Game unbalanced?

@Black_Elk:

Updated unit costs/abilities: mainly the more expensive tank at 6, the defenseless transport at 7, and the cheaper bomber at only 12 ipcs. Most of these alterations work in favor of Axis.

Oddly, I only find that the transport at 7 is in favor of Axis.
Tank at 5 IPCs will create a German “blitzdozer” on Russia.
While Bomber at lower cost can provides US and UK a bit more Fast Flying units toward the front line, in 1 or 2 rounds.

One option to see how it changes the balance, is simply to turn Transport into Classic ones at 8 IPCs, Defending @1, and worth 1 hit.
You can also choose to keep it as the Last Casualty Chosen. (I prefer this one.)
It simplify things a bit, and Allies will need less escorting Warships.

I think the problem is one of position. True, the Allies make more money than the Axis - but there should be an asterisk on that. The USA starts out totally out of position and usually cannot use their income in a meaningful way until several rounds go by. So it is really just the UK and Russia doing the fighting against all the Axis. One solution is a lend-lease rule like I posted elsewhere that would enable the Allies to get IPCs quickly where they are needed, before the Axis forces get out of hand.

My rationale on the tank cost hurting Allies has to do more with Russia. In AA50 for example, it was a lot more viable for Russia to create an offensive armor stack. For use in deadzoning, or to provide more reach on counterattack options. Germany and Japan will build tanks no matter what they cost, because the movement advantage is so strong blitzing towards the center. Axis would probably buy Armor even at a cost of 7 or 8 haha, just because of the way the map is designed, the fact that they need to reach the center as quickly as possible. But Russia doesn’t have that same incentive. They don’t really need to “race” anywhere as part of their natural movements (other than maybe Karelia or perhaps India) so I find that its a lot harder for Russia to justify buying tanks on this board. A similar problem affects UK in India, where the tanks are just a bit too expensive to justify, and most players opt for inf/art combo. The bomber its true can also be used effectively by the Allies, I just think it favors Japan with the reach, and as an easy way to pound Russia into the ground for a relatively cheap Axis investment. Again the distance from Moscow to the coastal regions of China often means that Japan can launch their bombers to Moscow or Caucasus and still have 3 spaces left to move afterwards, usually to Europe where they can put extra defensive pips on a German stack and threaten weakly defended Allied transports around Europe or the Med at the same time they threaten sbr on the Russian capital.

Der Kuenstlers comment about Allies being out of position is on point. I lot of people I’ve gamed with in 42.2 make the gripe that USA is too slow to get into the fight, and that they have a hard time impacting the game before the fate of Moscow is decided. Both Atlantic shucks are gone. Africa, UK both take one more round now, since you have to launch the transports 2 moves and then alternate them rather than shucking, which means you have to buy more transports overall, and since they don’t defend on their own, it means you have to by more warships too! All this combines to stall the USA’s Atlantic crossings. The Pacific isn’t much better. The inability to drop a China factory to support the British India factory, means that anything the USA does here has to come across the ocean, again via defenseless transports. The British have a somewhat stronger position in the Pacific, relative to previous boards, and that can be a boon, but the balance around India is often so precarious that its very hard for them to branch out much. The idea of using USA to bank roll the two weaker Allies is novel, and I think it has some definite promise.

For a KJF or Pacific oriented game, my main advice would be not to take Borneo with UK. This has screwed me in the endgame as Allies more times than I care to recount. Often times in a KJF full press, you will have the opportunity to snatch up the rich islands with UK (on account of the turn order), East Indies is a fairly easy grab, and it may be very tempting to take Borneo in subsequent rounds with UK just to deny the income to Japan (and beef up the British purse in the process) but in the long term you will hose USA’s pacific game by doing this. USA desperately needs to control one of the two 4 ipc islands for production purposes (either East Indies, or Borneo), to have any real chance of setting up on the mainland or Tokyo itself in the endgame. This isn’t just to handle Japan though, its also to deal with a German controlled Moscow/Eurasia and to cover the launch points onto India and Africa. If you give both islands to UK, its asking for problems down the road, as Japan may be too preoccupied to attempt retaking them, and then USA is locked off the production by their British Allies (who themselves usually don’t have the cash to buy production, or exploit it even if they did.) Other than the Borneo to USA thing my only other advice for a Pac game is to be as aggressive as you possibly can with UK and Russia early on. Unlike Classic or Revised, its a lot harder for Allies to just count on the inevitability of victory due to the US economy.

