Paratroopers

[bennyboyg]

Technology is more or less and afterthought in the game, Larry has made it well known he’s not a fan of it. Technology is not the focus of the game and creating some kind of hierarchy of technology that takes multiple turns to work through puts the game in a direction where it does not need to be going. It’s fine for house rules if you work on it but something like that is never going to get implement in the design process of A&A.

[Guest]

Every country should have paratroopers except China.

[Funcioneta]

@Brain:

Every country should have paratroopers except China.

And Canada. But Canada is not in the game so …  :-D

Bah, when China receive a starting land army two times greater than japanese one and tanks cannot blitz for China, I’ll agree with you. Until that, I disagree, China should be able of do the same as any other country  :wink:

[SilverAngelSurfer]

@Funcioneta:

@Brain:

Every country should have paratroopers except China.

And Canada. But Canada is not in the game so …  :-D

Bah, when China receive a starting land army two times greater than japanese one and tanks cannot blitz for China, I’ll agree with you. Until that, I disagree, China should be able of do the same as any other country  :wink:

Heck, just make China’s starting land army equal to the number of Japan’s starting land troops and call it even “because of the civil war”.  And yeah, if we’re going to have an “ACME wall” keeping Chinese units in “Chinese territory”, at least make it so that tanks can’t blitz through those same territories or something.  Or just make a line of “no blitz” territories down the middle of China for the mountain range.

Let China just have infantry and the occassional artillery, that’s fine, but let the starting number be equal to Japan’s number of land units at the very least, if not more.  Spread them out across the Chinese territories so that Japan can make some advances early and China can counter.

Paratroopers I can’t really see China having though, especially as they needed US volunteers to even have an air force worth speaking of.

[Veqryn]

wait, so i can’t paratroop my guys to an EMPTY enemy territory and take it over, without also having normal guys attack it also?

well, these goes my island hopping or sky-landing campaign ideas….

[WILD BILL]

Quote from Larry talking about the new paratrooper tech:

“Paratroopers. Up to to 2 of your infantry units in each territory with an air base can be moved to an enemy controlled territory 3 or fewer spaces away that is being attacked by your land units from adjacent territories and/or by amphibious assault. If the territory being attacked has an antiaircraft gun, the paratrooper infantry units are subject to antiaircraft fire int he same way as air units. If attacking along with land units from adjacent territories, paratroopers may retreat as normal”.

I kinda like that it is a supplement to an attack, and you won’t be able to just have frying armies. Sounds like you won’t be able to capitalize on enemy mistakes of leaving open tt behind the lines or island hopping w/o transports.

[purplebaron]

@Veqryn:

wait, so i can’t paratroop my guys to an EMPTY enemy territory and take it over, without also having normal guys attack it also?

Two reasons:

1. I’m sure that it would promote undesirable game play.  Just off of the top of my head (and without having seen the map), having an airbase in both England and Scotland would mean that without ever exposing a navy to attack you could threaten nearly every European coastal territory and many internal territories with a 4 (or 2) infantry + planes attack, every turn, forcing Germany to garrison every territory with a stack of infantry or risk empty territories being picked off right and left.

2. An infantry piece represents more than just the shooters, it is also the massive logistical tail involved in feeding and provisioning those at the front.  Paratroopers are more of a tactical than a strategic element.  They can be deployed behind enemy lines for only a matter of days or possibly weeks before they need to link up with ground troops and the supply chain.  The planes themselves are only dropping the “pointy end of the spear”, and aerial resupply is not a long term solution in the WWII era.  On the time scales of a single A&A turn, it would be impossible for airborne units alone to capture and hold even a completely unoccupied territory without ground or naval supply lines, which is what the requirement for a ground or amphibious attack represents).

[Guest]

Still, territories should not be protected by rules so that they can be left undefended.

[bennyboyg]

@Brain:

Still, territories should not be protected by rules so that they can be left undefended.

They’re never completely undefended, you can assume they would have small garrison forces to keep the population under control, etc. but nothing that could hold up to a large force.

[Guest]

@cminke:

@SAS:

make it so that tanks can’t blitz through those same territories or something.
Paratroopers I can’t really see China having though, especially as they needed US volunteers to even have an air force worth speaking of.

1. china cant make tanks(maby a house rule?)
   2)it doesent take a lot of skill to jump OUT of an airplaine.
   :p

It might not take skill in your opinion, but it does take an airplane and last time I checked the US was flying all the planes in China and they were mostly fighters which does not accomodate paratroopers.

[allweneedislove]

this technology will be extremely weak. look at the pacific map and try to find a usefull scenario for it. i have done so and it would not help usa, anzac, japan or china. it could be slightly usefull for uk. you could save 2ipc a round by buying 2 infantry instead of 2 mechinized infantry. thats not worth the cost of acquiring the technology.

[Guest]

@allweneedislove:

this technology will be extremely weak. look at the pacific map and try to find a usefull scenario for it. i have done so and it would not help usa, anzac, japan or china. it could be slightly usefull for uk. you could save 2ipc a round by buying 2 infantry instead of 2 mechinized infantry. thats not worth the cost of acquiring the technology.

Honestly they should just do away with tech/na’s and give countries the techs they achieved during the war.

[bennyboyg]

@allweneedislove:

this technology will be extremely weak. look at the pacific map and try to find a usefull scenario for it. i have done so and it would not help usa, anzac, japan or china. it could be slightly usefull for uk. you could save 2ipc a round by buying 2 infantry instead of 2 mechinized infantry. thats not worth the cost of acquiring the technology.

