How to balance out the game for the Allies in one easy step

If they can’t move at all, it really seems to defeat the purpose of letting them start before Germany.

It would allow them to place additional 5 inf and 1 art in France so that germany would have to bring a bit more to take it.

@elevenjerk:

If they can’t move at all, it really seems to defeat the purpose of letting them start before Germany.

It would allow them to place additional 5 inf and 1 art in France so that germany would have to bring a bit more to take it.

Then its just a 19 point bid, you can do that now if you’re playing with bidding.

Kim

Then its just a 19 point bid, you can do that now if you’re playing with bidding.

A restricted bid since only the french get to spend the money.

You wouldn’t have to place it all in Paris- perhaps give the French a 19 IPC bid to place anywhere they want?  Perhaps limit it to France and adjacent SZs… a French army in Africa or SE Asia may be too unbalancing.

But, a French carrier, or 2 DD’s in the Med… may be enough of a bid.

@elevenjerk:

If I was the french I would buy 5 inf 1 art, move guys from S France and Normandy to France, fly fighter in from London.  This makes Germany have to bring all available ground units.  Add 2 bombers and a tac to that and the odds are still only 63% that Germany wins with only 2 tanks left.  Thats not the odds I want.  I at least want all my tanks and planes left after the France battle.

Who knows what happens after that.  It could balance the game or maybe skew it toward the allies.  It may be more fun if the allies are favored.  Axis gets to initiate all the action at the expense of it being a little more difficult to win.  Right now, the axis get to initiate all the action and kick ass for the most part so no one wants to be the allies.  Sit around and wait to get your ass handed to you:)

Well said. This is exactly what I would do, and man would this hurt Germany a ton. Also now the french navy is saved. Talk about a massive allied bid. You saved either 111, or 110 and cost Germany a ton of units on T1.

Well said. This is exactly what I would do, and man would this hurt Germany a ton. Also now the french navy is saved. Talk about a massive allied bid. You saved either 111, or 110 and cost Germany a ton of units on T1.

Totally Agree.

A completly better approach would be to make Global 1939, that way you can have the Germans forced to invade Poland, Denmark and Norway, and the French would have their chance to actually attack the Germans instead of sitting on her butt like she really did (the Sitzkrieg!).

Kim

@KimRYoung:

Well said. This is exactly what I would do, and man would this hurt Germany a ton. Also now the french navy is saved. Talk about a massive allied bid. You saved either 111, or 110 and cost Germany a ton of units on T1.

Totally Agree.

A completly better approach would be to make Global 1939, that way you can have the Germans forced to invade Poland, Denmark and Norway, and the French would have their chance to actually attack the Germans instead of sitting on her butt like she really did (the Sitzkrieg!).

Kim

The only way a 1939 game would work is if Germany had a crazy amount of units to start the game and like 2 turns to go before anyone else.

you could make a 1939 game work with dates of war and NOs (and the game start two turn earlier)

lets say that UK starts with a smaller army, and cannot build ICs until paris falls or turn 3 and cannot take over neutrals before turn 3, and cannot build for pacific economy until turn 2.
Germany has an NO of 10 IPC for taking warsaw, units to be placed imediatly.
norway, denmark and benelux are pro allied neutrals, benelux gives 10 IPC NO for taking (represents their income), norway still gives 5 IPC (swedish ore)
hungary and Rumania are proaxis neutral

and the setup would be different.

Baltic states, East Poland and Bessarabia would start as pro-allies (whether they wanted to be or not).

Nice Vance.
Possibly Denmark should be pro-Axis, as they did not put up much of a fight and I do not think the Germans should lose an Inf unit to take it.

Do you guys want to seriously put together a variant for Global (same map, same rules) but that starts 1939 just before Germany invades Poland?  It would take a lot of work to hash out the setup.

In A 1939 variant you would have to let the Axis make two turns before anyone else has a turn to limit the crazy strong setup Germany and Japan would have to have in the context of A&A to be as strong as they were.  If you gave the Allies’ all turns in between they would have to be crazy weak.

So what if you start with Germany being small (just Berlin, Western and Greater Southern) but let Holland begin as a power with $14 in hand that Germany can seize just France in the 1940 game, plus Germany gets to activate all those axis friendlies first turn.  To keep UK poor at and and keep sealion open you could start out with London IC as a minor that Britain will want to upgrade for $20.

@variance:

So what if you start with Germany being small (just Berlin, Western and Greater Southern) but let Holland begin as a power with $14 in hand that Germany can seize just France in the 1940 game, plus Germany gets to activate all those axis friendlies first turn.  To keep UK poor at and and keep sealion open you could start out with London IC as a minor that Britain will want to upgrade for $20.

