Posts made by Lynxes

Again I think it’s way too strong to go from 1/6 to 3/6 when shooting down bombers. I think we should play-test the 2/6 option as I think this is enough and doesn’t upset the balance in the game. Now that Germany has NO bonuses, a major SBR campaign is part of the balance of the game and if we weaken SBR too much this balance will be upset!

Here’s a game I and Perry played with the GENCON set-up and National objectives and techs. After turn 4, the Allies surrendered when realizing that Moscow would fall in two turns and even though the Italian and Japanese navies were about to be overcome this wouldn’t hinder the Russian collapse. The whole game can be viewed on this thread, here are some highlights:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=12631.0

Countrywise:

Germany bought a CV and a TRS on turn 1 to get infantry into Russia quicker. Baltic states, East Poland and Ukraine were each taken with 2 tanks on each. On turn 2 Germany could take Karelia even though it was defended by 11 russian infantry and artillery. Vs. UK the jerries were lucky, wiping out the battleship of home fleet and taking Egypt with 2 armor on turn 1. After the initial naval builds, Germany mostly built 4-5 tanks, 4-5 inf/art and the odd fighter or bomber. A tactical mistake on the eastern front meant that a force in Ukraine was wiped out on turn 2, but still the Germans were plodding forward and the combined infantry landings in Karelia and builds in that IC meant that by turn 4 Germany had built up two third of the infantry and artillery forces of the soviets, double the tank force and 3 bombers. France was about to fall by then but this wasn’t decisive since Germany had enough force to finish off the Russians and with an IPC count of 55-60 IPCs it was very hard to keep up the pace for the soviets.

Russia retreated inland and constantly built up its force of land units and was able to keep off the Germans from Caucasus the entire game and even sending 2 infantry to India. Some counterattacks were successful and building a bomber was also felt to be needed as many territories were exchanged rather than taken to be held. Germany was mostly content with taking its 3 NO territories and Karelia and then built up for a slow advance vs. Moscow. The Russian suffered some SBR damage from turn 3 on. The Japs never advanced more than 2 areas into Russia and most Siberian units went west.

Japan choose JTDTM as a strategy and decided to forgo a VC victory and try to help vs. the Russians. An IC in Manchuria was built and on turn 1 seized Kwangtung, 2 chinese territories, Burma, Phillippines, East Indies and Borneo. Rather than focusing on India a full-out attack on China was chosen combined with a landing in Australia to get that last NO bonus. But China didn’t collapse: rather it retreated in good order and on turn 4 had 5 infantry and 1 fighter in the last territory bordering Russia. Japan was about to take this area but probably only on turn 5. In the Pacific Japan was defensive and only built up fighters and some extra naval units when USA was getting closer, helped by its 50-55 IPC count. If a clash had come in the Pacific at this point, Japan would have lost most of its fighters so the land thrust would have been much weaker but still something that contributed to the Allied player giving the game up. India was attacked on turn 3, a miserably failed attack, and on turn 4 would have fallen but this wasn’t very decisive for the game.

UK put its forces together to attack Italy, both with SBR and by collecting a naval stack that could both withstand German air attack and the Italian naval thrust. However the German naval presence in the Baltic made an attack on Scandinavia too risky and thus contributed to the fact that German production was very strong whereas UK was dwindling to something around 28-30 IPCs. On turn 4 the Italian navy would have been wiped out and amphibious landings possible both in Italy and France, but this was only possible after some US fighters supported the UK force by landing on a carrier.

Italy had very few offensive operations in the game. After seizing Transjordan and profiting from the fall of Egypt, it landed some troops in Ukraine that were wiped out and then had to keep its navy in CMD to protect its capital. A German fighter adding onto a carrier made the Italian navy survive a bit longer but it was playing a losing game with sometimes less than 10 IPCs actual production due to SBR.

USA focused on naval production for most of the game, together with some fighters and bombers to use against the Germans. By turn 4 Japan had to withdraw fighters from the land front to the carriers and a clash then would have meant a victory for the USA since it had more naval reserves. It was felt though that this kind of exclusive focus on Japan was a bit too much since USA couldn’t help out as much as needed vs. the European Axis more than the usual Algeria landings.

