Cruisers, whats the point?

[techroll42]

Gargantua is right–in 1942 BB’s were THE unit–not only for strafing but for general attacks.

Regarding strafing, I know I don’t take it into account enough. It can be useful in certain situations.

[Veqryn]

lets say you’ve destroyed the German navy

you want to add defense to your fleet

but buying a destroyer is useless because the anti sub ability does nothing for you

buying a BB is not good because you don’t want to spend 20 or more on a giant unit, you only want a little bit more protection. (does anyone actually BBs anymore btw? i’ve never seen a purchase except by new players)

so you buy a cruiser, since you get a little more defense against air attacks, and you get that free bombardment

I do this with the atlantic fleets for UK and USA all the time, and I expect this to be no different whether AA50 or Global or Europe

I would never price them at 10 as that is way too cheap, and giving +1 move is too big of an advantage. 
A mass of cheaper units should always beat a mass of more expensive units, and I’ve held this as a A&A principal, so Destroyers should always be the “better” buy compared with cruisers, and cruisers should be roughly equal to BBs.

I will always still buy them at 12, and I think the perfect price would be 11.5, so I am ok with 11 or 12.

[gamerman01]

Well said, although someone will come out and say that you’re better off buying carriers and fighters in your situation, even factoring in AA.  But they fail to recognize the value of bombardment because it doesn’t risk planes at all.  Fighters aren’t much good if you don’t have the targets (if the targets are all huge stacks that will pulverize anything you attack with)

[Xandax]

I use cruisers; for me it’s a nice supremacy unit, least of all to support bombardment.

Sure - you can always put up theorycrafted scenarios where in each individual situation the cruiser will be ‘voted off the island’. (Oh, but if you attack with 20 destroyers it’ll be better to have ….)
But combine all the hypothetical scenarios and you have a versatile unit in the cruiser with both decent offence, defence and the bombardment ability. 
As with everything, it’s a matter of situation, but cruisers are always a mainstay in any navy I build in in AA. The number of them changes, but I have cruisers.

[techroll42]

I would say that putting cruisers in EVERY navy is a bit of a stretch…

[gamerman01]

Maybe he means every big/main navy!

I’m always defending cruisers at 12 in these discussions, but I rarely buy them.
You want to talk about over-priced?  How about battleships in classic?

[Guest]

Cruisers are best on bombardment, and worst off in sea combat. Dont build them unless they will bombard every turn…

If your going to buy a destroyer as UK, you might considder using 4 IPC to get a bombard every turn and 1 extra in defence. In long term (3-4 rounds) this could pay off.

[techroll42]

Yeah but Axis can put out subs which are best countered by destroyers.

[gamerman01]

@techroll42:

Yeah but Axis can put out subs which are best countered by destroyers.

I’m sure Rommel has in mind that the UK already has destroyers.  So the subs would just get annihilated whether you bought more destroyers or cruisers.

Shortcoming of destroyers is that if there is no enemy fleet anymore, they’re just protecting from air strikes and nothing more.  Cruisers protect from air strikes and also can bombard.

[techroll42]

But destroyers will dissuade Germany from building subs to possibly counterattack the fleet.

[Gargantua]

1 destroyer = dissuation.

10 destroyers = stupid.

[GeodrivE]

Question to all.  Did cruisers get used to transport troops? I know it would be a small amount per ship if they did but I don’t know the history on the different ships and all they did and so on and so on…… An idea came for AA GC and being able to transport an inf. on a destroyer.  So how crazy would it be to make cruisers able to carry one inf. in global? I wonder if that would make uncrestable rethink cruisers?  Maybe then they would be $13? or $14?

[Alsch91]

@Gargantua:

10 destroyers = stupid.

Usually.  Unless Germany has a significant air/sub presence threatening your Atlantic fleet, which is fairly common.
In that case, more destroyers are necessary as US/UK, as they are best on defense.

[trackmagic]

I always liked the idea of giving cruisers the anti-aircraft ability of AA guns, but for a fleet since they had a lot of deck guns. That ability would make it worth it to have a cruiser in the fleet I think.

[Shin-Ji]

Having a bunch of Destroyers is often helpful.  Admittedly, having carriers and planes gives you better defense and more versatile offense, but when you need to combine multiple countries into one fleet Destroyers are the way to go.  Great value for money.

[Derek]

Most of these replies confirms my origional point lol

cruisers are overpriced for what you get
they do bombard well, but building or having more than 1 or 2 is silly
Cruisers should be a fleet mainstay, not a secondary option with limited usefulness

making them 11 IPCs would help or an AA ability would work also
making destroyers cost 9 and leaving cruisers at 12 is another way to go

[gamerman01]

So house rule them to 11 and have fun, Uncrustable.  As it is, they cost 12 and it ain’t gonna change.  :-)

[Derek]

@Gamerman01:

So house rule them to 11 and have fun, Uncrustable.  As it is, they cost 12 and it ain’t gonna change.  :-)

This is a thread to discuss it, and hear other peoples ideas/thoughts.

[Guest]

This has been discussed at length a long time ago in the House Rules forum.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=23388.0

[gamerman01]

And I’m sure in many other threads that are not even in the house rules forum.

IL was talking about AA capability on cruisers in the first year (2008-2009) after the game came out, I believe.

Anyway, I’m actually in a situation where I might buy four cruisers as Germany (1941 scenario of AA50).
But yeah, you’d see more diverse fleets if cruisers cost 11.  But they don’t.