1914 - Africa changes

@The_Good_Captain

Thank you for your wisdom.

Hello folks, I’m continuing my trend of creating alternate scenario’s to make A&A games quicker for face to face play. This is in part personally driven because most of my local players feel many A&A variants are about an hour too long. I’m pecking at most variants, but today I settled a modification for 1914.

1914 quick-mod
-Summary: Removes ottomamns/africa and modifies turn order to encourage quicker game especially, with multiplayer. Estimated to shave 1-2 hours off a 1914 game while maintaining the core experience.

-Balance was (attempted to be, play testing needed) maintained by examining the ratio of Axis/allied economy and TUV(Ground and sea), and maintaining those ratios fairly closely after mod. (See image at bottom)

Mod rules
-Mod is intended to be applied with the Official Tournament rules/setup as a base. (see http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=18335&sid=46c5a040ae6a0378950ae08747d6f942)
-In addition, apply the following changes.
-You may considor removing the “collapse/surrender” rules from the tournament setup, but I feel that defeats the purpose and I will be utilizing them still.
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Setup changes:

-Remove units on from India and the continent of africa. Remove all ottoman units.
-All ottoman, African, and middle eastern territories+India are not part of the game and so do not give IPCs to any powers

Remove the following navies:
Russians in SZ 71
UK in SZ 19, 29

Remove the following units
Wales: 2 infantry
London: 2 infantry
Scotland: 1 infantry(empty)

-You may wish to simply fold the bottom third of 1914 map board underneath as with the exception of the two russian territories it is unused.
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Summary of new starting IPCs by power:
AH:26
RU:25
GE:31
FR:18
UK:18
OT:N/A
IT:12
US:20
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Summary of timed events(including changes)

-UK gets bonus income of 2 multiplied by the turn number to a max of 10 IPCS(representing historical and typical standard game gains in africa/mideast and resources coming back to europe)
-Tanks buildable beginning turn 3
-US enters enters war and at beginning of turn 4

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Turn order changes(optional)

To encourage again quicker play (particulary in team games with 4-5 players), use this portion for an “axis go, allied go” game, allowing alliance players to perform all actions at once.

(In effect, every nation by russia is basically already doing this)

Turn order will be a 3 step process:

1)“special turn 0: Russia Only”
-Russia alone performs a turn.
2)- After this Russian turn, the turn order is now Axis powers.
3)- followed by all allied powers(including russia).

All powers in an alliance build at same time, then perform there moves as a single turn, etc. However… To maintain balance in the combat phase, multinational attacks are still disallowed. To resolve these combats, attackers will perform their attacks one country at a time, using the order from the unmodified rules
(Allies: Russia followed by France,UK, Italy, US)
(Axis: Austria followed by Germany.)

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Numbers!

b5d02a1e-d6cd-4b34-831f-34fc9ca0ff07-image.png
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Some ideas:

As I’ve suggested before, a fighter that scores a kill is promoted to an Ace (rolls @3).

Air combat lasts a maximum of 3 rounds, perhaps only 2. Aircraft had very limited fuel capacities.

If, at the end of this time, both sides have fighters remaining then no side gets air supremacy. All planes must land with their ground units, and cannot strafe.

Fighters can pull out of dogfights after any round of combat, attackers choosing first. Planes simply land with their own troops. They cannot fire in the ground combat, but can be taken as casualties.

Only rolls of 1 actually destroy an enemy aircraft. Rolls of 2 (or 3 from Aces) only “force down” the rival fighter, which must land as per pulling out of a fight.

If there is any dispute over which plane shot down an enemy fighter and gets the promotion, a “kill” takes precedence over a “down”. Otherwise, if the owning players cannot agree, then nobody gets the credit.

Multiple mixed fighters should roll individual dice in combat; its handy to have a few dice of different colours to facilitate this.

I’d prefer Germany-Ottomans, Italy-Austria & France-Russia.

So heres my latest map for A&A 1914. Includes East Prussia and all correct borders, Has some Zones for Askarideployment in Africa.

I kept Albania, neutral Greece and Moscow as Russian Capitol.

1914Balance.png

OK, version 10 is now a available at BGG. An error was corrected and the Advanced Rail Network tech was enhanced a bit, hopefully it hasn’t become too terribly complicated - just a bit more useful.

We finished our second game with these rules. The Central Powers won it, Austia-Hungary was the star of the show, interestingly enough. It took Rome and jointly defeated Russia. Built a massive fleet in the Meditterranean and gained control of it where it was able to invade France from the southern coast while the Germans kept the French busy, and fleet battle after fleet battle kept the British occupied in the North Sea.

