yea cheaper transports could be worth trying. oztea gives the USA more starting dudes in his 41 mod of global to make up for the expense of transporting. Of course that only helps the US and only at game start.
One could also try giving transports their defense value of 1 back. Maybe have it only work against naval units and not planes. Idk, it’s probably best to keep it as simple as possible.
3 or 4 bucks seems a little too cheap at first thought for me. That’s just a gut feeling though. Maybe try 5 bucks to start ?
Also, using global as the example, what’s that do for Japan ? You’d think they wouldn’t really need to buy too many more, but maybe they just use them as throw away units and are all over the Pacific ?
Might not necessarily be a bad thing. Should help Italy a little as well as far as trying to reinforce Africa.
You can solve a lot of potential problems with discussion, but ultimately (as I’m sure you’re well aware of), the play test will be the deciding factor. Even then it might work at first and then someone finds a flaw to exploit as Argo alluded to above.
Then one just needs to tweak again or have someone come up with a counter to that. : )
Heh heh. I think that’s part of the fun though :)
@Argothair said in Axis & Allies balance problems because transports?:
For the other games, I don’t necessarily fault the designers; they made a reasonable effort to hit the target, and they just happened to miss.
This is fair. You can only do so much play testing before you need to ship the game and so far it’s been good enough (expect 42.2 of course). Even if there were public play testing, there may not be enough time to find all the various strategies that “break” the game.
I do fault the designers of Axis & Allies Spring 1942 2nd Edition
And this is also fair.
Returning for a moment to the transport-pricing question, I think one good way of analyzing that is to compare the cost of sending loaded transports vs. the cost of sending planes.
Suppose for the sake of argument that you have unchallenged control of the seas, so the only extra expense you have to incur for amphibious assaults is the cost of the transports themselves. Also for the sake of simplicity, suppose you have a token beachhead of 3 infantry that is already on the mainland, so that if you support that infantry with enough planes, it can theoretically conquer as many territories as necessary. These two assumptions cut in opposite directions (control of the seas makes transports better; having a beachhead makes planes better), so hopefully they at least roughly balance each other out.
If transports cost 7 IPCs and you are able to use the same transport twice over the course of a tournament game, then the cost of buying and delivering a supporting force of 2 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk is 6 + 4 + 5 + 7 = 22 IPCs. This results in a total force of 5 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk, which has 7 HP, 11 punch, and 15 defense.
Alternatively, if fighters cost 10 IPCs, and bombers cost 12 IPCs, then the cost of buying and delivering a supporting force of 1 inf, 1 bmr is 10 + 12 = 22 IPCs. This results in a total force of 3 inf, 1 ftr, 1 bmr, which has 5 HP, 10 punch, and 11 defense.
Under the (admittedly artificial) assumptions of the experiment, the transports are strictly better – you get more HP, more punch, and more defense for the same amount of money.
On the other hand, suppose each transport can only make one delivery during the length of the tournament game. Buying and delivering a supporting force of 2 inf, 2 tnk will now cost 6 + 10 + 7 + 7 = 30 IPCs. You could instead deliver 3 fighters for those 30 IPCs. The total amphibious forces (including the beachhead) would be 5 inf, 2 tnk = 7 HP, 11 punch, 16 defense. The total airborne forces (including the beachhead) would be 3 inf, 3 ftr = 6 HP, 12 punch, 18 defense. Those forces appear roughly equivalent to me – the airborne force has one fewer hit point, but it has slightly more punch and defense.
Finally, suppose the transports can only make one trip, and they also need to be escorted by a pair of destroyers in order to survive even that one trip. Buying and delivering a supporting force of 4 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk + 3 transports + 2 destroyers now costs 12 + 4 + 5 + 21 + 16 = 56 IPCs. For less money than that, you could afford 4 ftr, 1 bmr. The total amphibious forces (including the beachhead) would be 7 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk = 9 HP, 13 punch, 19 defense. The total airborne forces (including the beachhead) would be 3 inf, 4 ftr, 1 bmr = 8 HP, 19 punch, 23 defense. The airborne force appears superior to me – it would be able to reliably trash the amphibious force if they fought in direct combat.
Part of why I think transports are overpriced in tournament play is that you often do need something like destroyers to protect your transports. You might not be able to finish a second round-trip before the tournament game ends, especially for transports built after turn 3 or so, and you might need two or even three fleets of transports to efficiently ferry infantry from, e.g., New York to Rome/Berlin. If you have to set up a shuck-shuck where transports are constantly swapping places with each other (i.e., if you want to cross an ocean rather than just bridge a single sea zone) then that seriously increases your transportation costs.
If you have no beachhead at all, and you still want to fight in a region, then you need to send at least one transport full of actual land units. A single transport could cost 60 IPCs, and you’d still have little choice but to pay that price if you wanted to occupy a region that’s cut off from your forces by sea – although there are plenty of weird exceptions. Items like paratrooper technology, sub convoys, and strategic bombing become more important as the relative cost of transports rises.
As soon as you’re able to deliver one transport to your target, though, then the usual cost-benefit equation goes back into effect. Do you want one loaded transport plus 10 planes? Or five loaded transports? Or something in between?
@Argothair nice number crunching : )
so even with the assumed 3 dudes, we need to be able to replace them. Mini factory obviously would be ideal.
It seems to me a person needs cannon fodder and basically boots on the ground.
I’m not a very good player though and I do like my planes : )
Anybody try the 6 icp transport ? If u go to a 5 icp transport you probably would need to change the setup a bit for trannys.
If you make Transports 5 icps and then have to remove Transports from setup just defeats what your trying to do.
