Alternate Factory Rules (inspired by Halifax)

Argothair

Very interesting ideas, everyone. This is a cool discussion.

Barney, just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that you can only ever build infantry and artillery at your colonial factories – only that you’ll have to develop them a bit more if you want to build the bigger stuff. You can still build 1 tank per turn even at the smallest factory, and if the territory is worth at least 2 IPCs, then you can build a second factory there that will let you drop a fighter, destroyer, sub, transport, etc.

Black_Elk, I like your idea for producing infantry in any territory you occupy, although I’m not sure I’m keen on what it does to the front line – I might prefer to say you can build infantry in any originally controlled territory up to its IPC value. Although that raises a question – was there any real difference between territories where occupiers could hope to raise reinforcements and territories where they couldn’t? I want to say something like “Oh, the Americans were liberators, so they could probably recruit volunteers just about anywhere,” but as Narvik points out, the Nazis managed to get volunteers from many of the countries they occupied. I believe the Japanese were planning on recruiting Indian volunteers from among the anti-British groups there after eliminating British colonial rule. Even if you can’t get local volunteers, maybe you can get local slave labor that frees up more manpower from your home country to enlist, and/or maybe the locals build you your helmets and uniforms and guns.

CWO_Marc, I love the idea of a “Barracks” unit that churns out infantry. As you say, it should be relatively cheap, and you should be able to build it just about anywhere – maybe anywhere with at least 1 IPC. Maybe this is a way of reducing the excess ‘tracking’ that Black_Elk was complaining about.

That system would be more fiddly in that there are more facilities to understand, but once you understand the facilities, it’s fairly clear what you can build where – you don’t have to keep recalculating IPC totals. I’m still interested in other ideas for trying to pare the alternative factory system down a bit. Anyone have any suggestions?

CWO Marc

@Argothair:

That system would be more fiddly in that there are more facilities to understand, but once you understand the facilities, it’s fairly clear what you can build where – you don’t have to keep recalculating IPC totals.

Actually, when I mentioned air bases and naval bases in my discussion of the army training base concept, it wasn’t my intention to suggest that air units be produced at air bases or that sea units be produced at naval bases. In real life, air bases don’t manufacture their own aircraft and naval bases don’t manufacture their own ships (although both base types do sometimes have maintenance / repair facilities, ranging from minor to extensive, and although naval bases are sometimes located near shipyards).

Argothair

Oh, fair enough. I know a naval base isn’t the same thing as a shipyard, and in a game about only two countries fighting one war (e.g., the Battle of Britain, or the Spanish Civil War), it would be important to keep track of the distinction between the two. In a global grand strategy game, though, I think it’s a reasonable enough approximation to hand-wave the two kinds of bases together – I think the kinds of players who want to keep track of shipyards and naval bases separately for ten different countries will be better served by something like Europe Engulfed or World at War than by Axis & Allies, no matter how much we load A&A up with house rules.

Besides, I’ve always liked the idea of having different kinds of specialized production centers, because it gives you a more meaningful choice about what kind of strategic bombing campaign to run and where to run it – if the only kind of damage I can do is “cost you IPCs,” then bombing is more or less the same no matter where I target. But if I can choose to knock out your only airbase in the region, crippling your supply chain of planes to a key front, that’s kind of awesome.

CWO Marc

I agree that it’s simpler to have this four-part model (five-part if you differentiate minor and major ICs)…

Training camps which are the entry points for infantry
ICs (minor and major) which are the entry points for land weapons
Naval facilities which are both shipyards (entry points for ships) and which serve as OOB naval bases
Air facilities which are both aircraft plants (entry points for planes) and which serve as OOB air bases

…than this six-part model (seven-part if you differentiate minor and major ICs)…

Training camps which are the entry points for infantry
ICs (minor and major) which are the entry points for land weapons
Naval shipyards (entry points for ships)
OOB naval bases
Aircraft plants (entry points for planes)
OOB air bases

…but what I was proposing wasn’t a six-part model, it was actually a different kind of four-part model (five-part if you differentiate minor and major ICs):

Training camps which are the entry points for infantry
ICs (minor and major) which are the entry points for non-infantry equipment
OOB naval bases
OOB air bases

In other words, I was talking about a minimalist change that only alters one thing from the OOB rules: the entry point for infantry.

