Idea: How to make the Pacific more valuable

[series]

I thought of a rule change to make the islands more worth fighting for and more historically accurate to realistic strategies:

"You may not exit a sea zone which contains an enemy controlled Island or Gibralter."

This will force the allies to capture the tiny islands in the pacific if they want to get anywhere. The only thing I don't like is that there's no iwo jima to the right of Japan (since okinawa is to the south), because that would put this idea into much greater use. This will force people to actually capture enemy islands. And I heard a lot of people requesting Gibralter Control to get through the sea zones. Well, that works. However, this rule would not apply to aircraft.

[Doctor Strategy]

Series,

That is a noble attempt. The Allies will not be sending any naval units through the Pacific as there is nothing of value except the extremely over valued East Indies and Borneo at 4 each. They are only islands after all, why should their production be greater than half of Canada. They have nerve for complaining when you suggest raising other islands to 2 IPCs. Which game is right about the historical output of East Indies and Borneo? The original Axis and Allies had East Indies at 2 IPCs and Borneo Celebes at 1 IPC. I understand that they wanted to increase Japan's output. But the extra 5 pts could have spread the wealth around the Pacific Islands. They created in their words a prize for the allies to go for. It is nearly impossible for the allies to take these areas as Japan starts off too strong. The only way is if Japan ignores the area to tank dash to Moscow. India soon falls without aid and unless they put an IC there and hold it forget about obtaining the prize as there is nothing nearby other than the meager navy of the UK in the Mediterranean, oops my mistake any competent German player will sink these on G1. The Indian Ocean fleet might as well pull out as they cannot mount any opposition to the might of the Japanese fleet parked nearby. To fix this problem the UK should have started the game with an IC in India. The Japanese would then be worried about losing the East Indies, Borneo, and the Philippines for a total of 11 IPCs lost. Ouch that will leave a mark.

[series]

I'm not sure if I completely get what your saying... I think your saying why should borneo and etc. be worth 4 when many islands are worth 0, and that the allies should start with an IC in India (since they will build one anyway).

[Doctor Strategy]

I'm not sure if I completely get what your saying... I think your saying why should borneo and etc. be worth 4 when many islands are worth 0, and that the allies should start with an IC in India (since they will build one anyway).

Yes, Series you are correct. The UK can then place units there on the first turn to help take away the prize and maybe some mainland Asia Japan holdings. I feel these territories were raised to allow conflit over them but IMO the Allies have a snowball's chance in hell of getting them. An IC in India helps give them a fighting chance. I cannot believe that the UK would have the most vast empire in the world and not have any factories anywhere else in the world to maintain control. How about we do away with ICs all together and just assume you can build anywhere you control at the current IPC value. Just a thought as this also makes each territory more valuable and realistic as I'm sure there weren't just factories in select territories. Alas this does away with SBRs but you could just make it a capital bombing instead.

[OctavianNT]

Yo doc,
India and Africa were now where near being industrialized at the time of world war 2 maybe Austrillia.

[Vollick1979]

I thought of a rule change to make the islands more worth fighting for and more historically accurate to realistic strategies:

"You may not exit a sea zone which contains an enemy controlled Island or Gibralter."

This will force the allies to capture the tiny islands in the pacific if they want to get anywhere. The only thing I don't like is that there's no iwo jima to the right of Japan (since okinawa is to the south), because that would put this idea into much greater use. This will force people to actually capture enemy islands. And I heard a lot of people requesting Gibralter Control to get through the sea zones. Well, that works. However, this rule would not apply to aircraft.

The rule makes no sense at all series. A failed amphibious assult could result in a fleet being *locked* in a sz around an island. As long as no land units could be transported in to take the island the fleet couldn't leave. This would make those Japanese islands in the south pacific more like leper colonies than territories worth taking. And how in the world could this rule change me construed as historically accurate? The boats can just sail away from the island!

Other than complex rule changes series there are two ways making territories worth fighting for.
1. High IPC values
2. Make them VC's

As for the pacific islands which were important strategically but had very little economic power i think make them VC's or minor VC's over the increased IPC's.

