Great Ideas Here.
Just one thing: Afghanistan can often be more important than you think. Uk Pac is in a lose lose, bc if they divert troops to take it, that weakens their front with japan, but if they ignore it, japan has bonus troops. thoughts?
Great Ideas Here.
Just one thing: Afghanistan can often be more important than you think. Uk Pac is in a lose lose, bc if they divert troops to take it, that weakens their front with japan, but if they ignore it, japan has bonus troops. thoughts?
Thanks guys for all the great ideas and comments.
I too support the enforcement of the Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact, at least at first. In Barbarossa, Germany was crippled by harsh conditions before it got to Moscow. Thus, it does not seem plausible for Japan to launch an extensive campaign through Siberia, which is Northern most route for Japan to travel. I think it could be allowed for Japan to attack Russia if she reaches her border through China, because A) it will take a while, B) China cant turtle in the Burma Road any more, and C) it seems possible for Japan to send SOME troops to take pressure off Germany.
The rule that I best think could address this issue is requiring Axis air to be a certain (TBD) distance from their ground forces, so that you wont see Germany funneling an air force east, purely on their own. Thoughts?
So, from what I have noticed there are quite a few differences from A&A and actual history. Not saying this is a bad thing, especially since it would be so boring if the Allies won every time. But the biggest difference between the 2 that I think could have an interesting effect on gameplay is/was the total lack of coordination between Japan and Germany in actual history. In WW2, Japan attacked the US, and Germany unwisely declared war on us as well, but she was totally unprepared. Meanwhile, in this game, if there is more than one player for the Axis, you can decide whether or not to go KRF, attack Britain, or try to stangle American shipping. Now, as I type this, I realize this is kind of a house rule and maybe should be in the other topic, but my idea is this:
Play the board seperatly, Europe and Pacific. the German and/or Italian Player could only see the European Board, and only Japan could look at the Pacific Board. There may be no coordination between the 2, unless they announce a declaration of war. Anyways, please give me feedback. My fear is that it could make gameplay too complex and uninteresting, but it could add a new flavor and or balance to games usually dominated by the Axis
Thanks,
SJS063
this would really help germany
i dont see any historical reasoning, however. it wasnt that destroyers weerent good, its just the destroyer to transport ration in allied convoys were highly neglectful.
Im just curious to see if anyone has had any success with convoy raids, especially as Germany. The problem in my games is that with such a low defense value, subs are prone to destroyer/sub groups. If using LL, 1 destroyer + 1 sub (14 Ipc’s) has the numerical power over 2 subs, at the cost of 12. As Germany, subs off britain are usually always sunk by the american/canadian fleets, unless germany buys in bulk, in which case sealion is weaker if you choose to do it, and barbarossa is also weakened. the us trying to cr (convoy raid) japan rarely works, because it takes 2 turns for us subs to make it to the homeland, supplying time for the japs to build a healthy enough destroyer fleet to take them on. no other powers have the economic capability to build enough subs to strangle other nations.
So what Im asking is, has anyone ever had success with this? and if not, is there some way to make it more of a factor, like it was in ww2, without compromising the power balance at the start of the game or creating too powerful a sub?
M (Malta) use the Gib Cruiser and Fighter to kill the Italian destroyer and transport off Malta
E (Ethiopia) use the cruiser, transport, and an inf and art from India plus the Sudanese inf to wipe out the pesky Italians early
T (Taranto) use the East Med fleet, the Maltese fighter, and a bomber + fighter from London to hit Taranto, it’ll be close, and you could lose your entire Naval presence, but Italy will be severely weakened.
T (Tobruk) use the entirety of Alexandria, your mobile Egyptian forces, and the transport from your East med fleet to launch an amphib Med assault into Tobruk, effictively destroying Italy’s African presence. The Canal should be safe, with the Anzac inf on guard and the Italians down to one tranaport
If these goals are METT (haha), Italy will be dead before their first turn
There are several useful purchases that 14 IPC’s allows, many of which I use quite often ~~~~
The Pain-in-the-ass:
1 transport, 1 inf, 1 art. When mastered by Naval Nations like Britain, America, Anzac, or especially JAPAN, small but effective amphib attacks can be launched, picking off lightly defended regions or occupying empty regions, which in both cases requires a recapture by enemy forces
The Eastern Front Shuck:
2 mech, 1 armor. When mastered by the land heavy powers like Germany or the USSR (even Italy), the combination of these fast moving units can move quickly to the front lines, either helping with an assault or beefing up defense
The Efficient, Fodder, But Resourceful Task Force:
2 inf, 2 art. Used by land powers with less terrain to cover, like a Med only Italy, UK (Atl. & Pac.), or China, this cheap buy provides numerous units with a moderate attack power that can help bust through an enemy stronghold, then be able to defend it with just as much power. They also help with casualty selection, keeping your air and mobile forces alive
The Pirates:
1 sub, 1 destroyer. The 2 combined have a solid attack value, especially against convoy zones. Subs alone are poor defensively, so this way your raiding parties stay alive longer, and require more units to take
What I came up with is what I like to call the METT Principle. (For UK1)
M- Malta, hit the Italian Fleet of Malta
E- Ethiopia, use troops from India to take Ethiopia before those troops become a pain
T- Tobruk, use numerical advantage from Alexandria and Egypt to take the region
T- Taranto, use your Naval Fleet and land based aircraft to wipe out the Italian Navy (and possibly their Air Force!)
