1942.2 New NAP, Soviet Japanese Non Aggression Pact

[Argothair]

I dislike any house rules that outright prohibit Russia and Japan from attacking each other for part or all of the game; it kills the “what-if” historical speculation that makes the game so much fun for me, and it introduces very weird tactical considerations – you can wind up wanting to artificially delay your capture of an enemy capital so that you have time to shift your troops over to a new front against an enemy who you know you will soon be at war with but who is powerless to do so much as raid your transports until after a scripted game event.

I also strongly dislike the idea of magically dropping a large stack of defensive infantry in the path of a Japanese invasion. It totally shatters my suspension of disbelief. I understand that the game isn’t trying to be a realistic simulation, but the commenters above are right – there’s just no way that being sneak attacked would provide a boost to your economy; the opposite would likely be true.  I can imagine the Russians raising a small additional militia in Irkutsk/Yakutsk in response to an invasion (at the cost of supply shortages and hunger), but Japanese-occupied Manchukuo had no loyalty to the Japanese – they might even have welcomed an invading Russian army as liberators.

Leaving aside the issues of theme and story, and considering things strictly from a strategic point of view, I guess 7 infantry is balanced enough, but I would really rather structure the starting units and bonuses in the game so that players are naturally incentivized to avoid an unnecessary Russo-Japanese war. In another thread (the 1943 scenario), I suggested giving Russia an NO for +5 IPCs/turn if Russia controls Amur and is not at war with Japan, and giving Japan an NO for +5 IPCs/turn if Japan controls Manchuria and Korea and is not at war with Russia. That may not be exactly the right number, but that’s the kind of house rule I’d prefer to see – something that makes keeping the peace win-win for Russia and Japan unless one or both of them decide to launch a serious invasion.

[Black_Elk]

I see what you’re getting at, but if you’re going for cost/benefit approach Axis and Allies is pretty limited in what we can use. You basically have IPCs, or units.

My concern with a more modest bonus, like 5 ipcs per round to both, so long as they’re not at war, is that it would likely not be enough to prevent Japan from just deciding to go all gangbusters immediately. And if you start raising the amount by much more, up to say 10 ipcs per round to make it more consequential, then you wind up with an amount comparable to the 21 ipcs I suggested after just a few rounds. Perhaps much more cash introduced than 21. And again the incentive for Japan to attack might even be higher, because they know that the money is more valuable to Russia than it is to them.

The issue I see with giving both nations a bonus, (as opposed to just the nation being attacked) is that then it becomes a wash. As Japan you figure, “well I’ll lose my bonus, but so will the other guy, and he needs the cash more than I do, so screw it, Invade!”
:-D

I guess an alternative to what I suggested would be a direct cost to the attacker, rather than a bonus to the defender. Something like, cost=X ipcs for breaking the NAP, immediately removed from the treasury and returned to the bank.  Where X is some amount large enough to actually make the player think twice.

The only kink there is that the attacker would have to save ipcs beforehand so that there’s actually something to take away. I guess that would be a little bit like the old Classic rules for invading neutrals, where you had to save 3 ipcs to do it. I guess here you’d want a much higher cost, like -20 ipcs to launch a sneak attack?

Perhaps something like that would be doable?

[Argothair]

Yeah, I mean a cost for the sneak attacker is more interesting than a bonus payment of IPCs to the sneak attack victim. You could even have a choice of whether to pay the sneak attack cost or just declare war one turn in advance of when you actually invade. The sneak attack cost could represent the added difficulty of stockpiling supplies, ammo, etc. on the border without your rival detecting the buildup.

I think if Japan wants to invade Russia simply because Russia needs cash more than Japan, then the game is broken on a deeper level than NAPs can fix – Japan should also be feeling pinched for cash in the opening. Japan should have lots of fronts they want to invade (potentially including Russia), and Japan should be unable to generate enough cash to invade all of them at once in sufficient force to actually win. Otherwise the Japanese player isn’t making any interesting strategic choices; the only valid strategy is “attack everywhere” and it all comes down to tactics.

[Black_Elk]

Ok I actually like that a lot better. I will edit the lead post of this thread once we figure it out.

