@SS-GEN Yup, I’m just really busy. I’ll come back eventually!
Best posts made by Argothair
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RE: Argo's Middleweight Map for 1939 & 1942
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[Global 1940] SiredBlood Rules Summary
I recently got back from a Global 1940 tournament in Orange County hosted by SiredBlood, where we got to play three games each with SiredBlood’s fascinating house rules. SiredBlood has a full set of cards and videos that will walk you through his new rules step-by-step, but they can take a long time to read and/or watch, especially if you’re already familiar with the rules for OOB Global 1940 play. So, to help spread awareness of these fun new rules, I am writing up what I see as his key additions to the OOB ruleset. Note that all of these rules were invented by SiredBlood, and he has not asked or authorized me to write this post – I’m just writing this up as an unofficial fan. I don’t claim that this is a 100% complete list of his rules, only that it’s enough to get you up and running to try out his ideas.
STRATEGIC BOMBERS
Strategic bombers can only roll dice or be claimed as casualties on the first round of combat. After the first round of combat, if your strategic bombers survive, set them off to the side as if they had retreated. Note that this means that strategic bombers no longer auto-kill undefended transports. Instead, you roll one die per bomber, and kill one transport per roll of 4 or less.
Each strategic bomber may be used to deliver up to 2 infantry as paratroopers, even without any technology. Both the strategic bombers and the infantry must begin their movement in the same territory. If delivering paratroopers during the combat move, you must invade the same territory with at least 1 land unit for each infantry you want to deliver as a paratrooper. For example, if you are attacking Egypt with 3 tanks and 1 fighter, you could deliver up to 3 infantry as paratroopers to join in the attack. Bombers do not roll any combat dice during turns when they are delivering paratroopers. Bombers on delivery runs trigger AAA rolls and may be chosen as AAA casualties, and if they are hit by AAA, then their cargo is also automatically killed.
Any strategic bomber that did not participate in combat may deliver paratroopers during your non-combat move. Both the strategic bombers and the infantry must begin their movement in the same territory. The destination territory must already have at least 1 land unit from your faction (Axis or Allied) per infantry that you want to deliver during non-combat. When delivering troops during non-combat, your bomber may land in the destination territory (if you owned it at the start of your turn) or may continue flying using any remaining fuel.
CRUISERS
Cruisers now defend at 4 instead of 3 when paired 1:1 with friendly battleships.
NAVAL BLOCKADES
It is no longer possible to blockade an entire enemy fleet with only 1 destroyer. Instead, each defending surface warship can block the movement of up to 3 enemy warships. When attempting to pass through a blockade, you must leave at least three warships behind in the blockaded sea zone for each blockading surface vessel. As the attacker, you cannot include submarines in your screening force unless the defending blockade includes at least one destroyer. (If the blockading force includes no destroyers, then your submarines can slip through the blockade anyway.) You may declare attacks and amphibious assaults on the far side of the blockade, but none of these attacks occur unless and until your screening force defeats and wipes out the blockading force. (This is similar to how an amphibious assault will not occur if you fail to win the naval battle in the sea zone immediately outside the coastline you are invading.)
In order to send transports past the blockade, you must have at least one surface warship remaining to escort the transport. For example, to get a transport past one blockading enemy cruiser, you would need 4 surface warships – 3 to screen the cruiser, and 1 to escort the transport.
RAILROADS
All industrial complexes generate a “rail allowance” that enhances your non-combat movements. Any land unit may move by rail. Units moving by rail may move up to 3 spaces, but may only move through/into territories that you have owned since the start of your turn. The unit moving by rail must have started its turn in the territory with a factory. Each factory can provide a railway for a number of units equal to the territory value of the territory where the factory sits. For example, a factory in Novgorod (value = 2 IPCs) could move up to 2 land units each turn up to 3 spaces each.
