Axis & Allies 1943 "Deep War"

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Taking Italy out of play might make the game pace feel rather lopsided, with only 1 Axis nation for each side of the board.

    If taking Italy out of the equation, then maybe just collapse the whole turn order into a simple 5 man game. Just on the huge map.

    China under US control can be fun.

    Or if you want to keep all the Allied nations, at least give China a second flying tiger or something to work with haha. I mean if going through the trouble to design a scenario from the ground up, why not.
    :-D

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    I think as soon as you’re willing to alter the starting unit set up for a whole new start date, you could probably make UK/UK Pacific/Anzac/France into a single large nation, with much higher income, but with a lot less starting units.

    China under US control would give that Player/Nation more cash to work with and something to do from the first round, again you could balance out this increase, with the starting units.

    A 5 man is workable, it would play much faster, and it’d be a lot fewer total NO’s to draft/track.

    For a map this complex, at least the set up cards could read easier.

    Each nation would have more total money, but less total starting units. I think that’s probably the best way to go into it.

    Even more streamlined than Global 1942 (which didn’t scale back the number of player nations all that much, beyond eliminating France). Global 1943 on the other hand could be like a supped up version of the 1942.2 board, just with the new units and bases and such. I think a mod like that would be popular, if it was done well.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Ps. I did a quick draft scenario for Europe and Asia, re-assigning ownership to give a sense of how the 5 man might look. Images below…

    Basically you could “zero out” all the units, and just start with the desired territory distribution. Maybe something along those lines…

    Then after ownership is settled for the basic date, figure out what the starting incomes would be for the 5 Nations involved, and build out your starting unit set-up/balance around those income conditions. I think the overall Victory/Win should be Allied initiative, instead of the other way round like it is in 1940 (ie. Here the Allies are the ones who need to recover VCs from the Axis!)

    The images below just show some quick screens of possible Europe/Asia possessions, broken down into just the 5 man, but I like the aesthetic. It reminds me of Classic, or 1942.2, but with technology! A lot more money! and a lot more territory to fight over! With an expanded unit roster and production scheme. Could be cool, if the starting unit set up was worthwhile.

    I’d take the opportunity to try some novel things, like giving the Russians a real air force and a mini navy somewhere. America could be a much more interesting player in 1943, if they had control of more starting territories. Maybe drop a few more minor factories or bases here and there, to set up anchor points for the fighting. Build the starting forces around the concept of a fast paced game where puchasing is the main driver. A game where the Allies especially, have more production and much more income, but fewer starting forces, and where Axis have more starting forces but less total cash. Make it a real race game, instead of one where Axis can just camp on their income advantage over time to clinch it. Here it’d be the Allies that had the economic edge again.
    :-D

    Could set things such that Sicily happens in the first round. Plus a Russian push back on the Eastern front, to roll up whatever line Germany holds at the outset. The Pacific would still likely need an option for Japan to make a break out before America totally dominates them, just to keep the gameplay interesting, but you could scale this to be less dramatic than the 1940 game. Maybe sneak a nod to Mao in there too. Things like that to distinguish the scenario from Global 1940 or 1942 haha.

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  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Pps. In case anyone is curious, using the scheme I suggested (combining UK, UK Pacific, Anzac and France into a single player) gives the British Empire a pretty reasonable starting income/production amount. If we gave starting possession of North Africa to USA, and starting possession of Persia and Iraq to UK, that would be a total of around 55 ipcs to UK.

    Totally workable in my view, since the British Empire was the largest in world history. And the Allies would then be able to build bases on all that Free French territory in Africa (something which they can’t do in 1940, unless the Axis take it over first.) I think this would make the UK a much more interesting power to play.So depending on how you set things up with starting National Objectives, you could have a basic starting income for UK of around 60 ipcs. That’s a lot of money, they should have a lot fewer starting units, but the factory spread means they could pick a focus for their theater and build out how they like. So again that’s about 60 ipcs for UK as a starting point.

    Now Germany, including the European Italian territories and a few more Territories on the Eastern Front would be around 65 ipcs starting income. With starting NOs you bring this up to around 70 or 75 ipcs at the start.

