how often do you see crusiers being built in relation to other units ? Does the bombard seem to powerful at 3 ?
Cruiser’s shore bombardement @3 isn’t enough to be a good incentive even if it is better than BB’s bombardment.
My HR Cruiser has a reduced cost and an AAA capabilities.
If I had to specialized Cruiser, I would let go bombardment and keep AAA capacity.
Otherwise, I would give a better shorebombardment capabilities to BB while keeping @3 for Cruiser.
Something like @4 first round and +1A to Infantry, like Artillery, in the other rounds, as long as any Inf remaining.
@Young:
The only problem I have with the AA idea is, wouldn’t battleships and aircraft carriers also have the same ability?
I resolved this issue by requiring that at least 1 Carrier be present to grant AA capacity to either Cruiser or Battleship.
No pairing just a single Carrier is enough. Works like OOB DD presence for planes against Subs.
Even if BB gets AA as my HR Cruiser, Cruiser gives a better cost ratio.
Two 10 IPCs Cruisers get AA against up to 4 planes.
My 18 IPCs BB get AA against up to 2 planes.
@Young:
The only problem I have with the AA idea is, wouldn’t battleships and aircraft carriers also have the same ability?
Well, only transports can carry infantry in the game, but other ships had that ability too. I just read about how the USS Enterprise carrier brought home thousands of troops after WWII. The game specializes for play purposes.
Then there is what Larry Harris said on his site: “Upping the AAA of a cruiser is probably the way I’d modify or up the value of the cruiser. Dedicated shots at aircraft during the first round of combat or something along that line is worth considering. I think this additional special ability would both reflect a cruiser’s historic role and nicely fill in that potential over priced issue we’ve been discussing.” Posted: Wed 05.Aug, 2009
Nice catch DK!
Could you provide the full link please?
I would like to read this particular thread on Harris Game Design.
Thanks.
Sure - here it is:
A nice way to get Larry Harris’ view (perhaps past view) on things on his site is to do a search and type “Larry” in the author space - you will get everything LH said there about your subject.
Here’s my changes for ships and using other people’s ideas and I thank you for them(and I’m basing it off of G40 but you can use it for 42.2 or 41 or anything else if you want).
Battleships- Their new change is that they can carry 1 infantry even if damaged.
Cruisers- Cost 10 and has a built in AA gun that can shoot up to 1 plane but only up to 4 CVs.
Destroyers- Cost 7 and Attack is 1 and Defense is 2.
Submarines- Cost 5 and Attack is 2 and defense is 1 and aircraft may attack subs without a DD but the sub may choose to submerge and the aircraft gets one shot at killing it.
Transports- Cost 5.
Any comments?
@Frederick:
Here’s my changes for ships and using other people’s ideas and I thank you for them(and I’m basing it off of G40 but you can use it for 42.2 or 41 or anything else if you want).
Battleships- Their new change is that they can carry 1 infantry even if damaged.
Cruisers- Cost 10 and has a built in AA gun that can shoot up to 1 plane but only up to 4 CVs.
Destroyers- Cost 7 and Attack is 1 and Defense is 2.
Submarines- Cost 5 and Attack is 2 and defense is 1 and aircraft may attack subs without a DD but the sub may choose to submerge and the aircraft gets one shot at killing it.
Transports- Cost 5.
Any comments?
My thoughts:
Battleships: Battleships already have two special “things” they do - they can take two hits and shore bombard. Infantry carrying seems superfluous and reduces the role of the transport.
Cruisers: I don’t understand what you mean here “only up to 4 CVs”
DDs: Your stats would mean a pack of DDs attacking a pack of subs would be an even battle, with the subs defending at “1” - when clearly the DDs would have an advantage with their speed and depth charge ability.
Subs - pretty good except the price of “5” makes subs too cheap - especially if you combine them with a “navy production” tech, where they would then cost “4” - you could spam the oceans with them.
@Der:
@Frederick:
Destroyers- Cost 7 and Attack is 1 and Defense is 2.
