Unconditional Surrender

[Erc]

Under the rules, Great Britain and the Soviet Union never surrender and continue to wage war until one side or the other is victorious.  On the other hand, Germany and Japan surrender at the end of an Axis turn in which the Allies occupy their respective capitol with 5 or more ground units.  Due to the Allied demand of Unconditional Surrender along with Hitler's will to defend Germany to the last German and the Japanese culture that preferred an honorable death to surrender, wouldn't it make more sense that neither would give up just because the Allies had captured their capitol?

I know that the war in Europe was ended when the Soviets captured Berlin, but nearly all of Germany was in Allied hands when the Battle of Berlin commenced.  Although the Japanese main islands were not invaded by the Allies, the invasion of Okinawa gave the Allies a taste of what the Home Islands would be like.  If Truman had decided to invade rather than drop the bomb, the Japanese would have most likely fought until the end.

I propose that Germany and Japan surrender only after the Allies have captured all the flagged production centers in their respective home country.  Austria would not need to be captured for a German surrender.  Because of the national build limits, it seems to me that the Allies could easily concentrate on building a large land force stack and drive hard at Berlin and/or Tokyo thus knocking Germany and/or Japan out of the war without having to fight a lot of battles along the way.

Was the decision for German and Japanese surrender conditions based on game balance?  Do you think it would be either too difficult to capture all the Home Nation production centers or take too much time in game turns?

[Mark]

Actually - you make a very good point.  I think the 5 unit in the capitol thing was a hold over from an older way of thinking. 

Actually, I would go so far to say that Germany and Japan should be more like the UK and the Soviet Union - that they both just keep fighting until one side or the other wins the game.

[Darkman]

Well i disagree ,
Hitler didn't want to flee from Berlin and without him Germany would surrender.
They tried several times to get rid of him to make peace with the allies

[RandR]

Unconditional surrender is more a political decision than a military one in the real world. It requires the losing GOVERNMENT to capitulate and accept whatever terms the winning government dictates.  The British & the Russian government could stay mobile for some time before being captured. Where as, the German & the Japanese governments could actually be surrounded & had no place to run or go into exile. For a game, it really doesn't make any sense to eliminate ALL the enemy pieces and occupy ALL the enemy territories when one can see the writing on the wall. The only time surrender does NOT work is when annihilation and extermination ARE the agenda items of  one side of the conflict. SUCH AS: Cylons against mankind from Battlestar Galactica or in the days of early warfare where 1 tribe or village set out to destroy the other and eliminate it from the face of the earth. Unfortunately, we still have some attempts at doing this on our planet even today.

[Mark]

For the game - I really don't think it matters one way or the other.  If the Russians are in Berlin or the Americans or in Tokyo, the game is pretty much over anyway - so maybe just leave it the way it is. . .

[Darkman]

Well i had a test match again and in turn 24 ( Summer 1945 ) the Axis had 16 ( VP 8 Japan and 8 Germany )

Usa took Berlin on turn 23 with more than 5 Tanks and Germany wasn't able to reconquer it on turn 24.

With the actual rule the Axis loose the game .. with a new one they win because all other VP were heavily defended

[Mark]

Wow - did you really play it out to nearly the last turn of the game - how did it go?  What did you think (. . . positive comments only  )

I think we need to give it some more thought. . . I mean, we are not trying to portray anything 'real' related to history (because at this stage of the war, the Axis were going to lose anyway) - so it is more of a game mechanic on determining victory or defeat -i.e.  that we want to award the Axis with a game victory for being able to 'beat history' and hang on to much more of the world than they really did in Summer of 1945.  Whether we want to make Berlin and Tokyo part of that game victory condition or not is really just a design choice.

[John D.]

Double Wow. Turn 24! Sounds like Hitler shot himself and the rest of the military saw the writing on the wall. Sounds like a very close game!!

Since we can not see it, was there any way to give up other VP(s) to reinforce Berlin before the US attack?

John

[Darkman]

Yeah it was a Axis mistake in the end that they loose the war. A very big stack of air power units were in russia instead close to berlin.
That would be a game over for the allies for sure.

It was a pretty close one.
Germany was very strong and conquered Moscow twice.
The Axis conquered the Suez and Turkey joined the Axis.
Germany also had always 4-6 Uboats in the atlantic and sometimes a large Navy force aswell.

For a long time the Axis were always close to win with the VP points and Japan always rather retreated their Navy than sacrifing them in small battles.

In the end all i can say to that is. With the old rule the Axis would loose in the end because there were around 8 Tanks + 1 Figther + 1 Artillery in Berlin at the end of the germany summer 1945 turn.
Without it they won


This was the first game to the bitter end. And i'm very suprised Mark, it's really the best game out there :-) 
Will make pictures on next game for sure

[Mark]

Sounds like you had a great game  - look forward to the pictures of the next one! 

The jury is still out I think on the capitols - I want to collect more peoples input.  I think for now, we should leave it and say to win the Game, Germany and Japan need to hang onto Berlin and Tokyo.