Where are the updated rules with the 20 “minor fixes”? They were supposed to be out months ago? It’s impossible to read through the threads. Let me guess “soon”?
Development of Alternate Version of Rules
-
Upon seeing this original post I’ve also been trying to create a one month turn, but I have one question and one request. My question is how do you deal with purchasing units when a turn is one month and most of my military buddies say combat training now a days is about 4 months. My solution was to buy four turns in advance and each nation would get pre determined units for the first three turns. Did you do something similar. My request which also comes with a question is, could you post your setup charts you’ve created, because I’ve found nations like German and France very easy to find but Britain given the size of its empire very difficult to find the exact dispositions of units. The question that goes along with that is what scale are you using. For me it seemed most logical to use divisions for tanks and infantry and such, wings for airplanes, and groups of 500 or so for artillery. I also favor a 12 sided die combat system to allow more variation within units, because its fair to say that in the beginning of the war German infantry would be better than Russian infantry due to more experience and stalin’s great purge. Also with regards to strategic combat I had the idea to add counter battery fire so artillery can fire to destroy other artillery pieces in current combats or future combat zone. Sorry for the disorganization and rambling nature of this post, I’m replying on my phone so it’s hard to format this into paragraphs.
Rohr, I’ve thought about that. Taking turns to mobilize units… It would be more realistic - you are absolutely right. For Infantry, you can assume that the training has already been done and when you ‘purchase’ new units they are then mobilized. However, you’re correct about the timeline. So, we’re going to work on this. Making a battleship takes time. All of this depends upon a country’s infrastructure too. Great question and point!
For set up - funny - we were just having this conversation… We used number of troops as a baseline - but a unit on the board includes more than just numbers (1 Infantry = 30,000-50,000 troops): training, equipment, communications, leadership, and combat power. All those factors go into set-up. So, for example, in 1939 Germany had I believe about 2000-3000 tanks maybe - 6 panzer divisions entered Poland in 1939 out of 63 divisions. The Russians had about 19,000 tanks. Russian tanks in 1939 were not very good - the German tanks weren’t much better, but: they had communications equipment in their lead tanks, better tank officers who understood tank warfare (although the Russians had just as good tank theorists as the Germans - i.e. Tuchachevsky - but he was killed by Stalin). So, we give the Russians 5 tanks in 1939. They have more tanks but probably the same amount of combat power… Set-up is difficult.
The French boasted that they had 5,000,000 reservists and fielded about 900,000 men in the field in 1939. But, essentially, this was a World War I army. It was ‘larger’ than the German army at the time - but on the game board the French won’t have more troops than the Germans because the Germans were a better army.
The other reason why we shy away from a strict ‘numbers of troops’ ratio to game board pieces is because the Russians later in the war were moving around 400 divisions. We can’t have 400 infantry on the board - or anything close to it. So, we decided to make infantry represent more and added other factors.
I have set-up charts but they’re not quite right. We tried to stick to the set-up charts of other versions and make adjustments, but we did have to change. For example, the Russians may have had a battleship in 1939, but was it the equivalent to a German or American battleship? No. In terms of combat power it was a cruiser - so that’s what we gave to them…
The counter-battery idea is interesting. I’ll talk to the other game designer. It certainly happened in WW2 but the question is how effective was it on the strategic level. Could an artillery battery really take out another artillery battery during a battle - with pin-point precision? In a large territory - hundreds of square miles? Maybe. Aircraft can certainly select artillery units - we do have that in the game… Maybe the Weapons development ‘Advanced Artillery’ can do something like that - or at least select targets they want to fire at in a battle. That might work… Thank you for your post. You bring up some good ideas. This is precisely the reason why we posted this thread.
-
Where are you guys located?
-
Nashville area.
-
I am the “other designer” for this working group on the Alternate Version with Bud T. Thanks for the many questions and comments on this board that help us develop these rules. I think the Global AA map is an excellent start. The alterations we have suggested are key: terrain, a few spaces added in land areas, and some adjustment of sea spaces. We have altered the movements of ships for combat vs. non-combat movement to address realistic timeframes.