You could do that, but you have to think about the German army being out of position in Poland for an invasion on France- plus unlikely that Germany can take out all of Britain’s Navy turn 1 (1939).  You would have to make the allies extremely weak.  (Britain’s navy being non-existent and having to upgrade IC).  Russia would not be able to start with barely any units otherwise they would be a monster.

I would like Germany and Japan to have two turns before the allies even move -and- make the Allies fairly weak as you stated.  This sets up Germany to take France turn 3 (if you think turn 3 is summer 1940).

rjpeters:

If the British navy survives intact as you are suggesting than there will never be a sealion.

Russia would have to start off with barely any army…  UK with barely any navy…  Maybe the US shouldn’t be able to do anything.  Think about India having 21+ IPCs to spend for those extra turns.

well, the British Navy can consolidate in a safe zone away from German air/navy; build land troops so sealion isn’t very likely (not that Germany will have much to spend on transports when it is having to build land troops).

They do have to make a decision as to how much aid to give to France or just let it fall.

Russia is weak, sure, but they have 3-4 turns of full builds to do what they want without fear of attack…  it will be difficult to take them as Germany- unless you make Germany so strong to start with that it makes you question the point of a 1939 scenario when Germany/Japan just roll everyone.

Which is why to get things moving, giving the Axis two turns may be the ‘surprise’ and ‘blitzkrieg’ factor you need to get the game going.  That, or otherwise start all the Allies turn 1 with zero IPCs to spend (not ready for war).

@rjpeters70:

@variance:

So what if you start with Germany being small (just Berlin, Western and Greater Southern) but let Holland begin as a power with $14 in hand that Germany can seize just France in the 1940 game, plus Germany gets to activate all those axis friendlies first turn.�� To keep UK poor at and and keep sealion open you could start out with London IC as a minor that Britain will want to upgrade for $20.

Exactly, make it August 1939, with Germany including Austria, Bohemia and Moravia.� Make Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, and Hungary Pro-Axis.� Make Russia extremely weak, to reflect the Red Officers Purges of the late 30s… Maybe one tank, one fighter, one artillery, the rest just a handful of infantry spread throughout the front.� Make Benelux, Denmark, and Norway valuable… but each only has 1 infantry in them.� Germany will ramp up very quickly with units and IPCs.� France has a weak army, decent Navy.�

Just like 1939.

The nice thing is this would be a very unscripted variant because each power would basically start at zero and spend the first turn building in response to the other side’s builds.  UK would start out by upgrading its IC so it can build infantry turn 2 and 3 if there is sealion threat.  Germany starts with a small army but quickly expands its income, having the first big builds round 2 with Dutch money and then round 3 with French money.  Likewise Russia starts with next to nothing but positioned to attack Finland with 50/50 odds.  Start Japan at war with China but with less fleet and no transports on the board so they need to build transports or ICs or else lose China.  Everyone has the flexibility to basically set things up as they see fit and by the time summer 1940 rolls around the board might look very different from the standard setup.

Now that I think about it, this might not be such a difficult variant to create because all the setup issues are to be dealt with by the players themselves in the first and second round.  There would be minimal stuff on the board at the beginning.

I guess my point is you’d have to start Germany off so strong (because of the huge income disparity between Axis/Allies) that it wouldn’t be much of a game the first 2-3 rounds.

Germany wouldn’t have the money to do sea-lion, much less attack the British navy turn 1; unless you start the British navy weak and/or start the German air force/navy very strong.  If Germany doesn’t kill the British navy turn 1, then it will be even harder for Germany to prevent allied landings in Europe.

Russia having 37 IPCs to spend, even if they start with nothing, will be a formidable force on turn 4-5 when Germany attacks Russia.  How much money will Germany start with? 14 IPCs?  Maybe get 10 IPCs more turn 1?  (sure they can get a bonus of 14 when taking Holland’s capital).  France has 19 IPCs/turn- they can be fairly big too if Germany doesn’t take it out turn 2.  Russia still makes 10 IPCs more than Germany turn 2.

Japan would have a very tough time- China will have a large artillery supported army; India will be unassailable and ANZAC will have a nice little Navy.

Agreed that the US shouldn’t be able to build for 4-5 turns- maybe able to make limited NCMs?

I would like to figure out how a 1939 game could work- because it could be a blast; but it is tough to balance out an even weaker Axis to start (have limited territory/income in 1939).

You could also do the trick of giving Moscow and Tokyo minor factories instead of majorss