I’m not sure if it’s bad form to be posting in this thread after February but anyway…

My name is Janus (also known on other parts of the internet as P.d0t)
I got into A&A with the MB version, back in about 1997 or so(?)
However, the biggest chunk of my A&A play experience is/was with the Imp Games expansion “East & West”: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/6441/east-west-global-war-1948

That company seems to have gone defunct (and their forums went down long before that) so I joined the A&A .org forums a while ago – somewhat passively – but have been following the site’s news via Facebook. When the announcement for A&A Online came through on that channel, it rekindled my interest in E&W. As such, I’ve been trying to track down anyone who owns the game or has played it, and have been working on honing strategies for the USSR.

One such strategy can be found here on the forums, which I ran just as a playtest against myself:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/19172/east-west-by-imp-games-soviet-strategy-playtest

If you’re a fan of E&W, please get ahold of me here on the forums/PMs; it would be much appreciated

@black_elk I think the way to do Italy justice is to just have a full-blown “Axis & Allies: North Africa” in the vein of the D-Day game.

You could have German reinforcements come in waves sorta like D-Day, but more or less run the rest of the mechanics like A&A but with a cap on the number of rounds.

@black_elk said in Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?:

I tend to agree with most of the points Janus is making about streamlining the game. I think the prob comes from low-balling the money and trying to keep those numbers so low, instead of just amping the production a bit.

After reading the thread saying “infantry should cost 3.2!” this idea popped into my head: increase the IPC values and unit costs by 10x except for infantry – which would then cost 32.

In that same vein, I think if you want to have a game with more and more unit types, they should look at doing a move to d10 (as was done with Napoleon’s Imperium.) Having infantry at A1|D3 on a d10 might help negate the IPM.

The unofficial home for modern-day “East & West” discussion is right here, on the A&A .org forums!

Have a look if you’re interested or have questions:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1266842

Not location-specific, but I’m just hoping to get in touch with anyone who owns or has play-experience with this game. I own a copy myself, and am just looking for anyone knowledgeable, who would like to discuss strategies for the game – and possibly play in some electronic format or another.

The official site has long since gone offline, but a bit of info still exists here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/6441/east-west-global-war-1948

Tactics: Operation Fishnet (Soviet Pacific Fleet)

For those who know me, I’ve historically mostly played as NATO in E&W. As part of the ongoing refinement of my Soviet strategy, I wanted to come up with some better opening moves for their naval units; here’s what I’ve been looking at just recently:
(red arrows outline spaces that US navies could conceivably reach)

Objectives: To stall US transport capability in the Pacific.

This should be a fairly straightforwardly important goal, for any Soviet player: keeping the US off of your shores (or away from landing support into SE Asia.) It’s difficult to actually attack the US transports (because of their positioning) so instead we want to prevent them from steaming across the ocean, for as long as possible.

Scatter
The purpose of scattering your navy is to make it a less-attractive target for the US nuke. Many times, the Soviet moves in the Pacific involve slamming as much force as possible against another large force. Usually this is a no-win situation; either your remaining force is large enough to warrant dropping the bomb on, or is small enough that it is mopped up by US naval forces, with nary a whimper. Also, keeping subs separate from surface ships will tempt your opponent to split their air power from their naval power.

Block
By positioning the subs between your other ships, and the West US fleet, you’re able to effectively keep those units from using their full movement – unless the enemy attacks both ranks of your defensive line. Again, this is not the worst result, because you’ll have already prevented them from being able to concentrate their forces.
If the Japan SZ fleet attacks the Soviet ships in the Bering Strait, this means that the transport at Okinawa cannot effectively be used to amphibiously assault Kamchatka or East Siberia; the ships at Hawaii are also blocked from providing shore bombardment, and the carrier cannot move in to provide a landing space for supporting fighter aircraft.

Deadzone
As you’ll note on the map, the Marcus Island SZ can potentially be hit by all of the US ships in the area. However, if the US moves heavily into this zone with their surface fleet, they will not be able to keep the Japan SZ well-defended – potentially leaving it open to a counter-attack, with support from Soviet aircraft. If they instead consolidate their navy at Marcus Island, their transports will be far out of position to send reinforcements to SE Asia.
The place where the US can launch the strongest amphibious assault (with both their Japan fleet and Hawaii fleet) is against North Korea. Fortunately, the free Chinese infantry make this a tough nut to crack, and the Soviets should always have units in East Siberia and/or Manchuria, available for a counter-attack. Also, the commitment of US surface ships to such an attack would mean a much weaker naval response, to the Soviet fleets; if the US only commits submarines to Marcus Island, and only aircraft to deal with the Soviet submarines, they risk leaving the West US transport exposed to the Bering Strait ships. In this situation, the US may opt to instead move this transport towards the Panama Canal – both to be out of reach, and to instead assist in moving forces to Europe. In this case, the Soviet fleet will have succeeded at its objective.

Let me know what you think about this opening move
Comments and critiques are always welcome!

Turn Order:
(With the intention of keeping as close to the original turn order, while still slotting in the added countries)

1. USSR
2. a) Italy (and Vichy France)
   b) Germany
3. a) UK (Atlantic)
   b) China (includes India, Dutch, ANZAC, etc.)
4. Japan
5. a) US Pacific
   b) US Atlantic

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Round Zero / “Impulse”:
Prior to the first full round, the Axis get one round to act. This should be played out in the turn order described above, omitting the Allied turns.

