Pacific '40 Achievements

[Make_It_Round]

@i:

P.S.
what are these for?

Just like Xbox acheivements, you can use them for ‘bragging rights’ in your playgroup. But also, and more importantly, achievements develop a language with which to talk about different aspects of the game and what happens in it. They are a way of celebrating, exploring, and seeing the game with new eyes. They are also a motivator to make different plays than usual in a game, as they provide novel ‘sub-goals’. Finally, the skill of an opponent can more or less be gauged by a ratio of how many games she has played and how many achievements she has unlocked; so they can be treated as a kind of ranking system.

Global achievements focus on more or less generic things that any power can do with roughly equal probability in the context of the game. These focus on particular amusing or impressive feats that are allowed within the rules, and convey WW2 flavour to the players. As a rule of thumb, if a national achievement can apply to any nation, it should be treated as a global achievement.

National achievements, on the other hand, focus on things that are particularly difficult or novel due to each nation’s specific position in the game. The Italians start out with a very low income, for example, and so I’ve created an achievement for them that is unlocked if they hit 30 IPCs in the collect income phase—a level of wealth that would be very easy for Germany to accomplish, but a lot tougher for Italy. This is a way to instil even more flavour and fun into the board gaming experience. My playgroup has responded very favourably to the addition of an ‘acheivements newsletter’ which I mail out after each new gaming session: it fosters a sense of continuity and gives immediate feedback for good play.

[calvinhobbesliker]

More:
US: Destroy the entire Jap navy in 1 turn:50
China: Never die: 50
India: Actually achieve both NO’s: 20
ANZAC: Get an income of 30 or more: Highest Income

[calvinhobbesliker]

Japan: Capture WUS without letting the other allies take over asia: ∞
US: Capture Japan in 5 turns: ∞
UK/ANZAC: capture Japan: ∞
China: Recapture all original chinese territories: ∞

[Make_It_Round]

Additional Achievements: Global & Europe '40

The Lure of the Lira [Italy]
20 points
Gained when Italy collects 30 IPCs or more during the Collect Income Phase.

Happy Time [Germany]
5 points
Gained for interdicting a US convoy with a sub.

Great Patriotic War [USSR]
15 points
Gained for losing twenty or more units in one turn without losing your capital.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité [France]
20 points
Gained for controlling all French home territories at the beginning of your turn.

Lieutenant
5 points
Gained for winning a battle that lasts at least 5 salvoes.

Market Garden
10 points
Gained for losing an attack with paratroopers.

[calvinhobbesliker]

Why do you get bonuses for LOOSING a battle?

[Make_It_Round]

@calvinhobbesliker:

Why do you get bonuses for LOOSING a battle?

Haven’t you ever heard of a ‘Consolation Prize’?

[calvinhobbesliker]

@i:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Japan: Capture WUS without letting the other allies take over asia: ∞
US: Capture Japan in 5 turns: ∞
UK/ANZAC: capture Japan: ∞
China: Recapture all original chinese territories: ∞

ahh isnt that a lot of points? just a bit?

No, since all of them are almost impossible

[Make_It_Round]

@Make_It_Round:

Gimme Some Mao [China]
25 points
Gained for controlling every Chinese home territory (including those controlled by the Japanese at start of game).

This one is actually quite easy to achieve in games where Japan is losing badly… I gave so many points for it because it’s tough to make Japan lose this badly without them surrendering before it’s literally accomplished within the game.

[Dylan the Canadian]

These are mine, but their PS3 trophies

Bronze-Friendly Suicide: Preform one Kamikaze attack.
Bronze- Ship Murder: Preform three Kamikaze attacks.
Silver- Terrorist: Preform five Kamikaze attacks.
Bronze- Ship Reviver: Repair a battleship or carrier.
Gold- Online addict- Win ten games online
Gold- Always attacking- Win three games in a row online.
Bronze- World leader slayer- Win one game online
Silver- This road is mine-Control Burma Road for 3 turns in a row
Bronze- BOOM!- Preform a strategic bombing
Bronze- The Dutch will never fall- Control all the Dutch islands for 1 whole turn
Bronze- Victory at Japan- Win a game as Japan
Bronze- USA USA USA!- Win a game as US
Silver- God save the queen- Win as the UK
Gold- The murderous kangaroo- Win as ANZAC
Platinum- The Pacific is mine- Earn all other trophies
Bronze- Control all Chinese (as the allies,) for one turn

I might make more.

[The Admirable Admiral]

All Quite on the Western Front: 20pts
Defended a territory where at the end of battle the territory is completely empty.

