There’s only one thing that’s TRUE in Axis and Allies.
You need a little bit of everything to win.
I think that the designers and developers knew what they were doing when they put them in the line-up, give them some credit. They work well for me when I’m the UK. they can make my dd’s less prone to aircraft attacks. Compare adv. to disad. not good against the sub sneak attack VS att & def at 3
I think that when they put them in it, it brought the cost of subs and trans down……here is a challenge land in the USA with Ger somewhere between G3 and G7.
Keep up the posts its good to see all the diff points of views
This argument is silly… It seems that both sides agree that cruisers are not as effective as destroyers for the majority of the situations that arise in the game. The statistics that are being thrown around (95%-5%) are completely arbitrary, and not really based on any facts. I’ve played about 20 games of alpha 2 and I’ve found cruisers to be useful in quite a few situations every game. My anzac builds 3 or 4 cruisers every game unless Japan targets their bonuses. I feel cruisers are a great buy for London once you’ve secured the Atlantic and begin landing in Germany. The Americans and Japanese certainly get more use out of destroyers in the pacific, as does Italy and England in the Mediterranean. If the game didn’t have and sea zones and you just bought as many boats as you could afford every turn and rolled out battles than yes destroyers are better than cruisers every time. But the game doesn’t work that way…
So lets see, because some people buy them that means they must be useful. So, if you see people jumping off a bridge, you follow? Must be a good idea.
How about this? We have a unit called a Battlecruiser. It will cost 12 points, hits on a 3, takes one hit, and can bombard. I bet you guys will think this is better than a cruiser.
This stuff just isn’t that difficult. I’d hate to see you guys try to analyze something complicated.
So hey, leave the cruiser as is. Feel free to buy as many as you want. Just makes it easier for the rest of us to win.
So lets see, because some people buy them that means they must be useful. So, if you see people jumping off a bridge, you follow? Must be a good idea.
How about this? We have a unit called a Battlecruiser. It will cost 12 points, hits on a 3, takes one hit, and can bombard. I bet you guys will think this is better than a cruiser.
This stuff just isn’t that difficult. I’d hate to see you guys try to analyze something complicated.
So hey, leave the cruiser as is. Feel free to buy as many as you want. Just makes it easier for the rest of us to win.
How is that argument any different that what you’re trying to say. So because some people don’t buy them, they must be pointless.
Perhaps the people jumping off the bridge are bungy jumping and can see the fun in it, but to others it seems pointless.
Could be the people using them have seen their usefulness and use them to win.
How about this? We have a unit called a Battlecruiser. It will cost 12 points, hits on a 3, takes one hit, and can bombard. I bet you guys will think this is better than a cruiser.
Well yes, Captain Obvious, of course that will be better.
And if we make a unit called a party-cruiser, filled with nude cheerleaders and give it a 6 coastal (distraction attack) and a soaker (shirts) for the same price, it also will be better.
On a serious note, making the cruiser a double hitter for the same price would be too much for 12 ipc
Cruiser fans…… UNITE! :mrgreen:
This argument is silly… It seems that both sides agree that cruisers are not as effective as destroyers for the majority of the situations that arise in the game. The statistics that are being thrown around (95%-5%) are completely arbitrary, and not really based on any facts. I’ve played about 20 games of alpha 2 and I’ve found cruisers to be useful in quite a few situations every game. My anzac builds 3 or 4 cruisers every game unless Japan targets their bonuses. I feel cruisers are a great buy for London once you’ve secured the Atlantic and begin landing in Germany. The Americans and Japanese certainly get more use out of destroyers in the pacific, as does Italy and England in the Mediterranean. If the game didn’t have and sea zones and you just bought as many boats as you could afford every turn and rolled out battles than yes destroyers are better than cruisers every time. But the game doesn’t work that way…
I agree with Clint. The way I see it, they aren’t as efficient as destroyers or as powerful as battleships or as versatile as aircraft carriers, but I’m glad a DD/BB hybrid unit is available for the few cases when a battleship would be too expensive but a destroyer would be ineffective.
Furthermore it also gives a good medium ship to help balance setups between the destroyer and the battleship, which is an important point that doesn’t come up frequently in these debates. For setups sometimes a navy needs a bigger representation than a measly destroyer, but by the A&A rules a battleship would be too powerful, so you have the cruiser now that allows for beefier naval representation in the setup without being overpowered against opening attacks.
Plus you now have representation of the 5 major naval classes (as evidenced by the other board game “Battleship” :wink:), which is cool too. 8-)
So all in all I think it’s better to at least have the option of buying cruisers in the game, even if they hardly ever get purchased, then not having them at all.
I would suppoert cruisers being changed to 11 cost, but you also have to change the shipyard tech to reduce their cost by 1 instead of 2 as a 9pt cruiser would actually be a great buy even compared to a 7pt destroyer.
