Cruisers

@knp7765:

I’m not so sure lowering the cost of cruisers to 11 or 10 is a good idea.  Basically, right now we just have the cruiser and I think most people kind of consider it the heavy cruiser.  What happens if we put light cruisers in the game?  Then they will more than likely cost 10 or 11 and regular, or heavy, cruisers will have to cost 12.  As for doing something to increase their abilities, perhaps make cruisers like a naval AA gun;  during first round of combat, they get a shot of 1 at attacking enemy planes and any hits are immediately removed.

I’m glad we got cruisers.  It’s nice to have something in between destroyers and battleships and I think it makes our fleets more complete.  I don’t believe that cruisers are a “bad buy” 95% or 99% of the time.  I think it depends totally on the situation and what you are trying to do at that time.  In some cases, yeah it would be horrible to throw a cruiser in there.  In others, you specifically want them.  I really don’t think you can just label them with a certain percentage.

i agree, the “bad buy percentage” is just a bunch of bollocks.

Even if there is a 5% “Best buy”, that doesn’t imply 95% is “bad/worst buy” (or whatever%). Stop thinking black or white, people. That whole discussion is nonsense.

As Gamerman pointed out with several examples, a cruiser can be useful.
Will it be bought often? No. Does that make it an obsolete unit? No!

There could be house ruling to make it more spicy, such as for example (like a TB) to give it a 4/3 when pairing it with a fighter (or another unit). Or to make it 11 IPC (does 1 IPC really make that much difference?).

LOL I love how people go on and whine about how cruisers aren’t the most effective buy.

What about some countries, like RUSSIA, who never get to buy navy in any serious fashion?

Or the Chinese, who are limited to men / arty, and lastly the French, who NEVER get to even do a buy!?

There is a time and place for everything.  Infact, when’s the last time someone bought a battleship?  I’m guessing almost never.Germany/Italy certainly can’t, UK I doubt it…  Japan maybe… USA most likely.  Everyone else can forget it.

And why would I EVER build a destroyer? if my opponent is never building subs?  It can’t be used to bombard - and it’s less effective on defense… in come the cruiser.

@Gargantua:

LOL I love how people go on and whine about how cruisers aren’t the most effective buy.

What about some countries, like RUSSIA, who never get to buy navy in any serious fashion?

Or the Chinese, who are limited to men / arty, and lastly the French, who NEVER get to even do a buy!?

There is a time and place for everything.  Infact, when’s the last time someone bought a battleship?  I’m guessing almost never.Germany/Italy certainly can’t, UK I doubt it…  Japan maybe… USA most likely.  Everyone else can forget it.

And why would I EVER build a destroyer? if my opponent is never building subs?  It can’t be used to bombard - and it’s less effective on defense… in come the cruiser.

lol my usa bought like 47 battleships(not really, more like 3)

@Gargantua:

And why would I EVER build a destroyer? if my opponent is never building subs?  It can’t be used to bombard - and it’s less effective on defense… in come the cruiser.

Actually destroyers are, cost-wise, superior to cruisers on defense.  Not saying that cruisers are useless.  I like them.

What about giving it a movement of 3?

Most cruisers were designed for speed and range. The naval bases might eliminate a lot of need for the extra space, but could still be useful and a little more historically accurate at the same time.

@Gargantua:

LOL I love how people go on and whine about how cruisers aren’t the most effective buy.

What about some countries, like RUSSIA, who never get to buy navy in any serious fashion?

Or the Chinese, who are limited to men / arty, and lastly the French, who NEVER get to even do a buy!?

There is a time and place for everything.  Infact, when’s the last time someone bought a battleship?  I’m guessing almost never.Germany/Italy certainly can’t, UK I doubt it…  Japan maybe… USA most likely.  Everyone else can forget it.

And why would I EVER build a destroyer? if my opponent is never building subs?  It can’t be used to bombard - and it’s less effective on defense… in come the cruiser.

Who are you playing with? In my games Germany, Italy, UK and Japan often build Battleships…As subs are highly effective and always on the board, you’re Carriers have to be protected with Destroyers…

Nevertheless point taken on

It can’t be used to bombard - and it’s less effective on defense… in come the cruiser

we use cruisers all the time in our games. especially in the naval battles of the pacific war. and in the atlantic the brits buy em along with a few dds. if you want to overwhelm your opponent naval wise then go with the Cruiser destroyer combo, its good against subs and has 2 rolls of attack/defense unlike the battleship who has one. yes they take 2 to destroy but it cant do everything the CA/DD combo can do

There’s only one thing that’s TRUE in Axis and Allies.

You need a little bit of everything to win.

I think that the designers and developers knew what they were doing when they put them in the line-up,  give them some credit.  They work well for me when I’m the UK.  they can make my dd’s less prone to aircraft attacks.  Compare adv. to disad.      not good against the sub sneak attack VS att & def at 3
  I think that when they put them in it,  it brought the cost of subs and trans down……here is a challenge    land in the USA with Ger somewhere between G3 and G7.

