My main concern about the “infinite variety of house rules” is that the combined map is so enormous, with so many units and so much playtime required for a single game, that it’s very difficult to playtest new variants.
Yes, that’s a very good point. Any A&A game is a system consisting of multiple parts that affect each other to greater or lesser degrees; any change to any part potentially affects how the whole system works, and the only way to get a clear idea of these effects is to operate the system by playing a game. For something as big and complicated as G40/2, “playing a game” is a very time-consuming proposition – so this acts as a disincentive to testing house rule in practice.
It would be handy if the entire G40/2 system was modeled into a computer, with A.I. software taking the roles of each oth the nine powers, with a customization option that allowed you to change any variable you wanted, and with a “computer playing against itself really fast” function that allowed you to run through a complete Global game in just ten minutes to see the results of what you changed. Alas, I’m not aware of any such tool existing. :) But here’s something I’m wondering: has there ever been any discussion of “scaling down” Global 1940’s key elements to the point where the small and simple A&A 1941 map could be used as a test-bed for G40 rule variations? The maps are so different in their territory layouts and IPC values that, obviously, this testing method would have severe limitations – but perhaps it could be used to try out individual HR concepts in isolation, with the highly-simplified other elements of the game simply serving as a standard neutral backdrop from one test to the next.
How about you roll a d6 at the beginning of the game?
1, 2, or 3: Germany opens (standard game)
4: ANZAC opens
5 or 6: France opens
In any event, turn order is maintained just as it is in the standard rules.
I think coming up with a custom setup for Italy to be able to open would be a worthwhile endeavor, but I believe allowing Italy to open using the existing 2nd ed. setup would change the game too much.
I also think a UK start would be too much of an advantage of the UK and the Allies. German fighters in S. Italy would have no chance to help Italy fend off a UK Taranto raid, and consolidating the Royal Navy in the Atlantic is way too strong of a move. I don’t see how Germany or Italy has a legit chance to succeed enough to win the game.
You may ask “how is a France opener not similarly injurious to German/Italian chances as a UK opener?” A France opener can definitely make Paris a harder nut to crack for Germany, depending on what the France player does on his turn. Germany would obviously need to devote more resources to conquer France, and it might even need an assist from Italy. Furthermore, a tougher France might mean the Germans will have to devote air power to this conquest, thus taking pressure off the Royal Navy. Looking at the setup, two German planes in Eastern Europe are in range of attacking France but are not in range of hitting the Royal Navy, so Germany’s Royal Navy attacks wouldn’t necessarily hamper their efforts in this regard if they threw only those two planes at France. However, it would limit the ability of those planes to help scramble in Italy against Taranto. Additionally, Germany’s opening move in the Balkans could also be hampered if Germany went after both the Royal Navy and France on Round 1. The reason I like this and why I think it’s not a game-breaker is that it forces Germany into some different decisions and forces a change in pre-ordained openers, but it doesn’t dramatically limit what Germany can accomplish in Round 1.
Also, because there’s a 50% chance that France opens before Germany, I think it would be fair to dispense with any bids.
I’ve tried France first, and it has definite issues.
My initial proposal way back when, (I’m not sure must be a year or two ago) was simply to move the turn order back 1 position, for a France opener. The concensus view at the time was that this screwed Italy big time.
The French could attack the Italian transport in sz96. Taranto is a shoe in. This also allows a potential high risk hit on sz 95 (since the destroyer blocker is removed by the time UK gets to go.)
Even more problematic, the French could attack Northern Italy at odds, destroying the Italian bomber and downgrading their major factory.
This effectively turned Italy into the same kind of non-player that France used to be. So my solution was to move the turn sequence back 2 more positions, and have Italy open. This still allowed France to move before Germany, but didnt screw Italy in the process.
So many people complain about how boring and inconsequential Italy is to play. Starting with the Italians gives them a lot more responsibility, more power and more income.
I suppose the way I was looking at it, overall game balance is important, but equally important is the desire to make each nation fun to play. Since the openers are typically altered by bids anyway, I figured you could probably fix things with a bid if needed.