Submarines- Cost 5 and Attack is 2 and defense is 1 and aircraft may attack subs without a DD but the sub may choose to submerge and the aircraft gets one shot at killing it.
Any comments?My thoughts:
DDs: Your stats would mean a pack of DDs attacking a pack of subs would be an even battle, with the subs defending at “1” - when clearly the DDs would have an advantage with their speed and depth charge ability.
Subs - pretty good except the price of “5” makes subs too cheap - especially if you combine them with a “navy production” tech, where they would then cost “4” - you could spam the oceans with them.
About A1 Destroyer, I could rationalize it that it is harder to search and destroy subs in open sea rather than waiting for a torpedo trail against an escorted vessel and react against the attacking Sub with hedgehogs and depth charges. A1 includes the search result. 50% to find and 2/6 to hit = 1/6 on attack.
In an old WWII The Expansion from Philip Schwartzer, DE Destroyer Escort got A1D2.
The search, named Anti-Sub patrol, was 2/6 and the attack roll 2/6 vs Sub only. Sum: 4/36 which is less than the A1 suggested.
Besides, if planes can shoot submerging Sub the issue would become that Sub are going to be sitting duck with no retaliate roll against planes only attack. DD won’t be as necessary as OOB.
My idea to simplify interactions between Subs, planes and DDs still requires that Subs keep their surprise or submerge phase when destroyer is not present. So, a planes only attack have no impact on enemy’s submerge Sub. This imply that at least 1DD must block Subs to let planes a chance to hit unsubmerged Subs.
Also, DD A1D2 increase the need to bring along planes to be more efficient while on offense searching and seeking to sink Subs. Something which is historically correct.
Der Kuenstler up to 4 cruisers means that in a sea battle and lets say you have something like 5 cruisers and they are attack with aircraft only 4 of them may use their AA gun ability. The reasons why subs are 5 ipc is because they were cheap back then and Germany built 1,154 of them so there’s a reason why there cheap and the chances of getting the shipyards tech is really rare.
Baron Munchhausen are you saying that DDs attack should be 2? Because I am thinking about changing it to that.
@Frederick:
Baron Munchhausen are you saying that DDs attack should be 2? Because I am thinking about changing it to that.
I was simply explaining the old rule.
The Destroyer escort was a A1 D2 M2 Cost 8 but was only to protect Transports.
On Anti-Sub Patrol, the Attack rise to 2 against Sub only for a single shot at sub, after the sub is safe.
However, in this WWII The Expansion rule set, Subs have no defense at all.
ASP was a special search required first before being able to roll for attack.
In my own HR, DD is A1 D2 M2 Cost 6 IPCs and Sub is still A2 D1 M2 Cost 6 IPCs.
The change is that in multi-types naval combat you don’t need to look about DD presence to hit Sub with any plane. (Simpler compared to OOB.)
The OOB rule was because if planes hit Subs without DD, Subs becomes the best all-around naval fodder. But it should be Destroyer, historically speaking, so at 6 IPCs both DDs and Subs can be fodder. On offense, clearly you would chose to loose DD first. On defense, you could prefer to loose Subs but sometimes saving Subs by submerging them would be the best option. Hence, Destroyers could still be an interesting fodder on defense.
I should add that DD blocks Subs’ submerge on a 1 on 1 basis (and for a single combat round) according to my HR inspired by DK.
@Baron:
@Frederick:
Baron Munchhausen are you saying that DDs attack should be 2? Because I am thinking about changing it to that.
I was simply explaining the old rule.
The Destroyer escort was a A1 D2 M2 Cost 8 but was only to protect Transports.
On Anti-Sub Patrol, the Attack rise to 2 against Sub only for a single shot at sub, after the sub is safe.
However, in this WWII The Expansion rule set, Subs have no defense at all.
ASP was a special search required first before being able to roll for attack.
Okay, thanks for the explanation.
The key to adding a new unit is deciding what it does that is different than the units already available.
What about refocusing the Cruiser on AA work?
Commerce Raider - Cuts trans-oceanic lines-of-supply.
