Mariana Islands: Winning Strategy, the Zero IPC Island Crush

[Black_Elk]

Exactly!

Think about it, with an Objective rule like this in play, you’re adding in an economic incentive roughly equivalent to the value of China, or Anzac, or UK Pacific. And Japan has some flexibility early on to take islands and try to set up a better economic edge while they set up on their primary objective of India and the South Pacific.

What I think this rule would do, in addition to potentially balancing the game by sides without the need for a bid, is to really give Japan a reason to take some of the islands which historically they did take in 1941 and 1942. I get that this game is supposed to start in 1940, buts its also meant to take us through the duration of the War.

Right now, the way most people play Japan, they never make island invasions a priority. With this rule they would have a reason.

Once Japan moves into the Islands, then USA has a stronger incentive to take them back, and so you jumpstart the island hopping game. Sometimes its relatively safe to snatch up a few islands, without putting your fleets totally out of position, just doing the cat and mouse, with destroyer blocks and trying to activate air bases etc, and the 1 ipc incentive, while relatively small, is still enough to get the thing going. Sure 1 ipc doesn’t sound like much for an individual island, but with 20 total on the table? Now you’ve got a real theater of operations, that players are less likely to ignore.

I like the formula you have above. By saying “naval power”, it makes clear that we’re not talking about just at War with China. This supply line NO only comes into effect when Japan and the West are at war, and both trying to maneuver forces and supplies around in the Pacific.

[baron Münchhausen]

I really agree with all your points.
Especially, I have hope that:

this rule would do, in addition to potentially balancing the game by sides without the need for a bid, is to really give Japan a reason to take some of the islands which historically they did take in 1941 and 1942.

Sure 1 ipc doesn’t sound like much for an individual island, but with 20 total on the table? Now you’ve got a real theater of operations, that players are less likely to ignore.

And Japan knows that Allies gets 15 IPCs, which makes 10 IPCs over their own 5 IPCs, every turn if they do nothing about it…

By saying “naval power”, it makes clear that we’re not talking about just at War with China.

You clearly see where I was going by this small addition.

That’s the way I rationalize it:

This supply line NO only comes into effect when Japan and the West are at war, and both trying to maneuver forces and supplies around in the Pacific.

Hope someone will give it a try someday…

[Black_Elk]

I like it because it gives a little something to everyone at the outset of war. All the Pacific naval powers have a stake in the game. Its not just some totally one sided change, since all players could potentially benefit. It will make Anzac, UK Pacific and America more fun to play since the minor income boost can allow for slightly different build options. The same goes for Japan though, who will now have that extra 5 from their starting islands once at war with the West. And the potential to grab more. Also, as you noted, this universal objective would bring the Outer Island Perimeter NO potentially into play. Whereas now no one bothers with it.

Battle of the Pacific rules.
Gets the islands into the action  :-D

[baron Münchhausen]

@Black_Elk:

I like it because it gives a little something to everyone at the outset of war. All the Pacific naval powers have a stake in the game. Its not just some totally one sided change, since all players could potentially benefit. It will make Anzac, UK Pacific and America more fun to play since the minor income boost can allow for slightly different build options.

Battle of the Pacific rules.
Gets the islands into the action  :-D

And warships are really costlier than ground units, so this boost can provides some return in Naval investment.
This will help having more units in SZs.

In addition, this bonus range from 3 to 6 IPCs at the start. So it is clearly inside NOs bonus parameters.

If its an acceptable HR to solve this issue for G40, do you have some ideas for 1942.2?

I’ve just found an old Thread based on one of your old post on Harris Game Design.
Maybe it can be a start up to think about it?

Increasing action in PTO: The Case against 0 ipc territories (Pacific Islands)
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32221.msg1207041#msg1207041

We already discuss this issue here:

Production Mod for 1942.2
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33302.msg1267351#msg1267351

[CWO Marc]

In addition to their ability to project airpower over the sea areas around them, some of these island groups (notably Majoro, Kwajalein, Eniwetok and Ulithi) were extremely useful to the US Navy as Forward Naval Bases.  In essence, they allowed the USN to operate far deeper into the Western Pacific than Japanese planners had ever imagined, since Japan had been working from the assumption that the USN would be operating mainly from Hawaii.

