USA Too many IPCs? Too much Power?

TL;DR: I think Kamikaze tokens are worth about 4-5 IPCs each to Japan, and probably worth more as deterrents and bombardment stoppers than solely as ship-killers.

@AlphaKappa I would defer to people with more experience, but Kamikazes have two concrete or ‘hard’ purposes and at least one ‘soft’ purpose.

1. [Hard] Sink valuable ships
With their target select feature, Kamikazes can hit large ships directly and ignore cannon fodder like destroyers and subs. (or maybe sink a couple key destroyers to allow subs to dodge planes and surprise strike a now-exposed fleet).

In the simplest sense, there are a bunch of scenarios for Kamikaze hit values:
– Destroyer (8 IPC)
– 1/2 Carrier; No lost fighters (8 IPC)
– 1/2 Battleship (10 IPC)
– Cruiser (12 IPC)
– 1/2 Carrier causing 1/2 sunk Fighter (16/2 + 10/2 = 13 IPC)
– 1/2 Carrier causing 1 sunk Fighter (16/2 + 10 = 18 IPC)
– 1/2 Carrier causing 2 sunk Fighters (!!) (16/2 + 20 = 28 IPC) Calculating the average value here could be as simple as figuring out the expected damage per Kamikaze roll with an equation like $Kavg = %h x $Tavg, where %h = 1/3 (Kamikazes hit on a 2) and the $Tavg = ~12 (trying to place this near the ‘center of gravity’ for hit scenarios) . So with those numbers, the average value of a Kamikaze is about 4 IPC. Of course, you’d probably want assurance you’re going to sink those targets and not simply allocate one Kamikaze per expected hit. This pushes the value of Kamikazes down considerably, since you can’t wait to see if they were effective before sending out the next wave. The laws of RNG say that you’re bound to overallocate in some cases and underallocate in others. Finally, this assumes that these targets would even present themselves in the relevant Sea Zones. However, this objection can be resolved by qualifying the question to be: How much is a Kamikaze worth assuming that valid uses present themselves? I would gloss, then, that for this purpose ship-sinking Kamikaze tokens are worth between 3-4 IPC each.

2. [Hard] Prevent Bombardment during Amphibious Landings

A single Kamikaze token can prevent all naval bombardment from a given SZ during amphibious invasion. Figuring the value in this use case is speculative and situational, but we can try with some big assumptions:

Lets assume that the targets for bombardment are always infantry units, so a successful bombard hit is going to cost Japan 3 IPCs. Because most contested amphibious invasions land at least 4 units with bombardment support increasingly likely in the mid-endgame where Kamikaze could happen, lets broadly assume that the average number of prevented bombard shots in a Kamikaze-contested landing is 3, and that those shots are going to be taken by 2 battleships and 1 Cruiser.

With these assumptions and the simplest setup, we can roughly guess that A kamikaze token used this way is worth $Kavg = Bh x $Tb, where BHavg = 1 5/6 (the average prevented bombardment hits = 0.66 + 0.66 + 0.5) and $Tb = 3 IPC (the cost of each prevented infantry hit), for a total savings of 5.5 IPCs worth of Infantry units.

The real impact of the Kamikaze in the case, however, would be how much extra the attacking player has to bring to account for the lost bombardment. In this case, that’s probably close to the expected damage that those three saved infantry are going to inflict on his landing force, which for a single round of combat against a far-superior landing force is about 3 IPC (0.33 hit chance/inf x 3 infantry); in a much closer battle (in which case, why are you invading in the first place?) lasting multiple rounds the impact could be closer to 6 or even the full 9. Let’s say then that our impact to the attacker is somewhere between 3 and 6 IPCs.

But finally, the spent Kamikaze token might actually hit something! If we go after a cruiser, say, then using the equation from 1. above gives an additional average value of 4 IPC (12 IPC cruiser sunk x 1/3 of the time).

This would give the average bombardment-preventing Kamikaze token a conservative value of 4 + 3 = 7 IPC, varying wildly by situation.

3. [Soft] Deter Naval Incursions

With at least the potential to sink 6 escort ships in one go, Kamikazes have a fun ‘soft’ threat value in the game. It’s unlikely to come off that way, of course, and the threat dissipates with each spend token as the game goes on, but it’s at least possible that one single massive Kamikaze strike could net the Japanese player an incredible 72 IPC of impact or 12 IPC per token. This would be enough to swing a majority of endgame naval confrontations, and has to at least be accounted for by the US player if mounting a KJF. If I were the US and wanted to conservatively plan around a massive endgame kamikaze strike, I would plan to take fully three hits and so overbudget for that attack by at least 36 IPC. So for the purpose of deterring an endgame naval incursion, I would give Kamikaze tokens a value of 6 IPC each.