Something like

Before the purchase phase, either player (Russia or Japan) can “break the NAP” for some amount in IPCs.

This could either be a set amount, like 20 ipcs, or it could be a percentage of their total cash, like  50%. Or perhaps either, whichever amount is greater.

This has the advantage of being a lot simpler to implement, and also somewhat more believable.  The cost in IPCs can be explained as shock to the economy and military expenditure from the sudden onset of war.

Now the trick is just to find the right amount. If done correctly this NAP system doesn’t need to be confined to 1942.2, it could work for Global, or Classic or Revised etc.

What do you like better… set amount? or percentage based? Or some kind of hybrid?
I can see advantages and disadvantages to either approach, but both still seem better to me than OOB with no NAP in play.

[Black_Elk]

Ps. I redrafted the rule in the first post. What do you think?

[River_Rat]

Instead of a fixed penalty, what about randomizing the consequences of breaking the NAP by rolling a die (or dice) to determine the penalty? The randomness could reflect the somewhat-less-than-certain outcome that might result from breaking the pact.

Penalty to the Attacker
Cost of Betrayal! Roll [a number to be determined] of dice before the Purchase Units phase. Sum of dice determines the penalty to be paid immediately. I rather like the idea of a regressive penalty that would decrease in subsequent rounds.

For example:
Rounds 1-2: 4 Dice–Penalty between 4 and 24
Rounds 3-4: 3 Dice–Penalty between 3 and 18
Rounds 5-6: 2 Dice–Penalty between 2 and 12
Rounds 7-8:  1 Die–Penalty between 1 and 6
Rounds  9+: No Penalty

Bonus to the Defender
Rally the Militia! Defender rolls 1 die after the sneak attack is declared in the Combat Movement phase. The number rolled determines the number of infantry to be placed in territory being attacked before conducting combat.

Hybrid Penalty/Bonus
A combination of the two described above. Attacker pays a penalty and Defender receives a bonus.

[Black_Elk]

Now that is a cool concept! And it has a gameplay element all its own.

I think this is what’s missing from the game. A reward penalty structure instead of hard rules to govern the politics. The NAP would be a good way to test the concept.

But it has potentially broader applications too. I like it!

[Black_Elk]

Ps. I dig the regressive penalty, and the fact that it involves a roll.

I’m pro rolling.  :-D

One of the things I like to combat with HR is this idea that the game has to be one dimensional, or to do away with the idea that one side always wins, or “has to do such and such” lest they lose.

I think randomization (somewhere outside of combat but relating to income) is a good way to achieve that. If its beyond everyones control it’s harder to grumble about. SBR is a bit like this in the game, where you just gotta take it in stride if an aa gun hits, or a bomber rolls a six. This seems a bit like that, but expanded.

The “rally the militia” idea is cool. It reminds me of like a combination land-scramble/SBR run, where you’re hoping to hit a 6. I like that better than an auto 7, for the same reason I like rolling for the penalty.

Nice work dude. Thanks for the contribution!

I think I will try it next FtF game

[knp7765]

I am curious about something. In reading all the posts in this thread, it seems to me like we all want to keep Japan and Russia from attacking each other without making an actual rule stating that.
If we are wanting to do this, it seems to me that apparently this is a problem for most people of either Japan attacking Russia and romping across the north toward Moscow or Russia attacking Japan and taking all the coastal Chinese territories.
Does one or the other happen a lot in your games? So much so that you are wanting to design a deterrent?
In most of our games, Japan and Russia usually don’t attack one another until things are under control in other sectors.
In Japan’s case, they usually won’t go into Russia until they have the DEI and Calcutta, China is mostly conquered AND they are successfully fending off the US Navy and ANZAC Navy.
In Russia’s case, they won’t go into Manchuria/Korea until it is a nearly sure thing that Germany will not be taking Moscow AND Japan is having a hard time of things and perhaps busy in another sector. In that case, either Japan will not be able to retake Manchuria/Korea right away or if they do then it will hurt their efforts against Calcutta, the DEI or the US Navy.
This is kind of a mutual benefit thing. Russia doesn’t want Japan romping around in their far east territories and Japan doesn’t want to lose Manchuria or Korea.

