@vondox Assuming Germany upgrades their Medium to a Major straight away, Germany gets a total of 54 tech rolls by the end of 1941.
They’d have to have literally succeeded on 52/54 rolls to end up with 13 out of 16 techs 
If they manage to defy probability like that, I say kudos to those German scientists.
Are you sure they weren’t accidentally adding the French Major to their tech rolls, giving them a total of 6 rolls?
@barnee doesn’t that just make Britain’s first several turns absolutely awful in the war, just getting bombed mercilessly I guess they need to get some fighters asap, huh?
My big problem with the bombers is that you always have a 25% chance to just instantly lose them, and you need at a minimum one successful factory bombing to make them worth their cost 
If Italy stays Neutral, the best Germany can ever hope to do in the Mediterranean is build a factory in Yugoslavia / Greece , right? Doesn’t that kind of scupper their plans and give the UK too much leeway?
@vondox definitely think you’re over complicating tech.
You need four successful rolls to complete a tech - Stage 1, 2, 3 and then complete. You leave the token in the ‘complete’ section to remind all players what you have.
You can roll only one dice per turn per tech. Meaning one roll for advanced arty, one for advanced mech, etc.
You can only get to stage 2 before July 1939, which slows everyone down nicely.
Techs take effect immediately on receiving them, as the rules state. If you got long range aircraft, all planes immediately receive the bonus.
New units unlocked by tech, however, such as advanced arty or heavy tanks, require building separately from the units already present on the board, but can definitely be done on that same turn.
@vondox No, you can switch between techs as you like, you don’t HAVE to stick to a tech each time.
The idea is that you spend 36-39 getting to Step 2 on as many different techs that you consider useful, and then you work on completing them.
You can easily get to STep 3 on one tech, but then want to spend your dice elsewhere. Think of it like assigning scientists to working on specific weapon specs and technologies - their notes don’t just get deleted if they get sidetracked and start investigating advanced artillery instead!
Germany and the US are indeed meant to be pretty tech heavy, yes. But that’s the point! The US will peel ahead and be able to lend lease units to Britain and USSR once they’re able to, which helps keep them strong.
The rolls themselves come from your major factories - every Major gives you 1 dice roll, plus Germany gets an extra one for free. USSR also gets one if they sign the Molotov-Ribbontrop pact.
A common move for Germany and USA is to immediately upgrade one factory on turn 1 to get access to an extra roll, as Germany is sitting on a medium factory in their home country.
Also, something I tripped up on, remember that captured Major factories act as a Minor factory, so after taking Paris’s Major, Germany does NOT get an extra tech roll.
@chris_henry You had it right, yes, was just asking if the presumed ideal is to hit DEI without attacking allies, thanks for answering 
Definitely always felt weird, because historically they attacked at the same time as the rest of the attacks against USA & Britain.
Iraq not only is worth 2 IPP for Germany if they possess it, but it also has special alignment conditions, wherein it will flip to Germany or Italy if they have units bordering it.
Isn’t this kinda weird though? Germany is almost never going to have units adjacent to it, unless they take Yugoslavia, build transports one by one (as it only has a minor dockyard) and then naval invade Syria / Transjordan
Germany just doesn’t have the time or income to get stuff to Africa in this game, so how the hell is it ever supposed to get Iraq or Southern Iran?
The bonus for Transcaucasia makes sense, as it was a war goal for Barbarossa, but the Middle East?
Only thing I can think is it is meant to represent oil resources. In which case, shouldn’t Axis control suffice, instead of requiring only Germany to possess it? Surely Italy isn’t going to hog the metaphorical oil from its ally?
Plus, it makes the Italy player have to hold back to allow Germany access to potentially a lot of IPP despite Italy troops being able to take it.
Just watched Eastory’s video about the Sino Japanese War, got me thinking more about the oil expansion I want Japan to feel like it NEEDS to attack the Indonesian islands for oil! Because of the weird movement rules / not needing oil to move infantry and cavalry when out of oil, the oil system just kind of… doesn’t work properly.
