agree.  the bigger the battle, the less LL will matter.  the smaller battles are where you really have to worry about getting diced.

either way, they’re completely different games.  LL is mostly deterministic, and you can plan out your moves accordingly, knowing exactly what battles are coming 2, 3, 4 turns in advance.  normal is completely stochiastic, there’s no way to be sure what things will look like next round even.

its ALL counter-intuitive because generally speaking, if the attacking force doesn’t want to kill subs, they wouldn’t aim at subs  :lol:  I can’t think of any tactics that would force the attacker to dispatch the subs before the transports, but thems the rules.

well if we wanted to get tricky, we could always add an asymmetric information element.  let’s say subs are invisible except to destroyers or units being attacked by the sub.  call it a constant submerged state.  the position could be tracked by pen and paper in case of a dispute.  if a destroyer enters a sz occupied by an enemy sub, the owner of the sub must say so.  then simply allow planes to attack ‘unsubmerged’ subs at full attack value.

not TOO incredibly complicated, although it is probably inconvenient to use pen and paper in such a way.  sub buys are still announced, etc. etc.

also it feels wrong to have a ‘fog of war’ for subs exclusively.

i cast my lot with the crowd, i love playing Japan.  You get to deal with some interesting naval maneuvering in the pacific, can reach across the whole map participating in every theater of war, and you are often the  largest power in the game, geographically speaking.  Many options, and usually no one putting a whole lot of pressure on you, leaving you free to dictate your battle plan.

reality is shot to hell once you even START to make this a board game, because it is definitely not realistic for each power to know the exact makeup and location of the other powers’ fleets!  even though planes attacked subs in WWII, they didn’t already happen to know the location of every enemy sub beforehand.  therefore allowing air strikes on subs would result in a completely UNREALISTIC dominance of aircraft over submarines to the extent that the subs would rarely ever be built in the game.

yes, that’s the point.  how did he do it?  what did you learn from how he dealt with that strategy?

i’m jealous.  i would love to double up on AA42 minis

ah, that chess analogy was beautifully put, granada. and thanks hobbes for your reply as well.  i’m definitely more of a boil-it-down guy than a split-the-atoms-of-a-hair type as far as these things go, and putting in in terms of “what is more important:  russian fighter or UK BB” really helps me to understand my own thoughts on this norwegian gambit.  although i still haven’t decided where i come down myself!  i think i’m leaning towards not doing norway.

i just don’t understand why several of you refuse to participate and accept the situation presented?  it depends on the situation.  we all get it.  saying so as a caveat will prevent you from being ‘wrong’ but it doesn’t mean you can’t take part in the fun little hypothetical.

as far as a 16 sub buy goes, that’s not an offensive fleet, that’s a defensive fleet.  you can’t attack anyone with it!  it’s defensive because you have to wait until an enemy fleet positions itself in range of your subs, because if you move into their range, you’re stuck with half the punch.

i think i get the joke now, let me rewrite it–
the captain asks, “how much?”
the answer: “Forty”?
captain: “Forty what?”
answer: “How much ‘what’?”

are you a native english speaker, granada?
(i realize that might sound rude, it isn’t intended that way)

ok then, but excluding some exploitable snafu for russia, does sz2 become a no brainer, or just a good option among others?