One area of concern for us is this: can planes and ships during a month complete a strategic mission AND a tactical mission on the player’s turn? In other words is there evidence that a bomber group based in England did strategic bombing raids and then perhaps went on a sub-hunting tactical mission in the SAME month? Right now we have gone back and forth with having a strategic mission OR a tactical mission but not both. We tried having both and it was not a great example because in our current test two of the countries have heavy bombers which were very advantageous to use in both a strategic and tactical manner.
It is hard to determine the size of a “bomber plane” on the AA board. We perhaps consider the plane to be approximately 500-1000 planes depending on quality, pilots, types, etc. If any of you find some historical examples, let us know.
Game set-up is a huge issue for us right now. The problem is that the game will never completely recreate World War 2 as it was. The idea of “Blitzkrieg” is very suspect in 1939 and even in France and Russia in 1940-41. German armor was of poor quality in the beginning of the war. It is hard to translate this into “tank” pieces on a board. Russia had 19000 armored vehicles in 1939. But in game terms this is not 19 tanks or even 10 tanks. The T-26 was not a great tank nor was the BT5 or even the KV1. The T28 was better but was slow. But German armor was not that good either. PZI’s and II’s and even III’s were not that effective. The Czech armor was better. But a “tank” on the board has a number of factors we are considering: number, tank design, mobility, range, skill of crew including leadership, communications, logistics, and especially tactics. In the beginning of the war in 1941 the Soviets fielded large numbers of tanks but lacked critical areas. So did the French (like not having radios in their tanks). German tactics and training and especially leadership (who can compete with Heinz Guderian?) were a large factor in Wehrmacht success.
During the Winter War with Finland, it took the Soviets at least 4 months (4 turns) to really take the small area east of Helsinki and maybe a northern part. They had 600,000 casualties. The Finns about 65,000. Recreating this in game terms but unit placement in the beginning of the game is one of our greatest challenges.
There are peculiar aspects as to actually what happened in the War that may be just lucky instances that are hard to recreate in the game. Almost 2.5 million Soviets surrendered in 1941. This is almost as many men as the US put in Europe in the entire war (combatant and non-combatant).
One other thing: what do you guys think of this? Mobile artillery gives infantry OR tanks +1 on offense? Tanks attack on 4. Too much?
-
yeah as far as placement, i decided to break units down into the lowest strategic autonomous unit, so division for infantry and tanks, groups for planes, and for guns i used a number not a organization. so for example in the beginning of the game i gave germany 11 bombers to represent the 11 gruppes they had at the onset of the war. i know this means that you’re going to have large numbers of units on the board especially in places like russia. so in order to deal with this i just bought several different colored chips from hbb to allow these kind of large armies.
as for the mobile artillery giving a +1 to tanks, i think this and other tactical options are harder on a d6 version. thats why i prefer a d12 or even d20 version. this allows for you to represent things like superior German training and the difficulties the russians faced in the beginning of the war because of the purge stalin commenced in the interwar years. as well as creating several special units like japanese light tanks, the various special german tanks, or even rushing the training of units so players on their last leg can create new divisions with lower rolls but faster build times. this only applies to my version i’m trying to create because i have 4 turns of predetermined mobilization for all the powers, and you buy things four turns in advance to keep with the general notion that combat training is about 4 months.
-
three more things.
- what kind of map changes did you find necessary? i have heard several people talking about the way turkey is divided up, and just based on historical knowledge i have of the region i could see a different design making sense. i personally so far have divided western poland into 3 zones to better deploy the polish armies to their respective historical regions. in addition i’ve divided reims into three zones, east reims, i.e. the maginot line section, the ardennes section which is where the main german mechanized advance occurred because french and british theoreticians didn’t believe a large mechanized force could make an assault through the dense woods, and west reims where the bulk of the french forces were located to advance into the low countries where it was believed the Germans would attempt to recreate the schlieffen plan from the first world war. these are the only territory modifications i’ve made so far because i havent set up my game and looked at what areas need to be adapted to better suit a 1 month turn.
2) i realized that earlier when i mentioned counter battery fire and you asked a question about how often this happened i never replied. i personally am a history major at UMBC and my area of interest is military history in the first half of the twentieth century. I’ve read a lot more scholarship on the first world war compared to the second one. and just based on both German and allied powers artillery doctrine from that war, counter battery fire was very important and for the Germans very successful. so i dont think that allowing for counter battery fire in the strategic phase at a lower combat value then what artillery usually fire at in the tactical phase would be too far off. the lower combat value would represent the increased difficulty in firing at hidden artillery positions compared to infantry in the open.
