Great discussion guys.  One thing that I just noticed is how every navy square you control become an unlimited "factory".  The basic flaw in the Risk model is how you can deploy troops right on the front lines, while in the board game you (of course) had to deploy only at factories.  So the USA or UK player could not pop a whole army off the coast of France...they had to sail there first.

Maybe there should be a limit on how many units can go in a sea territory?

The new unit set-up is really helping Germany now.  From what I can see it puts Russia in a very bad spot.

Though I do agree that in order to win, both sides need competent players. 

I am not sure which side has the edge right now as its hard to find a game where "all things being equal" kind of game.  The skill level is critical now.

Davidny212 wrote:

Great discussion guys.  One thing that I just noticed is how every navy square you control become an unlimited "factory".  The basic flaw in the Risk model is how you can deploy troops right on the front lines, while in the board game you (of course) had to deploy only at factories.  So the USA or UK player could not pop a whole army off the coast of France...they had to sail there first.

Maybe there should be a limit on how many units can go in a sea territory?

The new unit set-up is really helping Germany now.  From what I can see it puts Russia in a very bad spot.

Though I do agree that in order to win, both sides need competent players. 

I am not sure which side has the edge right now as its hard to find a game where "all things being equal" kind of game.  The skill level is critical now.

I could see perhaps making a unit bonus for territories directly adjacent to land, however this would really effect gameplay.  It would mean having to capture pretty much all the sea zones around the beachhead and would be pretty easy to defend, I think.

That makes for a great feature/board designer suggestion though: Can a feature be added for "unit-producing territories" such that a certain percentage of a player's bonus armies go to those territories vs. being able to place freely.  

This is similar to a feature I have asked for in standard WarGear.  I would like to see bonus armies that can only be placed on the continent from which they ostensibly originated.  This has supply-line related implications.  

We have also talked about "spawning" and "barren" territories.  These would be territories that can or can't accept bonus armies.

I like the idea of there being a distinction between the three of these.  The first one (that you are describing could perhaps be called "fertile"). 

edit:  I just read your other post.  "Factory" is a good name too.

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1400/Factory_territories

Can this thread be moved to the Map designers forum?

From my games here so far, it seems that this version of the board basically holds true to the previous version on Warfish, which is reasonably balanced.

As far as the Khazak gambit.. I feel confident in my ability to beat you whether or not you use it : )

BD

BlackDog wrote:

Can this thread be moved to the Map designers forum?

Which thread?

This Topic / Discussion / Conversation.. whatever you want to call it?

Factory Territory thread has been moved to: http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1401p1

What changes were made to Germany for this version of the map?

Ender wrote:

What changes were made to Germany for this version of the map?

Should be none I believe (if you mean from WF version to current live WG version).

Davidny212 wrote:

 

The new unit set-up is really helping Germany now.  From what I can see it puts Russia in a very bad spot.

 

This was what I was questioning...

Ahh, Germany was missing 24 in the sea (sz 5) below Norway and 18 units in Med sea (sz 14).

Yeah, I noticed that. Yet, people still won as Germany. Impressive stuff.

Haven't seen a post here for awhile.  How about some more new players on this map chime in?  What's the question burning in your mind?

AttilaTheHun wrote:

Haven't seen a post here for awhile.  How about some more new players on this map chime in?  What's the question burning in your mind?

I've found myself just loving the FFA version of this board.  But after playing it a few times, I wonder if the deck is stacked against some countries (especially the UK).

I went through the games list and compiled the winners in all 5-player FFA games that were non-fog and below are the results for how many times each nation won:

USSR - 6
Germany - 12
UK - 3
Japan - 8
USA - 15

Now, I understand that the above results are not statistically significant and could have a large bias in who was playing each country at the time.  However, it does seem that USA has a very big advantage in this setup.  Some of that might be because people haven't figured out that you can't ignore the USA and over time that would change. 