The Axis conduct all phases of their turns during this round, with some very important bonuses added:

• Infantry & Armor: attack power is increased by 2, costs are reduced by 1 IPC
• Fighters & Bombers: attack with 2 dice instead of 1, costs are reduced by 2 IPC
• Naval units: attack power is increased by 1, costs are reduced by half

During this round, Allied units defend as per normal, with one notable exception: since they are not yet at war, AA guns belonging to the USSR and USA do not fire.

Axis Advantage / “Russia Restricted”
On the first round, the USSR and the US (both Atlantic and Pacific) may only conduct the following phases of their turns: Purchase Units, Place Units, Collect Income.

In addition to the bonuses on Round Zero, all three Axis countries gain these benefits:

• all Axis battleships are 2-hit battleships
• all Axis powers have Super Submarine technology
• all Axis powers have Jet Power technology

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Setup & Territorial Changes:
The original setup for Classic is used, however changes in ownership of a territory also govern changes in the nationality of ALL units listed for that territory (including naval units) with the following exceptions:

• All German naval units are given to Italy (including any newly purchased units)
• All Soviet naval units are given to the UK; the USSR may not produce naval units in this scenario

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As you can see from the map above, the sea zones are broken down into two sections:

1. those bordering the territories of USSR, Germany, Italy, UK, and US Atlantic – to be used only by the navies and air forces of those countries
2. all other sea zones – to be used by the navies and air forces of China, Japan, and US Pacific

You’ll note that this limitation creates one sea zone in the mid-Atlantic which is effectively impassable; feel free to adjudicate this differently, if you find a change to be helpful.

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Industrial Complexes / “Victory Cities”:
Add an AA gun and Industrial Complex to the following territories:

• Ukraine SSR
• South Africa
• India
• Australia

No new industrial complexes may be built.

In this scenario, the number of units a complex can produce is limited to the IPC value of the territory in which it is located (including capitols.) As such, you may only purchase a number of units up to the total IPC value of the industrial complexes which you have controlled since the start of your turn. For example: the UK has an industrial complex on their capitol (8 IPCs) as well as in South Africa (2 IPCs) meaning they can purchase a maximum of 10 units on their turn.

Further to this, the number of naval units you may purchase is limited not only to the IPC value of your coastal/island complexes, but also by whether the adjacent sea zones are clear of enemy ships. For example: Since Japan only has an industrial complex in their capitol, if the islands are surrounded by Allied naval units at the start of the Japanese turn, Japan may not purchase any naval units on that turn.

A nation who loses their capitol may continue to collect IPCs from any territories they still control, provided they also still control at least one industrial complex after the Combat Phase of their turn. If a nation controls no industrial complexes after any nation’s Combat Phase, they must surrender their IPCs to the nation whose turn it currently is. They also can no longer collect IPCs, until they regain control of at least one industrial complex.

Victory is achieved when either side controls at least “2 out of 3” Axis and “2 out of 3” Allied starting Industrial Complexes (8 Industrial Complexes in total) at the end of any round of play.

Theatres of War
It is intended that each theatre may be played separately, as their own sort of “mini-game” but they may also be played in concert, and merge together under certain circumstances of victory or defeat. A nation may not attack nor move units into any territory which is not a part of their theatre, until those theatres merge together.

• Atlantic Theatre: UK, Italy, US Atlantic
• European Theatre: USSR, Germany
• Pacific Theatre: China, Japan, US Pacific

If Germany or Italy collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income, the Atlantic and European theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Germany collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income.

If Italy or Japan collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income, the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Japan collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income.

If playing any theatre individually, the Axis country wins if they collect an income of at least 15 IPCs more than their starting income; the Allies win if the Axis country collects no income.

Starting Incomes:

1. USSR - 28 IPCs
2. a) Italy - 12 IPCs
   b) Germany - 21 IPCs
3. a) UK - 18 IPCs
   b) China - 18 IPCs
4. Japan - 15 IPCs
5. a) US Pacific - 18 IPCs
   b) US Atlantic - 17 IPCs

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Mergers and Restrictions
Whenever the European and Atlantic theatres merge, Germany and Italy combine their cash on hand, and effectively become one nation.

Whenever the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge, the same happens with the UK and China, as well as with US Atlantic and US Pacific. Additionally, when this merger takes place, the restrictions on naval movement end; the navies of all nations can enter any sea zones on the map.

Unlike most global Axis & Allies games, in this scenario Japan and the USSR may never attack each others’ territories or naval units. However, if the Pacific and European theatres have merged (i.e. all 3 theatres must have merged, for this to happen) the following actions are permitted:

• Soviet units may enter Allied-controlled territories (such as those belonging to China)
• Japan may destroy Soviet units in Allied-controlled territories, on Allied aircraft carriers, or aboard Allied transports.

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Other Recommended Rules

1. No invading neutrals
2. No technology advancement

I’ve decided to leave out most of the “errata”-type changes I had written up in my earlier draft, since those are mostly down to a matter of taste; generally sticking to the 2nd Edition rules will be perfectly fine. But if anyone is interested, I’ll be happy to add those to the thread.

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If you have any questions or comments, please post them down below

@tacojohn said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Yeah, it might be that. But right now, the only TGW map is in MapView, right?

FWIW, I was able to dig this out of archive.org, from the Imp Games website; I probably have it saved somewhere, but it was just quicker to dig it out that way. (Obviously not high-res, but was freely available online, when the site was up.)

