Re-release of board game "Crude" includes MANY derricks, barrels, and oil wells!

Made a few more changes. Removed 3 inf from allies on setup in Asia.
Made FIC worth 3 instead of 2.
Cauraucus now worth 4 instead of 5. Russia income back to 24. from 25.

We played another game but ended it on turn 4. Axis not being able to get that 12 city.
But of course more play is needed.

I can post updated map if somebody wants to see it.

During an interview with Larry Harris we did a few months ago, I mentioned house rules for A&A centered around Espionage. We got a ton of feedback about it. So, now that we have completed the complete series on Air Combat and Sea Combat, we decided to double back to make a video about possible set of house rules that center around the concepts of spycraft.

We worked with our friend Jonathan Bosch to develop a few fun options. We aren’t claiming these are 100% flushed out, but our hope is that folks will give them a try and have some fun with them. Let us know what you think in the comments and if you would like to see more videos like this one!

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/6MaDGKjVbDI

Tested and Approved.  Its on the Shapeways store for sale.  Will be adding it onto a tree so you can save on multiples.

House Rule for Global 1940:
Oil Refineries can be built in any of the below Territories that have been controlled for at least one round.  Only one Refinery per territory.  This unit increases the IPC value of the territory by 1.  The effects would be immediate, as the unit would be placed before the collect IPCs phase of the game. 
Territories enriched with Oil:
-All Dutch Islands
-Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia
-Central US
-Scotland
-Western Canada, Alaska
-Alexandria, Cairo, Tobruk, Trans-Jordon
-Union of South Africa
-Romania
-Iraq
-Persia
-Caucasus, Ukraine
-West India, Burma

Cost: 3IPC
Movement: NA
Can be bombed and removed from play

for other House rules go to Historicalboardgaming.com

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@Narvik:

@simon33:

If you use the same logic you should get rid of the Japanese NOs for Calcutta, Hawaii and Sydney. Not sure I like that change.

That would actually help Allies a fair bit and also keep peace between Germany and USSR for longer on the average. Would more peace make the game better? I’m not sure that it would. It would increase the number of Sea Lions though - perhaps that would be good.

Yes and no. It would be crazy if Japan can squeeze 5 more IPC out of a rocky island than the original owner can. But, if we change the words in the rule, and say that anyone who control Hawaii island and the adjacent seazone 26 with its convoy zone, will get a 5 IPC bonus, representing international trade with South America or something. Do the same with Sydney and seazone 62, and now I can endorse it, man. Now it makes sense to me.

About your other topic, the possibility of longer time of peace between Germany and its partner in crime, Russia, who knows man ? The current OOB NOs sure reward aggressive play, since Germanys choice between a 5 IPC peace NO dont catch up with the 15 + wartime NOs. But, the OOB NOs also make it a scripted game, but not a historical correct scripted game, since in the real war Germany first had to try a Sea Lion before it would attack Russia. Now, since the designer obviously want a lot of action, and not a sit and wait game, he trough in a lot of NOs to speed up the pace. And that is why we can see everything that happened from 1939 to 1941 in the first Turn of any A&A game. But if you ask me, I think its too many NOs in play, it should be max 3 to each nation, and they should represent something abstract like international trade, shipping, oil etc that is not already printed on the map. Actually there are no need for NOs, you only need Victory Cities to win. If Germany want to win the game, it should attack Russia because of the VCs there, not some derogatory NOs.

IMHO, NOs only have a meaning in this game if they are a part of some bidding system.

Increasing the peace time economy with russia (10 IPCs for both) while giving the wartime Leningrad +5 bonus NO to Russia, can give a better balance toward allies while giving more incentive to attack UK early and Leningrad later, to block the new russian income.

Oh cool, we’re back! For a few days there I wasn’t able to get the site up.

I like the idea of a round 0 build up, but I think the implementation needs more work.

The first issue I’m anticipating is just sheer amount of time it would take to go around the table piece for piece. Beyond that you also have the issue of players matching each other (out in the open) by choosing to place all their TUV in just a few hot spots, at the expense of everywhere else. And finally, without any limits or caps for individual territories or sea zones you will likely see a ton of front line units, placed just outside the range of any opening attacks.

My suggestion would be to have more structure to the zero round, more rules defining where the units can be placed, or perhaps some kind of initiative role to determine the sequence in which they are placed.

One approach might be to just scale back the number of units or ipcs that are included in this process. So instead of taking all the starting TUV and putting that in a tray, you might just use a portion of the total, or perhaps instead allow players to add some smaller amount of TUV on top of the normal starting totals. Not only would that make things faster, it would also provide some much needed structure to the set up process.

Particularly with sea zones, instead of a race to be the first to occupy the contested ones (that border multiple originally controlled territories), you could restrict where naval units can be added to just those sea zones that already have a ship etc. Same deal with land.

You might make it a secret placement only revealed after everyone has recorded all their placements. Or you could break it down by unit type, first bases then inf then tanks then fighters then ships etc.

For ease of use, the more this zero round looked like a bid the easier it would be to implement. Although in this case it would be like a bid for all sides.

Again I like the idea a lot, I just think it needs more polish.

I love this game and I appreciate the work the game designers put into it.
I was looking at a way to speed up the game and I played “all throws are hits.”
Did it once with No Mines Option and once with All Mines Always Hit Option.
This was a lot of fun and it forced me to rethink some buying strategies and maneuver strategies.
FYI, Allied Powers start with 161 ground units (169 when US enters) and 23 ships (25 when US enters).
Central Powers start with 176 ground units and 12 ships.

No, I haven’t used them before, but if you’re not sure about them you could make a small order and if it works out ok, make a larger order (if you need one) afterward.  They have free shipping, so it won’t cost you extra if you make multiple orders.

Better use LL, players who have never tried this would be surprised by how much luck there is in A&A.
LL games are sometimes won by luck, not by skills……!