Will Rockets be a gamebreaker?

@cousin_joe:

@timerover51:

Given all of the flap over Rockets, I am surprised that no one has consider Paratroops a major problem in the game.

Hey timerover,

I was going to get this one eventually  :-) (Mechanized Infantry is the other  :-D), but yes, I completely agree with you.  And I’m not even thinking about the little islands, I’m thinking about the big territories and the capitals.

A consistent mechanic in A&A has always been maintaining big stacks at your fronts.  Since defense is stronger than offense, you typically want to build up your stack to eventually overcome the opponents stack.  The reason paratrooper rules in general have always failed, is it turns that whole mechanic upside down.  Instead of thinking offensively, players will now be forced to play defensively.  They will have to worry about territories behind the main front getting captured, and worst of all, their capital itself.

Paratrooper rules will force players to keep their INF back, essentially slowing the game to a halt.  Ability to apply any forward pressure will be minimized.  The opponent that faces paratroopers will be significantly handicapped, as they will be forced to hold forces back at the expense of their ability to maintain and extend their front lines.

I’m not a big fan of the paratrooper Tech for these reasons  :-(

Well, wouldn’t a paratrooper capping a territory just allow the territory to be retaken easily next round?  Besides capitals, I don’t see a huge flaw here.  I kind of want improved artillery.  2 transports = 2 inf, 1 art, 1 armor = nice combo.

@cousin_joe:

@timerover51:

Given all of the flap over Rockets, I am surprised that no one has consider Paratroops a major problem in the game.

Hey timerover,

I was going to get this one eventually  :-) (Mechanized Infantry is the other  :-D), but yes, I completely agree with you.  And I’m not even thinking about the little islands, I’m thinking about the big territories and the capitals.

A consistent mechanic in A&A has always been maintaining big stacks at your fronts.  Since defense is stronger than offense, you typically want to build up your stack to eventually overcome the opponents stack.  The reason paratrooper rules in general have always failed, is it turns that whole mechanic upside down.  Instead of thinking offensively, players will now be forced to play defensively.  They will have to worry about territories behind the main front getting captured, and worst of all, their capital itself.

Paratrooper rules will force players to keep their INF back, essentially slowing the game to a halt.  Ability to apply any forward pressure will be minimized.  The opponent that faces paratroopers will be significantly handicapped, as they will be forced to hold forces back at the expense of their ability to maintain and extend their front lines.

I’m not a big fan of the paratrooper Tech for these reasons  :-(

Hmm, CJ.  Please refernce the Paratrooper tech again:

@AA50:

3. Paratroopers
   Each of your bombers can act as a transport for up to one infantry, but it must stop in the first hostile territory it enters during a turn and drop off the infantry, ending its combat movement. The bomber may still attack during the Conduct Combat phase, but it cannot make a strategic bombing run in a turn that transports an infantry unit. The infantry unit may retreat normally to a friendly adjacent space during combat.

The red highlighted part keeps you from jumping ‘over’ the front lines.

Being guaranteed a tech is a big thing for me.  I hated how you could spend money on techs and be literally throwing it down the toilet.

I also agree that Random techs are disappointing.  I suppose we must take the good (guaranteed tech) with the bad (you wont know what tech it is).

When you have a say in your tech, you can use it to build strategies (in a strategy game).

“Hmm… I know, I’ll invest 15 IPC in super sub technology to counter his little Aircraft Carrier fleet.”

“Well, since Australia isn’t worth many IPC, I will build a complex AND invest in industrial technology, so I can take down the Japanese!”

“ROCKETZ LOL!!!”

You get the idea  :-)

I think a problem is that, for Revised, there was an article by the devs about how hard it was to try to make all 6 technologies appealing, so that none would be left out by the players.  I guess it was decided that balancing 12 techs to make them all appealing and worth the same amount of IPC would be too much work, so just make it random.

I think it would just be nicest to allow the techs to always be directed, but some form of direction would be better than none.

(Side note:  Interesting how rockets and long range aircraft are the only technologies that have NEVER been changed, from Classic to Revised to LHTR to AA50.  I guess they are considered perfect balance.)

@cousin_joe:

It doesn’t stop you from going around though  :-D (ie. over a SZ or empty land territory)
I suppose the empty land territory could be considered hostile… I’m not sure…
But surely the SZ, even if occupied by enemy boats should be OK?  maybe? 
For sure empty SZs couldn’t be considered hostile  :-)

Any territory controlled by the enemy is hostile, whether it has units in it or not.  Hostile sea zones don’t block paratroopers.  The idea here is simply to keep paratroopers from “leapfrogging” over enemy-held territory and dropping troops far behind enemy lines.

But wasn’t that exactly the point of paratroops, dropping them behind enemy lines?

I could see a house rule really opening up the game if the rule about having to drop them at the 1st hostile territory was eliminated.

@Constantinople:

But wasn’t that exactly the point of paratroops, dropping them behind enemy lines?

Yes, the point was to drop them behind enemy lines, but not hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.  Paratroopers needed to be supported fairly quickly, otherwise their supplies would run out and they’d be helpless.  By their nature, they couldn’t carry much with them.  They were intended to spearhead an attack, not carry it out all by themselves.

