New Axis & Allies Global War Variant (free map)


  • Lets call them free french like they have in revised… Free French is what they became and of course supported by the british. Id even give them a unit or two.

    BTW Id like to have my Nazi U-boat base in Antartica… any chance a few icebergs can be drawn in the far south atlantic?

    Another thing… you know if you made this as a 1939 version you could have the maximum utility from it allowing players to create many scenarios for it.

    I can promise that i wlll do something for you all on this…

    When you make a map like this you will be surprised how people love to make it suit their needs and tastes. THis will allow the varient to grow in ways you never imagined.

    I would place the final project on BBG when its done.


  • @deepblue:

    I will change the color of the Vichy territories south of the Sahara to one of the following:
    A) Neutral
    OR
    B) British (Free French) controlled.
    Please vote and tell me which option you like best.

    A) Neutral is my vote

    I’ve seen film footage of German commerce raider ships avoiding icebergs off the coast of antarctica during the war, so we know they were near.  alas, no Antarctica on the map…

    Nazis, Polar Men, u-boat bases, 2 allied excursions to find them, sounds like a good reason to have Antarctica


  • Their is an interesting story in 1947 where the US sent a huge fleet to Antartica to check it out and part of the report was of some secret nazi U-boat base or installation.

    were talking about carriers, cruisers, destroyers …. LOTS of WARSHIPS…

    The germans did set up such items in Greenland and the Soviet Artic Islands but they were for weather forcasting… while the antartica thing was possible given a number of U-boats that left germany near the end.


  • DeepBlue, 
      For the convoy zones for the week, are you thinking that there are too many of them, not enough, or just open to discussion?
      My bigger question is what their values will end up as, but that is probably later discussion.

    One seazone question?
      The territory of Borneo, it touches the large seazone that surrounds most of it, mainly south of the island, but there is also a very small part of it that is in the seazone to the north with Brunei and the Philippines.  That puts Borneo within reach of the Japanese homeland in one turn.  I think it is ok to be that close, just wanted to ask.

    Great job!


  • Convoy Boxes

    I have not played a version with the convoy boxes yet but I like the idea.  It pulls conflict into the oceans, cool, but…

    I think this map has too many of them especially for the British.

    I am assuming that the boxes are use in some part to augment the “off map” resources of the nations for these smaller theater games.  So adding all of them from both games into one map is a bit over kill.

    My suggestions:

    Britain (Remove 3 boxes)

    Remove the top British box off the coast of Spain.  Move the American box of the coast of the Eastern US forward to the newly vacated spot.

    Remove the British box off the coast of West Africa.

    Remove the British Box off the coast of Madagascar.

    Japan (Possibility remove 1 box)

    Move the Northern 2 boxes out away from the VCs, especially the box that touches the sea zone adjacent to Japan.

    Maybe even remove the center box altogether.

    America

    Move the American box of the coast of the Eastern US forward to the newly vacated (British) spot.

    Move the box near Alaska further away from the US’s western cost.

    (I also think the IPCs for some of these boxes are way too high, but that is for another discussion.)


  • Murraymoto,

    Thanks for the support,

    Borneo will probably be a bit further away from Japan then it currently is when I am finished.


  • On Convoys
    No don’t remove any, I would say…  Convoy rules could be for the Optional rules.

    British
    Move the Spanish coast convoy box to the western Mediterranean. This to resemble all the British convoys to Malta and Egypt via the Medd. Will make Gibraltar and Malta more important for the British to keep.
    Don’t remove any! Britain was just like Japan depending on the Convoys. The U-boat war wasn’t for nothing.

    Soviet
    Place the Soviet convoy higher and closer to Norway

    Place a new Soviet convoy box off the coast of Kamchatka to resemble far east supply.

    Japan
    Keep them.  Only make Philippines two sea zones. Or possible move the box that is close to Japan to between Sumatra Java Borneo or better add it. Japan was very depending on convoys especially from the Dutch East Indies.

    US
    These are all fine.  The US must not be to vulnerable to Convoy attacks

    Italy
    Fine

    German
    Maybe create a small German convoy in the Baltic to resemble the ore deliveries from Sweden to Germany.


  • Yea id also keep with Micooms sugestion… UK had nearly 50% of her GDP generated by her colonies and they need to be attacked by subs to simulate an ability to starve the British into submission.

    Likewise Japan merchant fleet was totally crippled by 1944 and they suffered as well thanks to American subs.

    Micooms convoy box ideas are spot on correct.

    UK convoy box in indian ocean, cape horn, and south atlantic are needed.


  • I agree also.  I am not sure on the soviet supply though to the far east.  I do not know if they were supplied in a significant manner via Vladivostok.  Most things you read deal with Arctic convoys going to Archangel/Murmansk.  Perhaps a low valued one in the east.  I also like the idea for German convoy, since the Swedes did supply ore to Germany.


  • @Imperious:

    UK had nearly 50% of her GDP generated by her colonies and they need to be attacked by subs to simulate an ability to starve the British into submission.
    UK convoy box in indian ocean, cape horn, and south atlantic are needed.