TripleAI is not very effective, so you will definitely find that playing against Human opponents is even more challenging. I’ve seen a few Russian openings that I like, but I’m still undecided whether I prefer the Northern Stack Karelia/Archangel focus, or the Southern stack Ukraine/Caucasus focus. Southern seems much more intuitive, but I’ve seen the Northern stack work quite well too. It depends on what sort of fighter transit for Russian defense you are trying to set up.

Also, its important to remember that a lot of players, and many tripleA players especially, do not play dice but rather play Low Luck. Its not always immediately obvious when you hear people talking about balance issues, which playstyle they prefer. I like dice games myself, and in dice there are always chances for recovery, provided you are willing to play things out. LL is different. In an LL game, the bids and opening purchases become much more critical, as the underdog will have less chance at recovery once the game starts to slip away from them.

Hard AI is a definite improvement, over previous editions of tripleA if you’re using TripleA_1_8_0_5

The Allied opening under AI control is pretty fun times. You can learn from the machine  :-D

But it does some things you can definitely exploit. For example, the Hard AI seems to enjoy purchasing battleships. Whatever the reasons for this, (and it does have a certain charm I’ll admit, and can sometimes lead to some nice scores for the AI) but it’s important to recall that no seasoned human player is going to be spending the majority of their cash on this unit. Buy carriers and dd instead. Also Hard AI was (I believe) designed to play on the Revised  game map. 1942.2 and all games since AA50, have used defenseless transports. So the TripleAI will often send their transports forward to be sacrificed unecessarily. Now this doesn’t do you much good against a veteran human, but if you just want to beat up on the computer, start trying tricks like that. Because who knows, before too long the AI might just go HAL style on us, or become self aware like Skynet, and then we will all pay dearly for those defenseless transports we sunk with our bombers LOL.

Keep at it dude, and pick up some games in the lobby if you can. Fastest way to get the edge is to watch how other people do things, and when you get rocked, you adapt or try something you saw that the enemy did, against your next opponent.

I think on all the new boards, it really pays to maginify your bomber buys. A pair of them might not crush super hard, but get 4 or 5 together hitting in the same spot, over long distances and you might start to see more opportunities  develop. Keeping your air together, and keeping your fleets safe from the enemy’s air. I feel like that’s half the game now, ever since the bomber cost was reduced, and transports were given a defense value of 0.

I agree with what Baron said. I think bringing back the classic transport at 8 IPC’s and 1 defense, but is only able to be taken as a hit last would be a much needed improvement over the current 7 dollar non defense transport. The problem with the defenseless transport is huge, and I don’t think people realize that it is, in a way, game breaking because of how Germany can take advantage of this buy buying planes.

@theROCmonster:

I agree with what Baron said. I think bringing back the classic transport at 8 IPC’s and 1 defense, but is only able to be taken as a hit last would be a much needed improvement over the current 7 dollar non defense transport. The problem with the defenseless transport is huge, and I don’t think people realize that it is, in a way, game breaking because of how Germany can take advantage of this buy buying planes.

Cool!  :-)
Glad to see someone else share this conclusion.

Black Elk is providing us another reason to give some combat value to transport.
@Black_Elk:

Also Hard AI was (I believe) designed to play on the Revised  game map. 1942.2 and all games since AA50, have used defenseless transports. So the TripleAI will often send their transports forward to be sacrificed unnecessarily.

