Bigger Money version of 1941?

  • '17 '16

    I know the main point of 1941 vs 1942 or 1940 is simplicity, streamlining and not overdoing anything (especially with the number of units out of the box! lolz).  I am however, struggling with the massive cutback on board income.  I know the whole POINT of 1941 is cutting back, but I think they went too far with the money.

    I’ve seen some suggest just adding more money either in increments or some other scheme… but to be honest, I just wish I had some sort of PDF skills (I seem to lack a PDF editor)… I’d love to see Dedo’s Supreme map for 1941 with some beefier numbers just printed right on the board… heck, even a doubling of everything would only put the map back at a roughly A&A Classic 1984 income level.  Of course the income tracker up top would have to be adjusted too for starting incomes.

    I’ve been stuck with 1941 (I’d rather play 42 personally) cuz I can’t get anyone I play to even take a step up to 1942 (which of course has plenty of money); but even the people I play 1941 with wish there was a little more money to play with.

    Has anyone ever messed with the Supreme Map for 1941 with the money values?


  • Not changed the money myself Wolf, but if I was wishing to do so I think I would do so via the addition of National Objectives.

    Are you familiar with National Objectives in other versions?

    If so you could use those to get some ideas.

    My word of warning is that the income constraint is what particularly allows this to be an evening game, so don’t overdo it unless you want it to take longer than an evening.

  • '17 '16

    @Private:

    Not changed the money myself Wolf, but if I was wishing to do so I think I would do so via the addition of National Objectives.

    Are national objectives doable in 1941?  They would certainly have to be customized for 1941.  Even so, my main problem is just the feeling that there’s nothing to buy every turn for every nation… even the US feels dirt poor.

    @Private:

    My word of warning is that the income constraint is what particularly allows this to be an evening game, so don’t overdo it unless you want it to take longer than an evening.

    I know there’s several selling points to the design of 1941… quick and easy, nothing to worry about (like 1 infantry or 2?  Forget it, this is 1941, you can’t afford 2 infantry), and a shorter game… primarily because once the starting forces die out from attrition, you can’t afford to replace them.

    I know that’s kinda the whole point of 1941… faster play… but when I can’t get anyone to step up to 1942, I was thinking about sneaking more money into 1941… it would feel more like 1984’s Axis and Allies Classic if it had a little more cash flow, and A&A Classic didn’t take too long either.


  • @Wolfshanze:

    Are national objectives doable in 1941?  They would certainly have to be customized for 1941.Â

    They certainly are doable. And yes - they would have to be customised.

    NOs add a new dimension to a game, so making it more interesting. The options are endless: UK gaining for no G subs in the Atlantic? G gaining for no allied naval in the Baltic or Med? US for controlling the Philippines? J for holding the money islands? And so on ……

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    I have added pretty significantly to the income in 1941 and didn’t notice a marked increase in gamelength.

    The main issue with adjusting the income on the map directly is twofold, first because it requires that you either reprint the map or find appropriate markers to make the adjustments (which might not be an issue for you), and second because of the way production is tied to those numbers in cases where a factory is present.

    My favorite way to introduce more money into this or any A&A game is by using a concept I call the “Battle Buck.”

    Any time a battle is fought, you place single IPC on the battleboard. Winner take all. If the attacker is victorious they get the buck, if the defender is victorious they get the buck. Here the buck itself translates as a morale boost on the homefront for snatching the headline. Basically it ensures that there is always cash at stake whenever a battle occurs, even in territories with no printed ipc value or at sea.

    Another way to do it is to say that that for every turn a nation takes at least one territory they get 1 IPC added during collect income. This could serve as an alternative to the battle buck concept or in addition to it.

    Other methods I’ve found successful are along the lines of an NO bonus. Examples would be things like “for each victory city controlled + X ipcs”, or “for each Factory controlled +X” at collect income.

    With approaches like this you can add anywhere between 5-30 ipcs to the mix per game round, which seems to work pretty well. I think its the really the production limitations that give 1941 it’s unique character (more so than the income restrictions) and I tend to enjoy it a lot more when players have more money to toss around in 41. The extremely limited production means that this money is spent more often on heavy hitting units, that new players especially seem to enjoy, rather than on big stacks of infantry. So if you introduce more cash it tends to lead to more attack oriented units, and thus more attacks. Or at least that’s been my experience.

    I will say that without Artillery the game still takes a pretty long time to play. Averaging about 2-4 hours face to face.


  • Here’s a radical (and perhaps not entirely serious) idea for a variant that would play even faster: a no-money version, in which the participants fight a “come as you are” war involving no new units are purchases.  The objective would not be to conquer territory (since gaining IPCs would be pointless).  Instead, the winner would be the coalition which succeeds in eliminating from the game board every unit of the opposing coalition.  The same could be done in other versions of the game, like 1940.


  • Hey Black_Elk - long time no speak! - like the battle buck idea :-)

  • '17 '16

    Wouldn’t the “Battle Buck” idea kinda screw Russia over? Poor guys.

