Concerns and Balance Problems with 42.2

@Witt

Thank you for your comment. I guess we think the same way.

Lowering the tanks‘ attack value for two Axis powers and one of the Allies has already changed a lot, because especially Japan has to rely heavily on tanks when marching though Asia. Attacking with „2“ instead of „3“ takes 33% of their power away. The UK usually is less aggressive and needs less tanks. The US can provide that element while establishing in North Africa, Norway or France.

But the idea is still in my mind to enhance UK’s firepower for the later stages.

You should make one, I don’t have a 1940 copy but have friends who do and would love to have one. Still I always like to put in a Bismark no matter what time period, just to stress Britian because they have vast, if thin superiority in the Atlantic ocan.

I made little changes and a few tests in Pacific.
In PTO, I reduced US double Subs and DDs into single one.
It gives many interesting little and epic Naval battles in the first and second rounds.

Adding one additional TP in Japan SZ makes for a more dynamic and fast explosive deployment into main land Asia.
Japan can now better rivaled with Szechwan IC in second and third rounds or get to all money islands at the cost of loosing TPs.

IDK how would do a conservative player since all I tried is as many big naval combats within reach in the first two rounds.

Here is a picture.
I will do more game tests and then write the complete set-up, of the final version to be experiment in a F-2F game.

@Argothair:

Yup, I’m a big convert to Anniversary. I own both games, and I’ve played more Spring '42 2nd Edition (1942.2) than I have Anniversary, but that will change over the next couple of years, because now I almost exclusively play Anniversary.

1942.2 is maybe one hour shorter than Anniversary on average, but the price you pay to save that hour is having to put up with ridiculous sea zone configurations (America typically needs three separate stacks of transports to be effective in Europe) and weird, crunchy flight paths that force you to send fighters from California on turn 1 through Australia and India so that they can reach West Russia in time to stop the German advance.

1942.2 does have some interestingly tight/sharp trading in eastern Europe; I like the territory divisions in Eastern Europe better in 1942.2 than in Anniversary. Instead of being rapidly forced back to Moscow, Russia has a real chance to stack in West Russia or Archangel through the middlegame, and the Germans can be defeated if they over-invest in the pricey 6 IPC tanks and then let those tanks be killed by efficient stacks of Russian infantry and fighters.

There are also interesting possibilities in 1942.2 if you adopt a “US goes first with a non-combat turn and extra purchase,” which tends to re-arrange the entire board and perhaps even allow for a small Axis bid.

That said, the well-designed eastern european front is not enough to save 1942.2 from its otherwise terrible starting setup. With no bid, the Allies will be pushed out of Egypt, China, Siberia, the central Pacific, and the north Atlantic sea zones no matter what they try to do about it. The British are wedded to their disaster of a factory in India, which deprives them of the income needed to make a real contribution in the Atlantic. Because Australia, China, Malaya, Burma, and Hawaii are all 1-IPC territories, the Allies have nowhere in the Pacific that makes sense a a place to build a factory as a forward base. Meanwhile, the Japanese have no reason at all to go south or east, and so in every game they either seize the British Indian factory and use it as a base to attack Stalingrad, or plow through China/Siberia and attack Moscow. There is no Battle of Midway or Battle of the Coral Sea or Battle of Guadalcanal; instead the Japanese get to do a bizarre repeat of the Pearl Harbor attacks, even though it’s supposed to be Spring 1942 instead of December 1941. There is no Battle of El Alamein or Battle of Kasserine Pass; instead the British get thrown out of Egypt and the American Atlantic fleet is sunk in its entirety by German subs before the Americans even get a turn, which means that when the Americans finally do make it to Morocco, they land with overwhelming force. The setup is rigid, unbalanced, ahistorical, and ultimately unrewarding.

SanFran1941_Baron_Alpha07.png

Well I’m still not sure how simple it is to implement a group phase like the warchest concept I mentioned.

Might be advisable to keep regular war bonds in the back pocket. And the +5 for capturing an enemy VC as outlined in the master thread would be good to have as a toggle. Since at least we know both of those mechanics work in tripleA.

But yeah I think the warchest VC concept has promise, if it can work in 1942.2, I’m pretty sure it will work even better in Global.

That depends on what you term fail? If they commit 3 tanks 2 fighters and Caucasus units and don’t kill the tanks and or at least a plane, then that attack is a fail, but nobody unless hes a fool will say “Game over- insert 50 cents- do not pass go” Alot of other battles and an accumulation of advantages over turns is what you want. Of course the “Big Battle at Moscow” could change the fortunes of either side. Go to steam and enter my name and #2799 and we can play a game.

Please, I need everyone opinion.
And more specifically, I’m asking people which have a lot of experience with G40 games.

Because I’m still trying to keep the OOB Carrier and develop a real Fighter unit (able to hit directly planes) within the OOB combat values of G40 Full Carrier (A6 D10 / A7 D9 / A6 D8), I’m locked within some borders. Here they are.

Do you think this can still be a viable Fighter unit?
Or is this already and ultimately doomed because it remains too powerful with a Defense @3 which hit directly enemy’s planes?

Does a reduced cost for planes, such as minus 2 IPCs, (ex.: Fg at 8 IPCs, TcB at 9 IPCs, StB at 10 IPCs) can change something about balancing this Fighter unit?
(Here, I thought about a reduced cost as a way to compensate for high attrition rates amongst planes.)

This also rise the issue about such high SBR values, does an increased risk to loose valuable 12 IPCs Strategic Bombers still worth doing SBR? Or such revamped Fighter unit imply to revised SBR, anyway?

