Scientifically proven map balance rework- Cow edition 1942

I doubt it.

Even if they did buy an air unit, you know it would just be a fighter and not a bomber.

I suspect that a seasoned Russian player would never buy a bomber in this game, if allowed to choose something else for the same cost. Left to their own devices players will instead just develop the same old infantry wall tactics that they always do. Sending over the extra British fighter you gave them, to try the same things they’ve always tried, in countless versions of A&A going back to the stone age.
:-D

The point I’m making is this, if your goal is for more variety and more choices, then the bomber would be a way more interesting addition to the set-up than the equivalent value of 4 Russian infantry stuck in some backwater burg.

The argument that Russians “can just buy one,” isn’t very compelling. That’s the same thing the designers always say, when confronted with their brazen nerfing of the USSR. But those sort of purchases never happen in serious games, because competent players know better.

If, on the other hand, you just give the Russians a bomber outright, it opens up opportunities for a much more dynamic play-style from the Soviets. One where they’re not nearly as pigeon holed into the same-old boring “grind, defend, and retreat” routine.

I just struggle to see how giving the Americans an extra Battleship or the British a fighter, should trump the Russian air expansion, as a first place to start, if the plan is to make the game more entertaining for Allies. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do those other things, but why not start at the center and give the Russians something to actually work with?

For sure, tanks were still king in AA50!  :-D

In 1942.2 if you’re going to actually purchase an Air unit with the Russians, it should definitely be a fighter rather than a bomber. I think the best time to do this is in the second round. That’s when Russian income will be at its highest for any point during the early game. But I would only do this if your opening attacks went well, and if the German opening counter attacks went rather poorly. If you collect 26-28 ipcs after your opening, that gives you enough for the third fighter, and still have 16-18 ipcs left over for 5-6 ground units. After which point you buy infantry/artillery for the rest of the game, and use your third fighter for optimal trading. But again I would only do that if Russia opens well, and I would only consider the fighter. From a purchasing perspective Russia benefits more from a fighter than a bomber. They don’t really need the reach of a bomber, since all the territories they can reasonably attack are close to home, and the fighter gives you a better attack/defense ratio for the cost. Given how important defense is for Russia its better to buy a unit with att 3 def 4 mov 4 for 10 ipcs, than att 4, def 1 move 6 for 12 ipcs.

This is the reason why I think its better to just give Russia a bomber!

Because I don’t think any serious player would ever buy one. An experienced player can use a starting Russian bomber in many interesting ways, but to suggest that an experienced player would actually purchase a new one is just wishful thinking.

A starting Red Airforce of 2 fighters and 1 bomber is less distorting in my view, than a starting airforce of 3 fighters (because of the way the Russian situation favors defense). An experienced Russian player may purchase a 3rd fighter at some point in the game, but I just don’t see them purchasing a bomber.

Both situations (2 fighters + 1 bomber, or 3 fighters) would be better than the OOB starting Red airforce of ONLY 2 fighters! But the 2 fighters + 1 bomber combo just feels better to me. It accomplishes several things at once, all of which enhance the confidence of the Soviet player. It gives them more opening attack power, the ability to reach farther with those attacks, and the ability to send a defensive pip to critical territories (like Egypt) after an attack. They can also use it for strategic bombing, if the Allies want to pursue such a game. It has flexibility to be used in either theater (either the Eastern Front with Germany, or against Japan in Asia.)

There are also several reasonable options for a starting location for the bomber, Moscow, Karelia, or my personal favorite, Caucasus!

That last gives Russia the most options for their bomber on R1, and it doesn’t currently house an air unit, so that creates a nice 3 way split. Fighter in Karelia, Fighter in Moscow, Bomber in Caucasus.

That would be my ideal, since it has a certain aesthetic appeal as well  :-D

Think about it, what other unit could you place for Allies that gives you a dozen round 1 options? None of which are totally distorting or going to break a major TUV swing, but which can still provide a lot of gameplay interest for the Allies?

