Worst Alpha Modifications
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@Cmdr:
I can see that, James. Honestly, I’d rather have “total” victory instead of VCs and accomplish that by weakening the United States greatly and/or buffing the Axis.
Yes, have the nation that has to spend in two theaters make less than Germany or Japan. :-D
Total victory is defined as:
- Allies, Reducing both Germany AND Japan to their home countries or conquering their capitols (both).
- Axis, Taking any 2 capitols from: England, Russia and/or The United States (not defined as India!)
Say hello to 100% KGF every single game with no exceptions.
- i.e. OOB
My copy/paste missed the Financial victory condition, circa Classic or “Vanilla” Axis and Allies.
If the combined income of all three axis powers meets or exceeds a certain threshhold (I chose 200 IPC, but we can play with it to find a good balance) then the Axis wins.
Keep in mind, each VC is now worth 3 IPC to each nation (total of +9 for the Axis!) so you can rack up income pretty fast. (Philippines +11, KSU +11, Hong Kong +12, Hawaii +10, France +13 etc that alone is 57 IPC toward the Achievement.)
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@Cmdr:
I can see that, James. Honestly, I’d rather have “total” victory instead of VCs and accomplish that by weakening the United States greatly and/or buffing the Axis.
I doubt the game designers want to move in the direction of a game that takes several hours to get to the point where either the Axis have won or it is apparant they can’t win to a game that takes two or three times that long to play to total vicotry.
Well, as I said, my post was trunkated, the Financial Win path was not pasted in.
Basically, I want America to have to GROW TO GREATNESS. Give them incentives to “island hop” to get their finances up. Slow their arses down a bit. Make the player sweat like FDR and wonder if they have to go relieve England and piss off the people or chase the Japanese and risk England falling (but show the people they went to war because they were attacked, not because FDR was salivating at the thought of global conquest.) I am, of course, not trying to put thoughts in FDR’s head, just a thought exercise.
Historically, America hit almost all the islands listed. Marshals, Carolines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc. If you really want to keep the NO income, them Wake = 5, Midway = 5 and Continental = 5; remove Mexico, Alaska and slash the Continental in half.
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Yeah I really dont think the allies need to be any weaker. There is no reason to under-represent the US’s industrial capability from WW2. By 1943 the US was producing more war material then all 3 Axis powers combined. So there is really no reason from a historical standpoint to reduce the US’s income. While I can see that from a game balance perspective the 80IPC might seem unfair to the axis, thats only at face value. By the end of G1 with territorial conquest and NO money Germany could be collecting nearly 50IPCs. This is nearly the same as waht the US will be producing for the first 3 turns of the game. While this is going on the 2 countries are not at war and all of Germany’s resources are being thrown against a 30IPC UK economy or being prepared to be thrown at a 37IPC Soviet economy. Meanwhile, the rest of the axis powers(Japan and Italy) are at around 40-45IPC economy combined. this gives the Axis a total combined economy of around 90IPC. This is during the rounds before the US’s entry into the war at the begining of round 4, so the total allied economy is only around 65-75IPCs between UK (europe and pacific) ANZAC and China. It balances out a bit more for the alies if you factor in the Soviet money, but they only really come online at about the same time as the US. So for 3 full rounds the Axis powers can either hammer the UK, ANZAC forces, and prepare to hit the Soviets and the US. The Axis should be able to hit these countries and buy themselves several more turns before that US money really even comes into play.
If the Axis can not capitalize on this economic edge against their existing enemies before the US or the Soviets get involved, then why make the US weaker? What would it really do but prolong the game? If the jig is up, then why meaninglessly pad out the gameplay? -
Yeah I really dont think the allies need to be any weaker. There is no reason to under-represent the US’s industrial capability from WW2. By 1943 the US was producing more war material then all 3 Axis powers combined. So there is really no reason from a historical standpoint to reduce the US’s income. While I can see that from a game balance perspective the 80IPC might seem unfair to the axis, thats only at face value. By the end of G1 with territorial conquest and NO money Germany could be collecting nearly 50IPCs. This is nearly the same as waht the US will be producing for the first 3 turns of the game. While this is going on the 2 countries are not at war and all of Germany’s resources are being thrown against a 30IPC UK economy or being prepared to be thrown at a 37IPC Soviet economy. Meanwhile, the rest of the axis powers(Japan and Italy) are at around 40-45IPC economy combined. this gives the Axis a total combined economy of around 90IPC. This is during the rounds before the US’s entry into the war at the begining of round 4, so the total allied economy is only around 65-75IPCs between UK (europe and pacific) ANZAC and China. It balances out a bit more for the alies if you factor in the Soviet money, but they only really come online at about the same time as the US. So for 3 full rounds the Axis powers can either hammer the UK, ANZAC forces, and prepare to hit the Soviets and the US. The Axis should be able to hit these countries and buy themselves several more turns before that US money really even comes into play.
