@SuperbattleshipYamato
I’ve only poked around with the Europe game, hence this thread being in the Europe subforum ;)
I definitely agree that you want carriers (with planes) along with destroyers – and not just purely destroyers. But my point mainly is that, in the European theatre (and particularly as the allies) you need destroyers (and planes) to attack enemy subs, and you also need destroyers (and planes) to defend against enemy aircraft.
What I tend to see the Ai do, is basically once the allied navy sticks its neck out too far (if it isn’t strong enough) the German planes will just suicide attack them. It’s easy enough to “out-defense” the Italian navy, and just box them in, but it requires a lot more of a surface fleet to fend off Germany’s air force. My point is essentially that submarines can “out-offense” the Italian fleet, but they don’t do anything about the latter problem, of German air power.
Like, I appreciate the validity of the math you’re putting forward, but to me the problem is that if my job (as the allies) is to kill 288 IPCs of submarines…? Guess what, I still have to use destroyers (and planes) because the game literally doesn’t let me use any other units to do that job – including other subs!
A game I talk about a lot on these forums (East & West) has a similar problem, whereby the submarine tech that makes it so subs can’t be attacked by planes is actually a tech nobody wants – because everyone more or less wants to use subs as cheap fodder, so that transports (which aren’t picked last, in E&W) and other units can be spared.
So, as I’ve said up-thread, destroyers are hogging up too much of the design space:
They do all the fun ASW mechanics, on their own AND shoot at planes They facilitate planes shooting at submarines (making carriers only facilitate planes’ movement – never mind carriers just being a weaker combat unit all-around, than in other versions) They fulfill the “cheap fodder” role (which was basically taken away from subs/transports) while still being necessary for everything mentioned aboveSo the only thing cruisers have over destroyers is that they can do shore bombards – but a cruiser costs more than a fighter that you could throw into the same amphibious assault for multiple rounds of combat, whereas a cruiser only fires once.
Another thing E&W did was have it so that units hit by shore bombardment actually do not fire back, which makes this ability much more useful. It also makes this mechanic functionally the same as submarine or AA gun hits; I think unifying these outlier mechanics for combat is indicative of good design, personally.
My immediate hunch is that, in order to make cruisers useful, you’d need to start by (probably) making shore bombardment be insta-kills – particularly if you’re still (for some reason) limiting the number of shots to the number of units being landed. The other thing that jumps off the page to me is that there’s no way a cruiser should cost more than a fighter.
FWIW, I also think the reason that in Classic you have carriers at A1/D3 and transports at A0/D1 (and not chosen last) is precisely because there isn’t a destroyer unit. So that version does a better job of spreading the design space around, to have those other ships fulfill the role that destroyers play; even letting subs get hit by planes is useful, if your goal is to preserve transports (as mentioned with the E&W example). It allows subs to be cheap fodder, while still packing an offensive punch; transports can do the former, but not the latter, so you still need a good mix.
Edit: (to add)
I can see a case for limiting shore bombardments in the Pacific, where nearly every land battle is going to be an amphibious battle. Again, I feel certain mechanics lend themselves to one theatre and not the other (naval and air bases for example, seem fairly shoe-horned into the Europe map.) It might be the case that each theatre only really needs one “middleweight” surface ship and not two. From a realism perspective, sure you’d want both – but from a mechanical and gameplay perspective? The unit balance is clearly busted.