[Clausewitz]

The extra income for the East Indies territories is meant to reflect the large oil reserves produced here, although in truth most facilities were destroyed before the Japanese arrived, and the invaders lacked the technology to repair them. Shipping the oil to Japan also became an increasing problem for the Japanese. In game terms the added values were a (failed) attempt to make the Pacific more important.

On my Rising Sun Redux map I've included Iwo Jima and many other Pacific islands, I've also recommended reducing the movement allowance of aircraft to give island bases their historical importance.

[series]

The reason these rules are historically accurate is because it forces you to go island by island like they did in the real war, instead of just going for the big islands and ignoring the rest.

[Vollick1979]

Yes but if you make the islands worth fighting for in the first place (ie some strategic importance) you won't need to make up silly rules to achieve your goal! :P

[DocD]

hell no series.

[series]

Yes but if you make the islands worth fighting for in the first place (ie some strategic importance) you won't need to make up silly rules to achieve your goal! :P
Thats the problem, there is no strategic importance to islands whatsoever in this game. Not even adding victory cities makes this more realistic.

[DocD]

you do have a point there series, but inhibiting fleet movement is not the way to go. To bad there is no supply points in this game otherwise they could be used to make those islands more attractive to the US.
Say the US could capture so many islands and prevent so many Japanese units from moving or limiting how many units they could produce at their IC or something like that.

[Vollick1979]

Thats the problem, there is no strategic importance to islands whatsoever in this game. Not even adding victory cities makes this more realistic.

I'm interested in why you think that the addition of VC's to the Pacific Islands wouldn't make them targets? Personally if i can capture a few islands that are weekly defended to gain a VC then i'll do it. Plus this also forces the Japanese player to defend these islands in order to maintain the VC.

[series]

I'm interested in why you think that the addition of VC's to the Pacific Islands wouldn't make them targets? Personally if i can capture a few islands that are weekly defended to gain a VC then i'll do it. Plus this also forces the Japanese player to defend these islands in order to maintain the VC.
Well, the main reason is because its ahistorical. We captured the islands for airbases, ports, and etc, not because the fine print of the war declaration said "When Austrailia is captured, we will surrender." And I have another point about this I am gonna post in another topic.

[pagan]

I say NO to this Series idea. I also refuse to vote to allow it any credence of being even a consideration.

[Drax Kramer]

Without changing the map (and making islands touching several zones instead of hidden within a single one), the only possible way to reflect the historical political necessity of defending Australia and India as well as strategic necessity of defending Hawaii is to make these territories victory cities.

A&A is too simple game for political rules or detailed supply rules. Instead of them, we can use the simple existing game mechanism called "victory city" to cover the situations where major powers historically fought without direct economic reason.

Of course that Allies would not have surrendered had Japanese captured Australia. However, I am fairly confident that Americans would have surrendered even if Moscow fell and would still had a good shot to eventually win the war. Does it mean we all must play for total victory conditions?

In order to win the game, Axis don't necessarily have to win the war. I would not feel less victorious as an Axis player if I "only" won a Minor Victory if it has been won after fair fight.

I am yet to find a Japanese player from A&A:P who doesn't feel victorious when he wins on points despite the fact that he was going to lose every single unit on board had the game continued indefinitely.


To conclude. Historically, Americans invested resources in Pacific because it was politically unacceptable to leave initiative to Japanese and lose any more territory.

The only existing mechanism to simulate this are the victory cities. Ergo, there should have been more victory cities placed in the Pacific to make Americans invest in their defense.


Drax

[DocD]

I like your train of thought Drax. But I don't think VCs belong on the small islands of the Pacific. (unless you do a vollick variant)
A island bases, which reflect the value of these islands as much as anything. Using a standard rule like this for the US may be the key.

[cousin_joe]

I thought of a rule change to make the islands more worth fighting for and more historically accurate to realistic strategies:

"You may not exit a sea zone which contains an enemy controlled Island or Gibralter."

