Hi All, I’m Nate from Detroit, MI in the US, currently living near Portland OR.
I first played A&A in middle school when my board-flipping cousins brought a copy of classic A&A to a family retreat. We woke up when it was still dark every morning and played some sort of A&A-army-men-hybrid with the pieces (boards were flipped), which developed over the years into actually reading the rules and playing the game as intended many times. I finally bought AAR in college and drummed up a group of guys to play it with a few times every semester. I would say the real “hook” moment for me was discovering the Caspian Sub AAR strategy articles in the old yahoo group. I can’t tell you how many times I have read those papers!

I own AAR, 41, 42, 42.2, and AA50, but my copy of AAR (with Italy as a separate power sharpied and taped on to the board) will always have a special place in my heart. These days I’m a father of two with a real job, and A&A and board gaming in general is solidly on the back burner, but I dream, and host the occasional game night. I think my main interest here is in tweaking and customization, and in my ongoing search for the spark of genius from those Caspian Sub articles.

Hi all, attached and copy-pasted below is the latest draft of my rules for Secret Subs, a minimalist variant for hidden sub movement that doesn’t rely on laborious bookkeeping or the honor system. It’s designed to be modular and version-agnostic. To play this variant I use these Submerged/Decoy tokens that I designed and sell on my etsy store, but you can use any set of identical tokens/chips with numbers on their face-down sides.

Let me know below what you think; and if you playtest it, how it goes!

SEPT 2022 UPDATE: Latest Rules here:
Axis_and_Allies_-_Secret_Subs_v1.0.pdf

v0.8 - DEC2021

0.1 Introduction

This is a new take on an old idea: how to at least partially simulate the ‘surprise’ nature of submarine warfare in a game with completely public information like Axis and Allies. Since the main benefit of public info games is simplicity, this variant does not seek to change that; rather we add as little secrecy as possible to preserve the “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” simplicity that makes A&A the great game it is.

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Summary / TL;DR:
In this variant, each power’s submarine units are kept off-board on a public Tracker, organized into in numbered Groups. Each Group is represented on the board by a corresponding Sub ‘Token’, numbered on their bottom (secret) faces. These Tokens are placed whenever new submarines are mobilized, and they can represent groups of any size - often including zero, in which case they’re actually a decoy. On the board, Sub Tokens & decoys behave and move exactly like normal submarines, and the Group they represent is revealed only in combat.

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0.2 Terminology

Before jumping into the more detailed rules, some helpful terms are defined below:

Sub Token - This is the physical “Secret Sub Token” that sits on the board/Sea Zone representing a Sub Group. Tokens have a hidden number on the bottom, which under normal circumstances may only be viewed by that Token’s owner.

Sub Group - this is the group of actual submarines that a given Token represents. Groups are organized on a power’s Sub Group Tracker, which is public knowledge. Each Group is represented on the board by the Token with the same number as that Group. Groups can be of any size, including zero.

0.3 Similarities/Differences between Sub Tokens and Fleet Markers

Sub Tokens function similarly to fleet markers from the original Axis and Allies Pacific (and the ‘marshaling cards’ from Revised) in a few ways:

1. The Tokens are each numbered for tracking (albeit secretly, in the case of Sub Tokens)
2. The actual units summarized by these Tokens are publicly visible at all times
3. The actual units summarized by these Tokens are actually present in the Token’s zone
4. Each unit summarized by the Token still must obey all normal rules

Sub Tokens are also different from Fleet Markers and marshaling cards in two key ways:

1. The ID number of each Sub Token is secret (e.g. which Token represents which Group)
2. Sub Tokens may be decoys: the group they represent may have zero submarines in it

1.0 Purchasing and Placing Secret Submarines

1.1 Each turn, powers purchase submarines as normal by paying their cost during the ‘Purchase Units’ phase and setting them aside for deployment in the mobilization zone. During the ‘Mobilize New Units’ phase these submarines are still built normally - but they are physically placed not into Sea Zones but rather onto the public Group Tracker, where they are organized into groups however their owner wishes. On the game board, these Groups will be represented by corresponding new Sub Tokens - it is these which are physically placed in the Sea Zones wherever that Group can be mobilized.

1.2 The maximum number of new Groups created (and new Sub Tokens placed) in a given turn is equal to the number of submarines purchased plus one. The new Groups/Tokens may be placed in any eligible Sea Zone, as long as all production capacity limits and rules are followed as normal.

1.3 You are not required to place all of the new Tokens available to you, but you must have at least the number needed to mobilize the new Groups you wish to create. If you do not have enough remaining free Groups on your Tracker or Sub Tokens in your supply, you may add your new subs to a group already present in the mobilization zone(s), or you may reorganize (see section 4.0 below) your Groups or remove decoy Sub Tokens from the board to free these Tokens up to be placed anew this turn.

1.4 Each Sub Token uses as many production capacity points as the number of submarines they represent, but never less than one - so decoy/empty-group Tokens still use one production capacity point each. If you do not have sufficient production capacity or Tokens to mobilize all of your eligible submarines/Tokens, they are discarded and returned to your supply.