All in all, a strong Axis advantage in this game. NOs were felt to really benefit the Axis since Germany and Japan could easily get all three bonuses. Soviet Union was strong in production and could keep the Germans back for a large part of the game. That Arkangelsk bonus is really good and actually very hard for the Germans to stop! The Allies lost not because of poor Russian play but due to a lack of focus in the European theater. If the US player had chosen to go for a Pacific strategy, building one bomber/turn and sending it to Germany should have been a minimum contribution to the European campaign. And UK should have put some more focus on getting Scandinavian and African IPCs to keep up a more dangerous production. Also, striking against that Baltic Sea navy wouldn’t have been too hard and would have made the Germans regret that carrier buy.

The total impression is that the Axis is stronger than in AAR. Japan can pursue a land strategy but it remains to been seen if a “Kill Germany First” strategy can stop this strategy in its tracks. Maybe Japan will have to threaten all three of Hawaii, India and Australia to force USA into producing more on the Pacific front? Italy is nice little power but can easily be stopped cold. China is not as weak as can be imagined but still little less than a larger roadblock but the extra time it takes to take China can be the time needed for the Allies to make significant advances, even though this wasn’t the case in this game.

Techs weren’t effective in this game but a Heavy bomber campaign vs. Germany might have changed the outcome. Being random, they can’t really be a part of a strategy but USA at least should put some IPCs into it since it could benefit from several different techs which isn’t really the case for any of the other powers.

So USA has the GENCON set-up after all, interesting. Still hoping for a stronger UK pacific fleet and a soviet airforce, we’ll see about that very shortly.

Anyways, me and Perry’s playtest game is now on a thread of its own and you can feel free to comment on that Subotai!

Having played a few games with the GENCON set-up I’m really happy to see this play-test game. It’s quite close to what we arrived at in Northern Europe, in one of the games that we played where Germany bought a CV and a TRS on turn 1. But there are some differences on other parts of the board that I  hope represents a different set-up:

1. Egypt hasn’t fallen. This to me speaks for a DD or CA being in the East Med in the start-up.
2. China is still strong. This speaks for a much stronger set-up with maybe as much as 8 or 10 Chinese infantry at-start rather than the measly 4 in the GENCON pic.
3. India is still UK and UK has a CV-led navy. This to me speaks for a stronger naval set-up for UK in the Pacific and which also adds up to the possibility of defending a built IC in India and thus for a much better balance in the game.

Craig, I’m sure you can’t confirm or deny these comments…  :wink:

Aaaagh! Philippines is now 2 ipcs! I don’t like this, It’s supposed anniv. ed. should enforce Pacific fights… but there are 2 ships near the number and this is not totally clear. Oh…

Hey, I think this is good from a historical perspective. Never thought building an IC on a Pacific Island and pumping out aircraft carriers and tanks felt that appropriate. USA should be stronger but hopefully this will be done with a stronger naval set-up.

Also fun to see aircraft in Russia. Yes, this is nowhere close to the set-up but I really want to see one or two fighters for the Soviets so they have something to attack with!

IL/

I think you have misread the rules. It says that it is the combined number of fighters and bombers. So in 1) Italy would face 2 fighters, and in 2) it would face 1 fighter. The historical case is the UK SBR campaign prior to the entry of American escorted missions by Mustang long-range fighters, and I don’t think it would feel very good if Germany could just stack up 3-4 fighters and then UK would never be able to SBR with anything like OK odds. Hence the interceptor limit.

I don’t think we should just copy the AAE rules. They were too much in favour of the defender and it wasn’t worth using bombers for SBR. Remember you have AA as well and if you have interceptors at ‘2’ you have a sum total of 50% chance of being shot down!

