Sometimes I really wish we could design a scenario from the ground up, to test out your unit values ideas Baron! I have this feeling, like if we could just get the right roster balance and consider the starting unit placements and map design from scratch, we could make a really fun A&A variant.
I’m always torn between the ideas in my head, and what I think I can persuade people in my playground to try haha. Always with that tension between the desire to try something new, and the desire to play what’s familiar. For me there are a couple possibilities that I find intriguing about lowering the cost of defenseless transports. But one that I especially dig is the idea of an Axis squeeze that can somehow find a target other than Moscow.
Moscow is straightforward, easy to execute, and has been the standard going back to Classic. For an alternative to ever work, e.g. Crush London, or Crush Washington, then Axis need a viable attack route across the water.
The concept of a German naval expansion, or a Japanese option transport option for invasion USA, might both be workable, if transports weren’t so damned expensive. Right now neither of those attack routes are workable. Even if Axis dedicate everything to the effort, they can either develop the surface fleet, or the transport capacity necessary to pull it off, but never both. Or at least, never both until Moscow is already defeated.
But I had this sort of gamey idea, what if Axis could conceivably kill any one of the 3 Allies, if they totally ignore the others and do a full press.
This is basically what happens right now to Russia in every game, but it’s not inconceivable to work it such that if Japan and Germany throw everything at either UK or USA, that they might be able to achieve something similar. There are two difficulties with that though, first Russia has no good way to “go monster” and take Germany by itself without coordination by UK/USA fighters, and second because the cost of transports is prohibitive.
Its not that the Axis production spread too terribly off target. Germany has UK outclassed in production, and Japan could conceivably build enough production to match the total US output of North America. But neither Axis player transport enough of it to do any good. USA beginning with the strong production advantage that it does, never has to really put stock much stock in a West Coast invasion threat. And UK is built out to defend against Sea Lion fairly easily. Really all it takes is a single Russian fighter in position to fly to London.
Of course then there’s also the issue of both Axis players just using those cheaper transports to hammer Russia, which is what would likely happen anyway, because we’re all so well trained to gun for the center by now haha.
But yeah, it is a bit of a dream. Its hard to make these numbers fit on an existing board, but I think a naval expansion for A&A would be cool.
I think the real limiting factor for the cost and prevalence of ships, is that the unit sculpts are more expensive to produce, larger and weightier. But even then, the game maker has the sense to put in more ships than can ever be used (with all those Russians.) Even with a redesigned economy (some sort of bonus) or a few more starting units, the Russians will never build any of those warships haha. But just looking at them is like a tease. Or a challenge. Or say you buy two copies of the gameboard, like most of us end up doing, and you just stare at all those ship sculpts that never get purchased. Cruisers and battleships and the like. I just start to pine for a map that was more geared towards the naval purchase. 1942.2 doesn’t have any built-in ways to tweak the cost of units, like technology, so that HRs would be the only way to really get there.
I just like the idea of having the 5 spot returned to the roster, but be on the water, as a way to encourage naval builds. I also have this feeling, that the idea of a cheaper defenseless transport might be easier to adopt than a return to transport defense. Sure I sometimes pine for the classic defensive dynamic, but after playing classic and revised again after going defenseless for so long, it does have a way of giving you the brain freeze. If the replacement cost was cheaper, I don’t think the defenseless transport would seem like such a drag (with its infinite auto kill, no hostile sz and all the rest). Going down -2 would probably be too much for everyone to get behind, but dropping it by 1 ipc might find some takers.
It might also make the half loaded transport seem less of a drag for the cost, like you’re just wasting them, or perhaps encourage more transport fanning where you cast a wide net expecting the units to be destroyed but taking land in the process.
Subs at 5?
Transports at 6?
G1 would allow for 6 transports.
J1 would allow for 5 transports.
Too overpowered? Sea Lion might be back on the table for G. Japan is still limited by its total production and the location of its starting infantry.
The sub spam would definitely be more wild. USA and Germany could both build 8, UK and Japan could both build 6 at their starting income value. Russia could spam 4, though that’d never happen hehe.
I think the advanced shipyards structure might work. It favors Allies sure, but the board so far favor Axis OOB, so there is some balance to offset. But Axis would still have some options too, so its not just a totally one sided boon. I think it might work.
The values that Argothair suggested the smaller vessels seem achievable. -1 ipc in cost… if you want to go that route. If not you can keep those all the same as OOB.
For the capital ships -2 ipcs in cost is pretty easy to remember.
Cruiser -2 = 10 ipcs
Carrier -2 = 12 ipcs
Battleship -2 = 18 ipcs
Its a start at least. Going lower even lower for those is still an option if one wished. Like -3 for capital ships “Advanced shipyards style” if desired.