RETREATING RUSSIAN FACTORIES
Any Russian-controlled minor industrial complexes may make a non-combat move of 1 space to an original Russian territory that is currently in Russian control and that is worth at least 1 IPC. A complex that moves has its production capacity lowered by 1 unit on the turn that it moves. For example, if you retreat your factory from Novgorod to Archangel, it would only be able to produce two units that turn (not the usual three units). For each factory that you move, you lose 1 IPC from that turn’s collect income phase, as if you had been convoyed by a submarine. In addition, a factory that moves loses its entire rail allowance for that turn (the railroad is assumed to be busy moving heavy machinery and engineers).
CHINESE CAVALRYChina starts with a bid of 3 cavalry units, which attack at 2, defend at 1, move up to 2 spaces, cost 4 IPCs, and blitz like tanks. In addition, China may buy more cavalry units at any time, even if the Burma road is closed. In addition, if the Burma Road is open, China may buy up to 2 tanks over the course of the game for 6 IPCs each. The neutral Mongolian units that would normally be infantry are instead replaced by neutral cavalry.
UNIFIED BRITISH ECONOMY
The UK Europe and UK Pacific economies are unified and treated as a single integrated economy. The British player may not spend more than 20 IPCs per turn on the Pacific side of the map. If India is conquered, the conqueror loots up to 10 IPCs from the British economy, regardless of how many territories Britain owns on the Pacific side of the board. If London is conquered, the conqueror loots up to 20 IPCs from the British economy, regardless of how many territories Britain owns on the Europe side of the board. In addition, if London is conquered, the British economy is fractured into a Canadian economy and an Indian (UK Pacific) economy. The Canadian treasury starts at 7 IPCs and starts with control of units located in or off the coast of Canada. Canada does not start with control of formerly British territories in Scotland, Africa or the Middle East, and may not build new factories outside of Canada. Canada may capture and then use enemy-held factories in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East.
ITALIAN LIBERATION CORPS
If the Allies ever conquer Rome, Italy immediately switches its loyalty to the Allied faction, and becomes controlled by the Allied player for the rest of the game, even if the Axis later re-occupy Rome. However, at the moment that the Allies conquer Rome, any and all Italian territories that are occupied by at least 1 German land unit are immediately converted to German control. In addition, any Italian land units that are stacked up with at least 1 German land unit are immediately converted to their German equivalents. For example, suppose Northern Italy has 2 German tanks and 6 Italian infantry, and Yugoslavia has 1 German fighter and 3 Italian tanks. If the Allies conquer Rome, Northern Italy would become a German territory with 2 German tanks and 6 German infantry, whereas Yugoslavia would remain an Italian territory and would contain 3 Italian (Allied) tanks. The German fighter would be forced to retreat to the nearest German-controlled territory.
ADDITIONAL NATIONAL OBJECTIVES
Germany: 5 IPCs for having at least 5 submarines on the map during your collect income phase (after deploying reinforcements)
Russia: 3 IPCs for owning all of Ukraine, Urals, and Siberia.
Japan: 3 IPCs for owning each otherwise 0 IPC US or UK Pacific island (e.g. Guam, Midway, Fiji, etc.)
Japan: 5 IPCs for owning Burma
Japan: 10 IPCs for owning all of China
Italy: 1 IPC each for owning any of Ethiopia, British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, Sudan, and KenyaTECHNOLOGIES
Any country may research one technology at a time by making one payment during its “purchase reinforcements” phase. Germany, Russia, Japan, Britain, and the USA start with “Phase 1” progress toward a technology of their choice. All other countries start at Phase 0.
To advance from Phase 0 to Phase 1 costs 4 IPCs.
To advance from Phase 1 to Phase 2 costs 4 IPCs.
To advance from Phase 2 to Phase 3 costs 4 IPCs.To advance from Phase 3 to Phase 4, you must roll one six-sided die, and pay the number of IPCs shown. For example, if you roll a 3, you would pay 3 IPCs. If you roll a 6, after you pay 6 IPCs, you immediately discover the technology.
Once you are at Phase 4, you may buy any number of six-sided dice for 1 IPC each. Roll all of the dice together. If any of the dice show a 5 or a 6, you immediately discover the technology. If none of the dice show a 5 or a 6, those dice are wasted, you remain at Phase 4, and you may purchase more dice on your next turn to try again.
