@Ichabod:

This thread reminds me of how I’d play Axis and Allies Global 1940 if I were filthy rich.

Intelligence as a part of the game turn order would be incorporated into the game in military terms as far as gathering information for enemy strength/location ect.

If I was rich…I’d pay people to referee an Axis and Allies Global 1940 game.

There’d be 3 different boards set up in 3 different rooms all for the same game.

1 board would be the Axis Room

1 board would be the Allies Room

1 board in the middle (Axis and Allies side players could not see) would be for the Administrators of the game room only.

Axis and Allies sides could only see numbers/units of enemy units on their border initially whether adjacent by land or sea. From then on, there would be a " Reconnaissance" or Spy turn in the game turn order. Only the Administrators’ room would have the complete setup of the board.

House Rule would be:

1. Repair damaged facilities
2. Purchase units
3. Reconnaissance Step: Players could utilize submarines or S. Bombers for a recon mission. Each Sub or bomber, within it’s range of movement, could pass through or move to (if a sub wants to stay) to spy on one specific land territory or sea zone for a cost of 1 IPC per unit used in that part of the turn order. Players would have to smartly “save” IPCs for the RECON part of the turn order. Each side would be informed which territory was spied on. In the case of being spied on by subs, players would have to hunt the sub with a destroyer. Subs or S. Bombers used for RECON could not be moved in the Combat movement phase.

Whatever intel is discovered during the RECON phase, the corresponding units would be placed on the board of the side who just completed a RECON mission. On the opposing sides’ turn, if the “discovered” units were moved to a new location (not adjacent to an enemy controlled territory), than that intel would be lost and the administrators would come and remove the pieces from the corresponding sides’ board. A German sub out in the Atlantic could slip away to RECON the W. US…

Axis and Allies players COULD still place a specific color (I’ll call it purple units) on their board for their estimation of what and where they think the enemy units may have went to.

In this game, each side would have to do their own S2 (Intelligence) estimate for where the enemy was concentrating. Japan for instance may send subs or bombers close to the Western US to see what warships were being built in dry dock. Germany would have to RECON Leningrad (so they don’t blunder into a Russian counter attack) or SZ91 in case a landing is coming.

Good news, you don’t need to be filthy rich. Once I finish all the general’s booklets, I am going to print them and they are folded. Next, you place your general token on the map and, keeping the general passport upright, you put the units he commands behind it. So your opponent will only see the general piece and not the army. Haven’t thought about recon but, one D6 before combat phase and the opponent has to reveal that number of units in an accurate ratio of his forces.

Neat idea you gave me

@ShadowHAwk:

You are forgetting that nobody will make an army of 10 tanks 20 inf and 10 art. They will make an army of 10 tanks and 30 inf vs 40 inf, which is 10ipcs cheaper and does exactly the same in combat.
That is the point you now buy art because you want to make your infantry useful, if you limit the amount of units you can use in combat then you will not waste space on art you will use heavy hitters in stead of art.
On defence tanks are also better then art so why would you buy them in the first place.

yes. you are correct. I will hold on this rule until I can find a way to make it work. Next game in a couple of weeks. Going to test three new rules:

1 - Naval Spotting - simplified version
2 - Aerial combat changes
3 - Capital ships take two turns to build.

I am also working on something new.

For your help I am posting a sneak peak:

@ShadowHAwk:

Because you are better off using tanks and any tactical bombers that you can get your hands on. Inf is only there to soak hits so your heavy hitters get to do more damage.
With 20 spots you can go for 10 inf and 10 art or 10 inf and 10 tanks. But on defence the tanks become more powerfull so unless you are down on cash you should take tanks.
Or are you going to change the rules for ground attack aircraft as well?

As you cannot expect your opponent to roll badly it will not change the game much, it will just relly more on luck then on anything else if you win or lose. Same way techs change the game.