All of this asks what they’re worth, not what I would pay as Japan where resources are precious and actual units are worth much more than mere potentialities.

While my assumption-ridden stuff above yields a value of around 6, I would personally probably only pay 4-5.

Allowing the Japanese player to purchase/replenish 1 Kamikaze token per turn to a maximum of 6 at a cost of 5 IPC each seems like a fun and relatively fair house rule… although it has the potential to make the home and home-adjacent islands perpetually un-bombardable. Then again, those dug-in Japanese were awfully tenacious on those islands…

No to 1,2,4. Look for a “powers not at war” box in the rules.

For 3, you can move to any sea zone which is not adjacent to Japanese territory. So you can totally move toward Japan, eg to SZ16 or SZ17. Just remember that if you move to SZ54, you can’t use the naval base there until you are at war with someone.

I think it comes down to a difference in style.

As Japan, I just expect from the start that I’ll leave that path open most of the time and plan accordingly (exceptions being turns where I am sending most of my force far away, like Calcutta).

Gotcha.  I think we’re talking about two different things though.

My understanding was the other poster was saying “Placing fighters in CUS is no different than placing them in EUS” which of course wouldn’t be the case.  I see your point though and I agree  8-)

I think, the problem is Canada.
When I play the Allies, the problem I usually get is, that I fail on Logistic.
I can allways ONLY focus on weapons OR personals and trannys on one turn.
But we know from history that Canada was a vital manufactorer of weapons and armour for the allies.
Maybe a HR will fix this problem by:

When the U.S. is at war Canada contributes some portions to the allies as for the us in the Atlantic one DD and a bmbr for the uk.
And for pacific US one DD.
Each round!
For the pacific, Australia must be allied controlled.
As for the atl. .Canada must be allied controll for the DD.
UK must be allied controlled for the bmbr.

What you think??

This is why I interpret IPCs in A&A as abstract and flexible. Lets looks at some examples by Region from Revised up to G40…

Canada: from 4 ipcs up to 7 ipcs
America (the continental USA): from 28 ipcs up to 45 ipcs
Africa: from 11 ipcs up to 20
China (unoccupied): from 4 ipcs up to 12 ipcs
Western Europe (France/Holland/Denmark): from 6 ipcs to 14 ipcs
Germany: from 10 ipcs to 14 ipcs
Australia: from 2 ipcs to 8 ipcs

United Kingdom: from 8 ipcs to 8 ipcs
Japan: from 8 ipcs to 8 ipcs
Hawai: from 1 ipc to 1 ipc

Philippines: from 3 ipcs down to 2 ipcs

I could go on, but the point here is that there is no hard and fast relative scale for how these values are being worked out over successive boards. Sometimes the same region nearly doubles in value, sometimes it triples, sometimes it stays roughly the same.

This is a very strong indication to me that IPCs are not the iron values sometimes suggested, or that IPC values in A&A are somehow set in stone. They have been changing to suit the gameplay for a while now.

I want to point this out because I think it speaks to a more general feeling I get, that money/production should be flexible, to suite the needs of the gameplay, rather than something highly rigid or that must somehow retain consistency along historical lines, or to match up with previous boards. It just seems arbitrary for the most part, and more so when you look at the values side by side for successive boards. Clearly IPCs are there for the gameplay. They are distributed in the way they are for gameplay purposes, not in some highly fine tuned or particularly accurate spread for historical or “real world” reasons.

If for example, China’s total value can increase by 300%, or Australia can go up by 400%, while Hawaii stays exactly the same, and Philippines is decreased by 33%, then why should we expect anything consistent out of IPCs anywhere on the gamemap?

To me this is encouraging, because it suggests that IPC value and “collect income” can be tweaked for game balance (on a regional basis) without upsetting some underlying foundation. The fact that these values have changed so much over time, indicates a high level of abstraction going on.

The thing to notice is that IPCs are already being counted differently (in terms of relative value) depending on where they are located on the gamemap. I think this is an important thing to bear in mind when considering what IPCs really represent, and to see why gameplay (and not necessarily historical production analogy) is the critical factor in determining how these should be distributed across the map on any given board.

@Krieghund:

Yes, but I don’t know why it would want to.

It might be usefull to get past some of japans navy.  It’s always good to know what options are avaiable.

If USA is not netrual in this case I guess movement restrictions dont apply!?

Very true, those fighters are very needed in Defense, as they are stronger in that regard.

Also, I did once have a sucessfull Dunkirk evacuation of my French Fighter from the French battle.  I am pretty sure its a house rule, but the way we usually play is that if there are no attacking air units, then the defending air unit can retreat to a safe territory within its range if it survives the first round of combat.

Of course it did, and my opponent forgot to throw a Stuka at France, so the Dewontine came in very useful for a possible sealion defense and also to land on a carrier later on as a defender.