@Poptech said in Bonus Movement is Unrealistic Nonsense:
The worst part about AAEurope, AAPacific and AAGlobal is the bonus movement granted by airfields and shipyards. The entire game plays so much more unrealistically when using bonus movement. Not to mention it makes no logical sense how a ship could travel farther from leaving a shipyard or how an aircraft gets more range from leaving an airfield.
- This makes the Japanese Air Force even more ridiculous, they can fly bombers from Japan to Novosibursk in one turn or Bomb the West Coast of the US from Japan or Land bombers in Australia from Japan.
- It allows the Japanese to invade Pearl Harbor, Mainland Alaska and Canada from Japan in one turn instead of just the Aleutian islands.
- It makes defending the Mediterranean near impossible for Italy;
- It allows the UK and US to attack ships in the Mediterranean with bombers from mainland UK specifically sea zone 94.
- It allows the US to move troops to Gibraltar in one turn.
- It allows an invasion of mainland Italy from Gibraltar in one turn.
- It allows the UK to invade Egypt from South Africa and West India in one turn etc…
I have been playing with the bonus movement off in TripleA and it plays so much better in my opinion. I believe it should be removed from all future versions of A&A.
@Poptech For what it’s worth, I understand your points.
I think it’s important to realize that this board game is first and foremost an abstraction of a very large, immensely complicated situation. Take 100 players and we’ll come up with 100+ things that are not totally accurate about the game.
The goal of the game is to simplify the complex down into something that a group of friends can do in one day (albeit a long one!). The more rules that are added to the game, the more complicated it gets and the longer it takes to play. If you think Axis & Allies is not realistic enough, you might enjoy “The World at War” which is extremely complex to set up and play through.
Proper logistical support for naval and air forces is important for those forces to operate a full effectiveness. This is not just fuel, but other critical supplies and facilities to properly maintain and repair those forces as well as meet the needs of their crews.
The choice made for aircraft and ship logistical support made by Larry Harris and crew was increased movement from proper support facilities. As someone else pointed out, perhaps it could have been phrased differently and more clearly in the rules as this being the normal movement and the absence of a base shortening the movement, but none of us are perfect and I’m willing to forgive Larry’s phrasing.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with you desiring more realism in a game based on historical events, but at what point do you sacrifice brevious playability for realism?
I think we all welcome polite and informed discussion of how the game could be made better, but at the same time I would challenge you to consider exactly how you would have represented those logistical needs and how they’re met if you had been in Larry’s place.
Marsh
@SuperbattleshipYamato :clap:
I think this whole exercise was sarcasm, he (POPTECH) really doesn’t believe his views, rather he’s trying to argue the opposite in order to sharpen his forensics of debate, taking a far less traveled road.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense. :+1:
In that case he still has some work to do, as he certainly wasn’t convincing enough for me to get on his side, and I was very open/vulnerable to these arguments, being a stickler for historical accuracy.
If only he was more, I guess, chill about it, I might have actually agreed with him.
Instead his antagonism gave me no choice but to stand against him.
@Imperious-Leader sorry but i highly doubt this has been sarcasm on poptechs part.
Maybe Imperious Leader was joking?
i still think the German armored retreat from Yugo to Romania is the dumbest thing that people allow when you started in France. How do you get another movement?
HMMM.
@seancb that’s just where it can happen more often - it can potentially happen elsewhere too. But yea I agree - it’s stupid
The range of aircraft is just to large in the game in general. You can argue but its 4 months, sure that works for ships and land units but planes? Its not like you can land on water and refuel, or land in enemy airfields refuel and continue your mission right.
A heavy bombers could get from london to western germany and back just. Fighters could not even escort it until the invention of drop tanks ( Long range Aircraft ).
Planes could not fly 1 way from gibraltar to malta, now they fly from london to malta. It just makes planes way to powerfull and causes an inballance and weird situations.
On the bases thing, well if you consider things time related, how could a naval base cause ships to travel 50% faster? Or planes to go 25% faster? Bause thats what the range effectively is, just a speed increase
You have a couple of facts wrong:
Fighters cannot reach Western Germany from London nor from London to Malta until you have the long range aircraft technology (which is meant to represent drop tanks and other technology, like the B-29 allowing bombers to take off from Guam and hit Japan).
As for bases increasing range, the above comments already explained it.
Planes also means bombers, and they can fly from london all the way to malta while bombing northen italy.
Fighters can get easy get from gibraltar to malta, where they would require to be dropped off more then halfway from a carrier and just made it.
But the insane movement of aircraft makes them way to powerfull in the game and makes certain areas just boring. Italy in the Med? Ofcourse not some US or UK planes can make quick work of them.
Building up forces with china, nah the japanese airforce will take care of them. Building transports near japan, nothing would prevent a bomber from western US to destroy them.
They are just way to flexible and powerfull compared to any other unit in the game.
@SuperbattleshipYamato LOL if they dont understand at this point we must be getting spoofed…
Agreed.
Distance from London, England to Luqa, Malta, is 2103 km.
The Halifax bomber, the only British plane at the beginning of the game that can reach Malta, has a combat range of 2990 km.
The real problem with destroying Italy is not plane range, but the fact that literally any and every plane is carrier qualified when that is very, very, not the case.
Anyhow, wanna play a game with me?
I’m the Allies, you’re the Axis.
You only build planes and I don’t build planes.
Let’s see who wins then. Best way to test your hypothesis in my opinion.
Simple facts,
There was a big black gap in the atlantic at the start of the war where planes where not available. U-Boats had it easier as they where harder to detect.
There is a reason why there where so many escort carriers, if they could just fly planes over those areas they would have done so.
Operation pedestal, flying fighters from carriers to malta. About halfway gibraltar and malta they flew off and just made the island.
Doolittle raid, why would they bother if they could just fly off midway and crash on northern china, why bother with extra fuel modified planes and getting carriers halfway the pacific.
Most planes where capable of taking off a carrier just not landing on them, its different with modern planes.
The map is just to small for planes to have these ranges, but then again planes are weird anyway. Most movement represents movement over a longer timeframe, 3-6 months ( lets not debate how many ) but planes it represents the range of 1 day. Especially over water its not like planes can land and refuel.
Giving fighters 2-3 range and bombers 3-4 range would make a huge difference. You would have to station them near the frontlines and naval you would capture more islands. Also remove the islands as a step for planes to compensate a little.
In fact the gap in the game still exists. Fighters cannot cross from the US or Canada to the United Kingdom in one turn using the starting setup (so no new technology or air bases).
Fighters are not long range scout planes.
And fighters can get across via island and greenland which was actually allied and could be used for that. And still there was a big gap in the atlantic. There is no zone in the atlantic that allied bombers cannot fly over.
