How would you change the map?

[DukeMikeIII]

i already have added more territories - it adds way more fun - but it will cang money amounts and then you start chaniging everything - and then you get an insane game like me and my nerds did

[Guest]

One change a friend of mine added to his board when we were in college was to add a sea zone off Denmark, splitting the north sea and the Baltic, and populating it with mines.

The mines functioned as “anti-aircraft” for ships and was “owned” by whoever held Berlin.  (each enemy ship entering, roll dice, a 1 = a ship sunk)

Since most folks strongly agree that the game strongly favors the Allies, this little twist was actually a nice addition.

It prevented Russia from reaching the Baltic fleet in R1, made it so that UK needed twice as many transports to land in Karelia, Eastern, and Germany in order to land the same numbers of troops each round (with the risk of losing ships in and out of the Baltic).

It was JUST enough to balance out the game in the early stages (first 10 rounds), which is when most games are decided.

Personally, I think it is a far better answer to balancing the game than Russia Restricted, or “Axis Advantage” that is available in the Hasbro version of A&A.

[Imperious Leader]

For Starters:

1)Get rid of Black ocean which tends to hide the pieces and is hard on the eyes

2. never let “Artists” draw the world while on an acid trip. You need to hire a real Cartographer who traces an actual world map with tasteful and functional topographic sensibilities. I dont want to see spain or Arabia look like they are striken with elephant mans desease.

3. make the map much larger so i can see the numbers and dont have to keep knocking down the damm pieces just to move around. Damm it how difficult and expensive is a freeking piece of cardboard 50 x30? id easily pay extra for  quality.

4. I dont want a superemposed “compass” on my board thanks very much! You can also leave out ghost images of the Yamato, an essex class carrier, or winston churchill thanks very much!

5. You can number the values with slightly larger numbers so i dont have to keep reading what sea zone im moving into or leaving from, or have to find how much something is worth by moving pieces around the small print.

6. You can use a different font for all the characters, and make the sea zones more equal in size and LESS like some haphazard piece of “broken glass”

7. You can probably get rid of United States because the axis dont ever get to invade that nation anyway, and if they did the game would have been over long before that happened. That way the rest of the globe can look more acurate, while you just include a small tract of western and eastern USA. Same goes for S america. Sorry boys from Brazil will have to wait another day.

8. make accurate national names of territories. e.g. Manchuria is actually Manchukuo so get used to it. Also their is no Persia, and what happened to Tankanika Territory? You got nations on the board that werent even formed untill after WW2 ended.

Ok thats enough charges for one day. now breath…. :mrgreen:

[CanucKev]

A minefield? That’s interesting … I may have to try that someday!

[Guest]

@CanucKev:

A minefield? That’s interesting … I may have to try that someday!

Yep, just a little addition… easy to mark on the board, easy to ignore if you don;t like it.  Add “Denmark Straits” to the map, put an X in it for mines (actually we viewed it as a combination of mines and shore-based anti-ship guns), and most of the “traditional” strategies get blown away…

• UK based/returning bombers can’t reach Berlin without flying over Western Europe, and an extra AA in AND out.
• Balitc Fleet could not be sunk immediately by Russians, or easilly attacked by UK
• UK and US could not indiscriminately land forces in Stalingrad
• German Baltic ships could not immediately go from Germany to Labrador or Spanish coast… had to take their chances in UK seas for a time.

In fairness, there should be some other changes to go along with this (rules that are not in the Hasbro version of the game)

1.  Panama Canal cannot be used by Axis if Allies hold Panama, and vice versa.
2.  Suez Canal likewise, with NEITHER side being able to use it if Axis holds one side and Allies hold the other.

Have fun with this folks.  I know Bone and I loved to play for DAYS using these variants.

[Biofury]

I like MB map a little more than the new one, better color tone and topography. The oceans always need to be blue. What I do like about the revised map are the naturally impassable terrains, Sahara and Himalayas and gonna implement that onto my current board somehow.

I did find a south pacific expansion that overlaps the blowup boxes at the bottom right of the map. http://www.kw.igs.net/~tacit/aanda/expansions/sep.htm
It adds IPC value to the tiny islands and increases the value of current japanese controlled territories. The new revised map also increased the value of Borneo and Australia and rasing the larger island territories to “2” and giving the non-valuable islands a “1” should make the pacific theatre more reason to battle there. It even suggests adding a few more units on the board this way. What I dont like about this method is that England has a starting economic value higher than Germany. However Japans is significantly increased and USA slightly increases.

Is it realistic to assume that USSR had a strogner economic value than what the starting map shows? I heard somehwere that the two biggest allied powers were USA and USSR, or was that an foolish source of info?

[Montgomery]

@Biofury:

Is it realistic to assume that USSR had a strogner economic value than what the starting map shows? I heard somehwere that the two biggest allied powers were USA and USSR, or was that an foolish source of info?

Assuming you mean historically, well, Russia basically threw a ton of unarmed men at Germany. So they spent and lost the most men. But not really for great return. It depends on how you want to interpiet that. But, also, Russia was economically a mess. Corupt communism and all.

Anyway, I like the minefield idea a whole lot.

[Guest]

@Montgomery:

Anyway, I like the minefield idea a whole lot.