Destroyer Escort - Convoy defense. Focus is on hunting subs in Convoy Zones. Bonus to convoy defense.
Destroyer - Focus is on hunting subs and taking hits (“screening”) during fleet actions. Bonus against submarines.
Cruiser - Utility piece. Strong and fast enough to sink a destroyer 1:1. Can do weak shore bombardment. Improved AA if another friendly ship is in the same space. Bonus against aircraft.
Battlecruiser - Focus is on hunting smaller combatants. Better shore bombardment. Useful on the attack. Weaker defense than a battleship. Only one hit point. Possible benefit: re-roll one die during combat.
Battleship - Focus is on destroying other naval units. Best shore bombardment.
Carrier - Focus is on extending the range of aircraft.
Armored Carrier - Improved defense and 3 hit points. More expensive, but more survivable.
Transport - Carries troops.
This presumes a good number of sea zones, meaning a slightly larger map, such as that offered by HBG.
On a very, very large map (which I one day hope to see), you might add Coastal Battleships – basically, low-cost, slow-moving battlewagons.
The key to adding a new unit is deciding what it does that is different than the units already available.
What about refocusing the Cruiser on AA work?
Commerce Raider - Cuts trans-oceanic lines-of-supply.
Destroyer Escort - Convoy defense. Focus is on hunting subs in Convoy Zones. Bonus to convoy defense.
Destroyer - Focus is on hunting subs and taking hits (“screening”) during fleet actions. Bonus against submarines.
Cruiser - Utility piece. Strong and fast enough to sink a destroyer 1:1. Can do weak shore bombardment. Improved AA if another friendly ship is in the same space. Bonus against aircraft.
Battlecruiser - Focus is on hunting smaller combatants. Better shore bombardment. Useful on the attack. Weaker defense than a battleship. Only one hit point. Possible benefit: re-roll one die during combat.
Battleship - Focus is on destroying other naval units. Best shore bombardment.
Carrier - Focus is on extending the range of aircraft.
Armored Carrier - Improved defense and 3 hit points. More expensive, but more survivable.
Transport - Carries troops.This presumes a good number of sea zones, meaning a slightly larger map, such as that offered by HBG.
On a very, very large map (which I one day hope to see), you might add Coastal Battleships – basically, low-cost, slow-moving battlewagons.
I have been working on the following for my game. Intent is to have a couple more units, but make each unique in a D6 system. I want to keep it as simple as possible, but incorporate the Light-Medium-Heavy aspect of HBGs larger naval units:
Transport: A0 D0 M2 1 hit, OOB transport rules $7
Submarine: A2 D1 M2 1 hit, Surprise strike - countered 1:1 w/destroyer $6
Large Submarine: A3 D1 M2 1 hit, Surprise strike - countered 1:1 w/destroyer, may Target each round if not countered by destroyer $8
Destroyer: A2 D2 M2 1 hit, counter subs 1:1- removes surprise strike and sub targeting $7
Cruiser: A3 D3 M2 1 hits, up to 2 AA shots per cruiser in rnd 1, bombards on 3 (maybe 2?) $10
Early War BB/Battlecruiser/Heavy Cruiser: A4 D3 M2 $12 1 hit, Can bombard on 4 (maybe 3?) (Graf Spee, Alaska, Nagato, Fuso, Nevada, Hood, etc…)
Battleship: A4 D4 M2 2 hits, Can bombard on 4 $18 (Iowa, Bismarck, King George V, Dunkerque, Vittorio Veneto, North Carolina, Kongo, etc…)
Heavy Battleship: A5 D5 M2 3 hits, Can bombard on 5 $24 (Yamato, Montana, etc…)
Light Carrier: A0 D1 M2 1 hit, holds 1 fighter/tac $8
Fleet Carrier: A1 D2 M2 2 hits, holds 2 fighters/tac $15 (Yorktown, Essex, Ark Royal, Shokaku, Kaga, Soryu, Graf Zeppelin, Illustrious, Aquila, etc…)
Heavy Carrier: A2 D3 M2 2 hits, holds 3 fighters/tac $20 (Midway, Shinano, etc…)
It is a work in progress. I may need to refine the battlecruiser concept to make it more appealing (i.e. give it a special separate from just being able to bombard). But this category also includes early war battleships (WWI holdovers), so something may have to give. Costs are subject to change also. I think this is just about the max number of Naval Units a D6 A&A game can handle. Any more and you will just have extra units that are never used or need completely new game mechanics to use.