    USA, including North Africa and China, Brazil etc. would be at around 70 to start, with NO’s you could bring this up to around 80 ipcs or so.

    Japan, depending on how you want to handle a few starting territories (like Celebes or Burma) could be around 50 ipcs, with Nos you could bring that up a little bit.

    Russia would have less starting territories, meaning their baseline would be somewhere in the mid 20s. This is very low relative to the other players. So my suggestion would be to give them stronger NOs to put that amount at least into the mid 30s on starting Income, and then give them a much stronger starting unit force. For example, right now they start with a paltry 3 aircraft total! This should be doubled at the very least!

    Give the Russians at least a half dozen aircraft so they can play like a normal nation. My suggestion would be 3 fighters, 2 tactical bombers, and 1 strategic bomber.

    You could also give the Russian more starting Armor, again at least double the numbers. These heavy hitters (the extra tanks and aircraft) could be located behind the Urals, so they have to move out. But basically, give the Soviets enough starting power to compensate for their lack of starting cash, and then give them the option to expand. Basically the reverse of the 1940 game.

    One more time, just ballparking it, we should shoot for a starting income breakdown something like this…

    Russia: 30s
    Germany: 70s
    UK: 60s
    Japan: 50s
    USA: 80s

    Axis 120
    Allies 170

    With a 50 ipc swing, in contested areas of the game map. This could be easily managed with National Objectives at around +10 or +15 ipcs, tweaked to find a good starting income balance.

    I’d shoot to have a total of 300 ipcs in play at any given time, once NOs are factored in. Again I believe this is workable, it’s essentially double the scale of the 1942.2 game, just like the map scale is basically doubled!

    Remember that All Axis and Allies games (regardless of their start date) have always required an ahistorical Japanese expansion to be playable on balance, so it’s definitely possible to set this up such that the two sides achieve a rough income parity by sides after a few rounds. The difference in starting income you just make up in the starting forces, in this case with a lot more Axis units at the outset.

    I think it could be done. And I think it would be fun.

    I don’t think we need another Global 1940/42 type game, with like 10 player nations, and a super complicated turn order with a pain in the ass set up. If people want to play a game like that then they’ll just play the normal Global game!

    If going through the trouble of making a whole new 1943 scenario, we should cater it to the demographic that wants a game pace more like the original 5 man A&A games, just featuring a larger Global map, with more money, more units and more fun. I think this could be a real opportunity to correct some of the issues that have long plagued the game, especially with regard to how the Soviet Union has been traditionally set up. We could fix the Russians here and make them fun to play, and shift the game from one where Axis always have to meet in the middle to win, to one where Axis just have to hold their starting territories to win, and its the Allies who are under pressure to move the ball forward. I think it would be cool. I’d play a game like that for sure. Especially if it was built out in a collaborative way and had the backing of the A&A.org community.

    Global 1942 was not really released that way. It’s design process from the ground up didn’t take input from the community, it was released more as a tournament expedient, pre-built. In my view the Global 1942 scenario didn’t gather the sort of strength and popularity that it might have gained otherwise for this reason. If it was designed and popularized more as a group effort, instead of being put out as a “ready made” more people might be playing it right now.

    But 1943 could be different!

  • '17 '16 '15

    Always nice to see a new scenario! Right on wittman!

    Like your ideas as well Black Elk. Midnight Express uses certain techs at certain times for certain countries (man that’s a lot of certains) in his scenarios. I found it to be a lot of fun. IDK if you wanna go that far off the beaten path Mr wittman, but there are a lot of possibilities!

    Followed your 41 game. Looking forward to how your 43 plays out.
    A 5 nation global mid? game would be badass!


  • Thanks Barney. I am fascinated with the end half of the war and seeing Germany fight for its life, so am happy to experiment with 43.
    Black Elk’s idea of 5 nations is not a bad starting point either.


  • wittmann, good idea on the italian rule. Here’s a quick thought if the allies capture rome the italian player (which is usually the German player) rolls a dice if they get a 3, 2, and 1 your rule takes place but if 6, 5, and 4 is rolled  your rule doesn’t take place.