This will force the allies to capture the tiny islands in the pacific if they want to get anywhere. The only thing I don't like is that there's no iwo jima to the right of Japan (since okinawa is to the south), because that would put this idea into much greater use. This will force people to actually capture enemy islands. And I heard a lot of people requesting Gibralter Control to get through the sea zones. Well, that works. However, this rule would not apply to aircraft.
Sounds silly to me :) How is a garrison of INF in Midway going to stop my Japanese Fleet from leaving the surrounding SZ? You really should put a little more thought into your ideas before posting them, rather than just posting whatever comes to mind :rolleyes:

[sking500]

Sounds silly to me :) How is a garrison of INF in Midway going to stop my Japanese Fleet from leaving the surrounding SZ? You really should put a little more thought into your ideas before posting them, rather than just posting whatever comes to mind :rolleyes:

Cut him some slack CJ...at least this post has stimulated some conversation on a valid subject. Truthfully, most of the Southern Pacific area has rarely been touched in the A&A games I've played. Unfortunately the design of the game minimizes the real effect it would have had on the war had the Japanese captured Australia...the Pacific would've been cut in two. The havoc this would have wreaked upon the Allies' supply lines, and strategic planning would have been horrendous. It also would have made the war much simpler for the Japanese as they would have been able to operate with impugnity in most of the Pacific, and been able to consolidate their thin front line into two concentrated efforts.

While, ultimately, this may not be the best solution, it has offered some interesting conversation on the subject, and, hopefully, will stimulate AH to address the issue better in future A&A versions.

[Clausewitz]

I'm convinced that the key to all this is to reduce aircraft movement allowances. The only reason the US bothered to take any Pacific Islands, other than those regarded as home territory (Phillipines, Guam, Attu), was for use as bases, particularly for the bombing offensive against Japan which was clearly going to be the war winning strategy. Alternately you could add air bases to the relevant islands to make them more attractive targets.

Adding IPCs and VCs to islands is a cheap and cheesy method. We should be trying to give them their historical strategic importance which is really all about movement and distances. I'm also in favour of adding CAP rules to AAR. On my redux map I've added islands to virtually every sea zone with this in mind. Consider allied CAPS on the line Attu-Midway-Hawaii-Samoa-New Zealand. Consider Japanese CAPS on the outer perimiter of it's island posessions. Now consider why these tiny territories were considered worth fighting over.

[CanucKev]

While I'm not exactly an A&A expert (as you will soon find out from this and other upcoming posts), how about adding convoy centres (a la A&A:Pacific) in the Pacific Ocean? Although, it does sound like you guys are traditionalists and don't like the idea of changing the board. I haven't thought of how much they'd be, where they'd be, and whether they'd affect island income (as in how convoy routes in Pacific will deny income from an island if it's route is held by the enemy).
As before, taking a convoy centre wouldn't give the capturer the income, it would just deny the original owner the income.
I suppose these convoys should go to the Japanese - since they needed all those islands for resources, it's logical to assume they needed convoys to move the resources! And, if the Axis are behind the 8-ball with IPC production *anyway*, a few extra IPCs per turn couldn't hurt.
Would this be enough to encourage more combat in the Pacific? This way, you don't have to throw in a few unwanted victory cities.
As for victory cities, and the feeling that taking Calcutta and Honolulu (for example) simply doesn't feel like winning the war, you don't have to play that way. Frankly, if you wanted to go back to the capture of 2 capitals as the sole victory condition, you can do that and ignore the victory cities. As far as I can tell, victory cities are simply a device to allow the game to finish earlier.

[Doctor Strategy]

CanucKev,

I never did like the fact that convoys could be captured and deny the income to the owning country. The convoys were held hostage preventing them from reaching their destination. What kind of garbage is that? They were often sunk. At the beginning of the war convoy and supply ships were detained and looted. But after formal declaration of war on the US by the Tripartite, they were often sunk by submarines without regards to looting the merchant ships. Their goal was to deny the products from getting to their destination. How can the country lose income from a sunk ship? They already invested on whatever was on the ship so you want to penalize them with a further loss. This doesn't make sense to me. Let me see. I spent 10 million making these rifles. I could have sold them to the UK for 15 million. Darn I lost 15 Million. Wrong, you only lost 10 million. The Germans sinking a large amout of trading and merchant ships did little more than slow the US down a little. By the end of the war the US had nearly 50% of the worlds total airplane and vehicle forces.

