Posts made by theduke

i think a good example would be Dunkirk. Talk about how Germany surprised the Allies by sweeping down and cutting off their ability to retreat from there. Even though the Allies evacuated a surprisingly large amount of troops by sea, the units that were left behind were annihilated (sandwiched).

from wikipedia’s overview of wwii:

Germany withdrew from the Balkans and held Hungary until February 1945.

Romania turned against Germany in August 1944, threatening German lines of retreat from the Ukraine.

ok I’ve put it in

now

1. what about attacker? why and why not

2. what about naval combat? why and why not

3. need example of “sandwiched” in WWII for iltalics in draft

1. I don’t know what specifically about the attacker retreats you are asking about. Since there are no territories of unresolved combats that are currently under their control this sandwiching rule can’t affect attackers.

2. I think we can make naval retrats better. What if we say defender naval retreats stay in that sea zone and move out on their next turn? The defneder also has the choice of not moving and sending in reinforcment naval units to attack in that sea zone again (a faint retreat). We should restrict where the units could retreat so that they still can’t move where attacking units came from. The defender would remember (or write down?) where he can and can’t retreat to until his next turn.

3. Battle of Kursk

Here is from Wikipedia (notice what I made bold):

On July 4, the Wehrmacht launched a much-delayed offensive against the Soviet Union at the Kursk salient. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, and they hastened to defend the salient with an enormous system of earthwork defenses. Both sides massed their armor for what became a decisive military engagement. The Germans attacked from both the north and south of the salient and hoped to meet in the middle, cutting off the salient and trapping 60 Soviet divisions. The German offensive was ground down as little progress was made through the Soviet defenses. The Soviets then brought up their reserves, and the largest tank battle of the war occurred near the city of Prokhorovka. The Germans had exhausted their armored forces and could not stop the Soviet counter-offensive that threw them back across their starting positions.

Germans trapped the Soviets behind enemy lines so the Soviets had no where to retreat. They would have died had the Soviet reinforcements not saved them. This example doesn’t result in the killing of the would-be retreaters so maybe we should use a different example?

why are poeple so opposed to this “instant killing of retreats” idea? It’s not that big a thing that will hardly ever come up, it really simplifies the game a lot, and if it does come up I think it invokes some intersting stategy to the game and is not that unrealistic anyway.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about… let’s say Russia has a large force in Karelia, a small force in West Russia and controls Archangel with a negligible force. Let’s say Germany has a large force in Eastern Europe, a small force in both Belorussia and Ukraine. It’s Germany’s turn, and Germany decides to send in the large E. Europe and small Belorussian armies to attack Karelia. Also, Germany decides to send in the small Ukraine force to attack West Russia. Germany decides to conduct the Karelia battle first. The Russian player decided to retreat from Karelia first chance he gets. He can retreat to Archangel without any risk, but a retreat to West Russia would allow him to attack Ukraine next turn and surprise the Germans and thus be a better retreat option. Russia is now at a strategic dilemma… should he do the safe retreat into Archangel (where there’s no unresolved combat) or the riskier but better positioned retreat to West Russia? Well, the Russian player needs to weigh the odds of losing the West Russia battle. Even though it’s not likely the Ukraine force will deafeat the West Russian defending force, if he happens to lose the West Russia battle and decided to retreat the Karelia army there, then the large force coming down from Karelia will be sandwiched in and killed off. This would give him a large loss, but still at an unlikely outcome (because the attacking Ukraine army is so small compared to the West Russia army).

The type of thinking that the Russian player is doing is the type of strategic thinking that I would like to introduce to the game. I think the game needs more strategic thinking in that respect. Not only is the Russian player doing more strategic thinking, but the German player made a nice move to put the Russian player in this difficult spot. The German player didn’t need to attack West Russia with such a weaker force, but he did it just to put Russia in this tough position. This is added strategic maneuvering on both player’s parts, IMO.Â

I hate to say something can’t be done. You might be able to do it, but it would probably add too much complexity for what it will be bringing to the game. Bridges/rivers were very important in WWII tactics, but it does seem very hard to introduce in the game.

