Posts made by amanntai

@Black_Elk:

China first in the turn order:

China, Germany, Russia, Japan, USA, UK/Pacific, Italy, Anzac (back to China to start the next round)

You forgot the best country in that turn sequence!

@barney:

I know this has been discussed before.

Getting ready to test a A0 D1 M1 C2 +1A when paired with artillery unit in the global game. To avoid defensive stalemates I’m going to limit their numbers. Thinking country specific would be the way to go.

First thoughts are:
Germany 6
Russia 12
Japan 6
US 8
China 6
UK 4
UKP 2
Italy 4
ANZAC 2
France 4

They seem kinda low but I’m worried about a huge stack in Western Europe and Moscow. Chinas’ population should dictate more but we don’t want to cork Japan too much. This should benefit both sides. Even if countries go with a max buy they still get punished on the counterattack a little.

Maybe limit the number you can have in any one territory as well?

If you have an opinion I would be happy to hear it.

P

I say France should be raised to six. Gamewise, it allows 6 militia as a possible buy when France is Liberated. Historically, it could represent the French Resistance joining the Allies.

dezrtfish, DarthMaximus, and Guerilla Guy are listed as the only moderators. But all their accounts are listed as last active months ago (almost two years for dezrtfish).

Are there any site moderators that are active?

@CWO:

Interesting hypothetical scenario.  It raises all sorts of questions, both from a point of view of weapons technology and politics.

Assuming that WWI had lasted for another 20 years (meaning, I assume, 20 more years after 1918, which brings us to 1938, one year short of the starting date of WWII), weapons technology would certainly have progressed further and faster (though not necessarily in the same directions) than it did historically.  To quote one example as an illustration, just look at the classes of battleships and battlecruisers that many WWI combatants had planned or were actually building at the time the war ended in 1918, but which were then abandoned.  The British, for instance, were planning a class of battleships armed with 18-inch guns that would probably have entered service in the early 1920s; in the real world, it was only in the early 1940s that an 18-inch gun battleship class (the Yamatos) entered service.  Many of the weapons that achieved maturity in WWII existed in WWI, albeit at the infancy stage – notably tanks and aircraft carriers.  The same was true of certain tactics: had the war lasted until 1919, there were plans on the Allied side to mount attacks by massed tanks working in close coordination with motorized infantry and aircraft support…essentially an early version of Blitzkrieg.

However, even though I can see some WWII-type weapons being used on the WWI game board under such a scenario, the part I think is problematic is the political element: the idea that the same 8 powers who are the contestants in the A&A 1914 game could still all be in existence, and still fighting each other, in 1938.  Remember, after all, that three of those states – Tsarist Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire – were already politically and/or economically unstable in 1914.  Russia had already seen one revolution against the Romavov dynasty in 1906, and this had done nothing to persuade Nicolas II to liberalize his regime.  The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a mish-mash of restless ethnic groups led by an elderly ruler who, like Nicolas II, believed in absolute monarchy.  The Ottoman Empire had been in decline for a long time, and its leaders were both divided and paralyzed by indecision.  Frankly, I’m surprised that Russia managed to last till 1917 and the other two until 1918, so I don’t see any of those regimes surviving a further two decades of war.

I said another 20 years was highly improbable for the very reason of political (as well as economic) instability. I highly doubt the war could have gone on for twenty more years without several nations collapsing from the strain.

But as you correctly pointed out, technology would have advanced much faster had the war continued. I know for example that Thompson sub-machine guns were developed during WW1, but never saw action, and that they would later be used in WW2. So let’s say the war only goes on for another 2 or 3 years. This would bring many weapons used in WW2 into the conflict.

Now that we have a somewhat alternate-historical basis, can we design rules for allowing WW2 era A&A units such as TcB, StrB, MechInf, and CVs? As I’ve said, I haven’t actually played 1914, but I know there’s a rule for when tanks can actually be built, could a similar rule be implemented for other units? I plan to buy 1914 and try it out.

@CWO:

One low-cost way for you to experiment with this concept to see if it works, and to then help you decide if you should invest more money in the way you described to give each nation  its own special HBG unit, would  be to:

• Pick up a copy of A&A 1941

• Extract from it the unique sculpts that represent weapons which were actually used by the nations which produced them, and ignore the ones which are “national mismatches” (American IS-2 tanks, and so forth)

• Designate them as special units and create (or find) house rules to govern them

To give some examples:

• The tank sculpts in 1941 represent German Tiger and Russian IS-2 tanks, both of which were heavy tanks.  Those two nations would therefore have the ability to build heavy tank units.

• The battleship sculpts in 1941 represent the British Hood class and the Japanese Kongo class, bot of which were battlecruisers.  Those two nations would therefore have the ability to build battlecruisers.