Japan used Truk in a similar way, but not to the same extent as the USN because Japan never developed the equivalent of the Service Squadroon concept (see the Wikipedia article on the subject for more details) that the US employed.

[CWO Marc]

Here’s an idea deriving from the forward naval base concept.  What if these island territories generate IPCs (as proposed), but these IPCs are special ones that can only be used to purchase warships for use in the Pacific?  The rationale would be that possession of islands allows the establishment of forward naval bases, that these FNBs allow ships to remain on station longer (because they don’t have to waste time going all the way back to their home base), and this in essence translates into the equivalent of having more ships in action on the map.

[Black_Elk]

Solid, I think that actually a great concept. Not least because it avoids the issue of players taking this money and then just throwing it in another direction. This way players could look at the Pac island bonuses as roughly equivalent to a pacific “ship discount.” You could keep the pile separate from normal income, to be used only for naval purchases in the pacific. If you don’t use it you can save the pile for the next, round but you can’t just turn around and spend it on ground, or air, or directed at Europe, which is usually what happens when you try to introduce more money into the game. This slates the bonus to be used exclusively for what we want to achieve, which is more ships in the pacific, and more contests over the islands. It’s simple to, you just keep a separate pile. Anzac, America, and Japan all have strong reasons to buy ships, so this will eliminate some of the burden by directing a portion of the cash specifically for this purpose. Genius!  I’m totally on board with that idea. Thanks CWOMarc

[CWO Marc]

Glad you like it.  A couple of follow-up notes:

• Although the Japanese didn’t have the same highly-developed concept of service squadrons and forward naval bases as the Americans did, the general idea of an island-posession benefit to naval operations does have a historical counterpart for Japan as well as for the US.  By positioning fleet units at Truk (Yamato and Musashi, for example, spent much of the war there), Japan benefited from having their ships twice as close to their oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies as the Japanese home islands were.  So it’s realistic for this house rule to apply both to Japan and the US.

• Although the special IPCs could not be used outside the Pacific, nor to purchase non-naval units in any theatre, those restricted-use IPCs would still indirectly help the player in those two other capacities because it would “liberate” for other use any normal IPCs that the player would ordinarily have spent on warships in the Pacific.  So that would be a fringe benefit of this system.

[barney]

Here’s one where the bonus doesn’t kick in until Japan is at war with the western allies or vice versa. You’ll have to edit control of New Hebrides at the end of your NCM unless you’re Japan. Then it will work normally.  The objective panel doesn’t work but it does show you what bonuses you’ve obtained at the end of your turn. It also shows them in the game notes.

It seems like a cool idea. If you do the objective from the start you basically give Japan 5, US 6, UK_P 4and ANZAC 3 ipc bonus. While it can effect your first rd battles it does it without putting more units on the board immediately. If Japan doesn’t attack J1 a ten ipc swing for the allies which is close to the going bid rate. The allies will continue a slight ipc advantage once at war until Japan does something about it.

If you start the bonus when at war, which seems like the historical way to go, the allies will still have a slight ipc bump spread amongst the three pacific allies. Which is neat because one country can’t get it all. Anyway it seems like a cool idea you guys came up with. Hopefully this will encourage more people to try it.

P:)

well unfortunately something doesn’t seem to be working correctly.  Which is odd becuse they were. I’m going to take these down for now and try again. The one on earlier post seems ok except UKP is only getting one instead of four ipc bonus. I’ll leave it up for now and try to fix it first.

[Black_Elk]

Killer! Thanks Barney

[barney]

So I just gave every island 1 ipc.  You still have to edit control of new hebrides.  Here’s the xml and objective properties. You’ll have to rename the properties before you put it in your global zip. Drop the  .txt

So the ipc’s still start the same you’ll just collect extra ipc’s at the end of your turn. Seems like a lot of games have a J2 attack or sooner so basically you’re only getting a one round bonus or less.
You can always edit until at war if you want. I’ll try and get one for the at war condition next.

ww2global40_2nd_edition_Island_1.xml
objectives.properties.txt

[barney]

Here’s one where the bonus doesn’t kick in until japan attacks. However if uk attacks the bonus won’t kick in. Which might not necessarily be a bad thing IDK. If uk attack becomes standard to activate the bonus I would think that to be undesirable. However I’m still working on one where the bonus kicks in no matter who attacks.