The Americans were sent to Italy to save them, which they did until the massive Austia fleet took the Med and entered Rome amphibiously. It was an 8 turn epic, at 1.5 hours per turn until the allies finally threw in the towel.

The tech kept things interesting. The more you accumulate the harder it becomes to remember to use it but that is a good problem to have. ;)

First of all, no country should ever be allowed to build units in a captured enemy capital/factory/production centre in any Axis and Allies game ever period.

I will add the Munich factory next game, this is for me just ahead of the other candidates Ruhr and Alsace.
Benefits of Munich are that its sufficiently well behind the front line to begin with, but allows every German home region to be reached by newly built units in one turn.
It also allows Germany to reinforce Austria’s drive in the south.

Will probably also make Petrograd a production centre and Russian capital (though Russia can move the capital to Moscow once in a game.

I’ve considered Canada as the magic 12th PC, perhaps with reduced starting units.

A completely different approach to placement is:

New units may be placed in any home region still contiguous with the capital subject to the following limits each turn:

Capital: 3 units

Controlled home region: 2 units

Contested home region: 1 unit

In addition

UK - Canada: 6 x IPC of units

UK - India 6 x IPC of units

UK, F, G, I - Africa 6 x IPC units (Askaris only)

Does it strike anybody else as odd that a transport can pick up troops move two zones and drop them off but can’t pick up troops, move one space drop them off and then still have one more MP so as to either move back or go to a different sea zone. Another even better instance would be a fleet battle where say a battleship moves one space fights and wins but can’t move any further but the battleship can move two zones first and fight.

To me ships should be treated as planes so that they get their full movement potential whether they battle or not. In a realism sense I believe this makes more sense. After all there is no extra total amount of work in the two cases for the transport as i illustrated. In both cases they have to load up move and unload their troops. If one moves shorter distance before unloading it would still be able to leave the beaches and continue on. I realize there would some additional time needed in the transport situation since it would have to leave from the beach back to open water and move on. But if it is all open sea combat such as in the case of the Battleship why can’t it continue moving. The same amount of fuel and time would be spent in moving one zone, battling for say one day and then moving another zone as would the time and fuel spent in moving two zones then battling for a day.

We implemented this rule back in the revised edition when ships were more expensive and so vulnerable for their cost to air power. we still use it at times in the Anniv Ed simply because it makes sense and it allows the Japanese navy for instance to not have to try to always keep its fleet in uberbunches since the U.S. is generally shadowing it with a decent navy and has bombers grouped in whatever island is available. this allows Japan to keep its navy together send several transports out on missions say one zone away then come back to the safety of the fleet. the fleet can still be beaten by a combined force of navy/air if the U.S. wants to go that route and build up their forces but it doesn’t force players to have to split up their fleet into little pieces if they want to launch invasions of a few territories nearby.

i feel our rule helps balance sea and air a litle which needs to happen somehow since sea can’t effectively ever win you a game since it can destroy units but never actually take anything for you and so will never directly contribute to your income like planes do. i know planes can’t secure territory either but one fighter in a land battle makes much more of a difference than one cruiser bombarding at 3 agreed? and that cruiser costs 12 compared to a fighter at 10. plus if you look at cruiser compared to a fighter, the cruiser contributes less to land battles and fights 3 attack and defense while costing more than a fighter who can attack at the same but defend even better AND they’re less vulnerable to counter attack AND they can be put into the sea on carriers AND they have greater flexibility. the only advantage of the carrier is that it doesn’t need another unit (carrier) to be in the sea and help protect transports. but the only two goals of a fleet ever are to protect transports to get more territory furthering your progress to victory or defending against/attacing another navy to preven tthem from doing the same.

that is true that bookkeeping can be a pain but it still isn’t too bad and for us it has worked fairly well. The main reason that we did it ever was looking at how aircraft can consistently pick and choose their battles and bombers can go out strike then return to a haven with fighters. by an IPC cost and battle odds comparison it made any fleet ridiculously vulnerable to air power if a fleet ever fractured a little bit bc they want to hit multiple territories in a turn. i realize the game isn’t simultaneous but i see nothing wrong with allowing a max of two MPs still for sea units and allowing them to move that total regardless. The one move for combat one non-com would be a good go-between though, we’ll try it. I guess we just looked at how often and easily air power messed up fleets and every time a decent air force was nearby any splitting of the fleet automatically condemned it to death by the other side’s air force. in reality or at least the stream of reality that A&A gives us it is entirely in the game’s time mechanism that a transport or other ship could leave a fleet perform some task like fight a battle/drop off troops and rejoin at the end in the same way that planes do different tasks and can regroup at the end. this way fleets are a little more flexible and they don’t all have to go to one exact place. looking at how even the odds are for if one side brings X IPCs worth of planes against the same value in only-combat ships we thought fleets should get a little more flexibilty and the chance to protect themselves. this was it makes sense for even an air power team to make some navy themselves to help bring down an opposing fleet rather than just constantly spam fleets with air units which is what generally would happen. the reason i feel fleets were too expensive/not flexible enough is illustrated here: lets say that a fleet costs the same as the air power going against it and we’ll even for sake of argument not have any non-fighting ships (subs and transports) factored in even though transports are a necessary part of a navy if it ever wants to make a difference by getting more IPCs for their power. if you consider the cost of the non-fighting transports who cost IPCs but can’t even aborb hits in a tight spot this is even more difficulty for a fleet but here is just one iteration of many different only air vs sea scenarios.

three cruisers and 5 destroyers vs three bombers and 4 fighters. in both cases a cost of 76 IPCs. the most common outcome for the first round is that the navy is reduced to three CAs and one DD and the airforce is three Bombers and one Fighter at that point the odds are still close but on defense you have 3 dice at 3 and 1 at 2 whereas the offense has 3 dice at 4 and 1 at 3. the great news for the airforce is that if they win they can go back home and be free from easy counterattack buteven if this navy has survivors it has been crippled and the only way for it to survive till the next round is if no other powers have air units in range or if it builds more sea units. i realize only head to head isn’t a perfect comparison bc there is value to being able to bombard with ships and forcing an enemy to cover his various coastal positions bc of your possibilities….But it struck me that air units are just so much more valuable not only heads up but bc of their flexibility bc they can contribute way more to a ground assault than even a battleship can so why even build much of a navy unless you need to land troops, just build a massive airforce spread out over various territories and any time the enemy tries to go beyond the slowpoke pace of seizing several territories in one turn annhilate that portion. that is what i would do every game with the U.S. till i got sick of it and went for a realism game of bombing Germany and trying to take europe while fighting a delaying action in the pacific.

the other reason we did this is that if Italy ever wants to build sea units in the same turn as dropping off units in Egypt or Transjordan they must necessarily split their fleet between guarding the transport and the newly built one sea unit since neither will put up much resistance (none in the transport’s case) to an air assault. but here is the thing that transport pry never has to carry out any moves from further than the Italian sea zone and yet it can’t return. playing the traditional way the U.S. can put about 3 fighters in caucuses and simply wait for this split to occur and nail one piece. if the italians never split then the pace that their navy accomplishes anything is further reduced.

i realize the limitations in trying to balance games only by using head to head unit comparisons but i believe one good test of balance is if their is an strategy that works absurdly well and his little chance to have a legit counter than something needs to change. I like the idea of reducing the cruiser so that at least defense vs fighter offense they are the same plus if you give it an extra capability like anti-sub or flak then it actually has a rationale to exist in one’s lineup. i don’t buy the argument that they should be kept simply to allow a person to buy a naval unit if they don’t have enoguh to buy a battleship that round. i like to give people a reason to buy each unit depending on their strategy.

A balance theory can’t simply be reduced to how certain setups work otherwise you could show that tanks are worthless as offensive weapons by a set up where the defense has 14 infantry and the offense has 6 tanks and 4 infantry costing the same IPCs to both. the likely result is that the defender wins with 4-6 infantry remaining. however this doesn’t account for the fact that on offense there is still incentive to attack by finding weak spots in the defense to overwhelm them plus the ability to bring airplanes to a spot where the defense has none.

i like to analyze the math of the game and try to keep their from being too many ridiculous flaws but i’m always discovering things i didn’t realize such as how battleships go beyond just their matchup capabilities in sea to sea combat. everytime they are in a battle and win while absorbing a hit they have effectively saved the winning side one ship by virtue of absorbing a hit that would’ve sunk something else. this means that battleships have value even if they were somewhat more expensive i think. i always just used to look at the heads up comparison of them in a sea battle to just cruisers or destroyers but those units can’t preserve units in effect like a battleship can. however you could argue that with extra cheaper units you would have won sooner in your battle anyway so who knows lol. sorry for the insane post.