Tank purchases still DEAD

[Lieutenant Stove]

I’ll have to take a look at those threads. The tank adds more to the game strategically than a unit like the cruiser or tac bomber. Tanks are the cheapest 3 on offense or defense and the 2 movement force your opponent to defend more territories, spreading his forces. Divide and conquer.

[Eqqman]

@Gamerman01:

Egg, if you can spare Japanese bombers to go to NW China to SBR Russia, America and the allies aren’t doing their job right

Shrug… the Japanese have 20+ planes.  The Bombers can be spared, especially when you are speeding up victory on the Europe map.  I won’t go as far as to say they should always be replaced if shot down by AA, but they can certainly be sent.

[gamerman01]

Yeah, it seems like a pretty good strategy actually.  With the +2 for damage.

Can’t believe Larry jumped right over +1.
I mean, this is the guy that nerfed heavy bombers all the way down to best of 2 dice  :x

[gamerman01]

@Lieutenant:

I’ll have to take a look at those threads. The tank adds more to the game strategically than a unit like the cruiser or tac bomber. Tanks are the cheapest 3 on offense or defense and the 2 movement force your opponent to defend more territories, spreading his forces. Divide and conquer.

I agree with you

If they cost 5, they would be too cheap and who would buy mech?

[gamerman01]

@ Lieutenant -
In Classic they cost 5 and defended on a 2.  I think the stats and cost were about right in that game.  And it was fun to attack tanks that were on defense - made for nice back and forth action.

When the defense got upped to 3 and the cost stayed at 5 (Revised and AA50) they were too cheap.

[gamerman01]

You know what purchases are really dead?

AA guns.  5 IPC’s is too expensive.  Believe it or not, Larry had the price at 6 when he changed it so they could be taken as casualties and only fired at 3 planes, but I talked him down to 5.

It’s still too high.  I’m not even sure they would be reasonable at 4.

THREE seems about right!  What do you think?

[BJCard]

I don’t think I’ve ever bought an AA gun.  In any game. Ever.  Ok, I suppose in the Original I did once in a while when I built a US factory in Norway or something.

If the AA guns were mobile and could fight like the German 88’s, then maybe…

[variance]

I would buy AA at $5 if they could move 2 spaces!  I’d probably buy them at $4, but there should be a $5 land unit.

Tanks are a good deal even at $6 if you throw in the mech at $4.  Its sort of like a fighter that can take a hit, take and hold a territory then defend it at 3.  Now imagine if you could reinforce the tank by rolling in a mobile AA gun at NCM.

[Spendo02]

AA gun solution is a simple one:

Change price to 7 IPC.

When enemy aircraft are present:
AA guns fire before every round against opposing enemy aircraft.
AA guns as a whole can only roll 1 die per aircraft present and no single AA gun may roll more than 2 die.
AA guns score a hit for every “1” rolled.

When no enemy aircraft is present, AA guns defend @1 in the normal course of combat.

As it stands, AA guns are basically just free casualties you start the game with as in 99% of scenarios I’d rather pay for an Inf at 3 IPC and get to roll with it each round for 2 or less than pay 5 IPC to get to roll 3 die only once and hope one of them show up at a 1.

[Spendo02]

We could just make this game even more complicated by:

1: Treating each nation independently for unit purchase prices
2: Changing those prices for early/mid/late game rounds

[gamerman01]

@Spendo02:

As it stands, AA guns are basically just free casualties you start the game with as in 99% of scenarios I’d rather pay for an Inf at 3 IPC and get to roll with it each round for 2 or less than pay 5 IPC to get to roll 3 die only once and hope one of them show up at a 1.

Well you definitely agree with me.

I’m thinking 3 IPC’s per AA might be a fair price.  That’s only 60% of the current cost  :-)

I’m finding it’s not even usually worth transporting the ones you start with, with the USA, across the Atlantic.  Better to buy arty, mech, tanks to go across than to ship the free starting ones over.  Anybody had the same thoughts?

[Eqqman]

@Gamerman01:

I’m finding it’s not even usually worth transporting the ones you start with, with the USA, across the Atlantic.  Better to buy arty, mech, tanks to go across than to ship the free starting ones over.  Anybody had the same thoughts?

I have also never bothered shipping over an AA gun.  One of the big problems with it is that you can only move them in NCM.  If I could bring them in with my invasion force, I might consider it so they would be there on defense.

Every unit has a reason to buy it, even if your odds of doing it in a game are perhaps 1%.  Once in a while the battle calculator will tell you that you can squeeze out a small extra chance to defend if you have an AA gun instead of some other unit (this usually only happens if you’re defending a minor IC.  It’s highly dependent on what you expect to get hit with.  The other reason to buy it is just pure luck.  If you happen to hit with every shot, then that can be hugely damaging to your opponent.  Even if you don’t hit with everything, you still have a ~40% chance of getting at least one hit if you’re making three rolls.  That takes a plane off the board while you still have the AA gun to lose as a casualty.  Again, depending on the makeup of the attacking force, that could swing the odds significantly in your favor.

That being said the unit can certainly be improved.  For starters, I’d lift the restriction on being only able to move it NCM.  I presume that’s there for some kind of realism on the pretext that you can’t set it up to be used on the attack.  However, if you can bring artillery on an attack, no reason AA couldn’t come as well.  Make it so they can be taken as losses but don’t get to roll if you have to.

