I know everyone hates techs but….

I indeed hate tech. Not because of any additional pieces or other options it would create, but because of the randomness associated with the development in the first place. I think that with the normal dice rolling, there’s enough of a chance element in the game. Tech provides players who don’t know what to do with an opportunity to pour their money into random research, hoping to get a breakthrough that may give them an opportunity to achieve by chance, a victory that they couldn’t achieve by skill.

But I have little objection to additional game pieces that would be available to all countries (excepting China). What little objection I do have, is that it further complicates a game that may already be overwhelming to new players. Also, the cost and abilities of new pieces would need to be carefully balanced. For example, a heavy bomber would hit 8 times out of 9 in an attack, and roll for an average of 4.75 + 2 = 6.75 damage on a bombing raid. They may need to be more expensive…. regular bombers are already overpowered, if you look at the lengthy discussions about the so-called “dark skies strategy” on this board.

Not a fan of tech because I really don’t think that the whole tech thing was either conceived of nor playtested properly.

Either put it in the victory path and playtest it thoroughly, or take it out, I say. It’s worth noting that most players opt to play no tech precisely because it’s the least appealing feature of the game.

The sad fact of the matter is that teching regularly will lose you most games (due to the income not being spent on units) and hand you a near-effortless victory in a small percentage thereof. Both of these qualities detract from the main positives of A&A, which is a reasonably balanced intellectual strategy game with some - but not an overwhelming - element of risk.

Tech is not balanced (give super subs to Russia and Japan and tell me which one gets more benefit) and it diminishes the intellectual aspect of the game, replacing it with more random number generation. Not conducive to having fun, IMO.

I’ve become a fan of tech since we have found a way to bring them into our games by earning them.

We have written our own tech rules which are pretty fun and country specific thus limiting what some countries could and couldn’t do. I placed them in the House rules section or if you want PM me and I will send them to you in pdf form.

We have also revised the event and espionage section from what is posted after we playtested a few times. There was some imbalance and it was revised to reflect that. The events and espionage sections could be omitted if only tech section was desired.