:-D
As long as we’re going for radical change, what about swapping the relative prices of transports, destroyers, and subs? Something like:
Defenseless transports: 5 ipc
Destroyers: 6 ipc
Submarines: 7 ipc
Cruisers: 8 ipc
Carriers: 10 ipc
Battleships: 13 ipc?
My thought is that if what we really want to encourage is cheaper shipping of ground units across the ocean, then the cheapest naval unit should be the transport, followed by the defensive destroyer. That way, for 11 ipc, you can build a 1 trans + 1 DD combo that is not super-attractive to try to sink with a lone fighter – sure, you have decent odds of sinking 11 IPCs of ships, but you also have a significant chance of losing your 10 IPC fighter.
I wonder if anyone has tried this?
It would yield the following costs…
Subs 4 ipcs
Transports 5 ipcs destroyers 6 ipcs
Cruisers 10 ipcs
Carriers 12 ipcs
Battleships 18 ipcsOnly the battleship would be outmoded, but that’s fairly unavoidable, their absorption plus bombardment isn’t that potent compared to the destroyer carrier combo, but 18 is still better than 20 haha.
I think the real promise would be super cheap subs, transports and destroyers, to make it much cheaper to develop fleets to face down the mass bomber threat.
This would allow for some nice combos on the water, since transports are a much better buy at 5 ipcs (giving this unit the 5 spot unit that has been missing since AA50). Subs at the same cost as an artillery piece and destroyers at the same cost as a tank, makes both those core ships much more attractive at purchase.
The main balance issue for the first round would probably be a sea lion G1 naval expansion, but sea lion is currently impossible, so this might produce some interest. Allies would have a lot to gain as well. I think players would be much more likely to buy ships all around.
Any thoughts?
I thought further about this issue on cheaper warships.
My solution would be more like this, with only 3 changes, to solve 3 issues:
A lack of an interesting OOB 5 IPCs unit. (AAA doesn’t make an interesting buy.)
Cruiser and Battleship which are not optimized buying at 12 IPCs and 20 IPCs vs DDs and Subs.
To keep a more fairly balance , I would reduced both by 2 IPCs.
Subs, DDs and Carriers are already interesting buy at their OOB cost.
Transports 5 ipcs
Subs 6 ipcs
destroyers 8 ipcs
Cruisers 10 ipcs
Carriers 14 ipcs
Battleships 18 ipcs
I believe that lowering by 2 IPCs all ships (or a scale like Improved shipyard) will affect too much the balance from OOB slight Axis bias toward Allied bias.
Germany cannot divert all his money on sea.
A lot of Russian territories need to be kept by Germany to get a high income and prevent Russia to grow out of hand.
When lowering DDs or Subs by 1 IPC, it means that USA and UK, both save 1 IPC per DD or Sub put on the board.
So it is a 2:1 against Germany.
All A&A games seems to be based on some time ticking bomb against Axis.
Axis must keep as much as possible all his costlier start up units (planes and warships) while dealing a lot of damage on Allies powers in the opening turn. On the long run, Axis usually have less and less units (compared to the initial set up) while Allies are growing steadily.
Making the replacement of this expensive warships too easy would compromise the balance.
I believe this high cost of warships is an important piece of the “ticking time bomb” and it is make to give a few rounds to Axis powers to reach an economical even point against Allies.
Lowering the price of all ships (to increase earlier actions) would hastened the Axis demise.
However, lowering only defenseless transports to the 5 IPCs gap could increase early small skirmishes and maybe a Sea Lion threat but would probably imply to sacrifice some of them as easier targets.
So, my guess is mostly on trying the 5 IPCs transport alone.
(Your people could also probably accept more easily this small change from OOB.)
Since it is defenseless, lowering its cost doesn’t have any consequences on combat values balance, unlike changing the cost between warships.
On this matter, I always prefered to keep this cost ratio between these 4 units:
1 DD + 1 Cruiser = 1 BB
Also in G40, 2 DDs cost the same as 1, 2 hits Carrier A0 D2.
In 1942.2, 1 A1 D2 Carrier cost must be lower than 2 DDs but higher than 2 Subs.
I like it Baron, a solution like that might prove more feesible than the 2 ipc drop for all ships, while still producing a bit more fun on the water.
I’d be interested to see how the 5 ipc defenseless transport would play out with the Sea Lion dynamic.
On the one hand a 5 ipc transport, might make the G2 hit on London a lot more dangerous for UK, but it would also make a liberation on US3 easier.
It’s statistically very unlikely for Germany to use their med transport in a G2 sea lion attempt. As I’ve outlined in other threads, to secure the use of that med transport requires destroying both Atlantic destroyers (sz 11 and sz 10!) Or else the Allies can block at sz 13.