[Black_Elk]

Well the proposed rule had an emphasis on 1942.2, but if it works there I don’t see why something similar couldn’t be adopted for Global. In that game Japan doesn’t have as much to gain from going Godzilla against Russia (at least not until India/China are handled.) But the way that dance is achieved is pretty rules intensive, and it’s debatable how effective Mongolia is as a deterrent, once Japan is on the warpath everywhere else.

[Flashman]

The reason Japan attacks Russia in most games is to combine with Germany to knock Russia out of the game - by far the most likely means of eliminating an Allied power.

The problem is not as acute as when Moscow was placed in the middle of Siberia, but its still the optimum Axis strategy. Every power piling as many units as possible into Stalingrad/Moscow is something seen altogether too many times in Axis and Allies, and an effective NAP is the only solution. You may want the What If? scenario that there was no pact, but you may as well have the possibility of a Western Allies - Soviet war, something that very nearly happened over Finland while the Soviets were still Allied to Germany.

But this fusion of two entirely separate conflicts is unhistorical and blocks any chance of a remotely familiar playout. The reason Japan initiated a Pacific war was because it had secured itself against the possibility of another conflict with Russia. Enact the Pact, and Japan must attack USA in the Pacific to drain American resources away from the European front. Russia becomes stronger and can concentrate on fighting a Germany less likely to be worn down by American attacks. Anything else just isn’t WWII.

[Argothair]

Every power piling as many units as possible into Stalingrad/Moscow is something seen altogether too many times in Axis and Allies…

Couldn’t agree more.

…and an effective NAP is the only solution.

That’s crazy talk. For any game design problem, there are always dozens of potential solutions, several of which will be interesting and fun for at least some types of players. I’m just going to brainstorm some other solutions that could help avoid the repetitive rush to Moscow:

1. Give Russia lots more starting infantry and slightly less income so that conquering Russia is relatively less attractive
2. Give the UK fewer starting infantry and slightly more income so that conquering London is relatively more attractive
3. Shift the Axis starting troops toward the extreme periphery, e.g., in France, Norway, Morocco, Midway, and New Guinea, so that attacks against the USA and the UK are easier to pull off and attacks against Moscow are slower.
4. Change the capital-capture rules so that conquering Moscow doesn’t automatically prevent the Russians from mobilizing new units or provide the Axis with a massive economic windfall
5. Write a house rule for partisans and revolts so that ungarrisoned territories have a chance to shake off enemy control, making it less attractive to try to occupy all of Russia’s low-value territories
6. Use national objectives to give Russia and Japan incentives to attack other nations
7. Use national objectives to give Russia and Japan incentives not to attack each other
8. Treat the USSR as a ‘third faction’ that isn’t necessarily on the same team as either the Allies or the Axis, so that if the Axis gang up on the USSR and ignore the US/UK, they risk throwing the game to the US/UK
9. Write a house rule for supply lines so that it’s difficult for Germany and Japan to project power across 4+ land territories to get to Moscow, but relatively easy for them to project power across sea zones to London, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, Capetown, Sydney, and Honolulu
10. End the game after a set number of turns, and put more victory cities in US / UK / French / Chinese nations than in the USSR, forcing the Axis to attack other nations besides just Russia if they want to win

That’s really just off the top of my head. If you want a non-aggression pact, fine, enjoy it, but don’t pretend like the only way to get an interesting game is to force players into a rigidly scripted version of history. Some players enjoy alternate histories, and that’s a legitimate part of what Axis & Allies is about.

[Black_Elk]

That reads like a 10 point plan, for a redesign.
:-D

Honestly if you could fix the center issue between Japan and Russia using familiar mechanics like income, production, starting unit position etc, I think Japan would have incentives to attack America directly instead of trying to meet them somewhere near the center. Whether that’s in Europe, the Med or in Russia.

And then you don’t need a rule telling players what they can’t do. You just make it less advantageous.

I’d like a game where Japan stays in the Pacific oriented towards America and Australia, more so than India, Africa or the center. If their bonuses drew them more onto the islands that would certainly help in a game like global. 1942.2 doesn’t have an Objectives mechanic, it does have VCs but I don’t think VCs are enough. They need an income or production incentive to draw them here against USA instead of Russia.