There’s also one where the bonus kicks in immediately. You still have to edit control of new hebrides. The objective panel doesn’t show up although it tells you what objectives you’ve achieved at the end of your turn. They’re also listed in the game notes.

A couple thoughts on strategy. Japan should be able to take and hold guam and ceylon pretty easily although it will take a few turns to get ceylon. They should also be able to easily take but have trouble holding: wake,midway,new britain,solomons,gilberts and aleutians. Basically from japan and carolines they can threaten all islands except for samoa and ceylon. The us will need to protect or at least trade the aleutians or lose an objective.

IDK if this would be enough to balance the game on it’s own. If you did start the bonus early us could send a little extra power to europe but it won’t be felt for a few turns. They definitely can’t ignore japan. As far as japan they’ll probably still want to take out india asap to cancel the uk bonus. which probably works out to a inf a turn. They will have to contest the solomons and new guinea to keep anzac from their objective. I think this new bonus will help anzac the most. If you really want to fire up the pacific you could activate shipyards as well.

Anyway if you try it let us know how your game went.       P:)

ww2global40_2nd_edition_Island_NO.xml
ww2global40_2nd_edition_Island_NO_War.xml

[Black_Elk]

Thanks Barney! These are great!
I foolishly left my laptop at home whIle I went up to visit the family, but going to load these up soon as I get back!
fantastic  :-D

[baron Münchhausen]

@barney:

If you really want to fire up the pacific you could activate shipyards as well.
:wink:

I forgot this one…  :-D
NOw we talk!
:evil:
Thanks for this patch.

[TheDefinitiveS]

Hey guys, not to try and keep mashing rules into here as this is actually perfect to get some naval units mingling in the pacific, but to add more depth to this island fighting, what if airbases and naval bases could defend on islands that dont have an IPC value. Most of the islands that had airbases also had some form of defense against ships. Just to put in perspective think of naval and airbases as an entire set up for the island not just specifically what its name stands for but also all the logistics that is required to survive on an island. Just like 1 infantry doesnt stand for 1 infantry it is a platoon of infantry etc,

- An island that has a naval base or an airbase may defend the surrounding waters for the first round of combat only and only against attacking surface ships. If both an AB or a NB are present then a die is rolled for both. Any roll 3 and under is a hit.
    - They may roll against amphibious assaults as well as any combat defense in that sea zone that has surface ships.
    - Transports can try and take empty islands that have no units but only AB/NB, but must endure 1 round of combat. If they survive they then can amphibious assault the island and take it.
    - Aircraft are not taken as casualties as they are subject to fire when on the island from AA.
    - If the AB/NB has be tactically bombed then they may not be defend in anyway. They must be fully repaired to be functional.

I think adding this to the IPC buff just on islands will give it a bit more flavour. There does seem to be some blank spots on the board when playing but that was always going to be the case. Giving this area a bit of love will make the the game more strategic overall. If you guys like this idea or have some others we can compile a more formal write up of islands including existing rules. Of course a bit of play testing wouldnt hurt.

Cheers, TDS.

[baron Münchhausen]

Welcome back TDS,
Your combined defense of AB & NB @3 sounds more like a Coastal Guns feature.
It’s seems strange to apply it in the PTO on islands group from an historical perspective (sounds more like a coastal defense as a German’s Atlantic Wall).

However, reading your post makes me think about another way of making these islands an interesting tactical assets:
If a valueless Pacific Islands group has at least 1 Inf on it, up to two Fighter units (no TacB) can scramble on defense to protect the SZ.
No AB needed, the island is treated as an unmovable 2 planes Aircraft Carrier.
This way, an unoccupied island with Fg on it is not sufficiently crowded to maintain a qualified Island Airfield.
What do you think?
2 Fighters is too much?

Maybe 1 Infantry allows 1 Fighter to scramble.
But 2 Infantry units allow 2 Fighters to be able to scramble.

But 1 single Fighter able to protect the warships in the nearby SZ, can this be enough incentive to put Infantry on an Island and fight for it?

The difference between Air Base and this Island Airfield is:

• No additional +1 move allowance, as part of an Air Base bonus.

• Tactical Bombers can scramble from Air Base not only Fighters.

• Up to three units (Fgs or TcBs) can scramble to protect the SZ nearby.

• No need to put any Infantry unit on the Air Base to make it operational.

• An Air Base can be bombed and damaged while an Airfield cannot.

