Balance in 1941 setup w/o National Objectives?


  • Hi Guys,

    We play the game with a group of co-workers and have moved up from classic to a homemade version of AA50.

    We like the '41 setup because it is so different from the setups of the older games. We don’t like NO’s, simply because of the tracking involved in keeping tabs on your own and your opponents targets. We had several new players in our group, so the extra rules and strategic considerations would have been too much.

    Tech is also not used, but we might do that in the future to spice things up.

    I personally do believe that 1941 WITH NO’s will be balanced towards the Axis, they can get al lot of extra income early.

    On the other hand, I think that without them, the Axis have a really hard time winning the game. Japan is uber powerfull, but so are the Russians compared to Classic A&A. The Germans have quite a hard time with them.

    In the first few games, I really got the feeling that the Axis could not win. In the last game, the 2 most experienced players (Myself and the guy who made the homemade version) took the Axis and were able to win for the first time. This was however, a game in which the US ignored europe in the beginning and D-Day came very late.

    What do you guys think of the balance?

  • '16 '15 '10

    Most of us have very little experience playing without national objectives.  With national objectives, the typical bid is 6-12 to Allies, with 9 as the mean (this is normally a placement bid of 3 inf anywhere on the board before the game starts).

    Without national objectives, I imagine you are right that the Allies have an advantage (possibly small, possibly big, or possibly none).  But I don’t know anyone who has tested it enough to have a reliable opinion on what the bid to Axis would be.

  • Customizer

    RC

    AA50th is the edition my gaming groups have played the most since it came out.  And we are in general agreement with your assessment - though with NO’s my opinion is a lower mean than what Zhuk mentioned, 6 or 7.  Allies do seem to have an advantage without 'em.  We added some rules to balance it out, pick and choose (some are more for fun than balance).   And if you use tech., I divided the charts up for more ‘focused’ research.  *shrug   We don’t like using bids, so therefore we try to balance the game out with house rules (most of them are just rules from other A&A editions adapted to AA50th).  So anyhoos - check 'em out, might be a nifty alternative to bidding for ya.

    http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/69861/expansion-rules

    http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/70044/aaa50-expansion-rules-tech-chart


  • Thanks for the quick feedback. I have searched these forums some more and those who have had experience playing '41 without NO’s also mention the imbalance.

    I do think that the imblance WITH NO’s is even greater, but then favouring the Axis of course. I have never played the '41+NO variant, but the sheer amount of extra income that the Axis start with en can easily obtain in round 1 makes it look very easy, when you’re used to scraping by without the NO bonus.

    I think we will end up playing with a small bid for the Axis, but adding tech rules might make the balance issue less of a problem because of the extra luck factor.


  • @_RC_:

    but the sheer amount of extra income that the Axis start with en can easily obtain in round 1 makes it look very easy, when you’re used to scraping by without the NO bonus.

    I just want to make sure you know this, as your comment is misleading at the least and just plain wrong at the most:  No player starts with extra income using national objectives.  National Objectives are not included in starting income and are not collected until the end of each turn, starting with the first.

    Whether or not objectives imbalance the game, it’s never something they “start” with.


  • Ok… you’re right… “the sheer amount of extra income they have after turn one and two.”  No need to get all serious :)


  • Playing without National Objectives emphasizes the ‘reusable’ pieces & tactics.

    Since income is less, each unit is even more important.  Taking and holding is key.  This slows the rapid (somewhat careless) Axis advancement seen with games using N.O.s greatly.  With NOs. the axis can throw pieces away, since they have the cash to replace them easily.


  • @_RC_:

    Ok… you’re right… “the sheer amount of extra income they have after turn one and two.”  No need to get all serious :)

    Quite a few new players get confused at the beginning with the rule, just making sure you were getting it right :)

    Another point to consider regarding NOs is that they are designed not just for the extra income but as an incentive for disputing areas like the Pacific, Africa, etc. and to make the fight global.


  • Having played some more games, I no longer really feel dat the Allies have a better chance of winning. Perhaps it just takes more games to learn how to play axis effectively.

    Having NO’s on indeed makes the game more realistic and fluid, in the sense that fighting for something like australia for example really is worth the effort more. Perhaps we will try NO’s in the future, when all of our players are more experienced with the vanilla ruleset.

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