AARHE: Phase 3: Revised NA's


  • That post will take time to grasp…

    the team is:  you, me, duke, Mr. Andersson (gamemaster), das reich, and a few other bit players for now. more to follow…


  • @theduke:

    I don’t see how 1 armor per turn at 3 IPCs would really make Russia that much stronger, but we’ll never know for sure until playtesting.

    Thats just a 2 IPC bonus. It’ll be fine.

    This then brings me to why I don’t think unlimited armor at 4 IPCs each would work… If armor costs the same as rtl, then the mass production of armor would cut into the production of rtl.

    Yeah it would be weird. Tanks should cost more than artillery even when mass produced.
    So there is something wrong with our model.

    We need to model mass production. The overall cost should still be more than artillery.
    Maybe 1 free tank when you purchase 5 tanks?
    With 25 IPC Russia can buy 6 tanks, or 6 artillery with 1 IPC left.

    We get strange situations when don’t modelling it properly. “Tank at 4 IPC” is much stronger than “1 free tank every 4 tank”. More logically it should be called “5 tanks for 20 IPCs” instead. It would model how the other factories (eg. artillery factories) can’t produce tanks!
    Also this mass production advantage I believe wasn’t there until 1943. Something about the older T34 (vs. T34-85) wasn’t “right on the money” and they didn’t mass it.

    “You can’t say, for every 3 fighters UK buys in a turn, UK gets 1 fighter free. UK would have to save up a lot of IPCs and then buy 4 fighters in 1 turn. That’s not a good realistic purchasing strategy.”
    My sugguest was specific to Russian tanks. I haven’t done research to this whether this mass production thing can be justified for UK planes.
    If we were to do it anyway it could be “2 fighters for 18 IPCs”.

    I actually rather not a totally remake of cost charts. We work with such small numbers you can’t fine tune.


  • I’m OK with defining it as 1 cheap unit per turn like I said (i.e. 1 Russian armor per turn for 3 IPCs) or defining it like 2 of that type of unit for a discount (like 2 Russian armor per turn for 8 IPCs). Obviously, with these 2 examples the first option is better than the second but both would work out fine.

    I don’t like saying that you need to buy more than 2 of that unit type to get the discount. Russia should never be forced to buy 4-5 armor in a turn to be able to take advantage of this. Russia needs to be able buy many infantry every turn and still take advantage of T-34s NA.

    Like I said before, I’m OK with either of the 2 options above, but I still prefer 1 armor for 3 over 2 armor for 8. I just don’t see the big deal of just letting it be 1 armor per turn for 3 IPCs. IMO that’s as good a model of T-34 production as we’ll get.


  • Well instead of making a few pieces cost different for each ally… why not make a new nation specific unit value so each nation has specific units that have better values and costs. So japan will have like tanks at 2-3, while germany gets 4-3… some infantry will be at 2-2 while others are getting artillery at 3-2. UK can have planes at 4-4 and usa can have bombers at 5-2 (heavy) the list goes on…of course the costs reflect accurately what was possible… perhaps this is phase 3 stuff.


  • what do you guys think of having the game presented as a combination of a set of rules? What I mean is instead of having a game of RR, axis advantage or bidding (like the combination rules there were before), now before players sit down and play they decide what type of game they’ll play with exactly one choice in the following 3 categories…

    Tech rules:

    1. No techs
    2. Simple Techs- only 6 techs, etc…
    3. Complex techs- expand techs to include all ideas presented here.

    National Advantages:

    1. No NAs
    2. Random chosen NAs
    3. Play with all NAs

    Expansion Units

    1. No new units
    2. Cruisers, mech infantry, air transports, 1 new unit type per nation

    Italy

    1. Western Axis as a single nation
    2. 3 vs. 3 game with Italy included

    I think this set of combinations is key so that this will appeal to a wide enough audience. Not everyone wants the same thing, and this solves that as well as gives people the chance to mix things up for better replayability.


  • The structure is fine. It would be like a menu of installed rules covering each type of game they want.


  • If we’re going to have options like that, then all options in a certain category don’t all have to be introduced in the same phase. The Simple Tech option can (and should IMO) be introduced in phase 1 while the Complex Tech option can be introduced in a latter phase.


  • For our main version of historic accuracy the list of NAs could be quite short. What could happen: Radar shouldn’t be restricted to UK and become a tech option…Lend-lease is going to be standard…Convoy raid would sort of displace U-boat interdiction…

    But thats normal and realistic.

    @theduke:

    If we’re going to have options like that, then all options in a certain category don’t all have to be introduced in the same phase.

    We’ll have to structure our phases well if we were to have multiple versions.
    Or lets not get carried away and just focus on our dream historic version.
    Trimmed down options are just something on the side IMO.


  • This is a list of all the options that I think we need along with when each of the options should be available IMO:

    Tech rules:

    1. No techs- available starting in phase 1
    2. Simple Techs- only 6 techs, etc… - available starting in phase 1
    3. Complex techs- expand techs to include all ideas presented here.- available starting in phase 2

    National Advantages:

    1. No NAs- available starting in phase 1
    2. Random chosen NAs- available starting in phase 2
    3. Play with all NAs- available starting in phase 2

    Expansion Units

    1. No new units- available starting in phase 1
    2. Cruisers, mech infantry, air transports, 1 new unit type per nation- available starting in phase 3

    Italy

    1. Western Axis as a single nation- available starting in phase 1
    2. 3 vs. 3 game with Italy included- available starting in phase 3

    I agree that we’ll be able to do away with many of the NAs since we’ve incorporated those NAs into the game for all nations to have available to them (like U-boat interdiction and radar, etc…). This will leave room for some other NAs that we can introduce (like cheap unit types for each nation).

