Tech with planes seems just way to over powered.

I agree that house rules should be used sparingly, and only after fully playtesting the game. But battleships having a tech to get two rolls is a good counterpart to heavy bombers. Battleships are slightly less useful with the advent of cruisers and this would compensate for that. Plus, Capitol Ships just sounds cool.  :-D

Need to think about the capitol ship thing, when do they get two attacks?  Attacking, Defending and Shore bombardment?  If so does it always attack on a 4 on all those instances? Do you get two shore shots for one transport offload or do you need two for the extra shot?  HB’s attack on a 4 twice but definitely do not defend on a 4 and they don’t get shore bombardment.  Just some stuff to consider about what house rules you are making.

If Germany is buying all aircraft to kill Allied fleet builds, what on earth are the Soviets doing the whole time?  :?

Red Army tanks should be rolling into Berlin within a couple turns…

@HannibalSW:

Need to think about the capitol ship thing, when do they get two attacks?  Attacking, Defending and Shore bombardment?  If so does it always attack on a 4 on all those instances? Do you get two shore shots for one transport offload or do you need two for the extra shot?  HB’s attack on a 4 twice but definitely do not defend on a 4 and they don’t get shore bombardment.  Just some stuff to consider about what house rules you are making.

Attack and Defense, not for Bombardment.  While Bombers only get the 4+4 on attack, they also cost 12, move 6, may participate in land battles, and can retreat from the frontline.  Battleships cost 20, move 2, may not participate in land battles for more than one, and are left exposed on the frontline when they attack.  Heavy Bombers is still better than Capital Ships.

Here are my revised versions of the two replacement Naval Techs.

Mobile Fleets: Your ships may move 1 during the non-combat phase in addition to their regular movement/attack.
Capital Ships: Undamaged Battleships now roll two dice in Naval Battles.  Cruisers Attack and Defend on 4s.

Gunna have to agree, if your opponent has HB and or JF/LRA then you just build Radar Equipped AA Guns and Improved Manufacturing and negate most of their abilities.

That’s the beautiful thing about AA50, all the techs are designed to reduce the effectiveness of the other techs!

@Cmdr:

Gunna have to agree, if your opponent has HB and or JF/LRA then you just build Radar Equipped AA Guns and Improved Manufacturing and negate most of their abilities.

That’s the beautiful thing about AA50, all the techs are designed to reduce the effectiveness of the other techs!

Except that the odds of you getting the right defensive tech is low, given that Radar and Improved Manufacturing are in different branches.  Furthermore, neither of those techs helps Navies at all, or ground units much, all it does is protect against SBRs.

I’d love to lower Air movement by 2 for fighters and Bombers (wait…whats that?  the villagers are coming with their pitchforks and torches!!!) I’ll have to be brief!  This makes getting long range aircraft more important and cuts down on the outrageous range of aircraft which in turn makes it less likely that people would buy so many.  Islands and Aircraft Carriers are now way more important and worth fighting for.  Of course you would lower the cost of fighters to say 8? but 12 IPC’s seems low enough for Bombers almost too low compared to 10 for fighters.

Other than that Heavy bombers are here to stay and Battleships with AA guns?? I’m sure the guys at Pearl Harbor wish they had that much firepower also.  Increased movement for ships is nice but how does a sub outpace a destroyer? a 2 for movement works and keeps the Pacific a little more strategic and less gotcha moves.

I did like the suggestion of two shots for Battleships that would make them really nasty

@packrat76:

wodan would you rather navel movement or battleships with aa guns? i think i would rather a AA gun to at least knock downa  couple planes

Are you honestly asking this?  You are saying that giving a situational power to a single expensive unit, that some argue should have that power by default, is more powerful than a tech which gives a significant power boost to your entire fleet?  Mobile Fleets allows your ships to move 50% faster, or to retreat after attacking.

Also, why are you even associating naval movement with AA guns?  I was giving one tech to Battleships and one tech to Navies in general, so it wasn’t as if the Mobile Fleet tech was even holding the Battleship AA slot.  Not to mention that Capital Ships is much better than Battleship AA most of the time.

If I’m not mistaken…as I usually am…didn’t the Japanese think that Battleships “ruled” the oceans only to discover that the carriers/fighters did?

I think most of the things I’ve read about the Pacific (not that I’ve read a lot) the fighters proved to be the decisive factor; fleets in WW2 rarely encountered each other in head to head battles as they had in past wars.  The new rules with transports and subs helps to imitate that better and it makes aircraft more viable against fleets, no one in there right mind would have sent just aircraft after fleets in AAC or AAR.

I ran across a rule in the “enhance realism rules” (but I haven’t tried it yet) that makes it so ONLY fighters can attack sea units, which seems to make things more… “realistic” and “forces” players to use bombers as…well…bombers (units that drop bombs on large stationary targets).

I’ve never felt that long range aircraft disrupt the game THAT much; so they can reach a place but they cant TAKE a place, you still need land units with aircraft SUPORT to do that.  With long range aircraft you CAN reach fleets easier but if you took out the bombers from “sea battles” this might offset the extra punch that can be dealt against fleets.

A&A has such a LARGE and ABSTRACT game scale its hard to make EVEYTHING work out “just like in WW2” but the AA50 (just like AAR) is a great improvement over its predecessor.  Changes have been made that feel more “real” but are still in keeping with the games abstract scale.

