Hello all.

It took some time but I finally came up with my guide to house rules and variants for AAA1914.

Unofficial-AAA1914-House-Rules-Variants.pdf

This guide contains a number of ideas for players to tweak their game in order to make it more fun and more replayable.

A series of successful unit value changes as well as a new set of major overhauls for the existing units.
A series of possible new units to add to the game.
And, for the most dedicated players, a series of 15 scenarios and variants, ranging from game mechanic changes to new starting conditions to geopolitical shifts that depict a series of interesting “what if” scenarios. From simple additions to complex ones, you’ll be guaranteed to find something that tickles your fancy for the next time you decide to square off with your friends in an epic battle for world domination !

@nolimit
Lmao! 🤪🎲

I should also add that for a “bid”, we give the US “improved shipyards” and that seems to balance things out.

Yeah that makes sense

@doomer1940 I agree with you I’m working on fixing it

Research is super fun, but can seriously unbalance the game if a player gets lucky with their first couple rolls. Therefore, we play that the player chooses which tech to research, however better techs have a lower chance of being successfully researched.

The mechanism of researching is the same, you buy research tokens (dice rolls), roll for success, if none hit the tokens are banked for next turn and can roll again at no cost, if successful the tech is gained and the tokens are removed and must be rebought to do more research . The cost of each token (die roll) is increased to 8 IPC (normally is 5). But, tier 1 techs will be successfully researched with a roll of 3 or lower, tier 2 with roll of 2 or lower, and tier 3 with roll of 1:

(3/6 chance) 1. adv artillery, inc factory prod . || mech infantry, war bonds
(2/6 chance) 2. long-range aircraft, radar . . . . || paratroopers, rockets
(1/6 chance) 3. heavy bombers, super subs . . || jet fighters, improved shipyards

To balance out how multiple techs are gained, we separated complimentary tech into opposing groups to prevent them from easily being researched too quickly back-back and becoming OP. To research a tier 2 or 3 tech at least one tech from the tier below must be already obtained from WITHIN the branch. Note, the techs are separated into left and right branches.

So to get heavy bombers (left, tier 3), you could research adv artillery or factory prod (left, tier 1) then radar or long-range air (left, tier 2). Then, to get jet fighters (right, tier 3), you’d have to also research 2 corresponding lower tier techs in the right branch, because adv artillery/radar/etc. don’t count towards the necessary lower tier techs for the right branch.

Thoughts?

That’s one of the problems with games is everybody banks there planes. My own game at least has it where u can lose planes in naval and ground when u don’t want to. If there’s a bonus plane kill u have to take one as a casualty

These house rules are meant to make the game more realistic while staying as simple as possible.

Battleships cost 14 IPCs. They cost 1 IPC to repair.

Switzerland has an IPC value of 4.

The U.K. can only produce up to 4 units per turn in India. If India is captured by the Central Powers, the Central Powers cannot produce units there.

If a capital is captured, the IPCs are discarded and not taken by the capturing power.

Neutral territories that are not home territories still get units if invaded.

Sea units, except submarines, must end their movement when they enter a sea zone with enemy mines.

Units that retreat from a contested territory cannot move into another contested territory. They may move into any adjacent friendly territory.

There is a combat move and a non-combat move. During the combat move, units can move into neutral, contested, and enemy territories. The non-combat move comes after combat. During the non-combat move, units that did not move during the combat move and did not conduct combat can move into friendly territories. Land units can move an unlimited number of territories during the non-combat move within their original territories.

Optional Manpower Rule

Keep track of the infantry that are destroyed for each power. If a power has had 2x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect half of the total IPC value of their territories when they collect income (rounded up). If a power has had 4x the number of their infantry destroyed as their starting IPC value (rounded up), they may only collect the IPC value of their capital territory when they collect income.

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

I’ll see what I can do on enabling a second non-combat move. It might be possible,

Game Sequence is where to do it if you can.

yea I have thought about this but never tried it. I was able to do two "Place"phases.

Screenshot from 2023-03-23 22-09-36.png

I don’t remember exactly why I did it the way i did but

<stepProperty name=“resetUnitStateAtStart” value=“true”/>
</step>

makes it work. I think lol

You could ask wc_sumpton at the triplea site. He’s the one who told me how to do it

@barnee re: testing

Since the Axis each have a starting income that is divisible by 3, originally I had the mechanics for merging theatres as a function of the Axis country either increasing their income by 2/3rds more than their starting income, or decreasing it by 1/3rd less than their starting income. (Which sort of dovetails into the “2 out of 3” rule for Victory Cities.)

This effectively worked out to:
Germany: +14/-7
Italy: +8/-4
Japan: +10/-5

Changing it to a uniform +10/-5 made the math a little bit more intuitive, but it also means the USSR doesn’t have to get beat up so much (down half their income, possibly even losing their capitol) before the US/UK are able to jump in and help.

In terms of territorial gains/losses, this typically works out like…
+10 Germany = Karelia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Persia
-5 Germany = Finland/Norway, Eastern Europe

+10 Italy = all of Africa, plus Brazil or Eastern Canada
-5 Italy = all of Africa (except for one territory), or losing Southern Europe

+10 Japan = all Chinese territories, plus India or Philippines
-5 Japan = Indochina/Burma, Manchuria

So, Italy probably has the toughest time (as one might expect) but none of these scenarios are completely out of the realm of possibility.

Updated. Simplified the rules more.