends, Warsaw Pact is formed, Baghdad Pact/METO/CENTO (UK, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan) is formed, SEATO established in 1954 (US, UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand)
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
1975(ish) - allows for Communist control in Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Indochina, as well as the Warsaw Pact countries; (Iraq left CENTO in 1958, but it existed until 1979; SEATO operated until 1977)

Ultimately, the issue I find with any cold war scenario is that it probably lends itself more to a Europe map (maybe even the 1914 map over the Europe 1940 map) or that it should actually use a northern hemisphere map, rather than eastern or western.
Right at the outset of the cold war, the western powers have vast empires, but within a decade or two they no longer control much of anything in Africa or southern Asia. Having a map that’s chockful of neutrals isn’t terribly appealing, without a robust, meaningful, yet lean diplomacy system (again, don’t do what World at War does.) I think the “activation” mechanics mostly work for a WWII setting, but they also feel kinda handwavey and tacked-on.

[Black_Elk]

If I had to make a wish and just get one flagship A&A scenario, I’d like to see a map on the scale of G40, but set in 1941 with only 6 factions.

I think the big 6 is better than the big 5, if only because it allows for parity by sides Axis vs Allies and to alternate by sides each turn.

I don’t really want to see Italy get nixed, because Axis is in the name after all, but I think it makes more sense to have Germany and then a faction called ‘European Axis.’ This set could provide some unique sculpts and roundels that could be used for basically all the smaller Axis aligned countries, Italy at the head maybe, though not just Italy, but Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania whatever. Basically you do some purely decorative design elements like mini flags, and then a more generic sculpt set with specialized flavor, like say a couple alt infantry or air types, stuff like that to cover the bases. Then have this player ‘nation’ catch-all faction come between the turn blocks on the Allied side. Basically removing the piggy back into the next round for team Allies, so both sides are more even that way.

On the Allied side you could obviously do the same with China, but it might be interesting to just see the Allies framed in the same way, again where the material for the smaller factions is done up with the decorative map elements with specialized flavor but folded back into one of the big 3 turns. So basically Anzac folds back into Britain, China folds back into USA. Or France into USA, or either of those into the Soviet turn block to maybe make it more interesting? I guess whatever makes the most sense from a “game seat” position might be good there. I can see advantages to maybe randomizing it too, like which of the Big 3 gets which of the Little 3 might be a thing that is determined by a roll or something on team Allies, just for flavor? But anyway, main idea being to keep the turn blocks down to a 3v3 exchange and no more. Basically 3 outs per game round. I just think that’s a good way to go.

The reason I like 1941 over the high water mark 1942 opener, is that mechanically the game always has the Axis side expanding early as the way to get a rough parity by sides going into the second and third round. That just feels more appropriate to 41 for me. Like if you have it open with a bang and the Axis side achieving that high water mark in the early rounds it feels more like the march of history, rather than starting from that high water mark and then vaulting like Shamu even higher, expanding massively into uncharted territory right at the start. You know where like Italy rules Egypt and Japan crushes into Siberia and India or whatever, because that’s how far they need to go to get into break even territory hehe. Like it’s all well and good if the game gets there after many rounds, but just not to have the balance tip too hard like that right away. Better, if the Allies are going to be on their heels in the opener, to pick a date where that vibe hums. Also helps I think with the sense of progression of game-time in the player’s imagination. Early enough for a total war start with some space to operate, but not so early that you have players waiting on the sidelines forever before it gets interesting.

I like a big map, with more unit types, cause it’s hard to go backwards there at this point. I’m used to Artillery and Mech and such and they’re fun units, but trying to keep everything else as simple as possible so that has some room to breathe and isn’t eclipsed by too much other stuff going on at the same time. More starter set focus. It can always morph from there into Expansion territory with add-on materials and more nuanced rules. I think I’d be a little bummed if it was just a bunch of re-releases without any revisions. Like I could imagine a vintage 1984 reissue, but that’s not really what I want. Basically I want “Classic, but Global” if that can just somehow be a thing heheh

[The Janus]

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

The reason I like 1941 over the high water mark 1942 opener, is that mechanically the game always has the Axis side expanding early as the way to get a rough parity by sides going into the second and third round. That just feels more appropriate to 41 for me. Like if you have it open with a bang and the Axis side achieving that high water mark in the early rounds it feels more like the march of history, rather than starting from that high water mark and then vaulting like Shamu even higher, expanding massively into uncharted territory right at the start. You know where like Italy rules Egypt and Japan crushes into Siberia and India or whatever, because that’s how far they need to go to get into break even territory hehe. Like it’s all well and good if the game gets there after many rounds, but just not to have the balance tip too hard like that right away. Better, if the Allies are going to be on their heels in the opener, to pick a date where that vibe hums. Also helps I think with the sense of progression of game-time in the player’s imagination. Early enough for a total war start with some space to operate, but not so early that you have players waiting on the sidelines forever before it gets interesting.