• The other units aren’t as clear-cut as examples, but you could use a similar technique.  The American Sumner-class destroyer could be used to represent destroyer escorts (which, I admit, they weren’t).  The British  Lancaster could be used to represent a bomber with a super-heavy lift capacity, the Lanc being the only Allied bomber which was long enough and powerful enough to carry the Grand Slam super-heavy bomb.  And so forth.  The point is that one single copy of this game, which is fairly inexpensive, would give you lots of unit types with which to test your concept.

Interestingly enough, I actually had a new 1941 at one time (I got it as a Christmas Present), but returned it for the very reason that each nation didn’t have unique sculpts. I grabbed the Seafarers expansion for Catan instead.

But thanks for the idea.

So, in considering adding many of the HR unit types discussed her (Anti-tank Guns, Escort Carriers, Tank Destroyers, Assault Guns, etc.) I ran into a problem: I don’t have enough money to buy 30+ new units for at least 6 Nations from HBG. So to cut costs and add some possible uniqueness to each nation, I considered only adding one new unit for each country, but making the unit added different for each one.

Example: Germany can build Stug Tank Destroyers, UK can build Priest SP Artillery, Russia can build Katyusa Rockets, etc…

What would this do to game balance? Assuming all units are balanced compared to OOB units, and the game would be balanced if everyone could build Stugs, etc, would the game still be balanced if each unit was limited to only one side?

Any thoughts on what units, if any should be unique?

Hmm… I like this idea. You could capture an opposing territory on their turn, before they can reinforce! And it sets you up with a friendly territory to strike from on your next turn! This gives defending players a possible major bonus for repelling enemy attacks.

Flashman’s idea of naval battles zig-zagging across the map is also nice, since you could theoretically have a Japanese fleet chase a retreating American fleet all the way to San Francisco. Naval Battles that went bad for the attacker would then become a race to get to another friendly fleet before they are completely destroyed.

So, I don’t own 1914 and I’ve never played it. But I’ve seen the map, and I like it a lot more than the Europe 1940 map. Is there a way to adapt 1940 units to work with the 1914 board and nations?

Imagine if the war went on for another 20 years (highly improbable, but just imagine). Would the Ottomans have developed and deployed aircraft carriers? Would the Austrio-Hungarian air force utilize strategic Bombers? Would France use mechanized infantry?

@tin_snips:

Hi all,

I’m thinking about using the Classic game as an in-roads to getting a few people I know playing Anniversary. Do you think it would be stretching it too much to utilise the main rules from Anniversary for Classic?

Mainly I’m thinking about transports having no combat value, to stop players from just building a massive transport fleet.

Has anyone tried something like this?

As long as you lower the cost of Transports, it should be fine. Kind of like the reverse of discussions here about using Classic transports in later games.

I like option 3 the best. Honestly, if I ever adopt ATGs as a HR unit, I would opt for that. It’s offensive value is really low compared to the others, but it offers the most defensive value of any of the option, so a Russian player being hammered by Germany would still conceivably choose it. Plus, as I pointed out, I feel the strong defense/terrible offense is a nice historically fitting feature.

But choose whatever you want, it’s your game.

@Baron:

Thanks for your reply Marc.

Anti-tank tactics during the war were largely integrated with the offensive or defensive posture of the troops being supported, usually infantry. Much of anti-tank tactics depend on the range effectiveness of various weapons and weapon systems available.

These point makes me wonder about the usefulness of Anti-Tank Gun in their anti-tank tactics during offensive operations.
As far as I can understand, it seems that Anti-Tank guns were used on offense to support infantry against enemy’s Tank.

I found this on Wikipedia: “As towed anti-tank cannon guns grew in size and weight, they became less mobile and more cumbersome to maneuver, and required ever larger gun crews, who often had to wrestle the gun into position while under heavy artillery and/or tank fire. As the war progressed, this disadvantage often resulted in the loss or destruction of both the antitank gun and its trained crew. This gave impetus to the development of the self-propelled, lightly armored “tank destroyer” (TD).”

It seems clear that towed Anti-tank weapons were mainly defensive in nature, while Tank Destroyers and infantry Anti-tank weapons such as rifle grenades and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers made up the offensive Anti-tank weapons. It is possible for gun crews to move towed Anti-tank guns forward, but hardly practical over a long distance.

Have you considered making this weapon a defense-only unit like AAAs, except without the triple-hit initial roll? For example: A0 D3 NC-M1 C4?

@CWO:

Thanks for your insights, Admiral T, and welcome aboard…though I’m not sure that’s precisely the right phrase, since your post indicates that you’ve actually been aboard for many years, albeit in a low-profile way.  “Welcome to the ranks of the active posters” might perhaps fit better.