As I said valueless islands group, can this be extended to all Pacific Islands group?

[CWO Marc]

Perhaps the solution that would stick closest to the OOB rules without getting into too many complications would be to simply give each IPC-less Pacific island territory either a naval base marker, or an air base marker, or both (depending on the role played in WWII by each island group).  This would:

• Give players an incentive to fight for their possession.

• Reflect the fact that many of these islands in WWII were indeed valuable as naval bases or air bases (or both).

• Reflect the fact that these islands actually produced little or nothing from an economic point of view.

• Avoid the problem of house-rule IPCs being generated on these Pacific islands and spent on the war in Europe.

• Require no supplemental or variant rules governing how units are used.

[Black_Elk]

That could be an interesting solution, I’d be curious to see what sort of impact in might have on the opening round moves. It could be that having ABs or Harbors might allow a game breaker of some sort on the movement advantage, but at least it would give an incentive for control. In effect we’d be adding 15 ipcs worth of tuv on each island, if you consider the value of a pre-existing base, which may be enough to get people hopping around. It’d be well over 100 ipcs worth of total tuv into the mix, but could open up more strategic interest for the whole theater. It has the advantage of being relatively  simple, just a recommended set up change.

Which islands would you go AB, and which Harbor?

[Black_Elk]

I agree that it’s very difficult short of a total map redesign, but the problem is that it’s very hard to rework a map oob, and to have anyone adopt the change. I mean sure you could draft a new pattern for sea zones, but no one is going to print it out. I suppose one option might be to remove airbases and shipyards entirely as a way of increasing distance?

I’m not quite as convinced that 1 ipc wouldn’t provide an incentive from the US perspective, though I agree for Japan it’s probably not enough to lure them. Honestly if a territory is not worth the replacement cost of an infantry unit, then players usually won’t bother unless it’s already along a path they want to move anyway. So for example, in a game like Revised it was not uncommon for the USA to take solomons, purely as a place to unload infantry (since it was already along the warpath), but that only happens when the sz is part of a broader transit path.

I do enjoy the cruiser transporting 1 inf. I recall making suggestions elsewhere as a way to make the unit more valuable. It got some traction, but others didn’t like it. I think the ablility  to transport 1 inf unit with a cruiser is cool. We used HR this in some of our games, especially AA50, when most people in my play group really hated defenseless transports. So we used the cruiser transport concept as a way get around what seemed to be prohibiviley expensive trannies.

I mean, if official A&A should show us anything, it’s that the Pacific is a royal pain when it comes to island hopping, since no OOB game has yet achieved it. Still I have to believe that we have not approached the situition in the right way.

Before G40 everyone said that if we just had Airbases and Harbors then that would jumpstart the Pacific war. Obviously it didn’t work. Shadowhawk has suggested that the problem is distance. But even with sufficient distance, if there is no ultimate economic incentive, then would players even bother going the extra mile?

I just think in order to pull it off, what needs to happen is a revisiting of what ipcs represent. It really bothers me, that literally everywhere else on the map, regional IPC values have been changed from board to board, except in the worthless pacific islands.

This baffles me, since the Pacific is clearly the area that needs more value to activate it, but people are so stubborn about it. Like come on, we’ve added IPCS in every other region, I don’t see where the need to be so strict with the worthless islands comes from. I mean at least try them at +1 ipc and see if it can persuade more people to try something different. What’s +1 going to hurt. I get the impression some people think that this will cause the internal logic of Axis and Allies to implode or something, but it’s never really been tried and doesn’t seem aLL that crazy to me.

Ipcs are already weighted differently in different areas of the board. Why not just say that in the pacific they are weighted a bit more, for gameplay purposes? I think people would accept this with no major hang ups, if it was just tried on an official map.

[Black_Elk]

The only real issue with distance as a solution, is overall game length or the sense of anticlimax it often involves (if it takes too many turns to cross the ocean this can sometimes present a pacing problem.) I recall seeing this in some of the games we made for tripleA that tried to put more space into the Pacific. One thing I noticed at that time, is that the incentive for USA is very different than the incentive for Japan to move across any distance. For USA, if a pacific game is required, there is stronger reason to cross that distance “whatever distance it is” in order to contain the IJN and prevent the Japanese fleet from going towards Africa by putting pressure on the home islands or the south pacific. Japan is more difficult though, because Japan doesn’t have the same sort of target opportunities against North America after they cross the pacific, that America has against the south Pacific and Coastal China. For them, taking islands and getting closer to San Francisco, is usually interpreted as putting themselves “out of position” since the road for them usually stops short of the Mainland US. There just aren’t enough pieces to pick off, and the ones that are there aren’t worth enough ipcs to draw out the Japanese crossing.