Plus, Germany way too much oil
@linkler The commander’s rules I believe does say that the Germans can send their commander. that the Soviets cannot send one is just part of the balancing, I believe. Also represents the ahem wonderful military competence of the Republican forces.
I’ll have a think and see if I can workshop some ideas for the specialized commanders.
And awesome, I wasn’t sure if it would stack - so basically, commanders just always give a +1 no matter what after calculating the highest and lowest rule?
Bonus question for you, unrelated: how does damaged battleship damage work? A battleship is normally an 8, and a damaged battleship is a 6. After getting hit, does a defending battleship then defend that turn on an 8, or a 6?
@trig said in Commanders and Terrain?:
The FAQ stated a while ago that commanders are above and beyond terrain. (ie, they don’t care about the 1 highest, 1 lowest rule.) Thus you just apply the penalty, then move the units up by one.
I get that; if I have a commander attacking a mountain, my units just stay the same, as they get a -1 and a +1, cancelling out.
My main question is about their combination with things like artillery, plus they just sort of delete terrain as a problem. I was just wondering if there was any thought on how to balance them a bit better, because as it stands, there is basically no reason to use artillery other than that small chance of a first strike.
I had the idea of having specialty commander - tank commander, artillery commander, etc, that conferred special benefits. Maybe Tank Commander allowed for additional blitzing units? Artillery commander allows 2 infantry per arty?
I don’t like the idea of the commander giving a flat +1 to a specific unit type, because then the infantry commander is always economically the better bet.
Just watched Eastory’s video about the Sino Japanese War, got me thinking more about the oil expansion I want Japan to feel like it NEEDS to attack the Indonesian islands for oil! Because of the weird movement rules / not needing oil to move infantry and cavalry when out of oil, the oil system just kind of… doesn’t work properly.
Plus, Germany way too much oil
@theveteran But the rules specifically state that a unit only ever gets the highest or the lowest bonus - so a +1 and +1 shouldn’t add together…
Hey all,
I love the Commanders expansion, great to have that big swing of damage effects.
However, one question, do commanders basically just get rid of terrain penalties entirely as a concept?
Like, you will eventually end up with enough commanders that nearly every battle has a commander in it, so terrain just… doesn’t matter, right?
I know that the base rule of the game is that only the highest and lowest modifiers affected our units (so mountain -1 and river -1 is still only a -1, as -1 is the lowest you can get) but commanders just kind of let you ignore that.
But should a commander only remove ONE of the males? So, with a mountain and a river and a commander, you still get a -1?
Also, does a commander not basically remove the need for artillery? All infantry already get a +1 from the commander, so who needs an artillery pairing, right?
Just wondering if I can improve using commanders, really.
@delaja only hurts Britain player then
Plus, hard in 2 player and I play it, allows don’t really want to hurt themselves
@insanehoshi hell never considered that - launch a failed attack on Syria just to get them to align 
Iraq not only is worth 2 IPP for Germany if they possess it, but it also has special alignment conditions, wherein it will flip to Germany or Italy if they have units bordering it.
Isn’t this kinda weird though? Germany is almost never going to have units adjacent to it, unless they take Yugoslavia, build transports one by one (as it only has a minor dockyard) and then naval invade Syria / Transjordan
Germany just doesn’t have the time or income to get stuff to Africa in this game, so how the hell is it ever supposed to get Iraq or Southern Iran?
The bonus for Transcaucasia makes sense, as it was a war goal for Barbarossa, but the Middle East?
Only thing I can think is it is meant to represent oil resources. In which case, shouldn’t Axis control suffice, instead of requiring only Germany to possess it? Surely Italy isn’t going to hog the metaphorical oil from its ally?
Plus, it makes the Italy player have to hold back to allow Germany access to potentially a lot of IPP despite Italy troops being able to take it.
@hbg-gw-enthusiast I would go with Axis, but I agree that, considering Cominstern is at war with the Allies, it seems to make a bit more sense for them to revert to Finalnd… Crap now I’m not sure.