    Not looking to start the IPC discussion here, but the need for convoys is based in IPCs, so I will mention them here.
    The only way to starve the UK into submission here is going to be to take away all of her land.  If you count the current on-board IPC values for each country you get the following:
    Germany-52
    Japan-34
    Italy-27          Axis total-119
    Russia-37
    UK-74
    USA-71          Allied total-184

    Just compared to Revised and Classic, UK is not that much of an industrial powerhouse, and I think that bares out historically too.

    Now, this is large part because many territories have been changed/added since the original inception of this variation
    but deepblue was right when he said,
    @deepblue:

    Convoy Boxes
    I am assuming that the boxes are use in some part to augment the “off map” resources of the nations for these smaller theater games.  So adding all of them from both games into one map is a bit over kill.

    In both AAP and AAE, the rules state that convoy zones represent income and materials from other parts of the globe.  Here we have just about the entire globe and all of those countries are represented.  So, if Convoy Zones are to be kept in the game, then the territories that the materials represent must be in some way affected, or else there is double materials coming from somewhere.  I think that this has to be part of the rationale for having convoys or not.

    Currently, UK has 9 convoy zones totalling 22 ipcs.  italy has 12 territories and 1 convoy totalling 27.  UK certainly had more income, industry and trade than italy, this is more to point out the amount of ipcs that the UK is gaining from these convoys while still gaining IPCs from the 65 territories (Axis have 60 total) that UK controls on the map.
     In the smaller scale variations of AA, the Axis were able to attack the supply routes of the Allies via the Convoy Zones because the territories with the materials were not on the map.  Here we can actually take over the country that they are shipping from.

    I like the Convoy Zones, but I wonder how much they are needed when you can take the actual territory.  And to use Convoys, I think you have to adjust the value of territories to balance, otherwise the Allies are getting double payment when they control territories and still getting payment when they have the convoy and not the territory. (In AAP, there is a Russian Convoy that is out of play when a particular territory is taken, Karelia I think)   In some cases this might mean that there are numbers of territories without value, or much value, like I could see happen in Africa.  Are they going to be a worthwhile target with that depleted value?

    I could see if a Convoy represented materials from South America, which is neutral and not going to be attacked by the Allies, though it could be attacked by the Axis and if the Axis took Brazil, then the Allied Convoy didn’t count anymore.  In a way, the German Baltic Convoy would line up too, from the ore from Sweden.

    On the current convoy locations:
    USA
    the Alaskan convoy needs to be moved farther out from North American coast.
    move the Caribbean convoy to take the place of the UK one

    Germany
    Baltic convoy for Germany

    UK
    Moving convoy from Spain to West. Med

    Russia
    Move convoy northwest towards finland

    Japan
    no change


  • In the original version of this map, the starting IPC values were as follows…

    Germany - 50
    Japan - 40
    Italy - 24

    Russia - 44
    UK - 75
    USA - 85

    I intentionally gave the Allies a much higher IPC total than the Axis for two reason… One, its more historically accurate, and two I think it leads to better gameplay.  If both sides start out with similar income, then the game can easily turn into a stalemate that drags on forever.

    As for the UK’s income, I realize that this seems a little high, but this high income only really lasts if the UK has a way to defend it all.  After the first round of the game, the UK can easily find itself down 10-20 IPCs due to loss of territory and convoy zones.

    As for the convoy zones themself, I really like them and think they add a lot to the gameplay.  If you’re not familiar with the rules for them, here’s how they work…  Each convoy zone is a seperate territory.  If an enemy ship enters the convoy zone a control marker is placed in it.  The original owner of the convoy zone does not collect any income from the zone as long as this marker is in place.  The original owner of the zone, or one of his allies, can clear it by entering the zone with one of his own ships.  (Transports can’t capture or clear a convoy zone.)  Also, the enemy doesn’t need to keep a ship inside the captured convoy zone to maintain control of it.  Even after he leaves the zone, the control marker is left in place until someone from the other team clears it.

    Also, if it bothers anyone that there’s both convoy zones and pretty much the whole world, just look at it this way…  The IPCs generated from convoy zones don’t just represent natural resourses and labor.  They instead represent the increased efficiency gained by global trade through a willing network of colonies and partners.  Or think of it like this…  If Germany captured all of the UK’s territory in WWII, would Germany have been able to increase its industrial output by the same level that the UK had prior to its capture?  I think the answer to that would be “no”.  A bunch of subjugated territories aren’t going to work as well together as a group of willing trade partners.  The convoy zones, while not perfect, help to represent this portion of a coutry’s income that can be blocked, but not captured.

    Linking convoy zones to specific territories, sort of like how its done in AA:P is ok, but I’m not sure if its worth the effort and extra hassle involved with keeping track of all of it.  Plus, its hard to say that a single convoy zone represents the trade with just one territory and not a whole region instead.  If we assume that convoy zones represent everything from smugglers, to trade with neutrals, to trade with remote parts of normal territories, then I don’t see anything wrong with keeping the convoy zone in play even though some of the territories in the region near the convoy zone might have been captured by enemy ground forces.