G has 1 starting transport in the Baltic, at a cost of 5 ipcs they could conceivably purchase 8 more on G1, though this would be foolish since they’d just get swept from the Air on UK1. More likely would be a G2 mass transport spam, or splitting them out over the first 2 rounds in combination with support carriers for defense.
Under the proposed cost structure by Baron, at 41 ipcs starting income, Germany can buy 1 carrier and 5 transports with 2 ipcs remaining. That gives them a G2 transport threat of 6 transports vs London, or 6 inf + 6 tanks, plus the Luftwaffe and a cruiser bombardment.
If UK purchases for max defense, say 7 inf 1 fighter. USA flies the bomber over and Russia sends their fighters. That is a 45% chance on a G2 Sea Lion. This seems pretty reasonable to me, as it would still be a rather Pyrrhic victory, with a decent chance for USA Russia recovery.
A single extra AAGUN on London could be an option as well. This drops the odds on G2 Sea Lion to 40% using the defense suggested above. Or this extra AAgun could free up Russian fighters so they don’t have to defend London.
I think this has promise, since it would put Sea Lion back on the table as a potential German opener, which is currently impossible in 1942.2 in my assessment. The Sea Lion dynamic is also fairly simple to re-balance by using one or maybe even 2 extra AAguns at London if necessary. I think the pay off elsewhere on the map of having a 5 ipc transport would be fairly huge, just for more naval fun all across the globe!
I mean hell, they’re defenseless after all! Why not just give them the 5 spot in the roster?
:-D
@Baron:
I wonder if anyone has tried this?
It would yield the following costs…
Subs 4 ipcs
Transports 5 ipcs destroyers 6 ipcs
Cruisers 10 ipcs
Carriers 12 ipcs
Battleships 18 ipcsOnly the battleship would be outmoded, but that’s fairly unavoidable, their absorption plus bombardment isn’t that potent compared to the destroyer carrier combo, but 18 is still better than 20 haha.
I think the real promise would be super cheap subs, transports and destroyers, to make it much cheaper to develop fleets to face down the mass bomber threat.
This would allow for some nice combos on the water, since transports are a much better buy at 5 ipcs (giving this unit the 5 spot unit that has been missing since AA50). Subs at the same cost as an artillery piece and destroyers at the same cost as a tank, makes both those core ships much more attractive at purchase.
The main balance issue for the first round would probably be a sea lion G1 naval expansion, but sea lion is currently impossible, so this might produce some interest. Allies would have a lot to gain as well. I think players would be much more likely to buy ships all around.
Any thoughts?
I thought further about this issue on cheaper warships.
My solution would be more like this, with only 3 changes, to solve 3 issues:
A lack of an interesting OOB 5 IPCs unit. (AAA doesn’t make an interesting buy.)
Cruiser and Battleship which are not optimized buying at 12 IPCs and 20 IPCs vs DDs and Subs.
To keep a more fairly balance , I would reduced both by 2 IPCs.
Subs, DDs and Carriers are already interesting buy at their OOB cost.Transports 5 ipcs
Subs 6 ipcs
destroyers 8 ipcs
Cruisers 10 ipcs
Carriers 14 ipcs
Battleships 18 ipcsI believe that lowering by 2 IPCs all ships (or a scale like Improved shipyard) will affect too much the balance from OOB slight Axis bias toward Allied bias.
Germany cannot divert all his money on sea.
A lot of Russian territories need to be kept by Germany to get a high income and prevent Russia to grow out of hand.When lowering DDs or Subs by 1 IPC, it means that USA and UK, both save 1 IPC per DD or Sub put on the board.
So it is a 2:1 against Germany.All A&A games seems to be based on some time ticking bomb against Axis.
Axis must keep as much as possible all his costlier start up units (planes and warships) while dealing a lot of damage on Allies powers in the opening turn. On the long run, Axis usually have less and less units (compared to the initial set up) while Allies are growing steadily.Making the replacement of this expensive warships too easy would compromise the balance.
I believe this high cost of warships is an important piece of the “ticking time bomb” and it is make to give a few rounds to Axis powers to reach an economical even point against Allies.
Lowering the price of all ships (to increase earlier actions) would hastened the Axis demise.
However, lowering only defenseless transports to the 5 IPCs gap could increase early small skirmishes and maybe a Sea Lion threat but would probably imply to sacrifice some of them as easier targets.
So, my guess is mostly on trying the 5 IPCs transport alone.
(Your people could also probably accept more easily this small change from OOB.)
Since it is defenseless, lowering its cost doesn’t have any consequences on combat values balance, unlike changing the cost between warships.On this matter, I always prefered to keep this cost ratio between these 4 units:
1 DD + 1 Cruiser = 1 BB
Also in G40, 2 DDs cost the same as 1, 2 hits Carrier A0 D2.