If cruisers were dropped to 11 I couldn’t really see any change to when I would buy them. It would only result in me upgrading an infantry to an artillery most of the time. There would still not be any real reason for Japan to buy cruisers. The USA would still only buy 1 or 2 in the Atlantic for bombardments.
Dropping the price to 10 would make battleships damn near obsolete, as well as destroyers only being bought for sub defense.
I rarely buy cruisers, but I rarely buy tac bombers, bombers, AA guns, tech dice, and most facilities either. Does that mean all these units need fixed??? Since I buy infantry more than any other unit does that mean they should be more expensive?
Granted its only my opinion, but I don’t feel that cruisers at twelve needs changed at all.
I rarely buy cruisers, but I rarely buy tac bombers, bombers, AA guns, tech dice, and most facilities either. Does that mean all these units need fixed??? Since I buy infantry more than any other unit does that mean they should be more expensive?
Granted its only my opinion, but I don’t feel that cruisers at twelve needs changed at all.
That’s a really good point. Just because you don’t buy a unit very often doesn’t mean that it’s useless or needs to be changed. It just depends on what fits your stategy at the time.
The only change I might make is adopting the cruiser/AA gun idea. If a fleet is attacked by air power and that fleet has at least 1 cruiser in it, then the attacking planes are subject to AA gun fire like with a land AA gun – 1 round of fire, any 1’s are a hit, casualties removed immediately, then battle proceeds as normal.
meh, I think the aa gun idea is too powerful, although it would result in 1 CA per fleet at least. The idea I like is to pair them with something, perhaps 1 CA 1 CV grants the CV +1 attack and def. Something along those lines.
CA keeps price at 12
Each time a CA rolls a 1 and the enemy has planes that type is hit
CA gets the same ASW capabilities as the DD.
I don’t like the idea of giving cruisers the same ASW abilities as a destroyer because that would mean subs pretty much have no surprise strike ability anymore. Yeah, I know they can still surprise strike carriers and battleships, but both of those take 2 hits to sink so they can still kill the sub even if the sub hits. Destroyers already nullify the surprise strike. Defending subs also get a surprise strike albeit at 1, so even if the attacking sub hits, the defending sub could too. So right now, cruisers are the only ship that a submarine can surprise strike and actually sink. I don’t think we should take that away from them.
I still like the AA idea. If that is too powerful, perhaps the cruiser could act as AA ONLY when paired with other ships. In other words, a cruiser can’t act as an AA gun by itself, it has to be defending other ships in a fleet.
If nobody buys the CA, it should not impact the subs too much more than before.
@Imperious:
If nobody buys the CA, it should not impact the subs too much more than before.
But a lot of us do buy cruisers, so your opening premise is irrelevant.
This is all pretty pointless discussion. Everybody had their mind made up before reading this thread at all, and probably no one’s buying choices will change. No one is going to get Larry to change the cruiser rules for them, especially writing about it on this website that Larry does not read. So buy them or don’t, everybody, no one really cares whether you do or not. An awful lot of talk about a less than 10% price difference. What about 24 IPC battleships in classic that were destroyed in one hit? Now that’s overpriced.
If nobody buys the CA, it should not impact the subs too much more than before.
This is no premise. It was for the people who claim they never or seldom buy cruisers, so if they don’t it can’t really have any effect in invalidating the role of the SS in the game.
I dont buy them as they are now, but with the small deal of hitting plane on a 1 during the attack role, added with ASW will get me to buy more or equal with the DD.
The goal is that each unit by category has an equal value to offer the game depending on how you want to use them. Their should be no clear “no brainer buys” between units with some exception to Infantry.
@Imperious:
The goal is that each unit by category has an equal value to offer the game depending on how you want to use them. Their should be no clear “no brainer buys” between units with some exception to Infantry.
OK I appreciate the clarification, but am perplexed by this part of your post.
Who said the goal was for each unit by category to have equal value to offer the game? That’s a big time assumption…
Because if it became clear that one unit was better in most situations because its DNA was not in balance with its abilities for better or worse, that unit would either not be used in the game or used exclusively at the detriment of other established units. This is what is called glitching in games and in these situations it breaks the game.
Examples ( these are cases where one unit had a clear advantage over other units and it was merely a task of buying more of these units than another player):
Tanks in AAR and AAE 3-2-2-5 or 3-3-2-5 tanks
In conquest of the empire ( original version) the side who bought up all the catapults won the game
In Napoleon in Europe, you bought is remember cavalry and it was a clear advantage in combat.
In MB AA edition , getting heavy bombers first broke the game, before that having infantry bought every turn made the game static but kept you in the game longer
IN NOVA games edition, getting a Chinese factory to place US land forces made the game broken. US would build up before Japan can take and Japan would never get going in Asia.
OK, but aren’t those mainly examples of OVER powered units? People are saying cruisers are too expensive, so rarely purchased. That’s a different issue than heavy bombers or infantry buys being dominant in MB. Cruisers certainly don’t break the game…