IMO Looks good so far!
Good Stuff Guys !
As far as your battlecrusier LHoffman maybe it could be more of a starting unit ? Begin the game with some with the option to buy more. You probbaly wouldn’t want to buy them but they were part of the war and would be cool to represent them.
Good Stuff Guys !
As far as your battlecrusier LHoffman maybe it could be more of a starting unit ? Begin the game with some with the option to buy more. You probbaly wouldn’t want to buy them but they were part of the war and would be cool to represent them.
Thanks guys. I like to get input and criticism because other people think of stuff that I do not.
As for the Battlecruiser (and Early War BB)… yes, I thought of it in a similar way. Originally, I drew it up as just an Early War Battleship which had similar values except that you couldn’t buy them. There were just a certain number that started on the board, as you said. I think I am going to make them purchasable, but perhaps they aren’t very useful for a reason. Their era is over.
With 1914 I’ve experimented with pursuit in naval combat, that is a naval force retreating may be followed or “pursued” by the other fleet. This was partly to break the stalemate of ships skulking in mined ports, but perahps it could be applied to cruisers only, i.e.
Allow either side (defender first) to retreat to a non hostile sz after a round of naval battle, but cruisers (and destroyers?) in the opposing force may pursue the retreating ships and engage in another round of firing. They may simply “shadow” by pursuing without combat, but the retreating fleet may than choose to fire upon them.
A shadowed fleet must engage its shadow before moving to attack other units, though it may (in effect) retreat again and/or load/unload units.
For WWII, fighters in a naval battle should be able to join in a pursuit but only if they remain in range of their carriers/landing zones.
The Battlecruiser, built as a hunter-killer, is dramatically less useful if we’re talking about the original map, on which even Cruisers have limited utility due to the relatively short distances between continents. I’m also not sure the Commerce Raider/Auxiliary Cruiser is viable on such a board. Certainly the Torpedo Boat Destroyer and the Torpedo Bomber are not.
Possibly the Armored Carrier might have value, if somebody really wants to operate such a platform either independently, or integrated with a small(er) squadron.
Honestly, I don’t think that even the G1940 map from HBG is large enough to justify adding new units.
By the time we get to talking about a map with oceans that may take two or even three turns to cross, we run into the question of whether land and air combat are even working on the same timescale – they are not, really. However, I do want to see navigable rivers (Mississippi and Yangtze) and larger oceans, along with more “metropolitan” territories (e.g., National Capital Region) on future maps.
I think adding AAA capability to the cruiser appears to be easier to balance than lowering the cost. Value of the unit can be adjusted by varying the number of AAA shots. Lowering the cost in addition to AAA seems to throw off the value of the DD and BB. Lowering the Offshore Bombardment of a cruiser to 2 makes sense thematically and might be a good way to go, but I think OOB rules left it at 3 to KISS.
It seems to be agreed on the forums that cruisers aren’t worth purchasing. Since cruisers were technically the fastest of ships**, what if they had movement of 3 from any space regardless of naval base? Would that change your mind on purchasing? I think it would for me.**
@CWO:
Since cruisers were technically the fastest of ships
Not really. Speaking in very general terms (because there was a lot of variation from nany to navy), destroyers tended to be faster than cruisers. Fleet carriers were usually quite fast too, since their high speed (combined with the technique of steering into the wind) facilitated plane launches. And America’s 33-knot Iowa-class battleships were exceptionally fast (and agile) by battleship standards. Cruisers (the main types being 8-inch gun heavy, 6-inch gun light and 5-inch gun anti-aircraft cruisers) we basically intended to be good all-around combat ships: they had a long-range cruising radius (like battleships and carriers; destroyers were notorious fuel hogs when operating at high speed, and their small size meant that they had relatively small fuel tanks); they had decent armour protection (less than battleships, but better than carriers (which had little) and destroyers (which had none)); and they had good firepower (especially the 8-inch ones, though of course this was much less than 14-, 15-, 16- and 18-inch battleships). They were also considerably cheaper than battleships (especially the 6-inch and 5-inch ones), both in terms of construction costs and operating costs (due to the smaller crew size), though of course much more expensive than destroyers (which in any case served a very different role, primarily as escort vessels, anti-submarine platforms and as oversized torpedo boats).