Here’s an idea (forgetting about complexity for a moment), have a list of historical “bottlenecks” during WWII. I use the general term bottlenecks to refer to any key points such as bridges, mountain passes, etc… Each bottleneck connects 2 different territories. Western Europe and Germany are connected by the Rhine, for example. At the start of the game, all bottlenecks are “open”, that is that there is no penalty for moving between the respective connected territories (in this case W. Europe to Germany and vise versa). During a player’s turn who controls at least one of those 2 territories may destroy the bottleneck (i.e. blow the bridge/ mountain pass road, etc…). Until the bottleneck is repaired (cost of 1 IPC and 1 full turn to build maybe? I don’t know, we can discuss that later.), attacking units have some penalty (such as -1 attack strength) when moving from 1 of the territories to the other (i.e. moving from W. Europe to Germany or vise versa).

Maybe other bottlenecks could include the Burma Road, the Alps (connects Southern and Western Europe), Yellow River (connects China and Manchuria), etc…

This idea needs some work but it’s not too bad for coming up with it on the fly like that, right?

The solution must be universal and easy. The just die thing can be rigged in such a way to kill too many units for nothing.

I’d like to point out that “many units can be killed for nothing” only when the defender chooses to retreat there. I would look at the combat in the territory I’m retreated into, and only choose to retreat there if there was only <5% chance I’d lose that battle. If I then lose that battle by some miracle, then I knew my odds and took that chance. The moral of this example is that “many units are killed” only if the defender accepts the risk. The defender knows what he’s doing, let him choose. And why is the defender force sandwiched between the 2 enemy forces an unrealistic annihilation anyway? I like the rule… simple and justifiably realistic IMO.

So will players have to write down how many attacking units are coming from which territory in case they decide to retreat? How else will the attacker remember how many units came from which territories?

Defender Retreat, Naval Combat, Extra Move

Yeah thats often the main argument against having Defender Retreat at all. The idea of attacker deciding retreat is interesting. In fact the nature of naval combat is different to land combat, such that I think the player that remains (whether attack or defender) should have this ability.

I’m glad you can see my point as to how that can be realistic. I think that you are right that it’s better if we have the defender choose where the attaker can retreat. For example, in the old rules, Germany could attack Karelia with a large force from Eastern Europe and a small backtracking force Archangel. If combat wasn’t resolved by the frist round, then Germany could retreat everyone to Archangel and thus gaining an extra move (move 2 not 1) for all those units in Eastern Europe to get to Archangel in one move. If the defender (Russia in the example) picks where the attacker (Germany) could retreat then Germany wouldn’t be able to do this unrealistic maneuver. I think this would be a good change.

So if its a USSR NA it would have to be standard. Like Germany’s Biltzreig NA.
But when people don’t play with NA we could have a problem.

Why can’t NAs be thought of as more standard? I know we initially thought of them as non-standard, but why can’t we challenge that idea? I think people would like it because it’s shows a history lesson… what would have happened in WWII if there were or weren’t a Russian Winter? People can see for themselves by either using or not using this NA.

Attacker Retreat

Attacker may choose to retreat some or all of his units. Retreating naval units must retreat to adjacent territories which they came from.

Defender Retreat

Defender may choose to retreat some or all of his units after attacker declares intention to press on with the attack. Retreating naval units must retreat to friendly adjacent sea zones with no unresolved combat. In the case where all adjacent friendly territories have pending combat, the involved combats are resolved together, cycle by cycle and retreats can only be made to friendly territories with no pending combat.

So the attacker is more restricted than the defender in where he can retreat? What if we made the attacker choose where the defender can retreat? I think it’s justified because the attacking units shield where the defending units can and can’t retreat. Obviously, the defending units can never retreat where the attacking units came from. This would invoke a little more strategy to the game.

