Proposed Map: Domination 1941

[Schulz]

@black_elk The general problem for the battle of Atlantic is Germany's inability to reinforce Northern Atlantic with new subs. I have had one idea about to represent this theater.

In specific sea zones in the North Atlantic, German subs might be spawned each round.

For examle, in a specific 4 sea zones, Germany will have 1/4 chance to get a sub each of sea zone in each round.

This unpredictability would make harder to invade France which would be more realistic. It is matbe not the best idea but I couldn't came up with different ideas yet.

[Black_Elk]

@schulz I like that idea a lot! Let's do that! Frostion's already got that anchor image called "sub-pen." In Iron War it is used to spawn 1 sub per round, but in that game it's attached to a coastal factory. I like your proposal better. Basically they get some cutty zones, where they can send their wolf pack captains without just getting trapped behind the blockade. If we handled those like the smaller land tiles in black lines could be another easy expansion type feature.

The reason I keep going back to G40 is because I think it's just easier to have something to build from, where we can kinda predict or at least make better guesses about how the changes might impact the 'standardish' playpattern in that game. Obviously we can do a thousand things, but if it can hit that harmony with Global then it'll at least have that cornerstone and appeal.

Here I'm fixing Germany right now. I think what happened is the after the initial warp it just got ballooned a bit. Switz was made a bit wonky and Holland a bit too bulbous. I had to start eliminating more of the Hepps tiles just to get myself to focus on the broader contours. Sometimes I think the impression of shape can come down to just one subtle line, being off. Let me know if you think that works a little better for the overall sweep for that area now.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6wdj4i1rcka8y99/TripleA_4k_baseline_G40_subdivisions_sz.png?dl=0

[Schulz]

@black_elk

I generally like realistic looking borders and landmasses as much as possible for aesthetic reason. Countries can be enlarged proportionally to have more room for unit placements.

[Black_Elk]

@schulz yeah me too. I mean I guess that's kinda the whole reason I started drawing this thing way back when. I just didn't like how everything looked so blob-ish, both on the OOB physical boards and in the TripleA renditions. Hopefully we can get something that's close enough that we can just nod and be happy with it when we're done heheh.

Let me know which things stand out as weird, it probably just means I need to return to the area and rework the contours there. Of course there are some limits, cause it is definitely warped pretty hard Europe and the entire Globe, like it wasn't just scaled, but also morphed and tilted and such too to get the broader continents to align under the heavy distortion, but as long as we can go back in and tweak the shapes to feel like they're coming across I'm all for it!

[TheDog]

@schulz said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

@black_elk >
For examle, in a specific 4 sea zones, Germany will have 1/4 chance to get a sub each of sea zone in each round.

Thanks Schulz its on my list.

[Black_Elk]

How does this feel for the SZ around Japan?

Obviously the Pacific is kinda tricky to maintain the same geometry, cause like OOB the map doesn't even show Sakhalin and many of the islands are pretty far out of position on the gameboard. I try to maintain the same suggested shapes, but with a slightly different sweep. You know like sz 18 which is mostly a transit, becomes a square, rather than a longer rectangle just so we could preserve the angles on the surround zones. Basically because the OOB sz design is based on a world that show tons of distortion. It's a compromise, but I think it's a bit stronger than what we've got currently for Global.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/syqflj4p3wbgezr/TripleA_4k_baseline_G40_subdivisions_sz_pacific.png?dl=0

For potential subdivisions at sea in the Pacific, I think the simplest way to make the map more engaging would be to bisect some of the islands with sea zones. Basically the Pact of Steel Midway approach of way back when heheh. Essentially you could just go through and split some of the larger sz in two with a black line and have that be sorta the deal. Perhaps along with some kinda action similar to the battle of the Atlantic idea, but more Pacific themed.

[TheDog]

Looking at Europe and the Strategic bombing of Germany, that's 4TT away, so 8TT round trip, so Strategic Bombers move 8, yes?

[Black_Elk]

@thedog it's a good question. Movement is the most important aspect of any unit. I mean that and hitpoints, they are easily the most important decisions to be made when deciding what kind of game you're going to be playing. If movement is increased, like say you wanted tanks or warships to move 3, or aircraft moving something more than 4/6, then virtually everything about the map changes. It's also why bases in G40 are such wild units, compared to the standard midscale games. I don't have any strong suggestions here, or many hard preferences honestly.

My personal take is that, if the unit interactions are made super complex, and the map itself is also super complex, you get to a point where the game loses the familiar points of entry. So you end up with a game that is sorta entirely new or new-ish rather than just a supped up version of A&A on a larger board. How desirable that is depends on how different you want the game to feel compared to the norm I guess.

For SBR, beelee knows a lot of my thoughts there from the various HR threads lol.

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/28846/house-rules-master-list?page=1

3rd post down in that thread I mentioned an HR that I liked to get strategic bombers moving 8, and behaving more like actual Strategic Bombers as opposed to Tactical Bombers, but I don't know how popular it was haha.

Basically for me it boils down to separating the combat role from the SBR role. So you don't have a combat air unit that can move 8, but just a Strategic bombing unit that can move 8. If that makes sense? But yeah, it's certainly something worth thinking about, no doubt.

The role of the Strategic Bomber in normal A&A play is primarily combat oriented, like for screening fleets in the dark skies approach etc. With the bombing role playing second fiddle to that. If you change it, change how the Strategic bomber unit works, you change a pretty fundamental aspect of the game, since virtually all the game strategies are built around it post v3 ruleset. Some might enjoy that kind of change others might find it more jarring, so kind of a tough call.

[TheDog]

@black_elk
Here is my current Bomber stats, without reading your A&A thread, which I shall do now.

Only Britain & USA can produce Bomber in 1941.

[Black_Elk]

@thedog sounds cool! The HR rule I proposed was a while back, so not sure how well it would fit the new map concept we were kicking around on previous pages here. I had a cost suggested there based on high attrition rates and a very niche role for the unit, hence less expensive. But again, not sure how well it accords with other ideas here or any of the stuff Kurt mentioned in the OP haha

Ps. In my view any unit with a hitpoint is a combat unit. Regardless of movement/cost/att/def. If it has a hitpoint and can be used as fodder it's role will be primarily combat, unless other rules change to specifically prevent that. Like that's just how players will use them, to support defensive stacks or to complement attacking forces to hedge the odds there. Just because the ability to move a hitpoint 6 or more spaces is so powerful in A&A

[TheDog]

@Black_Elk
Great minds think alike.

Confession time, I have only played an A&A about 3 times and my perception of WW2 is based on history, so what I have read and not A&A game play.

Your A&A post do you still broadly believe in your HR or a close variant?

[Black_Elk]

@thedog right on!

Yeah most of the ideas were iterated into the experimental G40 HR package thanks to Beelee. For me the main issue with any HR in A&A is always the same, and comes down to whether you can actually convince people to use it heheh.

I think we tend to see two approaches there, either small changes/additions at the margins of the unit roster on one end of the spectrum vs a total conversion/complete unit overhaul on the other end of the spectrum.

Sort of like toes in the pool vs a full on diving cannon ball I guess lol.

Not sure what peeps are looking for out of this one really. Sounded like Kurt wanted to do a pretty complete overhaul in some of those posts he made. It's admirable to attempt a big redesign of the unit interactions, to make the big waves, but that does increase the likelihood of potentially belly flops probably heheh

I think I tend to hew closer to what I think is achievable on the physical board, just so I'm not too off-in-the-deep-end all by myself lol

Ps. Just to further clarify. I think HRs for ftf games tend to focus on units, because the map is so much harder to change. People don't want to draw on their boards with sharpies generally heheh. So in ftf you focus on changes that can be achieved short of redrawing the mapboard.

On the other hand, here we have the chance to change the map itself, so we got some options that aren't usually available to create interest from that alone.

Changing PU values is relatively simple, since that can be done with IPC markers on the physical board, but here we're also thinking about new map divisions. So I kinda think more standard units might be attractive here, just to have something that remains constant or familiar, but on the much more nuanced and divided up map. But then that is sorta tying our own hands I guess.

I keep trying to think if there might be a way to describe the TT or SZ subdivisions in such a way that they could be covered by a universal rule? I mean so that one could potentially use the g40 board as the starting point there and still have it work somehow? But then I remember that most people are stuck with a board at the boxed size and not giant pool table size print outs of it and physical sculpts can't scale, so subdivisions aren't all that practical for the ftf conversion, though I suppose that's no reason not to try em for the Domination scale hahah.

[TheDog]

@black_elk
Im going for a belly flop = complete overhaul and hoping that players like it. If you liked the style of The Shogun, then its along those lines.

Im hoping that Kurt likes the direction as its their thread.

A WiP version is available for viewing unit stats and playing a punch up in cupboard with 4 nations, Germany, USSR, Japan, USA in 61TT.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/3326/1941-command-decision-domination-1941-code

Currently in game it has;

• Germany, Japan v USSR, USA
• Frostions 54px high unit sets
• Two types of factory, called Industry-Hvy and Industry-Lgt, they combine Production, TechTokens, AA, railways(enhanced movement)
• Blitzkrieg style synergy of units; Infantry, Armour, Bomber-Lgt(Dive bombers), Artillery, Anti-Tank (see ingame Unit Help)
• Only two nations Britain & USA will start with Strategic Bombers
• Ships with AA
• Order of Player Phases; Tech, CombatMove, Battle, NonCombatMove, Purchase, Place, TechActivation
• Land Battle Rounds=3, Sea Battle Rounds=2, Air Battle Rounds=1
• Air, Army, Fleet, Submarine Combat Command HQs, representing the HQs of the likes of Rommel, Monty, Patton, US 8th Air Force, UK Combined Operations Headquarters (Admiralty MoD). This is the reason for calling the Map/Scenario 1941 Command Decision, ie. where to best use the Command HQs. The Germans will have lots of HQ-Army, the Russians a few. The Germans using HQ-Submarines would be like Pack Tactics.

.
In the future

• Sea Zones will have PUs (U-Boats in the Atlantic, will cause mayhem, if not hunted down)
• VCs will be Capitals, Oil Reserve territories, Heavy Industry territories
  Tech trees
• More Nations

[Black_Elk]

@thedog right on! Sounds good to me!

Just as long as we know what we're after right hahah

[Cernel]

@black_elk said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

The role of the Strategic Bomber in normal A&A play is primarily combat oriented, like for screening fleets in the dark skies approach etc. With the bombing role playing second fiddle to that.

You are certainly correct that, historically, the heavy bomber (beside some anti-fleet conceptual usage which proved highly unsuccessfull) was conceived exclusively to bomb enemy cities (not enemy armies). However, if you correctly make the heavy bomber almost useless in battle (both on land and on sea), you have to make it relatively stronger in the SBR role, and you should know well that there is plenty of people who despise strong bombing: you will alienate them all.

Think about Anniversary, which is the first game with a bomber at cost 12 (so about viable for SBR, since you pay 12 and should eventually damage for 17.5, but reaching 12 only several rounds after your expense), and the so many persons complaining about bombers being over-powered (on even broken, according to some) for the SBR that official "interceptor" optional rules were release to make the SBR almost pointless. Even in the original Anniversary, almost only Americans would buy any bombers primarily to make SBR, so a bomber that can do almost only that at that level of efficiency would be virtually never bought by 6 out of 7 powers in the game.

[TheDog]

@cernel
Thanks for the heads up and warning.

As the strategic bomber was a large part of european air war, Im hoping to emulate its use.

Only Britain and the USA had significant number of 4 engined Bombers, other nations did not invest in them.

[Black_Elk]

@thedog @cernel

For sure!

The thing I try to hold in mind, when it comes to the ass big bomber sculpt, is that it's function in standard play (abilities att 4, def 1, move 6/7, cost 12) doesn't really correspond to anything even remotely realistic as a combat unit. Instead what it is - is basically the A&A equivalent of the Queen in chess. It's like the super piece, that does just about everything.

In my view the bombers most important role in the typical A&A game is actually for stack defense. Which makes like zero sense from a realism perspective, but that's one of it's most important uses. When the player can fly a stack of hitpoint across 6 tiles, from say England to Moscow, or from wherever to India, to prop up a defense of a critical tile and push the attacker's odds out of reach, that totally dwarfs any other use. Then you add to that the crushing attack power vs navies and SBR to boot, and it becomes the go to grand strategy unit in advanced play. Every A&A game post v3 is a bomber game at bedrock. I don't know if that's necessarily good or bad, (it's probably bad I guess lol) but just kind of the reality, such that if you take that unit away, players might feel the loss pretty hard in the abstract/playpattern meta. Basically I think you need to make the tactical bomber more fun somehow, as an offset.

Ps. Basically I question the wisdom of Larry even including the Strategic Bomber as an actual physical unit in the first place. Cause he could have created the same basic mechanic/rule without necessarily needing the sculpts (sorta similar to how Rockets worked in Classic - you know but where the player pays X to make a run, and then the defender can roll to see whether it was successful or if the attacker just has to eat the cost on a failed attempt), but because those American bombers were so iconic looking, I guess he felt he had to include them? But giving everyone else the same sort of unit as well, all that made for more a super gamey and pretty unrealistic dynamic lol.

Another idea might have been to keep the 'strat bomber' unit as a sculpt, but treat it more like a G40 Airbase, or perhaps as a ground unit outside the SBR stuff. Meaning it only flies while actually conducting the bombing runs, but otherwise has to be moved like an infantry unit or an aagun or whatever - like if you wanted to change the starting location of the run/change the range, you could do it that way. I mean if one really needed to keep that idea of bombers getting blown up on the runways sometimes hehe, but not just flying them into defense positions as kinda their main purpose, say to save Moscow or Berlin or whatnot. But yeah, anyway, it's a weird unit for sure lol.

[Schulz]

I guess I am minority in this topic.

I think the best designed units are the ones that are correcly priced, simple as much as possible but most importantly versatile. Bombers designed for SBR only might be realistic but they would be pretty boring and predictable.

The Allies had luxury to invest strategic bombers due to having almost unlimited resources. It is hard to say that these strategic bombing campaigns were cost effective. But in a typical WWII scenario in TripleA, Allies will not have overwhelmig economic advantage due to balance reason.

[Black_Elk]

@schulz Yeah that's the other edge of the sword I guess.

For my part, the ideal A&A game would basically be a stripped down version of Global that played more or less like 1942.2 just on a much larger board and with those extra unit types like mech and tac Bs. You know with TT values adjusted upwards rather than Objectives. No weird nation specific rules, no complex production profiles, no politics - just a total war start date and a bit more of the familiar that way. I say that mainly because I can imagine actually persuading my friends to play a game like that, whereas FTF Global is like kind of a pipe dream. Everyone digs the way it looks sure, so many pieces! It's super impressive in that regard, but actually setting it up and playing it out in a reasonable timeframe with your pals, pretty tall order there lol.

I think I might be kinda boring in terms of my preferred unit roster actually. For starters, if I have to paint my sculpts or order a bunch of new sculpts from HBG just to play a scenario, that's almost a non-starter for me, at least in terms of set ups I'd want to readily explore. Just too onerous for my taste. So that becomes a bit problematic when peeps want to include Elite infantry or multiple versions of the same basic unit types, cause it's like where you gonna get those sculpts right? hehe

Then there are other preferences I have too, that sort of play in to what I like to see presented in an A&A game. On the one hand we're already sort of pushing it I think, by making a fun family-friendly game, where the player can delight in pretending to be Germany during WW2, or bombing cities to rubble in anything but the most abstract fashion. I also think it's super problematic to have SS themed combat units for example, which is just an extension of the A&A/TripleA no swazi policy in my view. There are some things you just don't want to touch really, lest the game become fraught like that. You know rather than being some quaint 1950s version of plastic army men, or a Hollywood World War 2 movie in boardgame form. I always worry about creating too many opportunities to glorify the wrong stuff with this one. I'm not a militarist or anything, so it's always kinda amusing to me, that my favorite game would be a war strategy game like A&A, but for me it's basically plastic army men, just with a built in geography lesson lol.

All that just to say that'd I'd be inclined to play it pretty safe I guess, when it comes to unit stuff. I'd leave some level of historical 'realism' at the door, for sure. Anything that might come across a bit sketch or have TripleA getting associated with revanchist hate group type stuff, I'd prefer to avoid that by a long mile, obviously lol. Like there's definitely a reason why the official A&A boardgames try to present in the way that they do, with a couple clear dodges on the dicey stuff. That's a bit of a digression I suppose, and not to get too Disney with it here, but just something to consider when thinking about what sorts of unit stuff the game should try to model. We should try to get out ahead of things and shore that up to the extent possible, at least for the standard package. Also people who really want to can always still change their units and flags, the decor and the relief details or whatever, but standard naming conventions for units are more built-in. So I think those should be more generic when possible, like particularly when it comes to the German faction/unit list.

That's me though, and the kind of A&A game I'd enjoy most. I might not be the best barometer of what's popular generally. People can do with the games whatever they like I guess, I just want the maps to look cool! heheh

There's no real need for a new TripleA WW2 game to follow the OOB straightjacket though, since we have a lot more flexibility here in the digital realm. I just wanted to get a World Projection that could work for it too, cause I know that's still TripleA's bread and butter haha. A couple birds with the same stone, was all I was thinking there. If I can draw the TTs and SZs so they work for global, that seems like a good point of reference from which to tweak it out further.

The more I look at the SZ map above, the more the East Indies annoys me. From a graphic design standpoint, I really don't like how those lines are drawn OOB. It creates weird tangents, and also makes the zones hard to adapt. You know like if you wanted to split the SZ further. Just too many diagonals converging in that area OOB. On my next pass I'd like to try a different blocking for that area of the board.

[Schulz]

@black_elk I tend to like more "elegant games" too. The basic concept is achieving the most replayability value with the least complexity as much as possible.

I think elite infantry is the one which provides the most HP per buck which means conscripts or basic infantry. Other expensive ones have some niche uses but they are generally situational and not as versatile as bacis infantry.

A&A has always been only loosely based on WWII. Realism is gone the moment when I can see what is being produced in New York with 100% accuracy as Axis player.