• Dont bang your head against the wall attempting to find exactly which panzer divisions were where in May 1940 or whatever.  Liberties are taken in the name of gameplay.

  • Official Q&A

    rock 'n roll is correct.  There is no exact date, but that’s the general time frame.


  • if more precise answer are appreciated, than feel free to ask me, since i have a degree in history and can do some research about some topics.

    greetz


  • Yeah, there’s something that gets me with the timeline of this set-up.

    Theoretically the game begins right after the allied evacuation at Dunkirk (Germans are in possession of Belgium, but not France), which would set the game at June 3rd-5th, 1940. This makes sense as the usual G1 move is taking France, (Paris fell on June 10th, the rest of France surrendered on the 22nd).

    The USSR set-up, however, includes the Baltic States as Soviet territory. These territories weren’t invaded until June 16th, well after Paris fell.

    Basically, there was no point in time in which the Baltic states were Soviet, but Paris was still French.

    Obviously the game is set-up for superior gameplay, not ridiculous historical accuracy, and I like this. I only nitpick because I can.

  • Customizer

  • '13

    Since there are British units in France, Dunkirk hasn’t happened yet.  I assume the Brit units represent the BEF.  So call it Spring of '40.


  • @17Mark71:

    Since there are British units in France, Dunkirk hasn’t happened yet.  I assume the Brit units represent the BEF.  So call it Spring of '40.

    Umm, you do realize that the Dunkirk evacuation didn’t remove all British forces in France, right?


  • How much time is a round of play? one month, one season (winter, summer…), six month?


  • @MEGAEINSTEIN:

    How much time is a round of play? one month, one season (winter, summer…), six month?

    It’s very elastic

  • Official Q&A

    Here’s what Larry had to say about it:

    Let me go even deeper for a moment and talk about “time” – “Time” in this game is like a rubberband. I’m not telling you definitively that these events are taking place in June 1940, and here’s snapshot of the military situation. I can’t! It doesn’t work for the Axis & Allies I know and love. If it did ships would be able to move a lot more than 2 spaces per turn. If it did aircraft could have made their way around the world a couple of times during a round. I kind of start the game at a stated date, a date with some historical significance. I try to represent the game’s world in its political divides or territories for the stated starting date. You, as the player, can expect certain historical events to be part of the story. Where time goes from there is anybodies guess. it’s a rubberband. Like a rubberband sometimes “time” is expanded and sometimes it’s contracted. I go from macro to micro in a micro second, if you can measure time in those realms.

    Often people ask me what a round represents in time. To keep it simple I respond that a round is roughly 3 or 4 months. A lot of times the game seems to follow that time logic. If a round really was 3 or 4 months it would take around (6.3 call it) 7 rounds to go from June 1940 to December 1941. Two very distinct dates in this game. I immediately concluded that from an “enjoyment” point of view, 6 or 7 rounds was too many rounds to go through before getting all the powers in the fight. As it is now, the last possible holdout, Russia, can go to war on turn 4 should the Germans not attack them before then. There’s one good example of game-play trumping history/time.

    I’m happy if I can get historical events to occur in chronological order. You know… Battle of France, Battle of Britain, Barbarossa, Pearl Harbor and so… I don’t even consider all the powers to be in the same time frame when they are all going through their first turns. I can’t… When Germany takes its first turn in the Global game the clock has already starting ticking. By the time Japan’s first turn comes around the world is already a different place. French Indo-China has no mother country any longer. Who can say what the exact date it is at any given moment.


  • Our Master LH has made a very interesting dissertation about time.

    Something that stands out frm what he said: each round may represent 3,4 months.

    This leads to a really interesting hipotesis: each round=3month, each season(winter…)=3month

    So each round would represent winter»spring»summer»autumn»…

    This is interesting for SU territories:

    summer: all clear
    autumn: lots of mud - very difficult movement (german tanks move 1 space, infantry and artillery roll a die and only move rolling 1,2 or 3)
    winter: snow - germans die of cold and starvation (roll a die for each german unit - on each 1 one hit)
    spring: lots of mud - very difficult to move


  • I like Larry’s post.  One way to look at the game is to see both the chronological and spatial elements as being elastic (or, to put it another way, as artistic interpretations) : they’re modeled on the real historical timeline and on real geography, and they correspond reasonably well to both, but each has had some adjustments made for the sake of playability.

    For the chronological aspect, the timeline is adjusted in the way Larry describes.  For the spatial elements, the map uses variable scales.  Some areas of the board are larger than in reality because major battles of WWII took place there, and the map needs to provide enough space to replicate them.  Other areas of the board (like parts of the Pacific Ocean) are smaller than in reality because nothing much happened there; by making these areas smaller, the map saves space that can be used to make more important areas larger.  It’s a good trade-off.

  • '13

    @calvinhobbesliker:

    @17Mark71:

    Since there are British units in France, Dunkirk hasn’t happened yet.  I assume the Brit units represent the BEF.  So call it Spring of '40.

    Umm, you do realize that the Dunkirk evacuation didn’t remove all British forces in France, right?

    Yes I know the rest of them surrendered, but if the Germans haven’t invaded France yet then Dunkirk hasn’t happened yet……right?

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    winter: snow - germans die of cold and starvation (roll a die for each german unit - on each 1 one hit)

    That would be nuts,  and you’d have to do the same for the soviets.  I would just make it specific to certain territories.  That said as well,  you might as well make a rule where the soviets see if they just surrender before every battle.  It’s was a 7 Russian to 1 German kill ratio on the eastern front.


  • @17Mark71:

    Yes I know the rest of them surrendered, but if the Germans haven’t invaded France yet then Dunkirk hasn’t happened yet……right?

    look, dunkirk is some 10 or 20 kilometers from belgium. no real distance, though. ;)

    and: IT IS JUST A GAME! :D (a really good one!)

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