The new SBR system

[purplebaron]

OK,

My take on a couple of different points raised here

1)  In a bomber vs AA scenario, the actual expectation is ~2.91 IPCs versus 2 ipcs.  This accounts for the 1 in six chance of the bomber being shot down and never getting to drop it’s payload.

2. I think the defending at 2 vs escorting at 1 for fighters is just fine.  The thing that’s important to remember is that as the attacker, you can choose where and when to attack, concentrating your forces, whereas the defender has to spread themselves out among multiple key locations.  Some have complained that some countries (Japan, for example) will only have one target to bomb, and will therefore be able to defend themselves too strongly.  I think that by the time a major SBR campaign is initiated, both Germany and Japan will have at least two legitimate targets.  Japan will have the home island, and most likely a complex in Korea or Manchuria.  Germany will have the Germany complex (possibly two, there is more than one Germany territory) plus two former French Complexes.  Russia will have probably three complexes to defend (Russia, Leningrad, Stalingrad),  US is pretty much immune to SBR.  Only UK and Italy will likely have a single complex.  Also, as others have mentioned, the opportunity cost of holding your planes back for defense and not using them at the front will make an interesting balance for the defender.

3)  The problem all along was that SBR was always too much in favor of the attacker, who was usually the allies.  I love this rule, it’ll go a long way towards tilting that balance a little more towards even (which it needs to be for game balance, regardless of how things played out in reality).  In fact, if you look at every innovation in the history of A&A SBR, each step has favored the defender, which tells me that the developers recognize the imbalance and are trying to fix it.

4. Another flaw that this rule addresses is that even if you were worried about SBR, beyond buying a single AA gun, there was nothing you could do.  You couldn’t defend better, you just had to hunker down and take it.  Now you can defend better, which is hugely valuable.  Now, you can make them buy planes or take additional losses.  And every plane they buy is 84% of a bomber that they didn’t buy.

5. Someone mentioned preferring a distributed economy (three minor complexes) over one major complex.  There are some advantages in that, but improved defense isn’t one of them.  Imagine I have 6 bombers.  I can send all six at one major, or two each at three minor.  In the first case, 1AA fires 6 shots, in the other 3AAs each fire 2 shots.  The expected effectiveness is the same.  The only advantage you have is that my bombers might hit less efficiently now.  The bombers on one complex could roll a 1 and a 3 and on the other complex, a pair of 5s.  That extra damage is lost in the distributed scenario, but the penalty you pay is that you now can’t use all your fighters to defend a single location.

6. Someone posted the 1 bomber, 1 escort, 1 AA, 1 interceptor scenario and showed that the expectation very slightly favors the defender.  I believe that if you are the allies, particularly the US, it’s a good idea to SBR even if it’s slightly against you.  Consider this question.  If you could, as the US player, give some amount of money to Russia every turn, how much would you give?  I believe that the correct answer to that question is “all of it” or, upon a little thought “as much as they can spend”.  The reason is that because Russia is closer to the front, and doesn’t need to buy a navy to project power, they can buy land troops more efficiently than you.  In fact, I’d probably be willing to give them money at 70 to 80 cents on the dollar, due to that efficiency difference.  Since I can’t give my money directly to Russia, the next best thing is taking money directly away from Germany, and SBR is the closet thing around to docking their paycheck. It’s also the fastest way for me to apply my economic output against them, so even if SBR cost me 15% more than it cost them, I think I’d still do it.

[Imperious Leader]

5. Someone mentioned preferring a distributed economy (three minor complexes) over one major complex.  There are some advantages in that, but improved defense isn’t one of them.  Imagine I have 6 bombers.  I can send all six at one major, or two each at three minor.  In the first case, 1AA fires 6 shots, in the other 3AAs each fire 2 shots.  The expected effectiveness is the same.  The only advantage you have is that my bombers might hit less efficiently now.  The bombers on one complex could roll a 1 and a 3 and on the other complex, a pair of 5s.  That extra damage is lost in the distributed scenario, but the penalty you pay is that you now can’t use all your fighters to defend a single location.

I said it. If you send all 6 at one you can only kill 6 IPC, if you send only 2 at each of the three, i have the possibility that i can get an advantage against your attacking escorts. I also make it possible that some of my minors are out of your range. If i just had one major it would be a target for the allied efforts. I think Japan can hold its own in China, and another in FIC, and a third in India or in China somewhere or even some island. Anyway now i got 3 built in AA guns rather than one with is the last point.

also, Having 3 allows the units to appear at different parts of the map and thats is huge compared to just one location.

So by spreading out the minors, you could get a local advantage, but as Japan to spend the same amount on just one makes it a real target. also China can destroy factories by occupying them, A minor in Manchuria is a smaller risk. Japan already starts with one major in japan. They don’t need more, but they need little factories to protect the various parts of the map.

[Krieghund]

Welcome, purplebaron!

Very insightful first post!

[Vareel]

Don’t forget as well that the map is even larger than in AA50.  To keep defending fighters in berlin they won’t be fighting on the front lines.  Also, if the US going for a dedicated SBR campain cannot afford to send in escort fighters from say, carriers that are defending there transports, there is something wrong.  Even in aa50 as the US I typically end up with atleast a 3 to 2 ratio of 3 us fighters per 2 german fighters, and since i cannot lose the figs to aa fire I would send them as escorts hoping the germans send up there fighters for me to shoot down.  This new system forces everyone to make choices, just like the new two hit rules and sub/dd rules force choices in navel battles.  Now if we can just find a way to make land combat more obvious than it is.

