ARGO'S MIDDLEWEIGHT 1939
Welcome to Argo's Middleweight Map! My goal in creating this map was to offer a WW2 experience that is more realistic and flexible than traditional maps like 1942.2, Anniversary, and Global without adding much more in the way of extra territories or extra rules. Instead of using national objectives, I've simply made each territory worth at least $1. Instead of asking players to build harbors and airbases, I've put islands in the middle of multiple sea zones so that owning islands naturally extends your forces' mobility. Instead of throwing a ton of 1-IPC "barrier territories" in Siberia and western China, I've tried to simply give the Russians and the Chinese enough resources and enough plausible factory sites that they have a reasonable chance to defend themselves against early Japanese attacks. My hope is that this new map will offer you enough different pathways to make interesting strategic decisions, but not so many that you get bogged down in micro-management.
This is an beta version -- it should be fully playable, but you may find some minor bugs or an unbeatable strategy. Please read the notes all the way through, play at your own risk, and send feedback to Argothair or to jasongreenlowe@gmail.com.
| Alliances | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Axis | Allies | ||
| Germans | |||
| French | |||
| Russians | |||
| Japanese | |||
| British | |||
| Italians | |||
| Americans | |||
| Chinese | |||
(Nations listed in their Turn Order.)
| Land Units | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Name | Att | Def | Move | Cost | Special Abilities | |
| Infantry | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Fits on Cutter | ||
| Artillery | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |||
| Flak | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | AAA @1 on off., @2 on def. | ||
| Jeep | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | Blitz | ||
| Halftrack | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Blitz | ||
| Tank | 4 | 2 | 2 | 6 | Blitz | ||
| Commando | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | Fits on Cutter, Glider, or Cruiser; no amphib. penalty | ||
| Naval Units | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Name | Att | Def | Move | Cost | Special Abilities |
| Cutter | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Carries 1 Inf. or Commando | |
| Submersible | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | Destroys up to 2 credits if adj. to land | |
| Destroyer | 2 | 3 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Transport | 0 | 1 | 2 | 7 | Carries 1 Inf/Commando plus 1 other land unit | |
| Cruiser | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | Bombards; carries 1 Commando | |
| Carrier | 1 | 2 | 2 | 11 | Carries any 2 planes | |
| Battleship | 5 | 4 | 2 | 13 | Bombards | |
| Air Units | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Name | Air Att | Air Def | Land/Sea Att | Land/Sea Def | Move | Cost | Special Abilities |
| Biplane | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 | Scramble to adj. sea zone | |
| Fighter | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 12 | Scramble to adj. sea zone | |
| Interceptor | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 10 | Scramble to adj. sea zone | |
| Glider | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 8 | Carries 1 Commando | |
| Strategic Bomber | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 12 | Destroys 1d6 credits by raiding factory/barracks | |
| Dive Bomber | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 14 | Scramble to adj. sea zone | |
| Buildings | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Name | Source | Effect |
| Factory | Cannot be built | Build any type of unit | |
| Barracks | Costs 10 credits | Build Inf, Art, Flak, Commando, Jeep, Cutter, Sub, DD, Transport, Biplane | |
| Bunker | Cannot be built | Static unit; defends at 4. Only one hit. | |
Welcome to Argo's Middleweight Map for 1939!
Several rules that are common in other versions of TripleA have been dropped from Argo's Middleweight maps to keep the overall weight of the game "medium." What this means is that more units now behave in a "default" way and do not have any special properties other than their attack/defense/move ratings.
- Submarines now behave like any other sea unit -- they no longer strike first, submerge, evade air units, ignore air units, or allow transports to ignore them.
- Transports now behave like any other sea units -- they are not defenseless, and they can be chosen as casualties.
- Bombers no longer damage factories; instead they just cost you Production Units directly out of your treasury.
- Factories no longer have inherent AA capabilities; you must put air defenses with your factories if you want to protect them from bombers.
- AAA units (called flak) are no longer treated as equipment or restricted to non-combat move; they move and fight just like any other unit.
- Artillery no longer 'boost' infantry; instead artillery just have a high attack and a low defense. They synergize well with infantry, but they don't add a special bonus.
- All land units that can move more than one territory can always blitz. Empty neutral countries do not interrupt a blitz.
- You do not need a capital to produce units. If your enemy conquers your capital, they will steal your treasury for that turn, but next turn you can earn new income from your remaining territories and continue producing units as normal.
- Along similar lines, the Chinese economy works the same as everyone else's economy. They don't raise guerilla armies and they can only produce at barracks and factories.
There are also a few new rules that are not found in other versions of TripleA:
- Submarine Blockades: Each submarine next to *any* land territory will reduce that territory's income by 2 points, down to a minimum of 0. The game will report this income loss as a "blockade."