    Black_Elk, why does it look like Germany controls Leningrad in your map? A 5 player is a good idea with Germany controlling Italy is fine because Hitler really bossed Mussolini around.


  • Thanks Frederick.
    It always annoyed me that Italy can lose Rome and have no income, yet Germany, historically, annexed the industrial North of the country, installing a puppet government, and yet, in the game, does not keep the income.

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    Yes… German money and units protecting the Italian territories would help the Axis in Europe, and a stronger Kamikaze dynamic would also help the Axis in the Pacific.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Leningrad would have to be a shot call. It was totally encircled and under siege during this period, but the Germans bypassed the city itself. I’d say it’s easier to just give control of the territory to G. I guess the logic would be that city under siege full of starving people probably isn’t going to be cranking out tanks and such.

    I’d let someone more familiar with the history help us to determine the exact German line we want to set up with territories on the eastern front. It’d probably be helpful to pick a general season rather than a month, since it gives more flexibility

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Lots of good ideas in this thread – this is shaping up to be a very interesting scenario. I am a little concerned that some of the goals Black_Elk is describing might conflict with each other.

    On the one hand, if the Axis can reliably expand rapidly in the opening turns of 1943 by leveraging superior starting forces, then we have (a) a repeat of the strategic themes from the 1940 / 1941 setups, where the Axis also leverage superior starting units to expand rapidly, and (b) a big deviation from history – historically, 1943 was a year of rough parity, where it was not immediately clear who was going to expand or how far they would get.

    On the other hand, if the Axis start out with 50 IPCs / turn less than the Allies, and the Allies, especially Russia, start out with more in the way of a navy / air force than they do in the 1940 or 1941 scenarios, then if the Axis don’t reliably and rapidly expand beyond their 1943 holdings, they are doomed.

    I think I would prefer to see a scenario where the Axis begin the game with a mild economic advantage, but also with a mild deficit of troops. This would be both more unique (as compared to other A&A variants) and more accurate (as compared to history). Some places where the Axis could get more income without straining history too much include Tunisia, French West Africa (parts of which were Axis-controlled until very near the end of the war), Leningrad, Burma, central China, and new Guinea. The Axis could also have more national objectives (each of which is worth more on average) than the Allies.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    I take the point, but the way I see it, if we are willing to “zero” the board, and build out the starting forces entirely anew, then almost anything is possible.

    For example, the rapid Axis expansion you mentioned on the 1940 board is not really what I was aiming for here. In 1940 this rapid expansion is probably just as much a consequence of the Turn order sequence, the type of starting units and “where exactly” these are located, as it is of the overall TUV on the board at the outset.  In other words, in 1940, sure the Axis have more TUV, but importantly, that TUV is located on the border with the enemy ready to attack from the first round at advantage. And it’s the Axis who move first! Basically the Allies are designed to fold in the first round, and the unit set up supports this. But it’s possible, if we wanted, to design the scenario such that the Axis TUV (while still larger than Allies) is located in rather less advantageous positions. Similarly, the exact makeup of the starting forces, the ratio of heavy hitters like aircraft to infantry etc could be weighted more towards the infantry side of things, slow moving less potent units at the outset, so that the Axis have to build out their attack power over time. This would basically be the reverse of 1940, where Axis start with a huge heavy hitter advantage.

    Essentially, my suggestion would be to design the first round such that it’s the Axis who absorb the initial onslaught, instead of being the ones who deliver it. No massive wipe outs of the entire Royal navy by Germany or Japan clear cutting across Asia. I said before that an ahistorical expansion pattern for Japan is basically a pre-requisite for A&A games, but that doesn’t mean they need to be thumping around like Godzilla all the way to India or Moscow as a matter of course, just for game balance. I think we could just as easily work things out so that the Victory conditions encourage a somewhat more reasonable expansion pattern for Axis, and one that is easier for the Allies to counter.

    I’d be entirely open to exploring different alternatives to those base values I suggested above, if it produces a playable 5 man game on the global map. I guess the trick in any A&A game is to find a way create conditions such that the Axis aren’t totally doomed from the outset, since by 1943 the Allies were already thinking about to carve up the world when the war was over haha.
    :-D

    Again though, bringing it back to the totals, the starting TUV and the composition of that TUV, is way more significant to the overall balance of power than the starting income, or even how much income can be seized through conquest in the opening rounds.