  • I think the idea is much more simple than that…

    The convoy boxes dont represent IP income the same way say a land territory does.

    The convoy box represents a point that you can attack a nations income on the high seas because the convoy box is representing all the supply/trade that nation is comsuming to stay in the black. Its a point of interception of the transit of income. The Convoy box should not have a value itself, but rather a maximum value that can be destroyed from a nations IPC pool.

    say each box has a value that represents the maximum value that can be destroyed in a turn. Thats what the number should represent which would simplify the accounting.


  • @Imperious:

    The convoy box represents a point that you can attack a nations income on the high seas because the convoy box is representing all the supply/trade that nation is comsuming to stay in the black. Its a point of interception of the transit of income. The Convoy box should not have a value itself, but rather a maximum value that can be destroyed from a nations IPC pool.

    say each box has a value that represents the maximum value that can be destroyed in a turn. Thats what the number should represent which would simplify the accounting.

    This is the way to go for this map! It is easy to play, and will reflect the importance of convoying very well…


  • @Imperious:

    The convoy boxes dont represent IP income the same way say a land territory does.

    The convoy box represents a point that you can attack a nations income on the high seas because the convoy box is representing all the supply/trade that nation is comsuming to stay in the black. Its a point of interception of the transit of income. The Convoy box should not have a value itself, but rather a maximum value that can be destroyed from a nations IPC pool.

    say each box has a value that represents the maximum value that can be destroyed in a turn. Thats what the number should represent which would simplify the accounting.

    IL, are you saying that if a convoy zone is taken in this scenario, that dice are rolled and that many ipcs, up to the max listed are lost from the owning country’s income on hand, like SBR?


  • Yea and the total number of potential IPC that can be lost would be the total value in these colonies… thus in the case of UK all her colonies say =37… now you will need to make a number of convoy boxes that is the same as this total from which it can be attacked.

    So some convoy boxes will have more value than others…

    ok a more easy example: The German baltic convoy box would be the same as the aid Germany recieves from Sweden…i guess that 2 or 3 IPC

    In Italys case the convoy box is equal to the value of her african starting colonies as the maximum potential of IPC that can be attacked per turn.

    The Soviet Boxes represent the total amount of aid that can be sent via lend lease

    US convoy boxes = the total value in all starting territories outside the USA.

    Allow Subs, planes, and warships to conduct attacks on these boxes. Each rolls a die= lost income


  • Aaaah….  I see, that’s a great idea, adds a lot of variance too, as you could attack each turn.

    At first I thought you were talking about if UK had 40 total IPCs, the convoys would represent half, and taking them would just deduct that from the total as the supplies couldn’t get through to the homeland. 
    Your way forces attacks on them every turn if you want to keep knocking them down.  Very nice.


  • Yea and it also displays the problem of “island economies”  everything for them is dependant on the ability to get the value of their territorial holdings by ship…which is now abstracted by these convoy zones.


  • I hope "we"can get an agreement on those convoy boxes and rules… Btw, looking forward to the fifth draft for tomorrow.


  • A project suggestion, deepblue.
    Why don’t you make your first post a release point for drafts.
    It’ll be easier for new people to get up to speed.


  • Wow!  Great discussion.

    Glad to see new (and old) contributors to the thread.

    Didn’t think Convoy Boxes were such a hot topic.

    Everyone made great points.

    Micoom,

    Your points are valid.  Britain and Japan were reliant on their convoys heavily.  I just don’t think the map needs 5 British convoy boxes in the Atlantic.  But you’re right I may have gotten too carried away with removing convoy boxes (CBs).

    I still don’t see how the map needs three British CBs around Africa.  I have left off the CB next to Madagascar.

    I will move a CB to the west Med. but I am not sure if I like it, it may make it a bit too crowed, we will see.

    I will move the Soviet CB north, good suggestion.
    I don’t see how adding another Russian CB will add value to the map.

    I will try to add/move a Japanese CB near the Dutch East Indies.  The problem is this area is British so the closest I can get it is near the Palau Island, any further and it will look really out of place.

    I liked the idea about the German CB but it will not fit.  I have tried to angle it several different ways and no go.  Even if I make it smaller it will take up almost the entire area and the title still would not fit in the box.  So not sure if that is going to work.  I thought about a punch out box or maybe put the box somewhere close with an arrow, but I don’t really like any of those ideas.

    I still do not like the CBs adjacent to the home sea zones of nations. This just doesn’t add value for me.  If these CBs ever become threatened then it is probably too late for the nation and they will have bigger issues to deal with.  So I will try to move them out a bit.

    Craig,

    Thanks for sharing your maps they are a great resource.  I haven’t had a chance to read the thread but I look forward to it.

    Everyone else,

    Thanks again for the input.  Good rules discussion I will try to narrow it down and let the thread vote on the system they like once I have the time to absorb them.

    I do however think we are a bit off target.  What I want to decide first, is location of the CBs then dive into the rules once the map is set.

    All of this is not set in stone.  To be honest I have not given CBs the attention they deserve.  I have focused all my time at creating the sea zones.  They took an unbelievable about of time.

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