You secretly choose which technology to research when you reach Phase 1. You do not have to reveal which technology you have acquired until the first time you use the technology. For example, if you develop Long-Range Aircraft, you can continue to move your fighters 4 spaces per turn and keep your technology a secret. This can help you maintain the element of surprise.
Once you have discovered a technology, you may immediately begin researching Phase 1 of a second technology, but this is rarely a worthwhile investment.
VICTORY CONDITIONS
The game ends at the end of France’s eighth turn. At that point, check to see if the Axis currently hold at least 12 out of the 26 available victory points (VPs). If so, the Axis win. If not, the Allies win. It does not matter who controls which victory points until the end of the game – all that counts is who controls the victory points at the end of turn 8.
(1-8) Berlin, Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila (1 VP each)
(9-16) Calcutta, Sydney, Honolulu, London, Cairo, Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad (1 VP each)
(17) Control all of Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland (1 VP total)
(18) Control all of Persia, Northwest Persia, Iraq, Caucasus (1 VP total)
(19) Control all of Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Dutch New Guinea (1 VP total)
(20) Control all of Ukraine, Urals, Siberia (1 VP total)
(21) Control all of North Africa (Morocco through Egypt) plus Crete and Greece (1 VP total)
(22) Control all of China (1 VP total)
(23) Control all of Burma, Shan State, Siam, Malaya, and French Indochina (1 VP total)
(24) Control at least 4 Pacific islands, including Hawaii and Borneo but not Ceylon, originally owned by UK or US (1 VP total)
(25) Allies do not control Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete, or Malta (1 VP total)
(26) Axis have at least 4 land units in each of Normandy, Holland, Denmark, and Norway (1 VP total) -
RE: Post League Game Results Here
Karl7 (Axis +0) defeats Argothair (Allies) at BM3 with an effective Sea Lion after American reinforcements charge to Iceland to prepare to liberate London…and then realize they don’t have quite enough to get the job done and go back to Canada. London was finally liberated on round 11, but by then it was too late for the Allies, and Argothair surrendered. Rumors that the Allied High Command was bribed by an offer of a rematch at Axis +6 are merely enemy propaganda and should be entirely discounted.
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/33561/g40bml-argothair-allies-vs-karl7/141
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RE: Axis & Allies balance problems …
If you have no beachhead at all, and you still want to fight in a region, then you need to send at least one transport full of actual land units. A single transport could cost 60 IPCs, and you’d still have little choice but to pay that price if you wanted to occupy a region that’s cut off from your forces by sea – although there are plenty of weird exceptions. Items like paratrooper technology, sub convoys, and strategic bombing become more important as the relative cost of transports rises.
As soon as you’re able to deliver one transport to your target, though, then the usual cost-benefit equation goes back into effect. Do you want one loaded transport plus 10 planes? Or five loaded transports? Or something in between?
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RE: We need an allied playbook.
@Guam-Solo Good question, Guam Solo. In most games, the USA can push for one objective on each side of the map, but not literally at the same time – the push for one objective should start two or three turns earlier than the push for the second objective. The reasoning here is that during the first stage of your campaign, you will need transports and men and warships and some air support in order to safely occupy a sea zone and then gain control of your targeted land territories. This is very expensive and consumes 85%+ of the US’s resources. At best, your remaining resources can be used to garrison a region that is already Allied-controlled (e.g., stack Honolulu with infantry, or stack Gibraltar with fighters). However, during the second stage of your campaign, when you have already achieved regional naval supremacy, you generally do not need to build new warships, and you may even be able to recycle some of your transports by sending them on a loop back and forth between safe sea zones. You can re-fill four transports much, much more cheaply than you can build four new transports, fill those transports, build an escorting navy, and build an escorting air force – and the resulting savings can be used to open a new offensive campaign.
The exception to this rule is when all of the Axis powers press inward toward Moscow, without paying serious attention to contesting the USA’s attacks. If Germany sends its entire air force east and builds nothing but mechs and tanks while Japan sends its entire air force west while building nothing but minor factories, then you can probably get away with an all-out simultaneous two-front war, because your landing parties just won’t be facing much opposition, so you won’t need to build as many escort ships / planes to support each loaded transport.