- Air Superiority Battles: Any battles that include both air units and anti-air units (flak, biplanes, interceptors, or fighters) will have a single round of air superiority combat that precedes the main battle. You will have to click on the "air battle" from the list of battles during your turn, just like you have to resolve sea battles before you can resolve an amphibious assault. The game will enforce this rule for you when playing against humans. The AI sometimes ignores this rule, which generates a harmless error message.
- Downgrade Captured Factories: When you capture your enemy's factory, it is automatically downgraded to a barracks. When you capture your enemy's barracks, it is automatically destroyed, but you can pay to rebuild it later.
- Heavy Units Need Major Factories: High-tech units like halftracks, tanks, cruisers, carriers, battleships, interceptors, gliders, bombers, and fighters can only be built in your starting factories. If all of your factories are destroyed, this means you will no longer be able to build these units! China does not start with any proper factories, so they cannot build these units.
- Amphibious Assault Penalty: Artillery, Tanks, Jeeps, and Halftracks only attack at 1 during an amphibious assault. This penalty only applies to the units that are actually exiting from a boat; if you mix a regular assault and an ambphibious assault, then the units that attacked by land will keep their normal attack values. Air units and naval bombardments still work at regular strength.
- Paratroopers: Each glider aircraft can carry one commando unit as cargo. The glider and commando must begin their movement from the same territory. They can travel as part of the combat move, or as part of the non-combat move. You do not need any technology to use paratroopers. Paratroopers can conquer an enemy territory, but their glider will still have to return to a territory that was friendly at the beginning of your turn, just like other air units. Paratroopers cannot be intercepted, so make sure to garrison your factories if your opponent has a commando and glider nearby. To activate a paratrooper, do not click on the commando. Instead, click on the glider plane(s) and give the glider plane(s) orders. You will then be prompted to choose how many paratroopers to load onto the glider plane(s).
- Fast Cruisers: Each cruiser can carry one commando unit as cargo. The cruiser can pick up and unload the commando just like a transport would, but each cruiser can only carry one commando at a time, and cruisers cannot carry any other units. Unlike other ships, cruisers can move up to 3 spaces! This is enough to cross an entire ocean, so be sure to garrison your factories if your opponent has both cruisers and commandos in your region.
- Slow Cutters: A cutter is the cheapest naval unit; it represents patrol boats, landing crafts, and other very small vessels that would operate near the coastline. Each cutter can carry one infantry or commando, but the cutter can only move one space. Unlike regular transports, cutters have a modest combat ability; they hit on a roll of 1 on both offense and defense.
- Automatic Scrambles: You can scramble an unlimited amount of biplanes, interceptors, and fighters from any territory you control into adjacent sea zones. This means that the main point of carriers is to project air power into sea zones where you do not control (or cannot protect) any territories.
- Canals: There are several canals where you must control the relevant territor(ies) in order to pass through with any surface ships. Submarines and air units can always get through canals, even if you don't own any of the territories. Canals are marked with one or two blue dots showing the territories that must be owned. I believe the game will automatically enforce these restrictions; please let me know if you see any problems. There is also one "land canal", marked with red circles. You must own Stalingrad in order to pass overland from South Russia to the Volga or from the Volga to South Russia. Note that the Solomon Sea Zone is *not* a canal, and you are *not* required to own the Solomon Islands to pass through it. However, if your opponent owns the Solomon Islands, then they would be able to scramble airplanes from the islands to oppose your landings in adjacent sea zones.
- Opportunistic Colonies: Most colonies and client states (Cuba, Morocco, Sudan, Azerbaijan, etc.) have their original owners treated as neutral, so any friendly power can liberate them. For example, if America lands in an Italian-occupied Morocco, it will become American, not French. By contrast, core territories (e.g. Southeast US, Normandy, Sicily, Caucasus, etc.) have their original owners hard-coded into the game. If America lands in a German-occupied Normandy, it will become French, not American. This has nothing to do with whether a nation currently owns its capital.
Strategy Hints:
- Germany can take the Romanian factory on turn 1, which then becomes a barracks. This can give Germany an early start on the eastern front. Be careful! Germany can't always afford to fill it. Another option is to let Russia take the factory and be ready to counter-attack, destroying the barracks.
- Germany starts with control of Argentina and a small South Atlantic navy. The Allies will usually be able to conquer Argentina, but if Germany builds a barracks there immediately and sends in reinforcements, that's not guaranteed!
- Germany has enough starting troops to recreate the historical blitz of 1939-1940, taking Norway, Denmark, Benelux, western Poland, and eastern France all at once. However, making all of those attacks at once is risky, and can leave Germany over-extended even if all goes well. Consider taking two or even three turns to consolidate control of central Europe. By the same token, don't wait too long to knock out the French! If you don't take Paris in the first few turns, and the British focus on reinforcing them, then you might lose the Battle of France.
- France can make a desperate defense of its homeland, bringing colonial forces north to guard Marseilles, or France can prepare for the inevitable and build an early barracks in Morocco or the Lower Congo. If you choose the latter strategy, make sure to adequately defend your colonial headquarters!