Keep up the posts its good to see all the diff points of views

This argument is silly…  It seems that both sides agree that cruisers are not as effective as destroyers for the majority of the situations that arise in the game.  The statistics that are being thrown around (95%-5%) are completely arbitrary, and not really based on any facts.  I’ve played about 20 games of alpha 2 and I’ve found cruisers to be useful in quite a few situations every game.  My anzac builds 3 or 4 cruisers every game unless Japan targets their bonuses.  I feel cruisers are a great buy for London once you’ve secured the Atlantic and begin landing in Germany.  The Americans and Japanese certainly get more use out of destroyers in the pacific, as does Italy and England in the Mediterranean.  If the game didn’t have and sea zones and you just bought as many boats as you could afford every turn and rolled out battles than yes destroyers are better than cruisers every time.  But the game doesn’t work that way…

@JayDavis:

So lets see, because some people buy them that means they must be useful. So, if you see people jumping off a bridge, you follow? Must be a good idea.

How about this? We have a unit called a Battlecruiser. It will cost 12 points, hits on a 3, takes one hit, and can bombard. I bet you guys will think this is better than a cruiser.

This stuff just isn’t that difficult. I’d hate to see you guys try to analyze something complicated.

So hey, leave the cruiser as is. Feel free to buy as many as you want. Just makes it easier for the rest of us to win.

How is that argument any different that what you’re trying to say. So because some people don’t buy them, they must be pointless.
Perhaps the people jumping off the bridge are bungy jumping and can see the fun in it, but to others it seems pointless.

Could be the people using them have seen their usefulness and use them to win.

@JayDavis:

How about this? We have a unit called a Battlecruiser. It will cost 12 points, hits on a 3, takes one hit, and can bombard. I bet you guys will think this is better than a cruiser.

Well yes, Captain Obvious, of course that will be better.

And if we make a unit called a party-cruiser, filled with nude cheerleaders and give it a 6 coastal (distraction attack) and a soaker (shirts) for the same price, it also will be better.

On a serious note, making the cruiser a double hitter for the same price would be too much for 12 ipc

Cruiser fans…… UNITE!  :mrgreen:

@clintbeastwood:

This argument is silly…  It seems that both sides agree that cruisers are not as effective as destroyers for the majority of the situations that arise in the game.  The statistics that are being thrown around (95%-5%) are completely arbitrary, and not really based on any facts.  I’ve played about 20 games of alpha 2 and I’ve found cruisers to be useful in quite a few situations every game.  My anzac builds 3 or 4 cruisers every game unless Japan targets their bonuses.  I feel cruisers are a great buy for London once you’ve secured the Atlantic and begin landing in Germany.  The Americans and Japanese certainly get more use out of destroyers in the pacific, as does Italy and England in the Mediterranean.  If the game didn’t have and sea zones and you just bought as many boats as you could afford every turn and rolled out battles than yes destroyers are better than cruisers every time.  But the game doesn’t work that way…

I agree with Clint.  The way I see it, they aren’t as efficient as destroyers or as powerful as battleships or as versatile as aircraft carriers, but I’m glad a DD/BB hybrid unit is available for the few cases when a battleship would be too expensive but a destroyer would be ineffective.

Furthermore it also gives a good medium ship to help balance setups between the destroyer and the battleship, which is an important point that doesn’t come up frequently in these debates.  For setups sometimes a navy needs a bigger representation than a measly destroyer, but by the A&A rules a battleship would be too powerful, so you have the cruiser now that allows for beefier naval representation in the setup without being overpowered against opening attacks.

Plus you now have representation of the 5 major naval classes (as evidenced by the other board game “Battleship” :wink:), which is cool too. 8-)

So all in all I think it’s better to at least have the option of buying cruisers in the game, even if they hardly ever get purchased, then not having them at all.

I would suppoert cruisers being changed to 11 cost, but you also have to change the shipyard tech to reduce their cost by 1 instead of 2 as a 9pt cruiser would actually be a great buy even compared to a 7pt destroyer.

If cruisers were dropped to 11 I couldn’t really see any change to when I would buy them.  It would only result in me upgrading an infantry to an artillery most of the time.  There would still not be any real reason for Japan to buy cruisers.  The USA would still only buy 1 or 2 in the Atlantic for bombardments. 
Dropping the price to 10 would make battleships damn near obsolete, as well as destroyers only being bought for sub defense.
I rarely buy cruisers, but I rarely buy tac bombers, bombers, AA guns, tech dice, and most facilities either.  Does that mean all these units need fixed???  Since I buy infantry more than any other unit does that mean they should be more expensive?
Granted its only my opinion, but I don’t feel that cruisers at twelve needs changed at all.

@clintbeastwood:

I rarely buy cruisers, but I rarely buy tac bombers, bombers, AA guns, tech dice, and most facilities either.  Does that mean all these units need fixed???  Since I buy infantry more than any other unit does that mean they should be more expensive?
Granted its only my opinion, but I don’t feel that cruisers at twelve needs changed at all.

That’s a really good point.  Just because you don’t buy a unit very often doesn’t mean that it’s useless or needs to be changed.  It just depends on what fits your stategy at the time.

The only change I might make is adopting the cruiser/AA gun idea.  If a fleet is attacked by air power and that fleet has at least 1 cruiser in it, then the attacking planes are subject to AA gun fire like with a land AA gun – 1 round of fire, any 1’s are a hit, casualties removed immediately, then battle proceeds as normal.

meh, I think the aa gun idea is too powerful, although it would result in 1 CA per fleet at least.  The idea I like is to pair them with something, perhaps 1 CA 1 CV grants the CV +1 attack and def.  Something along those lines.

CA keeps price at 12

Each time a CA rolls a 1 and the enemy has planes that type is hit

CA gets the same ASW capabilities as the DD.