[DocD]

CanucKev,

I never did like the fact that convoys could be captured and deny the income to the owning country. The convoys were held hostage preventing them from reaching their destination. What kind of garbage is that? They were often sunk. At the beginning of the war convoy and supply ships were detained and looted. But after formal declaration of war on the US by the Tripartite, they were often sunk by submarines without regards to looting the merchant ships. Their goal was to deny the products from getting to their destination. How can the country lose income from a sunk ship? They already invested on whatever was on the ship so you want to penalize them with a further loss. This doesn't make sense to me. Let me see. I spent 10 million making these rifles. I could have sold them to the UK for 15 million. Darn I lost 15 Million. Wrong, you only lost 10 million. The Germans sinking a large amout of trading and merchant ships did little more than slow the US down a little. By the end of the war the US had nearly 50% of the worlds total airplane and vehicle forces.
I don't think 'captured convoy boxes' actually means captured. If I'm not mistaken the convoy boxes just meant lost of material (iPC) for that round.
'Capturing the boxes' is just an abstract way of representing that in game terms.

[Doctor Strategy]

I don't think 'captured convoy boxes' actually means captured. If I'm not mistaken the convoy boxes just meant lost of material (iPC) for that round.
'Capturing the boxes' is just an abstract way of representing that in game terms.

Yes, it does mean the convoy is sunk.(pg 17 AAE). The country that owned the convoy center then loses the income until they gain control of the area back. Huh? The only way this should be possible is if maybe the German player keeps naval units in the zone and still represent it sinking convoys but to just move through and maintain control that is stupid. Convoy centers do not really belong in the game as the vast majority of ships made were merchant vessels. Sinking a few out of hundreds doesn't do much. And are the developers going to add the element of how much production do you spend on trade ships vs. war units. This complexity doesn't belong in a "light" wargame. It works well for computer war games though.

[DocD]

Yes, it does mean the convoy is sunk.(pg 17 AAE). The country that owned the convoy center then loses the income until they gain control of the area back. Huh? The only way this should be possible is if maybe the German player keeps naval units in the zone and still represent it sinking convoys but to just move through and maintain control that is stupid. Convoy centers do not really belong in the game as the vast majority of ships made were merchant vessels. Sinking a few out of hundreds doesn't do much. And are the developers going to add the element of how much production do you spend on trade ships vs. war units. This complexity doesn't belong in a "light" wargame. It works well for computer war games though.
Not to want to get into a large discussion here. But I think the convoy boxes represent merchant losses quite well. Besides, subs should be given something historical to do.

[Doctor Strategy]

DocD,

I don't know if you read this yet. This may be a better way and it gives subs something to do also historical. Germany had subs camped out in the gulf of Mexico after all.

http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=26394&postcount=5

[TrimChris]

DocD,

I don't know if you read this yet. This may be a better way and it gives subs something to do also historical. Germany had subs camped out in the gulf of Mexico after all.

http://boards.avalonhill.com/showpost.php?p=26394&postcount=5

Did the wandering subs in the GOM actually do anything?

[Doctor Strategy]

Yes, they sank convoy and merchant ships. You might be surprise to know that the overwhelming majority of ships sunk during the war weren't war ships they were supply and merchant ships.

[TrimChris]

Interesting. Somehow these last posts have nothing to do with island hopping though.

