• @regularkid:

    You mean the game thats been proceeding at glacial pace for months now? How do you find time for anything else?!

    Classy.  So you’re disappointed my game isn’t ready yet for you to play?  Why else would you care?

    Sharing ideas/perspectives = arguing? hmmm.

    You’re arguing.  Call it whatever you want, I don’t care.

    @Gamerman01:

    I think it’s interesting if you think changing fighters in air raids to a 2 is a balance issue - bombing seems to be somewhat equal between axis and allies.

    Don’t know what you mean by “equal.” As in both sides can do it? Definitely agree there.

    That’s what I thought.  You think the Axis does a lot more SBR than the Allies.  Hasn’t been my experience.
    Again you insult me.

    Thread is over anyway.  Original post was addressed and finished a long time ago.  Just devolves into yet another discussion about balance and bidding.  So stupid


  • Thinking about this, I do have time to respond to this  :-D
    @regularkid:

    Obviously, the game at least purports to be historical. A setup that completely stifles Italy’s engagement in Afirca from the outset is less so.

    Really??  Italy starts with lots of units in Africa.  Historically the Allies DOMINATED the Mediterranean, so much so that the Axis couldn’t reinforce their Africa holdings.  Without the bid, it’s horribly ahistorical.  A lot of players dominate huge areas with Italy and Italy becomes a major player.  That’s ridiculous historically speaking.  So admit it - the reason you don’t like the bid to the Med is just because it’s fun to get Italy going and have more dynamic gameplay.  Don’t even try the “historical” card there……  That’s absurd.

    Its a question of degree. For example, your endorsement of eliminating the Russian NO for occupying Africa suggests that you share a concern for historically.

    Yes I do to some degree, just as you rightly pointed out.

    Efforts to improve historically while also improving balance and gameplay = good. Glad you got a laugh from it. ;)

    Yes, agree again


  • Gamerman, as your comment shows: one doesn’t have to be a great historian to be a great G40 player. :) I do congratulate you on your (imminent?) League Championship. And, yes, I’m curious what your variant will entail. Sneak preview?

    @Gamerman01:

    Historically the Allies DOMINATED the Mediterranean, so much so that the Axis couldn’t reinforce their Africa holdings.

    It sounds like you might be talking about historical outcomes rather than historical starting conditions. Its kinda like saying “Historically the Allies DOMINATED the Pacific, so much so that the Axis couldn’t reinforce their Pacific holdings!” Really you could say that about any theater in WW2, couldn’t you?

    When we talk about “historicality,” here, we’re not talking about ensuring historical outcomes. We’re talking about creating historical starting conditions, modelling them as closely as possible within the context of a balanced, fun-to-play game, and putting players in roughly the same  situation, presenting them with the same dilemnas, decisions etc. as existed at the start of the war. How a player chooses to respond to those conditions is of course up to him.

    @Gamerman01:

    Without the bid, it’s horribly ahistorical.  A lot of players dominate huge areas with Italy and Italy becomes a major player.  That’s ridiculous historically speaking.

    Actually, I find that in most games where Italy comes to dominate Africa (after a successful Taranto), it is because of substantial support from Germany. Which is perfectly fine, historically speaking. However, the notion that “the Allies DOMINATED the Mediterranean” from the outset, and your implication that the outcome was a forgone conclusion, is just plain wrong.

    “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.”

    -Winston Churchill

    The First and Second Battles of El Alamein, described by historians as the major turning point in North Africa, occurred in the summer and fall of 1942, respectively. In gameplay terms, thats round 5 or 6 (not round 1, before Italy even has a chance to act. lolz). Notable events that illustrate the point:

    • Axis taking Crete in first-ever major air invasion, May 1941.

    • Axis beseiging Malta almost to the breaking point, with a planned invasion of the island in Spring 1942. The invasion was called off only because Axis, through rround-the-clock bombing of the Island, managed to secure shipping lines to North Africa, and Rommel campaigned to make Egypt/Suez the top priority.

