[Global 1940] Streamlined Factories & Victory Cities

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    For about a year now, I’ve been mulling over some ideas for a streamlined ruleset for factories, victory cities, capitals, and economies. My goal is to make the rules simpler, faster, and easier to remember without taking away from the realism and tactical challenges offered by the Global 1940 map. Anyway, I was bored at work this morning, and I think my ideas finally crystallized into something worth sharing. Please let me know what you think!

    ALL FACTORIES ARE VICTORY CITIES, AND VICE VERSA

    To avoid having to keep track of two separate lists of critical targets, I want to treat all territories with factories in them as victory cities, and I want to put a factory in each victory city. People naturally pay attention to factory cities, because that’s where the stream of enemy units is originating from. Instead of being forced to split your attention between factory cities and victory cities, you should be able to win the game if you capture and shut down enough of your opponents’ factories.

    Starting Allied Victory Cities (14):
    Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Omsk (Novosibirsk)
    London, Ottawa, Calcutta, Sydney
    New York, Chicago, San Francisco
    Paris
    Chongqing (Szechwan)

    Starting Axis Victory Cities (6):
    Berlin (Eastern Germany), Frankfurt (Western Germany), Prague (Greater Southern Germany)
    Tokyo, Harbin (Manchuria)
    Rome

    The Axis need to capture a net of 6 victory cities to win, so they’re looking to get up to a total of 12 victory cities. That would often mean capturing Paris, Chongqing, Kiev, Leningrad, Stalingrad, and either Calcutta or Sydney, but there is some flexibility if the Axis want to go all-out against either Britain or Russia.

    The Allies need to capture a net of 2 victory cities to win, so they’re looking to get up to a total of 16 victory cities. That could mean capturing Tokyo and Harbin while liberating France, or it could mean capturing Frankfurt and Rome while holding the line against Japan, or it could mean completely wiping out the European Axis while only losing a couple of victory cities to Japan, e.g., down Chongqing and down Sydney.

    BUILD FACILITIES, NOT FACTORIES

    Because factories are victory cities, they cannot be constructed, upgraded, or destroyed. Instead, players can build training camps, naval bases, and air bases as needed to try to provide better geographic coverage.

    | Building | Cost | Produces | Special Abilities |
    | Major Factory     | N/A | Up to 10 units | Is a Victory City |
    | Training Camp     | 5 IPCs | Up to 3 infantry     | None |
    | Naval Base | 8 IPCs | Up to 3 ships | +1 ship range, repairs capital ships |
    | Air Base | 10 IPCs     | Up to 3 planes | +1 airplane range, scramble fighters |

    Facilities stack with each other to add additional production opportunities. For example, if you have both a training camp and a naval base in Southern France, then you could build up to 3 infantry and 3 submarines there on the same turn. However, no territory, no matter what facilities it has, can ever spend more than 40 IPCs on producing new units in the same turn. Even if you have a factory, a naval base, an air base, and a training camp all on the same territory, you still can’t spend more than 40 IPCs there. If your nation is earning more than 40 IPCs per turn, then you have either save the income or spread your spending across more than one territory.

    THERE ARE NO CAPITALS; INSTEAD YOU CAN LOOT ALL FACTORIES

    This system doesn’t use or require capitals. There is no such thing as capitals in this ruleset. Instead, anytime you capture a factory, that factory automatically goes up to max damage (20 damage tokens), and you can steal up to 10 IPCs from the factory’s former owner. If the owner doesn’t have a full 10 IPCs, then you simply steal whatever they do have in their treasury. For example, if China only has 4 IPCs left when Japan conquers Chongqing, then Japan would steal 4 IPCs from China. On the other hand, when Germany conquers Paris, they would only steal 10 IPCs from Paris – not the full 17 IPCs that would typically be in France’s treasury.

    Because there are no capitals, conquering the cities that are traditionally thought of as capitals doesn’t cripple the nation’s economy quite as badly. For example, if Germany conquers London, that’s quite bad for Britain – it means that Germany gets to steal 10 IPCs, plus collect England’s 8 IPCs, plus inflict max damage on London’s factory, plus Germany gains a victory city and is closer to victory, plus Britain may finds it harder to produce enough units in the Atlantic theater to fight back effectively. So there are plenty of reasons to try to capture the cities that are traditionally thought of as capitals. But in this ruleset, capturing those cities doesn’t completely prevent their former owners from collecting income, constructing buildings, or recruiting new units. For example,. after Germany takes Paris, Paris will still have 7 IPCs in its treasury, and it can use those IPCs to immediately build a training camp in, e.g., Algeria or French Equatorial Africa. Then, on turn 2, France would be able to recruit some infantry in its training camp.

    If you conquer a city with airbases, naval bases, and/or training camps, then all of those facilities receive 5 damage at the moment you capture them. If this pushes them over the 8 damage maximum, then the facilities are destroyed.