Down With the Ship: 25pts
Sunk an enemy transport containing an AA gun

Ramming Speed: 5 pts
Destroyed an enemy ship with a carrier

Fix Bayonets 25 pts
Captured a territory that contains at least one enemy unit, excluding AA guns, with a single infantry

Laffy Taffy 3 20 pts
Destroyed an enemy fleet containing at least one battleship with only destroyers

Dive Dive 10 pts
Escaped a battle with a submarine by submerging

[Make_It_Round]

@The:

All Quite on the Western Front: 20pts
Defended a territory where at the end of battle the territory is completely empty.

Down With the Ship: 25pts
Sunk an enemy transport containing an AA gun

Ramming Speed: 5 pts
Destroyed an enemy ship with a carrier

Fix Bayonets 25 pts
Captured a territory that contains at least one enemy unit, excluding AA guns, with a single infantry

Laffy Taffy 3 20 pts
Destroyed an enemy fleet containing at least one battleship with only destroyers

Dive Dive 10 pts
Escaped a battle with a submarine by submerging

Hey Admiral,

Thanks again for your amazing contributions! Really high-quality stuff here, and lots to think about / discuss.

I think that the first one–All Quiet–really captures one of those great in-game moments when both players just sit back and go “Whoa”. If you’ve ever lucked out a victory as the defender with 0 units left, you know just how pleased you are in that situation and how <ahem>not pleased your opponent is.

Down With the Ship is of interest because it represents literally the only game event wherein an AA gun can be destroyed… which is cool, but this will happen so rarely that the achievement might never see the light of day within a particular playgroup. Thus, I would expand it to include the sinking of any loaded enemy transport, and reduce the points awarded to 15… personal preference.

Ramming Speed is a nice idea, but it would mean rolling for all carriers separately on the defence in order to see if it had been achieved, which could be cumbersome… plus, flavour-wise, the ramming ability makes more sense on a destroyer, a ship which made much more frequent use of the ramming tactic. Not sure how I could effectively adapt this one for destroyers off the top of my head unfortunately.

Fix Bayonets reminds me a bit of the Banzai! achievement I first proposed earlier in this thread, but it’s even more hard-man… only one infantry can make the attack, alone!! Insane! That would never be a good attack, statistically speaking; and yet… if it came off… what a glorious victory! Worth celebrating as an achievement, certainly. As it more closely represents the odds of a Banzai charge actually working, I might use your Fix Bayonets as the new Banzai!, and use my old description of Banzai! (a successful mass infantry attack) as a Chinese achievement: Gung Ho.

Laffy Taffy 3 kind of confused me. I don’t know what the name references; is it a historical event / operation, or a bit of A&A strategy jargon? ‘Googling’ didn’t help clear it up for me. I also wasn’t quite sure why mass destroyer buys ought to be celebrated as an achievement… it happens in quite enough of the games I play already, so IMO it’s kind of like giving an achievement away for surviving your ‘Purchase Units’ phase as the US or Japan.

I’m also guessing that Dive Dive is going to come up like every single game for any power with a sub or two in the water. I do think there’s a way to tweak it to make it slightly more challenging / interesting, however… awarding it for mass submersion, say of 3 or more subs in the same battle. What do you think?

Anyway, keep up the great work! I’m sincerely looking forward to your next batch of achievements; hope you’ll take my comments in the constructive spirit they’re intended in.

Best regards,

MIR</ahem>

[finnman]

Make it round can you make a edited master list. My play group will use these. Here’s an idea, avatar awards. 8-) You could have one infantry could be your avatar. He would be treated as an infantry but attack and defend on a two. But like impossible achievement your avatar would get that boost forever. What do you think. :?

[The Admirable Admiral]

We could strike “ramming speed” completely. It was more of an inside joke we had with my game group when carriers attacked at a 1 thath the carrier would just run right through a destroyer or even a battleship.

“Dive Dive” is meant to be an easy one to get but honestly in most battles I’ve found that subs rarely do submerge becuase they are either good fodder or are killed first round of combat or are forced to fight because of an enemy destroyer.

"Down with the ship we could make easier to get by making it include any land unit and a score of 15 seems fair.

“Fix bayonets” I thought of awarding to those gutsy 1 on 1 man battles that turn out to be a victory for the attacker. I must admit it doesn’t happen often but I’ve seen it a few times and I thought it deserves an achievment if someone is lucky enough to pull it off.  Naming this one Banzai might make better sense as you said.

Laffy Taffy 3 is a reference to Taffy 3 a US destroyer squadron that fought off a superior Japanese force of battleships and cruisers at the battle of Leyte gulf. I agree that this would lead to someone just buying mass destroyers and killing a smaller force but this would probably be unlikely since no one would buy that many destroyers its not a good buy. Making the achievement more of an underdog achievement for the destroyers would be the goal I don’t know how we’d do that though.

I’m glad you liked what I’ve come up with so far. And if we get an official list up here maybe people can start using them in games and the first one to like maybe 200 points gets the title of being awesome.