Basicaly you want to change the whole combat mechanic of the current Axis&Allies game, why not also let the attacker deside what units he hits because lets get real a tactical bomber will know what it is attacking and so will a tank division.

You want to check the battle of the buldge version of axis&allies it does just what you want. It is slightly more realistic as well and has nice combat mechanics where what you hit is also determined by dice and there is a stack limit for tiles.

Of course you are better off. But, on the attack especially, artillery is still useful and Tanks are expensive. It is also not easy to think about this and the best way is to use a small computer code because you will have reinforcements.

This needs testing but so far, the attacker does have an advantage to them being able to set up a large percentage of their force as tanks with enough infantry to cover the losses. Considering the normal scenario of an army of 10 tanks, 20 infantry and 10 art vs 40 infantry, attacker needs to keep 8 infantry on the board for casualties. As I said, I still need to test this idea further.

Attacker deciding which units to hit is inconsistent with the scale of this game imho.
I already submitted my ideas for changing aircraft intervention in ground combat.

So far, by order of importance, I find that the naval spotting and the air combat changes are the most important to get different outcomes. Next match, I might not use limited combat dice.

@ShadowHAwk:

You could just use techs and hope for good rolls to change the game.
The problem with spotting is that 1 lucky roll can change the whole game, what if germany rolls 2 bad rolls round 1 for the royal navy? Your fleet is now exposed and well the UK has its complete fleet from the start of the turn.

Changing the setup does indeed change the game somewhat but it is always a temporary fix untill everybody copies the same allied moves again. But at least it changed the game without having to relly on luck alone. With the naval rules you still end up with the same situation sometimes as you cannot expect to stay hidden.
And well it really helps the axis because bombers and tanks become much more powerfull while inf becomes slightly weaker and art becomes worthless.

If that happens then this system is successful imho. Because you can have at least different starts:
1- Germany detects and kills both RN fleets.
2- Germany gets none.
3- Germany detects and engages one (50% chance of this happening).

This will change the initial conditions a lot and make the game more interesting. And the point that it is a dice roll is thematic as hell as the detection of the opposing force was sometimes down to pure luck. And honestly, looking at the areas involved, early war a 2 might be a more realistic option since you are trying to find some ships in Sea areas the size of the UK. Even with nowadays tech, If you play the computer game Harpoon or Command: Modern Air and Naval Operations, Try a scenario where you put a battleship, and a couple of escorting light cruisers then you try to find them using subs and some aircraft (which will be hard to do since you will have no aircraft of the time that can go from Holland or Belgium to Glasgow in one fuel tank). Then report your results.

With my other changes, bombers will not be as powerful (which corrects another flaw in the game). Actually, air power in general will be weaker and best used as a force multiplier for your ground forces. How does artillery become worthless? It still increases infantry attack power. And with limited dice you will need to boost infantry attack power now more than ever. Otherwise, you lower your chances of scoring a hit with them dramatically. I have been doing some statistical analysis on the limited dice and so far I like the results.

There are plenty of combat games out there. From risk (meh) to the latest Star Wars: Rebellion that has some really interesting mechanics that make me want to play that game more than this one which is a shame because I began serious wargaming with this game. And I still think that for the scale this game represents, the basis of the combat system is very, very good.

That and the fact that I just spent 150 euros or something on both games to get the global setup make me want to improve the game to its full potential.

What you mention of using the same axis strategies that leads to the game playing the same is exactly the problem. Because those strategies give you the best chance to win the game. And if you as the axis use them, then you kinda force the allies on the defensive early on and the game is just the same again.

Using different dice will not solve these problems and making a non combat move changes the initial condition which is fine because it gives you another game but, its a temporary fix. Just the spotting mechanic alone will completely change the way the game is played. That and changes to air combat and limited number of dice will make the game much less deterministic and increase the number of viable options per game. Which is what this is all about really.

As I said, try a couple of turns with the simplified spotting mechanic:

flat roll of 3 to detect enemy fleet
2 for subs or lone non capital ships.
If there has been combat in that sea area, add a +1.