Well that’s the point, to my knowledge paratroopers weren’t used very often in the Pacific theater. The European theater on the other hand is a completely different situation, and I’m sure they’ll be very useful.

[MrBlack103]

Honestly they should just do away with tech/na’s and give countries the techs they achieved during the war.

I was just thinking the same thing over lunch!

[SilverAngelSurfer]

@Brain:

@cminke:

@SAS:

make it so that tanks can’t blitz through those same territories or something.
Paratroopers I can’t really see China having though, especially as they needed US volunteers to even have an air force worth speaking of.

1. china cant make tanks(maby a house rule?)
   2)it doesent take a lot of skill to jump OUT of an airplaine.
   :p

It might not take skill in your opinion, but it does take an airplane and last time I checked the US was flying all the planes in China and they were mostly fighters which does not accomodate paratroopers.

Thank you for defending me on point #2, BD.  And as for point #1, I know that China cannot produce tanks; I was referring to other nation’s tanks (particularly Japan’s).  Which is especially interesting considering that you point out that China can’t make tanks in your first point, and then follow it up by suggesting that China could have paratroopers?  They can’t make tanks or planes (or airbases for that matter, if we’re getting technical) and you think they should have paratroopers?

Regardless of the amount of training necessary to be a paratrooper, one needs to have transport planes to have paratroopers, otherwise all China gets are base jumpers, which aren’t helpful in military applications; but if you want to have all your Chinese soldiers jumping off of buildings, go ahead…

[SgtBlitz]

@cminke:

@SAS:

make it so that tanks can’t blitz through those same territories or something.
Paratroopers I can’t really see China having though, especially as they needed US volunteers to even have an air force worth speaking of.

1. china cant make tanks(maby a house rule?)
   2)it doesent take a lot of skill to jump OUT of an airplaine.
   :p

LOL, you are talking about chinese paratroopers in a WWII game???  You have to have planes first for that to work!

[Make_It_Round]

The usefulness of the ‘Paratroopers’ tech shouldn’t be underestimated: especially if an enemy territory is within the overlapping ranges of two of your air bases. Imagine driving 1 Japanese tank into Burma, for example, and having 4 supporting infantry magically float in from your air bases in French Indo-China and Kwangtung to act as cannon fodder. Now imagine doing that in different directions, every turn, for the rest of the game. With air bases (and, hopefully, minor industrial complexes) in those two territories, you could also hit China, India, Malaya, Borneo, the Philippines, and Guam. Niiice.  8-)

[SilverAngelSurfer]

@Make_It_Round:

The usefulness of the ‘Paratroopers’ tech shouldn’t be underestimated: especially if an enemy territory is within the overlapping ranges of two of your air bases. Imagine driving 1 Japanese tank into Burma, for example, and having 4 supporting infantry magically float in from your air bases in French Indo-China and Kwangtung to act as cannon fodder. Now imagine doing that in different directions, every turn, for the rest of the game. With air bases (and, hopefully, minor industrial complexes) in those two territories, you could also hit China, India, Malaya, Borneo, the Philippines, and Guam. Niiice.  8-)

Good thought.  Combo IC/airbases would also provide Germany with a powerful method of transporting their infantry to the Eastern Front just about immediately.  Of course, it’ll help the UK get more troops into Europe without needing as many transports too.

[Make_It_Round]

@SAS:

@Make_It_Round:

The usefulness of the ‘Paratroopers’ tech shouldn’t be underestimated: especially if an enemy territory is within the overlapping ranges of two of your air bases. Imagine driving 1 Japanese tank into Burma, for example, and having 4 supporting infantry magically float in from your air bases in French Indo-China and Kwangtung to act as cannon fodder. Now imagine doing that in different directions, every turn, for the rest of the game. With air bases (and, hopefully, minor industrial complexes) in those two territories, you could also hit China, India, Malaya, Borneo, the Philippines, and Guam. Niiice.  8-)

Good thought.  Combo IC/airbases would also provide Germany with a powerful method of transporting their infantry to the Eastern Front just about immediately.  Of course, it’ll help the UK get more troops into Europe without needing as many transports too.

I agree! But I’m less sanguine about the paratroopers’ ability to get Germans to the front in Africa. See:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=18231.60

I think that part of the problem in how to correctly rate/value paratroopers is that for now we’re stuck talking about Europe and Global interchangably (that’s inevitable, really, as they’re two games being sold in the same box, using the same board and pieces). I suspect they’ll be a much more powerful tech in Global for the Allies, because the UK and the US (the tech-buying Allies) will have roughly twice the number of units on the board to be affected by those techs.

For paratroopers to be as reliably fun and interesting as we want them to be, we’d need to house rule them into Europe 40 and Pacific 40, first thing, and then maybe even playtest giving the paratroopers tech to every player at the start of the game, just to see what kind of effect they’re going to have on gameplay.

I imagine, for example, that the paratroopers tech might make it (even more) worth it for Japan to snap up Midway, Wake, and Guam for free while she has the chance.

[Guest]

@Make_It_Round:

I agree! But I’m less sanguine about the paratroopers’ ability to get Germans to the front in Africa.

Sanguine, now there’s a word you don’t hear in most people’s everyday vocabulary. There are people here who can barely spell and here he goes spouting off words like sanguine. In case some of you people don’t know what sanguine means, it means confident.

I still think that paratroopers should be a standard unit for every nation except China.