[Make_It_Round]

@finnman:

Make it round can you make a edited master list. My play group will use these. Here’s an idea, avatar awards. 8-) You could have one infantry could be your avatar. He would be treated as an infantry but attack and defend on a two. But like impossible achievement your avatar would get that boost forever. What do you think. :?

Hiya Finnman,

I’m planning to release a master list once Europe '40 comes out… I want to make sure that the achievements I’ve designed will be fun / appropriate / possible once the new board and the actual set-up is revealed. I imagine some minor revisions will be required. Also, Admiral is still coming up with some great ideas that I would like to incorporate in the final list.  :-) In the meantime, I’d love to hear if you have any ideas for new achievements…

Best, M_I_R

P.S.: As for the avatar idea, it’s not a bad one (especially if you have a tightly-knit and casual playgroup)… But I guess I wouldn’t want to see anything too unbalancing coming into the picture, especially before the game gets going; and ‘carrying over’ an advantage from a past game into a present one seems unfair, especially if you’re playing against a different opponant. Personally, I see the ‘achievements’ as icing on the cake, rather than the cake itself (i.e., a mid- or post-game commentary rather than part of the game mechanics themselves). However, if you really wanted an avatar effect that wouldn’t unbalance the game too heavily, how about this:

1. At the beginning of the game, choose 1 normal infantry at your capital and mark it with a counter (of some sort): that is your Avatar. If your Avatar is destroyed, it can be replaced during your next place units phase by building another infantry at your capital, but all of its additional bonuses are lost [see below].

2. For every 20 Acheivement Points you gain during the game, you can give your Avatar either (i) +1 attack, or (ii) +1 defence, with the limit value of ‘4’ for both (i.e., your Avatar can never become more powerful than 4/4, with a movement of 1).

This lets you have one ‘super-unit’: basically, an embodiment of national morale, fitted out with the best possible equipment and personnel. The fun thing about marking it with a counter is that you can track its movements perfectly, giving it a unique divisional history. Thus you could also keep tabs on its combat performance, giving you this final optional rule:

3. For every victory in combat (offensive or defensive), put one ‘Victory’ counter under your Avatar. For every defeat in combat, remove one Victory counter from your Avatar. At any time, you may remove three Victory counters from your Avatar to give it a permanant +1 attack or +1 defence bonus.

[Make_It_Round]

@The:

I’m glad you liked what I’ve come up with so far. And if we get an official list up here maybe people can start using them in games and the first one to like maybe 200 points gets the title of being awesome.

I was thinking the same thing myself: that these could be used during play-by-forum games (as well as live games), wherein it’s very easy to identify (even long after the fact) when the conditions have been met for the awarding of an achievement: could be a kind of “Hats off to you, sir!” moment between players.

For my purposes, I have the achievements laid out in the form of placards, complete with WW2 graphics, that I mail out to players after games. Some achievements the players know about, others are kept secret until their triggering conditions are met… They seem to enjoy getting these updates; it keeps them keen to play more and try to unlock more achievements.

I’ll post some more of these here today; please let me know if you have any thoughts on them:

Iron Cross 1st Class
10 points
Gained for winning a battle against an enemy force 3x your size.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross
15 points
Gained for winning a battle against an enemy force 4x your size.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
20 points
Gained for winning a battle against an enemy force 5x your size.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
25 points
Gained for winning a battle against an enemy force 6x your size.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds
30 points
Gained for winning a battle against an enemy force 7x your size.

Limited Offensive
5 points
Gained for taking three or more territories or islands in one turn.

Total War
25 points
Gained for taking eight or more territories or islands in one turn.

General
5 points
Gained for winning a game.

Two-Star General
10 points
Gained for winning two consecutive games.

Three-Star General
15 points
Gained for winning three consecutive games.

Four-Star General
20 points
Gained for winning four consecutive games.

Five-Star General
25 points
Gained for winning five consecutive games.

Field Marshall
30 points
Gained for winning a tournament.

To the Last Man
10 points
Gained for winning a game wherein your opponent(s) refused to concede until all victory conditions were met.

Captain
10 points
Gained for winning a battle that lasts at least 8 salvoes.

Major
20 points
Gained for winning a battle that lasts at least 10 salvoes.

Welcome to the Club
10 points
Gained for destroying one hundred or more enemy units in one game.

Grizzled Veteran
20 points
Gained for destroying two hundred or more enemy units in one game.

I Am Become Death
30 points
Gained for destroying three hundred or more enemy units in one game.

Hell on Wheels
15 points
Gained for controlling more mechanized infantry than regular infantry.

Crack Shot
5 points
Gained for destroying three or more enemy aircraft with anti-aircraft fire in one battle.

Agitator
10 points
Gained for attacking five or more non-aligned or enemy-aligned neutral countries in one game.