@SS-GEN Can you say a little more about your logic, SS Gen? You’re touching on some interesting ideas, but I don’t think I understand why anyone would need to remove some of the starting transports.
There’s 2 scenario’s being discussed here. G40 and Tournament play.
When I mentioned defeats the purpose was if transports cost 5 icps will it make Japan to strong ? Help Italy, US, UK ya.
For tourney play ya it makes sense to try at least a 5 icp transport cost. But do you now need to take away 1 or 2 transports from Japan ? Depends on setup ?
Or do you just add more Transports to the setup ?
Now I saw in your earlier posts about other changes to game.
I just don’t understand why there’s not more play testing or play for G40 with Russia going first and Italy neutral on T1. Or give at least Russia Inf a D@3 the first time Germany attacks Russia in game. Going of topic here so I’ll stop.
Making transports cost 5 icps in game is a changer. Its got to benefit the allies more you’ed think.
I’m just saying look at the transport setups on map if you go with a 5 icp transport cost.
Bit off topic. Has anybody given Russia Inf D@3 also on the first 2 turns Germany attacks Russia. The worst winters were in 40, 41 and 42. 2 of those winters were the worst ones in the last 100 years at that time. I believe it was 41 and 42. My weather chart has both winters in it.
I am all for cheaper Transports, but perhaps for balance, it should only be for the US. I have also said that the US should be allowed to transport Mech, as if it were Inf. This is most necessary for any North African landings.
@Wittmann
Ya I’ve played with US Transports and destroyers cheaper once at War. But is that still to late for tourney play ?
From what I’ve heard Japan waits as long as possible in tourney play to keep US out of game even longer.
@SS-GEN Good to know it has been tried .
Just thoughts.
@SS-GEN Well, in G40, the main effect of making transports cost 5 IPCs for Japan is that Japan could buy 5 transports on turn 1, which I guess would make J3 attacks on India virtually impossible to resist…although to fill all five of those transports, you’d wind up stripping northeast China almost dry, so maybe you’d see more Russian invasions of Korea/Manchuria.
Sea Lion would also become a much more powerful strategy for the Germans, but that probably just means that the UK typically buys either 8 inf, 1 art in London or 6 inf, 1 ftr on UK1. That might not be very interesting; it makes the first turn a little too scripted.
On the flip side, the Americans can reach Italy with overwhelming firepower on US4 – with cheaper transports, two turns of purchasing should be enough to crush Rome unless Italy keeps all its forces very close to home. That’s also somewhat less interesting.
So, yeah, 5 IPC transports might be disruptive to G40. You might need to stick with 6 IPC transports for G40. I think 5 IPC transports would work well in Anniversary 1941, though. Cheaper transports could make an Australian factory more useful to the Allies (if you can actually afford to build a transport there, then it threatens the money islands), would help the UK get off to a faster start in the opening in the Atlantic (they’re often short just one or two IPCs to build the fleet they want), and would help the Americans get off to a faster start as well (ditto). Meanwhile Japan has all the transports it needs, and Japan is short on men / build slots. Germany might be able to try a 1941 ‘sea lion’ with cheaper transports, but it would still be an oddball, suboptimal strategy.
As I’ve said before about BM, putting units on non-transports isnt functional because of two rules; 1) you cant bombard and land troops 2) you cant combat and noncombat. Because the bombarding ships especially have other duties, the Marines or whatever woudl end up trapped on those ships alot of the time because they have a more important duty (Cruiser can choose 1–fight, bombard, or land 1 man–you’d choose one of the first two in many situations).
In any event, its unrealistic. Soldiers were transported on large combat ships, but this affected their combat readynesss, and the troops were rarely deployed like that into direct combat. If they were, it was with the clothes on their backs (the slot/tokyo express)
This feels like trying to mess with one of the most interesting things about the game—the large difference between the teams. Each team values different units, and some are forced to use strategies that others cannot. USA’s high income (and the difficulty of destroying it) is offset by the fact that they have to buy transports to take land. However, the USA can’t grab much money by taking land, other powers can also help, there remains a perfectly rational strategy where USA buys few or no transports or troops, and puts all that $$ (in global) into warships. Those dynamics keep alot of choice out there. And still, with 200+ IPCs over 4 turns, you can build a pretty big fleet of any composition…
A reduction of 1-2 IPC wouldn’t be game breaking, alot of those savings would just go directly into the cost of building more troops to fill more transports. Taking them down to 5 would make them more viable to sacrifice, it’d help the Axis in the early and late game, and the US in the mid and late game, alot. I don’t think it would balance the game much, though it might change it.
Probably an even more historical and effective way to deal with this would be Lend Lease–the US can convert its resources down ratio to its allies, say 2:1. Whether this is in units, money, or convoys would be up for grabs.
It still doesn’t really address the key problems to the playout though, which is that russia is too weak and the 3 Axis together are too strong. That’s why the balance is in when Russia falls, not if.
@taamvan I am afraid I can’t agree with your statement about America’s high income. The problem with most A&A games is that its income is not high enough, considering where it needs to go and how it has to get there. In most games, Japan or Germany can make more and this is the problem.
I like what I have in my game. Shore Bombardment. D12
Battleships - 4
Cruisers - 3
Destroyers - 2
Part of the problem is the D6 dice in the game. Cost and AD values not correct. Some to strong some to weak.
Probably help a lot if G40 went to D12 but heaven forbid on that !!!
I don’t know why nobody does anything with Russia but just talk about it.
You give Russia more things and allies don’t need to send figs to Moscow, now you can use all those figs elsewhere.
That’s a copout.
By the way what is the transport rule in G40 ?