In the first round, A Russian bomber in Caucasus could, among other things:

Bomb Germany
Bomb Italy
Attack Ukraine
Attack Belo
Attack Baltic States
Attack sz 5
Attack sz 61
Land in Egypt for defense
Land in UK for defense
Land in Szech for defense
Land in Bury for defense

If additional bid units are included beyond the bomber, you might be able to do other things as well.
Such as Attack Manchuria (sub par, but possible with an extra bid, or some additional starting units in the far east.)
And unlike most other units, the bomber is very likely to survive, and play-on in subsequent rounds. So it provides an ongoing benefit.

It can even have a role to play if Moscow is captured, allowing Russia to bomb Berlin or Tokyo during the endgame!

I just think its the best all around option, if you want to make a set up change. I’m not saying it fixes the game, but I think it should be the starting point for the fix, the unit change around which you build the rest of the set up.

Thoughts?

Black_Elk, as you can probably guess, I’m all in favor of increasing the Russians’ ability to wage an offensive war, and a starting bomber is one good way to do that. What I wonder about is how it could be possible to offer the players the realistic option to have Russia go on the offense (against Germany? against Japan?) while simultaneously having the Axis wage an aggressive war against the UK and/or the USA.

I see five possibilities here:

1. Russia attacks Germany, and Germany makes attacks based on economic goals, rather than going after a capital. Germany’s extra starting units in the west allow it to conquer all of Africa and maybe even take Brazil, but Japan isn’t in position to deliver a killing blow to either London or Washington, and so the game is slow, at best – the Axis strategy basically involves winning by building up such a big economic advantage that Germany can absorb, blunt, and eventually retaliate against the strong starting Russian attack.

2. Russia attacks Germany, and Germany directly attacks London while Japan seizes on the distraction to gobble up British possessions in the southern hemisphere. This game will be very short, because if Germany heads west then it won’t take long for the powerful Russian attacking forces to make it to Berlin – either the Sea Lion will work or it won’t, and the game will be decided accordingly.

3. Russia attacks Germany, and Germany tries to ignore a still-vigorous British empire, cross the Atlantic, and attack the USA, with or without help from Japan. Britain shoots down half the German transports with subs and planes, and then America laughs and easily defeats the rest of the German invasion; meanwhile, Russia enters Berlin and ends the game.

4. Russia attacks Japan with help from the United States and the UK, as in a standard KJF. Russia is presumably able to seize the valuable territories of Manchuria and Shanghai (otherwise it wouldn’t be much of an attack!), meaning that Russia can afford to let Germany win some territory in eastern Europe and Russia can still build a successful infantry wall. Germany can try to take Moscow before Tokyo falls, as in a standard all-out KJF, but will have a much harder time than usual because Russia has more income, and Germany’s extra starting troops need time to shift over from France and Italy to the eastern front.

5. Russia attacks Japan with help from only the United States, leaving Britain to help defend eastern Europe. Japan can probably hold out for several turns while still defending Manchuria and Shanghai. Germany is probably forced to gamble on an early blitz to Moscow, because it has no other plausible options for linking up with Japan or relieving the siege of Tokyo.

I have to say, I’m not wild about any of these scenarios. What do you think?

I think I get what you’re driving at. Honestly I’m not sure that such a thing can be achieved purely with a starting unit adjustment. I think it would require deeper adjustments to income/production or the design of the map itself.

The reason I’m pushing the bomber concept here, is because I actually like Cow’s ideas a lot.

I think if his set up included the Russian bomber it would be a lot more fun. And could then grow organically from a simple set up change, to a more advanced set up change.

For example, new player comes along and says something like

“This game is broken, how are Allies supposed to win this way?! My friends and I don’t like to bid, we want a set up change, that allows us to pick a side and play!”

Response

Step one: add a Russian bomber in Caucasus, see if that works for your playgroup.

Step two: if Axis are still stomping, it means your Axis players are at a higher level of experience so, proceed to the full Cow set up change.

Step one I believe will cover a lot of players in the begginer to moderately experienced. And its an easy change, so simple for players to include. Step two will cover expert play, the set up change is a bit more involved but still fairly simple.

That way we cover everyone and don’t have to deal with competing, which are less likely to be adopted by a large group of players.

Basically I want consistency and ease of use. So I’ll keep suggesting it, until I see a compelling  reason why we shouldn’t start with the Russian bomber as the basis for the tweak.

