Axis and Allies Revised Varient ( historical edition)

[theduke]

Sounds interesting but a little too complicated IMHO because it involves adding new rocket launcher units. I never liked how even in Axis and Allies original and revised a territory can only shoot 1 rocket per turn.

What do you think of all the other tech ideas from the past several posts?

[Imperious Leader]

Radar- this must be included as a tech because of it’s significance in the battle over the Atlantic, etc… It fits in well with the detection rules discussed before. If you achieve this tech then all enemy subs in SZs bordering one of your ICs are automatically detected and enemy air units flying over territories with AA gun pieces and an IC are automatically detected. Notice that you still have to roll to actually hit them. This tech may need to be worked on a little because it might be too powerful especially with the new modifications that up to 3 AA gun units may fire per territory. If this is too powerful then we can say that instead of automatically being detected, the units are now detected on rolls or 4 or less instead of 2 or less.

+++++++++  Yes this looks good but UK will obviously want to get this becuse of so many exposed IPC from attacks. I dont like automatic detection except against enemy planes performing/escorting SBR giving a modified defense to british fighters of +1, while the detection of naval vessels due to radar is actually a different catagory known as naval radar which was developed latter and sonar which was perfected latter in the war. So we have aerial radar, naval rader and sonar or one for air units, surface naval units, and undersea u-boats. Tech tree agains should follow the basic outline of what was possible so a player can make a small contribution in order to obtain the benifits of this research.

Rockets are different. Rockets were fired from W. Europe, not from Germany because the range wasn’t the equivalent of 3 spaces on the game board but only 2. It’s not realistic to have the range be 3. Also, why do they need to be fired from flak batteries? What’s up with that? I’m thinking that they can be fired from any territory contiguous to the attacker’s capital VC and from there they have a range of 2. They either cost 1 IPC each and you roll 1 die to determine the damage or they cost 2 each and you roll 2 dice and take the bigger roll for the damage, I haven’t decided which yet. Just like before, the damage is limited to the territories IPC value.

+++++++++rockets with a range of 2 is fine and using the AA gun is stupid… agreed. That piece is for another purpose as a new H artillery unit.These pieces can just fire from a territory… i prefer my idea  found in another post for rockets.

Super Subs are the same in that every roll hit’s on a 3 (even for raiding), but since subs are more important to the game and harder to kill, super subs are effectively more powerful.

++++++++++ok good

Jet fighters and heavy bombers are both a little better in that they get long range movement added to each of them. Jet fighters now make fighters range 6 (does not change range of bombers). Heavy bombers now make bombers have a range of 8 (doesn’t change range of fighters).

+++++++++ however jet fighters had a very short range they should still move only 4 spaces… in reality they should only move 2 spaces… but that screws with playability too much. The first jets used alot of fuel and were not efficient… A provision for jet bombers should be possible for the axis. ( ar-234)

This leaves an opening for a new tech if we want to keep with only 6 techs (which I think we should since it works in nicely with the die).

+++++++ I think we should make a tree of tech that are not based on some limit, but based on what inventions actually occured. List:
Radar
sonar
naval radar
rockets
jets fighters
long range fighters
super subs
jet bombers (ar-234)
a- bomb
rail guns ( dora)
super heavy tanks (maus)
egnigma code broken
surface to air missiles? ( germany had these late in the war)
others…

Heavy artillery is an option, but is that really a good representative to being one of the major historic tech advances during WWII?

++++++++ these units are not a tech thing. its  just a new unit and using the piece adds value . Having only one artillery unit representing every concievable artillery unit is not enough. This goes for tanks as well and why we need a mechanised infantry unit which bridges the need for a light tank/ heavy infantry piece.

Industrial technology was definitely more important, which might be a reason why it was one of the original techs. I think the only reason it was discarded was because it was too powerful and not realistic in the way it was brought into the game. Now that we already have infantry placement separate from IC placements, we can easily make use of this distinction and say that ind. tech. only applies to non-infantry. This tech could ease up the restrictions on unit placement at ICs as well as make these units cheaper. -1 from all units isn’t that realistic and favors rtl purchases much more than expensive purchases. Opinions? Ideas for a new tech in place of long-range aircraft?

++++++++I dont mind cheaper units due to production effeciency except for infantry… The tech benifit of reduced cost basis should apply to either naval, or air units not land. thats too much benifit from a tech IMO.