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RE: Argo's Middleweight Map for 1939 & 1942
Progress continues. The circles (victory cities) are 180 pixels wide, which means that every territory should have plenty of room to host a reasonable number of units.
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RE: Balanced Mod [Anniversary 41]
Update: second draft posted at the top of the thread based on everyone’s comments. Thank you for commenting!
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RE: Pearl Harbour Attack
I like the way you’re thinking creatively, and it’s possible there’s some way to exploit the fact that Hawaii can be 100% blocked off from the USA for a turn with only 3 ships – maybe later in the game if you have a fleet in the Carolines or at a Japanese-occupied Midway with a naval base, or something crazy like that. You would also need to make sure ANZAC is not in position to liberate Hawaii after the US can-opens for them.
The specific plan of attack you’re proposing is crazy because you would need twice as many starting forces as Japan actually has to pull it off. J3 India Crush is plausible against a competent opponent, barely, if you send 100% of your starting forces in the general direction of India. The fact that you’re doing a Pearl Harbor attack on J1 means that J3 India Crush is off the table. The fact that you’re also diverting 4 transports and 2 carrier groups to take Hawaii means that you will eat flak and die in India. The most likely result is that you will lose half the Japanese air force while not taking India. Meanwhile, ANZAC eats the money islands, and UK Europe winds up very strong because the Italian fleet sailed away west to capture a 1-IPC territory, and the German fleet sailed away west to knock out 2 American warships, so at least one of the UK Home Fleets likely survived, and the UK winds up with easy/cheap control of the Med and can start convoying Italy right away, and can start landings in France/Holland/Denmark/Norway right away, too.
Another point to keep in mind is that with your bombers busy knocking out the UK battleship, and your transports and air power busy in the Philippines and then India and then Hawaii, you will be very lucky to stalemate China in its current position – you run a real risk of losing Shanghai, which would block your proposed J4 victory. After seeing Germany’s looney-tunes assault on the US Atlantic fleet, Russia can safely build planes and stack Amur and Kazakh on R1, and then declare war on Japan on R2 and invade from both Kazakh and Siberia, giving the starting mechs a decent chance of reaching the Chinese coast on R4, which would also block the proposed J4 victory.
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RE: Argo's Middleweight Map for 1939 & 1942
I’ve made a little progress on the Middleweight Map! The canals should all be working now (they’re marked on the map with graphics, and they’re enforced by the game engine), and the stats for air units have been rebalanced – instead of “jets”, which were hideously overpowered, I now have “divebombers,” which have a strong offense against land units but have a short range and are weak to enemy interceptors. The other air unit stats are also adjusted a little to compensate. Thanks to Karl7 for playtesting and Mike K. for advice on the air stats.
As before, you can download the .zip file that has everything you need to play at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RTTR2kzgPeV82avij5ZI6mXuN5M9ezmi/view?usp=sharing. Unzip the folder and put the contents in C:/Users/[your name]/triplea/downloadedMaps.
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Simplified Bombers, Flak Guns, and Submarines
Some of the fussiest rules in the A&A handbook are the rules for bombing runs, interceptors, AAA gunfire, and submarines.
Many people enjoy fussiness; they like learning all of the intricate details of a complicated ruleset and then finding ways to exploit them. That’s fine. If you enjoy complex rules for their own sake, this House Rule is not for you. This House Rule is for people who enjoy complicated gameplay but who want the rules to be as simple as possible. The idea is to get a lot of theme and a lot of strategy without needing too many different rules.
