Thanks @Midnight_Reaper that game looks interesting. I’ll check it out.

Thanks I’ll take a look at the Europe and Pacific ones. I had been thinking about adding units like a bid does so you can focus on a certain region.

All the while try and make it as simplistic and smooth as I could.

This is the hard part isn’t it. You really have to start over from scratch.

It felt dismissive and didn’t really add anything to the discussion but thank you for following up. You’re right, it may not be possible in 3 hours. Although I think longer games often turn into a slog. Making it last longer won’t necessarily make it more exciting. Often a shorter game has more tension.

Chess is the opposite of what I want. That’s completely abstract. No one would say a chess match is cinematic.

But really I was interested in what other people would change. Maybe the answer is nothing but I thought it would be interesting to see people’s thoughts.

Yeah I expected comments like this but I was hoping someone would actually have something constructive to say. A simple “I would change nothing” would have at least been polite.

Axis and Allies does not exist. Larry Harris became a podiatrist instead of pursuing his dream of making board games. You have a vision of a strategic board game where you control the outcome of WWII. You are the leader of your nation and you must defeat your enemies and win the war. How do you design it?

The rules are over 50 years old and other than a few additions are basically unchanged. Board game design has come a long way in that time. What could make it better while keeping the same “feel”?

Global Strategy
For a strategic board game A&A always felt to me like there wasn’t a lot of strategy. Turns have been so optimized that it feels like you have to do the same moves every game. I would love to have the Americans island hopping across the Pacific be a viable strategy. Or cutting off the UK with Uboats and then going full Sealion. I don’t think just adding a few units or changing IPC values would accomplish this.

Time
I just don’t have 8 hours of time anymore to play like I used to. Could you get a good amount of the strategy into 2.5-3 hours? The Game of Thrones board game has a lot of the A&A feel and it can be played in 3 hours. What mechanics would speed things up without resorting to timed rounds or things like that?

Military Strategy
Maybe this is a reflection of my skill in the game but I feel like when I play Germany or Russia I’m not doing much more than pointing my troops in the direction of the capital. Sure there are decisions to make about what territory to hit based on unit strength and distribution but those don’t feel “cinematic” for want of a better term. I want to feel like von Manstein rumbling through the Ardennes to cut off the Low Countries. Maybe this isn’t possible in a board game.

I don’t want this to seem like an attack on A&A. I have loved the game since I was a teenager. It’s just sometimes it seems to fall short of how I imagine it would feel to be a general leading his country into WWII. Maybe that is unrealistic. But I would love to hear people’s thoughts.

I’m in San Diego and looking for a game.

I live in San Diego (UTC) and would be up for a game