I guess that makes sense – you’re not actually trying to give Russia strategically offensive options where they start whaling on an Axis player’s capital; you’re just trying to give them more tactical offensive options where they can pick off a poorly defended transport or trade three territories in a turn, or something like that. Fair enough; I guess that does make the game more fun.

I’m not convinced that giving the Allies 64 IPCs worth of extra units vs. 11 IPCs worth of extra units for the Axis makes for a balanced game, even against expert Axis players. Add in a Russian bomber as well and I’m sure the game’s biased in favor of the Allies. Cow talks a lot about how his setup is scientifically balanced, but so far that’s just marketing – Cow hasn’t shown us any of his TUV calculations or playtest results.

Exactly! What I’m looking for is not a Russian stomp, but rather a little more flexibility for them on attack and a boost from their normal position which is almost entirely defensive, to one which is still primarily defensive but with more teeth for counters.

The lion’s share of the TUV in Cows set up is coming from 3 units. The fighter in UK, and the American Battleship and W. USA bomber. That’s 42 ipc right there! I can see what he’s driving at with these, but I don’t think any of them in isolation would have as much impact as the Russian bomber to the sense balance at the center.

America already has a battleship and a bomber, and UK already has several fighters. Those units are already purchase options for both nations.

But Russia is the power that’s consistently nerfed, and which has no income. They never get a bomber or a battleship! Why not give those units to them instead?

I think it would add more novelty. I mean hell, a Russian battleship in sz 4, now that’s something we’ve never seen before! A Russian bomber is something we’ve only had once (in AA50, with the decidedly unpopular 1942 start date.) So if the objective is spice, a real red airforce or real red fleet would be way hotter in my view.
:-D

Now I don’t seriously expect anyone to slap down a Russian battleship in sz 4. But it would actually have a similar effect as putting one in sz 11, because a Russian battleship would make the sz 7 attack totally do or die. Germany would probably have to bring all 4 submarines and enough air to ice it, or be screwed completely, which would result in both the US and UK Atlantic transport/destroyer groups surviving.

I think for me, the best idea would be to start small and build it out incrementally. For me the Russian bomber just has a special charm that I think is hard to beat.

The Allies may indeed have problems getting numbers of units into Europe and Asia, but the whole reason they need to do this in the first place is because Russia has such woefully inadequate starting attack power!

The Soviets can barely trade with Germany or Japan for 2 territories a turn, before they start hemorrhaging ground units in the process, forced to make terrible trades at a loss just to prevent Axis blitz paths or landing spots. This means that the Germans can advanced along a broad front, with only modest sized stacks, and Russia is totally unable to contest them.

Instead, because they cant attack on their own, the Soviets are almost completely reliant on UK/USA to run direct counter attacks for them, against a relentless Axis advance. And this all happens in their own backyard, right in their own core Russian territories!

And its not as if Russia collapses only when they receive zero aid from the West (which might be understandable) but they collapse when they don’t receive the full maximum aid. Like literally almost all the UK/US ipcs from the early rounds dedicated just to holding the center.

The western Allies routinely send dozens of fighters and as many ground units as they can to prop up Moscow. And even then Moscow gets hammered.

Honestly if I was designing this thing from the ground up, I’d give Russia an airforce on par with the other powers. Like 3 fighters AND a bomber. Or hell even 4 fighters AND a bomber!

They’d still have the weakest starting airforce on the board.

I just think its rather lame, that the Russians are so nerfed in A&A. It feels totally ahistorical.

They had superior tanks to the Germans, even by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Germans who always tank drive. They had some the best fighter aircraft in the world by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Luftwaffe that always crushes. They had the numbers, and yet it is Germany who always pushes the massive ground stacks.

It just doesn’t look like World War 2.

The way the Royal Air Force is always camped out in Russia, and Monty is taking his tank columns on escapades through the Caucasus. For real?

If you want their income so low, they should have starting TUV. Or conversely, if you want them to have low starting TUV, then give them more income. But if you shaft them in both areas, then the game turns into this weird deal, with the western Allies running the show in Red territories.

The Russia design is just silly OOB. They have low income and as such will buy infantry and artillery as a matter of course, almost exclusively. They don’t need more inf, what they need is air power, so they can trade that infantry effectively, the way the other player nations do.

I think a single additional Russian bomber is a decidedly modest expansion compared to what they should really have, if you want to reflect their historical position during this period.