[WILD BILL]

@Krieghund:

@Omega:

Quick question : can allied fighters participate in the defense of a bombed IC?

Yes.

Krieg another quick sorta related question can friendly ftrs/tac bmr scramble from an island AB to def the surrounding sea zone. Sorry if you already answered this at some point.

[Krieghund]

@WILD:

Krieg another quick sorta related question can friendly ftrs/tac bmr scramble from an island AB to def the surrounding sea zone. Sorry if you already answered this at some point.

Of course they can.

[Funcioneta]

@Imperious:

also China can destroy factories by occupying them, A minor in Manchuria is a smaller risk.

:lol: yep, I like at least that chinese rule: they have to face ACME walls, so let’s give them Jedi lightsabres to do a thing no one can do: destroy ICs  :mrgreen: One magic rule counters another magic rule … China is magic power of lollypop country! (Remember that Simpsons episode  :-D )

Put the IC at Korea if you want it totally safe from chinese lightsabres: Jedi tricks cannot break ACME walls!  :lol:

[Guest]

@Flying:

@hyogoetophile:

I agree that basically you want to strat bomb if you can afford to at least send about twice as many escorts as there will be interceptors – and if you want to trade fighters for fighters. And yes, the old guideline seems to apply: If there’s a real battle, you probably want to be in that instead.

Exactly what I am saying. At least someone has math skills. So what is the point of it then? It would be moronic to attack against defending fighters. It’s very comparable to using only infantry to attack infantry, practically #1 on the no no list. So basically this will reduce the amount of SBRs which will reduce the game experience.

I majored in math. This is not a question of math skills. This is a question of realism.

[bennyboyg]

Realistically, it’s only a viable option if the defender has little to no airforce left. This takes that into account very well, the entire point is that realistically it wouldn’t be worth attacking a factory if it had even an average force defending it.

[Imperious Leader]

The rules allow the defending player to allocate planes to defend from SBR or to participate in defending a land attack.

This allows for the defender to choose where he could gain an advantage over the attacker and destroy the escorts.

The attacker must get a 2:1 against all his targets ( say these are 3 minors), so he is spread out and the targets can be placed in different localities to make it much harder to SBR.

Since Japan gets the Major and 10 units , she does not need any more, but she needs just the minors and lots of them.

The Allies may need a major in India ( in fact i am sure of this)

Probably Australia for UK as well

[Guest]

The new rules on this are better. PERIOD, END.

[plumsmugler]

I really like the new SBR rules.  The old style of “double dipping” made SBRs incredibly not worth it.  The fact that attacking escorts and bombers got fired on twice made the liability too great. Now it is still iffy if you want to commit to SBR but at least your fighters aren’t exposed to SO much danger anymore.

[Todd7912]

@plumsmugler:

I really like the new SBR rules.  The old style of “double dipping” made SBRs incredibly not worth it.  The fact that attacking escorts and bombers got fired on twice made the liability too great. Now it is still iffy if you want to commit to SBR but at least your fighters aren’t exposed to SO much danger anymore.

I agree.

[tarkonis]

I have a question.

Say you have a navy in port and the port gets attacked with SBR.  Can the navy take part in air defence for one round also?

[Razor]

@General:

I have a question.

Say you have a navy in port and the port gets attacked with SBR.  Can the navy take part in air defence for one round also?

A navy is never in a Naval Base (belive it or not). The ships are in a seazone adjacent to a Naval Base, butt the Naval Base facility is in the territory. So if you want to attack both the ships and the Naval Base at Pearl Harbour, then you must split your airforce. Some planes attack the ships, and the ships defend themselves. Oher planes attack the Naval Base, and the Naval Base have their own AA-guns to protect themselves. Get it ? O’boy, Razor can be the new unofficial answer guy, man.

[Guest]

@Razor:

@General:

I have a question.

Say you have a navy in port and the port gets attacked with SBR.  Can the navy take part in air defence for one round also?

A navy is never in a Naval Base (belive it or not). The ships are in a seazone adjacent to a Naval Base, butt the Naval Base facility is in the territory. So if you want to attack both the ships and the Naval Base at Pearl Harbour, then you must split your airforce. Some planes attack the ships, and the ships defend themselves. Oher planes attack the Naval Base, and the Naval Base have their own AA-guns to protect themselves. Get it ? O’boy, Razor can be the new unofficial answer guy, man.

And after he answers you, he will smite you.

[Razor]

Done……and done  :-D

[tarkonis]

@Razor:

Done……and done  :-D

Thanks for the answer! I thought it was like that just making sure.

But why do you have to go round voting neg rating for ppl, I had a nice 0 neg rating before you came along messing around for no reason.

So please stop behaving like a child.

[Flying Tiger]

@Brain:

@Flying:

@hyogoetophile:

I agree that basically you want to strat bomb if you can afford to at least send about twice as many escorts as there will be interceptors – and if you want to trade fighters for fighters. And yes, the old guideline seems to apply: If there’s a real battle, you probably want to be in that instead.

Exactly what I am saying. At least someone has math skills. So what is the point of it then? It would be moronic to attack against defending fighters. It’s very comparable to using only infantry to attack infantry, practically #1 on the no no list. So basically this will reduce the amount of SBRs which will reduce the game experience.

I majored in math. This is not a question of math skills. This is a question of realism.

OK I just want to get this straight. When the Allies sent up Bombers with escorts to bomb industrial centers, on average they lost more in value(fighters/bombers) than Germany lost in industrial production and defending fighters. As long as we are using realistic rules then I am all for it. Thanks brain damaged.

[Guest]

Well I like the new rules anyway.