@hengst I mean if you’re building a game where your baseline assumption is that Germany would/should be overpowered, then sure

Edit: To clarify my point, I think one of the things that works to keep Germany competitive is that the Allies don’t get to attack them together. Even then, their job tends to be “don’t die, until Japan sweeps the board.” If you take that disadvantage and give it to Germany by splitting their economy and units into smaller chunks, it’s not actually a benefit to them. And I think if the only justification for doing it is to have a 3v3, I feel like the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Our intrepid Axis & Allies player @The_Good_Captain has put out a video which includes a review of East & West!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsm4is72-sc

I’m about to check it out myself; I’ll let the crowd know if I have any thoughts on it

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)

I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone else knows how to enable defenders to retreat. I don’t know of any other tripleA game that does that off the top of my head.

IIRC this rule is in the 3rd Edition of rules for Classic, so I’d be surprised if it hasn’t made it into (at least) some other version of A&A / probably already exists within TripleA, somewhere.

11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)

Should be fine. The idea here is that if Sweden is even slightly tilted toward your opponent diplomatically, then it blocks the strait for surface warships?

So, because Sweden is a neutral country, basically control of West Germany determines who can use the strait. If Sweden becomes active (either influenced using diplomacy, or invaded) then you have to control both sides of the strait. If control is split, no one can pass.

12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

Is there a chart somewhere that shows me exactly what all these techs do? How do you gain a new tech? Can we just rely on players to research techs in a legal order, or is there a reason that has to be coded in?

The biggest reason is to gate the more powerful techs behind a certain amount of progression – the most obvious being that the 3rd-tier nuke is just the 1st-tier nuke, but it deals double the amount of damage. (IMO they aren’t well balanced, and I’d restructure the whole thing, but that’s neither here nor there, as far as this discussion.)

Specifically to your question regarding China, each of the 3 major neutrals are aligned to one NATO power: OAS is the obvious one to line up with the USA; the rulebook cites historical ties such as Hong Kong for why China favours the UK.

IMO it’d make more sense to align the Arab League with the UK, and then have China align with Western Europe – but I think it was done this way because UK tends to be more active in Asia whereas WE centres more around the Mediterranean.

@argothair said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

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.

The biggest changes from Classic to E&W are largely rules cribbed (IMO) from Xeno Games’ World at War

1. Infantry can be placed on any territory you have owned since the start of your turn; the number of infantry is limited to the IPC value of the territory.
2. Industrial complexes allow for the production of ANY type of unit, limited to a number equal to the territory’s IPC value (no exceptions for capitols, or “original” ICs) – this can be used to effectively double the production of infantry on a territory; it does not have to be used for mechanical units
3. New units: (aside from tech upgrades to existing units) heavy tanks (move 3, attack 4, defend 3, cost 7) and cruisers (move 2, attack 2, defend 3, cost 12; can bombard) – self-propelled artillery can also be unlocked, with a tech (move 2, attack 4, defend 1, cost 4; cannot blitz)
4. Units hit by shore bombardment cannot fire back.
5. Tanks/heavy tanks/artillery (not just planes) can use any remaining movement, on the non-combat phase, even after retreating – handy for increasing their survivability. From the FAQ: In a combined overland + amphibious assault, the overland units can still retreat; aerial units may always retreat from amphibious assaults.
6. Bombers can carry 1 infantry as a “paratrooper” but they must both start their turn in the same territory. (Bombers are also used to carry nukes)
7. Map changes: (check the OP for the prototype map, which is functionally accurate to the final product) Again, much of it is nearly identical to the Xeno Games W@W map; if we’re just doing a hack of Classic, it’s not entirely necessary to faithfully recreate the E&W map. Basically, every territory is split depending on its alliance, so “French Indochina Burma” from Classic effectively becomes Burma (British), Thailand (neutral), Indochina (WEur), and Singapore (British) – exactly as it in in W@W.
   As far as other “cold war necessary”-changes…

• North Korea/South Korea (splits Korea from W@W)
• Greece/Yugoslavia (splits Balkans(iirc?) from W@W)
• East Germany/West Germany (effectively includes Netherlands and Denmark)
  The USSR and eastern bloc countries are largely the same as in W@W (Poland and Baltic States are split) so, that part of the map actually pretty closely resembles the Revised A&A map.

8. Another one of the rules from the FAQ: NATO cannot land planes in any territory which they have not controlled for an entire round, i.e. if UK liberates a territory, the US cannot land fighters there on their turn, they have to wait until the following round to do so.
9. Submarines can submerge or withdraw to an adjacent zone after any round of combat (this is what allows the “Tokyo Drift” tactic.)
10. 2-hit Battleships: cost 10 IPCs to repair (has to be at a coastal IC, IIRC) and damaged battleships cannot attack or bombard, but defend as normal. From the FAQ: if struck by a nuke, a battleship can absorb two “hits” before being destroyed
11. Straits: Gibraltar/Morocco, Turkey, and West Germany/Sweden. Surface ships cannot pass through unless you control both sides (or in the case of the Baltic sea, control West Germany while Sweden is at least neutral) – technically an optional rule, but was always highly-recommended and used by basically everybody. (Does not block submarines or planes)
12. Tech trees: You can research Air, Armor, Submarines, or Nuclear Weapons tech, but you have to start at the beginning of the tree and progress along it. US begins with the 1st tier nuke tech (fission weapons); USSR begins with the 1st tier armor tech (heavy armor)

There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’ll go through your post and answer as best I can.

@argothair said:

I have never played or even seen East & West other than in this one article, so I’m in need of more of a primer. Is East & West available at all on TripleA other than as a mod of the Classic map?

The answer is no. I am not experienced enough (i.e. at all) with adding/creating new maps/games within TripleA, although it would be theoretically possible.

