Worst Alpha Modifications

@Young:

@JimmyHat:

I voted for the aa gun, it seems the most obvious fail with far reaching effects.

Scrambling- best in Alpha over OOB
Convoys- A3 system is warming to me, however I think some ships should be excluded from raiding, making less units capable of doing it.  Perhaps only Subs, CA’s, and tac bmbs.
SBR- meh, I liked A2 for the logic of the system, but I rarely bomb as is.
NOs-A2 NO’s were good other than US and USSR, and A3 has not improved those.
unit setup-all FUBAR’ed because of the aa gun mishap that near breaks the game. 
Political-still very wrong, why is it that we cannot have a sleak DOW system?  No more ‘leave it up to the players to make a pact’.  Also fix the neutrals so they are a part of this game, Larry took the time to add them to the board and put units on them…
Tech- I don’t tech and see it as the one area that is easiest to house rule.
AAguns-projectile vomits
Kamikaze- how has these changed?  I was unaware.
Turn order-I still think Italy should be moved up to before UK, add more UK units if needed.
Mongolian rule-A3 tried to fix this, but didn’t go far enough.  Take Mongolia out of the ‘true neutral’ camp and make it dependent on Jap/Rus relations.  I do prefer those 6 scattered inf to the 12 ipcs of A2.

Battleships should disrupt convoys, that was the main goal for releasing the Bizmarck.

They do.  1d6 max 3 dmg

Read JimmyHat’s post, Jen.

any ship should dissrupt convoys if you really think about it. a destroyer is the same thing as a battleship against an unarmed merchant vessel. In axis and allies turns it is like killing a transport. No big deal. The battleship bissmark was intended to disrupt convoys and lower the morale of the United Kingdom, while as a destroyer would easily be destroyed and not thought twice about. All ships should be able to do damage to convoys. Get rid of adding more dice to the game. Alpha 2 had it right.

@Young:

@theROCmonster:

any ship should dissrupt convoys if you really think about it. a destroyer is the same thing as a battleship against an unarmed merchant vessel. In axis and allies turns it is like killing a transport. No big deal. The battleship bissmark was intended to disrupt convoys and lower the morale of the United Kingdom, while as a destroyer would easily be destroyed and not thought twice about. All ships should be able to do damage to convoys. Get rid of adding more dice to the game. Alpha 2 had it right.

Jen, I think you need to get offline and play more table top, the physical act of rolling dice is suspenseful and fun, but I can see how you would want less rolling if you were constantly commanding the computer to do it for you.

But you did not quote me!

I like the Research and development from the Anniversary Edition
 Our group never seems to spend the money on Technology,  when we were doing the Anniv you would see it on the board, now as before the risk of getting one vs using the money on something else just dosent pan out

The group wants to try a game without any N.O.'s just to see how it plays out….I think Japan could become very powerful if the U.S.A. has to wait until the end of three to come in. should be interesting

Japan would be super powerful! GL and let us know how it turns out. Should be fun.

that might be a fun houserull, but what happens if say germany gets rockets or america gets heavy bombers? for free no less?

@Young:

@theROCmonster:

that might be a fun houserull, but what happens if say germany gets rockets or america gets heavy bombers? for free no less?

As long as you have $30 or more, you get a free roll, regardless how you got $30 or how many tech weapons you already have.

Interesting rule.  I just play with Tech Tokens myself…that way you dont lose your investment if you don’t make a break through.  Does end up with America getting 4 or 5 technologies however.

@Young:

Battleships should disrupt convoys, that was the main goal for releasing the Bizmarck.

Yes I know, and I am glad you found 1 example, but this game has a larger scale than 1 ship, and BB’s in general were not used for convoy raiding.  I will give my reasoning as to why these units should raid and others not.

CAN CONVOY
Subs-arguably their  primary role, subs should be able to convoy raid and even get a bonus over other units.
CA-a fast capital ship, they were often used for convoy raiding, to supply some oomph to the surface fleets.  This also would help to make CA’s worth 12ipcs.
Tac-considered the close air support aircraft, I think it is easy to take their dive bombing skills to the water or vice versa.  
DD-an argument could be made for their inclusion, lots of smaller vessels can conduct a pretty decent blockade provided no bigger ships or aircraft arrive on scene.  They also have the speed and ASW capabilities to help.

CANNOT CONVOY
Ftrs-already a really awesome unit, and needs to focus on its air superiority mission over ground attack.
BMB-same as above, they already kick lots of a** and have that huge range.
BB-I can’t think of any nation in its right mind that would use BBs in this exposed mission unless that power had no chance to contest naval superiority and had nothing better to do with those ships.(Germany)
CV-same as above, to valuable of an asset for this mission type.  They would be covering the raiding DD’s and CA’s, but not doing it themselves.