I think I kinda get what you’re saying: 1942 basically requires the Axis to do better than history, in order to be competitive and/or to keep advancing right out of the gate. The problem I have with 1943, is that it’s essentially trying to capture that 1941 feel, when in reality the momentum should all be going the other way, plus the Soviets and Americans aren’t caught unawares.

I think Italy only works if you’re doing a really zoomed-in Europe map (like basically converting a WWI map) where it’s more along the scale of the old A&A Europe, but with more territories – just North Africa (not the whole continent) and maybe the middle east. And even then, once you hit Barbarossa, Italy isn’t going to have enough to do (after Taranto, and with France and Greece/Yugoslavia already taken care of.) Frankly, having a 10-IPC “”“major”“” power just doesn’t pass muster IMO. I think the only way you can buff Italy to any meaningful level is to bend history and stick Vichy French territories under their control.

China has the same problem; if you don’t want them to just be ‘neutral’ picket armies, and you also don’t want them to be able to attack on the UK turn, just stick 'em under the US, like in Classic. ANZAC seems entirely unnecessary, particularly outside of a Pacific game – or just for the purposes of victory conditions.

Basically there are things you can (and possibly should) do in either a Pacific or a Europe game, that you shouldn’t do in a global game.

[hengst]

@the-janus Beg to differ: if “Italy” is considered to be all minor Axis powers, you could possibly make some interesting roles for the nation/power on the Eastern front. Romania/Bulgaria were quite important in the south

[The Janus]

@hengst You’d think so, but nah. It’d just weaken Germany.

[hengst]

@the-janus I fail to see that as an inherently bad thing

[The Janus]

@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.

[hengst]

@the-janus ???

Italy+Germany will always be weaker than only Germany, all other things equal.

If you have a balanced Germany-only game, you’ll need more materiel/economy to keep balance if you change it to Italy+Germany. However, it can add more interesting decisions for the Axis player, which (see my previous post) don’t have to only be pre-Barbarossa.

If you have a balanced Italy+Germany game, you’ll need to reduce materiel/economy if you change it to Germany-only.

What did I say that lead you to think I meant that Germany needs to be overpowered?

I think we are understanding things equally, just communicating poorly.

EDIT: re: your edit: I’m with you. I personally love having Italy as a nation because it means the Axis can & must care about the Mediterranean, without taking resources away from Russia or providing an excess of resources which could be thrown at Russia. For those early years of the war, having the UK be terrified about the Med is essential–and that won’t often play out if the unified Axis player can throw everything at Russia.

If you’re starting later in the war I agree that Italy’s probably not worth it in terms of hassle/handicap just for the 3v3.

[The Janus]

@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.

[barnee]

I like having Italy be a Minor Major Power, because I think it helps one understand how pissed off adolf musta been with them lol

[Black_Elk]

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. Like do that on the map, where the information is easy to see and to parse, rather than with objective bonuses that are more complicated and harder to track.

So using Italy as an example, in order to add them into AA50 and Global, we saw stuff taken away from Germany without a real offset there. So G loses their Med fleet and all the income from Africa as well as from Italy itself, but doesn’t really gain anything. G’s starting cash is just lowered and their starting forces weakened. Like their Baltic fleet is still getting nuked immediately and they have fewer TTs under their control, and so for sure overall it feels like a nerf to team Axis. Just to get a weak can opening turn for a nation that only has like 10 ipcs at the base, doesn’t really feel worth it in the trade off.

Same deal trying to carve out Anzac or India from the Brits, or China from USA, while still keeping the overall money the same/super low there.

What they should do instead is change the acronym IPC from meaning Industrial Production to “Income & Progress” so it’s more abstract and flexible. Then raise the values of some contested TTs. It probably doesn’t even need to get juiced all that hard to still work. Add like 5-10 pics on the map to each player nation and you’re probably good to go, without really needing national objective money or anything that complex. Raise the value of some contested tiles by 1 or 2 ipcs to help balance it out and you’re good to go right?

I only mentioned adding a few other Nations/TTs to ‘Italy’ because of the way things tend to work mechanically for them. So if Italy is going to be all up on the Eastern Front anyway, just camping in Karelia or Belarus or whatever, maybe it makes more sense to see those units as Finns or Romanians and such, rather than as ‘Italians.’ Just for the suspension of disbelief hehe.

I think the scale of the map and the economy in Global is pretty decent, it’s just weighed down by other stuff. Like it’s not the extra cash or the extra TTs and SZs that make the game take forever. I can imagine a game on the scale of Global but which plays must faster heheh

[Black_Elk]

Ps. A couple more thoughts about what I’d like to see from new A&A releases more generally…

For starters, I imagine that any new boards or reissued materials will probably be more expensive, like from inflation or being made in the USA rather than China or whatever, so it’d be cool if we got something more in the trade up there.

