I have been working on something that may help balance any abilities you give to cruisers . A way to add more of a “capital” ship into the game, so I have bought blue, black, and orange counters (same kind as stock white and red ones) and plan on using them to mark hits on capital ships, orange being fire (dive bomb/ kamikaze) and blue being water (torpedo bomber). I have bought several new units from HBG to depict the different aircraft, but being largely a historian I find the loss of a battleship or carrier during one roll kind of odd. I know you have the option to tilt the piece for a second hit? But what about if you mark the ship with a hit or two and then put a black marker for smoke? Now while you are limping the ship to port for repairs attacking battleships can fire from longer range instead of attacking within the same sea zone. This in effect would make any rules to cruisers balanced because they can be sunk in a round of combat. Whereas if capital ships BB and CV’s are sunk in shallow water areas they can be raised as well. Now your poor man’s BB pales in comparison because it won’t have the capability to take multiple hits and long range engagements. As for balance the very fact that when crippled movement shall be one space and the smoke allowing for long range engagement should even things out. I don’t mind adding miniature elements to the game because it only enhances play. What do you guys think?
AARHE: A note on Cruisers making Battleships obsolete
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After reading the AARHE rules (btw.: you really should update the files in the House Rules section and on Boardgame Geeks) I got the impression that BBs are dominated by CAs.
The unit stats:
Battleship
Combat: 4/4
Cost: 20 IPC
Move: 2
Anti-Air: 2
ASW: no
Special: Fire in opening phase, shore bombardment, 2 hits, build in 2 turnsCruiser
Combat: 3/3
Cost: 15 IPC
Move: 3
Anti-Air: 3
ASW: yes
Special: shore bombardment, 2 hitsTo better compare the two ship classes we must see what we get for the same amount of IPC. For 60 IPC we get 4 CA or 3 BB.
4 Cruiser vs 3 Battleships
Combat: 12/12 vs 12/12
Hits: 8 vs 6
Move: 3 vs 2
Anti-Air: 12 vs 6
ASW: yes vs no
BB fire in opening but need 2 turns to be built.Even with their opening fire ability the BBs lose against the CAs in combat. The CAs are faster, can attack subs, have better AA and can be built in the same turn.
This way CA dominate BB - it is always the better strategy to buy CA instead of BB and that is not good in game design.Please tell me if I missed anything of importance.
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Well then you are a very smart chap!
This is the intention to demonstrate the greater utility in the CA or the CV, than the BB.
The only thing in your calculation thats of crucial importance is the fact that they fire preemptively every round unless another BB is present. At a 4 its clear that one cruiser will die before shooting and the other 2 will have to stop the bb.
The balance according to our playtest shows with that benefit, the margins are still in favor of cruisers, but its paper thin.
Typically, in AARHE people wont be buying BB’s because of these other choices and this models the historical result. If you think the balance should be equal, then i would look into damage effects, giving the damaged cruisers more serious effects than the BB. I may even make the cruiser 16 IPC.
IN WW2 the BB was overshadowed in its superior firepower but the increased specialization of faster ships with niche capabilities.
I will ask Tekkyy to update the files and actually i will submit the AARHE project to BGG as its own game. But right now we are working on 4.1 rules, then followed by a AA50HE version.
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yeah it does seem Cruisers dominate Battleships
in the 4 CA vs 3 BB combat
and of course Cruiser is much better unit overall
(note Cruiser can bombard too)maybe Cruiser and Aircraft Carrier shouldn’t take 2-hits after all
I haven’t played games with all optional units select for play (usually only select naval fighter)
but yeah its funny how:
BB 2-hit, 2-turn
CA 2-hit, 1-turn
CV 2-hit, 2-turnsorry we only post major updates to Board Game Geek and minor updates here
the latest version is 20081102 (version 4.0 draft)
since then, there is a discussion in trimming down AARHE and the result would probably be called version 4.1no updates on this however as its not practical to do so
we are cleaning up phase 1, then phase 2, etc…
naval unit movement in phase 3 Combat Move is on the agendai will submit the AARHE project to BGG as its own game.
don’t think thats a good idea
its not a new game and will be even less so after we get rid of the tedious bits of AARHE -
maybe Cruiser and Aircraft Carrier shouldn’t take 2-hits after all
I haven’t played games with all optional units select for play (usually only select naval fighter)
but yeah its funny how:
BB 2-hit, 2-turn
CA 2-hit, 1-turn
CV 2-hit, 2-turnyes but we are working on that now with 4.1 no more 2 turn naval builds.
carriers could go to 1 hit units and of course the latter file for AA50HE will have them just at 1 for both CA and CV.
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