    In Global 1940:
    Axis TUV is 1499, with a starting income of 66 ipcs.
    Allied TUV is 2072, with a starting income of 175 ipcs.

    In Global 1942:
    Axis TUV is 1445, with a starting income of 112.
    Allied TUV is 1670 with a starting income of 142.

    In each scenario, both sides have well over 200 units at the outset. The income numbers for 1942 are much closer to what we will be working with, and these numbers are pretty hard to change since our only tool there is NOs. I definitely wouldn’t suggest altering the production values on the game map, as that is way too complicated. The starting territory possession will basically be defined by the timeline, so there’s not a whole lot of room there either to tweak the income numbers. That leaves us with starting TUV, unit composition, and unit location as the main drivers of the play balance.

    I’d say we take a 3 step approach…

    1. Determine the starting ownership and territory distribution we want for the 1943 timeline, and then see what income numbers this produces.

    2. Determine the Turn order, the TUV, and the ideal composition/location of starting units, to give the “feel” of a 1943 opener. E.g. figure out what sorts of opening battles we want to highlight in the first round, and what sort of National Objectives we would like to have, such that the game has the general “flavor” of 1943.

    3. Determine the optimal Victory conditions for whatever game steps 1 and 2 produces, such that the game can conclude in a reasonable amount of time.

    After we get there, we can tweak the Objectives, increasing or lowering the IPC values awarded for accomplishing the desired goals, along with a some basic unit addition/subtraction here and there, until the scenario is roughly balanced by sides. I think if we work at it in that order, then we’ve probably got a better shot at building a game that will have staying power, with less back tracking or redesign needed midway through the process.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    ps. to be clear, I think Argothairs suggestion could also work, if we are willing to zero the board of all units, and build the starting forces from the ground up.

    When I hear mild economic edge for Axis, and deficit in units, I’d read that on the broader continuum. Since Axis don’t have to make more money in total than the Allies to achieve that effect, they just need to make more IPCs each round relative to what they usually earn, relative to their starting TUV/unit composition.

    Without wildly distorting the ownership of Axis starting territories, this economic edge would have to be accomplished via NOs. Fairly large NOs too, since you’d only have two Nations on that team. That seems cool with me. NO’s are the best sort of gamey mechanism we have, since it’s all abstract and not tied to the specific ipc/production values of the game map. If you want to bring Axis totals up substantially, I’d do it like that, rather than by trying to engineer an scripted expansion pattern for Axis as a way of equalizing the total loot they can grab for their side each round.

    Allies by contrast, would be collecting at similar amount with less objective boosts, but with more starting units already in place, with their unit composition more pre-determined.

    So instead of in 1940 where the Axis have the most complex opening moves, in 1943 it could maybe be one of the Allies, say USA, who has to make a complex opener, with tough decisions about how to distribute their starting forces in attacks, and tough decisions about what to by, in order to set the game pace.

    I will always argue for a stronger Russia as a way of introducing novelty, but that doesn’t mean you have to nerf everyone else to achieve it. If the set up was designed such that the Western Allies have a ���� ton of things to do, and sending fighters to Moscow isn’t one of them, then it makes sense to create a more defensible stand alone player in Russia. A&A has always started in a timeline where Russia is meant to be the weak link, but by 1943 this was not case. 1943 is the year the Red Army turned the corner and starting wining WW2 against Germany for the rest of the world haha ;)

    Questions:

    Which side would you have move first? Axis or Allies?

    What turn order would be the most interesting to pursue in a 5 man? Would you keep it traditional with a Russian opener, or switch things up, the way AA50 did, and have Germany, or Japan move first? And related to this, is it worth mixing up the turn order in a new way to introduce more novelty to the scenario? USA or UK first, for 1943? It could be cool for an early campaign against Italy.

    On the idea of turn order, I’ve done a lot of experiments with this on various boards, and I found that its easier to change the starting nation, than it is to change the order or sequence of Nations for any given board. So for example, traditionally in the 5 man it is…
    R, G, UK, J, USA.