Details below are provided to understand what I’m talking about.
I’m not really trying to promote this new unit but rather asking people about obvious flaws which can be seen from experienced players POV get used to play with a lot of units and IPCs coming along with any G40 games.

Down below are the three aircraft units combat values and cost:

FIGHTER
Attack 2 can rise to 3
Defense 3 can rise to 4
Move 4
Cost 10
Air combat unit: All hits are allocated to aircraft units first, if any available
Air Supremacy bonus: +1 Attack/Defense when no enemy’s aircraft
Air Superiority Weapon bonus:+1 Attack/Defense when fighting against only enemy’s aircrafts.
This last point is an entirely new feature:
it is provided to ensure that Fighters on Carrier can still have a high defense against any Strategic Bombers Spam, such as Darkened Skies strategy.

Combined Arms bonus: gives +1 Attack / Defense when paired 1:1 with Tactical Bomber unit

SBR escort mission: Attack @2
Can intercept in SBR: Defense @3.

Carrier operation: up to two units can be on board a fleet Carrier (max.: 2 units of any kind per fleet Carrier)

TACTICAL BOMBER
Attack 3 can rise to 4
Defense 3 can rise to 4
Move 4
Cost 11
Air Supremacy bonus: +1 Attack / +1 Defense when no enemy’s aircraft

Combined Arms bonus: +1 Attack / +1 Defense when paired 1:1 with a Fighter
Combined Arms Bonus in Tank support, Tactical Bomber as a “Tank Buster”:
+1 Attack / +1 Defense when paired 1:1 with Tank

Tactical Bombing Raid: Attack @2
TBR damage: 1D6 on Air Base or Naval Base
On SBR can also do escort mission: Attack @2

Carrier operation: up to two units can be on board a fleet Carrier (max.: 2 units of any kind per fleet Carrier)

STRATEGIC BOMBER
Attack 4
Defense 1
Move 6
Cost 12
Strategical Bombing Raid: Attack @1
SBR damage: 1D6+2 on Industrial Complex, Air Base or Naval Base

No Carrier Operation

Now in SBR situations, aircrafts will be fighting each others with more logical values:
Fighters: Attack 2 Defense 3
Tactical Bombers: Attack 2 Defense 0
Strategic Bombers: Attack 1 Defense 0

@Black_Elk:

This thread has too much good information to let it sit for an entire year without comment.
:-D

Right now my group doesn’t play with escort/intercept rules, because it just doesn’t seem worth the risk to the fighters (in either role). So when the rules are in effect it mainly serves to discourage bombing altogether.

With altered abilites, like the ones suggested here, I might be more inclined to play the Escort/intercept game.

I think you probably need 3 things to bring Air into balance:
a.  an improved SBR mechanic.

b. Better Anti-Aircraft Artillery units Abilities. Like one that can move in combat, with a normal attack defense value of 1, in addition to a one time opening shot vs air, or something along those lines.

c. Some form of naval AA-fire.

I think you have touched on all the essentials here. And have brought up the others before. In addition to working out a dogfight system. The stats in thread are compelling and demonstrate how the first aspect “improved sbr” might be approached.

Nice work, as always

Thank you very much.
I forgot this thread, I will probably use some stats into my Summary thread under construction about various SBRs.

Nonetheless, it needs full focus to really weight all the aspects of SBR with all these numbers.
I can easily understand you need to be in a certain “vibe” to read this kind of posts, hence it was quite dusty.

Besides, I agree on your analysis of these 3 points a, b, c. They need to be coordinate to get a better game.
I made a lot of posts on these points over months.
Need to find the good angle to get a fresh start on these.

Does anyone knows why the more expensive units (i.e. cruiser 12$ and battleship 20$) are not able to bombard a only one shot on the coast once they win a sea battle offshore?

For me, it seems many times you cannot use their only special capability.
For all other cheaper units their is no such thing.

In what way does this rule is necessary to keep the balance?

In game terms, since a turn is three months long why a cruiser or a BB cannot fight the enemy ships, then help the amphibious assault since you cannot make any debarkment if you are not able to destroy the enemy naval unit?

I’m pretty sure that, during WWII, many cruisers and battleships were able to destroy others defending surface vessels and, some hours later, support with their heavy guns the marines launching an assault on a beach.

If both battles have been simultaneous (like Leyte Gulf Battle) that would be OK, but, in the game, if you loose or retreat no transport can unload their troops.

Anyway, I wish to suggest a different rule to simulate that cruiser and BB can do many things during a three month turn. Or can make a more intensive bombardment if their is no other assignment.

1- Always allow one coastal bombardment per surviving cruiser or battleship after a naval battle and before the amphibious assault (limited by the number of ground unit coming out of transports). If the BB was damaged during the previous battle, halfed the attack: 1@2 instead of 1@4.
Or we can logically say that a damaged BB have to repair and is unable to support a debarkment. This would make sens.

2- When their is no naval battle, allows 2 rolls of dice per cruiser and BB present (limited by the number of ground unit coming out of transports) but take only the better result for each one (like LHTR for heavy bomber) .

Example: 3 inf are part of an amphibious combat, so 3 cruisers (A, B, C) out of 4 (D) cruisers offshore can roll dices @3:
A 1,2 / B 3,3 / C 4,5,/ D not allowed
thus making 2 hits even though four dices make 3 and under.

In this way, the expensive units can always be use at their full potential.

Option B: we can instead halfed the attack value of cruiser and BB that made naval battle before a debarkment: cruiser get 1@1/ BB get 1@2.
And a damaged BB have to be repaired and is unable to support a debarkment.

What do you think? Do you have some answers for my previous questions?
Thanks.