I think on all the new boards, it really pays to magnify your bomber buys. A pair of them might not crush super hard, but get 4 or 5 together hitting in the same spot, over long distances and you might start to see more opportunities  develop. Keeping your air together, and keeping your fleets safe from the enemy’s air. I feel like that’s half the game now, ever since the bomber cost was reduced, and transports were given a defense value of 0.

My whole thread On simplifying things was only about dealing with units to interact in a similar manner as the other unit, less exception as possible.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34290.msg1320853#msg1320853

But it is also true that any “zero value” unit creates some kind of unbalancing effects.
1 single Strategic bomber can wipe out a whole lot of transports, according to rule, an infinite number, in a single shot.

Let’s just suppose that Germany (wrongly) invested in a Sea Lion campaign.
First turn, some warships and planes on carriers, second and third turns: many transports.
Suppose that UK run a full blast attack and achieve to sacrifice all his units in a daring attack against this German’s fleet.
USA, with a few bombers, can finish off the remnants warships and sink down all transports.
In a 1 or 2 shots, this can represent a loss of 35 IPCs (5 TPs) and more of transports at no cost for the US player.
(Almost a whole turn of German’s investment, in a single shot.)

Of course, it was always possible before in Classic times, but there was a risk and it takes a few rolls to reach that level.
Each unit can only destroy 1 unit per roll of dice/ 1 per round.
So the maximum lost was 24 IPCs with 2 hits / or 18 IPCs for 1 Carrier.

Maybe we shall call this the “Defenseless Transport conundrum”. IDK.

In fact, this conundrum deals more damage to Allies than Axis player.

To solve this issue in a way to keep the overall powerlessness of transport against all other naval and air units of the second edition rules,
I’m sure that Transport cost can be increase while the other can be lowered.
The new Transport D1, 1 hit combat effectiveness per IPC could be very low compared to other naval units.

Actually, the OOB transport can be calculated as 1 TP at 7 IPC + 1 DD = A2 D2 C15, 1 hit.
Meaning it has a 7.5 IPCs / Def point.

Just imagine a transport at 10 IPCs while a DD A2 D2 (and HR Sub A3 D1) is put at 6 IPCs, a Cruiser at 9 IPCs, etc. following the cost of advanced Shipyard except for transport.
This could gives something like:
Such subterfuge will still gives money to buy transports but the ratio IPCs/def point will be 10 IPCs/1 Def point.
While Destroyer would be at 6/2 = 3 IPCs/1 Def point.
(HR Sub at 6 IPCs/ Def point)
Cruiser get 9 IPCs/3 Def pts= 3 IPCs/ 1 Def point
Fighter 8 IPCs /4 Def pt =  2 IPCs/Def pt.
Carrier get 12 IPCs/ 2 Def pts= 6 IPCs/ 1 Def point
Full Carrier gets (A7 D10 C28) = 28 IPCs/ 10 Def points = 2.8 IPCs/Def point
Battleship 15 IPCs / 4 Def pt = 3.75 IPCs/ Def point but BB has a second hit.

Bomber Attack 4  at 10 IPCs = 2.5 IPCs/ attack point.
And, on for the same cost of 10 IPCs, Bomber can have a 4 times better opportunity per IPC to sink a 10 IPCs transport.

Carrier at 12 IPCs could remain in a much better defensive stance than a simple transport at 10 IPCs.

On the opposite, an OOB 1942.2 14 IPCs Carrier (7 iPCs/pt) would be almost a same match than an 8 IPCs TPs (8 IPCs/ hit), for instance.

So the overall defense value of such HR Transport will be very weak and at a prohibitive price.
But, at least, it would be killed at a limited ratio of 1 hit per attacking unit.

If you keep the “Taken last” casualty rule, it will also make this unit still weaker than a regular Defense at 1.
Simply because, in any desperate fight, the owner will sacrifice his weaker units (even if they are more expensive) to preserve a few additional rounds for his stronger units.
He knows he will lost all his units but, done that way, it will be more expensive to his enemy’s units.