    Instead of altering the sequence the way AA50 did, you can just alter the start point in the sequence like…
    USA, R, G, UK, J

    Or you can reverse the direction (reading the traditional sequence backwards say, from any point) like…
    USA, J, UK, G, R.

    Any takers? hehe

    Also should capital capture be necessary in order for the Axis to win? I’d vote no on this last, but if no, then really think a VC focus needs to be a priority, and perhaps be built into the National Objective income scheme as some sort of stand alone bonus.

    I kind of like that idea, in a 1943 game, where winning as the Axis means expanding just a bit and then “holding out long enough.” Sort of like a mirror image of the Classic game, where Allies win simply by holding out long enough. In 1943 the onus could be on the Allies to attack and destroy the enemy “before time runs out,” whereas usually this onus is on the Axis in A&A. Might be cool for the switch up. I agree that it would be a fun change of pace in an A&A game.

    For a proper 5 man, the first addendum to the rules would have to be something like…

    All territories with an Italian roundel are considered “originally controlled” by the Germans.
    All territories with an Anzac, Canadian, French or Dutch roundel are considered originally controlled by the British.
    All territories with a Chinese roundel are considered originally controlled by the Americans.

    This way you don’t have to deal with any weird liberation issues, everything is just governed by the roundel drawn on the map, with control assigned to the appropriate nation if the territory is recovered for your team.

    If desired you could extend this concept of “control” to the national unit sculpts too. Meaning for example, any Italian units on the map are considered German. Any French or Anzac troops are considered British. With the choice of sculpt/color being merely an aesthetic preference. This would allow players to utilize all their G40 sculpts!

    Italian sculpts are considered European Axis under German direction.
    French and Anzac sculpts are considered European and Pacific Allies under British direction.

    This would allow players to still give the gamemap a global feel, but without requiring all the rules overhead of a 10 nation turn order. Basically these “bonus sculpts” would be interchangeable with the sculpts of the Nation that controls their roundel flag insignia on the gamemap.


  • I’ve been very busy for the past several days, so I haven’t had much time to follow the details of this discussion.  From a quick read today, I can see that lots of interesting ideas have been proposed but I’m also wondering if the discussion is perhaps drifting into potentially conflicting directions (a point alluded to by Argothair in his most recent post).

    Black Elk has proposed a lot of good ideas which I think are well worth pursuing.  Many of them – if I understand them correctly –  seem to aim to produce an A&A game which works “better” than the OOB version…a game that has the scope of Global 1940, but which plays with the briskness of the smaller games.  They include concepts like “zeroing” the board and the units, generally streamlining the game, giving the game a 5-player dynamic, giving the Russians a proper navy, and so forth.  What Black Elk sees here is, in his words, “a real opportunity to correct some of the issues that have long plagued the game” which would be done from the ground up by the A&A community.

    This all sounds great, but it should be noted that these concepts are applicable to A&A in a general sense.  There’s nothing in them that inherently ties them to a 1943 scenario, or for that matter to a scenario set in any other year of WWII.  So we should be careful to be clear about exactly what the intended objective of this exercise is, because the objective has a major impact on some pretty basic decisions.  Specifically:

    • If the objective is to produce a game which has the “rebalanced” elements which Black Elk advocates, then we need to seriously ask ourselves whether a 1943 scenario is the right context in which to set the game.  Perhaps what Black Elk advocates could be achieved in a 1943 scenario by bending historical reality sufficiently…but might it not be easier and more historically accurate to pick a different year?

    • Conversely, if the objective is to model 1943 accurately (which was, I think, the premise on which this discussion thread was originally based), then it follows that the unit values and locations of the forces on the board have to correspond to historical reality reasonably closely, and that this in turn might rule out some of the things (such as a balanced game) which I think Black Elk wants to achieve.

    So I’m wondering if this discussion should actually be split into two separate ones: one to create a revised game system along the lines being proposed by Black Elk (in which the year of the scenario would be dictated by the system’s requirements) and one to create a 1943 scenario (in which the game system would be dictated by the reality of the situation as it existed in 1943).

