Concerns and Balance Problems with 42.2

@crockett36

No thank you, I don’t have the time. So you’re reducing the IPC value of Japan whilst giving fixed bonuses? Hmm, that does limit Japan’s options and would definitely be a slight nerf.

@fat-belly-general

I really like this idea, as it allows even in a three player game to have two players as the Axis.

I played another game with India at 5, but I played against myself instead of the AI (first time doing that!).

Russia got absolutely diced in the heavy Ukraine strafe, and so West Russia was abandoned R2 and with no fighter support (Iceland gone G1, no other good routes) Germany rolled over them on turn G5.

Once the fighter route was gone I went heavy tanks in India, hoping to swing out against the Japanese and provide defence for Moscow.  I did have 8 UK tanks about to rush in to Moscow for defence (on UK6), but that would have exposed India on J6 AND Japanese tanks were closing in on Moscow as well, so it would have been a 1 or 2 turn delay at most.  Japan had the luxury of building a factory in Manchuria for north route tanks and just stacking Yunnan with art and inf (with their fleet in the adjacent SZ) and deadzone Burma, so the UK troop buildup in India couldn’t really pivot out of India as much as I thought.  Any foray out of India, and the 5 IPC factory would be gone, so the two armies stayed in the gravitational pull of one another.

I’ve never really done a KJF, but I think that might work a lot better with 5 IPC India.  I might read some KJF strategies and try it out.  So far, 5 IPC India is a failure, haha.

IDK if even 1 IPC bonus per working Convoy SZ can remain manageable.
US 9, UK 8, Japan 7, Germany 2, URSS 1.

Well, there’s no reason we can’t decrease the number of convoy zones. The point should be to simulate a few of the most important, most vulnerable commerce lanes, not to put a convoy box in every single sea zone that saw merchant traffic. Just off the cuff, here’s another possible distribution of convoy zones for 1942.2:

USSR: Archangel, Soviet Far East
Germany: Baltic, Central Med
UK: English Channel, Central Atlantic, Eastern Med, Persian Gulf, Cape of Good Hope
Japan: Tokyo Bay, South China Sea, Java Sea, Coral Sea, Leyte Gulf
USA: Solomon Islands, Pearl Harbor, Caribbean, New York, Brazil

That should produce a less crazy income swing. If you think that’s still too much, you can relocate income from land territories to adjacent sea zones, instead of adding fresh income. E.g., Borneo drops from 4 IPCs to 3 IPCs, but the Borneo Sea Zone is now worth +1 IPCs if its convoy is undamaged.

Other than the Russian bomber added to the setup, I highly doubt any of my group will want house rules for a game that we just started playing… especially with my history of changing the Global rules… LOL. Nice idea, but I probably won’t be able to introduce house rules until my group gets board of the game in a year or 2 (maybe even 3).

@barney:

yea I’m a little concerned this would boost the defensive values of fleets even more. I also added DK’s cruiser gets one AA shot which is another defensive bonus.
I wonder how much super subs would counter that? I’m trying not to tweak things price wise at the moment but I may eventually incorporate your entire cost structure.

Good explanation on the destroyers vs EC’s. Having a fighter that hits at 4 could be appealing though.

Good stuff Baron

If I introduced AAA Naval capacity at such low cost (Advanced Shipyard) it would be in a combined arms bonus and not for a single unit.
Maybe just up to 2 AAA preemptive shots against 2 planes when 1 Battleship and 1 Cruiser are protecting a Fleet Carrier, and only this kind of unit, not any Escort Carrier.
Each have their specific mission, Fleet Carrier have a more consistent AA batteries and CAP (Carrier Air Patrol) while Escort Carrier groups were assign Anti-Sub Mission.
So, to get Naval AAA buy all the three warships: Battleship, Cruiser, Aircraft (Fleet) Carrier.
In counterpart, these costlier warships units would still be vulnerable against Subs while Escort Carriers and Destroyers will be vulnerable against planes but much able to defend against Submarines.

@Black_Elk:

@Baron:

I’m more inclined to treat it exactly as an AAA unit: @1 against up to three planes.
After all, it is a known concept in ground combat adapted to Naval Battle and it requires 3 warships type, the number 3 is obviously on the board.
IC’s AAA seems too powerful and unrealistic: a defense @1 against infinite number of planes.
Defending Carriers are already much better than offensive ones. Anti-Air is providing an additional defense.

@Black_Elk:

Well the anti air for battlegroup concept seems cool. I think the hope was that we could find a combined arms that just had units pairing 1:1. That one requires a pairing of 3 different units 1:1:1, but seems like it could encourage Cruiser purchases.

Not only Cruiser but also Battleship buying incentive.
Another reason to not give IC’s AAA capacity: you want to defend against more than 3 planes, buy another Cruiser and BB to join another Carrier.
I’m pretty sure it can change some buying from Destroyers and Subs to Cruiser and Battleship.

It still cost 12+16+20= at least 48 IPCs (68 with 2 Fgs) to get this additional defensive abilities.

Maybe this concept can be simply extended to each combo of BB+Cruiser gives 1 AAA capacity as long as there is a Carrier to protect.

So 2 BBs + 2 Cruisers + 1 Carrrier will provides an AAA against up to 6 planes.

All this!  :-D

I think something along these lines could potentially bring both Cruisers and Battleships back into the mix as a purchasing consideration, and is relatively simple.

Of the combined arms proposed thus far, this one doesn’t bust the opening round combats. It would increase the swing on fleet defense making all out air assaults against a stacked battle group more risky. Right now the all air option is pretty powerful vs navies, this would give at least some way to counter that, but only at the cost of more expensive warship units, and somewhat diminished flexibility in other ways, since you have to keep the ships together to get the boost.
I still think a different bombardment bonus or marine concept could work for cruisers and battleships, or a maneuverability bonus for cruisers specifically, but both of those would surely have an influence on the opening balance.

Very nice!  :-D :-D

That is a pretty cool rule.