What you can do is go to http://www.motcreations.com/ and download the MapView app; in short, what this allows you to do is add and move units around the map, creating a new map tab for each turn-phase, but everything else has to be done manually (dice rolls, etc.) It’s handy for visualization, but by and large it is essentially just an aid for PBEM play.

Does it really make sense to use the Classic map, given the limits that places on your ability to have additional territories?

The thought with mocking the game up in Classic has basically everything to do with the fact that the rules/mechanics of E&W most closely line up with those of Classic; by running it in Classic, you at least get a sense of how combat would go in terms of odds, as well as testing strategies, because you can pretty much map the starting setup 1:1, and the relative positioning of units is mainly the same. The other consideration is that most other global maps (i.e. Revised, Anniversary, etc.) tend not to have the “cold war” territories you would expect anyway, such as North/South Korea and East/West Germany. Again, this is why I have mentioned upthread that I would be interested in converting Europe 1940 to play E&W with – link to the separate thread for that here: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/39450/brainstorming-east-west-cold-war-scenario-for-europe-1940/1

Have you been able to automate any of the (e.g.) diplomacy rules for tripleA, or does that all have to be done manually by the players?

As I mentioned, I have no experience with the developer tools in TripleA, so I’ll give you an overview of how the diplomacy mechanics work:

Essentially, if you influence a major neutral (aka neutral alliance) they move one pip towards your side (as depicted on the map.) They can give 1/4th, half, or all of their income to either the USSR, or the NATO nation which they are affiliated with. There’s also “+0” to each side, and a “true neutral” (let’s say) spot. So effectively a sliding scale of 9 positions; China starts at +1/4th to the USSR (i.e. +4 IPCs, since China is worth 16 IPCs) and the OAS starts at +0 to USA; the Arab League starts out at true neutral.

(as a side note, Imp Games’ followup game, a WWI game known as The Great War, reduced the sliding scale for diplomacy to only 7, removing the +0’s. This game map is also available with MapView.)

Since the diplomacy roll is just a 1d6 (successful on a 1) I imagine it’d be possible to build that into TripleA; at worst, you’d have to mod the PUs at the end of the relevant turn(s).

As for minor neutrals, they essentially have their own forces (as is the case in, say, G40) but can be influenced to join a NATO power or the USSR; the USSR can also attack any neutrals at any time (including majors.) So those territories would just become “owned” if influenced or attacked; IME with TripleA, this would be a little janky, because the app seems to hard-code all territories as belonging to a particular owner, and that underlying alignment never changes. So, for example, if you code China as neutral but the USSR attacks them, any remaining territories should become British-owned; if the US were to liberate those territories, TripleA would (I suspect) make them American, when they should be British.

How does East & West think about the possibility of nuclear escalation – I saw in one place you discussed using an essentially tactical nuke against a US Pacific fleet, but is there any possibility that the game escalates into strategic nuclear war?

So the other mechanic that impacts diplomacy is the “complication table” for nuclear weapons. Essentially, whenever a nuke goes off, you roll 2d6, and consult the complication table; the most likely outcome is a normal attack, but you can also cause “outrage” by one or all 3 of the major neutrals, shifting their support one notch to the opposing alliance.

On a 2, the nuke detonates in the territory from which it was originally launched (i.e. at the start of the combat move phase) and on a 3, the nuke is a dud and is both lost, and fails to detonate over its target.

The other risk with nukes is that the bomber carrying them can be shot down by AA fire, and may fail to escape the blast radius (1 on a d6 roll.)

The problem is that nukes destroys 5 units (either on land or at sea) so while Soviet infantry cost 10 IPCs for 5, naval units cost a minimum of 40 IPCs for 5 – with nukes costing 20 IPCs.

Because E&W takes place in 1948, the USSR does not start with the technology to produce nukes, and (as you can see) the cost and other drawbacks make them a tough sell for NATO; this keeps their use generally very limited – often the US fires their starting nuke, but the only others I tend to see are purchased by the USSR late in the game (round 6+, approximately.)

Hopefully that all answers your question about nuclear escalation.

Finally, does it make any sense to have traditional ‘capital’ rules during this time period and at this scale? My understanding is that half the point of NATO was to assure countries that the rest of western Europe would keep fighting even if, e.g., France were occupied. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine China or the USSR surrendering in the 1970s or 1980s just because you took Beijing or Moscow.

E&W expressly does not use the capitol rules from Classic; a country keeps fighting on if they lose their capitol, and they do not surrender their IPCs or stop producing IPCs in that situation. In terms of mimicking E&W using the Classic map in TripleA however, these mechanics cannot really be worked around.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

East & West using the Classic map, in TripleA

A few other things to report:

1st:

I tested changing the Chinese territories so that they belong to the USSR, with ‘neutral’ (Japanese) armies defending them. I also “manually enforced” the rule that NATO cannot attack Chinese territories (although I usually end up sinking their transport, for spite.)

The boost in $ for the USSR is not huge, as once I kinda got my sea-legs under me, I was finding NATO to be quite strong – particularly the united Western Europe/UK, who can reliably put down 12 infantry onto the continent, all game long. Compare that with the USSR’s starting production of 40 (i.e. 20 infantry) and you can see how the extra money from China is probably a necessity.

2nd:

If the US does not take the Soviet Far East right away, they’re going to have a hard time doing anything in the Pacific. With no Korea territories to land units in, and not being allowed to attack China, the alternatives are either:
a) putting an IC in Japan, and shucking to Indochina half the time, or;
b) putting an IC in Philippines – meaning you’re probably sending over 1 tank and 2 infantry each round, which is a slowww grind.