I’m worried that if we keep the rule as it is now that the defender will retreat naval units just so they will be able to attack a space 1 extra move away.

the other method is way too harsh… because the other territories can be just a few units against a few units and the real battle with substantial forces would lose too much. WE allready have a defender “gets surrounded” thing with armor forcing each infantry to roll a d6 losing it on a one. the Attacker gets as many rolls as he has an advantage in tanks.

i was thinking that the retreating force is not defeated just because of the enemy force that they would be unwittingly running into, but more because the retreating force is unwittingly sandwiched into both the force ahead of them that won the battle and the force behind them that they ran from in the first place. This “sandwiching” is what causes their demise and should therefore be weighed into account when making the decision to retreat to that territory. This sandwiching could (and should) be a tactic commonly used more more experienced players and thus invoking more tactical strategy into the game… a very good thing IMO.

I think we should come up with more rules that invite (and allow) better tacticians to win more often instead of such having it be a number-cruching game of odds.

“they could just copy tactics” captures precisely why I don’t think blitz should be a German NA. By 1942 all nations had already studied the tactic in depth. After all, it did result in the defeat of france so it’s not like anyone overlooked it. All nations could perform blitzkreig by 1942. Germany and Russia only had the armor to do it effectively though. By making blitz available to all and restricting it well, we could have it viable only to Germany earlier in the game and Russia later in the game. I doubt US or UK or Japan wants to build that many tanks to ship over to Euro-Asia just to blitz. I wouldn’t waste money for that.

Defender retreat

Defender may choose to retreat some or all of his units after attacker declares intention to press on with the attack, with exceptions to land units already offloaded in an amphibious assault. Retreating land units must retreat to friendly adjacent territories with no pending combat. Retreating air units retreat to a friendly territory with no pending combat within 2 spaces. In the case where all adjacent friendly territories have pending combat, the involved combats are resolved together, cycle by cycle and retreats can only be made to friendly territories with no pending combat.

This is from the Phase 2 document. This rule can be expoited by the attacker sending a small force into battle over an adjacent territory just so as to stop a large retreating force from being able to retreat there. This would be very unrealistic. It is also overly complicated IMO. Instead how about we do this… any units that retreat into an embattled territory (this is a territory with unresolved combat BTW) may only be placed in that territory after the resolution of that combat (i.e. they do not participate in that combat). If the attacker wins the combat over that embattled territory, then all the retreated units are instantly all removed as casualties. If the defender wins, then all the retreating units are placed in that territory. What do you think?

Imp- I’ll give a closer look to combat and Italy next.

Tekkyy-

Actually what I was thinking regarding Game Sequence was this:

Under the game sequence section state that on every turn [Germany, Japan] go, then [Russia, UK, US] go. Don’t go into a sepatation of turn 1 from all other turns.

Then, in the NA section state that 1 of Russia’s NAs is that they get to move before the first turn in addition to all their normal moves. I think a good name for this would be Russian Winter. This is because historically Russian Winter should be restricted to only being used during the winter of 1941-1942 anyway. Matching Russian Winter with this rule would accomplish this. I know there have been some other ideas floating around regarding how to represent Russian Winter, but I think this new interpretation of Russian Winter is a better match. After all, didn’t Russian Winter save Moscow from being captured and thus very important to the outcome of the war? Wouldn’t adding an extra turn for Russia at the very start of the game also be very important to the outcome of the game (i.e. it’s a powerful NA)?

As for friendly SZ, it wouldn’t be hard just to define it or call it a non-hostile SZ. I was just unsure if their was such a thing as a neutral SZ (i.e. empty SZ). Apparently there isn’t such a thing because friendly SZ includes no units present in it.

Currently, I’m of the opinion that the blitzkreig tactic shouldn’t be restricted to just Germany (i.e. a German NA). I feel that instead how it’s defined should make it a better match with German strategy and thus used more often by the Germans. I always thought that Russia used blitzkreig during the end of WWII anyway, so why restrict it to Germany. Let’s just come up with another German NA in place of blitzkreig. Just my opinion.