    • Rommel’s German/Italian forces successfully beat back UK forces to within 250 km of Cairo in Summer 1942. Notably, this caused such a panic in British military command, headquartered in Cairo, that the Brits frantically burned confidential papers in anticipation of the entry of Axis troops into the city (“Ash Wednesday”). Hardly what Allied “domination” of the region looks like.

    In short, your blanket assertion that allies simply “DOMINATED” the theater glosses over this long and rich history of military successes and setbacks for both sides. And the typical UK bid in the Med often truncates that history, as well–to the great detriment of historicality and gameplay enjoyment, in my opinion.


  • wow i really like the new and revised NOs, they are simple and make a lot of sense and i will be looking to get other leaguers to go with them. thanks regularkid, adam, et all!


  • regular kid, i downloaded your attached saved game with the “NOs built in”, but i don’t see anything new or different. can you explain what you mean by them being built in? where do i see them in this saved game?

  • '22 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    I like the revised Nos.  Russia is too weak. If I had my way, I’d place at the start a bunch of units in the hinterlands that Russia could pull up.

    Also, a MInc in Novosibirsk could help a lot.


  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ujxn3r0e5sekcVPS8CbkH3KByB1iVrNJimiwA3e_BiI/edit#gid=2

    Well, sure, here’s what I have going for my house-ruled game.  Since I last worked on it early this year I have had many different/new ideas though.

    Your quote from Churchill proved nothing.  I already said the Italians had a lot of ground units to start the game with in North Africa.  Even with a bid to the Med/North Africa, it’s not a foregone conclusion that Italy will be smashed.  If the UK goes all out to crush Italy early, it comes at a steep price.

    I said at the outset I wasn’t interested in an argument, but it seems you are one of those people who can never be wrong.  I do not want to argue with you.  I know a lot more about WWII history than you give me credit for - in fact, I sense a repeated pattern of insults from you to me.  It looks like just insulting me, you have doubled your post count total for this site.

    I would be interested in a list of naval battles and dates in the Mediterranean starting from spring of 1940.  The domination I was speaking of was domination of the MED, not North Africa.  I am not aware of any great Italian victories over the Allied fleets in the Mediterranean

  • '22 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    @Gamerman01:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ujxn3r0e5sekcVPS8CbkH3KByB1iVrNJimiwA3e_BiI/edit#gid=2

    Well, sure, here’s what I have going for my house-ruled game.  Since I last worked on it early this year I have had many different/new ideas though.

    Your quote from Churchill proved nothing.  I already said the Italians had a lot of ground units to start the game with in North Africa.  Even with a bid to the Med/North Africa, it’s not a foregone conclusion that Italy will be smashed.  If the UK goes all out to crush Italy early, it comes at a steep price.

    I said at the outset I wasn’t interested in an argument, but it seems you are one of those people who can never be wrong.  I do not want to argue with you.  I know a lot more about WWII history than you give me credit for - in fact, I sense a repeated pattern of insults from you to me.  It looks like just insulting me, you have doubled your post count total for this site.

    I would be interested in a list of naval battles and dates in the Mediterranean starting from spring of 1940.  The domination I was speaking of was domination of the MED, not North Africa.  I am not aware of any great Italian victories over the Allied fleets in the Mediterranean

    Indeed, one of the great “fails” of WWII history was the Italian navy’s inability to do anything.  They were strong on paper but weak in execution.  Interesting history there.  The Italians designed their ships to be sexy, fast and lightly armored which made them sitting ducks to UK air power.  Plus their chronic lack of fuel further hampered them.  They had bad leadership too.  But for German intervention in 1941, the Italians would have been completely ejected from Africa and their country blockaded.  IMO.


  • They outnumbered the British 10 to 1 close to Egypt and surrendered.  The British could hardly handle all the prisoners.

  • Sponsor

    Gamerman01 and regularkid,

    You’ve both had your chance to disrespect each other, and your conversation is no longer relevant to the op’s topic… so lets remain gentlemen and move on.


  • @axis-dominion:

    regular kid, i downloaded your attached saved game with the “NOs built in”, but i don’t see anything new or different. can you explain what you mean by them being built in? where do i see them in this saved game?