3rd:

That all being said, I never thought to use the factory in Manchuria (as the Soviets) until after the game was already over. With it being a Soviet territory (and interestingly, making the AA gun Soviet, too) there wasn’t anything mechanically preventing this. I’ll have to test it and see if that’d tilt things too far in one direction.

4th:

With the Suez Canal being neutral, neither side is able to use it, in TripleA. This means that you end up with the UK fleet effectively split into two halves; you need to decide pretty early on whether the units around the Indian Ocean are going to ship up to Alaska to be fed from the factory in East Canada, or circle around Africa into the Atlantic or Mediterranean. I haven’t tried sending them through Panama yet.

5th:

With WE and UK being one power, the “Orient Express” pipeline (through France, Italy, and Turkey) is a lot easier and more viable than in regular E&W. The US can even get in on the fun, since there are such fewer sea zones on the Classic map, and also because Karelia is such a dog to try and smash through (because it has unlimited placement for the USSR.)

I’m not settled on how you would handle the straits rule for the Baltic (and with Karelia and Eastern Europe being such strong territories, it might not even be needed) but I think a “manually enforced” straits rule for Turkey is probably necessary. The NATO spam into the Black Sea is just too strong, and with fewer territories, they end up being at Moscow’s doorstep a lot faster. Short of an early India IC purchase, Turkey is probably going to be one of NATO’s main vectors into Asia, regardless.

6th:

If you’re going to keep with the rule that only the USSR can attack neutrals, it might be worthwhile to use German units to represent all of the neutral armies on the map. You could even put the 2 infantry from Thailand right into French Indochina; if you’re going that route, you’d need to decide which territory the 2 Tibetan infantry would go to.

7th:

I found that manually editing the territory ownership when Germany gets traded is probably the way to go. (Edit: if you’re playing against an AI, you can’t really do this, since you need to make the territory edits before the “collect income” phase, and there’s no way to pause the game, AFAICT.) The UK can’t afford to just not have the income from original-German territories, and it’s a hard territory for either side to hold strongly – which makes for lots of fighting back and forth over the territory. The effect being that a lot of times, both the USSR and UK are cashing out $10 on that territory in a given round; it’d probably be detrimental to give USSR an unassailable 10 IPCs from Germany and another 10 (likewise) from China.

8th:

On a lighter note, and with all that being said…
Bizarrely enough, it just occurred to me that probably the correct way to do Western Europe as a separate power is to actually use Japan. This would mean the US would lose that capitol territory (which has several knock-on effects) but it would fix the problem of W.E. constantly losing and regaining their capitol.

Likewise, there might be a case for making China’s capitol be Germany – especially if the intent is to have China as an active Soviet ally, so that the extra IPCs aren’t being wasted. Otherwise, if Japan is effectively Western Europe, a ‘neutral’ China (even if its territories were Soviet-controlled) would then have German units.

@the-janus said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

@tacojohn Did you ever consider porting E&W back onto the Classic map? I know it at least crossed my mind.

East & West using the Classic map, in TripleA

I’ve been poking around with this idea a bit recently, and I’ve had a few playthroughs just to see how things work. Here’s what I’ve come up with, so far:

Interestingly (for some reason unknown to me) when you go into the edit mode for Classic, you’re able to add both destroyers and artillery – but I haven’t found a way to purchase them (not that I’ve dug deeply into it.) My first thought was to replace each heavy armor with 2 artillery, however since they can only move 1 space, I changed that to 1 armor + 1 artillery instead.

With attack and defense of 3, destroyers are a close enough approximation for cruisers in E&W, except that they don’t bombard. I played a game or two using a straight 1:1 conversion, and I found that having the NATO destroyers just dotted all over the Eurasian coastline with nothing to do was… kind of boring.

I think they’re still useful as Soviet units, but for NATO I’m leaning towards this conversion:

1. Wherever there would be a NATO cruiser in the starting setup, instead put a battleship
2. Wherever there would be a NATO battleship in the starting setup, ADD a destroyer

What this does is a) gives “cruisers” the ability to bombard, and; b) makes battleships “2-hit” (i.e the destroyer represents the 2nd hit)

Gentlemen’s agreement: To better simulate 2-hit battleships, you might want to institute a rule where the battleships have to be taken as casualties before destroyers, or something similar.

Playing it this way means that the sea zones with battleships are a little bit beefed up, in terms of the dice they can roll; my first thought to offset this was to give the USSR super subs – but I haven’t tried that out yet. I might have to tune it down to where only one of those two substitutions is used, but not both.

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Territory Conversions

The idea was to keep all of the units on the board, somewhere. It is actually fairly straightforward, for the most part, so I’ll only list the more tricky ones:

• Iceland: 3 inf, 1 ftr (US) are moved to UK; 1 sub (US) is moved to East Canada SZ; 2 inf (UK) are moved to East Canada
• North Sea/Ireland SZ: 2 trn, 1 crz (US) are placed in the UK SZ; 1 sub, 1 crz, 1 BB (UK) are placed in the East Canada SZ
• Germany: All starting NATO units from West Germany as well as all starting Soviet units from both East Germany and Yugoslavia are placed into this territory; this means there will be a battle in Germany right at the combat phase of Russia’s turn.
• Eastern Europe: Likewise, all starting NATO units from Greece as well as all starting Soviet units from Poland and Romania are placed into this territory.
• Ukraine SSR: Combines units from the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Baltic States; this is so that the infantry that would be in Baltic States are still far enough away that they cannot reach Germany or Norway-- as would be the case in E&W
• Soviet Far East: Combines units from the territories of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia
• Manchuria: all starting NATO units from South Korea as well as all starting Soviet units from North Korea and all starting Chinese units from Manchuria are placed into this territory. Do not add 6 extra Chinese infantry (which normally would be moved into North Korea on the Soviet turn.) The Chinese transport off Manchuria is instead placed off of Kwangtung
• Chinese territories: Sinkiang should be directly converted, without any other territories added to it; Jiangsu and Hunan units are placed into Kwangtung, and all units from all remaining Chinese territories (except Manchuria) should be placed into China.
• Western Europe: all territories and units which would belong to WE are instead given to the UK; Portugal’s 1 inf is put into Gibraltar
• India: Combines units from the territories of Pakistan, India, and Burma
• French Indochina: Combines units from the territories of Indochina and Singapore

Starting Territories:
USSR:

• Germany
• Eastern Europe
• Karelia SSR
• Ukraine SSR
• Caucasus
• Kazakh SSR
• Russia
• Novosibirsk
• Evenki
• Yakut SSR
• Soviet Far East
• Mongolia

WE/UK:

• West Canada
• East Canada
• UK
• Gibraltar
• Western Europe
• Finland Norway
• Southern Europe
• Turkey
• Algeria
• Libya
• French West Africa
• French Equatorial Africa
• Congo
• Angola
• Mozambique
• Madagascar
• Kenya Rhodesia
• South Africa
• India
• French Indochina
• New Guinea
• Solomon Islands
• Australia
• New Zealand

US:

• Japan
• Philippines
• Okinawa
• Caroline Islands
• Wake Island
• Midway
• Hawaiian Islands
• Alaska
• West US
• East US
• West Indies
• Panama

China:

• Sinkiang
• China
• Kwangtung
• Manchuria

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Mechanics specific to TripleA

So, in the ‘edit mode’ you are actually able to change the alliances (i.e “Change Political Relationships” option) however, you only have an ‘allied’ and a ‘war’ option. You can also edit in techs, so the obvious thing to do is give Industrial Technology to Russia, for those classic 2-IPC infantry.

The way I’ve been playing is to having Japan allied to the USSR, and making all of China’s territories “Japanese”-owned. This allows the USSR to move freely through them; I find it’s helpful to set Japan as a “Does Nothing (AI)” before starting the game.

Now, the problem I’ve had with this setup is that whichever side you put Germany on, as soon as that side liberates the German capitol from the enemy, all German-owned territories that the liberating power controls automatically revert back to German control. The same kind of thing happens if the USSR liberates Japan.

Gentlemen’s agreement: Basically the way I’ve worked around this limitation is by treating Germany as a “no man’s land” that is always under Soviet control. You might want to stipulate that no units are allowed to end their turn there.

The alternative way to fix this is to just manually correct the territorial ownership in the edit mode, whenever a capitol changes hands.

One other thing of note is that, even if you edit in extra “PUs” for a country which does not control their capitol, they cannot purchase units – even if they control an industrial complex. (This is why my initial idea of having a fully 2v2 game doesn’t work – the best you can manage is to have China attack on its own turn, until it runs out of units. The same is true for having WE as a separate power – and their naval units become really useless, real fast that way.) I suppose you could just manually edit in purchases/placements at the end of the turn, but that’s getting overly kludgey for my tastes.

Another thing to keep in mind is territory ownership. If USSR takes Finland Norway, and then the US liberates it, the US will get ownership and not the UK – because the game still codes the territory as being German, I guess? Likewise, the Chinese territories can get eaten up by the USSR, if NATO conquers them first.

There is no mechanical way to prevent NATO from attacking China, so you’ll have to decide beforehand if this should be allowed or not.

Another way to play it would be to just make all of China’s territories Soviet territories, but have ‘neutral’ units there, defending them – particularly if you’re going to allow NATO to attack China anyway. This does give the USSR a bigger economy, though.

I haven’t been playing with any institution of “neutral armies” although there’s nothing stopping you from editing those units onto the map if/when they are attacked. Keep in mind, there’s no way around the 3 “PU” cost, when invading neutrals – aside from manually editing territory ownership.

Since originally-neutral territories are all worth 0 (and I haven’t found a way to edit that, if there is one) the only neutrals I’ve bothered invading as the USSR are Persia and the suez canal territories. Again, how you handle neutrals is a matter of how closely you want to hew to the original E&W rules.

With this setup involving hostile units starting in the same territories, it’s important to note that (for whatever reason) TripleA has it so that you can’t move ground units out of contested territories and into enemy territories, on the combat move phase. You can, however, move units between the contested territories (i.e. Germany and Eastern Europe.) This means that Soviet units in Germany cannot attack Western Europe or Southern Europe on turn 1, and units in Eastern Europe also cannot attack Southern Europe on that turn. Soviet fighters in those territories still seem to be able to be moved freely.

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Rules Differences

I might just be doing it wrong, but as far as I can tell, the ruleset in TripleA does not allow for the “Tokyo Drift” maneuver to work reliably. This may be due to sub rules, or some interaction with destroyers – I haven’t really nailed it down.

It’s also important to remember that there’s no aerial retreat from amphibious assaults, and also tanks cannot move after combat so be careful about where you strand them. (Again, unless you want to overrule this with editing.) Likewise, defenders hit by naval bombardment from battleships still get to fire back, unlike in E&W; this relative nerf is a reason I felt it was ok to use battleships in place of cruisers, straight up.