A magneto board maybe, like Cyanite’s? That’s something I’d pay more for. How about moving away from folding cardboard gamemaps and give us something with more durability?

If the mapboard was divided into 3 or 4 rigid panels it would be easier to move the game or keep it set for another session. Especially if those panels could be stacked or put back in the box with the pieces still in magneto position. Doing that, the game would require a lot less space to ‘leave out’ at the ready. Design the map panels to stack vertically, on top of each other with raisers at the corners, so the board can remain set but only taking like up like a third of the space - instant win!

Sinking a magnet into a plastic sculpt works well enough, but another potential draw, or a thing that I’d feel pretty good about paying a lot more for, might be metallic sculpts. Or perhaps pre-painted sculpts or microsculpts? Might not be feasible, but still, if we’re going for moonshots right haha.

I’d like to see the paper money, and some nice themed dice too. Perhaps a deck of many things for the playing cards vibe. I love HBG and all the extra materials available there honestly, it’d be cool if they could partner up somehow to make things like that, but more official and more widely available.

A nice legacy manual that doubles as a coffee table art book. Some bells and some whistles basically, so they can upsell it. It’s hard to drop another two or three bills on something I bought a dozen years ago for like half what it will probably cost now. That’s kinda rough no matter how they slice it. But then, if they make it look cool enough and legacy enough, I’m sure I’d show out. I’m the sort who tends to pick up doubles of these games whenever they drop, but that’s more redundancy than I really need. I’d think it would be an easier sell if it was more ‘starter set’ and then ‘expansion’ sets sold separately, or more that sort of situation.

[crockett36]

@black_elk I love the high end, deluxe copy discussion. For magnetic, stackable I could see paying 400. For metal sculps I could see 500 even. Am I wrong?

On the other hand, I grew up poor. So I like piecemeal purchases. Which is why Magic the Gathering is such a money maker.

[crockett36]

I’m not a big fan of the minor powers and would go for black elk’s 3 v 3 concept.

[barnee]

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

Design the map panels to stack vertically, on top of each other with raisers at the corners

Love it ! The Factories can be the raisers. Let their stacks do the job lol

Yea dress up the rulebook. Throw a little mini History background the way Captain and Company do Global 40 Expansion. Would be way sweet :)

[The Janus]

@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]

So the first time I ever saw the Axis & Allies boardgame was in elementary school, on a rainy day in the 5th grade.

I believe the rationale was that the game was cool for kids who liked history or math, but I was fairly terrible at math, so the way we used the materials was essentially like very tiny plastic army men with the map as a battlefield.

Like I’m sure it was missing plenty of pieces, and I’m certain I didn’t know the rules. My reading comprehension at that time would not have allowed me to make sense of the rulebook anyway, but it was still eye catching and a good first introduction. The problem of course, was that the game took up a lot of space, so you really couldn’t just leave it out, and recess was what like tops an hour for lunch? Probably less. So even if it came out on a rainy day, it always had to go back in the box hehe.

I tried something like this again, not too long ago, with my ex-gf’s kid. Basically I got him into the A&A 1942 game at age 8.

That’s 4 years younger than the recommended “12 and up” age range, but it completely worked. Again taking the plastic army men approach to the initial gameplay. Axis and Allies plastic army men were actually cheaper pound for pound, than the standard 1:32 plastic army men toys, or rather you could get a lot more stuff with a single purchase at a similar dollar amount. I think I picked up 1942 for like 24.99 on sale at Target, which gave him about 100 more sculpts and a world battleboard, compared to a similarly priced large bucket of 1:32 dudes with the standard issue plastic playmat.

It was a nicer presentation too, with a cool looking box to keep stuff tidy, dice and roundels and other things you wouldn’t get with the bucket. Plus the appeal of “a game” and one that ostensibly teaches a bit of history and math while you’re at it. So I’ve always viewed A&A with that mindset. That it’s basically miniature plastic army men, but with simple rules to decide who wins/loses a battle using dice. Kids can get into that.

I think they could do the same stackable gamemap with raisers idea mentioned on the previous page, without needing to go full magneto board for that. Cardboard works fine actually, too keep it affordable, provided there are no folds.

The key is to divide the map into smaller rigid cardboard panels that can be moved separately one at a time.

Whatever the max size the box allows, make the rigid panels that large. The 1942 gamemap is 26x40" so for that game call it 4 rigid panels at like 13x20" in a box about that large, that can lay out side by side while playing, but also stack into a more compact space with the units still in place when “put away.”

Maybe a game like G40 has 8 rigid panels instead of 4 for the larger gameboard. You get the idea. As long as the mapboard doesn’t have folds it works. Folds are where the wear and tear tends to happen. Kid folds it the wrong direction, the board bends or rips, the game can’t be moved without a large support/backing and masterful balance. Do it in 4 separate smaller panels instead and those probs go away, plus it probably just looks cool. Like “oh yeah, should have been doing that all along!” heheh

[The Janus]

@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.