G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread

[Gargantua]

@regularkid said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

One scenario that needed to be addressed: what would likely have happened if Charles De Gaulle marched into Southern France with a Free French army at his back. Would fighting break out between the Vichy Forces and the Free French Forces (i.e., a civil war?). Or is it more likely that the Vichy Forces would simply join up with the Free French. To me, the latter scenario is more likely. Hence the rule.

Interesting response…

Even if it’s completely A-historical, when compared to the battle of Dakar for example (see below).

I respect all the effort that has gone into this. To code it etc. But just because a fanciful and glorious item is coded, doesn’t mean that it makes any sense, or is at all practical, and I have yet to see any proof of it happening - ever, just lots of fanciful notions that people “think” it occurred at least once.

**"*On 23 September, the Fleet Air Arm dropped propaganda leaflets on the city of Dakar. Then, two Free French Caudron C.272 aircraft and a Fairey Swordfish carrying three Free French officers flew off Ark Royal and landed at the airport, but their crews were immediately taken prisoner. On one of the prisoners was found a list of Free French sympathisers in Dakar, whom the Vichy authorities promptly rounded up.[4] A boat with representatives of de Gaulle entered the port but was fired upon. British aircraft were also fired upon by the anti-aircraft guns of the Richelieu and a Curtiss Hawk 75 fighter.[5] At 10:00, Vichy ships trying to leave the port were given warning shots from Australia. As these ships returned to port, Vichy-controlled coastal batteries opened fire on Australia. Their guns, which had a range of 14 km (8.7 mi), were 240mm/50 Modèle 1902 gun that had come from the Vergniaud, a French semi-dreadnought battleship that had been scrapped in the 1920s.[6] An engagement between the Allied fleet and the batteries continued for several hours. In the afternoon Australia intercepted and fired on the Vichy destroyer L’Audacieux, setting her on fire and causing her to be beached.

Also in the afternoon, an attempt was made to set Free French troops ashore on a beach at Rufisque, to the south-east of Dakar. However, Vichy reconnaissance aircraft spotted the attempted landing[7] and the attack failed due to fog and heavy fire from strongpoints defending the beach.[8] General de Gaulle declared he did not want to “shed the blood of Frenchmen for Frenchmen” and called off the assault."***

[trulpen]

I only considered the game, not actual events. Seems this feature is anachronistic, but on the other hand the most important factor is game-balance.

[Gargantua]

@trulpen said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

I only considered the game, not actual events. Seems this feature is anachronistic, but on the other hand the most important factor is game-balance.

Seeing as it has no factor on 99.9% and probably 100% of games, it plays no part in Balance :)

Basically, we have a “special case” rule, where a pro-axis is actually, ALSO a pro-allied.

It’s confusing, unhistorical, and unnecessary :)

Strike it from the record!

[ksmckay]

@freh said in G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread:

This is a question about Balanced Mod 3 and the interaction of rules related to Marines, specifically on an ally’s ship. It’s relevant to a BMgame I’m playing now.

For these examples, assume I have an ANZAC marine on a US cruiser adjacent to a Japanese territory, and it’s ANZAC’s turn.

1. If the sz is empty, the marine can do a legal amphibious assault.

2. if I have a Japanese sub in the SZ, I assume ANZAC would have to have an accompanying ANZAC warship in order to allow them to ignore the Japanese sub, and do the AA. Correct?

3. If I can scramble into the SZ, then what happens? If there’s no ANZAC warship or plane, then there’s nothing to scramble against, is there, but I still think the marine shouldn’t be able to land because it has nothing there to defeat my potential scramble, correct? Would they still have the option to try to do the AA just to force me to scramble a plane to negate it? Or is an AA not legal without an ANZAC warship or plane present to defeat the potential scramble?

4. defending sub + scramble option: ANZAC would need it’s own surface warship (to be able to ignore the sub & defend against the scramble, if I chose to scramble), or a sub (ignore the sub and avoid potential scrambling). But if ANZAC only brings in planes, then it can’t ignore the sub, and a combat move AA isn’t legal.

5. Now what happens if it’s a kamikaze sz? Technically I can’t use the kami because it’s ANZAC’s turn, not the US, so technically the US cruiser isn’t eligible for a kami. So can the marine land, if there’s no defensive sub, no scramble option, and no ANZAC warship or plane?