Probably the biggest change is that you cannot place infantry everywhere. Again, any ICs that are hard-coded in as “starting” ICs have no placement limit – but for their original owner, only. Any ICs that you edit in or purchase later on are limited to the value of the territory, as far as how many units they can produce. This means that the USSR has to spend a lot more turns walking forward, whereas the UK can almost max out placement in “France” and “Italy” – the drawback being it’s a lot harder to defend India. Likewise, the US has a lot harder time getting ground units into the Pacific theatre; you’ll have to decide whether you’ll want to add ICs for NATO, or make them have to purchase more.

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Anyways, I’ve been having fun playing E&W this way; it’s a neat little scenario and it plays a bit quicker than regular E&W/Mapview, despite typically taking a lot more rounds to finish. It’s also a handy way to test out certain ideas/strategies, particularly w/r/t supply pipelines and such.

@crockett36 said in Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?:

That would be monumental! Great innovation!

Appreciate it!

Perfect example would be something like paratroopers, or marines – those could just be infantry + special abilities.

• Maybe not all countries can use paratroopers
• Maybe some countries can transport paratroopers using tactical bombers in addition to strategic bombers; maybe some countries can ship 2 paratroopers per bomber, but others can only ship 1
• Maybe certain countries have infantry attack at 2/3/(first strike) in amphibious assaults (I swear this was a national advantage in at least one version, for the US) – which might actually incentivize them to attack islands.

You could even do things like, certain countries have 2-hit battleships, some have 2-hit / self-repairing, and some have 1-hit battleships. You could adjust the cost as much as you want (up or down) and then you obviate the need for any kind of cruiser class, potentially. Or just say only certain countries can make the really chonky battleships, and everything else is a (de-facto) cruiser. Maybe certain countries have carriers that hold more planes than others; maybe some countries can have their destroyers carry one plane, while others can carry one infantry. Be creative!

House Rule/Discussion Topic: Unit Modifications

One thing I’ve thought about on occasion is whether tanks in E&W should just flatout cost 4 IPCs instead of 5.

1. The USSR still has almost no incentive to build anything other than infantry, even with the change
2. Western Europe needs all the “hit points” it can get, meaning… also no incentive to build anything other than infantry
3. UK would need to build transports, or else a new industry in India in order to add tanks
4. US (similarly) finds itself in the position of always needing to use transports to move tanks (or transports and new industry, in the case of Japan or the Philippines.)

So I think it’s pertinent to breakdown the economics, for the UK and US in particular.

As said many times before, the UK can rely on an income of 32, and the US can rely on 41. (This is where an India IC would be handy, since for the cost of 2 transports, it can “transport” 3 tanks.)

Now, comparing 4-IPC tanks vs. infantry:

• 32 IPCs = 10 infantry, requiring 5 transports
• 32 IPCs = 8 tanks, requiring 8 transports (or an IC in India + 5 transports)
• 41 IPCs = 13 infantry, requiring 6.5 transports
• 41 IPCS = 10 tanks, requiring 10 transports

The obvious conclusion is still(!) that infantry are cheaper (in terms of transports) and add more “hit points” – the only place where tanks start to pull ahead is in attack power:

• UK: (infantry) 10 attack power vs. (tanks) 24 attack power
• US: (infantry) 13 attack power vs. (tanks) 30 attack power

Again, keep in mind that the tanks still require more transports while providing fewer HP – it’s one thing to go “all tank” armies as Germany or the USSR, but for US or UK it’s a completely different thing altogether.

If a tank costs 4, it still takes 8 IPCs to ship it – meaning you’re spending 12 IPCs to get 3 attack power, and 1 HP
Compare that with 2 infantry + 1 transport – spending 14 IPCs for 2 attack power, and 2 HP

So let’s say we want to “spend it all” every round (just to narrow things down) and examine the possible combinations of tanks and infantry:

32 IPCs:

• 8 tanks (8 transports) – 24 attack power, 8 HP
• 5 tanks, 4 infantry (7 transports) – 19 attack power, 9 HP
• 2 tanks, 8 infantry (6 transports) – 14 attack power, 10 HP

41 IPCs:

• 8 tanks, 3 infantry (9.5 transports) – 27 attack power, 11 HP
• 5 tanks, 7 infantry (8.5 transports) – 22 attack power, 12 HP
• 2 tanks, 11 infantry (7.5 transports) – 19 attack power, 13 HP

So what we’re finding is that reducing the number of tanks significantly reduces the attack power, but does not significantly reduce the HP or number of transports. Now, I would argue that we cannot reduce the infantry to zero, but the mid-point option in each of these examples is certainly a lot more viable.

This leads into my other point of discussion: does the USSR have too much defense power?

What I’m finding is that the number of ground units that the Soviets have (on land, in the Eurasian continent) tends to be about 1 full round’s worth of production more than NATO (about 30 infantry.) This seems to be a deficit that NATO simply can’t make up.

If this assertion holds, then something would need to be done about a) increasing NATO’s attack power (such as decreasing the cost of tanks), or; b) decreasing the USSR’s defense power.

I’d argue that the 2-IPC infantry mechanic is necessary for the USSR to function as a global superpower – and leaning on E&W’s supposed origins in World at War, I’d offer that it is a simple, quality-of-life improvement over the model of having cheap partisans available to the USSR, in addition to regular infantry. If the price isn’t going to be changed, then perhaps the defense value should be. Since infantry currently defend at 2, that would mean a decrease down to 1.

