Axis & Allies Global Design Flaws Part 2

@sweetchops27 Sorry mods for necroposting again but this is gorgeous 🤤 In my Atlantic Battlefront 1940 Map, I have very similar convoy boxes to yours (which is cool!) Your large text is neat but the font is a little too wacky. The darker sea color is a nice addition like A&A Zombies, I thought about adding it to mine but I don’t think it’s exactly practical. Anyways, I give it a 4.8/5.

My map (which I haven’t worked on in a few weeks) only takes place in the European side of the map (with no South America) for practical reasons. I hope that whenever it is printed, it isn’t too big and the nation economies are balanced and the setup is okay :>

The scale is the thing that most bedevils me.

I was recently watching some commentary on house rules from [b]Lion in the Trenches[/b], who was reacting to suggestions that he place an Austrian cruiser in the Sea Zone off Tsingtao in his Global 1914 customization. He made the point that a single Austrian cruiser doesn’t scale with the squadron or fleet implied by the corresponding game piece.

By my estimate, Global 1940 models ground units at the level of army corps, naval units at the level of fleets or task forces, and air forces at the level of wings. There are a handful of exceptions for colonial detachments, such as the two starting British Infantry in Kwangtung (Hong Kong), which stand in for about 14,500 defenders historically. India’s potential as a source of colonial manpower is significantly curtailed by the British Empire’s income problems, and Australia often explodes in production by the end game (win or lose) even when their national manpower pool and industrial capacity would never have allowed it.

In my opinion, scale should be balanced rigorously against the opportunity for fun gameplay. In my Global War games, I always add a French Infantry in Indochina, for example. There is also a clear movement in favor of bulking up the Dutch presence in the East Indies when games of Global War are played, and many players prefer to give the Italian fleet-in-being a fighting chance with set-up variants to blunt the Taranto Raid.

Some suggestions in the order you posted great ideas;

reduce Bombay factory to minor
play G42 instead then switch back the diplomacy is a great module…or just start everyone at war!
Yep.  Agree on split neutrals easy mod
Pro-neutrals under control…  Germany too powerful and positioned though.
islands of 2 IPC; or more agree.  too abusive on Hawaii/wake etc.
scrambling seems a crucial deterrent power, its too weak as it is…stratbombing is devastatingly powerful
transports should only defend, otherwise they are better than destroyers as cannon fodder
agree, convoys everywhere, no problems.
I like that destroyers can carry 1 guy from the pacific game but since they can only noncom or combat it makes it kinda limited…

The on going discussion:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=40520.msg1693864#msg1693864
on Transport with defense roll makes me wonder about actual combat strength of Classic Transport and an escorted TP:

Transport and Destroyer A2 D2 C15, 1 hit
Offense & Defense factor:
36*(2/15^2) = 0.32

Transport and Cruiser A3 D3 C19, 1 hit
Offense & Defense factor:
36*(3/19^2) = 0.30

Classic Transport A0 D1 C8, 1 hit
Defense factor:
36*(1/8^2) = 0.5625

I revised the opening post.
As comparison points, a Fighter A3 D4 C10 off/def is 1.08 / 1.44

Destroyer A2 D2 C8, 1 hit
Offense & Defense factor:
36*(2/8^2) = 1.125

Submarine A2 D1 C6
Offense:
36*(2/6^2) = 2.00
36*(3/6^2) = surprise strike 3.00
Defense:
36*(1/6^2) = 1.00
36*(1.33/6^2) = surprise strike 1.33

You need to send 2 Destroyers to get a similar defense value with Classic Transport strength 0.5625:
Transport and 2 Destroyers A4 D4 C23, 2 hits
Offense & Defense factor:
36*(2/11.5^2) = 0.544

Or make defenseless Transport a 4 IPCs unit:
Transport and Destroyer A2 D2 C12, 1 hit
Offense & Defense factor:
36*(2/12^2) = 0.50

Now, if you want to introduce a Classic TP with the same strength of actual DD+TP combo 0.32:
You need to make TP cost 10,5 IPCs:
Classic Transport A0 D1 C10, 1 hit
Defense factor:
36*(1/10^2) = 0.36

At 11 IPCs, it would be 0.30 though.