3) my goal in trying to develop these rules is much like yours. i want to create a game that is fun but where events in the war can actually occur. my main issue with the current a & a game is that france always gets pwned which isn’t very accurate. the guderian thrust towards the channel could have just as easily been thwarted by allied efforts. however the french government believed that all hope was lost, and in churchills eyes he’s not going to continue to help defend a government that has already given up. hence the allied retreat at dunkirk. so i think to accurately represent these kinds of issues political situations would have to be very in depth. i also was toying with the idea of grand army movements. so for example you could attempt an encirclement movement and if successful an entire army could be either captured or prevented from retreating and hence completely destroyed. i think success would have to be determined by a dice role which would be effected by certain modifiers both positive and negative. what do you guys think of this kind of idea.
p.s. sorry for the rambling nature of my posts.
-
I live in Savannah, TN.
Do you guys realize this game would not take hours but days to play? Cool ideas though!
-
Tigerman77 you are correct. I know that for many, AA needs to be completed in a long afternoon as the game is designed. However, Bud T and I leave the game set up and come back to it week by week. This is simply unrealistic for many. There are ideas about establishing victory conditions for shorter gaming. However, as we continue to play-test these rule changes it is quite enjoyable. It is almost a new genre of board gaming in some sense, much like when someone does campaign mode on the Xbox and comes back to it when they have time. They save where they left off. The complexity allows for much variation in play. One will never play the same AA game twice! Thanks for your input and your achievement in the map.
-
three more things.
- what kind of map changes did you find necessary? i have heard several people talking about the way turkey is divided up, and just based on historical knowledge i have of the region i could see a different design making sense. i personally so far have divided western poland into 3 zones to better deploy the polish armies to their respective historical regions. in addition i’ve divided reims into three zones, east reims, i.e. the maginot line section, the ardennes section which is where the main german mechanized advance occurred because french and british theoreticians didn’t believe a large mechanized force could make an assault through the dense woods, and west reims where the bulk of the french forces were located to advance into the low countries where it was believed the Germans would attempt to recreate the schlieffen plan from the first world war. these are the only territory modifications i’ve made so far because i havent set up my game and looked at what areas need to be adapted to better suit a 1 month turn.
2) i realized that earlier when i mentioned counter battery fire and you asked a question about how often this happened i never replied. i personally am a history major at UMBC and my area of interest is military history in the first half of the twentieth century. I’ve read a lot more scholarship on the first world war compared to the second one. and just based on both German and allied powers artillery doctrine from that war, counter battery fire was very important and for the Germans very successful. so i dont think that allowing for counter battery fire in the strategic phase at a lower combat value then what artillery usually fire at in the tactical phase would be too far off. the lower combat value would represent the increased difficulty in firing at hidden artillery positions compared to infantry in the open.Â
3) my goal in trying to develop these rules is much like yours. i want to create a game that is fun but where events in the war can actually occur. my main issue with the current a & a game is that france always gets pwned which isn’t very accurate. the guderian thrust towards the channel could have just as easily been thwarted by allied efforts. however the french government believed that all hope was lost, and in churchills eyes he’s not going to continue to help defend a government that has already given up. hence the allied retreat at dunkirk. so i think to accurately represent these kinds of issues political situations would have to be very in depth. i also was toying with the idea of grand army movements. so for example you could attempt an encirclement movement and if successful an entire army could be either captured or prevented from retreating and hence completely destroyed. i think success would have to be determined by a dice role which would be effected by certain modifiers both positive and negative. what do you guys think of this kind of idea.
p.s. sorry for the rambling nature of my posts.
These are great ideas. I will examine the map changes you refer to when I get a chance. I could see that spacing may be a problem though I like the Ardennes idea. Those nuances are important. You certainly know your history. I can see why you say the things you do because of the study of military history. Most of my own studies centered on the Eastern Front. As Tigerman77 indicated, realism and playability do not always mix unless you have the time and space to leave the game set up and return to it. It does take days!