About the historical issue on “Taken last” vs “owner choose”, read these first posts in this thread:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30618.msg1108069#msg1108069

To Baron, total agreement :-D You know my views haha

To Craykirk Check the tripleA boards and last page of this thread, pg 31

http://tripleadev.1671093.n2.nabble.com/AI-Development-Discussion-tp7585227.html

I posted several games against Axis HardAI yesterday using the latest Jar, with different Allied approaches at no bid that all resulted in Allied victory… Some Allied strategies were more optimal than others, some were intentionally weak or one dimensional to see what the AI would do. Either way, its still possible to play out an Allied win, even from a terrible opening by the Russians or brutal dicing, provided you stick to the basics.

It is much easier to hammer Japan than Germany I have found against AI, since once they are stalled the Japanese go into their ridiculous naval loop sending units to panama to camp. Cracking Germany is more challenging, because the HardAI is pretty good at pushing stacks and defending Berlin. In KJF the trick is to hammer Japan mercilessly and eject them either from the mainland or the money islands, or both. In KGF the trick is to mass your forces rather than expending them in attacks. The way you win is by positioning defensive infantry stacks, or by making it “too expensive” for the HardAI to risk an attack against them. It seems counter intuitive, but they way you wage war against G, is not by destroying their units per se, but by forcing those units to remain in Berlin while you patiently stack up a large enough force to defeat them. Check out the KGF games I saved if you’re curious. You can see, even facing down monster Axis opposition, that the UK and Russia don’t need all that much money to be operational, you just have to use it wisely and not expend existing units in fruitless attacks. Instead for G to make the attacks at poor odds, until USA is in a position to defeat Berlin.

You should consider strat bombing. HardAI will not retaliate, so its an easy way to gain the edge on production. Sure there is some risk involved, but a couple mighty blows to the Berlin or Tokyo factory can easily swing the situation back to Allied favor, even after catastrophic reverses early on.

@Black_Elk:

To Baron, total agreement :-D You know my views haha

Hello Black_Elk,

By your view, you meant what you told in this topic?
Or is there another thread and post which is more fully explaining it?
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30618.msg1287813#msg1287813

Besides, take a look at my whole pictures (full roster) of my next to be F2F board game which includes 5 features:
1 Fighter at 6 IPCs (hit plane first, mostly similar to 1914 planes) + 3-planes-Carrier
At 7 IPCs, Submarines A3 D1 C7 and Destroyer A2 D2 C7 blocking Surprise Strike as OOB, but 1:1 for Submerge (1 round only) and Stealth Move
At 8 IPCs, Transport A0 D1 C8, 1 hit
No special rules for casualty of planes against submarines.
Reduced cost based of warships mainly on Advanced Shipyard.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35222.msg1374545#msg1374545

Do you see some major flaw in it?

Well specifically your mention of the current defenseless transport having fallen put of alignment other naval units and aircraft for the cost. It is, as you rightly point out a major disadvantage to have infinite transport sunk by a single unit in a single round of combat. Ultimately this favors Axis in 42.2 overall, because Allies have yo buy more of them, and Germany especially can counter with just Air builds alone. In Classic there was a certain threshold beyond which Allies could mass transports and rely on them to defend themselves (albeit at a much lower hit ratio at 1, than other naval units) but it was the fact that the had to be taken as separate casualties expending enemy hits and increasing the number of combat rounds. What is needed is something in between, like what you suggest. I like the roster values you propose, for newer maps or maps that aren’t already set in stone for their units. It would be interesting to see what AI would do with them, if more expensive but Def 1 all autokill, or if taken las, or with other schemes. Probably anything would work better than 0, infinite kills haha

@Black_Elk:

Well specifically your mention of the current defenseless transport having fallen put of alignment other naval units and aircraft for the cost. It is, as you rightly point out a major disadvantage to have infinite transport sunk by a single unit in a single round of combat. Ultimately this favors Axis in 42.2 overall, because Allies have yo buy more of them, and Germany especially can counter with just Air builds alone. In Classic there was a certain threshold beyond which Allies could mass transports and rely on them to defend themselves (albeit at a much lower hit ratio at 1, than other naval units) but it was the fact that the had to be taken as separate casualties expending enemy hits and increasing the number of combat rounds. What is needed is something in between, like what you suggest. I like the roster values you propose, for newer maps or maps that aren’t already set in stone for their units. It would be interesting to see what AI would do with them, if more expensive but Def 1 all autokill, or if taken last, or with other schemes. Probably anything would work better than 0, infinite kills haha

You clearly point out the issue of Classic transports: a threshold in which it becomes costlier to attack a whole herd of transports being together, the attacking planes at 12 IPCs and 15 IPCs were almost outmatched by such Transport at 8 IPCs. A single Full Carrier amongst them was enough to repel planes.

Making auto-destroy of 1 transport unit/ attacking combat unit can probably works also.
It will clearly show how powerful are combat units compared to transport.
It is still an additional way of treating Transport and it will be almost deterrent than OOB when launching a single Transport unit somewhere. Someone talk about in the Defenseless Transport thread for sure.

Knowing it will certainly be sink and get a slight chance of taking an enemy with it, is a consolation prize which cannot be enough.

I’m curious, is it possible to learn by ourselves how works TripleA and how it is possible to stretch the basic units and concepts?
Or is there any way to create a TripleA feature that can be more easily open to variations from OOB rule sets?

I’m not sure I get what you are saying about lowering the cost of navy. I think the sub and DD are fine where they are at. Make the cruiser 11 and the BB 18. That would make them both more realistic of a buy, but it doesn’t mean that you would buy a lot (just like how in the real war there were cruisers and BB’s but way more DD’s).

The transport being at 8 while only being able to be taken last as a hit is really good, and yes it will make the allied fleets a lot better and more effective at defending, but bombers will still be good to have as axis to force more transports to be defended.

I love the idea of a 12 sided dice! That would change EVERYTHING. You could then have each country have specific powers. Like Germany could have really powerful tanks, and Russia really cheap crappy infantry.

On trippleA there is a game called New World Order and it has units in there that can only be made after round 4. I’d love it if the next axis and allies game had that. To where you get a lot more options of units to choose from. I’d pay the extra money the game would cost to have that more plastic.

@theROCmonster:

I’m not sure I get what you are saying about lowering the cost of navy. I think the sub and DD are fine where they are at. Make the cruiser 11 and the BB 18. That would make them both more realistic of a buy, but it doesn’t mean that you would buy a lot (just like how in the real war there were cruisers and BB’s but way more DD’s).

The transport being at 8 while only being able to be taken last as a hit is really good, and yes it will make the allied fleets a lot better and more effective at defending, but bombers will still be good to have as axis to force more transports to be defended.

I love the idea of a 12 sided dice! That would change EVERYTHING. You could then have each country have specific powers. Like Germany could have really powerful tanks, and Russia really cheap crappy infantry.

On trippleA there is a game called New World Order and it has units in there that can only be made after round 4. I’d love it if the next axis and allies game had that. To where you get a lot more options of units to choose from. I’d pay the extra money the game would cost to have that more plastic.

Just talking about the relative cost of naval units. The higher you pay, the stronger is the unit. In the OOB roster, and generaly speaking, each naval units is intuitively or CombatCalc evaluated toward maximizing the investment by players. When loosing units, a same evalution is roughly done to lose lesser IPCs units while keeping the costlier and stronger ones, as long as possible.

The OOB 7 IPCs Taken Last Transport within a fleet put a great deal of unmaximizing casualties.
If it was 8 IPCs A0 D0 1 hit. In desperate situations (which occurs often since the attacker choose his own time for attack, players will use this Transport as a perfect fodder unit (like the actual AAA unit) to protect is defensive combat numbers. But you cannot because of the taken last rules.
@DizzKneeLand33:

For all of you who say that a stack of transports would never be used as defense, you have clearly not played the original game…. If Germany only had say 4 planes left, the U.S. could stack 12 trannies all by themselves and be pretty darn safe.  Run your odds calcs if you don’t believe me…

Now, to say that in a d6 game system each trannie should defend at a one… well, then that means that a trannie has 1/4 the firepower as a Battleship, and 1/3 the firepower of a cruiser.  lol.