I like the idea of certain techs countering the effect of other techs… examples:
-If UK gets radar to help in the Atlantic, then Germany could counter by getting Super subs. German subs would be more easily detected, but they would do much more damage and the net effect would be still an even battle.
-If Germany gets radar to stop all the SBRs, then UK or US can get heavy bombers. Heavy bombers could be defined so that they can only be targeted on a 1 (not a 1 or 2) in addition to other bonuses.

+++++++++looks good but need development… isnt this phase 2?  to finish phase one i thought we were gonna add some rules for neutrals then wrap up phase one and assemble what we got so far?

[theduke]

+++++++++looks good but need development… isnt this phase 2?  to finish phase one i thought we were gonna add some rules for neutrals then wrap up phase one and assemble what we got so far?

The tech and counter-tech idea is just a consequence of the advantages given by the various techs… it’s not something new to be added onto the set of new techs. it’s really not that important, forget I brought it up.

As for modifying techs from the out of box rules, I guess we don’t absolutely need to have them so I guess we can have phase 1 with the old techs. I was just thinking that with subs now being so powerful, including radar as a tech is a simple change that will profoundly alter the Atlantic commerce raiding front to make the game mush more realistic. If we don’t have radar, then it will be much harder for the Allies to push Germany back in the Atlantic. Since we don’t agree what to do with techs, I think we should take that as a sign to not include them in phase 1 for now, and just playtest phase 1 with all the other rules we’ve settled on. If Germany ends up being too strong in the Atlantic for too long, then we can go back and and in some changes to the techs.

As for neutrals, I still don’t think we need them for phase 1. Is invading a neutral needed to win the game? No. In fact, if we make the neutral rules right, then no neutrals would end up being invaded anyway, just like as in actual historical events. I vote no on neutral changes in phase 1.

[Imperious Leader]

OK The reason why i thought that neutrals might be included was because i was thinking we are fixing the problems of the game in order of what was the major to minor. Lets take a look at what we got ( ill asemble what was posted into some basic structure). Then we can decide is phase one is closed or not. The other thought was to balance the amount of additional rules so the other phase is not emcumbered with too much stuff to add…

[tekkyy]

This is going to be a huge mod.
Is it going to be released under GNU :-D?

Can I sugguest we give it a formal name. “Historical Edition”?

Can I suggest we start a thread for different aspects.
This is becoming difficult to read. I for example are mainly interested in discussing Income and Combat. Much more passive in terms of things like map.

Threads to be something like…?
*AARHE: Phase1: Units
*AARHE: Phase1: Combat
*AARHE: Phase1: Income and Convoy

Things to be left out in Phase1…?
*Research
*Map
*Victory Condition

Since we have a historical framework it shouldn’t matter too much that we leave some aspects out for now.
They will likely be cross reference between aspects but its still better than one messy thread right?

[Imperious Leader]

OK done…

[Bierwagen]

Well, I can’t attest to AARHE speeding the overall game up – the turns do seem to be faster.  We had a regular game rolling (e.g., people not wanting to learn new rules) and a LITE/AARHE going this weekend.  What I did notice is that while the LITE/AARHE were glued to board watching combat unfold and reacting with DAS – the AAR folk wandering away from their table to come watch while they waited another hour for their turn to come around again.

The combined moves really speed up execution to 25-30 min. a side and make the enjoyable for everyone.  That was very refreshing.  The beauty is you are actively involved.

Even with a timer and limiting purchases through combat moves to 15 minutes, we still played for 7 hours.

Any thoughts on shortening the game appreciated.

• Bierwagen

[Imperious Leader]

which game? If your playing 1939 you can expect it to be longer because your starting 3 years earlier.

If your playing LIte or AARHE reg. you already said the turn goes by faster, so how can the game still take longer?

So basically i don’t understand the question.

Perhaps the combat sequence takes too much time to figure out?

[Bierwagen]

We aren’t playing the 1939 version, so the length is probably due to being bogged down in rules and trying to understand  the intent of certain rules.

I had hoped that AARHE LITE and 4.0 would speed the game up so you could get a game in during a 3-4 hour period.  Even though the turn opening is reduced to < 15 minutes, the rolling, non-combat, reinforcement, tech, and diplomacy still seems to take us to 45 minutes a round.

Still a significant reduction.

[Imperious Leader]

once you got the rules worked out, it will fly really fast. you still have lots of questions so well address them here and get you going. Tekkyy will make clarifications when issues warrant them.