So, here’s my proposal:
Bombers – bombers can make bombing runs against any territory, even if the territory has no factory in it. If you wish, you may escort your bombers with fighters by moving the fighters into the territory. When you make a bombing run, the defender does not get any automatic AAA shots. Instead, the defender rolls one die per flak gun in the territory (flak guns hit on rolls of 1), and one die per fighter in the territory (fighters hit on rolls of 2 or less). For each hit scored by the defender, eliminate one attacking bomber or one attacking escort fighter (attacker’s choice). Any surviving bombers then roll 1d6 and destroy IPCs from the defender’s treasury equal to the value shown on the dice. The defender cannot lose more IPCs from a territory than the territory is worth (e.g. bombing India can lose you at most 3 IPCs), and the defender cannot lose more IPCs than their entire treasury.
Flak Guns – attack at 1, defend at 1, move 1 space, and behave exactly like a regular land unit. They can make a combat move, they can be taken as a casualty, they can conquer territories, and they don’t get a preemptive shot. The only two things that make a flak gun special are that (a) if they score a hit in a battle against you, and you have any planes in that battle, then you have to select one of your planes as the casualty, and (b) flak guns help defend against bombing runs.
Submarines – attack at 2, defend at 1, move 2 spaces, and behave exactly like a regular sea unit. They are blocked by enemy warships, do not submerge, can be hit by planes, can hit planes, and do not make sneak attacks. Instead, each submarine adjacent to an enemy territory during that enemy’s collect income reduces the enemy’s income by 1 IPC. The income from a territory cannot be reduced below zero by submarines. It is recommended (but not required) to raise the defensive value of destroyers from 2 to 3 to help keep submarines balanced.
All of this may sound like a lot to keep straight, but it’s mostly a matter of unlearning some of the fiddly rules that we’re used to playing with. These rules should be easier for new players to learn because they treat all units as essentially the same except for one or two special abilities: instead of submarines behaving totally differently from any other ship and requiring separate rolls and a separate phase of combat, submarines are just ships that are able to deal 1 IPC of industrial damage. Instead of AAA guns behaving totally differently from any other land unit and requiring separate rolls and unique rules for movement and capture, AAA guns are just land units that are able to preferentially target planes when they score a hit.
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RE: We need an allied playbook.
@crockett36 Hey there! I’m glad you like it. You are more than welcome to read or summarize my advice on YouTube as long as you give me some credit for it as part of the video – I’m not likely to be recording a YouTube video of Global advice anytime soon.
My thought about strict neutrals is that they’re there to help you punish your opponent when they do something really strange or make a mistake. If neither America nor the UK is putting anything into the Atlantic, for example, then Germany can attack Sweden and Spain while Italy attacks Turkey, and you can mostly get away with it – this can help you take Gibraltar, Egypt, Iraq, etc. without wasting a ton of money on transports. Conversely, if Germany and Italy are dropping huge stacks of infantry into France and Rome but are leaving Poland / Romania / Bulgaria / Greece wide open, and the UK has a big stack of infantry in the Middle East, and Japan has already activated Mongolia as a pro-Allied neutral by invading Amur, then you might be able to attack eastern Europe from the Middle East through Turkey – sure, Germany can walk into Spain and Sweden, but that’s not a big deal; you’re basically allowing them to keep Western Europe in exchange for a British factory in Greece and a Russian tank swarm fueled by the Spread of Communism NO that will ultimately take Berlin before Spanish infantry can reach it.
These are pretty rare scenarios, though, and of 10 games where you’re tempted to invade a strict neutral, you should probably just pass in about 9 of those 10 games and stick to more conventional strategies. The Spanish beachhead is not as exciting as it looks – you’re closer to New York, but you’re correspondingly further from Berlin; it saves you a few bucks on transports, but you lose that money by needing to fight formerly neutral infantry, and the attack as a whole doesn’t necessarily save you any time.
Of course, if your opponent is foolish enough to invade a strict neutral, go claim your prizes! It often makes sense to leave one mech hanging around somewhere near the area where your opponent might be tempted to invade strict neutrals so that you can quickly capitalize on the newly available fighting forces. Once the mech runs in there, you’ll be able to fly in air support and get a decent offensive punch. Be aware that you cannot ever activate neutrals with a plane, so even if neutrals are ‘on your side’, they are still off-limits to your planes until you move a land unit into their territories.
