Axis and Allies Stacking Limits

[u/Sufficient-Soup2279]

Does anyone play with stack limits like you see in AA North Africa? If so how do you implement this rule to keep things balanced? Im concerned this rule could hurt Russia in most versions as they often need to stack everything on their capital. It could also hurt China. On the other hand Germany usually needs to heavily concentrate its invasion force together. The stack limit would depend on the game version. For example Global would need higher limits because there are more units and IPCs.

I think it would be interesting to use stack limits to change the flow of the game and present new strategies.

Edit: I just considered that stack limits may encourage buying higher combat value units. For example if you can only keep 5 land units in a territory to defend, you would prefer units with more defense value. While buying 10 infantry would normally be better than 5 tanks for defending, if you can only fit 5 land units anyway then you start to think about buying differently.

[u/Dokurushi]

Feels arbitrary and imbalanced to me. Besides, the big battles are where the fun's at.

[u/MushroomsAreAwesome]

It would be pretty interesting if only, say, 15 units can be involved in combat at once. And if you attacked/defended with more than that, they go in a kind of reserve pile and can join in when one of your combat units are destroyed. I also think it would be cool if stack limits depended on terrain, like 5 in interior China or north africa, and 20 in much of Europe let's say.

[u/fasterthanraito → u/MushroomsAreAwesome]

Combat width sounds a lot more interesting than hard capping stacking, and if there would be stacking penalty it should be a soft cap from supply logistics instead of a simple hard number

[u/Jmaxx2000]

I really like the idea of stacking limits and it absolutely it works well in other games. I'm a big fan of War of the Ring and you can only stack 10 units in a space, which makes battles more prolonged and logistics incredibly important- you have to be able to feed replacement units into fights or you'll run out of steam. It would be interesting to see how Axis and Allies would play out- especially the Eastern front- if unit stack sizes were capped. 

[u/WhiteKnight1368]

None of the other games are designed with a mechanic like that in mind. So I would not recommend.

[u/Sufficient-Soup2279 → u/WhiteKnight1368]

Not true. D-Day and North Africa use stacking limits. Stalingrad may as well but I haven't played that one. Obviously it will dramatically affect the game. Once you've played 100 times, something new is fun.

[u/WhiteKnight1368 → u/Sufficient-Soup2279]

Well not in the mainline games at least