News flash: AXIS & ALLIES ANNIVERSARY EDITION due out oct 23 08

/Imperious leader

I just try to guess what has been done. I would be surprised if defender retreats is in the game, as I think Larry would think this changes gameplay too much.

I’ve tried to think what changed from original A&A to Revised, and also that some, but not all, of AAE and AAP features will be included, and then extrapolate this to this edition.

VCs are an all-important change, and I base my ideas on that Larry seemed to be very positive to using VCs to promote historial play on a thread I read. So, no VC in China and plenty out in the Pacific fits this well. Maybe Singapore would be chosen instead of Djakarta, of course then UK would have 5 VCs at start of '41 scenario which is why I thought it unlikely. On the other hand, Netherlands East Indies forces might well be UK-controlled anyway, and then the point is moot I guess.

China will probably have been designed to take up a lot of attention from the Japanese, so that an offensive vs. the Soviets is possible only if other fronts are ignored and massive air power is diverted vs. China to achieve victory there. The Japanese will be rewarded if they play historically -> Pacific-oriented. Maybe more land areas will be added in Siberia as well to stall any offensive further?

When it comes to the Russian front I think Italy will be thought to control Romanian and Hungarian forces. This will actually be quite historically correct as the small forces they had never contributed in the great offensives but plugged holes in the front, which will be nicely simulated by the Italian turn coming after both the German and Soviet turns!

One thing I didn’t consider is if naval bases will be in the game, with a similar mechanic as in AAP. Would be quite interesting to see this applied to the European theater as this could make Gibraltar and Malta more worth fighting for.

@Lynxes:

• Italy: 20 IPCs, Germany: 35 IPCs, Soviet Union: 28 IPCs, UK: 32 IPCs.

• Naval unit costs: BB 20 IPCs, CV 15 IPCs, CA 14 IPCs, DD 10 IPCs.

• CV: defence down to ‘2’.

• DD: attack/defend ‘2’.

• CA: attack/defend ‘3’. Special ability: shore bombardment at ‘2’.

• Subs: may only be attacked if a DD is present in attacking force.

I think German production will be more like 40+, with Russia possibly at 30, and UK possibly 34-35.

Your Cruiser unit is severely underpowered for its cost.  Considering you can practically buy 2 subs for 1 cruiser at that cost…And BB would be better for the cost as a bombarding unit AND as a naval attack unit.

IMO, something more balanced would be: DD 9 IPC cost, 2/2 (anti-sub capability) ; CA 12 IPC cost, 3/3 (+bombard? or maybe something completely new).  If they give it a good enough special ability then maybe it will be closer to a 14 IPC cost, but a ‘2’ bombard is certainly not worth it.

From the little I have read about NA’s (dont own revised :-() do you think they will transfer this to the 50th edition,and if so,what do you think might be Italy’s or maybe even China’s.Or even maybe maybe new ones for the existing factions?lol just curious as to what you were hoping for,do any of you like NA’s or are they overpowered?

/03321

Well, maybe the cruiser will be at 13 IPCs and the destroyer at 9 IPCs. The bombard ability is the only one I could think of, and I thought it likely it would be in the game since it featured in research and AAP for the Destroyer unit.

Attack/defence per IPC + hit points per IPC:
BB at 24 : 6     / 12
BB at 22 : 5.5  / 11
BB at 20 : 5     / 10
CA at 14 : 4.7  / 14
CA at 13 : 4.3  / 13
CA at 12 : 4    / 12
DD at 10 : 5    / 10
DD at 9   : 4.5  / 9
SS at  8   : 4    / 8

As BBs have the two hit capability they should be more expensive. I guess for 20 IPCs since then Italy might be able to buy it with their starting cash (and more than 20 IPCs for Italy isn’t likely). If we use this as a starting point then CA would be at 14 or 13, DD at 10 or 9. I doubt if they will weaken subs further, maybe they will stay just the same and their weakness vs. air units will then outweigh their cheap cost. Reducing them to ‘1’ in defence is OK by me if they get other advantages such as lower cost and/or only able to attacked if DD in attacking force, they were only an offensive weapon after all.

If they’re going to bombard and only bombard I don’t think they’ll bombard as a 2.  If they did and that were their only special as a 3/3 they’d have to cost 12 IPCs, no more. @14 IPCs you could buy 2 BB for 2 IPCs less than buying 3 cruisers.  In head-to-head the BBs will win 75% of the time, the cruisers will survive less than 20%.  In large-scale battles the differences are still there, and the 1 extra punch from the cruisers (3@3=9 vs. 2@4=8), doesn’t make up for the 2 free casualties taken on the battleships, no matter how much fodder (transports lawl) you have.  Even at 13 cost, 3 cruisers only save you 1 IPC over 2 BB and again aren’t as good.  With a 2 bombard the 3 cruisers will have a bombard punch of 6 vs. the 8 of the 2 BBs.  Even with a 3 bombard the cruisers are slightly better for bombarding, but I don’t feel that would outweigh the naval superiority of battleships.  It seems you are undervaluing the fact that the extra hit taken on the battleship is completely free, meaning you lose no punch at all, where the losses on a cruiser drop your punch by 3.  So the table of ‘this unit has this many hit points/atk value’ doesn’t show the full value of each unit when comparing BB to other ships.

But, personally, I don’t think the only special thing about cruisers will be another bombard ship.  Maybe they are, who knows.