    I like hearing ideas… but I guess I’m too old fashioned and narrow minded… I just keep thinking “just raise the value on the board of the territories”… I don’t have it in front of me, but if memory serves, a doubling of existing board values in 1941 would put almost every nation really close to A&A Classic numbers in cash-flow.

    @CWO:

    Here’s a radical (and perhaps not entirely serious) idea for a variant that would play even faster: a no-money version, in which the participants fight a “come as you are” war involving no new units are purchases.

    Oh God no! [Shudder]

    Marc, you may have to ride that alone on that idea! :-D

    P.S.
    I’m all for adding artillery back into 1941.


  • @Wolfshanze:

    Marc, you may have to ride that alone on that idea! :-D

    Yes, well, I wasn’t being too serious about that one.  Although conceptually it’s not all that different from some of the Risk-style free-for-all variants that some people have proposed for A&A.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    It is possible to double the values, and that’s something I tried early on. I used that exact method because like you I favor simplicity. The main issue you will encounter through doubling is a production one, where it becomes a lot easier to simply build infantry walls. The issue is not insurmountable, but what it does is basically transform 1941 into the infantry grinder.

    My suggestion if playing that way, is to separate production from income.

    What we did was to say that for income purposes the values printed on the map count at double the value, but for production purposes you go off the printed number. So for example, under that rule Moscow would count for 6 ipcs at collect income, but with only 3 production slots at unit placement.

    Doing this you can get a playable game, I’ve seen it in action, and it doesn’t take all that much longer to play, and you don’t have to actually do anything to the map to get it up and running.

    There’s a bit more simple addition involved at collect income, but nothing too terrible, it doesn’t increase the value of “valueless” Zero Ipc tiles, but that might not be an issue for your group.

    I’m in complete agreement with you, from a design standpoint I have always favored simply increasing the values printed on the map as opposed to introducing rules that have to be memorized and tracked (eg. The NO system.) I’ve made the proposal several times on the Larry Boards, that my ideal A&A game would be one that used a base 1 ipc system for all territory tiles rather than a base Zero ipc system (i.e. every territory on the map is worth a minimum of 1 ipc, and then build out relative values/totals based on those numbers as the floor.) I regard IPCs as abstractions, or game points, and so for me it makes sense that any territory drawn on the map would be worth at least 1. Some of the rules I like to play with have tried to achieve something along those lines without requiring direct map modifications, though my preference would of course be to simply have an official map with the numbers printed for all to see.

    But if you want a big money game for 41 and don’t want to introduce more complexity, I’d say this is the easiest way to do it…

    **Double the printed map values at Collect Income.

    But keep the map values as they are OOB for Purchase/Placement.**

    Ps. Hi Panic! Nice to see you man!
    Haha good call Marc! That would surely be a crazy kind of game to play!

  • '17 '16

    Ya… I believe the 1984 Classic A&A map had every territory worth at least 1 (and of course others more).  I’m not really a huge fan of territories worth nothing.  If I was more talented, I’d be breaking into the Supreme map files and jiggling with the numbers across the board for sure.  I still also see some value and charm to the original 1984 Axis and Allies classic game.  While the new boards and new units are vastly superior to the 80s version, some concepts were fun, such as every territory being worth something and a nice balance of money values, not too high, not too low.

    Yes, there was the infantry wall problem in classic, but it can/should be easily solved by reintroducing artillery to 1941, which is simple as saying “here they are, have at it”.

    I think 1941 is closer to being Classic A&A than 1942 is, with the exception of the income issue.  I was pulling up some numbers, and this is what I came up with… here’s the starting incomes of each nation based on version:

    Classic A&A (1984 release)
    USSR: 24, Germany: 32, UK: 30, Japan: 25, US: 36

    1941 A&A
    USSR: 7, Germany: 12, UK: 12, Japan: 9, US: 17

    1941 A&A Custom Double IPC proposal
    USSR: 14, Germany: 24, UK: 24, Japan: 18, US: 34

    Even a simple doubling of the IPC values of the marked territories in 1941, would greatly increase income, but STILL be less than classic (or 1942 for that matter)… and toss in some artillery, you should be able to break those infantry walls.  Might be something to toy with, and its a lot simpler to double values than try to introduce new rules that need to be tracked.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    Agreed!

    If you get a chance let us know how the game went. I tried to popularize that rule with the income/production separation a while back, but since most people play global these days I never got much feedback outside my playgroup.

    I think the doubling method at collect income works even without artillery, but I love the artillery unit so ideally they’d be in the mix.

    What’s cool about increasing income, while still limiting production, is that players are essentially forced to buy the big ticket items in the unit roster in order to spend all their cash with no remainder. It’s a little bit like AA50 compared to Revised, where the production spread in AA50 was somewhat lower relative to the total income in AA50 (in that case introduced through NOs), which led to people purchasing more aircraft in that game than they did in Revised. Global does a bit of the same, with a real clean break between IPC value and production Value, but there it was achieved by creating an entirely new production profile for the factory unit. Classic of course didn’t really have such a separation because it didn’t cap the production value of starting factories. Personally I favor the production profile for the factory unit of Revised, AA50, 1942.2 and 1941 where the placement caps at the IPC value drawn on the map because its easy for everyone to see at a glance, but I obviously like the idea of more money haha. So this gives you a way to do that, via doubling (only for income), allowing you to build on the low production/high income model, which has always been my favorite for A&A.


