G40 League House Rule project

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32187.new#new

All right dudes and dudette, the above discussion thread about what is the cheesiest thing about G40 really got me thinking.  I think as great as G40 is, it leaves an awful lot to be desired.  Many of us have played enough games that I think we know what could transform this game into a much better one.

If there is enough support that the league would actually consider playing a much improved house ruled version of the game, I would be happy to lead the design.  I invite all league players to give feedback and ideas about the house-ruled game.  I will post an online document for the design, organizing all ideas.

It is located here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydGh6d2NwRDJRRzBteEsyU1EtNGhXVUE#gid=2

This document contains my brainstorming, and ideas accumulated over the past few years.
It is very much a work in progress.
Please contribute your thoughts and ideas here.

Yes, it would be a separate league - the house rule league

OK, I’m done working on the draft for this afternoon.  Please check it out.
Attached is the modified start file.

Highlights so far:
Change turn order to traditional:
G,R,J,US,I,UK

Although UK and US are flipped.  This is to let Japan go right before USA to prevent UK can openers.

Eliminate France and ANZAC
Simplify convoying rules by removing dice, and reducing max damage in certain areas where max damage is unreasonably high
Reduce China’s ability to place all new units in a single territory
Reduce UK/Australia/Japan fighters a little bit further to make more congruent with Europe map
Tweak some unit costs

Various NO tweaks - some new ones for you to consider

Looking forward to hearing from you guys what your ideas are

House Rule.tsvg

Oh, right, the strict neutral rules need to be changed and I hadn’t addressed that in the spreadsheet yet.
I’m not sure I’m sold on the bloc concept, because that takes away too much disincentive for Germany to take Sweden, Spain, Turkey and for the USA to take South America.  I’ll think of something.

@Gamerman01:

Yes, it would be a separate league - the house rule league

And of course the rules have to be popular with most players first, and finalized, then play-tested several times to make sure it’s not totally out of whack.

Speaking of which, please don’t even comment too much on how these changes affect game balance, because we’re not ready for that yet.  I think this should be addressed toward the end after we’ve got all our desired changes and rules out there.  Many changes will obviously help the Axis, and many changes will help the Allies.  Again, this project is in its infancy, so please save game balance concerns until later, thanks.

OK, got the access fixed so now you can actually view the file
Thanks, Wheatbeer

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydGh6d2NwRDJRRzBteEsyU1EtNGhXVUE#gid=2

OK, added a few more things.  I like how this is going.

I don’t think the China rule placement restriction is weird.  In AA50 you couldn’t place ANY units in a territory that already had 2-3 Chinese infantry in it.  This rule of placing no more than 2 infantry in a territory at once is very attractive, I think.

Remember the rule book points out that China is in civil war.  So they should not be able to coordinate attacks and build up so easily.  I’m not even sure I’m in favor of the “flying tigers”.  That’s some serious cheese right there, isn’t it?

According to Wikipedia, the flying tigers were active from 12/20/41 to 7/14/42.  So they shouldn’t even exist at start up.  Furthermore, if there is a Chinese fighter representing the “flying tigers” they shouldn’t be able to support ground attacks of Chinese infantry.  A quick review in wikipedia reveals that the tigers were extremely successful in their campaign against Japanese aircraft.  How often does the Chinese fighter in G40 destroy a Japanese plane?  Almost never.  The flying tigers helped defend and shoot down bombers that were doing SBR’s.  So it makes more sense that the flying tigers would enter the game in round 2 or 3 or something and sit in India, defending against SBR’s as an interceptor.  So instead of a fighter piece, perhaps the Allies should have a piece similar to kamikazes that can be used against Japanese air attacks in China and South Asia and that would represent the flying tigers.

Yes, I like this idea a lot, because it is not only much more historically accurate and less cheesy, but it gives the Allies something comparable to the kamikazes.

I am strongly in favor of REPLACING the flying tigers with chits similar to kamikazes, to be used when there is a Japanese air attack.  Kind of like surprise AA guns.  Maybe 2 chits.