My comments on Phase 2 document:

Game Sequence (page 1): In the final writeup, maybe a simpler way to present the same information is to say that both Axis always go before all the Allies except that Russia gets a special bonus move at the very start of the game. State explicitly that this bonus move is in addition to their normal 1st round move after the Axis so there’s no confusion. Perhaps we could even scratch this whole section and instead make this idea one of the Russian National Advantages. For example, one Russian NA is that Russia gets 1 bonus move at the start of the game (this would cut down on any possible confusion of why the first turn is different from all the other turns and this would also make the document a little shorter- every little bit helps).

Blockade (p3): I missed the definition of a “friendly SZ”. Is that a SZ that occupies a friendly naval unit or just a SZ that doesn’t occupy an enemy naval unit?

German Blitzkrieg (p12): This is different than regular blitzkrieg (namely, when an armor unit moves through a hostile territory into another territory). I think this is confusing have two types of blitzkrieg rules. I have stated before that I don’t like +1 modifiers as the advantage for blitzkrieg. I think a better representation for blitzkrieg would be to allow armor/ftrs to attack in combat and if it only lasts 1 round, then allow them to attack any adjacent territory right afterwards (2 attacks in 1 turn). Or maybe to say that armor units attack in opening fire stage in the first round or something, etc… Only have 1 set of blitzkrieg rules though.

I really like what you’ve done with diplomacy and neutrals. I came up with something similar to the diplocamy rolls but I don’t remember proposing it before I left. I’m just curious where did that come from/ who came up with that?

I just quoted myself so people could more easily read what I originally posted which for some reason caused an argument. That’s all.

I’ll read the Phase 2 stuff, but I just want to be clear…

Axis and Allies Revised: Historic Edition (AARHE) Phase 2 Draft

Discussion of document aspects in here.
Discussion of rules in the respective threads.

http://rapidshare.de/files/26442741/Axis___Allies_Historic_Edition_Phase_2_Draft_200607XX.rtf.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/26623920/Axis___Allies_Historic_Edition_Phase_2_Draft_20060722_without_justifications.rtf.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/26624016/Axis___Allies_Historic_Edition_Phase_2_Draft_20060722.rtf.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/27800423/Axis___Allies_Historic_Edition_Phase_2_Draft_20060802.rtf.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/28263637/Axis___Allies_Historic_Edition_Phase_2_Draft_20060805.rtf.html

is the last one (http://rapidshare.de/files/28263637/Axis___Allies_Historic_Edition_Phase_2_Draft_20060805.rtf.html) the only one i need to read?

i think the fundamental problem with the design of the game is that economy (or income) is used as an incentive to take and hold territory when i don’t think that’s realistic. Example: Germany’s economy wasn’t cut to 25% of what is was in 1942 when the Allies had Germany surrounded, but in the game that’s what it would be (Germany starts at 40 and the territory of Germany is worth 10). I don’t think that economy is the right incentive to use for taking enemy territory. Maybe something like victory city points for every territory, obviously having some territories worth many more vcps than others but still having all territories worth at least 1.

I never said that income is the only incentive, just that it is an incentive. It would be ridiculous to say that it’s the only incentive, but you can’t deny that players will attempt an attack just to collect a couple extra IPCs and take a couple away from the opponent. Other incentives for attacking might include positioning units, trying to surprise your opponent with a trick maneuver, getting closer to attack an enemy capital, etc…

I’m getting the feeling that some people can be quick to put words in my mouth and criticize me for the words that they put there. Let’s all remain careful to criticize so as to not waste time with arguments where no one is of the opposite point of view and also to not discourage others to post new ideas.

I am saying that an unrealistically disproportionate large amount of IPCs are contained in territories away from the capital. Realistically, the capital of a nation should have a much higher proportion of the IPC total, and all other territories controlled by that nation should have a proportionally lower amount.