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RE: "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion
@the-janus Interesting. I’m an amateur developer and many of these changes would be relatively easy for me to code – turning off capitals is not hard, permanently awarding Chinese territories to the British is not hard, and even the diplomacy is probably doable. The nukes are probably weird and rare enough that it makes sense to just do them manually for now. I could add a ‘dummy’ nuke unit on the map that you can move around and so on, and then when you’re ready to fire it, we would just roll a die and use edit mode to resolve the effects.
If you want to send me whatever files you have and if you’d be willing to play a couple of games once the module is ready, I’ll see what I can make happen. No promises, but I think I would probably be able to hack something playable together in a month or so.
If you’re interested, send me a list of your top 10-ish highest priority changes from the Classic map/ruleset. I need a medium amount of detail, I think – like I’m not sure why China goes British, specifically, and not American. If there’s a short rulebook (<= 30 pages) that spells all this out, then send me a link and I’ll read it; otherwise I need you to tell me.
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RE: Supply Token for Lend-Lease
I’m glad people are interested in this idea!
That said, I really don’t have strong opinions about the best way to adjudicate bombing runs on supply crates. That’s just not the part of the house rule that excites me. I would ideally want to keep the bombing rules very simple, so as not to require a lot of accounting or distract attention from other parts of the game, but if you have a set of complicated bombing rules that you and your friends enjoy, then go wild. There’s nothing wrong with that.
If you’re looking for my ideal bombing rules, I will try to explain them one more time:
- Choose to target the supply crate rather than another facility. Any number of bombers can target the same crate
- Suffer from AA fire and fighter interceptors as normal. Only surviving bombers can roll dice against crates.
- If at least one bomber rolls a 4, 5, or 6, then completely destroy the crate that was targeted.
- Ignore rolls of 1, 2, or 3. Do not partially damage crates.
These rules should generate slightly less economic payoff than ordinary strategic bombing…if your bomber gets through, you do an average of 2.5 damage, instead of 3.5 damage on a successful regular run. If you want more damage, you can allow hits on rolls of 3, as well.
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RE: We need an allied playbook.
@Guam-Solo That’s interesting. What do you mean by ‘landlocked’, exactly? Is the idea that Britain couldn’t keep a navy in the water, so British forces were confined to the UK and Africa, without being able to land on islands or in France?
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RE: "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion
@the-janus Unfortunately, I have gotten overscheduled with too many different board game projects, so it will be a while before I do any development on this one, but I’m still interested and I hope to come back to it someday.
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RE: Balanced Mod [Anniversary 41]
Thanks for checking in, but nothing new to report on this particular set of house rules. :)
I spent the spring studying data science, and much of the summer went to coping with roommate drama. I’m now comfortably ensconced in my own studio, which is refreshing, but it doesn’t really have the space to host Axis & Allies games (table’s way too small) and my schedule has mostly conflicted with the games that other people have been hosting. Karl S has been working pretty hard on some home remodeling, Karl S has been looking after his second newborn, James has been looking after his first newborn…the usual excuses. I’m still studying data science. I played a few games of Global (joined the ladder for about six months and did OK) and a few games of New World Order on TripleA. I’ve been working a little bit on my 1939 Middleweight Map, which is in the Customizations forum, and a little bit on Tiny Battles of World War 2, which might actually get published someday, and I’ve been playing some of the Battlefront: Strategic Command video games, which have that classic hex-and-counter setup from the 1970s grognard style of wargame, but on a PC. I’ll be playing WW2 Deluxe for the first time this weekend with Mike Kelley, which looks promising, but I can already see some of the potential flaws.
I am always happy to play A&A 50 with my house rules, but I’m not sure the locals are as into it; they mostly like Sired Blood’s Global rules, and I think we’re going to try Larry Harris’s new War Room soon.