All the Best Toys
30 points
Gained for collecting all 12 weapons developments in one game.

Lion’s Share
15 points
Gained for controlling at least two enemy capital cities.

Round the World in ‘40 Days
10 points
Gained for circumnavigating the globe in Global '40 with at least one sea unit.

Sharpshooter
20 points
Gained for having an overall hit accuracy % equal to or higher than 50% in a game.

Flawless Victory
15 points
Gained for winning any battle wherein you have inflicted at least 5 hits and received 0 in return.

The ‘Big Three’
30 points
Gained for taking territories from each of your three major enemies in the same turn (UK, US, USSR or Italy, Japan, Germany).

Broadside!
15 points
Gained for destroying at least three enemy units with shore bombardment in one battle.

River Plate [Germany]
10 points
Gained for having a German surface warship in any sea zone off of South America.

Desert Fox [Germany]
10 points
Gained for transporting a German tank or mechanized infantry to Africa.

Home by Christmas [Germany]
25 points
Gained for taking Moscow before turn 4.

Sea Lion [Germany]
25 points
Gained for taking London before turn 4.

Wonder Weapons [Germany]
10 points
Gained for getting both ‘Rockets’ and ‘Jets’.

Rattenkrieg [Germany]
10 points
Gained for winning a battle wherein both you and your enemy have lost ten or more units.

Aquila! [Italy]
5 points
Gained for building an aircraft carrier.

Expeditionary Corps [Italy]
10 points
Gained for controlling a USSR home territory.

Solid as a Rock [Italy]
15 points
Gained for controlling Gibraltar, with no Allied sea units in the Med.

Parting the Red Sea [Italy]
20 points
Gained for moving a sea unit through the Suez Canal.

Maltese Falcon [Italy]
15 points
Gained for Axis controlling all islands and air bases in the Mediterranean.

Seat at the Table [Italy]
15 points
Gained for losing forty or more Italian units in one game.

Tora Tora Tora! [Japan]
15 points
Gained for destroying two Allied battleships in one battle.

Divine Wind [Japan]
10 points
Gained for destroying an Allied capital ship with your Kamikaze tokens.

Insult to Injury [Japan]
5 points
Gained for controlling or strategically bombing any ANZAC home territory.

Double Dutch [Japan]
10 points
Gained for controlling all Dutch home territories and islands on the Pacific board.

Tank Drive to Moscow [Japan]
20 points
Gained for controlling a territory adjacent to a German-controlled territory.

Soft Underbelly [UK]
10 points
Gained for destroying thirty Italian units in one game.

Rule, Brittania! [UK]
20 points
Gained for destroying all Axis sea units on the Europe map.

Round the Clock [UK]
10 points
Gained for strategically bombing an Axis territory that an Ally has also strategically bombed since your last turn.

Wild Colonial Boys [ANZAC]
10 points
Gained for controlling an Axis home territory in Europe or Africa.

Midway [US]
15 points
Gained for destroying two Axis aircraft carriers in one battle.

FUBAR [US]
10 points
Gained for winning a battle wherein you have lost at least 2x the number of units than your enemy.

Second Front [US]
10 points
Gained for ending your turn with your units, and the units of one other Ally, in an Axis home territory.

Arsenal of Democracy [US]
10 points
Gained for having units in home territories of both the UK and the USSR.

Tiger Tamer [China]
15 points
Gained for winning your fifth battle involving the Flying Tigers unit.

Kursk Cauldron [USSR]
10 points
Gained for winning a battle wherein both you and an Axis player have lost three or more tanks.

Steppe by Steppe [USSR]
25 points
Gained for controlling Berlin.

Mass Mobilization [USSR]
10 points
Gained for building the maximum possible number of units at each of your industrial complexes during the place new units phase.

Showboat [USSR]
10 points
Gained for building a capital ship.

De Nerve and De Gaulle [USSR/France]
5 points
Gained for winning any attack against the Axis with French units.

[calvinhobbesliker]

All 12 techs in one game???
That would cost at leasst 60 ipcs. Why buy that rather than 20 infantry or 10 tanks?

[i rock]

_Home by Christmas [Germany]
25 points
Gained for taking Moscow before turn 4.

Sea Lion [Germany]
25 points
Gained for taking London before turn 4._
these are like imposibl!

[Dylan the Canadian]

@i:

_Home by Christmas [Germany]
25 points
Gained for taking Moscow before turn 4.

Sea Lion [Germany]
25 points
Gained for taking London before turn 4._
these are like imposibl!

I think those would be worth more points.

[calvinhobbesliker]

Winning a battle against a force 7x your size should get at least 1000 points.

Those that qualify include the Germans defending Tanga in Tanzania in World War 1.

[i rock]

who was fighting?