Modified production units for balance

  • '17 '16

    What happen after a Sealion?
    It will takes 1 turn to built a Factory and another turn to produce only 3 units.
    It is doomed to be recaptured hastily.
    And after?
    Uk must built an IC to produce on another turn?
    It seems wrong.

  • '17 '16

    I rather suggest that any conquered IC is considered fully damaged.
    Major need 20 to start to produce.
    Minor needs 10.
    A factory is destroyed.
    After, all conquered must be fully repaired before producing any units.
    In addition, each conquered and repair is treated as downgraded.
    Major IC works as a Minor IC.
    Minor works as a Factory.
    But if it is liberated, they return to their nominal value and stay as it is.
    Treat like OOB liberating IC or Capital.

  • '14 Customizer

    I like this a lot and think it will definitely change the game.  It will make Germany have to deal with supply lines but the Allies wont be able to produce in Normandy or S. France anymore either.

    The only change I would suggest which goes along the guidelines of only producing an IC at a victory city is to allow Philippines to have a complex.

  • Sponsor

    We can’t allow production units on the Philippines, remember that these rules are meant to balance the game, and giving Japan 3 eligible territories to spawn from doesn’t change things much in the Pacific. Also, it wouldn’t give the US a target as much as just tying their hands more because all captured production units must be removed from the board. I can’t change the names either, we spent 3 pages on this in Halifax rules and came full circle. KNP who came up with the idea of a mid level IC likes the names as they are as do others. Of course, all these things can be house ruled to fit your own games as you like. As for removing the British IC after sealion, that’s the penalty for losing your capital, and if it’s taken with 1 tabk left, good luck suppling it to defend from liberation. If I were Germany, I would be more worried about losing Western Germany’s IC… can’t rebuild anything there because there’s no VC.

  • '14 Customizer

    I wouldn’t put a complex there to start but I would allow owners to build on the Philippines. For game balance I think that rule was created because of the DEI and the ability to build an IC there to capture India and Australia. You could always build on Kwangtung and have almost the same thing. With an IC in Kwangtung you can still reach Australia and even Burma but with ships. The Philippines was a very important group of islands in WW2. Even more than Caroline which in the game has more strategic value than the Philippines. If the Philippines could produce it would become a more important objective. If Japan built an IC there they would have to protect it. I really don’t see how it is game breaking. It would actually become more of a focal point in the pacific. Not only would USA want that island for its NO but now its a place to produce TTs, DDs and SS.

    In the original game you could produce and build an IC in FIC for USA. By limiting IC’s to be built at victory cities the only place USA could build an IC is Kwangtung and that’s only if India is captured. They used to have the ability to build on FIC and Korea.

    For the same reason that the Allies should have a NO for the DEI I think Japan should get a +5 NO for owning the Philippines like USA receives.

  • Sponsor

    OK, I caved and made some really dramatic changes to simplify everything. It will also allow a factory on the Philippines.

  • '14 Customizer

    Wow that is interesting… You removed the territory IPC requirement.  That will allow an IC to be placed in Hawaii.

  • Sponsor

    @cyanight:

    Wow that is interesting… You removed the territory IPC requirement.  That will allow an IC to be placed in Hawaii.

    Yep, to counter a Japanese IC in the Philippines

  • '14 Customizer

    I agree, and its balanced.

  • Sponsor

    @cyanight:

    I agree, and its balanced.

    What do you think of the new additional rule, just trying to prevent the whole 100% theater of war tactics from the US.

  • '17 '16

    @Baron:

    What happen after a Sealion?
    It will takes 1 turn to built a Factory and another turn to produce only 3 units.
    It is doomed to be recaptured hastily.
    And after?
    Uk must built an IC to produce on another turn?
    It seems wrong.

    @Young:

    I can’t change the names either, we spent 3 pages on this in Halifax rules and came full circle. KNP who came up with the idea of a mid level IC likes the names as they are as do others. Of course, all these things can be house ruled to fit your own games as you like. As for removing the British IC after sealion, that’s the penalty for losing your capital, and if it’s taken with 1 tabk left, good luck suppling it to defend from liberation. If I were Germany, I would be more worried about losing Western Germany’s IC… can’t rebuild anything there because there’s no VC.

    Are you sure of doing this thing as you said?
    Is it really the sole way to hinder Axis via production units?
    It seems you will slow down the game a lot. A game which is already very time consuming OOB.
    That’s why I suggested to fully damage ICs, instead. And downgraded it also.
    It allows to keep the pace but the conqueror must pay around the same price to make it works at the beginning of the next turn.
    There is probably other ways to make Axis pay more to produce units which can fit your intent.

    But I really think that destroying IC (turn 1) -rebuilding IC (turn 2) -producing from IC (turn 3) are too much steps and will not be an interesting playing experience.

    That’s my main concern here.

  • Sponsor

    BM, I have since modified the first post significantly, check it out and let me know what you think.

  • '17 '16

    @Young:

    BM, I have since modified the first post significantly, check it out and let me know what you think.

    Much simpler.
    I’m just wondering why thise rule instead of keeping OOB, upgrade both Western and Eastern to IC when war is declared:
    “Upon declaration of war, the United States may upgrade 1 major factory of their choice (Western, Eastern, or Central United States) to an Industrial Complex”

    Keeping San Francisco or Los Angeles only a major Factory will not make it very incentive to conquer from Japanese POV.
    The Major  Factory will be destroyed. So there will be no way to hold it against US’ 1 Major Fac and an IC.