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Great posts as always, Black_Elk. I agree with your agenda: let’s get the starting territories right first, then figure out some starting battles / national objectives to give the game a solid 1943 theme, and then we can tweak the starting unit balance.

    I typed up a list of territories assigning France to the USA (rather than to Britain, which is already relatively income-rich in 1943), and splitting China between the USA and the USSR (which is surprisingly income-poor in 1943). These are mostly stylistic choices – obviously, you could give all those territories to Britain and it would not affect the overall Axis/Allied economic balance. I just think it’s fun to model the ongoing tension between the Brits and the French – if you give all the French colonies to Britain, then Britain winds up with this monolithic chunk of territories in Africa. It’s not as if the USA can build an IC in Algeria or Madagascar, anyway – they’re all 1-point territories.

    Anyway, I show that the Axis start with 136 IPCs to the Allies’ 124 IPCs, even before adding in any national objectives. So unless my math is badly off or I’ve grossly misrepresented the Russian front, it should not be too hard to have the Axis starting off with a straightforward income advantage in 1943. I think this is the simplest way to force the Allies to race against the clock to defeat the Axis – if you let the Axis sit on their gains for too long, they’ll just start out-producing you.

    I take your point about starting unit placement being more important than starting TUV and starting income. In games where the entire British and American navies get destroyed on turn 1, along with the bulk of the Russian tank corps, the “printed” Allied TUV is deeply inaccurate. The actual TUV that the Allies have to work with in 1940 or 1941 is much less than what they are shown as starting with on the setup cards, because most of it will be destroyed either before the Allies get a move, or after the Allies’ very first move.

    However, I think this will be less true for the 1943 scenario. We agree that no Allied navies should be reliably sunk on turn 1. There is no Pearl Harbor, no Taranto, etc. We agree that Russia should have a tough, buff front line that is in position to advance and conquer, rather than in position to be shattered and forced to retreat. I envision that Allied China will fall more often than not in 1943, but there is not a lot of TUV there – maybe 50 points of infantry and 20 points of fighters. I do not see any big opportunities for the Axis to destroy Allied TUV in the first couple of moves. The Allies might choose to commit some of their TUV to try to make aggressive territorial gains, but that’s a different animal.

    GERMANY
    Western and Central Europe (including France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Sicily) – 49 IPCs
    Tunisia, French West Africa, and French Central Africa – 3 IPCs
    Norway, Finland, and Karelia – 6 IPCs
    Baltic States, Eastern Poland, Belarus, Novgorod, Smolensk – 6 IPCs
    Western Ukraine, Ukraine, Rostov, Caucasus – 8 IPCs
    German subtotal – 72 IPCs

    JAPAN
    Home Islands, Korea, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Formosa – 14 IPCs
    Oceania (including Philippines) – 17 IPCs
    Eastern China, from Hong Kong to Manchuria – 13 IPCs
    Kwangsi, French Indo China, Siam, Malaya, Shan State, Burma – 9 IPCs
    Central China (Chahar, Hopei, Anhwe, Kwichow, Hunan, Yunnan) – 6 IPCs
    Eastern USSR (Soviet Far East, Siberia, Amur, Sakha, Buryatia) – 5 IPCs
    Japanese subtotal – 64 IPCs

    Axis Total – 136 IPCs

    USSR
    Europe (Archangel, Vologda, Russia, Bryansk, Volgograd, Urals, Novosibirsk, Tambov, Samara, Kazakhstan) – 13 IPCs
    Asia (Timguska, Evenkiyskiy, Yenisey, Yakut) – 4 IPCs
    Communist China (Kansu, Suiyuan, Shensi) – 3 IPCs
    Russian Subtotal – 20 IPCs

    USA
    North America  (including West Indies, Panama, Alaska, Hawaii) – 50 IPCs
    Nationalist China (Tsinghai, Sikang, Szechwan) – 3 IPCs
    Free France (Morocco, Algeria, French Equatorial Africa, Syria, Madagascar) – 5 IPCs
    American Subtotal – 58 IPCs