If the Axis can not capitalize on this economic edge against their existing enemies before the US or the Soviets get involved, then why make the US weaker? What would it really do but prolong the game? If the jig is up, then why meaninglessly pad out the gameplay?I agree, a perfect example of this window of opportunity closing for the axis is the ridicules victory condition the allies have. I mean, has anyone really seen the allies take all 3 capitals before they are declared the winner. Most of our games hardly need one capital conquered, before the axis realize that they are all but done for.
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Allies generally need one and a really good shot at another for us to conceed our games. (That one being Italy because they get farmed so easily now.) Which is the primary reason I want to strip the Americans down and force them to pay significant attention to what they are doing. With most of their money in harder to attain (not hard to attain, HARDER) islands in the Pacific they should have less to use to hit Italy with and thus, Italy should have a modest ability to first survive and second prosper again.
I understand the days of a 60 IPC Italy are probably over. Fine. I didnt really like it anyway. However, now we’re at a 0 IPC Italy in almost all of our games. (0 collected, not 0 in holdings necesarily.) And it’s all due to America.
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@Cmdr:
I understand the days of a 60 IPC Italy are probably over. Fine. I didnt really like it anyway. However, now we’re at a 0 IPC Italy in almost all of our games. (0 collected, not 0 in holdings necesarily.) And it’s all due to America.
I think your blaming the wrong country here for Italy’s demise. I mean, America really dosnt factor into the Med. until turn 4 or more often 5, and by that time Italy has already been totally castrated by the UK. Realisticly, Italys best chance for gaining an larger economy is going to be done at the expense of the UK, in both material loss(gaining NO) and territorial loss (in Africa). So if Italy is getting extreamly hampered by the UK on their first turn, then isnt the US really just hammering the last nail into the coffin? I mean it seems to me that if the UK can cut Italy off from growing economicaly then the issue has been deicded and it wont matter if the US makes 50IPC a turn or 180IPC a turn, Italy will never recover from this first turn loss no matter how long you stretch out game play for.
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@Cmdr:
Allies generally need one and a really good shot at another for us to conceed our games. (That one being Italy because they get farmed so easily now.) Which is the primary reason I want to strip the Americans down and force them to pay significant attention to what they are doing. With most of their money in harder to attain (not hard to attain, HARDER) islands in the Pacific they should have less to use to hit Italy with and thus, Italy should have a modest ability to first survive and second prosper again.
I understand the days of a 60 IPC Italy are probably over. Fine. I didnt really like it anyway. However, now we’re at a 0 IPC Italy in almost all of our games. (0 collected, not 0 in holdings necesarily.) And it’s all due to America.
What is Japan doing while America is hammering the Italians?
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@Young:
@Cmdr:
Allies generally need one and a really good shot at another for us to conceed our games. (That one being Italy because they get farmed so easily now.) Which is the primary reason I want to strip the Americans down and force them to pay significant attention to what they are doing. With most of their money in harder to attain (not hard to attain, HARDER) islands in the Pacific they should have less to use to hit Italy with and thus, Italy should have a modest ability to first survive and second prosper again.
I understand the days of a 60 IPC Italy are probably over. Fine. I didnt really like it anyway. However, now we’re at a 0 IPC Italy in almost all of our games. (0 collected, not 0 in holdings necesarily.) And it’s all due to America.
What is Japan doing while America is hammering the Italians?
It doesnt take 80 IPC a round to hammer the Italians anymore. I do it with 2 carriers, a destroyer, 6 transports and after that a pittiful 23 IPC a round in ground forces thereafter.
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@Cmdr:
@Young:
@Cmdr:
Allies generally need one and a really good shot at another for us to conceed our games. (That one being Italy because they get farmed so easily now.) Which is the primary reason I want to strip the Americans down and force them to pay significant attention to what they are doing. With most of their money in harder to attain (not hard to attain, HARDER) islands in the Pacific they should have less to use to hit Italy with and thus, Italy should have a modest ability to first survive and second prosper again.
I understand the days of a 60 IPC Italy are probably over. Fine. I didnt really like it anyway. However, now we’re at a 0 IPC Italy in almost all of our games. (0 collected, not 0 in holdings necesarily.) And it’s all due to America.
What is Japan doing while America is hammering the Italians?