[Narvik]

@Argothair:

I suggested giving Russia an NO for +5 IPCs/turn if Russia controls Amur and is not at war with Japan, and giving Japan an NO for +5 IPCs/turn if Japan controls Manchuria and Korea and is not at war with Russia. That may not be exactly the right number, but that’s the kind of house rule I’d prefer to see – something that makes keeping the peace win-win for Russia and Japan unless one or both of them decide to launch a serious invasion.

I like that. Like Germany and Russia have a 5 IPC trade NO when not at war, why not give Japan and Russia the same kind of deal ?

Or, a deal that was historical correct. Russia got Lend Lease stuff by 3 routes, the Murmansk route, the Persian Corridor and the Arctic Line. In game rules, that will be
5 IPC for seazone 125 and Archangelsk
5 IPC for seazone 80, Persia and Caucasus
5 IPC for seazone 5 and Amur.

Now, lets say Japan got a 5 IPC trade NO from neutral Mongolia.

No non-aggressions pact nor treaties that are not worth the paper, but pure consequence if one choose to attack the other. Russia invade Manchuria, then Japan sail a Battleship into seazone 5 and block the American Lend Lease. Japan attack Russia, and they loose the 5 IPC trade NO. No straight jacket or scripts, just free will to choose.

[Flashman]

Some nice ideas here, but always remember the long term goals:

Japan’s main incentive to attack in the Pacific (if it is blocked from Siberia) is to aid Germany by forcing America to burn units fighting over the Pacific. This is a more palpable goal than IPCs or VCs. You can offer as many carrots as you like in terms of bonuses and NOs but in the long term throwing everything at Moscow is still going to be the  obvious way for the Axis to win. If you want a serious Pacific war enforce the treaty. A game in which USSR and Japan are at war before the Nuclear age is set in a parallel universe.

I agree on changing capture the capital rules so that its not all about Moscow.

Another alternative would be to introduce 2 complementary rules - rail movement and arms to Russia. That is, any western Allied unit moved into a Soviet factory can be converted into a Red unit. Then, allow unlimited non-combat rail movement (e.g. from Soviet far east to Moscow in one move).

This gives Russia big a incentive not to annoy the Japanese; I prefer this sort of thing to the more abstract NO solutions.

[CWO Marc]

I’ve been glancing at this thread on-and-off for a while.  I don’t have any particular opinion on the NAP options being discussed, but here are a few bits of background information in case they’re of any use.  I’d also like to put forward a few arguments to suggest that an outbreak of war between Japan and the USSR in the early 1940s wasn’t a flat-out impossibility, and to suggest that any game scenario featuring such an outbreak might plausibly use Mongolia or Manchuria as its flashpoint.

In the decades before WWII, there was no love lost between Japan and the USSR (or its predecessor, Tsarist Russia), with a lot of tension existing between them over areas like Korea, Mongolia and Manchuria.  These were all areas which underwent various degrees of jurisdictional flux in those years, as the  Chinese empire crumbled.  Japanese ambitions in mainland Asia led to the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, whose outcome helped (along with Russia ambitions for a Pacific warm-water port) to bring about the Russo-Japanese War of 1905-1906.  Japan’s intervention (along with other nations) in the Vladivistok region during the Russian Civil War, and its occupation of Russian territories in that area until around 1922 even after the other intervening nations had left, caused a lot of bad blood with Russia.  It also fueled the ambitions of the members of the Japanese military who dreamed of acquiring large tracts of Siberian real estate.  Also in the period from 1917 to 1922, Mongolia (on which Japan may have had an eye too) broke away from China with the help of the Russians and eventually became a nominally independent but heavily Soviet-leaning people’s republic.  Japan’s 1933 invasion of Manchuria, which it turned into a puppet state, didn’t help to calm things down in that part of Asia either.