Glad you like it.  Should allow for a no-bid game with or without RR, and the allies will be hard pressed to win

[trihero]

One thing I don’t like about the Revised map is Greenland. I would say essentially there is no point to it. Greenland is so useless for anything; there’s no point to land there at all because you can land in the UK with aircraft instead. It’s only useful if Germany controlled Britain and you wanted to stage some US fighters there but in that case you’ve already lost the game. Even though Gibraltar is a 0 IPC territory, at least you do use it sometimes to land aircraft…

[Imperious Leader]

I agree good points i think they serve as you stated as “unsinkable aircraft carriers”.

[triforce]

I think that most of the Neutral zones could be done away with.  Most of them can be gone around using the same amount of movement as going through.  The exceptions are (and these should be kept) Sahara, Hymilia (sp), and Afghanistan.

[critmonster]

reduce the size of the sahara, we know what it is and where it is so get it out of egypt and give me more room in north africa! also, every island should be worth a buck so usa MIGHT go south pacific for a change

[tekkyy]

This is a project on its own.

To be realised in a ultra-high-res file so we print it on A4 and photocopy it to A0 or A-1 at the shops.

[Imperious Leader]

Additional pacific islands could be added, Under the new victory cities we have added some from pacific islands. This may make the pacific war more possible.

WE will offer 2 maps:  1) will be original (exact) 2) will be with Italy and a few additional territories and possible “other” things.

[Jennifer]

I think you need to double the value of all territories.

You need to make each neutral nation valuable (common, Spain’s worth at least 2 IPCs…Angola 1, etc.)

You need to get more sea zones in between the US and UK and the US an Japan (to make naval invasions/support riskier forcing the purchase of capital ships)

You need to make all starting territories worth at least 1 IPC

Some of the Pacific Island Groups should be divided into multiple territories (ie Phillipines should be at least 2 zones, solomons maybe 2 zones, etc.)

And you might want to redress the value of units as well.  Certain things like Russian bombers would be more expensive then British bombers.  German BBs would be more expensive then Japanese BBs, etc.

I had a few rulesets I worked with on this.  None of them were fully balanced, but at least it changed the game a bit.  Heck, if you view each turn as a month, we almost followed the real war once!

[Imperious Leader]

Some of what you stated is being done in phase two and three. AS an optional rule under p3 we will come up with a system allowing for national unit values, however i don’t believe this will be possible under a d6 system. Allowing only 6 possible “chits” of value is not gonna cut it. A d12 system will be offered.

In the games terms Larry Harris views the turns as segments of 4-6 month time frame… not one month so the contention is really to go with one of the two time schedules i had posted in another thread namely 4 or 6 month turns.

Under phase two neutrals will have value and armies and we will present some diplomacy rules to “sway” neutrals into allied or axis camps. The possibility of minor axis nations  will be addressed.

WE feel ( our team) does not support changes on the map… we don’t want to lose the audience… except we will add Italy as a 6th nation and recolor existing territories that apply. WE considered changing islands ( adding more) but it again will make it something different from the presented aesthetic of the game.

We intend on adding new units under optional rules in p2.

Id like to see what ideas you came up with on the unit values…

[JamesG]

@Montgomery:

@Biofury:

Is it realistic to assume that USSR had a strogner economic value than what the starting map shows? I heard somehwere that the two biggest allied powers were USA and USSR, or was that an foolish source of info?

Assuming you mean historically, well, Russia basically threw a ton of unarmed men at Germany. So they spent and lost the most men. But not really for great return. It depends on how you want to interpiet that. But, also, Russia was economically a mess. Corupt communism and all.

Umm, historically, I think the russian t-34 was the most produced tank in the world during the course of the war, and Russia overall produced more tanks than Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II

So Russia was doing a lot more than just throwing “a ton of unarmed men at Germany”.  So, to answer your question Biofury, yes Russia should have more IPCs “realistically”.  But that would throw game balance out the window.

PS - the minefield is a neat idea.

[tekkyy]

@JamesG:

PS - the minefield is a neat idea.

The idea of mines (land or naval) comes up now and then.
But you don’t have a whole armor or destroyer division destroyed or disabled by mines. :lol:

At most it would be modelled by a -1 modifier for attacking ARM/DD for the first combat cycle.

A d12 system will be offered.

People can then emulate with d6. The income system can also be tuned without troubling gameplay . Last time I played we left the IPC papers aside and just wrote down what you have.

[Adonai]

A&A Pacific and Europe managed to expand upon the standard A&A map without losing it’s audiance. Increasing activity and complexity at the fronts would, IMO add to the fun of the game. By modifying the map you could revitalise fronts that up to know have been disregarded in standard play. Adding new battlegrounds encourages the creation of new strategies, and the more paths there are the more strategies for each path there will be. For example; by adding Italy to the game as planned, you refocus the goals of both Germany and Italy. One change has created the availability of many new strategies - why not make more?

[Jennifer]

@ncscswitch:

@CanucKev:

A minefield? That’s interesting … I may have to try that someday!

In fairness, there should be some other changes to go along with this (rules that are not in the Hasbro version of the game)

1.  Panama Canal cannot be used by Axis if Allies hold Panama, and vice versa.
2.  Suez Canal likewise, with NEITHER side being able to use it if Axis holds one side and Allies hold the other.

I thought those were canal rules already??

Also, yea, I agree, bombers should have to fly over Eastern Europe, Southern Europe or France to get to Germany and every AA gun should be allowed to fire that has bombers flying over it or around it. (ie:  Britian sends 1 bomber to SBR germany.  France gets a shot AND Germany gets a shot.  France then gets another shot on the return trip.)

Tell ya one thing, SBRs would be alot more realistic and would require more then 2-3 bombers from the allies to reduce Germany to a smoldering wasteland!