    Hey! thanks for the compliment, Axis. Adam mentioned that you’re an outstanding player, so your endorsement means a lot.

    The saved game file does have the NOs built in–i.e.,when you play it, the game recognizes the Nos and calculates income accordingly (and also your fighters will roll at 2 during air raids). You can confirm that you have the correct version by checking “Game Notes,” which lists the NOs and credits at the top. However, y_ou won’t see the revised objectives listed in your “Objectives Panel,”_; you need a separate “Objectives.Properties” file for that (which I can email you if u would like it), but the NOs will work just fine without it.

    After several months of play testing and fine-tuning, the NOs are pretty much in their final form now. However, we’ve been mulling over one possible tweak to  “Mediterranean Shipping Lanes” (which currently gives +3 to UK if Malta, Cyprus, and Crete are allied or pro-allied control. The idea is remove Cyprus from the NO, and require direct allied control (no pro-allied) of Malta and Crete. This NO would also be reciprocal, allowing Axis to achieve it for an additional +3 to Italy.

    As always, feedback regarding this and other NOs is welcome, and if you playtest it, please share your experience!

    Enjoy! :)


  • ok i get it now! i will be pushing to play with this mod in my 2016 league games (which starts this November actually). i’m hoping i can convince others to give it a shot, and maybe it’ll catch on. again i think it is a very elegant and well-thought out mod, so i’m super excited about it. and while i don’t know your background and experience with the game, i do know adam is a master at the game, so i can trust it’s been properly play tested. your programming it into the file is much appreciated!


  • @Karl7:

    Indeed, one of the great “fails” of WWII history was the Italian navy’s inability to do anything.  They were strong on paper but weak in execution.  Interesting history there.  The Italians designed their ships to be sexy, fast and lightly armored which made them sitting ducks to UK air power.  Plus their chronic lack of fuel further hampered them.  They had bad leadership too.  But for German intervention in 1941, the Italians would have been completely ejected from Africa and their country blockaded.  IMO.  Â

    In WWII, I think basically ALL surface ships were “sitting ducks” to air power.  What, were six battleships “sunk” at Pearl Harbor and the US shot down 27 of 300+ aircraft?  It was turkey shoot.

    Even Taranto the UK used 24 WWI (yes World War “one”) biplanes to attack the Italians.  The HMS Illustrious only had 24 or so of them and each carried a single torpedo.  That is all they needed to wipe out the Italian battleships.  In Axis and Allies Global basically to simulate that, the tactical bomber north of Egypt would have to have more fire power (all by itself) than the entire Italian fleet in the Med.  And that was basically the history of what happened.

    I mean the Yamato was what the largest battleship ever built and the Japanese brilliant strategy in using the wreckage of what would be our future Starblazers is to “sink it” close to a shallow beach and have a stationary unsinkable set of huge gun turrets.  That was the plan for operation Ten-go, real smart.  It just took a few planes to sink it and kill 1000 men.  WWII basically ended the surface ship as any kind of serious threat in military combat.


  • Really enjoy your post, but would point out that of course the battleships at Pearl Harbor were sitting ducks.  They were sitting in the docks and it was a surprise attack.  Japan and the USA weren’t even at war yet.

    Not saying your points aren’t valid - just that I don’t think Pearl Harbor is a good example

    And aren’t aircraft carriers surface ships?  :-)


  • @Gamerman01:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ujxn3r0e5sekcVPS8CbkH3KByB1iVrNJimiwA3e_BiI/edit#gid=2

    I would be interested in a list of naval battles and dates in the Mediterranean starting from spring of 1940.  The domination I was speaking of was domination of the MED, not North Africa.  I am not aware of any great Italian victories over the Allied fleets in the Mediterranean

    Here’s what Google turned up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Mediterranean

    Relevant quotations from the article:

    • “Italian small attack craft lived up to expectations and were responsible for many brave and successful actions in the Mediterranean.”