[Doctor Strategy]

Did the wandering subs in the GOM actually do anything?
Yes, check out this cool web site in the link below it shows a graph where every US ship was lost including GOM.

http://www.usmm.org/shipsunkdamaged.html

Allied merchant shipping losses during the war were as follows:
Year Number of vessels Tonnage
1939 221 755,237
1940 1,059 3,991,641
1941 1,299 4,328,558
1942 1,664 7,790,697
1943 597 3,220,137
1944 205 1,045,629
1945 105 438,821
----------------------------------------------------
Total 5,150 21,570,720
Of the 5,150 Allied merchant vessels sunk, 2,828 were victims of Axis submarines, principally German. The parallel German submarine losses (revised according to the latest British Admiralty assessment) therefore furnish an interesting in dication of the gradual Allied success in antisubmarine warfare:
Year Loss
1939 9
1940 24
1941 35
1942 87
1943 237
1944 242
1945 151
----------------
Total 785

[Doctor Strategy]

Interesting. Somehow these last posts have nothing to do with island hopping though.

Well, you're the one that asked. And they do relate in a way as blockading the US/UK took away resources and convoy and support ships were also raided in the Pacific as well by Japan.

[series]

Although, it does sound like you guys are traditionalists and don't like the idea of changing the board.
Just talk to me or clauswitz or elbowmaster I believe if you have any board changes you think sound good. I for one love that stuff. Some people *cough cough* joe *cough* detest them, and most people just hate them. I don't. I like your convoy center idea. Sounds pretty cool. That was one of my favorite things of pacific after all. Besides victory points.

[CanucKev]

What proposed rule changes *always* seem to come down to is playability vs. realism. It depends what's most important to you. Myself, if something's too radical to be realistic (ie, you roll a 6, and aliens from Mars land on Moscow and destroy all the infantry), then it's out of the question. But if there's something that can simulate realism, or not change the realism much, and improve playability, then I'm all for it. That's why you play the game anyway - for it's playability. Realism is just one of the best ASPECTS of the game.

I saw a post mentioning that encouraging island-hopping would be good, because then the Japanese and Americans would follow a course of action more like how the second world war actually went. But how is that the point? How is it good to encourage the Japanese player to follow their historical counterpart? a) they lost, and b) the point is it's a game to play, not a re-enactment, and c) one of the best things is you can effectively re-write history!!!!!! Even the back of the 2nd edition box says, "the Battle of Midway may never happen, and Normandy could be invaded again and again." Awesome!

That said, it would be nice if there was some more action in the Pacific, just to get the entire world into, well, World War II. Obviously they were fighting over SOMETHING to make the Pacific one of two theatres of war - so why isn't that "something" included in the game? And what is that "something"? Air bases, naval bases, convoys ... I think making the Pacific more valuable brings it closer to realism, AND increases playability. No longer do the Americans head straight for Paris, and the Japanese straight for Russia ...

OK. This is a long post. Halfway done :)

Convoy centres maybe aren't perfectly realistic, but I think they work pretty darn well. Nothing is perfectly realistic in this game, anyway. Anyway, if you invest $10million to make rifles off-shore, and then those rifles are sunk in the shipping, then you HAVE lost $10million. As for how you don't have to leave a unit on the convoy centre to remain in control of it, I believe you have to keep in mind that a unit is simply representative of a large number of actual ships. I think it's safe to assume that a division (or whatever) of submarines capturing a convoy centre means that, after that division (unit) has left, there are still some subs (not represented by pieces on the board) prowling the waters for the occasional merchant convoy that is passing through. After all, those merchant convoys aren't represented by pieces on the board ...

I'm not in the least bit surprised to hear that more merchant ships than warships were sunk during WWII. Most of those ships weren't even expected to return ...

So, that's my opinion on convoy centres. The income can't be captured by enemy powers - just as merchant ships weren't really captured, either - but the income CAN be denied of you - just as some merchant ships didn't make it.

Here are some other ideas I had, but would need help with figuring out properly:

Add air bases to some islands, making them more strategic in value - which islands?

Add naval bases to some islands - see above.

Perhaps a convoy like the Burma Road in A&A:P - a line connecting two territories, and if the line is ever broken, the convoy is disrupted (I don't think I really like this idea).

Finally, convoy ROUTES as in A&A:P. This is where most islands have a convoy route associated with them in a sea zone adjacent to the island. The convoy route (sea zone) itself has no IPC value (as oppose to convoy CENTRES), but in order to collect the production from the island's IPC value, you must control BOTH the island AND the convoy route. This would probably encourage island-hopping a bit more.