My mistake. I had been watching WW2 docs and it had mentioned that Cruisers were generally the fastest ships. Should have done more research.
Maybe a combo idea could work. Like with land units (Art/Inf, Arm/Mech, Arm/Tac etc). CWO Mark, what ships would/could cruisers combo with historically speaking? Maybe it gets AA shot/or hits at a 4 if combined with carrier or battleship?
I believe this could actually change the Pacific theatre in an interesting way.
What about this Cruiser unit?
CRUISER
Attack 3
Defense 3
Shore Bombardment 3
Cost 12 IPCs
Move 3 (Naval Base cannot boost its move)
As a Fast Reaction Task Force unit:
Gives +1 Move in Combat and Non-Combat Move to any surface vessel paired 1:1 with (DD, TP, CV or BB)
This way, you can use the Cruiser & Transport combo without regarding Naval Base and maximizing the Shore bombardment. For example, 2 Cruisers, 1 Destroyer and 1 Transport can invade a few 1 Infantry’s islands which doesn’t have Naval Base but still keeping the pace of fleet making yo-yo move between Naval Base, to keep up the 3 moves pace.
On this post there is a similar idea, but only applied to transport & Cruiser combo then.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34985.msg1358278#msg1358278
I just found one of my original post which includes a combination of some previous ideas in this thread.
@Baron:
@CWO:
Cruiser + Aircraft Carrier? Yes, cruisers added to the protective rings of AAA fire that were thrown up around carriers, whose own AAA abilities were limited. US practice was to put the carriers in the middle of a formation, with battleships surrounding the carriers, cruisers surrounding the battleships, and destroyers surrounding the cruisers.
Cruiser + Battleship? Nothing much to be gained there since, as I’ve already outlined, both ship types differ mainly in scale rather than in fundamental ability.
Cruiser + Destroyer?
A wartime bonus of having cruisers and destroyers working together was that the cruisers would sometimes top up the fuel tanks of the destroyers, since destroyers were often looking for refills. (They often mooched from battleships too. The Iowas class battleships, whose armour allowed them to venture into seas too dangerous for tankers, were nicknamed “armoured oilers” by US destroyer crews.)Cruiser + Transport ship? Perhaps, in the sense that cruisers could (in principle) protect them from attack with their AAA batteries. I’m not sure, however, to what extent cruisers were actually used in that role in WWII; destroyers may have been cheaper to use in the same capacity.
Ok, talking about Cruiser and Combined Arms
1- Cruiser always moves at 3 CM and NCM.
2- Cruiser gives +1 CM & NCM to boost the moving range of any other surface vessel if paired 1:1 (BB, CV, DD and TP, only).
3- Cruiser with Battleship and Carrier get the Anti-Air capacity (same as AAA: @1 against up to 3 planes, preemptive).Battleship get nothing else, except as being part of #2 and a requirement for #3.
Carrier is in the same situation as Battleship.
However, to get a 3 move CM or NCM without Naval Base is costly for a Task Force Fleet: 1 BB, 1 CV, 1 DD, 1 TP, needs 4 Cruisers.
The mandatory pairing 1:1 provides a very restrictive limit, since Cruisers are the worst Combat effective units of the Naval roster.
Speed and maneuverability is gained at the cost of optimized Att/Def values.Can this be within historical accuracy, A&A system and a balance limit?