But @12 IPCs, a 3/3 cruiser with ‘3’ bombard, would be about even with a 20 IPC 4/4 BB taking 2 hits with ‘4’ bombard I think.  Facing off 3 battleships (60 IPC) vs. 5 cruisers (60 IPC), would give a 12 punch with 6 hits to take (3 free) vs. a 15 punch with 5 hits to take.  The 3 battleships would win 2/3 of the time.  And again, in large-scale battles those free hits will still certainly come in handy.  However, the cruiser now has enough advantage in bombardment (15 punch vs. 12 punch @ 60 IPC worth) to be worth considering.  But again, considering that in this case the only advantage of cruisers is 1/2 kill worth of punch in bombardment after spending 60 IPCs, I just think cruisers will have something else, possibly combined with a ‘2’ or ‘3’ bombard.

And if you think I’m questioning your 20 IPC cost for BB, I’m not.  I have always felt 24 was too expensive, as has almost everyone I think.  Which reminds me that spending a lot of IPCs on one BB for someone like UK might still not be advantageous in a single round, when trying to keep a steady flow of troops moving into Europe.  So maybe 12 cost for cruiser as a 3/3, ‘3’ bombard would be good.

I agree, amphibious assaults should be at some sort of disadvantage with bombardment only narrowing the defender’s advantage a little, rather than being a normal battle with bombardment making it advantageous to amphib.

I love shore bombard, but it should NOT be in opening fire phase

/Adlertag

Maybe you’ll be right in the end. My guess is that shore bombardment will be exactly like in A&A Pacific, except that Cruisers strike at ‘2’ instead of Destroyers. Hopefully they will realize that both Battleships and Cruisers bombarding in first fire is too powerful and go back to normal shore bombardment.

I think that the real limit to amphibious warfare is Transports. In this new game, Destroyers will probably be bought instead of Transports for hit points in naval combat, and Transports will be more rare.

I do think, however, that Imperious Leader is right and would welcome a limit on supporting units in amph assaults such as one shore bombard and one air unit per invading unit (or transport even). But again, Larry is a conservative guy and we should probably except just the dropping of first fire SB.

/03321

I think that all powers with naval ambitions, UK, US, Japan and Italy will be hard pressed to raise cash for a BB, since they all have land campaigns to attend to. This will probably counterbalance the equations you refer to.

I probably will continue to use my house rule that shore bombarbment can only support an amphibious unit, boosting the attack by +1, with no separate shore bombardment attack.  Same with air attack on ground units.

I have been toying with the idea of making an ally bombardment house rule. So lets say the US is going to invade W Europe.  They announce their intentions at the begining of the round.  They have to have all contributing US navel units in that SZ at that time.  Then Russia can bombard, followed by UK then the US will invadeand followup with their bombardment.

I think it would only benifit the allies but in the anniversary edition it may be worth a try.

I don’t know just a thought.

LT

After helpful comments I have made some changes to my guess for the Anniversary edition (BOLD). Now let’s wait for Gencon!!

Again, bypassing set-up and territory IPCs values:

• Italy: 20 IPCs, Germany: 35 IPCs, Soviet Union: 28 IPCs, UK: 32 IPCs.
• Italian-related territories: Sicily, Malta, Southern Europe added, four new africa areas added (Marocko, Tunisia, Tobruk and Western Desert), added 4 sea zones in Med.
• German territories: Western Europe divided into Western Europe + VICHY FRANCE (borders Western Europe, Italy), Eastern Europe into Baltic States (borders Carelia, Belorussia, Germany, Poland) + Poland (borders Baltic states, Germany, Belorussia, Ukraine, Central Europe, Balkans). Added, so that two capitals are not connected: CENTRAL EUROPE (border w. Germany, Poland, Balkans and Italy).
• Italy: Controls Italy + Southern Europe + Sicily + Balkans + Marocko + Algeria + Tunisia + Tripoli at-start (+ Italian East Africa in '41).
• Atlantic: sea zone 12 (Azores) borders Gibraltar.
• China territories: divided into six areas, each allowing for one Chinese inf/ turn in Chungking.
• Pacific territories: French Indo-china divided into French Indo-china, Burma and Singapore. Australia divided into two. Hong-kong, Iwo Jima, New Britain and Marshall Islands added. Six new sea zones added in Pacific, of which two around India/Singapore.
• VCs: added in Honolulu, Sydney, Alexandria, Stalingrad, Tripoli, Ploesti, Warsaw, SINGAPORE.
• UK ICs: one in Egypt, one in India.
• NAVAL UNIT COSTS: BB 20 IPCs, CV 15 IPCs, CA 13 IPCs, DD 9 IPCs, SS 7 IPCs.
• CV: defence down to ‘2’.
• DD: attack/defend ‘2’.
• CA: attack/defend ‘3’. Special ability: shore bombardment at ‘2’.
• Subs: DEFENCE DOWN TO ‘1’, may only be attacked if a DD is present in attacking force.
• Shore bombardment: does not take place in first fire.
• Lend-lease rule: conversion of US and UK units to Soviet units in red territories.
• Victory conditions: individual or collective.

I thought in Italy they would put Rome as the central territory and a northern Italy space.  I would even like to see a Southern Germany space to space the two capitols apart.

I think it would suck if the allies could just land in S Italy and steem roll to Berlin.

LT

@LT04:

I thought in Italy they would put Rome as the central territory and a northern Italy space.  I would even like to see a Southern Germany space to space the two capitols apart.

I think it would suck if the allies could just land in S Italy and steem roll to Berlin.

LT

Right, and I think Austria should be that new territory, maybe with mountains to really be a deterrent.

So maybe you would have to go through France (West) or Autria (East) to get to Berlin?

hmmm…  I don’t know if there is a good way to play that out.  Maybe the Germans will have units starting in Italian spaces.  That would help.

Now I want to know how they addressed this problem on the board.

LT

oh nice feature. :-)

I wonder when we’ll get to see some pictures….!