I feel like the Outer Perimeter Island NO was an attempt to offset this, but it is too hard for Japan to achieve in most games OOB, and doesn’t award enough cash to make it worth putting yourself out of position. There is no North American endgame that Japan can reasonably achieve, in the main because of the production disparity and the fact that Central US has a major on it, and borders W. US directly, with E. US still in blitz range to boot. If there was any path along which Japan might possibly threaten N. America, it would be the northern route to Alaska. But Alaska and W. Canada aren’t valuable enough to make this move very effective over multiple rounds. The same with Midway and the Aleutians.

To really get it up off the ground you’d need more NOs, more hard cash up for grabs, and reasons for both sides to push out across the ocean from their 1940 position. Right now I don’t see Japan doing much of this. USA does a bit more. But in both cases the majority of islands remain uncontested, which just feels odd to me. There are many incentives built into G40.2 that are meant to encourage vaguely historical play patterns, but the Japanese island campaign in 1941/2 is not really one of them. And the USA response after Midway, also doesn’t seem to encourage much island hopping. I don’t think there’s a way you can get the battle for the islands going without introducing more money into the equation. We’ve tried other things and it doesn’t really work. I still feel that if an island is important enough to be on the board it should be worth 1 ipc at least. And if it isn’t, then it shouldn’t get drawn on the map. I realize that’s a hardline position, but to me it feels right. With 1 as a foundation, it would be easier to have spaces up to 2ipcs and 3 ipcs, when needed for the gameplay, without breaking the sense of “industry” or “economy” so markedly. The distance between 1 and 2, is much less than the distance between zero and 1. At least that’s the way I see things in A&A play tendencies. The mental move to 1 is important. As long as they’re all worth zero, the same thing will likely happen regardless.

Ultimately I think its a lot easier to add an ipc here or there to achieve balance via the NO concept, than it would be to do a unit set up change, or a map redesign. The latter option might be cool. But then its pretty hard to get someone to take a sharpie pen to their mapboard haha. I mean, unless you want a map that is pure distance where they are all just set up 2 sz apart from each other (counted as 1 extra space between sz). But at that point, why not just say ships in the Pacific can only move 1 space? It would achieve effectively the desired situation. I mean, sure, it would bust the opening moves, but it could be done. You could say that all ships on the pacific map move at 1 space, (whereas on the Europe map they move 2) harbors could still give a bonus of +1. But then of course the problem would be that everyone would just buy in Europe. I don’t know, it seems tricky no matter how you approach it, though probably it would take a combination of all the stuff mentioned so far…

More distance, with the pattern of the sea zones encouraging island drop off zones for transported units along the way +
More NOs to encourage reaching out across the ocean onto those island groups+
More starting bases, or cheaper bases on those islands+
More relative ipc value for the individual island territories +
More ultimate (and penultimate!) island targets along the war path, such as higher value island territories or production options nearby those islands on “the mainland” (whatever side of the pacific that mainland happens to be on.)

My proposal about the NO money was more an expedient than a perfect solution to the problem. But I think we are mostly in agreement though right? That there is a problem I mean?

The solutions which allow valueless islands some sort of “built-in” special combat advantage are interesting. Whether this might be included as some kind of nerfed scramble (with less fighters), or a naval combat advantage, or something similar where the island had it for free. A universal rule might be helpful, if it included all valueless islands everywhere on the board. Like Malta or Cyprus or Crete, for example, in addition to the Pacific islands. That way it would be easier to remember, if you wanted to go that route, since it applies to all valueless islands everywhere.

Still not sure anything, short of money, would convince players to go out of their way though. Japan especially, needs a stronger incentive to take the islands they actually took in 1941. Right now the basing advantage on those islands doesn’t seem strong enough to really get this going. And just as important, USA needs an incentive to take the Japanese home islands, that they actually took at the conclusion of the Pacific War; especially places like Iwo, or Okinawa, or Saipan etc. You know, for the climactic resolution and historical appeal!
:-D