G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread

@simon33 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

I don’t like the bomber as a unit. In earlier versions of A&A the bomber abstracted a combination of the dive bomber, strategic bomber and torpedo bomber. In G40, the dive & torpedo bomber become the “tactical bomber” yet the strategic bomber still attacks at a 4 against ships and land targets. Completely illogical!

@Amon-Sul said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

Can U elaborate about Chinese garrison, what do U mean by that?

He’s referring to the guerrilla fighters

i like or idea of bomber hitting differently on air/sea and land units.

guerilla fighters, that was the NO for China in vanilla when each empty chinese territory controlled by Japan become Chinese since one chinese inf arrose there?

Yeah well I don’t feel that there is any reason that a strategic bomber should roll at a 4 for either land or sea targets. Ahistorical!

If you wanted to make it 1 for land and 2 for sea, I’d be fine with that. The chance of a strat bomber hitting friendly targets in a land battle is obscene. Did it ever happen that such planes were used in this way?

Heavy bombers were used tactically by the US Army Air Forces during WW2. The most infamous land example was Operation Cobra (Wikipedia link), which saw 1800 bombers from the 8th Air Force attack German forces in Normandy in order to help the US VII and VIII Corps breakout from their narrow slice of Normandy beach.

Among the 500+ friendly fire casualties from that attack were LTG Leslie McNair (Wikipedia link), the highest ranking US Army casualty in the ETO (he was there to observe the effects of the attack - he saw them, all right).

Heavy bombers were used more successfully in tactical roles at sea. As tactics and equipment evolved, planners and fliers used B-17s and B-24s to find and sink German submarines (Wikipedia link) in the Atlantic and used “skip bombing” (Wikipedia link) techniques to accurately attack both IJN warships and Japanese transports in the Pacific.

So, heavy bombers were used, successfully at that, to support attacks on land and to sink ships at sea. I would argue that efforts to nerf heavy bombers are an attempt to “correct” something that needs no true correction.

-Midnight_Reaper

Personally I think the Strategic Bombing portion of the bomber in Global 1940 is too powerful. Any game tactic should be cost neutral. Otherwise the game is influencing game play instead of operational strategy and tactics.

In Classic a bomber cost $15 and did 1d6 for Strategic Bombing. Assuming 1 loss out of 6 bombing raids then that was +$17.5 vs -$15 or a mere $2.5 advantage or $0.5 gained for each individual attack which was too low considering the bomber usually could have been more effective elsewhere. In AA50 the price dropped to $12 which IMHO was the right balance. Now Strategic Bombing was still doing $17.5 with a loss of just $12 or a $5.5 advantage or $1.1 gained for each individual attack which probably was about the same it could do elsewhere. Of course in Classic damage was taken in IPC Loss versus AA50 were the damage did not necessarily have to be taken though with so few Industrial Complexes damage usually had to be bought off. Karelia being a good exception to that rule. In Global it is now 1D6+2 for Strategic Bombing or a whopping +$27.5 versus a loss of $12 or a $15.5 advantage. Basically a free infantry kill every attack. Attacking a lone infantry with a bomber is definitely not a good idea yet Strategic Bombing is. Moving the bomber to $14 and reducing the attack to 1d6+1 takes that +15.5 down to +$8.5. Still good enough for those that want to use it as a tactic it yet the game is not forcing SBR attacks the way it does now.

The bomber is already a very good unit. It moves 6 instead of 4 which allows it much greater projection of force than a fighter or tactical. It attacks at a 4. Who cares that if defends as a 1 since bombers are not bought for defense they are bought for offense. Adding in overpowered SBR on top of that just seems like too much to me.

@Midnight_Reaper I would say that example reinforces my contention that B-17s weren’t really useful for tactical attacks on land. Mainly B-24s did cover the Atlantic, not sure how much this was recon and how much actual bombing? I’m sure they made attempts to hit subs, probably some successful.

Feel free to consider the cost increase as a reduced effectiveness, hence requiring more planes to do the same damage.

@Adam514 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

Feel free to consider the cost increase as a reduced effectiveness, hence requiring more planes to do the same damage.

It is also a decrease in the effectiveness of strategic bombing, which I’m not really on board with.

since the topic of doing changes to BM has been brought up…Even though I am critical in many of my posts regarding BM, BM is fixing many things that are not so good about the out of box version. Its become more balanced, it has even increased playability in some ways. But it also creates new problems that is becoming more and more obvious to me. Many games lasts 25+ rounds. Thats fun when it happens once or twice but when it “happens all the time” it becomes too much work and less enjoyable in my book.

Is this something the mod squad (and everyone else) thinks is a good thing?

@oysteilo Can you pinpoint something in BM that makes games last longer? My only answer is that sides are more equal, and since it’s a newer game people continue for a few more rounds before realizing they don’t have a chance.

I dont have any statistics to show. Just shopping around and looking at games including my own experience.

If you think this is not true i can collect more advanced data.

The obvious answer to why games last MUCH longer is that BM throws money left and right at both sides.