In the scale of this game, paratrooper drops would have to occur adjacent to a friendly territory or a sea zone from which support could be provided.

ahh if u want to add a house rule for that to make germany more worser thats fine but if u want to stay the same thats fine to

@Krieghund:

@cousin_joe:

It doesn’t stop you from going around though  :-D (ie. over a SZ or empty land territory)
I suppose the empty land territory could be considered hostile… I’m not sure…
But surely the SZ, even if occupied by enemy boats should be OK?  maybe? 
For sure empty SZs couldn’t be considered hostile  :-)

Any territory controlled by the enemy is hostile, whether it has units in it or not.  Hostile sea zones don’t block paratroopers.  The idea here is simply to keep paratroopers from “leapfrogging” over enemy-held territory and dropping troops far behind enemy lines.

Thanks for the clarification, Krieghund.  I kind of thought that sea zones would not be a block to Paratroops. That is definitely going to make things more complicated for Japan in the Pacific. I can see it now, Paratroop drop in China, lovely.  Japan is going to have to have troops all over the place.  Lovely.  Might make Paratroops a first choice for US, since the other techs, except for Mech Infantry are also ones that I would like.  Rockets on Germany, Paratroops on Japan, War Bonds, Increased Factory Production, and Advanced Artillery to kill everyone.  Add a couple of house tech rules, life will be very good for Allies, very bad for Axis.

ya empty spots must b able to go through

People : please keep the house rules out of this thread.

Why not take rockets as a tech out of the game. Only Germany had rockets that went country to country. The rest of the other countries their rockets were nothing more than another type of artillery. If you insist on rockets then give Germany V-type Rockets for a NA. The other countries like Russia and their Katyusha Rockets give them Heavy Artillery(with a modifier if needed) as a NA.

Rockets are not in the game. They are optional rules. You dont need them unless you want more historical flavor, which makes them unfair because its unrealistic to include something Historical and makes its value to a game useless because it decides the game sooner. Thats the whole reason why they have them to make the game end soon.

But Canuck’s point is that its the wrong historical flavor to begin with, since the only power invested in that sort of rocket program was Germany. There were no Western or Japanese parallels to the V1/V2. The Russians made use of rockets as artillery batteries, and the Anglo-Americans used them on aircraft, but only the Germans had anything like the Rocket technology we see in A&A.

National Advantages are alright, but only as an optional thing. If you need NAs to make the game balanced that’s a problem. I’d rather the vanilla game was balanced out of the box, and I think we need to get all the basics in order, before we think about technology or optional rules. That’s just me though.

Trying to achieve a balanced game by introducing new National Advantages and special rules, is like trying to fine tune a microscope with Boxing gloves on.

:-D

Doesn’t everyone always argue that the point in the game is to change what ACTUALLY happened?  So, someone else develops rockets in the game instead of Germany.  What’s wrong with that?  Think of it this way, rockets have always been more effective for Germany than any other country because of the number of enemy ICs in range, which means Germany would invest more into researching rockets than other countries.  There’s your historical accuracy, I suppose.

the only change of the this game is that the axis can win.

@Imperious:

Rockets are not in the game. They are optional rules. You dont need them unless you want more historical flavor, which makes them unfair because its unrealistic to include something Historical and makes its value to a game useless because it decides the game sooner. Thats the whole reason why they have them to make the game end soon.

thats the truth if i played i would take tech out of the game a&A

@Subotai:

By all means, I’m happy about the reduced cost of bmrs, but what’s missing in AA50 is the possibillity to buy more AA guns, and each AA guns fires one shot each. Most players would not buy AA guns if not needed, tanks+inf+art+ftrs is much more useful. So what seems broken in AA50 is not SBR rules regarding bmrs+damage, but that the rules constrict players from using approriate countermeasures if faced by massive SBR attacks.

Absolutely agree. I’ve been saying this for years. Even to LH himself when he happened to frequent this very forum a month or so before Revised was released. I said when you face a SBR specific “ploy” (won’t use the term strategy, because it truly isn’t) you aren’t truly outplayed as much as you are out-purchased. On a tactical level currently the only possible counter to SBR would be to get yourself some bombers too and give as good as you get. But the fundamental problem is that not all nations can take advantage of SBR because some can’t ever afford to buy bombers. It’s almost always going to be an American bombing campaign. It will never be a Russian bombing campaign. And that’s where the whole thing kinda becomes unbalanced.

A nation that can’t afford bombers can manage an extra 5 IPC for an AA and at least have some means to stop a player bent on doing nothing more interesting than buying bombers for the rest of the game. I said to LH you should have multiple AA guns that can fire to achieve a balance here. The general reply consensus in that thread was  “yes, but AA fires at each aircraft see”. True, but with each successive bomber & corresponding AA shot the risk to each bomber doesn’t ever change. So a player that will risk/send 1 bomber against AA will just as easily send 5. There should be some recourse to a dedicated SBR ploy other than to simply hang on for favorable dice. ~ZP

sbr is basically impossible to stop if you use it correctly and yes if your all bombers you can win easily.
we need something to stop them a bit then less people woudl rely on tech