Naval limit

@Eqqman

Nice personal story.

It’s amusing, for almost every point you wrote I heard someone say that was a World War 1 myth. I’m not saying it is.

So yeah, thank you for letting me know. As demonstrated by my games with The Good Captain, the Central Powers can indeed win in the game if the skill level between players is different enough.

@KraytKing

I think the system is fine as it is. Sure, the attacker has the advantage 90% of the time. But when it’s their turn, the other side can do the same thing.

I’m also not sure how making the system more complicated will make it better when again, when it’d their turn the defender becomes the attacker and the attacker becomes the defender.

On the strategic level, any piece of equipment that sees action is going to be regularly lost, and need replacement, but this is not always seen in A&A.

Excellent point. I see this imitated in the game in two ways:

Replacements are too small to portray.

As I said earlier, the attacker-defender mechanics work for both sides (hypothetically equally, more on that later), so if defending aircraft and tanks are being destroyed by attacking infantry as often as you say, then you will need replacements.

In too many games, German aircraft fly constantly against the Soviet Union, never taking losses while German infantry get torn to pieces.

I’ll admit this is my one weak spot and is a great point. My defense assumes both sides equally attack, but the game’s dynamics probably mean the Axis attack more than the Allies do. If your real problem is balance, I suggest you should admit that and we can better understand your ultimate goal.

I wish you luck on your further planning.

@barnee re: testing

Since the Axis each have a starting income that is divisible by 3, originally I had the mechanics for merging theatres as a function of the Axis country either increasing their income by 2/3rds more than their starting income, or decreasing it by 1/3rd less than their starting income. (Which sort of dovetails into the “2 out of 3” rule for Victory Cities.)

This effectively worked out to:
Germany: +14/-7
Italy: +8/-4
Japan: +10/-5

Changing it to a uniform +10/-5 made the math a little bit more intuitive, but it also means the USSR doesn’t have to get beat up so much (down half their income, possibly even losing their capitol) before the US/UK are able to jump in and help.

In terms of territorial gains/losses, this typically works out like…
+10 Germany = Karelia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Persia
-5 Germany = Finland/Norway, Eastern Europe

+10 Italy = all of Africa, plus Brazil or Eastern Canada
-5 Italy = all of Africa (except for one territory), or losing Southern Europe

+10 Japan = all Chinese territories, plus India or Philippines
-5 Japan = Indochina/Burma, Manchuria

So, Italy probably has the toughest time (as one might expect) but none of these scenarios are completely out of the realm of possibility.

@der-kuenstler For some reason I’m just finding this thread now. I mostly agree with what others have said. The only thing I want to add is that if you want to play with more than the simplest of house rules, you should feel good about creating play aids to support those rules. Seriously, go out and print your new rules, in full color. Put some thought into how to design and lay out a chart or a cheat sheet that will help players remember and use your rules. Cut them out so they’re the right size, and then laminate them or print them on heavyweight cardstock. If your rules involve any special pieces, buy sculpts for those pieces or use some paint or something to convincingly alter the closest available piece; don’t just slap a chip underneath artillery and say “OK, now it’s a self-propelled artillery.”

If you’re not willing to put in that work to make things easier on your players, then why should they put in the work to test out your house rules? It can take 8+ hours for a single playtest; if you invite 3 friends over, that’s 24 hours of other people’s time. You should be willing to put in at least 10% of that (2 hours) on creating play aids to improve that experience. If you’re not, maybe that’s a sign that you’re having so much fun imagining new rules that tickle your fancy that you’re not really thinking hard about whether those rules will be fun to play with for others.

Some people made them into technology, but i like them just as new pieces. and Table tactics makes mines already.

yep

In my version the oil tanker is the only new unit added.  Well, apart from Radar installations and Rocket pieces.

But then one key rule I introduce is that all ships must refuel every turn, tying them to friendly land areas.  With tankers it becomes possible to carry out long range naval operations, but the pieces themselves are expensive and have no combat value.

I’m not convinced that cruisers are anything more than a piece for the sake of having a 3-3 ship, with destroyers becoming 2-2, but we’ll see what LH has come up with in Guadalcanal.  Eventually.

The problem with cost reduction is that you might create naval cannon fodder units bought in vast quantaties just to soak up hits.  A ship costing 4 IPCs and having no combat value would probably be a good buy.

right.