We address the grand army movement in terms of encirclement with surrender roles. If a territory is surrounded and attacked by one who wins the initiative, there is a greater propensity to surrender for the defender. Generals and air power also affect surrender roles as well. Recreating France with its military power is so difficult, because we all know they could have put up a better fight than they did. We may need to address morale as another factor to add to the mix. Thanks for your important contributions.
-
Just wondering here. Have you guys considered implementing fog of war elements into the game? If so, how? Do you think it would slow the game down too much? Is it even viable with your ruleset?
The way I would do it is have 3 boards setup (one for Axis, one for Allies and one for a referee). I’d have a system setup to have reconnaissance in the game, and other ways of information gathering (informants, spies, etc, if it’s possible). You would need separate rooms and a way to communicate wirelessly (like with skype or something of the sort).
I thought about doing it a while ago myself, but as for many others, there’s lack of space, material and willingness on my friends’ part.
-
I actually posted about this back in July. I also had worked out a sulyatem for the current game. But given that I don’t want to spend an extra $100 on a new board let alone $200 on two, I decided on a one board version that needs to be played with trusted friends. Given that, I don’t think it would work on my version that I’m developing just because of the sheer scale of my game. Since I’m using division as my infantry unit, you’d need to be keeping hundreds of units secret, there’s too much room for error. If you’re interested in my fog of war rules the title of my previous post was intelligence.
-
How far can your ships move during non-combat movement? That’s interesting to me.
And what are the details of your railroads? I’m trying to work the trans-Siberian RR into my AA 42 variant map. I have it able to send 2 transports worth of land units from Moscow to Vladivostok during non-combat.
-
Rohr,
Yeah, I remember that thread.
It’s too bad I live way farther North than all of you… Rules like these could get refined much more easily, at least for the group that would be testing them out. I have quite a collection of pieces and such myself.
-
How far north? Are you in Canada?
-
would anyone on this post be interested in trying a long distance game, i extended the offer to ben-d but he is in a bind as far as being able to have his board set up. i’m reluctant to extend the offer to everyone on the board because im not sure who would be trustworthy. we would need to keep an excel doc for every space and sea zone, and die rolls would occur via skype or something else of the sort. let me know if you’d be interested. this would also open up the possibility of having more people play test the variants we are all working on.
-
I am :).
I’m just wondering here… Are the rules close to being documented? I know this question’s already been asked, but I’m just looking to see if they are. I’d like to show them to my friends and see if they would try the rules out (eventually*). They might provide more input on it as well if possible.
*sometime in the distant future :D
-
i’ve begun documenting them but i’m still working on my setup, which has been the hardest part. especially for japan, given how spread out their navy and army is.
-
@Der:
How far can your ships move during non-combat movement? That’s interesting to me.
And what are the details of your railroads? I’m trying to work the trans-Siberian RR into my AA 42 variant map. I have it able to send 2 transports worth of land units from Moscow to Vladivostok during non-combat.
For non-combat movement, ships can move 3 spaces, 4 if it is from a port, and 5 if it is from a naval base. For railroads, we said that 3 units could be moved through a rail system per turn. If a rail is damaged, then less (they have 3 points, so if a RR takes damage - like 1 point - from a strategic bombing raid - then it has 2 points remaining - and therefore 2 units can move). Certainly this can be adjusted - we could make a RR system move 4 units instead of 3…
Fog of War: because this is a strategic level game, the fog of war is difficult to implement. So, we made more variables in tactical combat to introduce more fluidity in the game: rounds of combat per offensive (0-5), surprise, surrender, initiative, retreating. Plus, what is on the board is not actually what’s “on the ground” in the strictest sense: what’s on the board is troop types in a general sense more than actual numbers - because a unit on a strategic level is about relative combat power. The great equalizer in the game is the battle board and dice. Yes, a D12 system provides more variance, but we stuck with the D6. So, the Russians at some point had 400 divisions in their army. Some of these divisions were so understrength that they would amount to a combat brigade in the US Army - 3,000 men. Russian divisions were organized smaller than German divisions. If you have a German infantry unit on the board and a Russian infantry unit on the board, they have equal combat power. But “on the ground” they are not equal number of troops at all. In the beginning of the war, that Russian infantry unit might be twice as many actual men with rifles than its German counterpart.