That quote was of myself from the cheese thread, btw

To offset taking away the Chinese fighter and the Chinese placement restriction, I am taking away 2 Japanese infantry (2 Japanese tacs also) and giving the Allies flying tiger tokens/chits.
Moving one Chinese from Sze to Yun and taking away one Japanese infantry from Kwangsi takes away the no-brainer attack on Yunnan on J1.  Note also that the NO has been reduced from 6 to 5.

Work in progress, nothing final.  Just getting my ideas on paper and tinkering at this point.

A quick rant:

This game is supposed to start in 1940 and be all wonderful because it starts earlier than previous A&A games, but I have identified (and I am sure there are many more)

unit placements at game start that represent forces that DID NOT EVEN EXIST until December 1941

Namely the flying tigers and the battleship in Z37
Also, I have researched before and found that the forces of ANZ in Australia/New Zealand are grossly overstated, and perhaps ANZ forces in North Africa are actually understated.

And don’t tell me it’s for game play - it’s not that simple.  Having a more historically accurate setup overall will actually, I’m quite sure, improve game play.

I appreciate your idea, but no, I don’t think that would be popular with enough players.

Also, I realize that for tech I will need to establish a naval pricing schedule since I’ve tweaked a couple boats’ prices

Keep those thoughts coming - thanks

Thanks!  It’s been awhile, but I think I had a similar thought before -

I will think about that, but I think I want to leave the basic game rules intact since this is intended for a general group of players.  Mainly trying to change setup and G40 specific rules.

Keep those cool ideas coming - I like that one!

No, I certainly won’t dismiss those and you didn’t even need to explain that you’ve played many games, because it is obvious from the quality of the content of your ideas.  Hopefully you do join the league.

Good point about Mediterranean.  As you know, I am in the infancy stage of this.  Perhaps it would be better to go all the way toward the old style turn order.

G
R
J
UK
I
US/China

Just like AA50-41, I believe

I really don’t think it will be difficult to make sure that China is of appropriate strength once a bunch of changes are implemented.  In the current game, when China survives, it can too quickly rebuild and go on the offensive.  The game rule book says China is going through civil war, in justifying some of the rules.  So it does not make sense that this huge nation could extremely efficiently place 6-8 infantry all in the same frontier territory to terrorize the Japanese, or what’s really cheesy, is placing 5-7 infantry on a territory that the USA just took.
There may be a better solution, but this is why I first came up with a limit to placement.

Maybe I didn’t say this, but I’ve been thinking it.  To compensate for every neutral standing on its own, each neutral could be given a slightly larger standing army.  If the Axis want to attack Turkey’s 10 infanty or Spain’s 8 to gain control, I think they’ve paid an appropriate price.

I agree with your thinking that convoy damage should have something to do with current supply lines, and you’ve already put more thought into that than I have.  I will study your idea more in the future and I actually anticipate incorporating something to do with supply lines into the rule, even though I hesitate to make anything more complicated.  In general, I’m actually going for LESS complicated (Going back to Alpha2 Mongolia rules is Exhibit A for this)

THANKS!!!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydGh6d2NwRDJRRzBteEsyU1EtNGhXVUE#gid=2
Kion, did you review my spreadsheet?  If not, please see this link to it.  There was previously discussion about this on 2 different threads, so I’m not sure what you’ve read.

I agree with you about not having Italy go before UK and I didn’t have a really great reason for putting USA after Japan except that that prevents UK can openers.  So I have switched US and UK in the turn order to match basically all previous A&A games.  However, I think we may have an issue with UK can opening in the Pacific for the USA.  Of course, this may not be bad.  If China indeed is weakened by my version, this may be made up for by the fact that US threat is greatly strengthened by very viable can opener opportunities (single destroyer blocks will not be safe), and also give the USA more incentive to go Pacific.  Especially because the victory conditions will NOT include a 6 city win for Japan (one of the top things I aimed to get rid of)