It doesnt take 80 IPC a round to hammer the Italians anymore. I do it with 2 carriers, a destroyer, 6 transports and after that a pittiful 23 IPC a round in ground forces thereafter.
You’re right, I support the UK forces in the Med with an aircraft carrrier and 1 fighter, 1 cruiser, 2 destroyers, and 3 loaded transports.
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@Cmdr:
I can see that, James. Honestly, I’d rather have “total” victory instead of VCs and accomplish that by weakening the United States greatly and/or buffing the Axis.
I doubt the game designers want to move in the direction of a game that takes several hours to get to the point where either the Axis have won or it is apparant they can’t win to a game that takes two or three times that long to play to total vicotry.
Yeah, the last time we decided to “play it out” from an official Axis victory, it really stretched out the game. The Axis won in round 8 I think. Basically, it was one night’s worth of playing. When we kept going, eventually the Allies overwhelmed the Axis and it took 19 rounds. That took all of the next day plus into the next weekend. I should point out that before the Axis won with 8 VCs on the Europe board, Japan had already been taken out due to a huge blunder of leaving their capital unprotected. They had a decent navy in SZ 6, but NO land or air units on Japan itself. The US went in with anything that could reach and it was a tough naval battle. However, the US land units just had to walk into Tokyo. After that, the rest of the Japanese navy was hunted down and they had to push through a rather large army presence on the mainland. If Japan hadn’t made such a blunder, who knows how long the game might have lasted.
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@Cmdr:
I can see that, James. Honestly, I’d rather have “total” victory instead of VCs and accomplish that by weakening the United States greatly and/or buffing the Axis.
I doubt the game designers want to move in the direction of a game that takes several hours to get to the point where either the Axis have won or it is apparant they can’t win to a game that takes two or three times that long to play to total vicotry.
Yeah, the last time we decided to “play it out” from an official Axis victory, it really stretched out the game. The Axis won in round 8 I think. Basically, it was one night’s worth of playing. When we kept going, eventually the Allies overwhelmed the Axis and it took 19 rounds. That took all of the next day plus into the next weekend. I should point out that before the Axis won with 8 VCs on the Europe board, Japan had already been taken out due to a huge blunder of leaving their capital unprotected. They had a decent navy in SZ 6, but NO land or air units on Japan itself. The US went in with anything that could reach and it was a tough naval battle. However, the US land units just had to walk into Tokyo. After that, the rest of the Japanese navy was hunted down and they had to push through a rather large army presence on the mainland. If Japan hadn’t made such a blunder, who knows how long the game might have lasted.
Yes, that is why I put in the Financial victory rule.
@Cmdr:
I can see that, James. Honestly, I’d rather have “total” victory instead of VCs and accomplish that by weakening the United States greatly and/or buffing the Axis.
I doubt the game designers want to move in the direction of a game that takes several hours to get to the point where either the Axis have won or it is apparant they can’t win to a game that takes two or three times that long to play to total vicotry.
Yeah, the last time we decided to “play it out” from an official Axis victory, it really stretched out the game. The Axis won in round 8 I think. Basically, it was one night’s worth of playing. When we kept going, eventually the Allies overwhelmed the Axis and it took 19 rounds. That took all of the next day plus into the next weekend. I should point out that before the Axis won with 8 VCs on the Europe board, Japan had already been taken out due to a huge blunder of leaving their capital unprotected. They had a decent navy in SZ 6, but NO land or air units on Japan itself. The US went in with anything that could reach and it was a tough naval battle. However, the US land units just had to walk into Tokyo. After that, the rest of the Japanese navy was hunted down and they had to push through a rather large army presence on the mainland. If Japan hadn’t made such a blunder, who knows how long the game might have lasted.
Exactly, it does not take much. Just enough to be too costly for Germany or Italy to attack and enough transports and ground forces to put “threat” on Italy. After you get that established, it’s only 23 - 27 IPC worth of ground units being shucked into Africa and walked over to the Middle East or dumped in Gibraltar to run into Spain once large enough.
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Are we a bunch of negative Nellys if “the worst of” poll boasts 5 pages, and “the best of” poll has less than 1?
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@Young:
Are we a bunch of negative Nellys if “the worst of” poll boasts 5 pages, and “the best of” poll has less than 1?
There’s a best of? Dang. ^_~
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@mantlefan:
@Young:
Are we a bunch of negative Nellys if “the worst of” poll boasts 5 pages, and “the best of” poll has less than 1?
No.
The best of where people can say “I like this” and that’s all that needs to be said. Here is where people present problems they perceive. Then come attempts at solutions. The fact that many of these “worst” things are and have been problems means there’s a lot of disagreement and therefore more posts.