Carriers in AAE were not that often bought if I remember correctly and you wouldn’t move them close to Germany. In AA50 I think CV buys for Uk will be very common, even more so than in AAR now that transports have no defence value. Getting escorts into Germany should take some effort, either to take Norway or Finland or to develop Long-range aircraft. After all, it wasn’t until the Mustang fighters were introduced in '44 that the Luftwaffe defences broke down (in game terms Long-range aircraft). I have edited the original post now so that escorts need to be land-based.

• If a sub-only force attack a enemy naval force, for each SS hit, take a Trn as casualty, in addition to any other naval casualties.
  –> if not sub-only force, then subs work as per OOB rules

Ok, Perry, this is a nice twist on the transport attack ability. The biq question is if you want to have a special ability for attacking transports as I propose or integrate it in ordinary attacks, as you do here. I still think a separate convoy attack is more fun and more historical. The Japanese for example always used their subs in normal naval combat. Yes, IL, they were very slow but they did sink quite a few capital ships, especially damaged ones, by picking off enemy ships before or after the main engagement (most notably American fleet carriers Yorktown and Wasp).

• If a sub-only force attack a enemy naval force, only DDs and planes may defend against the attacking subs
• If a sub-only force attack a enemy naval force, the attacking Subs may submerge at the end of any combat round, even with a enemy DD present

The “Sub-only force” I think is a good concept. But if worthwhile it should work in defence as well. I notice you haven’t liked my move three change, which I proposed in order to make it possible to buy subs in the Baltic Sea and get them out in the Atlantic even if UK has a naval superiority. The only other way around this problem is to have “Sub-only forces” get much better protection.

Perry. if you don’t wanna go for reduction in attack values as I and IL do, could you accept the 1-to-1 limit? Such as: “when defending or attacking against a sub-only force, only destroyers and one fighter or bomber per destroyer may take part” (if you don’t reduce hit rolls vs. subs I think cruisers shouldn’t be able to hit subs at all in this type of combat). Also allowing subs to move through destroyers and to submerge after one round of combat is necessary for increased sub survivability I think!

Even if subs are somewhat improved from AAR, they are still not good enough. The problem with AA50 rules is that the attacker needs only one DD to kill enemy subs.
Although Germany shouldnt be able to build a mighty navy like UK+US without being punished by Russians, like it is now, not only the starting Kriegsmarine in the Baltic will be sunk asap, the subs will not survive either, because with one single DD in the attacking force UK will easily kill all German subs at the start of the game. Germany cannot build any new subs either cause they will not survive to the next round.

Hey, Subotai, please join us over at House rules where we try some different ideas about subs in AA50! Here:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=12715.0

Well, it’s too early I think to say how China works out. No-one has played with the correct set-up. We know China has more than those measly 1 infantry per front territory, and if they have enough of a starting army I think they will be a viable defensive power.

I’m with you Funcioneta on the problem with ICs on Chinese soil, but if China is strong enough in defense I really don’t care if they will get to use a Japanese IC since they will have fulfilled their purpose. And it is historically correct in a way, the Allies never could supply China with any industrial materials since the Japs had taken all the ports and railways.

The probable two Japanese options will be to contain or destroy. Losing Manchuria and Kiangsu when they are so easily defended is a bad idea. Contain means you keep the coast of China and keep the army build up down with some attacks (the historical strategy more or less). Destroy means you commit tanks and fighters enough to conquer China and then maybe attack towards Russia, obviously an IC in Manchuria is a great thing for this strategy. The game is OK if these two strategies are the choices to make and Japan has to sacrifice significant forces from other fronts to do the “destroy” strat!

Are you saying the defender cant bring in more planes than the attacker? Also why the limitations on escorts?

The UK should be able to bombard Germany with reasonable odds. If Germany has 3 or 4 fighters in their IC and you have no limit to interceptions, attacking is suicide. My proposed limit is a representation that all fighters were not allocated to interceptions and it will nicely represent the historical scenario that the more bombers the Allies throw in the more fighters Germany will defend with and risk losing.

Whats the deal with enemy bombers? They don’t fire when jets are around, but fire when piston aircraft are? huh?
i don’t get it.