In other words, Mongolia and Manchuria were tinderboxes located on the overlapping outer fringes of three powers – China, Russia and Japan, all undergoing political convolutions of one sort or another – who for decades had been struggling with each other for influence in that area.  To complicate matters, some of the borders involved were disputed and poorly defined.  All of this finally led to a series of shooting incidents between Japan and the Soviet Union, starting in 1937 and eventually culminating in the Soviet–Japanese Border War of 1939.  To quote what Hirohito would later say about WWII, the outcome of this border war with the USSR was “not necessarily favourable to Japan” – due in no small part to the fact that one of the commanders on the Soviet side was a talented fellow by the name of Georgi Zhukov, who clobbered the Japanese in the last two weeks of August 1939.

It’s at this point that events in Europe – specifically the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23 – had a major ricochet effect on that little border war.  The Japanese were furious that the Nazis, with whom Japan had partnered in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, would reverse their position and become (at least on paper) buddy-buddies with the Commies, with whom the Japanese were at war at that very moment (and by whom they were being trounced).  Japan therefore did essentially the same thing: it wound down the border war via a ceasefire and later (in April 1941) signed the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.

The Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, however, didn’t meant that Japan had given up its ambitions on the eastern side of the USSR anymore than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact meant that Germany had given up its ambitions on the western side of the USSR.  The Japanese Army remained convinced that the proper policy of Japan should be to expand “north and west” into China and Siberia.  As I recall, some of its officers were completely serious about the concept of Japan taking control of all the Russian land east of Lake Baikal – which, as can be seen from a map, is not a trifling number of square miles.  Overly ambitious as the Japanese Army plans may have been (particularly considering that it was doing badly in China and had done even worse against the Russians in 1939), the Soviets still took the threat of a Japanese invasion very seriously, despite the fact that it had a non-aggression pact with Japan.  They took it so seriously, in fact, that it was only in the fall of 1941 – months after Germany has blitzed into the USSR – that Stalin transfered his elite Siberian troops from the Soviet far east (where the USSR was at peace with Japan) to the other side of the country (where the USSR was at war with Germany).  If there was truly no chance of war between Russia and Japan in 1941, Stalin wouldn’t have left his best troops twiddling their mittened thumbs for months on the fringes of Mongolia and Manchuria while the Nazis were overrunning the European side of his country.

The reason why he finally moved his Siberian troops (in the nick of time to save Moscow, as it turned out) was that he’d received convincing information about Japan’s immediate plans from his top man in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, who – somewhat uncharacteristically – Stalin chose to believe.  Sorge basically told Stalin that Japan, rather than following the Japanese Army’s wish to expand “north and west”, would be following that Japanese Navy’s preference for expanding “south and east” towards the D.E.I. (for oil), Malaysia (for assorted resources) and the islands of the central Pacific held by Britain and America (to extend Japan’s defensive perimeter).  The Japanese Army wasn’t too happy about this: it still hankered to attack Russia, the officers of the Manchuria-based Kwantung Army being particularly inclined in that direction.  What nevertheless won the case for the Navy’s “south and east” strategy (in addition to what should have been the self-evident fact that the D.E.I. were a much better source than Siberia for the resource Japan needed most, oil) was apparently the argument that the “south and east” strategy would be to a large extent a naval operation, and hence would only require a minimum number of Army troops.  A huge percentage of the Japanese Army was still bogged down in China, where it had been fighting since 1937, so this limited the number of troops it could scrape together for any further campaign of expansion.

So in a sense, it could be argued that the chief factor which restrained Japan from attacking Russia in 1941 wasn’t the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, nor any lack of Japanese Army ambition or aggression directed towards Siberia, nor any lack of tension on the borders between the USSR, Mongolia and Japanese-controlled Manchuria.  The restraining factor was actually the fact that Japan’s war in China was going badly.  A war with the USSR could nevertheless still have broken out if Japan had shifted its priorities from China to Siberia, or if the Kwantung Army – which had a track record of provoking (on its own initiative) incidents leading to war – had taken matters into its own hands once again.

[Black_Elk]

Excellent insights as always!