    I think that it’s important to have the total number of NAs for each side (not each nation) to be the same for balance purposes. I propose having 4 NAs for each Allied nation and having 6 NAs for each Axis nation. Also for balance purposes I think we need to make it so all the NAs are about equivalent in value (no more super good ones and worthless ones).


  • Ok ill go with this as well… its good and adequate for the job.


  • Great to see its planned out.

    I actually like all NAs active.
    Unless we find historic resource constraints otherwise or something.

    Oh we don’t have to worry about making same no. of NAs.
    Balance is not achieved via no. of NAs.

    At this stage balance needs only be looked at loosely.
    Because even if we tried to we won’t do a good job.
    Its difficult to anticipate as AAR is no where as realistic/detailed/strategic/fun…  8-)


  • Some of these ideas are mine and some are not! The German 88’s are not mine and I do think that Fortress Europe prety much involves the 88’s! The 88’s in the NAs mentioned in this topic is imbalanced! It is a game braker! Any German player that would get that NA will most likely win the game, since a pile of such artillery with opening fire will kill anything, since casualties can not counter attack!  :mrgreen:

    I dont like the T-34 NA due to historical reasons, it was not better than a Sherman! But worse than a Panther or upgraded Panzer IV! German tanks cost 7 IPCs and  have a combat capabillity of 4/4 were as an allied tank has a combat capability of 3/3 and cost 5 IPCs! What do you think?


  • @B.:

    Any German player that would get that NA will most likely win the game, since a pile of such artillery with opening fire will kill anything, since casualties can not counter attack!  :mrgreen:

    For your information there is this other AAR varient “Enhanced” popular on AH forum.
    (The varient is about balance and was pretty much created in an unstable and ad-hoc style.)
    They found the opening fire didn’t save them that many return hits.

    @B.:

    I dont like the T-34 NA due to historical reasons, it was not better than a Sherman! But worse than a Panther or upgraded Panzer IV! German tanks cost 7 IPCs and  have a combat capabillity of 4/4 were as an allied tank has a combat capability of 3/3 and cost 5 IPCs! What do you think?

    Yes I’ve something alone the lines that you need 5 T-34s to kill a Panzer but Russia usually had 6. :-D
    T-34 is just a massed unit and this is what we are trying to model at the moment.


  • @tekkyy:

    For your information there is this other AAR varient “Enhanced” popular on AH forum.
    (The variant is about balance and was pretty much created in an unstable and ad-hoc style.)
    They found the opening fire didn’t save them that many return hits.

    Well, I dont really get your message here “The varient is about balance and was pretty much created in an unstable and ad-hoc style”???


  • Why have Luftwaffe Dive-Bombers at the same time as Blitzkrieg! They are pretty much the same to me and by historical reasons!


  • @B.:

    Well, I dont really get your message here “The varient is about balance and was pretty much created in an unstable and ad-hoc style”???

    What I mean is the contrast. The “Enahanced” varient was not about historic accuracy but a goal of gameplay balance.
    Just a useless piece of information. Its not important.

    @B.:

    Why have Luftwaffe Dive-Bombers at the same time as Blitzkrieg! They are pretty much the same to me and by historical reasons!

    Yep I recall thats what we were leaning towards too.


  • Some of these ideas are mine and some are not! The German 88’s are not mine and I do think that Fortress Europe prety much involves the 88’s! The 88’s in the NAs mentioned in this topic is imbalanced! It is a game braker! Any German player that would get that NA will most likely win the game, since a pile of such artillery with opening fire will kill anything, since casualties can not counter attack!

    I dont like the T-34 NA due to historical reasons, it was not better than a Sherman! But worse than a Panther or upgraded Panzer IV! German tanks cost 7 IPCs and  have a combat capabillity of 4/4 were as an allied tank has a combat capability of 3/3 and cost 5 IPCs! What do you think?

    MR. Andersson please fix everything you see as a problem…. and post it!

    And guys we have to allow the other members to have some say on how the project comes out. After all our names and reputations are on the final project. Let Andersson have some “pull” on what he feels would be the best for the NA’s and such. After all he was one of the founding “fathers” for this idea… we will be better off with some of his flavor that he brings to the project. Give him that much.


  • I dont like the T-34 NA due to historical reasons, it was not better than a Sherman! But worse than a Panther or upgraded Panzer IV! German tanks cost 7 IPCs and  have a combat capabillity of 4/4 were as an allied tank has a combat capability of 3/3 and cost 5 IPCs! What do you think?

    IMHO the T34 was the best tank in the war! Better than the Sherman and Tiger. Note: That does not mean that 1 T34 could take out 1 Tiger. It means that if you factor in productivity as well as still including armor, and firepower, etc… than the T34 is better. It’s cost effectiveness was that high to make up for any lack of performance. IMO there should be a T34 NA, and it should reflect it’s productivity (like buy 2 for 8 ).


  • The t-34 was not the best tank in the world overall, it was the most efficiently produced in terms of what it could do on the battlefield. Note that it was a medium tank class and was no match for a heavy tank like the tiger 2 or ?


  • There is a show on the Military Channel where a panel of historians and military experts rate the best tanks of all time relative to their time periods. It’s called Top Ten or something.

    They had 5 factors:

    Firepower
    Armor Protection
    Mobility
    Production Ease/Numbers
    Fear factors

    The rankings were something like:

    10. M4 Sherman (US)
    9. Merkava (Israel)
    8. T54/55 (USSR)
    7. Challenger (Great Britain)
    6. MkIV Panzer (Germany)
    5. Centurion (Great Britain)
    4. WWI Tank (Great Britain)
    3. Tiger WWII (Germany)
    2. M1 Abrams (United States)
    1. T34 (USSR)

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