    BRITAIN
    UK and Canada – 14 IPCs
    British Africa (including Libya, Congo, Ethiopia) – 14 IPCs
    Jordan, Iraq, and Persia – 5 IPCs
    India – 3 IPCs
    Australia – 8 IPCs
    New Zealand – 2 IPCs
    British Subtotal – 46 IPCs

    Allied Total – 124 IPCs

    PS: CWO Marc, in my opinion, the 1943 scenario will be a reasonably good vehicle for the kind of rebalancing that Black_Elk has in mind. By moving forward in history, the game length is naturally shortened. It also makes more sense to have fewer players in 1943 – the alliances had largely consolidated by then. Finally, Russian naval/air strength was much better in 1943 than at any time since 1939. If you want to apply strict historical accuracy to the territory distribution listed above, you would have to return 5 IPCs from Japan to Siberian Russia, plus 2 IPCs from Germany to the Western Allies for French West Africa and French Central Africa, which joined the Free French in December 1942. You might also have to give back one or two Chinese territories from Japan to the Nationalist Chinese, for another 1 or 2 IPCs. Leningrad is also debatable, for another 2 IPCs. If you shift all those territories over, the economic balance might shift from 136-124 in favor of the Axis, to 135-125 in favor of the Allies. Not necessarily fatal to good game play, since the USA still has no ICs or convenient IC sites anywhere near the action, and you can use national objectives to give the Axis an economic edge.


  • Thank you for that work, Argothair.
    Unfortunately, I can’t agree on Germany having Novgorod, because of the 5 NO. Equally, Caucasus. The Germans abandoned that in Jan of 43. They held Rostov.
    Are you proposing a post Stalingrad start? I can accept Germany still having a prescence in Africa, albeit I started in June to avoid the African confrontation.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Hi wittman! We’re re-drafting the national objectives from scratch, so giving Leningrad to Germany doesn’t necessarily mean that Germany will get a +5 IPC bonus. We could even flip that one around! Maybe Russia gets a +5 IPC bonus if Germany holds Leningrad. After all, the historical dynamic was that Germany deliberately avoided occupying Leningrad in part because Russia was spending a lot of resources to try to supply all the starving civilians under siege. A reverse NO would be wildly unorthodox; you might not like that. My main point is that we can change the NOs as we see fit. Whoever gets Leningrad, they should start with few or no troops in the area – it was hotly contested in 1943.

    Similarly, whoever holds the Caucuses should hold them very lightly. I’m proposing a January 1943 start, so that we can honestly keep the ‘1943’ title while still maximizing the extent of Axis territorial holdings. So, yes, Germany’s armies in Stalingrad were destroyed, but the German retreat from the Caucuses was not yet complete. Part of the problem is that “the Caucuses” was a large area relative to the size of the campaigns. The Germans were driven back from Astrakhan and Baku well before January 1943, but the Russians didn’t get to Stavropol until January 21, 1943, and didn’t get to Krasnodar until February 1943. On January 1, 1943, I think the Germans still controlled the majority of the population and industry of the Caucuses. The Germans did not entirely abandon the peninsula until September 1943.


  • True: they were still in the Kuban until Sept, but that was not the Caucasus proper. And not worthy of a NO.

    I understand your reasoning with choosing Jan and am happy to help with anything.
    Changing the NOs would help greatly, so I am in favour and look forward to your ideas.
    All we need now is some Ferdinand sculpts!

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Wittmann, you seem to know a great deal about the history of the Russian/German front – do you want to take a crack at designing the starting unit roster for Europe in 1943? It’s beyond my expertise; I have no idea how many panzer divisions were in eastern Europe at all, let alone at some specific point in early 1943. it sounds like that’s not Black_Elk’s strong suit either.

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    @CWO:

    So I’m wondering if this discussion should actually be split into two separate ones: one to create a revised game system along the lines being proposed by Black Elk (in which the year of the scenario would be dictated by the system’s requirements) and one to create a 1943 scenario (in which the game system would be dictated by the reality of the situation as it existed in 1943).

    I think any significant colaboration here for a new Axis & Allies varient should be rooted in 1943, simply for it’s easy identification and original setup period no matter how chalanging.

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