Thanks, it just seemed odd to list this as a benefit when you already have the ability. Guess it’s just redundant . I’ve always played with 2 being the max, I’m just teaching a group of people to play next week and came across a play aid online that implied differently, so I reread and questioned my interpretation.
Are Mechs Too Strong?
-
I buy lots and lots of mechs at 4 IPC.
At 5 IPC I would probably buy zero, and pick up tanks instead. At those prices, for every 30 IPC spent, you’d get one more hit if you chose mechs, or +9 attack +3 defense if you chose tanks. The situations in which mechs would be a better buy would be few and far between - so rare, that if the unit were removed entirely it would not be missed.
Mechs are fodder units. Fodder units need to be as cheap as possible since you buy them in bulk and their only purpose for existence is to soak up hits that would otherwise be allocated towards more expensive units. Increasing the price of fodder undermines the very reason it is in the game in the first place.
There might be a better balance of unit costs to be found, but it won’t be found in adjusting mech prices only, all prices across the board would have to be realigned as well as the amount of income on the board.
Mechs are balanced by their awful attack value and lack of unsupported blitz capability. If their mobility is giving you fits, use pickets.
-
I agree that mechs are OP. I am one of those that doesn’t really see the need to make a costly assault on moscow. My entire strategy id completely dependent on mechs and very difficult to deal with.
What I basically do is; I have italy take rumania and buy about 20 mechs on G2 and 10 mechs on G3 (I usually save the money on G1). Then I make my stack. Because italy has taken Bulgaria, they have some infs, some tanks and a few planes. Enough to be able to kill a stack of about 10 russians. Then I move the entire force to rostov as soon as possible. When I am in rostov, I will have more than 40 mobile units + whatever infs, arts and planes. I stack it enough so that the russians cannot strafe or attack my stack without horrific losses. Since the russian cannot attack, he has to defend. Since there is two paths to moscow from rostov, he either has to stack one of the paths and put enough units on the other path to stop my italians from killing it. If my italians kill the blockerstack, all of my mechs can “blitz” to moscow since they are moving through friendly terr. So the russian have to put at least 10 units in his blockerstack. If he does, I can send in 4-5 infs and luftwaffe and get a great scirmish kill. Most russians will not allow me to kill 30-40 ipc cheaply every round and will therefore retreat.
This means that because of mechs, I can force the russian to bottle up in moscow by standing in rostov. This means that I can take cauc, stalingrad and on G6 and take persia and iraq very soon after. After this, germany will have more than 100 ipc in production.
Another great way of using mechs for germany is defencivly. I always build my W-germany Defence by only using mechs, and no infs. This is because all of those mechs, + 3 arts in paris + all of my planes can then kill any allied landing in france. This is by far the cheapest way of covering all of france with possible counterattacks.
So, all in all, the mechs are pretty damn powerfull when combined with italian canopening.
-
How about this for a small downgrade for mechs. When attacking you need two artillery to up the attack of on mech. exception: if you areattacking with an odd number of artillery, you may promote a mech with only one last artillery. In simpler terms 4 artillery promote 2 mechs. 5 artillery promote 3 mechs. 6 artillery promote 3 mechs.
-
I might rater make mechs into 1/1/2 with a cost of 3 IPC per unit
-
I might rater make mechs into 1/1/2 with a cost of 3 IPC per unit
Alone MEC should be 1/1/2
Paired with ART they are 2/1/2
Paired with ARM they are 1/2/2This makes them valuable as a fast unit to the front lines so you’re paying 4 IPC for the versatility of the unit in speed and pairing options. However, their base numbers alone cannot easily overwhelm your enemy with them unless you support them.
-
Probably in the minority, but I’ve no problems with the cost or capability of mechanized infantry.
-
As many people have heard, The best defence is a good offence. This is probably true. the best way of stopping your enemy from hurting you is to destory his ability to hurt you. In war this would mean sending your army accross the border to burn some cities and destory some armies. However, the ability to destory the enemy in the field and take his cities is not what is most important when you want to conquer the terretory.
However, one thought I have had recently is this: The best offence is a good defence. To conquer terretory is all about going in, taking the area and then holding it. Very few armies in history have been able to prevent an enemy army from moving into some of its own terretory. In general, the aggressor army would move in, try to take some things of importance for the invaded and then holding it against all possible counterattacks. You cannot prevent counterattacks from happening, all you can do is to try to defeat them when they do.
This all makes perfect sence. If the best defence is a good offence, then the best offence has a good defence. You basically need to defeat your enemys plan.
With this backround, the mechs is an extremly good unit. keeping it in w germany give you great ability to counterattack in france, while its speed gives you the fodder for the eastern front to hold the key russian terretories with it. The key teretory IMO is rostov. When you hold rostov and have an italian canoperner, you force the russian back to moscow and make sure the russian has very bad production.
I might rater make mechs into 1/1/2 with a cost of 3 IPC per unit
Alone MEC should be 1/1/2
Paired with ART they are 2/1/2
Paired with ARM they are 1/2/2This makes them valuable as a fast unit to the front lines so you’re paying 4 IPC for the versatility of the unit in speed and pairing options. However, their base numbers alone cannot easily overwhelm your enemy with them unless you support them.
I really like this idea. It would solve alot of the problems with the eastern front. My stack of 40 mechs and 10 tanks (and lots of inf, arts and planes) just lost 5 hits/turn, which makes it much less effective at holding terretory.
-
There is no problem with the Mech Inf., neither with the abillity of it nor the cost.
The mech unit is good as it is.
Global 40 players are facing the problem of strong purchases of a single unit type (Mech. Inf. or Bmbrs).
