Cruisers, whats the point?

How about the idea of each cruiser firing an AA shot at 1 attacking plane?  I think they are fine the way they are, but something like that could be a House Rule if you want to motivate people to build cruisers.

Here’s a question,

How often do people REALLY buy Battleships?  maybe, once or two a game, as Japan or USA?

I certainly don’t think I’ve ever seen a player in a normal game have more than 4.

Perhaps Battleships are overpriced?

And maybe you should also consider, that Cruisers aren’t overpriced, but that subs, destroyers, fighters, and bombers. are _under_priced?

Uncrustable, what is retarded is taking a sentence out of context then treating it like a straw man to attack.

Lets take the context of the sentence….gawd its a sad day when I have to explain grammar…

Navy support shots only work if you use them. �Landing a few infantry and artillery supported by a few surface ships against a stack of infantry and tanks will attrit that stack a bit but SBR inflicts more damage on average for both what you plan to lose on average and does it for less investment.

So, the way grammar works is we start out with a sort of context, kinda like what the first sentence does.  “Navy support shots” is the concept at hand.  Reading further we see the word “attrit”, let me spell it out for you… attrition, look it up if you are not familiar with the concept.   So we are talking about building ships (cruisers) in order to attrit a large stack of units you can’t hope to win a full out a battle against.  In that case, it is more cost effective to lose an infantry and artillery in a 1 round of expected combat than it would be to lose a tank and infantry.  If you do the cost benefit analysis of single round of combat in order to attrit a large stack, Infantry and Artillery win.  I then went on to mention if your plan is to build cruisers or battleships in order to support a plan of attrition, you’re better off to use SBRs.

Having to explain this in gruesome detail makes me think you are not as well versed in the game as you should be in order to shoot your mouth off like you are.

Gargantua, I personally NEVER buy battleships, ever.  Of course, I lack the experience in other versions of AA to understand the nuances that might make a BB attractive to purchase.

In spring 42, if you buy battleships you are probably going to lose.  It’s carriers and planes to make the enemy defend against more threats.  It’s all about threat projection and making your opponent defend against as much as possible (dictating his purchases) with as little investment as possible on your part as possible.

As for other purchases, you don’t win the game with a navy, a navy cannot win you a single IPC (other than convoy routes say).  IPCs are what wins the games between experts for the most part.

You invest the bare minimum in things other than land units and transports.  You have just enough navy to allow you to deliver land units to battle.

and yes mr gargatron you can reverse the argument and say everything else is underpriced but thats not very helpfull

Neither is saying cruisers are overpriced?  lol.

Malachi!

You invest the bare minimum in things other than land units and transports.  You have just enough navy to allow you to deliver land units to battle.

Exactly My sentiments when I said:

TRANSPORTS, and as FEW combat naval vessels as possible.

Glad someone else agrees!

As for the battleship comment, I agree with you aswell,  they are an extremely rare, if ever, build for me.  But I am reminded of a game from a few years ago, where my strategy as Germany was to build a battleship every turn, for the first few turns!  Simply because back then, bombards were instant kill, and tips healed at the end of combat!

Let me see if I can pull up the URL, you’re going to love this one.  Timtheenchanter and his ally got CRUSHED, by the German battleship theorum, though I doubt I would ever use it again lol.

……  :(

It appears the thread is inaccessible,  here is my quote from page 3 of the “soviet battleships” thread where I reference the game.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10548.0

Quickly look at this game of revised.  All competent players who knew the game.

Germans won by building a battleships, carriers, and a factory in egypt.  “LOL what” you say?  Though I realized by G2 the strategy I had of building 1 battleship a turn was BAD, but I was locked in! and because of the overwhelming response of the allies, I used this to smash them to pieces.

Sometimes sticking to your guns, when everyone says you’re crazy, works out just fine

If you want, just read pages 5 and 6, where it goes over everyone’s debrief of the game

Gargantua, I probably should have mentioned that I agree with you 100% and was merely stating what you said in a different way.

I don’t recall when bombardments were instant kill, of course there are many flavours I have not played.

Uncrustable, in your response (Reply #23) you stated:

And your artillery Speel is pants on head retarded. One artillery and one infantry is far better than one tank and only costs one more IPC. The only downside is Range.