Even if one of these fails, Italy is just about done to start
Why not build a naval base in Greenland then? get some men into uk fast in case of sealion, especially if a J1 happens?
Just curious to see what you guys do with the 2 ANZAC inf in Egypt and the 1 in Malaya. I usually withdraw the Malayan inf west to defend calcutta,bot at least stall the jap surge thru the Shan state. In Egypt they usually just defend, one going to trans Jordan and 1 staying put. There was this one time;however, when I put them on the Brit transport and had the Anzac get Persia. From here with an IC, the Anzac were able to feed land troops into the Middle East and Africa. Just wanted to see what you guys do, thanks,
SJS063
@WILD:
I know this is a bit off topic……
We all know that Spain had just come out of a devastating civil war, and really didn’t want to be dragged into the world war. Hitler wanted Spain to join the axis, or at the very least grant him passage though Spain to invade Gibraltar (much easier then attempting an amphib). This was a real threat, and the UK even had spy/contingency plans in place if German forces crossed into Spain (either as friend or foe to Spain).
Franco was in a tough position because Spain was still getting economic support from the Allies that would be cut off if he aided the axis in anyway (plus the obvious fear of retaliation and Spanish possessions). Franco made several promises to Hitler that didn’t materialize, he kept making up excuses and unreasonable demands to delay any real action.
I wonder if certain events went different for the axis if Franco would indeed have crossed that line. For starters maybe his buddy Mussolini doesn’t screw things up in the Balkans and Barbarossa starts on time. Moscow falls and the Germans end up with part of the Caucuses oil/resources (not saying Russia would have signed an armistice, but the Germans would have been in a better position going into winter). If North Africa/Med was under axis control (including Malta, Egypt/Suez etc…). If Japan had delayed the inevitable attack on the Western Allies or Hitler didn’t jump the gun and declare war on the USA once Japan went ape ����.
Basically would Franco have joined the axis, or allowed troop movement through Spain if the axis had more milestone victories in 1941/1942? With that in mind you could probably rule in some type of linchpin type of scenario to where Spain does one of three things if the axis are doing well (say Italy gains its Med and North Africa NO, Egypt is axis, and Germany has 2 Russian VC’s).
Spain
- Becomes pro axis (axis enter and claim it w/o links to other neutrals)
- Joins war as a mini power (has its own econ/units etc
- Axis leaning, doesn’t join war but allows the axis units to pass through it (maybe only mech/tanks can blitz through so axis units are never allowed to be in Spain at the end of their turn while in this political state). This would however allow the allies to make attacks into Spain w/o flipping all the other neutrals (6 Spanish inf would activate).
the war if
Hmmmm…I like where your heads at but…all of those seem to point to Spain being a pro axis minor…
@The:
A nice question/idea for the “House Rule Section”.
I the classic MB rules from 1985 it was in general forbidden to enter neutrals, except you paid 3 ICP’s.
I wouldn’t make the bribed country random. Just imagine you’ve tried this thing several times and finally activate Liberia or say Bolivia. :-D
I think a way to combine these ideas is if rolling to get a country is NOT random. However, dice for more important countries cost more than for say Liberia. In Spain’s case, the allied price for dice would be a lot more than the axis, demonstrating francos sympathy for the axis. How does that sound?
My thoughts exactly The Hessian. I think it would be a neat house rule if you could try a bribe to get a true neutral to join your side, sort of like the same format as technology, where you would pay 5 for a dice, then if a roll is 6 you look at a chart, roll again there to see what country you get. Thoughts?
@The:
And I can’t help myself, but a fascist Spain ruled by Franco is everything but a pro allied minor.
Hmmmm… You may have misunderstood me… What I meant to say was that Spain is a true neutral, except the allies may attack it without causing all true neutrals to become pro axis. This could help balance the game too…
If Germany got involved in Africa, my thoughts are this:
just as in ww2, this could be another slippery slope for the axis because it would cause Germany to divert men from other fronts, or from being purchased for other fronts, which in the long run could have an effect on the German war machine. My question is, is possible victory for the small number of IPCs actually in Africa worth the diversion of troops?
my second thought is that Germany would have to create shipping lanes from S.France or Yugo, which could actually increase the importance of islands like Malta, Crete, or Cyprus, which actually seems kinda fun, considering that at least in my games, besides Malta early on, these islands prove to be worthless
We have only done the Neutral Crush as the Axis. For one thing, no matter whom of us is playing the Allies, we get stuck in the mindset that the Allies are the “good guys” so they don’t violate the neutrality of other nations. I know it’s silly, especially considering this game, but that’s how it is.
Also, even when the US wanted to try out taking Spain, that makes too many problems. Usually, the Allies are not in a position to take Turkey and those 8 extra guys plus great access to the Middle East and Southern Russia is just too great an advantage for the Axis.