There is no strategy behind, it is simply following Guderians Plan of:
" Nicht kleckern sondern klotzen" , wich is the english term of MASSPRODUCTION!Why is the cost value of a Mech. Inf. not the problem?
Because if you change it, you also change the dynamic of this game for all nations present.
I find the new BM version as a good solution, but also have to try out the BM (balanced mod. Version) my self.
My Understanding of it is, that it exactly focuses on the right issue.That is:
Allies income.
BM allows you to get more income through the new adressed NO’s.
My two cents.
-
That what my intuitive thinking concluded before reading you.
The MI issue was simply a matter of too low income for the Allies.
Axis must move fast during R1 to R7, after Allies should get the upper hand.From a realistic POV, JTDto any where in Asia is incorrect.
-
The thing to keep in mind re this topic is mechs are relatively new to A&A as a game. As of yet, they haven’t been integrated into the standard 1942 game. The question is “do mechs work as a unit in A&A?”. And I’m not convinced that they do. I think if mechs were introduced into the current standard 42 game it would likely unbalance it in favor of Axis and lead to escalating bids for Allies. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But it can be a bad thing if the inclusion of mech (or alternatively, overly cheap bombers) leads to an optimized strategy that towers over other kinds of strategies. Strategic diversity is part of the delicate question of “balance”.
Make no mistake–I love Global and consider Global the best A&A game bar none, and mechs have been an integral part of Global. However, perhaps there is a case to be made that mechs don’t work for A&A and even Global would be a better game w/o them.
Edit: Realistically, increasing the price of mechs to 5 would probably solve any balance issues related to them. But as others have noted, at that price they probably wouldn’t be purchased very often.
-
You did get me thinking about the other new unit in Global, the naval/air base. Both bases and mechs were made to help navigate the larger board, and I wonder if cutting the price of these facilities would give some relief to the Allies, who are more reliant on them because the US (and UK to a degree) needs to ferry units across the ocean. The US and UK could be more inclined to throw some around, especially in the Mediterranean to protect fleets and facilitate supply lines. Of course the Axis could buy them too, but Japan is probably too busy buying mechs to rage across Asia.
-
Cheaper airbases and harbors would definitely make them more useful, not only for allies but for Japan also, which has reason to put them in at least a couple of places.
There’s a good argument for rebalancing the cost of units across the board, but of course it would have to be playtested extensively to make sure it was playable and enjoyable.
-
Veritas, how about a Balance Mod game? you up for it? :)
-
Personally, I think that mechs ruin the slow marches through the winter to Moscow that the addition of the extra Russian front territories were meant to create.
Going back to the allies weak landings, I think that the inclusion of the marines infantry units would make a good historical and strategy effect on the game. By giving marines the ability to attack @ 2 during amphibious assaults and either letting them take the infantry spot on transports or boosting the attack of inf to 2, both the US and Japan won’t have to carry around illogical artillery and could give the US better opportunity in Europe.
We could also change the Frech liberation to coastal territories as well, maybe some bonus infantry upon landing or capturing.
Sorry if I got too off topic but I like talking about allied improvements that don’t deal with bids
-
Jerold, some of the concepts you mentioned are included in Balance Mod. Marines are included (they attack at 2 during amphib assault, and can load onto cruisers and battleships, in addition to transports). Also, to make landings in Western Europe more meaningful, USA gets +5 when Holland and Normandy are Allied controlled with at least 1 US land unit present. Details about the mod can be found here: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=37341.0 Give er a try!
-
I think the balance issue might be the correct approach. We all agree that mechs are good units and they are almost exclusivly usefull to the axis. Most people also agree that the axis have a big advantage in this game. So, nerfing mechs is one possible way of balancing the game out. NOs, cheaper air and naval bases might be a different solution. Moving moscow another area back might be a third. or any myriad of other possible solutions.
-
I remember the original A&A days where we had massive stacks of infantry facing each other. Every turn we would add more and more chips to the stack and face gridlock until another player can come around from the backside. I sure like having mobility in G40 and hate solutions to the imbalance that would favor turtling down because the Axis cannot outmaneuver the defenders.
-
Mechs may be more useful to the Axis but it’s not exclusive by any means. Russia can make very good use of mechs if it gets the opportunity, and UK is often spamming as many as it can produce from its non-London ICs.
One could say the same for tanks as well, more useful to Axis than to the Allies. And other types of units have the reverse situation - if you decreased the cost of transports or carriers or fighters, the Allies would benefit far far more than Axis.
It’s just the nature of the board - Axis need to traverse land to achieve their objectives, Allies need to traverse water.
-
Not just the nature of the board, Elk, the nature of the War and the planet Earth in the Quaternary!
I think that we have definitely jumped the shark if we are discussing how the possibly the least unbalanced and not particularly desirable unit (though it has its uses; it in in deep competition with the Tac Bomber and the Cruiser) should be rebalanced.
Next thread:
“Are AAA guns overpowered and how should we nerf them in my games because my Russian fighter got killed by one”
-
Mechs may be more useful to the Axis but it’s not exclusive by any means. Russia can make very good use of mechs if it gets the opportunity, and UK is often spamming as many as it can produce from its non-London ICs.
One could say the same for tanks as well, more useful to Axis than to the Allies. And other types of units have the reverse situation - if you decreased the cost of transports or carriers or fighters, the Allies would benefit far far more than Axis.
It’s just the nature of the board - Axis need to traverse land to achieve their objectives, Allies need to traverse water.
Suppose you halved the cost of Allied TT to 3 or 4 IPC. Would that change the Allies to be more competitive where we wouldn’t need a bid?
Suggested Topics