Just that. Then tell me if the game doesn’t feel completely different.

What program did you use the draw the cards? I want to design something of my own for some house rules and was looking for the easiest way to do it.

@ShadowHAwk:

As turns represent quite some time, and france was not taken or liberated in 1 day either they got plenty of time to plan large bombardments of many planes.
There are many instances of prolonged bombardments spanning several days in various campaigns so an attack by 1000 aircraft over 3 month period is actualy not that weird.

If you add 2 many new interesting rules to make it a combat simulation and think turns would be 1-2 days iso 3-6 months you have to redo the whole map.

I am aware turns on map represent a long period of time on a battle though, different matter. Though one or two days is out of a question, each battle turn can represent one or two weaks with a couple of tweaks.

And although 1000 aircraft were used over 3 months, they were not used all at the same time. They had personal rotations and equipment fixes, etc.

I am merely trying to make this game able to provide different results than the normal so there is variation from game to game. It Keeps things interesting and I think provides a sense of narrative to the game. Let’s face it, the game is facing increasingly tough competition on the war game front with newer games providing much more variety and replay value. I love the combat system in this game and I want to provide a framework where replay value will be good.

@Baron:

-SNIP-

Interesting mechanics and I will definitely play around with it and steal some ideas.

I still prefer the idea of having air and ground attack on airplanes and Str bombers only being able to attack ground units on the strategic phase.
But that leads to attacking fighters having to roll differently for air or ground attack. Maybe declare it beforehand?

Or just the simpler solution. As long as there are enemy air units present, the Fighter aircraft will always damage aircraft whereas the tac bomber will target ground targets. This could work.

Now my thoughts of combining this with limited attack die. There should be a maximum number of attacking aircraft capable of participating in ground attack per turn as throwing 500 or 1000 aircraft at anything took considerable preparation irl too. Maybe a number of 5 air units per 20 ground units?

Sorry to bother you but obviously you have a lot of thought poured into this game and I would love to hear your opinion on my ideas.

@Baron:

Food for thoughts:
Air Superiority Round
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37471.msg1509399#msg1509399

Thanks. That is similar with what I had in mind cool.

I would change something though. For aircraft, make the attack and defence roles a Aerial combat and ground combat role.

Fighters would get 1 or 2 (maybe 2 with combined arms) ground attack and 4 air attack. Can air scramble and escort

Tac Bombers would get 3 ground attack (or 4 with combined arms bonus) and 2 air attack. Cannot air scramble. Can scramble to participate in ground defence in adjacent province.

Str bombers would get 1 air attack. Cannot Scramble.

Fighters would represent a mix of pure fighters and ground attack fighters usually with one bomb in central fuselage or a couple of light bombs in the wings. Tac bombers would be the dive bombers and small frontline bombers and Str bombers would be Str Bombers

Now for the strategic bomber, I love your idea of them having 1 attack on first round. I first thought to give bombers the ability to attack only every two turns but this is even better. Truth is strategic bombers were not used on front line duties too often.

But I had a slightly different idea that improves on yours where Str bombers will have the option to attack inf on the strategic bombing phase where you can choose to target ground units at half their attack value (so a 2) or factories. They would not be able to participate on the combat round. This corresponds to the bombing of hardened positions and troop concentration areas. This means that cannot be shot at by ground units either. So they could only be attacked by AAA or enemy fighters intercepting.

Tac bombers may also be used in strategic bombing but they would have to do half damage depending if they targeted ground units or Industry.
for 3 IC damage or a roll of 1 depending if they targeted units of industry.

Combat would then have the following structure:
Air movement
AAA guns fire.
Air interceptions happen.
Strategic bombing phase for bombers.
Ground movement.
Ground combat where remaining non strategic air forces engage.

The ground combat would be separated in two turns:
Air turn where the defending fighters and attacking planes engage.
Ground turn where tactical bombers not destroyed in aerial combat any defending fighters not engaged in air combat can attack here too.

