Cruisers, whats the point?

Cruisers rock!

Cruisers do have their point.  They do shore bombardment whereas destroyers don’t.  They are more cost effective than battleships for shore bombardment if that is your thing.  They are also a price point where if you can’t buy an additional ship, you can upgrade your destroyer purchase to a cruiser for less than the cost of a sub.  They are also affordable for minor nations.

The fact they ‘could’ move three I think is a bit too much of a perk of the unit in my humble opinion.  Now the basis for the speed 3 is that they are that much faster than other units?  I don’t think cruisers are faster than destroyers if so, not by a significant margin.  I think getting close to the range of air units based on the premise that cruisers are faster than other units in real life (are they?) unbalances things too much.  A p51 mustang easily is 10x faster than a cruiser but if a cruiser can move 3 than a p51 only covers 33% more distance being 1000% faster.

I think it should be played as a house rule, but again, my suspicion is that it would tend to unbalance things a bit too much, but if the goal is to have cruisers play a bigger part it certainly will do that!

You have a point but remember that planes can’t fly for months across water  :wink:

And you do have a point about bombardment strength…

As I said, every unit has its specialty, excluding bombardment, except for cruisers.

@Uncrustable:

I would like to play someone who is adding cruisers in their navy where i am not…

It’s very easy, just download Battlemap, and let’s play by forum.
I won’t buy tons of cruisers though, just one or 2 for USA, and maybe one for Anzac, just as it’s suposed to be.

What do you say ?

IF you make cruisers move 4, and cost 11, why would anyone build a battleship?

Pretend that tanks move the same as infantry and artillery (1 space) then there would be no point in building tanks ever.
INF and arty on  1 to 1 would be better in every circumstance

Yea but, tanks DON’T move 1.  And they wouldn’t cost 6 if they did.

And for the record, you are obviously not a pro, and neither the people you are playing online against.

DESTROYERS ARE A BAD BUY. - en mass.  Having more than 2 or 3 is usually pointless.

The game is about money, and destroyers have absolutely NO effect on land.  Fighters are a way better buy, because of their dual purpose capabilities, in both defending/advancing your navy, and supporting your ground troops where needed,  with twice the range, and defensive power, for a mere $2.

I laugh everytime my opponents pump out destroyers, because they won’t be having any effect on amphibious landings, or my economic placement, anytime soon, if ever.

What an idiot.

DO you build as your navy ?

TRANSPORTS, and as FEW combat naval vessels as possible.

@Uncrustable:

honestly id love to see your transports halfa** defended in the middle of the pacific.

Ummm dude.  You have no idea what you are talking about or the calibre of player who you are trying to argue with.  Please take some advice and quit making a fool of yourself.

He got to crusiers move 4 cause of the +1 from NB’s.  I think CA’s are just fine, /if/ they were to get a perk, I suggested to larry it be in the new theatre of Convoy raiding.  Basically my suggestion was to make CRD happen only from tac bombers, CA’s, Subs and perhaps dd’s.  This would fit their historical role of a fast surface ship plus greatly limit the amount of possible convoy raiding by surface ships.

Still, its not going to happen, CA’s are a little pricey but still serve a valuable niche as a cheaper Shore bombard and possilbe fleet build, I know I have at times built a DD/CA instead of a BB if I see enemy subs in the water.

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