Because of this it’s easier to defend and many games go into a stalemate lasting for many rounds

I think this is a significant weakness in BM.

@oysteilo I’m not saying it’s not true, it is true. And it’s the result of a more balanced and new game. There isn’t that much more money going into the match though. The extra money mainly allows the Allies a better chance of not losing economic superiority to the Axis (which is good). Axis should be more aggressive or they’ll generally be grinded out if they take too long.

@oysteilo said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

I dont have any statistics to show. Just shopping around and looking at games including my own experience.

If you think this is not true i can collect more advanced data.

The obvious answer to why games last MUCH longer is that BM throws money left and right at both sides.

Because of this it’s easier to defend and many games go into a stalemate lasting for many rounds

I think this is a significant weakness in BM.

and why would that be bad? It gives the chance to players to outplay the other side, since the more the money, more the options to play, more options, more quality needed to win the game, and its much interesting that way.

@oysteilo said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

I dont have any statistics to show. Just shopping around and looking at games including my own experience.

If you think this is not true i can collect more advanced data.

The obvious answer to why games last MUCH longer is that BM throws money left and right at both sides.

Because of this it’s easier to defend and many games go into a stalemate lasting for many rounds

I think this is a significant weakness in BM.

but how many games go 25+ rounds?

5 %, 10 % ?

and as Adam said, are they open till 25th round, or one side does not wish to give up, all though the chances are small?

@Amon-Sul said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

and why would that be bad? It gives the chance to players to outplay the other side, since the more the money, more the options to play, more options, more quality needed to win the game, and its much interesting that way.

For online games taking longer makes no difference. For Face to Face to games it does. Global 1940 is already too long and difficult to consistently get done in a single all day session. My gaming group usually goes from about 10am till 10pm when we get together. Considering a Turn usually takes between an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes to play that means in a 12 hour session you hope to get to Turn 8-9 before calling it quits. I would say anecdotally that 50% of the time one side concedes before the end of the day, another 25% of the time we agree one side is ahead enough to be declared the winner and 25% of the time we just have to call it a draw. Longer games would mean more draws and thus less satisfying conclusions.

@Adam514 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

@oysteilo Can you pinpoint something in BM that makes games last longer? My only answer is that sides are more equal, and since it’s a newer game people continue for a few more rounds before realizing they don’t have a chance.

It’s the increase in income without the increase in the number of units on the starting board which is sure to cause a longer game unless one side gets the advantage early. This makes the starting situation less important and mid game decisions are more likely to compensate for early game mistakes or dice.

Anyway, some may regard this change as a good thing although I’m not really on board with this viewpoint.

At this point I strongly encourage players to omit the Iwo Jima+Okinawa objective. Small beer perhaps but still a step in the right direction.

And I still feel that once the bids reach 10 and the Scottish fighter bid is possible that the game can no longer be considered “nearly balanced”.

@simon33 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

@Adam514 said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

@oysteilo Can you pinpoint something in BM that makes games last longer? My only answer is that sides are more equal, and since it’s a newer game people continue for a few more rounds before realizing they don’t have a chance.

It’s the increase in income without the increase in the number of units on the starting board which is sure to cause a longer game unless one side gets the advantage early. This makes the starting situation less important and mid game decisions are more likely to compensate for early game mistakes or dice.
{snip}

What if NO’s were negative instead of positive? Collect Leningrad, Stalingrad, Moscow for -3 IPCs for Russia. Capture any of Philipines, New Guinea, Java for -2 IPCs per territory for Japan. If too much money is the problem, would helping to bleed funds from those who do poorly help force the issue or would it just kick those who are already down?

-Midnight_Reaper

@Midnight_Reaper Among other things, runs the risk of countries getting negative income. Also changes the trading territory dynamic.

I agree that negative objectives aren’t needed.

I just made som quick calculations about game statistics. I have looked at the last 50 games finished. I have excluded some games that was surrendered very early, its not more than 2 or 3 games anyway

I found the average bid was 8 (allies) and out of 50 games the axis won 31 and the allies 19. This is a 62:38 ratio. 50 games might be too few games, but it definately gives an indication I think

Yesterday i posted about game lenght. 5 games went for 20 rounds or longer and the longest is 35 rounds. So maybe this is not a big deal and it is just my style that is the problem as many of my games tend to be long.

@AndrewAAGamer said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

s taking longer makes no difference. For Face to Face to games it does. Global 1940 is already too long and difficult to consistently get done in a single all day session. My gaming group usually goes from about 10am till 10pm when we get together. Considering a Turn usually takes between an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes to play that means in a 12 hour session you hope to get to Turn 8-9 before calling it quits. I would say anecdotally that 50% of the time one side concedes before the end of the day, another 25% of the time we agree one side is ahead enough to be declared the winner and 25% of the time we just have to call it a draw. Longer games would mean more draws and thus less satisfying conclusions.

totally agree with U, it can be a problem for board gaming, but i dont think second edition board game wouldnt last as much.