Well my initial thought was to have facility AA always on, you know at bases and factories. But those units are already quite powerful, and don’t suffer from the same problem as the AAAgun combat unit, which is regarded as a poor purchasing option for the cost.
How about a compromise, AA Fire always on during the combat movement phase?
Then at least you could fly home in safety haha.
But the idea that aircraft can fly over a bunch of territories that have aaaguns (and territories that have facilities which supposedly include them) with no risk, seems a bit silly.
If the AAAgun combat unit had an “always on, during combat movement” aspect, then players would definitely be more likely to buy the unit. They would have an incentive to place them along the likely combat flight paths.
This wouldn’t totally screw up defensive fighter shifting on non com (which is probably too important for game balance to nix at this point), but if you restricted the aaafire to the combat movement phase at least enemy air units couldn’t also run an attack at no risk, and then camp for defense to boot.
You could probably do away with the “built-in” AA gun of bases and factories altogether. Players would just buy combat AAAguns and place them where they think they’ll be needed for air blocking.
Imagine for example placing a few AAAGuns in Yakut or China or France in 1942.2
Or in Global with the really complex flight paths that travel across multiple territories, like 5-7 spaces out. The AAAgun at 5 ipcs would suddenly be a way more interesting purchase, since you could use it to shut down the long distance fly over attacks, or at least push them into more favorable directions.
Anyway, just felt it might be worth considering, since the mechanic would be familiar already to players of Classic or Revised, and pretty easy to adapt to the new boards I’d think.