Balance Idea: Remove the Gibraltar Naval Base

@Kobu:

@calvinhobbesliker:

It also prevents the US from using it. Taranto is the only time the UK uses the NB.

Ask jim010 about what to do after Sealion.

Please tell me why “not even close” applies to my statement that the alpha setup weakens both sides equally?

It’s meant to balance the Pacific game and it does so by severely scaling back on Japan forces so they can’t just win by declaring war on turn 1. I don’t know why you’d think that would balance the global game when the Axis are already so far behind.

I didn’t say it balances G40. I said it removes the same things from both sides.

The Italian fleet should be in range of the UK on UK 1.
This is a fact of the game and history.
Italy should face an uphill battle, that is its lot in life.
If it is unharrased, then it becomes a juggernaut

Personally, I dont even do the Taranto raid, Its pointless. Killing those ships at the expense of your own does very little.
There is an even more devious tactic the UK can use on Italy on UK1

@oztea:

The Italian fleet should be in range of the UK on UK 1.
This is a fact of the game and history.
Italy should face an uphill battle, that is its lot in life.
If it is unharrased, then it becomes a juggernaut

Personally, I dont even do the Taranto raid, Its pointless. Killing those ships at the expense of your own does very little.
There is an even more devious tactic the UK can use on Italy on UK1

What is that devious tactic?

@Kobu:

@calvinhobbesliker:

I didn’t say it balances G40. I said it removes the same things from both sides.

Then I don’t know what point you were trying to make in a topic about trying to make the game more balanced.

No, the topic was specifically  making Italy stronger. Alpha makes Italy stronger by removing 2 potential UK planes from going to Africa.

How about just moving Naval Bases from the game entirely?

Or just removing the ability to send units 3 spaces away.

Or making the Atlantic bigger again…

I was really happy about this 1940 game when I heard it was going to take the US 2 turns to reach Europe from the East coast.  WRONG…

@SgtBlitz:

How about just moving Naval Bases from the game entirely?

It makes the game slow.

Gibralter NB must stay. ILs idea is good. Calvins right, dont weaken UK.
How about strengthen ITALY? any suggestions?

Last time i played the Germany player on t1 used 2 subs to attack the UK DD and CV on G1.  The CV was damaged the DD destroyed and the fighter had to land at Gibraltar and the carrier had to go back to the UK to avoid being killed.  This prevented Taranto, but it also meant that more of the UK fleet in the North Sea survived.

Strenghten Italy - 1 Bomber North Italy

Thats a good start. how about another cruiser and 2 more destroyers to keep UK from sinking entire Italian fleet. Is that too much?

@mike:

Last time i played the Germany player on t1 used 2 subs to attack the UK DD and CV on G1.  The CV was damaged the DD destroyed and the fighter had to land at Gibraltar and the carrier had to go back to the UK to avoid being killed.  This prevented Taranto, but it also meant that more of the UK fleet in the North Sea survived.

What the hell was the UK guy smoking here?  The CV was repaired on start of UK1, and he could STILL of sent the TAC over to SZ 95 from Gibraltar (Airbase!) along with the FIG and CA from Egypt to kill SZ 95.  Hell, if he wanted to be suicidal, he could of even sent in the CV too for an extra two hits, just to have made sure.

Italy NEEDS some subs (1-2 SS) in SZ 95 methinks, to make it fair.  Whoever out there is saying that the Taranto raid is historical, Italy had like a hundred submarines in service, one of the largest submarine fleets in the world at the time (second only to Russia!  218 subs in Russia in 1941!  Germany herself only had 57 in operation at the time hostilities commenced, most were constructed during the course of the war.)  Britain only historically attacked Taranto with air units; bringing in the DD and CA should let them engage the subs there, and allow the Italian player to fob off some extra naval hits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regia_Marina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsmarine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Navy

WHY does Germany get to start with 5 U-boats vs. Italy’s NONE, when HISTORICALLY Italy had 2x as many subs at the start of the war than Germany did?  Maybe something called GAME BALANCE???  Or perhaps Larry WANTS Germany to kill 90% of the Royal Navy at Round 1 to give the Axis half a chance of victory, not to mention the fact that the Germans are the best positioned to use them effectively?  At any rate, it looks like a Taranto raid is the ONLY WAY the UK can get some kind of a revenge for the G1 sinking of 90% of its fleet around Britain.

If we go by the numbers, Russia should start with about 20 submarines to Germany’s 5, while Italy gets 10 in the Med.  VERY different game.

Also, it appears that the UK had as many submarines as the Germans did at the start of WWII…  Where are those?

http://www.secondworldwar.org.uk/britsubs.html

@SgtBlitz:

Britain only historically attacked Taranto with air units; bringing in the DD and CA should let them engage the subs there, and allow the Italian player to fob off some extra naval hits.

This.

Taranto weakened Italy by eliminating half of her battleships, but not half of her fleet.  It removed her ability to field a Fleet in Being, but it didn’t render the fleet impotent (the Italian navy did that on their own).

I dunno…  I personally think the current setup lacks some of the nuance that of AA50 & 1942.  Sure, there are some battles you HAVE to do in both, but there are quite a few options that are all valid.  I don’t see that in AA40 setup.  Some of it is because it’s the start of the war and you’ll have those options later (sort of), and not a divergant war (AA42, AA50) but some of it is just banal.

I look at that Gibralter DD and wonder what would happen if it were with another UK naval group up north.  It makes the G1 naval turkey shoot a little harder.  It gives germany a better chance with those 2 subs to kill the carrier, but at the expense of other UK naval pieces.  High risk, high reward but at what expense.  And/Or change the disposition of the Italian fleet.  Add a sub or two to Taranto.  Or switch the cruiser with a destroyer in naples and add another destroyer or sub to Taranto.  If the Italian surface navy got larger, take a plane from the UK (add an infantry in london) and put it with on the carrier.  The UK should have to COMMIT to Taranto at the expense of a weaker UK.  This isn’t the actual war, the Axis needs to have a way to win, and that means if a historic battle should be modeled where the allies had a decisive victory, those reinactments need to leave doors open that they didn’t have historically.  Otherwise we get all these nice historic reinactments and eventually Allies steamroll the Axis.

That doesn’t address balance of the game, but I think that hinges on how the US is treated (not how Taranto plays and certainly irregardless of Alpha or pac40 OOB which should have little impact as every power in alpha is weakened in alpha).

If your group is having problems with balance use the bid system.  It worked fine for the last game.

Example:

Shoeless Joe bets he can win with the Axis @ +12 IPC

Trina says she can win with the Axis @ +9 IPC

Joe says, “you’re Germany, Italy and Japan sister!”

Trina puts down a 6 IPC sub for Italy in the Taranto sea zone and a 3 IPC Infantry for Japan in south Asia.

Sure there will have to be understandings that the bid can’t be used by the Axis to buy troops in North America or whatever ridiculous things come up but that way kick butt Axis players don’t always kick Allied butt and lesser experienced Axis players (who may be good with the Allies) get some help when playing the bad guys.

Very interesting post about actual #s of subs for Italy. That could definitely change things up abit.

All these problems are solved if you remove the extra movement and instead allow naval bases to shelter ships in harbour.
The ships can still be targeted by bombing raids; altogether this creates the mechanics for a much more realistic depiction of both the Taranto raid (and the copycat Pearl Harbor operation), and the general usefulness of Gibraltar (which by the way should not be a tt but a UK NB in Southern Spain).