The Me 262 was so quick that bombers had very little chance of defending with their on-board machine guns. From wikipedia:

The standard approach against bomber formations, which were travelling at cruise speed, called for the Me 262 to approach the bombers from the rear at a higher altitude, diving in below the bomber’s flight level to get additional speed before gaining altitude again and, on reaching the bomber’s level, opening fire with its four 30 mm cannon at 600 m (656 yard) range.

Allied bomber gunners found that their electric gun turrets had problems tracking the jets. Target acquisition was difficult because the jets closed into firing range quickly and had to remain in firing position only briefly using their standard attack profile.

Also I wanted to have a strong defensive tech vs. SBR that is strong so you have something to hope for if the enemy gets Heavy bombers.

I don’t like this. Escorts should protect bombers and take the loses. If you have jets then i can see the ability to evade air support and head straight for the bombers. But the 1 fighter 1 bombers combat lose allocation seems real artificial to me.

It’s a balance thing. If you only hit on a ‘1’ you will almost never score two hits anyway and it would be very strange if even those two hits always will be versus fighters. Even with my rule escorts will in 90% of combats protect bombers vs. hits. It would be historically awry if interceptors never could hit bombers directly since they did all they could to do just that.

But all in all I think escorts are a very dangerous thing in this ruleset since you will be losing more fighters as the defender and also most of the time not shooting down the bombers. It also boosts the Long-range aircraft tech and makes areas like Libya and Norway more important to fight over as fighter bases. When I think of it maybe fighters must be forced to be based with the bombers to be able to escort in order to avoid carrier fighters to escort?

just being your sound board

Appreciated!  :-)

SBR in AA50 looks to be more powerful than before, yet it was opted not to include any rules for escorting or intercepting SBR missions. Can this be included in the game in a simple and elegant way? PLEASE don’t discuss damage caps or heavy bombers rules in this thread, that is a separate albeit important discussion! Note also that “Air combat” is only performed in SBR raids. What do you think?

Intercepting and escorting fighters:
Defending fighters in the attacked IC area are intercepting fighters, but the maximum number of interceptors is the combined number of attacking fighters and bombers. The attacker may also attack with fighters which then are escorting fighters, but escorting fighters must start their turn on land areas and there may be no more escorting fighters than there are attacking bombers.

Air combat:
In air combat, you fight one round only and then proceed to roll for SBR damage for each bomber that has survived. You add the number of aircraft on each side and then roll that number of dice, hitting on a ‘1’.

Jet fighters:
If you have “Jet fighters” you get two rolls for each fighter in air combat and enemy bombers no longer get to fire in air combat.

Hit allocation in escorted SBR attacks:
If there are escorting fighters in the attack, the first hit by the defender is always on an escorting fighter, the second on an attacking bomber, and so on.

As many have already lamented, AA50 includes no rules for convoy attacks. The new transport rules for me makes this problem even more perplexing in that subs can’t destroy transports unless the entire defending surface fleet is wiped out! So, I propose as an expansion these additional rules. PLEASE don’t discuss convoy zones or the like in this thread, this one is solely for transport attack rules which I consider to be another way to represent the convoy war. What do you think?

Convoy interdiction

A submarine now has the option of performing a convoy interdiction instead of normal movement and attack. The submarine then has a move of three and it may move through all enemy ships including destroyers. A convoy interdiction is made against a sea zone with an enemy transport. Only submarines may take part in a Convoy interdiction attack.

Convoy combat:
Takes place between submarines and those units capable of anti-submarine warfare (see below). Each hit versus the defender means one transport is destroyed. When all transports have been destroyed, the defender chooses hits from other units taking part in the combat. If no destroyer defends transports, they are destroyed.

Anti-submarine warfare:
If submarines attack through convoy interdiction or if a sea zone is defended by only submarines, only destroyers may attack and defend normally. In addition, one additional cruiser, fighter or bomber per destroyer may take part in combat: they then have their hit roll reduced by ‘2’ (i.e. cruisers attack and defend on a ‘1’, fighters attack on a ‘1’ and defend on a ‘2’, bombers attack on a ‘2’). Submarines, carriers and battleships can’t take part in anti-submarine warfare. All units have their normal attack and defence rolls versus submarines if they attack in a normal attack or defend together with surface naval units.