If this change is made, then the Allies economic advantage will last longer (specifically, that it will last until one of the Allied capitals is captured). This is an advantage to the Allies. Therefore, we should also propose another change that will be either an advantage to the Axis or a disadvantage to the Allies (some people see that as the same thing and others don’t… let’s not get into an argument over it).

Maybe we could restrict US and UK infantry purchases, which would be realistic too. How exactly we want to do that I’m leaving open to interpretation right now. Any other ideas?

i think the fundamental problem with the design of the game is that economy (or income) is used as an incentive to take and hold territory when i don’t think that’s realisitc. Example: Germany’s economy wasn’t cut to 25% of what is was in 1942 when the Aliies had Germany surrounded, but in the game that’s what it would be (Germany starts at 40 and the territory of Germany is worth 10). I don’t think that economy is the right incentive to use for taking enemy territory. Maybe something like victory city points for every territory, obviously having some territories worth many more vcps than others but still having all territories worth at least 1.

Jennifer, you make a good point about the need to create an incentive for midway etc… but like you said, midway and wake were important for strategic military purposes (not because of their production capability or resources). what would you say to someone who says that strategic location shouldn’t factor into IPC value? in phase 1 I tried to factor strategic location into the victory city points for each territory, thus giving previously worthless territories a value of some sort.

did Larry and the other designers make Borneo, East Indies and Mexico IPC value so high because of their quantity of petroleum? that is the only reason why i could think to have islands worth 4 IPCs! if that’s the case, why didn’t the designers have trans-Jordan and Persia worth more than 1?

this is what i think happened when they designed the game… the designers settled on relative national IPC totals to compromise between history and game balance. i don’t think it was just history, because if that were the case then they would never be able to justify letting Japan start at 30 IPCs! i think they let japan start with that many because of game balance issues (at least the axis have a shot of winning when japan starts with 30). after the designers settled on the relative starting income of each nation, then they filled in each territory’s IPC value. since they inflated japan’s income, they needed to place those extra IPCs somewhere. if they put them in japan, then japan would be worth as much as eastern US which would never fly by anyone’s standards. mainland Asia already has too many IPCs per territory… if they add more to these territories then there would be a ripple effect making all other neighboring territories worth more. the only other option was to add them to the islands. i think they grouped all the IPCs into the couple of oil-producing islands in order to create the realistic incentive for those oil-prodcuing territories.

I’m not saying i agree with the designer’s thinking, just that’s how i think they got the map to the way it is. personally, i wouldn’t mind all pacific islands worth something.

it does feel like i’ve been gone for way too long. i missed all you guys. i’ve been so busy. i’m going to try to catch back with the boards whenever i can, but unfortunately i doubt i’ll be able to spend as much time with it as i did before… at least for the foreseeable future.

Jennifer, what if we have all teritories worth something (at least 1) but also raise all other terrritory ipc vlaues according to realism? that we still have all territories worth something and still make it close to history. best of both worlds, right? obviously this would give all nations more ipcs than before. we could proportionately raise the prices of units so we don’t have to clutter the board with even more purchased units each turn than we already have.

i do think that all those aforementioned territories should be worth something, but not necessarily 1 ipc. i think i solved this territory worth problem considerably when i created the expanded victory city list (see AARHE phase 1). for example, Solomon islands (as well as other key pacific islands are victory cities now, but still worth the same number of ipcs.

i think it’s important to note something else here before we decide to change the ipc values of these “worthless” territories. IMO the game income is already too spread out compared to realistic income contributions. what i mean is that, for example, japan’s economy is 30 in early 1942. to say that the Solomons should be worth 1 is to say that about 1/30th of japans income came from the Solomons which is way too much historically! Most of japan’s income (or economy) come from the home island of japan, but in the game it’s only 8/30ths of the the total income. if ipc distribution is to be realistic then japan needs to be worth proportionately more and/or other territories worth proportionately less, but still keep the sum at about 30. (actually, compared to the other nations in the game, japan should be worth less than 30, but that’s a separate issue).