- Russia has several good sites to put a barracks -- Kiev, Caucasus, Stalingrad, Volga, Omsk, or even Buryatia, if the Japanese send everything south. You cannot, however, afford to build units in all of those places each turn, so pick a couple of fronts and stick to them.
- Japan can sink the US battleship off Hawaii on turn 1, and set up to take Alaska and Hawaii on turn 2, but that's not where the money is. The Chinese front is fragile and usually requires reinforcement.
- Britain is the wealthiest player, but their empire hangs by a thread in the first few moves -- if you want to keep control of Africa, India, and Australia, then you'll need to figure out where you can build overseas barracks that you'll be able to defend. Conversely, if you want to stalemate Germany in France, then you may need to throw everything you've got into transports and infantry and destroyers to feed troops across the Channel. Consider building transports in Canada to make use of the factory there (the Atlantic Ocean is narrower than it appears) and/or building barracks in the UK itself. You can't build a barracks where you already have a factory, but you can build them in Wales, Scotland, etc.
- As Italy, don't worry too much about losing control of Ethiopia in the opening -- you can lose Ethiopia and still double your income if you conquer Marseilles, Algeria, and Egypt. Expanding into neutral territory like Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey can beef up your coffers, but infantry defends at 3, so make sure to bring adequate forces to each battle.
- The USA has opportunities to expand into South America, but don't leave California undefended! The Japanese are only a couple of turns away until you get a fleet together that can force them to slow down. The islands in the central Pacific aren't worth much economically, but they can be a useful place to deposit spare planes; carriers are relatively weak and expensive, so the more you can stash your planes on islands, the more powerful your forces will be. Of course, using islands for your air power also means you're now tied down to those islands. If you're able to leave a powerful force in the central Pacific, that forces the Japanese player to guard their eastern flank -- even if you never battle them, it can still put an important brake on the rate of Japanese expansion. In Europe, you may need to build up forces somewhere friendly, like Morocco or England or Norway, before you can force a landing in France or Germany. Beachheads are very important because of the stronger infantry and weaker amphibious assaults. The USA has a strong economy, but the game's territory values assume that the US is constantly sending a good chunk of their total industry overseas to Britain and the USSR via lend-lease, so don't try to take on the Axis as the USA all by yourself.
- China's big decision is whether to build a barracks on turn 1. Szechuan is the only safe 2-value territory, but you won't be able to buy 4 units per turn unless you hold onto pretty much all of central and western China, which you probably won't do unless you're getting serious help from the British, Russians, or Americans. Britain can funnel troops from Calcutta through Burma and Yunnan (the Burma Road), which guards one flank of your capital, but if they don't build a second barracks in India or land troops from Australia, then all they're doing is delaying the inevitable. Consider leaving 1 infantry in most of your territories -- trying to hold central China in earnest can get you killed quickly, but abandoning the territory without a fight can give Japan too many options.
- A note on transports vs. cruisers vs. cutters vs. gliders: if you have access to a beachhead, then boring old sea transports are by far the most efficient way of moving troops. For just 7 bucks, you can move 2 units at a time, including some heavy equipment. If you want to move heavy equipment but don't have a beachhead, then focus on securing a beachhead -- otherwise your tanks, artillery, etc. will only attack at 1. To get the beachhead, you can use any combination of commandos (which always attack at 2, even when unloading from ships), airplanes, and shore bombardment (cruisers and battleships). If you're not expecting heavy fighting and you just want to run and grab some juicy territories, a cruiser + commando pair will get you the fastest speed and a decent amount of punch. A glider + commando pair can penetrate into places where your enemy might not be expecting you, but the glider doesn't really fight, so it's not cost-effective unless you can knock out an undefended barracks or if you just need that 1 extra unit to turn the tide of battle in a thinly-populated area. Finally, consider using cutters + infantry for those $1 islands that are scattered across the map. They don't do much, but they're dirt cheap, you can build them out of a barracks, and if you keep picking off enough islands then they eventually pay for themselves.
Known Bugs:
- Some territories appear twice on the list of options for where to bombard. Choose the first one and it should work fine.
- I'd like to make the penalty for unloading heavy equipment from a transport optional, but I haven't yet figured out how to do this.
Credits Primary design by Argothair. Thank you to SIEG's World at War team for the graphic design template used in these notes, Black Elk and the POS 2 team for sample XML and guidance on overall map design, Beelee for XML technical support, Vodot and Barnee for moral support, and the entire Bay Area A&A crew for keeping the game alive. Nations: Germans French Russians Japanese British Italians Americans Chinese
Units: Infantry Artillery Commando Jeep Halftrack Tank Flak Cutter Submersible Destroyer Transport Cruiser Carrier Battleship Biplane Fighter Interceptor Glider Stratbomber Divebomber Bunker Barracks Factory