But, just to please the naysayers… I’ve come up with this extremely cool unit.  Not only can it transport an infantry and another unit, it also not only defends at a two, but also attacks at a two.  And…. it only costs 15 IPC’s…
Seriously.

In fact, the Combatcalc showed that such 7 IPC defenseless transport escorted with Destroyers, should cost 12 IPCs if it was able to defend itself like other unit, when taking into account the cost of the same cargo capacity defended by destroyers. See below in quote.
The main example say, that in “Classic conditions”, when you brought 5 “Destroyers” Def@2 with 8 Transports, your overall defense is exactly the same as 8 Defenseless transports escorted by 10 Destroyers.

10 DDs & 8 TPs D0, 0 hit, (7 IPCs) vs 5 DDs & 8 Classic TPs D1, 1 hit, 12 IPCs
A. survives: 50.0% D. survives: 49.5% No one survives: 0.5%

In OOB conditions, you need to double the number of Destroyers to reach the same defense value for your fleet compared to “Classic time Transport”.

Said otherwise, changing Classic TPs to Defenseless TPs is not 8 IPCs for 7 IPCs: a 1 IPC reduction. The need to provides warships with TPs is in reality rising the cost of escorting and Transporting units from 8 IPCs to 12 IPCs . A 50% increase in transportation cost in OOB 2nd Edition vs  “all previous A&A50 Edition”.

To reach a similar overall burden on a new transport being part of combat with A0 D1 without making it effectively at a prohibitive 12 IPCs (for carrying 2 land units), could be to put the Cruiser unit (OOB 12 IPCs) at the same cost as Transport A0 D1 C8, 1 hit.
So, in a sense, investing in a Transport would become as expensive as buying a A3 D3 C8 combat warships. (In purchase capacity.)
The loss of this Transport and IPCs values would have had exactly the same impact as loosing a strong combat unit.
In such cost structure, a Battleship would cost around 13-14 IPCs. And Destroyers around 5-6 IPCs.

It is purely hypothetical cost.
If you want to take a look at a real example about what it could become, I created a more acceptable cost structure with such a Transport here:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35222.msg1374545#msg1374545

Hope you begin to see why my intent about reducing naval cost, except for Transport.

@Baron:

@toblerone77:

Baron my HR neutralizes all of the factors of why the TRN was changed to D0 in the first place. The only time where TRNs would be used as sensible fodder is the opening phases of the game. If someone is still buying TRNs as fodder when the DD is vastly superior they would be foolish.

Math: You don’t need a battle calculator to view the base stats, or calculate that TRNs are really lousy fodder when you can buy a DD for the same price with quadruple overall AD power let alone the escort capability of the DD.

Balancing: Okay off the bat, the Axis still have huge advantages in almost every edition of A&A. This is an HR; so you could either modify the set-up, actually give the Axis a naval bid, or leave it alone. Frankly It doesn’t bother me all that much that the Axis might have it a bit tougher wiping out the Allied fleet in the first round of play. Even with that said Japan would benefit with my HR.

I revised an old post in which there was simple miscalculation 80 + 56 = 156!!!, I corrected for 136 IPCs.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30618.msg1289233#msg1289233

I can now determined what is the average cost to change from defenseless to another type of transport defense factor.
Of course, it is based on the assumption that keeping a fleet with similar cargo and defensive value should have a similar cost.

Here is the number required to give a similar protection to an OOB defenseless transport compared to Classic transport, still taken last, but each is allowed to roll D1 on every round of the battle (as in Classic).
I used the AACalc of the forum and put DD (A2) and Carrier (A1) for DD and transport.