Super subs:
In addition to attacking on a ‘3’, super subs may never be hit by fighters or bombers.

Shipyards:
Each destroyer now allows two cruisers, fighters or bombers to take part in anti-submarine warfare instead of one.

IL, your rules are in the Advanced category. You use a tech to represent a development in the war, whereas I think this could simply be represented by the build-up of ASW ships over time.

I start another thread on the attack transport option to economic warfare. Convoy zone is a tried and true concept by now, and it works out OK I guess. I’m just intrigued by the possibility of avoiding adding convoy zones since it does complicate the game.

The rule as stated still prohibits the building of naval units, and its possible players of the same team would build more than 3 subs and ‘cost no more than 10 IPC’  Rule systems have to look at the extremes and are refuted even if ONE time in ONE game a trick is discovered which breaks the game. IMO your rule can lead to a broken game.  Japan, Germany and Italy, can start adding more subs to the 4-5 they begin with and prevent the allies from ever getting transports made. While u-boats enjoyed the “happy times” the allies were building more merchant ships than can be sunk. it was a race and the allies were still winning it. Your rule takes the wind out of the sail.

Well, sub survivability in the OOB rules isn’t very high so I doubt if that many subs will be able to attack at the same time. Of course, if you restrict the ability to attack subs you will be forced to restrict the damage that will be done.

Please find this fact and cite it.

I cited it in the earlier post. The Allies lost a total of 3,500 merchants ships at the hands of submarines, and only in '43 did building exceed sinkings:

“The construction of new ship tonnage had exceeded submarine sinkings for the first time in February 1943.” Weinberg, A world at arms, p. 382.

Submarines no longer block movement of surface naval units, except for transports. In combat with subs and other naval units, submarines are not involved. That’s to say they now perform as totally independent forms of naval combat. Once the surface naval combat is resolved, further combat with submarines can occur.

Well, this is too radical a change I think. Again according to Weinberg, American submarines sank twice as many Japanese ships as American surface ships (p. 393). I think like bombers that subs should have both an economic attack option and a normal attack option. Subs won’t be infantry of the seas now that they have only ‘1’ in defence.

Your convoy rules are very complex. I’m trying to simplify my rule suggestions. Yet your ASW rules doesn’t even include carriers which were the units that actually turned the tide against the subs! Rules should follow the Ockham’s razor principle, never be more complex than needed. The drawback of my ruleset is that you might destroy every enemy transport and then not get to attack economically the convoy routes. But adding convoy zones is so big a change I hope you can avoid it in some way.

I like your way of conducting attacks against enemy transports, it is similar to mine even though I think fighters should added as an ASW unit aside DDs. Perhaps this can be expanded to be the way subs attack economically?

1. Subs can attack either as per OOB rules or against transports. It then functions as you say only that one other unit per destroyer may take part, fighter as well as cruiser. Instead of my “one combat round and then inflict IPC damage” you would simply have more rounds of combat as you have it. Transports are the required first casualty, but the attacker can continue vs. ASW units if he wishes.
2. There should be some restriction on attacking subs but not as tough as you put it. Suggestions for ASW values in both defence and offensive combat, with DDs allowing one other unit to take part: DDs, FTRs & BMBs ‘2’, CAs ‘1’. This takes effect if attacking a sub-only force or when subs attack transports, but if subs make a normal attack or defends as part of surface fleet then all units defend according to OOB rules.
3. We still have the movement issue. I suggest movement of ‘3’ only when attacking transports and no movement restrictions by destroyers, that’s the only way Germany will get their subs forward!

If we tweak the attack transports special ability and increase sub survivability we might not even need economic abstractions like convoy zones or convoy damage since just the sinking of transports will represent the convoy war!

