Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and help. My opponent is my brother-in-law who has never played this version before and is easy going enough to just play for fun. Not competitive or intense. So he’s a good person to try it all out on.
The rules are not 100% set in stone yet and I have some time to experiment on my own. Tweaking Cruiser and AAA anti-air (I like the once per turn shot at least for AAA after the initial attack Baron, makes sense, though will have to downgrade the initial volley to 2). Also content to give Strategic Bombers the ability to hit air units but only at 1 (and can only target them after all ground units are extinguished). To make sure this doesn’t get too complicated (like it isn’t already) I made it explicit how you should roll for combat:
On Land
Anti-Air (Pre-emptive first round)
Air (Fighters)
Air (Bombers)
Ground
At Sea
Submarines (Pre-emptive every round without opp Destroyer; if present move to Naval)
Anti-Air (First round only, pre-emptive)
Air (Fighters)
Air (Bombers)
Naval
Finally, changed up fortifications because the format didn’t work properly. Running the math I had to make them very cheap to make them worth purchasing, and I don’t want them to be cheap (I do NOT want fortifications all over the map). So I changed it to this:
Fortified Position
Cost: 12
Ability: A Fortified Position manned by at least one infantry, artillery, and/or mech infantry may take up to 5 hits from an attacking force before units inside begin to suffer casualties. Note: This does NOT protect tactical bombers and fighters being targeted by attacking fighters (Strategic Bombers are considered grounded and are not involved in air combat). Every hit on a Fortified Position in combat puts a hit on the facility up to 5 (see below however: tactical bombing and bombardment can reduce the facility further). A Fortified Position containing no infantry, artillery, or mech infantry units does not defend or sustain damage. Fortified Positions can be built on any territory controlled since the beginning of your turn. You may only build one Fortified Position per territory, however, it may be upgraded to a Fortified Zone for an additional 10IPCs.
Fortified Positions, like air/naval bases, can be damaged by tactical bombing and bombardment (additionally, like these units they roll for anti-air and battery in defense). Fortified Positions have 10 possible damage points; they cease to be operationally effective immediately after sustaining 5 or more damage points. Each damage point a Fortified Position sustains in bombing or bombardment removes a defensive hit the Fortified Position can absorb for units within.
For example, a Fortified Position with 0 damage points before combat will be able to sustain as many as 5 hits in combat. A Fortified Position with 3 damage points before combat will be able to sustain 2 damage points in combat. A Fortified Position with 7 damage points before combat will be able to sustain 0 damage points in combat and combat will not reduce its damage points further (only tactical bombing and bombardment may do that, up to a total of 10). If the owner of this Fortified Position wants to make his Fortified Position operational, at the minimum he must pay 3IPCs to allow it to sustain 1 damage point in combat. A Fortified Position that has been taken over by force (meaning there was at least one infantry, artillery, or mech infantry garrisoned in it) will inevitably be handed over to its new controller with at least 5 damage points on it.
Fortified Positions can be repaired during the repair-units phase of a turn. Damage on a captured Fortified Position sustained in combat must be repaired for the Fortified Position to become operational. Note: Tanks and Mech Infantry may not blitz through an unoccupied Fortified Position.
Fortified Zone
Cost: 20
Same as above except it can take 10 hits out of a total of 20.
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Know this is extreme but it’s all fun to me. If it doesn’t work out well I’ll scale back as you guys said (sound advice), but since I’m not worried about drama with my partner figure why not go all in. Won’t have the opportunity for such a laid back partner for awhile, and we’ll be able to get at least 2 games in over the holidays.