[DocD]

I saw a post mentioning that encouraging island-hopping would be good, because then the Japanese and Americans would follow a course of action more like how the second world war actually went. But how is that the point? How is it good to encourage the Japanese player to follow their historical counterpart? a) they lost, and b) the point is it's a game to play, not a re-enactment, and c) one of the best things is you can effectively re-write history!!!!!! Even the back of the 2nd edition box says, "the Battle of Midway may never happen, and Normandy could be invaded again and again." Awesome!

That's a good post canuckev....but I have to speak on this part.
I hate it when people say hey you can't make Japan follow a historical route in the game otherwise the Axis lose the game.

Hey Germany is following a historical route and nobody seems to mind that!!

Maybe everybody but me has Germany sending troop laden transports to Washington DC. Ok that makes sense because we don't want to force germany to have to fight USSR or fend off a Allied DDay, I mean that's the historical route.

What's that?? you don't send german transports to eastern USA....you actually fight Russia on a wide front like they did in history???

Well, how about adding Japan to the fun. How come Japan can't be asked to do what it did in WWII and fight in the Pacific. Not that it has to mind you!! But the option should not only be there, but hell give them a chance to even win with it!!!

OK, docd better now.

[Lt M Cotten]

I personally like to play the game where ahistorical results CAN happen if they are at least possible for the time period, BUT I do not think that the game must be played out historically turn for turn.
It should have a feel that reflects the goals of each of the nations and a method for them to be carried out. Some agreement between players can cure what many rules may not. Hey, if the historical modifications make the game imbalanced then bid higher, if the bid are consistantly above some point then maybe a modification may be need to be made to offset this.
One point of this forum is to try to discuss, maybe improve, then test the proposal, then give results for the test, on one of the greatest strategy games ever. I have played this game since the mid 80's, and still find it interesting; that says a lot about a game, and how good it is, even if it is not perfect.....

[cousin_joe]

I personally like to play the game where ahistorical results CAN happen if they are at least possible for the time period, BUT I do not think that the game must be played out historically turn for turn.
It should have a feel that reflects the goals of each of the nations and a method for them to be carried out. Some agreement between players can cure what many rules may not. Hey, if the historical modifications make the game imbalanced then bid higher, if the bid are consistantly above some point then maybe a modification may be need to be made to offset this.
One point of this forum is to try to discuss, maybe improve, then test the proposal, then give results for the test, on one of the greatest strategy games ever. I have played this game since the mid 80's, and still find it interesting; that says a lot about a game, and how good it is, even if it is not perfect.....I like to play the game where Historical results can happen, particularly Japan focused on the Pacific and not Moscow, a D-Day invasion, and subs doing economic damage. I don't mind when the ahistorical stuff happens, that's fine (unless extremely ahistorical, like Japan conquering Moscow), there's a point when things get too historic. At a bare minimum though, the 3 things I mentioned should be at least possible, which is not the case with either LHTR or AH rules.

[CanucKev]

Well, I guess I should have said that Japan can have the option to follow history or rewrite it - because I believe in that, too (Japan being allowed to do what they like). Obviously there are a lot of factors (almost an infinite amount!) from WWII that aren't and couldn't be included in A&A, but I don't recall Japan getting much past where they start in the game. I guess what I'm saying is, if my hunch is correct (Japan didn't expand much more than where they're at in the game), and the Japanese player follows the same idea (hunkers down in the territories he's got), then I suspect he'd lose.
But it's absolutely not a bad thing to follow history (whether coincidentally or on purpose) and see what you get. The Germans capture Stalingrad, the Japanese hold Leyte. What happened then? Who knows! Now simply from a different outcome of two battles, Moscow could fall much more easily and the Japanese may have been able to deter the Americans. I guess what I really meant to be saying was "OK, Hitler's army was 1/5 the size of Stalin's on July 23 1940, so I'll send 2 infantry against your 10" is sticking a bit too close to history.
But - what do you think of my convoy/bases ideas?