America invaded Africa in late 1942 even when they faced huge shipping loses from the second “happy time” (look it up)

I don’t think a complete loss of invasion capability would take place even with the rule I thought of, since US or UK would surely be able to repair all convoy damage inflicted on them. Even with 3 subs attacking you would have around 10 IPCs loss in production. Of course, you could just have IPC damage being taken from cash at hand, but I wanted to find something similar to how SBR damage is handled in AA50 and also something that means you don’t have to have “ad-hoc” rules such as Germany and Soviet Union are immune from convoy attacks or the addition of convoy zones on the map.

America occupied Azores, UK made commando raids against Dieppe and St Nazaire, while they were losing hundreds of ships on the high seas. It just does not make any sence.

None of these invasions would be represented in Axis & Allies. Operation Overlord was postponed due to the fact of submarine warfare and this is the kind of scale we are talking about. Of course, US and UK could have invaded France even in '42 but I’m not sure they would have succeeded. In game terms, this would mean that submarines in '41 and '42 inflict damage enough so that the number of transports to invade with would be too few.

Except moving 3 makes no sence.

also, in the mid war period fighters did sink subs and bombers were used to scout, I don’t know why you ignore cruisers in ASW duty because they are integral part of this protection. Thats would make them more viable for cash strapped nations who may have one around.

Well, movement of three is for Germany to have any chance of actually getting subs to sea zones with enemy transports (Greenland and Celtic Sea from the Baltic Sea). What doesn’t make sense is how all submarines can be destroyed in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the English channel, which is what happens in all Axis & Allies editions and which is a basic fault of the game design. Of course you could give submarines immunity to attack or something more radical but I think three in movement is less radical a change. Cruisers is a balance thing. If cruisers had ASW function that would: a) make it unnecessary to buy destroyers, b) make subs too weak. Please note that these rules means that subs in normal combat can be attacked just as in OOB AA50 rules, it’s only in Convoy combat that ASW is restricted!

lastly this has me godsmacked:

“All Convoy damage must be repaired before any naval unit may be built.”

Please don’t consider this. why would you have such a rule?

Well as I said the alternative is to have Convoy damage just subtracted from cash at hand, but now SBR works with damage markers and so I though Convoy damage should as well. The advantage is that even if Germany gets Convoy damage it can ignore it if doesn’t want to buy any more naval units. The historical explanation is that Submarine warfare attritions naval forces and in particular transports and ASW ships and in order to gain naval supremacy  the convoy war had to be won. Even as late as '43, the Allies put the convoy war as the highest war aim in the West (Casablanca), and the importance of the convoy war isn’t represented at all in Axis & Allies. Quote from Weinberg’s A world at arms, p. 380:

“… the shortage of shipping imposed restriction on the scope of Torch that would… make it impossible for the Allies to seize Tunisia in the early stages of that operation. This made it possible for the Germans to hold on in North Africa until May 1943 and hence make an invasion of Northwest Europe impossible before 1944. With shipping losses continuing to exceed new construction, it should come as no surprise that at the January 1943 conference at Casablanca, top priority should be assigned to the battle against the U-Boats. If this menace could not be conquered, the steady diminuition of Allied tonnage would immobilize the Western Allies; even if Britain could be kept supplied, there was nothing a huge American army could do to help defeat Germany if it could not be brought to Europe and supplied there.”

Any ruleset that gets us closer to the historical fact is an improvement. I don’t claim my suggestions are the only possible, what are yours? This is what should be there:

1. German subs must be able to reach the Atlantic areas without being destroyed.
2. Submarines should be able to engage enemy transports and/or convoys without being forced to engage the entire fleet.
3. Some kind of representation of the merchant navy should be present, be it as Convoy damage, convoy zones, destroying IPCs if adjacent to enemy ICs, etc. If subs have enough power to destroy transports, that might be powerful enough so we wouldn’t need abstract convoys, but I doubt if that can be made a system balanced enough.
4. Buying subs should be cost-effective for Germany in early stages of the game at least, i.e. ASW should be weak enough to enable subs to do a considerable amount of damage before they are destroyed.

As long as you have Convoy damage you can’t build transports and you can’t embark or disembark units on transports

This does not make sence. No relationship can exist or prevent those things from occurring , except by direct means.