The other thing to consider with this, is the fact that the US and UK are basically locked into their supply pipelines – effectively capping the maximum possible amount of attack power they can project into any given theatre, lest they have to rebuild the pipeline from scratch. The USSR simply doesn’t have this problem; they can place infantry anywhere, anytime. There aren’t many theatres where they cannot out-produce NATO simply by choosing do to so – their supply lines are not at all complex.

So, this begs a third question: Should the placement rules be changed?

Perhaps territories with industrial complexes would follow the current rules, but other territories with an IPC value could only produce 1 infantry (regardless of IPC value.)

Typically, I’ve seen the USSR place 12 infantry in Europe (and a further 4 in Karelia) pretty reliably every round. With this rule in place, the USSR would need to spread those 12 infantry around to:

• 1 each in West Germany, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Romania
• 6 infantry in Ukraine

Effectively, this would add one whole round of movement to the USSR’s supply lines, meaning NATO would have a more meaningful chance of contesting the border territories in Europe. In Karelia and East Siberia, the USSR would still be at a distinct advantage – but an advance towards India would be slowed much like Europe, perhaps even making China (finally) a worthwhile vector of attack for the Soviets.

I’ve gotta admit, I’m genuinely baffled by the constant suggestion to add more and more unit types.

Especially when you get to the point of suggestions being literally just [(adjective) (unit that already exists)]

Like… submarines have a niche, destroyers have a job, cruisers have a job (i.e. being battleships, except cheap enough to actually purchase), carriers have a job – What are all these added unit types going to do, that would make them worthwhile? Furthermore, if you don’t perfectly balance them, you’re going to end up with the IPM problem, where there’s one correct purchase and everything else is just a bunch of useless cruft/chrome.

If anything the closest I would go in that direction is to make the same types of units weaker/stronger/cheaper/different (i.e. unique abilities) depending on the country – and not all units need to be available to all countries, necessarily! The utility of having units function the same from one power to another is so that you can learn the game one power at a time, and the lessons all carry over.

I’m not unwilling to sacrifice that quality of life design (particularly for such an advanced game as G40) and I think it could be really interesting. Maybe some countries just fart out submarines that are basically just bath tubs, maybe another country can do the same with tanks. Particularly if you’re keeping to d6, you can’t just go cramming in half a dozen new unit types, especially if they don’t have a job to do.

Investigating this further, what I’m finding is that it is extremely difficult for WE and UK to both be doing offensives in the Mediterranean; this creates too much of a drain on the defense, requiring the US the bail out the situation.

So I’m finding myself re-evaluating the distribution of NATO’s purchases.
After rd1, their income should pretty reliably be (at least) these numbers:

• WE: 21 IPCs (7 inf)
• UK: 32 IPCs (9 inf, 1 arm)
• US: 41 IPCs (12 inf, 1 arm)

WE is always going to be putting everything into Italy or France. I would suggest that the UK should always be putting at least 3 infantry towards India. With the US having 3 starting transports in the Pacific, and Japan having an IPC value of 6, I would also contend that they should be putting at least 6 infantry toward that theatre. I would also argue that at a minimum, the US should use Iceland to send 2 infantry to Europe every round.

So what kind of wiggle room does this leave?

The UK would have 6 inf and 1 arm to play around with; the US would be left with 4 inf and 1 arm.

With the UK, you’re probably going to want to add an even number of infantry towards India (if any) to keep your transports around the UK full. The obvious options are:

• 1 inf Burma, 1 inf Pakistan (assuming the USSR doesn’t take the territory)
• 2 inf Singapore
• 2 inf South Africa (assuming there is a reasonable possibility of landing them in Iran or Pakistan every round; otherwise they can only reach India every other round.)

This is why I like the idea of keeping at least 1 transport around the Indian Ocean. I’m also tempted to leave a 2nd transport in the area, to maintain the threat of amphibious landings in the Persian Gulf. This would mean that of your starting 4 transports, 2 would end up in the Mediterranean – any new transports would be purchased for use around the UK. Really the question is whether 2 transport loads of infantry is enough to do any damage in the Mediterranean.

For the US, if you’re moving your transport from the Mediterranean out to the Atlantic, the obvious option is to at least use that to send the 1 arm per rd to Europe, via the standard shuck-shuck. If you’re producing 2 inf in Iceland and 6 inf in Japan, that leaves 4 inf (2 transport loads) per round, which can be flexed to either the Atlantic or the Pacific. It is important to decided immediately where to put your transports, and to get them moving units ASAP.

If you’re going for any sort of floating bridge strategy as the US, you’re going to need more transports than just the minimum needed to ship units to Eurasia. In the Pacific, you probably need to think about landing in South Korea, and then in the next round, having enough transports to move your units from both South Korea and Japan, into either Kamchatka or Eastern Siberia. In the Atlantic, you need to set up a couple transports to move your units from France to the Barents Sea – IMO, the number of transports should be less than the number already supplying France, so that you’re still leaving some units for defense.

As much as I would like to avoid the “fruity pebbles” I am realizing that Europe really needs all 3 NATO powers contributing to defense. Also, if you’re having the UK moving through the Mediterranean into Turkey, that means UK units will be in both France and Italy at all times. To balance this out, you’re probably shifting WE’s placement to Italy instead of France – letting the US and UK defend France instead. The big, big downside with this is that it leaves WE out of position to counter-attack West Germany (a nice income boost) but the tradeoff is they can attack Turkey OR Greece every round, helping facilitate the UK’s moves in the area.