One time our US player did attack Spain, they didn’t have a strong enough force and Germany took it back. Also, with Turkey in their pocket, Germany really got strong fast.As for an Axis Neutral Crush, it usually happens turn 3. Germany builds up forces in Normandy (Spain), Norway (Sweden) and Greece (Turkey) for the first 2 rounds. The Attack on Turkey may have assistance from Italy.
After we first read about the idea here on the forum, we tried it 3 different times.
One time it really seemed to help the Axis a lot, but that may be due some part to the Allied players being surprised by the action.
The next time it had the opposite effect. This time the Allies were expecting it and Germany got diced in the battles. It took too many resources to get all three neutrals which left Germany too weak in too many places and just got pounded on multiple fronts.
The last time we tried it, it really didn’t seem to matter one way or the other. The US and Germany traded Spain for several rounds and Sweden was simply one more German territory. Germany might have had a slight advantage against Russia by having Turkey.
As for your thoughts on Spain and the U.S. Being too much of good guys to take, it I also run into that problem. What if there were a house rule which said that Spain is NOT an axis minor, BUT an allied power may attack Spain without provoking true neutrals to become axis?
If the US attacks Spain, then the UK better have enough troops to take Turkey as well. Sweden and Switzerland should be the only ones they get. Perhaps even wait until Norway is taken so that you can take Sweden as well.
Hmmmm… Would the Brit troops to take turkey be from Euro or Pac?
In recent topics I have noticed that the neutral crush has appeared quite a few times, and I was wondering what your guys’a strategy is to performing it, from both sides of the game. Often in my games the U.S. Attacks Spain in order to create a nice supply stream into Europe. Then what? The allies can usually, with fore planning, occupy Portugal, s. Arabia, and some of the South American neutrals, but turkey and Sweden often get gobbled up by the axis, and the infantry and economic boost can be deadly. Anyways, just wanted to see how you guys counter it, as the axis as well, and maybe find an old thread providing an idea.
Thanks, SJS063
I’ve always said casualties should be a factor in pushing a country towards collapse; certainly the high rate in the Russian army was a factor in their revolution.
But you’d have to include other units in casualty figures, otherwise people will just buy less infantry.
I’ve always been thinking of this as well, and this was just sort of a first step in designing what I will call revolution points. Types I have been thinking about are blockades, death toll, regions lost, and other various things contributing to a countries revolution, and in the context of the game, the withdrawal of a country from play. I’ll be doing some more research and I’ll let you know what I come up with.
@CWO:
The very rough rule of thumb that I use when thinking about military formations is that an infantry division equals approximately 10,000 men. There’s a lot of variation, of course, but 10,000 is approximately right and it has the advantage of being a round number that’s easy to work with. The 20,000 man figure you quote would therefore represent a corps-sized formation, consisting of two divisions. A&A 1914 is a strategic-level game, and it’s appropriate for military forces to be highly abstracted in a game at that scale. It sounds right for the units in the A&A WWI game, and the WWII global-scale ones, to depict very large formations – army groups, armies, and corps – with divisions being about as small as is practical to represent (let’s say, by having a tank depict a WWII armoured division used to support an infantry corps).
The casualty figures you quote might not be the right criterion to use to estimate what the A&A WWI infantry units represent, since game casualty rates depend a lot on random factors. (In your example, for instance, the Allies lost nearly twice as many men as the Central Powers, whereas in real life the ratio wasn’t nearly that lopsided.) A better criterion might be to look at the game’s starting figures: count how many infantry units each side has at the beginning of the game, compare these figures with the historical starting numbers for each country, and see if there seems to be a consistent proportion between the two sets of figures. If there is a consistent proportion, then it should be easy to compute that 1 infantry equals x number of troops, a number which, in turn, usually equates to a formation called a [whatever]. If there isn’t a consistent proportion, then there wouldn’t be much point in doing such a computation because the answer would vary from country to country.
Very true. What I plan on doing is taking the number of units starting on the board and the actual estimated number of men at the start of the war, and dividing the 2 to get my estimated value of 1 unit. This number will be averaged amongst the 8 nations, or Country Specific
@CWO:
Oh, and by the way – I like the story about the dog walking across the game board. Usually it’s cats who do that sort of thing. :-D
I love my dog but man can he be a pain.
Austria Hungary lost 1,000,000 men exactly, while Germany and Russia both lost 980,000. France was not far back with 620,000.
A few weeks ago, I was brainstorming ideas of how to add a new historical influence into 1914. I have seen topics in forums for G40 of what each infantry unit represents. For G40 with many units on the board, I guessed with a number at 20,000 for each infantry unit or one chip. For each year of the war I kept track of the amount of units I took off the board infantry wise. I got up to the year 1919 before my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel decided to walk across the board. But I thou I’d share the statistics I got up to that point to hear what you guys have to say. By the end of 1919, the Allies had lost approximately 3,400,000 men, while the Central only 1,940,000. If you’re rea interested in how a country did individually, just ask and I’ll let you know, but please comment on how you feel about this and any adjustments I’m all ears.
Thanks,
SJS063