It seemed logical to me that your comment regarding an artillery speel was in reference to my Reply #18.  There is no mention of artillery between your mentioning of an arillery speel and when I was discussing artillery.  You really should think of this as a LIFO not a FIFO.  Generally, you reply to the most recent thing talked about and work your way back in time.  I am guessing you were referring to an artillery comment by somebody else then.  Perhaps if you could adhere to etiquette of a threaded conversation and reply to the most recent comment first then work back in history then you wouldn’t assume people are merely being trolls as you put it.

Don’t know why cruisers can’t be 11 and BB’s 18-19

I prefer BB’s early to give a navy some backbone:

2-Hit capability
Attacks and Defends @4
Can Bombard

I know AC’s provide the 2-hit capability, but for any offensive moves you have to spend 20+ IPC to make them important - and 36 IPC can be a steep cost depending on the nation you are talking about.

I personally prefer Carriers to BBs, cause they let you put fighters in the seazone, fighters that you can also use in lands battles.

I myself never bought a cruiser, nor a battleship. I’m usually happy with the ones I start with.

I like the idea of giving Cruisers AA capabilities.  You could treat each cruiser in a fleet like a single land AA gun. Each cruiser can fire up to 3 AA shots @ 1 against attacking enemy planes up to the total number of attacking planes, whichever is less. For example: 2 cruisers COULD fire up to six AA shots. If there are LESS than six planes attacking, then only roll for the number of planes.  If there are MORE than six planes, then the 2 cruisers would only roll 6 for AA.
This would happen at the beginning of the first round of combat only.  Any hits by the cruiser AA would be immediately destroyed. Cruisers defend normally @ 3 after the AA shots, including the first round of combat.
Perhaps this would help legitimize their price.

How about this houserule:

Heavy flotilla - When a cruiser attacks or defends along with a battleship the cruiser’s attack and defence is increased to 4. Each cruiser must be
matched one-for-one with a battleship.

I JUST bought 2 more cruisers (in addition to the 2 I purchased earlier) in my current anniversary game against Djensen.  As the UK.

Italy is now an American Factory,  and Germany is reduced to well… GERMANY.  He’s lucky if he can produce 18 IPC’s in a round.  Japan is still a monster :(

The big problem is that Germany has 12 fighters defending it’s capital.  A great defense, and also, a strong enough alternative to threaten nuking my navy.  But he’s exhausted his stacks of man power in counter attacks, so if I can kill about 6 + units a round,  he’ll start losing fighters rapidly, and be unable to defend his capital for too long.  Bombards will help me break the edge off here!

Thus, Cruisers ARE the buy for this scenario, and I am very greatful for them!

That sounds like the shore bombard attrition malachi was talking about earlier.  Not sure about the earlier games, but in the 1940 ones for every infantry/art you land you can bombard with 1 cruiser/BB and you only risk losing the land units.  If you do that turn after turn you eventually wear him down and all those shore bombards were sort of free - Nice!

Attrition via shore bombardment can work I guess in some situations, it seems the situation Gargantua cited is probably one of the best times to use this.  In particular, you use the equipment you have and is more predictable than AA shots and SBRs, escort fighters can change the dynamics drastically, I rarely use that rule.

Shore bombardment via Inf+Art supported by 2 CC gives a punch of 10, statistically killing 1 2/3 units, assuming infantry about 5 IPC for the consumption of 7 IPC.  That would not make a great strategic goal from the outset in a ‘general’ setting but at Gargantua’s stage of the game and what it is going to force in a few rounds is a great tactical effort in this local theatre.

Using SBRs gives you a ratio of 12 to 17.5 on average against an AA protected target versus 7 to 5.  You do more economic damage with SBRs than shore bombardment.  Of course the defense to SBRs is to just build elsewhere if you can or build every other round which will reduce the per turn average of what your bombers can do.  Having them sit there for a round waiting for an IC to be repaired to bomb is like money not earning interest whereas shore bombardments keep chipping away.  Of course bombers cannot defend fleets either.

bombers just sitting there??  what game are you playing?

Won a game of anniversary Friday because my opponent was dead set on SBRing me.  He sent his Russian bomber against Italy because it didn’t have an aa gun.  I told him he should have sent it against finland, killing 6ipcs of inf and capturing 2 ipcs.  Ground attacks are ALWAYS better than SBR because you can make money /and/ kill units.