If I thought it’d get much traction, I’d necromance any number of threads where I was pulling for a stronger China (including one or two on the Larry Boards going way back.) I even tried to make the case that we’d have a better chance of selling the game in China, where it’s made these days anyway, if we gave them a nod and made that faction into something other than a speed bump for Japanese expansion.
:-D

Everything from a turn order that favors China, to a few more flying tigers (you know instead of just 1) or giving them a VC, or a production center. Or even just some more starting artillery. I’ve also suggested that a bid restricted to China might be the optimal way to achieve game balance (since its impact wouldnt be as outsized as giving extra units to Russia or Britain.)

Global handles the Chinese a bit better than 1942.2, but I could definitely see ways in which a stronger China would to anchor the fighting here, instead of folding and allowing Japan an easy route into Russia.

I think the Japan vs Russia at war situation is rather more pronounced in the 5/6 man games than the 1940 games. But I get the impression that it’s a pretty tough sell to our players.  I’m a fan of using objectives in the 1940 games to help bolster Russia vs a Godzilla Japan, though to do this in 1942.2 requires a bit more work, since there is no objective system in place OOB.

Great feedback man

[barney]

That was exceptionally well written CWO.

Elk have you ever tried China with no restrictions?

[Black_Elk]

You mean like in Global or AA50 allowing Chinese units to move outside of China? I haven’t tried this before, though it could be interesting. Usually my method was to give control of Chinese territories/units to the US, in which case they were able to move out of China (since the units were treated the same way as all other american units), though this was counterbalanced by the fact that it was harder for the US to mobilize new ground in the area. I’ve experimented with different production concepts before, or different VC spreads, but in general its pretty hard to get people on board with house rules I find. A simple NAP I thought had a better chance of being adopted than a broad scoped redesign of the production/income spread, or a new treatment of China.

At least in the case of Global 1940, a turn order where China goes before Japan would be fun. Of course the problem with China turn order solutions, is that they don’t work on the 5 man boards (where China is not a separate nation, but just US controlled.) So on those boards, I guess the best you could do for something comperable would be like a USA bid, that has to be spent in China. Even then though, its probably just a matter of, stalling Japan by a round or two. If they are determined, it’s pretty hard to keep the Japanese from crushing the Chinese with a quickness and then pinballing around in Soviet territories until they get an opening on Caucasus/Moscow.

[CWO Marc]

@Black_Elk:

If I thought it’d get much traction, I’d necromance any number of threads where I was pulling for a stronger China (including one or two on the Larry Boards going way back.) I even tried to make the case that we’d have a better chance of selling the game in China, where it’s made these days anyway, if we gave them a nod and made that faction into something other than a speed bump for Japanese expansion.

And I think you’d have a good historical basis for it.  If you can get your hands on a copy of the book “Victory at Sea: World War II in the Pacific” by wargame designer James Dunnigan, you’ll find a section in there called (if I remember correctly), “The War (a Big One) in China.”  I haven’t read it for a long time, but as I recall Dunnigan argues that China made a huge and under-appreciated contribution to the Allied war effort by tying down (and inflicting substantial casualties on) the Japanese Army.  The Chinese had in fact been fighting the Japanese continuously since 1937 – four years before the Pacific War started, and two years before the war in Europe started.  And I think Dunnigan says that when Japan started around late 1944 to drain troops away from China and transfer them to the Pacific to bolster its inner line of defense against the advancing Americans, the Chinese were able to start pushing the Japanese occupation lines back to a significant degree.

The G40 map of China is heavily distorted, being about half as wide as it should be relative to its height, and the orange-bordered zones of Japanese control are similarly distorted, and are overly-simplified in the southern portion…so the G40 map gives a very misleading impression of which parts of China were actually controlled by Japan in WWII.  In effect, Japan never managed to conquer comprehensively more than Manchuria, Jehol, the northern half of China’s coastal provinces, and certain territories inland of those provinces.  South of (very roughly) Shanghai, Japan didn’t control the solid block of provinces shown on the map; it only controlled the port cities and some limited areas immediately surrounding them.  (In fairness, this was all they needed to control to cut China off from supply by sea.)  Further inland, Japan concentrated on controlling major cities and the railways linking them…which explains the so-called “dot-and-line” pattern of Japanese occupation you can see on detailed maps of wartime China.  In terms of pure surface area, I think Japan never managed to conquer more than about one-quarter to one-third of China.  So in real life, China was hardly a “speed bump.”