Eliminating Cruisers from Global 1940- Advice needed! (updated with setup chart)

[AlphaKappa]

I’d like to discuss how to remove Cruiser units from Global 1940. While I appreciate Cruisers in theory, the ‘medium’ size of the physical sculpts is difficult for me and my friends to distinguish from the ‘large’-size Battleships and the ‘small’-size Destroyers. Introducing a house rule that removes Cruisers would make the game much more accessible for some of my friends.

What I would like to do is eliminate the Cruiser and then add Bombardment @ 2 to Destroyer units. However, should that require a small boost in price for the Destroyer? If so, how much? I am considering a new cost of 10 IPCs for Destroyers but I am not sure if that would be too expensive.

Regarding the map setup, I would expect to simply downgrade all of the Cruisers to Destroyers (with Bombardment @ 2) and then refund any cost difference as a small bonus to each nation’s starting IPCs.

I want to remove Cruisers with the smallest-possible impact on gameplay, rules, and unit pricing. In your experienced opinion, would these changes negatively affect the game in ways that I might not be considering? I have played Global 1940 about 7 or 8 times and I do not think that these changes would be too drastic. Can you offer any advice on this? Thank you.
_Edit:_Formatting

Update (3/3/15): Here is my revised naval setup, which replaces all Cruisers with Destroyers (costing 10 IPCs with Bombardment @ 2).  Note that some nations have a small bonus or penalty to their starting treasury.

I determined those amounts simply by considering all original Destroyers as being worth 2 more (due to their increased price) and all replacement Destroyers (former Cruisers) as being worth 2 less.  You’ll notice that some nations do not require a treasury change because they had an equal number of Cruisers and Destroyers.

However, Japan (for example), normally starts with 2 more Destroyers than Cruisers.  Those are now worth 2 more IPCs each, so Japan incurs a small penalty of -4 IPCs to its starting funds. Germany, on the other hand, had its Cruiser (worth 12 IPCs) downgraded to a Destroyer (10 IPCs), so it receives a treasury bonus of +2 IPCs.

One question that I have now is: Would it be best to have Destroyers attack @2 / bombard @2 / defend @__3__? That might be too much.

……

Germany
Starting treasury bonus:  +2 IPCs

SZ 103: 1 submarine
SZ 108: 1 submarine
SZ 113: 1 battleship
SZ 114: 1 transport, 1 destroyer
SZ 117: 1 submarine
SZ 118: 1 submarine
SZ 124: 1 submarine

…

Soviet Union
Starting treasury bonus: +2 IPCs

SZ 115: 1 submarine, 1 destroyer
SZ 127: 1 submarine

…

Japan
Starting treasury penalty: -4 IPCs

SZ 6: 1 transport, 1 submarine, 3 destroyers, 2 aircraft carriers (each carrying 1 fighter and 1 tactical bomber), 1 battleship
SZ 19: 1 transport, 1 submarine, 1 destroyer, 1 battleship
SZ 20: 1 transport, 1 destroyer
SZ 33: 1 destroyer, 1 aircraft carrier (carrying 1 fighter and 1 tactical bomber)

…

U.K. Europe
Starting treasury penalty: -2 IPCs

SZ 71: 1 destroyer
SZ 91: 1 destroyer
SZ 98: 1 transport, 2 destroyers, 1 aircraft carrier (carrying 1 tactical bomber)
SZ 106: 1 transport, 1 destroyer
SZ 109: 1 transport, 1 destroyer
SZ 110: 1 destroyer, 1 battleship
SZ 111: 2 destroyers, 1 battleship

…

U.K. Pacific

SZ 37: 1 Battleship
SZ 39: 1 transport, 2 destroyers

…

Italy

SZ 95: 1 transport, 1 submarine, 2 destroyers
SZ 96: 1 transport, 1 destroyer
SZ 97: 1 transport, 1 destroyer, 1 battleship

…

ANZAC

SZ 62: 1 transport, 1 destroyer
SZ 63: 1 destroyer

…

United States

SZ 10: 1 transport, 2 destroyers, 1 aircraft carrier (carrying 1 fighter and 1 tactical bomber), 1 battleship
SZ 26: 1 transport, 1 submarine, 2 destroyers
SZ 35: 1 submarine, 1 destroyer
SZ 101: 1 transport, 1 destroyer

…

France

SZ 72: 1 destroyer
SZ 93: 2 destroyers
SZ 110: 1 destroyer

…

[barney]

hmmm… interesting question. I suppose you would want to jack the price of subs a little as well, but maybe not. Baron is pretty good with crunching numbers maybe he’ll chime in.

You could also get some bad ass looking cruisers from one of the custom sculpt makers. That might make them easier to distinguish.

[AlphaKappa]

@barney:

hmmm… interesting question. I suppose you would want to jack the price of subs a little as well, but maybe not. Baron is pretty good with crunching numbers maybe he’ll chime in.

You could also get some bad ass looking cruisers from one of the custom sculpt makers. That might make them easier to distinguish.

Some of the custom ships are pretty amazing but I’d say that the size of the Cruiser is really the problem and not so much the ‘sculpt’.

I don’t know about subs. I think I would leave their price alone.

[Young Grasshopper]

Not a bad idea considering the headaches cruisers cause when trying to balance naval units, I would up the cost to 9 IPCs, give them the @2 bombardment like you suggested, and swap out all cruisers in the setup for destroyers… of course it will take a few play test games to really understand the ramifications.

[WoodyWanKenobi]

I had this problem when introducing new players amongst many other hurdles for them to get over. Here’s how I got round it

I bought some grey model paint and painted the towers/turrets/guns on the cruisers. Don’t get carried away and paint too much of a ship Grey or you’ll lose the original colour.

Its a good colour for the ships and it doesn’t look bad at all!

No need to adapt rules and you get to keep the ‘tanks of the seas’!

[Witt]

I can see two problems with this. One is a major one: there will be another 8 (guess) anti Submarine vessels in the game, but no more Subs. Germany might be disadvantaged by this.
The second: Italy  would be seriously weakened and a Taranto would be too easily done.

Would the Axis need more ships to compensate?
I thinki t will be fun experimenting with this idea. Tell us what you find, please.

[CWO Marc]

Cruiser sculpts are actually fairly easy to distinguish from destroyer sculpts because the destoyer sculpts nearly all have transom sterns, which means that the back part of the ship is square or, in a couple of cases, rounded.  The cruisers have cruiser sterns, which are pointed.  (The first version of the German Hipper-class cruiser had a transom stern, but it was changed to a cruiser stern later.)

As for the battleships, I think most of the sculpts are substantially larger than the cruiser sculpts.  The British and German battleship sculpts were boosted in size about ten or so years ago, to make them closer in size to the US and Japanese ones.

[AlphaKappa]

@CWO:

Cruiser sculpts are actually fairly easy to distinguish from destroyer sculpts because the destoyer sculpts nearly all have transom sterns, which means that the back part of the ship is square or, in a couple of cases, rounded.  The cruisers have cruiser sterns, which are pointed.  (The first version of the German Hipper-class cruiser had a transom stern, but it was changed to a cruiser stern later.)

This is a good point.  The ‘flat’ stern of the Destroyers is a distinguishing feature except in the case of Russia, whose Cruiser also has a transom stern.  You’re right, I mean – to the discerning eye, the pieces are certainly distinguishable.  Our play style, however, is usually more on the ‘pushing plastic’ side.  We want to keep it fast and fun and the Crusiers have been by far the biggest source of confusion all the times that we’ve played.