1. Yes
2. No, attacker can always ignore enemy subs. exception for unescorted transports. But even if this was a transport it wouldnt matter since its a US ship.
3. You cant scramble unless there are other anzac ships. Japanese cant engage american ships on anzac turn.
4. Still doesnt matter. If anzac decided to send planes to the sea zone, then japan could scramble against those planes but that wouldnt affect the marine/cruiser at all.
5. Kamikaze wouldnt do anything. Japan can only use kamikazes against eligible anzac units on anzac turn.

So if anzac has a marine on a US cruiser (or transport) it can unload as an amphibious assault no matter what. Kamikazes cant stop it, scrambling cant stop it, subs cant stop it.

[freh]

@ksmckay

So for 2), if I have anzac units on American transports in that SZ, can they do an aa? I would think no… that wouldn’t make sense to me. an unescorted sub can’t ignore a defending sub, but it can if it’s an ally’s transport, even though it’s performing the same action.

for the others, it just seems to violate the spirit of the rule, that transports can’t unload in a hostile SZ (either where there’s a scramble possibility or a defending sub) without support.

Also I’m not sure why the mods moved my post to the Path to Victory thread when I mean this for Balanced Mod (although it may relate to PtV as well)

[Adam514]

3. A scramble does prevent unloading off a friendly ship if you don’t have other units to defeat the scramble. A scramble potential makes it illegal to unload from an unescorted Allied ship.

[ksmckay]

@adam514
wheres that rule? what is the scramble going to do?

[freh]

Reposting this since it got moved for some reason…

This is a question about Balanced Mod 3 and the interaction of rules related to Marines, specifically on an ally’s ship. It’s relevant to a BMgame I’m playing now.

For these examples, assume I have an ANZAC marine on a US cruiser adjacent to a Japanese territory, and it’s ANZAC’s turn.

1. If the sz is empty, the marine can do a legal amphibious assault.

2. if I have a Japanese sub in the SZ, I assume ANZAC would have to have an accompanying ANZAC warship in order to allow them to ignore the Japanese sub, and do the AA. Correct?

3. If I can scramble into the SZ, then what happens? If there’s no ANZAC warship or plane, then there’s nothing to scramble against, is there, but I still think the marine shouldn’t be able to land because it has nothing there to defeat my potential scramble, correct? Would they still have the option to try to do the AA just to force me to scramble a plane to negate it? Or is an AA not legal without an ANZAC warship or plane present to defeat the potential scramble?

4. defending sub + scramble option: ANZAC would need it’s own surface warship (to be able to ignore the sub & defend against the scramble, if I chose to scramble), or a sub (ignore the sub and avoid potential scrambling). But if ANZAC only brings in planes, then it can’t ignore the sub, and a combat move AA isn’t legal.

5. Now what happens if it’s a kamikaze sz? Technically I can’t use the kami because it’s ANZAC’s turn, not the US, so technically the US cruiser isn’t eligible for a kami. So can the marine land, if there’s no defensive sub, no scramble option, and no ANZAC warship or plane?

[freh]

@ksmckay In my mind, the sea zone is hostile since the defender has the ability to scramble to protect that SZ. If it were an unescorted transport, the scramble would prevent the AA. So the marine from an allied cruiser/BB should result in the same outcome.

[ksmckay]

@Adam514

ok, i guess the scramble does since the rules say amphibious assault takes place after sea combat and that sea combat has to result in no enemy surface warships.

So then what about US transport with anzac/uk inf and enemy sub.

However, a transport
is not allowed to offload land units for an amphibious
assault in a sea zone containing 1 or more ignored enemy
submarines unless at least 1 warship belonging to the
attacking power is also present in the sea zone at the end
of the Combat Move phase.

[regularkid]

@ksmckay @freh all good questions. I believe the ‘multinational force’ issue was already addressed at an earlier point, but since its been a while, I’ll provide a comprehensive response here.

1. The rules governing amphibious assaults from allied cruisers (i.e., friendly cruisers belonging to a different nation) are the same in all respects to the rules governing amphibious assaults from allied transports (except in the case of kamikazes, which is addressed below).

2. As with transports, a player cannot amphibious assault from an allied cruiser in a sea zone where there are enemy warships, unless that player brings along an escort force capable of destroying the enemy warships. If the enemy ship is a submarine, the player will have the option to ignore or engage with his escort force before making the landing. If the enemy ship is a surface vessel, a battle will, of course, result.

3. As Adam already mentioned, the possibility of scrambled air units will prevent the landing if they cannot be destroyed. Again, the player making the attack must bring along an escort force to deal with the threat before making the landing.