Ps. If you want to do France first, then a restricted opening would be best. Like Russia in some versions of classic. No combat on the first turn, just purchase, non combat and placement. Then you don’t have the issue of France running attacks, but they can still do defensive positioning.
It might be advisable to do this with any nation, if you want to do a restart of the turn order sequence. So it doesn’t mess up the combat balance of the opener as much.
:-D
I started a thread in the HR section for anyone who’s interested in exploring the idea. I don’t want to derail the OOB thread overmuch, but the position of the French in the vanilla OOB game is just kind of sad. Maybe an HR where they go first could replace the current high bids to Allies?
Don’t forget, the French fighter in London can be sent to help defend Moscow. Also, the French destroyer off Madagascar can be sent East or West to help. If the Madagascar destroyer is sent to Europe, it can be combined with the French fighter in London.
Yeah its a bind. Although honestly it might be kind of fun to return the board to an Axis bid instead of an Allied one.
Any rule changes to France have to take into account the range of bids for G40, which is what, in the neighborhood of 15-30 IPCs for the Allies?
As Shadowhawk points out, 19 IPCs is a minimum estimate for the value of letting France play before Germany – not only does France get to drop new units onto the board, they also get to consolidate their existing units and block some of the early German attacks. I don’t think consolidating the 2 inf, 2 art is worth a full 14 IPCs, because if you stack everything in Paris, then you help Italy by letting it waltz into Marseilles. Call it a 10 IPC boost. Blocking the German attacks might be worth another 12 IPCs by forcing the Germans to bring in and sacrifice an extra plane. So the total value of France going first is something along the lines of 36 IPCs. Those 36 IPCs will be placed suboptimally compared to an Allied bid that can go where-ever the Allies want, e.g., Egypt, New Guinea, etc. So overall I’m not seeing that the value to the Allies is radically high. The Axis might need a bid in the range of 5 - 10 IPCs, or they might not. If you wanted to, instead of giving the Axis a bid, you could nerf Paris a bit by removing 2 starting infantry. The point, after all, is less to turn France into a powerhouse than to give France some flexibility and a chance to make at least some decisions before they get obliterated!
Letting france go first will break the game considerably
Good point because it touches on a basic dilemma. Redesigning parts of G40 (or any other A&A game) would be easy if nobody minded ending up with a completely different game; the tricky part is trying to redesign one part of it while still ending up with a game that still works more or less the same way. That’s difficult to achieve because the game, like any system, consists of multiple components that interact with each other rather than existing in isolation – so changes to one component can have all sorts of unwanted ripple effects.
One way of approaching the problem might be this. Experienced players have put a lot of work into analyzing G40 and working out things like standard playbooks and sound fundamental strategies. They’ve also analyzed what the probable effects on the game would be if such-and-such an element were changed by a house rule. And they’ve also speculated (an example being my own post of a few days ago on the “Why 1940?” question) about what some of Larry’s reasons might have been for handling such-and-such an element of the game in the way that he did. In a sense, what all this work amounts to is taking the finished product and trying to work backwards from it to figure out the game’s “source code”, meaning in this case the underlying design architecture of the whole game. In principle, a detailed comprehension of this underlying architecture might help with house rule discussions. The normal end-user approach to looking at a particular OOB rule is from the perspective of what it says, how it works and what effects it produces. The “source code” approach to looking at the same rule would be from the perspective of why it was put in the rulebook in the first place, what it’s intended to accomplish, why it was chosen over the possible alternatives, what fundamental assumptions it embodies and how it’s meant to interact with the other elements of the game. (Unfortunately, one kind of conclusion that might emerge from this approach would be to discover that Rule X was designed in a certain way because there’s no other way to make it work without wrecking the whole game. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case with a lot of the game’s elements.)
I can’t say exactly what the design process looked like initially. How all these discrete “source code” elements came together in the first place, or how a given rule or set up change was proposed, but I can guess.
If you look at how the Alpha process was handled, or if you look at how most original tripleA games are developed, its usually, 1 or 2 lead designers who set up the basic skeleton of a game (establishing the initial conditions and the core set up), followed by a bunch of people who come along afterwards and proceed to break that set up in beta, highlighting whatever gross imbalances might be present.