If, however, one were to expand the concept to create further differentiation between the entry points for all unit types (a concept that could be a lot of fun to play with), then naturally a more complex system (for instance such as the one you describe) would be required.

Der Kuenstler

We use a simple system - a nod to the classic game - there is only one kind of factory - costs 15 IPCs and can make up to 10 units per turn. Can be placed ANYWHERE.

This is acceptable if you think of it like Larry Harris originally did - the factories were actually factories/supply centers. They were gateways to introduce new units to the map. Units aren’t necessarily produced at factory sites, but they are introduced there.

Argothair, I totally agree with you on the strange purchases a “minor factory” causes - your solution sounds pretty good, although the bombing rules you suggest sound kind of harsh.

Young Grasshopper

@Der:

We use a simple system - a nod to the classic game - there is only one kind of factory - costs 15 IPCs and can make up to 10 units per turn. Can be placed ANYWHERE.

This is acceptable if you think of it like Larry Harris originally did - the factories were actually factories/supply centers. They were gateways to introduce new units to the map. Units aren’t necessarily produced at factory sites, but they are introduced there.

Argothair, I totally agree with you on the strange purchases a “minor factory” causes - your solution sounds pretty good, although the bombing rules you suggest sound kind of harsh.

Do you use the Classic SBR rules as well where you just surrender IPCs right away in the amount of damage rolled… or do you adapt the repair damage system from G40?

Der Kuenstler

@Young:

Do you use the Classic SBR rules as well where you just surrender IPCs right away in the amount of damage rolled… or do you adapt the repair damage system from G40?

We use the damage chip system from G40 - 10 damage and you can no longer place units there, 20 damage limit. We also use the classic AA guns.

As soon as you tie your production to the number on the territory, the game eventually becomes repetitive, with units going mainly into the high value territories. The same big battles are fought over the same territories. We have found it more fun to be able to put a factory anywhere on the map that produces/supplies up to 10 units. With this system, different parts of the map like Africa or even Australia can become hot spots.

Flashman

This whole idea of building factories, or using captured ones, is nonsense.

I allow no new factories.

A 3rd type of placement area (infantry only) is used for tts such as India and Japanese occupied China (Nanking).

When a tt with a factory is captured, the factory is removed and the victor can claim a cash bonus as loot. It is assumed that the area is stripped of all useful industrial base.

If a power loses all of its factories & placement areas it is defeated (permanently out of the game).

If such a tt is subsequently “liberated” the liberator takes control and can place infantry there up to the IPC value of the tt - the previous presence of a factory is ignored.

The example justifying the above is France 1944. French armies appeared for the rest of the war, but they wore American uniforms and used American equipment.

USSR starts with an industrial complex in the Urals - the Glorious Chelyabinsk tractor factory.

Argothair

It’s nice to hear such a strong opinion, but I disagree that it should be impossible for countries to build new factories during the game – I think the powers built up previously rural areas into major industrial centers during the six-year course of the war, and that they could have chosen to do even more along those lines if they had made it a higher priority. I believe San Francisco, Chelyabinsk, Rio, Rome, and Manchukuo all tripled their industrial production during this time frame.

I do like your looting rules – I think the way A&A lets you take over an enemy factory and start using it at full strength the next turn is pretty much garbage. If you look at my looting rules, they have a similar (if less intense) effect – in practice, most industrial centers will only be able to produce infantry after changing hands twice. I think a certain amount of ahistorical ability to make use of opponents’ production centers is fun and exciting – it would be boring if all your troops had to come from your own capital for the entire game – but I think the OOB rules take things too far.

Flashman

Its one thing to increase the output of an industrial zone, quite another to build one from scratch. Even in the case of the USSR, the new factories established in the east were built largely from industrial base evacuated from western Russia. It would be authentic to allow the Soviets to transport a factory from say Ukraine to the Urals, but this would be very much the exception.

Major war materials were all built in home countries - it was more efficient for America to build tanks in Detroit and ship them overseas than to set up factories in Morocco or Norway.

Alternate Factory Rules (inspired by Halifax)

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