Of course I am bringing in wayyyy too much logic into this game, it is evident that logic is not Larry’s cup o’ tea. (see my comments on aa guns)

EDIT: a** is a swear word?  I’m all for a swear blocker because I’ve got better things to do than read that, but who’s the evangelist that decided which words were swears?  I guess what I am asking is where is the list of the 7 words you can’t type on A&A.org?

@Cmdr:

Allies generally need one and a really good shot at another for us to conceed our games.  (That one being Italy because they get farmed so easily now.)  Which is the primary reason I want to strip the Americans down and force them to pay significant attention to what they are doing.  With most of their money in harder to attain (not hard to attain, HARDER) islands in the Pacific they should have less to use to hit Italy with and thus, Italy should have a modest ability to first survive and second prosper again.

I understand the days of a 60 IPC Italy are probably over.  Fine.  I didnt really like it anyway.  However, now we’re at a 0 IPC Italy in almost all of our games.  (0 collected, not 0 in holdings necesarily.)  And it’s all due to America.

Jenn, it seems your solution to current problems is more changes.  Lets examine that for a sec.  If a change to the game is made, and problems arise…why not go back and fix the original change instead of making more additions?  This development process has been a spiraling set of errors, one is heaped upon another with no clear path to ‘perfection’ or a description of what that would be.

If we are finding that Italy is nerfed due to whatever factors are currently in vogue, perhaps the answer lies in retro changes that put us back at a more even axis and allies.  However, I understand the importance of the final rules version, and it is why I wish Larry would dedicate 1 or 2 weeks to iron out some of the peripheral issues and put them in concrete.  I am talking about the DOW system and by extension the true neutral camp.  No more ‘decide amongst yourself’ rules, if I wanted a game with open alliances I would place Diplomacy.  Wed France to UK so that when UK goes to war with Japan so does France.  DO NOT allow UK/ANZAC to declare war on Japan.  It is not allowed and that pretty much clears the incentive for them to grab free NO moneys.

Go with ‘historic’ neutral blocks, even going so far as to put SWEDEN with the ‘Africa and Iberia’ block.  Include Turkey in Middle East, and if time permits make changes to Neutral units by adding ships in specific sea zones in the rulebook, similar to Xeno’s W@W.  I believe however that Sweden could possibly be made its own case by tying the Denmark/Norway NO to Sweden…who has the ore after all.  Sweden could also join the Axis if Russia takes both Finland and Norway, I don’t think the Swedish population was too keen on being surrounded by communists and this would help give the Western allies their historic reason for wanting to invade Norway.  (operation Jupiter)

Lastly, might I add that these ideas are not radical, they are based on history and with an eye towards game balance and game play.  Why they fall on deaf ears I don’t understand.  These rules layered on A2 with the Mongolia rule and ‘Moscow attacks after Sealion’ and tell me where the problems still lie.

The only areas I would concentrate on then would be NO’s that are more fun and perhaps another Italian ship.  NO’s don’t have to be 5 ipcs, and Japan should have like 4 or 5.  2 in Islands and 2 in China/Indochina at least.  Russia should have achievable NO’s that are not game winning.  Have Russia get extra ipcs for holding territories in Eastern Europe and Balkans, also Korea and Finland.  Keep the Russian convoy NO, its the only Convoy zone that affects a territory that is not adjacent to the convoy!  Any ideas on good NO’s for USA or UK?  I think Italy and ANZAC are fine.

Yes, as I said on the other forums, if you want to go minimalist changes:

1. Restore the setup to Alpha 3 original
2. Add a Strategic Bomber to England
3. Add a Destroyer to SZ 109; SZ 96; SZ 93; SZ 98 (ANZAC)
4. Add a Transport + Destroyer somewhere in the south pacific for Japan, I’m thinking SZ 42
5. Kill the American Continental NO replace it with 5 for Iwo Jima, 5 for Okinawa (it’s a helluva lot more logical from both a game play AND a historical perspective!)
6. Restore the Russian NO to Alpha 3 circa whatever it was when Alpha 3 was released - MAYBE include Italian territories.
7. +2 Armor in Amur

That’s really only 5 very minor changes - all of which geared to make naval engagements a bit more deadly and tricky and thus bring the game back down more historical lines.  Many of the changes are geared towards the fact Sea Lion is stupid easy now, much easier than it was in Alpha 2 AND India is easy as well (not as easy as Sea Lion.)

@Young:

Many, many times I have seen accusations that Jen influenced Larry and his team to impliment her own ideas into the rules. What rules are Jens?

I think they are talking about the ONE issue I brought to Larry’s attention in Alpha +2 about America destroying Japan.  I outlined it round by round for Larry with no less than 3 detailed accounts against different players to show how it worked in theory and in practice.

What did he change?  He moved an NO to Normandy.  Hardly a laundry list of changes!