UK bombs Berlin, and Hitler says “leave our troops on transports till i get our city rebuilt?”  HUH? What?

I’m talking about Convoy damage and not SBR damage. Convoy damage would represent disruption of the sea supply system so that invasions couldn’t be performed, operations that have to use massive amounts of shipping to be possible. In the war, the Atlantic sub war had just this effect and no major invasions could be launched by sea in '41 due to the heavy convoy losses.

But I think maybe Cousin Joe was right that as few complications of the rules as possible, and so maybe adding another element to the game is unnecessary. A simplified version of Convoy interdiction rules would be:

Convoy interdiction

Instead of normal movement and attack, a submarine may perform a Convoy interdiction: all enemy ships including destroyers are then ignored and it has a move of three. A convoy interdiction is made against a sea zone with an enemy transport. Only submarines may take part in a Convoy interdiction attack.

Convoy combat:
One round of Convoy combat is fought in each sea zone attacked, with submarines attacking on a ‘2’ and destroyers defending on ‘1’. One fighter for each defending destroyer may take part in Convoy combat, hitting on a ‘1’. Each hit versus the defender means one transport is destroyed. When all transports have been destroyed, the defender chooses hits from destroyers and carriers carrying fighters taking part in the combat. Super subs hit on a ‘3’, may never be hit by fighters and add one to the IPC damage roll.

Convoy damage:
After Convoy combat, roll one die per surviving submarine to determine Convoy damage. Convoy damage is recorded by putting damage markers in an adjacent sea zone bordering the capital area. Convoy damage is separate from damage to ICs by SBR and can be repaired in the “Purchase Units Phase” for 1 IPC per marker. All Convoy damage must be repaired before any naval unit may be built. If a power has the “Shipyards” technology, it repairs two points of Convoy damage for each IPC spent. If several powers have transports in a sea zone, the attacking player chooses which power that takes Convoy damage. The maximum IPC damage for each power per turn is 10 IPCs per controlled transport in the attacked sea zone.

Is this playing experiece or theory?

I played it with additional chinese forces. Additional subs and the stuff we talked about….

Me and Perry are now on our third game with the GENCON pic set-up and in every game the Axis kicks butt. Yes, UK might be able to retake Karelia but then Germany might focus on Caucasus instead and there you have Italy to back you up. India can be taken on turn 2 if you focus your transports and fighters on it. Once Japan takes India or Australia and neutralizes China, it’s a monster IPC-wise.

If you added forces then yes you do have a different situation. Interesting that the game is so tightly balanced that a few units here and there changes the balance! That’s why it’s so important what the actual set-up is, can’t wait!

PS. More China inf, UK DD in EMD and additional cruisers in the Pacific I would be very surprised if we don’t see. Submarines in the Pacific I’m not so sure about, I wouldn’t bet on it since only US had a real sub offensive and that started only later in the war so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were zero subs in the Pacific. DS.

IL, you make much more sweeping changes than I propose. Air combat in my proposal is ONLY in SBR and ONLY one round of combat, after AA and before rolling for SBR damage. If you add air combat in every combat, you will prolong the game a lot and I don’t think the game needs that. I think fighters and bombers are powerful enough in ordinary combat.

When it comes to subs, look up the thread. Cousin Joe thought it was too complex, and I’ve been thinking about a simpler representation of convoy damage:

“As long as you have Convoy damage you can’t build transports and you can’t embark or disembark units on transports”

This is simpler and it also makes UK and Japan more vulnerable since they will be the ones who can’t live with convoy damage at all, whereas Italy and US some of the time may be willing to live with it and Germany and Soviet Union not really affected in most games.

I don’t think your strategies for the Axis were that good. It’s quite possible to take and hold India and Karelia within two turns and then you have a nice position. Germany and Japan will be in the 50-55 IPCs income area and be very strong in a few turns time. We actually found that the Axis were too strong and in the discussion thread “the real setup” and “Playtest report and conclusions” most people cry out for more China infantry and more US and UK ships in the Pacific. This is probably the case, but we’ll see when the game comes out.