• This rule incorporates prisoners of war into the game. Note that I have not tested it yet.

    Capturing POWs:

    Before any combat round the defender may decide to surrender the battle. This immediately turns all of the defending infantry into POWs and are now in control of the attacker. ALL OTHER UNITS BESIDES INFANTRY ON THE TERRITORY ARE NOW DESTROYED. You may not surrender a sea battle or a battle not involving defending infantry. Also there must be at least one attacking land unit remaining to to claim the POWs and territory

    After the units are captured:

    After the units are captured they now belong to the controlling power and this should be shown by placing the controlling power’s control marker under the infantry. This infantry may now be moved as a normal infantry during the noncombatant move EXCEPT ON THE TURN THEY WERE CPATURED. FOR EVERY 3 POWs A POWER CONTORLS DURING THE COLLECT INCOME PHASE, THE POWER COLLECTS 1 IPC.

    Liberating POWs:

    If a territory containing POWs is captured by a friendly power they are now back in the control of the power they orgianlly belonged to and may move during their next turn.

    Please post your thoughts and improvements that could be made to this rule and also any questions you may have. Thanks


  • I think it would be cool but no one would ever surrender their men as POWS

  • Customizer

    Also, in most battles, infantry are the first casualties you take to keep your armor and planes around longer.  It just seems to me that most players would rather battle it out to the end.


  • Prisonners of war should actually cause the detaining power to lose income rather that gain income because, in economic terms, they are a financial and military drag on the detaining power.  POWs have to be housed and fed, which costs money, and you have to allocate military personnel to guard them, which takes troops away from combat.  The Geneva Convention imposes limits on the kind of work they are allowed to do (among other things, prohibiting them form any work of a warlike nature), so they’re not economically advantageous to hold – unless, of course, you flaunt the Geneva Convention and use them for slave labour (as in the movie Bridge Over The River Kwai), something which in principle only the Axis powers would be able to do under A&A house rules.


  • I never expected this to be used in large scale battles involving planes and tanks but more so in battles when there are few infantry that will get slaughtered so they surrender to save themselves. As for POWs costing money rather than making money I was ignoring Geneva and thinking of the POWs as more of slaves.


  • It would change the way the game plays drastically. Some examples:

    It would basically allow you to freely march stacks of infantry up the front without risk. Picture 10 unit stacks of German infantry strolling through Russia - made invincible through surrendering and being liberated on the following turn by German armor and followup infantry if the Russians attempt to defeat you in detail.

    It would make amphibious invasions incredibly difficult. Send a small force? Defending infantry beat you back. Send a large force? Defending infantry surrender. Your large force is destroyed on counterattack and the defending infantry are liberated.

    Air power would become even more powerful. Japan can hit you with a few infantry and 20 planes, surrender his men when you counter attack, and liberate them on the following turn.

    Overall, I think it would push the game even further in favour of the Axis powers.

    Ruling captured PoWs could immediately move during the non-combat phase would solve some of this, but then you’d have the opposite problem - they’d reliably make it to the nation’s capital, and the game would likely be over by the time they were liberated.


  • Amalec I see your points. Assuming I allowed them to move on the first noncombat move they might still be able to be liberated in some situations but not most. I guess this idea would not work out in the end because no one would surrender as it would end up being stacks of infantry in the capital generating income


  • @UltimateChaos:

    I never expected this to be used in large scale battles involving planes and tanks but more so in battles when there are few infantry that will get slaughtered so they surrender to save themselves. As for POWs costing money rather than making money I was ignoring Geneva and thinking of the POWs as more of slaves.

    Well, looking at this purely in terms of game mechanics, there’s a more fundamental problem (if I understand correctly what you’ve proposed).  A defending player would have the option of surrendering his land forces, which under the house rule in effect means self-destructing all his equipment and handing over to the enemy infantry units who will produce economic gains for the enemy in subsequent income-collection rounds.  As far as I can tell, the defending player has no incentive under the house rule to do any of this; the surrender terms are a complete loss to the defending player and an appreciable gain to the enemy, so why would the defending player do this?  The answer “to save his men” wouldn’t really work because the objective of the game isn’t to save your men, the objective is to defeat the opponent.  Losing your men and equipment in combat is far more productive than just surrendering them because, in combat, they at least have a chance to eliminate some enemy units in exchange for their own losses, which in turn helps the player’s overall war effort.


  • @CWO:

    @UltimateChaos:

    I never expected this to be used in large scale battles involving planes and tanks but more so in battles when there are few infantry that will get slaughtered so they surrender to save themselves. As for POWs costing money rather than making money I was ignoring Geneva and thinking of the POWs as more of slaves.

    Well, looking at this purely in terms of game mechanics, there’s a more fundamental problem (if I understand correctly what you’ve proposed).  A defending player would have the option of surrendering his land forces, which under the house rule in effect means self-destructing all his equipment and handing over to the enemy infantry units who will produce economic gains for the enemy in subsequent income-collection rounds.  As far as I can tell, the defending player has no incentive under the house rule to do any of this; the surrender terms are a complete loss to the defending player and an appreciable gain to the enemy, so why would the defending player do this?  The answer “to save his men” wouldn’t really work because the objective of the game isn’t to save your men, the objective is to defeat the opponent.  Losing your men and equipment in combat is far more productive than just surrendering them because, in combat, they at least have a chance to eliminate some enemy units in exchange for their own losses, which in turn helps the player’s overall war effort.

    Yea you are correct. I guess POWs would never really work in this game because unlike real war it does not matter how many men you lose


  • @UltimateChaos:

    Yea you are correct. I guess POWs would never really work in this game because unlike real war it does not matter how many men you lose

    I’m not convinced the idea couldn’t work, only that the current idea of it wouldn’t work.

    How about a situation where, for every 3-5 infantry you kill, you gain a PoW that can be placed anywhere. PoWs need to be protected from liberation and every PoW in a province over it’s IPC value costs you 1 IPC/turn in support.

    Results:
    You don’t muck with the balance around attack/counter attack and amphibious assaults.
    You’ve got incentive to distribute the PoWs you capture and risk their liberation, rather than stock them in your capital.
    The Axis, generally considered the stronger side, will take brunt of the downsides since they are killing large numbers of Russian and Chinese infantry. Might actually balance the game.

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