Balance without using alpha

not many folks playing alpha 2 anymore.

Thanks for the feedback guys!  Very thought out reply TheMethuselah, that helps, thanks.  I was thinking that 8 Mechanized Infantry might be enough and that some might only use two, so I was surprised to see that 12 can be used by many of the major powers.  Are you sure that there could be 12 different Mechanized Infantry on 12 different territories?  I could see that if Russia was attacking Japanese forces in Asia by land or vice versa.  I was also surprised to see 6 additional fighters for Italy, which would make 8 total.  I had thought that 4 might do it, so I really appreciate your input.  If anyone has a different experience, I’d love to hear from a variety of people, since I never know who I might be playing with and what units might be realistically used with the various strategies out there.

I imagine my mental estimate for fighters and bombers of other countries is off as well.  Do you have an aircraft estimate for some (or all) of the other countries?

Right now I just have some sub par quality photos of the Europe pieces, but maybe I can post those some time; the IJN probably is my best work, but I don’t have any good photos right now.  If I have free time I should be painting rather than setting up a photo shoot.  I’ll plan to post a link here if I end up posting them.  Thanks for the interest.

@Vance:

I always SBR London if I am planning or pretending sea lion.  That turn 1 SBR is a critical piece of sea lion and the threat is not serious without it.  Two Bombers target the IC and two tacticals target the airbase.  They do not intercept because a) the fighters scramble in z110 or z109, or b) if they are taking the sea lion threat seriously they do not want to risk losing a fighter.  About half the time I lose a plane to AA, but its worth it because the sea lion threat forces UK to spend its entire first turn income on repairs and infantry, leaving the med and Africa open for Italy.  Italy’s NO income soon pays for any losses you may have had (unless you get diced and lose 3 or 4 of them).  If both sides have normal losses (i.e. germany loses 1 plane or none; the airbase is inoperable and the IC has something like 10 damage), and they spend in South Africa or Egypt, do a Taranto raid, etc., well then sea lion is on.

Yeah, I didn’t even think of bombing the airbases too. Of course that means that they won’t scramble into an adjacent sea zone, but then they can still intercept the strategic and tactical bombers attacking the IC and airbase, right? If I know that that’s what my opponent intends to do, then I’d use all my fighters exactly for that as they won’t be of any use in an adjacent sz. But yes, you have a point too that if Germany really wants to go for sea lio, the UK will need all the fighters it can get!

Does cause Japan to not collect their 10 ipc NO if memory serves. At least in the current version of alpha 3.

That change was intentional.  It was not highlighted as it should have been.  Sorry for any inconvenience.

Thanks for the detail. I think I am going to have to leave SZ 97 alone. Even without German fighters, it is too risky to attack. What that does do, is allow Germany to not have to move fighters south since the attack on 97 is no longer truly feasible UK1.

Any naval battle occuring in the seazone presents the opportunity for a scramble, even an unescorted transport landing.

Yes, they upgrade for free when at war. If however you want it to become a major IC before going to war you must pay 20 IPC as normal per IC.