An example of the fog of war or variables in combat: Last week, I had 3 British Heavy Bombers attempt to pulverize Axis ground units at Tobruk. They were going to conduct a one-time saturation bombing of ground troops. The only problem: I rolled a ‘0’ for the number of combat rounds to take place - which meant that nothing happened. In the ‘real world’ several things could have been the cause for why this bombing raid failed: perhaps the bombers got lost, had bad intelligence and couldn’t find targets, had maintenance problems, logistical problems - who knows… You can do a little role-playing here if you want. Whatever happened, the British failed (which is really bad right now for me - really bad).
We’re playing tomorrow night and Weds. morning. We want to get rules out ASAP. But we want to play-test it thoroughly. The writing of the rules will be the most important. We will spell everything out and provide examples - as if the reader has never played Axis and Allies in their life (even though many will have). The introduction will give the reader a rationale for the game and the change in mentality needed to enjoy it - to be in it for the long haul.
I agree with Tigerman77: this game will take days even weeks to play - even longer - depending on how much you play per session. We are going to introduce building times. We’ve determined that units you buy are already in some ways sort of on the books - that they’re not created from scratch completely - especially ships. Normally, a battleship took 2-3 years to build; a cruiser 1 year - we reduced it to 4 turns. Infantry is 1 turn. So, if you buy an infantry unit in March 1940, you can put it into play the following turn (April 1940) during place new units - essentially 2 actual months: beginning of March you buy - training takes place; April comes - training and equipping - at the end of April it can go on the board during place new units. Replacements, however, in which damaged units can be repaired, are repaired during phase 1 of a turn provided they are at an IC or a Forward Supply Base. This assumes that there are replacements and new equipment in theater already.
I’m finding out that in the old AA versions, I didn’t have to think through things too carefully at some point. After playing for 20 years+ I found few surprises in the game. That’s why we embarked on this advanced version. You really don’t know all the variables - it’s too fluid - you have to really sit down and think what you’re going to do, what your opponent might do, and prepare for a catastrophe because it’s going to happen. I think variable turn order had changed the game in such a way that it is impossible to play a similar game. You have to think to yourself: What if the Germans go first this round in tactical turn order? Are you prepared for that? The war moves at a slower pace precisely because of this. It took the US and British six months+ to dislodge Rommel from North Africa - from November 1942 to May 1943. In our game, the British are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to defend Cairo. The Americans are not in the war yet (who knows when they will be?). The Axis own the Mediterranean to my detriment. The Japanese own Burma. Their progress in China has slowed some and the Soviets have attacked the Japanese to relieve pressure on the British and Chinese. Japan invaded Western Australia in Feb. 1940 - last month, and ANZAC can’t dislodge them - it’s been contested… The Axis owns the Atlantic and the British can’t really build ships that won’t be sunk. It’s difficult. Thank God the German navy doesn’t have too many transports to attempt a Sea Lion. But I think he might. And he’ll be reading this post so I shouldn’t give him any ideas…
-
For facility bombing and saturation bombing do you have escorts and intercepting? just in general how do you do these two strategic attacks?
-
For facility bombing and saturation bombing do you have escorts and intercepting? just in general how do you do these two strategic attacks?
We are revamping the sequences here. In short we do have these rules. For saturation this is one of the missions we have. We are adding reconnaissance as a type of air mission in naval battles (remember Strawberry 5 in Midway finding the Japanese Navy?) I know it has been awhile since we have posted but we have play-tested a version but have needed to make some revisions. We are adding new weapons development and timetables for producing units (as suggested by you and others) as well as a few new types of units (militia/auxiliaries) and medium bombers. We are increasing maritime movement. We are adding weather as a significant factor (after all weather played a factor in countless engagements including D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and Stalingrad and Russia in general).
The hardest part is set-up. Not every unit listed in the beginning of the game is mobilized on the board. Some of it is in process. The French army is not quite ready. They boast 5,000,000 in Reserves but these will be designated as auxiliaries and not as good. These nuances will help with the realism in determining combat power. We are adding Industrial complexes in the US as well as railroads in Europe.
We are typing this up. What will be needed to play is Global 1939 with all the necessary parts.
Suggested Topics