4. Kamikazes have no impact on amphibious landings from allied cruisers. The defending player cannot use his kamikazes against the cruisers in this ‘multinational force’ setting.

Hope that helps!

[freh]

@regularkid absolutely it helps, and thanks!

Just to clarify my understanding of the escort force in 2 correctly, when you say an escort force “capable of destroying the enemy warships”, then in the case of a defending sub, the escort force has to have at least one warship (sub, dd, cr or BB) capable of attacking and destroying the sub in order to allow it to be ignored. Thus, planes and even ACs wouldn’t count, since they have no capability to destroy the sub. Is that correct?

[Amon-Sul]

@aequitas-et-veritas renewed a discussion about tech. i am copy pasteing his post here. open for discussion.

˝I would implement tech in a certain way that differs from the most opinions that people have arround here.

They are:

All nations get three techs they can develop and are equal.
AA Radar
Airborne forces
Increased Factory Production

Plus they get 3 additional
Nation related Techs and would be:

GERMANY:
Super Subs
Jetzt Power
Improved Mechs

RUSSIA:
Tank production (Tanks cost 5 instead of 6)
Improved Arty Support 1 (pairing mechsnism)
Improved Arty Support 2 (( purchase mechanism buy four Inf get an additional Arty) reflecting that almist every soviet Infantry men in '42 had a mortar along with them)

JAPAN:
Shipyards
Improved Mech
Heavy Bomber

US:
Warbonds
Shipyards
Longrange Aircraft

UK:
Shipyards
Longrange Aircraft
Heavy Bmbrs

As a total of six techs you may develop dringend the whole game.
More specified Techs would even be better for the nation only related techs.˝

[Amon-Sul]

@trulpen
@LennardF
@Pejon_88
@dawgoneit
@crockett36

[Amon-Sul]

@aequitas-et-veritas 2nd post:

–

Looks like we need someone who can fix/change that for us so we can play test it, ha ha.

The Tech mechanic would work like this:
If you choose for the 1st bracket ( the random one), it will stay untill yiu discovered one.

Id you choose the one wich is only related to your nation i.E. Germany is researching the Mech Tec. .
It will research only this until it is dicovered.

Does anybody know how we can playtest it like this?
Or even better, program it for us like this?

[Amon-Sul]

@LennardF s post:

–

I’d be interested in this kind of a game if the tech were based upon investment rather than investment and then a game-tilting roll of the dice.

[trulpen]

Peter and I developed several different approaches to tech and did some playtesting as well.

What I found to be most promising and fun was a system where a new facility is introduced that concerns research. Research would also be specific in that you choose which research-project(s) to develop. Several research-projects can be pursued simultaneously.

We tried having the dice from facilities to be obtained for free or having to be purchased (funding) for something like 1-3 IPC. I believe the latter is to be prefered.

This would be combined with a dice-system where a research needs to meet a certain amount of points and different research-facilities give different numbers of dice for the research.

A research could also be developed with full or partial success. The partial success gives access to the tech, but with a nerfed effect, with the possibility of completing the tech later on.

One delicate problem was balance. It takes a lot for research to beat units in the field, so finding the right pricing is an extensive task. If it’s too expensive it’s just bad and if it’s too cheap it’s too good.

A system like this may most certainly include nation-specific research. I’d also prefer to see more projects available rather than fewer, giving more options for variety. There’s also the possibility of locking up certain researched based on either turn or previous completed research.

Of course, a tech-system in A&A shouldn’t be too complicated.

[Amon-Sul]

my 1st post:

We can simplify it, by determining the fixed cost of tech investment. And then we just edit in the game. And for the future it can be a part of the program.

Or we can make each tech upgrade cost different ammount of money, but i think it complicates things too much.

The only thing that would be maybe logical to make a difference in cost is the sheets.

Naval tech upgrades could cost more or less then the land one for example, but they could cost the same too.

I think it would be also cool to play in a way that each nation chooses 1 tech from each board. And starts the game that way.

And every 5 rounds we give another tech bonus to choose.

I am just brainstorming here, feel free to criticize

[Amon-Sul]

@aequitas-et-veritas

I find ur version of half tech fixed for all + half tech specified by each nation cool.

I would make some adjusments though.

i ll soon write a more detailed suggestion.

[Amon-Sul]

My suggestion would be:

fixed tech

1st chart

• Paratropers
• Increased factory production
• Rockets

2nd chart

• Super subs
• Jet figs
• Long range aircraft