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RE: Mechanized Russia
@weddingsinger That makes sense as far as it goes, and I wouldn’t say you’re missing anything, exactly. I think the emphasis on keeping Germany out of the Baltic States is slightly mis-placed; the Baltic States is just 1 IPC. It’s Leningrad that’s the big economic swing zone, so the question is what turn will Germany arrive in Leningrad, and then ultimately in Moscow. I think you could get away with a purchase like 8 mech, 1 art on R1 and R2 against most G1/G2 openings, but if you stretch it much past that and start mixing in tanks or planes as well, then I’d be tempted (as Italy) to stop fussing with Egypt and start sending mechs and tanks for a max stack of can-openers. If you give up too many Russian hit points, then you can’t hold the territory two spaces back (e.g. Leningrad) against Germany’s fast movers, so you’ve got to hold all of the territories in the middle (e.g. Baltic States, Belorussia) firmly enough that Italy can’t can-open them, and if you never build any regular infantry, then you’ll run out of infantry to do that garrison work and you’ll start trading more expensive units. If you get forked enough times, eventually your defense might collapse and you might have to drive back to Moscow in a hurry, allowing the Germans to advance two spaces a turn and make up for some of the turns when the Germans didn’t advance any spaces in a turn.
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RE: WW2 Path to Victory - Feedback Thread
@simon33 I mean, reasonable people can disagree about whether an army could have crossed the Western Sahara in the 1940s. In terms of both rainfall and population density, the Rio de Oro area is actually less desolate than northern Sudan, where the game does allow you to cross.
That said, I’m primarily relying on the TripleA map here. You can see that Rio de Oro is clearly adjacent to both Morocco and French West Africa. If the map designers want that area to be impassible, then I believe it should be marked as such in the basic map, not just after you apply the graphical overlay.
As far as your second question, I have no idea why people have stopped playing this game. I enjoy it and I plan to continue playing, even though the developers have ignored my bug reports for the last year.
Moreover, I do not agree that dividing SZ38 is a mistake. The sailing distance from Bangkok (in SZ 132) through Singapore (in SZ38) to Calcutta (in SZ40) is about 3,000 miles. This is also roughly the sailing distance from New York to France. The standard Global map models the NY-France trip as requiring a naval move of 4 spaces. I see no excuse for treating that trip as 4 spaces wide while treating the Bangkok-Calcutta route as only 2 spaces wide. Any invasion of India would have required some staging grounds on the western coast of the Malayan peninsula – it would have been totally unrealistic to try to attack India using forces based out of Bangkok or Saigon, yet this is exactly what Global encourages players to do. I am thrilled that the Path to Victory map corrects this problem; it is one of the main reasons that I find the map interesting.
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RE: Balanced Mod [Anniversary 41]
I am excited to announce the 1941 Anniversary Balanced Mod is now available as a TripleA map!
I’m still working on the automatic download, but for now, if you’re tech-savvy, you can put the objectives.properties file in world_war_ii_v3-master/map, and put the WW2v3-1941balmod file in world_war_ii_v3-master/map/games, and it should work for you. You will need to manually change the file type of the ‘objectives’ file from “objectives.txt” to “objectives.properties” because TripleA cannot handle the “.properties” file type. It is OK to replace the old objectives.properties file; I have preserved all of its old info for you. You will probably need to unzip the relevant folder (which is in C:/users/[your name]/TripleA/downloadedMaps/) in order to add the files.
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RE: We need an allied playbook.
@AldoRaine said in We need an allied playbook.:
The biggest problem this creates for the allies in my mind is how it gives Japan a lot of space. Which can lead to very bad things for the Allies.
I hear you, comrade! I agree that if USA puts 80%+ into killing Italy, then Italy is not going anywhere useful from this opening, and Moscow will either fall late or not fall at all, so Europe looks pretty good for the Allies – but then you have to turn around and pivot and scramble to save Sydney or whatever. Which works great for a lot of players; some people are more comfortable than I am with that kind of emergency pivot. My personal preference (so far) is to look for Allied strategies that give you a reasonable chance of more-or-less containing the Axis all over the map – halt Italy near Sudan and Jordan, halt Germany near Norway and Bryansk, halt Japan near Burma and Borneo and the Carolines. If the Axis break out a little bit somewhere, fine, figure out how to deal with that – but don’t write off a whole theater as part of your opening strategy.