    • "Only five days after Taranto, Campioni [Italian] sortied with two battleships, six cruisers and 14 destroyers to disrupt a supply convoy to Malta. Two of the three damaged battleships [from Taranto] were repaired by mid-1941 and control of the Mediterranean continued to swing back and forth until the Italian armistice in 1943. Measured against its primary task of disrupting Axis convoys to Africa, the Taranto attack had little effect. In fact, Italian shipping to Libya increased between the months of October 1940�January 1941 to an average of 49,435 tons per month, up from the 37,204-ton average of the previous four months.[8] Moreover, rather than change the balance of power in the central Mediterranean, British naval authorities had “failed to deliver the true knockout blow that would have changed the context within which the rest of the war in the Mediterranean was fought.”

    • “The effort to prevent German troops from reaching Crete by sea, and subsequently the partial evacuation of Allied land forces after their defeat by German paratroops in the Battle of Crete during May 1941, cost the Allied navies a number of ships. Attacks by German planes, mainly Junkers Ju 87s and Ju 88s, sank eight British warships: two light cruisers (HMS Gloucester and Fiji) and six destroyers (HMS Kelly, Greyhound, Kashmir, Hereward, Imperial and Juno). Seven other ships were damaged, including the battleships HMS Warspite and Valiant and the light cruiser Orion. Nearly 2,000 British sailors died. It was a significant victory for the Luftwaffe, as it proved that the Royal Navy could not operate in waters where the German Air Force had air supremacy without suffering severe losses.”

    • “For a time during the Siege of Malta, it looked as if the island would be starved into submission by the use of Axis aircraft and warships based in Sicily, Sardinia, Crete and North Africa.”

    • “The Regia Marina‍ '​s most successful attack was when divers attached limpet mines on the hulls of British battleships during the Raid on Alexandria on 19 December 1941. The battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant were sunk at their berths[.]”

    As for the issue of the starting bid in the Mediterranean, your assertion that it is more historical because it facilitates early-game UK dominance of the med kind of misses the mark, in my opinion. Obviously, the Taranto raid can be done with or without the bid, so naval dominance is really not the issue. Rather, the way the bid is usually used is to set up a round-1 crushing of both the mediterranean and North Africa, which would otherwise not be possible. That is where the ahistorically comes in.


  • Thank you

    I rarely see anyone attempt to crush both North Africa and the Italian fleets simultaneously even with an entire bid placed in that area.

    I don’t know what country you’re from, but I wonder if my incomplete knowledge of Mediterranean warfare in the early 40’s is due to getting information from British documentaries and from being American myself.

    I will keep this in mind when completing my houseruled game, which has not been progressing at a glacial pace - I haven’t worked on it at all since last winter.  Glaciers move.


  • I’m no expert. Grew up watching the History Channel (which, back in the day, was pretty much 24/7 World War II). Also, easy to use Google to drum up supporting ‘facts’ and act like an expert. heh

    I read your spreadsheet. Some stuff I liked (true-neutral ‘blocs,’ with Persia being one). Some stuff I didn’t (eliminating Mongolia treaty, removing France). Some stuff I didn’t quite understand (Flying Tigers? “Chits”?). All-in-all, seems like you might be onto something.


  • Flying tigers to be more like kamikazes.  Kamikazes are 6 chits

    Main reason is the flying tigers did not function to attack with the Chinese army like they do in the game.  They did a lot more air to air combat, hence they may be used to defend against Japanese air attacks, and can’t assist the Chinese army on attack.

    I have changed my mind about eliminating France and ANZAC.  Was thinking in terms of making it more like old A&A with only 6 playable powers.  I didn’t like that ANZAC is a powerful separate playable power


  • Personally, I don’t find ANZAC’s presence that troubling, but one interesting house rule for those that do (from the recent “Redesign” thread) is to restructure UK into two powers, as follows: (2) UK Commonwealth nations (ANZAC, South Africa and Canada (excluding Newfoundland for historical reasons) with its capital Ontario); and (3) UK and its Colonies (everything else)).

    food for thought. . .

  • Sponsor

    Gamerman,

    I really like a lot of the ideas in your variant, keep up the good work and let me know when you’re close to finished (would like to playtest it).

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