Production Example:
John is controlling the United States, and he currently has seven Sub Groups/Tokens on the board (Groups #1-7). During this turn’s Purchase Units phase he bought three more subs. It is now the Mobilization phase, and so John is eligible to place up to four Sub Tokens (one for each purchased sub plus one extra Token. However, he only has three Tokens remaining in his supply (Groups #8-10), so he can only create up to three new Groups this turn unless he reorganizes his current Groups.

John decides to keep his current Groups as they are, and to use all three remaining Tokens. He wants to divide his three new subs into two groups - one sub in Group #8 and two subs in Group #9 - while also creating a decoy Token. To do this, he places one new submarine into the #8 box on his Group Tracker, the other two new subs into box #9, and nothing into box #10. John then places Tokens #8 & 9 into the Pacific, and he places Token #10 - the decoy with zero submarines in its Group - into the Atlantic. John’s Mobilization phase is now over, and he can move on to placing the rest of his units or the Collect Income phase.

Note that this placement strategy would consume three production capacity points from his Pacific Industrial Complex (for the two groups containing a total of three subs he placed there), and one capacity point from his Atlantic complex (for the decoy token, which still takes up one capacity point).

2.0 Secret Submarine Movement

Movement with Sub Tokens is virtually identical to moving normal submarine units. They have the same movement range and restrictions; they may stack and defend with allied and other friendly units (including yours or an ally’s other Sub Tokens), and they may move through groups of enemy ships without ASW capability (i.e. Destroyers). Just like submarines they can, if unaccompanied by surface warships, be optionally ignored during an enemy’s movement, and their presence alone does not make a Sea Zone “Hostile” for the purposes of determining legal movement or amphibious invasion points of origin (but just like subs, even decoy Tokens do prevent unescorted transports from landing troops from their Sea Zone). Two or more co-located (in the same Sea Zone) Sub Tokens/Groups may also be reorganized during movement, but never in a way that grants a sub or group additional movement.

3.0 Secret Submarine Combat

3.1 At the start of a combat involving Sub Tokens they should be moved with the rest of the participating units to the battle board, keeping their Group # hidden. If there is no opposing Destroyer present, the owners of any Sub Tokens must now choose whether their subs will submerge or fight, with the attacker choosing (and reorganizing, if desired) first, followed by the defender.

3.2 Once submerging vs. fighting Groups/Tokens have been chosen, any submerging Groups/Tokens are not revealed but are instead immediately placed back on the board face-down in the Sea Zone.

3.3 Any Groups/Tokens that are fighting (i.e. not submerging) are now simultaneously revealed. Flip them over, find their Groups on the owner’s Tracker, and place those submarines on the battle board near their respective Tokens. Keep the submarines grouped with their Tokens during combat to remember which subs belong to which Group. Combat then proceeds as normal.

3.4 Any time during combat that a submarine would submerge, they must do so as part of a Group and be represented by a Token. You may elect to have some of your subs continue fighting while others submerge, as long as you have at least one Sub Token for the submerging Group and at least one more for any subs that will remain in the combat. Place any submerging subs back on the Group Tracker, and move their Token from the Battle Board back to the Sea Zone.

3.5 If a Power has only one Sub Token or Group in a given combat, that power’s submarines must fight or submerge together as one Group.

3.6 If a revealed Token’s Group of submarines is ever zero/empty (including all decoys revealed at the start of combat), that Token is immediately discarded and returned to that owner’s supply.

3.7 At the end of combat any surviving submarine Groups are returned to the Group tracker (they may be reorganized first) and the Sub Tokens representing them are returned face-down to the Sea Zone.

Combat Example:
John (our hypothetical US player from before) wants to invade Wake Island - currently owned by Japan (which is controlled by Mike) - so during his Combat Move phase he moves a fleet to the surrounding Sea Zone. John’s invasion force includes a Battleship and two Cruisers, along with several transports and two Sub Tokens/Groups. Japan also has two Sub Tokens in that Sea Zone, as well as one Cruiser and one Destroyer.

At the start of Combat, John and Mike each move their units to the battle board, keeping their Sub Tokens unrevealed for now. John is the attacker, so he would ordinarily decide to whether to submerge subs first - but Mike has a Destroyer present, so both of John’s Sub Groups must surface and fight. John will be revealing his Sub Tokens, so he reorganizes them first. One of his two Groups was just a decoy, so to prevent it from being immediately discarded once it’s revealed he splits up his other Group and puts a few subs into the decoy Group. He leaves both of his Tokens on the battle board, and it’s now up to Mike to decide what to do.

Since John has no Destroyer present, Mike can choose to submerge his subs if he wishes. One of Mike’s Tokens is also a decoy, and the other has three subs in its Group. Mike saw John reorganize his subs, so he has a guess about how many he’s facing. He tells John that he wishes to Submerge one of his Tokens while fighting with the other. He takes the submerging Token (the decoy Token) and places it back on the board face-down in the Sea Zone. The fighting Token remains on the battle board.