[gamerman01]

Eggman, what would often happen is you buy an AA gun for defense and then your opponent never attacks that territory.  Then when you go on offense you have a worthless unit.

We all know you have ~40% chance of getting a hit with an AA gun and that you could possibly luck out and .5% of the time get 3 hits.  They have 0% chance of hitting ANYTHING after that.

You point out that it will occasionally be better defense at a minor.  What about spending 1 more IPC and getting a tank?  A tank that could blitz, move 2 spaces, and attack on a 3 if you get to go on offense.

No, AA guns at 5 IPC’s are almost always a cost ineffective purchase, just as Spendo also observed.

Believe me, I’ve argued a lot that every unit has its place and there are times to buy them.  I’ve defended tanks, tac bombers, and cruisers quite a bit on various threads.  I’m just saying that it strikes me now (after playing several games with the new rules) that AA guns might just be the worst buy of them all.

As you said, you also don’t usually find room for them on your USA transports across the Atlantic even though the starting ones are FREE and doing nothing in the USA but looking pretty.  Which is a pretty good indication that they’re not worth more than infantry in a lot of situations.

Wish they cost 4, or 3.  Not sure which.  3 seems fair.

[Kreuzfeld]

posted this in another thread

Tanks are specialist units against a good player you will very rarely get an advantage from being able to blitz with 10 tanks + 10 mechs, and this advantage would come of the cost of having 20 inf + 10 art, which is good when you need your main stack to advance. I think the only power that could benefit from a tank/mech stack is japan, when they are trying to chase down the siberians, but then such a stack would only force the russians to leave 1 inf behind for each time it moves to counteract that, and you would need do dislocate your airforce to force him to do it, which probably means that it costs more than it is worth. What you need tanks for is to be able to blitz empty terrs. Usually 2-4 tanks would be enough for most powers. if you have canopeners, like US can canopen for UK, or italy for germany, then you only need mechs.

[barney]

I don’t normally buy them either and I doubt many do

but you start with a lot and if you end up in the middle east with out one or two it can be psychologically encouraging for your opponent to attack     bring the us aa guns over for reinforcement   they’re good to have they can kill like 2 or 3 planes in one attack     unlikely but the threat is there      doesn’t always happen but if the threat isn’t there   why not attack

3 bucks seems to cheap      every unit would have one accompanying  four? maybe? I don’t know    three seems too cheap

[Eqqman]

@Gamerman01:

No, AA guns at 5 IPC’s are **_almost always a cost ineffective purchase, just as Spendo also observed.
Sounds like you are actually agreeing with me.  I mentioned that on defense you will sometimes get a better value for buying the AA gun over the Tank or Fighter.  In these cases you need to be prepared to not overlook the AA gun when you need to buy it.  So far as the Allies I usually buy at least one for Cairo since I am going to be hit by sea or attacked by a mass of German air power.  In these cases the offensive capabilities of alternative units like the Tank won’t come into play.

AA guns are similar to Cruisers and BBs.  The ones you start with usually suffice, so you don’t need to buy more.  But that isn’t because the ones you have aren’t useful._**

[Seador]

Where I have been buying them is with the UK Pac.  They have a couple direct uses.  Given the power that comes from an early Japan attack is almost entirely air, you want to have an AA shot at ever plane.

In the same context, you might not be in a position to hold Yunnan, but there might be a couple guys there.  I’d much rather stick an AA gun there than a couple extra INF as the trade mechanic features one round battles most of the time with no chance to hit a Japanese plane.  That’s 3 shots @1 at planes vs 2 shots @2 vs ground, or 9 shots @1 vs 5 shots @2 over three successive trade rounds.

I also ship an AA gun when I take a DEI early game, again, you’re likely to see air units supporting the conquest, so I’ll take those shots any time I can get them.

[gamerman01]

Well, I would still buy fighters if they cost 11 and bombers if they cost 15, so the fact that people occasionally buy AA’s at 5 doesn’t mean they are priced appropriately.

Matt - Do you think it would be an improvement if AA guns cost 4?

And do you buy more tanks than AA?

[Eqqman]

@Gamerman01:

Well, I would still buy fighters if they cost 11 and bombers if they cost 15, so the fact that people occasionally buy AA’s at 5 doesn’t mean they are priced appropriately.

I think the issue is that the AA gun is so specialized in what it does that talking about price isn’t really relevant.  You need to buy so few that you are going to pay it if it is $3, $4, $5, or $6.  I wouldn’t buy more than I do now even at a price of 3- at that price point, you’re still going to want Infantry.  What are you going to do with $3 AA guns that can’t be done with Infantry + the ones you have already?  The only time you may consider getting them in bulk is if your opponent is extremely heavy on air power (such as Japan in the early game, as pointed out).  In such a case, the $5 price doesn’t seem extreme.

[P-Unit]

In the games we’ve3 played, these units are rarely purchased, in order from most rare to least.

• AAA

• Mech. Infantry

• Cruiser

All of the above are simply inferior to other options for their cost.  I’m just glad the starting setup has lots of AAA or we wound’t see them in the game, ever. They should cost 4, cruisers 11.

I’ve wanted to try purchasing a lot of AAA somewhere (UK?) but I never do because I don’t want to ruin a 10 hour game testing some bizzaro strategy.  :/