A pretty even combat is:
10 DDs & 8 TPs D0, 0 hit, (7 IPCs) vs 5 DDs & 8 Classic TPs D1, 1 hit, 12 IPCs
A. survives: 50.0% D. survives: 49.5% No one survives: 0.5%

So if even in combat survival and cargo, then it should be the same price on both sides:
(10DDs8 IPCs) 80 IPCs + (8TPs7 IPCs) 56 IPCs compared to (5DDs8 IPCs) 40 IPCs + (8TPs12 IPCs) 96 IPCs =
136 IPCs vs 136 IPCs.

This means that a classic transport A0D1M2, 1 hit and taken last must cost 12 IPCs to not outmatched OOB TP at 7 IPCs.

Now, keeping the same Classic transport but allowing it to be choose as first casualty, here is the most even fight on Battlecalc I can get for the 136 IPCs fleet:
10 DDs & 8 TPs D0, 0 hit, (7 IPCs) vs 4 DDs & 8 Classic TPs D1, 1 hit, 13 IPCs
A. survives: 42.6% D. survives: 56.3 No one survives: 1.2%
(10DDs8 IPCs) 80 IPCs + (8TPs7 IPCs) 56 IPCs compared to (4DDs8 IPCs) 32 IPCs + (8TPs13 IPCs) 104 IPCs =
136 IPCs vs 136 IPCs.

And since there is a 6% above 50%, the balance price of a pure Classic transport should be above 13 IPCs.
136 IPCs * 106% = 144.2 IPCs- 32 IPCs from 4 DDs= 112.2/8= 14 IPCs / transports.

So, assuming that we let player choose their own casualties as they wish, so sometimes transports are taken last and sometimes taken first (to keep the better defensive combat value of the whole fleet), then a balanced cost should be an average between 12 IPCs and 14 IPCs, which imply a 13 IPCs per Classic transport A0D1M2, 1 hit.

So anything with a lower transport cost than 12-13 IPCs is giving some advantage toward Allies lines of shipping ground units from USA and UK.
The reason is that you will need less escorting warships to protect correctly a given transport (because of is own defense capabilities) than with OOB defenseless transport.

This escorting warships cost, as an hindrance for waiting to throw transports in harm’s way, must be taken into account, not just the unhistorical fodder capacity of transport.

About fodder: at the same cost of 8 IPCs compared to DDs, when it is needed to keep the most costlier combat valuable units, Transports and Destroyers will be used as fodder to protect Cruiser, Battleships and some carriers for Fighters.

But at a high cost of 12-13 IPCs for transports, it would be a hard choice of whether keepings better combat unit (even at lower cost) or loosing big money on transports when come the time to replace lost units.

---

However, having a different HR based on Spendo02 idea, with each Transport, 1 hit value, but only rolling 1 dice @1 per round for any number of TPs.
It gives a lesser balance cost of 10 IPCs when defender choose his own casualties.

It can even be lowered to 8 IPCs, if such Transport must be chosen last.

See the last part of this post, if you want to see the calculations.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30618.msg1289233#msg1289233

@Black_Elk:

What is needed is something in between, like what you suggest. I like the roster values you propose, for newer maps or maps that aren’t already set in stone for their units. It would be interesting to see what AI would do with them, if more expensive but Def 1 all autokill, or if taken last, or with other schemes. Probably anything would work better than 0, infinite kills haha

The only other solution which can be seen as almost simple as giving D1 1 hit to each Transport is to give a single defense roll @1 for any number of Transport but each one still worth 1 hit.
10 Transports will imply a single dice on defense @1 but probably more than 1 round before loosing all transports.

This single roll outlined their weak firepower compared to combat units.
@Baron:

For my part,
under taken last condition, I would choose this transport:

A2) each transport group get a single roll @1/round along with defending warships, but each transport unit can only be taken individually as casualty once all defending warships are destroyed.

It still keep the 1 hit value.
Provide a simple continuum for the single defensive roll @1 per round: from the start of the battle to the end.
It is amongst the lowest defense we can give per round.
(AA gun receive up to three 1 time roll. A group of TPs can certainly receive 1 each round.)