I have the same problem you stated (if it qualifies as a problem, which is a debatable point) about being fussy with my posts, and what I’ve found to be the best way to handle it is to pre-type my posts (say, in Word) and then to cut-and-paste the finished text into a posting box on the forum.  My original motivation for writing posts this way, however, had nothing to do with fussiness; it was simply a trick to avoid losing all my work when, for whatever reason, a message I’d typed directly into the forum got lost in transmission – as has happened to me a few times, leading me in each case to direct some highly unparliamentary language at my computer screen.  I later discovered that, as a bonus, this technique allowed me to write posts that I liked better because I could take the time to compose them properly and, if need be, put them on hold and come back to finish them later.  So this method turned out to be a good fit for me.  I’m not sure it would work quite as well on smartphone, however; I’m still very much a desktop keyboard devotee, which is just as well considering how long some of my posts get to be.

Anyway, good to hear from you!

From another site I got in the habit of copying my posts before submission and pasting them if they get lost. Its worked for me.

@Baron:

@amanntai:

You say factoring in what the other side has is too complex, but then you have a complicated mutually exclusive double bonus on the assault artillery. Submarines already cause you to take opposing forces into consideration, why not anti-tanks?

So, you feel that pairing 1:1 is more complex in this case than simply giving +1A to MechInf or INF and +1A to Mech Artillery because a Tank is present?

I’m pondering on that specific point, that’s why I ask.
It is not that unbalancing if the three units together gets the 2 bonus.

In my House Rules, Submarines only hit warships or transports, they cannot hit planes.
But it is the only restriction.
Planes can hit Sub and Destroyer presence is not necessary.
Un-submerged Submarine can be hit by planes.
So, I simplified this aspect.

Actually, I think 1:1 pairing was a rule designed merely to prevent one unit from providing the same bonus to more than one unit. Technically, both giving and receiving a bonus is still 1:1 pairing. Plus, realistically, tanks, infantry, and artillery working together would create an effective fighting force. The double bonus also encourages building a variety of units.

I like a lot of what you did here, though personally I think I’ll stick to as few changes to the OOB units as possible. But I really like the new unit ideas.

What do you use as fleet and escort carriers? I saw HBG had some large-looking fleet carriers, but I only saw them in axis colors.

@Baron:

@amanntai:

@Baron:

Anti-Tank Gun-3
On offense, it is acting like Artillery on Infantry support,
slightly inferior, since it needs to be transported within sight of the enemy,
but it is clearly better on defense with deep entrenched position combined with Infantry.
Attack 2
Defense 3
Move 1
Cost 5
Gives +1 Attack/Defense to 1 Infantry

Perhaps that last one, but only gives a bonus when the opposing force actually contains at least one tank (any variant of tank, if you use light/medium, etc.)?

EDIT: ON a side note, what piece do you plan on using as the anti-tank?

I have two types of Artillery units (old Spring 1942 version, I believe, but I can identify them for sure) and more recent ones which are bigger (probably from Second Editions).
I will use the bigger ones as ATG, simply because it is costlier than Artillery (moto: bigger is costlier).

---

I cannot introduce the kind of limitation on “what the other side bring into combat”. It is an additional layer of complexity.
Another reason is the ATG unit should not only figure the gun but also figure all kinds of defensive counter-measure against Tank and other mechanized units (like minefield, trench, camouflage, deep defensive lines, etc), which level the combat to an even match: 1 unit Attack 3 against 1 unit Defense 3.

If you find this unit too OP, you should know it will be counter-balance by this kind of Assault Gun/SPA/Tank Destroyer:

@Baron:

Here is a more A&A paradigm rules version for a single type of Mobile Artillery unit (SPA / SPG /TD):

Mechanized Artillery (Assault Gun)
Attack: 2
Defense: 2
Move: 2
Cost: 5
Can only blitz when paired to a Tank.
Infantry Support: Give +1A to a paired Infantry or Mech Infantry
Tank Hunter as a tank support ability: Get +1A/D when paired to a Tank.

This unit cannot give and get both bonus as Inf support & Tank support when teamed with both MI and Tank on attack. Player must choose which bonus is given.

I think it could be viable and balance.

My main issue is about the extension of the combined arms bonus toward Infantry for the ATG and toward Mech Artillery with Tank. This depends mostly on historical accuracy.
A) Only +1 offense or only +1 defense or B) both offense/defense?

If one unit gives only 1 bonus, the other will get the same.

So, if you feel it is too powerful compared to Artillery unit or Tank, then you can choose ATG-1 or ATG-2.

You say factoring in what the other side has is too complex, but then you have a complicated mutually exclusive double bonus on the assault artillery. Submarines already cause you to take opposing forces into consideration, why not anti-tanks?

@Baron:

Anti-Tank Gun-3
On offense, it is acting like Artillery on Infantry support,
slightly inferior, since it needs to be transported within sight of the enemy,
but it is clearly better on defense with deep entrenched position combined with Infantry.
Attack 2
Defense 3
Move 1
Cost 5
Gives +1 Attack/Defense to 1 Infantry

Perhaps that last one, but only gives a bonus when the opposing force actually contains at least one tank (any variant of tank, if you use light/medium, etc.)?