Then you have a long process of revision, fleshing the skeleton out, where seemingly minor tweaks or minor rules are introduced, in an attempt to keep things on track. A unit here, an objective there, a rules restriction or two, basically to prevent the whole train from derailing (ie. one side always wins), all the while trying to preserve the basic flavor of the original design.
Once the thing goes to print, or an official addendum is released to finalize things, this revision process usually halts. Some players with a lot of patience, or an interest in game design, might continue exploring House Rules or set up changes, but most players will just default to “the standard bid” process.
It’s hard to jump start things again, once people are used to the “official” game and the “standard” bids.
I still think turn order tweaks are probably the most interesting way to change the game. Allowing any one of the minor Allies to move before G, might be fun. China first, Anzac first, France first etc. Sure France can screw Germany with some blocks, and by making Paris do or die, but I get the impression that the designers might not have realized just how strong Axis could open.
It always takes time before those opening playbooks are developed and fine tuned. To expect that the designers would have predicted all of those possibilities in advance, or tested all the contingencies to make sure that the opening balance fit with their exact vision, seems rather fanciful.
I’ve seen how set-up changes are proposed to the official game. Usually this takes the form of a list, with territories and units, and then calls for feedback based on the new set up. But I don’t think its tested at anything near the speed, or with the number of games played in beta that we do here once the game is actually out. So far as I know, the boardgame is still tested the old fashioned way, not using a digital version for beta before it goes to print (which would be my clear preference, and something I’ve argued for more than a few times.) So its hard to imagine, how all this stuff could be evaluated in practice games by the designers. I imagine that, after a certain point in developent, its more like “ok lets just call it finished and see where things go” type process.
Global is an interesting case, because there was a lot of opportunity for community feedback during the Alpha process between 1st and 2nd edition. Though not everything that was resolved in Alpha made the cut when the time to put out second edition arrived. Still you could make the case that the game is basically perfect at this point, and so any minor change has to be considered very carefully. Frankly, I find ideas like a France opener way more interesting than, “lets remove more Japanese planes again” or things of that sort. Since it changes the starting conditions up. You need a new playbook. Which makes the game entertaining again for people who like exploring that aspect of the game.
I just wish there were more randomized elements at the outset, to make the overall balance less predictable in general, so people would get less hung up on round 1 rolls, and instead just try to play the hand they get dealt and enjoy it. It’s maybe too far gone at this point, but I still wish the game opened with a roll, you know something that sets the rest of the set up in motion. Something that would make it virtually impossible to plan for all possible outcomes, and thus make it way harder to exploit/break the opener. Maybe France doesn’t always make an impact, but if it could happen at least sometimes. Or if Russia didn’t always get nerfed, but maybe sometimes they get a boost. Or I guess you could just play the OOB game. Use all those Russian and French sculpts for birthday cake decorations or something. Because they’ll never get bought in the actual game. They’re a total tease! hehehe
:-D
Late reply… have been out of this forum for a while.
But… I won a game last summer with the French African and French UK + French FTR help.
This is how it went …
US3 - 2 US TR to Morocco picked up the 3 French Inf & an Empty US TR accompanied it
US4 - Empty US TR picked up 2 Frenchies in UK… (Also US 4 took W. Germany , without French)
UK4 - Built big fleet in Liverpool ( W. UK Side)… and had total of 2 FTRs and 1 Tac Bomber, did not augment US in W. Germany…per plan…(Denmark was Axis … and empty)…
Italy 4 - Took W. Germany back… with 2 Inf remaining
France 4!! - Took Denmark with 2 Inf (1 TR)… and Took W.Germany with 1 Inf remaining ( 2 Inf + FTR against 2 Italians)… This was the big gamble…!
Germany 5 - Took back W. Germany…
US5 - Hit Germany with everything - Kamikaze of US planes, to create space for UK planes next wave… Empty US CVs go and park next to Germany…
UK5!!! - Takes Germany… All planes from London airbase can land on US CVs…
Germany resigns