This is great. This would literally force Axis players to keep aircraft in Western Europe as Strategic bombing would be much more severe. Plus it would make ground combat more dependant on the aerial results.

So in short my next game will include a mix of the following mechanics:

Spotting roll for fleet combat:
roll of 3 for normal fleet vs fleet
roll of 2 for single non capital ships and subs
a +1 modifier if there has been combat in that region (so if Germany engages one fleet of the UK on turn 1 and destroys it, next round UK player will need to roll a 4 to discover German fleet).
If spotted, subs can be attacked by any unit for one round before diving away.

Capital ships take two turns to build:
Capital ships were a big investment and so they should require more planning to field.

Air combat modifications:
Air combat values would be different representing air and ground combat values. Makes more sense than attack and defence for air units imho.
Strategic air combat modifications as mentioned above.

Limited number of dice:
Combat can only see so many troops at any one time. This will make combat more dynamic as less units can be deployed at once and the notion of reserves comes into play… Maybe with the added twist that the defender or attacker can choose to disengage with the reserves moving them to the province adjacent to them.
This idea came to me after playing Star Wars: Rebellion where limited dice exist. it makes quite a difference.

Looks good. Getting excited about my next match

@ShadowHAwk:

The attacker will chose to lose his inf first, he takes just enough in his front line to take the estimated number of defensive hits. And then replace those with inf again.

Consider the following theoretical armies, using low luck and the lower bounds for theory crafting purposes.

30 inf 10 bombers VS 40 inf.
Current attack power 70 vs 80 defence  So 11 vs 13 hits approx with low luck,
Round 2 17 inf + 10  att 57 bombers vs 29 inf def 54  so 9 vs 9 hits
round 3  8 inf + 10 bombers 48 vs  20 inf 40  8 vs 6 hits
round 4 2 inf 10 bombesr 42 vs 12 inf 24 hits  7 vs 4 hits
round 4 8 bombers 32 vs 5 inf 10   5 hits vs 1
Result 7 bombers left.

With your rule.
Attack power 50 vs defence 40 so 8 hits vs 6 hits.
Round 2 24 inf + 10 bombers  effective 50 power, VS 32 inf effective power 40 8 vs 6
round 3 18 inf 10 bombers effective 50 power vs 24 inf effective 40  8 vs 6
round 4 12 inf 10 bombers effective 50 vs 16 inf effective 32  8 vs 5
round 5 7 inf 10 bombers effective 47 vs 8 inf effective 16 7 vs 3
round 4 4 inf 10 bombers vs 1 inf ( ill give you 1 hit
Result 3 inf 10 bombers left.

You will win both engagements but it will be painfull in the first situation where with your rules it will costs you a lot less.
Ofcourse it is simulated where i used LowLuck dice and always rounded down but this is just an example, to sum up why it helps the attacker in big battles.
It isnt shocking result but if you add 10 inf to each side the difference grows even more.
It effectively changes the value in attack/defence of infantry where you would need a mix of inf fighters on defence and inf + bombers on offense. Art is useless and tanks are only reasonable.

How would this apply to naval warfare? What if you attack with 20 subs and he got 10 full carriers. 20 subs vs 20 fighters nobody can ever hit.

your results are accurate and as I said, I need testing. The thread title is a bit confusing since this rule is meant for land combat only. I was just thinking of different ways to make the game more different from play to play and more dynamic.

Also air power in ground combat still needs to be looked at since I don’t think it should count to the total number of units BUT there should be a limit at how many can operate at one time imho. Plus, I have this crazy idea where fighters and bombers would duke it out previous to ground battle to see if bombers can attack ground units or not.

Something like If you have fighters in a province or the opportunity to scramble them, then Bombers and escorts would have to defend against enemy fighters and then engage ground units after those rolls dictate how many are shot down. This would make taking bombers without escort suicidal against air cover as it should be.