In 1942.2, 1 A1 D2 Carrier cost must be lower than 2 DDs but higher than 2 Subs.
In 1942.2, 1 A1 D2 Carrier cost must be lower than 2 DDs but higher than 2 Subs.
OR 1 A1 D2 Carrier cost must cost twice a defenseless transport.
Applying these ratios above to a 2 IPCs redux for DDs, within my modified roster (Subs and planes), the scale would gives this:
Main units roster: Defenseless Transport A0 D0 cost 5
Submarine A3 D1 cost 6 IPCs (no DD is needed to hit such Sub with planes)
Destroyer A2 D2 cost 6 IPCs (blocks Sub’s Submerge and Stealth Movement on a 1:1 basis)
Classic Transport A0 D1 cost 7 IPCs
Cruiser A3 D3 cost 8 IPCs
Carrier A1 D2, 1 hit, cost 10, hold 2 planes
Carrier A0 D2, 2 hits, cost 12 IPCs, hold 2 planes
Battleship A4 D4 cost 14 IPCs
My special units roster:
Fighter A2 D2 cost 6 (always hit aircraft first)
Tactical Bomber A3 D2 cost 8 (gives +1A/D to 1 Tank paired 1:1 with)
Strategic Bomber A4 D1 cost 10
Special Carrier, A0 D3, 2 hits, cost 12, hold 3 planes
Escort Carrier, A0 D2, 1 hit, cost 7, hold 1 plane, acts like Destroyer
The main roster scale is still easy to remember because it keeps all the usual cost increment:
6, 7, 8, 12, 14 IPCs, only exception is the 10 IPCs 1 hit Carrier.
Decreasing naval unit costs are good, but its stand alone horrible idea since it totally negate all air coverage tactics especially for Germany. Air units should always have overall upper hands against naval units.
Air unit costs should be decreased in this case which will cause an unbalance between air and ground units.
@Navalland said in 1942.2 All ships cost 2 ipcs less:
Decreasing naval unit costs are good, but its stand alone horrible idea since it totally negate all air coverage tactics especially for Germany. Air units should always have overall upper hands against naval units.
Air unit costs should be decreased in this case which will cause an unbalance between air and ground units.
You cannot conquer land without land units, and aircraft provide coverage for both land and sea. This is a good benefit compared with any investment in sea unit. They can becomes powerless if your invasion goes beyond the second round of combat or the second territory within a continent.
So, making Cruiser in par with Fighter or TcB is a small issue, IMO.
If fighter and bomber remain the same then destroyer cost should absolutely not be decreased. Cruiser could be either 10 or 11, but 10 ipc could make battleship very bad unit.
@Navalland said in 1942.2 All ships cost 2 ipcs less:
If fighter and bomber remain the same then destroyer cost should absolutely not be decreased. Cruiser could be either 10 or 11, but 10 ipc could make battleship very bad unit.
I totally agree.
I suggested this scale in a quote below:
Subs, DDs and Carriers are already interesting buy at their OOB cost.
Transports 5 ipcs
Subs 6 ipcs
destroyers 8 ipcs
Cruisers 10 ipcs
Carriers 14 ipcs
Battleships 18 ipcs
The wholescale reduction benefits Allied players who have more money to spend, and require a large naval presence to establish themselves.
@Imperious-Leader said in 1942.2 All ships cost 2 ipcs less:
The wholescale reduction benefits Allied players who have more money to spend, and require a large naval presence to establish themselves.
And if 1942.2 is biased towards the Axis, wouldn’t that in turn help return things to a balance?
-Midnight_Reaper
1942 online Allied players know how to suppress that advantage, and making cheap navy establishes them faster, while the Axis are focused on Land units and not spending money on navies. The cheap ship thing is to benefit players who love “who has the biggest toy boat fleet just sitting around Alaska forcing Japan to park and buy unnecessary boats 3 spaces away for the duration of the game”
@Imperious-Leader which set up do 1942 online players mostly prefer?
Larry Harris Gen-con Setup, so Germany can lose the fighter and bomber in Ukraine and make it even.
@Imperious-Leader I have read even in Larry Harris Gen-con Setup set up, some people still give Allies 6 bid what do you think?
No . No allies bid. Play 1942 Online and see what we do.
What if Russian attack on Ukraine fails? Could Allies still win at that point?
That depends on what you term fail? If they commit 3 tanks 2 fighters and Caucasus units and don’t kill the tanks and or at least a plane, then that attack is a fail, but nobody unless hes a fool will say “Game over- insert 50 cents- do not pass go” Alot of other battles and an accumulation of advantages over turns is what you want. Of course the “Big Battle at Moscow” could change the fortunes of either side. Go to steam and enter my name and #2799 and we can play a game.