Mike and John have both made their decisions, so it is time to simultaneously reveal the Groups that are going to actively fight. John reveals his Sub Tokens: #1 & 2. After his reorganization, both of those Groups now have submarines in them (he would have had to discard the decoy Token now, if he had left that Group empty). John takes the submarines off the tracker and places them near the Tokens that represent them on the battle board.

Mike also reveals the Token that has decided to fight, taking the three subs from that Group and places them on the battle board near his remaining Token. The battle can now proceed as normal, beginning with Mike’s subs’ Surprise Strike phase (since John has no destroyer).

As the combat draws to a close, Mike has one sub remaining and he decides to submerge it. He places the submarine back on the Tracker in the appropriate Group, and places that Token back in the Sea Zone next to the decoy Token that submerged at the beginning of combat. With naval combat over, John can now proceed to the amphibious invasion of Wake Island.

4.0 Secret Submarine Reorganization and Anonymization

Sub Groups may be ‘reorganized’ and ‘anonymized’ (shuffled) by their owner at any time, provided the following rules are followed:

1. Reorganization may occur at any time between Groups of submarines that are co-located and interchangeable.
Groups that are to be reorganized together must be truly interchangeable; they must be co-located and have identical movement and retreat restrictions/eligibility. If there are any gameplay-affecting differences between the groups they cannot be reorganized together.

2. Reorganization can never cause the number of Sub Tokens on the board to increase.
Sub Tokens and Groups may be consolidated and eliminated during reorganization, but new Sub Tokens and Groups cannot be created or placed as part of a reorganization. The number of Tokens/Groups after reorganization must always be equal to or less than the number of Tokens/Groups before reorganization.

3. Reorganization of Groups is public, but secret anonymization of Sub Tokens is allowed.
Sub Tokens that share a Sea Zone - even during the movement of one of the Groups - may be anonymized by their owner at any time - that is, they may be picked up from the Sea Zone and shuffled secretly, then returned to the same Sea Zone.

Reorganization Example:
John (our US player from earlier) has been building lots of submarines. He currently has eight different Sub Groups (Groups #1-8) on his tracker, and therefore he also has the eight corresponding Sub Tokens (Tokens #1-8) in various Sea Zones representing them. A maximum of 10 Sub Tokens are allowed in this game, meaning that John has only two Sub Tokens left in his supply (Tokens #9 & 10). Of the eight Groups/Tokens John has on the board, only five have actual submarines assigned to them on the Tracker. The other three do not - they’re decoys.

It is the Mobilization phase again, and John has purchased another three subs this turn. He has another four Tokens/Groups to potentially create (3 purchased subs + 1 extra)… but John only has two Tokens (#9 and 10) left in his supply. He is not required to place all four new tokens, but John likes filling up the oceans with plastic bits, so he looks at his fleet and notices that three of his Tokens/Groups (#1-3) are sharing the same Sea Zone after fighting a combat this turn. Japan just learned the composition of these three groups in a recent combat, so John decides to reorganize those Groups into one large group to free up their Tokens for new placement this turn. On his Group Tracker, then, John takes the subs out of Groups #2 and 3 and puts them all into the Group 1 box. He removes Sub Tokens #2 & 3 from the Sea Zone, leaving Token #1 alone there. John is now free to immediately create new Groups with Tokens #2 & 3 as part of his mobilization this turn.

Anonymization Example:
Continuing the above example, imagine that John has just moved one sub Token/Group into a Sea Zone that contains another of his Tokens. John decides to take this opportunity to anonymize the two Tokens to hide their identity from his opponents. To do this, John picks both tokens up off the board, shakes them up in his closed hand, and sets them back down on the board in the Zone they came from, looking at the bottom of each before doing so.

Hi all, here are a few things I’m tinkering with to replace the OOB chits, for those of you with access to a 3D printer.

Download them (for free!) from Thingiverse and print them yourself, or support the designer by ordering them printed on Shapeways! I’m still testing, so Shapeways orders should be considered ‘beta’ orders to help me work out the kinks.

Completed so far:

• Minor IC (single, smaller smokestack; smaller building) (Thingiverse Link)
  – New: Order these printed on Shapeways! QTY 10, QTY 20
• Major IC (four taller-than-OOB smokestacks, larger footprint with small buildings) (Thingiverse Link)
  – New: Order these printed on Shapeways! QTY 10
• Major ICs (same as above with two smokestacks) (Thingiverse Link)
• Naval Base token (reversible) (Thingiverse Link)
• Shipyard miniature (Thingiverse Link)
• Airbase token (reversible) (Thingiverse Link)
• Airfield miniature (Thingiverse Link)
  – New: Order these printed on Shapeways! QTY 10
• Recruitment Center token (reversible) (Thingiverse Link)
• Recruitment Center miniature (Thingiverse Link)

Prototype Image:

Minor IC (Thingiverse Link)
14x8x17mm (vs 17x9x17 IC OOB)
New: Buy on Shapeways! QTY 10, QTY 20

Major IC (Thingiverse Link)
17x17x24mm (vs 17x9x17 IC OOB)

Major IC (v2, climate change edition) (Thingiverse Link)
17x17x24mm (vs 17x9x17 IC OOB)
New: Buy on Shapeways! QTY 10

Naval Base Token (Thingiverse Link)
These are reversible (same relief on bottom side)

Shipyard Miniature (Thingiverse Link)

Airbase Token (Thingiverse Link)
These are reversible (same relief on bottom side)

Airfield Miniature (Thingiverse Link)
Order these printed on Shapeways! QTY 10

Recruitment Center Token Thingiverse Link
These are reversible (same relief on bottom side)

Recruitment Center (Thingiverse Link)

Here’s a size comparison on the ICs (middle one is OOB, for comparison):

Hi all, I’m going to compile and discuss some of the best Oil-related community house rules. For starters, here are some of the major threads I’ve found (help me out if you know of more that aren’t identical to those here!)

A&A Europe Oil Rules [OOB]
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/11803
During Germany’s Collect Income phase, the Allies must pay Germany a number of IPCs equal to the total value of Middle East territories that Germany controls.

@Buran’s Oil Rule’s [sic]
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/23944
Territories with Oil + Oil Well (new infrastructure) produce Oil Barrels, which must be transported to an IC and exchanged for IPCs. Powers have new NOs around capturing/holding Oil-producing territories as well.

@Johnson73’s Oil Fields
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/31902
Each Oil Field can have an Oil Derrick built on it increasing the value of said territory by 1 IPC. Can be captured/plundered and/or targeted by strategic bombers.

swinters’ Oil Production values map + rules
http://www.basesproduced.com/aaa.html
Territories have Oil Values (0-15) and the movement of all mechanized land and sea units costs one oil unit per space moved, while air units (fighters and bombers) may move up to two spaces at a cost of one oil unit. Unloading a tank from a transport costs one oil unit.

@Imperious-Leader’s Oil Centers
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/15500 & various other places (help me out here, @Imperious-Leader)
Territories have Oil Values, and Oil limits both production and movement of mechanized units. Total values = total number of mech units that can be bought or move that turn. Additionally, nations with an established oil source gain 1d6 IPCs - and nations without lose 1d6 IPC - each turn.

@General-6-Stars’ Oil Derricks
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/33862/general-6-stars-1941-global-war-game/491?page=20
Several territories begin the game with indestructible oil derricks and refineries worth 1-8 IPCS. These can be damaged by SBR, and must be fully repaired to provide any benefit. Control of some of these derricks also contribute towards Axis Victory Conditions/Points. In some versions, damage to refineries leads to unit movement penalties.

@siredblood’s BBR
http://siredblood.com/community
10 territories have oil derrick symbols. Controlling these counts toward Axis victory conditions and also activate Axis NOs for IPC bonuses.

HBG’s Oil Wars expansion (for GW36)
https://www.historicalboardgaming.com/
Oil is produced by permanent derricks that can be bombed. Must be physically stored by a power in reserves, which can also be bombed. Oil is used each turn based on the types of activities undertaken that turn - moving categories of units (or individual units, in the case of str. bombers and capital ships), building units, generic domestic expenses, etc. Oil can be lend-leased and traded, in which case it is vulnerable to interdiction.

@andrewaagamer This is an epic post - thanks for the public contribution of a terrific teaching resource. These kinds of documents enrich the entire community and are indispensable for lifting new players up the learning curve more quickly.

For printing and ease of offline reading/dissemination, I’ve created a PDF version of this article: Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies with an emphasis on Global 1940 2nd Edition OOB by AndewAAGamer.pdf.

I made no text changes apart from copy-pasting into a single document, adding page numbers, adding a line break or two where the pdf format made them necessary, and the bolding of each of the defined terms from post #1.

10/19/2021 Update: New stuff: Kamikaze tokens and Pillboxes!

Pictured below is everything I’ve got in stock:

• Infantry Stands (5 styles! 3 sizes!)
• Major, Regular, and Minor Industrial Complexes
• Airfield and Shipyard Miniatures
• Pillboxes, circular and hexagonal
• Convoy and Kamikaze Zone markers
• Air Base, Naval Base, Research, and Recruitment tokens

I’ve also updated my QTY discounts and bundles - come take a look! Use coupon code AADOTORG21 for 10% off your order for the rest of 2021: www.etsy.com/shop/NathanDetr0itDesigns?coupon=AADOTORG21

This post got moved over from a different thread.

@imperious-leader I’m not sure to what extent the team will feel empowered - or have the appetite - to revise things like rules etc. for the flagship games. They seem, at least right now, content to simply own and reprint the flagship IP while releasing only new entries into the (quite dated) family of “standalone satellite games”. This is after all the age of the timid ‘remake’, for better or for worse.

I would personally hope that we will see an even more revolutionary version of what @Black_Elk has recommended:

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

So the Q was for Global 3rd Ed, but while we’re at it… I just got 3 to add

1. A legacy version of the base game (midscale board), that is simply called “Axis and Allies” ie don’t include a start date year or an edition number in the name for that one. It should present as the basic starter set. Provide unit set ups for a couple dates like AA50 did, but do that in the manual instead. The idea being that it’s easier to re-print or revise or download material for unit set ups in a manual than on cards/boxes. So you could do 1942 as the default, but also 1941 or 1943 say, just by referencing a page in the rulebook.

2. Axis and Allies Global - Sell it as a single complete game, rather than 2 separate theater games. For packaging maybe have 1 box be for the maps the cards and all the paper stuff, and then have units sold separately? I think the players that are most interested in the more advanced game just want G40, rather than Europe and Pacific 1940. By selling the sculpts separately there is less need to divide the boards by theater, and then it can build on the starter unit set included with the base “Axis and Allies” game mentioned above.

3. Include a small Art book/History of the Axis and Allies game and it’s creator, including the images from all the cover boxes and such. Legacy style! I just think that would be a nice touch and cool to see.

I would take this idea even further - a complete restructuring of the product line into a modern “base game + expansions” system with a basic tier (“Axis and Allies”) and then more complex and theater games layered on top of that. How many olive drab colored US bits does one A&A player need?? I have thousands of plastic bits across dozens of different color variations and decades of different injection molders, and tooling changes both major and minor… and I am by no means a “major collector” by the standards of some of the regulars here.

Instead, in 2024 maybe we could begin a new three-tier system, something like:

• “Axis and Allies” (essentially, this would be AA41 or, even better, AAZ without zombies)
  • basic units (inf/art/tnk/ftr/bmr/sub/trn/dd/cv/bb)
  • simplified board with drawn-on infrastructure
• Expansion 1: “Advanced” Axis and Allies
  • this expansion would, when combined with “Axis and Allies” above, create AA50 or AA50+. Contents:
    • bigger/more granular map; maybe add a minor power or two (Axis minors/Italy, etc.)
    • Set of new ‘basic’ units for the added power(s) only
    • New unit rules + sculpts: Cruisers, AAA units, ICs, etc. for all powers
    • This would not come with the basic pieces for the other powers
• Expansion 2: Axis and Allies: “Global War”
  • this expansion would, when combined with the Base game and Expansion 1 above, create G40 or G40+. Contents:
    • even bigger/more granular map and add more minor powers
    • Sets of ‘basic’ and ‘advanced’ units for the added minor powers only
    • New unit rules and sculpts: Mech Inf, Tac bombers, Minor ICs, Bases, etc. for all powers

These three would be the “mainline” series, which would then be further extensible by at least three additional series:

1. A “Great Battles” product line that zooms in on battles of particular interest like Guadalcanal or the Bulge; or perhaps even whole theaters and regions like North Africa, the Eastern Front, or Operation Overlord and aftermath.
   - These would use but not contain the “Basic” units, rather expanding upon them by adding only the missing needed bits for those battles, scenarios, or theaters. The trucks from Bulge or the Blockhouses from D-Day are examples of these; and these theater games could include rules for incorporating these additional units into the “Global” game as well.

2. A product line that adds rules, units, and complexity for the “Global” game. These would be “packs” of additional sculpts and units, with each including enough units to add a particular unit for every power or new rules for the Global game; adding things like Transport Planes, Heavy Tanks, Mobile Artillery, Oil/resource bits and rules, new maps and overlays, etc. This could even introduce goofy/fun shenanigans like a “Zombies” deck with zombie figures, or other bizarre and alternative scenarios.

3. A product line for aesthetic game/sculpt changes - blister-packs releases of special/interesting replacement sculpts for the given powers.

These rules follow similar contours, with the following considerations:

1. Does special infrastructure need to be built/held before realizing benefits from oil?
2. Must oil itself be physically moved/transported to production sites before realizing these benefits?
3. Does oil impact IPC levels or territory values directly, or indirectly?
4. Does oil have any additional game effects like unit purchase limits and movement?

Next I want to tackle each of these considerations, discuss some potential pros and cons, and draw some conclusions.

Oil Facilities/Infrastructure

These are any oil derricks, wells, and/or refineries that either pre-exist or must be built and maintained in a territory prior to accessing the benefits of any oil that is present there. Of course, “if you build it, they will come” applies: these facilities can also be bombed, captured, and/or destroyed, rendering them inoperable and the underlying oil benefit useless or degraded until they are repaired or rebuilt.

Mechanics:
In a ruleset with oil infrastructure, the existence of oil in a territory may represent only a potentiality. Whatever the details, adding oil infrastructure places oil resources behind a barrier: Investment up front is required to exploit the resource, and ongoing maintenance and concern for the protection of the investment from strategic bombing and raids is required.

The upfront investment can be mitigated somewhat by having most (or even all) oil-producing territories start the game with Oil Derricks already in place - particularly if these derricks are made indestructible - but the cost of protecting the asset from damage and raids remains.

Pros:

• Complexity - More strategic granularity and crunchiness
• Historicity - These facilities (and raids against them) featured prominently in the actual
  strategy of all sides
• More fun bits - It’s an open secret that all A&A players like more bits.

Cons:

• Complexity - cuts both ways; more rules, more pieces, longer play time
• Scarcity - placing oil behind a vulnerable infrastructure barrier means that there will be less oil overall, and the oil that is out there will be more expensive to exploit and protect.

Discussion:
Because adding infrastructure beyond the IC is such a significant change to the game, I believe this rule only makes sense in games that include other base-type facilities as well; so G40 and beyond. Even in this case, Oil facilities should probably leverage the existing bases rules to ease adoption and limit the impact of the added complexity.

Scarcity is a real factor here as well, and needs to be taken into account by the rules: any benefits conferred by oil (or the consequences of its loss) need to be significant enough to reward the investment (of building/protecting and raiding/capturing) these properties.

It’s my conclusion, then, that requiring the construction/maintenance of these facilities is too much complexity for the simplicity and abstraction level of games like AA50/42.2, while in G40 and beyond they make sense and can add fun and strategy without overburdening the system. I would seek to add Oil Derricks as a new facility type with identical cost and characteristics as the other bases in the game, then scale their benefits accordingly.

Oil Transportation & Reserves

These rules require that some kind of actual oil “unit” be represented/abstracted as a vulnerable physical piece on the board, whether it must be transported from oil fields to production centers or stored in reserves. In addition to the territories and any infrastructure that produce them, these physical oil units are themselves subject to capture or destruction, and may or may not require actual transport units like naval/air transports to carry them around the board.

Mechanics:
In these rulesets, oil is placed behind a much higher barrier than the mere maintenance of oil facilities - that of also investing in the transportation infrastructure (and protection thereof) to store or move the oil. Where the distance is minimal (and/or the transportation infrastructure already exists) the impact of these rules will be minimal - in the case of the Russian Caucasus, for example - but where that transportation or storage is more awkward/must be newly established it presents a tremendous obstacle to exploitation (in the Middle East or South America for Germany, etc.)

Pros: Same as Infrastructure, only more so
Cons: Same as Infrastructure, only more so; and additionally:
Asymmetrical - May, for geographical reasons, unequally saddle powers (e.g., the Axis) with impossible burdens (however historical!)

Discussion:
Oil-as-a-vulnerable-unit takes the historicity, complexity, and scarcity impact of the “Facilities” rules and increases it by an order of magnitude. It’s one thing to build and/or protect a fixed asset from strategic bombing, but it’s a whole other thing to ensure its safety along an entire transportation corridor. This is one reason why, even for a punishingly intricate system like HBG’s G36, the movement of raw materials such as oil is still abstracted to “convoy zones” or “lines” which can be cut or raided by enemy units.

Requiring that oil be moved or stored individually and physically in this way raises the question of why it is singled out over other mission-critical resources that would form similar convoys- like wheat or rubber, for example - and also adds a economic/logistical rail to the A&A system that many players would probably not find enjoyable. In my opinion, this sort of rule is interesting but ultimately not worth its own weight for a game like A&A, even at the comparatively granular G36 level of abstraction.

Oil-to-IPCs: Direct or Indirect?

Most oil rulesets give some kind of IPC benefit to powers that control it. This discussion is not about a specific rule, but rather about the way that those IPCs are awarded for oil and the difference between oil adding directly to IPC count vs. oil driving NOs or other indirect means of affecting a power’s economy.

“Direct” oil-to-IPC rules are straightforward in that they award a power bonus IPCs for oil they control - whether that’s controlling oil-producing territories, maintaining functional oil wells, units of oil transported/exchanged, etc.

“Indirect” rules are the typical ways to which oil is alluded in OOB rulesets, and are myriad, including examples such as:

• Requiring a power to pay another power for oil controlled (AAE)
• Giving powers individualized oil NOs to control a specified amount of oil (AA50, G40, etc.)
• Granting unit cost decreases to powers that control a specified amount of oil
• Penalizing a power’s economy in some way if it doesn’t control a specified amount of oil

Mechanics:
Direct oil-to-IPC rules lean into the abstraction and simplicity of A&A economics by simply giving players more more money to play with. This makes the calculations simpler and the benefits open-ended, at the cost of some gamey blandness and uniformity.

Indirect rules vary, but are generally trying to achieve some more historical, granular, or realistic end with regards to oil by placing limits on its benefit in some realistic way: either to specific (mechanized) units, or to specific powers, or by capping/specifying the exact amount gained, or by limiting where geographically that oil needs to be obtained.

Pros: (of the “direct” or $/oil model)

• Simplicity - $/oil makes calculations and tradeoffs faster and easier
• Open-ended - $/oil lets players decide where to get it, how much is enough, and what to spend it on

Cons: (of the “direct” model)

• Ahistorcal - $/oil can lead to ahistorical strategies and seemingly unrealistic results, like ignoring oil completely or converting “oil money” into divisions of infantry or battleships
• Optional - $/oil means there’s nothing “special” or necessary about oil, it’s simply one option among many to increasing IPCs

For the “indirect” model, these pros and cons can simply be inverted: there’s more complexity - and in most cases, individualized and power-specific rules to memorize, and there is less player freedom to explore alternative, ahistorical, or seemingly unrealistic options.

Discussion:
I think compelling cases can be made for both sides of this coin.

On the one hand, simplicity and open-endedness are things to be pursued at all times. There’s nothing wrong with a rule being easy to understand and apply, and I’m personally allergic to making every player memorize 6 or more different NO schemes before they can feel like they understand the game. Finally, the potential for ahistorical situations and player freedom are part of what make A&A a game rather than simply a repeating simulation; and one which the Axis element of initiative and surprise is mostly impossible and should therefore, historically speaking, result in an inexorable Axis defeat barring on Allied mistakes or bad dice.

On the other hand, if oil is a part of the game it should not be able to be completely ignored - if so, then why add it at all? Moreover, if oil translates simply and directly into just more IPCs, or if the real objective is simply to draw more attention to the periphery of the board… then why not simply increase the IPC values of those territories for everyone and call it a day?

For AA50/42, an easy compromise between historicity and simplicity might look something like this:

• Identify a handful (maybe 5-8 for these simpler maps) of oil-producing territories, plopping down a permanent, indestructible Oil Derrick miniature or other marker on each of them as a visual reminder.
• Declare that, at the end of each game round (when VCs are counted), each of these oil-producing territories controlled by an Axis power will grant that power +2 IPCs.

This would retain the benefits of simplicity and open-endedness, while adding a smidgen of historicity, with minimal additional rules and impact to game time - you’re already tracking and counting VCs at this point in the game round, anyway. Handing out some IPCs to players that control Oil Derricks here should help keep oil part of the “state of the globe” conversation, and injecting here should hopefully waste minimal time.

For more complicated games like G40, I would want to land on something slightly different. As I mentioned above, this is the level where there should be infrastructure to deploy and protect, which changes the timing and nature of how/when oil could impact the game. Additionally, because of the added scarcity and tactical possibilities inherent to facilities and the more granular G40 system, this is also where some more significant but focused/specific/limited benefits for oil should be realized. Maybe those already-present convoy zones can be brought into play here as well?

More on this later.

Oil Effects: Economic or Tactical?

Similar to the previous section, this isn’t a matter of a single rule but rather a sort of complexity/historicity continuum. The question here is: “To what degree of specificity should oil impact the war-machine in a highly-abstracted game like A&A?” The answer can be anywhere on this continuum from the “not at all specific” (+/- IPCs only) to very granular per-region and per-unit effects including degraded movement, combat, or producibility.

Mechanics:
It’s an understandable next step in complexity and crunchiness to bring the impacts of oil home to the mechanized units that famously rely on it to function. This could be accomplished in lots of ways: we could prevent some or all of the affected units from moving; degrade their combat ability somehow, or perhaps make them more/less expensive or easy to field.

However, due to the breadth of factors that IPCs are supposed to cover - Everything from raw materials, to manpower, industrial capacity, trade agreements, mobilization status, etc. - having oil simply impact IPCs directly at a high level might actually be more accurate than grounding individual wings of the Luftwaffe or Panzerkorps. After all, “oil” at this level of abstraction would affect the economy in a very overall sense, and adjustments can and obviously would be made to both spread and mitigate this impact.

Pros: (of having oil affect specific units)

• Complexity (varies) - throws an additional strategic consideration into the mix, provides for super-crunchy tactical tradeoffs (move this Fighter, or that Tank?)
• Historicity - Oil availability certainly did affect mechanized units in terms of both production and operation

Cons:

• Complexity - cuts both ways, as usual. Having TripleA count up units vs. supply is one thing; doing it manually at a table takes time that people may not want to spend
• Scope-creep - Some game effect on mechs might be ok, but managing unit supply status is arguably just beyond the pale for A&A

Discussion:
I think there is a difference between “powers with/without oil should have some kind of mechanized unit benefit/consequence” and “players must spend time counting up oil reserves/supply vs. fielded unit consumption to determine supply status”. I mean, this is a game where, in most versions, a single plastic factory and the number “10” represents the entire civilizational output of Nazi Germany. It’s not like the players are given any specific responsibility or control for managing civilian morale, or the movement/organization of forced labor, or any other crucial aspect of the sprawling industrial war machine!

What players are given control of, economics-wise, is which units to produce, where. So let’s do what we can with the levers we already have.

With that in mind, the main thrust of this idea is something I could see myself keeping; something like “Oil affects mechanized unit production.”

• ICs with limited access to oil should have limited production of mechanized units.
• The prevalence of oil in a power’s economy should affect the overall efficiency with which that power can produce mechanized units.

Exactly how, mechanically, the above factors should work is something I am still thinking about and would love to discuss further. At a minimum it seems that the oil facilities we discussed earlier, the already-present convoy zone mechanics, and research and development rules should play a part; I’m also intrigued by the idea of having multiple strategic resources (wheat, oil, and iron?) that might each affect the unit production table in different ways: wheat for infantry, oil for all mechanized units, and iron for armored units. Yet I think that of all of these oil makes the most compelling case for inclusion, in some dedicated form, even if the others are excluded.

Finally got my test prints off the company printer! Pic below. The IC is the same size as the OOB IC, for size comparison.

I also shrank the self-propelled artillery pieces by a further ~20%, so I should be down to about 1:350 scale now, which should look better on the board given how tiny the OOB Mech Infantry are. I’ll post comparison pics of OOB pieces with the new smaller hummels and sextons (priests were omitted from this print, unfortunately) from home tonight. For anyone looking to replicate, grab the 1:200 3D files from m_bergman and shrink by ~45% before printing.

@black_elk solid post. I like the wider view of the first map much more, which would allow for ocean at the extreme left - Casablanca has to be on the map, I think, along with Cyprus and Salermo.

@theveteran refresh?

@grinchveld said in Give up BUT keep playing?:

I want to give agency to the losing side. If you are confident you have lost already (barring a miracle) I want the losing side to have agency to change their game objectives.

I think the easiest and fairest way to implement this would be the addition of a round limit and more granular victory conditions like I describe above, including “Draw” conditions that more or less preserve the board position at a “1942” position.

Doing so would not only make this type of dynamic “reassessment of aims” possible but even essential during play, allowing either side the opportunity to advantageously to fall back from a disastrous blunder or die roll while still continuing to play meaningfully around the edges of the board hoping to “hang on for another 3 rounds” to whatever victory condition can still be managed.

Any A&A game where a player fails a huge attack yet still hangs on to at least their starting VCs should be considered a win, since with fair dice against an equal opponent any major operational failure or blunder should mean the loss of the game.

@barnee @Grinchveld Thinking about every possible victory condition for my “22 Victory Cities” AA50 map, I might try the below scheme:

(note that the ‘examples’ above give a possible or likely board situation resulting in the given outcome for the given side - E.g. for the Allies to secure a “Favorable Détente”, they could (for example) hold all original 1942 VCs while also managing to liberate France and, say, Singapore.

Here are the Victory Cites for that map, with initial control indicated for each setup:

Note that for this setup, compared to OOB AA50, I’ve included four more allied-controlled VCs: Rio, Cape Town, Cairo, and Singapore. This (and a recognition of the nigh-unassailability of North America) is the reason for the discrepancy between Axis and Allied VC requirements.

Any of these scenarios would be fun to play to in a set number of rounds; say 6 or 7. The number of rounds has a huge impact on outcomes, of course: “Total Victory” in even 8 or 9 turns would be extremely difficult, whereas 2 rounds is more than enough for Détente.

@grinchveld intriguing concept, and I usually find it fun to play from a losing/underdog position; and maybe there’s no time to concede, set the game up again, and give it another go.

I think a better way of achieving this might be to lay out from the outset conditions by which the game could end in a tie, and simply allow players to switch from a ‘victory’ set of objectives to that ‘draw’ set of objectives if and when it becomes clear that victory is going to be impossible. Chess, football and a dozen other games successfully employ the idea of playing purposefully for a draw, especially if tournament standings are favorable and there is no need to risk anything for a win.

UPDATE: in the first post, I’ve now added some ‘before’, ‘after’, and in-process pics of printing and applying the overlays

@crockett36 said in Interview with the 2021 OOB champion: AndrewAAgamer:

Thank you all. Great opportunity. I hope to do more AnA personalities, dare I say celebrities!

Keeping up with tournament winners across different communities would be terrific - I think you’ve got a rare combination of mechanics knowledge and historical A&A background (Larry playtesting, etc.) to make your interviews potentially very high-calibre and singular. Great work, good questions. Now we just need to all chip in to get you a better webcam

@andrewaagamer This is an epic post - thanks for the public contribution of a terrific teaching resource. These kinds of documents enrich the entire community and are indispensable for lifting new players up the learning curve more quickly.

For printing and ease of offline reading/dissemination, I’ve created a PDF version of this article: Warfare Principles of Axis & Allies with an emphasis on Global 1940 2nd Edition OOB by AndewAAGamer.pdf.

I made no text changes apart from copy-pasting into a single document, adding page numbers, adding a line break or two where the pdf format made them necessary, and the bolding of each of the defined terms from post #1.

great interview!

@djensen in for again in '23! Thanks Dave for everything you’ve done over the years to keep this community strong.

@superbattleshipyamato said in Boots in Canada Strategy:

@all-encompassing-goose

…Other than that your strategy works.

but space is the WHOLE POINT!!!

well that, and getting everybody else out of your basement.