  • Sponsor

    Maybe you’re right, wanted to throw it out there to get some opinions, was thinking that it might force the US to split their resources more.

  • '17 '16

    @Young:

    Maybe you’re right, wanted to throw it out there to get some opinions, was thinking that it might force the US to split their resources more.

    IDK.
    Maybe a special rule should be applied. No less than 1/5 or 20% of produced units must be produced on the other theatre?
    You produced 10 units, then it can be split 2/8 or 8/2.
    You produced 20 units, then it can be split 16/4 or 4/16.
    15 units, 3/12 or 12/3.
    5 units, 1/4 or 4/1.

    So US cannot put all his eggs either West or East.
    No need to sum the IPCs spent, just the number of units.


    The table would be:
    up to 5, minimum 1 unit on the other side.
    up to 10, minimum 2 units on the other side.
    up to 15, minimum 3 units on the other side.
    up to 20, 4 units.
    up to 25, 5 units.
    up to 30, 6 units.

  • Sponsor

    Seems a bit complexed, anyway it’s not that important. I took out the US rule (wow, not much text for such big changes) gonna play test this as is during my next game.

  • '17 '16

    @Young:

    Seems a bit complexed, anyway it’s not that important. I took out the US rule (wow, not much text for such big changes) gonna play test this as is during my next game.

    Have fun.
    Maybe because US can now built a Factory in Hawaïan, it can start building few more units on US2 or US3 up to when Japan declares war.
    Doing this can make US more invested in PTO.
    Don’t know if it is viable somehow…


  • Well I was with you at first with UK single economy, but I think this is just getting too complicated for me now.

  • Sponsor

    @IKE:

    Well I was with you at first with UK single economy, but I think this is just getting too complicated for me now.

    The Halifax rules you are referring to remain untouched as a sticky thread in this forum, I suppose I don’t need to hitch this wagon to Halifax, so I’ll change the name of this thread in order to avoid confusion.

    Cheers.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    The main issue I have with production in G40, is that it just seems stuck between two competing goals. On the one hand, using production restrictions as a way to achieve game balance (by side), while on the otherhand still trying to preserve the “factory” unit as a fun purchase option in the roster.

    I guess I have become a production extremist hehe. One part of me thinks, if you want people to have fun with this unit, then it should have no restrictions on placement, it should be cheap, and it should automatically be destroyed when captured.

    If on the other hand, the goal is to use this unit as the primary means of promoting game balance by side, then we should just ditch the unit from the roster altogether, set their locations from the outset, and make them a permanent feature (impossible to buy, impossible to remove.) Trying to do both things at once, always seems to go bust along one dimension or the other.

    I just haven’t been very impressed with the new factory system OOB. It tries to do too much, and I think it was ill advised to essentially detach the production capacity of the unit from its relationship to the ipcs OOB (with the exception of “only territories worth 3, or only territories worth 2 etc.”) The whole thing about island restrictions, restrictions on “original” ownership. Basically everything about the G40 production system OOB just seems kind of lazy and stubborn, introducing all these rules and special conditions, just to avoid having to raise a couple territories by a couple IPCs on the gamemap. It took the most complicated possible conception of “factories” that I could have imagined, and made that the standard. And all to avoid having a factory on Hawaii hehe. Seriously, I sometimes think the rules read the way they do, specifically to prevent the one factory that I wanted, the one that might actually have been interesting from a gameplay standpoint. The Hawaiian factory!  :-D

    I’m being a bit coy, but still, there are all these hoops we have to jump through now, when everything would have been a lot easier if we had simply retained the old factory of Revised or AA50, and just modified the IPC values on the gamemap. In the old games, there was a hard and fast rule of thumb that everyone obeyed… A factory is not worth placing on a territory with only 1 ipc of production (because in the old games, that meant only 1 unit per round.) A territory worth 2 ipcs was viable. And wouldn’t Hawaii have been interesting at 2 ipcs? But that ship sailed, and now we’re stuck with this multiple factory system, and map values that don’t work without them and which don’t balance without NOs. So I guess given all that, I’m not opposed to exploring different ways things might be done.

    In AA50 I ended up using a hard restriction on location for factories, where all VCs had a factory and no new factories could enter play beyond those. G40 doesn’t work very well with that, mainly because there are starting factories that are not on VCs, which is problematic for the wording of rules, since you’d have to state all locations in the set up change. Still it’s conceivable that you could play G40 with all factories are set from the start of the game, and no new production introduced. Eliminate all rules regarding where they can go (as this would be irrelevant, once you take them out of the purchase roster.) Then just decide where you want them, based on whatever makes the most sense from a gameplay or historical standpoint (or some compromise between the two). The advantage here, is that players no longer have to struggle with the whole calculus of new production, when and where to purchase it, how to deal with Japan steamrolling etc. All those problems are removed. You just set it at the start, and play out those conditions.

    Here you could just handle everything through a set up change, instead of a substantial rules change. Once the unit is eliminated from the purchase roster, and all locations are set, then the only thing you have to figure out is where exactly you want them to go. Don’t want to see a factory on Philippines? Then don’t have one there. Want a factory on Hawaii, just drop it from the get go. Same deal with Romania, or Western India, Cairo, or whatever. That is an example of truly hard balancing production.

    I don’t like the “no islands” rule, mainly because it is counter intuitive when you look at the board. According the definition of an “island” in A&A, which is a territory completely encompassed by a single sea zone, Japan violates the rule from the outset! Which is just silly. Either the rule should have been worded to match the map, or the map should have been changed to match the rule. But the way it is now, the two don’t agree with the board set up, which just seems weird.

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