Even under this very small defense roll, I wonder if a balance transport unit should cost higher than 8 IPCs within actual OOB G40 and 1942.2 settings.

Giving 1 hit value provides a more difficult time for attackers to destroy them.
As said earlier:
1 Cruiser C12 and 1 such TP C8 at 20 IPCs (get 2 hits) will be much more interesting than a 2 hits BBs for 20 IPCs.

Rising TP to 9 IPCs, so CA+TP= 21 IPCs and 2 hits will be just above the cost of a 2 hits BB.

Same thing for 1 DD C8 + 1 TP C9 = 17 IPCs and 2 hits will be just above the cost of a 2 hits CV A0 D2 C16.

I think it is in these two 2 hits units where is lying the balance problem:
the basics cost is 8 IPCs/hit for CV and 10 IPCs/hit for BB.

Just in between avg: 9 IPCs/hit

So buying Transport as a way of adding hit soaker (in addition to the cargo capacity) stay a weaker fodder because of the taken last rule, would not add too much versatility to a fleet with a consistent price.

With this other kind of HR for transport, 2 TPs 1D@1max 1 hit C8 = 2 hits for 16 IPCs is more able to take hits than a 20 IPCs BBs (at 40 IPCs, 5 hits vs 4 hits). But, if BB is at 16 IPCs, you can see that for the same number of hits, you get 2 single rolls @1 compared to 2 single roll  @4.

Do you see, ROC monster, how a Classic TP is still an able defending unit?
In such situation, on a same IPCs basis of 40 IPCs = 5 TPs D1 gives 5 rolls@1 in the first combat round against 2 BBs which get 2 rolls@4.
Overall %*: A. survives: 81.3% D. survives: 16.2% No one survives: 2.5%
http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=&aDes=&aCru=&aCar=&aBat=2&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=&dBom=&dTra=5&dSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Tra-Sub-SSub-Fig-JFig-Des-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Tra-Sub-SSub-Des-Cru-Fig-JFig-Car-dBat&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=Revised&territory=&round=1&pbem=

There is still 20% odds that 2 BBs get killed is such battle.
Making it at 8 IPCs vs 16 IPCs BB =
2 BBs vs 4 TPs = Overall %*: A. survives: 93.9% D. survives: 5% No one survives: 1.1%
BBs had 6% of being killed.
So, lowering BB to 16 IPCs, keeping TPs at 8 IPCs, is the same relative combat value than rising TPs to 10 IPCs and keeping BBs at 20 IPCs.
In both case, for the same IPCs basis, you get 2 TPs for 1 BB.

If an 8 IPCs TPs group get only 1 roll @1 per round…
2 BBs vs 5 TPs=Overall %*:  A. survives: 99.7%  D. survives: 0.2% No one survives: 0.1%

In this perspective, this kind of TPs is far less dangerous against BBs than the 2 previous ones. Do you agree?
And I also think it better depicts the historical overpowering capacity of Battleships over Troop Transports.

The more I’m writing to you both, the more I’m convincing myself to change back to such Transport (1 hit, defending 1@1 max per any number of transports present in a defending Fleet) in my new cost structure!
And, at the same time, discarding the need for a taken last rule.
Thus, making all the roster a simple “owner choose is own casualties” all the way.
It will still be simpler. :-)

And, maybe that way, it can be an acceptable half way for both partisans from Taken last and “Classic” Transport?

Or maybe a house rule that for every two transports you get a dice at 1 rounded up. So if you only have 1 transport it is the same thing as the defenseless transport, and if you have 3 transports you only roll 1 dice at 1, but with 4 transports you roll 2 dice at 1.

It will not be simpler.
And it only cut in half the defense value.

The last method make Transport defense factor much weaker.
And the single roll of 1 dice per round for the entire group is not that complex to manage either.

The most important thing is to give each transport unit her 1 hit value.