EDIT: ON a side note, what piece do you plan on using as the anti-tank?

@Baron:

Once this said, are you more a “defenseless TP” partisan or a “defensive combat value TP, such as in classic” type of guy?

Thanks for the welcome, Baron.

I am more in favor of Classic transports, but I definitely consider the “Collective defense@1 Transports” as a good alternative. In either case, I believe transports should be able to be chosen as casualties first, even if that won’t always be the case.

Another option to consider: In another thread, the idea of lowered navy costs was discussed, to encourage more investment in traditionally over-priced navies. Could lowering the costs of all naval units except transports balance an 8 IPC Classic transport?

@Admiral:

TANK DESTROYER
A: 2
D: 2
M: 2
Cost: 5
Special: target an enemy land unit on a roll of 1 (in both attack and defence)

SELF PROPELLED ARTILLERY

A: 2
D: 2
M: 2
Cost: 5
Special:  provides an infantry or mechanized inf with a +1 attack bonus (essentially the same as the trusty artillery, but it moves two.)

These are both great ideas in my opinion. All I need now is a good Light Tank… all the suggestions on these forums seem to be A2 D2 M2 C5, which strikes me as worthless next to A3 D3 M2 C6 regular tanks (and also next to the strictly better Tank Destroyer). Any ideas?

@Baron:

Here is the number required to give a similar protection to an OOB defenseless transport compared to Classic transport, still taken last, but each is allowed to roll D1 on every round of the battle (as in Classic).
I used the AACalc of the forum and put DD (A2) and Carrier (A1) for DD and transport.

A pretty even combat is:
10 DDs & 8 TPs D0, 0 hit, (7 IPCs) vs 5 DDs & 8 Classic TPs D1, 1 hit, 12 IPCs
A. survives: 50.0% D. survives: 49.5% No one survives: 0.5%

So if even in combat survival and cargo, then it should be the same price on both sides:
(10DDs8 IPCs) 80 IPCs + (8TPs7 IPCs) 56 IPCs compared to (5DDs8 IPCs) 40 IPCs + (8TPs12 IPCs) 96 IPCs =
136 IPCs vs 136 IPCs.

This means that a classic transport A0D1M2, 1 hit and taken last must cost 12 IPCs to not outmatched OOB TP at 7 IPCs.

Now, keeping the same Classic transport but allowing it to be choose as first casualty, here is the most even fight on Battlecalc I can get for the 136 IPCs fleet:
10 DDs & 8 TPs D0, 0 hit, (7 IPCs) vs 4 DDs & 8 Classic TPs D1, 1 hit, 13 IPCs
A. survives: 42.6% D. survives: 56.3 No one survives: 1.2%
(10DDs8 IPCs) 80 IPCs + (8TPs7 IPCs) 56 IPCs compared to (4DDs8 IPCs) 32 IPCs + (8TPs13 IPCs) 104 IPCs =
136 IPCs vs 136 IPCs.

And since there is a 6% above 50%, the balance price of a pure Classic transport should be above 13 IPCs.
136 IPCs * 106% = 144.2 IPCs- 32 IPCs from 4 DDs= 112.2/8= 14 IPCs / transports.

So, assuming that we let player choose their own casualties as they wish, so sometimes transports are taken last and sometimes taken first (to keep the better defensive combat value of the whole fleet), then a balanced cost should be an average between 12 IPCs and 14 IPCs, which imply a 13 IPCs per Classic transport A0D1M2, 1 hit.

Does it matter to you? Is there some other variables to consider?

As a matter of fact, there is:

You didn’t factor in the transports doing what they’re supposed to be doing: carrying units. If a 8 IPC Classic transport is carrying two Infantry, that puts the total cost of losing it at 14 IPCs, the same as your calculation for allowing the transport to be chosen first.

But transports carrying troops aren’t going to be chosen first, of course: That’d be a waste of resources and would ruin any invasion plans. They’re going to be chosen last, giving them the same combat effectiveness as your first calculation, but at a higher cost. Even if the transports are only carrying 1 Infantry, it’s still nearly balanced cost-wise.

But what about empty transports? They’d be chosen first, right? And at only 8 IPCs, losing them first in combat makes perfect sense. The problem here is this: Why attack an opponent with empty transports as fodder, when for the same price you can attack an opponent with destroyers as fodder, and have a more effective attack? As a screen for your attacking warships, 8 IPC Classic transports are terrible. What about on the defense? You might need those empty transports later, and your opponent attacks them preemptively. Well, in that case your opponent does suffer (but less than if you had destroyers), but that’s the risk they took for attacking empty transports.