I guess you’re right, because there’s not much disagreement in regards to scrambling being the best improvement, but this poll is very diverse.
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Best of:
AA Guns
ScramblingWorst Of:
Setup changes
Russian NOIndifferent:
Convoys -
I voted for the aa gun, it seems the most obvious fail with far reaching effects.
Scrambling- best in Alpha over OOB
Convoys- A3 system is warming to me, however I think some ships should be excluded from raiding, making less units capable of doing it. Perhaps only Subs, CA’s, and tac bmbs.
SBR- meh, I liked A2 for the logic of the system, but I rarely bomb as is.
NOs-A2 NO’s were good other than US and USSR, and A3 has not improved those.
unit setup-all FUBAR’ed because of the aa gun mishap that near breaks the game.
Political-still very wrong, why is it that we cannot have a sleak DOW system? No more ‘leave it up to the players to make a pact’. Also fix the neutrals so they are a part of this game, Larry took the time to add them to the board and put units on them…
Tech- I don’t tech and see it as the one area that is easiest to house rule.
AAguns-projectile vomits
Kamikaze- how has these changed? I was unaware.
Turn order-I still think Italy should be moved up to before UK, add more UK units if needed.
Mongolian rule-A3 tried to fix this, but didn’t go far enough. Take Mongolia out of the ‘true neutral’ camp and make it dependent on Jap/Rus relations. I do prefer those 6 scattered inf to the 12 ipcs of A2. -
I voted for the aa gun, it seems the most obvious fail with far reaching effects.
Scrambling- best in Alpha over OOB
Convoys- A3 system is warming to me, however I think some ships should be excluded from raiding, making less units capable of doing it. Perhaps only Subs, CA’s, and tac bmbs.
SBR- meh, I liked A2 for the logic of the system, but I rarely bomb as is.
NOs-A2 NO’s were good other than US and USSR, and A3 has not improved those.
unit setup-all FUBAR’ed because of the aa gun mishap that near breaks the game.
Political-still very wrong, why is it that we cannot have a sleak DOW system? No more ‘leave it up to the players to make a pact’. Also fix the neutrals so they are a part of this game, Larry took the time to add them to the board and put units on them…
Tech- I don’t tech and see it as the one area that is easiest to house rule.
AAguns-projectile vomits
Kamikaze- how has these changed? I was unaware.
Turn order-I still think Italy should be moved up to before UK, add more UK units if needed.
Mongolian rule-A3 tried to fix this, but didn’t go far enough. Take Mongolia out of the ‘true neutral’ camp and make it dependent on Jap/Rus relations. I do prefer those 6 scattered inf to the 12 ipcs of A2.Battleships should disrupt convoys, that was the main goal for releasing the Bizmarck.
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@Young:
I voted for the aa gun, it seems the most obvious fail with far reaching effects.
Scrambling- best in Alpha over OOB
Convoys- A3 system is warming to me, however I think some ships should be excluded from raiding, making less units capable of doing it. Perhaps only Subs, CA’s, and tac bmbs.
SBR- meh, I liked A2 for the logic of the system, but I rarely bomb as is.
NOs-A2 NO’s were good other than US and USSR, and A3 has not improved those.
unit setup-all FUBAR’ed because of the aa gun mishap that near breaks the game.
Political-still very wrong, why is it that we cannot have a sleak DOW system? No more ‘leave it up to the players to make a pact’. Also fix the neutrals so they are a part of this game, Larry took the time to add them to the board and put units on them…
Tech- I don’t tech and see it as the one area that is easiest to house rule.
AAguns-projectile vomits
Kamikaze- how has these changed? I was unaware.
Turn order-I still think Italy should be moved up to before UK, add more UK units if needed.
Mongolian rule-A3 tried to fix this, but didn’t go far enough. Take Mongolia out of the ‘true neutral’ camp and make it dependent on Jap/Rus relations. I do prefer those 6 scattered inf to the 12 ipcs of A2.Battleships should disrupt convoys, that was the main goal for releasing the Bizmarck.
They do. 1d6 max 3 dmg
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Read JimmyHat’s post, Jen.
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any ship should dissrupt convoys if you really think about it. a destroyer is the same thing as a battleship against an unarmed merchant vessel. In axis and allies turns it is like killing a transport. No big deal. The battleship bissmark was intended to disrupt convoys and lower the morale of the United Kingdom, while as a destroyer would easily be destroyed and not thought twice about. All ships should be able to do damage to convoys. Get rid of adding more dice to the game. Alpha 2 had it right.
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