    ADJUSTMENTS TO BOMBING RULES

    Both tactical bombers and strategic bombers may target any type of building for bombing damage. As per the usual rules, tactical bombers deal 1d6 damage, and strategic bombers deal 1d6+2 damage. A training camp, naval base, or air base is fully functional as long as it has 3 or less damage. A training camp, naval base, or air base is deactivated if it has between 4 and 7 damage. A training camp, naval base, or air base that accumulates 8 damage is immediately destroyed. It can be rebuilt for its full price on its owner’s turn if the owner has the cash and wishes to do so. A rebuilt facility starts off at full health.

    Factories behave as normal – they lose one unit of production capacity for each damage up to 10 damage, and then after that they can accumulate ‘surplus’ damage up to 20 damage. Factories cannot be destroyed. If you inflict more than 20 damage on the same factory, it just gets 20 damage and stays there until its owner pays for repairs.

    UNIFIED BRITISH ECONOMY

    All British territories, including the UK, Canada, ANZAC, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Africa, participate as part of the same unified nation and economy on the same turn. There is no more division between UK-Europe and UK-Pacific. Because no territory can produce more than 40 IPCs of units in the same turn, Britain cannot simply dump its entire economy into Calcutta or Sydney. Britain can choose to focus its efforts into the Pacific if it desires, but that is an appropriate option that should be allowed. If Britain directs all of its efforts to the Pacific theater, then Germany and Italy will rapidly get very large at Britain’s expense, reducing Britain’s total budget and making it hard or impossible for Britain to keep on cranking out units in the Pacific.

    STARTING LOCATIONS FOR TRAINING CAMPS

    There are no minor factories in this ruleset. This is just one possible suggestion for where the training camps might go at the start of the game. Players are free to build more, for 5 IPCs each, in any territory generating at least 1 income. There might need to be other changes to setup to make these rules work well. Naval bases and airbases would probably be placed mostly in the same starting positions as regular Global 1940.

    Scotland
    Southern France
    Northern Italy
    Finland
    South Africa
    New Zealand
    Buryatia
    Korea

  • '17 '16

    It is something you think about a lot, as it seems.
    What do you mean about this, I read no specific rule on this point?

    Because no territory can produce more than 40 IPCs of units in the same turn,

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Hi Baron,

    I’ve bolded the relevant rule in red for you.

    Cheers,
    Argo.

  • '17 '16

    Thanks,
    according to your rule, a maxed out Base can be repaired so you can produce at the end of the round.
    But, when a bombed base beyond repair have to be rebuilt, so you cannot produce any unit in this facility until next game turn, right?

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Correct. If your training camp, naval base, or airbase receives 8 or more damage, then you will miss at least one turn of production there. This is one reason to make sure that your facilities have fighter coverage and/or AA guns if they are in range of enemy bombers!


  • So this facilities have no built in AA ?
    Why are the cost of naval base (must be seen as shipyards here) reduced to 8 IPC?
    There is no more restriction to produce on islands (with a value of at least 1) according to your concept, right?

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    All good questions, and I’m open to changing any of those points. My thought was that in oob global, facilities are rarely built and rarely bombed, and i wanted to encourage more of both, but maybe no built in aa is imbalanced. What do you think? How would you price the shipyards?


  • The fact that a facility can be completely destroyed by bombers will encourage strategic bombardement if the price of new purchase is significantly higher than the price of repairing. IMO in OOB the risk to lose a bomber to AA-fire is not worth if the owner of the facility perhaps has to pay 1-2 IPC (maximum of 4 IPC) to activate it again. I would only bomb an air base or harbour under some rare strategic circumstances. Factories are another question.
    Therefore and because of there capability to produce I would set the cost to

    • air base  12 IPC (we use that price already in our house rules, of course without producing capability, so perhaps only usage for me)
    • naval base 15 IPC

    I would keep the built in AA in that case.

    The possibilty to produce in naval and air bases , especially on islands, may have a high impact to the balance of the game:
    Some examples:

    US 1 may produce up to 3 fighters and 1 DD or 2 fighters, 1DD, 2 sub (max 40 IPC) in Philippines. - A J2-attack will need some more units.
    US can produce in Hawaii, Midway, Guam (so perhaps NB in Midway or Guam should be removed from setup)
    From round 1 on UK can produce ships in Egypt or Gibraltar.
    Japan in Carolines (AB and NB)
    Java could become an interesting hot spot, especially for US.

    One more detail: An AB or NB has to be completely repaired (no more damage) if you want to produce 3 air or ships there.

    I like the ideas that factories a maximum damaged (AB and NB 5 more damage) when conquered, that you steal 10 IPC  and the owner of a former capital can go on producing (so France is more interesting).

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Yeah, that’s a fair point – the naval bases wind up being too productive in places like Guam and the Philippines. The US had some ability to refit or finish ship hulls in its Pacific outposts, but not 40 ipc’s worth.

    Maybe we could add one more rule to the mix: production is capped at 10 ipc per turn per territory per point of ipc value, or to 40 ipcs per territory per turn, whichever is smaller.

    So, Hawaii’s air base could manufacture one fighter per turn (representing recovered or repaired planes), but not 3. The Phillipines could drop a cruiser and a destroyer at its naval base, but not a third ship, unless all three ships were ss/dd/transports.

    Does that sound more balanced?


  • @argothair

    An interesting idea, to be sure! But where will we get the new units? Thank you!

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