  • How about this?

  • '17 '16

    @RetroFuhrer

    There’s definately some nice things in your map there… I see you added some plants in Leningrad and Rome… I can see both of those (why Italy doesn’t start with a factory in 1941 is beyond me).

    Two things though… and these are totally “me only” issues.

    1. going over your numbers, I see Germany has 15 to start and the US 20… in both cases, that’s only a 3 IPC boost over default… and not enough IMHO to get where i’d like to see 1941 be… it’s certainly suitable for a replacement of 1941, but its not really the change I’m thinking about.
    2. once again… very personal choice here… but I have grown fond of the “style” of the 1941/1942 maps with their coloring and contours of geography, which is why I really like Dedo’s Supreme maps for 1941 and 1942.  Unfortunately for me, they are in PDF format, which editing PDFs is not something I’m familiar with (maybe something I should look into).  Your map, while completely functional and a fine alternative to the 1941 map, just isn’t what I’m thinking of.  But kudos for your work… it’s certainly better than mine (which is non-existant!).

  • @Wolfshanze:

    @RetroFuhrer

    There’s definately some nice things in your map there… I see you added some plants in Leningrad and Rome… I can see both of those (why Italy doesn’t start with a factory in 1941 is beyond me).

    Two things though… and these are totally “me only” issues.

    1. going over your numbers, I see Germany has 15 to start and the US 20… in both cases, that’s only a 3 IPC boost over default… and not enough IMHO to get where i’d like to see 1941 be… it’s certainly suitable for a replacement of 1941, but its not really the change I’m thinking about.
    2. once again… very personal choice here… but I have grown fond of the “style” of the 1941/1942 maps with their coloring and contours of geography, which is why I really like Dedo’s Supreme maps for 1941 and 1942.  Unfortunately for me, they are in PDF format, which editing PDFs is not something I’m familiar with (maybe something I should look into).  Your map, while completely functional and a fine alternative to the 1941 map, just isn’t what I’m thinking of.  But kudos for your work… it’s certainly better than mine (which is non-existant!).

    1. I would up IPCs further, but this is meant really only for quick games. You can edit the map if you want to suit your needs though.

    2. Unfortunately, this is impossible for me, my computer is incapable of handling PDF. files for whatever reason, I have attempted to fix the problem, but no luck.

    Hard to notice, but there exists imprinted setups on the map, for quicker setup time.

  • '17 '16

    Ya, there’s a lot to like with your map… i did notice the setups on the territories themselves, but i’m really digging Dedo’s Supreme map work… i just need to figure out how to edit it to my personal tastes.

    As for Dedo’s work, I would either need a PNG or BMP version of Dedo’s Supreme map, or I need to figure out how to edit PDF files… I can view them just fine, I can take them to the printer and have them printed (as I have), but i’d love to figure out how to edit the suckers with some skill… I’d love to play around with some IPC numbers on the map.

  • '17 '16

    @Wolfshanze:

    Ya… I believe the 1984 Classic A&A map had every territory worth at least 1 (and of course others more).  I’m not really a huge fan of territories worth nothing.  If I was more talented, I’d be breaking into the Supreme map files and jiggling with the numbers across the board for sure.  I still also see some value and charm to the original 1984 Axis and Allies classic game.  While the new boards and new units are vastly superior to the 80s version, some concepts were fun, such as every territory being worth something and a nice balance of money values, not too high, not too low.

    Yes, there was the infantry wall problem in classic, but it can/should be easily solved by reintroducing artillery to 1941, which is simple as saying “here they are, have at it”.

    I think 1941 is closer to being Classic A&A than 1942 is, with the exception of the income issue.  I was pulling up some numbers, and this is what I came up with… here’s the starting incomes of each nation based on version:

    Classic A&A (1984 release)
    USSR: 24, Germany: 32, UK: 30, Japan: 25, US: 36

    1941 A&A
    USSR: 7, Germany: 12, UK: 12, Japan: 9, US: 17

    1941 A&A Custom Double IPC proposal
    USSR: 14, Germany: 24, UK: 24, Japan: 18, US: 34

    Even a simple doubling of the IPC values of the marked territories in 1941, would greatly increase income, but STILL be less than classic (or 1942 for that matter)… and toss in some artillery, you should be able to break those infantry walls.  Might be something to toy with, and its a lot simpler to double values than try to introduce new rules that need to be tracked.

    I played with same cost for ground units but cheaper boat.
    Sub 5
    DD 6
    CA 9
    CV 12
    BB 15
    TP 7 (1 hit, but not totally defenseless, AA gun on board)

    It allows more interesting purchase.

    Planes were special
    Fg 6
    TcB 8
    StB 10

Suggested Topics

  • 5
  • 1
  • 17
  • 19
  • 13
  • 16
  • 7
  • 4
Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

22

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts