Flames and Steel (official thread)
-
Gibraltar was only 6.8 square kilometres and certainly not plain.
This means that, depending on roughly how much your infantry is supposed to be in terms of infantrymen and stuff, and assuming that artillery, armour and so on are similarly limited, you can have a very low units limit.
This would be both realistic and helping with keeping low the needed area of Gibraltar for showing units in there.
I asked the "AI Mode" of Google "What is the maximum number of infantrymen which could have been defensively deployed in Gibraltar during 1941?"
This was the answer:
During 1941, the maximum number of infantrymen defensively deployed in Gibraltar was approximately 7,000 soldiers, organized into two brigades.
This infantry element formed the backbone of the overall 16,000-man total defensive garrison stationed on the Rock at the time, which also included large numbers of artillerymen, anti-aircraft crews, and Royal Engineers.If the question is framed around structural capacity rather than actual troop counts, the British military dramatically expanded the Rock's underlying infrastructure during this period. Royal Engineers and Canadian engineers excavated an extensive 25-mile network of underground tunnels, living spaces, and hidden fortresses.
Upon its completion, this massive subterranean complex was designed with a maximum theoretical capacity to fully house, protect, and sustain a force of 30,000 men for up to 16 months without external resupply. -
I would say that this means that every game for which 1 infantry is representing 20,000 men or more and in which every land unit takes no less capacity on transports than the infantry unit should have a maximum stacking limit of 1 land unit in Gibraltar. (This would mean practically every TripleA basic game.)
-
@Cernel Well, that gets into the whole issue of units in Axis & Allies not actually corresponding to a specific number of anything. They’re an artistic abstraction of capabilities.
Putting a stacking limit in Gibraltar alone would be arbitrary - why not in Malta too then, and Rhodes, and most of the Pacific Islands? And doesn’t that beg the question of the larger land territories getting their own limits? And how high should those be, how much would they vary, and how that would information be conveyed easily to the players?
I think it opens the door to a lot of extra complication and opportunities to run into balancing headaches without really adding much to the quality of the playing experience.
-
@Vendetta First of all, even though the AI mentioned that (and I just copy-pasted it for completess): this is not meant to be any kind of time-related limit: if you can put up to 1 land unit in a specific territory, those land units can stay there forever without any need to be resupplied. Anything which is able to stay in a territory for 1 day, can stay there forever. (Yes, obviously this is not realistic, but it is coherent with the fact that units loaded onto transports can stay loaded forever: you have the same loading limits for a 1 day vojage as well as for a 1 year vojage.) This is not about adding supply limit or starvation dynamics at all, nor adding attacking/defending limits based on frontlines wideness. (It is sort of like ships and loaded transports being able to stay forever in the open sea.)
It was meant to be only an area limit (not front-line, actually total area), meaning the fact that you cannot have more than a quantity of military men and stuff in Gibraltar because there is not enough space to deploy them in there literally anywhere.
You can think at Gibraltar like a transport and a carrier: the limit is akin to the limit by which the game does not allow you to load infinite units onto a transport or land infinite aircraft on a carrier. These are (space-only based) limits that the game has (I assume) for transports and carriers already.
Albeit the AI response added supply considerations (16 months limit for 30,000 men), my suggested limit has NOTHING to do with that, nor with any other kind of limits beside space limits only.
To answer your per se sensible objection (but touching something I did not meant to touch), Malta, Rhodes and most of the Pacific islands would have no limit because, as a matter of space, you could fit more than enough number of men and stuff in there. For example, the area of Malta (only the main island) is 36 times that of Gibraltar. Yes, if we set a limit at 2 for Gibraltar, we could set a limit at 72 (or whatever) for Malta and not have limits for whatever other territory having bigger limits: this would keep the number of territories needing this special rule fairly low (practically only islands as big as Malta or smaller).
Obviously, this does not mean that you can pack Malta of men and stuff so long as you have space for them: there are other limits (mainly resupply limits - living necessities over time), but I was totally not considering those also for Malta itself (for example, under my suggestion, those maximum units in Gibraltar would be able to stay there forever without needing to be resupplied, like I assume it works everywhere else).
I hope this clarifies that I was not opening for stacking limits per territory in general but just expanding the space limits (like in case of transports and carriers) to only a few very marginal situations on land of only extremely small territories like Gibraltar and such. Of course, this is meant to be an arbitrary approximation.
This said, once added such space-only-based stack limits to Gibraltar, only a few other similar realities would need similar limits, for example Midway (but not Hawaii or most other islands, even most small ones).
I hope this clarifies that this was meant to be a marginal case of adding space-only limits to one or at most a few cases of very small territories, not a systematic proposal for stacking limits in general. (Yes, it is limited and arbitrary, but the question would be if the game would be more realistic with or without, everything else being the same, and there is no more to it than that.)
If you then would still prefer no stacking limits at all over a very limited and arbitrary stacking limit system for a very few extremely small territories, that is fine. It's your preference.
-
@KurtGodel7 Rhodes and the Canaries look a lot better now, and most of the naming issues got fixed.
The Philippines are kind of hideous, should see if Claude can try to focus on getting the shape of the islands down better.
The Gibraltar box is another problem spot where the name is floating outside of it. As a magnified blowup area, the square will probably look better if it has a lines or arrow at the corner that connects it with the land enclave.
Lebanon still cuts too far inland. Damascus should share a border with Palestine/Transjordan, and Lebanon should not touch Nejd at all.
One other issue I can see is that neutral and French territories are indistinguishable in color. Even if Vichy France is treated as a neutral power for gameplay purposes, it probably still ought to have its own distinct color to tell it apart from genuine nonbelligerents.
The new map:
Vichy France. When I was first telling Claude to create this map, I had a decent discussion with it about Vichy France. I think Claude had wanted to simulate realism with respect to diplomacy as it pertained to Vichy France. I saw that as one added source of complexity. Added complexity is never justified just to make something more realistic. For complexity to justify itself, it must add to strategic depth. It must give players real choices. To avoid that here, I told Claude to make all Vichy French territory neutral, and to have it defended just like any other neutral territory. Problem solved.
Yes, I could make it a different color than other neutral territory. But that would indicate to the player that Vichy French neutral territory was being treated differently by the game engine than other neutral territory. It would be a false information signal, done for purely historical reasons, and disconnected from actual game play. If someone wants to propose ideas for how Vichy France can be handled I'm all ears. My one constraint is that I would want it handled in a nice, simple way, with no diplomacy-related decisions by the player whatever.
Flames and Steel has avoided diplomacy altogether, except that on rounds 1 and 2 Japan's only wars are against China and neutrals; and America is not at war at all.
-
Gibraltar was only 6.8 square kilometres and certainly not plain.
This means that, depending on roughly how much your infantry is supposed to be in terms of infantrymen and stuff, and assuming that artillery, armour and so on are similarly limited, you can have a very low units limit.
This would be both realistic and helping with keeping low the needed area of Gibraltar for showing units in there.
I asked the "AI Mode" of Google "What is the maximum number of infantrymen which could have been defensively deployed in Gibraltar during 1941?"
This was the answer:
During 1941, the maximum number of infantrymen defensively deployed in Gibraltar was approximately 7,000 soldiers, organized into two brigades.
This infantry element formed the backbone of the overall 16,000-man total defensive garrison stationed on the Rock at the time, which also included large numbers of artillerymen, anti-aircraft crews, and Royal Engineers.If the question is framed around structural capacity rather than actual troop counts, the British military dramatically expanded the Rock's underlying infrastructure during this period. Royal Engineers and Canadian engineers excavated an extensive 25-mile network of underground tunnels, living spaces, and hidden fortresses.
Upon its completion, this massive subterranean complex was designed with a maximum theoretical capacity to fully house, protect, and sustain a force of 30,000 men for up to 16 months without external resupply.You could say that the physical land area Britain actually owned for Gibraltar was small. Too small to station a large army there. Okay, you're probably right about this.
But suppose a nation wanted to station a large army in or near Gibraltar. Because of the lack of room for the army, it would need to take some nearby land from Spain. Germany invades Spain on its very first turn. The concept of taking land away from Spain is hardly far-fetched for this map.
A better example of a space constraint is Midway. Unlike Gibraltar, there is no nearby land for someone to seize if they need more space. The American government stationed planes on Midway--but only a limited number, because space was constrained. If I wanted to simulate this source of realism--which I don't--I would create a small island rule. If something is categorized as a "small island" its garrison must be limited in size.
It's easy to create a lot of rules, exceptions, and special cases, all in favor of realism. Individually each may seem relatively harmless. Their collective weight burdens the player. Before I say yes to anything like this, I ask, "How does this improve game play?" Suppose the answer is, "this was never intended to benefit game play. Its only purpose was to make the game more realistic." At that point, the idea can be dropped. Added complexity is never justified by realism for the sake of realism.
WWII saw enormous technological progress. Production capacity greatly increased. Nations' armies were limited by their available manpower. There was an air war. Losing the air war meant your enemy could strafe your armies and bomb your factories. Flames and Steel is intended to do a much better job of simulating all of this than a normal TripleA map would. I embraced realism in those specific areas because I thought it would improve game play. Adding those things would give the player a richer array of strategic choices.
If Gibraltar's garrison is limited, that means it can't be defended against Allied attack. Which means that America Atlantic's fleet could enter the Mediterranean. Allowing America Atlantic's fleet access to the Mediterranean is a decision about game play. Currently, I believe that the better decision for game play is to allow the Axis to harden Gibraltar, and thus keep the Allies out. If I'm persuaded otherwise--if it turns out that allowing the Allies into the west Mediterranean really would lead to a better game--then I will change rules to allow that to more easily happen.
-
If Gibraltar's garrison is limited, that means it can't be defended against Allied attack.
To be clear, if you can have at most X land units in Gibraltar (which would need to be decided based on a guess of how many infantrymen is an infantry units and the broad assumption that the other land units take about the same space when deployed or in reserve but ready for immediate deployment), you can also attack Gibraltar with at most X land units. (No other rules for land units here.) This would make Gibraltar actually more defensible, possibly much more defensible.
(Obviously, this is an approximation: you should realistically be able to attack with infinite land units but only Y at the same time, with Y lower than X, then, when you win, every land unit exceeding X goes back to the transports (because it never left them), but I'm not proposing front-line based limits or anything else other than a max X both stacking and attacking for a few very small territories like Gibraltar and Midway. Ideally, every territory for which X would be greater than 10 gets infinite - so no limit - for simplicity (yes, an arbitrary upper limit over which not to bother): this would likely include Malta and every island bigger than Malta depending on how many men an infantry unit is representing.)
Moving on to air limits, Gibraltar would also have a maximum air unit limit to land (like an aircraft carrier) (again, arbitrary and limited only to a few extremely small territories like Midway etc.). In this case, however, there is no limit for attacking air units over Gibraltar. (Again, I'm not claiming this is very realistic.)
Practically, the land limit would favour the defenders, and the air limit would favour the attackers.
In case of paratroopers, the limit would be total on land units. For example, if Gibraltar has a land unit limit of 2, you can offload 2 land units, or para-drop 2 land units or 1 of each, no more. (Again, a simplification.)
My point is not that this would be highly realistic, just that it would be more realistic than nothing, everything else being the same (and it is meant to be limited to Gibraltar, Midway and at most a few other similar cases if not just these two).
Whether or not something like Gibraltar could be attacked with paratroopers at all is of course a disputable matter. Personally, I would say that a simple rule that Gibraltar can never be attacked with paratroopers unless completely undefended would be a good special rule to add for Gibraltar and anything else about as small as Gibraltar (as an approximation of how insanely borderline suicidal would such a thing be). An arguably more realistic rule would be limiting it to the unused stacking limit. For example, if Gibraltar has a limit of 2, then you cannot para-drop if there are 2 defenders, can paradrop at most 1 if there is 1 defender and can paradrop at most 2 if it is undefended by land units. In any case, the total attacking land units would never be more than 2.
-
This all beside the fact that, of course, a sea borne assault of Gibraltar would be suicidal with land units only: the guns at Gibraltar would sink whatever thing which can transport land units before it reaches the shoreline. (I'm not an expert, so I do not know if there is any blind spot anywhere, but I doubt that there is any one or that would make a difference in this case.)
The question, in this case, would be whether or not the guns can be silenced with battleships and/or huge bombs, to make the landings possible at all.
Of course, this would be even more special rules for Gibraltar: I'm not proposing them, just saying.
-
To answer your per se sensible objection (but touching something I did not meant to touch), Malta, Rhodes and most of the Pacific islands would have no limit because, as a matter of space, you could fit more than enough number of men and stuff in there. For example, the area of Malta (only the main island) is 36 times that of Gibraltar. Yes, if we set a limit at 2 for Gibraltar, we could set a limit at 72 (or whatever) for Malta and not have limits for whatever other territory having bigger limits: this would keep the number of territories needing this special rule fairly low (practically only islands as big as Malta or smaller).
The support capacity of many islands was tied more to how much drinkable water was available rather than just land area. Malta, for instance, is much larger than Gibraltar, but also had a large civilian population to support, which limited the size of its garrison to about 20,000-30,000 men - not that much more than a maxed out Gibraltar. And that caused heavy strain on the water supply that necesssitated extremely strict rationing and the importing of fuel to pump water out of very deep reservoirs. So full realism demands a lot of case by research on the geography of every particular location, which is beyond the scope of what is fundamentally a beer and pretzels kind of war game.
And anyway, we can’t even really quantify what “1 infantry unit” means in Axis and Allies. Is the Infantry piece supposed to be one division? In that case, the math breaks down at both the micro and the macro ends of the scale - a full division is too large to represent most of the garrisons that were involved in island fighting, while Germany and the USSR have far too few infantry units to represent the full scale of their armies. If you say it’s a brigade, that reduces the micro problem but increases the macro one, if you say it’s a corps, it does the reverse.
Same with planes, if you judge by aircraft carrier deck capacity, a single Fighter or Tactical Bomber unit must represent around 40-50 planes at maximum, but you would need need dozens and dozens of such units on the board at a time to represent the full extent of major power air forces.
The game has always been “vibes based” in that regard. The force mix each country gets is meant to be evocative of their real capabilities, but not literally representative of them. So that only adds to the futility of assigning unit limits to specific territories - now you have to assign an arbitrary value to how many men or machines a particular unit represents, which is not likely to hold up consistently when you start considering every different circumstance on the board.
-
@KurtGodel7 Much better on the maps now. The Gibraltar box looks exactly how I pictured. That could also be a good way to depict other small enclaves like Singapore, Hong Kong, etc at their proper size if you choose.
With regard to coloring Vichy, I understand the logic of simplicity there. But it still looks wrong visually just because France was an actual wartime belligerent and its territories were major historical theaters of operations, so it feels off to see them in the same colors as Spain or Portugal (and also makes it look like they’re all owned by the same power).
I guess part of what’s off-putting about it is that Flames & Steel has generally added more detail and depth versus the base G40 scenario, while this is one of the few cases where it feels like it’s consciously downgrading from the original.
-
If Gibraltar's garrison is limited, that means it can't be defended against Allied attack.
To be clear, if you can have at most X land units in Gibraltar (which would need to be decided based on a guess of how many infantrymen is an infantry units and the broad assumption that the other land units take about the same space when deployed or in reserve but ready for immediate deployment), you can also attack Gibraltar with at most X land units. (No other rules for land units here.) This would make Gibraltar actually more defensible, possibly much more defensible.
(Obviously, this is an approximation: you should realistically be able to attack with infinite land units but only Y at the same time, with Y lower than X, then, when you win, every land unit exceeding X goes back to the transports (because it never left them), but I'm not proposing front-line based limits or anything else other than a max X both stacking and attacking for a few very small territories like Gibraltar and Midway. Ideally, every territory for which X would be greater than 10 gets infinite - so no limit - for simplicity (yes, an arbitrary upper limit over which not to bother): this would likely include Malta and every island bigger than Malta depending on how many men an infantry unit is representing.)
Moving on to air limits, Gibraltar would also have a maximum air unit limit to land (like an aircraft carrier) (again, arbitrary and limited only to a few extremely small territories like Midway etc.). In this case, however, there is no limit for attacking air units over Gibraltar. (Again, I'm not claiming this is very realistic.)
Practically, the land limit would favour the defenders, and the air limit would favour the attackers.
In case of paratroopers, the limit would be total on land units. For example, if Gibraltar has a land unit limit of 2, you can offload 2 land units, or para-drop 2 land units or 1 of each, no more. (Again, a simplification.)
My point is not that this would be highly realistic, just that it would be more realistic than nothing, everything else being the same (and it is meant to be limited to Gibraltar, Midway and at most a few other similar cases if not just these two).
Whether or not something like Gibraltar could be attacked with paratroopers at all is of course a disputable matter. Personally, I would say that a simple rule that Gibraltar can never be attacked with paratroopers unless completely undefended would be a good special rule to add for Gibraltar and anything else about as small as Gibraltar (as an approximation of how insanely borderline suicidal would such a thing be). An arguably more realistic rule would be limiting it to the unused stacking limit. For example, if Gibraltar has a limit of 2, then you cannot para-drop if there are 2 defenders, can paradrop at most 1 if there is 1 defender and can paradrop at most 2 if it is undefended by land units. In any case, the total attacking land units would never be more than 2.
In the early part of WWII, Japan's best tank was the Chi Ha. It later created an upgraded version of that tank: the Kai Shinhoto Chi Ha. But even this upgraded version proved inferior to America's Sherman tanks: inferior armor, inferior main gun. Even a Kai Shinhoto Chi Ha could not successfully attack a Sherman from the front, and so needed to attack from the side or rear. Japan had a tank under development which it believed would equal or exceed the Sherman. Meanwhile, the United States was looking to upgrade from the Sherman, and towards the end of the war a small number of Pershing heavy tanks were produced.
To what extent is this dynamic captured by Flames and Steel? The game starts off with Japan and Italy being able to produce light tanks only. A light tank attacks on a 2, defends on a 1, and has one hitpoint. Whereas, the U.S.S.R., U.K., U.S., and Germany all start with the ability to produce either light tanks or medium tanks. A medium tank attacks and defends on a 3 and takes two hits to kill. Japan and Italy can research tanks tech, which would allow them to produce this kind of tank also. But they have other techs they would rather research first, so it probably won't be until rather deep into the game when they gain the ability to produce medium tanks.
All five of Germany, Japan, the U.S.S.R., the U.K., and the U.S. are able to build special production centers (SPCs). All except Japan are able to use SPCs to produce heavy tanks (or Panthers for Germany, which are basically heavy tanks by another name). A heavy tank attacks and defends on a 4, and has four hitpoints. Late game, Germany can research the King Tiger. This tank fires on a 4 + 4 and has six hitpoints. All of these heavy tanks, Panthers, and King Tigers are considered advanced units. They cannot be purchased with PUs, but can only be received by building SPCs. Your normal units--those purchased with PUs or with manpower points--will generally be much larger in number than your advanced units.
Flames and Steel does not have, and will not have, either coastal guns or paratroopers. If you impose a unit cap for Gibraltar, that unit cap means that it's no longer a competition of unit quantity, and turns into a competition of unit quality. In the latter type of competition Italy would be at a distinct disadvantage due to its inferior tanks tech. To hold Gibraltar, the Axis would need, say, two German tanks there. (Later in the game these could be replaced with Panthers, and eventually King Tigers.) Suppose Britain attacks these two German tanks with two tanks of its own. If amphibious, the two attacking tanks wouldn't get to fire on the first combat round. But Britain would get battleship bombardment instead.
Suppose that conflict ended with a German victory: Germany has one damaged tank left at the end of the battle. Injured units heal at the end of the game round. This means that for now, Germany's tank is still injured. Italy goes after Britain, so it uses the opportunity to ship in a heavy gun. A heavy gun defends on a 4, and has one hitpoint. So now America Atlantic attacks with two tanks, plus battleship bombardment. It brings four hitpoints to this battle, compared to only two hitpoints for the Axis. The Axis has a slight advantage in firepower due to the heavy gun, but America Atlantic is still very likely to win. Injured units heal at the end of the game round. In this case that benefits America Atlantic: any injured units it has will heal immediately after its turn.
On Germany's next turn it ships in two tanks to retake Gibraltar. At first this seems like the cycle starting all over again. But there is a problem. America Atlantic has enough strength to at least damage one of the invading German tanks, if not to kill it outright. This means that Britain will be facing a somewhat weaker defender when it launches its own two tank attack. Which allows Britain to win the battle with its two tank attack. Italy must now retake. It is barely able to do this, and then only because the British force got weakened in the attack. America Atlantic then takes it with two tanks, one tank takes damage, and that damage heals immediately after the end of the round.
I fail to see how any of this makes the game better. It does not increase the strategic depth of the game. It does not make the game more fun. What all this does do is make the game a lot more luck-based. Die rolls in the Gibraltar battle really start to matter. As far as I can tell, you are not actually arguing that a space limitation for Gibraltar makes the game more fun, or adds strategic depth. The sole argument in favor of this which you have made is that a space limitation increases realism.
I would argue that a space limitation decreases the strategic element of the game. If there is a space limitation for Gibraltar, and if it's contested, then on any given turn a nation should send the max number of its best unit to Gibraltar. No thought or strategy needed. Whereas if there is no space cap, then Italy must decide how many resources to use to harden Gibraltar, versus how many resources to use elsewhere. That is absolutely the kind of strategic choice I would want a player to have to make. A space limitation denies the game this strategic choice.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login