Fighters and heavy bombers don’t feel like that much of an over kill to me, and I think fighters only feel so much more powerful in sea battles in AA50 because of the new rules regarding transports and subs (once bullet catchers…now nothing).  If there was MORE ships, fighters might feel less powerful against fleets.

Someone mentioned reducing the cost of fighters, wouldn’t that just encourage someone to build more of them?  Why not reduce the cost of ships instead; wouldn’t that encourage players to make more of them?

The battle system for A&A, and correct me if I’m wrong, strongly favors the player with the most units in a battle (as it should) right?  So if fighters, a relatively low cost unit (compared to sea units) match ships one for one or two for one, doesn’t it make sense that they should/will win more in sea battles than ships do?  If ships out numbered air units instead of vice versa as it usually is in sea battles, wouldn’t the ships win/survive longer?

I don’t feel that the game mechanics/air techs out balance the game as much as the abstract scale of the game does. I hate to use this word but I cant think of another one to use, but the balance of air and sea units when it comes to battles is…“poorly”… balanced for battles.

Let me explain what I mean, infantry, artillery, tanks, fighters and bombers can be “balanced” better, faster and easier in land battles than sea and air units can “balance” out in sea battles.  I think this is in due in large part to the lower unit costs and close incremental attack/defense values of the land units when compared to air units and sea units. Heavy bombers seem to “upset” that balance in land battles (as they should…to a small degree) but I don’t think I’ve ever heard some one argue that regular bombers are TOO strong.  When it comes to sea power verses air power, that balance is harder to achieve and favors the fighters/bombers due in large part to their “low cost” and “high attack/defense” strength when compared to ships.  If ships were as “abundant” as land units are in land battles, things might balance out much faster and easier in sea battles.  Take bombers out of the sea battles and this might offset some of the strength of air power as the rules are played now. Reduce ship cost (making them more abundant) and this might further “balance” the strength of air power to more closely match their strength in land battles.

However, if units costs are reduced too much, that could cause an entirely new problem, because now ships would stand the chance of be coming bullet catchers (like infantry in land battles and like transports and subs used to be) instead of something that players strive to protect; because they cost so much to rebuild and are so vulnerable to destruction.

@packrat76:

Japan or the usa just builds all bombers and fighters the other wont have boats. they all will be dead.

It sounds like you are using poorly designed fleets.  In real life carriers rule the seas because of their airplanes.  The only time a carrier is really threatened is when within range of another carrier… or land based air (the airplanes you are talking about).  If you are going to get within range of large numbers of enemy airplanes then you need to have a fleet strong enough to do it.  Much like defending Moscow with Fighters and Infantry, with the big 4’s from the fighters rolling over and over as the cheap infantry die, you want a fleet designed in a similar way.  You want the carrier’s fighters hammering away with their big 4’s while cheap subs die.  The enemy won’t want to trade fighters and bombers for subs and therefore won’t attack your fleet to begin with.

A strong fleet in AA is built around 2 carriers with their 4 fighters.  An “Uber Fleet” is build around 3 carriers and their 6 fighters.  2 destroyers and 4 subs are the minimal escort for the carriers.  So the minimal fleet you should even consider going within range of large numbers of enemy planes is 2xCV, 2xDD, 4xSS.  I generally like to have at least 2 cruisers along for their big 3’s and shore bombardment, and 6 subs is better than 4.

Your oppenent isn’t likely to be all that excited about trading fighters and bombers for your subs.

@wodan46:

Here are my revised versions of the two replacement Naval Techs.

Mobile Fleets: Your ships may move 1 during the non-combat phase in addition to their regular movement/attack.
Capital Ships: Undamaged Battleships now roll two dice in Naval Battles.  Cruisers Attack and Defend on 4s.

I like the idea of BBs having an AA gun, but only 1 gun per sea zone may fire (i.e. multiple BBs don’t help with AA).  I really like that idea a lot as it would make BBs worth buying over a CA/DD.

As for your 2 dice idea… If both dice hit the BB player has the choice of allowing his opponent to select 2 casualties as normal, or may spend both hits to choose a single casualty of the BB player’s choice.  The selection can be anything but a CV, a CV may be selected only if their are no other surface ships (i.e. not counting transports or subs) present.

@Danger:

Other than that Heavy bombers are here to stay and Battleships with AA guns?? I’m sure the guys at Pearl Harbor wish they had that much firepower also.

Or more Cuba Gooding Jrs.

That’s just it (unless I’ve read the rules and errata and several other discussions about subs incorrectly) the point to this topic is that if a large attack force made up of only air units attacks a fleet heavy with subs and just a few “capital ships”, subs (and transports) are useless for defense.  Subs can’t be taken as hits UNLESS the attacker has a destroyer in their attack force.  The new “bullet catchers” at sea are the destroyers as they are the cheapest surface war ships that can get hit by an attack force made up of only air units followed by fighters as the next “cheap” bullet catcher.

With the new rules fleets NEED to be “built” differently, much along the lines that Kavik Kang mentioned. Players cant depend on transports and subs anymore to protect the more expensive units form being hit by aircraft.  And unless I’m mistaken, the “regular/widespread use” of bombers attacking “fleets” in WW2 didn’t happen.  Air units now have a “lethal power” against surface war ships.  Thats why I proposed follow the “enhanced realism rules” that make it so bombers CANT attack sea units…ever.

But, regardless of the use of that rule or not, fleets are much more vulnerable to attack by air units (as they should be…IMO).  This makes carriers and islands much more valuable (as they should be…IMO).