Transport defending A0 D1 would be interesting at a clean 10 IPCs.

@CWO:

Depicting a single regiment would be problematic in terms of game scale.  In general terms, a game on the scale of Global 1940 represents (admittedly in very abstract terms) the actions of units that are mostly the size of army groups and fleets – and, furthermore, of army groups and fleets which have no specific identity other than their nationality.  It would be hard to justify saying that one particular regiment-sized unit, with a specific name, ought to be added to the game; by that rationale, there are hundreds of other regiments that could be added too.

The obvious exception to the above principle is the single fighter which represents the Flying Tiger squadron in China…so it’s not an ironclad rule that units smaller than army groups and fleets are never represented in the game.  It can be argued, however, that the Flying Tigers are a special case because of their high profile, and because in the game China lacks aviation forces of its own.  China doesn’t lack infantry, however, so adding a USMC unit doesn’t bring anything distinctive to China’s forces.

Additionally, Global 1940 has no rules that govern riverine operations – which is understandable, because the game map doesn’t depict any rivers.  Even the Saint Lawrence, which is huge in real life, isn’t depicted: on the map, it looks like a strip of land.  There are a few lakes depicted, plus a few canals and narrow straights, but no rivers.  So a river patrol unit in China would literally have nowhere to go.

If you just using A&A Pacific, 1940 (2nd Edit.) as a “Stand Alone” game only, and using this as a “Special House Rule” scenario it wouldn’t be problematic and would make this interesting for the folllowing reasons - By the rulebook, the U.S. and Japan are not a war yet until Japan attacks first (which would be stupid to do outright) and if this is played in the “House Rules”, Japan may place their all of their units in the Sea and Land zone of Kiangsu Province. HOWEVER, they DO NOT recieve the IPC for it until either ALL American Forces in China (the 4th Marine Regiment and the Yangtze River Patrol at Shanghai) are either evacuated out of China and headed towards either the Philippine Islands (which both actually did do in 1941) or eastward towards Hawaii or one of the outlaying Island outposts before war is declared or Japan decides to “sneak attack” and goes after the American Forces in China and wins, that is when they finally recieve the IPC for the Province. Until then NOTHING, it would be a “Eyeball to Eyeball” scenario in the “Special House Rules” to see who blinks first. And thanks for reminding me about the AVG (the Flying Tigers") in China, i will definitely add them in the “House Rules” as well.

What could be unbalancing is UK putting a minor in Egypt (and/or Iraq) UK1, even with a sealion feign UK could still put a minor in Iraq or Egypt with little to no repercussions.
If Germany doesn’t threaten Sealion (Or DOW Russia) G1, UK could put a minor in both Egypt and Iraq and an Airbase in Egypt, and still plop a couple INF in UK or India. (Sounds powerful)

The thing is, in G40 enhanced this rule change is along with adding all of Canada and the 2 South African territories to ANZAC (creating the Common Wealth Dominions).
This takes away some UK income (10IPCs), thus reducing the impact of a single UK economy, thus reducing the overall impact on game balance.

Would just need testing.
And speaking of, im looking at some time off work coming up, and will be testing alot of G40 enhanced out.
And A F2F game during thanksgiving, in which id like to play atleast a preliminary version of G40 enhanced.

@Gargantua:

Imagine if, even just a handful of territories, were wormholes to other zones on the board,  Say, Sz112 connected to Sz64.  For example.

Wormholes … Quark could appear and start doing trades with ferengi’s capitalist brothers at USA. But some ferengii with crappy translating could also appear and create various diplomatic mess (we suffered a lot from them here in Spain with Spanish-American  :? versions of DS9)  :lol:

And put an eye on those brave bajoran freedom-fighters … they could help french or polish resistance :wink:

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.