The UK just seems railroaded however.   Only 3 wins in 44 games!  And those 3 wins came from falker1976, ATH and Ender - 3 of the top 4 ranked players on the board.  Maybe this will even out over time.

With this board, one can tweak the starting scenario pretty easily.  UK could be given a better spot (with more starting armies and/or having them have Anglo-Egypt instead of South Africa).   When playing against the USA, it always seems that if you had just one more turn before they could get to you it would change things tremendously.  So, I wondered what would happen if they had fewer armies to start the game.  These alterations may totally change the game dynamics, but I'm in favor of that if it gets all 5 nations on equal footing.  Of course, these changes would totally change 2/3/4 player FFAs and make them very lopsided.

That being said, I love the board as is, Toaster did a great job with it, and I hope everyone takes my comments in the spirit of "food for thought".

I think this is a good board and I enjoy playing it, but I can't help comparing it to the real life board game that is perhaps my all-time favorite.

One of the biggest differences is the abscence of factories.  The character of the game is completely changed by the ability to flop 30 to 50 armies next to a high value territory at any time.  To my thinking this gives an advantage to the US.  In the board game the high productivity (IPC generation) of the US is offset by their initial inability to exert force until they build a fleet of transports to threaten Europe and the Pacific.  They can be kicked out of Asia easily by Japan. But on this board they can immediately impact Asia to support Russia and thwart Japan who needs to convert their excess forces into production quickly.

The abscence of factories also drastically changes the dynamic between UK and Germany.  In the board game it takes 5 to 10 turns usually to threaten an invasion of either capital.

I would like to see factories added.  I don't know if this is possible.  A simpler, but also effective 'fix' would be to disallow the placement of armies on sea zones.  This would force the movement of 'armadas' from land zone to land zone and allow the board to better emulate the WWII era strategies this game inspires. 

SquintGnome wrote:

I think this is a good board and I enjoy playing it, but I can't help comparing it to the real life board game that is perhaps my all-time favorite.

One of the biggest differences is the abscence of factories.  The character of the game is completely changed by the ability to flop 30 to 50 armies next to a high value territory at any time.  To my thinking this gives an advantage to the US.  In the board game the high productivity (IPC generation) of the US is offset by their initial inability to exert force until they build a fleet of transports to threaten Europe and the Pacific.  They can be kicked out of Asia easily by Japan. But on this board they can immediately impact Asia to support Russia and thwart Japan who needs to convert their excess forces into production quickly.

The abscence of factories also drastically changes the dynamic between UK and Germany.  In the board game it takes 5 to 10 turns usually to threaten an invasion of either capital.

I would like to see factories added.  I don't know if this is possible.  A simpler, but also effective 'fix' would be to disallow the placement of armies on sea zones.  This would force the movement of 'armadas' from land zone to land zone and allow the board to better emulate the WWII era strategies this game inspires. 

 

 

+1!

SquintGnome wrote:

I think this is a good board and I enjoy playing it, but I can't help comparing it to the real life board game that is perhaps my all-time favorite.

One of the biggest differences is the abscence of factories.  The character of the game is completely changed by the ability to flop 30 to 50 armies next to a high value territory at any time.  To my thinking this gives an advantage to the US.  In the board game the high productivity (IPC generation) of the US is offset by their initial inability to exert force until they build a fleet of transports to threaten Europe and the Pacific.  They can be kicked out of Asia easily by Japan. But on this board they can immediately impact Asia to support Russia and thwart Japan who needs to convert their excess forces into production quickly.

The abscence of factories also drastically changes the dynamic between UK and Germany.  In the board game it takes 5 to 10 turns usually to threaten an invasion of either capital.

I would like to see factories added.  I don't know if this is possible.  A simpler, but also effective 'fix' would be to disallow the placement of armies on sea zones.  This would force the movement of 'armadas' from land zone to land zone and allow the board to better emulate the WWII era strategies this game inspires. 

 

 

Both of these are now possible.

As I recall, someone (maybe Thingol?) had a dev game going with capitals and factories, but it's still in testing as far as I know.